Clark Griswold, his MILF wife and the endlessly rotating cast of people playing their kids are OUT. This guy is my new holiday idol.
Maybe it was the time the taxi dumped him at the Iraq-Kuwait border, leaving him alone in the middle of the desert. Or when he drew a crowd at a Baghdad food stand after using an Arabic phrase book to order. Or the moment a Kuwaiti cab driver almost punched him in the face when he balked at the $100 fare.
But at some point, Farris Hassan, a 16-year-old from Florida, realized that traveling to Iraq by himself was not the safest thing he could have done with his Christmas vacation.
And he didn’t even tell his parents.
If he doesn’t at least score his own television show out of this then he’s been robbed. Not to mention one of those shithouse American teenage roadtrip movies on the subject. “Four horny college students take a wrong turn in Istanbul and end up in a war zone. Hillarity and sexy action ensues”. It’ll make a million.
Using money his parents had given him at one point, he bought a $900 plane ticket and took off from school a week before Christmas vacation started, skipping classes and leaving the country on December 11.
His goal: Baghdad. Those privy to his plans: two high school buddies.
Given his heritage, Hassan could almost pass as Iraqi. His father’s background helped him secure an entry visa, and native Arabs would see in his face Iraqi features and a familiar skin tone. His wispy beard was meant to help him blend in.
But underneath that Mideast veneer was full-blooded American teen, a born-and-bred Floridian sporting white Nike tennis shoes and trendy jeans. And as soon as the lanky, 6-foot teenager opened his mouth — he speaks no Arabic — his true nationality would have betrayed him.
Traveling on his own in a land where insurgents and jihadists have kidnapped more than 400 foreigners, killing at least 39 of them, Hassan walked straight into a death zone. On Monday, his first full day in Iraq, six vehicle bombs exploded in Baghdad, killing five people and wounding more than 40.
At least if he’d been kidnapped the papers could have got some serious mileage out of the “Save Farris” headlines that they’ve been sitting on since 1987. Farris Hassan - you ARE TSP’s man of the year 2005. Congratulations. I’m supporting you even if nobody else does.
Saturday, 31 December 2005
Chemically inspired displays of love OUT. Drunken violence IN! IN! IN!
Police unveil new slogan to Melbourne partygoers - “Drop the gear before you get here”
Police sniffer dogs will be out in force at the annual Summadayze dance festival at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl on New Year’s Day in an attempt to stop drug trafficking.
Police said there would also be a “significant police presence” inside the Music Bowl and in surrounding areas of the Kings Domain and Royal Botanic Gardens.
There was a culture among “the dance scene” that illicit drug use at Summadayze was acceptable, Victoria Police superintendent Mick Williams said.
“These drugs contain potent mixtures and to, put it bluntly, they are insidious. "
You could probably argue that the gear they’re referring to only contains potent and insidious mixtures because it’s produced underground, and that a festival full of people off their nut on E would be significantly less danger to national security than 2000 pissed yokels throwing stubbies at each other and belting police on Torquay beach but that’s a debate for another time.
Alcohol leads to more death, injury and trauma than pretty much anything else but you can still advertise it on TV and sell it at supermarkets. Explain that. I’m not suggesting we suddenly start pumping out regulated soft drugs to balance the equation, but it’s got me FLUMMOXED how they can justify rolling out the entire force to knock over a handful of people carrying pills when the night before will probably be dominated by drunks kicking shit out of each other.
Remember - if you cop a backhander in the street from some nutter to open 2006 the chances are nobody will be there to nick him because they're getting ready to fight the drug menace by headlocking a hippie.
There's probably a drug lab on every second street, and people flooding through the airport with packages stuck in their ass and their “war on drugs” has come down to taking out the users. Do people who die in the arse with a heroin overdose get brought back to life and then slapped with an infringement notice for possession? Do the people who get dragged into an emergency ward spewing everywhere because they’ve had four slabs in an hour all end up with fines for being drunk in a public place?
It’s not that I give half a shit about “the dance scene”, but why are these the only people getting targeted for it? Half of Melbourne will be hoovering coke off mirrors in toilets tomorrow night and get away with it scot free, but you hold a festival and suddenly you’re Nino Brown and the SWAT team is liable to smash through your window and shoot you.
What a complete shambles.
Saturday Video Classix
I’m quite sure nobody gives a toss about these but I’ve got about three thousand more in the pipeline and god dammit you’re going to get EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM. Maybe some twice just to really reinforce the fact that the front page now takes four hours to load when it used to take four seconds. And the day I find the video of Rupert Holmes singing the Pina Colada song on Countdown? Wild freaking scenes.
Anyway, it’s time for one of my favourite videos ever. Not because there’s anything particuarly good about it, but rather due to it’s obscenely high “What the fuck is going on there?” content. Write in at the usual address if you have decided what gear they were on when they came up for the idea of, and subsequently appeared in the video. I quite like the song itself - I’ve never been for anything else Fleetwood Mac ever did, and indeed I wouldn’t be able to tell Fleetwood from Mac in a police lineup, but this is just odd. Not as odd as the video mind you but it all ties in somewhere. If there’s ever a song that nobody realises is full of messages telling you to gun down your family then this is it.
And now, in our biggest special yet, the video. Sit back and enjoy. For maximum enjoyment play the song at the same time and try to work out what they were thinking.
When one of the biggest bands in the world, coming off an album that sold 50 zillion copies and made them a fortune, opens their video with a college marching band rocking out in the middle of the stadium you know the line has probably been crossed.
And when one of the band members makes her first appearance honking onto the grog in the first few seconds it’s all confirmed.
This is a man who will rapidly, RAPIDLY lose the plot throughout the course of the following 3 minutes and 5 seconds.
And there he goes. Dancing around like a nutbag in the middle of a baseball field while hundreds of people watch on.
A closer look at the script. The extra featured in this shot is wondering just what will Bearded Nutbag get up to next.
He’ll hear voices through his headphones. God is telling him that he’s making a dick of himself but is still richer than the rest of us combined so carry on regardless.
This picture has absolutely no artistic benefit, but the woman in green has sweet hooters so she’s worthy of inclusion in my book. Might have been in the band for all I know.
Nutbags McNut announces his next move…
Crazy dancing! The steps contained within were so impressive that I had to rush out and find some shithouse animated GIF maker program just to document it. Bounce! Bounce! Bounce! He’s getting off on the crazy jungle rhythms being created by the house band. Not to mention the river of substances potentially flowing through his veins.
Stevie Nicks plays cheerleader and twirls the baton…
And then stares blankly into the camera. Need we remind you at this time that the urban myth about her having a flunky blow cocaine directly into her ass through a straw so it would absord quicker has never been proven. The woman who nobody recognises is just tucking into another glass of white in the background.
Suddenly McNut shows up with a cardboard cutout of somebody. Might be him before he lost the plot, might be somebody else. Might even be the guy who was in the band and then decided to dedicate himself to being in a bizarre religious cult instead. Who knows. What’s important is that it’s one of the few examples in music video history of a cardboard cutout being part of the band. In 2003 Alf Poier would provide the greatest Eurovision Song Contest performance in history with a backing band consisting of a cardboard cow.
According to Wikipedia this is the only song featuring a marching band ever to make the US Top Ten. Your challenge, if you’re one of the great bands of the world and are reading, is to change this stat. Rip out the trombones and let’s make things interesting.
The band go wild in the otherwise empty stands. The cardboard cutout guy looks especially pumped to be there. Not quite as pumped as Stevie who definately did not have coke blown up her ass at any time during her career.
In the end it’s revealed that all of this is going on in an empty stadium. Why? I don’t know. But somehow it makes sense. The idea that 99% of the video is a “making of” special for the ten second parade of the marching band at the very end when the lyrics have finished appeals to me in some post-modern way that mankind is not yet fully developed enough to understand. Every time I’ve ever seen this video I end up contemplating the nature of life and whether or not we’re living in some sort of bizarre Matrix style system. Thanks Fleetwood. Thanks Mac. You’ve done my head in.
Anyway, it’s time for one of my favourite videos ever. Not because there’s anything particuarly good about it, but rather due to it’s obscenely high “What the fuck is going on there?” content. Write in at the usual address if you have decided what gear they were on when they came up for the idea of, and subsequently appeared in the video. I quite like the song itself - I’ve never been for anything else Fleetwood Mac ever did, and indeed I wouldn’t be able to tell Fleetwood from Mac in a police lineup, but this is just odd. Not as odd as the video mind you but it all ties in somewhere. If there’s ever a song that nobody realises is full of messages telling you to gun down your family then this is it.
And now, in our biggest special yet, the video. Sit back and enjoy. For maximum enjoyment play the song at the same time and try to work out what they were thinking.
When one of the biggest bands in the world, coming off an album that sold 50 zillion copies and made them a fortune, opens their video with a college marching band rocking out in the middle of the stadium you know the line has probably been crossed.
And when one of the band members makes her first appearance honking onto the grog in the first few seconds it’s all confirmed.
This is a man who will rapidly, RAPIDLY lose the plot throughout the course of the following 3 minutes and 5 seconds.
And there he goes. Dancing around like a nutbag in the middle of a baseball field while hundreds of people watch on.
A closer look at the script. The extra featured in this shot is wondering just what will Bearded Nutbag get up to next.
He’ll hear voices through his headphones. God is telling him that he’s making a dick of himself but is still richer than the rest of us combined so carry on regardless.
This picture has absolutely no artistic benefit, but the woman in green has sweet hooters so she’s worthy of inclusion in my book. Might have been in the band for all I know.
Nutbags McNut announces his next move…
Crazy dancing! The steps contained within were so impressive that I had to rush out and find some shithouse animated GIF maker program just to document it. Bounce! Bounce! Bounce! He’s getting off on the crazy jungle rhythms being created by the house band. Not to mention the river of substances potentially flowing through his veins.
Stevie Nicks plays cheerleader and twirls the baton…
And then stares blankly into the camera. Need we remind you at this time that the urban myth about her having a flunky blow cocaine directly into her ass through a straw so it would absord quicker has never been proven. The woman who nobody recognises is just tucking into another glass of white in the background.
Suddenly McNut shows up with a cardboard cutout of somebody. Might be him before he lost the plot, might be somebody else. Might even be the guy who was in the band and then decided to dedicate himself to being in a bizarre religious cult instead. Who knows. What’s important is that it’s one of the few examples in music video history of a cardboard cutout being part of the band. In 2003 Alf Poier would provide the greatest Eurovision Song Contest performance in history with a backing band consisting of a cardboard cow.
According to Wikipedia this is the only song featuring a marching band ever to make the US Top Ten. Your challenge, if you’re one of the great bands of the world and are reading, is to change this stat. Rip out the trombones and let’s make things interesting.
The band go wild in the otherwise empty stands. The cardboard cutout guy looks especially pumped to be there. Not quite as pumped as Stevie who definately did not have coke blown up her ass at any time during her career.
