So Long Sir Howard

I was going to start a blog asking if anyone was sick of the whole Michael Jackson death thing yet - but then poor old Sir Howard Morrison carked it and killed off the Jacko story big time.

I feel the same about Sir Howard's death as I did when Billy T James died; that the end of the era has just passed us by. Like Billy T, Sir Howie rose to super stardom in a different time and different era. He cultivated a natural talent with hard work and more than a decent set of morals.

Neither of them became famous on the back of having gigantic breast implants, or for getting married in the nude (which was a complete misnomer because they had their pink bits covered anyway), streaking at the rugby or by gang banging a bunch of silly, drunk tarts.

Both were quintessential New Zealanders in a way that once made us proud to be Kiwi's, really proud too, not in a 'we just beat Australia at gay rugby again' kind of way and we loved them both for it. It's a cliche I know, but that shit is timeless and the memories and influence of a dude like Sir Howie will live on for many, many years to come.

There's just one small thing that kind of breaks the ice at such a momentously emotional time like this; every time I see Temuera Morrison on the telly I can't help but think of that ridiculous scene in Star Wars Attack of the Clones where Obi Wan visits Jango Fett and his son. Even Temuera's taking part in the meanest of hakas doesn't rid my mind of some of the worst acting in the Star Wars universe. Ever.

Oh well, I'll just have to get over it and get on with life I suppose. At least we don't have to hear about MJ anymore. It is true what they say - every cloud does have a silver lining.

"You're not in Guatemala now Dr Jango.."

Boobs On Bikes, Tanks and Midgets

It's one of those decisions that could go oh so wrong when at work; do I view the Boobs on Bikes pics online or not?

If you're lucky like me then photographic slide shows are disabled by the security settings on your network so the choice is made for you but I wonder how many did? Not that it mattered because later that night they (being gigantic mammaries) were all over the news. The funniest aspect of just such a story is watching some female news anchor like Hillary Barry having to fight back the disdain she clearly has for having to introduce such a trashy item.

And it is trash. Boobs are boobs and ridiculously large ones aside they fall right into the 'seen one pair seen them all' category. Promoter Steve Crow is man who has undoubtedly seen more teats than a dairy farmer and although he may be many things, he is smart and I reckon he's realised that sex alone doesn't sell these days so this year he kicked up a notch and bought something new to the masses - freaky sex.

You know shits gotten freaky when they have to get someone named 'Chelsea Charms' in on the act. Did she ride a tank because her breasts are so big or was it just to complete the image of mammoth milkers? In any case it doesn't do anything for me personally. Tanks? Yes please! Titanic titties? No thank you.

But its remarkable just how many Aucklanders line the streets this same time every year to watch Steve Crow's floppy Filipino breasted freak show when they could see a lot more quality teet on The Net. And they're not the smartest bunch (well certainly not the ones they interview on the news) which just adds to the freak ability of the event I suppose.

All this breasticle talk reminds me of the time back in my country school days in good ol rural Hawkes Bay. The local school was one which catered for kids of all ages, it had to because no other bugger was going to really, but it was certainly a good thing because we got to mix with kids of all ages, especially when it come to swimming season.

Now we had these two sisters at our school that were physically advanced for their age and that meant big ol titties, the kind of which many of us hadn't seen since the days of sucking on Mummies bittie. It was quite the sight that pool of ours; two well endowed girls splashing away like the carefree teens they were and the entire male student faculty unable to stand up in the waist high water because of it.

I shall never forget the momentous day that one of them had an astronomical wardrobe malfunction whilst mid frolic. Her shoulder strap - perhaps in hindsight ridiculously too thin to ever really support just such a fantastic specimen of nubile breast - snapped, releasing the said mallow puff for all we fellas to see. Now that alone would have been enough to keep many of us going for well into our late teens but in a marvelous twist of fate it remained unnoticed by it's owner for several time standing still, water splashing over it moments.

I can still picture it to this day and consequently wrote that entire last paragraph one handed, but that is how a breast should be bared - just enough so that it can be appreciated and fantasised over for several seasons later. This is where I think the Erotica Expo blows it load far too soon, by having the assetts on display too early in the transaction. Parading goose pimpled knockers down the main street might be a great way of getting yourselves on the news but is it going to get punters through the door that wouldn't usually rock up with their cocks up? I don't think so.

Now Steve Crow is a funny looking fellow and if ever you needed a reality check on just what the porn industry really looks like then he's the man to have a gander at. But the thing I like about Crow though is his acumen; Harei Mai John Campbell had him and that ridiculous waste of space that is Lisa Lewis on the other night arguing over a contractual dispute. Lewis, who's average assets have been plastered over the place ad nasuam thinks that her appearance should be worth more than the likes of Ms Charms. Crow in his usual brash self disagreed and quite rightly told the silly bitch to bugger off.

