or how I learned to stop worrying and love the fact noone comments on blogs anymore
The World of Bollocks, in all its prior myriad forms, passed five years old a month or two back, and I'd like to say that it's never been more popular. I'd like to, but it would be something called 'An Fib'. Blogging seems, if not a dying art, then a coughing and spluttering one, based on a simple comparative count page comments versus previous years, which is the only way short of the towering vanity of page traffic analysis of assessing whether people read this stuff. This kinda bothered me for a while, but then I remembered why I don't give a shit.
There's three types of blogs in the world. The diarists, the op-ed-istas and the funnies. Diarists - the ones who catalogue the whos, whys and wherefores of the minutiae of their existence - have the potential to be the dullest. Flinty's blog is a stellar example of why that doesn't have to be the case. News and opinion is probably what most of the better known blogs are about and for, from tech journalism to political commentary to cretinous celebrity shite. World of Bollocks, though, was never going to be an online diary, nor was it ever likely to contain either facts or well-argued opinion, as pointed out in the first online blogpost in early 2006 - which, in effect, sets out the terms of reference for what was then called The Weak In Sport. The only major change since then has been in name and in focus, broadening the agenda from sporting stupidity to other issues frosted with awesome such as bacon, girls on trampolines, bogan-spotting in Yamba, and cretinous celebrity shite, all dealt with in the World of Bollocks' usual subtle style - think HG Nelson kicking down the doors at Failfax Brisvegas and taking over Blunt Instrument by sheer force of shouting. So WoB lives in that third category - along with a bunch of people who should be paid for the free comedic awesome they provide like Nat and Nat. Though Girlclumsy has been known to have Actual Journalistic Content rather than Complete Made-Up Rubbish as per SOP for WoB.
But, as both Nats and various others have mused in various forums recently, what's the frickin' point if no bastard is reading it?
This is starting to read like a farewell-and-thanks-for-reading. And it is, but probably not the way you're thinking of. I'm not giving up WoB. I was writing this when only a handful of people were reading the thing, and as soon as you start writing for page hits and comments, that is to appeal to the audience rather than to your own amusement, you're on Struggle Street. I do this for fun. That anyone is interested in reading it is a complimentary bonus. I ain't getting famous or rich from this - not even the odd free slab of Grolsch. Just not being fired for writing it would be the main positive I'd be looking towards.
There is a problem though. Over the years WoB has developed itself a sort of subconscious minimum standard, certainly in terms of length and structure. That bacon post is a good example. Effectively a mini-essay, 3-4 paras, each developing the exposition and introducing a different idea for the Taking of Piss Therefrom. It's actually fucking hard to write stuff like that consistently, which is why people like John Birmingham get paid to do it by large media corporations. That, along with the content-leaching effect of other forums like Twitter means that there's a large activation energy inhibiting the writing of columns/episodes/posts. It's almost entirely self-inflicted. Which is good, because it can be almost entirely self-uninflicted.
A week or two ago I bashed out a post about the hypocrisy of F1 teams complaining about Ferrari team orders dictating the result of the German F1GP (including a silly photo of amateur proctologist Seb Vettel) which was titled Can you tell we've stopped bothering to write stuff people might want to read and instead are just amusing ourselves. This, effectively, is the World of Bollocks' Revised Editorial Direction. Basically, there isn't one. Stuff gets thought, written, and posted. Sounds obvious, because it is. But kicking down that self-imposed barrier to posting because of dumb preconceptions about what people want to read, or how many jokes per unit volume are necessary, is actually more difficult than it looks - as a few of the regulars listed at right would probably admit.
The other thing that has to change might also seem a surprise to you, because it was to me. Twitter's got to go. For a myriad of reasons - it's a monumental time-suck which I can no longer afford, it's an exercise in vanity which is a poor indictment on one's character, and to be blunt, it's simply not as much fun any more as it was when I started - but more than anything, 140 characters is just too few to have any fun with. Currently, what funny ideas I have get blurted out into the Twuntosphere without any chance to get developed or extrapolated, unless they get a second-hand regurgitation after they've already been prechewed for a while in 140 character bites. I write for fun, and Twitter's not as much fun as blogging. Fair to say both the quality and quantity of the latter has dipped since the former came along, too. Not to mention the fact that the last part of In The Worst Possible Taste ain't gonna write itself. It'll get written, but it'll appear in its own time, when it's done, not when it's due. I realise there's an irony in reversing the established directionality of social media at the moment, which is to blow up your blog and your Arsebook in favour of Twuntering away to your heart's content, but fuck that, I'm not here to be a trendite. And if this all ends up back with only a handful of old drunken mates and Arsebook acquaintances reading this stuff, so be it. You get that on the big jobs, as my old mate Moff would say. Or was that Bear Sorensen from Hayabusa. Life is cyclical, we end up back where we started - dribbling, incoherent and soiling ourselves - so why shouldn't online life be the same.
So thanks Twitter - it's been swell, but the swelling's gone down. (That was an AJ-ism. Ripping off everyone else's content here.) Thanks to all the very awesome people I've met through Twitter that I hadn't encountered through blogs or whatever else, and I do hope you'll stick around and offer unsolicited sledging on here once in a while. While I'm not closing the door completely on the Twunterverse - haven't blown the account up or anything, keeping it for direct messages and for occasional observational usage around sporting events etc - but as a contributor I'm disinclined to linger longer. Currently the Twitcounter stands at 38,750, and there's a nice kind of symmetry to that, a certain poetry. Primarily because $38,750 was how much your mum paid for her sex change operation before she met your Dad.
The Doctor is OUT, because there's no better ending than leaving on a Mum joke.
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query arsebook. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query arsebook. Sort by date Show all posts
Sunday, August 15, 2010
Friday, June 26, 2009
Generation J
You join us as CSI: Miami try their hand at investigating the death of Michael Jackson...
This is not a post about the late Michael Jackson. He was a successful musician, broke down various barriers, has the biggest selling album in history, made a lot of expensive videos. He also had fairly questionable personal habits and spent much of the last 20 years as the punchline to a lot of bad jokes. (Though not quite as heroically awful as the ones which have been wriggling out of the woodwork on Arsebook and Twunter over the past eight hours or so. You know the ones.)
This is a post about Triple J. I'm led to believe that the national youth broadcaster gave over much of their morning today to playing non stop, no repeat MJ. All-Jacko, All-The-Time, like some sort of demented fucking commercial network. Now cloying 24/7 coverage of his last moments and his ambiguous legacy on every MSM outlet is one thing, but MJ on JJJ is most definitely the point at which I draw the line in the sand, and say 'Take your plastic fucking pop prince and fuck the fuck right out of here.' I wasn't even subjected to this and I'm fucked off about it, and have said as much in a variety of forums.
It probably surprised even me a little to realise that in my book, the sanctity and integrity of Triple J is palpably more important than the legacy of the Jacko that is (sorry was) Wacko. Fair enough, he hadn't had a hit since 1991, and Black and White was more a triumph of nascent video morphing whizz-bangery than musical genius - and to be fair, that was the story of much of Jackson's MTV-era career. So someone of my gen downplaying his significance isn't that surprising. But am I overplaying that of Triple J?
No.
Triple J saved my fucking life. Without Triple J I wouldn't be interested in music. Before Triple J all we had - other than ABC regional radio, whose idea of modern music was Whispering Jack-era Johnny Farnham -
was Triple Z, a God-awful commercial FM network with a monumental programming hard-on for Shania, Celine and Ace Of Fucking Base. There's a line from In The Worst Possible Taste - quite a few updates away though - where the Duffer remarks of the Zeds, 'I knew they were planning to shake up their playlist but I figured that just meant they'd be playing Celine Dion three times a day instead of six.' It wasn't really a joke. They cranked sparing amounts of listenable material - trace elements of Pearl Jam, U2, AC/DC and the Hoodoo Gurus - but the pop princesses paid the bills, so they got the airplay.
It. Was. Awful.
Then Triple J launched their ambitious mid-'90s expansion programme, whereby they aimed to cover the nation. Northern Rivers NSW was their first new location, and served as the first destination for their
brand-new 'Unearthed' unsigned act talent spotting competition. The first, and greatest, winner of that competition: the mighty Grinspoon. OUR mighty Grinspoon. Never mind the fact most of the band were only living up our way to go to Southern Cross Uni. They belonged to us, and just as quickly, we belonged to Triple J.
I don't need to explain, and aren't going to try, why Triple J is so unique, why it's a lot more than just a music station, why the National Youth Broadcaster remains unmatched by ANY alternative radio network anywhere in the world. That story has been told. This is mine, circa 1995 when the switch got thrown at the FM tower on Mt Nardi. Triple J was the Spoon, the Bait, the Chair and the Gurge. It was You Am I and TISM. It was the Badloves and the Cruel Sea. It was a hundred Australian bands who I'd never have heard of and never could have under the Previous Regime. It was Soundgarden and the Foo Fighters, Veruca Salt and Nine Inch Nails, the Offspring and Stone Temple Pilots, the Breeders and Rage Against The Machine. 
It was Oasis, the Presidents, the Chili Peppers and Alanis before commercial radio fucked with them. It wasn't Celine or Shania or any of the pop princesses... though Ace of fucking Base still made the airwaves, for reasons best known to Satan. And it was Roy and HG, Dr Karl, Kingsmill, Helen and Mikey, and even fat little Michael Tunn after his ABC kids TV gig wound up. IT. WAS. AWESOME.
No word of a lie, changed my fucking life it did. Blew my fucking head off and I've never been the same since.
Triple J were the soundtrack to my HSC study, not to mention pissup parties at Dawso's and Amiga gaming weekends at AJ's. And Triple J made me buy music albums for the first time.
The first CD I bought - having owned nothing but crappy pop hits compilation cassettes previously - was TISM's Machiavelli and the Four Seasons, closely followed by the Presidents' debut album, both of which were hammered by the J's in the back end of 1995. I no longer have any concept of how many CDs I've bought over the past 15 or so years. Many, many hundreds. To be honest, it's what every disposable dollar I had in my pocket from the day I left home to the day I left Australia has been spent on. Many fortnights as an undergrad at New South were spent on the bones of my arse with the arse out of my trousers because I'd blown my budget at Red Eye or Utopia in the Sydney CBD earlier in the pay period, and later Skinny's (RIP) and Rockinghorse in Brisvegas when on the comparative affluence of a PhD stipend. I don't buy many albums any more, not because I've gone download-apeshit or I've turned into a miserable old fart who doesn't 'do' modern music, but because I have no Triple J to introduce me to anything new. (And cos my fave NZ record store went a bit tits-up and closed its D-town branch.)
Without Triple J there would have been no live shows, at least not with me in the crush and thrall. No Livids or Homebakes or Big Days Out. I wouldn't trade those experiences for anything. My first date with Dr Mrs Dr Yobbo was UQ's O-Week live gig with Eskimo Joe and You Am I. In five years there were four Livids, four BDOs, four Homebakes and a Splendour In The Arse, as well as countless live shows, the highlights of which were posted here as the Twelve Days Of Deafness Parts One and Two.
I know the J's have changed. The post-grunge of the '90s and garage punk of the '00s is gone now, their current playlist groaning under the weight of trendy fluoro-tinged nuff-nuff poptronica and domestic hip-hop. And the faces change - some of which were only ever faces suitable for radio in the first place, of course. Breakfast with Helen and Mikey became Breakfast with Paul, Mikey and the Sandman, then Adam and Wil, then the swearier half of Frenzal Rhomb, then the current lot of scruff. Roy and HG's 20 year innings lasted right till last year until the commercial rock station offered them more money than God, coincidentally now making State of Origin games absolutely unwatchable sans their commentary.
And of course we're all older and More Grown Up. "Don't listen to the Jays any more, all they play now is fucken shit" is the refrain, as it probably was for the 2JJ generation when grunge and skate punk invaded the airwaves in the early '90s. I can't listen to the Jays, I don't get the choice. I would if I could. And the importance and the uniqueness of the Jays is still valid today, even in these short attention span, download-heavy times. A couple of our previous years' honours students spent time in Canberra for summer studentships, and came back raving. Not about the place, cos it's shit. 
Not about the nightlife, although the concept of playing Australia Day 'Goon of Fortune' using a Hills Hoist was clearly not one that had occurred to them before. But about Triple J. They'd never heard a station that played so much good shit for so much of the day - and this was from a couple of perennially seen-it-all Gen Y'ers. In fact one of them stayed. I don't think it was for the goon laybacks either, though she is that sort of girl.
