Hot, Hot, Heat

Fuck, it's warm. Toasty. Ball sweatingly, arse drippingly, uncomfortably warm. I would go as far to say that it's rather hot at the moment here in Southern Californ-i-a.
Normally, coming from the dark and nasty regions of England, I am appreciative of a nice bit of sunshine but, as always at this time of year, I pine for a nice bit of sleet or the finger numbing cold of an English January morning. It hasn't rained proper for a couple of months and won't for a couple more, maybe longer. It is dry. I have developed quite a thirst.

The worst thing about this time of year is that my intake of cold alcoholic beverages exceeds normal levels. Given that my normal intake of cold alcoholic beverages is rather high, this is a bad thing. Money-wise, it gets expensive. Normally, I will pay the extra couple of dollars for decent, imported beer. I don't poison my body with the crap they turn out here except under either extreme financial hardship or if I have (American) guests coming round because there is no good reason as to why I should waste good beer on them and they wouldn't like it anyway as it tastes too much like beer. So every now and again, I will put on dark sunglasses and a false "Groucho Marx" style mustache (in case anyone I know see's me) and I will buy "domestic".

Yank beer, on the whole is fuckin' cat piss. Yes, I know all about Sierra Nevada, Sam Adams and Bog knows how many "micro-brews" and they are okay. I'm talkin' about yer Bud's and yer MGD's and yer Coor's. The shite that generations of Yanks have grown up on and who will drink nothing else. I know lads that will only drink Bud Light period. I know lads who will only drink Coors Light, if you put a Bud Light in front of them they will not touch it. Don't even get me started on the Steel Reserves, and the Old Englishes and the Schlitz malt liquors. Yes, they get you cunted but they taste fuckin' horrid. They make the "auld purple tin", to quote Irvine Welsh, taste like Dom Perignon. It is inexplicable. As for MGD, my own piss tastes better and probably has a higher alcohol content to boot.

Anyway, two days ago I bought a 5 liter "Keg" of Coors Light. Years ago, party kegs were popular in the UK. Finally, the US has decided that they are the thing of the future. I wanted to try one to test the quality, and I was trying to be economical, so I bought handed Abdul $8.99 of hard earned and rushed home to "tap" the fucker.

The Holy Grail of the Dumpster Diving Community

I have to say that it was beyond bad. I drank 5 fuckin' pints and probably pissed 15 times, all I got was a headache. I tried to finish the rest last night but couldn't and when I got home from work tonight, the last couple of pints were flat as fuckin' pancakes. I'm sorry I wasted my money on this shite. The only thing that made it even worthwhile was the look of amazement on my daughters face when she saw it and said "WOW!!! Daddy, that's the biggest can of beer I have ever seen. Are you going to drink it all?" "Well," I replied smugly. "The fucker isn't going to drink itself now, is it?" "I bet you can't" she said. She was fuckin' right.

Kids, eh?

No Sense Of Humour

Knudsen beat me to it, of course, but as there's no sense in going to bed right now (Mrs.W is still awake) I may as well do what I set out to do and give my take on the story of the Irish lad who is currently in a Senegalese jail for showing his arse.

What the fuck is wrong with these people? Do they have no sense of humour?

There was a time, a number of years ago, when I was a prolific mooner. I favoured mooning from coach windows while on the way to or from rugby games, either as a spectator or as a player. I wasn't shy when it came to mooning people on the street either. My specialty was to wait at a bus stop until a bus came to a complete stop and the driver opened the doors, then I would drop my pants and show my arse to the driver and the passengers. It amused the fuck out of me. It was better when you were on the bus though cause you could get your arse up against the window and spread your cheeks against the glass, the warmth causing the window to steam up if it was a cold day.

Of course, now that I am a grown up, responsible husband, father and productive member of society, I have learned to control my impulses and have not shown my arse in public since setting foot on American soil (except for on the internet). Here, it is the kind of thing that frat boys do but only as a dare or as part of some hazing ritual. You just don't see buses driving on the 5 Freeway with a bare arse in every window like you might if you were on the M62. I think that the majority of society would find it offensive as opposed to hilariously entertaining. But it's like that with most things. In addition, my arse is a much hairier and considerably less welcome sight now than it was 20 years ago.

