Sweaty bits

This post will be a rambling mess with no coherent structure and not many laughs, rather like The Bible. It's good to see the St Matthews in the City church trying to have a bit of a laugh this Christmas by putting this billboard up.

It's a shame the first one was doused with paint by an old man and the second slashed with a knife by an old lady. I don't know if they have been caught however I'd be pointing my finger at the old man with his banjo and the old lady who sing out of tune religous songs religiously on Queen Street everyday except Sunday when they are probably singing out of tune in some regressive church in the burbs far far away from the progressive cess-pool of tolerant filth that is St Matthews in the City. As far as churches go St Matthews is quite hip and groovy. Not only is it a stunning building they also offer civil unions, iGod podcasts and you can hire it for foam parties, discos and they will even bless your dog, cat or llama and clean up its pooh afterwards.

You really shouldn't sweat the small stuff, unless it's a sweaty dwarf hiding in your closet with some paint, a knife and a banjo. I heard a story about a young tall actress playing Snow White losing her virginity to Grumpy during the South Island leg of a nationwide tour which just goes to show that sweaty small stuff can fuck you up when you least expect it. I had a sweaty moment on Thursday night during the opening performance of 'Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer'. I'm playing Rudolph and was sweating and grumpy when the elastic used to keep my big red one on my face snapped 20 minutes into the show. Luckily the back-up mechanism of a whole lotta gaff shoved in the hole stopped it from shooting off and hitting the Christmas Fairy in the eye.

However, as the play progressed I could feel the stickiness subsiding on my sweat soaked snozz and had to dash off while 35 fairies and 3 penguins between the ages of 5 and 12 sang 'We Wish You A Merry Xmas'. It was a shame because they were meant to be singing it to cheer Rudolph up however if Rudolph's nose fell off it may have brought about tears, tantrums and thirty years of therapy. After ripping the elastic off and pressing the nose on as hard as I could I returned and continued the performance holding my head upwards at a 45 degree angle while touching it constantly as if Rudolph had a nose-bleed while performing an old fashioned sobriety test. I had to make another hasty unplanned exit during Dasher and Dancer's rendition of 'Jungle Bells' to reapply fresh gaff which thankfully held to the end. Unfortunately Dasher and Dancer hadn't realised I'd buggered off and as I was meant to stop them singing got slightly alarmed. They covered well though with 'Where's he gone?' and 'That's not very professional' so the audience had no idea how close to disaster the whole production had perilously lurched.

It was my birthday on Thursday as well. Thanks again to all those who left messages on Facebook, texted and called. I turned 36. It's a credit to my healthy KFC diet and liberal application of hydrocortisone to my face everyday that even in my mid to late 30's I can still pull off a role like Rudolph, supposedly the youngest and most innocent of all Santa's reindeer. I'm thinking I could still have a crack at pulling off Oliver after my stunning performance 22 years ago for the North Canterbury Musical Society.

I will try and squeeze in another post before Christmas but if I don't I hope you all have a wonderful festive holiday. If your evenings are free up until Xmas eve come and see Rudolph and marvel at a sweating 36 year old man with a strap on nose surround by young children. Aboobedeedo.

A Giant Fingering Winking Santa

It's been nearly a month since my last post which is inexcusable. My excuses for such an extended period of inactivity are sickness, work and laziness. Nearly a month is an eternity in the blog world and I'm sure some of you will have given up on mine and moved onto other more regular blogs such as this one. If you have hung in there I can only apologise and promise that it might not happen again.

Two really exciting events of world importance have happened since my last post. The first is the revelation that Tiger Woods has been sharing his one wood with every woman everywhere every second of every day. I'm not going to pass judgement except to say that getting into the rough with Tiger would provide some great opportunities to shout out things that golfers say without having to give up a day playing golf. Imagine screaming, 'Get in the hole!' just as Tiger is about to mount you. That would be fun. As Tiger took you from the front nine to the back nine and his member's bounce was dimpled for your pleasure you could respond by shouting 'bogey, bogey, par, par, par, birdie, birdie, eagle, eagle, ALBATROSS!'. If you felt like another lay-up with Tiger you could pull and push until he was pin-high and then after a quick up-and-down scream 'FORE' as he hit your sweet-spot and flop-shotted right onto your green in regulation. Good-good!

The other significant world event was the unveiling of the new Santa that graces the Whitcomb & Tombs store on the corner of Queen and Victoria Streets. The Santa actually belongs to another store called Farmers and Haywrights who are celebrating their 1000th anniversary I think so they decided to celebrate by having a fiddle with the big Santa because he looked like a fiddler. Here's how he used to look although the photo doesn't convey the full creepiness of the old Santa. His index finger on his right hand, which looks like it could be caressing a young enormous nipple, actually moved back and forth as if it was caressing a young enormous nipple. To support this action his left eye winked at half the speed of his nipple finger unless it was broken in which it case it remained lazily half open as if Santa had had a stroke or injected too much botox. I'd love to say Santa's crotch moved back and forth while his left hand unbuckled his belt but it didn't. He fingered and winked and that was enough. There's not much super about the soon to be supercity of Auckland however our four story high fingering winking pedophilic Saint Nick definitely was.

Until a few weeks ago! Now he looks like this.

Which because of my crappy photo doesn't look much different however believe me it is. Firstly he doesn't wink or finger anymore. His finger is locked in position as if he's about to make a fist to punch whoever fiddled with him in the nipple. Both eyes remain open constantly like Malcolm McDowell being reconditioned in 'A Clockwork Orange'. All the dodgy, deviant and dubious qualities of Santa have been cut away leaving a beaming jolly giant surrounded by big packages and two reindeer. I'm not sure what I think about our new sanitised Santa however his two caribou are fantastic and below is a photo of another one. This caribou is called Rudolph and is looking depressed because he's just realised he's been painted up to resemble a big brown turd, or a caripooh. This is what I looked like on Saturday night when I MC'ed the 'Christmas at the Zoo' event at the Auckland Zoo funnily enough. It sort of looks like I've just been arrested for lewd rutting and I'm still amazed that parents seem quite happy to let me go near their children when I look like this.

I did this gig last year and made a promise to a small boy half way through that he could have my nose upon completion of my MC duties. I thought he would forget however after I'd fingered the sponsor's nipples there he was waiting at the side of the stage with his little arms outstretched like a tiny person doing the start of 'YMCA'. I had a very nasty cold at the time, as I did this year as well and my nose was full of snot however I couldn't renege on my promise and plopped by moist mucasy nose into his sweaty palm. His eyes lit up and he immediately stuck it on his nose and ran away as if all his Christmases had come at once.  I felt happy and dodgy and devious and dubious.

When a man in his mid-thirties dressed as a giant pooh makes a small boy happy by giving him his snot soaked nose you know it's Christmas time. Miracles do happen.

Get Innocuous Pedestrian!

Regular readers may recall that two posts ago I gushed about all the auditions I had been to and I'm sure many of you are still waiting on the edge of your baited breath to hear about the final audition I had with no lines. I didn't get it! That's OK, it was dumb.

However, while doing that audition Stu the casting director with a lovely dog who used to sit in on auditions but doesn't any longer, popped his head in the door and asked if I could sing. I replied with a resounding 'YYYEEEESSSS' in the key of B sharp and started to tap dance as well for good measure. I have had a tap dancing lesson so I can  tap-dance. I have also touched a horse so I can ride a horse. I have tripped over on a movie set so I am qualified to do stunts. I can say hello in at least five different languages and am fluent in them all. I can swim, surf, fire a gun, drive a bus, truck, plane and do any accent for two minutes until it becomes Welsh or Indian. Stu could have asked me if I can put my head between my knees and whistle up my Barcelona and I would have done it. Actors are very versatile and are great at telling fibs, especially if it may lead to a job. When 'Lord of the Rings' was filming everyone in Wellington could ride a horse, even the horses were going around riding each other they were that desperate to get some work. When I auditioned for that vampire flick '30 Days of Night' (I didn't get it but the film was dumb so it's OK), I hung upside down from the rafters in a black unitard for days and only came out at night to hunt KFC using echolocation.

