Drinking

 

 

When I was 15, me and my friend, lets call him Tim, were at a BBQ at a friends house in Marrickville. His folks were away so maybe ten of us were hanging out in his house and drinking and eating sausages on white bread with tomato sauce. I had a bottle of gin, which I probably stole off my Mum (sorry about that Mum). Tim and I decided to drink the entire bottle, shot for shot, until it was gone. We went out the back, sat down with a shot glass each and finished the bottle in twenty minutes.

 

Next thing I remember was laying in the park down the road in a pool of my own vomit. There were kids playing sport and people walking their dogs. It was about 4pm. Not cool.

 

Some of my mates are down there looking after me/laughing at me. One guy who turned up late, lets call him Mark, rocks up to the park and starts laughing at me. He then says ‘Hi Jasper’ . I didn’t like his tone or the fact I was being ridiculed for being in a park in broad daylight, laying in a pool of my own vomit. I was too fucked up to tell him so I picked up a scoop of vomit in my hand hurled it towards him.

 

Now that was the first and last time I ever did anything like that. Not only did I feel like shit when I woke up because I had drunk so much in such a short period of time with no practice, I also was appalled that I would throw vomit at a friend. The shame was quite awful. Knowing I was passed out in a public park on a Sunday afternoon laying in a pool of my own vomit was nothing in comparison. This was a lesson I needed to learn. Throwing vomit at a friend for laughing at you because you are a fucking idiot is not only mean and inconsiderate it’s also really gross because you wake up with vomit encrusted hands. Its foul. Don’t do it.

 

I have been horrifically drunk many times since then. I have even thrown up on occasion. But one thing is for sure, I have never gotten that drunk since I was 15.

 

People need to learn lessons through experience. If someone can’t learn their lessons when it comes to drinking then they shouldn’t be allowed to drink. Instead of showing you are over 18 with a drivers license you should show an alcohol license if you want to buy booze. Of course there are ways to get around it (get someone else to buy it for you being the most obvious) but it might end up solving a lot of problems.

 

In Australia we are treated like children when it comes to drinking and when people get treated like children they tend to act like them too.

 

Let people make their own mistakes and punish them when they do. Don’t semi-punish everyone first and then properly punish them when they actually do something wrong. It’s a bad attitude and it makes everyone behave like jerks.

 

But anyway enough about that, I have decided to make a list of the top 5 drinks you shouldn’t drink and why. This is based entirely on my experience so please don’t be offended if you like to, for example, go to a bar on a Friday night and order a nice warm pint of Black Sambuca. I get it, different strokes for different folks.

 

Anyway here it is. My gift to you. Thank me later..

 

  1. Black Sambuca; One shot, regardless of how many drinks I have, will make me vomit. Absolute poison, don’t understand why anyone would drink it.
  2. Jamiesons: It’s the only alcoholic beverage that genuinely makes me fighty. McNulty from The Wire drinks it and look at him.
  3. Any kind of cheap, white tequila: Again this stuff makes me want to hurl. Patron is nice but I’m talking about that $25 a bottle shit. Well nasty. It feels like paint thinner inside your stomach.
  4. Red Goon: I spent like 4 months drinking nothing but red goon. Pretty shitty time. Tastes like the devils diaper. I get myself into trouble when I drink the sweet stuff.
  5. Jack Daniels and Coke: If I go out and drink JD and Coke all night I will wake up the next day with the worst hangover you can possibly get. The amount of sugar and whiskey involved makes you feel slightly perky at night but the next day you feel like you are going through chemo and you probably won’t survive. Nasty. Should be illegal.

OLYMPICS UPDATE (sad state of Australian sport)

I know that the Olympics have only been going for a few days but one thing is becoming pretty clear to me. Australian sport aint what it used to be.

At work tonight we had the (supremely shitty) Channel 9 Olympic coverage on. Channels 9 have decided to fuck off all the interesting contests and sports to just focus on what the Australians are doing. Tonight we got a little bit of swimming, some kayaking, a few minutes of boxing, a nice helping of water polo and a proper drenching in the diving pool. The once mighty Australia got beaten in everything except the water polo where last time I checked we were winning against the water polo powerhouse that is Kazakhstan. It was some shameful shit. Our boxing hopeful was some Ginger Meggs look alike who took an absolute hiding from some Cuban kid. We were completely outclassed in the pool and the diving was wicked embarrassing to watch. When did Mexico becoming a stronger diving nation than us? Why is this happening? *

*Note: I have no idea about the world of diving but as an Australian who grew up in the land of plenty where we ate what we wanted and won everything all the time, I feel we should be better at synchronized diving than a country who are in the grips of a civil war between the army and a bunch of drug cartels. Just saying. That being said, I have seen Fun In Acapulco with Elvis Presley a few times and it turns out Mexico has some of the finest al fresco divers in the world, so what the hell do I know?

