Dave The Happy Singer

A lesson in critical thinking.

Dave The Happy Singer — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 13:21:02 +0000

How to spell ‘definately’.

I’m Sean The Blogonaut

Dave The Happy Singer — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 01:00:56 +0000

This man is not real

I have been up in the air about whether to write to you about this issue or not, but my lame excuse earlier about not blogging made me realise that you deserve to make a free and informed choice when you decide to subscribe to my feed.

My post earlier to explain why I haven’t been blogging was not the whole truth. The truth is: I have been blogging, and prolifically. Just not here.

It’s time to come clean. It’s time to tell the world my big secret.

I am Sean the Blogonaut.

I realise this will come as a big surprise to many people, and not just those who have followed my own career. The many, many fans of the Sean the Blogonaut blog will no doubt feel elated and somewhat overwhelmed that their favourite freethinker not only became even more awesome but also doesn’t exist.

I know you’ll have lots of questions about this. It’s a big deal: one of the biggest revelations since John got stoned off his box. So I’ll try to answer the most obvious questions and comments now.

Why did you decide to invent Sean the Blogonaut?

The world needed him: a skeptical superhero who could take down Mercy Ministries and join the Justice League of Australia to defeat the Australian Vaccination Network.

Why not just do it yourself?

Modesty. If I’m going to take the limelight, I want it to be for something trivial, like a song about a flasher.

Why did you make him so damn handsome? He looks nothing like you!

This was a difficult decision to make. I knew that by making the Sean character beautiful, it might distract from the serious message of the blog. But in the end, my giddyness took over as I developed a mancrush on my own character. He had to be perfect. Besides, give him a mullet wig and some Ray Bans and…

Sean + Me = Chemistry

In fact, the similarity between gorgeous Sean and me is so strikingly obvious, I’m surprised no-one noticed!

What will happen to Sean now?

I haven’t decided yet. His site will stay up: I didn’t go to all the trouble of winning the Monty Miller award for nothing! But I expect I will probably wind the story up on Sean’s site with something totally bizarre.

Maybe some bullshit about Sean being a woman: something that only a total and utter idiot would believe.

UPDATE: It seems Podblack Cat is also claiming to be Sean The Blogonaut. It’s a lie!

FURTHER UPDATE: More misinformation is being pumped out by mysterious forces. Now the Drunken Madman is claiming to be Sean The Blogonaut!

SUPPLEMENTARY UPDATE: Bastard Sheep denies being Sean the Blogonaut. Believe him, he’s a skeptic.

I’m back. Deal with it.

Dave The Happy Singer — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 14:31:28 +0000

Dave The Happy Singer Returns to the blogosphere

The thing with having a blog is, you have to do keep the rhythm up. Like so many things in life, if you slip out it can be hard to get back in. So it has been for me: I didn’t blog for a while when I took a break from gigging, and before I knew it, months had passed.

It’s not that I didn’t want to blog, dear friends. I did. And it’s not as though I had nothing to tell you: I have lots of stories stacked up. But after being quiet for so long, it was difficult to know how to pipe up again. I still don’t know, so I’m just going to belly-flop in with this one and pick it up from there.

So here it is: my first post after a long break, and it’s a lame one. I’m sorry about that.

There is fun to be had here, so for that reason alone, it’s time this rational Internet superhero donned the Lycra and Speedos again. There are songs to be sung, jokes to be jung, and woo to be wung.

I hope you’ll welcome me back to the blogosphere.

Gigs for March!

Dave The Happy Singer — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 00:59:39 +0000

HELLO THERE!

I hope that you had a terrific February, as I did. Here’s a post about my forthcoming gigs for March 2009! I’ve been so busy lately, it’s come in rather late! Full listings are at the bottom of this page.

Please note that all my future shows will be listed on the Upcoming Events page. Geeks will love my Upcoming Events feed, too!

Anyway, this post is now so delayed that my first March event has already slipped by: I paraded in the Sydney Mardi Gras last night with the Sydney Queer Atheists. This was fabulous, even for a heartbroken monogamous heterosexual boy like me! I had my guitar with me, so I unfortunately couldn’t get any snaps. If anyone has any photos of me from last night I can post here, please email me at smile@davethehappysinger.com!

