Pre-Xmas roundup

It occurred to me today that the absurdity and madness of the looming holiday season is already well upon us.

For starters, I have a younger brother (Dave) who is, chronologically, 48.

However his relatively recent behaviour in this 5th decade of his life would make innocent bystanders think he's maybe ... 13.

And, a girl.

He has gotten progressively more bent out of shape, super-excited and giddy about Xmas earlier and earlier each year, since ... well, his wedding. Which was a fair number of years ago.

(Quick aside: This could well explain everything ... as I recall getting a phone call from him in the weeks leading up to his wedding, and I suddenly realised that my heretofore cool, hip, fun, never-had-time-for-silly-bullshit brother had been talking to me for longer than 5 minutes about ... problems dealing with ... obtaining a wedding cake.

A ... cake.

For ... a wedding. HIS wedding. He never even LIKED cake all that much. Now he was sweating like a heroin addict over some damn thing or another that was causing the cake to be ... hell, I don't know. Nor did I care.

I DID however recoil in horror, and tried to change the subject during that call ... and it wasn't working. Who was this strange creature, and what had he done with my brother?

I quickly determined it was him ... yet, he was seemingly beyond rescuing ... at least, not without a bucket-load of alcohol and some fun, manly activities. Like drinking bucket-loads of alcohol – and nowhere near anything remotely wedding-like or, yule-ish going on.

Much incredulous. So mystery. Super huh?

I knew something was up. He'd clearly been neutered by some evil force – whether it was his girlfriend, his gig, or society in general. But how?

This was the "Pull my finger!" fun dude I'd known and loved for many, many years. What had HAPPENED to derail him so dramatically ... so ... BADLY!?

This was not my brother. This was ... something else entirely. A pod ... a clone. The mere shell of my brother with his brains sucked out.


This was ... a Japanese schoolgirl going shopping for "Hello Kitty!" clothing, and matching handbags.

Just ... no. The horror ... the horror ... 

So. Fast-forward back to present time (or more precisely, the beginning of November). And now, instead of a phone call, we're on FacePlant, trading jibes and japes and whatnot ... and he's yammering on about how crazy-giggly he was about Xmas.

I thought: "OK, it's either time to send out a search party for his testicles ... or, they're LONG gone, and it's time to look into some frilly blouses and knee-socks for him for stocking stuffers ..." (Not that there's anything WRONG with that. But if that was the case, enough with the fence-sitting ... he needed to exit the closet pronto, and OWN that bad bidness!)

New Zealand is no different than anywhere else in this day of modern, 1st-world country setups around the world. Sheer Xmas greed and commercialisation has taken over, and the moment Hallowe'en (here it's Guy Fawkes Day) is over, out come the Xmas displays in stores. And the TV ads ... and the infernal, insipid, maddeningly cloying Xmas music on store sound systems, elevators, and yes – even some busses.

In the good old days, my brother and I, and my good pals, ignored and/or mocked this sort of thing. We were far too cool to ever buy into it ...

Now, my kin ... my once-cool brother ... was posting shit on Facebook about willingly stopping into an Xmas store on a road-trip from Hicksville, Ontario to Fishing Camp, Nova Scotia ... to willingly (I know I've said that twice, but seriously ... he WILLINGLY did this) shop for Xmas decorations.

No clue if there were Hello Kitty options in this store ... and if there were, I don't want to see any photos of same.

So in an attempt to get him to snap out of it and get a grip ... I posted a few public service announcements on FacePlant ... to try and get him to see the error of his girly ways ... to perhaps de-program him, as he'd clearly been captured and brainwashed by some eerie, un-manly, froo-froo Xmas Cult of some sort (otherwise known as "wives").

Or at the very least ... to maybe re-ignite that male masculine gene that had clearly been either stomped and squashed and mutilated, or (horror of horrors!) completely removed.

At this writing, it's still late November, and according to Official Man-Card Rules, there shall be no mentioning, considering, thinking about, or even LOOKING AT Xmas-themed things* until the first week of December.

(* These 3 exhibits  being the only acceptable exceptions).

* Exhibits A, B, and C: The only Xmas-themed items
a man is allowed to look at before December.

