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...

Don't Text And Drive

Have you spotted anyone using their cellphone whilst driving yet?

Better yet, if you have did you dob the buggers in? I have and did so today and what made it even the more sweeter was that it was one of those a-typical pricks who think they are the authority on everything and therefore above the law; a middle aged balding dude in a desperately dated BMW. Tosser.

Apparently the first few days have been reasonably offence free which is a good thing, but lets be honest, it won't be long before old habits return and the cellphones in cars start a ringing. I've been waiting for mine to ring because my lovely wife has a habit of texting me when she knows I'm driving and then ringing two minutes later to see why it is exactly I haven't replied to her text.

Sadly, it will be around this point that the Five-O will start getting bad press for ticketing cellphone user drivers and undoubtedly, one of the best laws passed in ages will become, in the eyes of the lawbreakers only, a money making exercise. Middle aged balding dudes in desperate dated European cars will be the most vociferous of the lawbreakers, making outlandish statements when faced with a ticket and demerit like "Why don't you jokers go and catch some real criminals and stop wasting my time".

Of course the irony of the situation will be lost on the man who hasn't actually seen his own penis for some time...

The thing I like about this law is that it's proof that if we really want to, we can change things to protect ourselves. Despite what the knockers say, making it illegal to chat on the trouser phone whilst driving is a damn good thing and it's such a simple step to have taken you have to wonder why the fuck we didn't do it sooner.

Now we can start on the other stuff that puckers a few sphincters; like banning alcohol advertising that glorifies getting pissed - which is most of it. Have you ever noticed how advertising for alcohol made overseas is seldom about getting comatose like ours, but more about an attitude or way of life?

While we're at it we can reinstate the legal drinking age back to twenty, given now that most of seem to be prepared to admit lowering it was a mistake. That particular exercise was a bit like lighting your own fart wasn't it? Great in theory, but one scalded, blistered gooch later and suddenly it's not so cool.

Then we can start on shitty food advertising which is aimed at making our kids of today tomorrows Biggest Loser. Am I the only one who can't help but think that the rise in popularity of cooking shows (so much so that we even now have dedicated cooking channels) has helped influence not only waist lines, but an entire industry and series of TV shows around - wait for it - losing weight. It's a conspiracy I tell you.

And hey, if you haven't spotted anyone using their cellphone whilst driving yet then don't despair, there will be a middle aged, balding guy in a BMW just around the corner.

And So A New Year Dawns...Time For A Piss Up

Another New Year's has come and gone, that time of the year where one can reflect in the achievements of the past 12 months and look forward to the challenges that await in the next 12.

Unless you're between the ages of 16 and 20 it's just another excuse for a mass piss up and let’s face it, what isn't an excuse for a mass piss up when you're that age? Even the funeral of a mate who died whilst driving drunk at just such a mass piss up doesn't seem to be an occasion completely unworthy of a mass piss up. Especially not in Featherston, where before Chrissy the mourners of just such a mate decided to engage in the same activity that led to his untimely death - drunken burnouts. Their homage to a fallen fuckstick. Stupid, it does seem, is as stupid does.

I went to Featherston for a 21st once. Now Featherston may be many things but party central it is not. We stayed in the cheapest hotel I have ever been in - $10 a night and $3 pints in the bar downstairs, which you could order with your breakfast if you were so inclined. Now ours was not the only 21st on that night and the place being as small as it is, it wasn't long before the three par-taes combined to form a mass piss up.

Prospects for my night looked good early on as I kept bumping into the sexy young bird who was rooming in the single room directly across from mine, but unbeknownst to me she was from Lesbos, something I only fully cottoned on to after seeing her hook into the sexiest mullet I had ever seen. Even then I still rated my chances in pulling them both as high, thanks to the $3 pints.

It was pleasing to see that both the road toll and arrest rate over the holiday period was down though. Obviously the message is getting through to some and the hard work put in by the Fuzz is starting to play off. Not that anyone at the TV3 news department wanted to admit it and give the cops due credit; they tried to attest the lower road toll to high petrol prices. Sure, it may well be one of several factors that may have helped contribute but it's a slim one at best; idiots on the road are still idiots even when petrol prices are high.

And everyone seemed to be well behaved whilst they partied like it was 1999, except for the usual places where youth, booze and the enhanced prospect of sexy time always proves to be a dangerous mix. Were things as bad as they are now in places like The Mount before the legal drinking age was lowered? Fucked if I know but wouldn't it be interesting if it were only all those MPs who voted to lower the drinking age several years ago who had their cars trashed, letterboxes pulled out, gardens pissed on and their sleep disrupted by running street parties every time there was a mass piss up?

There was no danger of me making a fool of myself this New Year, just like there hasn't been for the last 10 years. My last big New Year's was the time the Ariki Street massive and I sojourned to New Plymouth as part of our North Island road trip. It was one helluva night by all accounts, but I wouldn't actually know. That night I partied alone in our motel room because I'm such a special guy.

