Visit Art Deco Town - but you had better count your toes

I recently travelled five hours across the island to attend the wedding of a friend’s daughter. Now I’m just a sucker for weddings – the romance and splendour of it all. I love watching the expressions of love, embracing the coming together of family and friends, experiencing the joy and celebration… and later at the reception I always look forward to investing in the divorce date sweepstake. Yes, weddings are great! And this one was no exception; the bride looked lovely, the groom was handsome, his mother looked relieved and her father cried like a Scotsman at a Braveheart screening.

But this blog isn’t about the wedding, it’s about the town where the wedding was held. Now I’ve visited a lot of ‘better count your toes’ type of towns before (has anyone ever been to Golbourn in Australia or Palmerston North* in New Zealand?) – But this one has got to be at the top of the list; a real banjo and rhubarb pie type of town. And you just have to wonder, like with the breeding stock so low and that, why would people choose to live there?

Now I’m not going to name this town because that would be totally unfair. But the town’s greatest claim to fame is its ‘character’ architecture – the town is renowned for its classic Art Deco buildings. Now I may be wrong here, but wasn’t the original Art Deco period the precursor to the Great Depression? I mean, wouldn’t you agree that a bunch of flat-roofed pastel-coloured stucco-clad sheds are enough to bring anyone down? Not to mention that everywhere you go in the town, there’s a straw hat and bow tie wearing Barber Shop Quartet waiting to jump out and scare the bejeezus out of you. It’s like being mugged by a brigade of octogenarian Dick Van Dykes.

But it gets worse!!! Like, you all know how much I like my coffee. I mean, I alone sustain the subsistent lives of a whole Brazilian rainforest community through my caffeine consumption. And because I prefer soya rather than dairy milk with my coffee, there’s a whole village in India receiving a respectable third world income because of me.

As such, I headed out early Saturday morning in search of a good coffee house. Sadly there are mostly only ‘on a par with Wild Bean and McCafe’ type places in this town - the town of a thousand variations of beige. However, in the end I did find a most excellent little Italian place that was absolutely superb. But after a half dozen flat whites… well, you know what I need next. But by crikey, none of the local cafes have toilet facilities. So I seek assistance from one of the baristas who sends me off for a two block dash to the local park where I will find a public toilet.

Well I can’t believe it.

But it gets worse!!! You see, the main street of this town is bricked pavement – a bland, slightly off-beige Art Deco type of brick. And people are strolling everywhere - it’s essentially an open shopping mall. Only there’s a bit in the middle where cars are allowed to drive down. But unless you’re a local who has lived here for like forty years, you can’t be sure which part is the pedestrian section and which part isn’t. So for us outsiders, any moment along here could be your last.

Fortunately most of the cars that drive through here are at least ninety years old (as Henry once said; “you can have any colour you like as long as it’s black”). So at least you have a half decent chance of ducking out of their way. But it is kind of scary. I mean, these cars are so old that they don’t even have air bags (unless you count the rotund woman in the front passenger seat who seems intent on constantly nagging at the driver).

Nevertheless, I finally make it to the park – and I’m an absolute wreck by this stage. My blood pressure has gone through the roof, my heart is going ten to the dozen, and my anxiety levels are bubbling over… Just as well I drank all that coffee or my nerves would be shot too…

But I finally get to the Art Deco styled public toilet block...

…And you’ll never guess what I find…

…There’s a lady in an Art Deco type booth by the door who is going to charge me twenty cents to go inside!!! I mean, what’s that all about??? In Art Deco town you can’t even ‘spend a penny’ without having to spend a penny????

Art Deco really sucks!!!

That’s what I think… and usually I’m right!

*Famous British comedian John Cleese once said, “If you ever do want to kill yourself, but lack the courage, I think a visit to Palmerston North will do the trick”.

Smoking In Prisons - Lock up the civil libertarians please

We often criticise our Governments and Politicians for the decisions they make, suggesting that for the most part, they make about as much sense as Malcolm McLaren agreeing to produce the next three Cliff Richard albums (imagine that: We Don’t Talk Bollocks Anymore, Mistletoe and Methamphetamines, and The Young Bastards).

But I digress… what I was saying is that Governments are always under criticism – taxes are too high, wages are too low, services are too poor, old people live too long… and so it goes on and on.

But sometimes Governments and Politicians do get it right and I’ve got to say, this is one of those times.

You see, in my country they’ve introduced a new law that prohibits smoking in prisons. And you’ve got to agree that this is a common sense piece of legislation. I mean, we already ban smoking in most public places – bars and restaurants, work places, public buildings, schools and nurseries, petrol stations, hospitals, shopping malls and fire stations – so why not prisons? Why should convicts be allowed to smoke on the inside when most everybody else is told to “get outside!” (I suppose we could tell the inmates to stand outside too but I’m kind of guessing that that would defeat the purpose of them being in prison in the first place).

So you can see that I think this latest stance by our Government is a good one. And you just know that most sensible people would agree.

But not everybody is as sensible as you and I. Like those civil libertarians, they’re not very sensible are they? I mean, as soon as you suggest that incarcerated criminals might have to obey a new rule – out come the civil libertarians shouting how unfair it is and that this is yet another imposition upon prisoners’ basic human rights. Like, we don’t put them in prison for killing our grandparents, raping our daughters, burning down our houses and stealing our ipods just so that they can experience punishment and torment. Oh no, that would be monstrous. Prison is meant to be nothing more than a little ‘time out’ and we need to make it as comfortable for them as possible. And it would certainly be unfair if an inmate couldn’t enjoy a smoke and a beer while he’s watching Sky Sports on his 60 inch plasma.

And these civil libertarian clingerwads don’t stop there do they? No, they also demand that the tax payer provides the inmates with every ‘stop smoking’ cessation programme and product out there regardless of cost… that it’s unfair that we expect them to go ‘cold turkey’. I mean what if they all become edgy and anxious? What if tension levels rise? What if there’s violence? What if one of these convicted little sociopaths gets so stressed that they actually attack one of their cellmates?

… we never saw that one coming… it’s such a tragic loss… Snake was well-loved by his peers and an inspiration to us all… he will be missed… (Ferret and Jimmy will be giving out free memorial tattoos in the dining room after the service)…

So I was listening to talk back radio the other night after the Government passed the new law. And you guessed it, all the civil libertarians were calling in determined to defend the rights of our poor and oppressed (with no chance of parole) victims of their own circumstance. And there was this one caller, a real sea-sponge short of a heart and lung transplant, who had given up smoking after taking a course of hypnotherapy…

… Oh, you can see where this is going can’t you? He thought that maybe we could hypnotise all the inmates so that they could give up smoking too.

