Addicted to E (Briefly)

So I must confess that I've watched a little too much E these holidays, particularly anything and everything starring the Kardashian family. I know, I know.

It was kind of hard not to. Like most of the pay per view channels this particular one lacks the imagination to schedule programs that would cater for the fact that almost everyone is home over the holiday period and thus present an opportunity to pick up flagging viewership figures.

But alas no, such forward thinking doesn’t apply when you’re the only pay per view platform in the market. So wall to wall, 24 / 7 repeats of every show it was and the pick of the bunch was the family that really only got big for two reasons; their father represented OJ Simpson and the daughter did a porn tape.

Still, I have a new style icon; Scott Douche-ick. No one wears the Marino wool sweater and polo top combo like Scotty does. Oh. Yeah.

Yes, the guy might have issues in the parental and the ‘being a supportive partner’ stakes, but I’ve already got those so no real losses there. What I haven’t got is the ability to carry off the colour combos and matching sweater skills that Scott has. In fact he is so good at it he may very well be my muse from this moment on.

There’s really actually only one thing that makes me watch this guy with interest and that is he looks and acts a lot like the character Patrick Bateman form American Pyscho (played in the movie by Christina Bale). They even come from the same kind of background. Coincidence?

So a small part of me has kept watching in the hope that Scott – the style icon – does indeed turn out to be Scott the Bateman and in a climactic end of season episode, kills off the entire Kardashian clan whilst listening to Phil Collins.

Now that would make for some interesting TV.

The Auto Reply

One of the big disappointments I now find in this day and age of the social network is when you can’t instantly see a picture of the person you are conversing with, like when you receive an email from someone who is new to you.

Usually this takes place in the constraints of the work environment where it might not be possible for you to access the likes of Stalkbook and begin a life long infatuation with your new found correspondence.

I don’t, incidentally. Oh sure, sometimes I will print off profile pics and put them up on the wall in the spare room that no one is allowed to go into ever, but there’s nothing wrong with that, right?

But how long will it be do you think before it becomes the norm de rigueur that we do send more than just a cheery disposition and fancy signatures to each other?

I for one can not wait so I’m starting the ball rolling this week by initiating this auto reply which will be sent to selected new contacts:

Thank you for contacting me. As my reply to your email counts as official company business and I believe that through the use of smiley icons and colourful text that you may in fact be quite hot, please understand that I cannot reply until you have supplied me a recent photo as proof of identity.

Photos of you at the beach, intoxicated and baring a little too much skin, or posing in the bathroom mirror will be accepted and only ever circulated amongst a select few colleagues.

Please also note that this reply cannot be construed as a reply until said photo has been supplied and should not be considered as such.

This organisation is an equal opportunity replier and even if you turn out to be a BOBFOC (Body off Baywatch, Face off Crimewatch) you may receive a reply.

But only if you promise to talk filthy to me.

How Do You Know You're Beat Before You Begin..?

When your opponent at a major tennis tournament (and who just happens to be the world’s best player) turns up to play you in drill shorts, that’s how.

This photo doesn’t really do them justice but I’m sure Rafael Nadal picked them up from the skateboarding, not tennis playing, part of the Nike sweatshop.

All he is missing to complete the look of utter contempt towards his opponent is the chain and the cap on a jaunty angle. I suppose he could’ve turned out in jeans but that would’ve been a bit cheeky really.

Oh and Rafa, mate, this whole ‘sign the camera lens thing’ that you top tennis stars do every time you leave the court? It’s getting a bit wanky.

As you were.

Massages, Haircuts & Touching My Bits

So I went to a hair salon the other day.

Not a barber, a salon. Which I am normally dead against – for reasons you know I’m about to go into – but Mrs ClubDes talked me into because she had a voucher. We love vouchers. Vouchers mean you cut the mark up of a good or service down from ‘over inflated’ to just plain ‘inflated’. It’s quite possibly the only form of deflation I like....

Now I like the teat of some lady I’ve only just met in my face as much as the next guy, but aside from that and I’m not a big fan of hair salons. Maybe it’s because I’ve seen every episode of Tabitha’s Salon Makeover. Twice. Or maybe it’s just that I have this thing about other people touching my personal bits.

Like massages. I love them. Strictly above the waist and with everybody in the room but me clothed, but I can never seem to relax enough to let anyone give me one. Needless to say I’m terrible at orgies too.

The last time I did have a massage was with some middle aged Swedish bird who asked me at the end if there was ‘anything else she could do?’ in a way that was distinctly porno.

No, I tell a lie. The last massage I got was from a guy who was very good but he seemed to confuse my telling him at the start of the festivities that I had low body fat percentage so ‘he could take it easy with the pressure’ to mean ‘please, push as hard as you can because I like it rough’.