What really shat me off about 9’s coverage of The Games of the Thirtieth Olympiad was how much time they have dedicated to fucking equestrian. Apparently Australia were doing okay in it so the good clueless folk down at Channel 9 thought they would dedicate hours upon hours of air time towards a sport only rich white cunts like. Prince William and his sweet thang were in the fucking audience! Its good to know where your priorities lie 9. I understand you are all a bunch of rich, white, racist evil pieces of shit but please just for one hour play us some fucking gymnastics because equestrian is fucking BORING.

I do want to give massive props to China who seem to have prepared well for the event. It’s great how all the years of manufacturing perfect specimen in secret labs in the Himalayas then grooming them to excel in one thing for the rest of their lives has paid off. Is that what we did with Shane Warne? I really hope we did.

Speaking of Warnie, we suck at cricket too now. And rugby. We have Mark Webber and Casey Stoner but they drive things so they don’t count. We don’t have shit for sporting heroes these days but these things come and go like an ovarian cycle or the sound of an ice cream truck on a summers day. We had it for too good for too long and now we are just like everyone else. Shithouse. Someone in this country either needs to start winning something or we need to start a war with someone. Either way it cant go on for too long, people are gonna start getting upset.

Oh just one other thing, Black Caviar is a fucking horse. For people to get excited over a horse is mega retarded. If you have instigated more than three conversations with people about Black Caviar you are either a problem gambler or a moron of such epic proportions you should probably never talk or operate any basic machinery ever again. Peace.

LONDON 2012 OPENING CEREMONY REVIEW

I think I have just witnessed perhaps the most incredible, mind-bending spectacle I have ever witnessed in all my years watching TV. I think I need to pinch myself just to make sure I am still living in reality. I think I just witnessed an Olympic Opening Ceremony which didn’t suck.

Last night I was all ‘nah fuck it I’m not getting up at 5am to watch the opening ceremony’. My girlfriend’s mum recorded it anyway and we got up and started watching it at the very civilized hour of 10am. Perhaps the coffee and decent nights sleep contributed to my enjoyment of this event. I really don’t know what it was but they fucking nailed it.

Lets start with the performance at the beginning. I believe they were going for a timeline of British history. There were people dancing around in fields and playing cricket on the village green. Village girls in frocks prancing around picking flowers or whatever it is they did pre-industrial revolution. That was all very nice and quaint. All of a sudden these enormous drums started. The village greens started disappearing and huge towers were being built to the soundtrack of machine gun drums and gigantic choirs. Milton’s Paradise Lost got a few minutes. Molten steel was being oozed around the middle of the stadium with workers (dancers) bashing it into the shape of the Olympic rings. I know my quick capsule review of this doesn’t do it justice but it was all very spectacular. When I say spectacular I mean it in the nicest possible way, not in a Rock Eisteddfod schools spectacular kind of way.

It wasn’t just a big celebration of Industry. Chicks got some bigups too with a section of the performance dedicated to the Suffragettes. This was partly to signify that the UK invented freethinking ladies and also that the Saudi’s have found it in themselves to let a woman be an Olympian. This massive backflip by the Saudis means now all countries have at least one female competitor which is crazy considering its 2012 and Australia have had women competing in the Olympics for over a century.

There was a bit about World War 1 which was super epic. A bit where a whole bunch of people dressed up as The Beatles came out and marched around as if to say ‘hey look, The Beatles were from England’. Then a whole bunch of black guys with suitcases danced out onto the arena symbolizing West Indian immigration to the UK. This part of the performance was a super expensive choreographed timeline of selected parts of English history. It was a visual banquet and executed with incredible precision and taste.

Act two involves a video of Daniel Craig playing James Bond going to Buckingham Palace to pick up the Queen and bring her to the stadium. After watching the entire opening ceremony I have now decided I really don’t like the Queen and I think she is a total bitch. She wasn’t very nice to James Bond and when the entire Great Britain team marched out she was seen frowning and looking at her fingernails. Seriously, if you don’t want to be there give the job to Charles. He wants it, you don’t. Simple.

Anyway the James Bond bit was cool because it showed the world the beauty and energy of London in the summertime while 007 & QE2 fly above the city in a chopper. It was silly but a bit of fun at the same time.

