More Of The Penguin Please.

Fuck I’m over Paul Henry aye.

Is there a more annoying, less interesting and completely unfunny person the moment? Even ‘Happy Feet’ the penguin is imminently more interesting at this point in time although one thing bothers me about that too; why did they call him ‘Happy Feet’ because that’s the name of movie, not a character in it? Go figure.

When the whole Henry getting the sack thing went down it was big news. It shouldn’t have been, but in this country where the media companies love to turn on each other when there’s a monumental fuck up by one i.e. Tony Wifebeater Veitch, it was. That much I could understand but the story just hasn’t gone away despite getting real boring, real quick.

I’ve had urinary tract problems that have been more interesting and amusing, than Paul Henry. Except maybe the one time it burned; there wasn’t a lot of humor in that.

Now he’s got a book out, has been on 60 Minutes in a ‘tell all’ interview and is on the radio and probably back on a salary that you and I can only dream of. Yeah, he’s been doing it tough all right. Mr Vintage even does a ‘lady with a mustache’ tee shirt. Clearly they’re pro Henry otherwise they would have one that had a picture of him with the word ‘dikshit’ above it. I’d buy that one.

Anyhoo, can we please be done already? Let’s see more of the fucken penguin or something. Anything.

That is a dick on a tee shirt.

Best / Worst of 2009 Lists

Are complete shit and a waste of time.

Not just for the geezer who compiles one, but for those of us who have the misfortune to read it, but then that’s why at this time of the year every bastard is doing one, because they can’t really be bothered coming up with something original.

These lists are also two things; subjective and irrelevant.

Subjective because opinions are like assholes, everyone has one. Your best film of the year is likely to appeal to you for the same reasons I can’t stand it, so it’s not so much about the list as it is about how cool the compiler thinks they are and believe me, there are a lot of dicks out there who think they’re cool.

Irrelevant because chances are you, like I, were actually here on Earth for most of 2009 and not on Dagobah (in the Sluis sector), so it’s highly likely that there will be nothing new for you on the list. And hey, if it wasn’t the shizz back in June then putting it on a ‘Best of’ list six months later doesn’t make it any the more cooler.

‘Best of the Decade’ lists are even worse, for all the aforementioned reasons and are usually heavily weighted with stuff that happened only in the last few years, because Mr Ice making the list can’t actually remember back further than that. What a peen-arse.

So in the spirit of useless lists compiled at the end of the year, here is mine, only it’s not a ‘Best Of’, it’s a list of shit I really hope we see less of in 2010:

1. Amy Winehouse
2. Talk of the 2011 Rugby World Cup
3. Talk of the All Blacks winning the 2011 RWC
4. Rugby in general
5. Lists
6. The guy at my work who keeps trying to make Facebook friends with everyone in the building
7. Wife beater Veitch
8. Poo chicks doing anything to be noticed
9. Munters taking advantage of the above poo chicks
10. Lisa Lewis (although I wouldn’t mind seeing a bit more than just the ‘guided tour’ pics she has on her webpage...)

You Can't Buy Redemption Tony

Sneaky 'ol Wifebeater Vietch, he nearly pulled it off didn't he?

He nearly had us all forgiving him and dare I say it, feeling for the guy after his early guilty plea in court this week thus saving everybody a drawn out, expensive court case. He gave an emotional speech outside court where he told how dreadful he's felt ever since that day and that same evening Harae Mai John Campbell just about had him in tears in an exclusive interview. It was so emotional that I for one stopped bashing my wife to watch.

Yes, it was a big day alright and it seemed like that Smack My Bitch Up Veitchy was well on the path to redemption. Why even in the Campbell Live interview - where he showed that he’s just as annoying as an interview as he is when the interviewer - he was even promising legal action over the many factions of the media who cracked a huge fat when the story first broke and got so excited at the prospect of tearing apart one of their own just plain made shit up.

Now on this one tiny aspect I'm in favour of Tony the Muss. I don't condone what he did and personally I think someone should have the opportunity of kicking him in his midget back just as hard, or harder, than he did his ex missus. But if there’s one thing I hate its people that profligate mis-information under the guise of 'news'. And this case was full of it. The NZ Herald for example, the newspaper that some folk (most of who live in Auckland where the Herald is the delivered it should be remembered) rate as the best in the country, churned out a ton of crap that was factually incorrect. Now that might not make them the best paper in the land but unfortunately they are the biggest and that means a lot of impressionable people took what they printed as gospel.