Stu was obviously impressed with my singing ability and called me back the next day to audition for the role of 'PEDESTRIAN', another role in the same commercial I had already unsuccessfully auditioned for the role of 'BELL HOP' in. I was very excited. I don't look like a Bell Hop but I definitely look like a Pedestrian. I don't even own a car and have a lot of experience being a Pedestrian so I didn't have to do any character research. I was born to play this role.

And I nailed the audition. One line, sung direct to camera, two takes on my back, two takes on my front, four takes of gold. There was comedy, pathos and just a hint of cheekiness. I even gave them a choice of octaves. I was the Pedestrian who had just been knocked over by a car  they were looking for. On Sunday they called and wanted me to go in for a call-back on Monday. I went back in and the American director and producer were there. The director was nice and shook my hand, the producer was staring into his Apple Promacintosh and looked at my outstretched hand as if it was a big pubic crab trying to get into his pants. The director asked me to lift my head slowly and not smile before singing the line, then lift with smile, then lift look at my body then sing, then lift fast, sing, lower slowly, then lift fast, smile, sing and lower quickly, then lift, look at my body, smile, sing, lower slowly while still smiling, then keep my head on the ground and smile and sing, then keep my head on the ground and sing...he really liked the last one.

On Tuesday I got the call I was on hold and had to go in for a costume fitting. I went in and tried on lots of clothes from The Warehouse, Hallensteins and St Vincent de Paul. Later that night my agent called and confirmed I had got the part. What a joyous night it was.

I shot it last Saturday. I lay down on Fort Street underneath the bumper of a Mercedes four by four and gave it my all all the time. My shot was the last of the four day shoot (or the martini for those in the know), and I could see that all the crew were engrossed in my performance, except for the 98% of them who were ripping down lights and set all around me as I acted my little Hallensteins shirt off. We ran way overtime and I had to change into my lovely WORLD suit in a taxi on my way to Ellerslie for a gig after. I asked the nice driver how my tie was and he said it looked good. I think he was either Indian or Welsh.

On another completely different note here's a link to a top tune. I've filled up a bit of blog space by ranting about music I don't like so I should try and provide some balance. It's by an American band called Mason Proper who I know nothing about except for producing a piece of perfection  by taking two good songs and putting them together to make an even gooder song. Who would have thought that 'Get Innocuous' by LCD Soundsystem and 'Love Lockdown' by Kanye West would work so well together? It's bloody genius and you can have a listen to it here.

Nickelcats

errzsa

The opening word today was typed by puss puss with her two back paws. I've googled it and it means nothing which is disappointing. I'm hopeful I will discover the first British Blue who can touch type and turn her into a worldwide phenomenon in the same vein as Nora the piano playing cat and Fatso, aka Keyboard Cat, who played the keyboard in the 1980's and died in the year 2000.

Poor Fatso. He probably died of shame for being forced to wear that horrible blue shirt while his owner, a gentleman by the name of Charlie Schmidt, jiggled his forlorn feline's front legs up and down in time with the pre-programmed cheese emitting from his horrible little organ. Here is a link to Charlie Schmidt's website. Apparently he is a professional graphic designer, actor, inventor, movie maker, painter, sculptor, performance artist, builder of hot rod cars, teacher, 2nd degree black belt, musician and philospher. Be careful with his website, it's very wacky and makes wacky noises when you move your cursor over his wacky icons highlighting what wacky things he does, the wackiest of which appears to be nose dancing. What a cock.

I've just read another article that says keyboard cat died in 1987. The more I delve into the life of Fatso the murkier and sadder it becomes. Fatso was an orange Spokane cat and in many ways was just another disposable victim in the globalised industry called manufactured pop. The steps are quite simple:

1. Find someone good looking and desperate for fame, talent is not required but a modicum is beneficial.
2. Write a terrible song for them.
3. Make them wear terrible clothes.
4. Make them change their name.
5. Put your hand up their arse and control their every move with an iron fist.
6. Make a terrible video.
7. Make lots of terrible merchandise.
8. Make lots of money.
9. Make the artist sign a contract so they do not make lots of money.
10. When popularity wanes go to step 1.

Most of these steps are easier when you're dealing with a cat.

My favourite manufactured pop impresario was Larry Parnes who invited lots of young men to his house in the 1950's, changed their names, gave them nice suits and made them famous for a while. Larry and his menagerie had hit after hit but his real talent was devising evocative names guaranteed to get the younguns all juiced up and ready to part with their hard earned pence, not that Larry's men saw much of it. Billy Fury, Vince Eager, Lance Fortune, Georgie Fame, Duffy Power and my favourite Dickie Pride. Dickie Pride's real name was Richard Charles Kneller and you have to wonder why Larry just didn't add an E and drop an L to Kneller to get Dickie Kneeler. The only man to stand up to Larry, he hated his young boys standing up, was Joe Brown who bravely resisted Larry's desire to launch him as Elmer Twitch. Larry did turn down a band called The Silver Beetles which wasn't the greatest move although he did use them as a backing band for Johnny Gentle.

On the subject of horrible music with no artistic merit here is a disturbing picture. These pieces of eye torture are everywhere in Auckland at the moment. Every breath I take, every move I make, every vow I break, every smile I fake, every claim I stake, every leaf  I rake, every time I wake, every baby I shake, every brownie I bake, every muss I jake, Chad Kroeger, his brother Mike and the other two drop-kicks are watching me behind their sunglasses which they even wear at night because their eyes are red because they are all the devil's children.Thank God they are only inflicting us with one show, although it is their biggest show EVER! When you've rocked the world for over a decade your biggest show EVER! must be pretty big. I hope Auckland's show rocks as much as this one in Portugal where the brave Portuguese pelted Chad with Portuguese rocks until he left the stage. C'mon Auckland, let's show Portugal that we can rock harder than them, more rocks, bigger rocks, the biggest rocks EVER! Kia kaha.

Don't call us...

What a week this is turning out to be, three auditions! Yesterday I auditioned for a television commercial where I had one line. Only one line you ask, what is so exciting about that? I'll tell you, not only was this one line sung, it was delivered direct to camera! That's how exciting it was. I played a dodgy bell-hop and I would love to tell you more however I signed a confidentiality clause. The call-backs were today and I didn't get called back but I'm cool with that. It was a dumb commercial and the product it was for is stupid and if I got it I would be typecast and it would ruin my career and all of you who saw it would have thought I was dumb and not read my blog anymore.

Today I auditioned for a television series! I had lots of lines but they weren't my lines, they were the lines of another actor who hadn't done a very good job so they needed someone to say his lines for him betterer. I would love to tell you about this television series however I signed a confidentiality novel and this ship is so tight people with loose lips can't sink it because their lips have been severed with a sword swung by  Kirk Douglas while he rogers Xena Warrior Princess. Ha ha! I have dropped numerous clues into the previous sentence as to the identity of the mysterious TV series, see if you can work it out. If you do you'll probably be killed by an American TV executive so be careful. Anyway, I was auditioning with six other men and after two hours was told I wasn't betterer enough to deliver someone elses lines better than them and was released. 'Released' is a technical term for being free to say yes to all the other film/TV/theatre/childrens show/wandering around dressed as a woman work I am always inundated with. I don't care. It's going to be a dumb worldwide phenomenon that will make all involved very famous and get them on the covers of Woman's Day before they are forced to become Scientologists and roger Tom Cruise in John Travolta's cockpit.

My third audition is on Friday and this one is really really exciting because I have no lines! I hate learning lines so small parts are right up my alley. The smaller the part the happier my alley is so at the moment my alley is positively creaming itself with anticipation. This one's all secret squirrel as well so I'm sorry, no matter how far up my alley you probe you won't get a hot scoop. I really hope I get it, unless I don't when I won't care because it was dumb.

I should go down to Christchurch for eight weeks more often. I think my agent may have forgotten who I was and assumes I'm new on their books and will make them 10% of a small fortune or maybe there's just a spike in the 'quirky and distinctive yet normal and likeable guy' demand curve. Who knows. Sometimes this whole acting business is like trying to fix a toilet with a fish and a tuba instead of shitting in the tuba and wiping your arse with the fish.

All allergies all the time

According to wikipedia an allergy is, 'a disorder of the immune system often referred to as an atophy.' I have never heard anyone refer to an allergy as an atophy and I'm not even sure how to pronounce atophy correctly so wikipedia is looking dubious from the outset. Upon clicking the atophy link wikipedia informs me that it is (pronounced /ˈætəpi/; Greek ἀτοπία - placelessness) which clears things up nicely.

