Well, for the previous two months, I have had a, how shall we put this, RELAXED view to revision. Not as relaxed as some, I recognise... Roxy... but I've been taking it preeeeeetty easily.
The advised six hours a day?
More like three hours... a week. Ouch.
And it finally happened today. At around 1.56.34 today I was hit by... THE FEAR.
Yes. THE FEAR finally visited my soul. The horrible realisation that the equation of revision time to amount of revision that is vital to be done (to be perfect, it works out as having two days to do half a day's worth of work) has failed to exist. In fact, it looks more like, to me, that I have a weekend to learn a year's worth of work that I had no clue about in the first place.
Yes, ladies and gents, the Core Maths 2 paper is on Monday. And am I fucked? Hahaha, fucked is not the work. I am more fucked than Annabel Chong for that paper. (I wish that there was somebody out there who gets all my cultural references) There's a good THIRD of the paper that I literally have no clue for. I mean, NOTHING. I didn't get it in the lessons, I'm sure as hell not going to suddenly get it now. Here's me in the lesson:
Teacher: And after those fifteen minutes of complicated calculations... solve for y. See?
Me: Whataha? Hubbarah? Huh?
Joe *Who has already written a page and a half of workings* God, SORT IT OUT, you moron. All you do is...
*He talks. I immediately tune him out. I have gotten quite good at this.*
Teacher: Does everyone understand?
Me: Miss! Miss! *waves arm in air*
Teacher: Anyone?
Me: Ooh! Oooh! Over here!
Teacher: Nobody? So you all understand this perfectly? So I don't have to give out this sheet that explains everything really clearly with a series of brightly coloured drawings of naked women?
Me: OVER... HERE! BEHIND THE FAT KOREAN KID! YOU STUPID BINT!
Teacher: No? *Throws the sheets into the furnace*
Me: NOOOOO!
Teacher: Ok, then do Ex. 3 page 8584, questions 1-23 INCLUSIVE.
*I turn to the page and look at the first question*
Question: Work out the binomial radian expansion of (4+piY) squared between the axes and an integrated line of dy/dx cubed m, on the basis that all numbers are irrational and f'(x) = 27X!/84!y, mx inclusive.
Me: Wahaha?
Joe: Finished, Miss.
Me: Joe, can I see yours?
Joe: Sure, because you are the manliest man around. Guess what? Kris's name is Kris. And I can fit my entire hand in.
Me: Yeah, nice. *Looks at Joe's workings* Is that a two?
Joe: No, it's a quork. You do know that we're doing this in log-base twelve, right?
*I look at my workings, which consist of Maths neatly underlined at the top, and a doodle of Steve tearing the head off a hobo. I take another long look at Joe's.*
Joes workings: y= 453% quork binomial x, pascals pyramid 2Cr4= 38 THEREFORE x= 43^-383 and y=i43.
And then I die a little inside.
Oh man. And I also have to learn the entire physics syllabus (and I do mean the entire physics syllabus... damn you, Mr Clarke, you incompetent boob). And the extra Biology and I have NO IDEA what that is. And the extra Chemistry. Fuckwankers, I'm rather screwed.
Oh well, at least my eyes work properly.
What exactly is a radian, and why should I care?
Friday, June 17, 2005
Tuesday, June 14, 2005
Be warned: This post is possibly the most epic ever
Here's a picture I made ages ago:
Doesn't have much to do with the following post, but hey, I like it and I didn't waste ten minutes finding a decent lightsaber beam on the internet for the picture to languish in my hard drive for the rest of history.
Time for another top 10 list, I think, and if anybody doesn't agree with me, they can go kill themselves like mum did (ten points for whoever gets the reference... it's not hard).
So, with no further ado, here is The Top 15 Most Shit Villains in Popular Culture History
It's fifteen because I had too many good ones for a Top 10 countdown, and not enough for a Top 20. Does anyone care that I rank the guards in Mr and Mrs Smith higher in the shit-list than StarWolf in Lylat Wars? Even I don't care, and I was writing the damn thing. So it's 15. This is a list of villains that, I feel, have OUTCLASSED the rest of the villain world in being, just, really shit. Ineffectual, bumbling, pathetic. The best of this list make you CHEER for them, just on the strength of them being really crap. Of course, a couple of them *JIM CARREY I AM LOOKING AT YOU* just make you want to hurt them. But then, isn't that always the case with Jim Carrey? Twat.
15: The Penguins in Batman Returns
First things off: I love this damn film. Although I have a parent who worked on the original Batman (I was on the set as a baby, hah, suck on that) I think that this one is probably better. Mostly because it has clowns being blown up by everyone's favourite man of bat. But I think the script guy was probably smoking something strong when he came up with the last twenty minutes.
"I KNOW! I'LL HAVE A CLIMAX WHERE A LOAD OF PENGUINS WITH ROCKET LAUCHERS ON THEIR HEADS REMOTELY CONTROLLED BY A POODLE LADY SWIM THROUGH THE SEWERS TO BLOW UP THE WHOLE OF GOTHAM CITY!"
Ah man, I don't even do drugs, but I want some of that shit. I love how logic totally flies out of the window when the army of penguins enter. Where did the three hundred penguins come from? Where did all the missiles come from? What about the mind control devices? Do you mean to tell me that they suddenly invented penguin mind control hats and sent someone to personally fit them to every single penguin? Don't they know that they're just... penguins? And then The Penguin (who's not actually a penguin, but is in fact Danny Devito in costume) gives the penguins this long speech, and they all pay attention. What made the Penguin come up with this plan? Why did he think it would work? WHY?
That's the sort of INSPIRED plotting that I want to be able to pull off when I make it in whatever business that I chose to dominate with my own skills. Man oh man.
But the reason that these penguins are so ineffectual is just that... they're PENGUINS. PENGUINS! They're like the most retarded animals in the world. Other than, of course, the Panda. Fucking pandas. But penguins... they just waddle along and fall over and swim a bit. That's it. Penguins - rubbish.
I think that was probably the Penguin's big tactical mistake when he was planning on his terrorist attack. Damn, and he would have gotten away with it too if his plan wasn't hopelessly flawed. Penguins. Christ almighty.
