Zezaurian Astronomy Dept. gets a Facebook account

When life gets you down, or you stare at your Facebook page and wonder, "why am I such a drip?" it’s usually best to think "what would Tupac do?" and take some time out to think about something that’s actually interesting for once. Sending barely intelligible messages to other drips is not interesting, no matter how you dress it up. But thinking about the super-massive black hole at the centre of our galaxy sure is.

I know, I know; you thought it would be you at the centre of the galaxy, but no, it’s actually "something" (most likely a black hole) 4.5 million times the mass of the sun. If, like me, you live in England you've probably never seen the sun, but I've been assured that the fucker is huge. Like, so huge it’s making my brain ache just thinking about it. So I can’t really compute something being 4.5 million times its mass.

Still, this black hole is also 300,000 light years away, which is a distance so vast it’s making my brain and my nipples ache. But at that distance, this HUGE monster of space-and-time-bending-madness is the size of a football on the moon. A FOOTBALL ON THE MOON. Please tell me you find this more interesting that writing "LOL" under pictures of last Saturday’s drunken mess?

What’s that? You do!?

Then why-oh-why am I the only fucker in the Zezaurian Astronomy Dept.?

Don't say it's because hanging out with me in a field looking at the sky is lame. It's not. It's amazing. Trust me, the first time I ever saw Saturn's rings through a telescope I could not sleep for days. Heck, it's even better than The X-Files comic series - and the The X-Files comic series is pretty cool.

So, in an attempt to lure in at least one new assistant member I would like to present to you my top ten facts about the universe as an act of persuasion.

In order of amazingness...

10. A supernova explosion produces more energy in its first ten seconds than the Sun will in its entire lifetime. Seriously, that is just astonishing. Are you not astonished? Really? Then how this little fact:

9. Uranus smells really bad today.

8. How many moons do you think Jupiter has? Guess first, then highlight to answer: Duh. It’s 63, you dope.

7. The universe is so vast in relation to the matter it contains that it can be compared in the following way: A building 20 miles long, 20 miles wide and 20 miles high that contains just one, tiny-weenie grain of sand. And there’s you looking at this stupid website when you could be out hugging nature.

6. Our galaxy has approximately 100 thousand million stars alone. Outside that, there are millions upon millions of other galaxies. Zezaurian astronomers (me) would guess that there are 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars in the entire universe. Holysmokes! That’s just too much to take in. Go and smoke a massive blunt and think about that. Then draw me a picture of your confusion.


5. A pulsar is a small star made up of neutrons so densely packed together that if one the size of a ten pence coin landed on earth, it would weigh approximately 100 million tons. Which is about the same as yo mama weighs.

4. The star Betelgeuse (it's in that video up top), is a total mutha humper of a gas-ball. With a diameter of around 700 million miles, if you put that sonofabitch in the centre of our solar system it would extend beyond the orbit of Jupiter. Does your tiny human brain have any idea how fucking massive that is? Its bigger than Lady Gaga. That's how big.

3. The Milky Way has a radius of about 50,000 light years - but there is a giant supercluster of galaxies in the direction of the constellations Perseus and Pegasus that is over a thousand million light-years long. Woooo-ie. That's special.

2. Uranus smells worse than it did one minute ago. Get some fresh wipes in there, stinky.

And my all time favourite...

1. Most of the elements found in the human body originated in stars; we are literally made of stardust. This never fails to blow me away. Then I look at people like this and realise that it's not all that romantic at all.

===

I will be star watching on Sunday evening using my Newtonian Refracting Telescope. If I find life on another planet, I’ll let you know. If you find life on this planet, let me know.

Live long and prosper,

Drib Tiberius Drab.

The Zezaurian Music Dept. reviews Yann Tiersen

Electric Ballroom, May 2009



When I was born the umbilical cord was wrapped twice around my tiny little baby throat as the other end was being ripped away from my traumatised belly button. This meant that as I was violently ejected from my mother’s vagina I was being strangled and my eyeballs were popping out of my bewildered face.

To ensure I could survive to tell the tale (on the internet) all these 29 years later, the doctor had to push me back inside my (poor, poor) mother - followed by his big doctor hand - which he used to unravel the cord from my neck before ripping me back out into the blinding light of planet earth. It was a pretty shitty start to things, but ho-hum.