Atophy is a real pain in the arse. I've never had an atophy on my arse which is something I am very grateful for however I've had my fair share on other parts of the body. If I did have an atophy on my arse it would give me an excuse to drag myself along carpet on my bottom like a dog with worms which is something I've always wanted to do so it wouldn't be all bad. I have no problem doing something odd and threatening as long as you have a good reason for doing it. When I get an itchy throat I stick the index finger of my left hand in my left ear and jiggle it, scratch my head with my right hand and make a 'quoaaaaaarrrrrrr' sound from deep down in my gullet that sounds like a bit like the noise the Skeksis made in 'The Dark Crystal'. This video doesn't really give you much of an indication but it's still very funny and will hopefully bring back happy memories to those of you who still remember 1982.

I've had the old standard allergic reactions eczema and asthma since I was born. These two seem to go hand in hand to torment the world, like Foster and Allen, Hall and Oates and Country and Western. Luckily I've largely grown out of both. When I was young I would only have to enter a room that a cat had even thought about walking in and my extremities would puff up, my eyes would water and I would start wheezing. I would turn into an old crying wino who had smoked 40 fags a day before your eyes and then the cat who had thought about coming into the room would come in and sit on my face to show how sorry they were for causing my distress. What was and is even more distressing is that I love cats. I love dogs as well but they never seemed to be as much of a catalyst for my afflictions as cats. I could give you a list a cats that were catalysts purely to milk the pun but it's not worth the effort.

Being allergic to things one really likes is cruel and you start to wonder if your body is just taking the piss. I'm certain my hypersensitive immune system had a choice in what things would make it start activating my mast cells and basophilis so had a quick sniff in my brain to discover the things that would cause me the greatest distress and found cats, weet-bix and beer. Thank god I hadn't discovered my affection for KFC when I was young or my life would not be worth living. I'm not strictly allergic to beer but I am allergic to wheat which rules out some beers and all weet-bix. Giving up weet-bix was really hard. I had continued the long Cooper tradition of covering your dry weet-bix with just enough boiling water to moisten and soften them before pouring milk on top to create a nice wee warm milky puddle at the base before covering generously with sugar. Heaven! No bloody more though. Thanks to my immune system a family tradition that has strectched back hundreds of years to when my ancestors were making barrels for Vikings to put the fermented blood of their victims in has died.

I'm also allergic to bloody dairy products as well. Milk and cheese and wheat and cats and dogs and some beer...if I was Julie Andrews these would be nearly all of my favourite things. I found out I was allergic to dairy and wheat when a chiropractor put little samples of them on my tongue while I was lying on my back and then tried to press my left arm down. With all the other food samples...brussel sprouts, swede, rancid olives, affogatos I could resist his pressings with vigour however when the cheese and wheat were applied I gave way like John Key. I still don't understand why my lack of shoulder resistance meant that wheat would make me go red and scratch my inner arm and leg however my parents were paying an arm and a leg to find this out so no questions were asked.

A few years ago hay-fever decided to join the party, probably because my immune system was angry about having grown out of most of my asthma and eczema. I usually only get hay-fever when I go to Christchurch so I'm probably allergic to Christchurch as well.

Anyway, at the moment my nose is blocked and my asthma is playing up. I have two inhalers for asthma, one is red and one is blue. If I use the red inhaler, the preventative, I never learn the truth about the world of asthma and saunter oblivious through my life breathing freely. If I need to use the blue inhaler it means I am naked in a liquid filled pod with tubes coming out of every orifice feeding me ventolin. I've been using the blue inhaler a bit recently and my holes are getting sore so perhaps I do have an atophy on my arse. I'm hoping it's just adjusting to being back in Auckland, the humidity and change of season. It could also have something to do with a cat. Miss Charlie, or puss puss is a British Blue short-hair. She is gorgeous and naughty and likes to run with toilet paper. If she is responsible for my allergic flare-up I don't care. Anything this cute sitting on your lap is worth it.

Fisting

Week seven of eight now and my two months of fun in the Christchurch sun are almost at an end. The Poe show is humming along nicely. We have decided to dispense with the dialogue and hum the entire script to the tune of 'Gloria' by Laura Branigan. The audience seem to be receptive although I don't like it when they join in for the chorus. I was a huge fan of Laura Branigan as a youth, I think her hit was on the Tracman 82 record that my brother and I went halves on, along with Electric Avenue by Eddie Grant and Eye of the Tiger by Survivor. Sadly Laura passed away in 2004 but not before guest starring on three of my favourite TV shows of all time, CHiPs, Automan and Knight Rider. She really had it all.

Although Poe has been fun I would give my left ventricle to not do the show tonight. I haven't not wanted to do a show in Christchurch this bad since U2 were here on their Zoo TV tour and I walked out of the theatre after bemusing 18 people to hear the distant cries of "oh oh oh oh...oh oh oh oh...oh oh oh oh...oh oh oh oh." This was not the sound of unimaginative intercourse in Room D, (although that is not an uncommon occurrence), but the orgasmic cries of 70,000 Cantabrians singing the chorus of 'Pride (In The Name of Love)'. I looked in the 36 eyes of the 18 audience members as they left the theatre with malice and hate and they looked into my eyes with hate and malice and I wanted to ask them why they had bothered coming but they were to busy asking themselves why they had bothered coming while Bono was asking all of us what more in the name of love?

My reason for wanting to abandon the tens of audience tonight is to watch The Fight of the Century. If it's billed as the fight of the century you know it's going to be special, especially when this century is still wearing nappies and shitting in them every day. The previous one was in 1971 between a couple of journeymen called Joe Frazier and Muhammad Ali. Apparently that 15 round epic was a rather good match however it happened before I was born so it doesn't count. My fight of the century is screening tonight and Ali is replaced by David Tua and Smokin' Joe is Shane Cameron. I'm sure it will easily match up to the fight of the century back in 1971 however I won't be watching it because I will be dressed as Edgar Allan Poe humming Gloria for 82 minutes. Gutted is not a word I use lightly because it's often used by sweaty sportsmen and slaughterhouse workers however I'm using it now...I am gutted. I'm pretty sure Tua will take Cameron out in three rounds but I'm still gutted. I am missing my fight of the century. I will not get to see another one in my lifetime because I will be dead.

I went to see Peter my boxing man this morning and we discussed the fight in earnest while he slowly crippled me. Pete knows everything about boxing, he coached Tua early on in his career and Shane Cameron stayed at his house for 12 days while he worked with him as well. As he whacked me in the head with his focus pads everytime I forgot to keep my hands up I wondered what it would be like to actually get whacked in the head with the fist of another man. I love boxing dearly and thoroughly enjoy the training and tradition of the sport however I have never actually been fisted by another man in the ring, or on the street. The closest I got was one Friday night many years ago in Christchurch.

As with all major moments in my life this took place at a KFC establishment, the slightly scungy one on Colombo Street. I think it was after a Scared Scriptless show and myself, Nic and Stu decided to soak up some of the many $3 beers we had consumed by indulging in some of the colonel's finest. As we sat at our table gorging ourselves I noticed two likely looking lads glaring at us from the opposite table with one two piece quarter pack between them. At first I thought they were just hungry homeless urchins of the Oliver Twist persuasion enviously eyeing our three three piece quarter packs. I was wrong. Nic and Stu decided they had to relieve their bladders of some of The Court Theatre's wonderously cheap alcohol and off they went to the toilets together. The eys of the urchins followed them keenly and I pulled Nic and Stu's quarter packs closer to mine just in case the famished duo made a ravenous grab for them. Upon their return from the toilets one of the young scally-wags let rip with a chortle and a cry of "Homos!"

I was all for turning the other cheek and filling it with chicken however Nic was having none of this and retorted with a witty repost implying that they might be pots calling the kettles black. This caused great consternation with the rascals and they lept over and began trying to punch us all in the head with little success. I think they were mainly trying to punch Nic and Stu in the head as my head was buried in my chicken box but they didn't get much of a chance as they were promptly dispatched onto Colombo Street by a very large security man who looked like he got paid in left-over chicken at the end of each night.

