The Birthday Girl

Today is my birthday. Happy birthday to me. To celebrate I shall give you all a gift to treasure, laminate and stick above your bed or bog...a photo of me dressed up as Supergirl.

I'm at the stage in my career where I don't get out of bed for less than five bottles of pinot, $100 cash and a pound of grapes, and luckily that was exactly what this gig was paying. So I got out of bed. I even did my own makeup. I'm so beautiful. So very very beautiful. Women must hate me when I become more beautiful than them by simply donning a blond wig, green eye shadow and some lipstick for my lips and cheeks. I was part of a 'meet and greet' duo which required me to say, 'Hi, you look SUPER!, I'm SUPERgirl, welcome to our SUPER Christmas party, I hope you have a SUPER time!' I didn't have to say that, but I find it's easier to relentlessly repeat one line so you can stop thinking and go to your happy place to kill yourself.

Actually it wasn't that bad. At least I wasn't alone. I was meeting and greeting with Superman!

We make a lovely couple. Regular readers might recognise Superman as Lucius Malfoy to my Severus Snape or as Randy to my Candy. I've sort of already posted this next photo, but it's my birthday so I can do it again to further reinforce how pretty am.

I'd be very surprised if any women reading this are not seething with jealousy and making sure their boyfriends and husbands don't catch a glimpse of me looking so pretty and provocative. In this one I think I look a bit like an emaciated Susan Boyle on crack. I'd love to tell you how old I've turned today but instead I'll let you guess from these photos. Some people might say I'm too old to dress up as women for wine and grapes but to be honest, there's not much else I'm qualified to do...except maybe become a high school drama teacher. And now these photos have been released onto the interweb that career bridge has probably been burnt as well. Just as well.

New On-Bored

I never learn. Blogging about something you despise, in this case a Canadian band that rhymes with Bickelnack, will inevitably lead to advertisements appearing on ones blog for the very thing you have been raging against. The machine that is Google Adsense cannot distinguish between pro or NO! And the only winners are Chad Kroeger and Brother.

Thank you Greg for promoting my new album. Love Chad.

I was going to be horrendously clever and pay 1000 monkeys to click on Bickelnacks's ad without buying their album, and not stop until the band was bankrupt so I could call them Nickelbankrupt, or one of the monkeys took lots of drugs and typed the complete works of William Burroughs. Then I noticed the advertisement was from Marbecks Music, and as much as I'm disgusted at 'New Zealand's leading music specialist' peddling such filth, I cannot bring myself to go all rogue-clicker and destroy an institution that's been operating since 1934. Also I suspect some of the monkeys may not be able to resist buying Bickelnack's album to throw their own shit at.

On the subject of monkeys, I watched 'Rise of the Planet of the Apes' on an Air New Zealand flight last month and thoroughly enjoyed it, especially the bit where Bright Eyes started burning like fire and killed Draco Malfoy. If all the monkeys had escaped to march on Alberta to throw shit at Chad Kroeger it would have been even better, but you can't have everything.

I returned to Christchurch again a few weeks ago and was excited to see what new filmic offerings Air New Zealand had ready for my viewing pleasure while I harassed harassed flight attendants for yet another plastic bottle of Brancott Estate Reserve Merlot. I went straight to the 'New On-Board' screen and to my horror saw this...

Not much to choose from is there. I'd forked out an extra $30 and all I was getting was a gluten free salmon meal, four bottles of merlot, a gin and tonic and a whole lot of bloody Harry Potter films. Why do I need to see Harry Potter films? Everyone knows that Draco Malfoy gets killed by an ape and Voldemort turns out to be Harry's father and gets his end away in a Qantas toilet while flying to Mumbai. Boring! How can a whole lot of Harry Potter films be considered suitable viewing for a 'New On-Board' classification? If the section was called, 'Films That Feature Lots of Plummy British Actors Except Hugh Grant That You've Probably Seen a Million Bloody Times on the Tele', I would understand, but honestly Air New Zealand, this is a misleading and shameful act for a national carrier. Still, there was another whole page of 'New On-Board' films to go, so surely I'd find a recently released cracker there to get me through the next three hours...