Dave The Happy Singer at the piano (photo by Jazzy Lemon)

And my shambolic organisation is taking its toll again with a very last-minute shoutout for tonight’s show! I’m at Kelly’s on King in Newtown tonight, Sunday March 8th! Join me with the SongsALIVE! Showcase from 7pm. I normally play later in the evening so if you have plans earlier, you can still catch me.

I’m very excited to play my first RSL show this Wednesday 11th March at Newtown RSL. If you can make it I’d really love to give them a show to remember for their very first Happy Singer experience!

Coming up in just a couple of weeks is the March in March protest against internet censorship! That’s on Saturday 21st March in Canberra. This very important day is an opportunity for us to speak out against the Australian government’s expensive, ineffective Internet filter. This is planned to censor not just illegal but ‘undesirable’ legal material using a secret and unaccountable blacklist. This must not happen, and I urge you to join me and the Digital Liberty Coalition in Canberra. As at the Internet Censorship Protest in Sydney I’ll be singing my own songs and some classic Internet hits and offering a wry perspective on the stragely silent Senator Stephen.

Finally, I have another exciting first this month as I play at the popular Sandringham Hotel on Wednesday 25th March for the very first time! This is another SongsALIVE event and I will be joined by Lucy Harte, Aaron Lyon Sophie O’Sullivan and Stuart O’Connor. Please make a special effort to make this one if you can: it will be a barnstormer!

That’s it for now. Stay Happy!

Mark Gormley Alert! Everybody get in here now!

Dave The Happy Singer — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 03:09:21 +0000

No doubt because of my last post on the Very Intense Mark Gormley, Our Saviour has returned with a new music video!

The video is classic Phil Thomas Katt (he is alarmed this time) and Tommy Robinetti gets in a good gag about getting phone calls from crazed Gorm fans (sorry Tommy!)

The song’s pretty good too, a melancholy Gormstomping rock ballad! Take a look:

Now there are a couple of other points to note here, for those with a sweepstake running:

World landmarks visited: London, Hollywood and more.
Polo shirt colour: White. Ish.
Powerstance variant employed: straight.

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And there’s one other thing you should have noticed. Go back to 1:50 in the video. See it now? Still don’t believe that Mark Gormley is some kind of god incarnate? That’s right:

MARK GORMLEY CAN WALK ON WATER.

Praise be.

The Saviour has Come. And he is Very Intense.

Dave The Happy Singer — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 05:33:08 +0000

In the beginning was the Duck. And the Duck was stupid.

Then came a man called Rick Astley. He was awesome, but he wasn’t the Messiah.

They asked him, are you the Messiah? And he smiled and said he wasn’t. But he said, ‘We’re no strangers to love’. And they were confused, even though they’d known each other for so long.

And many imitated him, but he was not the Messiah.

And there was at that time a Virgin in those lands. And an angel appeared and addressed her in a serious tone for like six minutes. And she thanked him. I suppose.

And she was not trolling. Nor was she the Messiah, although many thought she was.

Behold. The man the latchet of whose shoes Rick Astley is not worthy to unloose. Behold. The saviour, our Lord Mark Gormley:

Mark Gormley went up on to the mountain and spoke to them. And lo! the video called for lonely and desolate spaces. So Mark Gormley said unto them, ‘Let us go into space’. And they went into space.

MARK GORMLEY HAS BEEN TO SPACE.

Mark Gormley does the POWERSTANCE. And it looks like this.

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And like this:

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Mark Gormley is Very Intense. They should make like a twelve minute version of him, because the music is really cool.

Mark Gormley can cure cancer. He will bring peace to the Middle East and formulate the grand unifying theory. Mark Gormley is here.

Archdeacon Narelle Jarrett: I’m Enjoying My Life!

Dave The Happy Singer — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 12:48:25 +0000

I would love to believe that when I die I will live again, that some thinking, feeling, remembering part of me will continue. But much as I want to believe that, and despite the ancient and worldwide cultural traditions that assert an afterlife, I know of nothing to suggest that it is more than wishful thinking.