Yep, he certainly realises that sex alone doesn't sell any more. Freaky naughty does and just you wait, next year I reckon he'll go for the next logical step for the Parade; Midgey boobs.

Even the Cover Is Depressing

Christ on the cross, almost without warning a new David Gray album has hit the shelves and will soon be blaring out at you from poncey coffee shops everywhere. Why weren't we told this was coming?! You can't just let depressing shit like this hit the streets without alerting the massess.

If you've never heard David Gray then congratulations. If you feel you must then go to the nearest tall tower, hop in the lift and ride it all the way to the top. The music that they'll play in there is only mildly less suicide enducing that Gray's. In fact The Samaritans have his entire back catalogue playing as their hold music in the hope that it will push a percentage of their callers over the edge and free up some phone lines for those that can be saved.

Now if you can't find just such a building then fear not. Simply head home and stick your dick in the blender; the pain you feel will be mildly less than if you were listening to a David Gray album.

And hey, lets be careful out there aye?

Mowing the Lawn - Statey Stylez

If there's one thing in life that gets me moist it’s a well mown lawn. Not just a freshly mown lawn mind you because any bugger can run a mower over the lawn, but to cross hatch it or chequerboard the sucker, now that takes class.

It must be a boy thing because my wife doesn't get my appreciation for just such an occasion. On the few times she's run the mower over ours she's made it look like a state house effort. You know that look; strips in all directions, uneven cuts, missed bits and the inevitable burn make left when the ground was too close to the blade and dirt got cut, not grass.

Back when I was a lad we lived in a state house and it had a massive lawn. But because it was a Statey it also had fucked up things like concrete drains running through the back yard and a big concrete slab where the old shed used to be. There was also this massive pie of loose metal slap back in the middle of quite possibly the best cricket pitch that side of a real one. Why the pile was there in the first place or why it never got moved was a mystery to me. You could certainly bowl over it no problem, but no batsman ever took a cheeky single on that pitch.

We also had this split tiered bank think going on up the back of our yard, near the bush, which looked as though someone had started excavating the entire property before deciding 'Fuck it, this is only going to be a Statey’ and promptly gave up on the project completely. It was great for jumping the 'ol HMX off but bugger all else, so understandably it made mowing the lawns a chore and a half, but I didn't see it that way.

I took my time in mowing that lawn seven ways into Sunday. I'd stop after each row and adjust the level of the chassis by just a nib so that I got a real cross hatch look to my rows. In the long wet bits - and there were always long wet bits in a Statey - I'd start high and finish low so as not to clog the blade. And I never ever left a blade burn, even on the uneven, bumpy bits around that pile of bloody annoying loose metal.

Yes, it would take hours but then so did the Samoan boys up the street that had to cut theirs with machetes. Machete Day was always Sunday, after church and I always reckoned that you would have had to be religious in order to maintain sanity whilst hacking away with a hand made, hand held blade.

Their place was at the top of our grove and their front lawn dropped down at a 45 degree angle, which made grip an issue especially given that their two storey Statey blocked out the sun from ever hitting their front lawn after midday and they were cutting the lawn, with machetes, whilst barefoot. Accordingly none of the brothers dare start at the bottom least one of the older boys up the top slipped and tumbled down in an uncontrollable ball of afro and 'chete.

I once asked my mate Dennis were they got the machetes from. He told me that his parents had bought them with them from Samoa, back in the days I suppose when you could tuck a two foot machete in your carry on luggage and no one gave a toss.

My mate Bruiser was a turf connoisseur too. His front lawn was about the same floor area as most men’s toilets but my god did he know how to make it look as big (and as impressive) as Athletic Park. He was always mixing it up too; chequer board, alternating strips, centre circle ripples, man that stuff was the shit. We weren't at that stage of life back then but had we been, I suspect both of us would have stood inside at the window afterwards and had a big 'ol wank over our respective mowed lawns.

My Grandfather knew how to pull off a good lawn and he had a mower like all groundsman used to use back before the invention of tractor pulled or ride on lawn mowers. This thing not only cut the grass but it pushed what was left over so that when you came back the other way it created a different visual affect; one light strip, one dark strip but both cut at the same height. Genius! It’s a look replicated today but with half the effort and absolutely no hard on value for the guy doing it.

So think about that the next time you begrudgingly get out and mow that strip of green out the front of your ridiculously small yard and think of it as a chore. And hey, if you see a guy admiring your work with what suspiciously looks like an erection in his tweeds then be sure to give me a wave huh?