Yeah - Like if that was going to work we’d hypnotise them to STOP DOING CRIMES!!!

So for you Mr. Hypnotherapy - and in keeping with your fruitful suggestion... sit back, relax, close your eyes...

 “You are a dumbass… you are a dumbass… you are a dumbass…”

... And now let me snap my fingers...

 

That’s what I think… and usually I’m right.

Political Correctness In A World Gone Mad

If there is one thing that I find more disturbing than seeing a truck load of lepers crash into a porridge factory, it’s the degree of political correctness that we have to endure every single waking moment of every single day of our intellectually-castrated lives. I mean, what is it with these unhappy little politically correct frilly pink blouse wearing powder-puffs that they have nothing better to do than to go out of their way just to make life impossible for anyone and everyone who isn’t in someway a defective malfunct?

So here’s the thing, I don’t need any namby pamby wheel-chair bound tree-hugging foreign-food-eating political correctophiles telling me what I can and can’t say and when I can and can’t say it.


And I don’t need any of your delicate, non-gendered, totally platonic hand-holding to help guide me to some enlightenment about how to ‘say it like it is’ without hurting someone’s oh-so-temperamental feelings. If people need to be told something, then they need to be told! Damn their feelings! It’s not some old women’s tatter guild that I’m addressing here. You people need to grow some balls and get over yourselves!!!

So I guess it’s kind of obvious by now that I think this whole political correctness nonsense is a complete load of bunk!!!

So what am I talking about here? What is it that has got me so riled? Well I’ll explain-

Imagine what it would be like boarding the plane to return home after a relaxing vacation in Sydney Australia. Okay, you’ve just spent a week in the iconic city, taking in its urban splendour and diverse culture. After all, you’re a person of sophistication, and being so, you enjoyed Sydney's many great offerings – you visited both Hoyts and Village cinemas, dined in Chinatown and shopped at Myers. But now you’re looking forward to getting home and drinking your Duty Free bottle of Italian Spumante because you’re a classy kind of individual.

Anyway, as you board the plane you noticed that the Captain is of Pakistani descent. Not that this is a problem or anything – I mean, you like the game of cricket. And you’re pretty sure that employing pilots from third world countries helps the airline keep its ticket prices down – and you’re all for that too. But you want to demonstrate your acceptance of diversity and culture in a politically correct way – so you attempt to engage in small talk with him.

You ask, “Where are you from?”
“Lahore,” he replies.
“La what?! Is that French or something?”
“Lahore, it’s a city in Pakistan.”
“Oh, okay [Phew! That could’ve been awkward]. And did you do your flight training over there or here in Australia?”
“Here in Australia.”
“Thank God for that – I mean, they train you to miss the buildings over here don’t they?” 
 

So it becomes quite obvious to you as the two burly security guards haul you back to the airport terminal that political correct pilots from Lahore in Pakistan do not have a sense of humour. But then, if all they’ve got is a curry recipe, a hacky sack and an album containing photos of all their relatives who have blown themselves up (“and here’s one of Afzul taken outside the embassy a week before that terrible incident…”); then it’s hardly surprising that they’re going to be a little temperamental when someone criticizes the expertise of your national aviation industry.

IT WAS A JOKE YOU MORON!!!!!

Notwithstanding that when they finally allow you to board the next plane and you find out that the Captain on that one is from Dublin, you don’t say a word.

And that’s what political correctness does to you in the end – it silences you and makes you afraid. ‘I can’t speak, I might upset someone’. That ugly woman on the bus, if you don’t look at her and smile she’ll blame you for the way she looks. That guy in the wheel chair, if you don’t slam the door in his face he’ll accuse you of treating him like a cripple. That busker on the sidewalk, if you only toss him a couple of silver coins he’ll keep playing House of the Rising Sun.

And who cares about your feelings? Who cares that you have to look at ugly people, pretend that the wheelchair didn’t run over your foot, and waste good coinage just to hear a song that was written and recorded before you were even born? How come, in this God-forsaken ‘don’t make me cry or someone’s gonna kick your arse’ politically correct planet of ours, your feelings don’t seem to count too?

Well I decree that I’m no longer buying it. So to all the pain-in-the-proverbial self-styled tolerance monitors; you can take your politically correct fancy pancy happiness pills and swallow them down with a warm cup of ‘Harden the F##k Up!’ I’m over it!!!!


That’s what I think… And usually I’m right.

Christmas and Easter - all good but for the Christians

If there's one thing that gets me wanting to flip my omelette, it's the way people carry on at Christmas and Easter. I mean, every Christmas and Easter they act the same - more frenzied than a lion in a first century Roman amphitheatre. It’s all one big derby of trolley charging and handbag blindsiding as frenzied credit-charging barbarians swoop in on their favourite shopping malls and claw their way to supremacy in a race to lay claim to the last worthless trinkets of the ‘while stocks last’ bargain-bin and display stand.

Take Christmas for example. As the ‘take-no-prisoners’ slaughter-fest begins, we are reminded by the claustrophobic displays of plastic baubles, tinselled trees and triple ‘A’ battery-lit angels that there is a deeper meaning to all of this – the birth of Santa and the corporatisation of Coca-Cola.

Yes, this is that time of year where the first trailers to the prequel of Mel Gibson’s epic film The Passion become available on You-Tube. In the original film Gibson had tried to explain how Santa, like William Wallace in Braveheart, had managed to annoy the local aristocracy and, as a result, ultimately came to experience the deadly kiss of deceit and betrayal. In the prequel to this, Santa is born in the apparent presence of the three wise men; presumably Christopher Nolan (author of 'Silent Night, Dark Knight'), Len Wiseman and James McTeigue. But given the time of year, the fact that there is six feet of snow everywhere, and that there is no room left at the Holiday Inn; one has to assume that Santa’s birth is possibly the result of an unplanned pregnancy. And although it is worth noting that Mel Gibson hasn’t approved the script for this film yet, it is being developed under the working title of “The Unplanned Birth of Santa in the presence of the Three Wise Men somewhere adjacent to the Coca-Cola Vending Machine near the Holiday Inn on the corner of Fourth and Main”, aka as "The Gospel according to Mel".