So without Triple J, no good times. No gigs, no festivals, no mountain of CDs. And no In The Worst Possible Taste, which when you reduce it down to its most basic essence, is a love story between me and the rock music Triple J introduced me to, and for which I will be forever grateful.
And cars.
And chicks with big tits.
The Doctor is OUT.
This is not a post about the late Michael Jackson. He was a successful musician, broke down various barriers, has the biggest selling album in history, made a lot of expensive videos. He also had fairly questionable personal habits and spent much of the last 20 years as the punchline to a lot of bad jokes. (Though not quite as heroically awful as the ones which have been wriggling out of the woodwork on Arsebook and Twunter over the past eight hours or so. You know the ones.)This is a post about Triple J. I'm led to believe that the national youth broadcaster gave over much of their morning today to playing non stop, no repeat MJ. All-Jacko, All-The-Time, like some sort of demented fucking commercial network. Now cloying 24/7 coverage of his last moments and his ambiguous legacy on every MSM outlet is one thing, but MJ on JJJ is most definitely the point at which I draw the line in the sand, and say 'Take your plastic fucking pop prince and fuck the fuck right out of here.' I wasn't even subjected to this and I'm fucked off about it, and have said as much in a variety of forums.
It probably surprised even me a little to realise that in my book, the sanctity and integrity of Triple J is palpably more important than the legacy of the Jacko that is (sorry was) Wacko. Fair enough, he hadn't had a hit since 1991, and Black and White was more a triumph of nascent video morphing whizz-bangery than musical genius - and to be fair, that was the story of much of Jackson's MTV-era career. So someone of my gen downplaying his significance isn't that surprising. But am I overplaying that of Triple J?
No.
Triple J saved my fucking life. Without Triple J I wouldn't be interested in music. Before Triple J all we had - other than ABC regional radio, whose idea of modern music was Whispering Jack-era Johnny Farnham -
was Triple Z, a God-awful commercial FM network with a monumental programming hard-on for Shania, Celine and Ace Of Fucking Base. There's a line from In The Worst Possible Taste - quite a few updates away though - where the Duffer remarks of the Zeds, 'I knew they were planning to shake up their playlist but I figured that just meant they'd be playing Celine Dion three times a day instead of six.' It wasn't really a joke. They cranked sparing amounts of listenable material - trace elements of Pearl Jam, U2, AC/DC and the Hoodoo Gurus - but the pop princesses paid the bills, so they got the airplay.It. Was. Awful.
Then Triple J launched their ambitious mid-'90s expansion programme, whereby they aimed to cover the nation. Northern Rivers NSW was their first new location, and served as the first destination for their
brand-new 'Unearthed' unsigned act talent spotting competition. The first, and greatest, winner of that competition: the mighty Grinspoon. OUR mighty Grinspoon. Never mind the fact most of the band were only living up our way to go to Southern Cross Uni. They belonged to us, and just as quickly, we belonged to Triple J.
I don't need to explain, and aren't going to try, why Triple J is so unique, why it's a lot more than just a music station, why the National Youth Broadcaster remains unmatched by ANY alternative radio network anywhere in the world. That story has been told. This is mine, circa 1995 when the switch got thrown at the FM tower on Mt Nardi. Triple J was the Spoon, the Bait, the Chair and the Gurge. It was You Am I and TISM. It was the Badloves and the Cruel Sea. It was a hundred Australian bands who I'd never have heard of and never could have under the Previous Regime. It was Soundgarden and the Foo Fighters, Veruca Salt and Nine Inch Nails, the Offspring and Stone Temple Pilots, the Breeders and Rage Against The Machine. 
It was Oasis, the Presidents, the Chili Peppers and Alanis before commercial radio fucked with them. It wasn't Celine or Shania or any of the pop princesses... though Ace of fucking Base still made the airwaves, for reasons best known to Satan. And it was Roy and HG, Dr Karl, Kingsmill, Helen and Mikey, and even fat little Michael Tunn after his ABC kids TV gig wound up. IT. WAS. AWESOME.No word of a lie, changed my fucking life it did. Blew my fucking head off and I've never been the same since.
Triple J were the soundtrack to my HSC study, not to mention pissup parties at Dawso's and Amiga gaming weekends at AJ's. And Triple J made me buy music albums for the first time.
The first CD I bought - having owned nothing but crappy pop hits compilation cassettes previously - was TISM's Machiavelli and the Four Seasons, closely followed by the Presidents' debut album, both of which were hammered by the J's in the back end of 1995. I no longer have any concept of how many CDs I've bought over the past 15 or so years. Many, many hundreds. To be honest, it's what every disposable dollar I had in my pocket from the day I left home to the day I left Australia has been spent on. Many fortnights as an undergrad at New South were spent on the bones of my arse with the arse out of my trousers because I'd blown my budget at Red Eye or Utopia in the Sydney CBD earlier in the pay period, and later Skinny's (RIP) and Rockinghorse in Brisvegas when on the comparative affluence of a PhD stipend. I don't buy many albums any more, not because I've gone download-apeshit or I've turned into a miserable old fart who doesn't 'do' modern music, but because I have no Triple J to introduce me to anything new. (And cos my fave NZ record store went a bit tits-up and closed its D-town branch.)
Without Triple J there would have been no live shows, at least not with me in the crush and thrall. No Livids or Homebakes or Big Days Out. I wouldn't trade those experiences for anything. My first date with Dr Mrs Dr Yobbo was UQ's O-Week live gig with Eskimo Joe and You Am I. In five years there were four Livids, four BDOs, four Homebakes and a Splendour In The Arse, as well as countless live shows, the highlights of which were posted here as the Twelve Days Of Deafness Parts One and Two.I know the J's have changed. The post-grunge of the '90s and garage punk of the '00s is gone now, their current playlist groaning under the weight of trendy fluoro-tinged nuff-nuff poptronica and domestic hip-hop. And the faces change - some of which were only ever faces suitable for radio in the first place, of course. Breakfast with Helen and Mikey became Breakfast with Paul, Mikey and the Sandman, then Adam and Wil, then the swearier half of Frenzal Rhomb, then the current lot of scruff. Roy and HG's 20 year innings lasted right till last year until the commercial rock station offered them more money than God, coincidentally now making State of Origin games absolutely unwatchable sans their commentary.
And of course we're all older and More Grown Up. "Don't listen to the Jays any more, all they play now is fucken shit" is the refrain, as it probably was for the 2JJ generation when grunge and skate punk invaded the airwaves in the early '90s. I can't listen to the Jays, I don't get the choice. I would if I could. And the importance and the uniqueness of the Jays is still valid today, even in these short attention span, download-heavy times. A couple of our previous years' honours students spent time in Canberra for summer studentships, and came back raving. Not about the place, cos it's shit. 
Not about the nightlife, although the concept of playing Australia Day 'Goon of Fortune' using a Hills Hoist was clearly not one that had occurred to them before. But about Triple J. They'd never heard a station that played so much good shit for so much of the day - and this was from a couple of perennially seen-it-all Gen Y'ers. In fact one of them stayed. I don't think it was for the goon laybacks either, though she is that sort of girl.
So without Triple J, no good times. No gigs, no festivals, no mountain of CDs. And no In The Worst Possible Taste, which when you reduce it down to its most basic essence, is a love story between me and the rock music Triple J introduced me to, and for which I will be forever grateful.And cars.
And chicks with big tits.
The Doctor is OUT.
Tuesday, January 06, 2009
On polar opposites
Life is an exercise in polarization. Wherever we go we're polarized, asked to pick a side. As TISM observed, "Yob or wanker, wanker or yob, pass me the brush to tar ya; take your choice then live your life, c'mon pal whatareya?!!" We make these choices, or these choices are made for us, from the day we gain consciousness. Black or white. Boy or girl. Vegemite or Marmite. Stones or Beatles. Labor or Liberal. Evolution or creation. Buffy or Faith. And, for those of us of a certain age - i.e. those who were young impressionable lads in the Eighties - another binary choice. The choice of which supercar poster would get pride of placement over the bedhead. For most, it came down to two names. Ferrari or Lamborghini.
Supercars were epic, monstrous creations in the Eighties. None of the computer-refined widgetry of today, no ABS, stability control or any of that toffee-nosed wank. Supercars of the Eighties were impossible to sit in, hideous to drive, and wanted to kill you. This, then, made them a hell of a lot easier to worship, as eight-year-old boys are wont to do - pestering parents to buy wall posters and Matchbox cars, defacing their pencil cases with supercar names and their schoolbooks with supercar doodles, writing action stories in which the car gets more of a starring role than the lead actor (Knight Rider with better hair). The electronically neutered supercars of today, are they worshipped the same way by kids these days? Would they save up for months to afford a Tamiya model of a Lamborghini Countach LP500S, knowing full well their grotty little bother would smash the crap out of it the moment their back was turned? Would they line up in the un-airconditioned late-summer skank of the Alstonville Motor Show just to get a glimpse of a Countach or a Lotus Esprit? Probably not. They're too busy eloping to Africa for that sort of shit.
But back in the day - we're talking 1985 here, Marty McFly territory - it was all about the supercars. Which meant - with the utmost respect to the Lotuses, Corvettes and 911 Porsches of the world, and never mind the fact that my own bedroom wall circa 1985 actually had Brocky's first Mobil HDT Commodore postered thereupon - supercar war amounted to Ferrari vs Lamborghini, in particular Testarossa vs Countach. They were the ones setting the fastest street-legal top speeds in the magazine tests. They were the ones you chose on Test Drive. And they might have been - and still are - very near neighbours in the same part of northern Italy, but even then they had diametrically opposed philosophies to making supercars. Ferraris were the best of everything, and showed it. Lambos just tried to make your head explode. They were designed with a very sharp ruler and propelled by thermonuclear holocaust. Or, at least, a series of ever-larger V12s (now a 6.5L in today's Murcielago LP640, still derived from the same engine in the 1966 Miura) which were as preposterous as they were powerful.
My loyalties are probably pretty obvious, what with the Countach being name-dropped twice already, and the fact I started this while daydreaming in front of the Top Gear wall calendar at my work desk (Miss January: the Lamborghini Gallardo LP560-4), a moment preserved for eternity in a recent Arsebook status update. For me, the bull beats the horse. In 1985 Ferrari had the 288GTO, the 512 Berlinetta Boxer and the big-arsed Testarossa, ranged up against the Countach LP500S, and they still couldn't get close. Think of a supercar silhouette in your mind - if you're my age, it's going to be the angular, purposeful wedge of the Countach, and not only because it was the easiest shape to draw in the inside cover of your Maths book. Ever since the thing had been sprung on an unsuspecting world in 1973 it'd defined supercar. If you're a few years younger, it might be a Ferrari F40, but by the late '80s the goalposts had moved dramatically and the Countach was showing its age. Even the 25th Anniversary dress-up couldn't help it keep pace with the F40, Porsche 959 and an increasing deluge of stupefying Callaway Corvettes, though a pair of Mickey Mouse 'ear' intakes helped the massive V12 breathe at high speed, whereas previous high-performance Countaches would auto-asphixiate Michael Hutchence style. By the nineties, Ferrari was well ahead, Lambo was struggling under Chrysler ownership, and had only the Diablo - using mostly Countach derived bits - to take the fight to the F40, F50 et al.
Then, the final insult. Lamborghini was bought by Volkswagen.
And, funnily enough, it worked. The Germans dealt with the shitty detail stuff the Italians couldn't be arsed with, like build quality, wiring that actually worked and designing a seating position that didn't require you to be a lower simian. Leaving the Italians to do their thing in the departments of passion, brio, massive fuck-off V12s and general supercar madness. Today, Ferrari, on the back of their years of Schumacking the arse of everyone else in F1, build technically brilliant, electronics festooned, high-performance track tools. Lamborghini make batshit-insane stealth fighters like the Reventon and Murcielago. Bristling with purpose and menace, usually named after bullfighting weapons or matador-slaying bulls, and crammed full of what Jeremy Clarkson likes to call "POWERRRRR."
Given the choice, I think I know what would be going on my wall today.
Scarlett Johansson.
The Doctor is OUT.
Supercars were epic, monstrous creations in the Eighties. None of the computer-refined widgetry of today, no ABS, stability control or any of that toffee-nosed wank. Supercars of the Eighties were impossible to sit in, hideous to drive, and wanted to kill you. This, then, made them a hell of a lot easier to worship, as eight-year-old boys are wont to do - pestering parents to buy wall posters and Matchbox cars, defacing their pencil cases with supercar names and their schoolbooks with supercar doodles, writing action stories in which the car gets more of a starring role than the lead actor (Knight Rider with better hair). The electronically neutered supercars of today, are they worshipped the same way by kids these days? Would they save up for months to afford a Tamiya model of a Lamborghini Countach LP500S, knowing full well their grotty little bother would smash the crap out of it the moment their back was turned? Would they line up in the un-airconditioned late-summer skank of the Alstonville Motor Show just to get a glimpse of a Countach or a Lotus Esprit? Probably not. They're too busy eloping to Africa for that sort of shit.
