Mac N Cheese For The Soul. A Moment of Sanity in A Food Obsessed World.

Pork and beans, remember pork and beans? Of course you don't, no-one does, except from Westerns, remember Westerns? Of course you don't. Time was we would eat to sustain ourselves, to keep from dying. Now, we eat to fortify our status, for an experience like climbing a mountain or circumnavigating the earth or as a human step at reaching immortality. The restaurant you eat at seems the story and not the meal itself, you are a beacon of iron-will if you opt for almond milk and, oh, did you try the yak milk yoghurt? No, well go fuck yourself.

I need to make a few things clear. Number one, I am a fatty and like eating. Number two, I know there is a disparity between the meat of pigs anuses and trotters (otherwise known as devon) and grain fed pork belly. I am not an idiot, nor am I a pedantic eater.

Pretentious eating is an industry now and we have to accept that. It is the reason Masterchef kills in the ratings, the reason Jamie 'Fuckface' Oliver has his own line of condiments and the reason McDonalds is moving into slow roasted beef and such.

Anyway, we all have guilty pleasure foods. Now they are more like judge jury and executioner foods and I aim to make a case for each of them, in all their depraved glory.

Fish and Chips.

It is as basic as it gets. Or was. Things like sweet potato scallops (or potato cakes to some) have crept in. It is no longer random sea-meat (also the name of my nautical themed all-male strip club) it is specific. It is not 'Fish and Chips' it is, now, Barramundi and Steak-Cut chips. It is far too gourmet for the once crowd of miners and blue-collars it once served.

The point was to eat it and enjoy it as it was a food of the people. Something affordable and accessible to anyone and everyone. Now though, fish and chips as we know them has become the lowest rung on the ladder that has built itself above them.

In not showing my age (25) Fish and Chips has grown in price not relative to inflation. To sound like an old fogey; in my day you could get enough to feed the family for six bucks, now in the twenties.

Hot Dogs.

There are theories on hot-dogs. One friend of mine has a theory that the key is not slicing the bun, but penetrating it. Wide enough that the dog can fit with two millimetres play either side for condiment application. The idea is that you coat the dog itself and twist it into place; thus coating both dog and cavity with condiment. It is not a bad theory, especially from a guy who routinely fills a salad bowl with cheese and bacon balls, tomato sauce and cheese to top and microwaves that bastard.

Still, for all the solid conventional theories out there, people still want to reinvent our humble hot-dog. I am, obviously, a huge fan of sausage. In some ways sausage defines our national identity. Polish, Danish, Hungarian, Australian, British and Spanish sausages all say something about the nation. But it is the realm of none of them to end up in the humble hot-dog.

To make them at home, a round of hot-dogs will run you under ten bucks. Yes, it is mostly anus meat, but that is not why you eat a hot-dog. You eat it for taste and satisfaction. A pub in Melbourne has been marketing hot-dogs with chorizo. I do not see what makes this a hot-dog. It is nothing more than a yuppie sausage sandwich and there is certainly nothing wrong with that.

Pies.

The reason places like Pie-Face are allowed to exist are the same problem with the pie industry. The fact that our meat filled, pastry parcel ever got that far should be a shame to all of us. It used to be, you wanted a pie you desperately sought out a bakery, you might have even had a favourite. Some did them deep-dish, others as thin as possible. Some with mushroom, potato, curry, egg and bacon. That isn't dead but it's dying. We would sooner pay 6 bucks for a pie than seek them out independantly and naturally, we just go to the usual chain. Seems a shame, though the bigger shame is that sausage rolls have always been better.

Chips.

Or crisps to our British consumers. Remember when a chip was just a chip. You had four flavours (Original, Salt and Vinegar, BBQ and Chicken). It is fine if you don't, I do. It was a good time. Then light and tangy showed up and, while delicious, forever threw the balance of the chip world off.

