It would seem Procrastination got the better of me.
Or more precisely – Procrastination teamed up with Sloth, then found Gluttony hunkered down on a couch, drinking and eating ... Thirst and Greed joined the fun soon after. It was a mob scene, I tell you. I was defenseless.
Or ... was I?
Ha ha. Riiiiiight.
It didn't take long for me to get right-comfortable-as, as a key part of this in-activity scheme, with my newfound mates (as mentioned above). I reckoned I'd get around to writing SOMETHING once Xmas day passed ... then, OK, it's New Year's Eve, I'll kick it all off on January 1st! Yeah, that's the ticket!
And here it is January 22.
Those fat bastards (mentioned above) took forever to get off my couch and leave.
Here's what I managed to fling onto the keyboard around December 20th or so:
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So here's 2013 about to end. And as per usual, everyone who writes a blog is cranking out a "best of" or "top" list of things they found this year.
It's an easy way out. A "gimme" method of filling up space in a newspaper or magazine, or (ahem) a net blog. And why not? Lists of things (with descriptors like "Most insane ever!" or "The most awesomest, amazing, mind-blowing tips about things you never even thought of, once!") have become what people read. Or at least, what lazy writers flop out, which is really just laziness perfected to a finely honed edge. Look at previous e-babblings, copy, paste. Head to bar to meet friends and make dramatic proclamations about how the year-ender piece is in fact a piece de resistance ...
I noted the other day, while chatting to a mate, how Rolling Stone Magazine was once (many years ago) a fantastic thing to read – there'd be news and photos about my favourite bands, amusing stories about rock star-level shenanigans and tom-foolery while said bands were on tour and partying. There'd be at least one in-depth and well-written feature on something topical and interesting. And for me, if I was lucky (and IF these guys were sober and had submitted their copy on time), a piece by either Hunter S Thompson or PJ O'Rourke – guaranteed to have me laughing out loud – and wondering, as a writer, how I might ever hit these sorts of lofty, high-water marks in such a prestigious publication.
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| How can we take mags like Rolling Stone and Esquire seriously these days? Really. Who would pick these things up to read? It's all lists. There's nothing gripping or captivating about this thing at all any more. Oh wait. Mila Kunis made TWO covers?! OK that's interesting. Must find out why. |
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And that's about where I stopped in '13 ... a beer lured me away, then those evil swine I mentioned before ... and so, now, I continue ...
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Those Rolling Stone lists are tiny bits of fluff that can be read (on your smartphone or iPad or laptop) while sitting on the toilet ... or on a bus ride to work (ideally with your pants ON, in this instance).
Or for lists of any other kind ... all it takes is a casual glance at Twitter – the ultimate of laziness, 140 characters per post, to either minimally inform your dazed/hungover brain, or tease you into clicking further to see the entire list. But you'd need to be SUPER keen on seeing that huge massive 5-bullet-point list! Oh fuck ... it's a goddamn SLIDE SHOW. Seriously. Come ON! We're BUSY HERE! I need to pick a different song on Spotify! (More on Spotify in a sec – and, apologies to my Canadian mates, you've done SOMETHING to piss the Spotify gods off, you can't get this service there ...)
The focus of these music-based lists are getting quite specific and esoteric. (They pretty much have to – there's only so many ways you can keep posting up new-ish lists about music).
And I'll admit, I've used a few of these lists to help fill in some gaps in my music collection from bygone decades*, and/or explore new things that I otherwise might never hear about. For instance, I keep trying out the newest rap/hip-hip fad. And it's consistent ... I don't like it. Now now, not before.
*(There are a couple of "gap years" where I missed a fair bit of music, while I was in Vancouver – the late 80s and early 90s. I missed a lot of Grunge, specifically, due to being knee-deep in the hoopla of serving beer at a nude beach, and focusing on all sorts of the associated fun ... that somehow made me NOT be near radios when the stuff was being played).
