Tips for the Ladies?

Life works in mysterious ways sometimes.

In a remarkable bit of serendipity I found myself propping up the bar in a strip club this weekend, only days after posting a piece about how useless I would be in the company of such ladies.

My reason for being there was a stag do, I’m not quite sure what the Asian tourist couple were doing there but it was the oddest sight of all night; him with his back pack on looking very excited and animated, she not so but yet, there she was, still there supporting her man and his Caucasian girl fantasy. And who says Asian bride subservience is a bad thing aye?

A strip club is a lot like a casino in that it presents a fascinating microcosm of life at its simplest. It doesn’t get much simpler or primal then men gathering around to watch ladies take their clothes off and say what you will about the art of it, that’s what they’re there for; no one is critiquing the pole routine or wardrobe selections.

If you’re like me and I am quite magnificent, so you’re probably not, then it’s a bit of an emotional experience. Being there with a group of men this time (as opposed to lesbians my last visit) I found myself at times reverting to type and freely offered my opinion on the performers main points.

Sometimes, usually following such a moralistic discussion, I felt like a seedy old man, standing at the back and casting aspirations on the promiscuity of someone who spends most of their working hours wearing nothing.

And yet most of the time I wondered about the stuff I usually wonder about in situations like that – not that I get myself into many situations of its kind, unfortunately – like what motivates them to do it, how do they feel about being leered over and manhandled by the punters, is it easy money…that kind of thing.

Unfortunately it’s not the kind of discussion one can easily have when tucking some house money into the thin g-string worn by the young lady giving you a bit of frottage, or as she motor boats you with her exposed nungas, so naturally I held my tongue. And my cash as it happened because I didn’t feel the urge to tuck it anywhere but my back pocket.

I did give it all to Magenta as I left but only because I admired her tattoos and that seemed a good enough reason for a stranger to give her money I figured. She was quite lovely to talk to too but I don’t think Magenta is her real name…

Life at it's simplest; the strip club.

Life Lessons, From The Bouncy Seats

Conversation turned to trampolines in The Club the other day, partly because Lancey has just gotten his clan one.

Not a trampoline the likes of which we had back in the day mind, no this is one of those can’t hurt you ever, can’t have fun jobs. Which got to us discussing just how those death traps on legs from days gone by, provided us kids with a rite of passage into later life, something Lancey’s spawn will now miss out on thanks to the Big Limp Dick Safety Brigade.

Who didn’t learn a valuable lesson from getting their nuts crunched and pinched when falling through the springs on a trampoline? Not to mention failed flips, mistimed landings from nearby structures or launches into pools that came up short.

Every kid had at least one incident of being catapulted off the damn thing by an older kid bouncing twice as high as every other bugger. That usually ended in a mistimed attempted landing on the frame from a great height, thus crunching the gnads and grazing the ankle / shin / thigh when landing half in the springs and half off the frame.

If you were really lucky you finished that particular artistic move with a face plant on the grass below. I can still hear the laughter now…

Who didn’t find out the hard way that laying underneath it whilst your older brother depth charged the hell out of the thing in a stress test that was never tried in the factory because it was presumed that such a load would ever be heaped upon it and even if so, who would be silly enough to sit under it if it was?

Well we were of course and a couple of those in the head and back learned us didn’t it.

What about the valuable lesson we were all given on the importance of maintaining balance whilst sitting in the corner awaiting your turn only to fall forward or worse, backwards, off the thing when some bugger got a little eager and upset the structural balance by jumping in early, making the ‘no more than two’ rule Mum always dropped on us a very valid point.

I lost count how many times I got ejected by clothesline, flying drop kick or throw to the imaginary ropes that failed to stop me from the copious Royal Rumbles we ran on ours. Dodgeball was another big favourite at our house, until some hard out fired the thing at point blank range whilst you were mid flight and took your legs clean out from under you. Many an emerging facial pube was removed in the resulting face to spring action that inevitably led to.

Ours had a particular design flaw too that meant if you bounced hard enough, on just the right angle, the leg would pop out from the frames which lead to a monumental collapse of epic proportions. I can still see my sister hurtling off it at an acute angle after just such a structural fuck up.

Not that some of us have stopped learning from the humble trampoline. Bruiser has lost two in as many years in a perfect example on how impossible it is to anchor the bastards when you live high above the common folk in the valley below.

One of them very nearly made it down there too only to be swallowed the bush on the hillside directly below his place mid flight. It will be found one day like a forgotten plane wreck leading those who located it to question “How the fuck did this get here?”

The other came to rest through the rear window of the Audi owned by some Asians down the road. Their response to that was to chain the bent and broken frame in their front yard till someone claimed it. Of course that didn’t really pan out because we all know how Asians are with answering their door when knocked on; they don’t. How the hell did they think that was going to work?!

So Lancey’s lot will experience none of this and miss out on some of life’s cruellest, but essential lessons. They will instead be bored with it after about five minutes and move back indoors to the gaming consoles.

No one ever got a gaming console to the balls.

Kind To Your Hands

In this day and age where everything is wrapped in ‘new and improved packaging’ (which means what exactly and I give a shit why?) you occasionally come across something from a simpler time.

Usually that something is the old fulla in the office who types with two fingers, writes everything in pencil and religiously stops whatever he’s doing at 10.30am and 3pm for smoko, but sometimes it’s a product like this which optimises the phrase ‘no frills’.

I suspect my work buys Genes Grease Cutting Lemon Detergent because it’s cheap as chips anyway, but more so by the carton load. This particular bottle actually is the ‘new and improved’ packaging because it has a sticker on it, whereas the last lot we had was plain text printed on the bottle. Well retro.

And the best bit? That the lid is held on by several pieces of sellotape. That’s right. No tamper proof kiddie-no-bastard-can-open-it lock here, just some geezer taping down every lid on every bottle. If he’s lucky Gene might have invested in a tape gun by now, but I doubt it; the sticky label is enough progress thank you very much.