But nothing would throw a spanner into the works like the deli style crisp. Original became Sea Salt, Salt and Vinegar became Sea Salt and Balsamic Vinegar, BBQ became Smoked Ribs and Chicken became Honey Soy Chicken. These varieties are always two or more dollars more. Yes, they kick ass, but that isn't the point.

What we never knew, would never have hurt us. Shame on you, expanding food industry.

5 Heartbreaking Songs About Pathetic or Negligible Issues.

All My Rowdy Friends (Have Settled Down)- Hank Williams Jr.

This song, as the title may suggest, is about the life of a back roads country bachelor who's friends have all found sustaining lives and significant others, away from drinking a shitload or, as Hank 2 eloquently puts it; 'nobody wants to get drunk and get loud'. Apparently they also don't want to 'get high on the town'.

If you are, as I am, a committed bachelor or a late bloomer to the ways of the woman then this is a natural problem. The party has to end and it sucks when it does. So lyrically the song is a semi-fair portrait of a real(ish) problem. Except getting drunk and loud just makes it seem they don't want to be belligerent and shit-faced young men any more, because they aren't.

The more baffling thing though is the way its played as a half-ballad. It is seeming to make the plight of an overzealous alcoholic who can't move on a legitimate problem. A problem like your lover jilting you, or if your pick-up not starting, or if your dumb boss making you work when you had Allman Brothers tickets and told him that several weeks in advance.

In a similar fashion Australian band Skyhooks had an early hit about all their friends getting married. Except they lay the problem at the feet of the wives and Father time; 'yes they're all growing old, they're all going out on the weekends, they're all doing what they're told'.

...Or, maybe they are just trying to compromise with an important person they have decided to spend their lives with, the general way relationships should work. Do you just have to shit on their happiness because you can't down beers and do bong hits with them? Additionally, you are probably of a similar age, maybe they are just growing up.

Lifestyles Of The Rich and Famous- Good Charlotte.

Don't we all remember this one. The band had carried just enough of their shitty upbringing through to bitch about something most of us hate, rich people. Also famous people, and their lifestyles. When this song came out in 2002 I was too young to really appreciate the irony of the thing. The irony should be apparent to anyone remotely familiar with the band. They spent the entirety of a soon to be huge single, bitching about the very thing that single would cause them to be.

The song and the album and equally ironic album it came from The Young and The Hopeless broke the band, big-time. In the years since they have become less young and hopeless, though more rich and famous. Should we rob them? I mean, they do have mansions?

New Tattoo- Motley Crue

This song actually kicks ass. The title track to the 2001 album shows something of a sensitive side to the 'Worlds Most Dangerous Band'. But the lyrics are borderline nonsensical. If you don't wish to listen it is essentially a drunk Vince Neil calling his, like, fifteenth wife to tell her he just got a New Tattoo. Though it emerges that the said tattoo is something closer to a metaphor, or at least a weird Motley Crue metaphor.

I think, the tattoo represents the poor woman he is drunk dialling, the lyrics ' one love, one woman, you're my new tattoo' represent the commitment and exclusion of all others that marriage calls for and the 'everyone will see my new tattoo' shows his willingness to accept her in the course of public life, I guess.

Then what's the problem? The drunken tattoo as a milestone of an apparently important relationship aside, it seems trivial for a rock star with a new wife. To the patron in that world a new wife is like a new pillow-case. He has laid his heart out, accepting this woman as something as permanent as a tattoo. But there is also something insidious about calling it his 'new tattoo', implying it will one day be as old and unwanted as his other 35 year old ex-wives.

Though hardened Crue fans will be saying 'Nikki writes all the songs, what are you blaming Vince for', because they are part of the same machine, and ethos. Nikki was on his second wife when the album came out, Vince on his third. They also both had a shit-ton of tattoos. No word on how many were 'New'.

My World- Guns N' Roses.