I hoped that was the end of the affair but it was not. The two hungry boys were now delirious with anger and hunger as they circled the door like sharks looking at the remains of two uneaten bits of chicken and the three of us filling our bellys. Nic bravely decided to go outside with their uneaten chicken as a peace offering but got punched in the head and ran back in. We considered asking the security man if he would assist but after careful inspection realised he wouldn't fit through the door.

We decided the only option was to make a break for it in different directions and take our chances. We ran from the KFC and suddeny all hell broke loose in the campest way possible. The two urchins had mutiplied into about 20 and suddenly all of Colombo Street was filled with young men fighting in the most embarrassing way imaginable. Air punches were thrown with gay abandon and I'm certain at least 1o of them were just hunched over clicking their fingers in unison. We looked just like this...

We really did. If you know Nic, Stu and I it will be obvious which one is which. Anyway, Nic took a blow and some reprobate kicked him in the head when he was down. Stu took a hit as well and was intending to come back and continue things after going home to put on his steel capped Doc Martins but thankfully didn't. I danced and clicked with the best of them but nobody was interested in me, probably because I was wearing glasses. We all took off and left them to it. I think I heard the strains of 'Gee, Officer Krupke' as the police arrived to break the rumble up.

Wrong songs.

I dined at the Papanui KFC last week. I had resolved to boycott it when a few days before then I pulled up to the drive-thru in my long blue limousine and was greeted with, "Hi can I take your order...oh yeah...there's a 15 minute wait for chicken."

I replied with, "That's quite alright my good fellow, I have no interest in your poultry offerings. Why anyone would come to Kentucky Fried Chicken and expect chicken is beyond me. I only come to this fast food chicken establishment to be offered no chicken very slowly and you have exceeded my expectations."

I wish I had replied with that. All I did was squeak out something like, "OK, thanks" before driving off with a stormy face and tears in my eyes.

You would have to think chicken vigilance is a fundamental tenet of KFC employment. Surely someone would pipe up with, "We're on our last legs", or "I've just grabbed the last thigh" or, "My breasts are getting low." If I worked at KFC the opportunity to say any of these phrases at the top of my voice would probably be the only thing keeping me going. My anger was limitless and I boycotted them for three days.

Anyway, I went back and was enjoying my usual two-piece quarter pack for lunch, (the leg was beautiful but the breast was drippy) when 'Why Does Love Do This To Me' by The Dance Exponents began playing. Yes, I know, the band is now just called The Exponents but I like to stick with the original names such as Puff Daddy, John Cougar and Whitcombe and Tombs. As I was licking my fingers I realised my life would be better if I never heard 'Why Does Love Do This To Me' ever again. I wished, hoped and prayed that not only did I never have to hear this song again, but that Jordan Luck had never conceived it.

My god...blog update....I just visited the Dance Exponents wikipedia page and found this!

'They reportedly once decided to tour every New Zealand town with a KFC, not due to their love of chicken, but because they trusted KFC's market research and reasoned these towns must contain enough youth to fill up their gigs.'

So, Mr Luck and his merry men don't like KFC but are happy enough to free-load off their market research to sell a few concert tickets and peddle some crappy t-shirts and tapes. Man, I really hate 'Why Does Love Do This To Me' now, in fact I hate everything Jordan Luck has ever produced, including 'Victoria' which I quite like. WDLDTTM comes from an album entitled 'Something beginning with C' and Mr Luck, you are that something beginning with C. You sir are right up there with Jack Johnson and I bet he doesn't like KFC either.

I then began thinking about what other songs I would never like to hear again. It's a big call to make and you have to think seriously as your tastes may change. Often the hatred is due to the artist selling out and accepting pots of money from a vile monopolistic company to use the offending song on a dire marketing campaign e.g Air New Zealand, Telecom, Whitcombe and Tombs. So, after minutes of thought, here is my short list of songs I wish I never hear again...

'Loyal' by Dave Dobbyn. Used and abused by too many companies and causes to mention here. His 'Welcome Home' song is well on the way to reach the monstrous annoying proportions of 'Loyal' as well. I'm tempted to add 'Bliss' to, just to piss off all the dumb dick head students who think it's hilarious to get pissed and then sing this song.

Anything by Jack Johnson of course.

'Baby Come On' by Elemeno P.

Any song where the first lyrics are:

"Uh huh...uh huh..."
"Oh baby...."
"Lucky that my breasts are small humble so you don't confuse them with mountains."

Feel free to add any of your own.

A few more of my fovourite things.

Last month I listed five of my favourite things about Christchurch and now it is my pleasure to give you five more. That will bring the total of my favourite things about Christchurch to 10, which is 2 in binary. Not being a geek I had to check this and stumbled across this page featuring this picture of this hilarious t-shirt. This is how they sell it:

"Do you enjoy watching the desperately puzzled faces of your co-workers day in and day out? Then we are sure you'll enjoy being the source of their frustrations as you stride down the fluorescent hallways with this fine koan of a t-shirt..."

Koan!!!!?

This should read as:

"Do you enjoy watching the desperate faces of your co-workers day in and day out as they try to avoid having anything to do with you? Then we are sure you'll enjoy being the source of derision and loathing as you stride down the fluroescent hallways with this fine koan of a t-shirt that makes you look like the bellend you are."

I'm too scared to look at all the other shit they have on offer. It's one of those unconundrumable conundrums that geeks in general earn lots of money and then spend it all on shit like HTTPanties, Chain Mail shirts and Muse albums. Most people who earn lots of money spend it all on utter crap, the only people who have good taste are the poor and have to make do with pictures of ladies with blue faces, second hand records and a laminated map of the world in the bog. Its the same with old people. Old people have lots of money because they've worked all their life and bought their house for 5 pounds and then they spend all their money on a really flash car so they can drive in comfort at 38 km per hour for the rest of their lives.

I'm sorry, this is meant to be a positive post so I will stop and continue my list from last month.

6. The weather

Yes, I know I already mentioned this at number 2 but the weather is lovely today.

7. The Press cryptic crossword.

The Christchurch Press is a gererally dire newspaper except for the cryptic crossword. On page five of The Press today there is a fascinating article entitled 'Variety the spice of spring day' which informs readers that yesterday it was sunny, before it rained and hailed. This riveting piece continues, "The day dawned sunny with temperatures rising to 17 degrees celsius. However, storm clouds gathered about 2pm with intermittent rain and hail in preparation for a forecast overnight low of 1C." I had wondered what those dark ominous things in the sky that cried on me yesterday were and now I know...but an overnight low of 1C, that is perilously close to a frost...what about my tomatoes? "Gardeners would be pleased to note that Trewinnard [Blue Skies Weather forecaster] did not expect frosts this week - ""so don't worry about the tomatoes."" Thats a bloody big call you're making there Trewinnard, you will have the juice of every frosted tomato in Christchurch on your hands if you're wrong Trewinnard and I'm angry at you already for making me use so many speech marks in the previous sentence incorrectly. What is the correct punctuational procedure for a quote within a quote? Please help.

Anyway, back to the crossword.

I love the cryptic crossword. I don't do them in Auckland but down here I have a crack every day. At The Court Theatre I photocopy it and then sit in the green room with my bacon and egg pie and chocolate croissant and ignore everyone else while pretending I'm getting lots of answers. When I hit the wall I call Jared who works very hard at RDU however he still manages to find a few precious minutes to help me with any I am stuck on. If you can help me with these I would be most grateful...anybody, not just Jared.

Bridal accessory from the fashion shop or toy shop. (5,5) Something something D something L something something something I something. I'm thinking Model something?

He puts a word in when required. (8) Something R something something something T something something. Although if the previous answer starts with model, then the fourth letter will be M.

8. Dad's tomatoes.

I don't even like tomatoes, except in sauce and soup however my dad grows the best tomatoes in the world. Here is a photo of them. Even though there are in a glasshouse they are still susceptible to frost so I've got my eye on you Trewinnard. Speaking of frost, the bloody frost wiped out my parents glorious magnolia tree mentioned in the first five favourites and I didn't hear a peep out of Trewinnard warning local residents about that. Trewinnard!

