eleventyone

McSweeny’s launched edition 32 at the Toff in Town last Saturday night 29 August 2009, as part of the Melbourne Writers Festival. The event officially called McSweeney’s (Futuristic) Antipodean Adventure!, like the book, had its theme being the world of the year 2042, where the future has become a little absurd.

The night started off quite horribly in a bar that was quite stuffy, oxygenless and extremely crowded in this small space. I entered fashionably late when the performances where already happening, and heard about a steampunk future. Then there was the experimental music, that got much of the audience angry, having hybrid electronic instruments, they created random sounds without any melody or pattern of any kind to their sound, that went on far too long. To a book crowd, who live off a daily serving of narrative text, this in book terms would not even be considered the simplest form of poetry, the metaphor would be cutting out random words from the dictionary and angrily throwing them in your face.

The second half however ended on a very positive note, with total extreme awesomeness (my excitement was so intense that it can’t be described without this use of bogan-tounge). A third of the crowd had already left in disappointment, so it we weren’t tinned sardines anymore. Heidi Julavits gave a brilliant reading of her story in McSweeny’s and she read with incredible humour. The final act was just hilarious, it was a local comedy act called the Suitcase Royale. Their comedy was very Melbourne and very Boosh-inspired. They made fun of my old hometown Traralgon, funny because it was so true. I love these guys and I will follow them like a stalker. It’s one of those random comedy groups that might show up on Youtube, they’re very funny, but the video quality from iPhone filming is so bad that it gives them a bad name, so I’m glad no-one was phone-filming. After that we danced the night away and came home very late, an indication of a good night out. Our ticket price included the McSweeny’s book, which looks much more valuable than what we paid.

A friend of mine found this poster on a toilet door, inside a bar on Chapel St, Melbourne. The hilarity of someone finding a possum and thinking it was a cat, kept us laughing all day, even if we knew it was only a joke.  The speech bubble that says “Help me find my owners”, “Small and Shy” and the emphasised “Not House-Trained” with a sad face, are just gold.

I haven’t called Don yet to tell him he’s found my cat. I have searched the internet to see if anyone else has seen the poster and found a few more different variations of the poster around the internet. My investigation into the cat found phenomenon has uncovered a  trail of posters that have appeared in both Australia and the US. The American version has a picture of a very aggressive looking opossum. Here’s what I found…

Posted on Flickr 1st February 2008, by 20after4. Kearney St, in Springfield, Missouri. “Not very friendly, I think he might be scared.” and “Not Housebroken Either”.

A slight variation was posted on a blog called Addicted to Medblogs, on 6th January 2008, located in Franklin Ave, New York. 

Posted in a blog called SnootyPaws on 18th February 2008. Also posted here, and here. Sydney Rd is in Brunswick, Melbourne. The phone number is an alternative number of the Talking Clock.

This was also posted on GiggleSugar on 3 June 2008 with the caption, “Dude, that’s not a cat”. User jess131288 comments: “it’s a baby brushtail possum for those who don’t know (australian animal). this poster was put up in my suburb, saw it in the local paper:P and there is no owner, because they’re natives Laughing out loud it’s definitely a joke because the first google image for brushtail possum is the one on the poster so they obviously knew it wasn’t a cat ”

Posted on the Livejournal 4chan community on 5th April 2008. Cat found at Sunset Blvd, Los Angelas. This is very similar to the Kearney St one.

This one was also posted on Flickr, on 11th April 2008, by LadyDoodleBug who says: “A friend of mine sent this to me. I do not know where it was taken or who took it. I am assuming that it was taken somewhere in California only because the poster says the ‘cat’ was found on Sunset BLVD. Not sure if this is real or a joke. Either way its too funny to not post on Flickr. ”

Yes, there is a video! Posted on Youtube on 6th April 2008, by wendysity1 who says: “I’m not sure who the guy in L.A. was who posted the fake ‘Cat Found’ poster but I made one of my own and posted it around Chicago, then filmed peoples’ reactions. Please help me find the owner of this cat!!!”

The most recent post on Flickr, on 15th November 2008, by DiscoWeasel.

“Wow!” sums up the exciting blur of fun I had at this year’s Big Day Out – the bands, the people, fun times!

My friends managed to get old of bed up early enough for fresh slap of wake-me-up music from Sparkadia, under the banner of their Aslan-like lion banner. It was only midday when I heard the band that made my day worth every penny – it was boppy Australian band The Grates and their great performer Patience Hodgson.