Okay, I know, this isn't really Guns N' Roses, it's just Axl Rose being weird again. But it comes under the same banner and so I reluctantly class it as a Guns N' Roses tune, true fans will know he added it last minute without any ones consent (Not. Even. Slash.). But that isn't the problem, the problem is the faux badassery put forth in the 'tune?'.

Essentially, the world described is 'a socio psychotic state of bliss'. Which I guess means Axl Rose is happy being crazy. I guess the point is that Axl isn't a prima donna who sometimes doesn't feel like playing and so fucks hard the fans who have paid and waited to see him (and his band, I guess), it is that he is crazy; like all good artists should be. Also, probably that he is hardcore enough to deal with his world and no-one else is.

Trouble is, at the time it was released, I kinda did wanna 'step into' his world. He was a world famous rock-star on a massive tour. He made a ton of money off that tour and album and who wouldn't want that, plus chicks and drugs probably.

The double trouble is, this song is super shitty and was out of line with the other tracks on the album. It is kinda like the usually great Dee Dee Ramone's synth-soaked, over-produced and awful rap album.

Just like the weird Spandex bike shorts existed, in his world, while the rest of the band had apparently 'been delayed by the real world' and wore bad ass garments like flannelette shirts, top hats and tight jeans. 

Dear Mr. President- Pink

O.K, ignoring the fact that Pink should now be called 'Blonde' or some other thing, this song is kinda melodramatic. I mean, yes the problems she mentions exist and continue to exist beyond the Bush administration she was criticising. And yes Pink has gone some way to addressing those problems. But as a mouth-piece for the downtrodden, this song leaves a little to be desired.

The lyric 'let's pretend'... 'you're not better than me' for a start. In 2006, Dubya's approval rating was right around 30 percent, catastrophic for a politician. Luckily, he was in his second term. Pink, on the other hand, had that same album declared platinum and a tour that earned 42 million in Australia alone. Who is better than who?

The other thing is the 'hard work' she repeats in refrain, toward the end of the song. Pink really knows nothing of this hard work. She has never been minimum wage with a baby on the way, nor had to rebuild her house after bombs took them away, nor building a bed out of a cardboard box. It would seem Pink 'don't know nothing about hard work'.

Or knows, literally, as much as Bush.

But big-dicked Tommy, you all say, Pink is just the mouth-piece, Bush did bad things and someone had to make a point of it, in art!

I don't disagree, but I would say that Pink has no right as a mouth, or any other, piece. She was wealthy when she made the song and knew as much about hard work as picking outfits and learning to work the rope in a super sexy way. Bush had a coke habit, that is hard work.

As for, 'How do you sleep, while the rest of us cry?'. Pink cried, no doubt, all the way to the bank.

On Baby, The Many Faces of A Word We Should Abort.