Of course, I can’t remember any of this happening because I was only 32 seconds old and unconscious. But I was told all about it after it became deeply apparent that I had an overwhelming phobia of having my throat or belly button touched, looked at, debated or in anyway referenced or referred to.

It’s been a real shitter all my life. The first thing that happened to me in this world has had such an effect on my mental health that I can’t even read a book without turning the centre crease to one side because I can’t have it lined up to my Adam's Apple. It's a bona fide disability.

Once, this girl stuck her tongue in my belly button during sex and my knee involuntarily cracked her so hard in the stomach she actually vomited over me (true).


Anyways, I also find it quite hard to enjoy a live music show when there’s very little space to watch the band and people are shifting around, spilling pints of beer from cups so flimsy they might as well be condoms. All those gross bodies shuffling around trying to find their dopey friends. Urgh.

But not one to make a fuss, as Tiersen faffed about on stage last week I kindly moved to one side to let this woman get past so she could join her friends just in front of me. But she never went and stood with them. No. The dope went and stood in the space I had temporally opened up to let her through, blocking my chance of moving back by wearing this ridiculously oversized leather backpack. This meant I was standing at a 30 degree angle on one foot, wincing, trying not to spill my own saggy johnny full of beer.

After I eventually managed to squeeze back in behind her, something truly terrible happened: I felt this horrendous sensation in my belly button. A toggle on the women’s backpack jabbed right in there – but because the venue was so packed I couldn't free myself and it stayed in there and twisted about as she jiggled around like a horny toad.

With the toggle jabbing ONLY in my bellybutton, and unable to escape, despite calling for help, I started to feel really dizzy. It just wouldn't stop, like the backpack was actually attached to me via a bastard umbilical cord of its own. Jab jab jab. It was the puggle not even my school bullies had managed to give me.

Would it now seem dramatic to say this was the worst moment of my entire life?

I don't care. It was.

After I had feinted the bouncers ploughed through the crowd like a bunch of champs and gave me a fireman’s lift out of there. They even helped me clean my underpants, which was pretty friendly of them.

But just like I've been doing everyday since my ridiculous birth, I'm going to keep on truckin' and try and make it to next week.

(And fuck knows what Tiersen's set was like, but I heard all the Amelie fans were disappointed that he only plays shitty post-rock these days. Bad luck.)

Zezaurians finally have fun

Last weekend a few of us thought it would be a good idea to surrender our bodies to the power of gravity and hurl ourselves from a great height with only an elastic string between us and a bone smashing, blood-soaked death at the bottom of a lake. And as if this weren't enough excitement for one day, us brave Zezaurians ventured into the wild immediately after the nerve rattling leap for a survival expedition in the notoriously dangerous and terrifying 'Scratchface Wood'.

Drib Drab and I awoke at stupid o' clock filled with fear and doubt at the prospect ahead of us. Personally, I wake up full of fear and doubt most days, so this was nothing new. I tried to invent elaborate excuses to bow out but Drib Drab explained to me that to overcome my reservations about hurtling myself through the air with great rapidity that I had to “feel the fear” and “be the fear”. He illustrated this statement with a weird clawing gesture with his hands that made me think he was suffering a stroke. After much feeling the fear and being the fear we embarked on our folly.

Accompanying us for the jump were fellow Zezaurians Terry Le Hate and Baby Monkey Skull, who put us to shame with their calm composure. After the writing of wills we went ahead and did our bungee business. It was pretty fun. We descended from the sky like graceful swooping eagles (all except for Drib Drab who had to be kicked off the ledge and looked like he was suffering some kind of mid-air seizure on the way down). 'Be the fear' indeed.

We proceeded to rendezvous with Woggle and Mr. Divorce, picked up some supplies, and headed to the aforementioned Scratchface Wood to continue our action packed day.


After a lengthy hike, we set up camp and Drib Drab and I gave the others a lesson on how to build a woodland shelter. Settling down for a rest, we surveyed our handiwork with pride and satisfaction. Terry produced a package containing this weird green stuff that he rolled in paper and set fire to. Everyone readily inhaled the fumes and began to behave quite strangely. I don't know what that was all about though.


While Terry was having a philosophical debate with an oak tree, Mr. Divorce suggested that we play a game called 'Sardines' and we ran off into the forest like a pack of loonies. I think the reason for this might have been that weird green stuff I told you about.

The night wore on, we cooked over the open fire, ate, drank, consumed more of that green stuff, talked nonsense, and decided that the world was a pretty good place to inhabit after all. We fell asleep with the dirt and the bugs and the sinister thought of the hangover rhino sharpening his scythe in readiness for a busy day ahead.