This reminds me of how Bruiser and I played silly buggers in Home Economics with the dish washing liquid one time and emptied a three litre bottle of the stuff into one sink of water. Well, what else were we going to do all lesson, cook? The very next lesson our old spinster of a teacher gave a 10 minute lecture on how totally unacceptable it was that we, as a class, had gone through so much detergent in one go. Result!

The funniest thing about that term of Home Ec was the table of Asian girls who always got there a little bit early and proceeded to slice and dice their way through a mountain of vegetables before anyone else had even got their gear out. This continued right up till we started to cook, even on the days we weren’t doing vegetables...

So good on you Gene. Your simple ways are indeed kind to my hands and to my hope that somewhere out there are folk like yourself who aren’t selling out to progress because everyone else is.

People In Your Neighbourhood: Crasians

So the Asian guy across the street was out mowing his lawn the other day, with a scuba mask on.

Now plastic bags tied around the shoes I can understand; who wants grass stains on their white Bata Bullets, but a scuba mask?! What’s up with that, for fucks sake?

Actually I know what’s up with that, he be a crazy Asian (Crasian) and that’s just what they do.

Do you remember that bit in Sesame Street they always used to do about ‘the people in your neighbourhood, in your neighbourhood, they’re the people you meet everyday’? And they had the strapping black guy who looked like, but obviously wasn’t, a homicidal rapist? My street reminds me of that sometimes.

Gardening day across the road is very amusing at the best of time. A small portion of the household – some 400 approximately – take a break from making car tyres or whatever it is they do in the garage all day and descend upon the front yard with all manner of garden tools and kitchen utensils.

The actual strip of lawn out the front of their place is roughly the size of the men’s toilets but my god do they go to town on it as if they were they attacking South Korea or something.

The funny thing is that when the dust settles - and it’s like Hiroshima over there for most of the gardening afternoon - it still looks a complete shambles. Shorter admittedly, but only in the front. They leave the sides long, just like a good mullet; Business on top, party down the back.

But there’s a strange comfort you have knowing that your friendly neighbourhood Crasians are watching you most of the day from behind their closed blinds, like they do when not scuba diving amonst the weeds. They see things, just like Jack off Titanic.

Not to be confused with jacking off to Titanic, because everyone knows you can only really do that to the one scene and it’s not even Kate Winslet’s hand for chrissake. And it’s a long wait till then too, all which makes for a pretty sad wank really. Especially the second time.

We have another Asian family in the street but they’re not so much crazy as they are nosey, but in a good way. The old guy, Mr Miyagi, keeps an eye on the street, literally. He smokes a pipe which is a wonderful excuse to get out on the driveway and away from her indoors I suspect.

He and I have a little ritual that is both respectful and amusing. He watches me get into the car and then turns away as if he hasn’t seen me. He’ll start making his way inside right up till the moment I pass when he looks back to see if I’ll wave.

I always wave and so does he, despite pretending he never really saw me in the first place. When I drive up the street he does the same thing. The other day we bumped into each other at the supermarket and out of instinct he turned and walked away. I didn’t let him down when he looked back.

Sometimes I really catch him out, like when I need to leave early for football and he’s not only out of the house but halfway up the bloody road. This leads to an awkward moment, like we’ve just walked in on each other in the nude, yet still the ritual beings, he turns away and I wait for him to reach the drive and look back...

But it’s neighbours like that you like. I know that if anyone is cruising up and down our little street casing the place then he’s going to notice the bastards and for that I’d let him walk in on me in the buff if he really wanted to.

Crasians might be indeed crazy and in some cases quirky, but they are the people in your neighbourhood that you meet every day and that you come to rely on, even if for a bit of light relief when they mow the lawns wearing scuba masks.

Looks like those damn puppets were right after all.

Birth of a Mastabatorium

Last year my wife and I did what every decent couple does when the conversation eventually dries up – we started renovating. Or at least she did. I came home one day to find a glory hole (I wish) in the wall between the kitchen and the lounge and so it had began, whether I liked it or not.

I didn’t of course but then I’m a lazy bugger and my philosophy on such things is why do it yourself when there’s a good chance you can hire a bunch of Asians to do it for you?

After all, I didn’t do three consecutive tours of Vietnam for nothing and my blood, sweat and urine consumption (usually my own) should count for something! That something is meaningful employment of Asian work gangs I reckon.

But we’ve been doing it ourselves and those that tell you that renovating will bring you closer together as a couple are fucking liars. Right from the get go you’ll be arguing about grandiose plans, colour schemes and just who is going to do what. Then there’s the little game you’ll both start playing called ‘I’ll do my share whilst you’re relaxing after a hard day’s work, so as to lay down a massive guilt trip on your lazy ass”.

Last week Mrs ClubDes kicked it up a notch by suggesting we gut the spare room and do it up as a games room, a haven for us boys to play all manner of electronic gaming consoles and shit. Straight away my guard was up because I’m usually not allowed to play the likes of the Playstation at all in any case, so there had to be a catch somewhere. But, to my wife’s credit, there wasn’t.

So it has been rollers and sandpaper from dusk till dawn and like a couple of gay design boys we have been at; painting, pulling carpet and hanging new blinds. The hanging shelf for the said gaming consoles and TV has been mounted and finally I will have a wall, other than the toilet, to hang my most awesome Matrix posters up on. Fuck yeah.

The finished result is right lush and I’m happy to admit that when all the dust settles on such things you can’t help but have a sense of pride in such things. The missus is coining the finished article the ‘entertainment studio’, which sounds like a bloody posh brothel if you ask me.

Besides, you and I both know that just such a room is befitting of just one title and thus, I decree the ClubDes Mastabatorium open for business.

Bring your PS2 controllers fellas and best pair of boxers to lounge around in; I’m putting on the biscuits for afterwards.

I give it three weeks max, before this happens...

Gisbos: It's A Lifestyle Choice

Gisbos, as you may or may not know, is a little known place on the Eastern most point of New Zealand.

Unlike its sister city Lesbos, there is no all night casino where it's liquor in the front and poker in the rear, but Gisbos more than makes up for its lack of nightlife by being somewhat off the beaten track and totally devoid of almost all of the types that find their way to that other over rated town, RotoAnus.