I never did it to offend. I did it to entertain, to amuse, mostly myself admittedly but also others, if they were so inclined. Although I have to confess to a certain feeling of satisfaction whenever a Datsun would pass by, loaded to the gills with people of Pakistani or Indian origin, all turning away and covering the eyes of the younger passengers at the sight of my ringpiece winking at them from the window of a British Leyland bus. Magic.

So what the fuck is wrong with these African lads? You would think that in a continent where, if you believe everything you see in National Geographic, most folks sit around the dirt or chase chickens naked, a bare white arse would be a welcome and refreshing sight. Now granted, he did moon the home of a Senegalese Governor and there may well be some law against that. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with it, I'm just saying that it would not surprise me. You would think though that they could have taken it a little more light heartedly. Like I say, the object of mooning is to amuse not offend. Take it in the spirit in which it was offered.

Hopefully, the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs can sort it all out and get the lad out of the hole (geddit?......fuck off then) but I would like to suggest that if and when they do secure his release, the whole fuckin' embassy should drop their kecks in support. Yes, it may cause an International incident and war may well be declared but at least we are safe in the comfort of knowing that the Yanks have our backs. Right America?

An Army Of One

Call them what you will Tramps, Bums, Hobo’s, The Homeless, they intrigue me. If I see one of them exhibiting particularly strange behaviour I am fascinated and usually can’t put them out of my mind for at least a day or two until something else catches my eye and my attention. They always leave me with more questions than answers…

There used to be this bloke who lived on the corner or Broadway and 1^st St for at least 5 years that I know of, who each morning would perform his exercises (jumping jacks) in his terrible arseless pants. It was truly a sight to amaze and horrify passers by. Every now and again they would cart him off (presumably to a mission) while they hosed down the pavement and got rid of all his rubbish. Next day he would be back, clean shaven and obviously washed yet still wearing the pants with no arse in them. Why the fuck did they not give him new pants? Or did they offer him new ones only for him to refuse? I suppose that wearing pants with no arse in them has its advantages, especially if you never get up to go and shit. One day he was gone for good. Dead? Relocated? Eaten by wild dogs? Who the fuck knows?

Then there was the lad who stood at the corner of Broadway & Temple every afternoon reading aloud from a three ring binder into a microphone, the wire of which led into his back pocket. I was determined to stop and listen to what the hell he had to say that was so important to him but parking was never possible and I would just drive right by. On the day that I said to myself “Okay, this is it. I’m going to risk a ticket and hear him out,” he was gone, never to be seen again. I will never know what was in the binder. Could have been blank pages, could have been the ranting of a mad man, could have been the secret to life, the universe and everything.

There was the bloke in the gas mask who would dance like a fuckin’ maniac outside the various discoteca stores that pump out loud banda, norteña, and salsa music down on Broadway, south of 4^th St. What the fuck happened to that guy? Did he like the music that much? Did the store owners employ him to draw attention? I suspect he was just crazy as every now and again I would see him dancing outside Clifton’s to the sound of traffic and police sirens.

Since someone realized that they could convert all the old buildings downtown into high rent lofts and make millions, the LAPD have been cleaning up the area and getting rid of all the loonies, shadow fighters, screamers and urine reeking prophets. Causing dismay to dedicated people watchers like me. Luckily I will always have Hollywood. Santa Monica is fertile ground for jakeys too, but I don’t get out there that often. Hollywood is closer and to be honest, is home to a different breed of nutcase. There was this one lad who seemed to keep crossing the same street, backwards and forwards. Over his shoulder, he carried a black hold-all which held probably all he owned, a blanket and a stereo from which he was blasting what sounded like Smokey Robinson, but was, I was reliably informed, The Temptations. Every now and then he would stop, do a bit of a shuffle and mess with the volume, then cross the street again. The hold-all bore the legend “US ARMY – An Army Of One”, this was no doubt his free gift for his application to enlist (rejected). As interesting as this behaviour was, even more intriguing to me was what he carried in his right hand….a blue cellulose sponge. The kind that you wash dishes with, well the kind that the wife washes dishes with, I don’t do dishes. It didn’t appear to be wet, it was dried out. What the fuck was he doing with it? Did he like the texture? Was it his comfort sponge? Was it his favourite thing in the entire world? Could “the man” have taken his home, his pride, his dignity but not his sponge? I should have fuckin’ well asked him when I had the chance…..