Are we really this far removed from the very concept of language and it’s purpose that things are not themselves anymore? And by ‘anymore’ I have to mean the last several decades. Now that ‘literally’ has been literally added to the oxford dictionary to mean, well, precisely the opposite of literally we have to admit that our urge toward bastardising this language of ours, is reaching a point of apocalyptic crisis. No-one is being held to account and it’s causing the fucking gold standard of the English language to sway to the will of self-absorbed teenagers who, like, don’t really get the implications of a rapidly failing communications system. Like, I get it if your just whatevsing with your bestie or some other thing, but seriously stop being annoying, pretentious little fakers.
Ok, so I had a point behind this whole production which the anger has wrangled away from me momentarily, though I shall do my best to get it back on the rails.
Baby. It is a word with a very specific meaning. That meaning, well Oxford the once gold standard of English indexes provides; ‘A very young child’. Granted it goes on to provide a meaning more inline with the way everyone seems to use it. David Byrne once spoke of only writing 'baby' into his lyrics only if they referred to an actual baby, which might be sage advice for the crop of modern popular 'musicians' and 'artists', working it in like a mandated buzzword.
Call me pedantic but I have always had an issue with this use of the word, in kind of exactly the same way I have had an issue with emotional openness with a partner ever. It is a two-handed thing and comes from a perhaps unreasonable and ham-fisted application of logic as well as the aforementioned emotional hermit I am around the opposite sex.
On the first-hand doesn’t the recipient of the apparent term of endearment feel patronised. The implication to me, and maybe only me, that one calling another 'baby' implies that one is raised, refined and in control while the other revels in bright things, shitting their pants and the various sounds of animals. To take it to a level of lunacy its pertinent to think of what babies call each other. I am too far removed from that time in my life and too unread on the science to claim anything concrete, though I would hazard a guess it is not 'baby', even in their language. Thus there is one baby and one adult/parent at any given time. Probably not untrue of many adult relationships but a little unsettling nonetheless. Though I must concede that 'partner', 'mate' and 'consort' are all probably a little lack-luster in comparison.
On the second, doesn't it strike anyone else as delving in the the realm of the sex-offender. Again this is evident of the hard logic David Byrne and myself apply to the word, but getting intimate with ones baby doesn't seem as thoroughly enjoyable as the truth behind the metaphor is. Fucking ones baby, even worse. I suppose this reasonably ties into the power struggle mentioned above. And the point must be made that baby as a term of affection is rarely used in the vicinity of bedroom activity. Still it bothers me in this respect.
Once again it is important to state that I am a well-known contrarian, cynic, skeptic and stubborn shit-head (In that I am well known to have those traits and am not well-known with those traits). I would much rather shit in someone’s cereal over something as innocuous and ultimately insignificant as a term between lovers, rather than let them be. It is also worth saying that I am probably more afraid of being seen being in love or a relationship than I am of either endeavour (Put that on your T-Shirt and wear it!) and that these complaints are certainly influenced by that attitude. But it is also important to say that when thought about with any depth, there is truth to what I am saying.
For just a moment I want to look at another application of the word. One that certainly suits my pessimistic line of thinking but is probably more apt as a point of the realistic. According to old man Oxford; 'A timid or childish person'. Man-child was drawn from this same idea. This is the insult, the backhander to the lovey-dovey. Though it is entirely possible that your baby has, at one time or another, been a big-baby about something or another. It seems qualification is necessary to distinguish the two, again it is a two hander; he or she is 'your baby' but becomes a 'big baby' when an offence of self-absorption is committed. . It seems there is nothing wrong with the notion of baby so long as it is in the possessive sense, but if it is a measure of gauge it is derogatory. Though this is a more accurate use of baby as a metaphor. This is the bad baby.
The final one is baby in both the possessive and positive sense but applied to objects. That car is my baby, that guitar is my baby or that generic woodworking project is my baby (weirdly into wood and the working of it right now, probably getting old). The sentiment is tantamount to the spouse though the object has no humanity. Your girlfriend is not a number, she is a human being. Your river-ready canoe? Not really. This makes the use of baby more appropriate; it implies the love, time and devotion needed to sustain an infant ball of flesh or a passion project but none of the patronising, negative realities of real babies or sexual predator incarnations that can come with the baby as a concept. This is the good baby.
Then, after all that mess, what point am I really making? While I love the different facets of a given word and consider this an essential element of the expressiveness of the English language, I wish to use baby as a watermark where things can, and have, gone to far. My personality notwithstanding, calling the one you love 'baby' is tired, inappropriate and creepy to various degrees. I think a big part of human association is what is done, not said. If a romantic partner has earned the title of baby in your book, then you probably don't need to say it. Though if you do, go for; honey, love, darling, pumpkin, cupcake or pudding. Until I shit all over them, that is.

On Bullshit Anglo Complaining

In this unfortunate age, an age of super-gentleness and you-are-not-to-blame rhetoric it is harder and harder to take responsibility. I am not suggesting that hardships don’t exist and that people facing legitimate hardship should do anything other than what they are doing.

