You can make more money working at Boost Juice than singing about Larrikins.

"The first time the term "larrikin" was used in the Australian press, it referred to a group of Australian born gang rapists. That was nearly 150 years ago, here is a song about stacking hundreds of plastic beer cups together at the cricket."

This is what I would say to the crowd, should I ever become a singer/songwriter that performed a song called Larrikins.
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As Curious an Entity #3 is out soon, 100% print-only material! Let me know if you'd like a copy as they are going to be on very nice paper, so we'll probably only do a small run of 50 or so.

Thanks to all who have read these words all year, I am grateful for your attention.

James.

Excerpt from a cover letter in application of employment.

Outline your experience with the media. How has your interaction with the media effected your life?

I am particularly lucky, as the media has had very little impact on me over the last decade. However, as a child I would frequently pace around the rockery in my backyard, imagining being elsewhere, usually in a situation in which I was the only human friend of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The details would be extremely specific, down to which bunk in the sewer I would occupy to the exact content of my Mambo backpack - sunglasses, Roald Dahl book, Stussy tracksuit pants et. al. In my mind, the surroundings would not be animated, but live action in the style of the 1990 film Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Master Splinter, the large mutant rat would be present on certain occasions. During these times he would refer to me as "my son," treating me with utmost respect.

April O'Neill, the human female news reporter and Turtles' main contact on the surface was not involved in my dreams. I suspect that my brain may have blocked out the traumatic experience, but I probably killed her. It makes perfect sense, jealousy, lies, red hair. She needed to die.

Several years later I sat down to watching the Australian film The Sum Of Us, starring Jack Thompson and a young Russell Crowe. Crowe plays a knockabout Aussie bloke who happens to be gay, Thompson plays his father. I was late to school the following day, unable to sleep due to crippling paranoia that I was born gay. It was not that I found other males attractive, it was that I could not be certain that I would never find other males attractive. Unable to apply a better litmus test or rule of thumb I consulted my mother. She assured me that gay people were still allowed to play professional football, she may have even cited Ian Roberts as 1995 was a significant year for him. It was not long before my sleeping patterns returned to normal.

The final effect the media had on me occured the year following The Sum Of Us being aired as the Sunday Movie. As a well read child, I was no stranger to the work of the "young-adult" genre's own prize fighter, Paul Jennings. Jennings has released countless novels and volumes of short stories, all of which I managed to read at least a couple of times during my youth. One summer's evening I had been reading a particularly creepy story about a possum with a map of Australia birthmark on it's arm. There was also a dead child somehow weaved in, but I cannot recall details. It was whilst reading this story that I became dizzy, and later threw up.

Post-review pressure.

"I guess I just want to do something really good?"
"Well, yes... But I think you ought to be a touch more specific than that."
"Um, Okay. I have alot of ideas. The problem is in the translation, they get blurred, fractured in a way."
"..."
"Yesterday morning I woke up with the concept for an Australian television mini-series script in my head, then I had to go work. By the time I got home it was gone, and my head was just filled with ideas for writing a fourth series for Arrested Development. Arrested Development was an American sitcom that finished after-
"-Yes, I am familiar with the program"
"Exactly. So you can fully understand that the idea for a fourth series is ridiculous! And even if it was plausible, I couldn't write that. It would take a bigger person. Oh and by the way, you cut me off just before."
"I apologise, but I am struggling here. I am here to help you, but you have to give me something to work with."
"Okay, but why are we wasting time sitting here anyway? I promise that when you get me a job I will go every day and complete it. You will get your commission and I will get paid."
"What about Weight Watchers?"
"That was your fault! That was your fault for sending me to Weight Watchers!"
"Calm down."
"Why would you send me there? Firstly I'm male, secondly I'm skinny, thirdly scanning AFTER photos of women with those aprons of skin was completely crass."
"That was the first temp job I got you and you got fired after two days for not doing what was asked of you. How can you expect me to put my reputation on the line to get you more work when you've already let me down?"
"I didn't let you down. You let yourself down by involving yourself with Weight Watchers. That office is all 30 year old women who just sit around talking about how the Bondi Junction Westfield is a pretty awesome place to spend Sunday. One of them talked about her boyfriend's indoor soccer grand final for an hour. It's the roughest of scenes."
"Don't be pathetic. All you had to do was turn up on time every day for a single week, and you couldn't manage. I'm sure Arrested Development's script writers turn up on time every day."
"What? Don't talk to me. Arrested Development's script writers eat pub lunches for breakfast and spend all afternoon drinking cordial and swimming. It's a REAL job.
And I DID turn up on time to Weight Watchers, the only reason I got fired was for taking an t-shirt from a prize box."
"You mean 'a t-shirt?'"
"Irrelevant, friend."
"What did you take the t-shirt for?"
"There's maybe not one man in a hundred with a pink Weight Watchers 'Prizewinner' t-shirt. It's hilarious. No, I'm hilarious."