But back in the day - we're talking 1985 here, Marty McFly territory - it was all about the supercars. Which meant - with the utmost respect to the Lotuses, Corvettes and 911 Porsches of the world, and never mind the fact that my own bedroom wall circa 1985 actually had Brocky's first Mobil HDT Commodore postered thereupon - supercar war amounted to Ferrari vs Lamborghini, in particular Testarossa vs Countach. They were the ones setting the fastest street-legal top speeds in the magazine tests. They were the ones you chose on Test Drive. And they might have been - and still are - very near neighbours in the same part of northern Italy, but even then they had diametrically opposed philosophies to making supercars. Ferraris were the best of everything, and showed it. Lambos just tried to make your head explode. They were designed with a very sharp ruler and propelled by thermonuclear holocaust. Or, at least, a series of ever-larger V12s (now a 6.5L in today's Murcielago LP640, still derived from the same engine in the 1966 Miura) which were as preposterous as they were powerful.
My loyalties are probably pretty obvious, what with the Countach being name-dropped twice already, and the fact I started this while daydreaming in front of the Top Gear wall calendar at my work desk (Miss January: the Lamborghini Gallardo LP560-4), a moment preserved for eternity in a recent Arsebook status update. For me, the bull beats the horse. In 1985 Ferrari had the 288GTO, the 512 Berlinetta Boxer and the big-arsed Testarossa, ranged up against the Countach LP500S, and they still couldn't get close. Think of a supercar silhouette in your mind - if you're my age, it's going to be the angular, purposeful wedge of the Countach, and not only because it was the easiest shape to draw in the inside cover of your Maths book. Ever since the thing had been sprung on an unsuspecting world in 1973 it'd defined supercar. If you're a few years younger, it might be a Ferrari F40, but by the late '80s the goalposts had moved dramatically and the Countach was showing its age. Even the 25th Anniversary dress-up couldn't help it keep pace with the F40, Porsche 959 and an increasing deluge of stupefying Callaway Corvettes, though a pair of Mickey Mouse 'ear' intakes helped the massive V12 breathe at high speed, whereas previous high-performance Countaches would auto-asphixiate Michael Hutchence style. By the nineties, Ferrari was well ahead, Lambo was struggling under Chrysler ownership, and had only the Diablo - using mostly Countach derived bits - to take the fight to the F40, F50 et al.
Then, the final insult. Lamborghini was bought by Volkswagen.
And, funnily enough, it worked. The Germans dealt with the shitty detail stuff the Italians couldn't be arsed with, like build quality, wiring that actually worked and designing a seating position that didn't require you to be a lower simian. Leaving the Italians to do their thing in the departments of passion, brio, massive fuck-off V12s and general supercar madness. Today, Ferrari, on the back of their years of Schumacking the arse of everyone else in F1, build technically brilliant, electronics festooned, high-performance track tools. Lamborghini make batshit-insane stealth fighters like the Reventon and Murcielago. Bristling with purpose and menace, usually named after bullfighting weapons or matador-slaying bulls, and crammed full of what Jeremy Clarkson likes to call "POWERRRRR."
Given the choice, I think I know what would be going on my wall today.
Scarlett Johansson.
The Doctor is OUT.
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Off yer Face (book)
"I've been flat out all morning," protested a Fellow Science Professional (female). "I've been sooooo busy I've only been able to check Facebook twice. Seriously."
So apparently, for those who came in late, there's this thing called Facebook. It is, allegedly, the shit. It's this month's MySpace (which presumably makes it this year's Blogger, or this decade's MSN Messenger, or so on.) You put your profile up and people you may or may not know send you superficial greetings and/or exploding sheep. Remind me again why I desperately need to be part of this latest online social revolution?
Facebookers (though some prefer Facenovelists) protest that, tweenie superficiality aside, it's really just a great way of keeping in touch with long-standing mates who've gone O/S and even tracking down old school friends. Thing is, I know where all my old school friends are. They're all at my house on Boxing Day scarfing burnt sausages, swilling the Old Man's superbly neurotoxic home brew and unmercifully sledging the Channel Nine commentary team. I know the day will end up with drunken backyard cricket involving taped-up tennis balls and one-hand one-bounce (beer-in-other-hand essential), and that the Captain will turn up about seven hours after kickoff, even if we forget to call him. (Only about 130 sleeps to go folks.) The rest of the class of '95 I can comfortably do without; you were all lovely people, but if all we have in common is surviving our physics teacher Wally Cameron's bioterrorist halitosis, we ain't got much.
But that, really, brings us to the underlying raison d'etre behind Facebook. If the point of Blogger is to have a medium for one's ill-considered shite to be spilled uncensoriously forth, and the point of MySpace is to get your unsigned-and-justifiably-so band a massive record deal (or, at the bare minimum, a few more roots), what's the point of Facebook? Well, it was explained to me by Another Scientist (for want of a more accurate descriptor), who declared that I simply had to see her Friendship Wheel. This, at the click of a laptop touchpad, displayed all her Facebook friendy-wendy-contacts as points around the circumference of a multicoloured circle. Grrrreat. But wait, there's more. I was bidden to 'check this out' as, at another mouseclick, spidery lines of interrelatedness were linked between the various individuals, representing how each person knew the other, and resulting in something that looked like a rather pants representation of the Tree of Life. This, I was clearly meant to understand, was Something Really Impressive.
So, the point of Facebook appears to be twofold:
(1) You can count up how many friends you have and use this information to compete with other people, just like you used to in kindergarten, and;
(2) You can represent diagrammatically how each of your friends knows each other. Which is good, because you might forget. Given that you probably introduced the motherfuckers in the first place when drunker than George Best.
Just so I'm clear on this, this is a chick thing, yeah?
(Apologies to Mr Appleby, the only owner-of-cruets I'm aware of who contributes to the Book of Face. Look for the Appleby Channel coming to Foxtel this summer.)
My Friendship Wheel, Tree, Piechart or Spiderweb Weaved On Crack would be surmised as follows. We have as one branch Team Old Skool; we have the Weird-But-Entertaining Sydney Fruit Loops, the Inveterate South East Queensland Pisshounds and the Miscellaneous Kiwis Who Somehow Got Dragged Along For The Ride. One may conceive these as discrete groups, but with isolated inbred relationships between them in places; basically it'd look like a genetic pedigree from Alabama, but presumably with less cousin-shagging. In summary: look, I may be a tad busy on occasion, but I don't need Arsebook to remind me who you people are.
And furthermore, in my day we had REAL exploding sheep. We had Worms, you see. At least until the Combantrin kicked in. Stop scratching it, it'll only get under your fingernails.
The Doctor is OUT.
So apparently, for those who came in late, there's this thing called Facebook. It is, allegedly, the shit. It's this month's MySpace (which presumably makes it this year's Blogger, or this decade's MSN Messenger, or so on.) You put your profile up and people you may or may not know send you superficial greetings and/or exploding sheep. Remind me again why I desperately need to be part of this latest online social revolution?
Facebookers (though some prefer Facenovelists) protest that, tweenie superficiality aside, it's really just a great way of keeping in touch with long-standing mates who've gone O/S and even tracking down old school friends. Thing is, I know where all my old school friends are. They're all at my house on Boxing Day scarfing burnt sausages, swilling the Old Man's superbly neurotoxic home brew and unmercifully sledging the Channel Nine commentary team. I know the day will end up with drunken backyard cricket involving taped-up tennis balls and one-hand one-bounce (beer-in-other-hand essential), and that the Captain will turn up about seven hours after kickoff, even if we forget to call him. (Only about 130 sleeps to go folks.) The rest of the class of '95 I can comfortably do without; you were all lovely people, but if all we have in common is surviving our physics teacher Wally Cameron's bioterrorist halitosis, we ain't got much.
But that, really, brings us to the underlying raison d'etre behind Facebook. If the point of Blogger is to have a medium for one's ill-considered shite to be spilled uncensoriously forth, and the point of MySpace is to get your unsigned-and-justifiably-so band a massive record deal (or, at the bare minimum, a few more roots), what's the point of Facebook? Well, it was explained to me by Another Scientist (for want of a more accurate descriptor), who declared that I simply had to see her Friendship Wheel. This, at the click of a laptop touchpad, displayed all her Facebook friendy-wendy-contacts as points around the circumference of a multicoloured circle. Grrrreat. But wait, there's more. I was bidden to 'check this out' as, at another mouseclick, spidery lines of interrelatedness were linked between the various individuals, representing how each person knew the other, and resulting in something that looked like a rather pants representation of the Tree of Life. This, I was clearly meant to understand, was Something Really Impressive.
So, the point of Facebook appears to be twofold:
(1) You can count up how many friends you have and use this information to compete with other people, just like you used to in kindergarten, and;
(2) You can represent diagrammatically how each of your friends knows each other. Which is good, because you might forget. Given that you probably introduced the motherfuckers in the first place when drunker than George Best.
Just so I'm clear on this, this is a chick thing, yeah?
(Apologies to Mr Appleby, the only owner-of-cruets I'm aware of who contributes to the Book of Face. Look for the Appleby Channel coming to Foxtel this summer.)
My Friendship Wheel, Tree, Piechart or Spiderweb Weaved On Crack would be surmised as follows. We have as one branch Team Old Skool; we have the Weird-But-Entertaining Sydney Fruit Loops, the Inveterate South East Queensland Pisshounds and the Miscellaneous Kiwis Who Somehow Got Dragged Along For The Ride. One may conceive these as discrete groups, but with isolated inbred relationships between them in places; basically it'd look like a genetic pedigree from Alabama, but presumably with less cousin-shagging. In summary: look, I may be a tad busy on occasion, but I don't need Arsebook to remind me who you people are.
And furthermore, in my day we had REAL exploding sheep. We had Worms, you see. At least until the Combantrin kicked in. Stop scratching it, it'll only get under your fingernails.
The Doctor is OUT.
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Saints preserve
My team Souths missed the NRL finals this year. That's OK. Rabbitohs fans are generally pretty zen about that sort of stuff. Been through everything from winning more titles in history to Manly strip-mining all our players, and Rupert boning us from the comp. Not to mention Russell Crowe owning the team. We're still just happy to have a side. One which doesn't embarrass itself in public like the Bulldogs or the Sharks. The last Souths player to end up on the wrong end of a media scrum, about 150 years ago in NRL time, was the Poo In The Shoe Man, Julian O'Neill - who, after all, was born and bred a Brisbane Bronco, whose form in toilet-related embarrassments is well established.
Souths fans know that too much success makes you obnoxious and cretinous. The sports team or fan that expects success as a birthright learns and gains nothing from the challenge of the contest. If you are so bloated by winning that you throw a petulant tanty at the faintest whiff of sustained losses, good fucking luck dealing with reality outside football. There is one, for the record. Yet the Broncos miss the finals, eject toys from pram, and seek to fire their coach in a fit of pique; while the Rabbitohs miss the finals and there's a shrug, a faraway smile because we had a crack, and thoughts turn to next year, or to the young blokes in the under-20s who won the minor premiership and are still out there having a crack, or just rememberances of the good times of the season just past. Like the ludicrous 34-30 extra-time win over the semi-finalist Tigers in August, with a try in the last second of the last period of extra time to a kid from the youth side who was making his first grade debut, after both sides had missed eight field goal attempts in extra time. That try gave him a hat-trick on debut. Souths had been down 28-12 with half an hour to play, had lost half their regular first graders to injury, and were playing for their season. Which still should have been over after the game, having lost key playmaker John Sutton with a busted shoulder (in the act of scoring the try which locked up the scores). Somehow the Bunnies made it to the last week of the season still with a crack at the finals. Didn't come off. Got a bit of a touchup from our mates from St George. But they had a crack.
The rivalry with St George is an interesting one, because it's almost a friendship these days. In the 50s and 60s no teams hated each other more, as they decided almost every premiership between them. But neither side has won a premiership in 30 years, and like old rivals who've forgotten exactly what it was that started the feud in the first place, we've probably got more in common with them than in conflict. And even from the northern side of Botany Bay it's hard not to feel sorry for the Dragons and their long-suffering supporters.