Look Greg, I can see you're really upset about this. I honestly think you ought to sit down calmly, take a stress pill, and think things over.

WTF! So, out of 12 'new' films, eight were Harry Potters, one I'd already seen, one was released in 2007, one in 2009 and Horrible Bosses, which admittedly was released in 2011, but has Jennifer Aniston in it who I cannot face since searing my eyeballs on 'Love Happens'.

I'm flying back to Melbourne on Friday and if there isn't a serious shake-up in the movie selection there will be serious trouble. I may pretend I didn't order a gluten free meal when really I did. I may order 20 Brancott Estate Merlots and hand them out for free to grateful Seat+Bag passengers. I may even express my anger by playing Words With Friends up-to, during and after take-off, and if challenged by an power-hungry tyrannical trolley dolly, sprint down the aisle, lock myself in the toilet and continue playing Words With Friends with Ralph Fiennes and Alec Baldwin  until one of us comes out on top.

Nationalback

Bad things are happening again.

The first bad thing happening again is this.

If you know me you know Nickelback makes me spit with rage. Just as I was about to spit with rage I saw this right next to it.

It seems even the Nickelback poster-putter-uppers know any sane person wouldn't be able to resist spitting on Chad Kroeger's latest assault on everything good in the world. Chad Kroeger is a total total utter utter dick dick of immense proportions who probably has a tiny tiny dick dick. I know my posts of late have consisted of calling people dicks and crudely paint-shopping human heads onto dogs and mythical creatures, but I'm sure it's just a phase. If you're looking for a sophisticated and sagacious musically political statement go here. If you're happy to see a photo of me dressed up as Chad Kroeger, lead singer of Nickelback... read on.

This is one hell of a skeleton to drag out of the closet, but my hypocrisy threatens to eat away at me until I become a skeleton who is too weak to open the closet and let the other skeleton out. Here is a picture of Chad Kroeger.

And here is a picture of me in my Chad Kroeger costume, distributing free copies of Nickelback's third album 'Silver Side Up' to poor unsuspecting children at Auckland Zoo in 2002.

The costume captures with uncanny accuracy Chad's long flowing locks, facial hair and enormous head, and as you can see by the photo, the children couldn't resist him. I was mobbed and hugged and generally treated like a nine foot furry Jesus with a box of free CDs and the occasional free ice-cream. I did this many times and the shame lingers still. I sold out in the worst possible way. I would have felt better if I'd handed out bags of fags, crack and copies of Mein Kampf. I inflicted Nickelback on the untainted susceptible ears of young children who should have been listening to beautiful music like 'If You Come Back' by Blue, instead of 'How You Remind Me.' Wow. I've just listened to If You Come Back and if he hasn't already Gary Barlow should be calling his lawyers, because it's a complete rip off of Gary's opus 'Back For Good'. Why couldn't I have been dressed as a nine foot Gary or Robbie handing out free copies of Take That's third album 'Nobody Else'? Why!

Right, now that's out of my system I'll move onto the other bad thing that's happening again. I'm flying to New Zealand on Sunday for a few weeks work and barring a political miracle, I shall arrive on the first day of the second term of the fifth National Government. They may even garner enough votes to govern alone. The previous national government introduced major cuts in social welfare spending, introduced market rents for state houses, retained a tax on pensions despite promising to abolish it, sold the BNZ, NZ Rail, The Ministry of Works, the commercial arm of Radio NZ, Contact Energy and its 51.6% share of Auckland International Airport. Auckland International Airport is very profitable and it looks like its profits are only going to increase. They divided the Electricity Corporation of NZ into Meridian Energy, Mighty River Power and Genesis Power with the intention of selling them off. They introduced the Employment Contracts Act to abolish collective bargaining and weaken the power of unions. Government standards in building were relaxed in the belief that market forces and competition would lead to high quality construction, but market forces and competition decided to build a whole lot of leaky homes instead. The really scary thing is that a lot of these decisions were just a continuation of what the previous Labour Government had been up to.