In the end it’s revealed that all of this is going on in an empty stadium. Why? I don’t know. But somehow it makes sense. The idea that 99% of the video is a “making of” special for the ten second parade of the marching band at the very end when the lyrics have finished appeals to me in some post-modern way that mankind is not yet fully developed enough to understand. Every time I’ve ever seen this video I end up contemplating the nature of life and whether or not we’re living in some sort of bizarre Matrix style system. Thanks Fleetwood. Thanks Mac. You’ve done my head in.
Friday, 30 December 2005
Better to go without on your feet than to pick up on your knees
Ladies. We’re happy to present you with an offer that you will be completely unable to refuse. Please restrain yourself as you read the following, because there isn’t a female alive who wouldn’t become instantly excited by the prospect of scoring with this guy.
A British man is giving a whole new meaning to begging to be loved as he set off on an 88-kilometre crawl on his hands and knees to find a partner.
With a sign saying: “Could You Love Me?” strapped to his back and 18 boxes of chocolates trailing behind him on string tied to his wrists and ankles, Mark McGowan began his unusual quest to find a girlfriend.
His route takes him from the site of the Tabard Inn, in Southwark, south London, to Canterbury Cathedral, following the pilgrims’ trail made famous in 14th century author Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales.
Irresistable eh? Well luckily there’s some sort of gimmick to it. Not quite enough to salvage it from the tip as far as I’m concerned,
The 37-year-old performance artist, who said he is also hoping to raise awareness of people left lonely and isolated during the festive period, is hoping to complete the back-breaking task within 30 days.
If the description “performance artist” isn’t enough to make you want to piff things then check the photo in the article. I can’t bring myself to completely butcher him because of the awareness angle, but it says a lot about the ridiculous torture people put themselves through if they’re single. This is why completely incompatible people who will clearly end up wanting to kill each other later clutch on to one another and hold on until the whole thing explodes. People would rather be miserable with some complete knob than have to explain to everyone why they’re not happily married with 17 children. Clowns.
And if you want a guy who you can treat like shit because he feels obliged then Mark, and the men of the world like him, are yours. Take them as an offering to readdress all the gender imbalances over the years. Make him do the dishes and mow your lawn. Belt him one occasionally for me while you’re at it.
P.S - We apologise for the lacklustre and unwieldly headline for this post.
P.P.S - No we don’t.
P.P.P.S - Yes, I know he’s not really doing it to pick up but it’s all about wider issues raised
P.P.P.P.S - Oh yes it is.
A British man is giving a whole new meaning to begging to be loved as he set off on an 88-kilometre crawl on his hands and knees to find a partner.
With a sign saying: “Could You Love Me?” strapped to his back and 18 boxes of chocolates trailing behind him on string tied to his wrists and ankles, Mark McGowan began his unusual quest to find a girlfriend.
His route takes him from the site of the Tabard Inn, in Southwark, south London, to Canterbury Cathedral, following the pilgrims’ trail made famous in 14th century author Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales.
Irresistable eh? Well luckily there’s some sort of gimmick to it. Not quite enough to salvage it from the tip as far as I’m concerned,
The 37-year-old performance artist, who said he is also hoping to raise awareness of people left lonely and isolated during the festive period, is hoping to complete the back-breaking task within 30 days.
If the description “performance artist” isn’t enough to make you want to piff things then check the photo in the article. I can’t bring myself to completely butcher him because of the awareness angle, but it says a lot about the ridiculous torture people put themselves through if they’re single. This is why completely incompatible people who will clearly end up wanting to kill each other later clutch on to one another and hold on until the whole thing explodes. People would rather be miserable with some complete knob than have to explain to everyone why they’re not happily married with 17 children. Clowns.
And if you want a guy who you can treat like shit because he feels obliged then Mark, and the men of the world like him, are yours. Take them as an offering to readdress all the gender imbalances over the years. Make him do the dishes and mow your lawn. Belt him one occasionally for me while you’re at it.
P.S - We apologise for the lacklustre and unwieldly headline for this post.
P.P.S - No we don’t.
P.P.P.S - Yes, I know he’s not really doing it to pick up but it’s all about wider issues raised
P.P.P.P.S - Oh yes it is.
Thursday, 29 December 2005
Supermarket Slop
I’d like to preface my remarks by saying that if I worked in a supermarket I probably wouldn’t give a shit about anything either BUT…
I was standing in the queue this afternoon when I noticed a bag sitting on top of the drink machine. By the time I got to the front of the line - three hours later after price checks and people paying for everything by credit card - it was still sitting there and I thought I’d better do my duty and tell the girl behind the counter about it. After the usual “How are you?” “Yeah great” “That’s wonderful” etc.. shit that you have to go through every time you buy anything I pointed and said “Did you notice that there’s a bag sitting there on top of the drink machine?” She just kept looking at me and went “Yes!” in the finest “I’m not actually listening to you” moment of the year. “No, over there. Look a bag”. She looks over, then back at me and says “Is it yours?”
This was becoming moderately farcical. It wasn’t a matter of being worried that the thing was going to blow up and take out the Clarendon Street Coles but rather the very real possibility of somebody walking past, going “I’ll ‘ave that” and nicking it. I tried to explain this to the girl and she turned around to the lady on the checkout behind her and pointed it out. The response was “Ahh don’t worry. Somebody will come back to collect it”. A complete shambles of the highest order. Given that supermarkets are always talking up just how dodgy their shoppers are and why you should keep your bag strapped to you at all times in case somebody nicks it you’d expect that their employees would put just a bit more effort into security.
Here’s hoping that somebody nicked it and then the owner came back in and blasted everyone for not looking after it.
I was standing in the queue this afternoon when I noticed a bag sitting on top of the drink machine. By the time I got to the front of the line - three hours later after price checks and people paying for everything by credit card - it was still sitting there and I thought I’d better do my duty and tell the girl behind the counter about it. After the usual “How are you?” “Yeah great” “That’s wonderful” etc.. shit that you have to go through every time you buy anything I pointed and said “Did you notice that there’s a bag sitting there on top of the drink machine?” She just kept looking at me and went “Yes!” in the finest “I’m not actually listening to you” moment of the year. “No, over there. Look a bag”. She looks over, then back at me and says “Is it yours?”
This was becoming moderately farcical. It wasn’t a matter of being worried that the thing was going to blow up and take out the Clarendon Street Coles but rather the very real possibility of somebody walking past, going “I’ll ‘ave that” and nicking it. I tried to explain this to the girl and she turned around to the lady on the checkout behind her and pointed it out. The response was “Ahh don’t worry. Somebody will come back to collect it”. A complete shambles of the highest order. Given that supermarkets are always talking up just how dodgy their shoppers are and why you should keep your bag strapped to you at all times in case somebody nicks it you’d expect that their employees would put just a bit more effort into security.
Here’s hoping that somebody nicked it and then the owner came back in and blasted everyone for not looking after it.
Scenes from a roadtrip
I’ve been waiting two years to see you again.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Australia’s greatest food franchise,
Now that’s a sound business venture if I’ve ever seen one.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Australia’s greatest food franchise,
Now that’s a sound business venture if I’ve ever seen one.
Tuesday, 27 December 2005
State of Shambles
Re-entering Victoria after a two day “What else have we got to do?” roadtrip. Everything interstate ran smoothly and was in the right place. Cross the border and ten minutes later there's a road with speed signs on either side of the road - one is for 80kmh, and the other is for 100. What are you supposed to do? 90?
Sunday, 25 December 2005
Famous by default
Give me one good reason why David Hasselhoff is still famous.
You enjoyed his performances in Baywatch did you? Bullshit. Everyone knows every male cast member in that show was only there to deflect critical attention away from the ratings-friendly parade of norgs around them. Even if you can somehow find a reason for him to be interesting (being huge in Germany does not count) I defy you to find any point to people attending his 2005 World Tour.
Sure we all laughed at those farcical emails where he cropped up everywhere. For about thirty seconds. Look there he is in a cell with Schapelle Corby!/surfing a Tsunami!/taking pot shots at President Kennedy from the Texas Schoolbook Depository! etc.. A few moderately (and we mean moderately) amusing emails doth not a career revival make. I repeat, being famous in Germany means fuck all.
Hitler was extremely popular there at one point you may recall.
If you’re unable to make it to one of his thirteen tour dates in Australia how about a copy of his new album. Who is paying for this shit? More importantly who is spending $90.45 to see him live? You could probably get 2/3rds of the Three Tenors to sing the greatest hits of MC Hammer for less than that. I wouldn’t pay $20 to see him in person unless he drove Knight Rider in and ripped some donuts on the stage. The car was the star of that show anyway, he was like the guy who owned Mr. Ed but nobody cared about.
Everyone knows that Higgins out of Magnum PI was the greatest sidekick of the 80’s - but where’s his floorshow and album?
Look at his dramatic command of the prop. It’s a god damned rubber chicken and he’s selling it like he’s Hamlet holding the skull. That is the stuff legends are made of. Ungrateful fuckers one and all. Heroes of television are working the theatre restaurant circuit and reading the news in Noosa and this guy is making millions to sing a few songs and have a surname that you can mix with the world 'official'.
How about some shitty Hasselhoff merchandise? Perhaps not. Especially considering they want $15 postage to send you a T-shirt.
This is the biggest moneymaking scam since Jebus. I’m going to wheel out the old guy who played Mr. Drummond on Diff’rent Strokes, pair him with Bruce Samazan, do some online marketing and make a fortune. Here’s some merchandise we just came up with, in association with major tour sponsors Microsoft Paint. Price $35 - available in January.
TSP Video Classix
Christmas carols are undoubtedly a tedious affair. Same old thing for as long as anyone can remember. Even wheeling Marina Prior out once a year to sing Silent Night.
Plastered. And he’s probably not acting either. Quoth Wikipedia, “In an article written by MacGowan’s then girlfriend Victoria Clarke, it was claimed that Shane had further damaged his teeth by eating a copy of the Beach Boys Greatest Hits vol. 3 LP whilst under the influence of LSD.”
Thus in the latest of our looks at the art of the videoclip through time we present the finest Xmas song ever released. From 1989 it’s…
Additional bonus feature - It’s festive AND features the line “You’re an old slut on junk”. Something for everybody there, a feature that’s sorely lacking in your tired old “We Three Kings” style classics. What’s Myrrh anyway? CRAM IT.
And what of the video? Well it’s hardly the most thrilling ever but for the sake of completion - and the fact that it’s probably never been played on TV here yet - here it is anyway.
Snow on a black background. Just so you’re in absolutely no doubt right from the start that it’s a Christmas song. The potential for widespread confusion is probably amongst the reason nobody plays it here.
.
Celebrity alert. It’s Matt Dillon from.. whatever the fuck Matt Dillon was in. Didn’t he have a hot three way in a film once? He’s so popular that even Wikipedia, the finest encyclopedia known to man, hasn’t got an article on him
.