What I might be suggesting is that life itself has become a hardship That simply being an adult and paying your own way, learning some hard lessons and growing to proper adulthood  is so daunting we need additional assistance to deal with it. I call bullshit. Not bullshit on real stress, real worry, real angst but bullshit on facing adulthood being something you need to write home for.

My brother has just completed a course in aged care where one of his peers couldn’t pass the test because he was doubly working at a factory. He was of Indian origin and so not having a job was a no-deal, he tried hard to pass the test but couldn’t because he had to spend time at the factory to keep the lights on. That is real pressure, trying to better your situation when the odds are against you. Your grandfather giving you shit at Christmas about not having a wife yet, thats the generation gap. 

Anglo people like to make a crisis out of nothing. I shan't be so bold as to say it is only anglo people, but a great many of us white-folk need to find something to cry about. The perpetual pity-party that makes us feel hard-done by and lets us play victim but holds no water in the wider world.

People do it harder, all over the world, every day. We don’t think of them and perhaps that’s justified; their day to day has nothing to do with ours. But it is worth sparing a thought, kids who have to haul coal, sleep with dirty old men, hot-wire bullshit chips into phones so that we can check our bank accounts or update Facebook regularly. We feel pain, they really suffer.

Shit sucks sometimes. You can feel sorry for yourself, or you can prosper. You can push through it and play yourself as a survivor, not a victim. If the wi-fi goes out or if someone dies, you will have support. A vast difference in outcomes and a very similar responce, in a lot ot places. Just not ours.

Soundtrack to My Weak Little Life: Recollections of Five Compositions.

Sometimes songs live in certain moments, in certain times and a lot of the time in certain places. You can try to judge a song by how tacky it is now or even how tacky, shitty, absurd or overblown it was then. But the truth is if a song exists to you at any time in your life with any meaning, that meaning will radiate back when you hear it again. There will, one day, be eighty-year-old women listening to One Direction for just this reason. Here are five songs that stick in my mind as something more than they intend to be…

Big Balls- AC/DC

This was jukebox selection. I was 12 and the plural of a spherical sporting object was amusing to me. Naturally when the old man gave us a few bucks to play pool and feed the jukebox as youngsters the first thing we would do is play this amusing ditty and show each other trick shots.

Clearly we were two young to realise the euphemism power in Australia’s most famous band, it was simply a guy singing about his nut-sack in detail. Which is the absolute height of genius and humour when you are that age. 

Then, Later…

You realise that each of the lyrical phrases are open enough to apply to both his nut-sack or a literal social ‘ball’ (black-tie rave to the uninitiated). In essence you see the whole point of the song and wonder, for a moment, why you enjoyed it so much as a 12 year old. Because the whole point is precisely in how you enjoyed it.  While I run across it, time to time, and certainly enjoy the sex stuff, to me this song will always be playing pool while my dad gets drunk, laughing at the lyrics and admiring the hell out of the man who had the sack to sing about his Balls. 

Strutter- Kiss

When hormones overwhelmed me and I didn’t have a girlfriend because girls are dumb and I needed to take some highly emotional anger out, this is the song that did it. Emo wasn’t even a thing yet, but I found emo  ; in one of the most lauded party rock bands of all time.

The thing that really appealed to me was the first verse:

I know a thing or two about her

I know she'll only make you cry

She'll let you walk the street beside her

But when she wants she'll pass you by.

It made women seem shitty and, therefore, made me seem more normal for not achieving them. Granted ‘going out’ at the time meant holding hands during lunch, but it sure would’ve been nice to hold some hands.

My brilliant solution then, was to blame the girls. They, like me, were pre-teen to teen ages and weren’t totally sure of whats going on. But they knew enough to know enough to dodge me. The fact that I was too afraid to talk to a real life female never occurred to me.

Phase two of my brilliant solution was to turn strutter up on my soccer-ball stereo, listen to it in the dark and curse all the women who passed me by. 