And now it's happening again. John Key wants to sell more of NZ's profit making assets and even financial analysts say it's a stupid short-term solution to avoid borrowing money. If it goes ahead the only winners will be the Australian investment banks advising John on the best way to do it, one of which will reportedly receive more than $100 million for their 'services'. The fifth National Government will hit the poorest and most vulnerable members of our society and increase the disparity between rich and poor. The New Zealand rich/poor gap is ninth worst in the world, so at least we don't have far to fall to hit rock bottom. As shown by his handling of The Hobbit episode, John is happy to trample over the rights of workers and will change employment law retrospectively to keep the men with the money happy. Especially if he can nab photos like this during an election campaign.

It's all getting a bit serious so I'll finish with my one and only encounter with a National Party MP. Years ago I was on an Air New Zealand flight from somewhere to somewhere, and walked down the aisle to find Ruth Richardson sitting in my seat on the aisle. She was busy scribbling down the best way to use high unemployment levels to pull labour costs down, so I politely 'ahemed'. She said without looking up, "I need this seat, I've got work to do." I was slightly taken aback and said, "I think you're sitting in my seat." She replied, without looking up, "I need this seat to work, you can sit in the middle." I hate sitting in the middle. Ruth Richardson hates sitting in the middle. Everyone hates sitting in the middle. Her seat was in the middle but Ruth felt she was entitled to sit on the aisle because everyone knows it's much easier to find ways to shaft the underprivileged on the aisle than in the middle. She could have asked if she could swap seats, she could have looked at me, she could have smiled, she could have even said a solitary please or a solitary thank you as I squashed past her to sit in the middle. She could have stood up to let me sit in her seat but no, she was too busy working. Her sense of entitlement to my seat was overpowering and I sat in the middle and said nothing. I wish I'd had the intestinal fortitude to say no, but I didn't. I cast my vote today and said no. I also made sure I had an aisle seat for my flight on Sunday.

Two Dicks Talking and a Microphone

John Key is a dick. He's worth about $50 million so he's obviously a clever dick, but he's still a dick.

It's not nice or clever to call someone a dick but I can't help myself.  John Key is the bell to my Pavlov's dog. Every time I see his grinning face I shake my fist and scream, 'You sir, are a dick!', before drooling uncontrollably while trying to lick my balls.

No Greg, you're a dick.

I've never met John Key. The only connection we have is that we both went to Burnside High School and got B.Com degrees at Canterbury University. Then our paths diverged. John went to Harvard and reaped $50,000,000 as head of Asian Foreign Exchange for Merrill Lynch. I went to Auckland and reaped $50 by dressing up in green tights and waving a cardboard sword.

Spot the dick.

I'm sure if John met me he would think I'm a dick. He may not drool and try to lick his own balls, but I'm pretty sure he would take one look at me in my spotted tights and chuckle to himself, 'That pale waify young man is a dick. I can't believe he was head boy! I can't believe he has a B.Com degree! I can't believe we went to the same high school and university! I know what, I'll get Anne Tolley to close Burnside High and Canterbury University down just like we closed down my primary school, and destroy any record of his existence. And just to rub it in, I'll cut all funding for the arts and plays and all that other prancy stuff dicks do and give the money to Peter Jackson, because PJ's my mate and we had a great chat on my talkshow on Radio Live. I mean, if there's no money in theatre and dance and stuff, why do the dicks do it?'

I've asked myself that question many times.

I was just getting used to John Key being a dick before I saw a photo of John with an even bigger dick. Not content with being a dick and leading the country for three more years, John's decided to try and insert the mother-of-all-dicks back into parliament just in case enough dicks don't vote for him to let him dick the country singlehandedly.

It's quite a clever move. John Banks is a cock colossus and no matter how much of a dick Key makes of himself, Banksie is assured of cocking things up to a whole new level. Not only is Banksie a dick, he's also a bit of a racist, (I know I put in lots of links, but click on this one, watch it for 30 seconds and then go have a shower), and a bit of a homophobe. Here's a delightful wee Banksie gem from the 1993 parliamentary debates on outlawing discrimination on the basis of sexuality.

"The problem with this homosexual business we've now made legal in his country is that so many of these creeps have now boldly crept out of the wardrobe and parliament is soon going to legislate... to allow sexual deviants or people with sexual alternatives to work... with immunity."