Gisbos, supposedly, is 90% Maori. I would estimate that two thirds of that number are heavily tattooed, which I admire as much as the next intimidated Caucasian. Normally when I go on holiday I feel six foot tall and bulletproof and often walk around like I own the place, which I think comes from the confidence you get when you're somewhere we no one else knows you or any better. Gisbos is not the kind of place to do that.

Funnily enough, seven days in and I'm yet to see an Asian. I did see a Middle Eastern man in a shop down the main street but he looked as bored as fuck and I'm not surprised; I can't imagine there would be much call for Persian rugs in Gisbos.

There is undoubtedly a large Maori contingent up here and a lot of them are heavily overweight which surprises me given the proximity Gisbos has to so many natural resources. It has a beautiful harbour with plenty of fresh fish on one side and fields of fresh produce on the others. Hardly the stuff of a poor diet. Perhaps money is a problem? Quite possibly, but I've seen a lot of said fatty fatty boom booms getting in and out of flasher motors than mine so I doubt it.

Speaking of motors, the passion wagon didn't make this trip. Despite being made from the finest Korean steel, hill climbing is not its forte, so unfortunately we've had to make do with the mother-in-laws big fuck off shiny Audi. So what with us car training everywhere with the father-in-law's aircraft carrier of a Mercedes we're not only the whitest family in town, we are almost the most eye catching.

Now I'm not one to extol the virtues of the fannying about in the ultimate examples of status anxiety, but you could - just a little mind you - get use to feeling like you're part of a presidential motorcade every time you go anywhere in cars like these.

Unfortunately the drive to Gisbos is quite possibly, one of the most boring around. Everything up to Napier is terribly interesting, but once you leave the 'Bay there ain't nothing to see but hills and the arse end of the trucks in front of you that struggle to make their way up each and every one of the rolling hills that make up most of the two hour trip.

Whereas New Plymouth has a mountain to look at and Taupo has a lake, Gisbos has nothing. Except public service announcement signs that read 'Keep Our Lakes & Rivers Clean', 'Keep Out Aquatic Pests', 'Save Our Forests' and 'Women, Trim Your Beavers'. That last one might have been a figment of my imagination; it was a long drive after all.

Gisbos is the kind of place where you can park up at Video Ezy, leave the window down and the keys in the ignition and expect to find your car still there when you return. Something I wasn't keen to try with the Audi mind you. Other innovations in personal safety include turning up the home stereo so loud that the townies from out of town staying across the road in the 8 hectare block could swear that it was right outside their window, then going out for a bit. Nothing puts off a burglar more than some slow summer jams pumping out of the Aiwa. Pisses the neighbours right off too but hey who cares when you're not home to answer the door when they come a knockin aye?!

Still, despite its flaws, Gisbos is quite the lovely place. I was suitably impressed to see a large contingent of locals down at the recycling plant emptying their overflowing recycling bins four days out before the actual roadside collection takes place. Which probably says a lot about just how much piss gets drunk round here but also speaks volumes of just how conscientious some are in maintaining the idyllic feel Gisbos has.

Incidentally, Gisbos is not actually the official name of this town but I think it has a catchy ring to it that in time, could catch on like Paki's (Pak'n'Save) and Maccas. It may be, as my wife was at pains to point out, actually devoid of a gay community (unlike Lesbos) and thus a misnomer, but I've seen a few fruity numbers around the place and I ain't talking about orchards. But that’s Gisbos for you; not just a destination but a lifestyle choice.

Unless you're a Captain Kirk selling Persian rugs.

Helicopters and Wheelchairs

My god, aren’t helicopters magnificent? Now that’s usually only a call I’d make when describing two horses mating or voluptuous young breasts, but helicopters are right up there in terms of choiceness.

Choppers - as we ex-army types refer to them - could quite possibly be the best invention ever. Tanks would be a close second and fighter planes third, but choppers are the business. They’ve been using them every day at my place of work all this week which has pretty much meant an eight hour woody for me and Dougs each and every day.

Of course we had a lot of choppers in Nam, the place was full of them. There was so many that Lancey once woke up in the morning - after a night out looking for five dollar boom boom - in bed with one. Only our side had them, the Vietcong never did which was a good thing because it’s a little known fact that Asians don’t like heights or flying and that’s the reason why most of them are shorter than your average Caucasian. We loved riding in the choppers and there’s nothing quite exhilarating as taking a whizz from a chopper as it rips across the tree tops I can tell you. That's what really caused the deforestation in Nam, not that Agent Orange shit.

Have you been watching the Paralympics in China? Probably not, because most of the Western media packed up when the able bodied athletes did and got the hell out of Dodge. Admittedly I haven’t watched much but only because I can’t help but see the funny side of the Paralympics – which is terrible I know - but hey, at least I’m watching!

Take for instance the Woman’s 200 metres final. The leader arsed it about 20 metres from the end and given that she had a prosthetic leg fell in such a way that she spread herself across two lanes and scuttled the second place getter too. Third and fourth – a NZ girl – who thought they were long gone 20 metres from the end eventually finished in the medals! If that wasn’t mildly amusing (and it was) then the 5000 metres wheelchair race featured a 6 chair pile up on the home straight. Only five athletes finished the race and the medals were given out before the tournament committee decided to scrap the race and do it again later in the week.

Now a couple of questions remain unanswered regarding that balls up; Firstly those wheelchairs are like those all-terrain-take-up-the-whole-damn-footpath baby buggies that posh pricks buy and are almost virtually impossible to roll. So how did the first chick to crash get it oh so horribly wrong? Secondly if this happened in an able bodied cycle race would they have scratched the result and raced it again? No. It would have been oh dear, how sad, stiff shit.

And just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse than being the cause of the biggest wheelchair pile up since Auschwitz, the girl who eventually got disqualified (even from the rerun) because she fell in the path of everybody else gets penalised twice – once for falling and twice for having no legs and thus being unable to roll anywhere but in the way of the chasing peloton!

