The women, they will love you like drunken bears
Tags: Antonio Banderas Diavolo
Hi there! My name is Antonio Banderas and I want to talk to you about my bodily fluids. Too many men are ashamed of their fluids. They are right to be. I say to these men, you are weak, you are pathetic, just like your fluids. Is no surprise. But I can help you. You can buy my fluids for a special discount. Women will love you like crazy wild mice. Believe me.
Every morning, when I wake up, I have a group of virgins scrape off my fluids with a trowel. The resulting slime is put into a bag and sent to my big factory in a lorry. At the factory, it is processed and purified and distilled down to its pure essence of liquid magnetism. This is put into a bottles with some alcohol and tree bark and sent to chemists all over the world so that all men can enjoy my body’s emissions as much as I do. I enjoy the feeling of immense power this gives me. It is like holding so many little eggs in a bag, but the bag ... it is mine.
Some of you might be thinking that this Mr. Banderas must be a bendy kind of man to let other men cover their bodies in his fluids. Perhaps, you think there is something wrong with my brain? Perhaps you think I am some kind of slug? Huh? HUH? Well, let me tell you, Mr. Big shot, I am the one with all of the women in MY wardrobe, NOT you. You get the picture? Maybe I should just keep all my fluids to myself, no? I should just let cheap bastards like you rot, alone in your little rooms, huh?
Enough. This is no time for war. You buy my fluids and maybe I forgive you. We play a game of football some time and drink a little beer and then you can thank me for changing your life. Women will love you like drunken bears. Believe me.
April 6th, 2006. | 11:20 am cet. | Thoughts: 6 | Phylum: Thnup | Permalink
The Master and Margarita
Tags: The Master and Margarita Mikhail Bulgakov
If the devil were to take a holiday, he'd probably choose Moscow. That's the basic premise of Mikhail Bulgakov's book 'The Master and Margarita'.
One has to admire Bulgakov's book, not only because it works brilliantly on so many levels but because he wrote it in the Stalinist Moscow of the 1930's. At that time, doing anything other than sitting in a chair was highly dangerous and writing especially so. Bulgakov knew that the book would never be published in his lifetime, so he wrote whatever the hell he wanted to and generally got away with it.
The devil, as a character, has got to be interesting. It's not advisable to call the devil Graham and make him an accountant with an interest in hub caps, for example. The greatness of Bulgakhov's devil is that he's not just evil, he's ironic. If there was one thing that Stalin's Moscow couldn't take, it was a joke.
Unreason is always at war with the rational, and justly so, for if the war ceased then both would find their continued existence somewhat pointless. Bulgakov's book charts the battleground and is, unsurprisingly, biased towards the irrational. If you spent your life surrounded by filing cabinets, you would be too. So that's the book in a line: a smiley face drawn on a filing cabinet. Read it and sleep.
April 4th, 2006. | 9:30 pm cet. | Thoughts: 4 | Phylum: Books | Permalink
The Lithuanian Creeping Badger of Despair.
The happy-go-lucky Danish philosopher, Johannes Climacus, coined the expression 'Angst' to describe that profound and deep-seated spiritual condition of insecurity and despair which is felt, of necessity, by every free human being. Before this, nobody knew what to call it. Most people just called it 'phhhhhh....'.
In the 20th century, the psychologist and entrepreneur, Toddy Jungfrau, took out a patent on angst and charged everyone in Germany a 10 pfennig angst tax. He used this income as a source of funding to build a huge underground cave and fill it with scientists. Their job was to isolate the bit of the brain that causes angst. In 1934 they announced that it was called the 'Jungfrau Globule', that it was shaped like a peanut and that it hopped all over the table when they filled it with electricity. But most people were too worried about their taxes to care.
Needing a more profitable use for angst, Toddy decided to turn it into a range of supermarkets. Some of them can still be found in what is today called 'Romania' but these are not really supermarkets at all. They are actually part of a huge experiment run by Lithuanian scientists to see how the human being reacts in conditions of extreme terror and confusion.