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| Hunter S. Thompson, always a go-to writer for pure fun and wisdom. In that order. |
And as we all know, as soon as someone turns into a stuffed-shirt sort of creature and starts taking themselves seriously, that's the end of the funny. All that's been coming out of O'Rourke's keyboard bashing for some time now is rich-old-white-man-Republican-wanker whinging. I'll put Dennis Miller in this camp too. Crikey, you guys used to be screamingly hilarious! How the mighty have bloated and fallen ... but as they say, every conservative is just a liberal who got robbed/mugged/beaten/shot.
So, yes. Lists. There's the rumpus!
I'll bite the bullet and jump on this bandwagon too ... (there's a couple of clichés to get the ball rolling!) Because at the end of the day (oooo, easy cliché pickings here!) there've been a bunch of absolutely crazy (most mind-blowingly insane ever!) things happening this past year.
Crazy, drug-addled, paranoid, sociopathic guys in charge
This never changes. Every year we have 'em, front-and-centre – fuckwits on parade, in the printed press, on TV and the net. Somehow, even in these modern times, the dummies don't seem to get that everyone has a camera in their pocket now, and will be filming their dumb-ass antics when they get drunk (or are just being themselves) and insist on fucking up in public. Folks gleefully film it all. And a moment later, they Tweet it for all to see.
In the recent past, we had guaranteed headline-makers ... guys like 'Shrub' (George Bush Jr, or "Dub-yah", as he paraded around in all his red-neck, inept, thick-headed glory). And his boy-wonder, Dan Quayle. But social spastics aren't exclusive to 1st world empires. We have endless examples of loopy leaders of 2nd and 3rd world countries too.
And, neck-and-neck in the race to see who's the most insane of all are the loony-tunes religious zealots, from every religion, and their stone-age methods of mercilessly torturing AND killing their own countrymen/followers, mistreating and savaging women, and the ensuing wars (both civil and the other fun kinds) that inevitably break out.
I love the brilliant American comedian Doug Stanhope's take on this: "You know religion is the reason behind every single war. When was the last time you heard a news report like this?
'Extreme violence, destruction, and hundreds of casualties were reported today when a large group of Athiests attacked an Agnostic stronghold ...')
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| These two chuckle-heads were front and centre on Fuckwit Row in '13. But they're still just lightweight chumps compared to the TRULY swinish and bastardly! |
*And this just in TODAY – yet another Ford video has surfaced, this time it's His Redneck-ness, really drunk, in a restaurant, trying to be funny with a REALLY bad Jamaican accent attempt ... swearing about cops and other things. So much for his reigning in the stupid, blackout-drunk behaviour ... and how's that gym workout going, there, Tommy Robby Boy? I see you managed to find a gym that serves Tim Horton's donuts, beer, pizza and poutine, too! Well done!
And, that chucklehead Kim Jong-Un over there in North Korea – yeah, that mental midget needs the Absurd Spotlight aimed at his fat crazy head (with that trademark lopsided cereal-bowl-haircut-by-a-blind-guy), too. Add Dennis Rodman to the mix here too – after two WTF visits to Kimmy Boy's home turf for ... um ... reasons ... he is back in the USA and has checked himself in to rehab. Or a mental home. Or something. For ... reasons.
While all of these feeble-minded shit-heels inspired jaw-dropping reactions of "WTF!?" ... they're still low-rent, no-class pikers when it comes to prime-cut swine ... the guys who really love to throw down and show how it's done ... livin' large on their own citizens' stolen largesse. Compared to the suave shenanigans of guys like Italy's Silvio Berlusconi (who seemed well on track to rival Caligula for his blasé attitude with his not-very-well hidden "Bunga-Bunga parties" featuring teen prostitutes), amateurs like Ford and Jong-Un are just embarrassing themselves when they think they're all world-class and shit for being weird and crazy. You two schmucks still have your training wheels and diapers on, in comparison.
Rich white guys and their idle-rich games
Heading this list are the "athletes" who participate in what has to be THE prime example of elitist, rich-bastard hobbies – America's Cup Boat Racing. Specifically, the ones from New Zealand who somehow managed to get their asses handed to them after almost winning the whole thing, only to have the USA team come from behind and win 11 consecutive times (they had to come back from minus–2 due to some strange penalties they'd incurred!)