Bruiser's front lawn was always impressive

Sheila of the Week

Sticking with the tennis theme we salute Kim Clijsters who this week won the US Open after two years out of the game.

During that time she mourned the passing of her father, got married and welcomed her first child, all of which makes what she did this week all the more remarkable. But then that’s the story of her career really. Her Grand Slam win this week was the first by an unseeded, unranked player ever. She’s also the first Mum to win a Grand Slam since 1980 too, but then she’s used to being the first to do things in the tennis world.

In 2003 Clijsters became not only the first Belgian - man or woman - to be ranked World No. 1, but also did so without winning a Grand Slam tournament. Clijsters is one of only five women to have been ranked World No. 1 in singles and doubles simultaneously. Her singles win total that year was the highest single-season total by any woman since Navratilova in 1982. She was also the first woman to play more than 100 singles matches in a year since Chris Evert in 1974.

In 2005 her victory in the US Open Series and the subsequent US Open meant she collected US$2.2 million in prize money, the largest single purse ever won by a female athlete.

In the season 2005 to 2006 Clijsters broke a rankings record returning to the World No. 1 ranking. She was ranked as low as World No. 134 in March 2005, so her return to the top spot in a ten-month span was the fastest and biggest leap in women's tennis history.

Clijsters is one of the most recognisable tennis players on the women’s tour, but not for the reasons we normally associate with top tennis players; She doesn’t have the long ground to bum legs of Sharapova, the smoldering looks of Ivanovic or the massive gun show that is the Williams sisters, but her style of play and positive attitude towards the game make her a stand out.

Her father was a professional footballer and Clijsters seems to have inherited his determination and his legs, as she has often remarked. She is one of a few players who can slide through a shot on any surface and her tenacity across the court means she is more likely to return the ball more than any other opponent.

But it’s not just the fact that she’s a fit MILF that we appreciate Kim. She also dated annoying Aussie Lleyton ‘C’mon’ Hewitt for a year and seeing that guy naked is deserved of a medal we reckon. One thing is for sure; you can bet that in that particular match it was Hewitt who always came first, he just has that look about him.

So big ups to Kimmie C, who this week proved that Mums really can do anything.

Women Are Strange Creatures - Epilogue

Now I'm as impressed at the tennis prowess of the Williams sisters as the next frightened caucasian opponent, but I wonder if anyone has checked that Serena doesn't have an inverted testicle because as she proved on court today not only is she built like a brick shit house, but she has the mouth of one too.

I rest my case.

NB: Kinky idea involving the tennis ball though. Kudos for that Serena.

Women Are Strange Creatures

Aren’t women the strangest creatures sometimes?

Caster Semenya is a woman and a strange creature, because, according to tests conducted by the world’s governing body on Athletics (The IAAF) she’s also a man. They say that instead of ovaries she has a pair of inverted testes, which of course would never have been apparent if they had just conducted that classic test we all learnt ages ago to determine boys from girls: having her whip down the old grundies.

Incidentally every fella who’s had the underside of his love spuds touch cold water, or been unfortunate enough to have taken a kick to the undercarriage knows what inverted testes feel like, so welcome to the club Caster.

You’ve all heard this story of course and not since the great women’s weight lifting scandal of the early eighties has such attention been focused on a misplaced set of gnads. Back then it was the East German lifter Ana Bolic who caught the attention of the sporting world, when, whilst competing in the clean and jerk, had what appeared to be to the naked eye a wardrobe malfunction. Only on closer inspection it wasn’t a costume issue at all.

As the cameras slowly zoomed in audiences around the world gasped and mothers covered the eyes of their children as it was revealed to be a naked testicle that had popped out of her ‘tard as she squatted with a 100 plus kilograms of weights on her broad, manly shoulders.

Naturally the athletics world was set a spin by the events. Bolic and her coach, Ms Mann, were summoned to a press conference, which they attended after a shit, shower and shave. It’s fair to say that the two were fairly nonplus about the revelation; they were East German after all and in that part of the world it wasn’t uncommon for the woman of the family to have bigger balls than the man of the house.

Subsequently the IAAF banned them from the sport and The Stasi (East German Secret Police) managed to erase all the grainy video footage that had existed of the said shiny man plum.

Fast forward 30 years and The Saffas are threatening to start World War Three if something similar happens to Semenya. Quite how they’re going to do that is unclear, but I think it’s fair to assume that coming from a country that is rapidly self imploding we don’t have too much to worry about. They can’t even agree on the racial make up of their sporting teams so I can’t really see them organising a continent conquering army, even if they are made up of muscular lady man ladies.