Lou Bega- I Got A Girl

We all know Mambo No. 5. No-one really knows why it was the 5th Mambo, or what notable Mambos came before it.  And from the fifth Mambo (I capitalise for reasons unknown to me) we all know that Lou Bega wants little bit of a ton of chicks.

What very few went on to learn is that he has a ton of chicks. Like, a ton. They are everywhere, even in the Vatican dome.

The reason I went on to learn this about Lou Bega is that I had the album. The album? A Little Bit Of Mambo.Though it should have been called ‘A Smear of Mambo, and a Whole Lotta Songs Abouts Chicks’. It was new release when I got it which means I was 10 at the time.

The result of a Christmas that was the perfect storm of good intentions and bad ideas. As a result I had a portable stereo, a Lou Bega CD, D sized batteries and four hours of driving to a fishing trip with real men, my father and his friends. Being that the album is 43 minutes long, it was played at least 8 times, and still it exists in my head as the soundtrack to a fishing trip. 

Van Morrison- Days Like This

Van Morrison exists as something beyond myself, something so profoundly before me whose work will so profoundly outlast me. This particular song lives in my Aunty’s kitchen. It was always the one I registered, late in the night when everything for foggy on wine and good memories.  I was a kid so was only faintly aware of adult business, but this song always stuck with me.

When I was living in Sydney with another Aunty and working through her extensive collection of rom-coms this song showed up at a montage of reflection and nostalgia. It was well placed. It suited well, an anthem to swallowing life’s endless shit and moving forward, which is why I bought this one and an album from the next artist when I needed to start swallowing shit….

Running Scared- Roy Orbison

I had a panic attack at town-hall station. Shortness of breath, foggy head, blind fear and flashes. The whole deal. I slumped in a corner and two distinct things jumped out at me; Van Morrison and Roy Orbison. I’d had a strange urge for two things that linked me, irrotrievably, to me childhood. My father, the drunkard and hopeless but relentless fan of ‘Roy the Boy’ and my mother, the ditzy and vague but keen Van Morrison listener, despite a voice coming out of ‘something so ugly’. I rushed to a CD store and bought both these men’s greatest hits.

It was a trip down memory highway, so much each taking me somewhere else. To some little patch of my younger years. Then, Running Scared.

My dad should have died in the war. He was born just shy of any real conflict but has a real tendency toward songs of the tragedy and beauty of war. Plus he is also a die-hard Roy Orbison fan. The two combined to make his ideal song and my ideal memory.

At the time we had a big Valiant AP5 and would drive up to vacant parts of the Lithgow valley as the old man would tearily remind us that Roy the Boy is singing from the perspective of a young soldier, scared but willing to go and do what he has to.

Now when I hear it, its a road yacht cruising to the end of the earth, an emo father and the voice of an angel.

NP 

My First Super Account, AThinly-Veiled Reminder of Death.

The older I get the more I realise how inept I am at proper adult life. Oh sure I can shop for myself, in that I can sustain myself on cereal alone, I can do my laundry when smell becomes tactile and even wake up on time if I have a billion super-loud alarms and a person as safety.

What I can't do is just about everything else. I got a group certificate this year and it scared the shit out of me, I am supposed to declare my income? I don't know how and, even since then, I have not. I have a feeling this is one of those things with distinct and costly terms and conditions, but I don't know what they are and am too intimidated by the precision of it all to find out. Odds are this will be the thing that eventually destroys me, but for now it's just another thing- on top of every other shitty thing the world can cough up, and no more relevant.

Then today I get notice the boss has put me in a super account. Super, for the uninitiated, is superannuation. It is money put aside, bit by bit during your working life,for the purpose of losing it at a casino somewhere when you retire. Or, buy a caravan, pay off your grandsons dog-fighting debt, budget it out to cover you in soups and hard candy for your remaining years or give meth a go. There is no right way to retire, you guys.