There are a few GOOD aspects to all this early Xmas foolishness
As for early sightings of GOOD things having to do with the yuletide season ... it appears the judge at the helm of the ongoing Rob Ford and his Merry Henchmen – The Legal Proceedings in Toronto has decreed: all information, photos, video and evidence (considering the sort of messy, swinish things Ford has been up to ... ewww!) pertaining to the case(s) and charge(s) against Ford and Lisi and whoever else might be embroiled in all the clownish and illegal shenanigans there shall be released to the media, forthwith!

December 6 is reckoning day – that's when it's all meant to be revealed. Scribes, pundits and columnists for the Toronto Star are nearly beside themselves, waiting to see what juicy stuff is about to be unleashed. As, of course, are WE!

Wake up, Mr. Ford. It's time for your crack top-up!

This could well be a day of fun and frivolity (and ceaseless mockery) that surpasses all the prior Rob Ford stuff that's been in the news (and on late-night comedy shows). I can't wait!

And even MORE good things!
There's been a flurry of fun, beer-soaked (oops, I mean, themed) events of late that have made all this other mawkish and maudlin November Xmas shite tolerable.

Hashigo Zake had a good "new release Tuesday" beer event this past week, with tea-infused (yes, tea) beers from Yeastie Boys. And my pal Andy over at Behemoth Brewing announced not one, but TWO new beer releases are coming early in December! So it's out to the craft bars we go again ... this time it'll be Goldings Free Dive.

One of the two fine new brews being unvieled by
Andy Childs of Behemoth Brewing next week!

As well, Hashigo Zake's annual "Santa Session" is next week (they get a pass for invoking that name, because ... well, beer!) – wherein, those of us who were wily enough to swarm the bar when it was announced, and get signed up to the limited guest list (hey, it's a small bar) will be treated to a session of serious swilling ... we get to pound down all the interesting and unique bottled beer (imports and locals) they haven't managed to sell. This is a popular event, and usually results in plastering (see what I did there?) a merry grin on the faces of all involved.

News out of Tuatara Brewing HQ was also brilliant this month: they have become the official importers of Oregon brew-meister Rogue Brewing's fantastic line of interesting, unique, and sometimes downright absurd beers. (Look down a couple of paragraphs – wherein I talk about filming a movie of my quest to go find these new Rogue beers at a local supermarket!)**

Yep – a beer made with
the live yeast festering
in the brewmaster's
manly beard!

Summer's here!
The weather here has jumped up a few notches into full-on summer climes over the last few weeks, too. That's always a nice feeling ... it's warm here at the best of times, and for me, an expat Canadian, "winter" here is just a slightly cooler few months (yet still warm, for a man with maple syrup in his blood), where the most pesky thing is: attractive women "dress for the calendar". Or more precisely – they wear less-revealing clothing if the temperature is lower than 25ºC. So of course, we really, REALLY like it when it jumps up to 25º, and higher.

And even more beer fun ... 
I've been deploying the movie-recording aspect of my new iPhone 5S (the latest version of this marvellous magical tech toy) to film a few ale-related things.

These bad boys are the TOTAL bomb for IPA-style beer ...
and likely any other kind of beer. The staff at Hashigo Zake
lovingly refer to them as the "Butt plug glasses". 

There was this new, scientifically designed IPA glass released by a California company (nay, I must call them what they really are: Dedicated professional beer researchers!)

These glasses look like they were designed upside down – with the small bit at the bottom, making them look pretty tippy. But that's OK ... that small bottom bit is gnarled, so that the hoppy ambrosia that is New Zealand IPA gets refreshed, by swirling around those gnarly bits ... every time you tip the glass up for a sip. It's fun to watch, and even MORE fun to drink! The last sip is as fresh and alive as the first!

I made a movie about my own highly scientific research session here. My research assistant Squeak the Wonder Cat is also featured!

** (I'm in the process of assembling a longer and more detailed movie, wherein I go shopping at the Thorndon New World for the new Rogue beers that are here now ... and, to highlight the absolute, total beer-shopping mecca that is this grocery store, to show to my poor downtrodden beer-drinking pals in Ontario, Canada – where they still have to shop for beer at government-controlled bunkers).

