UNDERCULTURE

Good
Some days, I’m pretty convinced that I am the shit. Today is one of those days because I think that I cooked up some spectacular entires for the latest Cracked Photo Shop competition, which is for The Most Ill-Conceived Superhero Movie Ideas. As always, you can see them on the Cracked forum or on the Underculture bucket of all things PWOT which is right here.

On other Internet-related news, I’ve updated my list of linked Blogs on the navigation bar. As in life, there’s some creepy ones and some delightful ones but I’m not going to tell you which is which because, well, that’d spoil the fun of finding out. I will, however, point you to Smoke and Mirrors, which is a South African skeptic site. It is both educational and good reading.

Danni and I went to Mauro’s again last weekend, for the first time in what seems to be an eternity. We went there for Jame’s birthday. It was a set menu with some great wine. I can honestly say that I haven’t had such a delicious meal in a significant time. It really is good to see that they’re making an effort to bring the restaurant back up to its once awesome standards.

I had to take Anton, my house-mate, to the Livingstone Hospital, this week. And while it was overall poor and over-crowded, I did find the staff very helpful and supportive, much more so than I had been led to expect. You’re doing a good job, guys.

Bad
A while back, I ranted about greeters which still stands proudly as a woefully stupid idea. It no longer is alone in its massive retardation, however, as the Walmer 6th Avenue Pick n’ Pay now features wiper dispensers to clean the trolley handles.

I listen to Gareth Cliff quite regularly because I find him funny, well-read and in possession of both critical thinking and reason (qualities that are exceedingly rare in media personalities). Lately, though, I have found him to be stepping off into woo-woo land, like this week when he started talking about how cell phones might cause damage to your brain or testicles because it makes a noise when you put it near speakers. So far, there has been no consistent evidence to support that cell phones cause cancer or brain damage. To state otherwise is just bad science and fear-mongering.

Ugly
Sigh. I don’t even know why I am surprised any more. Once again, the EP Herald features a torrent of short-sighted, pro-Christian arguments in their letters column. It is a collection of the same old and oft-ridiculed arguments, including the one that atheists are just atheists because they don’t know enough about not-in-any-way-filled-with-murder bible, and (I kid you not) C.S. Lewis’s outdated apologetic arguments. All of this in response to the argument that you don’t need to be Christian to be moral. It’s laughable and embarrassing what our local paper considers worthwhile to spend its precious page space. I think I should start demanding a place to argue the relative differences between elves and dwarves.

In other weird news, I was accosted twice in one day, and in two different parking lots, by what I can only assume was a homeless man with bottles of soap. He approached me to inform me that I was fined for not smiling to which, of course, I just laughed and told him “no thank you.”

He was upset by this and promptly left with a frown on his face. I’m willing to bet that he didn’t fine himself.

Good
You know, it’s funny, I’ve been using Marine Litho for all of our printing for years and have never mentioned them at all. So here’s it is. They did a wonderful printing job for us (Renaud and Karen’s wedding invitations if you must know).

I am also really struggling to come up with some money and a place for the fencing club. Does anyone have any ideas? Does anyone know a corporate or organization that would sponsor (just to start up) a fencing club in PE? People are dying to start. I have hundreds of names, we just need a little start-up capital for some basic equipment. Anyone? Anyone?

And I’ve had a chance to add some more entries to the Cracked Photoshop Competition. You can see them here.

Bad
It pisses me off. I think that colds should have distinctively different symptoms to that of hangovers. I think that it just shows poor planning on the part of mother nature. I spent most of last Sunday thinking that I had myself a nasty hangover before I realized that it was, in fact, a cold. Had the symptoms been clearly different (like, for example, you wouldn’t confuse a cold for the bubonic plague) I would have wrapped myself up and started quaffing hot tea and chicken soup immediately. Intelligently design my ass!