I’ll tell you who should be disabled, at least financially, are those rich pricks who run finance companies into the ground and walk away with their assets untouched. Man that’s just not right in my book. I was reading about the guy who was in charge of Lombard Finance, a failed company that owes its investors $127 million. This guy pulled down a salary of $400,000 a year. How the hell do you spend that much money let alone earn it? This guy didn’t spend his on luxury cars, he didn’t need to, they were part of his remuneration package – he got a new one every year!

I think the law needs to be changed so guys like this – who live blatant extravagant lifestyles before and after their companies collapse – should be accountable right up till the day every investor gets every cent back and if that takes years then so be it. He can start by cashing in on everything he bought with their money in the first place.

After all, if I went and took the prize money we’ve gathered for the winner of the Help Desk Massive Pool Comp and put it on some horse down at the TAB with long odds and lost, who should get indiscriminately pushed down four flights of stairs by assailant unknown; me or the nag?

China; Land of the Fugazi

Those sneaky sneaky Chinese. They might be cute, cuddly and ready to please but it only took about five minutes for old habits to kick in didn't it?

The little girl who sang at the opening ceremony was fake. The fireworks at the opening ceremony were fake. I think the whole freakin Olympics are fake. I don't think they're being held in China at all. I reckon it'll turn out to be like an episode of Lost and all the world's athletes have been kept on some island with giant panda bears whilst the fake Olympics took place. But then there’s no real surprise in that, China is fugazi central, they even make fake components to be used in fake appliances. When that blows up in your face you can buy fake medication to treat your not so fake injuries. No stone is left un-turned when it comes to faking it in China.

It can have its advantages though. I'm reminded of this one time, back in 'Nam, that DG Macca, Lancelot, Big Al and I were on covert sneak peak insertion near the Cambodian border and we stumbled across a platoon of Chinese crack troops all locked and loaded. They hadn't expected to see any G.I that close to the border and were actually all tucking into some flied lice and Cream of Sum Yung Gui when we came across them. Needless to say shit got real serious real fast, but luckily for us their AK-47s were fake.

Not everything that comes out of China is fake. Many of the world’s biggest labels, such as the adidas hoodie I'm wearing as I write this, are made in China. The irony is that a lot of the fake copies of the worlds biggest labels come from China too. I wouldn't be surprised if it turned out to be that the guys who produced the real stuff also had a hand in making the fugazi's too because there's a lot of money to be made in both that's for sure. Although quite what the Chinese will spend it all on is open for interpretation. Better haircuts? I don't think so.

Still, if any of our athletes at the fake Olympic Games need an emergency replacement pair of sneakers they can pop next door to the factory of ten year olds making them and help themselves.

Communist bum chums Russia seemed determined not to let their rent boy China have all the attention this month though. They decided to up and invade Georgia which is one of those little break away countries that you'd never know about unless they were invaded or were home to the world's most prolific serial killer. Unfortunately for the poor Georgians it appears as though the Russian AK47s are very real and they're getting a right fisting.

Team America has taken notice though and put the Russians in their rightful place by telling them they've all been naughty little boys. In fact, as soon as Michael Phelps has won his eight gold medals they're sending him over to sort it all out in a classic Yanks vs The Reds confrontation, the likes of which the world hasn't seen since we taught that Chinese platoon how we like to party like it's 1969.

So that leaves only one unanswered question. If Michael Phelps has size 14 feet and his arm span is bigger than he is tall, how big do you reckon his chopper is?

Neither Russian nor fake, apparently, is brunette model Dasha Astafieva, rumoured to be the latest bit of totty for one Mr Hugh Hefner. He likes what he sees so much that he’s reportedly invited her to come be his fourth concubine, much to the shock of his three resident blonde hand maidens. They don’t want another girl in the house quite possibly any more than Astafieva wants to play with a couple of walnuts in a stocking every fourth night but hey, you do what you have to do to get by these days.

Just like these poor kids, who have to stand together for the entire month of August otherwise shit just won’t make sense…

Eyes Wide Shut

I didn’t think anyone was that silly enough to buy into Lynx’s latest attempt at trying to convince average looking men everywhere that buying their deodorant – and it is only a deodorant – somehow enhances your ability to pull loose women. Until I saw the guy in the supermarket the other day with not one, but two packs of the ‘1 + 2 =3’ Lynx spray.

Lynx reckon that if you take one can and mix it with the second can then you get a whole new scent, which obviously must be too good, or flammable, to put in a can because if they could they’d be able to sell it separately and make a mint, wouldn’t they? I reckon they tried to bottle and name it, but unfortunately ‘fly spray’ was already in use. This is the stuff of Mensa really – mixing stuff to make something new. Why just the other day I took a dry chocolate powder, added hot water and mixed in some milk. The result was a refreshing beverage! Fuck me. I was going to demand the guy hand back his man card but i figured I’d save him a few bucks by offering him a ‘can 3’ I had at home. It’s actually oven cleaner with the label removed but I doubt he’ll catch on.

Lynx have proven that yet again, there’s one born every minute. Idiots that is, not Asians, although there probably is an Asian born every minute. The best news story I saw all week was the bit on the group of vigilante Asians in Auckland who are going to proactively end crime in the street when and where they see it. With martial arts apparently and not their command of the English language. The leader spoke passionately on TV3 news, he just wasn’t all that clear. He didn’t want his face shown so that the gang bangers wouldn’t know who he was but i reckon they’ll see him coming, he’ll be the one dressed like a ninja.

All jokes aside though I’m all for people taking back the streets. The Five O are clearly not having much luck, not for want of trying mind you, so not surprisingly we’re seeing more and more people offloading on the likes of taggers, boy racers and other such stand up citizens. I once took a ‘Which Comic Book Hero Are You’ quiz and I turned out to be The Punisher. Now that’s what I’m talking about. I read an article in a boy’s mag recently that priced the cost of forcibly taking over a third world country as a very cheap seven million NZ dollars. Fuck that’s do able. I’m starting a whip round as of Monday and when I have enough I’m going to fly in the 75 Saffa mercenaries, 60 AK47s and two Soviet helicopter gunships that buys me and then things are really going to kick off around here. Anyone wanting in please let me know – genuine enquiries only though, I’ve been burnt before when trying to put a small army together.