14: The bad guy in Gone In 60 Seconds
This guy is so crap. It seems like the scriptwriter was trying to find a way of making this guy REALLY threatening, but couldn't make him unique. Right, so, let's make him, I dunno, have an english accent! Those are always evil. Now, I know, lets give him a unique skill. Perhaps he could be a butcher? You know, Butcher Bill? No, that's been done. Some sort of clown? No. A homocidal maniac? No. Uh, I dunno. A baker? No. Barber? No. I know, what about a CARPENTER? Oh yeah, that's good, he can be the first mob boss who's also a carpenter! BRILLIANT! I'm getting paid tonight!
Yes, you heard me. A carpenter. Oooh, scary. That's his selling point? That's what makes him so scary? He builds CHAIRS? Oooh, I'm terrified. This English guy truly is the most terrifying mofo in the world and fully worthy of everyone being scared of him. I mean, if they do piss him off, what's he gonna do? Build a chair, then hit them with it? Hand carve a cupboard then lock them in it? Sandpaper off their faces?
This guy is crap. He gets killed by Nicholas Cage at the end. NICHOLAS CAGE! He's like the woman of all action stars.
13: The Spiders in Resident Evil
Now, you'd think that giant spiders would be threatening, woudn't you? You know, you're in a giant empty house, full of zombies (and one really fuckoff scary little girl in a hut). You go downstairs. You're in a passageway. You walk along, then BAM. A giant spider falls from above in an attempt to RIP OFF YOUR FACE. AARGH. SCARY. Even scarier than Steve's used tampon draw. They would give even the most unwussy girl I know, Fati, a heart attack.
But no. Because the giant spiders in this game are so unimpressive, you can actually ignore them and go about your daily business. You don't even have to bother fighting them. You don't even have to CHANGE DIRECTION. They move at about half a mile an hour at full speed. They turn slower than Steven Hawkings in a really narrow corridor. They spit a really weak acid at you and waggle their hairy legs. That's it. So fucking useless. Even the ZOMBIES in Resident Evil are more effective than the spiders.
There's even a spider boss in one bit. Oh man, A HUGE SPIDER. You'd think that, at LEAST, this bitch would be hard to kill, right? WRONG. The game designers obviously realised how shittum the spiders were, and they LEAVE A FUCKING KNIFE IN THE ROOM. Just so you don't waste precious bullets shooting the damn thing, you are GIVEN a sharpened bit of metal to hack the spider to death. I usually choose to flamethrower it. Not because it's easier, it's just quicker and more fun. And the spider deserves it, really, for being shit.
12: Lockjaw, from Mighty Max
Did anyone use to collect the Mighty Max sets? They were these little playsets that opened up to form miniture landscapes. The playsets were shaped like the heads of monsters and inside was the monster's lair and all these little characters. Sort of like Polly Pocket, except with blood and decapitations and death. Each set came with a little comic strip too, so you could see how our hero (Mighty Max, prick), defeated this week's monster. I used to collect them. Don't laugh, at least I didn't use to collect barbies, OLIVER.
Anyway, I remember this particular specimin, because the bad guy was just so lame. Well, to be honest, they were all a bit crap, and they all got killed in the end by some dipshit ten year old with a stupid hat and a chicken as a best friend, but this guy was especially bad. He was called Lockjaw, and here's a picture of his head:
Oooh, scary man. Especially with that hinge on the bottom of his head. Moron. Anyway, Lockjaw was this like hobo who lived in a shed in the middle of nowhere, kind of like the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and our hero Max is in his hut for some reason. Then Lockjaw LEAPS OUT OF HIS CUPBOARD and tries to kill Max with his axe. Pretty good. But then Max kicks Lockjaw in the back and he falls back into the cupboard. That's it. That's this guy's entire story. Well, it was a miniture playset, so he got less frames of cartoon strip, but... poor guy. He lives for his entire life killing people, then he gets locked in a cupboard by a 10 year old. For shame, Lockjaw. For shame. You suck. Fucking hell, even ten year olds have managed to murder minors (God bless you, Jamie Bulger, you little corpse) so why can't you? Moron.
11: Every Baddie in Tomorrow Never Dies
It's not often that you get a film in which EVERYBODY is a bumbling dipshit, but, hey, they managed to pull it off pretty successfully in this cinematic abortion.
Just from memory... Dr Kaufman, the evil german professor of death who kills innocent women but is unable to spot the fact that Bond is tricking him with his fancy electro-zapping phone. That white haired german prick who's unable to open a damn car door. That military general who plays a major part in proceedings but didn't get ten seconds of screen time. And, of course, Johnathon Pryce. I don't know, I don't know. I bloody hate Jonathon Price. So much so that I can't be arsed to look up how you spell his name. His character was a mysterious media baron who had some really smart plan to take over the world by blowing up Beijing (?) then somehow being able to emerge a world leader (?). I feel that the plan was somewhat flawed, really. But, hey, at least he has a magic stealth boat. For He Is King.
I think Johnathon Pryce manages to beat Jaws for being the most lame and ineffectual Bond villain ever. And don't say that Jaws was cool, you pricks. Only ten year olds like Jaws. His selling point was that he had metal teeth. That was it. And he was the crappest character in the Goldeneye Multiplayer.
10: The Riddler, in Batman Forever
a: I don't like Jim Carrey.
b: This character was in Batman Forever, the film that led directly to the turd that was Batman Returns.
c: He was just annoying and his hair kept changing colour every scene.
d: Prrrick.
e: Just LOOK AT HIM:
Seriously, man. You can't get any more lamer than that. He's lamer than the presenters on Tots tv, and they are Pretty Lame. Singing pricks. But... that green suit! This guy is an INSULT to the villain genre. Whose fucking idea was that film, anyway? Sure as hell wasn't mine. And yet I'm the only one still complaining about it. FOR SHAME.
9: Jessie and James from Pokemon
I think that the MAIN problem with these two, and the reason that they lost every... single... time, was that they just didn't learn. And that's not a good thing for a villain. All the good villains. If Micheal Corleone hadn't learnt to breakdance, do you think he would have survived Godfather 2? Nope. He'd have been dead by the end of the first beatboxing scene. Somebody should inform Jessie and James:
a: Disguises don't work if all they involve is a fake mustache and a stupid hat.
b: Following the same three kids around the country trying to steal their pets, and repeatedly failing, must have taught you SOMETHING. At least, choose some other kids. Dumb kids. Perhaps a kid with aids. Or a kid with Down's Syndrome. What would Down's Sydrome look like anime style? Please draw some pictures and send them to me, PLEASE.
c: Don't continually sing your theme tune. It DOES sort of give you away/give the kids a chance to run off. Retards.