Oh, wait, I must be careful about my off-hand comments about intelligent Design and religion! I’ve been asked to watch what I say. Would you believe that, after last week’s entry, I was sent a comment suggesting that I refrain from attacking religions and that my seeking to prove that god doesn’t exist (I don’t even know how one would do that) means that He must exist. I thought about that briefly and spent most of the week trying to prove that fellatio-hungry super models with bags full of cash don’t exist, but without much success since Paris Hilton’s existence is pretty much undeniable. Maybe the person was onto something.

Anyway, look at last week’s comments if you want to read the original message.

Arrggghh. Fuck. OK. I can’t help myself. Look at these people wasting paper in Friday’s EP Herald arguing about God and Sabbath. They might as well be arguing about what type of wood makes the best flying brooms in Harry Potter.It boggles the mind.

I have a gripe. I have a gripe with people who create these long and convoluted phrases with completely the wrong words that are transparently puerile and base. The idea, I can only guess, is to make their listeners think them smart and polite. You know the kind… Instead of saying “I’m going to the bathroom,” they say, “I must make a large deposit at the municipal bank.”

Fuck them.

Ugly
I don’t think I need to say much more than Xenophobia and Witch Burning to drive home the point that we can definitely all benefit from more critical thinking, fewer unsupported beliefs and some rational level-headedness.

The Deluge

I actually finished this one in late February but I’d been really struggling to take a decent photograph of it. The very hazy and dark nature of the work doesn’t lend itself well to being photographed. Still, I managed to get something that more or less resembles the actual work.

As you can deduce by the title, this is a rendition of the deluge (the flood that wiped out mankind). I spend a lot of time marveling at the idiocy of YEC (Young Earth Creationists) who just don’t grasp the physical implications of such an event and, being the argumentative asshole that I am, I always find myself on the other side of the argument. Nevertheless, it doesn’t stop me from enjoying the idea of the myth in and of itself. And so here is a tiny, almost imperceptible vessel, low on the horizon, subsumed by the torrents unleashed from the sky by an angry god.

I never thought it would be possible to use this many layers of blue

Good
I’ve just finished watching a wonderful interview with Richard Dawkins about The God Delusion. I found it level-headed, polite and immensly fun viewing. It is then followed by three intellectuals who do their best to deconstruct the basic arguments but don’t get very far (you can watch the polls as the debate progresses). Do yourself a favour and view the Youtube video here. It’s well-balanced and also in seven parts, so get your popcorn out.

This is also a reminder about Martin Evans’ comedy tour (the Comedy Revolution Tour) which is stopping over in Port Elizabeth tomorrow night at the Cell C Amphitheater at the Boardwalk. Support it or die! See you there!

Bad
I used to get my DVDs from Video Pix in Miramar but stopped because all of their DVDs used to be scratched and mixed up and confused. I hadn’t gone there in about a year or so and, because it was convenient, decided to do so this weekend. They have a special of 6 DVDs for 30 bucks. How many of the 6 did I manage to watch in their entirety? None. Not one. Zippo.

What makes it even worse is that they fucked up one of the DVDs (I took out Blow but got Ganster Number 1, and then they had the gall to phone me two days later to tell me that the movie I was meant to have taken out (Blow) was still overdue. And they pulled this stunt before but I chose to ignore then. I would have thought that they would have improved their operations even just a little. I was wrong. Fuck ‘em!

A couple of weeks I met a psychic. Now, those of you who know me, and more importantly know my opinion of psychics, can only imagine how this ended but take heart, I was polite. I was very polite because she was a family friend and I’ve been told that it’s impolite to make cuckoo sounds.

She told me on how she’d been woken up in the middle of the night by an Atlantean who took her back to Atlantis (I assumed that it was back in time before it sank, of course, because she didn’t mention any high pressure suits or SCUBA gear). She mentioned that Atlantis derived all of its power from Ley Lines and had walls that glowed. This differed substantially from another psychic’s description of Atlantis who told me that they derived power from crystals and didn’t mention glowing walls.

I wonder why their accounts differed…

Ugly
I have nothing ugly to report. The world is still beautiful and… oh now, wait, a drunk man beat up Jedis. I realize that this had nothing to do with PE but, damn it, why can’t cool stuff like that happen here.