Now here is where things start to get a bit juicy. I started to get the impression that perhaps this wasn’t just a performance showing the world that Great Britain was still a strong nation but it was also a proper ‘fuck you’ to America. There was literally a song and dance about the NHS with the voiceover (read off a script by our own Eddie Maguire) explaining that no country can leave a sick person untreated and call themselves civilized. This was only one example throughout the entire opening ceremony where I got a sense that American attitudes and values were being targeted in the name of fair play, good times, Englishness and the Olympics. As someone who finds a lot of American attitudes repulsive and a poor representation on humanity I found this underlying message refreshing.

Later on in the ceremony after all the Mary Poppins, JK Rowing, Mike Oldfield, Mr. Bean, Chariots Of Fire kiddie bullshit came the celebration of youth culture in the UK. There was a narrative about a girl who loses her phone and then some dude finds it and gives it back to her and they start making out (which is just Britain telling the world that their girls are proper easy). The narrative and dance routine incorporates British pop music from the 60’s to today. The Beatles, The Who, Bowie, Zeppelin, Sex Pistols, New Order, Happy Mondays, The Prodigy, Underworld, Blur and a live performance by Dizzee Rascal all featured. Also I might be wrong but I swear all the performers were taking photos and texting off iPhone 5’s. I assume what they were trying to say is that nobody comes close to Britain in the realm of pop music. Oh and they later said they invented the Internet. How d’ya like them apples America?

After the hyperactive orgy of ‘yoof culture’ there was a hymn dedicated to the absent spectators who should have been there and then a dance number about dead children which was a total downer and really didn’t need to happen. For all its depressing qualities it was still brilliantly done and didn’t really look out of place.

Now that they had bummed out about 3 billion people I think they assumed this would be a good time to bring the athletes out. I got my fashionista on to pass judgment on the uniforms so here are some selections. I fast-forwarded from D-U though so sorry about that (perhaps if I was being paid for this I would have watched it all but Sophie had to go to Brazilian BBQ and I had to write this before it became old news).

Australia – Naff but not as naff as the uniforms have been in the past. Lauren Jackson is a bit of a fox for a total genetic freak of nature.

Albania – All looked like weightlifters and pickpockets.

American Samoa – Dressed like they were at some APEC summit.

Aruba – 1980’s Cabin Crew.

Angola – Lovely.

Argentina – Looked very blue and didn’t get booed which was nice.

Bahrain – Aladdin swag.

Barbados – Egg yellow shirts and orange ties. Like a boss.

Bhutan – Well snazzy.

Brazil – Nice pants/skirts. Cabin crew potential.

Bulgaria – Insane!

Cameroon – Their uniforms look like they were made from pop tarts and candy.

Canada – Boring.

Central African Republic – Nice bowties.

China – I want one of those jackets.

USA – Look very nice in a psychotic kind of way.

Great Britain – Looked like 80’s Elton John but on more cocaine and less shame.

Anyway there were flying bikes, Arctic Monkeys, lovely speeches and Mohammad Ali reminding us all about the dangers of being punched in the head for a living. The multiple person torch lighting was nice too.

The whole ceremony was done fantastically well by some clearly very talented and organized people. I love how proud the English can still be after everything (going broke, losing the empire, David Cameron, getting rained on all day) and how they still know how to make Americans look retarded.

Now let the games begin!

ON SOCIAL NETWORKS (An Awkward History)

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So the Olympics start tomorrow. I promised I would write more about them but like the hippy in the shitty 80s teen movie I just want to freak you put and mess with your minds a bit. That’s why I have decided my pre opening ceremony blog will not be about how teary I get when I see someone from a war torn shithole win gold for weightlifting or how excited I am to see Blur play at the closing ceremony. This post is about social networking on the Internet. Deal with it.

The first time I ever used some kind of social networking app was towards the end of the 20th century. It was ICQ and I was about 14. I would spend hours on it talking to girls I didn’t have the balls to speak to in person. I was a very awkward teenager. When I see teenage boys with any modicum of swagger I instantly assume they are future Patrick Bateman’s and if they don’t get offered the cha cha cha they’ll take it anyway. Basically I was so insecure and afraid of rejection that to approach any girl in the cold reality of real life was way too much of an ask. ICQ was the perfect outlet for the awkward and horny teenager. One could chat to a girl you kind of knew and it felt natural because you are at home and you don’t need to think about how you look, sound or act.

For those who never used ICQ it was just a chat device. Exactly the same as Facebook Chat but it looked like shit and it was prone to spam attacks. After a while I started using MSN messenger and that was far more user friendly. By the MSN days I had lost my man virginity and didn’t really feel those old inhibitions holding me back. MSN became more of a communication tool I would use to keep in touch with people I had met on internet forums and through various blogs I was writing for. It was simple and spam free and it didn’t look like a truckers jizz rag.