The only positive trait of John Banks I'm aware of is that he's a big supporter of the SPCA and likes dogs. Then again Hitler liked dogs as well.

John and John invited every journalist and cameraman in the country to their tea-party, and then got the shock of their lives when somebody managed to leave a microphone in a pouch on their table and record their 'private' conversation. Apparently they talk about how to get rid of another dick called Don. John Key thinks what happened is 'News Of The World' journalism and the publishing of the tape could in some circumstances lead to suicide, even though he "genuinely can't recall" anything he said and there's nothing of interest on the tape anyway.

I'm sure someone will leak it soon. Here's my guess on what we'll hear.

John Key: 'Have you heard of Greg Cooper?'
Banksie: 'Yeah. He was dressed as a dog at an SPCA Function I gave a speech at.'
John Key: 'He's a dick.'
Banksie: 'Yeah, he's a dick.'
John Key: 'Is that your pouch?'

A Twitter of Tibetan Mastiffs

It's been well over a month since my last post, which in blog months is 7 months and in dog blog months is 49. I read somewhere you should be tweeting at least every two hours to build a Twitter following, but I have no idea what the vital statistics are with blogging. A tweet every two hours means twelve tweets a day, or approximately 360 tweets a month. If you were a tweeting dog this would equate to 2,520 tweets a month, 84 tweets a day, or approximately 3.5 tweets an hour, which wouldn't leave much time for sniffing dog bums and licking your dog bollocks. The only person I follow who can out-tweet a dog is Stephen Fry, perhaps because he looks a bit like a big cuddly dog with an astounding vocabulary of barks.

This is shit but I spent 10 minutes on it and don't want to feel like I wasted my time.

I'll digress here before this becomes a post of Stephen Fry's pate crudely pasted on pictures of pooches using Microsoft Paint.

George 'Gatling-Gun' Michael, as he is known in the Twitterverse, can give Stephen a good run for his money when his anger is roused, although he then usually goes quiet for a few days to recover and sing Club Tropicana with his big orchestra. The really fantastic thing he does though is occasionally end tweets with an 'and'. 140 characters isn't enough for George to express his outrage and when he starts firing nobody else you follow can get a tweet in sideways... except for Hamish Keith. What's even better is that Hamish managed to lob his tweet through the one minute window straight after George's 'and' tweet, so you could read them together before George's follow up. George was angry with the portrayal of two gay characters on Eastenders and Hamish was angry that no one remembered today is Armistice Day. So together they go...

So far, Christian has been beaten up 3 times that I can remember, and is now accused of child molestation. Sayed has been disowned and no one seems to remember that this is Armistice Day end of WWI at 11 am - we commemorate the defeat at Gallipoli & ignore the peace.

Either my life is tragic or that's incredible. Two tweets from two men who have probably never met each other combine to create a mystic megatweet full of hidden depth and wonder. This sort of thing should be actively encouraged by forcing everyone who tweets to pop an 'and' at their end. I'm sure Twitter could bump up the character allowance to 144, (which is a square and a MUCH more pleasing number than 140), so Tweeters don't feel short changed. Then we could all just sit back and watch the wonder unfold. Rather than a series of unconnected observations, our feeds would become a neverending story...ahhhhh, ahhhhh, ahhhhh.

This one only took 5 minutes but I'm much happier with it.

Surely someone out there could talk to someone and make this happen... the neverending tweet that is, not Limahl's head on a Tibetan Mastiff.

Just before I finish I'd like to start up what I hope will be a sporadically amusing section of the blog called 'Only In Australia'. Let's kick things off with this photo of a truck I spied this morning parked on Little Collins Street.

And a close-up to truly appreciate the genius at work.

Only one question. Did they know? Oi. Oi. Oi.

ENO OH-NO!

I'm writing this post under the influence of my spasming gullet. It hasn't spasmed for quite a while but due to a combination of over-exuberant fisting in the ring and swallowing big meat, I'm now spitting saliva into a glass to avoid swallowing anything. I could post a picture of the glass, which is almost full of my frothy boy bile, however nobody needs to see things like that. Just putting the image in your imagination is enough.