A friend of mine was training to be a masseuse a couple of years ago and she offered to give both the missus and I one on the cheap. I nearly took her up on it too, only I walked in on her giving another mate one once and either she was lactating or she’d inadvertently dipped her nipples in the lotion as she’d worked the back. I couldn’t quite bring myself to look at her in the eye after that.

Usually the missus cuts my hair. Sure, it takes her about two hours but she cuts it the way she wants, which is of course, the way that I want it and it costs us nothing, except the usual threat to stop midway through when I complain how long it’s taking.

Which just highlights another reason I’m not a big fan of salons in general because when it comes to paying for shit, like haircuts, I’m as tight as a nuns nasty...

But like I said, we had a voucher and my current look (imagine Sawyer off Lost) is beyond the amateur but well meaning cutting skills of Mrs ClubDes, talented as she is. Truth really be told she couldn’t be arsed and I don’t blame her, so off to the salon I went.

And you know what? I kind of liked it. I got a shampoo and a head massage, which turned me on a little and a kick ass cut that was quick and exactly like the four photos I had printed off the Internet and said that Mrs ClubDes had bought in for me as a reference.

I even found myself digging the gay stylists play list he had pumping out across the place and almost joined in the conversation with he and the Sheila next to me about Anne Hathaway who, I fancy a great deal but shall not be doing it with if she continues to show her fruit jubes in every movie she makes from this point on, fuck you very much.

As relaxed as I was at that point I kept that one to myself.

I wasn’t even annoyed when we found out at the end that our voucher was no longer valid; I had had a good time damn it, a scalp massage, a perfect hair cut not to mention not one, but two boobs to the face.

Hell, on that basis I might even go again.

Tabitha can do whatever the hell she likes with my bits.

Birthday Book

January is a very high volume birthday month here at ClubDes and I love leaving birthday wishes on the crew’s Stalkbalk pages. How I haven’t yet got a job writing birthday card’s is beyond me...

Hixie:

Happy Birthday brother. Geez it seems like only yesterday we were doing that thing in your bedroom that we pinky promised we'd never tell anyone about and we both agreed was most definitely not gay because it was like, a practise, and didn't really mean anything. But that's what your early twenties are all about really, a time of discovery. Have a good one big boy.

Braddles:

Happy Birthday Braddles. I came round to wish you it in person but you weren't home so I took the liberty of letting myself in and I've left you a little something in the toilet. Oh and I love what you've done with the wardrobe, it was so easy to find the things I wanted to try on. Nice one!

TBag:

TBag I dunno if it was because I knew today was your birthday but I had a dream about you last night and yes, it was sexual. Something special, especially the bit with the beads, but definitely sexual. Please don't tell anyone. Happy birthday big boy.

Lancey:

Oi, Lance. Pause the BBW porn you love so much and check your Facebook for once in your life cause we're all wishing you a happy birthday, you douche!

Lancey: Dude!!!! it's SSBBW but yeah thanks for the well wishes. I look forward to a ceremonial Tea Bagging when we start back at work. As always, you steady the rim while I work the woody. We'll leave Big Gay Ray's ginger nuts out of it shall we?

DG Macca:

Thanks heaps everyone for your b-day wishes.

ClubDes: I didn't but then I sent you some pretty A grade porn by post, only half of which was homemade. Enjoy :)

DG Macca: FANTASTIC!! I shall add it to the collection of pics which I have been taking from outside your bedroom window for the past 6 months... (I like what you've achieved with the clippers by the way).

ClubDes: You're welcome. You know me, I'm old school; I always feel one should courtesy trim if one is going to expose one’s self via the bedroom window, Cock Roulette or mailed Polaroid.

What Not To Wear On The Premises

We don’t have a dress code here at ClubDes par se, anything goes as long as you don’t make a complete Muppet, or tit of yourself and even then we'll let it pass if it's hilarious, but standards have been slipping and something needs to be said.

I’ve lamented many times before the disconcerting trends that are creeping into men’s fashion but I fell I need to reiterate these given that it seems these same issues are now impacting on the last bastion of homo-eroticism we have; sport.

Take these geezers, the Team Leopard-Trek cycling team who all appeared on stage in front of the world’s media at their team launch wearing shabby looking suits and scarves. Yes, scarves.

Scarves are things you wear when a) it’s cold outside and, or b) you’re off to support the team at the stadium. Sadly, more and more dudes are wearing scarves that are neither warm nor supportive with all manner of garments for all manner of occasions and it’s deeply disturbing. Have they never heard of ties?

These guys spent the whole time looking uncomfortable and I don’t blame them, they look like poofs. They are, after all, top cyclists, who are more accustomed to wearing outfits that are tight, revealing (sometimes both) and in the case of guys with pony tails have fooled many a young man into the slow car follow from behind thinking that ‘that chick has one hell of a set of legs on her’.

Off the sports field there is the Arabic variation of the scarf which I like to call ‘terrorist chic’:

Now there’s only one dude who can pull this kind of look off and its Corporal Willie Apiata in downtown Kabul, because let’s be honest, the man has ‘kick-ass’ written all over him.