So the kicker with this account is that is also has life insurance.166 thousand for my head. Being that a funeral in this country averages between 4-15 grand, I can't imagine the necessity of all the rest. Like my donated organs, the money is something that would only be useful to me if I were not dead. Though I see why the price exists, so let's break it down.

166 thousand dollars would be useful to someone who:

Wants a Fancy Funeral

No Thankyou!

I don't. I shan't be there to see it,so it means precisely zero to me. An ideal in my mind is to be shot naked into the ocean which, admittedly, would cost some. But dying wishes are the easiest to ignore, and its not like I can hold a grudge. The money would be better spent on people sustaining their aliveness, which is someone who....

Has Dependents

I have zero. Some might say; 'But dude, the world is a strange place, your in your mid-twenties, shit can change on a dime. You might have a family ten years from now, then where will you be?'. To them I say, hopefully Louisiana. And also, your probably wrong. If a relatively basic concept like superannuation warrants a wordy blog, how in the world shall I handle little monsters? Sure, Lady GaGa fans are tough, but I mean children.

I have no desire and have trouble believing 'no desire' will turn into any more than that in however many years. Stranger things have happened, no doubt, but you can only go on the most current data. In years gone by I always said 'if the woman I love wants children, I will oblige'. This is convention, I suppose. To me now though, I wonder why she loves me in the first place if she knows my stance on the offspring issue. It is only slightly different than having a child to resurrect a troubled relationship. Which actually works great.

Needs To Settle Debts

I have none. No car loan, mortgage or fifty to the awkward neighbour. I may own a house at some point, but it seems unlikely. Commitment is a definitive weak point of mine. The stereotypical argument is that rent is 'dead money'. In a sense, yes. But in another, rent allows a certain flexibility that mortgages do not. A dream of mine is to see the world, like, all of it. I have seen 13 countries, which means 191 more. That is not possible with a 40 year mortgage. My sister is frustrated by her own mortgage. It limits you, which is great if you want to stay in the same place forever. I don't

With the retirement age looking like it will roll up to 70, there is every chance I won't live to see any of my super. So, at 25 and still pretty obviously naïve about things, the 310 dollars I do have in super has been hastily invested in, likely, super-risky ventures. It is the absolute height of financial apathy....YOLO, I guess.  

NP

My Gripes 2014.

This isn't my bit, to be very fair the topic of this blog came from Irish comedian David O'Doherty who does a similar thing most years called 'My Beefs'. Albeit with a cheap casio keyboard and as part of a comedy routine, which is kind of genius in that it naturally breeds fresh material and allows him to vent simultaneously. As anger is something I routinely choke down and which, in turn, makes me an arsehole in other elements of my life. I am hoping an annual blog will likewise allow me to vent and produce, at the least, some readable writing. I initially altered the title to throw you off its origin, between that and the first word in the piece I thought better of it. Either way, this is a textual incarnation of my yearly pressure valve being gloriously released all over your face, neck and chest. Feel it, live it and hit me with some of your own.

The Government.

I know, I know. But between the fuck the poor mythos of the budget and the fat feet in the mouths since then has really signalled the high-water mark of low thought. It really seems a government hell bent on taking conservative to the point of reversing progress and trying to stifle progress that was made many years ago and which are the last vestiges of what makes Australia even barely 'great' on the world scale. Poor people don't have cars, abortion causes breast cancer and coal is good for humanity. Take your own pick, but know that we have a thousand monkeys in control and we are well off Dickens.

Asshole Drivers.

If this were not the first, this item would make My Gripes each year. The criteria isn't overly stringent; you don't need to be a hoon, nor drive like an elderly person, you don't need to be indecisive, nor do you need to have a feeling of self importance. Essentially you need to be one of those who has no consideration to other people driving.