8: Edward Lionheart from Theatre of Blood
Oh, dear. This character, played by Vincent Price, was an ex-actor who killed off the critics who insulted his work with a series of grisly and Shakespeare related deaths. Shakespeare? Coughpaulcough.
However, he had a FEW flaws in his masterplan that led to him being number 8 in my list of really shit villains:
1: His henchmen were a crossdressing woman dressed with a ginger afro and a huge moustache, and an army of evil hobos. Yes, you did hear that correctly. An army of evil hobos. Who were permanently pissed off their heads on MAGIC PURPLE LIQUID (tm). They're not exactly the Dark Samurai legions, are they?
2: Here's a hint for you, Mr Lionheart: When you have your enemy at your mercy after a REALLY FUNNY swordfight, you kill him. You don't decide to let him go for no reason. That is what is known as, in chess, a 'bad move'.
3: If you're going to set fire to your own lair for no reason, have one of your evil hobos kill your daughter, decide you didn't want your daughter to die after all, carry her prone body up onto the ROOF of the burning lair for no reason, then fall through the roof to your death, you probably aren't really cut out for this evil-genius stuff. More like evil special case.
7: Torgo from Manos, Hands of Fate
I haven't even seen this film, yet I know that Torgo deserves a high place in this list, just through the SHEER cult presence of his crapness. For those of you who don't know, Manos is one of those rare breed of films that deserves the rank of 'So bad It's better than a good number of decent films'. This is a film that was SO badly made, that several of the cast and crew committed suicide after it was released, and the majority of those involved in the film never worked in cinema ever again. The film was made by a fertiliser salesman with cheap camera that only shot thirty seconds of film at a time and didn't pick up sound, so the entire film was dubbed over by three men and a women.
This film, with its INCREDIBLE score of 1.5 out of ten, has the highly prized 'bottom place' on the IMDB list of films.
Torgo is the portly caretaker of a lodge 'while the master is away'. His job is to look threatening and scare people away. Apparently the actor who played this GOD of villainy had decided that Torgo was to be a satyr, without informing anybody. So the upshot of that is that Torgo walks funny. And one person makes a remark about his feet. That's it. You are possibly the least effective villain EVER. And you get the best death; the Master sets fire to you with his evil hand of death and you run off. That's it, bye Torgo. And what sort of name is TORGO? You create new leagues of lame.
Ah, Torgo, you legend. You truly are crap. By the way, if anybody can get me a copy of this film, I will pay good (read: no) money.
6: Sideshow Bob, from The Simpsons
Alright, I know that he's meant to be comic and ineffectual, but Sideshow Bob just wins awards for being a terrible failure at villainy. Especially that bit when he walks into nine rakes, one after another.
THWACK. *Angry mumble*.
THWACK. *Angry mumble*.
THWACK. *Angry mumble*.
THWACK. *Angry mumble*.
THWACK. *Angry mumble*.
THWACK. *Angry mumble*.
THWACK. *Angry mumble*.
THWACK. *Angry mumble*.
Genius, just genius. God bless you, Bob. I have nothing more to write about you.
THWACK. *Angry mumble*.
5: King Bob-omb, from Mario 64
Picture the scene. This is the first time you have played Mario 64, the first game on the Nintento 64. You've fallen in the moat a few times. You've entered your first world; the land of bombs or whatever it was. Bosnia, probably. You climb the mountain, dodging the boulders that appear from nowhere, yet still manage to knock you off the damn cliff every time.
And FINALLY, you reach the top, to be confronted by... this huge black shit with a crown, a lame moustache thing and stupid legs. After challenging you in a manly way for a few minutes, you have a fight, when it suddenly is made clear: King Bob-omb is CRAP. He goes even slower than the damn spiders in Resident Evil. Lumber lumber lumber. And you're not even allowed to throw him off a cliff. How the hell does this guy get to be king? He seems to have no regal or political skills at all. He is possibly the least threatening boss ever of any game EVER. And I've played through Kirby's dreamland on the Game Boy, when the first boss was a TREE. Yes, you heard me. A tree.
4: The Mysterons, from Captain Scarlet
Now, don't get me wrong. When I say 'The Mysterons', I DO NOT mean 'Mysteron Agent Captain Black', who after all is one of the manliest men EVER, man. No, I mean the actual aliens themselves. And my reasons for this choice are slightly different than for my other choices. In this case, the mysterons are well equipped. They are not hopelessly incompetent. They have the ability to kill people with the use of magic moonbeams, explosions from space, and evil clones. They can raise the dead as their personal slaves. They have bombs. They have poisons. They have plans. And they have Captain Black in their service. I wouldn't have thought that it would be difficult to destroy the world with that advantage. Especially as the world is filled with puppets who, to be honest, aren't the sharpest tools in the shed.
YET THEY STILL MANAGE TO FUCK IT UP. I wish I could grab the Mysteron leader and throttle him seductively. If you want to win a war, it's very simple. You keep every troop movement and plan secret from the enemy. You keep him guessing, you keep him scared, you keep him out of control of the situation. You, mysterons, you are fully in control of the situation. You are invisible. And you can blow shit up whenever you feel like it. So WHY OH WHY do you tell Spectrum the exact location of your next attack, complete with dates, times and, probably, a good clue as to how you're gonna go about this dastardly scheme?
Mysteron warplan
Think up a dastardly plan.
Tell Spectrum, just to keep them involved.
Spectrum sends Captain Scarlet and chums to solve the mystery.
Captain Scarlet saves the day.
Lose.
Think up another plan.
Tell Spectrum.
See where the problem lies? You attack one isolated military base at a time, tell Spectrum roughly a week in advance, then lose because they are waiting for you. This is not what is known as a wise tactical maneuvre. This is what is known as 'being a moron'. Mysterons. Pah.