The world is so exquisite with so much love and moral depth, that there is no reason to deceive ourselves with pretty stories for which there’s little good evidence. Far better it seems to me, in our vulnerability, is to look death in the eye and to be grateful every day for the brief but magnificent opportunity that life provides.

- Carl Sagan

Carl Sagan’s resounding affirmation of life, as precious and wondrous as it is brief and finite, inspires and exhilarates me almost to tears.

Today I was reminded of his profound and clear wisdom as it was thrown into sharp contrast by one of the most densely packed torrents of ignorance and stupidity I have ever read. Swinging clumsily, like a drunken boxer, Sydney ‘archdeacon’ Narelle Jarrett has unleashed a flurry of incoherent thought at nonbelievers. As hilarious as it is irrational, her beef is with the British Humanist Association’s incredibly popular and successful bus advertising campaign:

A worry free, enjoyable life? Woody Allen has a good awareness of what life on earth without God is like. Without God there is no logic to pain, frustration, suffering, acts of mindless cruelty, nor of why death is written into our DNA and into that of the cosmos – death remains for all, a terrifying prospect. Nor is there for the atheist, any explanation for the existence of ‘good’!

In one of the few correct statements in the entire stultifying article, the arch-deluded Ms Jarrett correctly identifies the planet Woody Allen lives on, and equally correctly notes the godlessness he perceives there. Odd though her choice of philosopher is, the ensuing non sequiturs make me wonder which planet she comes from.

No logic to pain? Au contraire, madame l’archidiacre. Pain is an evolved response to potential harm, with obvious survival benefit. For someone claiming a personal relationship with an omnipotent, omnibenevolent god, the existence of suffering, mindless cruelty, death and frustration ought to present a serious challenge, as Epicurus notes:

Either God wants to abolish evil, and cannot; or he can, but does not want to. If he wants to, but cannot, he is impotent. If he can, but does not want to, he is wicked. If God can abolish evil, and God really wants to do it, why is there evil in the world?

The argument is centuries older than the alleged Christ, and still there is no good counter-argument. Oblivious, Jarrett cheerfully bumbles on, claiming that atheists have no explanation for ‘good’. Again she forgets the implication of her own faith: that her friend in the sky allegedly drowned the world, rained fire on Sodom, killed the Egyptian first-born children, explicitly promises eternal torture for non-Christians, and demands human sacrifice, genocide, slavery and genital mutilation… but is ‘good’.

For an atheist, however, evolutionary biology has many good explanations for the evolutionary origins of morality, starting with ‘you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours’, and heading into some sophisticated but mind-blowingly enlightening game theory. Though she implies she has exhaustive knowledge of atheist literature, it seems Ms Jarrett hasn’t even read The Selfish Gene, the most famous book by the most famous living atheist!

But then it seems Ms Jarrett doesn’t like reading, since her second example of a godless philosopher is (I shit you not), the guy that Eric Idle plays at the end of the Life of Brian:

You come from nothing; you are going back to nothing. What have you lost? Nothing!

I don’t know how to break it to you, Archdeacon Jarrett, but that film was a parody, intended to mock the severe delusion of religious faith. The assertion you quote is a paraphrase of the ‘ashes to ashes’ line in your own funeral service, and that itself is lifted from Genesis 3:19. You are doing it wrong.

But I’m afraid it gets worse, dear reader. You see, the increasingly confused Ms Jarrett seems to think that atheists live in terror of death. This atheist doesn’t! Perhaps some do, but they certainly aren’t the optimists!

Regardless of what you believe, death is a fact. I am utterly comfortable with the idea that my time is finite, and that I must pass this fragile planet on to my descendants, as my ancestors passed it on to me. Accepting the reality of mortality makes me value every second of my life so much. I treasure it. I love it, along with the beauty and joy and wonder and love and excitement and passion and wisdom and amazement that I perceive in the universe.