But the padded gusset wearers of world cycling are not alone. Footballers, at least the fruity continental ones, have taken to wearing this, a scarf cum neck ring called a ‘snood’ which sounds as ridiculous as the players who sport them look:

The reasoning is that it prevents neck injuries bought on by the cold weather. Like what, whiplash?

In my day if your neck was cold you did one of two things; put your collar up which no one but the guy who loved himself a little too much did anyway or, you opened a big can of harden the fuck up and just got on with it.

Not satisfied with being quite possibly the ugliest man in world football, Argentinian Carlos Tevez not only sports the snood but has since taken to his with some scissors to prove that he is right hard ponce. Clearly he fancies the snood, but likes his circumcised:

Lastly and not sports related but equally of concern, is the current trend of young men wearing tight, knee length jean shorts. Where the hell did that come from? Lads, for the sake of you gnads, please leave some sag around the bag and let’s get away, real sharpish, of this trend to wear shit tight.

Because the next thing you know you’ll be pulling on your sisters / girlfriends / Mums cut-offs and that definitely is not what to wear, not in this establishment.

You have been warned.

The Eternal Optimism Of A New Year

It always surprises me just how far off their tits some people will get in celebrating the arrival of the New Year.

I know why it’s such a big occasion, but I’ve never understood why nobody heralds in the arrival of a big month for them, quite like they do a new year. If you knew April, for example, was going to be a massive month for you then why wouldn’t you party like it was 1999 on the last day of March?

Because nobody really knows what lies ahead, that’s why. It’s a celebration of eternal optimism is New Years as demonstrated by the newsreader I watched who, at 6pm on January the 1st, claimed “2011 was already shaping up to be a better year than the last”.

How did he know at that point in time? The year was less than 24 hours old for fucks sake. Did he say the same thing last year, before the earthquakes, floods, volcano eruptions and mining disasters? Boy did he get that one wrong.

The inference perhaps, was that after all that shit went down anything has to be better. Perhaps, but Armageddon – the doomsday not the decidedly average comic convention - could be right round the corner. Who would really know aye?

I haven’t partied like it was 1999 since, well, 1999. It is a story I have told here before so I won’t go over it again besides it was such a tragic affair things are getting hazy and I may have inadvertently started to embellish each retell in my favour. I do recall it ended with a sympathy shag and for once I wasn’t the one dishing out the sympathy...

Needless to say then that Mrs ClubDes and I didn’t see 2011 in spectacular style. Admittedly we did live life on the edge and watched two movies in one night but that was about as hard core as it got. I was up at midnight, but only because some dickhead down the road decided to wish all and sundry a drunken happy News Years from the balcony of his house.

Naturally, being the voyeuristic neighbour that I am, I went and had a look, curious as to what all the yelling was about. Fortuitously the street lights in our little cul-de-sac have been out over the last few days so even as a skinny guy with a Neapolitan tan, standing outside in his grundies, I was shrouded in the darkness that was as black as a black man’s cape.

Oh how I would have loved to have been afforded that kind of cover back in the bushes of Nam. Some of the locals had even hoarded some fireworks from Guy Fawkes and proceeded to let them off. Hey, it was no Sydney Harbour Bridge (or Khe Sanh for that matter) but it was a nice touch.

And doesn’t cul-de-sac sound like that thing the doctor does when he cups them and asks you to cough?

Of course the true downside of a New Years piss up is the clean up the day after the night before and if ever there was a metaphor for my argument that the year ahead is not really going to be any better than the last, despite the optimism, then the cleanup is it.

Happy New Year you lot. May 2011 be better than last year, just don’t bet on it.

Yeah nah, not that kind of Armageddon...

Top 5: My Best Moments of 2010

So, hot on the heels of the Worst of 2010 is the Best, which proves, if anything, that I’m not just a negative bastard. Not all of the time anyway.

1. Spurs not only made the Champions League but have been doing the business ever since. Now they might not win it but for this particular fan of 25 years, football nirvana has already been reached...

2. My niece – the football prodigy herself – is now officially amongst the best dozen or so in her age group across all of Wellington. I'd like to think my coaching had something to do with it, but probably not.

3. I coached the best bunch of girls, ever, who reminded me just why it is I love coaching so much and revitalised my passion when it was at an all time low.

4. The only thing to feature in both lists – the ending of Lost. Not since the Matrix trilogy has a bit of moving picture moved me in the way the Lost TV series and ultimately, the ending did. Non believers will, of course, take the piss but I don’t give a flying fuck; this is my list, not yours. Oh and did I mention I love you Kate?

5. Weddings – particularly Emski & Melski’s (some of my best MC work) and Sully & Jess’s (some of my best groomsman work). I love a good wedding and this year I was lucky enough to be part of two great ones.

Maybe I should send Kate some pendants...?