Speaking of crimes against society, the first and hopefully last season of the NZ version of ‘Stars in Their Eyes’, the show that brings you costumed karaoke, thankfully just came to an end. Now when I was a boy – I was raised as a young child incidentally – I used to love watching the UK version. Michael Barrymore used to host it, until he decided to drown one of his rent boys in his swimming pool. Surprisingly his career went downhill from there. Who would have thought, aye? The English version was tight, you actually had to sound like the person you were impersonating and if you got through to the final you had to sing a different song than the heat. If you happened to look like the artist after 4 hours of having makeup trowel led across your face then that was a bonus, but it was all about the singing.

The makers of our version didn’t seem so concerned that most of the contestants didn’t actually sound like the artist, which might be okay at a deaf 21st karaoke party – and I’ve been to one of those – but it would seem to be an oversight in a impersonation based talent show. The deaf 21st had a stripper too by the way. Yup. There’s nothing quite as erotic I tell you, as a petrified young lady in a g string trying to lap dance the birthday boy whilst closely circled in by a growling, grunting, gesticulating mob of deaf folk.

The finalists sung the same song they had in their heat and bizarrely, most of them didn’t even look like the star they were mimicking. The guy who wished he was doing George Michael was built like a shit brick house, the chick doing Tina Turner was actually born a man and goes by the stage name ‘Cindy of Samoa’ in real life, Roy Orbison was a pasty ginga with a nose like the Concorde and Billy Joel – the eventual grand final winner – did look a little like him but only if the real BJ gains about 30kg. All of which made for several episodes of quite possibly the shittiest TV ever produced here. And yet it was so bad I couldn’t help but not watch to see what was coming next. It was ‘2 girls 1 cup’ all over again, only with Simon Barnett, who freakishly still doesn’t look a day over 15.

Sadly the best performer for my mind was the Christian girl who did an awesome Melissa Etheridge. She loved the songs she admitted, but couldn’t agree with Melissa drinking from the furry cup like she does. Oh the irony.

Back On The Wards

Regular visitors to Clubdes – yes, all four of you – will have noticed that the right hand side of this page hasn’t been updated this week. Rest assured its not through lack of inspiration because we at ClubDes are blessed with a fertile mind, unfortunately the body is not so well endowed. Except for the huge chopper that is.

So we’re back on the wards for another 10 days of fun filled excitement in what I like to think was a pre-planned sabotage of my last course of treatment by all the hot nurses who never got to give me the bed bath they were all clearly gagging for. That’s my story anyway and I’m sticking to it. Coincidentally, although I’m on a different ward this time round, I did notice my old murse Arvind had transferred wards too and he still has that glint in his eye…

It was quite the surprise to find that I was no longer on the ward where all the cool kids hang out. It was even more of a surprise to find that Ward 16 has a higher mortality rate than 17. Considering that two people died on my last visit to Ward 17 I’ve been expecting to witness a steady stream of bodies to start trucking their way past my room each day. It hasn’t eventuated and to date there have been no deaths which is even more amazing considering that in the week that I’ve been there I’ve been given the wrong medication - not once, but twice - and have even been ‘misplaced’ by my duty nurse. Admittedly I was on my bed the whole time but my room is a big place, I can see how she missed me there.

Infact it’s been all rather quiet and dare I say it – peaceful. That was until the lady with explosive diarrhea moved into the room next to me and started using the bathroom we share. There’s nothing quite as invigorating as hearing someone ablute throughout the day, especially when it sounds like they’re exploding every time they take a dump. To her credit though, despite sounding like a espresso machine on steroids, I never found the toilet in such a state as to look like one, so she either cleaned up big time or it was all for show. Thankfully her stay was a short one and my carzie has returned to sole occupancy.

The Beijing Olympic committee is my other neighbors. An elderly Asian lady is in Room 1 and true to form, so are 47 members of her immediate family. My Chinese is not what it should be but they seem to be coping well despite the space restrictions. I'm best placed for when the food starts cooking though, I'll be first in line for a Number 5 and some wantons.

What a multicultural world we live in aye? Why at this very moment I am typing this in an Internet cafe run by a Somalian couple. They run the wig and hair extension shop next door too which is handy really because I'm in the market for some braids. Unfortunately I still have the remnants of the ADHD boy haircut my wife gave me a few weeks back so it's going to have to be my pubes this time round.

Back on the ward there is a large Maori nurse that spends her evenings phoning the whanau from the front desk right outside my room and speaks to all 23 of them in turn. Sometimes they discuss the content of the Ngati Porou website she spends the rest of her shift surfing. And I can’t forget the Chuman who bought me mandarins (the fruit, not the people) on his visit with the Help Desk Massive last week.

So it’s fair to say that yet again, it’s been emotional. I can’t say that I’ve found this visit quite as inspirational as the last but I have had a few small highlights, my sexy blue eyed blonde Saffa physio, Sam, being one.

She’s worth getting sick again for.

Fancy a Twistie Nurse?

A man can get through a lot of thinking when spending two weeks hold up in a hospital. He can get through a lot of masturbation too, especially when he has a resourceful mate like DougalMac who smuggles him in a stickmag and a jumbo bag of Twisties*.

The thought occurred to me whilst in there, that hospital life is in some ways much like what I imagine prison life to be. Basic, almost primal, metaphorically speaking. In both institutions, life is stripped back to the most simplistic of human instincts; survival. In both places who or what you are on the outside is irrelevant because it doesn’t count for anything once you’re in there. Hospitals are the most maternal of places - for most of us life starts in one and for most of us life will also end in one. The circle of life at it’s simplest really, the exiled programme returns to its source. If you’re not in hospital to die then you’re probably there to be healed, like a child returning to its Mother because it’s hurt itself in the playground that is life.

It’s really some deep shit when you think about it and I did, whilst on some pretty good drugs I might add.

There’s no fearing the shower in hospital of course. Any bum fun whilst going about your ablutions is going to have to be either a) of your own making, or b) if you’re the bedridden type patient who has assisted showers, you may be able to sweet talk the nurse into giving you a cheeky ring finger before she’s done. I did ask actually, but none of the female nurses were up for it. Murse Arvin on the other hand had a mischievous glint in his eye. I always made sure to shower before his shift started. Incidentally liquid soap is on offer in hospital showers, which struck me as a great idea for prisons, as it would take away that whole mystique of ‘dropping the soap’. Probably wouldn’t make much difference though, I suspect a resourceful buggerer would still find a use for liquid soap….