Radio Live, the radio station that is quite possibly only listened to by the deaf and could easily be renamed 'Wankers Live' and no one would bat an eyelid, allowed some of its hosts to embellish the facts of the case and thus make their ranting and empty promises of 'ruining Veitch' sound all the more reasonable. I don't actually know anyone who listens to Wankers Live but there have to be a few and unfortunately that means more counter knowledge has found its way into tea rooms and lounges up and down the country.

So, now somewhat in the clear, Veitchy is promising to take to the cleaners the very media he not so long ago he was gagging to be a part of again. That seems genuine doesn't it? Yep, how could we not now side with Veitch?

Because a few things haven't gone quite so accordingly to plan for the White Ribbon poster boy. First the news broke that some of the character references put before the court, written by some very famous people, were not gathered under the pretence of keeping Veitch out of jail at all. Rather they were written under the understanding that they were to be used to help Veitch get his passport back. Veitch's father it seems, who obtained the references, seems to share his sons talent for being a smooth talking bullshit artist.

A couple of other things didn't sit well with me either. His speech outside of the court room was read like it was the Saturday night sports news that Veitch used to read. Before he smacked his bitch up. Infact everything he reads or makes a statement over sounds as genuine as Adolf Eichmann’s 'Final Solution'. Let's not forget this is geezer who is trained to write creatively and more disturbingly, emotively. How can we believe anything that comes out of his mouth?

And I’m not the only one who doesn’t seem to be buying the drama. Many commentators are so underwhelmed by his apparent lack of remorse that in a last ditch attempt at being noticed, Veitch tried to top himself again this weekend. His third failed attempt at taking his live since this all started. You’d think he’d get it right by now huh? How hard is it to kill one’s self? That is if you genuinely want to kill yourself and aren’t just looking to get attention…

Let’s not feel sorry for Veitch. He’s a man who has courted the limelight when it suited him. He has huge money behind him (his in-laws are millionaires) and he has an expensive legal and PR team that have gone to great lengths to intimidate and dig the dirt on his ex partner. And yet we're supposed to buy the line he rolls out regularly that he’s lost everything?!

Veitch is finding out the hard way that money and fame can buy you a lot of things, but it can’t buy you redemption. That you have to earn.

Good Music and Asian Children Are So Hard To Find

I'm just going to chuck something out there; I think there should be a Caucasian only music channel on TV. One that plays predominantly rock and maybe but other white folk music too, like alternative rock and hard rock or maybe even easy listening rock.

Now I don't doubt that Chris Brown and Usher aren't talented artists in their own right, when they're not ripping of each others songs, look and videos that is because they seem to do a lot of that, but I'm sick of seeing their faces - along with Rhianna and Nesian Mystic - every time I turn on a music channel. Thankfully there’s YouTube and alike to keep us, the majority that don’t dig Chris FitzUsher or Usher FitzChris, sane but it’s a sad day when a man has to interrupt his streaming online porn just to watch the latest Weezer vid.

If I really wanted to get rational about it all, I might argue with myself that the reason that the stations keep playing this shit is because the viewing demographic demands it. The fuck it does. I’m in the viewing demographic and I don’t. The top download on iTunes NZ at the moment is the Phil Collins classic ‘In the Air Tonight’ thanks to a bizarre – to say the least - TV ad. Last time I checked, Phil Collins was as white as my skinny arse so it just goes to show that there is an audience still out there gagging for a bit of classic rock and we all know there aint no party like a Phil Collins party.

While we’re at it - the Elemenop song that Telescum have raped for their latest round of bullshit has been erased from my play list too on account that I’d rather not have the mental images I now associate with that song. Shame, because it was a keeper and I really like them as a band. They let KFC kiddyfiddle one of their earlier hits too, the sell outs and they call themselves musicians? Jingle writers I think would be a better term. See The Beatles had the right idea in not letting anyone get their poo stained advertising hands on their back catalogue.

There was once a channel that catered for the majority of music fans, it was called MTV UK and it played its fair share of rock and whatever other types of music there are. This was real MTV too, not the dumbed down, browned out just-play-the-same-crap from the States version we have on our screens now. It was good in that it had specific periods where it played the different genres and you then knew when and where to watch if you wanted to see your favourite.

It also had the very rootable Cat Deeley as a VJ. She could have been playing Wiggles music videos and it wouldn't have mattered quite frankly because we were all just staring at her tits and luscious lady lips that we all imagined were wrapped around our remote.

Speaking of gorillas, Xin Xin the Panda was found safe and well this week, locked in a cupboard in an empty house 20 metres from her own. Does it seem weird to you that no one thought to look there five days earlier? It did to me but then I saw several of the residents of that extremely affluent street interviewed on the news and there wasn’t a Kiwi amongst them. I’m genuinely surprised they even stepped out of their houses to be interviewed let alone look for a missing panda. Why does every missing or abandoned Asian child have to have a nickname that sounds like an empty coke can rolling down the street? Why not try Lisa, Kate or Emma?

