what rhymes with chaos?

Explosions in the sky

My Dearest Qantas,

My name is Josh Donellan and I am a person and, far more importantly, a Qantas frequent flyer. Recently, upon returning from India via Singapore I flew on flight QF52 which was supposed to take me to Brisbane. (Note the use of the word ‘supposed.’) I rate the customer service 4/5, the entertainment selection 5/5, the food 4/5 and the plane’s ability to take off without any part of it exploding DEAR GOD ARE YOU FRIGGING KIDDING ME I THOUGHT I WAS GOING TO DIE!

Here is a list of times when I enjoy hearing explosions:

1)   Whilst playing xbox

2)   Whilst watching fireworks

3)   On Guy Fawkes day

4)   Whilst listening to experimental electronic albums

 

You will note that, ‘when travelling on an aeroplane’ does not appear on this list. Shortly after the explosion the captain assured us that it was simply a burst tyre and that there was nothing to worry about, but that we would need to make a forced landing.

"Hi, I'm John Travolta. My face is one of the last

things you'll see before you die a fiery death."

I of course translated this as “you have between 5-10 minutes to live before perishing in a fiery blaze.” Naturally I am grateful to John Travolta for appearing to me in the safety video and telling me that everything would be fine, but my mother wisely taught me to never trust a scientologist appearing in paid product endorsements. Luckily, we landed relatively safely, although the vast fleet of police and fire engines that greeted us on the landing strip was less than reassuring.

 Although I was dismayed at the substantial delay to my return home, I must confess that the provided accommodations at the Carlton Singapore were superb. On my salary I estimate I would have to work for eight million years in order to just afford being able to spend 5 mins in the lobby of that opulent hotel. I was somewhat perturbed at having to wait nearly twelve hours for any word from the airline at all, but when I was eventually told by the very helpful hotel staff to ‘just go to the airport and it should be alright,’ I was of course relieved.

However, when I arrived at the check-in desk I was politely informed that provisions had been made for most of the several hundred other passengers, but that the dozen or so of us who had come from Mumbai had not been booked on anything and I would have to be placed on standby, or perhaps wait until tomorrow for a flight. If I had to describe my emotions at that particular juncture using pop culture references, I would say I felt part ‘that bit in the LION KING where Mufasa dies’ a smidgen ‘that bit in AKIRA when Kenada screams TETSUOOOOOOOOO!’ mixed with just a hint of ‘that part in DRUNKEN MASTER where Jackie Chan breaks all the things.’

"Did you just say...'STAND BY???????'"

After becoming visibly upset the check in clerk was so moved and/or disgusted by my pathetic emotional outburst that she had the courtesy to book me a flight to Brisbane via Melbourne. Granted, this took around 40 minutes to accomplish and seemed to require not only the use of the computer directly in front of her, but also 4 separate visits to the terminal at the customer help desk. Either the other computers had some kind of higher authorization or her avatar was just having a pretty hectic day in ‘Second Life’, I’m not sure.

Himalayan Marmot don't like

waitin'.

Due to the delay I missed a day’s work at the kindergarten where I teach. This means that in addition to forfeiting a day’s pay, because of the public holiday the children will now have to wait an extra TWO days to see my pictures of Himalayan yaks and marmots that they have been so eager to see. Dearest Sir/Madam/Automated response bot, I sincerely hope with all of my heart and most of my appendix that you never in all your days have to bear witness to the sight of two dozen potently adorable 4 year children staring at you with sad, disappointed eyes. It is a tragic tableau that will wither your soul and cause sadness to rise within you like a corpulent and melancholy whale.

Multiply this image by 24. If you aren't crying or

at least saying 'awwwwwww' sympathetically

you are most likely a violent sociopath.

In response to this emotional trauma and loss of both time and pay I feel it only reasonable to request some form of compensation. I am a reasonable man, and will therefore present you with a choice of four options:

A)   1.3 billion frequent flyer miles

B)   $2000 dollars in unmarked bills (delivered by Scarlett Johansson)

C)   a robot elephant that shoots fireworks from its trunk and deep fried ice cream from its eyeballs

D)   a condoling hug from every single Qantas staff member (except John Travolta)

 I eagerly await your reply.

Swarm Regards,

Josh Donellan

   

 

Alliance of Best Smelling Authors

 

 

Due to mildly popular demand, I have now formed the official Alliance of Best Smelling Authors.

You can visit our facebook page HERE.

If you wish to be certified as a Best Smelling Author please post on the page with a description of why using words, interpretative dance, a 23 minute guitar solo or some sort of cake.