Anyway that all happened for a while and everyone was happy. One could make friends on the Internet and keep in touch with them through an instant messenger program or you could simply chat with friends and relatives without the use of a phone.

Then the darkness came.

MYSPACE.

It was a whole new thing. Public profiles with music and different colours and all that nonsense which just seems silly now. People could express who they really were online. Hell they even made you rank your friends, which is something to this day I find really perverse. Everyone did it though. Even me.

Everyone would volunteer personal information just so they could give an idea of themselves to people. Marital status, age, favourite bands, movies and quotes and all that. People wanted to show off how cool and awesome they were. You could even get sweet wallpapers to ‘pimp’ your site.

MySpace was cool for a while until Facebook came along and destroyed it. Facebook took the ‘social network’ elements of MySpace and expanded on it while making the layout much faster and a hell of a lot nicer to look at. Some people (former MySpace users) accused Facebook of lacking personality but those were the dickheads with the zebra print background image and their top 22 friends ranked in order from BBBFF to BBFF to BFF to just F, so we’ll forget about them. Facebook’s success is purely down to the fact that it became so popular. People the world over were frantically taking down pictures of themselves jacking meth into their eyeballs two years ago because their parents or grandparents just joined up. Everyone was on it and if they have known you at some stage in life (they didn’t have to like you) then you were socially obliged to be friends with them. It became the done thing. Again most people volunteered their personal info (relationship status, age, locale) as well as hundreds and hundreds of random photos. Basically the CIA’s wettest, filthiest dreams come true.

In my experience the worst thing about Facebook is the plethora of awkward social situations that would never have normally happened in the good old days are now just a click away. I shudder to think how many fights occur on Facebook Chat or how many people can have their dirty laundry sniffed and caressed by several hundred friends and acquaintances. Oh yeah and the cyber bullying people are always on about. It’s not cool. At the risk of sounding like some zit faced Orwell fan, Orwell predicted something like this. It’s happening and its worse than anyone ever imagined!

Anyway so I currently use Facebook and I feel it has become a necessity in my life in the same way having a mobile phone is a necessity. For all its fucked up evils, Facebook is a great communication tool.

Twitter on the other hand I see as a much more enjoyable indulgence.

If you want to see what your best buds, lets call them Travis and Skeeter, got up to on their recent trip to Cancun or whatever, use Facebook. If you want to hear Salman Rushdie’s opinions on American gun laws or read stupid shit footballers say then use Twitter.

NOTE: Also seems to work if you are a rapper and you want to sell your new line of alcoholic sorbets/condoms/iPad cases etc.

I enjoy twitter because I prefer the format of following people rather than being socially obligated to be ‘friends’ with people you couldn’t give two shits about (nobody in particular incase any of my Facebook friends are reading and think what I’m saying is about them, its not.)

Twitter also allows you to be part of conversations which nobody but people of the same interests need to follow as opposed to a Facebook newsfeed where you just have anything posted put in front of you just because someone you know has posted it.  That being said, the Facebook newsfeed is an amazing tool to have if you want to detect racists, lunatics or psychopaths among people you know. I should start a Facebook group called ‘That moment when you think you know someone and you think they are ok then they post some shit about “wishing the fuckin chinks would fuck right off” on their Facebook status and you notice that you are friends with proper racists’. Maybe not. Not very catchy is it?

Where social networking will be in five years is a mystery only time can solve. However if history is to be a guide then we are mega fucked. You will be able to live inside Facebook and Twitter and Facebook and Twitter will live inside all of us as if it were a vital organ. Your heart will miss a beat every single time a promoter for a club you don’t even like in a completely different city invites you to something you are completely not interested in going to. Your mind will throb every time someone posts a video proving Nicki Minaj is Illuminati. Personally a tear will fall from my eye every time someone likes a photo of something funny just because a stranger told them to like it. Oh I could go on but it just makes me sad…

RAP SKITS

So I was looking through my list of things I really can’t quite understand this morning. This list does not physically exist it just lives inside my brain and is constantly edited. Some things only appear on this list for a few minutes, others a few months, others are completely forgotten about so they are deleted and others have been there for years. I decided to flick to that page to see if I could cross anything off. Yep, I kind of understand genocide as means to maintain power. Genocide is off then. The Pope excusing child molesters? Yeah, well, it’s a P.R thing and they are a massive business so although its wrong I still get why. Kim Kardashian? Well she’s rich and American so she has the right to be famous apparently. Her time in the spotlight will run out and it is going to be ugly but yes, I understand why she is there now kinda…Anyway..

