Rather than type at you ref any of the half-chewed ideas already bouncing round the temporal lobes, instead I'm just going to rip off appealing subject matter from the blogs from Fairfax's northern outpost, the online-only Brisbane Times. Even limited to web it's still the best paper in Brisbane, with only Murdoch's execrable Courier-Mail for comparison. Partly because they employ the genuinely tops John Birmingham - he of the felafel-wielding flatmate - to write stuff for them. Admittedly they also have Rupert 'Green and Gold Malaria' McCall on their books, who's an absolute twunt, but you gots to give the banjos something to read if you're serious about the Quoinslaaand market.
Anyway JB's weekend The Geek blog (one of two he writes for BT) hit upon the topic of songs which would make interesting film fodder, on the back of 'revelations' from mentally challenged arsewit Quentin Tarantino that he often designed scenes from the music forwards, rather than drafting the screenplay and adapting tunesmithery to match. Swathes of suggestions for screen treatments were put forward, from the fairly predictable Khe Sahn and I Was Only 19, Nick Cave's Murder Ballads album, various anecdotal Paul Kelly tracks and Tenacious D's Tribute (seeing as though it was actually made into a film - a fairly shit one but a film nonetheless) to some slightly left-of-centre suggestions that probably made complete sense when as stoned as the munters who proposed them. For my ten cents:
- As previously mentioned here, I reckon the film version of Iron Man would have been better had it been based on the Black Sabbath song rather than the Marvel comic, though Hollywood always leave plenty of wiggle room for sequels.
- For a gritty, dishevelled, warts-and-all look at inner-city life, love, booze and venereal disease may I propose the combined works of Frenzal Rhomb of Newtown. For instance, Dugadugabowbow (subtitled 'I think you're really nice but I don't want to fuck you') for the ultimate anti-rom-com.
- Presumably the 'Walking With Dinosaurs' BBC Natural History people, if not the makers of Jurassic Park, could do something with I Know Why Dinosaurs Became Extinct (It's Because They Learned How To Suck Their Own Cocks).
- And All Your Friends (Think You're A Fuckhead) just aches to be turned into the John Howard story. Or possibly a short film about Brendan Nelson's time as opposition leader. Looks like being a very short film.
- Last of the Frenzal suggestions, the one-minute-14 rock opera Russell Crowe's Band Is A Fucking Pile Of Shit: change 'band' to 'team' and make it the story of the Rabbitohs' 2008 season. Have Matty Johns play Rusty, and have the Lower Clarence Magpies under-15s play the Rabbitohs. My money would be on Lower to win on current form.
- Pretty much any song by the Donnas would be ideal, provided you're looking for a script best suited to something filmed in Fyshwick (Take Me To The Backseat, 40 Boys In 40 Nights, It's So Hard, Love You Till It Hurts etc etc etc). They're not exactly the sort of girls one would take home to meet Mother. Unless Mother is Jenna Jameson.
- Frank Zappa's Titties 'N' Beer. 'Nuff said.
Meanwhile BT's sports writer Phil Lutton must have been short of ideas this week (cue pot-kettle comparisons) for his Magic Spray column when he hit upon the well-mined seam of gold that is Stupid Sporting Team Names. The University of Arkansas Boll Weevils were singled out for a guernsey, while the Western Quokka-Related Farce got a spray and the NZ badminton Black Cocks just got giggled at. It's well worth a read.
My take on this is that if you want to find the lamest, most insipid squad names, look for newly-established or relaunched competitions. The Queensland Roar in the A-League is a no-brainer here - naming your team after a noise (what English teachers and dullards call onomatopoeia) brings you dangerously close to having teams called AFC Screech, Boing United, FC Burp or Deportivo Fart (interestingly there is actually a Deportivo Wanka, for whom Cristiano Ronaldo will presumably one day turn out.) And even after ten years and two premierships, the Melbourne Storm is still the fucking dumbest name for a (male) sporting team in the history of land-based mammals. Particularly in a comp like the NRL, which retains some great team names echoing right back to the origins of rugby league in the streets of Sydney, and speak to the origins and the philosophies which underpin the fabric of the clubs themselves - like the South Sydney Rabbitohs, who despite years of struggle have kept faith with the name and traditions with which the club began. Other, obviously, than the tradition of actually winning shit. The Cronulla Sharks and Parramatta Eels make reference to the sealife native to each area, while foundation club the Roosters also take their name from a commonly-found species of the eastern suburbs: complete and utter cocks.
In terms of shit team names, the new Indian Premier League almost deserves a column on its own. Actually it's not that they're shit, it's that they're desperately derivative of one another. Every second team has a lion on their badge and it seems IPL policy for at least half the sides to have some sort of royal connotation to their name - the Rajastan Royals, the Bangalore Royal Challengers, the Punjab Kings XI, the Chennai Super Kings etc. Although to be fair the Royal Challengers are named after a line of spirits marketed by that bloke from Kingfisher, while the Super Kings are named, quite brilliantly, after a brand of cement. FACT. For their part, the Kolkata Knight Riders are named after David Hasselhoff, and as such are fucking rubbish.
It's pretty obvious though that the worst names however usually end up stuck onto girls' teams. - the usual macho-bullshit team names like Titans, Stormers, Bombers, Thugs, Mercenaries, Arsekickers or Baby Eaters don't really sit that well on a womens' sporting franchise sponsored by a tampon manufacturer so you end up with toothless, pissweak, pox-flavoured rubbish like the American WNBA's Shock, Sparks and Dream (not an Olympics-related TV show with Roy and HG, nor a chick-friendly block of white chocolate.) Or, closer to home, the West Coast Fever of the new trans-tasman netball comp, which also gives us the Firebirds/Thunderbirds (anyone know the difference? Anyone care?) or what has to be the worst name ever to be given to an international sporting franchise.... ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Canterbury Tactix.
Anyone who can explain who or what the fuck is a Canterbury Tactix by the close of business wins a free Thing to the value of Stuff.
The Doctor is OUT.
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