In the 30 years since their last comp win they've made the grand final five times, and lost every last fucking one of them. 1985 by a point to the Dogs. 1992 and '93, run over by the Queensland Origin team in their 'away' strip. 1996, rorted by Manly and some fucking dodgy decisions by ARL ref Charlie Manson. 1999, That Fucking Penalty Try. And you can even throw in 2005, when the media had already awarded them the comp, only for them to get mugged by Benji Marshall and the Tiges in the semi and never actually get a date to the big dance.And here we go again. St George are minor premiers, smashed Manly flat in their opening finals fixture and are again being talked up as morals for the Big Cheese On Offer. I think I've seen this one before somewhere. As I said to a mate on Arsebook (who supports Manly, because it's one of the more socially acceptable forms of mental illness) - Saints have one hand on the trophy. Unfortunately their other hand is around their own throats, and as of right now it's evens as regards which hand is going to win the day.
I hope for good things for them. For my old mate Dr Craigos who's backed the Big Red V for as long as I can remember. For Yamba's own Nathan Brown, run out of town as the scapegoat for their 2005 semifinal capitulation (nowhere near as heinous as their collapse under Wayne Bennett last year.) For the players of those hapless '90s sides who were never quite good enough to win - for the Cough Drop, Mary Macgregor, the Man, the Two Dollar Coyte and Rod Wishart, who's probably still back on the bus where Roy and HG sent him in Origin '96.
Yeah, I hope for good things for them. But I've seen how this one turns out before.
The Doctor is OUT.
Thursday, January 07, 2010
All my friends are getting iPhones
Seasons Gruntings. In keeping with various fitness-related resolutions, we begin the New Year with exercises. In particular grubby cross-promotional exercises:
Your Correspondent @ Mother Focaccia talking farmers' markets and fresh produce
And the triumphant return of Flange Gasket, In The Worst Possible Taste of course. Remember, in hell, it's always Schoolies Week.
There. That was nice and gratuitous. Hoping for a job on Nine's cricket coverage scripting the seamless integration of Betfair odds updates into the commentary.
And speaking of cricket, I went on a drunken roadtrip mission (not driving thxverymuch) and a cricket game broke out. Rain and Victorian cheating (fuck you Miscellaneous Nannes) put paid to any hopes of a legitimate result, but a good time was had by all. 'Twas fucking awsm and no mistake. Except for one, lingering, malingering resentment.
We missioned up (and back) to Brisvegas from the glorious north coast of NSW in AJ's old warhorse of an AU Falcon wagon. Five blokes, one driving, four offering constructive advice on said driving, complaining about the music
and agitating for bottle-o stops, visits to the slashers and pub lunches. And every bastard among them - apart from Your Correspondent - had an iPhone. Even my old mate Craigos who's in the final year of his PhD (which is usually year four of three, as demonstrated by Your Correspondent) and who, you might reasonably expect, be by this stage in proceedings less solvent than an Icelandic bank. Nope. iPenises for all. And they're fucking BRILLIANT. They're shiny, they do stuff, they work well, they play music, have lots of cool apps and, in a novel development, you can talk in one end and people will talk back to you at the other. WTF next people?? Web 2.0 FTW!!!1!
In short, they're cool, and they do everything it says on the tin, and I WANTS IT.
At least, I did. But now...
Now, as it is, I talk a lot of bollocks. An oar in four blogs, Arsebook, Twunter, email, whatever. My opinions do not suffer from lack of exposure to oxygen. But, God's bollocks, can you imagine how unutterly clusterfuckingly exponentially worser (yes, WORSER) it'd be if I had an iPhone?
Yeah, about that. Maybe more.
Anyway, I've had an epiphone (or even an ep-iPhone. Hur hur. I made a funny.) I don't actually NEED an iPhone, that I knew. But I don't actually WANT an iPhone either. Because the truth is, I'd never get anything fucking done.
That, and the words 'cellphone service' in the deep south are an oxymoron.
The Doctor is OUT.
Your Correspondent @ Mother Focaccia talking farmers' markets and fresh produce
And the triumphant return of Flange Gasket, In The Worst Possible Taste of course. Remember, in hell, it's always Schoolies Week.
There. That was nice and gratuitous. Hoping for a job on Nine's cricket coverage scripting the seamless integration of Betfair odds updates into the commentary.
And speaking of cricket, I went on a drunken roadtrip mission (not driving thxverymuch) and a cricket game broke out. Rain and Victorian cheating (fuck you Miscellaneous Nannes) put paid to any hopes of a legitimate result, but a good time was had by all. 'Twas fucking awsm and no mistake. Except for one, lingering, malingering resentment.
We missioned up (and back) to Brisvegas from the glorious north coast of NSW in AJ's old warhorse of an AU Falcon wagon. Five blokes, one driving, four offering constructive advice on said driving, complaining about the music
and agitating for bottle-o stops, visits to the slashers and pub lunches. And every bastard among them - apart from Your Correspondent - had an iPhone. Even my old mate Craigos who's in the final year of his PhD (which is usually year four of three, as demonstrated by Your Correspondent) and who, you might reasonably expect, be by this stage in proceedings less solvent than an Icelandic bank. Nope. iPenises for all. And they're fucking BRILLIANT. They're shiny, they do stuff, they work well, they play music, have lots of cool apps and, in a novel development, you can talk in one end and people will talk back to you at the other. WTF next people?? Web 2.0 FTW!!!1!In short, they're cool, and they do everything it says on the tin, and I WANTS IT.
At least, I did. But now...
Now, as it is, I talk a lot of bollocks. An oar in four blogs, Arsebook, Twunter, email, whatever. My opinions do not suffer from lack of exposure to oxygen. But, God's bollocks, can you imagine how unutterly clusterfuckingly exponentially worser (yes, WORSER) it'd be if I had an iPhone?
Yeah, about that. Maybe more.
Anyway, I've had an epiphone (or even an ep-iPhone. Hur hur. I made a funny.) I don't actually NEED an iPhone, that I knew. But I don't actually WANT an iPhone either. Because the truth is, I'd never get anything fucking done.
That, and the words 'cellphone service' in the deep south are an oxymoron.
The Doctor is OUT.
Saturday, October 25, 2008
Big Red Car, we like to ride. And by 'ride' I mean 'hit with a hammer'.
Firstly, let's get this out of the way nice and early. Yes, I'm now on Arsebook. Yes, I realise how much of a total fucking hypocrite that makes me. No, I don't give a rancid set of bollocks. We move on.
Hell, it has become clear to me, is being trapped in a room with a singing Wiggles 'Big Red Car' which alternately, tinnily and endlessly blares the first twelve bars of either 'Toot Toot Chugga Chugga, Big Red Car' or 'Big Red Car, We Like To Ride' at serenity-obliterating dB. (Learn your future and weep, up-the-duff types.) Civil aviation law probably prohibits me from inflicting such a fate on the other passengers on Monday's trans-tasman Pac Blue flight into Sin City, on the basis that it's an act of terrorism. Which just leaves several hours of A320-bound dullness to try and entertain an energetic 20 month old kid whose favourite things in the world - climbing on stuff, falling off stuff and complaining about it, squealing loud enough to pierce eardrums - will be effectively off limits for the duration, which will frustrate both him and the mild ADD he inherited from his old man. Fortunately, one of his other favourite things in the world, flirting with waitresses, air hosties and other attractive girls in service industry professions (something else inherited from his old man) will be no problem at all - it is a Pac Blue flight after all. The Air NZ flight home in a fortnight might be more problematic as the national carrier appears to be a retirement home for old hosties.
One of the best things about having a kid, apart from the kid, and being able to flirt vicariously with air hostesses, is the excuse it gives you to ramble through toy stores pretending you're looking for something for them, rather than yourself. And building massive go-away downhill racetracks from sticking all the ramps, petrol stations and parking lots together with cheap-arse gaffa tape bought in bulk from Mitre 10 Mega and seeing how fast the thing can get by the sweeping downhill left-hander (a.k.a. the carwash offramp) before the big jump over Teddy and Wags the Dog. Occasionally I even let Lucas have a go, which is probably good for his personal development. So far, our extensive vehicle testing programme, carried out under the most rigorous of scientific parameters, has demonstrated the following:
- Mega Bloks' Tiny 'N' Tuff cars look cool as shit, but have bugger all ground clearance and bottom out on serious surface transitions
- Playskool stuff is more top heavy than Pamela Anderson on a penny farthing; corners best avoided
- Unless on their poxy dedicated track, Thomas the Tank Engine trains understeer like pigs on greased lino
- Mummy needs to buy us more cars
- And more track
But, of course, experiments are continuing. We'll keep you posted on our findings.
The Doctor is OUT.
Hell, it has become clear to me, is being trapped in a room with a singing Wiggles 'Big Red Car' which alternately, tinnily and endlessly blares the first twelve bars of either 'Toot Toot Chugga Chugga, Big Red Car' or 'Big Red Car, We Like To Ride' at serenity-obliterating dB. (Learn your future and weep, up-the-duff types.) Civil aviation law probably prohibits me from inflicting such a fate on the other passengers on Monday's trans-tasman Pac Blue flight into Sin City, on the basis that it's an act of terrorism. Which just leaves several hours of A320-bound dullness to try and entertain an energetic 20 month old kid whose favourite things in the world - climbing on stuff, falling off stuff and complaining about it, squealing loud enough to pierce eardrums - will be effectively off limits for the duration, which will frustrate both him and the mild ADD he inherited from his old man. Fortunately, one of his other favourite things in the world, flirting with waitresses, air hosties and other attractive girls in service industry professions (something else inherited from his old man) will be no problem at all - it is a Pac Blue flight after all. The Air NZ flight home in a fortnight might be more problematic as the national carrier appears to be a retirement home for old hosties.
One of the best things about having a kid, apart from the kid, and being able to flirt vicariously with air hostesses, is the excuse it gives you to ramble through toy stores pretending you're looking for something for them, rather than yourself. And building massive go-away downhill racetracks from sticking all the ramps, petrol stations and parking lots together with cheap-arse gaffa tape bought in bulk from Mitre 10 Mega and seeing how fast the thing can get by the sweeping downhill left-hander (a.k.a. the carwash offramp) before the big jump over Teddy and Wags the Dog. Occasionally I even let Lucas have a go, which is probably good for his personal development. So far, our extensive vehicle testing programme, carried out under the most rigorous of scientific parameters, has demonstrated the following:
- Mega Bloks' Tiny 'N' Tuff cars look cool as shit, but have bugger all ground clearance and bottom out on serious surface transitions
- Playskool stuff is more top heavy than Pamela Anderson on a penny farthing; corners best avoided
- Unless on their poxy dedicated track, Thomas the Tank Engine trains understeer like pigs on greased lino- Mummy needs to buy us more cars
- And more track
But, of course, experiments are continuing. We'll keep you posted on our findings.
The Doctor is OUT.
Monday, August 30, 2010
We're all gonna die
Yup. Just like Iggy says. It's inevitable and it's inescapable. It just sucks more when it happens to the young. Which brings us to another needless teenage death: Homebake is goneski. Aged fifteen. Not even old enough to vote, root or buy a warm can of Uncle Ted from a festival beer tent. Sure, the Organisers Thereof have put out a florid little press release about how the cancellation for 2010 of Australasia's awesomest home-grown music festy is just a momentary blip and they'll be back shinier and awesomerer than ever after a year's sabbatical, but anyone with goldfish-plus memory banks will recall the same schtick propagated by the Livid organisers after their '03 show - almost word for word. For the record, Livid's year-long sabbatical now stands at six years and counting. It ain't coming back, and given the plethora of festies now smeared across the landscape, it's hard to see the 'Bake avoiding a similar fate; as WoB Rural Correspondent AJ put it on Arsebook, the chances of Homebake making a comeback are about the same as Splendour In The Arse making it back to Byron.
And that sucks balls. Because Homebake wasn't just another cattle-call mass-produced rock festival experience. It had something. More specifically, what it had was the greatest festy venue imaginable - the Domain in the centre of Sydney. Sure, the weather was either drizzling or wreathed in bushfire smoke, and soundbleed between the stages was something fucking horrendous given you could hit a nine-iron from one extremity of the compound to the other - but it was green, it was grassy, it was stupidly easy to get to, it nevaaarrrr sold out (not in those days anyhoo), and it wasn't fucking Gold Coast Parklands on a 38 degree summer day with the westerly blowing dog-track grit into your eyes. And there are still few grander places on earth than on a sunny afternoon in the first Saturday in December, on the C-stage up the back (the Dome) opposite the art gallery, in the shade amongst the fig trees, watching some up-and-coming band rip it up with gusto and aplomb on their first big shot at festival immortality. Which was the other thing about Homebake - it was locals only. You felt somehow a little closer to every one of those up-and-comers, compared to the Latest Next Big Things fresh off the bird from the US or UK at the Big Day Out.