I kept scrolling down and I found an entry on this list of things I cannot explain. It’s been there since I was a kid and no matter how much I have thought about it I could never understand why these things exist.

Rap skits.

I think the first rap skit I remember hearing was the one before G’s and Hustlas by Snoop Dogg (or as he was known then, Snoop Diggety Doggedy Douglas). As far as skits go its pretty funny. It you don’t know it then you didn’t grow up in the early 90s. The skit involves a teacher asking his pupils what they want to be when they grow up. One says he wants to be a police officer, the other says fireman. He finally asks a young Snoop (who apparently has always rocked chucks and braids, even as a nipper) what he wants to be. Lil Snoop tells this teacher he wants to be a ‘motherfucking hustler’. The song that follows is brilliant and the skit is an acceptable intro to it but that was my first brush with the skits on rap records. Its been a frustrating, embarrassing and very rarely fruitful relationship ever since.

For those who aren’t really au fait with the skit on a rap record I will explain. Unlike artists of other genres hip hop artists are prone to making albums which stretch for the entire duration of a cd. Of course being rappers they have an inflated sense of self worth and find it hard to separate the wheat from the chaff. Some artists believe it’s a good idea to express their comedic side in the form of a vocal skit, similar to something one would hear on the wireless in 1935 just with more profanity. As far as I know the skit has gone out of fashion a bit but there are many albums I still listen to which are unfortunately home to some of the more piss poor attempts at humour ever created.

I just want to also make it clear that I adore hip hop and that even if some of the artists I mention here are rubbish comedians they have bought me many hours of listening pleasure and I completely respect what they do when they aren’t trying to be Eddie Murphy.

SLUM VILLAGE – ONCE UPON A TIME

If there was ever example of a phenomenal track being pissed on by the skit that comes directly after it, it has to be Once Upon A Time by Slum Village. The song itself is incredible. The immaculate production by J Dilla (or Jazzy Dizzy Detreezy as he was known then) features one of the smoothest bass lines one is likely to ever hear over a bed of weird gamelan xylophone. The problem comes after the song when the skit begins. The concept behind the skit is they are doing an infomercial about a cd where Louis Armstrong sings a whole bunch of classic songs. It consists of someone doing a really bad Louis Armstrong impersonation, some karaoke backing tracks and a really fucking weak concept. It really, really stinks. It’s not funny and it makes you embarrassed for them because they thought it was a good idea. The worst thing about it is the quality of the music on the album Fantastic Vol 2 is enormous. The production is so tight and the vocals, although a little stupid at times, are delivered with confidence and supreme flow. Why Slum Village thought putting this unfunny, retarded, piece of hip hip vaudeville on the record is beyond me. Maybe I’m the idiot?

BUSTA RHYMES – SO HARDCORE

Every rapper big rapper in the 1990s until about 2005 seemed to have skits on their record. The skit was embraced by the East Coast and West Coast alike. For all their beef, one thing Puff and Suge could agree on was the importance of a good skit. Everyone had them in one form or another. Dre, Snoop, 2pac, Biggie, Eminem and Busta Rhymes. Busta loved a good skit. The one at the end of So Hardcore is a personal favourite. Unlike Once Upon A Time the skit seems to lead into another song hence providing the album with a plot, albeit a stupid one. It has someone impersonating an Indian fellow driving a taxi in it. Now I know this sounds racist but it’s OK because it’s Black people impersonating Indians that as a white man I have no right to comment on. “Well what about Mahatma Cote?” I hear you cry. ‘Not cool’ says I. Mahatma Cote was a white man pretending to be Indian in a really kind of racist, blackface, channel 9 sort of way. Only Indians and Busta Rhymes are allowed to find him funny. Just so you know..

I do believe, if done well, skits can be extremely funny. I think Kool Keith is a master of the skit. Doom does a nice job too. He doesn’t show off too much but still realized an intermission can be an essential thing. Some skits can even be quite clever, but that doesn’t happen much. Some albums, Guilty Simpson’s Madlib collab O.J Simpson for instance, although a great album it has too many skits. Even if the skits are intelligent and high quality. Even if the skit involved Bill Hicks and Richard Pryor discussing the best way to ingest cocaine while at a circus owned and operated by Karl Stefanovic. Even if the skit (probably on a late Mike Skinner record) contains the ten steps on peace and love on earth. If there are more than two skits on an album then you need to start culling. I’m talking to you Eminem! You still ain’t wrote me back btw, what’s up with that?