Maybe they could enlist the services of women of other nationalities, like the nine Turkish girls who were fooled into thinking they were taking part in a Big Brother type show. After two months of no evictions the penny dropped and they raised the alarm.

The hoax was discovered to be just that and the girls were finally freed from the ordeal that is a 24 / 7 pool side pyjama party. Subsequently the girls have become world famous overnight which you can’t help but think was the end result they were after, wasn’t it?

The organisers of it all are now under arrest and facing charges but you have to wonder what part gullibility and the desire to be famous played in it all. I mean really, what did the girls expect when they signed up for a something called ‘Someone Is Watching You’ and where it was going to be females only living in a house full of cameras? And why did they wait two months before the alarm bells started ringing?

Sadly, just like the Ana Bolic incident, all footage of the said nine young women has been erased. Or at least placed somewhere Mr Google can’t find it and trust me, I’ve looked.

But then that’s life today isn’t it. Everyone is out to be world famous for something, even members of the fairer sex. Whether it is having inverted testes or having your bikini clad image broadcast to horny Captain Kirks on their cellphones.

Yep, women are indeed strange creatures.

Only Singing When The Team Is Winning

If you’re not a football fan you might like to stop reading this particular posting right now. If you’re a croquet fan then as usual, there will be absolutely fuck all for you in this blog. Ever.

But back to the football, specifically the Wellington Phoenix who are an average team in an average league. Don’t get me wrong, I love what they’ve done for football in this city as far as the kids are concerned who now have very real heroes they can look up to and idolise in person every other week. My ten year old son has the top, the ball and the flag, all of which were ridiculously overpriced as is all supporters wear in this country and he’s not alone, Phoenix wear is everywhere.

But I’m not so easily sucked in by all the yellow and black tat or the free poster they give away in the paper each season. Maybe it’s the 25 odd years of supporting the one club, or maybe it’s just that I’m a depressing bastard but I find it very hard to get excited about the Phoenix quite as much as self appointed ‘Yellow Army’ has.

Or to be more precise Ricki Herbert’s Yellow Army, as one of the main chants that the group belt out ad nauseum explains. Why they chose ‘yellow’ when for the first few seasons the side wore black is a mystery to me, maybe it was the badge; it’s yellow and black. Black is cooler of course but screaming out that you’re part of a ‘black army’ has so many negative connotations it doesn’t bear thinking about.

Incidentally I’ve been watching a fantastic series on Discovery on the Second World War called ‘Apocalypse’ which they’re showing to mark the anniversary of the conflict. The footage has been re-mastered and is all in colour and is absolutely terrific because so often film from that period is in stark black and white. The thing that really struck me though was just how damn tight those Nazis were in terms of colour coordination.

Black on brown, red on black, grey on black; they might have been a strapon short of a good night in the smarts department but boy could those dudes accessorise. Every movie or TV show that has ripped off that long black leather trench coat look owes Adolf & Co. a big ‘right on’ for pioneering it. If only he and his cronies had of copyrighted it, they would be rich, dead pricks by now.

But back to the Phoenix. Ricki Herbert is the coach of the team and he’s a nice enough fella. He loves ‘The Army’ but then he would, because so far they haven’t turned on him, not even when the team is playing depressingly conservative football like they seem to do most of the time.

Against Adelaide the Army turned against everyone else but Ricki and the players, instead targeting the officials and every Adelaide player who was a ‘cheating Aussie bastard’, even the foreign ones. Which says a lot about The Army if you ask me; they might make a lot of noise, at least for the first 30 minutes, but like most attempts at chanting at a New Zealand sports event it starts and finishes decidedly low brow.

But then that’s football fans for you. At its lowest common denominator it’s a mob mentality and if you chose your moment wisely you could yell out almost anything and it would become a chant. Quite how many rounds of “I love cock” you would get is a moot point; the fact is you would get some before the realisation kicked in that it had nothing to with the game.

Unfortunately the game itself was quite boring and you can take that from someone who has watched a lot of football over the years, some of which has been dead set boring. Certainly the three or four ‘fans’ standing behind us thought so and spent a good hour discussing everything under the sun bar the actual game. Ricki Herbert’s Yellow Army was decidedly quiet too, bar the occasional predictibal chants that my two ten year olds found highly amusing but then to them, swearing is.

Luckily I didn’t have to pay for our seats (which are yellow, maybe that’s it) so I don’t feel so bad about wasting 90 minutes of my life that I will never get back. But I do wonder when Ricki Herbert’s Yellow Army will start to feel the same, especially as they only seem to sing when the team is winning...

It Must Be Love...

Some couples leave each other love notes as a decleration of affection. But not in our house...


...we tell it like it is.

Brilliant.

The Not So Subtle Art of Intimidation

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