This shit has my mind in a spin. I may not sleep tonight.

By the way, I commented on the lad with the furry yellow bike’s blog. It was moderated but he put up my comment anyway, he just didn’t answer my questions. He did not offer an explanation for the protest and did not offer his favourite remedy for saddle rash. So I still do not have closure on that bizarre event.

High School What?

When I was a lad, back in the wild North West of England, High School or Secondary School or Comprehensive School was a place where men were fashioned out of mere boys and girls were set up for a lifetime of abuse and disappointment. It was here that you learned how to make a bog roll holder in woodwork class, a keyring in metalwork and under protest, a swiss roll in home economics class. It was in these hallowed halls that you either kicked the shite out of someone or got the shite kicked out of you.
We didn't have a "senior prom", we didn't even have a "leaver's do" thanks to the previous year's celebration breaking out into a mass brawl and several thousand pounds worth of damage to the local British Legion. On my last day at High School, I brazenly walked into an off license and bought 12 cans of Swan Light ( a non-alcoholic beverage of Australian origin) for myself and my mates. I didn't know at the time of purchase that it was non-alcoholic..... As embarrassing as it was for me, it was nothing compared to the embarrassment of a couple of my mates who were pretending to be drunk until the discovery was made that there was in fact no alcohol in said beverage. My last day in High School was, to say the least, something of a let down. Luckily, I had more than made up for it with my last year in High School which was a non-stop riot of debauchery and teenage delinquency of which I may tell you someday.

Because of all this, the concept of High School Yearbooks, Proms, Rings and all the other bullshit that accompanies graduation in the USA is completely alien and therefore of great interest to me. I just do not understand all the fuss. What many people describe as the best years of their life were really the worst years of their life. Why the fuck would you want a constant reminder of teen angst and confusion, anger and self loathing? Or is that just me?
I actually consider myself well grounded but I didn't have to deal with the pressure from peers and family to over achieve during these all important years. Mediocrity was/is considered a success in my part of the world. A job is a fuckin' job and any old slapper will do as long as she can reproduce.

When I tell people here that "I graduated High School" at 16, I am greeted with gasps of amazement and bewilderment. I must, in their eyes. be some kind of genius. Here in the USA, you graduate High School at 18 (with the equivalent of a 10th grade UK education). I am more than willing to let them believe what they want to believe. Coupled with the fact that to their uneducated ears I speak "proper English", I am nothing short of Royalty. This is, in part one of the reasons why I stay here.

So, High School Yearbooks in particular intrigue me and I have started to collect them, old ones I mean. I love the smell of them more than anything. The musty old smell that you can only associate with old book shops. So far, I only have two and they amuse me to no end. The pictures and captions are fuckin' great. Here, I present to you, some of my favourite pictures from "Little Giant 1963" of Highland Park High School, Illinois...... Names may have been changed to protect the guilty.

Voted Most Likely Transevites
Ronald Rathsam & Helen Rizzo

Voted Most Likely Wife Beater
Albert Panther

Voted Most Likely Crackhead
Herbert Katz

Voted Most Likely Bunny Boiler
Marilyn Crocetti

Voted Most Likely Wanker
Randy Bletsch

Voted Least Favourite Member of Staff
Girls Locker Room Attendant - Mrs. Arnold Pfister

There are, of course, many more pictures that I would like to share with you, and maybe I will but instead I invite you to share with me your favourite High School story. Where did it happen? Who did it to you and how long did it last? Come on.......you know you want to.....

Bad Planning

There was some kind of poorly thought through protest in Hollywood last night. At about 11:30pm, a couple of hundred nutcases on push irons (that's a bicycle to most of you) blocked the entrance to one of the car parks on Vine St. Their leader then climbed onto the fence (not really a good spot for a 'so called' leader) and began to whip up the mass of spandex into some kind of muted frenzy.