3: Stormtroopers in Star Wars: A New Hope, Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back and Star Wars: Something Really Exciting Happens
Stormtroopers, with their natty white uniforms, are famed far and wide for their shittitude. It's amazing how an army of identically suited soldiers, trained and under the control of an evil empire with a range of weapons, gadgetary, named after a Nazi death squad can be SO DAMN UNTHREATENING.
Maybe its the way that they have the aiming skills of a blind spastic. Or the way that they get fooled by simple tricks.
*A gang of stormtroopers menace our hero*
Stormtrooper 1: Hey, you.
Hero: LOOK OVER THERE!
Stormtrooper 1: What? Hey, guys, we'd better go check it out!
*All the Stormtroopers run off*
I don't know if that actually happened, but then again, I wasn't paying attention. It probably did. Do you think the stormtoopers have music hooked up to their helmets? I bet they do. I bet they all listen to Madonna. Only that amount of suckitude could possibly result in the stormtroopers being THAT shit. Hey, at the end of Episode 3, I thought the stormtroopers looked like a pretty damn good force of warriors... they managed to kill off the Jedi in ten minutes. And by the end of Episode 6 they were barely able to slaughter a bunch of pissy teddy bears. Crap, I say. Crap.
So what's happened in the twenty years between Episodes 3 and 4? Did they all get fat and lazy? I bet they all started to watch ITV. Fucking ITV. This isn't the first galactic order ITV has screwed up, I tell you, and it won't be the last. Oh yeah. If you watch Episode 4 of Star Wars, one of the stormtroopers walks into a door. Now, I know that sounds like a fanboy thing to know, but consider this:
a: It's a well documented error and has been in countless tv shows and magazines.
b: When you watch it, it's fucking obvious. It even makes a loud KERPUNK sound as his head comes into contact with the door.
c: IT PROVES MY POINT. Stormtroopers are the most ineffective crack troops ever. They can't even conquer a fucking door, let alone the resistance.
2: Zombies in... every zombie film ever
Zombies fall definitely into the category of 'so rubbish they are endearing', as opposed to 'so useless they are irritating'. Zombies are, by definition, rubbish. They move at like half a mile an hour. They fall over a lot. They're rotting. When you think about it, zombies aren't even monsters. They're just like less effective versions of humans. There is no fear with a zombie. You're trapped in a basement with one? Boo bloody hoo, just punch it in the face. The fucker's so dumb, it's not like he's going to block the punch.
All the great zombie films recognise the inherent crapness in zombies and exploit it for comic effect. Dawn of the Dead, best zombie film EVER (and no, not the remake) has a brilliant scene with a bunch of rednecks having a barbequeue and shooting the zombies FOR FUN. They're playing music, they're having the time of their lives. It's good. The zombies don't have a hope in hell. To make a good zombie film, you have to realise how terrible your monster is, then have fun with that concept, as opposed to making them more threatening. Running zombies, my ass. You want to know why Shaun of the Dead made more money than the Dawn of the Dead remake here in the UK? Because the zombies didn't run.
If I'm going to brutally honest, there's not goddamn way that zombies are ever going to take over the world. How are they going to get large enough numbers to beat the heavily armed armies of the world? Consider that the human race has managed the destruction of 6 million people in one go, and these people were a helluva lot smarter than your average zombie, there's no CHANCE that the zombies would ever take over the world. Oh, so if they bite you, you die? Wear gloves, dumbass. Another thing the Nazis have given us.
Haha, zombies fall over.
And no, they can't bloody run. What are you, a retard? ZOMBIES CAN'T RUN. They can barely walk. THEY CAN'T MOVE AT ANYTHING FASTER THAN A STAGGER. These guys are slow, they are stupid, they are totally useless in anything but massive numbers. I rest my motherfucking case. Zombies are terrible and fully deserve their place as number two in my list of crap villains.
And now for number one. This is a set of bad guys who are even more rubbish than the zombies. How is this possible? Well, it is when you consider how I have been doing this list. There are plenty of purposefully crap villains out there. Dr Evil, for example, or any of the spoof evil mobsters out there. Hell, I could include Crafty Krok from the Cocopop's advert. But I don't. Because they are intentionally rubbish. For this list, you get rated higher if your crapness is unintentional. The zombies don't get the highest position, because, to be honest, nobody REALLY takes them seriously. No, the highest place in this list goes to a set of villains that, despite their complete and utter, total, unequivocable, mythical, incredible AMAZING crapness, are still viewed in their universe as being terrifying, monstrous and the worst threat to mankind since that guy who could fire beams of AIDS from his hands.
Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you...
1: The Daleks
Man, I hate the Daleks so much. Actually, I love them. It's Dr Who fans I hate. Dr Who is, basically, a crappy show, right? The time travel thing is just an excuse for them to travel around doing whateve the hell they want, in the future, in the past, involving robots, demons, and aliens in crazy foreign planets. And yet the Dr Who fans take the entire thing so damn seriously. They act like the entire show has any sort of logic and continuity. I tell you, the other day on aintitcool.com I saw this guy bitch for a good ten lines about how someone had referred to the TARDIS as the Tardis, because, apparently it's an acronym. Well, fuck you, I'm now going to purposefully spell it with all lower case letters just to indirectly piss you off. In fact, I'll also spell it incorrectly. tradis.
So all these losers take it so damn seriously. Not me, I'm above such things, I've risen to wanting a girlfriend. Actually, I was never at the level of Dr Who. I saw the episode where they all get attacked by giant rats on tv one day and, yeah. Best not mention it. This is why I love the daleks. No matter how hard they argue as to alternate reality theories and the 27th doctor and the time war and the trial of the time lords and the space time continuum, you can just throw the daleks in there.
"Why do you take Dr Who so seriously, when he's quite plainly fighting a bunch of wheelie bins with attached plunger?"
Look, I just ruined your fanboy bullshittum. What I love about these critters is that they were so blatantly made in ten minutes with whatever was lying around the studio, and I'm pretty sure the only reason that they are taken so seriously today was that everyone who made the original series thought that they were a massive joke.
Seriously, though, how can you take a dalek as a credible threat to the galaxy? THEY ARE WHEELIE BINS WITH PLUNGERS ATTACHED. They are even more crap than R2D2. Here is a list of ways you could defeat the daleks:
Daleks. Are. Shit. And don't let anybody tell you different.
