Sunday, June 18, 2006
Foo's in the ParkBlogger is startign to piss me off. Photo's won't upload, and I posted this days ago and it mysteriously disappeared between now and then. Grrrr.
This Saturday saw the missus & I attending the Foo Fighters gig in Hyde Park.
The day dawned clear and bright. I grabbed my clean shorts, selected a suitably cool shirt, dug around in the spare room until I found my cap. We packed a small daypack with essentials- food, water, sunblock, extra food and some spare food & water, then piled into the jeep and roared off to town. I figured it'd be better without own transport, as we had no idea what time we'd be heading home... the missus had sneakily arranged for parking for us in her office parking garage. Very handy :)
Well, let me just say it got progressively hotter throughout the day. We made our way to the park, eventually found the right entrance and sat our arses down on the grass to wait for the magic opening time. 'This will be fun' thought I, thinking that two hours sitting in the park on a sunny would be a breeze. But I hadn't reckoned on being up close and personal with more spotty teenagers than I'd seen since matric. Gaah. Young people. Who needs 'em? I steadfastly ignored the heaving sea of acne about us and concentrated on not melting inwards into a pool of sweat.
I twitched. I fidgeted. My arse grew number. Ants crawled where no living thing should really go. I sweated.
We watched the fly-bys for the Queens birthday, includign my favourite- the Lancaster bomber with Spitfire escort. Always cool!
Eventually, despite having the enitre fecking morning to organise themselves (the time was instead spent milling about aimlessly in small groups, pretending to have Really Important Things to talk about on their little radios) the rocket scientists who were acting as the gatekeepers pulled finger and got their act in order. Only 15 minutes late.
The next revelation was a real peach. Despite it being 32C, you weren't allowed to take large water bottles into the grounds. Eh? Wtf? And allllll other bottles had to have their caps removed. wtf once more - the reaason given? "So you don't throw 'em onto the stage". I mean, ferchrissakes, we were about 100 yards from the stage, minimum!!! Fecking idiots. Never mind the fact that you could buy water inside and *shock!* *horror!* those bottles had caps! Oooh.
That's right up there with the smacktards who confiscate a nail clipper from someone at the airport, then offer them complementary (glass) bottles of flammable spirits after take-off.
Any how. We were in! We ambled along to the middle bit of the Berlin Wall (complete with no mans land in between each of the steel barriers) and once again felt the sticky embrace of the acne mob, complete with irritating 12 year olds trying to worm their way to the front.
One song into Juliette & The Licks set I set my shoulder into "Gentle Ramming" mode and we emigrated ourselves to a less crowded spot in front of one of the giant screens. Much, much better. We quaffed some refreshments and made ourselves comfy. Their set was pretty cool, considering I've only caught one of their tracks before. Juliette's a good stage performer, very entertaining to watch.
Next up was Angels & Airwaves, fronted by that bloke from Blink 182. It went ok, but then he went all California Hippie on us and started spouting crap about 9/11 and Iraq. I tuned him out and set to stuffing some sandwiches in my gob, and making the most of my sunglasses to throw a critical eye over some of the wobblies on parade. A little bit of the Good, the Bad & the Ugly really, but still not an unpleasant way to spend some time on a sunny day.
Queens of the Stone Age were up next. I have to say the sound quality here left a bit to be desired- Joshua's voice disappeared into the music. They didn't really do much for me, all told. What can I say? The majority of the crowd around us seemed happy enough though.
Then the big boys came out to play. Lemmy strolled out, cigarette in hand. This was whatI'd been waiting for- the chance to see Motorhead live. And I was not disappointed. Lemmy belted out the first song and the crowd started heaving. By the time he got to "Over the Top" an impromptu mosh pit had sprung into existence right behind us. He stood on that stage like a giant amongst men, a gravelly conduit for the sheer power of the gods of rock, and played that crowd man. Ace of Spades was the cherry on top. Fucking A.
The mob subsided around us a bit, people slinking off to get a drink, staunch their wounds and ready themselves for Dave Grohl & the boys. Thank god that by now the sun had dipped away and temperature eased back a couple of notches. Trying to get through to any of the refreshment stalls was suicide. Fortunately the ushers manning the berlin wall were doling out cups of water, so we managed to stay hydrated.
And then the lights dimmed. Strobes flickered to life. A mad guitar riff cut across the evening sky like a screaming phoenix. And , of course, the crowd erupted. Dave Grohl looked entirely comfortable on that stage, and gave us what we wanted- the popular tracks everyone knows & loves, mixed in with some lesser known and new stuff. He had fun with the crowd, and we loved him for it. It was goooood.
The encore was a surprise though - Taylor, the drummer, said he was dedicating a song to Freddie Mercury....then introduced Brian May and Roger Taylor! The guitar duel between Brian & Dave was pretty sweet!