9. My boxing man.

He's not strictly my boxing man as he trains lots of people but Peter Bell is great. I go and see him for 60 minutes of pain when I'm in Christchurch and get well fisted in the ring. He has a wee terrier dog called Louis, named after Joe Louis and sometimes plays Johnny Cash while he cripples me. He has a photo of him and Ali on the wall. He also highly recommends cayenne pepper in 25 mm of tomato juice as a cure for every ailment known to man however if Trewinnard is wrong there will be no tomato juice and we will all die.

10. Tap-dancing.

Yesterday I had my first tap-dancing lesson for free and I found out I am crap at tap-dancing. Think of all the money I have saved on tap-dancing lessons that I can spend on blue faced ladies and records. Brilliant.

Poemosexual

This is my second blog posting in a week, a new record I think although I can't be bothered going back through my other ten posts to check. As regular readers will recall I am down in Christchurch working on a show. The show is a musical about the death of Edgar Allan Poe called 'Anything Poes' and features rollicking numbers like 'I Get a Kick out of Rue Morgue', 'Take Me Back to Amontillado' and everyone's favourite 'Let's Misbehave, kill someone and hide their body under the floorboards'. I get to tap-dance and show off my grape vine and box step, (or jazz square as I like to know it) while wearing nothing but a frock coat and a moustache. It also features 30 NASDA students dressed as ravens performing an improvised flocking exercise during intermission and the one armed man with his dancing dog dressed as a black cat in the foyer afterwards.

If only. Just like The Press most of the last paragraph is complete fabrication and I didn't credit my source. Thanks to Timothy Bartlett for the suggestion of 'Anything Poes'. Tim is acting alongside Elsie and I in a play about the death of Edgar Allan Poe but unfortunately it's not a musical...yet...we still have three weeks to run and anything is possible. (Lara, stop reading here.) I do wear a lovely frock coat though and have grown a lovely moustache as Poe had a lovely moustache and there's no point in performing unless you can grow or wear a lovely moustache. (Outwits mission statement 1995.) I'm quite proud of my Poe-mo so here's a photo of it together with Poe's mo to contrast and compare.

As you can see the resemblance is quite remarkable, this is called method moustache acting and takes years of study at your local repertory theatre to master. Poe was also an alcoholic opium injecting depressive with a penchant for 13 year old girls related to him so it's been lots of fun inhabiting the character.

I just can't stop stroking it either. It feels like a caterpillar made out of pubic hair has nestled under my nose in preparation for metamorphosis into a beautiful pubic butterfly. There are lots of circumstances when you may end up with one or two pubic hairs stuck to your upper lip but tens of them is certainly a new sensation I'm still to get used to.

People treat you differently when you have a moustache. They take one look at you and think you are either a porn actor or a cop. I am obviously too short to be the former so they think I'm the latter, either off-duty or undercover and treat me with a mixture of fear, respect and loathing. I bet I could flash my Foodtown/Woolworths Onecard and frisk someone with no serious repercussions if I really wanted to. I'm seriously thinking about buying a flashing red light I can slap on the roof of the Corolla when I desperately need to get KFC and then demanding I get it for free in the drive-through or I will come back and cause trouble with my policeman buddies from Rotorua and a lubed up truncheon. The power of a small pubic like growth is startling.

If you are thinking of growing a moustache I highly recommend it. This diagram may be of some assistance when styling and trimming. As you can see the difference between the porn star and the undercover brother is quite subtle. I'm well on my way to a jihad jack although I'm thinking with a bit of product I could pull off an abra kadabra by the end of the season. A gringo would be my ultimate aim however the moustache will end its life in three weeks due to itchiness issues, so no gringo for me. It has been a fun ride however I must expose my upper lip to the New Zealand summer sun to make sure it matches the rest of my bronzed bodily complexion.

Week five of my Christchurch sojourn and I was planning to offer five more of my favourite things about my home town but I'm full of malaise so will discuss Facebook instead.

Gore Vidal said something like, "everytime a friend succeeds a little part of me dies" and Facebook is killing all my little parts much sooner than they should be killed. Facebook is just a way for people doing more interesting things than you in more interesting places to tell you about the more interesting things they are doing in more interesting places so you feel more crap about the uninteresting things you're doing in uninteresting places.

Here are some recent status updates I've received:

"...is in Atlanta and Edmonton and Graz"

"...is making pom poms"

"...is going to spend Christmas in Christchurch. Anyone else? Anyone? Anyone at all?"

"...had a great day at Halswell domain riding on small trains"

"...saw the fuckin awful Inglorious Basterds yesterday. Still at least I saw a man piss on himself right afterwards."

Depressing innit. All my friends are living much more exciting lives than I am. I was actually in Halswell a bit over the weekend and didn't see any small trains so obviously I'm not cool enough for Halswell. I didn't see anyone on the streets in Halswell because they were probably all sitting on their really long small train riding behind the Corolla laughing at me and ducking behind a Magnolia whenever I looked in the rear view mirror to peer between the louvers.

Do you see what I'm doing here? It's called reincorporation, it's what you do in improvised scenes when you can't be arsed thinking up any new stuff.

I have never made pom poms or seen a man piss on himself. I have pissed on myself though. Just last week I had four glasses of Nor'wester Pale Ale with Jared and Shay Horay and ended up pissing on the front garden of Cooking with Gas. God, that place has gone down-hill, their flag at the front is all tatty. I'm sure some of my piss ended up on myself. That Nor'wester is nasty stuff, the Dux says it's 6.5% however I think that's a big fib. It's more like 6.7%.

I haven't been to Atlanta, Edmonton or Graz but I think that particular poster was fibbing as Graz is in Austria. He was probably appearing in some wacky improv show on a live video feed or something which I haven't done either so even his fib is more exciting that my life. Simon Peacock manages to make Christmas in Christchurch seem exciting which should make the fact that I'm already in Christchurch exciting but it doesn't, it just makes it pointless for me to update my status with something like, "Greg is in Christchurch." as everyone is now more interested in the fact Simon is going to be here for Christmas.

Even friends who don't post 'What's on their mind' are doing more exciting things. I shall shamelessly name-drop my very famous friend Jemaine Clement here. He was touring with FOTC, selling out massive arenas throughout North America and didn't update his status once. He sold out two nights at the Radio City Music Hall in New York and not a peep out of him. He doesn't even have a picture or aviator or whatever geeks call them. All he does is accept friend requests, sort of like Napoleon at his height. (He was 5' 6.5", which is pretty much exactly my height. Jemaine is much taller, Jemaine is 9' 2".) My page features a review for a show posted by somebody else, my own blog and my 50,000 point medal for Bejewelled Blitz.

I'm thinking I might just start fibbing. Fibbing is one of those great words that sort of sounds a bit dirty, like ribbing, rimming, frotting, felching, tromboning and Jack Johnsoning. Another reincorp...huzzah! I think my next posts will be something along the lines of...

"Greg is in Bishopdale, Casebrook and Twizel."

"Greg is spending Christmas with Jesus. Anyone else? Anyone? Anyone at all?"

"Greg is setting fire to Halswell."

"Greg is pissing in his own eye while making pom poms out of his own pooh."

That sort of thing.

A few of my favourite things...

I'm nearly at the end of week two of an eight week tour of duty in Christchurch. I just went to that link I just linked to and it welcomed me to the future christchurch.co.nz website however we don't seem to have reached the future yet because it's not working. By the looks of things in the future we will all be speaking another language where every sentence starts with 'lorem ipsum' although it does tell you that the temperature in Christchurch was 11 degrees on July 23 2006.

That's the best thing about Christchurch, time stands still. I bet if you come here in the year 3009 things won't have changed much. The square will still be a bit rubbish, there will be cyboyg racers in modified hover cars and old people's heads preserved in jars of bubbling liquid will moan about the price of heat pumps on telepathic talkback stations.

It's easy to moan about Christchurch so I'm not going to. Instead I'm going to tell you a few of my favourite things that only Christchurch has to offer. So, in no particular order...