Anyway I guess my two cents on skits is they can be funny and worth listening to occasionally but rappers should start having some class and trying to trim the fat off their albums. Skits can only damage your reputation. If your music is good then you do what you do well, if the skits are good too it doesn’t really matter as much because nobody is listening to your album for the skits anyway and if your skits are lame and not funny you’re entire artistic output becomes suspect because there is documented evidence that you are actually retarded and everything you have done is a fluke. Still mad love to Busta and Dilla tho..

OLYMPICS PART ONE

Well the Olympics are just around the corner and I for one am somewhat excited. I find the Olympics to be a lot of fun. All the clichés about glory and prowess are all true. If I didn’t have better things to do I would stay home for the whole fortnight and watch everything I could.

 

In 2008 I did just that. I had been struck down by a very nasty flu just as the Beijing Games begun. I was between houses, unemployed, newly single and crashing at my folks place. I spent days on the couch and nights either on the couch or in bed. Although this might not sound like the ideal position one could be in in life, it was perfect for me. The 29th Summer Olympiad was starting and I had nothing better to do (except look for a job and move out of my parents place).

 

I got into quite a few sports I hadn’t normally though much about. Gymnastics was one of them. How humans could achieve these massive feats of agility and strength while others (me) were laying on the couch was kind of inspiring. I also really got into the rowing. I don’t really know why it sucked me in as much as it did but I think it had something to do with the grace the boat glides through the water. It’s like a swan if a swan was controlled by humans and went really fucking fast. It was also kind of Roman; these men had purpose and looked a bit gay.

 

Of course I followed the sports I had developed an interest in during past Olympics. Athletics, Swimming and Diving always get my attention. In 2008 we had Michael Phelps in the pool who was a total freak. Stephanie Rice was great too even though it was a bit creepy how almost all straight Aussie men did the whole time she was in the spotlight was talk about how much they wanted to root her. Usain Bolt was next level on the track too. A delight to watch.

 

The 100m sprint is the Olympics most popular event and for good reason. There are no stroke restrictions or handicaps like other sports and events. It is the shortest distance in Olympic running. As it requires no equipment except for legs and a will to win, it is open to everyone regardless of income. The event determines every four years who the fastest man/woman in the world is. No biggie.

 

I always dug Linford Christie as a kid, and not just because he had a sick name. When I was seven and the Barcelona Olympics were on he made me feel like a winner just watching him. Donovan Bailey not so much (I think it’s because he is Canadian and I find it hard getting excited about Canada, not racist or anything I just cant do it for some reason). Marion Jones got me all giddy during the Sydney games but it turns out she was a filthy drug cheat. The fact that went undetected for like seven years was a pretty good effort in itself though. She should be given some sort of prize for that right?

 

Olympic football is bullshit and a total waste of everyone’s time. Nobody gives a shit except people who only watch football and have no interest in any other sports. Basically for those who aren’t clued up on the politics of Association Football (Soccer to Howards Australia) it goes like this: Football is run internationally by a governing body called FIFA. FIFA are based in a titanium bunker located exactly six Gregorian miles into the Earths Core. They are run by an ex Nazi war criminal with a penchant for young Moroccan boys called Sepp “Number One” Blatter. Now SS Blatter cares not for the IOC (International Olympic Committee) and does not allow them the rights to any of the full international teams. FIFA only allows teams participating in the Olympics to have three players aged over 23 years. This automatically means the football competition at the Olympic games is cheapened and all the glory is saved up for the World Cup, which to FIFA’s credit is always amazing and completely worth the wait.

 

Football shouldn’t be an Olympic sport because every single player would rather win the World Cup than an Olympic gold medal. If they say otherwise they are liars. The same goes for Tennis.

 

The Olympics should be about stuff people don’t usually watch. Sports that men and women train their entire lives for but only get attention for it a couple of weeks every four years, and that’s if they are lucky enough to participate in two Olympic Games.

 

I cant wait to pretend I know what I’m talking about while watching Javelin, to marvel at how far back from the table the Table Tennis guys are and to see how fucking naff the opening ceremony is going to be. It should be a good couple of weeks.

 

Olympics part two coming soon…

 

SHANIA TWAIN IN THE MEMBRANE/COMPETITION!

There is a song which gets stuck in my head at least once a month. It happens even if I haven’t heard the song in ages. The song is Shania Twain’s ‘classic’ That Don’t Impress Me Much. I’m even getting lines like ‘So you’re Brad Pitt’ and ‘Uh Uh U-Uuuh’ stabbing me in the head just writing about it. It’s not the only song which does this to me but it the main one. It’s been happening ever since it came out. Sometimes I wake up in the morning and the first thing which enters into my head is ‘Okay, so you’re a rocket scientist’. I can’t explain it. I have never really made a point of listening to it. I don’t really rate any of Shania Twain’s back catalogue. The song is just disgusting catchy to me. Like Pneumonia to a frail old man in a dirty Siberian hospital as soon as it comes into contact with my brain I can’t shake it for ages and ages. It doesn’t end up killing me but it does drive me insane. Perhaps it’s more like Syphilis.