But enough of that, let's talk about Kate Bush. I was getting a bit weepy listening to This Woman's Work yesterday when I remembered that Kate wrote Wuthering Heights when she was 18. 18! Quite a few of the songs off her first album were written when she was 13! 13! 18-13=5. 5!

Sorry. I've just been side-tracked by three recent comments on the Wuthering Heights YouTube link. If you watch the video you'll see them but if you haven't got time I'll copy and paste them here, because unlike 99.999% of YouTube comments, these are quite funny and not racist.

• my cat, mr. nibbles took first place in our towns talent show performing this number. only hitch was, he refused to wear a red dress...insisted on white...little dickens..and quite cheeky.

  dbeard451 5 days ago 9
• Is it bad im doing A-level English and this is the closest i've come to studying the book?

  Trinitykill 1 week ago 5  

  fuck this song, I read the book constantly expecting her ghost to come back because she sings the chorus creepingly like "I've come home", argh it just fucking ended with that wanker Heathcliff dying and no walking Cathy corpse to be found, disappointing.

  asapics 10 hours ago

I hope Kate has read these comments, how she would laugh! Kate is great and to my shame I didn't know much about her until my musically astute partner Sarah showed me there's a lot more to Catherine Bush from Bexleyheath than that Heathcliff song and the one she does with Peter Gabriel. Peter originally wanted Dolly Parton but she turned him down once she found out he was only pretending to be Kenny Rogers on the phone.

She's releasing a new album soon and if it's as half as good as her last double disc delight Aerial it will be a bit disappointing but still OK. These days she lives in a castle somewhere and writes songs about her whiteware. It's a fantastic song and features 8 bars of the best lyrics you'll ever hear...

 Slooshy sloshy slooshy sloshy
Get that dirty shirty clean
Slooshy sloshy slooshy sloshy
Make those cuffs and collars gleam

Gullet update: no spasms for 20 minutes and an empty wine glass.

I've written three songs in my life and I can say with all honesty they were, are and always will be a steaming pile of musical and lyrical KFaeCes. The sloshing sound as I swish my cup of bile has more musicality than the self-indulgent crap I committed to 24 track, 2 inch tape back in 1996. This is hard to admit, but all three of the songs I wrote, played, sang, engineered and produced were worse than ANYTHING done by THE FEELERS. Yes...they were that bad. And I was 22. Three years older than Kate when she wrote Wuthering Heights.

These audio monstrosities were recorded at Westside Studios, near Shepherds Bush in London. I was working there for free doing important things like making tea and buying fags for fat producers. It was bloody great fun and I got to meet some big names, although half the time I didn't know it. One day a bald middle-aged man turned up and I went out to help him carry in his gear. 'Hi, I'm Brian', he said. 'Hi, I'm Greg', I said. Then I carried in his H3000 Ultra-Harmonizer and some other knob boxes. We had a nice chat about New Zealand and I made him a cup of tea. Later, Sam the Kiwi assistant engineer, (who played drums on one of my dirges although he was very drunk at the time), asked me if I knew who the bald middle aged man was. I said 'No.' He said 'Brian Eno.' I said, 'Oh yeah, he does stuff with U2 doesn't he?' Sigh.

The B50U2's and some balding guy.

Before I get onto my three songs I'm sure you're all desperate to know of any other famous people I met and if they were nice and if I recognised them so I'll shamelessly name drop by name, if I recognised them and whether they were an arsehole or nice.

Jimmy Nail YES Arsehole.
Robson Greene NO Nice.
The guy who did the TV show with Robson Green NO Arsehole.
Elvis Costello YES Nice.
Nenah Cherry YES Nice. (Even after I repeatedly called her Stella.)
Brett Anderson YES Odd.
Bernard Butler YES Nice. (Didn't stop me nicking his wee amp which he left behind though.)
Suggs YES Nice.
The lead singer from UB40. YES Nice. (Although he was off his chops and kept screaming 'I'm a fucking Maori' at me.)
Johnny Marr NO. Very nice. (That probably will have changed after I sent him off in the wrong taxi at 2am.)