Nurses have a tough profession. Not only are they chronically understaffed and underpaid - like so many of our essential government services – but they do a job that is potentially, intrinsically speaking, void of fulfilment. Their daily work is to care for people who are at the very lowest ebb of their being, people who are sick, needy and a pale version of their true self. A nurse’s job is only done when that person is fit and well enough to leave and return to their normal lives again, meaning that there’s a good chance that the Nurse never really got to know or see the person for who they really were at all, despite having just been a surrogate mother of sorts to them whilst they regained their health. It’s a thankless job really.

I told you the drugs were good, this is some of my best work.

Now being in full control of all my faculties I was able to chat with all my nurses at length and they loved it. I can only imagine that they don’t get a lot of chances to talk about stuff of genuine interest - whether it be about themselves, their families, their work or just shit on TV - when you’re changing the sheets at 2am on the old lady next door who has soiled herself again, or propping up the morbidly obese smoker guy in the shower each morning. The nursing students in particular were gagging for conversation; they spent most of their time so petrified that they were going to fuck up taking my blood pressure and temperature that any distraction for them was a welcome one.

Nurses, like Cops, are a resource that we woefully undervalue. Why do we let successive politicians and governments continue to neglect the very people who do the jobs that are so essential to the wellbeing of society? Half of my nurse force was from Asia, from countries like the Philippines and Malaysia, that are subject to recruitment drives by our district health boards because there’s just no staff to be found here. Admittedly the career choices for young women in New Zealand these days are huge and nursing is not the bastion of potential employment it once was, but you have to believe that if Nurses were paid better and given the kind of resources you and I, the office wasters, have each day, then overseas recruitment would be minimal. Meanwhile, seven fat parliamentarians with small peckers – even the ladies –are off on an all expenses paid trip to Europe at the cost of two new Nurses. Go figure.

We could sure do with some more lookers on the wards too. Oh there were a few alright, but ironically I only ever had a ridicously good looking nurse on the night shift. Whilst I was asleep! Physiotherapy on the other hand is a branch of medicine that is blessed with more than it’s share of attractive young ladies, many of whom I am sure signed on so that they could end up squeezing the hips, thighs and buttocks of many a buff athlete. Instead what they got for the last 10 days was old ClubDes with his dodgy lungs and an orange stiffy under the ever so thin bed sheet. Oh yeah.

Actually my physio was an Asian man with eczema. Unfortunately, no matter how hard I tried, the drugs weren’t so good that I could hallucinate him into a blue eyed blonde girl with soft, curious hands.

*Alas, DougalMac’s fine efforts were in vain. Unfortunately print porn stopped doing it for me back in my teens, but the articles in the mag were actually quite good - I kid you not – so it wasn’t a complete waste. My wife ate the whole bag of Twisties too and rather disappointingly never once offered to give me a wank.

Cheque Book Loyalty

ClubDes has opened its doors again this week after a brief hiatus away in the very unlike Las Vegas town of RotoVegas. I’ve never been to Las Vegas but unless it’s full of Asians and hories and stinks of arse then I reckon I’m safe in assuming the two are quite unalike.

It’s called Rotovegas because it pulls the tourists, has the bright lights, has the shows etc. It really should be called RotoAnus though, on account that it smells like one and you'll be paying top tourist dollar through yours at every attraction you visit. They really should give a discount to those that can rock up with a NZ passport I reckon because $50 for a three second tumble in a ball of bubble wrap is a bit cheeky. Even if you do add a bucket of tepid water to lube it all up, quite frankly I’ve had more fun flushing whilst I sat on the shitter.

Still, there’s always the joy of handling your extended family’s washing whilst on a shared holiday to look forward to. There’s nothing quite like a spot of ‘compare the gusset stains’ as you hang everything on the line each morning. I couldn’t help but notice as I did, that my brother in law Bruiser single handily keeps the Asian sweat shop industry running with his excessive label bashing; Calvin Klein grundies, Nike bike shorts and adidas outer shorts. And that was just one days washing!

But then I can understand why he layers up like he does. It’s all down to a traumatic event he had whilst wearing the stubbies that were compulsory PE attire back in our college days. It was no coincidence that those that decided on the dress code back then were a bunch of homoerotic men who called themselves the Board of Trustees and all of whom longed to see all young men clad in thigh revealing, ball hugging short shorts. These shorts were unnaturally high cut and gave new meaning to the term ‘the cut lunch’.

Many of us didn’t know whether to laugh or applaud the day Bruisers left plum broke free of the flimsy mesh netting and came to rest on the polished hardwood floor. The young Bruiser was advanced stage of physical development for a boy of his age and whilst we longed for the day our manbags resembled walnuts in a sock, his were coconuts on a tree. They still are he assures me, just a little less milk than there used to be. I’m happy to take his word for it.

There’s nothing better than a game of backyard cricket to bring the family together whilst on holiday, that is until some Captain Hard Out prick bowls a few beamers and stuffs it up for everyone. Personally, I bring a test match attitude to the crease in such fixtures and give nothing away until I’ve reached an epic hundred or the game has ended due to boredom, which ever comes first.

I enjoy playing the game but I stopped watching cricket or rather specifically New Zealand play cricket, several years ago. If you want to see delusion in action, than look no further than the way cricket is marketed to the masses in this country. Cricket in New Zealand relies solely on the past reputation of guys who played 20 – 30 years ago to get the support it does. Martin Crowe was the last really good player we had and even though he played on one leg with no hair for the last few seasons, was still a cut above fully fit players. It was about this time that tossers like Adam Parore started believing that they were really, really, really ridiculously good looking, not to mention good at cricket and it’s about then that the bullshit started and I turned off.