So long as you can hold a straight line, turn corners and, if you are one of those showy folks, change gears there is not a great deal to the act of driving itself. What is more challenging is driving around others. I am, naturally, not talking of L Platers. But those who know how to drive? For the most, fuck you.

Are you self involved? The odds that you comprehended the question of someone else without immediately registering the first two words means, probably yes. Which makes you a bad driver and an even shittier person. Cut me off if need be, you will anyway, as I fully understand wherever you are going in your BMW is much more important than where I am going in my early 90s Toyota. I am poor and not meant to be driving anyway. Just know, from me and the hundreds of other early 90s Toyota drivers, we sincerely hope your mothers all choke on the bit-off dicks of your fathers.

Internet Based Acronym Speakers.

Again this is the first, but it has bugged me this year. Bugged me to a degree of relentless homicidal rage that is best expressed on an almost reader-less blog. We all understand that when someone LOLs they, likely, aren't laughing out loud. Likewise when they ROFL or when they are LMAO...ing they aren't really doing that.

But they are. There are a great many people saying LOL at amusing things rather than, like a civilised human being, expressing their humour with loud, irritating caws. To say LOL rather than type it may seem like a small jump, but the implications are enormous.

For the first, you are raping an unwilling acronym. With no warning, going in dry as a desert sandal. LOL was a happy little guy, existing on phones and in between tabs of porn and torrent or streaming sites. But you dragged him out, nails clawing at the only world he has known, to impress people. What a radical you are, that is a step above, bravo the sheer brass balls it must've taken to use an internet word as a real and bonafide piece of English. I can tell you one thing, if there was a step beyond cool, a step beyond fashion; you, good sir have reached it.

For the second, you are using the word to describe something unseen. LOL and his friends were happy without your vocal intervention. But to LOL at something amusing in old people life is wrenching the wizard from behind the curtain. I know you aren't Laughing Out Loud, I can see you dumb ass.

Ponytail on Top Hairdos.

These men, yes men, are war criminals. Outrageous hair is certainly nothing new, though each generation thinks they can reinvent it to be unique and to piss people off. So these piss-ants who think they are reinventing the wheel by shaving where bald people have hair and growing the top bit into a bald-guy pony tail are...half right.

There are forty million of them at my university and in my city, and each thinks they are really shaking shit up. A long-haired guy who is also actually short-haired? Help my brain work it out?

The preceding is petty. I am not fan of this cut, don't get me wrong, but I am no fan of mullets either, or mohawks or bangs really. The difference is, the top-mounted pony tail is usually mounted to total fuckwits.

This is the cut they should give you when you go to the barber and ask for a 'Pretentious Cunt' or a 'I want to annoy everyone I know by acting like I am a heavy-hitter in the scene with advanced ideas, but really I am a guy who raised cows and had a balanced and wholesome family life. But I changed my name and abandoned all my previous friends and dodge them in public for whole-grain rice, which even cool places rarely have'. 

                                                               This Thing.

Store Starers.

'Is he gonna buy something?'. To be fair, probably not. It is something I come across each time I walk into a fancy or even half-fancy store. Don't get me wrong, I tear it up in K-Mart. There is no risk there, on their end or mine. But I run into that look more than I would like. I am no window shopper and wouldn't go in to a shop I didn't have the money for. But appearance is everything and I simply don't look high-class enough to buy their luxurious items.

I would think it is in my neurotic head, but for the fact that I observe the looks of the store keepers when wealthy housewives rock in (I shop where a lot of ladies do) a glance and barely more. But I am a theif because I am an overweight, 6'3 male with awful skin. Certainly not the usual clientele.

But the real fun begins when I buy something. Sometimes I buy something just to watch the apologies fall. I am not vindictive and I shan't blame people for doing their jobs. But I am not a second class citizen, though I do raise cows and have a balanced and wholesome family life.

These people can sit on it, eat a dick, to the moon or whatever TV reference works. These are my Gripes for 2014.

NP.