1. The Magnolia tree down my folk's drive.

Look at this pretty puppy. There are heaps of magnolia trees in Christchurch and right now they are flowering beautifully but they are all shit compared to my mum and dad's magnolia tree just outside the bedroom window. This is the mother of all magnolia trees and as I back the Corolla (more on this soon) down the drive and knock a few of the flowers off with the wing mirror I feel blessed that the Cooper magnolia tree shits all over every other magnolia tree in Christchurch and probably the world. Last year mum and dad awoke to find two Japanese tourists up the drive taking photos of each other in front of it. It's that popular. If you think you have a better magnolia tree post a picture of it or shut your pie hole. Words are meaningless, images are everything. This photo isn't even the best it's looked, it looked heaps better a few days ago but it's still better than your magnolia tree isn't it. Yes....yes it is.

2. The weather.

The weather has been really nice.

3. The Court Theatre bar.

I'm down here doing a play at The Court Theatre. The Court Theatre, like Christchurch is another place where time stands still. Everytime I rehearse in the upstairs rehearsal room the ghosts of old actors surround me and the voices of Peacock, Wilson, Cooper (another Cooper, no relation), Fogarty, Butt-Walker, Corbin, Gorman, Glubb, Spargo, Cosgrove, Olivier, Jacobi, Richardson and Gielgud seem to whisper in my ear, "What the fuck are you doing back here?". I wonder where they all are now? Thanks to Facebook I know where they all are now, except for Gary Gielgud....I wonder where he is now? Anyway, the best thing about the Court is the bar where like time, the prices have stood still. As a member of the theatre company I can get booze so cheap it would makes your eyes water and drip into your glass of booze so your booze would be made up of your own tears which may have some alcoholic content but would still be more expensive than my booze. My booze is cheaper than your own tears, it's that cheap. The barman/woman at the Court have been great as well. For most of my life I was served by Jan who was brilliant and wouldn't serve gin to anyone under 40. Then there was a lovely man with the brilliant name of David Bain who has just left to make barrels for Peter Jackson. Next up is an Anglican priest apparently...brilliant. There is no better feeling than drinking booze before an early show on Mondays and Thursdays and knowing you are paying less than all the moaning geriatrics who normally get things cheaper than you. They have worked hard their whole life, fought in two world wars and your booze is at least $2 cheaper than theirs. Brilliant!

4. KFC.

Regular readers will know about my love for the dirty bird. There's a drive-through on Papanui Road on the way home from the theatre. What makes it even more special is that I get to drive through in....

5. The Corolla

This is the kicker and makes every trip to Christchurch worthwhile. When I'm down here I get to cruise around in this. Yes, you're not hallucinating, this pimped out piece of Japanese perfection has fuckin louvers. Louvers at the rear! This is a 1989 Toyota Corolla, 5 door, touring also known as the sexiest car ever made and I get to drive it every day and watch the faces of all the jealous locals who wish they were driving it and I'm not even a local anymore. This thing drives like it looks, moderately well. Here is a link to a wee film to see it in action.

So many good things. I was hoping to get to 10 but I have to stop here and go and learn some lines. I will finish the list in the next post. If you would like to go for a ride in the Corolla or just stroke my louver let me know.

May contain nudity

Following on from my last post which featured a disturbing bar graph I present you with a disturbing line graph to illustrate a disturbing trend that is disturbing me. The john legend is as follows: blue line = comments on blogger, red line = comments on facebook and yellow line = likes on facebook. It doesn't take a chart whiz to notice a downward trend on all three indicators of my blogs impact and I'm disturbed by this. John Legend had hits with "If You're Out There", "I Used to Love You" and "P.D.A (We Just Don't Care)" which just goes to show that John has suffered through a disturbing case of blogmalaise as well. I am determined to reverse this disturbing trend and have decided to resort to the only two marketing methods I know, fit birds and nudity.

After minutes searching the internet I have found a picture of a very fit bird indeed and here she is. What a dirty little minx, look at the provocative way she is holding that door with her hand hovering over the knob as if to say "My door is always open and my hand is right over your knob" or "Come inside and let me touch your knob" or "I like this knob" or "Wow, there's a knob on both sides of this door, I love a knob on both sides" or "This knob is silver, like the Lone Ranger's horse, I would like to ride the Lone Ranger's horse or your knob" or "Fancy a root?" Images like this verging on really really soft soft porn are guaranteed to increase readership and comments in the short term and alienate and sicken people in the long term which is exactly what I'm after.

I bet you all really fancy her don't you, I'd love to know what you're up to with her in your sordid imaginations even though she's probably unobtainable. Well, prepare to vomit in your mouth, that saucy minx who you're fantasising wildly about right now is actually ME in a DRESS. I know, it's hard to believe isn't it, it's like one of those reality dating shows where you find out right at the end that the winning woman has been dead the whole time and nobody realised, except the small boy who could see dead women. Yuck, yuck, yuckity yuck. Go and have a shower and let's never speak of this again.

I dressed up like this for a conference in Rootaroa last week with Jared who regular readers will recall bravely braved four days at the Food Show with me. The theme for the conference dinner was prom night and I was last years prom queen Candy and he was Randy. All the delegates dressed up as well. I got felt up by men because it's not gay to feel up another man when he's dressed as a woman so it's OK and there's nothing gay about it, because he's got screwed up paper as boobs and he's wearing a dress...so it's not gay...OK. I also got groped by middle aged women but that's not sexual harrassment because he's a man dressed as a woman and I'm a woman and woman love to grab each others bits, have pillow fights in their nighties and talk about riding Silver. Jared had his tackle groped by a large English man dressed as Gene Simmons but that's not gay because Gene probably goes both ways.

Conferences are great fun, especially when you don't have to sit through the endless tedium of train-wreck presentations backed up with endless powerpoint bollocks. No matter what company it is and what product or service they are peddling, 90% of conference presentations spout the same old crap that everybody knows anyway...stuff like this:

"We must work together as a team to exceed the customer's expectations everytime and provide a service second to none in this competitive environment to survive the current recessionary climate. Margins! We must be lean and dynamic and approach every opportunity with the knowledge that our actions reflect the brand and all of us are the most important resource and together we can win and make our targets. Margins! My door is always open and I will endeavour to implement all your ideas to make this organisation more effective. Margins! We must all think of the bottom line and think outside the square and think differently from our competitors. Margins! We must be harder, faster, stronger. Margins! We are a winning team and together we will win."

This can be summarised as:

"Make your targets or lose your jobs."

After hours of this you may be invited to go to a break-out room where you listen to more of it in smaller groups and write on a big bit of paper in different coloured felt pens. Then you read the words you have written, words like 'brand awareness", "customer focus", "symbiotic" and "follow-up" before the bits of paper get screwed up by the facilitator to be used as boob stuffing for the piss-up in the evening.

Then it's time for some team-building where you thrash a drum for a couple of hours in unison or run around blind-folded tied to a cow with your team-mates hand up it's arse to guide it around all your other team members lying naked in the shape of your company's logo.

Then you go back to your hotel, put a wacky costume on, go and get slaughtered, try and cop off with someone or tell your CEO what a bellend he is before kissing him and vomiting in his mouth. Wake up at 6am with a steaming hang-over, return to conference venue and repeat if you still have a job.

I'm sure some of you have some fantastic and saucy conference stories so why don't you comment on this blog and share them. If I don't reverse my disturbing trend I will resort to nudity in my next post and that really will be disturbing for all concerned and ruin my chances of becoming Prime Minister of America.

You have been warned.

GP Abuse

The last four days of my life have been spent at the Auckland Food Show, and event where over 30,000 people are treated to "a stellar array of the very best in food and wine." For $22 you can spend 8 hours wandering around three gigantic halls of delictable delights, sampling smoked paprika flakes, wagyu beef and Paul Holmes Extra Virgin Olive Oil. You could even sample Paul Holmes himself as he was there, apparently he tasted rich and meaty with a good nose.

For $22 you could also spend 8 hours wandering around three gigantic halls getting absolutely rat-arsed. After four days of meticulous observation and statistical analysis I have prepared the following bar graph.There's something about us Kiwis and free alcohol that makes us act like the Kurgan out of the fantastic film Highlander. We start driving on the wrong side of the road, try and chop other people's heads off and lick priests. I remember being in the New Zealand theatresports team in Los Angeles in 1994 and we all went to a party in Malibu where there was lots of free beer. It was lots of horrible American beer like Budweiser and Miller Lite however that didn't stop us and we began to drink the stuff as if it was little bottles of Bella Swann's blood and we were all Robert Pattinson. I was at a loss as to why none of the other teams were following our lead, the Danes came and pawed at a bottle, licked the rim a bit and wandered off to sniff each others bottoms, the Germans dipped their sausages in and marched off to invade the dance floor and the South Africans just sang their new national anthem over and over again. Even the Aussies were restrained. We got rip-roaringly drunk and my team-mate Simon fell of a fence during the 45th singing of the new South African national anthem much to our amusement and nobody elses. We couldn't help ourselves, it was free.