Even more absurd: some marketing genius succeeded in passing off the multi-million dollar Kiwi yacht as "The People's Boat". Umm. "People", as in "proletariat"? Riiiight. People like ... Bill Gates, or any one of a dozen oil-rich Arabs, maybe! Yet most absurd of all ... the Kiwi press, and many regular Kiwis, bought into this tripe.
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| Cricket is the "spinning rims" effect on the time/space-going-backwards concept. Like this. Only this has way more action, excitement and thrills than cricket. |
Dudes ... we can see what you're doing, at all times, because you are either standing really still, or sitting around drinking tea. You can't get away with this cheating stuff unless you "fix" the game so there's actual action, and stuff happens a lot faster. And a lot more.
Music - or lack thereof
Once upon a time talented musicians like Queen, Genesis, David Bowie, Elton John and Alice Cooper ramped up their stage shows with some glitz, glam, weirdness, and even horror . They went into this concept with talent and good music ... and added the visual craziness to back up the great tunes, making live concerts a wondrous and mind-boggling adventure. (Well, and the drugs and alcohol that audiences were hoovering down prior to said shows helped a bit too).
Now it's the antics that are driving the business ... with nary a whiff of talent in the mix ... but, with a generic, monotonous sonic blur of copy-cat, no-talent blather making it nigh on impossible to differentiate between most pop songs today, the bizarro media blitz of costumed antics comes first. But just try playing the music without the smoke-and-mirrors of visual shenanigans and ... what do you know, it's generic, monotonous crap. Yep, I'm looking at YOU Miley, and Katy, and Gaga, and any of the other interchangeable ass-clones cluttering up the pop airwaves.
Not all of 2013's music was this heinous, of course. It was just a bit harder to find. However, thanks to a few good radio stations (Radio Hauraki here in New Zealand, and LA's Radio Paradise, to name a couple), the good stuff is front and centre there ... both old AND new. No Miley, no Kanye, but heaps of great musicians like Jake Bugg, Fleet Foxes , Pearl Jam or Wolfmother ... or Blue Rodeo, Arcade Fire, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Joe Bonomassa, Portugal - The Man, Killers, Rush, Arctic Monkeys ... KT Tunstall, Emily Barker ... you get the idea. Musicians. Who write, sing, play and perform it all, themselves.
But I know what you're thinking ... wait, RADIO? Yes (well, 'net radio, but yes, RADIO).
Yep, I'm older now, get off my lawn, why I oughta ... I get my kicks from 'net radio, for the most part. I do sometimes try Spotify (see below) but my music listening routine is either a net radio station (to hear new stuff or a surprise-mix of stuff I know) or, I deploy my own playlists on my iPod (which is part of my iPhone).
Which means I'm never subjected to the likes of today's pop music. Except when I'm tricked into seeing something on TV about it. In the olden days before the 'net, I had FM radio as the salvation from the dreck of AM pop music. Today, I have my own playlists, guaranteed good radio stations, and Spotify.
So yeah, there were LOADS of great musicians and music in 2013. Just not loads of places to hear it. Unless of course you're switched on and plugged in (wirelessly of course!) with your smart phone or tablet to on-demand music services like Spotify or Rdio. These 'net services are a GOOD idea! It's new music you want to hear, instantly, on line ... or music you know and love from bygone days, also instantly available on demand.
Interestingly (not absurdly!) this has thrown the olde-skool model of the music business into a tizzy, as musicologist Bob Lefsetz often writes about – no one has (or wants to bother making) time to listen to entire albums any more. Everyone's armed with labour-saving devices like smartphones and tablets ... and yet, there's only time for music we like, and we want it NOW. No waiting, no fluffy album-fillers. No random-playlists like on a radio station. And it has to be low-cost, or free.
And those two 'net music apps provide it – just whack the app of your choice on your device, and you're good to go!
Bands/musicians who are any good, who write, sing and play their own good music, succeed (see, it's here that you aren't distracted by the antics of Miley crashing around on a wrecking ball, naked, licking a hammer, with her tongue lolling out of her head – all you hear is the music, or what's being passed off as same ...)
Bands good enough to get loads of airplay on Spotify et al (and YouTube) have a fan base, who want to pay to see said bands play live – and that's where and how bands make their money. Odd concept – they actually have to go to work (performing live) to earn their money! Kind of a sensible, not-absurd idea.