That Don’t Impress Me Much popped in for one of its regular visits today when I was waiting for a bus. God knows why. It initially made me think about what Shania Twain is up to these days. Last I heard she caught her husband (clearly not Brad Pitt, a car owner or a rocket scientist) shagging the maid. She then went and married the maid’s husband and now she is happy as a pig in shit again. Go Girl!

After thinking about the CRAZY white trash exploits of Ms. Twain I started thinking about why my brain allows for this one song to pop into my consciousness every few weeks for absolutely no reason. What is it about this one particular song? I know other people have songs which unexpectedly rock up drunk at 3am to crash inside your head for a few days but why? That Don’t Impress Me Much has absolutely no meaning for me. It’s a song about a girl who doesn’t look for materialism in men (hence the maids husband) and just looks for ‘the touch’. I don’t possess a car, Brad Pitt’s looks or a job with NASA so all I have to go on is ‘the touch’ right? It couldn’t possibly be a reminder to get a university degree or buy a flashy car because that isn’t what the song is about. Shania is telling me the complete opposite.

So if it isn’t about the lyrics it has to be about the music right? The song is catchy but I have heard catchier. I find commercial country music to be pretty average generally and as far as I know this is the only song of its type to break into my psyche once, let alone on a regular basis. I remember Achy Breaky Heart but it has never intruded on my train of thought.

My point is that I JUST DON’T GET IT.

I sometimes feel I suffer from very mild obsessive-compulsive disorder. I generally like things done a particular way (Can’t abide a tea bag going in after the water, often straightening cutlery at the dinner table). Maybe my mind is just playing some kind of OCD-esque prank on me. That has to be it right? But why? Why this shitty fucking song written by this stupid hillbilly over a decade ago? Why me?

Anyway I have a signed poster of Anthony Mundine as a 10 year old (signed by me not ‘The Man’) to give away to the person with the best story about shitty things your mind does to you. Post them on my Facebook page or as comments on the site. Good luck!

http://www.facebook.com/JasperCliffordSmith

MX RANT.

Well I was going to write about the State Of Origin but I didn’t. It finished over 24 hours ago and the vibe has gone. Queensland won again. Sport can be a harsh mistress. Blah blah blah blah blah.

Guess you are going to have to wait until next year for that goldmine.

On my train trip home from The Cross this evening I was pondering what to write about. The moment had clearly passed for a commentary about a game of Rugby League most New South Welshmen would rather forget about. I had to think of something. My brain was in Homer Simpson mode. There was nothing but a fly buzzing around hitting my skull every three seconds. I had nothing. I had no choice but to pick up an MX.

For all three of my foreign readers I will explain. MX is a free newspaper News Limited give out to working drones at train stations in Sydney and Melbourne (and maybe Brisbane and other major cities in Australia but I haven’t done my research so I honestly cant confirm that to be fact). It is twenty-eight pages long. I guess about one third is ads. They cover some major news stories, the goings on in Sydney and basically the general everyday zeitgeist according to News Corporation.

Like most people, the page that interests me the most is the one where random people get to text in their opinions on random topics. There is also a column where lonely commuters try and get in contact with complete strangers they spotted on the train. I liked this one the best:

“To quite frankly the prettiest girl I think I’ve ever seen. You were on the Airport-line train and got off with your orange Country Road bag at Revesby about 8pm. Your beautiful red hair and heart-stopping smile made me nearly drop my MX. Coffee?” Nate.

Lovely isn’t it? Guys on trains perving on female commuters to the point where they know what brand their bag is, fantasizing about them to the point its all too much and they have to text a newspaper on the off chance this girl will read it and feel like a bit of a roll in they hay with a complete stranger from the 8 o’clock to Revesby. I think in a hundred years from now when we are living in some kind of bizarre Total Recall-meets-1984 universe all people are going to hook up like this. Every single man, woman and child will be constantly going somewhere on super high-speed kinetic trains and due to a global creepiness pandemic which occurred in July 2043 everyone will have to communicate via newspapers. Of course these newspapers will be made of transparent carbon touchscreen rice paper.

But allow me to digress.

