When geeks land in bad fiction on Friday Arvo's - part 2

...custard apples. Oh! That exotic fruit with the creamy white flesh hidden behind the bulbous green lumps – who would think that something so misshapen and ugly could be containing something so lusciously sweet. He absently wiped the drool from his lip as he thought of ravishing Agnes as they supped Kool Aid and discovered each other's internal circuitry, while listening to the blissful sounds of a 1987 dot matrix printer, as it ejects a continuous sheet of love poems that have been translated into binary code – their language of love. Pages of inky black 1s and 0s marching out in orderly lines across the snowy paper, it spills across their bodies, the ink smudging against their skin. And as the printer nears its completion their two warped forms buckled, shuddered, withdrew, drew and creaked like a disused and forgotten fixie bike that had been left to rust in decades of rotten winters and howling winds, then rediscovered and used again. Alas, the geek's reverie was interrupted as a voice from the hallway like a siren’s song drew him from his room to peek eagerly around the corner. Agnes. Oh God! She stood there, her silhouette glowing in the dim hallway light. He pressed his hand to his mouth and cut the insides of his gums like a steak knife cutting through a shoe on an informercial. Curses! Will I ever get used to these braces he wondered. Agnes mumbled out the words "Hello? Hello is that..." before her shrill, tremulous voice was cut short by a honking cough and a sharp “schgghh!" as she cleared the phlegm from her throat. The Geek quivered; the sound sending lusty, electric shocks flickering down his spine. He rushed around the corner whipping his crusty used hanky from his vest pocket in the process in order to offer it to the girl of his dreams. Only he hadn't counted on the look of surprise and distaste that flashed across her face which quickly turned to amusement. He looked down and saw his embarrassment pushing against his pants. He flushed a heated red and, uttering a squeak, he quickly turned on his heels to flee. Only in his lustful haze he'd forgotten his collection of Commodore 64 computers he kept in the hallway, which sent him sprawling to the floor in a jumbled heap like Ned Kelly's recently discovered skeleton, except with the head still there and more skin and meat, though not much more meat. Agnes stood looking over him and ripped off her poly-blend shirt. She stood there in all of her glorious nakedness and gazed at him like a hungry lion and said "lie back and think of England" in a husky voice she had heard once on an episode of a Country Practice and had been practicing ever since. She pounced upon the Geek, but alas was too slow as he had rolled over onto his side and was scrambling to his feet as she leaped, and she came crashing heavily down upon the hard, plastic computers, hitting her head on a hard white corner. He froze and stared aghast at the red blood as it oozed from the wound across her glorious custard apple shaped skull. She groaned again, less like the husky, hungry lion and more like the vulnerable proboscis monkey that she resembled. The colour had left her face and the blood stood out vividly against her pale skin. A strange animalistic shriek began to sound from the back of his throat and his vision began to blur. He hated blood. Oh god how he hated it! As the sound left his ears and the world closed in on him he toppled forward and...

When geeks land in bad fiction on Friday Arvo's

the title says it all, apart from the acknowledgment of my co-writer - the delightful Tovah from Heavenly Peach Banquet... oh and the following:


It was a dark and stormy night, and I was at Solar Geek Club getting my radiogram fixed. Suddenly, The Geek looks up, eyes glinting in the silvery light that flickers through the windows as the thunder echoes loudly around the room as it lit up his macbook pro revealing glimpses of the complex equation he had spent the past three months working on; did she love him or did she not? Sometimes he felt that the macbook Pro had feelings for him. There was something in the way it hummed under his fingers as he tapped out the equations; the way the little green light blinked at him occasionally, perhaps signalling to him that she wished to take their relationship farther than just of a Geek and a Machine suddenly the window blew open upon the back of a powerful gust of the heavy breathing storm outside, blowing the candle app on his iPhone out in the process. The geek gathered himself from the fright and shook the candle back on as he guided himself across the room to shut the window. Behind him there was sudden bang, and he spun on his heels to find his computer gone and in it’s place there was nothing left but the pizza boxes of a month's worth of dining in, seven coffee cups half filled with coffee, three cups still fully filled with cold tepid coffee destined never to be drunk and a smattering of empty coke zero bottles. His ruminations on his eating habits were disrupted when he glanced out into the empty hallway and the stabbing of loss and the bleakness of his life overtook him. His love and his life -not to mention his life’s work - was gone! Grief over took him and he fell to the floor amidst the pizza boxes, coke bottles and computer magazines and cried, cried like he hadn't cried since the cavernous disappointment of the Tron film remake had left him questioning what hope was left for mankind. After 47 minutes or 2,820 seconds of solid blubbering he dragged himself up to his feet and confirmed to himself his decision to man up and let his mum make him a hot chocolate with marshmallows to calm him down. He hoped for the pink ones, they tasted the best. He also cringed as he thought he would have to ask her for another computer and at that thought, he decided he would ask his Dad. Ever since his Dad had split from his Mum and ran to the arms of his ageing secretary he had been more carefree and loose with his money. The geek figured that his Dad would be certain to say yes seeing he had agreed, just last week, to pay for his sister's pole-dancing lessons. She was an aspiring stripper, which was unfortunate as she was not that pretty. She had thick glasses that highlighted her squinty eyes, and danced like a three-legged elephant on roller-skates. She was shaped somewhat like a lumpy hessian bag of potatoes that had been overstuffed and was bursting at the seams. Why their father had agreed to let her do this was beyond him, however he kept his mouth politely shut in the hope that she would put a good word in for him with her stunningly gorgeous best friend Agnes. He thought often and luridly about Agnes. How her thick coke bottle glasses could, with the assistance of a sunny day, burn a hole right through a cinder block, how on a said bright sunny day her braces could blind an orphan and how her misshapen scull reminded him of...