But eventually the stage went dark and the Mob turned its collective herd to the exits. We hit the road, revelling in air that was actually moving and headed for the car and home, with a pit stop to grab some icy refreshments. We were in good time and sunk into a nice cool bath, accompanied by a bowl of cheerios. A good day :)
Wednesday, June 14, 2006
freedom fighters my arseI just had the misfortune of watching the worst frigging bleeding heart propaganda on telly. I should have known better, today being the "anniversary" of Sharpeville.
What a bucketfull of 3 day old journalistic diarrhoea. It was, no doubt, funded by the same bunch of hand-wringing tofu eaters who perenially sit on the sidelines, safely insulated from the real world and bitch about the harsh way that mass murdering paedophiles are treated in prison.
Interspersed with 'reconstructed' pieces of film showing happy go lucky black schoolchildren all but skipping along until the evil nazi stormtroopers open up on them with flamethrowers we were subjected to "interviews" (aka monologues) from a handful of survivors and relatives of activists (for activists read: terrorists). If self pity was a liquid, this lot could have floated the QE2 on the twaddle they spouted tonight.
They painted the riots and "resistance movement" in glowing shades of fluffiness, setting it up as an idealistic dream born of efforts of poor teenagers, traumatised by the horrors of Sharpeville. Euphemism was piled upon euphemism, and "one-sided" was the phrase of the day when the producers cobbled this over sanitised piece of drivel together.
The mobs which tore through the streets, burning schools, looting shops, beating men and women to death with bricks were simply "frustrated". The second wave of riots that night weren't really riots, it was just the parents looking for their missing children. And as we aqll, know, the best way to look for a missing person is to burn any building you come across (so that you know you've looked there already) , burn any car (to stop people kidnapping them, of course) oh, and most importantly, kill any white person on sight.
One interview they had was a with a chap who was happy to point out where he and his class from the local school pulled an ageing doctor from his car, where they chased him to and ultimately beat him to death with bricks and broken bottles. He described it as a cathartic process for fuck sakes.
The riots were nothing more than anarchic savagery, an orgy of mindless violence and the people taking part in them deserved every bullet shot at them.
But what about the children they cry. What about them??? A mob of12 year olds can kill you just as easily as a mob of adults. Why should someone suffer injury, possibly death, just because their attacker is young?
What people fail to understand is the mob mentality. There was nothing romantic or idealistic about the riots in SA. They were dirty, brutal affairs, fuelled by a lust for violence and greed for plunder and the people taking part in them deserved every bullet shot at them.
Of course, it wasn't their fault. No, no, no, the poor dears. The system forced them into blowing up innocent people and burning everything in sight. The system forced them to riot at the drop of a hat and destroy everything in sight like a plague of toyi-toying locusts.
And you know what really galls me? This crap. That they're sticking a goddamn statue of one of the ringleaders up as a tribute. Still, at least I'll have something to spit at when I cross the square.
What's next? International Abu Musab al-Zarqawi Memorial day? Maybe a nice bust of the playful little tyke outside St Paul's?
Tuesday, June 13, 2006
Raaar!
Because I can.
Monday, June 12, 2006
Hot in the city tonight
So, summer has finally hit us. Yeehaaah! About farking time too!Of course, now everyone is complaining that it's too hot, it's too humid, it's too sticky to sleep etc.
Ah well, as far as I'm concerned, there are worse problems to have!
I find it hysterically funny that a few days of constant sunshine over here is referred to as a heatwave. I mean, really. According to government guidelines, a heatwave is officially triggered as soon as the Met Office confirms that it's published threshold temperatures will be reached in one or more regions simultaneously.
I mean, come on. Those temperatures are above average but they're hardly going to make the geriatric population run in circles screaming "I'm melting, I'm melting!" (although Jordan might be at risk I suppose).
Anyhoo. Aside from sweating like Sipho thanks to our suit & tie dress code I've no complaints. we've had 3 braai's over the last 2 weekends and I've got to drive around with the roof off the jeep.
Happy days :)
Tuesday, June 06, 2006
INT. BEDROOM - NIGHT
Tonight I pulled finger and for the first time in a long, long time, double clicked the "Word" icon on my desktop.
Over the past week or so, having read (are re-read some parts) Syd Field's well written treatise on screenwriting, I found myself scribbling ideas and thoughts on sundry scraps of paper at all hours of the day. So tonight, to prevent the house turning into some sort of mad gerbils nest, I started writing.
It's hard work, let me tell you that. Had to shift the brain puit of neutral and slap it into 4WD. But, like most things in life, the first few steps are the hardest. In my case, the first 3 pages.
But! They're done. They're out there. A minimum of one page a night is the task I've set myself.
Tally ho.
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