The popularity of this paper is pretty unsurprising. There is just the right amount of news in here for the casual follower of current affairs. Most of the stories are about things which directly effect their readership (public transport, utility prices, taxes). There is a good helping of celebrity gossip and even a section dedicated with tweets from the rich and famous they see fit to publish (“gorgeous day” from Heidi Klum was a highlight). They also talk about animals, sports and the zodiac. They cover all bases to a point, it’s free and there’s always something vaguely interesting if you happen to open it. Winning formula.

Now some more cynical members of society may say that MX is a mind control tool which is bad for the environment and about as informative as a Valvoline commercial. I agree with these people. In this futuristic wet dream we call 2012 surely we have enough smart phones, tablet computers, ugly people and umm real newspapers to keep us distracted for half an hour on our commute. We don’t need it and we shouldn’t pick it up when someone gives it to us. Like herpes, just because it’s free does not mean its good for you.

MY ATTEMPT AT MAKING RECKLESS VAGINA YOUTUBE STARS (AND MAKING $100)

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The other day I made a wager with Daniel Corboy, lead singer of Reckless Vagina, that their new video Never Ever would get 100,000 views on YouTube in a week. I bet $100. Last time I checked it had been up about a day and a half and had about 350 views. I tried reddit but for some reason I can’t post anything on there (either the nerds don’t like me or I broke some stupid spamming rules). I could pay for YouTube to publicize the video but I will probably end up losing money even if I win the bet. I figure I will use the power of my blog to get people to watch it and pass it on to their friends. I am aware that my blog isn’t that powerful at all but I am working with nothing and I could use the money. Oh and I guess they could use the plug so…yeah..read on.

Never Ever is a cover of the popular All Saint’s track from all those years ago. Reckless Vagina have done a touching version of it with vocals from Corboy and RV’s Jack-Of-All-Trades The Pinch. The video was shot in Kernel where Captain Cook landed back in 1988. There are some fantastic shots of lead guitarist Oscar (who also happens to be my brother) walking up to the edge of a cliff to bust a solo. Its like the darkness but they are slightly less serious. Or more serious. I don’t know. Daniel keeps talking about how he wants people to get the joke but honestly they have done a very tongue in cheek yet tasteful cover of a song which lives in the hearts of many a former suburban teenage girl in the English speaking world.

I used to manage Reckless Vagina. I was shit at it but I really believed that they could be an important band. Every member of this band believes in good songwriting, interesting concepts and perhaps more important than anything having a sense of humour. Their live show has loads of energy and many people who see them once come back to their gigs over and over again. I got the same feeling from Reckless as I did when I first heard The Smiths. They could be one of those bands heaps of people really give a fuck about.

Anyway I think that this video could be the one that breaks them through. It’s a cover but done in a completely different way to the original. This version has a shitload more soul too. The video is a laugh yet is beautifully shot. It has ‘Viral YouTube Video’ written all over it.

If you don’t believe me see it for yourself. Pass it on. Make Reckless Vagina go viral. Make me $100!

 

It’s A Man’s World/Frisky

It’s 7.26am. I worked, went to my parents, ate Mexican food. It took about twenty minutes to get a cab on Old Canterbury rd. Absolute bullshit. One cabbie snubbed us. I was wearing a fucking suit and he snubbed us.

Eventually we got a cab. Oskie and I went back to mine. Hung out with Gino for a while. Went to the bottle shop. Then a party in a hostel (happy birthday Sinead!) We talked about Ronaldo and Messi. Real Madrid and Barcelona. Germany and Spain and Portugal and Italy and England. Joachim Low and Vicente Del Bosque. Wenger and Ferguson. KLF and Reckless Vagina. Demus and B. Deep. We talked and we drank and we moved around. We talked more. It got deeper as we got drunker. It got deeper as it got later. Things started to make sense.

It’s 7.33am. I am now in a continuation of a very, very long night. I just finished listening to James Brown’s ‘It’s A Man’s World’. I listened to the live in 1981 version first. It was alright. The best thing about the original 1964 version is how fast it is. James Brown is one of my favourite singers of all time. I always thought Sly Stone was like James Brown if James Brown was on different gear. They both do those random noises when they sing. ‘Urghh’. ‘AYYY!’ Shit like that.

It’s 7.40am. I have nothing else to say. Just feel these songs and thank me later.

James Brown – It’s A Man’s World

Sly and the Family Stone – Frisky

One thing about Sly and the Family Stone I like is how fucked up it all got. By Fresh which I think was their fourth or fifth album Sly was a fucking trainwreck but he still managed to go into the studio and make a masterpiece. You hear the way he is singing on this track and you just know he wasn’t sane. Sly was past the point of no return but still knew how to make people want to dance, fuck and give him their money. Sick cunt.