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.