Nope. It Was Dildos.
Someone once asked me for advice about their pet. I don’t know why they chose to ask me as I don’t really care for most things, and to top it all off, their pet wasn’t even a dog – which is pretty much the only good pet there is; except turtles, lions and robots.
So, he says to me, he says “How do I stop my cat from bringing home dead birds and mice?”
I guess his problem was bigger than I thought. He owns a cat. A cat?? Cat’s are for women and children. Men own bears, wolves, and fish with the word “fighting” in their name, although I’ve never seen a Fighting Fish actually have a fight. I guess the only way you can stop your cat from bringing home dead animals is to get rid of the cat so it never happens again. Cats are stupid. You get all these cat enthusiasts who argue that cat’s are intelligent. No. My parents owned cats for years. Never once did any of them respond to their name or commands or even brought me food that wasn’t a dead animal. In fact, every time I went near either of them, they just ran away. Boring pet. They also developed this habit of going into the cupboard built into the base of my bed and taking a dump on my comics. I didn’t poo on their things; and these stuck-up, good-for-nothings just strut around like they own the place.
One time a stray cat came into my parents yard. After a while it started howling and crying. I went out to investigate further into why this petulant, irksome creature was content with ruining my day. The little blighter had only gone and got its leg stuck under an unstable cinder-block which had just fallen over. Completely disregarding my previous plight with my comic-ruining felines, I lifted up the cinder-block to free this squawking, pathetic mess from my garden. As freedom became apparent for the cat, just as it skipped away, it bit me right on the hand. A massive chunk of flesh now missing from my palm and a gush of blood was imminent. On further investigation over the next few days, this toe-rag was a regular in my yard, so the next time I spotted it, I crept out to the path leading to the backyard, armed with nothing but Cat-Disdain and the next-door-neighbours Nail Gun. The cat was strutting down the side of the back fence. I let a 9 inch missile fly into his or her general direction. Rats! I missed the cat by an inch or so, as the bang of the gun startled it before the nail reached its vicinity. The nail took a chunk out of the fence and the cat never returned to my garden.
Even though the garden death rate never changed from zero that day, the war was won tactfully and cleanly. Stupid cats.
Don’t you come back no’ mo’.
Throwing Shapes in the Church of Dance
Nightclubs. The church of liars and fakes. One of the most compelling and nonsensical places on earth is the common, popular nightclub. It boggles the mind, y’know?
Considered a principal venue for congregating with new, unfamiliar people with the hopes of slipping them a fast one, getting them into the sack and cutting up the rug with the No-Pants-Dance. But how? These establishments are some of the loudest places on earth. If it’s not the face-pummelling hardcore trance anthems that are forcing their way to your ear drums with bulldozers, then it could well be the tipsy, mindless punters screaming slurred versions of their favourite drinks at the bar staff. Either way, I’m not entirely sure how you’re supposed to introduce yourself to a possible Mr or Mrs Right when there’s village-destroying beats smashing their way through your nervous system. I’ve occasionally overheard the slick-haired, shiny-shirted students talking a big game to the orange-skinned, bleached-scalped airheads with less clothes on than the day they were born in these clubs. These guys have got the full package. They are doctors, driving Corvettes living in Penthouse suites who just happen to be “Just crashing at my mates student digs this weekend” so the victim of the conversation will be blind to his fictional job, car and house. But hey, as long as he dips the solider in the egg, right? The things people will do for sex, eh? And it all happens in this nightclub, somehow audible over the DJ’s wank-fest tracklisting. Not certain how. Maybe he just screams this bullshit speel straight into her ear at the top of his grunting voice. He may be a “doctor” but he’s ignorant of the cause and effect of tinnitus. Cheers, Mr Big Shot.
Once you’re past the passport-checking bouncer and through the doors, then that is it. Not a single word of truth is uttered ever again until you are back home, laying on a hardwood floor, making an angel silhouette out of your own sick. You buy them a drink, you make up some absolute horse shit about how great you are, and as long as you don’t look like you’ve had a stroke when you’re dancing to some song by Basement Jacks with her, then you have won. Congratulations! And what have you won? 2 and a half minutes of drunken, purposely condom-less rubbing together, the moaning of someone elses name and the loudest collective snoring in that particular building. 6 hours later, you’re in a bit of a pickle. You can either gather your clothes in your hands and tip-toe out of their flat and down the stairs relinquishing all embarrassment from the fact that you’re putting on 2-day-old Transformers boxer shorts in the middle of the street, or you can share with her the most awkward breakfast sitting you’ll ever experience in your life. You both cannot stomach looking at each other. Do you know their name? Like hell you do. You didn’t even think it was possible to eat cereal so fast.