Yes, Christmas is a time that challenges even the most passive of individuals. Take for instance the provocation of Christmas Carollers – they come to your front door and sing those insipid songs, daring you to come out with your garden spade and pulverise as many as you can before the Police arrive (I can usually manage about four). Then there are the union strikers: pilots, train drivers, bus drivers, ferry captains, food court attendants; anyone and everyone whose job it is to make your holiday season more enjoyable – if only you had a Desert Eagle and a box of hollow points, that'd do it. Finally there are all those hippy twats who want to tell you about the savouring properties of Cheeses!!! I don’t get it… what does “our savouring Cheeses” have to do with Christmas for God’s sake?! And who the hell was the Major in Bethlehem and what the bollocks on toast is a 'Navy TV' scene?

Now, the thing I hate most about Christmas is the ridiculous expectations and poor conduct associated with the gift giving ceremony. Take the idea of the $5.00 Secret Santa for example. This is particularly relevant to workplace/office Christmas functions. Prior to the event the organisers reiterate several times that the Secret Santa gift must cost no more than $5.00 – it’s stated on the invitation, verbally reaffirmed on a number of occasions by the office PA, and it gets repeated in the reminder email the day before the event – so it’s virtually a written contract that your Secret Santa gift should cost no more than $5.00. But if you turn up to the event with a Secret Santa gift that actually did cost $5.00, then everyone is going to judge you as being a ‘cheap bastard’ – and you won’t get invited back next year.

So that's Christmas - And while Easter might be a different celebration altogether, it’s just as bad.

For example, you have the Good Friday shopping frenzy where everybody in town heads to the only few retail outlets legally permitted to trade on the day; namely garden centres and hardware stores. Thousands of people literally cram the carparks of these places as if it's the only time of year that they're open. And everybody rushes into the store, tripping and falling over each other, and they grab at this and snatch at that - and it's not important what they're grabbing and snatching at, they've just got to have it because it's Good Friday and they can. And there's actually no point to any of this - not unless you suddenly found a project that requires nothing more than a thorny rose bush, some timber and some nails.

And then there is the traditional Good Friday Supper, the ultimate test of tolerance, restraint and quiet endurance – a feast recognising true Christian passive-agression. For it is here that people ritually gather at their tables: husbands alongside in-laws, cousins adjacent to aunts, siblings next to grandparents; and they all partake in their traditional Good Friday dish – a hot serving of chips.

“Chips?” you ask, being the eternal heathen that you are. Yes chips – no meat and no fish on this day. Chips and hot-cross buns, that's all they eat. This is their suffering, their atonement – to painfully endure the company of relatives they can't stand and to eat a meal so bland and lacking in protein that it makes a Dominos' Pizza look Divine.

And after everyone agrees that there has been enough suffering, they all head off to midnight Mass. Thousands of them at every church. And you ask yourself why?...

...Like I'm pretty sure that when Jesus gave his sermon from the top of the mount he didn't say “and blessed are the annual one-nighters”...

...Yet here they are, packed to the rafters and all looking at each other and trying to half hum/half lip sync their way through the first hymn.

But the madness doesn't end after midnight Mass either, because all the shops reopen on Saturday morning and town becomes a mob riot. And all those wonderful messages spoken at Mass in the early hours of the morning – to love thy neighbour, to respect thy fellow man, to stop coveting his wife - all forgotten. Everyone wants to be first in queue, and they're all going to tell you in no %*&$#) uncertain terms why they should be served ahead of you. It's retail carnage and the blood-lust consumeraggressionists are out and ready to blaspheme, hand gesture and fight their way to bargain supremacy.

So let the eye gouging begin!

And this is all because the shops weren't open yesterday. No wonder people get upset after a tsunami, like when they happen the shops don't reopen for ages.

Fortunately tomorrow is Easter Sunday, a day where sanity should be restored, when the messages spoken at Friday's midnight Mass are finally remembered and enacted.

Except that everybody wakes up on Sunday morning to exchange loads of chocolate with each other. Now that's just what everybody needs after the last couple of days, a transfusion of Cocoa and Caffeine to help calm them down...

That's what I think... And usually I'm right.

The Colonisation of Men: Vasectomies and Eunuchs

I like to think of myself as a manly man… a tough, rugged, likes to eat steak and beans Charlie Sheen type of guy. So it should be no surprise to you that I get a bit worried about some of these pink frilly accessories that men seem to be expected to adorn these days… things like ‘feelings’, ‘sensitivity’ and ‘empathy’… I mean, what’s that all about?

But men… real men... are fast becoming an endangered species in today’s world.

Like the other day I was with some blokey blokes and we were talking about what blokey blokes talk about; sports, sex and beer – a really in-depth and meaningful type conversation. Anyway, mid-way through our man talk one of the guys reveals without hesitation that he’s recently had a vasectomy. Almost immediately two others in the group admit they’ve had vasectomies too. I mean, come on guys, what are you doing?

 

Well apparently my masculine naivety about this, expressed in my dumbfounded disbelief, means that I’m actually not a real man because apparently in this day and age a ‘real man’ listens to his woman, understands and appreciates her, enjoys his salad and mayonnaise (and probably joins a tatter guild for God’s sake!!!).

So for the record let me get this straight – a real man allows himself to be neutered at his woman’s request?????

Get outa here!!!!

But it gets worse! That evening I raise this bizarre experience at the dinner table at home – “like, you never guess what I heard today, it’s unbelievable…” and my Girlfriend looks across the table and says; “I wish all men were that understanding”.

BLOODY HELL!!!! – Doesn’t she get it? If all men were that understanding then they wouldn’t be men, would they? Does she really want to be in a relationship with a big girl’s blouse who is happy to watch 'Desperate Housewives' with her? Who’s going to mow the lawns???

So that night I’m lying in bed staring at the ceiling – it should be no surprise that I can’t sleep knowing what I know now… that I’m apparently too much of a man for my Girlfriend and she wants to literally nip that in the bud - and I suddenly realise what’s really going on here.

It’s colonisation.