At the food show you could go and get lots of free wine samples and by midday people were staggering around being low rent and obnoxious. I was dressed as a Belgian beer maker in full Shakespearian attire with a large grey moustache and the drunk people just loved me. On the Thursday I was Napoleon Bonoparte with very large pantaloons that I had to hold up for fear of exposing my little general to the general public. I won't go into details as to why I was dressed like this, it was incredibly creatively fulfilling and I produced some of my best work and I can now pour a very good pint. The point I want to make is that the general public are arseholes.

They really are. I'm sure there is some equation to prove the number of dickheads increases exponentially in relation to group size, alcohol consumed and ridiculousness of the costume you're wearing. Perhaps something like this:

Jared and I were giving away free beer and even then a lot of them were rude and belligerent. They had paid their $22 and that meant they were going to get drunk, their children were going to get drunk, they would eat enough to last them for a week and their children could kick Napoleon in the balls. Jared who was slowly dying alongside me, actually heard some delightful father say to their whining spawn, "No, we're not leaving, you haven't eaten enough yet." Last year I used the ancient put-down line, 'If I wanted to hear from an arsehole I'd fart' to some large man who wouldn't shut up and then he promptly proceeded to pull down his pants and show me his arse-hole before falling over and spilling his free glass of beer over his own anus. The image is forever burned on my retinas, like I'd stared at a big brown sun. This happened at 2pm on a Sunday.

I'm not sure why this happens. Sure the booze plays a part, however even without it, the general public are stupid, rude, dumb, thick, annoying, punchable and a bunch of muhs. It should be compulsory for everyone to work at least six months in a service industry, either in a cafe, bar, in retail, dressed as Napoleon and then maybe they would understand how horrible they as members of the general public have been and change their ways. Yes, I admit it goes both ways, there have been many situations where I have smiled and been very plesant while ordering a coffee only to be graced with a look reserved for someone who has farted in a broken lift. Bad service is intolerable however if you, as a member of the GP have given bad customerice you should expect bad service in return. You hear stories about waiting staff spitting, or whacking off into the food of rude diners however if they were allowed to do it in front of the diners at the table it would be much more effective. If I'd been allowed to do that while dressed as Napoleon I would have felt much better. I would probably be in hospital, but would feel much better.

GJC4KFC4EVA

God I love KFC. If the Colonel wasn't some rotting corpse infested with maggots buried deep down in a field in Kentucky I would kiss him on the lips and offer to do much more if he would just whisper those sweet 11 herbs and spices into my ear. Recently I stumbled upon an article in The Guardian claiming to have the secret receipe and for those of you who can't be bothered going to the link, here it is...
1 teaspoon ground oregano
1 teaspoon chilli powder
1 teaspoon ground sage
1 teaspoon dried basil
1 teaspoon dried marjoram
1 teaspoon pepper
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon paprika
1 teaspoon onion salt
1 teaspoon garlic powder
2 tablespoons Accent (MSG)

Who knows if this is the real thing. Perhaps it's even better than the real thing although I doubt that's possible even if Bono says it is. Bono talks a lot of shite anyway and comes up with lyrics like, "Stuck together with god's glue, it's gonna get stickier too'. I always thought 'god's glue' was a euphemism for jizz and if so there's much better rhyming potential with 'duck butter' anyway. Here is a receipe for Bono:

1 teaspoon ground bollocks
1 pair of silly big glasses
1 pair of tight pants
1 big potato
4 litres of sanctimoniousness
2 tablespoons of Irish tiddly tiddly Accent
Mix until smooth and tasteless and sprinkle over a tablespoon of Brian Eno before serving cold.

Feel free to add receipes for your own favourite bands or singers.

But back to KFC. Some euphemisms for KFC include 'KFaeces', (thanks to Jari for this I think) and 'Dirty Bird', (thanks to Ben for this one) . Deep down part of you knows that by consuming KFC you are consuming small amounts of pooh and dirt along with the bird but if you're like me, that's all part of the thrill. I don't smoke, or take drugs made up of single letters, I have no desire to jump out of a plane or bungy jump or fall backwards into the arms of a bunch of actors doing some wanky trust exercise however I do love to eat KFC because you know it's not good for you, it feels dangerous, naughty and wrong and you keep furtively looking out the window in case somebody you know sees you with chicken juice dribbling down your chin and a breast hanging from your soggy lips. Just typing that last sentence has got me all moist for some of the Colonel's crack and I've already had some for lunch.

Here's is a picture of me with Ben eating some of the Colonel's finest in Clapham Common. I had been told that the best place in London to go and share your meat with another man was Clapham Common and they were right, it was lovely. Look how happy we both are. I think this love of KFC comes from growing up in Christchurch. For a long time KFC was the only fast food you could get in Christchurch. It was such a special treat and I still associate it with occasions like birthdays, marriages, Christmas and death. Just like Pavlov's dog I start salivating when I hear a bell rung by a Russian with a big bucket of chicken. In fact Ivan Pavlov bears an uncanny resemblance to Colonel Harland David Sanders, so they may be the same person which raises questions I can't be bothered asking or answering.

Please don't judge me for my KFC obsession. I only ever have a two or three piece quarter pack, I never eat the potato and gravy and all this new fangled hot spicy wing crispy nibbler stuff is anathema to me. After every meal a small part of me dies. I feel guilty, dirty and ashamed but I know I will do it again and ask myself the same question, 'Which came first, the chicken or the Greg?'

Doin' it for the kids

I apologise for the lack of bloggage recently, I've been working hard to bring the magic of theatre into the lives of children on the North Shore by dressing up as a tree, river, fish, dancing flower and baby bear. I also jiggled a soft toy bunny with a Welsh accent behind a bush. Here's a photo of me as baby bear with the actual set in the background. I look a bit like what you might get if that horrible man Jay Kay from that horrible band Jamiroquai rooted a horrible raccoon.

I've done a lot of children's theatre. My first show was a variation on the traditional Goldilocks story called 'Goldilocks and the Three little Rumpelstiltskins'. I can't remember much about it except that it was done on a budget and I played all three bears with a different type of fur coat to indicate which bear I was. The brown fur coat was for the grizzly bear who was angry, the white fur coat was for the polar bear who was cold and the black fur coat was for the black bear who was...black. He entered to hip hop music and sounded like what you might get if Flavour Flav had rooted Chris Rock while Gary Coleman stood by with a turkey baster and a pipette of his own duck butter. You can imagine how a skinny white guy pretending to be a bear of African American origin went down in early 1990's Christchurch...they loved it.

I'm still amazed we didn't receive any complaints. A few years ago I was playing the Hare in 'The Hare and the Tortoise' and I based my accent on Al Pacino in 'Scent of a Woman' and said 'Hoo-ah!' whenever I couldn't remember my next line. After the show an American woman came up to me while we were being bum-rushed by the kids in the foyer and whispered in my ear something like, "Black people can be good people to, you shouldn't reinforce racial stereotypes to small children." I stammered something like, "I'm a hare, not a black person and I'm meant to be Al Pacino", but she had gone before I could finish. You could hardly call the hare a bad person either, sure he was boastful but he got his comeupance and apologised to the tortoise at the end and joined in on the final song. The kids loved the hare as well, I was swamped with sticky children wanting to pull my tail and sign their stubs.

Children are great fun to perform to. It's just like performing to a bunch of really drunk adults. They yell stuff out that makes no sense, scream and cry for no reason, start talking when they are bored, wet themselves and fall asleep. They have no concept of how one should behave in a theatre which is fantastic. I've been to so much dreadful theatre where the audience sits in silence bored beyond belief, gives the cast a big clap at the end, tells their friends they came with afterwards how wonderful it was and then returns home feeling miserable having wasted $50 on two hours of self-indulgent thespwank. Children are brutally honest. Some memorable criticisms of my performance include, "You can't sing.", "You're dumb.", "You look like a girl." and "My daddy wants to kill you."