It felt like the entire crowd migrated to the Green Stage to see newborn stars the Ting Tings. I loved them even though I was so far back I couldn’t hear a thing and still don’t know her name. It was so crowded that people lined the grassy knoll edge of the stage towards the train tracks. Some entertainment was provided by a bogan dressed in a blue wig and an Australian flag, who straddled and humped the audio-mixer tent, encouraged people to throw bottles of water at him, caught a sunscreen bottle and pretended to drink it. Security eventually caught him.

One thing I do regret missing is the Silent Disco. People are given headphones in one particular tent and dance around to the music they hear. Watching from the outside is hilarious because it looks like they’re dancing to nothing.

I missed The Living End, but have seen them at every Big Day Out. Instead I heard the memorable electro-rock sounds of Cut Copy – a total chillax to the max. Then there was the English band Arctic Monkeys, who had the crowd moving crazy to great indie rock. Prodigy finished the night up by calling out to their Melbourne warriors to Smack my bitch up and become a Firestarter.

I’m an old hack when it comes to this music festival, but to me it was better this year. My last adventure at Flemmington was Big Day Out 2005, when I danced my socks off to The Chemical Brothers and System of a Down. This year it was different, because the entire layout of the stages had changed. The redevelopment of the Flemmington Racecourse has opened the area right up with large grassy areas. No longer did I have to squeeze between a tiny gate with hundreds of other people to get from old stadium to the main stages. No longer did we have stinky concrete toilets with huge queues, but instead had clean portables. No longer are the drinking areas located in old no-room-to-move concrete structures, but are in huge outdoor tents – and facing the stage! There were now huge non-drinking tents for people to relax and hide from the sun. There were also huge tents around the eating areas. It’s like they actually care that we don’t want to get sunburnt. They also didn’t want us to die from dehydration – at the main stages they watered the crowd down occasionally with a hose.

All the new prettiness came with a price. It cost $139.50 to get your hands on a ticket this year. This was perhaps because of the over-crowding problems last year. The Big Day Out didn’t even sell out this year, with only 40,000 people instead of the usual fifty thou’. The cost probably cased one of the biggest changes I have seen – the total lack of crazy mohawked punks, emo kids and goths sweating in the shade from black clothing in extreme temperatures. This year the usual attire was Australian flags and bogan wear, because it was Australia Day. Melbourne doesn’t usually get Big Day Out on Australia Day – Sydney usually keeps that day for themselves. For these reasons I’m itching to say what everyone says every year, but now I really mean it – Big Day Out has finally sold out and gone commercial, and perhaps even for the better – oh yes I did!

The crowd also behaved themselves this year, even when half of them were drunk or wasted on drugs. The police didn’t really try hard by putting sniffer dogs in front of the lesser used entrance to catch 17 people. People weren’t even that angry that the Big Day Out only sold Tooheys New beer. The only annoyances were on the trains going out. There were train delays due to vandalised signals. I witnessed a train fight at Flinders and train travellers forced one of the offenders out of the train, but he then smashed a window to try to get at the other guy. After fifteen minutes Connex security showed up and grabbed the guy, but he somehow showed up at Parliament and train travellers forced him away again.

This broken window on an otherwise fine day was counteracted by awesness of fun we had during the day. I’ll always remember the game of fetch we created, by attempting to throw a hat onto heads in the crowd from the beer tent, then when it fell on the ground, people walking past would bring it right back to us with a quizical look on their face, “is this your hat?”

Ok I have a story for you.. It happened a few days ago as i was walking home through St Kilda. I had had a couple of drinks, i will admit to that, and had acquired a violent form of hiccups which, despite being unpleasant was keeping my boyfriends thoroughly amused.

So we stop for an ice cream. The milk bar was dark and dim after the bright glare of the summer evening and we picked our flavours and proceeded to the counter.

Hiccuping violently I got out money to pay for our ice creams. The old greek man behind the counter looked me in the eye.

Without battering an eyelid he said to me.

“You took something out of the fridge”

“yeah” I said “I took an ice cream.”

“No,” he said back to me. “you took something else.”

Have you ever felt that you know you haven’t done anything wrong and yet you still question if you did.

“No, I didn’t take anything else” I said getting panicky. “We just got the ice creams.”

“No” he said, “I saw you. You took something out of the fridge”.

I was upset at this stage. I was drunk, well I had had a few drinks, so I wasn’t thinking as clearly as usual. I began to open my bag to prove my innocence when he murmured “See I cured your hiccups”

My mouth dropped like a cartoon character. I was dumbfounded. The old man’s wife was hollering with laughter as we paid and left.

I was torn between the injustice of the joke and the fact that it did actually cure my hiccups. All I could do was shake my head…