Like, for instance, when you want to go and buy some apples and there is NO ONE there to weigh the apples for you, so you have to WAIT AND WAIT AND WAIT and does anyone turn up? NO! So, you think "Fuck the apples, I'll buy some salami instead"
And then you go to the salami counter and when the girl there FINALLY DECIDES SERVE YOU, she just shrugs her shoulders and tells you that they don't have that SALAMI, and obviously doesn't care that you had REALLY BEEN LOOKING FORWARD to eating that salami for your dinner and NOW YOU CAN'T.
meeplemeeplemeeplemeeple meep meep.
April 2nd, 2006. | 7:30 pm cet. | Thoughts: 4 | Phylum: Thnup | Permalink
Bonesteed's Gamble and the World of the Future
Tags: science fiction scientists literature
Science fiction is what happens when scientists try to write. The practice is forbidden by most scientific institutions, but the long hours and strict emphasis on rationality causes some scientists to seek refuge in haiku’s, prose poems and novels. The results are almost always rejected by publishing houses and the scientists responsible sacked from their positions and ridiculed. They can thereafter only find work as janitors. At the age of thirty, their lives are terminated by big balls of electricity.
The year is 2136 and no one is safe. The world is controlled by science and all forms of art are banned except for Yanni. Hardeck Bonesteed is in trouble for having written a poem...
For writing this, Bonesteed is ruthlessly hunted by the thought police, English teachers and tax collectors. Will he be caught, or will he live on and make the world a safer place for freedom loving menfolk, their wives and their families? To know the answer to this, you will have to pay to see the movie.
"Bonesteed's Gamble" is currently in post production at Warner Brothers. Directed by Ridley Scott and starring Harrison Ford, it is tipped to be the film of the summer for 2006. In a recent interview, Harrison Ford said that he found working with Scott to be a "very confusing" process, but that this was great because Ford specialises in playing very confused people.
March 29th, 2006. | 11:59 pm cet. | Thoughts: 8 | Phylum: Media | Permalink
A short story based on a Romanian coffee advertisement
Tags: Romania coffee advertisement
George is a highly successful ball-bearing manufacturer from Bucharest. He lives for nothing but his ball bearings. That's why, as he often tells his employees, he can afford a huge apartment with lots of flowers in the center of the city - and they can't.
Apart from ball bearings, there are three things that are central to George's life: clean shirts, women and coffee. He often dreams about them, sometimes together and sometimes separately.
One day, George finds himself with a bit of free time at the factory, so he decides to put on a clean shirt and go home to make a cup of coffee. As he steps into the building he notices a young woman trying to open a confusing door. In order to assist her, he whips out his very best chat up line:
It nearly works, except that the women just babbles at him. She's a foreigner! Disaster! No wonder she finds all the doors so difficult to open. George is left alone, standing in the hall, like a monkey, as her own door slams in his face. Existential despair threatens to close in on him, as if it were a hundred thousand ball bearings running out of control down a hill from his distantly remembered childhood. So he decides to have a delicious cup of freshly brewed coffee, hand picked by shepherds from the foothills of India, freeze dried and brought direct to your doorstep, in a lorry. Yummy.
What George doesn't know is that his new neighbor has a psychological condition which renders her completely hypnotized by the smell of coffee. She's been banished to Bucharest all the way from Spain because the people of her village believe she's a witch. And while he's standing on his balcony, enjoying his shirt, she's discreetly sniffing his musty emissions.
The knock on his door comes moments later. George, who has absolutely no friends, is curious to know who is there so he opens the door. Its the babbling woman again, except this time there's a strange glint in her eye and she keeps pointing at George's trembling mug. He wonders if, maybe, she's after something.
... quips George, and in she comes, running to the kitchen and tearing open his coffee bags with all the free abandon of a wild one from Andalucia. Embarrassed, George retreats to his balcony and hopes she'll go away. But she appears soon after, and worse, she's made a cup of her own.