Old Home Week
Oh and on a related note – the first suburb I lived in here in Wellington was Thorndon. It's here where one branch of the fantastic New World grocery store lives – it's fantastic, due to it having the biggest and best selection of craft beers around ... and Thorndon is also home to two fun pubs I used to regularly visit when I lived/worked there ... the Backbencher and the Thistle.

The Thistle Inn: oldest pub in New Zealand. Revamped and
upgraded from its former and smelly "dingy dive" days.

I've just been alerted by the smart, funny, and all-round swell guy and Wellington beer writer, Neil Miller, that both these pubs now feature proper craft beer on tap! Which means, of course, I'll have to venture back over to Thorndon – a whole 5-minute bus ride from my office – to check this out.

The Thistle's main allure is, it's the oldest pub in New Zealand. When I first moved here in 2001, it was a dive. Not just a quaint old place ... a TOTAL dive. I distinctly recall my first time walking past the place ... the side door was open, and I looked in to see a magnificent mess of a dump of a bar. It was ramshackle and hideously trashed, and you could SMELL it from the sidewalk. Two rumpled old men – complete curmudgeons – were perched on wobbly stools at the dingy bar, looking like they fell out of the 'hungover street-bum tree', and hit EVERY branch on the way down.

Rustic looking yet clean, The Thistle's reno includes
a glass floor with a view down to the old beer cellar!

These days the Thistle has been revamped and remade into a fine looking establishment. They tuned it up but left it looking "old school", just like it was from the time it was first built. It's rustic, yet clean. There's a big glass section of the floor, looking down into the old original beer cellar. Best of all, there are some black & white photos on the walls showing what the Thistle looked like back before the huge earthquake in the late 1800s, where a LARGE chunk of land rose up out of the sea, completely re-shaping Wellington's waterfront and harbour ... prior to this quake, the shoreline was right at the Thistle's door. One photo on the wall shows some folks who had paddled up to the Thistle's door in canoes to go drinking.

Our current PM next to his satirised puppet.
The actual PM is the one on the bottom.

Around the corner from the Thistle and across from Parliament (but nowhere near Funkadelic) is the Backbencher. As the name suggests, this bar is often infested (erm, inhabited)  by politicians. But also, by normal, likeable people.

Like the Thistle, Neil pointed out that the Backbencher now features some top-end craft NZ beer. And despite two debilitating fires over the last couple of years, the place is up and running, and is still festooned with its trademark draw: the well-made yet mockingly satirical puppets (BIG puppets) that satirize well-known NZ politicians and sports stars.

What does any of this have to do with Xmas? Not much ... except I recall working a contract gig (two actually) in Thorndon in the mid-naughties, and both bars were deployed as cheeky locations for liquid lunches around Xmas, in mid-December.

The Thistle was especially marked as a destination for Friday afternoon, après-work drinks – aside from the many offices in the area, there is a University across the street, and every branch of the NZ military has offices in that zone too. So it was a cool mix of business types, students, military folks, and contract workers like me and my shady mates.

So how to end this meandering, lurching, unfocussed bit o' blogging? Well, like it started, I guess. My brother has three days of completely wrong, silly, girly-man time left in November to continue his insane ranting about ... well, you know.  If he posts again, he shall be mocked ... then I suppose it'll be OK, as December will be upon us.

Then all manner of Xmas hell will ensue.

And there's the December rumpus. Things will undoubtedly get far too Xmassy for my tastes, as usual ... except for the one positive thing that goes down in my office gig here. There is an unwritten law that stipulates every woman here who can bake, MUST bake, and bring said baked goods into the office for all to sample and judge. It is a contest ... a competition between all the bakers, to see who can garner the biggest raves for their efforts.

And the winner? No contest ... it's ME of course! Nom-nom-nom.

Now I must get back to something resembling work ... and/or watching a hockey game on my computer.

Oh and hey, looking for some more grins? Mosey on over to Brew-Ha-Ha and see what Don's up to today (besides drinking and taking incoherent notes on the beers he's chugging). ... seems he's haggling with Hemingway, über-drinking some Unibroue 17, and getting KO'd on some King Heffy.

Until next time, I'm still

Low-hanging fruit: Rob Ford

"Rob Ford".

He has become that sort of comedy gold-standard so fast, his name – just by itself – is hilarious.