Cricket these days is a lottery, plain and simple. Countries play each other so often no one keeps count. The result should be decided at the toss prior to play and everyone can save themselves the eight hours in between. NZ would benefit from this because we might win more games than we actually do and it would have the added bonus of removing the one certainty in world cricket today: everyone will get their personal best figures whilst playing NZ.

So no surprise to see Shane Bond took the money and ran like he did this past week. I wasn’t surprised but that doesn’t make it right, but then I remember a time when ‘loyalty’ meant more than a crumpled bit of cardboard that if stamped 27 times means you get a free coffee. Loyalty is watching the next four seasons of Lost, no matter how ridiculous it gets, because you took the time to watch the first three. What else are you going to do when it’s on anyway? Have a wank?

Bond is it doing it for the money which is the way of the world isn’t it? Fair enough, but I say he’s a prick for doing so, albeit a rich one now and by walking away from your country you kick in the pink bits every coach, volunteer, supporter and administrator who gave up their time in helping you get where you are today. There payback was watching you do the bizzo for the national team so unless you’re cutting them in on your dirty money than you are what you are, you prick.

I live in hope that if he every turns up in RotoAnus they fleece him for everything he’s got.

I Like To Watch

Do you think that someone should tell Terri Irwin that she doesn’t need to wear the whole khaki outfit anymore? If its functionality she wants then blue and grey camo is both functional and fashionable. Khaki I’m afraid, is neither.

It has been a few days since I last blogged, the four of you that read this (not counting myself) may have noticed. I have been busying myself with watching the great man David Beckham play football and rather more disturbingly, having dreams involving close mates and their girlfriends.

In my latest, Big Gay Ray, who is not really gay, he’s only it for the monthly subscription to Does My Bum Look Big In This? mag, was showing us all at work a photo of his missus sleeping in the nude. The photo is taken from the top of her head (she’s lying down, face up) and has Ray at the foot of the bed with his thumbs up and a look on his face that says “Yeah, here’s a photo of my missus sleeping naked, score!”

But that’s not the weird bit. I want to know who took the photo? It’s not Ray, cause he’s at the foot of the bed and his missus is asleep so either the camera was on a timer, or there was a second pervert in the room. I'd take it up with him but seeing as the whole thing is a figment of my imagination it might not go down too well.

I used to work with a guy who would regularly hand round Polaroid’s of his missus in the buff. He had that same look on his face too. Obviously its cool to have watch other guys ogle your naked girlfriend. I can’t say that I’m rushing off to set up the camera in our bedroom just yet, but who knows, if the lighting is right and the mood is set?

This girl was attractive enough but always drunk or comatose in the photos, which kind of makes it illegal for him to be taking photos methinks. And he was always going on about how she was a ‘psycho bitch’. Gee I wonder if that was because she heard he was passing around nudie pix of her?!

Why does shit keep getting smaller?

Like Tim Tam balls and mini bite size versions of all the crap food you’d normally buy whole but get sucked into buying smaller portions because you think you’re eating less. Ever notice how you end up paying more for the smaller portions though? The food companies want you to think that they’re doing their bit in fighting obesity by making every thing smaller, but it all counts for shit when you have to buy double to make up for the fact you’re still as hungry as fuck.

Speaking of small balls, my wife believes there is a direct link to my up-tightness and the size of my man fruit. Her theory is that every time my anus puckers in anger i.e. every time I blog, it shrinks my manberries on account of the two being connected. So much like Tim Tam balls, mine are now available in minuscule but the good news is you can eat more of them. Now that’s what I call portion control.

Asians are great for making shit smaller. The ones that live across the street from me aren’t into small as much as they are into secretive. You hardly ever see them but I’d swear there are about 30 people living in the one house. Why just today they managed to move one sibling out and an entire trailer load of his stuff, without even lifting the garage door any higher than the bowl they cut their hair with.

I did once catch a glimpse inside their garage and I was surprised to see the thing was full of car tyres. I was expecting bags of rice but no, piles and piles of car tyres. I suspect they’re making them in there, that’s why the curtains are always shut. Pure uncut retread manufacture, it’s middle New Zealand’s latest epidemic. I’m actually damn tempted to go over and ask if they have any that will fit the ol’ passion wagon just quietly but I don’t want to let on I’ve spied on them whilst lying on the floor, under the coffee table, in our lounge just so they couldn’t see me.

Who doesn’t like to watch aye? Why just the other day I found myself in quite the predicament. Whilst closing the curtains I noticed the next door neighbours teenage daughter and her friend alone in their room, in their pyjamas, playing Singstar. Because they were in their pyjamas I knew it wouldn’t be long before they started stripping down to their grundies, shaving each others legs, having pillow fights and probably practising their pashing. I’ve seen enough girlie product ads to know that that’s what girls do when having a sleep over. My god was I tempted to turn the light out and watch.

And then Big Gay Ray appeared in their window with his thumbs up….or was that just another one of my dreams?

Dumb and Dumber

I’ve got a great idea for a TV game show. Its working title is ‘Blind Root’, which may be a bit ‘edgy’ so I’m open to suggestions at this early stage of planning.

The premise will be that each week one contestant has several sexual encounters (all on camera of course), whilst wearing a blindfold and then has to rate their performance. Then back at the studio they have to work out who was who by simply playing with their bits. If contestant number one picks his / her best Blind Root they get syphilis as a prize. If not, they don’t go home empty handed, they get pubic lice from one of the more mediocre roots.

This is not a new concept of mine. I’ve actually had this idea for some time but I’ve had renewed hope it will make it to TV this week after seeing them kooky Koreans choose their nations first astronaut by reality game show. It was an Astronaut Idol type concept and I hope there’s a second instalment for when all the astronauts are up in space; Who Gets To Come Home? idol. Now that would make for some good viewing and seeing as it’s a mission funded by the Ruskies, the chances of them running out of cash half way is not as far fetched as it would seem.

Them Asians really know how to do reality TV game shows though. Most of theirs involve self torture, or pain and that makes for good TV, especially in Asia where they like to bury their European girls in bath tubs of sand on the apartment room balcony. Here in New Zealand we just do idiocy on our shows, like Are You Smarter Than A 10 Year Old, copied from the American show of the same format.