Jailhouse scenes featuring one Shane MacGowan. Not the first or last time he was ever seen in a prison cell. Let’s take a closer look,
Plastered. And he’s probably not acting either. Quoth Wikipedia, “In an article written by MacGowan’s then girlfriend Victoria Clarke, it was claimed that Shane had further damaged his teeth by eating a copy of the Beach Boys Greatest Hits vol. 3 LP whilst under the influence of LSD.” Off his nut. A full 110% on the George Best scale of drunkenness. Surprising that he’s not more popular here just for being a world class pisshead
.
Some light domestic violence just to push the issue of how the lovers have fallen out.
But then everyone’s happy again. So it’s technically a happy song despite all the other farcical scenes within.
The track was re-released for a crack at the hotly contested, yet ultimately pointless, UK Christmas #1 spot, but is set to lose to the winner of the X-Factor TV show. This is true to the British form of having absolutely no taste whatsoever, having previously gone wild to put Rolf Harris, Mr. Blobby, Benny Hill and Bob The Builder in the #1 position at this time of year. How can it be so coveted if that shit can make the top spot?
Saturday, 24 December 2005
A Festivus miracle
Wrong times to push a good cause - episode #1032. And as an additional bonus you get one of the wankiest opening paragraphs in the history of journalism to go with it.
Jamey Schaeffer stretched her mouth open wide, showing off a pair of twin gaps in her smile. With a mouthful of fingers, she said she has no interest in two front teeth for Christmas.
Instead, she’d like a Barbie doll from Santa Claus — and Santa Claus only.
But a substitute music teacher almost came between the 6-year-old and a Christmas Eve spent dancing cheek to cheek with sugar plums.
Theresa Farrisi stood in for Schaeffer’s regular music teacher one day last week. One of her assignments was to read Clement C. Moore’s famous poem, “A Visit from Saint Nicholas” to a first-grade class at Lickdale Elementary School.
“The poem has great literary value, but it goes against my conscience to teach something which I know to be false to children, who are impressionable,” said Farrisi, 43, of Myerstown.
“It’s a story. I taught it as a story. There’s no real person called Santa Claus living at the North Pole"
Fair enough too. But when you take things too far it can have, frankly, hilarious consequences,
Farrisi doesn’t believe in Santa Claus, and she doesn’t think anyone else should, either. She made her feelings clear to the classroom full of 6- and 7-year-olds, some of whom went home crying.
Schaeffer got off the school bus later that day, dragging her backpack in the mud, tears in her angry little eyes.
Now, we’re not here to endorse making children cry. Not much anyway. But you can’t deny there’s some logic in what the kid said next,
“She yelled at me, ‘Why did you lie?’” recalled Jamey’s mother, Elizabeth.
Roll on the biggest hatchet job paragraph in HISTORY. Even those Paxton kiddies who got stitched up by Ray Martin would rise to applaud this farcially over the top tone,
The teacher stopped reading and told us no one comes down the chimney,” Jamey said, curling into a ball on the couch, bracing her chin on her knees, her voice shrinking away like melting ice cream. “She said our parents buy the presents, not Santa.
Melting ice cream? That’s a shambles.
And here’s the teacher to try and dig herself out of the giant hole she’s in. Good luck lady, you’ll need it.
Farrisi said she considered approaching the school’s administration with her concerns about how to handle Santa Claus in class. Instead, she said, she decided to add a disclaimer to her lesson.
“Those same children are going to know someday that what their parents taught them is false,” she explained. “There is no Santa Claus.”
I feel that every person involved in this scandal who isn’t under 10 is a complete peanut
Meanwhile, Elizabeth Schaeffer was carefully thinking about her next step. She decided to make a photocopy of editor Francis P. Church’s famous response to a little girl, who wrote to The New York Sun many decades ago, asking the same question Schaeffer’s daughter struggled with last week.
“I mailed (Farrisi) a copy of ‘Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus,’” she said, giggling with satisfaction. “I wish I could be there when she opens it.”
You sure showed her… Fools.
Sunday, 18 December 2005
Cut and Paste
Time for another round of Video Classix. Where we make the load time of the page triple just to highlight significant moments in the history of the music video. Today it’s The Strokes and “Someday” from the album Is This It.
Let’s pretend we didn’t see that one shall we?
Celebrity #1. Living everybody’s dream of playing the pinnies with Slash from Guns ‘n Roses. You mean it’s not your dream? Mine either to be honest.
They look up at a TV and for no good reason it’s showing South Korea vs Italy in the 2002 World Cup round of 16. Korea have just scored the winning goal in the 117th minute and the screen flashes up some world class Engrish in celebration. The band has not yet announced whether or not they’ll be inserting footage of Australia conceding seven against Brazil into a clip from their new album.
Next stop on the biggest Videoing With The Stars tour in the history of the world. Family Feud hosted by Al Borland from Home Improvement. You don’t get stars much bigger than that.
Tonight’s carryover family The Strokes will be taking on the challengers from..
Guided By Voices. Incidentally November 12th, 2004 was “Guided By Voices Day” in Los Angeles.
Just because this game isn’t entirely fictional doesn’t mean that sort of thing shouldn’t be recreated on the new Australian version featuring Bert Newton. I want Cold Chisel vs Midnight Oil and I want it NOW.
That’s the sort of hot topic that Bert won’t be touching with a million foot bargepole at 5.30pm
Al is shattered at this turn of events.
Thus leading to a wild indie rock stacks on across the studio floor and a startled former sitcom superstar.
Goodbye Al. We love you.
Next week - Whatever amuses me at the time.
Let’s pretend we didn’t see that one shall we?
Celebrity #1. Living everybody’s dream of playing the pinnies with Slash from Guns ‘n Roses. You mean it’s not your dream? Mine either to be honest.
They look up at a TV and for no good reason it’s showing South Korea vs Italy in the 2002 World Cup round of 16. Korea have just scored the winning goal in the 117th minute and the screen flashes up some world class Engrish in celebration. The band has not yet announced whether or not they’ll be inserting footage of Australia conceding seven against Brazil into a clip from their new album.
Next stop on the biggest Videoing With The Stars tour in the history of the world. Family Feud hosted by Al Borland from Home Improvement. You don’t get stars much bigger than that.
Tonight’s carryover family The Strokes will be taking on the challengers from..
Guided By Voices. Incidentally November 12th, 2004 was “Guided By Voices Day” in Los Angeles.
Just because this game isn’t entirely fictional doesn’t mean that sort of thing shouldn’t be recreated on the new Australian version featuring Bert Newton. I want Cold Chisel vs Midnight Oil and I want it NOW.
That’s the sort of hot topic that Bert won’t be touching with a million foot bargepole at 5.30pm
Al is shattered at this turn of events.
Thus leading to a wild indie rock stacks on across the studio floor and a startled former sitcom superstar.
Goodbye Al. We love you.
Next week - Whatever amuses me at the time.
The Importance of Being Average
Standing around at a Christmas party - fairly hypocritical given that I don’t actually believe in the whole thing, but there was a $1500 bar tab for 40 people so fuck principles I was in - some guy who I barely know any better than exchanging a few hello’s and goodbye’s with bounds up completely smashed and asks “Why don’t you ever smile?”
“Eh?” I responded, too busy enjoying the annual spectacle of people getting trashed and sleazing onto women that they’d never go near sober.
“Every time I see you it looks like you’re about to kill yourself”.
Lovely.
And it would have been so much easier to defend my position if it wasn’t such a 100% true statement. Call it a deformity, but I think there’s an entire previously undiscovered faction of humanity who were born with exactly the same lack of a “middle” expression. Either something amuses you and leads to smiles all round and happy scenes or you look as if you’re about to drop a toaster in the bath. Even when you’re perfectly content but completely unamused it appears like you’re sitting there considering unloading a shotgun on the audience. There’s no middle ground.
Given the general lack of entertainment on offer in the world this leads to 90% of your life being lived with an expression that suggests you’re having the entire Joy Division back catalogue and Lou Reed’s Berlin piped directly into your brain 24 hours a day. Obviously this leads to people getting the wrong idea and trying to cheer you up. Which, given that you didn’t need cheering up in the first place, makes things worse and leads to you having to talk yourself out of putting obscenely jubilant people in a headlock and punching them repeatedly. It should be registered as a legitimate medical concern.
This is, afterall, the major difference between being photogenic and looking like a cock in every photo ever taken. The beautiful people can fake looking happy no matter how tempted they are to throw a milk crate at the photographer, whereas the rest of us try to look interested and it comes out as if we’re contemplating which bridge to jump off.
I was on a television show once, they were narrowing the field down and the floor manager came over and said “Adam, can you try and smile more. Look interested”. I knew I was finished right there - it’s just not natural to sit there with an air-hostess smile plastered on just in case Camera 72 happens to catch a glimpse of you in the corner of the screen. Not surprisingly I was given the arse at a later date. Staring blankly into the distance doesn’t equal ratings as much as peppy freaks bouncing up and down on the spot.
So yes, random drunken man was right and wrong at the same time. There’s nothing I'd love more than to be normal and sit there all day sporting a grin that suggested I’d just sat on something sharp, but it’s got fuck all chance of happening. It’s not a matter of choice, it’s just the way DNA conspired against me and thousands of others to remove the ability to feign enjoyment.
Are you one of these people? Stand up and be proud. “One of us! One of us!” etc..
Of course most other people want you to be perky and excited because it takes their minds off their shitty lives for a moment. If you’re happy to be there that must mean everything is alright with the world. Or something. What a trash theory. Another in a long line of farcical things people do without any good reason. So consider this next time you sit opposite somebody on the train and they appear to be having the worst time of their life. Maybe they are, but the chances are good that they’re just not interested anymore. That’s my excuse anyway.
Friday, 16 December 2005
Stupid, stupid, stupid
Three perfectly good ideas that I have for television shows. Of course “perfectly good” equates to to “completely shit” when the Australian Television Adjustment Index is applied so at least consider that before slaughtering the ideas or nicking them for yourself.
1. Unnamed Quiz Show #1
Now, this is the jewel in the crown. You may have noticed that other than the increasingly dire “Who Wants To Be A Millionare” there is a serious shortage of game shows in this country that actually require any brains to succeed. Sure any bogan can get on “Deal Or No Deal” and stand there looking like a twat holding briefcase #4. I sure did. But while we’re going force people to think for their money why don’t we make them sweat for it as well?
In Unnamed Quiz Show #1 we will gather three people each week who have a serious phobia of one thing or another and subject them to a series of general knowledge questions while we also subject them to the thing that scares the living shit out of them. Not only will they have to know the answers but will have to be able to spit them out at our host whilst confronting their greatest fears.
For instance you might be the world’s greatest living authority on Crop Rotation and 15th century farming methods but let’s see you storm through a round of questions when you’re trapped in a room full of spiders. Other potentially top scenarios include the contestants sitting in a rickety light aircraft as it dips and turns while our host (TBA) sits in the co-pilots seat and fires questions back at them, and several people who are scared to death of clowns facing our clown-suited host and a roomful of people on unicycles throwing buckets of confetti at each other.