You don't even have to TELL a joke. You just have to say his name, and people start giggling.

Sure, it's low-hanging fruit. Easy pickin'. A massively fat, stupid piñata. And we've got a 5-foot thick baseball bat. And we're not blindfolded.

But who in their right (comedy) mind is going to pass this up?

NO ONE! Including me!

The whole scenario is so comedy-rich that it has ALMOST become TOO much! 

Every

Lookin' sharp there,
Robby-Tommy Boy!

day it's something new ... something more absurd ... more unbelievable. Can just ONE man be this moronic, this clueless, this much of a bumbling, drunken, drug-addled, hair-trigger-tempered, lunatic, mush-mouthed ...

Yes. Yes he can.

Ford's a Daily Show regular segment now! But
it HAS to be testing the limits of even Jon's
creative genius, and budget!

Even the brilliant Jon Stewart on The Daily Show is having trouble keeping up! He's regularly and ceaselessly focussed onto each day's shenanigans from Ford (which are painfully easy to find online, as they are gleefully reported in ALL the Canadian news outlets, and immediately picked up by all the American ones).

But even he's having trouble staying "current". That's how fast and furious the crazy updates are happening ... so long as Ford is awake and loose in public, the insanely hilarious stories come streaming in.

Stewart needs to start doing an hourly update, to stay on top of all this ... to remain as fresh as he can ... maybe like producing a Live Ford Follies Blog or an As The Ford Drunkenly Happens Twitter Feed.

Hell, I'd subscribe!

The Ford segments on his show are getting longer, though! Last night's episode devoted well over 8 minutes on Robby-Tommy Boy (here and here). And Ford's hijinks spill over into jokes about OTHER dickheads-on-parade on his show (and all the other late-night TV comedians too ... to be fair, Leno and Letterman and Kimmel and Maher and EVERYONE is mining this rich, fat vein of pure comedy gold).

Jon's team of graphic art and FX pros are being kept on
their toes, producing fresh new images
of the rolly polly fella on a nightly basis!

Which means ... and, here's the rumpus ... writing a blog about Ford is going to be "dated history"  the moment I press "Publish". The split second you watch those two Daily Show clips I linked to up there ... you'll be at least 24 to 48 hours behind the times. Maybe more! I'd highly recommend following the Toronto Star and the CBC on Twitter if you really want half a hope in hell of keeping up!

Ford is the thing scientists (and beer drinkers and fun seekers) the world over have been working towards, and seeking, for millennia ... he's a walking, talking, stumbling, bumbling, burping, farting, hard-drinking, crack-and-weed-smoking, perpetual-motion absurdity machine, rolling and ramming around at top speed. ALARMING speeds, in fact.

For a big fella, he's surprisingly agile on his drunken, stumpy little cartoon-like legs ... so ninja-quick, in fact – racing and careening madly along to his next embarrassing spectacle, that in some cases, he barrels over unwitting bystanders. Like the female Toronto city council member he trampled yesterday ... in his obese, ungainly, and uncoordinated attempt to get to some guy who was loud-talking him from the viewers' gallery. He seemed not to see the two dozen or so other people in his way ... including that one poor woman ...

He 'talks tough' with some of his remarks, sure. But in that first (now famous) video where he's drunkenly ranting about fighting some guy to the death? He's out of breath and staggering and nearly out on his feet just TALKING about fighting. If he ever managed to heave his bulk into an MMA ring (as it was suspected he was ranting about), he'd be unconscious from his OWN lack of ability to send oxygen through his body. Never mind actually taking a punch.

But back to the comedic onslaught of material over the airwaves, and the net ... we barely start laughing at some new Ford Folly report, when it's followed up by yet ANOTHER massive blunder. Or flounder. Or 'Fordian Slip'. Hell, he may be inadvertantly setting a new TV comedy standard here!

This is the way network TV comedies SHOULD be. A constant, ceaseless, relentless onslaught of only the best, the most brilliant satire and mockery – 24/7! (Netflix is coming close, by releasing entire seasons of recent comedy-genius shows like Orange Is The New Black, and Arrested Development, all at once).