Three hours later, it starts to rain. George asks the woman if she likes his shirt. She doesn't understand him. She asks him if she can have another cup of coffee. He just shrugs. Both of them stare at the ground. He thinks about ball bearings. Night falls.
March 27th, 2006. | 2:00 pm cet. | Thoughts: 8 | Phylum: Life in Romania | Permalink
Charles Bukowski makes some trifle
Tags: Charles Bukowski drink trifle
i knew it was going to be a bad day when I ran out of trifle. all I'd wanted to do was drink some tall ones and listen to Mahler and watch the bugs crawl in the wallpaper. i'd been working twenty eight hours straight at the tyre factory and my muscles were coiled so tight down in the pain register that I wasn't going to see sleep until they'd docked me all the rest of my pay. i wanted trifle and i wanted it bad.
I usually fix some up using a recipe i got from the wife of some high school professor of semiotics who lives out in the midwest somewhere. she gave it to me at one of his parties. stuck it into my back with a knife after I tried to jump her on the kitchen table. i was drunk and it didn't hurt much, and now i can make trifle whenever i want.
don't listen to all that crap about how hard it is. thats all bullshit. there's nothing to it, really. they just want you to think its hard so they can sell you shit for the rest of your life.
so there's this guy Bukowski and he's making trifle in the kitchen. he's got all the bowls out and everything and he's putting some sponge cake into the bottom of one of the bowls. he pats down the custard nice and gentle and then he ladles fruit on top with a spoon. his head aches like its burning but he doesn't care. he's going to get this done.
so next thing he's adding the sherry, vodka, beer, port, whiskey, grappa, absinthe, amaretto, kalhua, paraffin, coffee, cider, gin, baileys, maraschino, blue curacao, milk, sambuca, gelignite, timers and custard. then he lights a match and tosses it in and watches the whole thing explode. so now he's got no more kitchen. life in L.A. you're welcome to it.
March 25th, 2006. | 6:00 pm cet. | Thoughts: 4 | Phylum: Food and Drink | Permalink
Hercule Poirot and the Mystery of the 192 Pencils
A reader (the reader?) discovered the mystery that I deliberately hid inside my last post, 'normal'. I claim there that Mr. Bernard Parks, who wins the 'Mr. Average' grey pencil prize every year, has 192 of these pencils on his table at home. This would seem to imply that Mr. Parks is 192 years old. He is, therefore, not average.
A paradox! One that goes to the very heart of normality! What can be done?
I decided to set Mr. Hercule Poirot, the world's most famous detective on the case. When I phoned, he said he was busy, but he offered to fax me a list of possible explanations and asked me to pick one. He then said, suddenly and dramatically, that it was me who had killed Lord Badger while wearing the disguise of a simple farm boy. So I hung up. Here's the list:
1. The number 192 is asserted by the narrator who then admits he is speculating and may therefore be incorrect.
2. The number 192 is correct, but since Mr. Parks runs the contest, he has a large number of spare pencils for promotional activities.
3. Not all of the 192 pencils are to do with the competition. Many of them are just pencils.
4. Mr. Parks did indeed win all 192 pencils because he is in fact 192 years old. He is therefore not at all normal but a liar and merely runs the competition as part of a desperate search for his lost normality.
5. Mr. Parks did not genuinely win all 192 pencils but pretends to. He is in fact very corrupt. Whether this makes him normal or not depends on your view of human nature.
6. What appear to be 192 grey pencils are in fact about 40 very long pencils cut into pieces.
7. After winning his tenth pencil, Mr. Parks realised that he particularly liked that type of pencil. He became addicted to them and now buys them in bulk, while desperately trying to appear normal to the outside world in order to keep winning the competition.
8. Mr. Parks does not exist, and the entire story is actually a coded transmission by the CIA, concerning Chad.
9. For the twenty fifth anniversary contest, Mr. Parks changed the rules so that the winner would win not just one pencil, but a whole box of them. Then he won.