Good
Alright, yes, I know. I’m a bubbling turd for leaving my few loyal readers waiting for an Underculture update for so long. Can I call at some strange hour of the night, say I’m sorry, buy you some flowers and give you some oral sex? Will you forgive me then? You will? Excellent.

I was lying about the flowers.

With all that over and done, what you will be glad to know is that I am now back on the Underculture naughty horse ride full-time, with the notable difference that I will be doing my updates on Fridays now and no longer Mondays. This should fix a major scheduling conflict.

But don’t you go thinking that I’ve done sweet fuck-all except getting shit-faced, overeating and corrupting the young Danni. I mean, you might be right, but don’t you go thinking it ’cause, you know, I’ve been a busy boy. For starters, I’ve started painting again. There is a series of 14 paintings on the slow burner, ready for the end of the year. I’ve also done some more retarded photoshops for Cracked, as well as started an ultra-secret project with Mack of Juvenile Comedy.

On top of it, we have officially started the fencing again. We will be meeting every Wednesday at the Italian Club in Charlo (Harold Street) at 17:30. Call me or email me if you want to join. I don’t need to warn you that this is all going to be very amateurish.

Edit [14 may 2008]: I haven’t heard anything from the Italian Club so this is on hold for the time being. Sorry, guys!

And why do I have the time to do this? Well, because I finally quite that time-draining confederacy of petty tyrants and anal-retentive retards called Toastmasters. I ponder just how much of my life I have pissed away, like so much beer. Oh, and I also stopped the Neo-Socratics because I was heading for the very same kind of butt-munchery: I was ending up being the guy that did everything.

I’m taking a very much deserved me time.

Danni, of course, had her 21st and it rocked. I promise photos very soon! The party itself was an amazingly debauched, drunken and wild affair. The rest of you missed out. Happy Birthday Baby! (Not that she reads Underculture, if she did, she would have picked up all my naughty subliminal messages)

You’ll also be glad to know that Martin Evans and his comedian friends (trust me, these guys are good) will be heading to PE next week Saturday (17 May). It’ll be at the Cell C Amphitheater at the Boardwalk. I’m going to be there and I’m cool so if you want to be cool, be there too. It’s comedy and there’s beer. Talking of which, there’s another cocktail party at Nicky’s house tomorrow night.

And, talking of nights out and drinking, I went to the new Castro’s last week and I am say that I was impressed. I mean, not “drop my panties and take me like a bucking Bronco” impressed, more of a “oh, alright, you can put your hands down my pants” impressed. I shall go back again and refine my opinion.

Oh, and Steve wrote this piece of beautiful literature. Read it. It’s well worth it and will make you want to buy him stuff.

Lastly, Renaud and Karen will be getting married on 11 July 2008. More importantly, the bachelors will be on 9 July 2008. It’s bound to be awesome. The wedding, I mean.

Bad
The Go-Go Lounge shut down and got replace by the Go-God Lounge. Now, I’ve no problem with the place and, in fact, the Go-Go Lounge was one of the few strip clubs I haven’t frequented but it is a scary signpost of the corruption of our society. I mean, what kind of fucking world are we living in when perfectly serviceable women willing to getting undressed for a bunch of drunk men are replaced with prudes talking about invisible, sky-daddies and talking snakes? No good will come of this. Mark my words.

Remember how I said that So French rocked and it was the best restaurant ever? Well, I take it back. I haven’t been there myself lately but three other people who went there on my recommendations have come back disgusted. So, until I get a chance to sample their food again, we’ll leave it in the bad section.

Kath and Jaco have left us for Oz. I am very sad. I wish the best, of course, but I’m still very sad.

I also owe an apology to the Port Elizabeth cinema houses which did, in fact, end up playing No Country for Old Men and There will be Blood. Still, fuck them for making me apologize.

Ugly
Women are being beheaded for not wearing a veil. Now, I know that this has nothing to do with Port Elizabeth but, fuck it, anything that affects the global number of women in the world, affects me directly. Not only that, but it’s a pretty good example of what happens when people take bronze-age myths a little too seriously. For Christ’s sake, these people are making the Christians looks sane.