Who will stay calm long enough to get the job done and win huge cash and prizes? Find out next week as we play Unnamed Quiz Show #1
2. Unnamed Talent Australian Idol Ripoff Show #1
Isn’t everyone bored shitless of record company executives, former singers and rubbish radio personalities running these shows? Have you ever thought you could select and groom a singing protege from a cast of thousands who can take the charts by storm? Well now you can. After a rigorous selection process we’ll pick ten entrants who nothing more about the music industry than how to turn a radio on and it will be up to them to pick one singer each from thousands of applicants and guide them towards victory. You’ll have a battalion of songwriters and singing coaches at your fingertips to groom the superstar with but what song they sing, what they wear and what ridiculous dance steps they rip on the stage are entirely up to you. They’ve signed a contract to be on it. You can make them sing Agadoo if you want. Plenty of laughs to be had when Cheryl from Niddrie picks some second rate club singer and tries to force him into a weekly Bon Jovi singalong when he desperately wants to be an R&B superstar. Massive life affirming drama when he gets away with it and becomes a huge star.
Every week the judges will nominate three singers to face the chop via the traditional SMS method. Once eliminated the singers join the judging panel and get to hammer their former mentors and contestants until the logical conclusion of the show, after which everyone gets a record deal and we get SUPER RICH off the profits from all the text messages and record contracts. An alternate plotline has the remaining singers getting together to nominate two judges every week, one of whom will also be eliminated via SMS vote. Suddenly people are thrown together with people who don’t want them but are desperate to stay in the competition. I predict wild scenes.
3. Midnight Shenanigans
We’ve discussed this before of course. It will be a once a week, 1hr talk/variety/hot topic chat program on at midnight Monday/Tuesday and hosted by the best available candidate at the time. That will, of course, be me. Cue 48 minutes + shithouse late night ads of sitting behind a desk, talking it up, interviewing local nutbags and just generally pissfarting around. Because it will be little more than me, the desk, a studio audience of 20 people specially invited to applaud like stooges when they’re told to and and endless stream of entertaining celebrity guests it’ll cost next to nothing to make. How can you lose? Sounds simple, and shit but I promise you entertainment of the highest order. Segment “Throwing The Cat Amongst The Pigeons” - which will feature a shot of me throwing a cat at some pigeons for an introduction - will bring together people who are sure to argue with each other for our entertainment. This week it could have been Lebanese Islamic activist vs Fair Dinkum Aussie Bogan. Next week - retired copper vs career criminal with a paranoid hatred of authority. Follow that by interviewing the legends of Australian TV (Ian Turpie, Rob Brough, Ernie Sigley, Burgo, Tony Barber, the guy off the Goggo Mobile ad, Sandy Roberts.. The list is endless) and you’re onto a winner.
We’ll be aiming to corner the “stoned/drunk/senile/terminally unemployable/completely mad/lost the will to live” market that is currently dominated by Up Late With Hot Dogs. More details to be fleshed out in our production meetings but I tell you if we can’t get an hour of quality shenanigans a week out of this flat, brown, big wide, mysterious crazy country we live in then we may as well give up.
Any winners in that bunch? Or is it more reminiscent of when Alan Partridge tried to flog “Inner City Sumo” and “Arm Wrestling With Chaz and Dave” to the head of BBC programming? If you’re a network executive or head of a major production company write in to the usual address and we’ll talk. You put Newlyweds, Dog Eat Dog and The Bob Morrison show on you bastards NOW GIVE SOMETHING BACK TO THE COMMUNITY.
1. Unnamed Quiz Show #1
Now, this is the jewel in the crown. You may have noticed that other than the increasingly dire “Who Wants To Be A Millionare” there is a serious shortage of game shows in this country that actually require any brains to succeed. Sure any bogan can get on “Deal Or No Deal” and stand there looking like a twat holding briefcase #4. I sure did. But while we’re going force people to think for their money why don’t we make them sweat for it as well?
In Unnamed Quiz Show #1 we will gather three people each week who have a serious phobia of one thing or another and subject them to a series of general knowledge questions while we also subject them to the thing that scares the living shit out of them. Not only will they have to know the answers but will have to be able to spit them out at our host whilst confronting their greatest fears.
For instance you might be the world’s greatest living authority on Crop Rotation and 15th century farming methods but let’s see you storm through a round of questions when you’re trapped in a room full of spiders. Other potentially top scenarios include the contestants sitting in a rickety light aircraft as it dips and turns while our host (TBA) sits in the co-pilots seat and fires questions back at them, and several people who are scared to death of clowns facing our clown-suited host and a roomful of people on unicycles throwing buckets of confetti at each other.
Who will stay calm long enough to get the job done and win huge cash and prizes? Find out next week as we play Unnamed Quiz Show #1
2. Unnamed Talent Australian Idol Ripoff Show #1
Isn’t everyone bored shitless of record company executives, former singers and rubbish radio personalities running these shows? Have you ever thought you could select and groom a singing protege from a cast of thousands who can take the charts by storm? Well now you can. After a rigorous selection process we’ll pick ten entrants who nothing more about the music industry than how to turn a radio on and it will be up to them to pick one singer each from thousands of applicants and guide them towards victory. You’ll have a battalion of songwriters and singing coaches at your fingertips to groom the superstar with but what song they sing, what they wear and what ridiculous dance steps they rip on the stage are entirely up to you. They’ve signed a contract to be on it. You can make them sing Agadoo if you want. Plenty of laughs to be had when Cheryl from Niddrie picks some second rate club singer and tries to force him into a weekly Bon Jovi singalong when he desperately wants to be an R&B superstar. Massive life affirming drama when he gets away with it and becomes a huge star.
Every week the judges will nominate three singers to face the chop via the traditional SMS method. Once eliminated the singers join the judging panel and get to hammer their former mentors and contestants until the logical conclusion of the show, after which everyone gets a record deal and we get SUPER RICH off the profits from all the text messages and record contracts. An alternate plotline has the remaining singers getting together to nominate two judges every week, one of whom will also be eliminated via SMS vote. Suddenly people are thrown together with people who don’t want them but are desperate to stay in the competition. I predict wild scenes.
3. Midnight Shenanigans
We’ve discussed this before of course. It will be a once a week, 1hr talk/variety/hot topic chat program on at midnight Monday/Tuesday and hosted by the best available candidate at the time. That will, of course, be me. Cue 48 minutes + shithouse late night ads of sitting behind a desk, talking it up, interviewing local nutbags and just generally pissfarting around. Because it will be little more than me, the desk, a studio audience of 20 people specially invited to applaud like stooges when they’re told to and and endless stream of entertaining celebrity guests it’ll cost next to nothing to make. How can you lose? Sounds simple, and shit but I promise you entertainment of the highest order. Segment “Throwing The Cat Amongst The Pigeons” - which will feature a shot of me throwing a cat at some pigeons for an introduction - will bring together people who are sure to argue with each other for our entertainment. This week it could have been Lebanese Islamic activist vs Fair Dinkum Aussie Bogan. Next week - retired copper vs career criminal with a paranoid hatred of authority. Follow that by interviewing the legends of Australian TV (Ian Turpie, Rob Brough, Ernie Sigley, Burgo, Tony Barber, the guy off the Goggo Mobile ad, Sandy Roberts.. The list is endless) and you’re onto a winner.
We’ll be aiming to corner the “stoned/drunk/senile/terminally unemployable/completely mad/lost the will to live” market that is currently dominated by Up Late With Hot Dogs. More details to be fleshed out in our production meetings but I tell you if we can’t get an hour of quality shenanigans a week out of this flat, brown, big wide, mysterious crazy country we live in then we may as well give up.
Any winners in that bunch? Or is it more reminiscent of when Alan Partridge tried to flog “Inner City Sumo” and “Arm Wrestling With Chaz and Dave” to the head of BBC programming? If you’re a network executive or head of a major production company write in to the usual address and we’ll talk. You put Newlyweds, Dog Eat Dog and The Bob Morrison show on you bastards NOW GIVE SOMETHING BACK TO THE COMMUNITY.
Unmercifully flogging..
.. a dead horse that is. What's the last thing Melbourne’s already overcrowded sports market needs? If you said "another basketball team" you are probably not involved with these financially suicidal people.
"Cowan Basketball, the Philips Championship National Basketball Leagues’s (NBL) newest franchise, unveiled its official identity. The team announced its name - South Dragons.
The NBL Board approved the transfer of the Victoria Giants license to Cowan Basketball in October this year, clearing the way for a second Victorian team to return to the Philips Championship in 2006/07.
NBL Commissioner Rick Burton said the return to a 12-team competition for the 2006-07 Philips Championship is a step in the right direction and would see a new cross-town Melbourne rivalry born.
“The transfer of this license to Cowan Basketball is a huge step forward for the Philips Championship,” said Burton.
"Not only does it see the NBL return to a more-balanced competition, but also will write a new chapter in Victoria’s proud basketball history. This presents a fantastic new opportunity for the Melbourne public and supporter base to get behind their teams.”
Now, consider the following:
a) Melbourne Tigers
b) Coburg Giants, Eastside Spectres, Frankston Bears, Geelong Supercats, North Melbourne Giants, Nunawading Spectres, South East Melbourne Magic, South Melbourne Saints, St. Kilda Saints, Victoria Titans/Giants
a) entered the league in 1984 and have remained there ever since
b) is a list of defunct Victorian NBL teams. You do the math.
There's more chance of a relaxing holiday in Chechnya than getting away with this venture. How can they not see this? The Tigers are reduced to playing in a 2500 seat stadium they can't fill, and Melbourne Victory has snatched the summer yuppie sports market from under their noses. And what's a “South Dragon” anyway? Wests Tigers might not be the best name ever invented (but we won the premiership so.. your mum) but at least it means you can call them 'Wests'. What are you supposed to say for this lot? "I’m a huge fan of South"?
It's already shithouse and they haven’t even bounced a ball yet. Was there a 'Southern Dragons' mixed netball team that was going to sue them for using the name?
Now, I don’t give a toss about basketball. It’s not bad to watch on TV but going to the games here was a painful experience. I was only there because my friend's cousin played for the Victoria Titans and it was a good place to combine the pursuits of watching sports, pissfarting about and getting obscenely drunk. For some reason they were obsessed with with playing non-stop hip-hop. Not even the good stuff - no Straight Outta Compton for this family friendly audience.
Just before they moved to the Sports and Aquatic Centre, started charging $25 to get in and died in the arse the Victoria Titans/Giants took this to it’s logical conclusion by hiring some dumbfuck DJ to rap and go “YO YO YO YO 2 PTS LEMME HEAR YOU GIVE IT UP FOR THA BOYZ IN BLUE CMON!” a lot. The only thing that saved them was the fat compere who sung the national anthem when nobody else showed up to do it.