Wars and violence and other antisocial, bad, death-dealing behaviour
Yeah. This shit goes on every year. Same thing, different despot/dictator. Funny how all this crap is driven by the males of our species, usually driven by a religious protocol (as mentioned before, up there, at the top) ... with the only exception being would-be World Police (the USA) showing up to throw soldiers and assloads of money at the problem, to "keep the peace" – but only when oil is involved.
The only difference lately has been, downtrodden populations are rising up and kicking ass and fighting back (see: Egypt and Syria) ... and women who've been singled out for persecution (and death) due to stone-age bullshit like religion and culture are showing up online, exposing the male-cultural-religion-driven bullshit (another good thing the 'net does!) so we can all see how stupid and senseless it all is.
Maybe soon, with enough news and 'net exposure, this sort of thing will stop.
There WAS some goodness in the year!
Here in the crafty beer capital of New Zealand (and yeah, I'll say it ... THE WORLD!) – Wellington – things have just gotten better and better with beer choices and the associated fun. 2013 saw lots more new craft brewers, AND brew pubs sprouting up. And even in long-established bars and restaurants, craft beer is becoming one of the options, alongside the mass-produced, boring, bland brews of yore.
And of course fun festivals and theme nights in said pubs continue to flourish. Going out for fun AND a new brew experience is now easy-as!
So much so that I sort of temporarily lost track of how much I love wine (New Zealand wine especially). But that was just a minor setback, brought on by the frenzy of suddenly being mobile again, and being out in the hoopla of crafty beer bars with tons of crafty beers at my beck and call ...
I've recently put some balance back in my imbibing, and have brought the "XX"% of wine I swill (compared to beer) back up to about 50/50 once again. You see I don't prefer one over the other. I like both about the same (and add another 50% in there for properly mixed cocktails, and flagons of single-malt scotch, and port, and good tequila, and ...) well you get the idea.
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| Ricky Gervais makes excellent points in a really funny way. He likes animals, and certainly doesn't suffer fools gladly. |
... Ricky Gervais put it succinctly when he was badgered about being an atheist:
"You're concerned I don't believe in god? Oh, which one? Zeus? Hades? Jupiter? Mars? Odin? Thor? Krishna? Vishnu? Ra?…” If they say: “Just God. I only believe in the one god,” I’ll point out that they are nearly as atheistic as me. I don’t believe in 2,870 gods, and they don’t believe in 2,869".
And although it's trendy to say so, I don't do it "for the kids" ... I do it BECAUSE I CAN! Freedom, baby. It's a good thing.
Peek-a-Boo, the NSA sees what you did there ... and other 'net shenanigans
This just in! The USA's spy agencies are spying on EVERYONE'S email, texts, and phone calls, all over the world! Never before has this happened!
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| A fun movie that still holds up 16 years later! And yes, the NSA knows you are watching it ... |
And certainly long before that, spies were likely lurking and skulking in bushes outside your house, with a glass against the window, feverishly scribbling down all the subversive, illegal, drug-fuelled mumblings coming out of your mouth, as you ranted and raved at the TV.
So yeah. It's been going on forever, folks. The pioneers were stringing each other up over muttered plans to steal each other's chickens. Romans skewered anyone who looked at them in a Spartacus sort of way. Catholics ran around killing pretty much everyone suspected of not being ... catholic.
It's just the media who thinks it's all going crazy now.
The main idea is: don't do crime-y things on the net, and don't talk about your schemes and heists on the phone. Do like they do in the movies: if you're going to talk about shady things with your cohorts, go to loud strip bars, or have conversations next to waterfalls or rapidly flowing tap water. That screws up the mics bigtime! Totally! I have seen it on CSI!
The FBI and other heavily-armed dunderheads showed up here in New Zealand to arrest Kim Dotcom, a large, merry German fellow (now I guess NZ is the 51st state, if the American FBI can function here at will ... nya-nya, Canada! New Zealand beat you to it!) Kim had a bit of an internet
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| Kim Dotcom just wants to have some good clean internet fun. And you should too! |
Turns out everything the FBI, and the New Zealand police did was illegal, stupid, and wrong. So Kim's cool and good to go, although he's still in the process of suing the bejabbers out of everyone involved for their Nazi tactics, and, their fuck-wittery.