It was hard to hear what he or she was ranting about over the laughter from the crowd of people waiting to get into the club, the organizers had obviously not considered bringing a megaphone. It sounded something like "....try to keep us down.....won't stop pedaling.....free puncture repair kits.....happy meals....." After 5 minutes they left, some of them yelling "The power is between your legs!" as they rode away into the night or at least to the stop light at Hollywood Blvd. A fairly deep statement, true in many ways, however I'm thinking they were referring to their bikes and not their dicks or vajayjays. Their Choppers not their choppers. Hopefully I won't have to explain that last line to TOO many people.....

Who they thought they were going to convert to their cause at that time of night I don't know. They did succeed in irritating a few people who were trying to enter/exit the parking lot, probably not gaining much sympathy from them in the process. They certainly raised a few eyebrows. It's not often you see such a sight on a Friday night in this neck of the woods.

What made their protest even less effective was the lack of signs or placards. If you are going to have good protest you need some snappy placards like 'No More Protests!', 'Votes for Vegetables!!', 'Impeach Dumbledore!!!' or '¡Viva Salchichas!'. Certainly it is hard to carry a sign on a stick whilst riding a bike at the same time (not very aerodynamic unless turned sideways). Likewise, duct taping one to the bike is probably not practical and may even be a safety hazard, obstructing the view of the cyclist and distracting other road users, so T-shirts or even a song would have been the way to go in this case.

So I have to know. What the fuck were all these people doing last night? Suggestions are welcome but hopefully someone who was present, maybe the guy who had wrapped his bike in yellow faux fur, will do a Google search to try and find press coverage of the event (there is none), find this instead and be compelled to tell the tale.

Bad News

So I get home from work at about 8.45pm tonight, warm up my tea in the microwave and wash it down with a large can of beer. Then I decide to finish off the half bottle of vodka that is in the freezer along the cran-raspberry juice in the fridge. There's fuck all on telly so I decide to watch my favourite evening newscast on Channel 9, KCAL-9 to those of you here in SoCal.

I try not to watch TV news, except for BBC World news on PBS and even then in limited amounts. The news is depressing, mostly negative and just downright shit, especially local news because they have such a limited understanding of topics of international importance and general relevance. Also, their audience is so limited in their comprehension and interest in anything of interest and relevance to me that there really is no need for me to watch such drivel. Yes, I'm so fucking superior it hurts.

All that said, given a choice of local newscasts, I choose Channel 9 primarily because they have the hottest weather girl on local TV in the LA market, Jackie Johnson. Given the competition, tennis ball headed negroes and bespectacled Jewish twats, it is not necessarily a hard task to accomplish, but, nevertheless, the folks at KCAL know the score and so hired Jackie's tits to do the weather. She dresses like trash but who gives a fuck about that?

Anyway, first off, the news started badly when they announced that JJ was off on holiday or with womens problems or summat and that Josh Rubenstein was replacing her.
FUCK!!!!!
I don't need a balding overweight Jewish man to tell me that we are up for a a rather mild evening. I need a big titted blonde to tell me that. Okay, so she dresses like she bought her outfit at a jumble sale but who gives a fuck as long as she accentuates the positive? (If you know what I mean......and I think you do.) If she needs time off, fine, play a fucking taped recording, nobody is actually paying attention to a fucking thing she says, they are staring at her tats. Last weeks weather is the same as this weeks weather in this part of the world. I already know that it's going to be hot and rather unpleasant tomorrow. This is the edge of the fucking desert for bogs sake.....

Jackie, for the record also has a modicum of decency about her, worse luck. She recently turned down an offer to do a spread in Playboy, thereby leaving everything to the imagination the big fuckin tease....

Jackie, Jackie Show Us Yer Tits....

So, it was all downhill from there.....

They have decided to put birth control in bird food and to feed it to the pigeons in Hollywood in an attempt to curb the pests. I say what is good for the goose is good for the blacks and hispanics and why stop there? Add it to Spaghetti-O's and slow down the growth of white trash as well. Put it in Ding-Dongs, Twinkies and Kool-Aid and we could save millions in Medicare.

Actor Lane Garrison has appeared in a Public Service Announcement urging people to think twice about drinking and driving. This after he got shitfaced and crushed a teenager between the bonnet of his Land Rover and a tree. It's no coincidence that this PSA is released 2 days before he is due to be sentenced. Fucking attorneys have no morals.