I was a victim of the Anglican faith in my youth, and it is painfully obvious to me that every second of my finite life is more precious than I thought when my life was just a lobby to paradise, an obstacle course I had to complete to avoid hell. If anyone should live in terror of death, ought it not be the credulous, who believe they risk eternal torture for such ’sins’ as sexual attraction, calling someone a fool, or eating a prawn?

Jarrett loses all coherence as she invokes the long-debunked Genesis creation myth as cause for hope (1 Peter 3:15 says she should try harder), tells us her friends ridiculed her for becoming a Christian (well, duh!), and drops my favourite clanger of clangers: telling us her brainwashers ‘didn’t think they came by chance from nothing‘.

Archdeacon Jarrett: we didn’t come from nothing, nor did we do so by chance. We adapted to our environment over four billion years by a non-random process of natural selection. It’s called evolution, it’s a simple concept and there is no excuse for you to be literate and remain ignorant of it.

Clutching at straws, forming them into her own image and calling them an argument, Ms Jarrett finally ‘demolishes’ the claim that atheism automatically leads to a worry-free life. Such a shame that no-one claimed it does. The ad campaign has a much more inspirational message!

Atheism won’t magic away your concerns, but it mercifully disposes of the celestial surveillance, the eternal torture, the cognitive dissonance, the need to interpret ancient blood-myth, the obsession with death and other peoples’ sex lives, the irrational invention of ’souls’ in zygotes and the ludicrous, stultifying idea that this stunning universe of countless stars is somehow created with you in mind, none of which has any rational basis whatsoever.

Packaging this wicked nonsense in a cheap wrapper labelled ‘love’ is what pays the archdeacon’s wages. As the Sydney Anglicans prepare to go on the attack with a conversion campaign called Connect 09, you can expect more of this kind of shallow, unfounded and inconsistent pleading over the coming year. If Narelle Jarrett’s present attempt is anything to go by, expect a spray of footbullets.

Freeing oneself from unreason is a marvellous thing. Now enjoy your life, because it really is the only one you have.

Further commentary:

Tynan at Sydney Atheists: I’m not worried!

Sean The Blogonaut: The Argument from Woody Allen

A Drunken Madman: Archdeacon Narelle Jarrett: Patron Saint of Facepalm (WARNING: strong language and stronger emotions. Epic win.)

World Gasps! New Favicon!

Dave The Happy Singer — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 12:02:12 +0000

As you know, I’m clearly a man who knows his tech history.

With that comes an awesome responsibility to stay ahead of the pulse, to keep my finger on the ball and my eyes on the curve.

Nowhere is this more crucial as we look to the release of Web 2.1 (beta) than in the world of the favicon: that little square of branding a website sticks in your address bar and bookmarks. 256 pixels that can make or break your online presence.

Some sites take this so seriously that their entire useful content is in their Favicon!

It is with my keen eye on web fashion that I can now announce the bold, fresh new trend in favicon design for 2009:

The bold, fresh piece of favicon. 2009's hottest trend.

This fulfils all the design objectives of being: a colourful background with funny shapes and that and Dave The Happy Singer on the top looking well rad.

The colours are of course those of Dave The Happy Singer’s most popular song Red, Yellow, Pink and Green. The colours themselves represent Dave’s own core values of Virility, Honesty, Compassion, and Reason.

Expect to see this design trend make a big splash in 2009!

Crikey’s First Dog On The Moon Spreads Happiness!

Dave The Happy Singer — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 05:19:19 +0000

I’ve met some lovely people, online and offline, since I came to Australia.

Party it’s because Sydney is a fantastic city. It really is. It’s so big there’s a group for you to join, whatever you’re into. People are friendly and normally behave themselves. The anti-social behaviour that now so plagues the UK is next to non-existent in the city centre at least. It’s sunny and gorgeous and I’m Happy here. Heck, I’ve only been threatened with violence once, and that was by a creationist science-denier, so it doesn’t count.