Homebake's parochialism-by-design could well have been its downfall in the end - not just because of the Australian live music industry's well-publicised recent struggles, but also simply because its regular contributors, the Triple J bands of the 90s, progressively grew old and pulled stumps - Powderfinger being the most recent, most obvious example. Looking through the list of lineups, from the very first 'Mudbake' at Belongil Fields, Byron, you see the same names. That first embryonic lineup in 1996: Spiderbait, Tumbleweed, Silverchair, Regurgitator, The Mark Of Cain, You Am I, Sidewinder, Magic Dirt, Fur, Powderfinger, Hardware, Screamfeeder, and hometown heroes, inaugural Triple J Unearthed winners Grinspoon. Most of those acts dominated every Homebake set since, along with contemporaries like Jebediah, Frenzal Rhomb, Something For Kate, Superjesus, Eskimo Joe and later Jet, the Vines and the Hilltop Hoods. As Taco Bell demonstrates, there's only so many times you can produce a distinguishably different end-product from recombining the same constituent parts. That final (apparently) 2009 Homebake lineup: Powderfinger, Jet, Eskimo Joe, Hilltop Hoods, Tumbleweed...
Tumbleweed reformed specially for last year's Homebake, and that was one of the cool recurring features of Homebake - bringing back legendary bands. 2001 saw the Hoodoo Gurus make a return - which at the time was a big deal, they were properly retired at the time, though they've churned out a couple of albums since - and the years hence saw the likes of the Church, Radio Birdman, the Divinyls and Crowded House pulled out of retirement for another go-round. The irony is, most of Homebake's regulars - both the acts and the punters - are now at the stage where another headlining show would be more like a comeback special than a continuation.
As with Livid, official blame has been placed upon the difficulty of signing a strong enough stable of acts given the plethora of other festivals around at the moment - in its final years Livid went up against the big-dollar corporate-rock M1 festival, which pretty much did for it - as outlined in In The Worst Possible Taste. This seems a little ingenuous for Homebake though, considering at least some of those competing festivals are light-on to say the least for Australian talent. Go play a quick round of 'Spot the Australian' in the advertised lineup for the Soundwave festival and get back to me. (While you're at it, try finding anyone who's been even remotely relevant since the mid '90s. Third Eye Blind. Just sayin'.)
For the record, I hope they make it back, because the early-December Saturdays I spent in the Domain watching the best bands in Australia (plus a couple of choice invitees from across the ditch) with some of my best mates in the world were, without exception, fucking awesome. The larger story of me and rock festivals like Big Day Out, Livid and Splendour has played out on these pages before - not to mention their massive role in inspiring the writing of In The Worst Possible Taste - but the Saturdays of Homebake stand above the rest.
These were those Saturdays. Long may they live on.
Saturday, December 8th, 2001Headliners: Hoodoo Gurus making their (first) big comeback; You Am I, Kate, Joe, Jebus, JBT, MGF, TISM and a cast of acronyms too numerous to mention at this or subsequent junctures.
Crew: Dr Yobbo. The Famous Dawso. Captain Stupidity, recently retired from his crimefighting superhero career and having hung up the Purple Jocks Of Justice for good. Pretty sure Meltos The Gaymaker was there, having joined Yr Correspondent for the madness of Livid 2000. Melting goths. Awesome.
Memorable for: First interstate festy mission, partnered by the Captain aboard the Brown Hornet. For two long-term Gurus fans the sales pitch wasn't a tricky one - being a long-term stoner (and we ain't talking Casey), the Captain was also amped at the prospect of catching Skunkhour's final ever show. Sound bleed between stages was ridiculous; Your Correspondent was rank with flu and it drizzled half the day, but even so it was All Good. Best in show went to the old bastards - TISM, You Am I, and above all the Gurus - but the biggest shout-out went to the organisers for getting Tooheys to do the beer, making it a VB free zone. Give that man a New. Or even an Old, which was novel. After the usual experience of XXXX Gold at the Gabba and shitbox Yatala-brewed CUB product at Livid, it can't be understated what a surprise-and-delight feature it was to have actually drinkable beer at a festival. And have a look at that fucking entry ticket price. FIFTY FIVE DOLLARS. Or about one beer ticket more than Moff and I paid for our half-price festival-eve tickets for Livid in October that year. Bargain. More money for Olds then.
Saturday, December 7th, 2002
Headliners: Alex Lloyd (actually he was also a festy-regular in this era like the others listed above, but gets ignored these days - serves him right for his great one-hit-wonder getting turned into a Ford Territory commercial), Radio Birdman (the second annual Homebake Old Bastard Band Reunion Show), Grinspoon, Kasey Chambers (no, I don't know why either), Jebediah, You Am I and some band listed as 'Pacifier (AKA Shihad)' - thank Christ that little experiment in Seppo-centric naming rights died in the arse soon enough. Regardless of the name, they were and remain a fucking epic live act.
Crew: Comprised of myself, Dawso and the Captain. Meltos definitely joined us for at least one of the early Homebakes but not sure whether it was '01 or '02 - it was definitely one of the 'Captain's Knock' Homebakes though. I have a clear memory of the Captain haggling an E out of her for purely medicinal purposes (he claimed he'd overdone his daily dosage of prescription head-correctors and was merely equilibriating his neurochemistry to appropriate levels).
Memorable for: The support acts, primarily. Being a new and fervent disciple of the Church of D4 (ever since Livid in October) I pestered the lads until they gave in and came to watch their set up at the Dome under the trees; the Captain recommended sticking around to see Rocket Science and I owe the gentleman a debt of gratitude for that, as they were in fine form and at the peak of their powers in that and subsequent years (at least until Roman Tucker banged his head and forgot who he was, let alone how to write decent tunes.) And of course, Homebake is often the festy where young, upcoming bands get their first big show. On cue, first act of the day on the back stage, an unknown Victorian band called Jet. Not that we saw them play of course - we were having a beer in town while the ludicrous entry queues fucked off. As you would.
Saturday, December 6th, 2003
Headliners: Nick Cave, The Vines, Something For Kate (hopefully Prozac as she's a gloomy whinging bitch), John Butler and his Trio, 1200 Techniques, Frenzals, the Notsosuperjesus (having lost two lead songwriter-guitarists in the space of a year) and the Church, sweatin' for the oldies.
Crew: Mr and Mrs Moff co-helmed Elvis along with your correspondent for the road trip down (epic enough in itself), joined on the day by Dawso and Kurt, plus the infamous Grotboy, sibling to your correspondent.
Memorable for: One seriously fucking hilarious road trip there and back from Brisvegas. Best summated by a bumper sticker seen on the back of a truck somewhere on the F3: 'if you can't stop, at least smile as you go under.' That was pretty much the established standard for the tone of conversation aboard Elvis for the duration, anyway. As for the festival itself - let's be charitable and call it Best Fest Ever. Probably as much for the crew as for the bands, but this was great entertainment from the get-go. From the Magna of Spod to the Trail of Heinekens, not to mention Yr Correspondent generously donating free career advice to the bus drivers of Sydney. It's a service we offer here at the World of Bollocks.
Best in show: the Casanovas - another case of Dr Yobbo getting obsessive about a new rock band (having seen them with Dr Craigos and the Challenger at the Waterloo in Brisbane, blowing headliners the Donnas off the stage by a score of 2 to 1 - Group Challen was the dissenting voter because he wanted to pound the drummer, who in a departure from SOP was not actually called Phil) and dragging everyone along to watch them kick arse, which they most kindly did for everyone's entertainment. Getting Actual Glassware from the beer tent adjoining the Dome stage was pretty awesome too.
And even later in the night, with drizzle descending and the Vines droning through another hideous trainwreck of a set, and yours truly starting to Ask Serious Questions re the future of Strayan music (if shit like that could be misconstrued as a Good Live Show, as it clearly was being by the squealy girls up the front), one reluctantly wandered over the back to see if Frenzals were going to be as average as they'd been at Livid that year. Their first act was to publically apologise for talking so much bollocks at their Livid shows and not playing any songs; their second act was to promise to shut up and play some fucking punk rock, and their third and subsequent act was to do exactly that. Including but not limited to some of the coolest, obscurest shit that they never, ever play live that only a Rhomb tragic (*cough*) would appreciate. I appreciated, the Rhomb were rehabilitated, and everyone went home happy. To start drinking all over again next day. OHHhhhhh my fucking head.Saturday, December 4th, 2004
Headliners: Jet, Spiderbait, Grinspoon, Regurgitator, Rocket Science, Missy Higgins, Eskimo Joe, former Reds reserve centre Peter Murray, the D4, End of Fashion, Kasey Chambers (again, still not sure why) and some lot called Wolfmother opening on the back stage, not that I got to see them because the security cunts only had two people on the gate and it took fucking ages to get in, fuck them all with a bent stick
Crew: The Doctors Yobbo, and reprising their roles from Homebake Road Trip 2003, the Moffs. Flew down this time but. Kinda foreshortened the fun, but we had jobs to do. Growing up sucks.
Memorable for: Not being quite as epic as the previous year. Probably because we had far too much to drink the previous night and were carrying it all through the next day - to the point where we couldn't be arsed staying for Jet's show-closing set as (a) we were fucked (b) we'd already seen them twice in the past year and (c) they never really were that good live anyway. Best in show - I'd go for the Gurge, who were out of their self-imposed Bubble and were cranking through the good stuff. The Band In The Bubble was a worthy experiment; pity it sent Jabba mad, but he got his shit together eventually. All the acts you'd expect to fucking rock, did so (the D4 et al); even Roman Tucker managed to figure out the Scientific plans for his Rocket, something of an achievement given he'd fallen down the stairs a few months earlier, banged his head and forgotten every track of the new album they'd just recorded. Just as well he liked the finished article when it was played back to him. And no matter what kind of day you've had at the 'Bake, whether you're firing on all cylinders or limping along Struggle Street, there's still very little that compares with a burnt-orange sunset over the city skyline of Sydney, sitting on the grass of the Domain with a beer in your hand, your ears ringing from an epic live set with the prospect of more to follow.
The end, and afterwards
We kinda knew 2004 would be the last Homebake for us, because we knew we were offski. By December 2005, I was in New Zealand, pretending to be a grownup. Ironically, having formed the backbone of our Homebake missions throughout the years, most of Delta Team from that epic '03 Homebake were at my wedding, as my best man and groomsmen. Actually, not ironically. Unsurprisingly. My last festival: Big Day Out, January 2005. My last live show: Shihad, Carisbrook, March 2009. Though Dr Mrs Dr Yobbo has been to a bunch of Wiggles shows since then. Actually I'm wondering, given the ageing of Homebake's lineup and fanbase, whether a Toddlers Homebake would be in order. The Wiggles, Hi-5, the Hooley Dooleys, that Jurassic Joe dude who sings about dinosaurs, the Bananas in Pyjamas doing a DJ set in the doof tent, and the 1980s cast of Play School as the elderly-reunion special. Or Don Spencer doing 'Bob the Kelpie'...
Truth is, Homebake is the one festival I'd have come home for. Even looked at cheap (i.e. airpoints-fuelled) flights for the first Saturday in December this year, before the announcement of shitcannery came along. But shitcanneried (?) it is, for 2010 if not for all of time. Perhaps, like Livid - which grew out of the anti-establishment movement of late-80s Joh-era Queensland, and lasted the same 15 years Homebake has before losing its identity trying to become a BDO-style travelling supercircus - it's just outgrown its usefulness, had nothing more to say, nothing further to contribute. Maybe, But somehow, given the fairly grim state of live music in Australia, I don't think so. It seems to me like there's still a place for Homebake in the crowded festy schedule of 2011. And a job for it to do.
The Doctor is OUT.
Wednesday, January 07, 2009
Pidge's Pink-Off
All told, your man Pigeon - that's Glenn Donald McGrath AM to his mother and the tax office - didn't have a bad few days at the Sydney test. Sure, he had Nine's producers trying to get him to break down in tears on camera every day for five days, bud Pidge held stoic. And he did manage to rake in quite a fair swag of coin for the breast cancer foundation named for his late wife, Jane. Over the course of five very pink days in Sydney's inner-east - cue lazy jokes about that making fuck-all change from usual - the Nine commentary team dressed up like an explosion in a Barbie factory, Tony Greig's hat looked even more stupid than ever, over half a million of your Australian dollars were donated to the Foundation, and the pink-frilled lizards of Australian cricket team even got in on the act by winning the game in the second last over for the second year running. Your Correspondent has two unbroken hands and two functional wrists and even he wasn't keeping out the ball which castled the (grudgingly mumbled) heroic Graeme Smith. Then again Your Correspondent has a forward defence which wouldn't look out of place in Under 10s Kanga Cricket, largely because it hasn't developed any further since then.