Britney and K-Fed officially split. Why the fuck is this news? I thought they split months ago and had forgotten they were even married. Does anybody actually care?

A 48 year old Dairy Queen is being closed down in Riverside to make way for a new strip mall. They interviewed a 300+lb woman who was in tears saying that she and her husband, high school sweethearts had their first date there (and every fuckin date since then judging by her size*. Seems to me they are doing you a favour.) There will be a new DQ in the strip mall, it just will not be the same. I feel for these people, I like old architecture and like the "feel" of old places but you cannot stand in the way of progress. Be thankful, at least they are not turning it into a Starbucks' or a church.....

A Black Bear was euthanized after raiding cabins for food in the Mammoth Lakes area. Why the fuck did they have to kill it? Sedate the fucker and drop it off somewhere in the vast wilderness of the Sierra Nevada. It is a fuckin' bear. It will either survive by the law of nature or it will die by the law of nature. You didn't have to kill it you fucks!

I also had to laugh at a commercial for Anna's Linens..... "These luxurious bath towels cost up to $30 in a department store. At Anna's Linens they are only $5.99. How do they do it? Well, first of all they find some fucking sweatshop in Malaysia that employs 9 year olds to make the towels for 1 cent each........

Lastly, some fuckin pedo is suing the Santa Monica Police Department for publicizing his picture in a poster warning parents to keep their kids away from him. This after he voluntarily surrendered himself to a police mug shot so that he could easily be eliminated in any investigation involving sexual acts against minors. His website, on which he rates certain venues such as the Orange County Fair for fellow pedo's was recently taken down, is about to be relaunched this time hosted by a Dutch ISP, allegedly does not break any laws.

Like I said, fucking depressing. Where is my big titted weather girl?


* Like I can talk. Thank fuck there isn't a Dairy Queen in driving distance of my house.

Danish Pigeons Beware.....

Amidst the media frenzy surrounding David Beckhams debut for the LA Galaxy and the intense scrutiny of the transfer window, one of the major events of the football year seems to have been overlooked. Today, teams from 48 nations will be arriving in Denmark to participate in the 2007 Homeless World Cup.

Held annually for the last 5 years, this year’s tournament promises to be the biggest and most exciting yet with the World’s finest crackheads, alcoholics and mental folks battling it out to try to take the title away from last years winners, Russia. Unfortunately, TV coverage here in the USA is limited to none at all and I will not be able to watch. Maybe it’s because the USA are ranked a very poor 46^th in the world and they tend not to be very interested in things at which they are not the best. Amazingly, Kazakhstan are ranked 2^nd behind Russia with Poland, Mexico and Liberia rounding out the top five. Perhaps the biggest surprise is Scotland who are a disappointing 33^rd in the World. Given the standard and sheer quantity of homeless persons on the streets of Glasgow and Edinburgh, you would think they would be at least in the top 10.

The Scots Get In A Quick Training Session

For anybody thinking of making the trip to Copenhagen for the tournament, it’s not too late and you could probably make it in time for the opening ceremony tomorrow afternoon. Just in case, here is the schedule:

1315 – 1400 hours

Players pick their playing shoes from boxes of odd shoes and returns donated by BHS.

1415 – 1500 hours

Traditional pre-tournament fight over the shoes begins.

1500 – 1530 hours

Police break up the fight with rubber bullets and tear gas.

1530 – 1700 hours

Wounds are dressed and food and drink rations are handed out to the players.

1700 – 1745 hours

Traditional pre-tournament fight over the food and drink rations begins

1745 – 1800 hours

Police break up the fight with real bullets. The six teams with the least amount of players left are eliminated.

1800 – 1930 hours

Inspirational talk by Paul Gascoigne, refreshments provided by Buckfast.

Supplies Leave The UK For Copenhagen

1930 – 2345 hours

Traditional pre-tournament celebration of spoon playing, singing, dancing, urinating and fighting begins.

2345 hours

Players retire to their cardboard boxes for a good nights screaming and thrashing around. Tomorrow the tournament begins!!

GOOD LUCK ENGLAND!!!! I will be shouting for ya lads!!