But partly it’s because the Internet is awesome. We live in a wonderful time. From the abysmal horror of Web 1.0, the blogosphere and social networks have arisen and let us connect and communicate and fling information around in the most wonderful ways. I recently became fired up (a year late, as usual) for Twitter. If you don’t use it you should try it. In a way it’s just another social site with a twist: it’s text-only, and every update is 140 letters or less. Some call it microblogging, but I prefer to think of the Facebook status update without the extraneous crap. It’s quick-fire and you can do it from the web, an app on your PC, the mobile web or even SMS! You can use a Facebook app to update your FB status when you Tweet. Hilariously, the steaming pile called MySpace (yes, I’m on there, too) also has such app, but it works in the wrong direction. Facepalm.

But that’s not really what I’m here to talk about. I’m here to talk about Happiness. Epicurus said:

Of all the means which wisdom acquires to ensure happiness throughout the whole of life, by far the most important is friendship.

He might have been right, you know. And social networking works best when the technology plays second fiddle to the community. What makes Twitter is the people who Tweet: The Tweeps. Take web communications technology, and add friendship to it and you have the most wonderful potential for Happiness!

One of the Tweeps I ‘follow’ on Twitter is First Dog On The Moon. He’s a cartoonist who may be familiar to my Aussie friends. He supplies charming political cartoons to Crikey!

I don’t know him very well, but he’s doing a pretty good job of teaching me about Australian politics (I and hate learning about politics). He’s also very friendly and had a wonderful, a truly marvellous idea a few weeks ago. I’ll let him pick up the story:

I was cleaning my office, looking for something to distract me from cleaning my office, when I wiped my whiteboard clean and… for no good reason, cartoonly duplicated 20 twitter avatars with a whiteboard marker. Poing! Just like that. These were a random selection of people who I have had twitter conversations with some of whom are proper internet friends and some of whom were there at the time and well, I love everybody. I felt a bit foolish. But there they were. I posted it. (I am still uncomfortable with the term tweet as in “I tweeted it”) but I did.

And you can guess the rest. The requests came flooding in, Mr Onthemoon got busy and a silly, gleeful party atmosphere overtook my little corner of the Twitterverse, as my (still relatively new) friends admired each other’s new faces. The First Dog did over 90 in about as many hours. And I was super-kindly included!

An avatar for Dave The Happy Singer made by First Dog On The Moon

Yay!

Isn’t that lovely? Just a wonderfully mad idea that just made people Happy and then escalated. And the good news is, First Dog has apparently benefitted a little from his generosity:

I have also increased by about million followers in no time at all. I have asked people to nominate me for a shorty which is a twitter award. No really, they have them. I have inadvertantly raised my social media profile quite a bit. People are blogging about it….

Yes, Doggie, people are blogging about it. Good. He’s lovely. He also has an online shop, which I encourage you to visit!

And that brings us to a topic that I want to cover more soon. You don’t need to invoke the supernatural to show that a positive, optimistic, Happy and loving attitude can bring forth abundant rewards. Happiness is both contagious and it grows. We just need to get out there and spread it.

So, First Dog On The Moon, I salute you! And it occurs to me that I haven’t yet seen the favour returned. So, I don’t have a tablet, I can’t draw and I mouse with my non-writing hand. But I just want to say:

An avatar for First Dog On The Moon by Dave The Happy Singer

Gigs for January!

Dave The Happy Singer — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 05:49:14 +0000

Hi guys!

I’ve got gigs to announce for the rest of January! I really, really appreciate your support, so please pop down if you can!

First up is this Sunday evening, 11st January at the SongsALIVE! Showcase at the wonderful Kellys on King in Newtown! (Facebook users, please invite your friends here!) The show starts at 7.00 pm but the godless hordes attending the Sydney Atheists Meetup will still catch my set if they head down to Newtown after the speaker.

I will also be playing at the Petersham Inn for the very first time on Wednesday 21st at 8.00pm. I’d particularly appreciate it if you could turn out for this one and help me make their First Time very special! There’s a Facebook event for this one, too!

Both shows are free!

I’ve also added a permanent page of Dave The Happy Singer’s Upcoming Gigs which you can bookmark! The next couple will be listed in the sidebar, and there is even an RSS feed for Dave The Happy Singer’s gigs! If you subscribe to that, you’ll always be informed!