That’s right men, we are being colonised. Think about it. We’re being oppressed; don’t drink, don’t smoke, don’t eat red meat… enslaved; iron your own shirts, fill the dishwasher, put the toilet seat down… assimilated; tell me how you feel, please watch ‘The Notebook’ with me, it’s great that we can just cuddle…

…And now they want us to become eunuchs too. It’s like when all those fancy lawyers and judges go to ‘Mistress in Leather’ to get handcuffed, chained and beaten – like, don’t they get whipped enough at home? No wonder they like to wear wigs and frock-like robes.

But again I digress. As I was saying, men are being colonised. And the worst thing about being colonised is that, like all those indigenous peoples who were colonised before us, by the time you recognise colonisation for what it is it’s already too late; they’ve literally got you by the balls.

So resistance, rebellion and revolution are out of the question. There simply isn’t enough real men left to take the affirmative step, to challenge the new order and burn their jockeys for liberation. No, too many of us have succumb to colonial change. Too many of us are now “in touch with our feminine side” – gone off and developed a conscience, an urge to express ourselves openly and honestly, a need to ‘share’, and a desire to stop and smell the flowers…

You Pansies!!!!!

That’s what I think… and yes dear, you’re always right.

How to avoid a natural disaster - Don't watch CNN

I get sick and tired of all these absolutely vacant headed, ‘one tsunami short of a Malaysian beach resort’ idiots who get themselves caught in a natural disaster zone and then expect CNN to come along and give them their 15 minutes of fame, 42 bags of corn and rice, and an international IMF debt write-off plan. I mean, take a good look at these clichéd stories of so-called tragedy and mayhem and ask yourself, “how come only dunderheaded communities get destroyed by natural disasters?”

Well it’s not just dunderheaded communities – it just looks that way because after the authorities have told everyone to evacuate and all the local intellectuals, professionals and hairdressers have gone (taking their comprehensive insurance documents, bearer bonds and cash assets with them), it's only the dunderheads who choose to stay and face the giant wave, the lava-flow, the fire, the flood - or whatever the impending disaster is. And the main reason why they stay behind (other than for the fact that they’re all a bunch of total frankendoofers) is because from their highly sophisticated perspective; “it’s all a government conspiracy”, “the wind direction will change despite the satellite images”, “it’s not going to happen to us”, “American Idol is on in half an hour”.

And how many of these gooberwoppers will actually go to the beach and watch the oncoming tsunami or head to the top of the mountain to experience the volcanic blast? Like, some will even take deck chairs for goodness sake! And you just know that none of them are going to survive the impending disaster and that in a few months time, their predictably tragic deaths will feature on at least seven different reality/disaster cable-based TV programmes (including ‘Gone in Seconds’, ‘World’s Scariest Disasters’, and ‘Who’s the Dumbass now?’).

Unfortunately, despite all our hopes, prayers and dreams; the disaster will pass and there will be survivors - and that means there’s going to be a multi-national trillion-billion-quizillion dollar rescue effort that includes an international ‘guilt you into giving up your child’s college fund’ Disaster Victim’s Appeal. And they perpetuate the need to give to the Appeal by bombarding you with overly dramaticised news stories containing dollops of human tragedy and animal survival, all set against the backdrop of Simon and Garfunkel’s “Bridge Over Troubled Waters”. How can you resist without looking like the sensible pragmatist that you are?

They begin by creating the iconic image of an ‘amazing’ survival story. In this case, Tina-Maria Constance Agulia Van Statton Smith Brown (named after her mother and three of her possible fathers). Tina-Maria is a 15 year old mother of two who is pulled out of the ruins of her thatched apartment building after being trapped under the rubble for seven days without any food or tequila. Covered in mud and streaky mascara, Tina-Maria captures the hearts and minds of the plausibly stupid as she is re-united with her two adorable children, little Chardonnay-Mercedes and Justice-Osama (why do they always have hyphenated names?).

You can just hear the violins soar.

From the human story to the cruel reality as the cameras transition from Tina-Maria to the wider context where rescue workers continue to dig amongst the wreckage, pulling out large quantities of personal effects including bandanas and head scarves, puffer jackets, Guitar Hero toys, downloaded Chris Brown CDs, and nine millimetre ouzis. As we see these iconic symbols of social devastation laid side by side along the cracked pavement in front of the local school where they were uncovered, we can’t help but feel the need to dig deep into our pockets to help Tina-Maria and her two adorable children…

…well, at least Tina-Maria and Chardonnay-Mercedes (poor little Justice-Osama simply isn’t cute enough to sustain our well-meaning interest or the TV ratings).

And here’s where the real struggle begins… trying to decide which charitable organisation I should give my five dollar donation to. Life shouldn’t be this hard…

Well, that’s what I think… and usually I’m right.

Research About Penguin Poo and Country Music

I recently saw an article in the daily news that carried the headline: "TV MEDICS GET IT WRONG"

The article read: “Medical teams from ER or House may race to respond to a seizure but nearly half of the time the TV doctors and nurses do the wrong thing, according to a Canadian study.
Researchers from Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, screened the popular medical dramas Grey's Anatomy, House, Private Practice and ER”… [and] … “found in 327 episodes screened, 59 seizures occurred. Fifty-one seizures took place in a hospital. Nearly all first aid was performed by nurses or doctors.
But the study found inappropriate practices such as holding the person down, trying to stop involuntary movements or putting something in the person's mouth, occurred in 25 cases, or nearly 46 percent of the incidents….”

WELL, HELLO!!! Are Canadians really this stupid? Can someone please tell them that TV shows aren’t real!!!

Of course, this does raise questions about the types of research being validated in our universities today. Let’s look at some other real examples of contemporary academic brilliance (like, I haven't made these up - they are all genuine research programmes or publications):

• Researchers at Oxford University (2010) have determined that Neanderthals were clever because they made jewelry out of shells. Get real! I can remember when my kids were little and could make cakes, spaceships and tigers out of plasticine - in a relative sense, that would make my kids geniuses. 