I can't remember a lot about the three songs I recorded on my reel of 2 inch tape but what I do remember is much too much. One of them was called 'Close To Special' and was about Godzilla accidently stomping on someone he loved in Tokyo. I kid you not. I can only remember the first four lines and they went like this...

Tokyo, is on its knees,

I could crush, the city with ease.

People stare with saucer eyes,

Smitten by my brilliant disguise.

Smitten by my brilliant disguise??WTF was I thinking? I was drunk quite a bit of the time but that's no excuse. Another of my tunes was entitled 'Toronto' and not only rhymed Toronto with 'The Lone Ranger and Tonto' but featured a chorus reminiscient of John Rowles in the Gerard Roofing TVC that went...

I wanna go T, T, T, T, T, T, T to Toronto.

Over and over and over again. I can't remember anything about the third song which is a minor blessing. I even had the naive audacity to play them to one of the studio owners Clive Langer and after listening to them he managed to keep a straight face and say, 'Well, you've written three songs Greg, that means you can write some more.'

Thankfully I didn't take his advice, although I left that reel of 2 inch tape in London, so the world may still be in danger.

Gullet update: no spasms for two hours and another empty wine glass.

Band of Brothers

Lots of people are playing rugby in New Zealand at the moment. Lots of people are watching people play rugby in New Zealand at the moment. Not lots of people are watching our play about people playing rugby in New Zealand at the moment. That's OK though. We're doing our play in the frigid Fanzone and everyone knows plays are best enjoyed in a toasty warm theatre with a glass of wine in one hand and your penis in another. That's not strictly true as you don't always need wine to enjoy a play, but it certainly helps, especially if you want to glass an actor or cut your wrists at half time.

Although our audiences have been small, they have been perfectly formed and appreciative of our artistic endeavours. One small boy was so appreciative he came up after the show and gave me $4. His mother refused to let me give it back and the cherubic wee creature gazed up at me with pity, his eyes clearly saying, 'You need this more than I do.' It was exactly the same look I'd received from the cherub who gave me a tiny parcel of glad-wrapped bacon sandwiches after my portrayal of the Big Bad Wolf in everyone's favourite kids show 'Blowing Bacon'. It takes a special sort of talent to make four year olds feel sorry for you

Speaking of kids, one woman was apoplectic with rage and confusion and accused the event organiser of staging a 'kids show fuck fest'. I admit some of our content is risqué. We say 'bullshit' once, 'feck-kekkin' quite a lot, one of us dresses up as a giant testicle and all of us dress up as the Village People, however it's hardly a fuck fest. The only fuck fest performance I've ever been involved in was an illicit short film entitled 'Horny Ambush', shot during downtime while making 'The Lion The Witch and the Wardrobe'. Although there are only four copies in existence I'm forever terrified one will leak onto YouTube and cripple my extensive international film and television career. I'm not proud of what I did, but in my defence I'd hardly slept for two months and was wearing green tights.

Another highlight was having the New Zealand Army Band open for us. This was a BIG deal. The New Zealand Army Band are huge in New Zealand and not only are they the ARMY, they are also a BAND. Here's a picture of them tromboning.

There's a lot more to the New Zealand Army Band than trombones though. They have trumpets, and tubas and snare drums and I've heard rumours if the National Government can sell our Skyhawks, they are going to invest in a lethal sousaphone. New Zealand doesn't have enough money for an army and a band so John Key came up with the brilliant idea of sticking bayonets onto trombones, mortars in tubas and grenades in French Horns and voila, you have an immaculately dressed killing machine that can also play 'Sweet Georgia Brown' and 'Let Me Entertain You'. Often the last sound an enemy combatant will hear is 'Hold That Tiger' before they explode or get stabbed in the face by a trombone bumper.

Parp...parp....parp....parp...PARP...PARP...PARP....PARP...STAB...Hold that tiger!

Scary stuff!

Just before I finish I'd like to bring your attention to the 'Subscribe via email' box in the top right corner of your screen. If you put your email address in the box and click the 'Subscribe' button you will have subscribed to my blog via email and every time I blog you will get an email telling you how to increase the girth of your member. You may even get an email telling you I've blogged...who knows.