Wow, it's been a journey. And a waste of time. Oh well, who needs GCSE Chemistry? Not me. I'm going to be a millionaire! Or, as this list would indicate, somebody who complains a lot. Comment, you fuckers.
Doesn't have much to do with the following post, but hey, I like it and I didn't waste ten minutes finding a decent lightsaber beam on the internet for the picture to languish in my hard drive for the rest of history.
Time for another top 10 list, I think, and if anybody doesn't agree with me, they can go kill themselves like mum did (ten points for whoever gets the reference... it's not hard).
So, with no further ado, here is The Top 15 Most Shit Villains in Popular Culture History
It's fifteen because I had too many good ones for a Top 10 countdown, and not enough for a Top 20. Does anyone care that I rank the guards in Mr and Mrs Smith higher in the shit-list than StarWolf in Lylat Wars? Even I don't care, and I was writing the damn thing. So it's 15. This is a list of villains that, I feel, have OUTCLASSED the rest of the villain world in being, just, really shit. Ineffectual, bumbling, pathetic. The best of this list make you CHEER for them, just on the strength of them being really crap. Of course, a couple of them *JIM CARREY I AM LOOKING AT YOU* just make you want to hurt them. But then, isn't that always the case with Jim Carrey? Twat.
15: The Penguins in Batman Returns
First things off: I love this damn film. Although I have a parent who worked on the original Batman (I was on the set as a baby, hah, suck on that) I think that this one is probably better. Mostly because it has clowns being blown up by everyone's favourite man of bat. But I think the script guy was probably smoking something strong when he came up with the last twenty minutes.
"I KNOW! I'LL HAVE A CLIMAX WHERE A LOAD OF PENGUINS WITH ROCKET LAUCHERS ON THEIR HEADS REMOTELY CONTROLLED BY A POODLE LADY SWIM THROUGH THE SEWERS TO BLOW UP THE WHOLE OF GOTHAM CITY!"
Ah man, I don't even do drugs, but I want some of that shit. I love how logic totally flies out of the window when the army of penguins enter. Where did the three hundred penguins come from? Where did all the missiles come from? What about the mind control devices? Do you mean to tell me that they suddenly invented penguin mind control hats and sent someone to personally fit them to every single penguin? Don't they know that they're just... penguins? And then The Penguin (who's not actually a penguin, but is in fact Danny Devito in costume) gives the penguins this long speech, and they all pay attention. What made the Penguin come up with this plan? Why did he think it would work? WHY?
That's the sort of INSPIRED plotting that I want to be able to pull off when I make it in whatever business that I chose to dominate with my own skills. Man oh man.
But the reason that these penguins are so ineffectual is just that... they're PENGUINS. PENGUINS! They're like the most retarded animals in the world. Other than, of course, the Panda. Fucking pandas. But penguins... they just waddle along and fall over and swim a bit. That's it. Penguins - rubbish.
I think that was probably the Penguin's big tactical mistake when he was planning on his terrorist attack. Damn, and he would have gotten away with it too if his plan wasn't hopelessly flawed. Penguins. Christ almighty.
14: The bad guy in Gone In 60 Seconds
This guy is so crap. It seems like the scriptwriter was trying to find a way of making this guy REALLY threatening, but couldn't make him unique. Right, so, let's make him, I dunno, have an english accent! Those are always evil. Now, I know, lets give him a unique skill. Perhaps he could be a butcher? You know, Butcher Bill? No, that's been done. Some sort of clown? No. A homocidal maniac? No. Uh, I dunno. A baker? No. Barber? No. I know, what about a CARPENTER? Oh yeah, that's good, he can be the first mob boss who's also a carpenter! BRILLIANT! I'm getting paid tonight!
Yes, you heard me. A carpenter. Oooh, scary. That's his selling point? That's what makes him so scary? He builds CHAIRS? Oooh, I'm terrified. This English guy truly is the most terrifying mofo in the world and fully worthy of everyone being scared of him. I mean, if they do piss him off, what's he gonna do? Build a chair, then hit them with it? Hand carve a cupboard then lock them in it? Sandpaper off their faces?
This guy is crap. He gets killed by Nicholas Cage at the end. NICHOLAS CAGE! He's like the woman of all action stars.
13: The Spiders in Resident Evil
Now, you'd think that giant spiders would be threatening, woudn't you? You know, you're in a giant empty house, full of zombies (and one really fuckoff scary little girl in a hut). You go downstairs. You're in a passageway. You walk along, then BAM. A giant spider falls from above in an attempt to RIP OFF YOUR FACE. AARGH. SCARY. Even scarier than Steve's used tampon draw. They would give even the most unwussy girl I know, Fati, a heart attack.
But no. Because the giant spiders in this game are so unimpressive, you can actually ignore them and go about your daily business. You don't even have to bother fighting them. You don't even have to CHANGE DIRECTION. They move at about half a mile an hour at full speed. They turn slower than Steven Hawkings in a really narrow corridor. They spit a really weak acid at you and waggle their hairy legs. That's it. So fucking useless. Even the ZOMBIES in Resident Evil are more effective than the spiders.
There's even a spider boss in one bit. Oh man, A HUGE SPIDER. You'd think that, at LEAST, this bitch would be hard to kill, right? WRONG. The game designers obviously realised how shittum the spiders were, and they LEAVE A FUCKING KNIFE IN THE ROOM. Just so you don't waste precious bullets shooting the damn thing, you are GIVEN a sharpened bit of metal to hack the spider to death. I usually choose to flamethrower it. Not because it's easier, it's just quicker and more fun. And the spider deserves it, really, for being shit.
12: Lockjaw, from Mighty Max
Did anyone use to collect the Mighty Max sets? They were these little playsets that opened up to form miniture landscapes. The playsets were shaped like the heads of monsters and inside was the monster's lair and all these little characters. Sort of like Polly Pocket, except with blood and decapitations and death. Each set came with a little comic strip too, so you could see how our hero (Mighty Max, prick), defeated this week's monster. I used to collect them. Don't laugh, at least I didn't use to collect barbies, OLIVER.