• The Department of Internal Medicine in Israel (1988) found that a digital rectal massage is a cure for hiccups. Okay, so when did I last have hiccups? Where was I? Who was I with? If I were in that situation again, what would be the appropriate etiquette required to… well you can see where I’m going with this. And the next time you come across someone with hiccups, are going to be brave enough to tell them where they can go and stick their finger? 
• Academic Journal ‘Polar Biology’ published a paper in 2003 explaining that Chinstrap penguins can squirt poo up to 40 centimetres. Now I need to know that why? I mean, "look out guys, there's a Chinstrap penguin and they can squirt their poo like 40 centimetres!" "Thanks for the heads up Bro, I'll be more careful around them next time."
• The ‘Social Forces’ Journal (1992) published findings of a piece of research that found that suicide rates were linked to the amount of country music played on the radio. I could have told you that for free!!! I mean, who doesn't want to kill themself rather than listen to country music? That's how Willie Nelson avoided paying taxes for so long - everytime someone from Inland Revenue came after him, he'd sing them a song.
• ‘The Journal of Experimental Psychology’ (2005) published a compelling article that demonstrated that Rats can’t always tell the difference between Japanese spoken backwards and Dutch spoken backwards. Well, I’m absolutely flabergasted… who would have thought? And if you play Led Zepplin's Stairway to Heaven backwards, they become possessed by evil spirits and behave like lawyers...

I could go on – but I am just so overwhelmed by the knowledge I’ve already accumulated whilst researching for this Blog. We should all bow to the inspirational work of these magnificent academic minds.

At least, that’s what I think… and usually I'm right.

When should Ageing Rockers Stop Performing And Making Fools of Themselves?

This has got to be the perpetual question that haunts most in the music scene. I mean, how often are we forced to endure the endless trite of has-been musos who just can’t accept that their time has passed?

Cliff Richard must be the ultimate example of this. He launched his career as the nice English lad singing classics like “Living Doll” and “Summer Holiday” and then re-invented himself in the late 70s with mega-hits like “Carrie” and “We don’t talk anymore”. But then Cliff went and found religion. Now this in itself isn’t a bad thing but Cliff went a step further – he took it upon himself to become a self-appointed evangelist of sorts. Then Cliff became confused between the literal and metaphorical interpretations of his Bible to the point that he came to believe that he was living an eternal life here on earth and that his mission was to record a number one Christmas Song every year until the end of time. And based on these recordings, one can assume that Cliff also believes that the rest of humankind are required to suffer in this life in order to receive their rewards in the next. Thanks Cliff.

Rod Stewart is another great artist who has succumb to the need to pursue his career beyond anything resembling taste, class or chic magnetism. This one time crooner of great love ballads like “Maggie Mae” and “Sailing” suddenly feels the need to dig up old tunes that have well passed their ‘use buy’ dates and produce a series of albums based on some half-witted notion of an American songbook. There’s an irony in having an ex-grave digger digging a hole for himself. But surely Rod you must have noticed by now that people wince at your new recordings in the same way that they wince every time Kenny Rogers’ “Gambler” comes on the radio. How many blondes does it take to make a crinkley old man?

What about the Rolling Stones? Do they fit here too? Well they are still great rockers, there’s no doubt about that. Even though Keith Richards looks like Tutankahmen with a moisture deficiency, they can still get it on. But the recent Scorcese film did little to exalt these legends of rock-in-perpetuity but rather, demonstrate the incompetence of two ageing guitarists trying to strum the same three chords at the same time:
“Hey Ronnie, why are you playing ‘Satisfaction’?”
“Dunno Keif, why is Mick singing ‘Angie’?”
“He’s singing Angie? So why am I riffing ‘Honky Tonk Woman’?”
“Dunno Keif, I’m still trying to figure out where Bill is”…

There are others that need to be challenged too:

Elton John – It doesn’t matter what kind of rodent you put on the top of your bald head – it doesn’t make you look sharper than the twenty something boy band you’re dueting with.

ACDC - Come on Angus, you can so rock - but a guy in his 60s still wearing a school uniform, it's a bit much mate.

And where does U2 fit into this group? Yes, U2. Well, perhaps ageing Bono should have a look at the signs evident in the ailing careers of those mentioned here and consider whether he wants to be singing beyond his use by date or go out a star while he still can. I mean, one of the obvious clues is who is covering your songs. Now if it’s young upstarts like Keane that’s one thing, but when an ageing Johnny Cash does a wonderful rendition of “One” shortly before he carks it, you have got to start thinking about what you're doing…

At least that’s what I think… and usually I’m right.

Trick or Treat: Why Halloween Sucks

Will somebody please explain to me why the %&*^# we go out and celebrate Halloween? I mean, Americans have been doing it for years – but they partake in drive by shootings too; should we adopt that pastime as well? Why do we have to take on inane American pastimes when all they do is create angst and animosity between neighbours?

I mean, I was happy when I didn’t have to know who my neighbours were. I’ve seen those reality shows on television, you know; Neighbours from Hell. I don’t need to find out who I’m living next door to… and I’m sure my neighbours don’t need the added pressure of finding out that they live next to such a highly celebrated Social Commentator and Celebrity Blog Writer such as myself.

Halloween interferes with the natural order of things. It’s an awkward ritual where pumpkins become light-sources, kids confess to being little monsters and parents look suspiciously at each other as though, on this one night of the year, the entire neighbourhood turns into a covern of sadistic kid-hating psycho-perverts.

But despite all these reasons not to do it, once every October parents dress their kids in fancy little costumes; ghosts, goblins, witches, mummies, social rejects (what do you mean that’s not a costume?) and so on; and they send them through your gate while they stand out on the street watching… smiling… like they pretend that they know you (“you’re our neighbour, we live next door”). But in reality, if these parents really knew you they wouldn’t need to stand there would they? Like they’re smiling politely but we all know that the reason they’re there is that they think because you live in this neighbourhood there must be something wrong with you…

Sod off you bastards! I've got nothing worth stealing!!!

So the little costumed monstrosities come marching up your garden path and you know that nothing you do is going to be right. For instance, comment on their costume – does the nice white sheet mean that you’re a ghost or that you just hate black people?... Is that Alien mask supposed to look like a giant foreskin on top of your head?... Whatever you say, the kids are going to cry or their parents are going to take offence.

And then comes the double-wammi question; “Trick or Treat?” (Or should it be ‘violation or vandalisation?’).

Now I call it the ‘double-wammi’ question because no matter how you respond, it’s going to be wrong. If you say “Trick” then the little bastards are going to throw eggs at your house. Now apparently in the eyes of their parents standing at the gate, this is totally acceptable. What’s apparently not acceptable to them is my responding by whacking the kid with a baseball bat – “Like the little bastard just threw eggs at my house!” But can you imagine if I went around to their house and threw cow poop at it? I mean, is this hypocrisy or just downright stupidity. It’s okay for your kid to trash my house but I’m not allowed to come round and trash yours? What's that about?.