What children possess in abundance is imagination and a wonderful ability to completely suspend disbelief. If you've got the acting chops you can put on a different wig and you are instantly a different person. They just go along with it. I made what is possibly the worst prop in the history of New Zealand professional theatre, a giant hand painted on floppy cardboard glued to two bamboo sticks that I jiggled onstage while yelling 'Fee Fi Foo Fum' and the kids shat themselves. The management of the theatre also shat themselves and gave us a professional props person from then on so it was all worth it.

I did have a bit of a moment last week when I realised I was 35 years old and playing a baby bear. This was followed up by another moment when I was waving blue fabric up and down being a river while bubbles fell on my head. This was followed up by yet another moment when I was dressed as a tree who looked like he was giving a blowie. You cannot help but question your career choice at moments like these and ask things like, "What am I doing?", "Where is my life going?" and "Why do I look like I'm sucking cock?". But then you remember that you are getting paid to work with fantastic people to make kids laugh and you're not working at McDonalds or a call-centre selling wine.

At those moments I also think of the best moment of my acting career so far. I was the Big Bad Wolf in 'The Three Little Pigs'. He was an East London wide-wolf but sang like an asthmatic Elvis Presley. This is no way implies that people from East London are big or bad. My big number was about how much I loved eating bacon sandwiches however by the end of the show I remained hungry. We were in the foyer afterwards signing and hugging when this wee boy, maybe 4 or 5 years old, came up and handed me four small bacon sandwiches with their crusts cut off wrapped in glad-wrap. His grandmother explained that he had been to see the show yesterday and was very upset the wolf never got his dinner. That night he rang her to make some bacon sandwiches and bring him back the next day so he could give them to me. My jaded old luvvie heart melted and I gave him a big hug and felt better about everything. Hoo-ah!

True Lies

What a week it's been. My computer gets a virus and Michael Jackson dies. We don't yet know how The King of Pop popped his clogs, it may have been a virus but it seems more likely to have been an overdose of prescription drugs. The sort of prescription drugs one might prescribe to a horse who had trouble sleeping or perhaps to a person about to have a ten hour operation.

Whatever the case his death certainly had nothing to do with his state of health. He was in fantastic shape, absolutely fantastic. I know this is true because The Incredible Hulk told me. He said, "I'd never seen him look better" and that, "he seemed fine, alert, no pain at all." Even though that final phrase seems better suited to someone who is just a head being kept alive in a jar of bubbling liquid, who's going to disagree with The Incredible Hulk?

Here are some photos of Michael Jackson and as you can see he's an absolute picture of health.













It must be great being a celebrity, not only do you get paid lots of money and lots of people want to have sex with you, you can go on TV and tell fibs and get away with it. The Incredible Hulk could have said, "Underneath his slim exterior Michael Jackson had a body just like mine and could bench press 400 pounds upside down while sipping on gin and Jesus Juice" and everybody would have agreed and nodded their heads and thanked The Incredible Hulk for his startling revelation.

It must be such a rush knowing you can spout forth with any old bullshit and nobody picks you up on it. In California The Terminator has told everyone that instead of getting paid or getting your tax refund you will receive an I.O.U which he says are "rock solid". This from the man who said, "Money doesn't make you happy. I now have $50 million but I was just as happy when I had $48 million." It must be reassuring when you're feeding your children sausages made of dirt that you have a stack of I.O.U's from The Terminator in your top draw just waiting for some financial institution like Wells Fargo to convert them into your hard earned Benjamins. Wells Fargo got $25 billion worth of I.O.U's from Obama but recent stress tests have shown they probably need another $13.7 billion in order to remain well capitalised. Hasta la vista baby.

Luckily in New Zealand we don't have celebrities, all we have are people on Shortland Street, people who used to or currently play rugby or cricket and Marc Ellis. These people try and tell us fibs but we just laugh at them because we know somebody who knows them, they are related to us or we are actually them.

I went to a focus group on Thursday where I sat around with nine other men and discussed the merits of a new series of TVC's for a large hamburger producing multi-national company that is desperately trying to rebrand itself to make you think their offerings are as healthy as Michael Jackson. E,I,E,I,O,U. It was quite surreal walking into a small room in a Parnell hotel and seeing nine middle aged men and a video camera. I half expected my cup of tea to be laced with rohypnol but still had two cups and three pastries and loosened my pants. I was getting paid $70 and times are tough. After listening to a few of the test voice-overs my fellow focus groupers began suggesting better replacements, namely, Colin Meads, some Aussie guy who plays league who I'd never heard of and Marc Ellis. As someone who has done a bit of voice work myself I began crying on the inside and wanting to shove all the hotel pens up their posteriors. Not only would this have made me happy, it would have produced a video that could have made me more than $70. I wondered what they all did for a living and how they would feel if instead of using their accountancy/plumbing/gynecological services I got Marc Ellis over to probe my U-bend.

Not only do celebrities tell fibs, they think they can do anything. Rappers can be fashion designers, singers can write books, actors can advise developing countries on economic policy and Sting can do all of it while having tantric sex. One thing they can't do yet is cure swine flu. BBC World has just told me Ron Weasley has a mild case of swine flu and Harry Potter hasn't helped one iota. Boy wizard my arse.

win32:virut

I'm writing this on my Netbook. It's a bit like a laptop but you can't call it a laptop because it's smaller than a laptop which makes it easier to fit on top of your lap. And don't even think about calling it a notebook. If you call a netbook a laptop or notebook I.T people will look at you with a wry smile and then attempt to explain your error using words like cloud computing, solid state and x86, which isn't even a word. Talking to I.T folk is like talking to dolphins, you know they know more than you do and they have a lovely smiling faces but all you hear are squeaks and whistles unless you are a dolphin as well.

If you are interested, netbook is a portmanteau of the words internet and notebook.
Portmanteau is a portmanteau of Natalie Portman and te au, which means the gold in Maori, i.e the golden girl in the film with Tem Morrison.

Portmanteau is a good word. Win32:virut is not a good word, because it has a colon in the middle and because it is a virus. The colon in your body is used to pass shit out of your system, the colon in win32:vitro turns your system into shit and then dumps it all over you while making more shit than seems possible for its size, like an evil evil baby.

Here's some more words that sound like clicks and whistles when you say them aloud: Parasitic file infector of PE files with .EXE extension, an IRC bot communicating on TCP port 65520, polymorphic entry point obscuring (EPO) and my favourite of all ZOMBIFY.

On the monitor of my desktop, a portmanteau of the words de and sktopiary, i.e a bush trimmed into the shape of a German shepherd, there is a blue screen filled with more squeaks and whistles like: linux kernal, mersenne twister, DoD 5220.22-M and my favourites of all URANDOM KOK.

The screen is telling me that in 10:29:25 I will have erased everything on my computer so even if I left my computer in the Pentagon and 100 Pentagon people worked for 100 years with 100 monkeys to see what things I had on my computer they would only find out that I once tried to install my own sound card and lost half the screws before putting the outer case back on.

The program I am using is called Darik's Boot and Nuke 1.0.7. I don't know who Darik is but I'd like to thank him or her, unless they are the Ukranian who wrote win32:virut. The last few days have been somewhat stressful. It's been like watching an episode of Target where a dodgy Ukranian builder comes into your house, sniffs all your undies, craps on your carpet and whacks off over your record collection while sticking your toothbrush up his bum. The fact that I invited the builder into my house in the hope of getting my hands on his crack makes it all the worse. Although I frisked the Ukranian vigorously with my anti-virus software I have only myself to blame.

I have tried in vain to battle the builder with the help of various dolphins around the world and their dolphin discussion forums. I have downloaded scanners and software fixes and booted myself into safe modes with no success. The Ukranian builder knows my every move, he blocks my access to the sites that may offer assistance and every scan just makes him angrier and more destructive. So I have resorted to the scorched earth policy. A small parcel of documents and mp3's have made it on the last chopper out and my hard drives are being annilated before my eyes. This is probably what William Shatner felt like when he blew up the Enterprise, it is painful, liberating and necessary. I just hope the builder is not clinging to the bottom of my chopper waiting to corrupt me again.