Anyway, I remember this particular specimin, because the bad guy was just so lame. Well, to be honest, they were all a bit crap, and they all got killed in the end by some dipshit ten year old with a stupid hat and a chicken as a best friend, but this guy was especially bad. He was called Lockjaw, and here's a picture of his head:
Oooh, scary man. Especially with that hinge on the bottom of his head. Moron. Anyway, Lockjaw was this like hobo who lived in a shed in the middle of nowhere, kind of like the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and our hero Max is in his hut for some reason. Then Lockjaw LEAPS OUT OF HIS CUPBOARD and tries to kill Max with his axe. Pretty good. But then Max kicks Lockjaw in the back and he falls back into the cupboard. That's it. That's this guy's entire story. Well, it was a miniture playset, so he got less frames of cartoon strip, but... poor guy. He lives for his entire life killing people, then he gets locked in a cupboard by a 10 year old. For shame, Lockjaw. For shame. You suck. Fucking hell, even ten year olds have managed to murder minors (God bless you, Jamie Bulger, you little corpse) so why can't you? Moron.
11: Every Baddie in Tomorrow Never Dies
It's not often that you get a film in which EVERYBODY is a bumbling dipshit, but, hey, they managed to pull it off pretty successfully in this cinematic abortion.
Just from memory... Dr Kaufman, the evil german professor of death who kills innocent women but is unable to spot the fact that Bond is tricking him with his fancy electro-zapping phone. That white haired german prick who's unable to open a damn car door. That military general who plays a major part in proceedings but didn't get ten seconds of screen time. And, of course, Johnathon Pryce. I don't know, I don't know. I bloody hate Jonathon Price. So much so that I can't be arsed to look up how you spell his name. His character was a mysterious media baron who had some really smart plan to take over the world by blowing up Beijing (?) then somehow being able to emerge a world leader (?). I feel that the plan was somewhat flawed, really. But, hey, at least he has a magic stealth boat. For He Is King.
I think Johnathon Pryce manages to beat Jaws for being the most lame and ineffectual Bond villain ever. And don't say that Jaws was cool, you pricks. Only ten year olds like Jaws. His selling point was that he had metal teeth. That was it. And he was the crappest character in the Goldeneye Multiplayer.
10: The Riddler, in Batman Forever
a: I don't like Jim Carrey.
b: This character was in Batman Forever, the film that led directly to the turd that was Batman Returns.
c: He was just annoying and his hair kept changing colour every scene.
d: Prrrick.
e: Just LOOK AT HIM:
Seriously, man. You can't get any more lamer than that. He's lamer than the presenters on Tots tv, and they are Pretty Lame. Singing pricks. But... that green suit! This guy is an INSULT to the villain genre. Whose fucking idea was that film, anyway? Sure as hell wasn't mine. And yet I'm the only one still complaining about it. FOR SHAME.
9: Jessie and James from Pokemon
I think that the MAIN problem with these two, and the reason that they lost every... single... time, was that they just didn't learn. And that's not a good thing for a villain. All the good villains. If Micheal Corleone hadn't learnt to breakdance, do you think he would have survived Godfather 2? Nope. He'd have been dead by the end of the first beatboxing scene. Somebody should inform Jessie and James:
a: Disguises don't work if all they involve is a fake mustache and a stupid hat.
b: Following the same three kids around the country trying to steal their pets, and repeatedly failing, must have taught you SOMETHING. At least, choose some other kids. Dumb kids. Perhaps a kid with aids. Or a kid with Down's Syndrome. What would Down's Sydrome look like anime style? Please draw some pictures and send them to me, PLEASE.
c: Don't continually sing your theme tune. It DOES sort of give you away/give the kids a chance to run off. Retards.
8: Edward Lionheart from Theatre of Blood
Oh, dear. This character, played by Vincent Price, was an ex-actor who killed off the critics who insulted his work with a series of grisly and Shakespeare related deaths. Shakespeare? Coughpaulcough.
However, he had a FEW flaws in his masterplan that led to him being number 8 in my list of really shit villains:
1: His henchmen were a crossdressing woman dressed with a ginger afro and a huge moustache, and an army of evil hobos. Yes, you did hear that correctly. An army of evil hobos. Who were permanently pissed off their heads on MAGIC PURPLE LIQUID (tm). They're not exactly the Dark Samurai legions, are they?
2: Here's a hint for you, Mr Lionheart: When you have your enemy at your mercy after a REALLY FUNNY swordfight, you kill him. You don't decide to let him go for no reason. That is what is known as, in chess, a 'bad move'.
3: If you're going to set fire to your own lair for no reason, have one of your evil hobos kill your daughter, decide you didn't want your daughter to die after all, carry her prone body up onto the ROOF of the burning lair for no reason, then fall through the roof to your death, you probably aren't really cut out for this evil-genius stuff. More like evil special case.
7: Torgo from Manos, Hands of Fate
I haven't even seen this film, yet I know that Torgo deserves a high place in this list, just through the SHEER cult presence of his crapness. For those of you who don't know, Manos is one of those rare breed of films that deserves the rank of 'So bad It's better than a good number of decent films'. This is a film that was SO badly made, that several of the cast and crew committed suicide after it was released, and the majority of those involved in the film never worked in cinema ever again. The film was made by a fertiliser salesman with cheap camera that only shot thirty seconds of film at a time and didn't pick up sound, so the entire film was dubbed over by three men and a women.
This film, with its INCREDIBLE score of 1.5 out of ten, has the highly prized 'bottom place' on the IMDB list of films.
Torgo is the portly caretaker of a lodge 'while the master is away'. His job is to look threatening and scare people away. Apparently the actor who played this GOD of villainy had decided that Torgo was to be a satyr, without informing anybody. So the upshot of that is that Torgo walks funny. And one person makes a remark about his feet. That's it. You are possibly the least effective villain EVER. And you get the best death; the Master sets fire to you with his evil hand of death and you run off. That's it, bye Torgo. And what sort of name is TORGO? You create new leagues of lame.
Ah, Torgo, you legend. You truly are crap. By the way, if anybody can get me a copy of this film, I will pay good (read: no) money.
6: Sideshow Bob, from The Simpsons
Alright, I know that he's meant to be comic and ineffectual, but Sideshow Bob just wins awards for being a terrible failure at villainy. Especially that bit when he walks into nine rakes, one after another.
THWACK. *Angry mumble*.
THWACK. *Angry mumble*.