Did I really have nothing better to do on all those nights? Clearly not.
I wasn’t always just a casual spectator though. After deciding to go for the Gold Coast Cougars (later Rollers) after Andrew Gaze came to our school in grade three and gave us free tickets to their game against the Melbourne Tigers I was forced to choose a new team at random when they unceremoniously folded somewhere in the mid 90s. Not that I ever actually went to see them when they played here, but it was just a matter of being difficult during the one time that the game was popular in this country.
After their demise I closed my eyes and poked a finger at the league table which landed on the Adelaide 36′ers. Thrills and spills galore in my childhood let me assure you. Somehow, in a manner that escapes me now, they ended up playing and beating the Titans in the ‘99 Grand Final series. A big fuck you to all the people I went to the games with right there. God knows what they’re doing now, the moment my friend's cousin got traded to another team that was pretty much it.
I last went about three years ago when the 36′ers and Titans players had handbags at 20 paces on court and the announcer (DJ Dumbfuck had been sacked by this point) had to plead with the crowd of 500 - most of whom were under the age of 13 - not to spill on the court and join in while Run DMC’s 'It’s Like That' blared out over the speakers. Farcical.
Now some new mad bastards with more money than brains think they’re going to coin it in by playing in Vodafone Arena? Presumably they will pay to rent the venue and will recieve little if any of the money from the grossly overpriced parking, food and drink sales. To cover this up they will charge a fortune to get in, price half their market out and will play to crowds of 4000. Half of these people will then participate in the great Australian tradition of jumping off something if it starts to become unpopular. Eventually they will split their games between Dandenong and Bendigo before failing miserably like all those that have gone before them. We’ll be back for the “I told you so” story about their death in three years time. Please note there will be no follow-up or mention of this ever again if they make a fortune and become the biggest sports club in the country.
Thursday, 15 December 2005
Additional - TSP's Top 30 of 2005
A year ago we unveiled the TSP 1000. A lot has happened since then. Well, a bit anyway. For one there’s been an entire year’s worth of music, and to mark down the first year in a decade that I actually took close notice of new music while at the same time almost completely ignoring the Top 40 charts and commercial radio we present TSP’s Top 30 of ‘05
The envelope please…
30. Selfish Cunt - I Love New York
29. The Rakes - Strasbourg
28. LCD Soundsystem - Losing My Edge
27. Maximo Park - The Coast Is Always Changing
26. Happy Mondays - Playground Superstar
25. The Tears - Lovers
24. Arctic Monkeys - Fake Tales of San Francisco
23. Martha Wainwright - BMFA
22. Max Graham vs Yes - Owner Of A Lonely Heart
21. Hard-Fi - Cash Machine
20. Pay TV - Refrain Refrain
19. The Strokes - Juicebox
18. The Killers - Smile Like You Mean It
17. Gwen Stefani - What You Waiting For
16. The Subways - Oh Yeah
15. Gorillaz ft. Shaun Ryder - Dare
14. Bloc Party - Price Of Gas
13. Babyshambles - Fuck Forever
12. Mylo vs Miami Sound Machine - Doctor Pressure
11. Maximo Park - Graffiti
10. Bloc Party - Two More Years (from the album Silent Alarm)
9. Goldfrapp - Slide In (from Supernature
8. The Strokes - Razor Blade (First Impressions Of Earth
7. Kaiser Chiefs - Oh My God (Employment)
6. Le Tigre - Nanny Nanny Boo Boo [Junior Senior Remix] (This Island - Remixes)
5. Bloc Party - Helicopter (Silent Alarm)
4. The Killers - Somebody Told Me (Hot Fuss
3. Goldfrapp - Ooh La La (Supernature
2. Maximo Park - Apply Some Pressure (A Certain Trigger
1. Kaiser Chiefs - I Predict A Riot (Employment)
And the worst…
Take your choice for runner-up,
* Shannon Noll “C’mon Aussie C’mon” (a #1 single, if you need further proof of what a farce the charts are)
* Band Aid 20 - Do They Know It’s Christmas
* Eminem - Like Toy Soldiers
* Eminem - Ass Like That (Use by date reached. What will westie bogans wear on their tracksuits now?)
* Green Day - Boulevard of Broken Dreams (”Oh but it’s so profound!” No, it’s complete mince)
* Green Day - Wake Me Up When September Ends (Ditto)
* Anthony Callea - Bridge Over Troubled Water
* Tamara Jaber - Ooh Ahh
* Ben Lee - Catch My Disease (The most painfully twee thing committed to record ever)
* Simple Plan - Untitled [How Can This Happen To Me?] (Well it’s not fucking untitled then is it you idiots? Not is it any good)
* Cat Empire - Car Song (They could have at least had the courtesy to cover the infinately better Elastica song of the same name)
* Schnappi - Das Klein Krokodil
* Audio Bullys ft. Nancy Sinatra - Shot You Down (Absolutely rancid remix)
* Jessica Simpson - These Boots Are Made For Walkin’
* 2Pac and Eminem - Ghetto Gospel (That 17th single after death is always the most difficult)
* The Pussycat Dolls - Dontcha
Extensive list, imagine what it would of looked like had I actually made an effort to listen to the charts? Diavolo! The undoubted winner is Crazy Frog - Axel F. Everyone above the age of 10 who purchased this song should be executed on sight. Even if they bought if for their kids.
Meanwhile what the FUCK was “Underwear Goes Inside The Pants” by Lazyboy which charted in February? And why did nobody inform me that there had been a Melissa Tkautz comeback?
Your opinion on the above may very. Which is alright, as long as you’re not attempting to defend that fucking frog. Next year? God knows. Might bring back the 1000 and give everyone another two weeks of laughs.
The envelope please…
30. Selfish Cunt - I Love New York
29. The Rakes - Strasbourg
28. LCD Soundsystem - Losing My Edge
27. Maximo Park - The Coast Is Always Changing
26. Happy Mondays - Playground Superstar
25. The Tears - Lovers
24. Arctic Monkeys - Fake Tales of San Francisco
23. Martha Wainwright - BMFA
22. Max Graham vs Yes - Owner Of A Lonely Heart
21. Hard-Fi - Cash Machine
20. Pay TV - Refrain Refrain
19. The Strokes - Juicebox
18. The Killers - Smile Like You Mean It
17. Gwen Stefani - What You Waiting For
16. The Subways - Oh Yeah
15. Gorillaz ft. Shaun Ryder - Dare
14. Bloc Party - Price Of Gas
13. Babyshambles - Fuck Forever
12. Mylo vs Miami Sound Machine - Doctor Pressure
11. Maximo Park - Graffiti
10. Bloc Party - Two More Years (from the album Silent Alarm)
9. Goldfrapp - Slide In (from Supernature
8. The Strokes - Razor Blade (First Impressions Of Earth
7. Kaiser Chiefs - Oh My God (Employment)
6. Le Tigre - Nanny Nanny Boo Boo [Junior Senior Remix] (This Island - Remixes)
5. Bloc Party - Helicopter (Silent Alarm)
4. The Killers - Somebody Told Me (Hot Fuss
3. Goldfrapp - Ooh La La (Supernature
2. Maximo Park - Apply Some Pressure (A Certain Trigger
1. Kaiser Chiefs - I Predict A Riot (Employment)
And the worst…
Take your choice for runner-up,
* Shannon Noll “C’mon Aussie C’mon” (a #1 single, if you need further proof of what a farce the charts are)
* Band Aid 20 - Do They Know It’s Christmas
* Eminem - Like Toy Soldiers
* Eminem - Ass Like That (Use by date reached. What will westie bogans wear on their tracksuits now?)
* Green Day - Boulevard of Broken Dreams (”Oh but it’s so profound!” No, it’s complete mince)
* Green Day - Wake Me Up When September Ends (Ditto)
* Anthony Callea - Bridge Over Troubled Water
* Tamara Jaber - Ooh Ahh
* Ben Lee - Catch My Disease (The most painfully twee thing committed to record ever)
* Simple Plan - Untitled [How Can This Happen To Me?] (Well it’s not fucking untitled then is it you idiots? Not is it any good)
* Cat Empire - Car Song (They could have at least had the courtesy to cover the infinately better Elastica song of the same name)
* Schnappi - Das Klein Krokodil
* Audio Bullys ft. Nancy Sinatra - Shot You Down (Absolutely rancid remix)
* Jessica Simpson - These Boots Are Made For Walkin’
* 2Pac and Eminem - Ghetto Gospel (That 17th single after death is always the most difficult)
* The Pussycat Dolls - Dontcha
Extensive list, imagine what it would of looked like had I actually made an effort to listen to the charts? Diavolo! The undoubted winner is Crazy Frog - Axel F. Everyone above the age of 10 who purchased this song should be executed on sight. Even if they bought if for their kids.
Meanwhile what the FUCK was “Underwear Goes Inside The Pants” by Lazyboy which charted in February? And why did nobody inform me that there had been a Melissa Tkautz comeback?
Your opinion on the above may very. Which is alright, as long as you’re not attempting to defend that fucking frog. Next year? God knows. Might bring back the 1000 and give everyone another two weeks of laughs.
Wednesday, 14 December 2005
Kritics Korner
Around The World in 80 Babes
by Nigel Gohl
235pg. No publisher
It’s fair to assume that any book that begins with the line “Having brought my girlfriend to her third orgasm during an intense forty minute session” is not going to rapidly develop into one of the great pieces of feminist literature. It’s no surprise then that the following 233 pages of Around The World.. fail to amount to anything more than cheap pornographic thrills and misogynistic male sexual fantasy. Every woman is a toy to be used up, shot in, ticked off and moved down the conveyor belt to make room for the next trophy.
Far be it from me to question the deeds outlined in the book. Chances are they’re probably an accurate recollection of the trip in question - although I did wonder at one point whether the author was attempting some sort of “Did he or didn’t he?” trick a’la American Psycho - but I’m struggling to comprehend exactly how it became noteworthy enough to write an entire book on. Off the top of my head I can’t think of a target audience for an endless stream of sexual anecdotes that more often than not involve phrases like, and I quote, “I loved pounding her athletic body”. Not one that actually reads books anyway. This is more of an extended FHM article than a book.
The image painted within of the Australian male is one of a boorish, pig who will stop at nothing to plant one on any female he can find who is gulliable enough to fall for his allegedly “foolproof” pickup techniques. Probably represents a fair proportion of the population to be honest, but not many of them have decided to commit their shenanigans to paper in the hope that more people can Enter the Dragon and learn how to cultivate the same sleazy skills. This book could be the ultimate Xmas present if you’ve got a 13-year-old nephew who you’re trying to enforce a sexual obsession on.