Actually the first episode set all sorts of new viewer ship records here because all the paedophiles tuned in thinking it was called “Are You Tighter Than A 10 Year Old”. Needless to say they quickly realised their error and returned to trawling Bebo and Facebook.

This is entertainment at its lowest ebb. You take several shit for brain adults and prove just how thick they are. Everyone watching feels great because they realise they’re not as thick as the contestant and the kids on the show, the real stars, feel great because they know they're not as thick as the contestants. It must be one hell of an audition process. I would never have believed that we have so many dip shits in New Zealand but obviously I was wrong, for once in my life.

It can't be easy being labelled like homemade jam. You’d think that if you were slightly slow the last thing you’d want is for the van you’re riding in to read ‘Special Needs School’ in big letters along the side, wouldn’t you? I couldn’t help but feel sorry for the van load of spastics I passed on the way home the other day riding in just such a van. Man, they can’t even have a quiet dribble in the van without being labelled for all to see. I did wonder though if the ones sitting at the back thought they were getting a longer ride home....

I am dubious of reality shows though and of just how much editing goes into the process. Some folk are suckers for a good dose of edited make believe, like all those that watch rubbish like Sensing Bullshit or any other show that deals with ‘mediums’ solving anything. Just watching it wouldn’t be so bad I reckon but when people actually believe that what they’re seeing is groundbreaking stuff then that gets on my tits.

No medium or physic has ever been attributed with helping to solve a crime. Ever. Not just here in NZ but in the world. Now if that’s not definitive proof that the edited, scripted, shake stuff off camera to make it move production you just watched is the biggest work of fiction since the bible then what is? The reason this rubbish is on prime time telly and not buried in the twilight hours where only the kiddie fiddlers surfing Bebo would watch it, is because too many potential contestants for Are You Denser Than A 10 Year Old tune in and cop out at 8.30pm!

Mind you, the scariest thing I’ve seen on the box for quite some time was an ad for David Gray’s Best Of CD. I didn’t even know that Mr Elevator Themes had one hit song, let alone enough of them to make a whole collection of 10 – 12 tracks. I reckon guys like Gray, James Blunt and NZ's own Greg Johnson should all be locked in a room together with a few empty 1.2 litre Coke bottles and be forced to listen to each others songs.

The last dude standing who hasn’t hung himself with his own guitar chords gets to be a contestant on Blind Root.

Mail Order Bride Awareness Week

Ever notice how every week seems to be Something Awareness week?

I reckon there has to be more awareness weeks now than there are actual weeks in the year. I forgot what this week’s was only moments after hearing it because I’ve become so immune to them. It may have been Hyperspadia Awareness Week actually. Who knows?!

It could be Mail Order Bride Awareness week though judging by the turnout I witnessed at my local mall the other night. Either that or a catalogue delivery had just arrived. I counted several such couples in roughly a 30 metre radius whilst dining at the food court and quite frankly it made me gag. Admittedly that usually happens when I eat food that’s sat under heat lamps for a day but this was more than campylobacter at work.

Once upon a time it was only the filthy rich dirty old man that could afford to fly over to the Far East and bring home their favourite hand maiden. But now the perversion has become a phenomenon and you don’t need to be rich to get one these days, just filthy. I know why this has happened though. We’ve all had our barren spells and contemplated paying for it, or begging a good friend for a pity shag, or even done stuff to a cooked chicken we’re not proud of - desperate times can call for desperate measures. But now the desperate have the Internet to thank for allowing them to make a life partner out of someone who looks only marginally like the picture they posted.

Ting Tong benefits of course. She gets whisked off her tiny little Asian feet by the man who looks only marginally like the picture he posted, to a life away from the overcrowded, poverty ridden country where she spends her days cooking and cleaning and giving five dollar boom boom. Now she spends her days in clean green New Zealand, cooking and cleaning and giving five dollar boom boom. Not quite fairytale stuff, but close.

Don’t get me wrong – I don’t begrudge anyone their happiness and whatever gets you through the day is fine by me, but its not real happiness is it? Is now buying a five kg bag of rice at the supermarket every week to be used in every meal you eat worth it? Is it satisfying to have a totally subservient spouse who feels they owe you a happy ending every time because you rescued them from their predicament? Why not just buy a doll; it’s certainly a cheaper option? It’s definitely a sad day when it’s easier to pick a mail order marriage in a crowd than it is a Brethren – and they dress up!

If you had a Brethren themed party do you think actual Brethren would try and gate crash it? It wouldn’t be long for them to be ousted if they did though; they’d know a little too much about the faith to pass for fakes I reckon.

Anyhoo, the stereotypical guy in the ThaiBride scenario is usually an older gentleman and I can sympathise with their lack of alternatives as they get on in their years. And I’m all for respecting your elders and allowing the older generation certain liberties as a sign of respect, like allowing them to go ahead of me in the supermarket or bank queue. But I draw the line at cutting them slack when they do the idiotic things that only old people do, like driving dangerously or crossing the main road when the traffic lights are green. Ever noticed how that seems to happen a lot?! Just because you’re old doesn’t mean that the rules of the land are wavered whenever your tight sphincter leaves the house.

Case in point - the older couple who decided they were exempt from such rules when they jay walked their way through the two main roundabouts in J Town on the weekend. Completely oblivious to all but what their tunnel vision allows them to see, they missed the fact that there was a pedestrian crossing several metres back up the road that was put there to allow safe passage through the high speed arterial route. A fact I would not have needed to point out to them had I hit them with my passion wagon as they would have then been lying on the said crossing.

I suspect the woman’s Depend undergarments paid for themselves given the sound horning I gave them both. By the look on her face I dare say the white linen trousers (that all older women seem to wear on the weekends) wouldn’t have fared so well though. For my troubles I got that one index finger gesture that all old people give. What is that exactly? It’s not the bird and it’s not the fingers. It’s just a point. What up wit dat?

All humour aside, it was a fucken close call, even by my Ninja reflex standards and it proves a point, that just because you’re old, you don’t have to be ignorant. You don’t have to order a Ting Tong online either, but if it keeps you away from the cooked chickens at Woolies, then so be it.