Alternatively I could reply “Treat” upon which I am required to provide a sack load of sweets and candies for the little brats. So earlier I was expected to go out and spend a quizillion dollars on lolly-pops to accommodate these children’s need to suck their teeth into a cavity-riddled chasm of denture-rot. But should I now launch my own unsuspected ‘Trick’ upon the little horrors, their parents are going to go nuts.

And it goes something like this; I reach into my little basket of goodies and I delicately hand over a wad of lollies. “Here’s your Treat my good little vampire,” I announce as I gleefully watch him bite down on a juicy looking jelly-baby...

“Tricked you!!!” I shout as he wails in pain, having caught one of my secretly implanted razorblades or rusty nails in the roof of his mouth. And you’ve got to see the funny side of this, I caught the tiny tyke at his own game… so why are his parents so hopping mad? Like it was okay that he was going to trick me, but I can’t trick him??? Come on, it’s all part of the Halloween spirit, get with it for God’s sake!!! He’ll live… and it was sooooo darn funny! What the hell is wrong with you people???

Halloween sucks!

At least, that’s what I think… And usually I’m right.

Speeding in a Nannacar: Traffic Cops are so unfair

A couple of months ago I was driving through town in one of the office cars, a little Hyundai Nannacar that’s about as powerful as my Philips Rotary Shaver...

... and I got a speeding ticket.

That’s right; as I coasted down the hill in a vehicle that has the aerodynamics of a hay stack, the spatial capacity of bread basket and the style of a prawn cocktail at a black-tie affair; travelling with the momentum of a high-flying snail driving head-long into gale-force wind, a local cop nabbed me for driving too fast.

Now it wasn’t the $80.00 fine that peeved me, nor the humiliation of being caught speeding in a Nannacar for goodness sake… No, what actually peeved me was the fact that the Police Officer had the audacity to ask if the Hyundai was my car. For crying out loud you moron, it’s Korean!!!!

But what really bugs the hell out of me is that when these Traffic Nazis pull you over and ticket you for speeding, they don’t take into account any plausible argument about the relationship between distance travelled and variable velocity. In other words, before he pulled me over there was a period where I was stuck behind a truck and travelling quite slow – so overall my average speed for the trip was well within the speed limit. Why, on this occasion if my calculations are correct, the Cop owed me an extra 20 kilometres per hour over a distance of three kilometres with a standard deviation of 4 kilometres each way. It's elementary physics for goodness sake. At least that’s how I’m going to argue it before the Judge.

But the reason why I have raised this issue is to high-light just how unfair this whole traffic cop system actually is. You see, last night I was watching a locally produced TV programme called Highway Patrol. Now every country has this type of programme; a reality series that follows traffic cops as they stop and ticket dumbass rednecked motorists.

So anyway, I’m watching this programme when the cops pull over this van full of young Hip-Hopping Marmadukes. Now the first thing they’ve got these Yo, Dude-boys on is that the driver wasn’t wearing his seatbelt (isn’t that an instant $150.00 fine?). And as the driver gets out of the car sporting his sideways baseball cap and no t-shirt (so we can see his skull tattoo and his fake gold medallion), he starts his little rhyming rap routine:

I got me pulled over and getting my 15 seconds of fame,
Too bad I’m a dick and all my buddies are lame…

By the way, that’s not verbatim – but it’s all I heard.

And it just gets worse. Because the next thing that is revealed is that this guy is on a restricted licence and no-one in the vehicle has a full licence (whoops, isn’t that another $400.00 fine?). And this Turkeycrooner thinks it’s funny. “Like woe Man, diggitysplits! Gonna doopen doowah heehaw ma Bro, eh?” - Or something like that (damned if I can translate their gangsta-gobbledegook).

Finally, it turns out that the van itself doesn’t have a current Warrant of Fitness (required in New Zealand to indicate that the vehicle is roadworthy). Now that’s potentially another $400.00 fine.

So, as he faces up to a possible $950.00 fine for being a right asshole – he begins singing to the female officer while his mates stand in the background to cheer him on and get their own faces in front of the TV camera (“Look at us Mum, aren’t you soooo proud?”). Like, not one of these Eminemenas is taking this matter seriously – it’s all a big laugh to them.

So the Cops give them a whole stack of warnings about how they’re acting like a bunch of plonkers and their actions put innocent motorists like you and me at risk, and then they fine them a whopping great $200.00.

$200.00!!!! You have got to be kidding!!!! And then they let them drive off!!! And as they do, their SnoopDogPoo of a driver still isn’t wearing a seatbelt - and he’s so busy doing hand gestures to the camera rather than holding the steering wheel that he nearly takes out another motorist (“Look Mum, you gave birth to this twat, you should definitely be proud”).

$200.00???? And you fined me $80.00 for speeding downhill in the Office Nannacar – a vehicle that would have never been capable of reaching that speed if it wasn’t for the weight of my club sandwich in the glove box. By my reckoning, what the Officer should have said is; “Thank you Medicine Man Jack for speeding, here’s your $40.00 refund and a dinner-for-two voucher to your favourite restaurant. Drive safely and have a nice day.”

That’s what I think… And usually I’m right.

You've Got Mail - And It's All Spam

So my computer goes “bing” and that tells me that I’ve got mail.

And do you know what I hate about emails? I hate that there’s more spam coming through my Inbox than there is being served up for dinner on a Japanese whaling vessel. And what makes it worse is that it keeps coming no matter what I do. If I ignore it, they send more. If I press ‘unsubscribe’, they send more. And if I put a massive big sledge hammer through my monitor, they still send more.

Like, I do appreciate that if it wasn’t for spam some people would never get emails, but hey – given my celebrity status due to this highly informative Blog site, do you think I’m going to be one of those friendless losers?

Anyway, without meaning to sound judgemental, I do digress. The point is that even with my multiple spam filters, virus catchers and fisherman’s breathe (or whatever that last thing is called), I still get hundreds of spam emails. And I bet you get the same ones too.

For example, how many times am I going to hear from various Sheikh Mohammed Mahers (or names that are variations thereof) who are allegedly representing a client who died in a tragic car crash on the way to a suicide bombing mission in Afghanistan, leaving behind 20 hectares of un-harvested Taliban poppy fields and U.S. three million dollars? And how many of these so-called Sheikhs are willing to share it all with me so long as I help them get it out of Afghanistan by giving them my bank account details and directing them to my local Laundromat?