The author subjects you to every excruciating detail of his life and philosophies on picking up women. The result of sitting down and reading it, or skimming heavily as the case may be, is something like being locked in a bucks party for three hours after the strippers have left and all that’s left behind is a room of testosterone fuelled sleazy males who would give their left testicle for a handjob. Women become the products of “systems” that decide whether or not she’s “worthy of Saturday night” or should be “placed in the mid-week selection”. It’s a painful read. Once you reach the girl who becomes known only as DSL because she has “dick sucking lips” you’ll want to slap somebody in the head. No surprises that his meeting of Ms. DSL ends in a sex scene worthy of the cheapest porn mag on the market and she is never heard of again. One day later he’s taking a girl he met three minutes before from behind in front of his mates for their amusement while they exchange high fives. He will later “spitroast” another girl with the same mates. In case you haven’t worked it out yet this is a sordid affair of the lowest order.
And that’s before he’s even left the country. By the time the pantsman roadshow hits Europe it’s enough to make you renounce your citizenship a’la Pixie Skase and just walk out of the country. There’s no doubting that most twentysomething males are more interested in rooting than anything else, but I’ve never come across one who was more boastfully proud of it. It reeks of somebody who got a few laughs when telling their story at the pub and decided that the entire world needed to know what a legend they were as well. The fact that the book is self-published almost confirms it. The category of “Voyages and Travels” listed inside the front cover needs further scrutiny as well - his review of a visit to Paris, the city of love lest we forget, consists entirely of “we visited the major attractions” before he turns his attention back to attempting to pork the female members of the tour. You don’t need me to tell you he’s successful - and you won’t be surprised to learn that again he brings a friend along to share the spoils. Are we supposed to rise to applaud this? I’m not quite sure, but if two men taking advantage of a clearly pissed off her face tourist is your scene then this book may be for you. If it is then ring him up. His mobile number is on the inside cover of the book should you want to book him for a television appearance or become another trophy in his endless line of five minute sexual servings.
There’s no point going into his further adventures. Suffice to say they’re all subpar erotic adventures with a revolving cast of foreign women that are roughly as interesting as staring at a brick wall for three weeks. I could tell that this was the worst book I’d ever read by the end of the first page, and I’ll freely admit that I couldn’t make it through the whole thing. It’s just too offensive. By the time he’s posing as a member of the Australian Water Polo team, in a specially constructed t-shirt for fuck’s sake, you’ll not only be questioning if any male can actually be this dedicated to sleaze but also whether there are enough women in the world stupid and vulnerable enough to fall for it. Sadly the answer appears to be a big fat yes and yes.
I leave you with the following quote,
“Was she hot?”
“Not only hot. She was black!”
Draw your own conclusions. If you make it to the bit about “pounding” a “divided pussy” from behind while an entire crowd of bar patrons rise to applaud you have my permission to throw the thing at a wall as hard as you can. If you’re still not in the mood to start castrating people how about an educational graph?
[The host of the graph image has sadly since collapsed]
0 stars. Thank christ it was free. For somebody who claims to have done so much shagging in one year it’s no surprise that the book about it ends up being a 230 page wank. Avoid like the plague.
UPDATE 1.0 - Ladies and Gentlemen, I present my new favourite Internet faction. Allow me to introduce you to the 60.224.179.87 Krew. A revolving cast of fake names employed by somebody who may or may not be connected to the author in order to stooge comments boxes talking the book up in the last 24hrs. The small matter of all of them coming from exactly the same IP address shouldn’t stop you from thinking that there are HUNDREDS of people out there ready to give their lives to defend this important male lifestyle and health manual. Maybe they’re all just spent the afternoon huddled around a computer in one house after a hastily convened private meeting? How should I know?
Thanks to Charles, Emma, Peter, Jennifer, Brad, Susan, Jane, Mick, Vince, John, Andrew, Isaac, Karl, Katie, Russell, Kicker, Gay Mike, Karen and Scotty for their contributions. I know it must have been hard to get to the keyboard with so many people baying for blood but you managed it and we’re all extremely proud of you. I mean imagine if it was just one sad prick sitting there posting under different names to try and give the impression that he was popular and successful? It doesn’t even deserve to be thought about.
by Nigel Gohl
235pg. No publisher
It’s fair to assume that any book that begins with the line “Having brought my girlfriend to her third orgasm during an intense forty minute session” is not going to rapidly develop into one of the great pieces of feminist literature. It’s no surprise then that the following 233 pages of Around The World.. fail to amount to anything more than cheap pornographic thrills and misogynistic male sexual fantasy. Every woman is a toy to be used up, shot in, ticked off and moved down the conveyor belt to make room for the next trophy.
Far be it from me to question the deeds outlined in the book. Chances are they’re probably an accurate recollection of the trip in question - although I did wonder at one point whether the author was attempting some sort of “Did he or didn’t he?” trick a’la American Psycho - but I’m struggling to comprehend exactly how it became noteworthy enough to write an entire book on. Off the top of my head I can’t think of a target audience for an endless stream of sexual anecdotes that more often than not involve phrases like, and I quote, “I loved pounding her athletic body”. Not one that actually reads books anyway. This is more of an extended FHM article than a book.
The image painted within of the Australian male is one of a boorish, pig who will stop at nothing to plant one on any female he can find who is gulliable enough to fall for his allegedly “foolproof” pickup techniques. Probably represents a fair proportion of the population to be honest, but not many of them have decided to commit their shenanigans to paper in the hope that more people can Enter the Dragon and learn how to cultivate the same sleazy skills. This book could be the ultimate Xmas present if you’ve got a 13-year-old nephew who you’re trying to enforce a sexual obsession on.
The author subjects you to every excruciating detail of his life and philosophies on picking up women. The result of sitting down and reading it, or skimming heavily as the case may be, is something like being locked in a bucks party for three hours after the strippers have left and all that’s left behind is a room of testosterone fuelled sleazy males who would give their left testicle for a handjob. Women become the products of “systems” that decide whether or not she’s “worthy of Saturday night” or should be “placed in the mid-week selection”. It’s a painful read. Once you reach the girl who becomes known only as DSL because she has “dick sucking lips” you’ll want to slap somebody in the head. No surprises that his meeting of Ms. DSL ends in a sex scene worthy of the cheapest porn mag on the market and she is never heard of again. One day later he’s taking a girl he met three minutes before from behind in front of his mates for their amusement while they exchange high fives. He will later “spitroast” another girl with the same mates. In case you haven’t worked it out yet this is a sordid affair of the lowest order.
And that’s before he’s even left the country. By the time the pantsman roadshow hits Europe it’s enough to make you renounce your citizenship a’la Pixie Skase and just walk out of the country. There’s no doubting that most twentysomething males are more interested in rooting than anything else, but I’ve never come across one who was more boastfully proud of it. It reeks of somebody who got a few laughs when telling their story at the pub and decided that the entire world needed to know what a legend they were as well. The fact that the book is self-published almost confirms it. The category of “Voyages and Travels” listed inside the front cover needs further scrutiny as well - his review of a visit to Paris, the city of love lest we forget, consists entirely of “we visited the major attractions” before he turns his attention back to attempting to pork the female members of the tour. You don’t need me to tell you he’s successful - and you won’t be surprised to learn that again he brings a friend along to share the spoils. Are we supposed to rise to applaud this? I’m not quite sure, but if two men taking advantage of a clearly pissed off her face tourist is your scene then this book may be for you. If it is then ring him up. His mobile number is on the inside cover of the book should you want to book him for a television appearance or become another trophy in his endless line of five minute sexual servings.
There’s no point going into his further adventures. Suffice to say they’re all subpar erotic adventures with a revolving cast of foreign women that are roughly as interesting as staring at a brick wall for three weeks. I could tell that this was the worst book I’d ever read by the end of the first page, and I’ll freely admit that I couldn’t make it through the whole thing. It’s just too offensive. By the time he’s posing as a member of the Australian Water Polo team, in a specially constructed t-shirt for fuck’s sake, you’ll not only be questioning if any male can actually be this dedicated to sleaze but also whether there are enough women in the world stupid and vulnerable enough to fall for it. Sadly the answer appears to be a big fat yes and yes.
I leave you with the following quote,
“Was she hot?”
“Not only hot. She was black!”
Draw your own conclusions. If you make it to the bit about “pounding” a “divided pussy” from behind while an entire crowd of bar patrons rise to applaud you have my permission to throw the thing at a wall as hard as you can. If you’re still not in the mood to start castrating people how about an educational graph?
[The host of the graph image has sadly since collapsed]
0 stars. Thank christ it was free. For somebody who claims to have done so much shagging in one year it’s no surprise that the book about it ends up being a 230 page wank. Avoid like the plague.
UPDATE 1.0 - Ladies and Gentlemen, I present my new favourite Internet faction. Allow me to introduce you to the 60.224.179.87 Krew. A revolving cast of fake names employed by somebody who may or may not be connected to the author in order to stooge comments boxes talking the book up in the last 24hrs. The small matter of all of them coming from exactly the same IP address shouldn’t stop you from thinking that there are HUNDREDS of people out there ready to give their lives to defend this important male lifestyle and health manual. Maybe they’re all just spent the afternoon huddled around a computer in one house after a hastily convened private meeting? How should I know?
Thanks to Charles, Emma, Peter, Jennifer, Brad, Susan, Jane, Mick, Vince, John, Andrew, Isaac, Karl, Katie, Russell, Kicker, Gay Mike, Karen and Scotty for their contributions. I know it must have been hard to get to the keyboard with so many people baying for blood but you managed it and we’re all extremely proud of you. I mean imagine if it was just one sad prick sitting there posting under different names to try and give the impression that he was popular and successful? It doesn’t even deserve to be thought about.
Monday, 12 December 2005
Good luck with that
Surely this is part of a trial. They’re just trying to prove that people in this country will watch ANYTHING if there’s a chance that Australia will win it. There’s no other explanation.
Subscribers to pay TV will be able to choose the sports they want to watch from seven simultaneous digital channels during the Commonwealth Games.
In an agreement announced today, Foxtel, Austar and Optus TV will provide coverage through Fox Sports, which has secured the exclusive subscription television rights to the 2006 Games.
So far so bloody tedious. It’s the Commonwealth Games you know - I really don’t think anyone is that concerned. Apparently all the tickets are sold but I’ve not yet met anyone who has bought one. I wish them all the best but I’m not interested in Badminton today, so why would I fake it in March? This is the same reason that people lose the plot over swimming when our Kieran/Lethal Liesl/Duncan Armstrong/Madame Butterfly whoever is smashing the world in the Olympic pool, but when they play the World Short Course Championship on Fox there’s fifteen people watching and seven of them are just waiting for The Simpsons to come on the other channel. It’s fun taking gold medals the Americans and evil East Germans (1960-1989)/Chinese (Tianamen Square onwards) but when it comes to tonking Tonga over 25m nobody’s quite as interested. Apparently the Marathon is coming past my front door - you’ll excuse me I don’t rush out and exchange a massive triumphant high five with the Falkland Islands squad as they wobble around in a daze three hours behind the winner.