And then there comes the last lie of the endeavour. You’re late for work and you have to go. It’s a Sunday, and you were out on the razz with ‘the lads’ the night before, knowing you had “work” the next day? There’s no work. She knows you’re lying, but she realises now, outside of her drunken stupor that taking home the phoney quack was the worst idea she’s had since the weekend before when she brought home her very own world-famous footballer. She’s not the sharpest tool in the box, but as long as she gets a tool her box, this dame will believe anything. Eh-Neh-Theh!
So, I believe, in thorough conclusion, that a strict NO-TALKING policy should be introduced practically EVERYWHERE ON EARTH. No excuses. No exclusions. No nothing. Just pure prevention. Like an Earth sized condom. Or maybe the silence could be compared to some kind of library-prison. Metaphors are hard.
You’ve just got to give me back my floor!
Y’know what’d be a gas? If I owned an arctic white guitar.
But they’ve been aesthetically ruined by being the trademark of James Dean Bradfield. I just don’t like him. And even if I did own one, just like everything else I own that is white, knowing my luck I’d spill some bastard food on it.
This is why I can’t have nice things.
“It looks like he enjoys a good lunch, John”
Mark Lawrenson. Quite possibly the saviour of football punditry from its inevitable downhill slope. An absolute king of the microphone and a keen eye for observation. There’ll never be another one quite like our friend and neighbour, Lawro.
With his sharp, cynical punditry, I suppose we can forgive him for playing for Liverpool. We forgave Paul Ince didn’t we? But that’s because he just looks so slick and cool 365 days a year. It’s pretty clear some kind of secret handshake and a rap song (which John Barnes most fortunately had nothing to do with) is what earned MK Dons their league title this year. Blackburn Rovers are now in the hands of the Shaft of the Premier League. One love, indeed.
Lawro continues to raise the proverbial punditry bar season after season. He manages to relinquish his focus from the game in question for just a moment to give a brief analysis from an event from his past time and time again…
“When I lived in rural Oxfordshire, I was walking home across a field when I stroked a cow. The damn thing butted me in the orchestras”
This was of course followed by a signature-awkward change of subject by John Motson himself, and the game continued. First class. Lawro knew we were witnessing sub-par football, and he brought the event to life. David Pleat often has the same effect, but only because he is an uneducated, illiterate moron. Potato-Potahto.
I guess you have to feel a little sorry for John Motson, from the times Motty has made a supporting comment which sets Lawro up to offer his insight and on-the-field experience into the colour-commentary, which Lawro so frequently replies with a short sharp “No” or “Terrible”.
No sugar coating or bloating the truth. No favouritism or bias. Mark Lawrenson hates football. He hates every team and every player. He knows in the back of his mind that he could walk down the terraces; onto the field and play the game better himself. Everything involved with football, Mark Lawrenson cannot abide it. Mark Lawrenson just simply hates football, but obviously – He just needs the money. It makes sense doesn’t it? I hate my job. You probably hate your job. He’s like the rude, acne-ridden hormone-fest that completely ignores you at the deli counter in the supermarket because he’s thinking about video games and boobs. He hates cheese, deli sandwich fillers and sliced meat, almost as much as Lawro cannot fucking stand football.
Complete respect.
STEVE HOLT!!
It was me. I was the first Caucasian to illustrate something; anything as “Whack”. I single handily broke down the racial language barrier with what can only be described as relentless bravery. And how does that make me feel? After hearing the lifeless Matt Le Blanc utter “Playstation is whack!” in an uneven, ersatz portrayal of a fictional teenager (in preparation for an acting part in the plot) in the globally renowned series ‘Friends’, I couldn’t help but feel how John Logie Beard must have felt when entertainers continued to stage puppet shows inside small staged boxes subsequent to the introduction of the Television set. “It’s been done, and mine was better” is probably how he felt. And rightly so.