Swarm Regards,

JM Donellan

New York Limes best smelling author

Dearest Interwebs,

as you are probably aware, I am an author. An author is a bit like a politician in that we are paid money to make up lies, but an author does this extremely well for almost no money whereas a politician does this very badly for lots of money and sometimes a moat.

Like most authors, I have lofty dreams and ambitions, for the past five years these have included:

 

1 win literary awards 2 have a fan send me sexy photos 3 eat a whole pizza in one go. 4 get a job as a voice actor 5 BECOME A NEW YORK LIMES BEST SMELLING AUTHOR.

Having proudly accomplished the first four goals, I am now ready tackle the fifth.  I have just sent the following email to numerous supermakets in NYC:

Dearest Sir/Madam/Automatic response bot,

My name is JM Donellan, and I am an author from the faraway land of Australia where no actually we do not ride kangaroos to work and don't look much like Crocodile Dundee at all but thanks for asking.

"Mate, if you tried to ride me I'd kick yer fucken face off."

Like many authors, I have long dreamed of being awarded the prestigious title of 'New York Limes Best Smelling Author.' I would like to invite YOU!!!! to become part of an exciting opportunity to help me get that thing that I want.  My plan, at present, is to purchase some of your limes (perhaps a baker's dozen) and use them to create some kind of cologne which I will then douse myself in, allowing me to achieve my dreams
just like Oprah and whoever wrote 'the Secret' keep telling me I should do.

I would prefer if you would send me limes actually grown in New York, but if this is not possible then I would prefer that they have at least been in New York for a little while and have had a chance to visit its major tourist attractions like the Empire State building, the Statue of Liberty, Mos Def's house and, of course, Limes Square.

Here's an example I prepared earlier.

Probably postage will be quite expensive because Australia is very far away, but I'll be visiting New York in December and I promise I'll pay you back then. Also in Australia we don't usually like food coming in from other countries because of our fragile
ecosystem with lots of weird animals that want to kill you, so could you please write THIS BOX DEFINITELY DOES NOT CONTAIN LIMES SO DON'T OPEN IT JUST DELIVER IT TO JM DONELLAN (PLEASE) in big letters on the box?

Thank you for your time.

Swarm Regards,

JM Donellan

FOR SALE: 1 x reincarnation of historical figure Franz Ferdinand.

Hello the Internet.

How are you today? I hope Charlie Sheen hasn't been keeping you too busy. I just thought I'd use my blog to yell into the digital universe and let you know that I'd entered this competition where you have to make a story about three objects for sale.

The items this week were:

 

Which was strangely convenient as I acutally did have a shetland pony, surfboard and jetski to sell, so I simply told the truth, which is as follows:

Dear person and/or spambot. Thankyou for choosing to view my items instead of the many other interesting things on the internet, such as blogs devoted to things that look like cats and cats that look like things.

For sale is my pride and joy, Franz the Shetland pony. He is the reincarnation of Franz Ferdinand (the historical figure, not the band, whom he hates. Please refrain from playing their music or he may fly into a fit of violent pony rage.)

It is with great regret that I must sell my beloved Franz because my old landlord died in a mysterious pogo stick accident and my new landlord has a bizarre and very specific allergy to Shetland ponies who are the reincarnations of famous historical figures.

I am also selling Franz's jetski and surfboard, which would only remind me of him and thus produce salty discharge in my eyeholes.

You can and also should vote for my entry here.

Ironically the grand prize of $10 000 is substantially larger than many major literary awards. Perhaps my time would be better vested in writing 150 word creative entries for competitions than 100 000 word novels for actual humans. That would leave me time to pursue my true passion; arranging and photographing paper clip collections.

In other news, the 100 stories for QLD anthology featuring my story STUNT KITE has been delayed but should be out any day now, and I will be recording more lines for the pocket hipster tomorrow.

What have you been up to?

(Just kidding, I don't actually care. I was just trying to be polite.)

Letter to the Editors (the UK band)

 

Dear the Editors,

 

How are you? I am very well, thanks for asking and for also realising I was not just a spambot. Sometimes people think that and it's quite awkward, especially when it's at a cocktail party rather than an internet forum.

Anyway, let's cut straight to the not boring bit shall we? I recently completed the draft of my new novel Adonis Comma Coma. Yes, I know it is a weird title. I have a thing for weird titles okay? And no it's not going to feature the words 'a novel' written in slightly smaller print underneath the actual title. Why do novels always do that these days? If you've picked up a book in the fiction section of the bookshop entitled 'the Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay' and you think it's some kind of factual guide to thermonuclear dynamics then you really obviously aren't smart enough to read a book in any case. Some day I'm going to write my life story and call it: 'A Novel' with the words (an autobiography) written in smaller letters underneath. Take THAT society!