Here’s the bit that gets me,
Included in the plans are 108 hours of coverage for badminton, 88 hours of hockey action and 101 hours of lawn bowls.
Subscribers who book on or before March 8 2006 will be charged $49.95 for the Melbourne 2006 Commonwealth Games package (in addition to normal monthly subscription rates). Those booking from March 9 will be charged $64.95.
Unless you’re the biggest Badminton enthusiast this nation has ever seen why in god’s name would ANYONE even contemplate forking out $50 for this? That’s 101 hours of Lawn Bowls. Four and a bit days of it. If you sit through that entire program then I’m afraid things just won’t be the same. You’ll end up sprinkling speed on your Corn Flakes to try and fill the meaningless void in your life that has been left by the end of Wall To Wall Bowls. If you’re desperate to watch some pissed auntie doing her bit for the Isle of Man Crackerjack style then you’ll be in heaven. You could probably do the same thing on a smaller scale, and for free, at some local lawn bowls club every weekend WITH the added benefits, if the movies have taught us anything, of genuine 1970 bar prices. Of course the Games standard will be higher but what exactly constitutes a higher standard of lawn bowls? I have no idea. Wouldn’t you want the games to go for longer if you were paying to watch them?
Personally I’d love to see a colossal meltdown of the Australian program, leading to us winning very little indeed because the post-games enquiry would be a ripper. “WHAT ABOUT BEIJING?” some bogan in a green and gold boxing kangaroo hat will shout. Idiot.
There’s only one gold that this country should be concerned about seeing in ‘06,
Or is that not seeing? I forget.
Subscribers to pay TV will be able to choose the sports they want to watch from seven simultaneous digital channels during the Commonwealth Games.
In an agreement announced today, Foxtel, Austar and Optus TV will provide coverage through Fox Sports, which has secured the exclusive subscription television rights to the 2006 Games.
So far so bloody tedious. It’s the Commonwealth Games you know - I really don’t think anyone is that concerned. Apparently all the tickets are sold but I’ve not yet met anyone who has bought one. I wish them all the best but I’m not interested in Badminton today, so why would I fake it in March? This is the same reason that people lose the plot over swimming when our Kieran/Lethal Liesl/Duncan Armstrong/Madame Butterfly whoever is smashing the world in the Olympic pool, but when they play the World Short Course Championship on Fox there’s fifteen people watching and seven of them are just waiting for The Simpsons to come on the other channel. It’s fun taking gold medals the Americans and evil East Germans (1960-1989)/Chinese (Tianamen Square onwards) but when it comes to tonking Tonga over 25m nobody’s quite as interested. Apparently the Marathon is coming past my front door - you’ll excuse me I don’t rush out and exchange a massive triumphant high five with the Falkland Islands squad as they wobble around in a daze three hours behind the winner.
Here’s the bit that gets me,
Included in the plans are 108 hours of coverage for badminton, 88 hours of hockey action and 101 hours of lawn bowls.
Subscribers who book on or before March 8 2006 will be charged $49.95 for the Melbourne 2006 Commonwealth Games package (in addition to normal monthly subscription rates). Those booking from March 9 will be charged $64.95.
Unless you’re the biggest Badminton enthusiast this nation has ever seen why in god’s name would ANYONE even contemplate forking out $50 for this? That’s 101 hours of Lawn Bowls. Four and a bit days of it. If you sit through that entire program then I’m afraid things just won’t be the same. You’ll end up sprinkling speed on your Corn Flakes to try and fill the meaningless void in your life that has been left by the end of Wall To Wall Bowls. If you’re desperate to watch some pissed auntie doing her bit for the Isle of Man Crackerjack style then you’ll be in heaven. You could probably do the same thing on a smaller scale, and for free, at some local lawn bowls club every weekend WITH the added benefits, if the movies have taught us anything, of genuine 1970 bar prices. Of course the Games standard will be higher but what exactly constitutes a higher standard of lawn bowls? I have no idea. Wouldn’t you want the games to go for longer if you were paying to watch them?
Personally I’d love to see a colossal meltdown of the Australian program, leading to us winning very little indeed because the post-games enquiry would be a ripper. “WHAT ABOUT BEIJING?” some bogan in a green and gold boxing kangaroo hat will shout. Idiot.
There’s only one gold that this country should be concerned about seeing in ‘06,
Or is that not seeing? I forget.
Sunday, 11 December 2005
To the people who lose the plot at brawls at soccer football matches and declare that the entire sport is a disgrace, ethnic violence is a disgrace that was brought to this country by evil foreigners and how everyone needs military service I say CRAM IT YOU CLOWNS. You are officially now never allowed to take your children to a beach again - you set the precedent now FOLLOW IT.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the tolerant and friendly Australian people. Sure they’re apparently all pissed up violent cunts but what can you do? Apparently they’re right because they’re white. If the toothless lunatics who got their faces on TV crying about how hardly they’d been done by (”My grandffffather ffffought ffffor these beaches! [burp]”) represent white Australia then I am so out it’s not funny.
Mobs yelling racist chants chased down and bashed people of middle eastern appearance at Sydney’s Cronulla beach today, also turning on police fighting to prevent a full-scale riot.
A massive police presence at the beach in Sydney’s south failed to prevent the violence that had been expected today, after text messages began circulating among two rival groups urging violent attacks on each other.
Twelve people have been arrested over the violent scenes, which included numerous assaults on people of middle eastern appearance and on an ambulance crew.
Two paramedics were injured as they tried to get youths of middle eastern appearance out of Cronulla Surf Lifesaving Club, where they had fled to escape one group.
The mob broke the vehicle’s windows and kicked its doors as it attempted to get the group out.
Police, who used capsicum spray and batons in their battle to quell the rioters, were also pelted with beer bottles.
Some groups in the crowd, estimated to have peaked at 5,000, also stomped on and swarmed around police cars trying to move from one violent flare-up to the next.
The trouble began with scuffles about midday after thousands of people, many carrying Australian flags and dressed in Australian shirts, rallied at the beach.
As the crowd moved along the beach and foreshore area today, one man on the back of a ute began to shout “No more Lebs” - a chant picked up by the group around him.
Others in the crowd, carrying Australian flags and dressed in Australian shirts, yelled “Aussie, Aussie, Aussie … Oi, Oi, Oi”.
Many had adorned their bodies with racist slogans. One shirtless teenager walked by, this message painted on his back: “It’s time for a f—ing war, so join the army of hardcore”.
What the fuck is wrong with these people? I’m sure most of them don’t know what they’re doing. In fact by the available evidence 75% of them probably can’t spell their own name. And surprise, surprise every man and their dog has rocked up tonight for wild scenes and revenge. What did you expect? Of course they were going to load up and go out to settle the score. It’s not the right thing to do, but it’s inevitable. Not that Pissed Yokels #1-5000 have actually stayed around to sort it out. They’re already in a pub somewhere bragging to their mates how they were in the “Battle of Cronulla” when all they did was lob a Toohey’s stubbie at an ambulance and shout slogans. While Cletus is holding court in suburban pubs some poor bastards who are unlucky enough to live at the venue of KlanStock ‘05 are being belted and having their cars torched by a different bunch of cockheads.
Good to see Channel 10 coming out and just burying the Lebanese for retaliating, without mentioning the big White Australia Policy rally that preceded it until they’d buried one side for five minutes. We even got a terrified journalist discussing scenes of devestation caused by “thugs”. The people who started it? “Angry Australians”. Both sides of the great debate are for the tip as far as I’m concerned but let’s show some balance in reporting at least. Why can’t we have a news report where somebody comes out and goes “the people who kicked this off deserve to cop a belting”. What if it was the Premier of NSW? I’d move there just to vote for him.
What can you do about all this? Where’s this comet that’s supposed to take out earth? Just hit us already you bastard.
UPDATE - TSP’s foolproof guide to deciphering Who’s Who in Australian ethnic violence. Thanks to MS Paint, the Sydney Morning Herald and racial hatred for making this possible.
*PHOTO DELETED FOR LEGAL REASONS*
#1 is your stereotypical pissed up “have a go hero”, Australian alpha-male of Anglo-Saxon origin who never wears a shirt, hates Asians but works with twenty and is too shitscared to say anything and is up for a fight when he’s plastered and the numbers overwhelmingly suit him. Loves easy targets and probably thinks it’s “alright to hit women as long as deep down you love them”
#2 is the sort of semi-retarded mong that every #1 has hanging around him to make him look like an intellectual. #2 doesn’t really know what he’s fighting for but he knows that if he goes against the leader then it’s back to long nights pulling himself in front of TV infomercials rather than crossing his fingers that one day there will be some fat slag that #1 deems too ugly and will handball to him.
#3 is another stooge, who is just a little bit more enthusiastic than #2 AND has a trucker’s cap. Does not appear to have a full set of teeth. In fact I think the entire mob just had a full set between them.
#4 looks as if he’s trying to hold #3 back, but given the situation it may be that he was just trying to throw him out of the way so he could get a better crack at the guy who is getting slaughtered.
#5 shouts from a distance because he has no discernable testicles.
#6 has just come over for a look but is too pissweak to do anything.
#7 is pretty much fucked.
#8 (not pictured) is a cameraman who got a gun picture thanks to #7 copping a hiding. Presumably - next line inserted for legal reasons - he tried to stop the violent mob attacking the man.
I’ll probably get sued for this bit, so don’t expect that picture to last long.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the tolerant and friendly Australian people. Sure they’re apparently all pissed up violent cunts but what can you do? Apparently they’re right because they’re white. If the toothless lunatics who got their faces on TV crying about how hardly they’d been done by (”My grandffffather ffffought ffffor these beaches! [burp]”) represent white Australia then I am so out it’s not funny.
Mobs yelling racist chants chased down and bashed people of middle eastern appearance at Sydney’s Cronulla beach today, also turning on police fighting to prevent a full-scale riot.
A massive police presence at the beach in Sydney’s south failed to prevent the violence that had been expected today, after text messages began circulating among two rival groups urging violent attacks on each other.
Twelve people have been arrested over the violent scenes, which included numerous assaults on people of middle eastern appearance and on an ambulance crew.
Two paramedics were injured as they tried to get youths of middle eastern appearance out of Cronulla Surf Lifesaving Club, where they had fled to escape one group.
The mob broke the vehicle’s windows and kicked its doors as it attempted to get the group out.
Police, who used capsicum spray and batons in their battle to quell the rioters, were also pelted with beer bottles.
Some groups in the crowd, estimated to have peaked at 5,000, also stomped on and swarmed around police cars trying to move from one violent flare-up to the next.
The trouble began with scuffles about midday after thousands of people, many carrying Australian flags and dressed in Australian shirts, rallied at the beach.
As the crowd moved along the beach and foreshore area today, one man on the back of a ute began to shout “No more Lebs” - a chant picked up by the group around him.
Others in the crowd, carrying Australian flags and dressed in Australian shirts, yelled “Aussie, Aussie, Aussie … Oi, Oi, Oi”.