So all good then. Except... not really. Half a mill sounds like a decent swag on paper. But what does Pidge's Pink-Off Payout actually buy him? Let's say, for argument's sake, that the admin costs are trivial. They won't be, but let's say they are. Say he wants to fund research into breast cancer. He doesn't, but let's say he does, since a lot of other cancer foundations do. How far does his five hundred gorillas get him?
Let's take the average cost of NZ research. The Marsden Fund, who are the 'basic science' fund of NZ, cap the amount you can apply for at $250K per year over a three year grant, plus or minus a bit depending on what discipline panel you apply to - i.e. biomedical research costs more than humanities so they figure you need to ask for more. That $250K would need to cover at least 20% of the time of the principal investigator - even if their salary was already paid for by their employer (it's called salary buyout, and it works really well, and by that I mean it doesn't fucking work at all because the money isn't used by the host department to buy the PI out of their lecturing time and have a teaching fellow do it instead so they can actually do the work... but I digress), plus you'd want a postdoc for three years (so some shit actually gets done), maybe a PhD stipend if you can afford it (probably not), a bunch of consumables money so you're not sitting on your arse playing poker on Arsebook for 3 years, some travel money so you can go to conferences and actually tell people what you're doing so you have some chance of getting another job after this, and... that's it. Oh, and overheads.
Overheads are the real problem. I know Pidge's foundation doesn't actually fund biomedical research. If he did, these figures wouldn't even get near the crux of the issue, because Marsden research is the cheapest research funded by the country which funds research more cheaply than pretty much any other place in the world. HRC (Health Research Council) grants, which are targeted squarely at medical research, often go over a million for a three year project. It's not that salaries are exactly stratospheric - starting salary for a first-year postdoctoral researcher in NZ is less than the starting salary for a first-year field assistant at a coal mine in Gunnedah. AND you get your own ute and satellite phone if you go work for Dawso. But overheads, which pay for... well, overheads I guess... are charged as a proportion of the salaries on the grant, and they're usually the single highest line cost on the grant, more than the salaries themselves. And that's not a problem limited to university research, or even universities in general. The cost of overheads kills productivity in any large bureaucracy. Even, for instance, the cost of running a charitable foundation... or, more particularly for Pidge, the cost of funding Breast Care Nurses in rural Australia, who like the rest of us, can't operate in a vacuum. Funding the salary of one fully paid-up nurse in a decrepit, barren environment with no other facilities would be as morally dubious as a Christian charity encouraging sponsors to give money to one - and only one - starving African child, while the rest of their community dies around them. And obviously no Christian organisation would encourage that, would they?
This isn't, in any way, saying that the work of Pidge's foundation isn't worthwhile - if they'd been around forty years earlier, I might have got to meet my nonna - or that you shouldn't send them cash by the bucket because most of it gets pissed away on admin and bullshit, because there is absolutely no way to avoid that happening. It's just that it's disingenous, and bordering on fradulent, to claim that this is going to make a massive amount of difference. For that reason, the song and dance Nine made about reaching the half-mill at the end of play - even stage-managing the finish by turning the tea break into something resembling the NBN Telethon, although noone phoned up to pledge $500 if Chris Bath took her shirt off - ended up coming off a bit hollow. The wonder wasn't that so much was raised, as Nine wanted you to think. The wonder was that after five days of saturation coverage, it was actually so little.
Then again, that might have been because Australia decided any cause championed by the almost completely objectionable Tony "I'm South African this week" Greig in a fuck-off-horrible pink hat possibly just isn't worth supporting, no matter how right or upstanding the reasoning behind it might be.
The Doctor is OUT.
So all good then. Except... not really. Half a mill sounds like a decent swag on paper. But what does Pidge's Pink-Off Payout actually buy him? Let's say, for argument's sake, that the admin costs are trivial. They won't be, but let's say they are. Say he wants to fund research into breast cancer. He doesn't, but let's say he does, since a lot of other cancer foundations do. How far does his five hundred gorillas get him?
Let's take the average cost of NZ research. The Marsden Fund, who are the 'basic science' fund of NZ, cap the amount you can apply for at $250K per year over a three year grant, plus or minus a bit depending on what discipline panel you apply to - i.e. biomedical research costs more than humanities so they figure you need to ask for more. That $250K would need to cover at least 20% of the time of the principal investigator - even if their salary was already paid for by their employer (it's called salary buyout, and it works really well, and by that I mean it doesn't fucking work at all because the money isn't used by the host department to buy the PI out of their lecturing time and have a teaching fellow do it instead so they can actually do the work... but I digress), plus you'd want a postdoc for three years (so some shit actually gets done), maybe a PhD stipend if you can afford it (probably not), a bunch of consumables money so you're not sitting on your arse playing poker on Arsebook for 3 years, some travel money so you can go to conferences and actually tell people what you're doing so you have some chance of getting another job after this, and... that's it. Oh, and overheads.
Overheads are the real problem. I know Pidge's foundation doesn't actually fund biomedical research. If he did, these figures wouldn't even get near the crux of the issue, because Marsden research is the cheapest research funded by the country which funds research more cheaply than pretty much any other place in the world. HRC (Health Research Council) grants, which are targeted squarely at medical research, often go over a million for a three year project. It's not that salaries are exactly stratospheric - starting salary for a first-year postdoctoral researcher in NZ is less than the starting salary for a first-year field assistant at a coal mine in Gunnedah. AND you get your own ute and satellite phone if you go work for Dawso. But overheads, which pay for... well, overheads I guess... are charged as a proportion of the salaries on the grant, and they're usually the single highest line cost on the grant, more than the salaries themselves. And that's not a problem limited to university research, or even universities in general. The cost of overheads kills productivity in any large bureaucracy. Even, for instance, the cost of running a charitable foundation... or, more particularly for Pidge, the cost of funding Breast Care Nurses in rural Australia, who like the rest of us, can't operate in a vacuum. Funding the salary of one fully paid-up nurse in a decrepit, barren environment with no other facilities would be as morally dubious as a Christian charity encouraging sponsors to give money to one - and only one - starving African child, while the rest of their community dies around them. And obviously no Christian organisation would encourage that, would they?
This isn't, in any way, saying that the work of Pidge's foundation isn't worthwhile - if they'd been around forty years earlier, I might have got to meet my nonna - or that you shouldn't send them cash by the bucket because most of it gets pissed away on admin and bullshit, because there is absolutely no way to avoid that happening. It's just that it's disingenous, and bordering on fradulent, to claim that this is going to make a massive amount of difference. For that reason, the song and dance Nine made about reaching the half-mill at the end of play - even stage-managing the finish by turning the tea break into something resembling the NBN Telethon, although noone phoned up to pledge $500 if Chris Bath took her shirt off - ended up coming off a bit hollow. The wonder wasn't that so much was raised, as Nine wanted you to think. The wonder was that after five days of saturation coverage, it was actually so little.
Then again, that might have been because Australia decided any cause championed by the almost completely objectionable Tony "I'm South African this week" Greig in a fuck-off-horrible pink hat possibly just isn't worth supporting, no matter how right or upstanding the reasoning behind it might be.
The Doctor is OUT.
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Australia's Most Bestest Town In Australia
And the winner of the Australian Traveller award for Australia's Best Town, 2009, is...
YAMBA???
WHAT THE FUCK??!!?!!1!eleven!?!!
Don't get me wrong, Yamba's not a hole. It's a complete and utter fucking shithole which needs a 'dozer run through the length of its preposterously and ponderously long main drag, but that's not the point. How does Yamba - YAMBA, for fuck's sake - beat bigger, brighter and better-known holiday spots like Byron, Margaret River, Apollo Bay and Woodenbong to snare the one and only national trophy for Most Bestest Township, Village Or Hamlet In Australia Evaaaaaarrrr, awarded by the country's leading (and possibly only) tourism and travel mag and selected by a panel of tourism and travel experts? And more to the point, how does Yamba win the above without the head of the local chamber of commerce having to personally blow every member of aforesaid panel of tourism and travel experts?
The clincher, it was reported, was the deciding question put to the panellists to sort the wheat from the chaff: on a scale of one to ten, how likely are you to recommend a friend add one hour to their trip just to see this town? Now considering Yamba is a good 20 kays off the highway and the road out there is truly fucking dire, this would give the panellists approximately fifteen minutes out of their hour having got into town to actually see the joint and get back on their way. Which in fairness is plenty of time to see all the myriad sights and delights of Yamba in their entirety. Even inclusive of a stop for petrol and a slash at the public facilities.
Now, there are many good things about Yamba. Or at least, there used to be. The Pacific, the most spectacularly positioned pub in the land, used to have Reschs Smooth (RIP, God rest its soul) on tap, and the bakery in Coldstream St - midway along the drunken downhill stagger from the Pacific back to the Captain's shed for more beers - used to open after Pacific closing time to sell freshly baked pies to half-cut munters like ourselves, probably as the smell of the pies baking would have enticed more inebriated and/or impatient souls than ourselves to rip the fucking doors down and help themselves to the steaming meaty goodness being concocted therein. And a bunch of slammin'-hottie surfie chicks from my high school lived there. But it's unlikely any of the above attractions, even if they were still available in today's Yamba, could be properly enjoyed by the average traveller in their fifteen minutes in town. Well, maybe some of the girls, depending how poorly the passage of time has treated them in the interim, and whether they could get time off from serving in the surf shop or the fish co-op.
So what to do with your fifteen minutes (give or take a few depending on bladder pressure) in the thriving metrop of Yambahole? Bewildered? Perplexed? Mildly disorientated? Well never fear as the World of Bollocks presents Fifteen Minutes Of Lame: What To Do In Yamba, Australia's Most Bestest Town In Australia 2009, Or So Some Yuppie Wanker Travel Mag Reckons, The Lot Of Choad Warriors.
The Doctor is OUT.
______________
PS An afterthought - so the more pertinent question is, if Yamba's the town you'd add an hour to your trip to see, which are the towns you'd add an hour to your trip to avoid?
A quick Arsebook voxpop turned up Tamworth, Guyra, Walcha, Muswellbrook, Scone... pretty much anything on the New England Highway actually, which is hereafter renamed the 'Don't Fucken Bother' Tourist Route (Farmadale gets a pass for pretty autumn leaves, pretty UNE first-years (read 'pretty pliant after a couple of RTDs') and a couple of pretty clever buggers who just emerged from their shed with a fully operational market-ready electric car), Denilquin, West Wyalong, Casino ('The Happy Place To Shop', allegedly, and home of the Beef Week Queen, the only beauty pageant in which the cont
estants are difficult to tell from the breeds they seek to represent), and of course Gympie, an exercise in nominative determinism if there ever was one. However, no suggestions got close to the Holy Trinity of Arsebag Townships, the Warrego Highway Triumvirate of the Switch, Gatton, and above all others, Woombie Land, home of redneck ute-driving fucktards called Brad who invite themselves along to one-day games.
Suggestions, as ever, welcome...
YAMBA???
WHAT THE FUCK??!!?!!1!eleven!?!!
Don't get me wrong, Yamba's not a hole. It's a complete and utter fucking shithole which needs a 'dozer run through the length of its preposterously and ponderously long main drag, but that's not the point. How does Yamba - YAMBA, for fuck's sake - beat bigger, brighter and better-known holiday spots like Byron, Margaret River, Apollo Bay and Woodenbong to snare the one and only national trophy for Most Bestest Township, Village Or Hamlet In Australia Evaaaaaarrrr, awarded by the country's leading (and possibly only) tourism and travel mag and selected by a panel of tourism and travel experts? And more to the point, how does Yamba win the above without the head of the local chamber of commerce having to personally blow every member of aforesaid panel of tourism and travel experts?
The clincher, it was reported, was the deciding question put to the panellists to sort the wheat from the chaff: on a scale of one to ten, how likely are you to recommend a friend add one hour to their trip just to see this town? Now considering Yamba is a good 20 kays off the highway and the road out there is truly fucking dire, this would give the panellists approximately fifteen minutes out of their hour having got into town to actually see the joint and get back on their way. Which in fairness is plenty of time to see all the myriad sights and delights of Yamba in their entirety. Even inclusive of a stop for petrol and a slash at the public facilities.