 

The point is that now the draft is completed I need someone to edit it for me, so I punched 'editors' into google and your website was the first that came up, which I assume means that you are the best Editors on the internet.

 

 
This is a picture to prove I am not lying. I don't often use these, because I am usually lying.

So what's the book about you ask? It's about 100 000 words. Some of these words include: 'and', 'of', 'Marilyn Monroe, 'synesthesia' 'the' 'murder' 'kandinsky' 'kaleidoscopic', 'grandiloquent' and 'cheese'. I'm not sure what your fee structure is but my present budget allows for either $15.79 in cash OR three hundred and eighty six pairs of size 9 converse all star plaid coloured shoes that I definitely did NOT obtain illegally. Alternatively you can invoice me.

This is where I file my invoices. (And bad story ideas).

Now I understand that editing a book takes quite some time, and you probably have touring and recording and being photographed in black and white looking dour duties to attend to. So just to make the process a little smoother, I'm willing to fill in for whichever one of you decides to take on the task of editing this book. Just for the record, I can play bass very well, guitar oh well, drums well, well, well... and sing Timmy fell down the well.

 

Thanks, I look forward to hearing from you.

Yours Since Clearly,

JM Donellan

 

Dear vending machine in the emergency ward at the Royal Brisbane hospital: I hate you.

Not only do you have the motherfucking nerve to charge $2.70 for a nestle crunch bar, but open insertion of my hard earned currency, you fail to deliver said exorbitantly priced confectionary. Not only this, but considering how long it took to get the clerical staff to admit my chronically ill progenitor I was correct in doubting  that their attention would be adequately focused on this new dilemma.

Subsequent to this thwarting of my attempt to gain endorphin inducing comfort food, I ventured to the hospital cafe in the hope of acquiring some delicious sustenance and time away from staring at the floor in the emergency ward listening to the anecdotes of speed freaks. (Sidenote: no one should ever bother with government sponsored 'kids, don't do drugs videos,' just show them a ten minute video of some toothless guy detailing his colourful medical history and all should be well.) Sadly however, the proprietors of the ingeniously named 'Nescafe cafe' had elected to provide their patrons with a selection of rave music to enjoy with their cardboard and sock flavoured food. I do not use the term 'rave music' erringly, I am an aficiando of electronic music, not some grandma who yells 'that's not music!' as soon as an 808 clap comes within earshot, and this was pill popping, foot stomping, reach for the lasers hands to the ceiling can't stop the feeling let's all get reeling RAVE music.

In a hospital cafe. At 2pm. Like this, only much, much worse:

 

I've often heard it said that vending machines kill more people every year than sharks. Is it not then time for us to massacre at least one malevolent machine in retribution? People are always worried about computers evolving artificial intelligence and beginning a skynet style war against humanity. I say that's looking in the wrong place. The vending machines of the world are already stealing from and killing our citizens. At the very least, should be not pit these two foes against one another in an en masse battle to the death?

  VS

THEY MUST BE STOPPED.

For those of you less inclined to the unsubtle but nonetheless irrefutably effective means of extreme violence, there is the option of placing a simple 'OUT OF ORDER' sign on any and all vending machines in your vicinity. Starved of their lifeblood (money) vending machines will assuredly be forced to move to other habitats in search of sustenance, until eventually resorting to cannibalism and devouring each other in a scene not unlike the finale of the Transformers movie, but with better acting.

 

 

The Price is Free

Dear the Government,

How are you?  I know that you are rather busy unreasonably oppressing refugess in direct violation of the UN charter that you signed, but I wondered if you might address something for me.

 

The thing is; I love libraries. At a library I can instantly attain one of the things that I love most in the world: books. Not only this, but I can sit and read them in air conditioning with a view of the river and really weird fluroscent lighting, all for zero dollars. This is convenient as it just so happens that free is my favourite price. Not to play the poor starving artist card, but as it happens I am a poor starving artist. It says so right here, where I wrote it in purple texta:

    This is a picture of a piece of card with the

words 'I am a starving artist' written in purple

texta.

This ironically means that I can’t afford to buy lots of books. Thus libraries are wonderful. The only problem however, is that whilst reading a book I am temporarily prevented from writing books of my own. If I were to attempt to do such a thing my books would basically just be regurgitations of whatever books I was reading in a specific time period. This kind of thing is called plagiarism and is generally frowned upon, unless your name is James Cameron in which case people like to give you academy awards and several billion dollars for being very extremely good at plagiarism.

I would like the goverment to set up other services where I can get things that I enjoy for free. Here is a list for your convenience:

Booze.