Many had adorned their bodies with racist slogans. One shirtless teenager walked by, this message painted on his back: “It’s time for a f—ing war, so join the army of hardcore”.
What the fuck is wrong with these people? I’m sure most of them don’t know what they’re doing. In fact by the available evidence 75% of them probably can’t spell their own name. And surprise, surprise every man and their dog has rocked up tonight for wild scenes and revenge. What did you expect? Of course they were going to load up and go out to settle the score. It’s not the right thing to do, but it’s inevitable. Not that Pissed Yokels #1-5000 have actually stayed around to sort it out. They’re already in a pub somewhere bragging to their mates how they were in the “Battle of Cronulla” when all they did was lob a Toohey’s stubbie at an ambulance and shout slogans. While Cletus is holding court in suburban pubs some poor bastards who are unlucky enough to live at the venue of KlanStock ‘05 are being belted and having their cars torched by a different bunch of cockheads.
Good to see Channel 10 coming out and just burying the Lebanese for retaliating, without mentioning the big White Australia Policy rally that preceded it until they’d buried one side for five minutes. We even got a terrified journalist discussing scenes of devestation caused by “thugs”. The people who started it? “Angry Australians”. Both sides of the great debate are for the tip as far as I’m concerned but let’s show some balance in reporting at least. Why can’t we have a news report where somebody comes out and goes “the people who kicked this off deserve to cop a belting”. What if it was the Premier of NSW? I’d move there just to vote for him.
What can you do about all this? Where’s this comet that’s supposed to take out earth? Just hit us already you bastard.
UPDATE - TSP’s foolproof guide to deciphering Who’s Who in Australian ethnic violence. Thanks to MS Paint, the Sydney Morning Herald and racial hatred for making this possible.
*PHOTO DELETED FOR LEGAL REASONS*
#1 is your stereotypical pissed up “have a go hero”, Australian alpha-male of Anglo-Saxon origin who never wears a shirt, hates Asians but works with twenty and is too shitscared to say anything and is up for a fight when he’s plastered and the numbers overwhelmingly suit him. Loves easy targets and probably thinks it’s “alright to hit women as long as deep down you love them”
#2 is the sort of semi-retarded mong that every #1 has hanging around him to make him look like an intellectual. #2 doesn’t really know what he’s fighting for but he knows that if he goes against the leader then it’s back to long nights pulling himself in front of TV infomercials rather than crossing his fingers that one day there will be some fat slag that #1 deems too ugly and will handball to him.
#3 is another stooge, who is just a little bit more enthusiastic than #2 AND has a trucker’s cap. Does not appear to have a full set of teeth. In fact I think the entire mob just had a full set between them.
#4 looks as if he’s trying to hold #3 back, but given the situation it may be that he was just trying to throw him out of the way so he could get a better crack at the guy who is getting slaughtered.
#5 shouts from a distance because he has no discernable testicles.
#6 has just come over for a look but is too pissweak to do anything.
#7 is pretty much fucked.
#8 (not pictured) is a cameraman who got a gun picture thanks to #7 copping a hiding. Presumably - next line inserted for legal reasons - he tried to stop the violent mob attacking the man.
I’ll probably get sued for this bit, so don’t expect that picture to last long.
Great Video Moments
Continuing our bandwith bursting, soul destroyingly graphic heavy run through history’s finest music video moments. Now with it’s own special category - relieve it all as if it was yesterday. In fact it probably was yesterday.
Today we go back to 1984. The artists are Van Halen, a musical act known for their sensitivity and knowledge of all applicable and appropriate sexual harassment guidelines. David Lee Roth (henceforth to be referred to only as DLR) was, indeed, such a feminist that he would pay off the roadie who picked the girl out of the crowd that he eventually planted one on. The influences of this would show in their work entitled “Hot For Teacher”. Remember, just because something is educational doesn’t mean it can’t be entertaining. Thanks to the VH1 Rock Show for unwittingly allowing somebody to copy this and put it on the net.
This is Waldo’s mom. The term MILF was not invented in 1984, but if it was I can assure you that it would in no way be applied to her. She tells Waldo to find some new friends but he says he can’t because he’s nervous and his “socks are too loose”.
Here’s Waldo attempting to get into the schoolbus and falling on his ass. This kid is going to get EATEN ALIVE in school. Reminds me of Adam circa Yr. 7
DLR as the best bus driver in history. He issues the legendary command “SITDOWN WALDO!” How did he know the kid’s name before he’d even started school? Best not to think about it because you’ll just do your head in.
Waldo is shattered. He makes whale noises. There really is no need to be shattered, because after the question of “I wonder what the teacher will look like this year?” is asked we are presented with..
MISS CHEMISTRY!
According to Pop Up Video (is there anything they don’t know?) there were supervisors provided to make sure none of the kids were abused on the set. There was, however, nobody there to make sure the women were alright. Does Mini DLR look like he’s being abused to you? No, the little bastard is having the time of his life.
The sudden appearance of Miss Chemistry has failed to raise Waldo’s spirits. This is the major difference between him and Adam circa Year 7. I would have risen to applaud - and then some - had any half naked woman entered my classroom. Not surprisingly they never did. Though my Year 8 teacher was hot and is welcome to contact me via the usual address if she’s reading.
Ladies and Gentlemen, the next member of our faculty. MISS PHYS-ED!
Welcome back Miss Chemistry. Back for a victory lap in front of the blackboard.
DLR does his bit for teacher/student relationships by picking her up. That is surely NOT legal
Speaking of not legal you can debate the moral issues surrounding locking the kids in a cage with a whip wielding woman who may or may not be Mrs. Waldo in substantially less clothing. Dave does his bit to get the kids out by waving an hourglass around. Why? Because this is one of the greatest videos ever you clown - that’s why.
Waldo. Still unimpressed, and getting progressively more shattered as the video progresses. Apparently (thanks to Pop Up Video again) they put motor oil in his hair to get that effect and the little shit spent hours trying to get it out. A small price to pay for a spot in musical immortality I’m sure you’ll agree.
Cue one of those “what happened to..” sequences beloved of the makers of university related movies and teen sex romp comedies. Look! A gynecologist! How original. They missed the sequel where he gets arrested.
Who the fuck is Michael Anthony? I don’t know. Must have been somebody else in the band other than DLR and a pair of Van Halens.
That’ll be all the drugs kicking in..
WHAT A FUCKING LEGEND! WALDO! WALDO! WALDO! Little pervert ended up doing better than anyone else.
And he learnt everything he knew from this man. All hail DLR, the greatest pantsman in musical history. He is now an author, and according to his website if you read his latest book you “will find the self-proclaimed toastmaster of the immoral majority dispensing knowledge, wisdom, action packed anecdotes and knock-you-on-your-ass chili recipes amidst a collection of personal artwork and photos in what is sure to be the most off-the-hook philosophy book ever written.” Sounds shithouse. It is my greatest regret in life that I am physically incapable of breaking out one of those midair spinning kicks that he does in the Jump video.
Impossible to describe with single pictures but watch the whole video and you’ll notice that one of the band is completely clueless when it comes to the dance routine. Try to guess which one it will be. Hint - it’s not the great man.
Today we go back to 1984. The artists are Van Halen, a musical act known for their sensitivity and knowledge of all applicable and appropriate sexual harassment guidelines. David Lee Roth (henceforth to be referred to only as DLR) was, indeed, such a feminist that he would pay off the roadie who picked the girl out of the crowd that he eventually planted one on. The influences of this would show in their work entitled “Hot For Teacher”. Remember, just because something is educational doesn’t mean it can’t be entertaining. Thanks to the VH1 Rock Show for unwittingly allowing somebody to copy this and put it on the net.
This is Waldo’s mom. The term MILF was not invented in 1984, but if it was I can assure you that it would in no way be applied to her. She tells Waldo to find some new friends but he says he can’t because he’s nervous and his “socks are too loose”.
Here’s Waldo attempting to get into the schoolbus and falling on his ass. This kid is going to get EATEN ALIVE in school. Reminds me of Adam circa Yr. 7
DLR as the best bus driver in history. He issues the legendary command “SITDOWN WALDO!” How did he know the kid’s name before he’d even started school? Best not to think about it because you’ll just do your head in.
Waldo is shattered. He makes whale noises. There really is no need to be shattered, because after the question of “I wonder what the teacher will look like this year?” is asked we are presented with..
MISS CHEMISTRY!
According to Pop Up Video (is there anything they don’t know?) there were supervisors provided to make sure none of the kids were abused on the set. There was, however, nobody there to make sure the women were alright. Does Mini DLR look like he’s being abused to you? No, the little bastard is having the time of his life.
The sudden appearance of Miss Chemistry has failed to raise Waldo’s spirits. This is the major difference between him and Adam circa Year 7. I would have risen to applaud - and then some - had any half naked woman entered my classroom. Not surprisingly they never did. Though my Year 8 teacher was hot and is welcome to contact me via the usual address if she’s reading.
Ladies and Gentlemen, the next member of our faculty. MISS PHYS-ED!
Welcome back Miss Chemistry. Back for a victory lap in front of the blackboard.
DLR does his bit for teacher/student relationships by picking her up. That is surely NOT legal
Speaking of not legal you can debate the moral issues surrounding locking the kids in a cage with a whip wielding woman who may or may not be Mrs. Waldo in substantially less clothing. Dave does his bit to get the kids out by waving an hourglass around. Why? Because this is one of the greatest videos ever you clown - that’s why.
Waldo. Still unimpressed, and getting progressively more shattered as the video progresses. Apparently (thanks to Pop Up Video again) they put motor oil in his hair to get that effect and the little shit spent hours trying to get it out. A small price to pay for a spot in musical immortality I’m sure you’ll agree.
Cue one of those “what happened to..” sequences beloved of the makers of university related movies and teen sex romp comedies. Look! A gynecologist! How original. They missed the sequel where he gets arrested.
Who the fuck is Michael Anthony? I don’t know. Must have been somebody else in the band other than DLR and a pair of Van Halens.
That’ll be all the drugs kicking in..
WHAT A FUCKING LEGEND! WALDO! WALDO! WALDO! Little pervert ended up doing better than anyone else.
And he learnt everything he knew from this man. All hail DLR, the greatest pantsman in musical history. He is now an author, and according to his website if you read his latest book you “will find the self-proclaimed toastmaster of the immoral majority dispensing knowledge, wisdom, action packed anecdotes and knock-you-on-your-ass chili recipes amidst a collection of personal artwork and photos in what is sure to be the most off-the-hook philosophy book ever written.” Sounds shithouse. It is my greatest regret in life that I am physically incapable of breaking out one of those midair spinning kicks that he does in the Jump video.
Impossible to describe with single pictures but watch the whole video and you’ll notice that one of the band is completely clueless when it comes to the dance routine. Try to guess which one it will be. Hint - it’s not the great man.
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