Which is why Twitter is such a brilliant thing. I rarely Tweet stuff myself (I do re-tweet funny material I get sent), but I do have a good number of comedians plugged in to my Twitter to "follow" ... and more recently, I have added reporters and columnists from the various Toronto and Canadian news outlets too. It's instant and constant feeds, up to the minute, real-time, "oh it's ON NOW, mo-fos!" ripe reports of the crazy, blockheaded, stupid, clueless stuff Ford continually does.

What else can you say about a guy with such a massive ego (and gut), who's such a megalomaniac, AND a sociopath, that he honestly thinks he's done nothing wrong? In the same breath, where he admits to smoking crack, and buying marijuana, and driving drunk (all illegal things in Toronto/Ontario – in fact just the possession and use of crack cocaine by itself is a FELONY offense, with a maximum jail term of 7 years) ... he then says he's still a hard-liner on drug use as a crime ... and then he waddles merrily along, thinking that apologising for HIS abject and repeated criminal behaviour is his way out.

Um, Fordy? How about ... NO, you crazy Canadian bastard! (With apologies to Dr. Evil and Goldmember from that glorious Austin Powers movie). You can't have it both ways. You broke laws. You did the crime, now do your time.

Speaking of which ... how much of a bunch of feckless Keystone Kops is the city of Toronto's police department? How much crime does a fat Mayor have to do, and CONFESS TOO, in public, on TV, before you assclowns leap into action and arrest his ample ass?

But I digress ... not only is Ford trying to keep his title of Mayor (which is all he has left as of this writing ... the city council has "stripped him of his powers") .... um ...

Hmm. Powers? Do huge, ungainly, monumentally stupid, crack-smoking, blackout-drunk, racist, homophobic, violent, sociopathic rednecks have powers? I'll have to consult both the Marvel and DC comics' encyclopedias, and my team of experts, to see what sort of superheroes might have all THAT as part of their tragic backstories ...)

Oh yes. I was making a point. Wait. It gets better. This "Mayorin' job" isn't enough for Ford. This century's Fatty Arbuckle has recently mentioned he wants to take a run at being Prime Minister.

Of Canada.

No, I'm not joking.

Yes, that is classic denial. (Not the river in Egypt ...)

He's apparently banking on people rapidly forgetting that he's done wrong. (Oh, my bad ... he thinks he hasn't done anything wrong. So to follow along this convoluted path of random neuron firings from a clearly deluded and socially inept man ... he's obviously banking on the Canadian voting public to come around to his way of thinking ... that he's just a good ol' boy, a regular Joe, who HASN'T done anything wrong.

It's just a bit of good-natured fun, all this rampant drug and alcohol abuse. And the other stuff, like the violence, sexism, racism, and homophobia. But please ... don't YOU PEOPLE toke, ingest other drugs, pound alcohol, drunk-drive, be racist and homophobic, or be as violent, wacky and crazy as he IS ... just tow the line and DO as he says).

This is classic, platinum-level comedy!

Can it get any better? Maybe ... is there a precious metal kind of level ABOVE platinum? Like maybe titanium?

Tony Stark, aka Iron Man, invented a whole new
element. But let's be clear here: his character is a
genius-level super-smart sciency kind of guy.

Or, like Tony Stark did in Iron Man 2, maybe Ford will INVENT a new element!

Let's help him out here, and give it a name for him now, before he even gets there.

Let's call it ... UnElectium. Or maybe LockedUpAndCommitedIum.

But please, Ford, don't stop. This is just too much fun. I'm an expat Torontonian, living in New Zealand, and I live for these sorts of blazingly, agonizingly funny outbursts on a regular, ceaseless, daily basis. Thanks to the net, the tireless work of people like Jon Stewart, and the dedicated journalists of Toronto ... I'm kept up to date. It's hard work just READING all this stuff!

I for one (along with every other comedian out there) would LOVE it if you kept flailing away at it ... fighting the good (drunken, stoned, angry, crazy, sexist, racist) fight ... please, Mr. Pseudo-Mayor, continue comically waddling around, shooting yourself in the foot (and I wonder ... how far out past that massive gut does he have to reach to do that?)