Now we all know that 99 percent of these emails are bogus – just some failed Nigerian taxi driver sitting on his laptop between fares looking for some naïve English speaking chowderbrain who is ripe for the plucking. However, I did get one email from a guy who assured me that he was an honest Lawyer and a Pastor (and the Son of a World Banker and a Nun), and that he wasn’t like all those other spammers – so I’m pretty sure he must have been legit. Too bad that just after he had “made the deposit into my account” the world went into global recession and I ended up having to pay thousands of dollars due to the decayed exchange rate. But I’m sure that when I hear from him again he’ll have some good news for me.

Then there’s all those spam-marketeers out there who want to sell me various products to enhance my sex life; everything from instant size enhancers, Chemco and Windex’s Mexican Viagra, and Chernobyl-born eleven toed mutant-wives. And I’d like to know why these people think that I'm in such desperate need for some kind of physical gentlemen's enhancement, a box of blue chemical and asbestos prolongenaide capsules, or a radiated Ukrainian Geiger-mistress. Who have they been talking to? I just find it all a little too much – and now I have a headache. Luckily Chemco and Windex also sell Turkish vicodin (with the concrete adhesive powder base) because that’s something I could actually use.

So having failed to interest me in billions of dollars of unnoticeably misplaced funds or a variety of sexually orientated products designed to improve all aspects of my apparent inadequacy, what are the spammers going to offer me next? Answer: Downloadable products; movies, satellite TV, music, games, the latest software and instant access to Candy’s Bootycall (I’m not sure what that last one is but apparently it’s a “trusted site” and I was “recommended by a friend”).

But in all honesty, I don’t want these downloadable products. I mean, the movies aren’t exactly your everyday romantic comedies where Julia Roberts meets boring English twat for coffee, croissant and a box of tissues. Oh no, these are the alternative versions where Julia Double D meets Eric Shaun for a romp, roll and… well you get the picture. And it’s the same with the Satellite TV except for the other channels where they show really old movies that Ted Turner hasn't coloured in yet, or endless repeats of that tired old American sitcom Falcon's Crest. The music is all that free legal crap – so it’s all been uploaded by a bunch of self-recorded, talentless wannabe nobodies. The games and software are all derivatives of Pac-Man and Office 97 (except for the ones that are actual pirated copies of derivatives of Pac-Man and Office 97). And Candy’s Bootycall… Well, I’m still not sure what that one is but I do need to check it out given that I was “recommended by a friend”.

So come on you guys – can the spam! Nobody wants it. No-one wants to buy a genuine fake Rolex, a credit card with no limit, a half-share in a winning lottery ticket, or an orphaned child from a war-torn third world dictatorship. People don’t need to hear that they are sexually dysfunctional or that someone had to die a terrible and tragic death so that they could be offered a quarter of the world’s currency-in-circulation. It’s time to face the facts and switch it off so that we can just get on and check our own emails!!!

Now… let's see what this Candy’s Bootycall site is all about?...

...That’s what I think… And usually I’m right.

Killing Me Softly With Glee Songs

Remember the TV programme ‘Lost’? Like it went on for God knows how long – six seasons I think – and you were either totally obsessed (beyond all measures of sanity and decorum) by it or you were like the rest of us - normal. And the only difference between the totally obsessed fan and the rest of us was that while both had no idea what the &%#$*^ was going on, the totally obsessed fan would spend eighteen hours a day trying to figure it out and then go on line to post their ponderings.

I even remember that there was a thread on my workplace intranet dedicated to the final series of ‘Lost’. And all these ‘Lost’ obsessed geeks were writing posts where they tried to out predict each other about what would happen in the final episode. I thought the whole thing was so completely ‘out there’ that one day I wrote and submitted a sarcastic post where I suggested that the ‘Lost’ characters would find Gilligan and the Professor who would help them build a blue telephone box and disguise it as a time machine that they could use to escape to New York with Kurt Russell just in time to find out that ‘Lost’ character Jack Shepherd was, in actual fact, Darth Vader’s second child. Confused? Well so was the plonker who wrote in wanting to know if I got my information from a reliable source!!!

But this Blog isn’t really about ‘Lost’ because fortunately they’re no longer lost, they’re just archived for eternity – and boy, aren’t we grateful about that? No, this Blog is about the new obsession that seems to have replaced it – ‘Glee’.

I mean now there’s internet sites dedicated to fans who want to write in and tell us all how wonderful and meaningful the show is – how it saves lives, helps sociopaths to overcome adversity and eliminates third world poverty. You can already buy the first series on DVD and Blue Ray with bonus cast interviews and hundreds of hours of special features. And I’ve recently heard that SONY are developing a Playstation Sing Star version of the show.

Notwithstanding that the other day I read about a local University that is starting its own Glee club. I mean, for goodness sake, do we really want the leaders of tomorrow bursting into song every time a critical decision needs to be made? Like, we’ll all go to the Polls come election time in 2014 and vote for the candidate who can do the best rendition of “the hills are alive…”.

 

And what is this ‘Glee’ phenomenon all about? What is its inherent purpose, its philosophical underpinnings?

#&%@*& if I know!!!! It’s just God damned awful!

But it’s everywhere. Jolie and Pitt, Aniston, the Beckhams, Hiltons, Geldofs and Royals – they’ve all been cast aside from their front cover positions to be replaced by ‘Glee’. Batman, Spiderman, Bob the Builder and the Little Mermaid have all lost their primary status on our children’s lunchboxes due to the show. And every time you go to Itunes to download a classic song they recommend that you might also like the Glee-a-fied cover version. Someone even sent me a You-Tube of the Queen classic ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ the other day, suggesting that “You just have to hear this version from Glee”.

I reckon you can just go off some people, eh?

Like, I was at a friend’s house for dinner the other night. It was a great evening. We’d had a nice meal, some good wine, excellent coffee – the most brilliant company… You know, one of those perfect evenings where you just sit back, relax and enjoy yourselves.

Then, at half eight the hostess says “let’s put Glee on”.

Well after I spat a mouthful of beer across their beautifully piled shag, I seriously questioned their sanity. But it was my sanity that was about to come unstuck. That’s because even before I could begin my pleas and protests they had switched it on – and tonight was GaGa and Kiss night. Can you imagine the places that took me – listening to the Glee team yodel Bad Romance and whimper Shout It Out Loud? Like, how do you recover from that?