Now, there are many good things about Yamba. Or at least, there used to be. The Pacific, the most spectacularly positioned pub in the land, used to have Reschs Smooth (RIP, God rest its soul) on tap, and the bakery in Coldstream St - midway along the drunken downhill stagger from the Pacific back to the Captain's shed for more beers - used to open after Pacific closing time to sell freshly baked pies to half-cut munters like ourselves, probably as the smell of the pies baking would have enticed more inebriated and/or impatient souls than ourselves to rip the fucking doors down and help themselves to the steaming meaty goodness being concocted therein. And a bunch of slammin'-hottie surfie chicks from my high school lived there. But it's unlikely any of the above attractions, even if they were still available in today's Yamba, could be properly enjoyed by the average traveller in their fifteen minutes in town. Well, maybe some of the girls, depending how poorly the passage of time has treated them in the interim, and whether they could get time off from serving in the surf shop or the fish co-op.So what to do with your fifteen minutes (give or take a few depending on bladder pressure) in the thriving metrop of Yambahole? Bewildered? Perplexed? Mildly disorientated? Well never fear as the World of Bollocks presents Fifteen Minutes Of Lame: What To Do In Yamba, Australia's Most Bestest Town In Australia 2009, Or So Some Yuppie Wanker Travel Mag Reckons, The Lot Of Choad Warriors.
Visit the legendary surf break of nearby Angourie. Get dropped in on by legendary surf king Nat Young. Punch him in the head. Marvel at the mystery and wonder of the famous Angourie Blue Pools, daredevil swimming hole for generations of local kids. Wonder not at the lack of mystery as to why noone has been allowed to swim there in ten years since it became the Blue-Green Algae Pools.
If, by chance, you happen to be have mistakenly packed a bucket full of golf balls which you have found surplus to requirements, the water hazard off the fifth tee at Yamba Golf Course, affectionately named 'the Shit Hole', is an excellent place to lose them. However, entrepreneurs should note it is a poor place to dive for them, being as it is the overflow pond for the neighbouring sewage treatment works.
Go wildlife spotting in Crystal Waters, a.k.a. Blacktown-On-Sea, in the hunt for the elusive Snaggle-Toothed Bogan (Bevanus dazzanshazza) in its natural habitat - the TAB at Yamba Shores Tavern on dole day.- Marvel at how two generations of apparently qualified state and council town planners could fuck up a township of 5600 people quite as spectacularly as to have two completely separate town centres - the Old Town and the Bogan Western Suburb - separated by a 5km stretch of road, limited to 50 km/h, along which approximately eight billion cars have to funnel every day in either direction.
Or the fact that a town of near-as-buggery six thousand people has no high school and the nearest such mythical creation is 20 kays away. Or that the Bogan Western Suburb in question (Ipswich Waters to most) is built on a bed of reclaimed swamp, sand and hastily-bulldozed mangroves and makes Ross River look mosquito-free by comparison. - Go to Iluka instead, the fish and chips are better and the drive out there's less likely to bore you into a drainage culvert. Or Evans Head, or Wooli, or any of those other quaint little NSW North Coast fishing villages. Just don't go to Brooms Head. Stay right the fuck away from there. It's really bloody awful, honest. Noone in their right mind would possibly want to go there, so don't. Particularly not any of you fucking punishing yuppie fucktard readers of Australian Yuppie Fucktard Traveller. Brooms Head is definitely not a place you want to go.
The Doctor is OUT.
______________
PS An afterthought - so the more pertinent question is, if Yamba's the town you'd add an hour to your trip to see, which are the towns you'd add an hour to your trip to avoid?
A quick Arsebook voxpop turned up Tamworth, Guyra, Walcha, Muswellbrook, Scone... pretty much anything on the New England Highway actually, which is hereafter renamed the 'Don't Fucken Bother' Tourist Route (Farmadale gets a pass for pretty autumn leaves, pretty UNE first-years (read 'pretty pliant after a couple of RTDs') and a couple of pretty clever buggers who just emerged from their shed with a fully operational market-ready electric car), Denilquin, West Wyalong, Casino ('The Happy Place To Shop', allegedly, and home of the Beef Week Queen, the only beauty pageant in which the cont
estants are difficult to tell from the breeds they seek to represent), and of course Gympie, an exercise in nominative determinism if there ever was one. However, no suggestions got close to the Holy Trinity of Arsebag Townships, the Warrego Highway Triumvirate of the Switch, Gatton, and above all others, Woombie Land, home of redneck ute-driving fucktards called Brad who invite themselves along to one-day games.Suggestions, as ever, welcome...
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Men behaving badly, part one
Right, enough bleating about Stuff What Is Rooted. Back to what we do best here at WoB: bringing the stupid. And because we love a good roadtrip story here at WoB - or even a shit one - that's the stupid we choose to bring at this particular juncture. This is somewhere between In The Worst Possible Taste and Therbs' fknawsm ratsacking travel series; maybe a similar feel to the misadventures of Flange Gasket, but the following is grounded in something a touch closer to Actual Events. As we say in ITWPT, only the names (and faces) have been changed - and not particularly effectively - to protect the guilty. I give you part one of Men Behaving Badly: Dr Yobbo's Drunken and Pointless T20 Cricket Mission, December 2009.
__________________
I woke in pain. An arc of pain that corkscrewed from my right arm around my torso into my back and down my left side. It hurt to get up. It hurt to lie down. It hurt to think about how much it hurt, because it was all my own fucking fault. And I knew I’d do it again if I had the chance. Boxing Day Cricket comes but once a year, of course. The chance to settle some scores.
Jonty and I had been mates since we were three and a half, which coincidentally had been the age at which he’d first said he hated being called Jonty. We grew up in the same town, went to the same primary school and played together on the same busted-arse junior indoor cricket team who got our arses handed to us each and every week by the team from Norwood Island, a proper summer team who used us as cannon fodder to practice on during the winter. I think we won one game against the bastards in two or three years. We hated those smug, preening gits with their proper bats and their proper batting technique. Hated ‘em. Until we got to high school and they became some of our best mates.
That had been almost twenty years ago. Yesterday, we’d spent the day after Boxing Day the same way we’d spent Boxing Day: drinking beers at my folks’ place at the beach, making burnt offerings to the gods on the gas barbie, and sledging the fuck out of the Pakistanis, the Aussies, the commentary team and each other. Only change to program vs yesterday being we’d actually been sober enough while there was still light in the day to trundle out the wheelie bin, tape up the tennis balls and have a crack at Boxing Day backyard cricket. Which, as the name suggests, took place on Dec 27 in the street out the front of the olds’ place.
The taped-up tennis balls were the key. Scuffing up one side of a tennis ball will make it swing. Wrapping insulating tape tightly around one side of a tennis ball won’t just make it swing, it’ll make it hoop like a fucking bastard. Two or three lateral feet of movement over eighteen yards might seem excessive when you’re aiming at a wheelie bin, but when you’re playing against ex-grade cricketers like Aidan (or Jonty for that matter), former junior tennis aces like Nat or arsey fluke merchants like Smurf, when you’re playing in $5 Sydney FC thongs from the bargain bin at Rebel Sport, and when you’re quite monstrously pissed courtesy several days on the mineral turpentine over the Xmas period, you need all the help you can get.
“Right,” I said, “this won’t need the 'keeper.”
I said that for two reasons. Three, if you count me being a mouthy git. The primary reason I said it was because the last one had needed the keeper, and the keeper had been Found Wanting. Nat had edged one – a dolly, really – off a loopy outswinger and Aidan (or Big Ads, as we called him – largely because calling him Big Aids didn’t quite seem PC), at keeper, conspicuously failed to take the catch. It wasn’t because he had a beer in his hand – we were playing one-hand one-bounce for that, as per agreed ICC rules – it was because he was having an attack of Being A Bit Shit. The ball nutmegged him at pace, leaving him knock-kneed, toppling over and in danger of spilling his Uncle Ted as he turned to watch it shit off down the street to end up in the drain bordering the neighbours. I also said it because the last time I’d said it, I’d trundled in and bowled one two feet outside off which had scythed in, pitched nice and full, and cannoned off the right-hand corner of the wheelie bin, which was how Big Ads came to be impersonating a wicketkeeper instead of annoying us with his arsey leg-side stance and full array of shot. So yeah, let’s take the keeper out of the equation shall we? Nat had been in for a bit, he was getting annoying too, and we were all due for a refill. I turned at the top of my mark and began my run-up.
I have an unnecessarily long run-up for two reasons: one, Merv Hughes did, and he’s at least as ugly and ineffective as I am, and two, I need the exercise. However, this leaves one vulnerable to the perfectly-timed sledge. As demonstrated by Smurf, who sidled next to me as I jogged into my delivery stride and directed into my ear at the precise moment of release:
‘Cuntvag.’
The ball ended up at deep backward third slip, where Smurf’s new car was parked. Some form of justice. I ended up on the grass at silly mid off, giggling like an idiot.
Ah, good times. Which result in times like these, the regretful mornings after, when underused thirty-plus muscle groups get their chance to bleat and whinge about the abuses put to them in the name of fun, craic, settling old scores (in a very, very silly way) and working up a thirst. Which was put to good use across the rest of the afternoon, followed by the evening, when Greg turned up.
Greg was the reason we were having two Boxing Day BBQs. He was part of the original team – he and Ads were two of those Norwood bastards from back in the day, and we’d spent four drunken years as flatmates at UQ in the early Noughties – but he was stuck in the Hunter with his family for Christmas. Never fear, he said, he was going to jump a 6am flight out of Newcastle, get up to Brisbane and drive down (just the 4 hrs in holiday traffic) in time for Day 2 of festivities. Except DeathStar cancelled his flight, the pack of cuntvags (vadges?). Plan B. He got the bus to Sydney, flew to Brisbane and drove down. Arriving in record time, 3hrs 20 mins. And half an hour after everyone had gone home. Never mind, Jonty had left a six of Coopers Pale behind and those four Uncle Teds of Uncle Ads’ weren’t going to drink themselves after all…
So, yeah. Slightly second hand come the morning of December 28th. Which wasn’t a great thing, considering in two hours we were heading off on the highlight of the entire Xmas-New Year festival of stupidity – the Drunken and Pointless T20 Cricket Mission. Up to Brisbane for the domestic Twenty20 match between the Quoinslaaandaaaas and the Sphinctorians, hitting as many bars as possible before and after, crashing in all the luxury a dodgy Oaks apartment could provide, then road-tripping it back home next day.
Greg still had the same beat-up mid ‘90s Hyundai I’d told him not to buy at the start of his PhD, mainly because I’d been trying to get him to buy my old Subaru instead so I could fuck off to New Zealand with more than just my super-hot Kiwi girlfriend to hand, i.e. some hard currency. The Hundy had seen better days, and lots of ‘em, but it still worked. Much like its owner. Greg was three months from the end of his PhD, as he’d been for the past six, and his plans for the Hundy to last him the duration were just (if only just) going to make it. He coaxed the Hundy along the 25 kays from my folks place at the beach into town, through national park, cattle farms and canefields. We talked PhD crap. His project was fucked, his boss was being a cunt, he reckoned he had just about enough to write up but he kept having to deal with everyone else’s shit instead of his own stuff, and as for postdocs jobs he had no fucking idea. All as per schedule for that point in a PhD project.
Ads lived in a shiny new house on the outskirts of town with his wife and their year-old bub. It had more rooms than Windsor Castle and a larger TV than Kennedy Space Center. The creaky old AU Falcon wagon on the driveway brought the tone down a little, but you can’t have everything. Mr and Mrs Ads had been hosting the Smurfs over the post-Christmas period, who’d come down from the Goldie to catch up with the crew. Smurf hadn’t gone to school with us, but his wife Kris had. Greg and I had been culpable in them hooking up in the first place, it’d been at one of our legendarily dodgy house parties in St Lucia. Smurf, who for the record looked quite unlike a Smurf but had a surname that lent itself to phonetic bastardization along those lines, was a mate of Greg’s from first year, who became a mate of mine when I moved up there for postgrad; we’d had many, many weekends on the turps in his company on the Gold Coast, including several Big Days Out at Parklands Dog Track and a good few corporately-rorted mission to the Indy. He was a web developer by trade, a pisshead by profession, and a fucking champion. He greeted us at the door with a hug and a cold Uncle Ted. It was ten in the fucking morning. Then again that wasn’t an opening-wicket record for Smurf. Greg and I both remembered the Indy trip when the first cold bottle Heineken had been pressed against our still-sleeping faces at half-six. “You’re only getting fucking green can of evil [VB] on track,” he’d reminded us. Which was good enough logic for government work.