Keep up that valiant struggle (with reality, and ...) to get back that ultra-fun Mayorin' job you clearly love so much (after all, it isn't nearly as much fun having drunken, stoned coke parties with hookers in your office, or out in public with your staff and your homies at bars ... if you really aren't the mayor, now, is it?)

Any idiot can do that.

Any guy who's just Joe Public, a regular guy, can just buy a bunch of booze, drugs and hookers, and have at at it. But does anyone really take notice? NO!

It's takes a uniquely special sort of cretin to make it to a level of public office, and THEN turn it into a wild, crazy, Hunter S Thompson-level public spectacle, witnessed all over the world!

It's so much more of a special thing when you are Mayor of the Biggest City in Canada, and then you throw down and go hard, with those kinds of zany parties, now isn't it? Plus it's easier to pick up the chicks when you're all 'The Boss' an' shit ...

So I think I speak for us all here ... don't stop believin' ... you ain't seen nuthin' yet! ... fight your way back, back to get it back ... take a page out of Rick Astley's book and NEVER GONNA GIVE IT UP ... then hoist yourself up on that bandwagon (check the supports on that sucker first!) and campaign for Prime Minister! 

Oh, PLEASE try that!

It's like Xmas morning every day with this guy!

 It'd be like watching the train-wreck that was Sarah Palin running as the US VP candidate ... and to a slightly lesser extent, witnessing "Uncle Hairdo", Mitt Romney's delightfully pompous and clueless campaign to be "all Presidentin' an' shit" in the Good Ol' USA ... both of THOSE loopy idiots thrashing around in public, merrily swapping feet in and out of their mouths ... never ever "getting" that the world is not laughing WITH them ... but AT them.

Absurdly, there's a small and dedicated bunch of loonies and redneck-crackers in Toronto who STILL continue to BACK Ford. (That's because if you stand in FRONT of him, he's likely to spill a drink, yell at you, feel you up if you're female, blow crack smoke in your face, then fall over and SQUASH you!)

These guys think Ford's doing a GREAT job!

Reports out of Toronto have this elite group of Ford Supportin' folks as high as (see what I did there?) 25% of the electorate. That report also says these people are not the sharpest bowling balls in the tool shed ... most of them never finished high-school.

This dovetails nicely into something that Toronto is, and has been, famous for ... for many decades now. The city and the highbrow people living there have been just busting ... GAGGING ... to be taken seriously as "the New York City of Canada". For a long, long time.

Well! I think you can sit on down and take a break, folks. You've succeeded!

Job well done! You're now as train-wrecky and gob-smackingly American as all get-out! Not only do you have a deranged, drunken, drug-addled cretin in charge of your city (and you voted him in!) but you've got the unending, relentlessly maudlin sort of "daytime talk show" coverage of your happenin' town, on TV and the net, all over the world!

They say there's no such thing as 'bad' publicity. In many cases, that's right.

But it does make me wonder: You Torontonians can't be this thick-headed. I suspect there's an ulterior motive ... a master plan at work ...

Is all of this just a well-planned, sneaky, underhanded method of trying to tap into that sweet, sweet Amsterdam tourist money?

Sadly that'll never work. While you can legally smoke weed in Amsterdam cafes, there's a whole other level of coolness and style about that city that Toronto will never attain.

Here's a hint: Don't vote in as Mayor ... then venerate, worship and defend ...  a grotesquely overweight, completely chuckle-headed (and blackout drunk, and drug abusing) moron with overtly obvious addiction, megalomania, sociopathic and self-control issues.

Or do! Otherwise, what are we going to have to laugh at?

Hey, and that could be a tourist draw, too!

Why don't I offer up my services as logo designer for your new Tourism Campaign!?

Woo hoo! Where do we sign?! This looks better than Vegas!

Yes, indeed.

Well now before I sign off, let's not be all greedy and piggy and ... well ... Fordish.

Once you're done having a laugh at the Jon Stewart clips, be sure to click on over to my mate Don and his recent shenanigans at Brew-Ha-Ha! This week he's neck-deep in some tasty beers (of course) ... and he's at odds with the Vegas people about something or other! I'm sure that's just drunken confusion .... Oh, and also be sure to knock on Glenn's e-door too, over at Shwa Stories – and demand an update! He's been slack!

Until next time ... I'll be ... in absurdity ...