Weather bombs
Or, what everyone used to call ... weather. Of the season you are currently in. Right now.
In December this past year, friends in the climate-ly opposing ends of the spectrum (and of the world – namely, Australia, and Canada) have all been whinging like crazed, wild, drug-addled dogs about summer, and winter, respectively.
It got hot in Aussie (it still is, now) because ... IT'S SUMMER ... and it does this EVERY SUMMER.
And at the same time, in Canada (can you guess what's up there?) it's cold and snowy, because IT'S WINTER. Oh, the humanity. The whining. The bitching. The moaning. Hey, you schmucks continue to choose to live there! Suck it up, buttercups! Or, you know ... move someplace nice!
Likely these are the same people who inexplicably have spent 2013 posting up the worst-quality photos on Facebook and similar social networks ... I'm not talking about Instagram-filtered tragedies, made to look horrendous on purpose.
These photos are just your average run of the mill snapshots. Only ... what in holy hell are you doing?!
They are out of focus, poorly lit, insanely framed, horrible things ... completely awful, and offensive to mine eyes! What is happening, people? Never before have cameras (from a tech standpoint) been so top-quality and idiot-proof, so it can't be the tech ... and cameras in smartphones are pretty close to that quality too! Are you TRYING to take shit photos? Have you all hired Michael J. Fox as your personal photographer?
Please, for the sake of our sanity ... STOP IT! Take a lesson! Or give your camera/phone to someone without the hangover-shakes, or malaria, or the heebie-jeebies, to take the pictures. Or maybe get your precious-snowflake child to draw something in crayon. ANYTHING would be better.
Other stuff
I'm sure there were other mega-absurd things worth mentioning about 2013, but as mentioned, I stupidly put off thinking and writing about the year-end idea for too long. Then, over Xmas, I drank like a thirsty trout. So I've likely forgotten some things.
Oh! Here's some stuff. Some great and talented people died (eg: Nelson Mandela, Peter O'Toole, Lou Reed) and certainly lots of right-royal bastards cakked it too (eg: Maggie Thatcher, one of the two Boston Marathon bombers). Some jackwagons continue living even though it'd be nice to see them make the "Cakked It" list soon (Dick Cheney; any other US politician of the Republican nature who beaked off about poverty, wages, human rights, homosexuality, or anything they knew NOTHING about; religious nutbars of ANY race (but especially any members of the Westboro Baptist Church). Hurry up and DIE already!
Some great new Tech Toys showed up in '13 (new iPhones, new other-smart-phones, iPads, tablets, operating systems, Google Glass, and loads of apps that are fun and functional). You already know the details about these if you care about such things. Shiny tech toys are FUN!
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| I'm certain there's a fantastic reason for the Miss BumBum contest that happens in Brazil every year. I just can't remember it now. More research is clearly required! |
During my ongoing productivity lapse since December, my beer-addled mate Don over at Brew-Ha-Ha has been beavering away through the booze fog, putting out a few great blogs! Check in with him for all the crafty beer news and associated alcoholic fun you can handle! Meanwhile my other bloggin' mate, Glenn, down the snowy Canadian road at 'Shwa Stories has been just as slack as me ... come on Glenn, we need some more good stuff from Oshawa and surroundings! I think there's a player on the Leafs (Mason Raymond?) who has proven hard work and determination sometimes pays off ... now, since his surprise training-camp appearance, he has proven himself in spades as a top player – how about a follow-up interview with him?
Now I need to get the brain engaged and think about the actual, real, paid work I do that puts beer & wine in the fridge ... hahaha right ... more importantly, I need to keep an eye peeled for all the new absurdities that'll no doubt be marching across my transom soon!
Stand by for a photo-filled fun blog shortly after February 7, as the Rugby Sevens in Wellington are once again upon us! It's a whole weekend full of costumed, sexy (notice that picture, above? Yeah, like that), booze-fuelled fun! (And I promise MY photos will be clear and in focus and make sense!)
Yours, in Absurditum Maximus ...
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