10. Mr. Parks is not human. The 'pencils' are in fact secret transmitting devices sending pulses of electromagnetic radiation into the galaxy. The last message was: 'Send more pencils'
Ten explanations from the Belgian - but which one is right? The only way to decide is by voting. Vote for your favorite and tell me why in the comments. I will announce the winner some time next year.
March 24th, 2006. | 11:00 am cet. | Thoughts: 10 | Phylum: Thnup | Permalink
Normal
Tags: normal
I, like many people, am disconcertingly normal. My best friend Norm is also disconcertingly normal, just like me. I like to call him normal Norm. He doesn't like it. That's why we always have fights in pub car parks on Wednesdays and Fridays.
Myself and normal Norm entered last year's 'Mr. Average' contest, held in Denver, Colorado and hosted by Noel Edmonds. Normal Norm brought an axe. He wanted to kill Noel Edmonds in front of everyone for charity. I hid the axe in a wastepaper basket at the airport. Norm was upset at first, but then he forgot all about it.
We didn't win. The winner was Mr. Bernard Parks, of no fixed abode, London who wins every year. He is the judge too and he pays for everything, including the cheesy footballs, which is lucky for me because I really love cheesy footballs.
The first prize is a magic grey pencil. You can put it on a table and stare at it for hours and it won't move. Mr. Parks has one hundred and ninety two of them at home, arranged in a neat row on his table, probably, but I am speculating here.
I read this in a newspaper:
I have no answer for that. First of all, I'm not bothered, and second of all I have absolutely no self awareness and third of all, I am too busy. I work for the CIA on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays. Sunday is my day off. I spend it at home, pulling bristles out of a shoe brush and making them into little man shapes.
As well as normal people, there are normal cats, normal balls, normal earthworms and normal things. A thing is normal if it is box shaped, coloured grey and discounted by about 20% in uninteresting shops. Do normal things have souls, like normal earthworms do? Probably not.
March 20th, 2006. | 10:17 am cet. | Thoughts: 6 | Phylum: Thnup | Permalink
The most complicated musical instrument in the whole world
Tags: St. Patrick Liam O'flynn uilleann pipes
The uilleann pipes are Irish bagpipes. You play them with your elbows, wrists and fingers. This leaves the mouth free for spinning yarns about the tea and the fairys and about just how hard it is to play the uilleann pipes in the first place.
Liam O'Flynn is probably the best Uilleann piper in the world. On the one hand, that might not seem to difficult, as there are only around five of them. On the other hand, the pipes take about twenty seven years to learn and the first year is just spent learning how to hold the bag. So Mr. O'Flynn gets a lot of respect from the Irish Embassy.
They flew him over again this year to play a concert for St. Patricks day, and he did grand. He didn't drop the pipes or sneeze or anything. All the ambassadors were very happy. Some of them tried to dance, but they are not allowed to dance under the rules of the Geneva Convention, so these elements were quietly removed in four by fours with mirrored windows for political re-education.
March 19th, 2006. | 4:50 pm cet. | Thoughts: 69 | Phylum: Stuff out there | Permalink
'Tis St. Patrick's day.
Tags: St. Patrick parade Bono
The traditional parade will traditionally make its way through Dublin, as is traditional. BUT... to put a crazy new twist on it this year, it will move FIVE TIMES FASTER and to the theme from the BENNY HILL show, which will be piped through the air conditioning systems of local coffee shops, courtesy of the Gardai Siochana.
BONO will make his usual traditional fly past at two thirty.
The original St. Patrick was a creation of Marvel Comics. He was a superhero who fought crime wherever he found it, especially if it was a crime committed by snakes. In real life, though our hero was actually mild mannered Sputnik O'Toole, a new york toilet cleaner. His arch enemy was Xerox man, who was very very evil, despite his amazing powers of duplication.
March 17th, 2006. | 1:00 pm cet. | Thoughts: 4 | Phylum: Stuff that happened | Permalink