The wives regarded us carefully. It’d been many weeks in the planning, this particular ‘boys trip’ (as they insisted on calling it.) Not that it took weeks of planning. It was basically me saying on Arsebook ‘I’m going to the fucking cricket. Who’s coming with?’ Ads wasn’t drinking as he’d volunteered to do wheelwork for the mission. Despite being six foot thirteen and a man mountain, he reckoned he wasn’t up to the pace of the group when it came to beers – certainly not if the beer was the XXXX Gold we would be obliged to drink as of 6.45pm Queensland time. He was a late starter when it came to beer. We remembered having to teach him how to drink. When drinking from a bottle, don’t fellate the bottle so the air can’t escape and it foams over the top. When pouring from a keg, hold your glass at an angle, not on the vertical, unless you want to pour a beer with more head than Bert Newton. Then again, if it was scotch we were on, fuhgeddaboudit. He thrived on the stuff, powering on like a slightly recalcitrant two-stroke lawnmower. A fair big of belching and farting involved, but he’d keep going indefinitely. The XXL fluoro yellow high-vis vest from his day job – news cameraman for the local TV station – was sitting on the back seat, asking to be misappropriated. As the mission’s OH&S Operations Manager I thought it best to misappropriate it, at least for the mission of heading into town to pick up Jonty.
Jonty was staying with his folks, who were and seemingly had always been loaded. They had a superflash multi-level house on the riverfront which was, like south-east Queensland, permanently being renovated. Construction fencing lined the perimeter, necessitating Aidan having to do a 47 point turn to navigate the big white AU wagon around 180 degrees to enable escape. He ignored our suggestions of employing the handbrake and/or a shitload of throttle to get the tail around. To his credit, Jonty didn’t bat an eyelid when he answered the door to a bogan in a high-vis jacket, boardshorts, a Speights ‘Duck Season 2009’ camo cap and a mostly empty Tooheys Extra Dry in his paw. Jonty had known me for a very, very long time, and knew the established standards. He earned buckets of cash in IT in Sydney these days, and spent most of it clubbing and socializing. He lived in a trendy suburb, had artfully downbeat hipster friends and even more conceptual T-shirts than I did. Even so, deep down, he was still one of us. He was still Rural. Whether he wanted to be or not.
So that was the team: Aidan, Jonty, Smurf, Greg and Your Correspondent. Nat wasn't a starter, he had family commitments down the NSW coast (translation: he was sensible enough to scare up an alibi) but that still made an impressive raiding party. Five thirty-something men in a beat-up AU wagon for two days. Ambitious? Yes. Inadvisable? Probably. Immature? Well DUHHH. And fun? As sure as Jack Newton swims in circles…
________________
Part Two to follow. The Doctor is OUT.
__________________
I woke in pain. An arc of pain that corkscrewed from my right arm around my torso into my back and down my left side. It hurt to get up. It hurt to lie down. It hurt to think about how much it hurt, because it was all my own fucking fault. And I knew I’d do it again if I had the chance. Boxing Day Cricket comes but once a year, of course. The chance to settle some scores.
Jonty and I had been mates since we were three and a half, which coincidentally had been the age at which he’d first said he hated being called Jonty. We grew up in the same town, went to the same primary school and played together on the same busted-arse junior indoor cricket team who got our arses handed to us each and every week by the team from Norwood Island, a proper summer team who used us as cannon fodder to practice on during the winter. I think we won one game against the bastards in two or three years. We hated those smug, preening gits with their proper bats and their proper batting technique. Hated ‘em. Until we got to high school and they became some of our best mates.
That had been almost twenty years ago. Yesterday, we’d spent the day after Boxing Day the same way we’d spent Boxing Day: drinking beers at my folks’ place at the beach, making burnt offerings to the gods on the gas barbie, and sledging the fuck out of the Pakistanis, the Aussies, the commentary team and each other. Only change to program vs yesterday being we’d actually been sober enough while there was still light in the day to trundle out the wheelie bin, tape up the tennis balls and have a crack at Boxing Day backyard cricket. Which, as the name suggests, took place on Dec 27 in the street out the front of the olds’ place.
The taped-up tennis balls were the key. Scuffing up one side of a tennis ball will make it swing. Wrapping insulating tape tightly around one side of a tennis ball won’t just make it swing, it’ll make it hoop like a fucking bastard. Two or three lateral feet of movement over eighteen yards might seem excessive when you’re aiming at a wheelie bin, but when you’re playing against ex-grade cricketers like Aidan (or Jonty for that matter), former junior tennis aces like Nat or arsey fluke merchants like Smurf, when you’re playing in $5 Sydney FC thongs from the bargain bin at Rebel Sport, and when you’re quite monstrously pissed courtesy several days on the mineral turpentine over the Xmas period, you need all the help you can get.
“Right,” I said, “this won’t need the 'keeper.”
I said that for two reasons. Three, if you count me being a mouthy git. The primary reason I said it was because the last one had needed the keeper, and the keeper had been Found Wanting. Nat had edged one – a dolly, really – off a loopy outswinger and Aidan (or Big Ads, as we called him – largely because calling him Big Aids didn’t quite seem PC), at keeper, conspicuously failed to take the catch. It wasn’t because he had a beer in his hand – we were playing one-hand one-bounce for that, as per agreed ICC rules – it was because he was having an attack of Being A Bit Shit. The ball nutmegged him at pace, leaving him knock-kneed, toppling over and in danger of spilling his Uncle Ted as he turned to watch it shit off down the street to end up in the drain bordering the neighbours. I also said it because the last time I’d said it, I’d trundled in and bowled one two feet outside off which had scythed in, pitched nice and full, and cannoned off the right-hand corner of the wheelie bin, which was how Big Ads came to be impersonating a wicketkeeper instead of annoying us with his arsey leg-side stance and full array of shot. So yeah, let’s take the keeper out of the equation shall we? Nat had been in for a bit, he was getting annoying too, and we were all due for a refill. I turned at the top of my mark and began my run-up.
I have an unnecessarily long run-up for two reasons: one, Merv Hughes did, and he’s at least as ugly and ineffective as I am, and two, I need the exercise. However, this leaves one vulnerable to the perfectly-timed sledge. As demonstrated by Smurf, who sidled next to me as I jogged into my delivery stride and directed into my ear at the precise moment of release:
‘Cuntvag.’
The ball ended up at deep backward third slip, where Smurf’s new car was parked. Some form of justice. I ended up on the grass at silly mid off, giggling like an idiot.
Ah, good times. Which result in times like these, the regretful mornings after, when underused thirty-plus muscle groups get their chance to bleat and whinge about the abuses put to them in the name of fun, craic, settling old scores (in a very, very silly way) and working up a thirst. Which was put to good use across the rest of the afternoon, followed by the evening, when Greg turned up.
Greg was the reason we were having two Boxing Day BBQs. He was part of the original team – he and Ads were two of those Norwood bastards from back in the day, and we’d spent four drunken years as flatmates at UQ in the early Noughties – but he was stuck in the Hunter with his family for Christmas. Never fear, he said, he was going to jump a 6am flight out of Newcastle, get up to Brisbane and drive down (just the 4 hrs in holiday traffic) in time for Day 2 of festivities. Except DeathStar cancelled his flight, the pack of cuntvags (vadges?). Plan B. He got the bus to Sydney, flew to Brisbane and drove down. Arriving in record time, 3hrs 20 mins. And half an hour after everyone had gone home. Never mind, Jonty had left a six of Coopers Pale behind and those four Uncle Teds of Uncle Ads’ weren’t going to drink themselves after all…
So, yeah. Slightly second hand come the morning of December 28th. Which wasn’t a great thing, considering in two hours we were heading off on the highlight of the entire Xmas-New Year festival of stupidity – the Drunken and Pointless T20 Cricket Mission. Up to Brisbane for the domestic Twenty20 match between the Quoinslaaandaaaas and the Sphinctorians, hitting as many bars as possible before and after, crashing in all the luxury a dodgy Oaks apartment could provide, then road-tripping it back home next day.
Greg still had the same beat-up mid ‘90s Hyundai I’d told him not to buy at the start of his PhD, mainly because I’d been trying to get him to buy my old Subaru instead so I could fuck off to New Zealand with more than just my super-hot Kiwi girlfriend to hand, i.e. some hard currency. The Hundy had seen better days, and lots of ‘em, but it still worked. Much like its owner. Greg was three months from the end of his PhD, as he’d been for the past six, and his plans for the Hundy to last him the duration were just (if only just) going to make it. He coaxed the Hundy along the 25 kays from my folks place at the beach into town, through national park, cattle farms and canefields. We talked PhD crap. His project was fucked, his boss was being a cunt, he reckoned he had just about enough to write up but he kept having to deal with everyone else’s shit instead of his own stuff, and as for postdocs jobs he had no fucking idea. All as per schedule for that point in a PhD project.
Ads lived in a shiny new house on the outskirts of town with his wife and their year-old bub. It had more rooms than Windsor Castle and a larger TV than Kennedy Space Center. The creaky old AU Falcon wagon on the driveway brought the tone down a little, but you can’t have everything. Mr and Mrs Ads had been hosting the Smurfs over the post-Christmas period, who’d come down from the Goldie to catch up with the crew. Smurf hadn’t gone to school with us, but his wife Kris had. Greg and I had been culpable in them hooking up in the first place, it’d been at one of our legendarily dodgy house parties in St Lucia. Smurf, who for the record looked quite unlike a Smurf but had a surname that lent itself to phonetic bastardization along those lines, was a mate of Greg’s from first year, who became a mate of mine when I moved up there for postgrad; we’d had many, many weekends on the turps in his company on the Gold Coast, including several Big Days Out at Parklands Dog Track and a good few corporately-rorted mission to the Indy. He was a web developer by trade, a pisshead by profession, and a fucking champion. He greeted us at the door with a hug and a cold Uncle Ted. It was ten in the fucking morning. Then again that wasn’t an opening-wicket record for Smurf. Greg and I both remembered the Indy trip when the first cold bottle Heineken had been pressed against our still-sleeping faces at half-six. “You’re only getting fucking green can of evil [VB] on track,” he’d reminded us. Which was good enough logic for government work.
The wives regarded us carefully. It’d been many weeks in the planning, this particular ‘boys trip’ (as they insisted on calling it.) Not that it took weeks of planning. It was basically me saying on Arsebook ‘I’m going to the fucking cricket. Who’s coming with?’ Ads wasn’t drinking as he’d volunteered to do wheelwork for the mission. Despite being six foot thirteen and a man mountain, he reckoned he wasn’t up to the pace of the group when it came to beers – certainly not if the beer was the XXXX Gold we would be obliged to drink as of 6.45pm Queensland time. He was a late starter when it came to beer. We remembered having to teach him how to drink. When drinking from a bottle, don’t fellate the bottle so the air can’t escape and it foams over the top. When pouring from a keg, hold your glass at an angle, not on the vertical, unless you want to pour a beer with more head than Bert Newton. Then again, if it was scotch we were on, fuhgeddaboudit. He thrived on the stuff, powering on like a slightly recalcitrant two-stroke lawnmower. A fair big of belching and farting involved, but he’d keep going indefinitely. The XXL fluoro yellow high-vis vest from his day job – news cameraman for the local TV station – was sitting on the back seat, asking to be misappropriated. As the mission’s OH&S Operations Manager I thought it best to misappropriate it, at least for the mission of heading into town to pick up Jonty.
Jonty was staying with his folks, who were and seemingly had always been loaded. They had a superflash multi-level house on the riverfront which was, like south-east Queensland, permanently being renovated. Construction fencing lined the perimeter, necessitating Aidan having to do a 47 point turn to navigate the big white AU wagon around 180 degrees to enable escape. He ignored our suggestions of employing the handbrake and/or a shitload of throttle to get the tail around. To his credit, Jonty didn’t bat an eyelid when he answered the door to a bogan in a high-vis jacket, boardshorts, a Speights ‘Duck Season 2009’ camo cap and a mostly empty Tooheys Extra Dry in his paw. Jonty had known me for a very, very long time, and knew the established standards. He earned buckets of cash in IT in Sydney these days, and spent most of it clubbing and socializing. He lived in a trendy suburb, had artfully downbeat hipster friends and even more conceptual T-shirts than I did. Even so, deep down, he was still one of us. He was still Rural. Whether he wanted to be or not.
So that was the team: Aidan, Jonty, Smurf, Greg and Your Correspondent. Nat wasn't a starter, he had family commitments down the NSW coast (translation: he was sensible enough to scare up an alibi) but that still made an impressive raiding party. Five thirty-something men in a beat-up AU wagon for two days. Ambitious? Yes. Inadvisable? Probably. Immature? Well DUHHH. And fun? As sure as Jack Newton swims in circles…
________________
Part Two to follow. The Doctor is OUT.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)