Nature (this used to be free, but is not mostly owned by rich jerks who build giant fences.)

Sex.

Food (but not the dead animal flesh kind).

Art (the good kind, not the I-went-to-art-school-because-I-wanted-an-excuse-to-wear this-yellow-lycra-jumpsuit kind.)

Video games.

Foot rubs.

If you could get right on that it would be very much appreciated. In turn I will continue to pay my tax dollars which I earn through selling my books to people who are allergic to libraries. By current estimates by tax contirubtion is 0.00000000000000000000000000000000314% of the national GDP and in light of this fact I would think that you would take this suggestion very seriously.

Thankyou and I hope you have a lovely day incarcerating people who are escaping from war-torn countries.

 

Yours Since Clearly,

JM Donellan

 

This is an artpiece made of art by an artist that says' Todo Esta Muy Caro' which is spanish for 'everything is very expensive.' If the artist had been working in Australia, he may have instead written 'todo esta muy, muy fucking caro.' Except that we probably wouldn't have let him in account of that fact that he spoke foreign talky sounds. And even worse, is an artist.

 

Interim parliament vows to keep Australia 'one nation under a groove'

In news that is bound to shock Australia and the world, long buried legislation has been uncovered that states that in the event of a hung parliament an interim foreign political body of an allied democratic nation must be installed.

The US government was last night asked to fulfill this role, but in a clerical error by civil servant Gary Wentworth who had been drinking coffee and watching red and blue lines incrementally increase for 12 hours, the US funk band 'parliament' was installed instead of the Obama led administration.

 

Wentworth was unavailable for comment and was last seen sucking his thumb and very slowly drawing red and blue lines on his arm muttering 'too close to call, too close to call...'

Bandleader George Clinton said he had been surprised by the call, but vowed that he and around a dozen of the best past and current members of parliament/funkadelic would endeavour to keep Australia 'one nation under a groove' until the new government had been installed. "I'll be bringing the funk, the whole funk and nothing but the funk." He added.

Bass player Bootsy Collins responded with a forty-three minute bass solo and a maniacal cackle. The band have stated that they will keep the nation distracted from the pressing question of who is in charge by the even more pressing question of whether to 'get on up' or 'get on down.'

Birthday letter to the queen by Jake Marshall Dunhill, grade 2

Dear the Queen,

How are you? Are you having a good birthday? How is it being old? Do you like it? Do you want to get even more older or just stay the same amount of old? Have you been old ever since you were little, or did you just get old recently?

Do you listen to this song on your birthday, is it about you?

My name is Jake and the other day it was MY birthday and my sister wasn’t even very nice too me cos she’s a teen-anger and the only things that teen-angers are good at is sulking and talking about pop songs. There’s a law against that isn’t there? I'm pretty sure there is which means she broke the law, so could you please lock her up in a dungeon somewhere or something? Or maybe make one of your dragons eat her? Ok, well, maybe not eat her, maybe just kind of really scare her a lot and set fire to her ipod.

Also I had to go to school on my birthday. I really think that is very unfair. I want want to be rude, or anything Mrs. the Queen, but I get to stay home from school on YOUR birthday so how come I didn’t get to stay home on mine?

Thanks

Jake Marshall Dunhill, Grade 2

PS  my uncle Frank says one time he got punched in the crown jewels and it hurt like blazes, but I thought that the crown jewels belonged to you and that they live in the Tower records store in London. Why are people punching your jewels and how come it hurts my uncle?

 

Please don't punch these. It hurts my uncle Frank.

 

UNINSPIRATIONAL QUOTES EPISODE #3

"The most urgent health problem in the developed world is obesity. The most urgent health problem in the developing world is starvation."

 

"Either you motherfuckers need to start sharing those cheeseburgers or I am going to have to try and get Madonna to adopt me. Do you really want to live with that on your hands?"

"Ah....there's nothing like eating a cheeseburger at the beach...hey! Where did my feet go! Oh, there they are, buried under my rolls of corpulent fat that also do a great job of concealing my long forsaken dignity."

THINK ABOUT IT. This is not exactly Schrodinger's cat theory here (if you aren't familiar with this, here's an explanation by a guy with a huge afro). We aren't talking about the Copenhagen interpretation, Hesienberg Uncertainty principle, or Gödel's incompleteness theorem. This is basic fucking logic. Rich people have and control too much and are killing themselves, as a result poor people have too little and are dying. This is basically the global sociopolitical equivalent of solving the following equation:

solve for x:

2 + x = 4

Think about it, think about it...THERE IT IS! See, was that so hard?

(Courier Mail readers may require the following information: x = 2)