And despite the fact that I was convulsing on the end of my friend’s sofa, an obvious case of traumatic exposure, they allowed the whole episode to play out. So I also had to endure a touching mother/daughter crucifixion of Poker Face and a desperate attempt from the guys to portray irony through their tortured rendition of Beth. And all I kept thinking was “find your happy place… find your happy place… find your happy place”.

It apparently took paramedics twenty five minutes to stabilize me before I could be transported to the local hospital. It took another two days before doctors could get the medication balance right and feel confident about my safe reintegration back into society. I have since written to the Broadcast Standards Authority demanding that a health warning be televised prior to each weekly screening of ‘Glee’, but I haven’t as yet had a reply.

In the meantime, I’m at home recuperating. So I’ve just hired out the entire collection of ‘Lost’ from my local DVD store. And do you know what?...

… I think I’ve figured it out…

…But that’s for another time.

That’s what I think… and usually I’m right.

Twilight and Avatar: Isn't anything scary anymore?

Whatever happened to those things that went bump in the night and scared the bejeezus out of us? You know, when we were young every kid had a big fury monster under their bed, a pumpkin-headed snow monster tapping outside their window and a sibling whose head would spin 360 degrees just before he/she projectile vomited green demon sludge at the nearest iconic symbol of religious significance. Like, when we were kids things that were supposed to be scary were actually scary, and when we were meant to be scared we were ‘wet your pants and cry for your momma’ scared.

Anyway, I don’t know if it’s a result of all this political correctness bollocks or just some passive tiredness in the minds and imaginations of our authors and film makers, but everything that was ever scary when I was a kid is so mundane and ‘blousy’ today.

Take vampires for instance. I remember as a kid watching the Friday night scare-fests. I remember seeing Christopher Lee in The Satanic Rites of Dracula and thinking ‘Crikey, that’s bloody scary!’ Then there was Bram Stoker’s Dracula, followed much later by Interview with a Vampire, the Blade and Underworld films, Van Helsing and 30 Days of Night. Even the teenie vamp films Fright Night and The Lost Boys, with their irreverent attempts to satirise the genre, had an air of eerie about them.

So what’s all this mind-numbing senseless tripe they call the Twilight saga? Like these vampires aren’t very scary are they? For a start, they’re all vegans!!! Who ever heard of a vegan vampire? Even Wesley Snipes (who, let's face it, has always been a wisdom tooth short of a full bite) had the common sense not to go there. But it’s worse than that, because Twilight vampires are also mostly angst-riddled and depressed teenage vampires – so they mope about and complain a lot just like Emos – only the Twilight vamps don’t cut themselves like Emos do because that would be ‘sooo eeeyeeew!!’ Like, there’d be blood and pain and stuff involved and Twilight vampires don’t really like blood and pain and stuff, they only like hair products and playing baseball.

Apparently they're already making the fourth film in the series; Breaking Dawn. Previously we’ve had Twilight, New Moon and Eclipse. Now I can see a bit of a cyclic pattern here…

… and an opportunity to rescue the series – they should entitle the fifth film Mid-Morning Brunch and all will be saved (except for maybe poor Bella – she’d likely be the brunch). But until then, the only thing that’s really scary about a Twilight movie is that it’s rated PG 13 but there’s never any more than three pubic hairs in the whole cinema while it’s screening.

Now that we’ve suggested a way to save the ailing vampire reputation, what’s happening to aliens? I mean, again when I was a kid the master aliens were always so God-damned shut-your-eyes-and-pull-the-blanket-over-your-head scary. Like, Doctor Who’s Daleks were the scariest thing I ever saw – I had nightmares about them. Daleks were scarier than when Grandma would lick a tissue and wipe food from your face in public – and that was really scary. And then there was Darth Vader from the Star Wars franchise, the Klingons and Borgs from Star Trek, Stargate’s Goa'uld, Ming the Merciless (Flash Gordon), Arnie’s Predator and Terminator (although technically the Terminator is not an Alien but a future human technology) and Sigourney’s Aliens. And they all had those famously scary one liner’s: “Exterminate”, “Welcome to the Dark Side”, “I’ll be Back” and “Glik! Glik! Gurrrrrrgle! Screeeeeeeeech!!!”

"Danger Will Robinson, Danger..." (and yes, I heard you doing the voice)

Anyway, Steven Spielberg was the first to undermine the scariness of Aliens by creating something akin to the yellow and green Teletubby. He called his little hamburger patty look-alike ET the Extraterrestrial. “Phone home, phone home, phone home…” ET would say. I’ll give you phone home Mr. Spielberg!!! Go phone your Creative Imagination Consultant and book an appointment for a triple lobotomy you thrill-stifling bubblegum retailer!

But since Spielberg gnaffed the fun out of Aliens we’ve had all manner of cutsie-wootsie star hoppers invading our screen-space (what the hell was Men In Black and District 9 all about for crying out loud?). And the latest of these has to be the most farcical of them all: Avatar. I mean, here we have a bunch of pretty smurf-coloured nature loving hippy critters living in a giant tree house for God’s sake. And the hero, their ultimate leader, isn’t even an alien as it turns out. Rather, he’s a miserable winey ex-army grunt in a wheelchair with a colostomy bag full of Jack Daniels who’s out to stifle progress and save a planet by lying in a sunbed and playing on his Xbox 360. And the worst thing is that he achieves victory by mirroring the plot from Kevin Costner’s Dancing with Wolves while dedicating the final scene to a re-enactment of Custer’s last stand at Wounded Knee.

"Them there ain't no Aliens God darn it! Them there is Injuns!!!"

So a crippled alcoholic blue-faced tree-hugging hippie-cowboy is our current representation of an extraterrestrial life form? Oh pleeeee-aaaase!!! Beam me up Scotty!

I could go on – poltergeists have been Casper-cised, monsters have been Pixared, and everything else that had even a vague hint of scariness in my childhood has since been Harry Potterfied. The point is that thanks to films like Twilight and Avatar, everything that’s fun has now been sapped out of my favourite scary things. So where will I go to now to get my thrills and spills? What can I turn to that will make me want to cower behind the couch and cry like a little girl whose ginger kitten Fluffy was just eaten by the neighbour’s Rottweiler? What am I to do?

I wonder when I’m next due for a trip to the Dentist?

That’s what I think… And usually I’m right.