THWACK. *Angry mumble*.
THWACK. *Angry mumble*.
THWACK. *Angry mumble*.
THWACK. *Angry mumble*.
THWACK. *Angry mumble*.
THWACK. *Angry mumble*.
Genius, just genius. God bless you, Bob. I have nothing more to write about you.
THWACK. *Angry mumble*.
5: King Bob-omb, from Mario 64
Picture the scene. This is the first time you have played Mario 64, the first game on the Nintento 64. You've fallen in the moat a few times. You've entered your first world; the land of bombs or whatever it was. Bosnia, probably. You climb the mountain, dodging the boulders that appear from nowhere, yet still manage to knock you off the damn cliff every time.
And FINALLY, you reach the top, to be confronted by... this huge black shit with a crown, a lame moustache thing and stupid legs. After challenging you in a manly way for a few minutes, you have a fight, when it suddenly is made clear: King Bob-omb is CRAP. He goes even slower than the damn spiders in Resident Evil. Lumber lumber lumber. And you're not even allowed to throw him off a cliff. How the hell does this guy get to be king? He seems to have no regal or political skills at all. He is possibly the least threatening boss ever of any game EVER. And I've played through Kirby's dreamland on the Game Boy, when the first boss was a TREE. Yes, you heard me. A tree.
4: The Mysterons, from Captain Scarlet
Now, don't get me wrong. When I say 'The Mysterons', I DO NOT mean 'Mysteron Agent Captain Black', who after all is one of the manliest men EVER, man. No, I mean the actual aliens themselves. And my reasons for this choice are slightly different than for my other choices. In this case, the mysterons are well equipped. They are not hopelessly incompetent. They have the ability to kill people with the use of magic moonbeams, explosions from space, and evil clones. They can raise the dead as their personal slaves. They have bombs. They have poisons. They have plans. And they have Captain Black in their service. I wouldn't have thought that it would be difficult to destroy the world with that advantage. Especially as the world is filled with puppets who, to be honest, aren't the sharpest tools in the shed.
YET THEY STILL MANAGE TO FUCK IT UP. I wish I could grab the Mysteron leader and throttle him seductively. If you want to win a war, it's very simple. You keep every troop movement and plan secret from the enemy. You keep him guessing, you keep him scared, you keep him out of control of the situation. You, mysterons, you are fully in control of the situation. You are invisible. And you can blow shit up whenever you feel like it. So WHY OH WHY do you tell Spectrum the exact location of your next attack, complete with dates, times and, probably, a good clue as to how you're gonna go about this dastardly scheme?
Mysteron warplan
Think up a dastardly plan.
Tell Spectrum, just to keep them involved.
Spectrum sends Captain Scarlet and chums to solve the mystery.
Captain Scarlet saves the day.
Lose.
Think up another plan.
Tell Spectrum.
See where the problem lies? You attack one isolated military base at a time, tell Spectrum roughly a week in advance, then lose because they are waiting for you. This is not what is known as a wise tactical maneuvre. This is what is known as 'being a moron'. Mysterons. Pah.
3: Stormtroopers in Star Wars: A New Hope, Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back and Star Wars: Something Really Exciting Happens
Stormtroopers, with their natty white uniforms, are famed far and wide for their shittitude. It's amazing how an army of identically suited soldiers, trained and under the control of an evil empire with a range of weapons, gadgetary, named after a Nazi death squad can be SO DAMN UNTHREATENING.
Maybe its the way that they have the aiming skills of a blind spastic. Or the way that they get fooled by simple tricks.
*A gang of stormtroopers menace our hero*
Stormtrooper 1: Hey, you.
Hero: LOOK OVER THERE!
Stormtrooper 1: What? Hey, guys, we'd better go check it out!
*All the Stormtroopers run off*
I don't know if that actually happened, but then again, I wasn't paying attention. It probably did. Do you think the stormtoopers have music hooked up to their helmets? I bet they do. I bet they all listen to Madonna. Only that amount of suckitude could possibly result in the stormtroopers being THAT shit. Hey, at the end of Episode 3, I thought the stormtroopers looked like a pretty damn good force of warriors... they managed to kill off the Jedi in ten minutes. And by the end of Episode 6 they were barely able to slaughter a bunch of pissy teddy bears. Crap, I say. Crap.
So what's happened in the twenty years between Episodes 3 and 4? Did they all get fat and lazy? I bet they all started to watch ITV. Fucking ITV. This isn't the first galactic order ITV has screwed up, I tell you, and it won't be the last. Oh yeah. If you watch Episode 4 of Star Wars, one of the stormtroopers walks into a door. Now, I know that sounds like a fanboy thing to know, but consider this:
a: It's a well documented error and has been in countless tv shows and magazines.
b: When you watch it, it's fucking obvious. It even makes a loud KERPUNK sound as his head comes into contact with the door.
c: IT PROVES MY POINT. Stormtroopers are the most ineffective crack troops ever. They can't even conquer a fucking door, let alone the resistance.
2: Zombies in... every zombie film ever
Zombies fall definitely into the category of 'so rubbish they are endearing', as opposed to 'so useless they are irritating'. Zombies are, by definition, rubbish. They move at like half a mile an hour. They fall over a lot. They're rotting. When you think about it, zombies aren't even monsters. They're just like less effective versions of humans. There is no fear with a zombie. You're trapped in a basement with one? Boo bloody hoo, just punch it in the face. The fucker's so dumb, it's not like he's going to block the punch.
All the great zombie films recognise the inherent crapness in zombies and exploit it for comic effect. Dawn of the Dead, best zombie film EVER (and no, not the remake) has a brilliant scene with a bunch of rednecks having a barbequeue and shooting the zombies FOR FUN. They're playing music, they're having the time of their lives. It's good. The zombies don't have a hope in hell. To make a good zombie film, you have to realise how terrible your monster is, then have fun with that concept, as opposed to making them more threatening. Running zombies, my ass. You want to know why Shaun of the Dead made more money than the Dawn of the Dead remake here in the UK? Because the zombies didn't run.
If I'm going to brutally honest, there's not goddamn way that zombies are ever going to take over the world. How are they going to get large enough numbers to beat the heavily armed armies of the world? Consider that the human race has managed the destruction of 6 million people in one go, and these people were a helluva lot smarter than your average zombie, there's no CHANCE that the zombies would ever take over the world. Oh, so if they bite you, you die? Wear gloves, dumbass. Another thing the Nazis have given us.