I invented the Zezaurian Society. NO, I INVENTED THE ZEZAURIAN SOCIETY.

Hands fucking off

Hey tumours, it’s bad enough rosy-cheeked rich people got their grubby little hands on my favourite jacket, but I’m going to fucking explode if any more of you vacant, poser art students puts your stinky ink-stained fingers on the Barbour.

Zezaurians have been wearing these things since before the time of dragons. They belong to us, not you and your stupid electro-pop poser band mates. Next chump I see wearing one gets a kick in the graphic design portfolio. I’m fucking serious. I would rather join the TA just to endure them over you. OVER YOU. Can you imagine? The fucking dorks in the TA beat you for a personality.

And what could you possibly need all those sensuous, quilted and spacious pockets for? Your poetry about that drip you poked on facefuck? Shoot me dead. Unless you actually carry around a ball of string, an air pistol and a pen knife that your granddad used to kill a Nazi with, the Barbour is not for you. You’ve already stolen pork-pie hats; you’re not allowed to have these as well.

P.S. You all smell of toe jam.

Zezaurian Basketball

First up: A massive, Jupiter-sized apology to all the people that had to see me in a rather skimpy pair of shorts the other day. My judgement was all kerflooey in the morning and I was only told just how short (and close-fitting) they were about an hour after leaving my house. An hour. I was flippin' miles away.

It's a bumhole wrenching moment when someone tells you they can see your asymmetrical balls jiggling about like a smuggled budgerigar when you're so far from home. I played it as best I could, but really just ended up walking like a crab in an attempt to conceal the fact that my legs have not advanced in any way since I was five years old, but my balls - god bless them - have never really stopped growing at all. (Side note: WHY GOD? JUST FUCKING WHY IS IT ALWAYS FUCKING ME?)

The worst moment was bumping into some friends. I had to do some crazy-intense eye contact whilst telling them ridiculously complex stories - all the while flapping my hands dramatically above my head in a desperate bid to stop them from peaking down and asking what the fuck I thought I was doing out in public.


...And that brings us neatly on to Zezaurian Basketball, which is the same as Normal Basketball, except played by us, The Zezaurians. And I gotta say, I'm pretty good at it and can even do that thing where you cross the ball under your legs. What I'm not so hot at is dealing with those fucking crazy bastard children from the estate, especially when dressed in a pair in shorts only really suitable for a rubbish twat or a malnourished infant.

I’ll happily admit that I’ve subscribed fully to the hysterical media portrayal of young people as terrifying, out-of-control sociopaths because, oddly enough, it turns out they actually are terrifying, out-of-control sociopaths. But I’m okay with that because Hercules Beefcake is forever following me around so I use him to handle these sorts of precarious encounters. But what about you? Are you going to be okay? What are you going to do when they try and steal your ball?

Not weeing in your underpants is a good starting point. Personally speaking, I couldn't have pissed my pants even if I had wanted to they were bound so tight. No. The only thing that'll really make you feel like a man again is tensing some muscles and striking a pose.

Be the Beefcake.

It's easy if you just make the effort. Think of those weird muscle guys that cover themselves in baby oil and pump up their biceps on stage. You think anyone messes with those guys? Of course they don't. So just do what they do, but as you tense that bicep - and this is crucial - use you finger to point to the nearest exit and tell them to "getouttahere" in a Brooklyn accent. That's what Hercules Beefcake does and no one ever messes with him.

If you really want to go crazy, tense the other bicep and throw in different direction in which you want the gang to leave – this works well if there are multiple exits, or if the gang members perhaps have different routes back home, which makes you look tough, but also helpful.

Trust us; four people all doing this on the B-Ball court is definitely enough to end any harassment. Okay, so it doesn't really work if your arms are made from spaghetti because you'll just look like a de-feathered chicken, but you could always just carry a big fuck-off knife and wave that around in their faces like a menacing cock.

Also, this update is has nothing to do with me losing my ball on Sunday. Nothing at all.

Mr Ninny.

---

We were supposed to do an update on how the Zezaurians totally killed it at the Fleapit last Friday at their monthly Drunk Killer Table Tennis Competition, but as one Zezaurian in particular didn't do so well and pulled a massive, bed-wetting strop over it, you might not get to hear about how amazing I am, or how graceful I can be when I win things.