But you can probably trace the roots back further to situation comedies with a strong emphasis on the effervescent, spunky, hip black guy sporting a Letterman jacket and how he differentiates from his not-so-best friend – The white guy. The nerdy, nervous white guy who spouts faux confidence and displays a sheer ineptitude towards pretty much everything. He’s not as cool, witty or as smart as the black guy, but he constantly tries to be like him with the clumsiest of consequences. He might utter a half hearted “That’s whack” whilst taking a basketball by the foot and punting it into the air, in an embarrassing attempt to appear as an African American. But do you ever see the role reversed? The young, flat-topped MC Hammer protégé; wearing a cardigan, drinking tea and perching their face a matter of inches away from their car steering wheel as they grip onto it for dear life with both hands, or however it is white people are portrayed in interracial fictional media. I can’t say I’ve seen it happen. And what catchphrase would they mimic in a way the Caucasian attempts to mimic “That’s whack!” ?
“Bugger” ?
“Rollocks” ?
We can only speculate for the time being.
But that’s not the point here. The Caucasian buffoon may or may not have uttered “That’s whack!” completely void of heart and direction at some point in one of these interracial pantomimes, but it was only subsequent to my uttering of “That’s whack!” at the whole portrayal of the White man struggling to be Black. For once, I’d like to see the role reversed. No more rubbing hands together and licking their lips at just the meagre thought of how fucking cool they are. I want to see the coolest African American on the planet scripted as a Caucasian want-to-be. The bad posture, the acne… Hell, let’s give this gangster a lisp, a speech impediment, and a pair of dungarees. Let’s see him captain the football team when he can’t even say the word “quarterback” without spitting all over the girl he’s trying to bump uglies with.
Tight Jean. Black Shoe.
My top 3 favourite films with the word “Space” in the title.
#3 – It Came From Outer Space II
A superior sequel to a pretty dreadful original, and not really much of an improvement, but I was struggling to think of a 3rd film I like with “Space” in the title. This shit even went straight to TV because it was that poor, but I’m an absolute sucker for straight to TV films. Acted by nobodies. Written by 6th form media students. Filmed by some acne ridden hormone fest with his very own Ban Dai ‘My First Cam Corder’. Great film.
#2 – Lost In Space
Pretty atrocious film, with completely testosterone fueled comedy highlights from the faux-dumb one in Friends. Corking one liners about girls and beer, all wrapped up in a plastic Sci-Fi packaging. Subpar and utterly pointless. If you paid to see this film when it came out in theatres, you’re a fucking idiot.
#1 – Spaceballs
You see, this is actually a good film. Infact it’s great. I mean, come on. Mel Brooks and John Candy in the same film together? It won the academy award for “Greatest Film Ever Made!”. Seriously. That was the category, and it won. It wasn’t even against anything because there’d be no point. If you can name a better film, then you’re lying, and I’ll just talk over you.
Now Is The Winter Of Your Discontent
Balaclava’s, man.
The greatest socially unacceptable garment you could possibly wear. The status of this particular garment saddens me and not only that, but because of this, I have to let the hailstone bash my face to bits because you just cannot wear a balaclava anymore, can you? You definitely can not. They are reserved only for the consumption of bank robbers, baby snatchers and those folks that just want to set bombs off on aeroplanes. If I walked past someone, anyone, on the street wearing a balaclava, merely for the comfort of my face against the harsh, windswept rain, they would fear for their lives that I was about to pinch their Umbrella and their new Cassette Walkman. This extended woolly hat isn’t going to win you any friends today. So, why is there something so intimidating and gruesome about only being able to see someone’s facial features from cut out holes from a bit of wool? Who knows?!? But, let me tell you – The first bank robber to wear his winter headgear to swipe some swag certainly had his thinking cap on, but simultaneously ruined the northern hemisphere winter for us all, and the criminal activity within them has ensured that all face-covering garments carry criminal connotations. As long as the world is safe from balaclava-sporting angry mobs. We’re just fucked if we want to keep warm.
So, here’s to terrorism and to crime. A simultaneous salutation for the underlying principle my face stays cold in winter. Rain. Sleet. Hailstone. They all collide and collect in that little gap between my cheek and my nose, and that’s just right bastard uncomfortable. Back when I was at school, getting twatted with a plastic football to the bare skin of the face always hurt so much in the cold winter too. All which could have been prevented by an innocent, thermal balaclava. For shame.