How unlikely is it that anyone having a boy in the next six months is going to call it Tony? Wife beater Veitch fell on his sword this week and possibly promptly packed himself when he heard that his ex has now filed a complaint with Police even after he paid her some serious hush money. Smart girl that, she got the money and the bag! But there’s still a chance for small man Veitch I reckon, he could co host with the Lion Man and they could share anecdotes on just how they like to smack their bitches up.

It’s a great country isn’t it?

Small Man Syndrome

A tighty whitey singlet – made famous by the likes of Jake the Muss – is commonly known here in NZ as a ‘wife beater’, but I propose that from this week on it’s referred to as a ‘Tony Veitch’. Let this go on record as being the first official bad taste use of the Tony Veitch affair.

Veitch finally came out and admitted what some already knew about NZs favourite – or most irritating depending which channel you watch the news on each night - small man; that yes, about a year ago, he did infact give his then missus a good kicking. Apparently this was one of those dirty little secrets that people within the circle of trust that is the B & C grade NZ celebrity scene had known for some time but it took the Dom Post to splash it across their front page Monday morning before we, the working class folk with normal jobs and normal lives were to find out that Mr Veitch is not so far removed from us at all.

Veitch – usually impossible to shut up – kept quiet all week before finally fronting up to the same sort of press conference he has so often been on the other side of and you could bloody tell too - his statement reeked of having watched one too many media conferences held by the high profile sportspeople that he spends all day talking, writing and wanking about. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see that several of them now sue the guy for outright plagiarism. I can hardly blame him for pinching their work though, I'm guessing it wasn't something he ever expected to have to do when he paid his battered and broken girlfriend a hundred thousand grand to shut the hell up about it all a few years ago.

The token gesture of having his current wife stand behind him as he made it was as convincing as the time Hilary stood behind Bill the day he finally revealed that he and Monica had poked, rather than toked, the cigar they shared that time they were alone in the oval office. In his impassioned plea for leniency, Veitch revealed that he was on medication and under immense pressure from two stressful jobs at the time, which explains the Once Were Warriors re-enactment that night. A good story and almost believable (although not condonable even if it were true) were it not for the fact that talking on the radio and reading the sports headlines on the TV each night are hardly right up there in terms of stressful jobs. Try having to scrape people off the road, run into burning buildings or jump start dead hearts before you reel that sob story out Tony, you tit.

What Veitch does to earn the considerable amount of wedge he earns shouldn’t be confused with those things in term of importance, because they’re not even fucking close. Guys like Veitch might think that the world of current affairs might stop were he to fall of the face of the earth (chance would be a fine thing) but alas, it won’t. It’s this sense of inflated self importance that leads a guy like him to think that it’s okay to buy off any mistakes he might make. His job is easy money and he knows it. The long line of dudes standing behind the small man currently in the chair, just waiting to take his place know it too and that’s why Veitch hoped he could pay his way out of this one, because annoying sports anchors are a dime a dozen.

He might think that a smart suit, a well scripted 5 minutes of bullshit and a steadfast wife standing by might get him back on the telly but those that pay his wage will have other ideas. They know only too well that the backlash from a public that view him as a wife beater means a loss in viewer ship or listener ship and thus ultimately in advertising revenue. This is not adultery we’re talking about here either, this is an actual crime (assault) that Veitch has managed to pay his way out of and its hard to see the man getting any sympathy even if he is a dwarf. Ironically TV3 took great pleasure in running the piece as one of its top stories each night, whereas TV1 didn’t’ want to touch it with a barge pole. The same thing happened in reverse a few years back when then TV3 sports anchor Clint Brown had a few too many in Taupo, but then he only took a swipe at another fella, Veitch smacked his bitch up.

The real problem is that Veitch suffers from – amongst a myriad of other issues I’m sure – small man syndrome, an affliction common in those that have spent their life looking up at real men. It leads most man midgets to believe that almost everything is about them. Like the guy I know who suffers from the same affliction and who my boys gave a soccer lesson to his boys last season. He did what all small men do in the face of adversary; he got fired up and started ranting and raving. Not a good look on the sideline of an eight year olds soccer game. Luckily his wife wasn’t there; she would have gone home in a wheelchair.

“Geez that poo chick from Wheel of Fortune annoys me, I feel like giving her a right Tony Veitching” – second official bad taste use of the Tony Veitch affair.