The real reason I stayed in with a full bottle of Jim Beam and the 1000 top songs of ‘99 countdown on MTV was because the only picture ID I had on me all trip was my 18+ card, which, despite being legal proof that I was infact over 18, was never ever accepted by any bastard of a bouncer. Honestly it was more than a hassle for me to try and get in anywhere with one than it was without. That's the price you pay for youthful good looks I guess.

Most of the gang stumbled back into the room in the wee early hours to find me singing illegibly into an empty bottle of bourbon. Common consensus by the morning though was that I had had a better night than most.

What can I say? I know how to party, even when I’m alone.

Beer. It's whats for breakfast.

I got spam mail the other day reminding me that now is the time to vote for Miss Tui 2008 – that great competition that allows pooh chicks, who are always being told by inebriated guys how hot they are, to find out that they’re actually not.

Now its not really spam, because it’s not unsolicited. I signed up for it years ago and although I could, I never quite seem to get round to unsubscribing from the Tui mailing list and I know full well why it is that I don’t. It’s because I’m a sucka. And a fool. A sucka fool . And those of you fluent in jive like I am don’t need to be told what that means.

I’ve been well sucked in by the chief weapon of the Beer Barons, which is fear. A fear that is perpetuated by an advertising campaign that convinces sucka fools like me that if I don’t drink their firewater than I am never going to be a party boy, I’m never going to score the type of chicks that allegedly work in the Tui brewery – they don’t actually because I’ve been there and the girl behind the counter was decidedly A for average – I’m never going to be funny and cool and I’m never going to get any closer to scoring than a bag of Twisties and a Sky 1 late night movie.

Which is all a load of shit and I should know better but yet, somehow, they got me by the seedless grapes all those years ago and now I can’t bring myself to unsubscribe. Perhaps it’s because I enjoy a free perv as much as the next guy, who knows. But it will come as no surprise to you, the reader, to hear me say that I believe we have a drinking problem here in New Zealand. It is predominately a young persons thing but lets not get ageist here; I’ve seen and know of some pretty pickled middle agers too, some of which decided to lower the drinking age a few years back in a moment of clarity that can only be attributed to them being pissed at the time.

We do have a drinking culture and as life gets more and more demanding and the perceived need to fit in and be as popular as fuck grows, you can bet your arse more and more will be consumed. Advertising glorifying beer and its properties doesn’t help. I’m all for freedom of speech and all that rubbish but I reckon it’s time to pull the plug on beer ads. Lets be honest, nobody drinks beer for the taste, its drunk for effect. The pricks make enough money as it is tanking up our kids so why should we allow them to make it look cool when we all know it isn’t. No one ever projectile vomits on those ads, or wets themselves because they can’t get off the couch in time, or plows their ridiculously modified high performance car into two eighty year olds coming home from their 60th wedding anniversary celebration. Wonder why they don’t show that on them thar ads?

A couple of the local dirty girls were on the current affairs program Sunday the other day talking about how common it is these days to be shagging on the first hook up. It’s the done thing, apparently. They were experts on the matter, they’d all had several and that was just that week and they were all very ho hum about the whole thing too, almost teetering on the brink of being bored with the whole concept. “Crikey”, I thought to myself after coming to the realisation that I unfortunately knew none of them, ‘it’s a sad day when sex with strangers becomes boring!”

And let me just say this: I think I pay them a service by calling them ‘dirty girls’ because that has a connotation to it that implies they are actually a bit of alright. These slappers were far from alright. Good from afar springs to mind.

Where were girls like this in my day?! Oh That’s right, they were busy bettering themselves for a future whilst it was we the boys who got shitfaced in the bizarre belief that by being inebriated we would do away with all our awkwardness around anything in a skirt and become instantly attractive to the girl we’d been masturbating all term over. What we actually ended up being was the same bunch of dickheads who still couldn’t put four words together and now smelt of nothing but piss – the bottled variety and quite probably our own because we’d been too tanked to think about not standing out of the wind when having a slash out the back of Bedrocks.

But thankfully the girls of today are making it easier for the boys by getting comatose on booze real quick, real often. Isn’t equality a wonderful thing? Somehow I can’t imagine that’s what Kate Sheppard had in mind all those years ago as she battled to have woman given the right to vote in this country.

I think we as New Zealanders, by definition, are a conservative bunch. We were raised by even straighter parents who themselves fancied a flagon or two. We drink to allow some of the defences we put up come down so that we can say the things we wouldn’t normally say and do the things we normally wouldn’t. Which is fine, hey that’s the purpose of alcohol, to relax oneself, but there comes a point where we cross that line and become a danger to those around us and most importantly ourselves. Too many of our young, beautiful, smart young women are now crossing that line because unfortunately it’s become blurred. Big time.

But it’s not just their fault, there are so many things that cause this need to get hammered and therefore need to change – some of them I’ve covered in previous blogs – but not letting the breweries take the piss, out of us drinking their piss, would be a bloody good start. If we can ban advertising and sponsorship by anything smoking we can do it with anything drinking.

I’ll even unsubscribe from receiving my Tuigram. Right after I’ve voted for Miss Tui 08.


Miss Tui 2008? Homemade bikini optional.