The theme this week is capitalism – and no – it’s not a boring rant about the evils of whatever – it’s just taking a look at the kinds of things that people are selling, that are available online. Throughout this look, you might want to spare a sad thought for the local online sellers of arbitrary things like dried fruit and wine, and wonder where our own insane capitalists are. But lets dive right into some of the weirder things on offer online. (Naturally I’ll end up going off-topic, but that’s the problem with having a short attention – hey is that a cloud shaped like a duck?)
Something to warm the hearts of those happy fun-filled anti-abortion activists. (Bill Hicks said it best: “It’s not a human being until its name is in my phonebook, okay?”) Anyhow, go take a look at something for sale that could be just the gift that Mom would appreciate this Christmas. Try Foetus Soap On A Rope.
Think about it, you stay in an area of the country where there are all these damn cows crapping everywhere. A person can’t walk in a field without needing to hose down their shoes afterwards. Then one day you get this amazing idea about drying pieces of genuine cow dung, and putting a working clock in the lump, and then selling it. Sounds insane? Well – it’s selling like – like hot cakes – ahem. Hold your nose and lean towards Cowpie Clocks.
Usually its not a good idea to put all your balls in one basket — but what about putting all your balls in one shop? Kangaroo scrotum pouches are apparently really lucky — although presumably not for the male kangaroos now singing castrato — but hey the pouches do look fairly useful though. Go clutching your groin and avoiding hopping or doing anything which might make someone think you’re a ‘roo, towards The Kangaroo Scrotum Shop.
Slightly off the general theme, but ball-related — what do you do if you have too much time on your hands and a pair of testicles, and are slightly geared towards the acting life? Correct — you make your own versions of famous plays and films, using your testicles as the main actors! I’m not kidding — this is insanity at its most jaw-dropping — go take a look through the short films on offer at the amazing Testicle Theatre.
So the day of your wedding is approaching, and you need something a little different to kickstart a life of cheerful monogamy, what do you do? Do you do what everyone else does, and get married naked, or while sky diving? Well, to start with (and this probably isn’t for kids, although it might help end up making some new ones), consider looking over the goodies offered by The Masturbakers — “makers of erotic and custom cakes”.
As anyone who knows anything about architecture will tell you, this country’s homes for the most part, look like they’ve come out of a basic Architects Thumbsuck Factory which only allowed about 30 different house-types. Entire suburbs often look like architects have used three or four basic designs and rotated them around for each new sucker home-owner. I get appalled at the conformity of our architecture. I’ll get off my “I’m-an-architects-son-and-proud-of-it” soapbox, and point towards an insane but amazing idea. Imagine a complete airplane as a home, up on a rotating support column. Go to Airplane Homes. (If you think it’s a joke, look at the photographs of the airplane currently being cut up and readied for installation as someone’s vacation home.
I’ve always wanted to print t-shirts saying ‘Homeless Victim of the System’ and hand them out to — well — homeless victims of the system, as they beg on street corners, just to make some surreal commentary about the nature of reality, and my own lack of compassion. But I keep getting advised against it. So it’s kind’ve nice to see folks in other parts of the world with similar impish and slightly sadistic senses of humor – take the case of a site which has been set up to raise money in order to buy beer for the homeless. (Maybe it’s something that could be done here, seeing as houses aren’t being built, the ANC may as well work on keeping the homeless drunk as a way of keeping their voter-base going.) Go to Beer For the Homeless.
And staying with the bottom end of the system – I was unlucky enough to have seen Bum Fights, a fairly evil video showing homeless people beating the hell out of each other, for money — as well as drunkenly performing stunts and getting hurt in the process. (The makers got arrested, eventually, when the authorities finally heard about it — for “conspiracy, solicitation of a felony crime and illegally paying people to fight”. Point being — in the midst of the film, there was a truly uncomfortable sequence where real live unsuspecting and sleeping tramps were grabbed and tied up and then sat on and talked about, by someone doing an Aussie croc hunter impersonation. So in a slightly less malevolent vein, but still similar territory, go cautiously and take a look at Bum Hunt.
Staying down on street level, it’s a standard in some aspects of Art, to use bits and pieces that you’ve found, hence the name of (duh) ‘found art’. This spurious lead-in, is to a website that takes this concept a step further, and finds items of clothing that have been dumped on roads, pavements and other places, and provides a pic and info about the item. Believe it or not, it actually makes for a strangely interesting site — go read
And for art of a different sort, that’s equally “a lot more interesting than it sounds” — beer trays have been around for a long time, featuring artistic scenes that for the most part, have gone unnoticed by most booze drinkers. Yet there’s something about the art and the scenes portrayed by some long-forgotten artist at Beer Company X, that makes these galleries of beer tray art a fascinating glimpse back in time. Go look at this big collection of Beer Trays.
As a thought, just to show you that museums don’t all suck, spend some time staring in disbelief (and watch where you walk) at The Banana Museum. Or perhaps you might want to see exactly what your grandma was up to, at the gloriously nostalgic and adults-only Antique Vibrator Museum. Then there’s weirdness galore and more history that no one taught you about in school at The Museum of Unworkable Devices.
Apropos nothing, if you have a cat or two, then you’ll know the pain and suffering from emptying the kitty litter. Why not do something daring for a change, and instead of throwing the kitty litter away, use this insane but seemingly real recipe to make your very own, highly repulsive and generally disgusting Kitty Litter Cake.
And something to go with a foul smelling kitter litter cake, it’s appeared before, but it’s such a cool rarity that it’s worth a mention – go download Charles Manson’s Music.
And staying with cat poop… space and astronomy are interests of mine, so it was with some horror that I spotted this news item ( which basically indicates that the USA intends to stop any other nations from getting into space). Supposedly it’s to do with protecting their various military and communications-based satellites, but as to what the truth is, we’ll only discover one day when a non-military and non-governmental space mission occurs. (Don’t give me the “NASA-is-a-civilian-agency” line – they may appear to be, but they’re not). Read US To Stop Any Other Nations From Going Into Space.
Space-related – if you’re a weirdo like me who enjoys examining NASA’s photographs, in lieu of having a real life. I found a killer-app that effectively ‘unmasks’ their pix and reveals what they’ve actually been hiding all these decades. For info, I’ve made a wonderfully awful basic page with explanation and a few examples of ‘before and after’ pix, up at The Truth and Lies of NASA.
Until the next time, if unsuspecting kitty-litter-cake eaters don’t get me.
Ian Fraser is a playwright, author, comedian, conspiracy nut, old-time radio collector and self-confessed data-junkie. Winner of numerous Vita and Amstel Awards, he’s been an Internet addict and games-fanatic since around 1995, when the Internet began to make much more sense than theatre.