best character name from a 19th century novel

Spithead

courtesy of The Vicomte de Bragelonne, by Alexander Dumas

Things I Like

Three punks sitting out the front of the milkbar next door eating ice-creams.

"No Culture Issues"

Separated at birth...

this is not christmas children, this is communism

some pics from Ho Chi Minh City...

some thoughts from Meredith 2010

are located here...

• Puta Madre Brothers opened proceedings and at times made you feel like an extra in a Sergio Leone western and at others like a bad Mexican Ritchie Valens coverband performing at a wedding where there had been a little bit too much tequila imbibed. so in other words they were brilliant and a great way to kick off proceedings!
• Rat vs Possum followed up and... well... look i'm sure they're great if you're 18 years old, it's 3am and you're chock a block full of so called party drugs. but i was none of the three and just didn't get it. apologies to those who did.
• Reverend Horton Heat was not quite the poor man's James Brown that i thought he was going to be - their so called psychobilly was much enjoyed and god to dance too.
• unlike Little Red who seemed to think they're bigger than jesus (and they ain't no beatles) and i just couldn't help that they've gotten ahead of themselves by a long way and were definitely a let down. more so because i know they can be really good.
• the lead singer from Silence Wedge's solo project Housekeeping were pretty good... but didn't deserve 3 sets... just saying...
• Miss Police 2010 was a clear and deserving winner, but the win was in no small part thanks to the work done by fluffer extraordinaire Doryan Gowty!
• C.W.Stoneking was enjoyed why i reclined in the sun on my banana lounge with a cold can of Dr Tim's. i don't think you could ask for much better a way to spend a saturday afternoon and his speakeasy bluegrass jazz and blues was a great soundtrack.
• kudos to the organisers for backing up an earlier joke of mine and ensuring that it rained during Washed Out's set. i'm still not convinced there is a band by that name. the festival organisers would also like to thank the assistance of the beijing olympic cloud seeders in helping ensure the rain.
• El Guincho got the boot from myself and my accomplice at the time, as well as from a whole heap of other (smart) people in the crowd. they were great and i highly recommend them and if they're not the biggest soundtrack to the summer then...
• watching The Fall was truly watching a genius at work. a lot of people didn't get it and i understand that. but watching 56 year old punk survivor Mark E. Smith (think a dishevelled Sam Neill with a long comb-over in pleated slacks and business shirt after a stroke) wander aimlessly around the stage midsong dropping microphones (i wondered why he had 3!), adjusting his band members amps, inspecting then dismantling half the drum kit, leafing through a pile of looseleaf sheets of paper as he spat out indecipherable lyrics over the top of the solid, grinding and relentless rythym from his band was just about my highlight of the year. we only clearly understood 2 lines for the entire set: "i hate festivals! i hate f**king festivals!". for more (and i recommend you sate that curiousity) check here... or a younger (and a classic you will know) here...
  
• following up these 2 bands was left to late 90's stalwarts Custard and they were more than up to the task. it was a great flashback to when i was in those easily influenced 16 to 18 years and i definitely felt like i was watching recovery with Dylan, Jane Gazzo and the Enforcer! the little pockets that could be spotted dancing frenetically during the set suggested that my little group of friends weren't the only ones enjoying the memories...
• Neil Finn has the voice of an angel and the sing along in the pink flamingo bar was great fun. he also received the boot from another of my friends and was definitely a deserving recipient...
• Sharon Jones were the Little Red of the saturday night... good, but not great and they can be great...
• red skins were a taste sensation - remind me to buy more next year.
• thanks as always to everyone who was there - i had an absolute ball. and thanks also to the Nolan family and the organisers - stellar job and much appreciated.