Haha, zombies fall over.
And no, they can't bloody run. What are you, a retard? ZOMBIES CAN'T RUN. They can barely walk. THEY CAN'T MOVE AT ANYTHING FASTER THAN A STAGGER. These guys are slow, they are stupid, they are totally useless in anything but massive numbers. I rest my motherfucking case. Zombies are terrible and fully deserve their place as number two in my list of crap villains.
And now for number one. This is a set of bad guys who are even more rubbish than the zombies. How is this possible? Well, it is when you consider how I have been doing this list. There are plenty of purposefully crap villains out there. Dr Evil, for example, or any of the spoof evil mobsters out there. Hell, I could include Crafty Krok from the Cocopop's advert. But I don't. Because they are intentionally rubbish. For this list, you get rated higher if your crapness is unintentional. The zombies don't get the highest position, because, to be honest, nobody REALLY takes them seriously. No, the highest place in this list goes to a set of villains that, despite their complete and utter, total, unequivocable, mythical, incredible AMAZING crapness, are still viewed in their universe as being terrifying, monstrous and the worst threat to mankind since that guy who could fire beams of AIDS from his hands.
Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you...
1: The Daleks
Man, I hate the Daleks so much. Actually, I love them. It's Dr Who fans I hate. Dr Who is, basically, a crappy show, right? The time travel thing is just an excuse for them to travel around doing whateve the hell they want, in the future, in the past, involving robots, demons, and aliens in crazy foreign planets. And yet the Dr Who fans take the entire thing so damn seriously. They act like the entire show has any sort of logic and continuity. I tell you, the other day on aintitcool.com I saw this guy bitch for a good ten lines about how someone had referred to the TARDIS as the Tardis, because, apparently it's an acronym. Well, fuck you, I'm now going to purposefully spell it with all lower case letters just to indirectly piss you off. In fact, I'll also spell it incorrectly. tradis.
So all these losers take it so damn seriously. Not me, I'm above such things, I've risen to wanting a girlfriend. Actually, I was never at the level of Dr Who. I saw the episode where they all get attacked by giant rats on tv one day and, yeah. Best not mention it. This is why I love the daleks. No matter how hard they argue as to alternate reality theories and the 27th doctor and the time war and the trial of the time lords and the space time continuum, you can just throw the daleks in there.
"Why do you take Dr Who so seriously, when he's quite plainly fighting a bunch of wheelie bins with attached plunger?"
Look, I just ruined your fanboy bullshittum. What I love about these critters is that they were so blatantly made in ten minutes with whatever was lying around the studio, and I'm pretty sure the only reason that they are taken so seriously today was that everyone who made the original series thought that they were a massive joke.
Seriously, though, how can you take a dalek as a credible threat to the galaxy? THEY ARE WHEELIE BINS WITH PLUNGERS ATTACHED. They are even more crap than R2D2. Here is a list of ways you could defeat the daleks:
- Just put lots of stairs everywhere. And don't give me that rubbish 'oh they can fly' bullshit. Daleks can't fly. That was just added to the latest series in a failed attempt to reduce their crapness just a teensy bit.
- Scatter the land with dirty toilets that need unblocking.
- Make the doors slightly narrower. Not much, just another couple of centimetres would do it.
- Electromagnets.
- Teach them to love. Play them a lot of Phil Collins songs or something. Or alternatively, rock their socks off with some smooth tunes from The Sans Culottes.
- Just leave them out in the rain for a few days.
Daleks. Are. Shit. And don't let anybody tell you different.
Wow, it's been a journey. And a waste of time. Oh well, who needs GCSE Chemistry? Not me. I'm going to be a millionaire! Or, as this list would indicate, somebody who complains a lot. Comment, you fuckers.
Sunday, June 12, 2005
I've decided to start a band
In a recent GCSE English paper, there was an essay question, with the title of Can we be hopeful for the future? Well, something like that. And, being the perfect student I am, I happily wrote away for the first three quarters of the essay. But then I sort of lost it at the end and, in a fit of creative and artistic BRILLIANCE, managed to predict a social and cultural revolution coming up in the next few years. That was my reason to be hopeful for the future. Shit man, I was half a line away from re-writing Mao's Communist Dictate before I realised that I only had half an hour left to write about how computers were like heroin (another charming point I made in the other essay).
So, I hope I have a teacher who has a good sense of humour, or a really lousy grasp of cultural psycology. Actually, Mr Simpson would be a good guy to mark my paper anyway.
But the crux of my 'argument' (if you can call it that, it was more of a random splattery ejaculation of incoherent thought) was that humanity will reject the baser forms of entertainment (crappy american movies, reality tv and... uh...) and seek higher enlightenment with better art, theatre and music. Basically, thinking about it, my reason for being hopeful about the future is that everyone's gonna watch foreign films.
This got me thinking. Well, to be honest, it didn't, but this makes a nice lead in to the rest of the post. Can't you see the effort that goes into this blog? It has introductary preambles to warm up the reader, a nicely linked narrative and a high level of professional journalism that includes proper spelling and grammar, and even the looking up of hard to spell words in the dictionery.
A ha ha.
Yeah. This got me thinking... I might get MORE marks if my essay is ACTUALLY accurate ie. if the cultural revolution actually occurs. Hell, my essay might make the news. 'Local boy forsees cultural revolution'. I might become rich off that essay. I might go on to a glittering carreer in writing, leaving you shit-wankers in my dust, reading the scraps from my brain that I'll burp into this blog every four weeks AND LIKING IT.
But... how was I to enact this cultural revolution? I can't just run down the street with a placard screaming "START A CULTURAL REVOLUTION, YOU FOOLS!" I mean, that's what Stephen Hawking tried, and look what happened to him. I would have to do something better and more musical than that. THEN IT HIT ME. I would have to form... A BAND. But not just any band, oh no. The most kickass, rawkin' and rawlin', jive hungry drug peddling stay up all night cigar smoking chairs into the swimming pool throwing alligator wrestling stadium selling-out Grange Hill murdering mofo badass afro owning spoon bending belly dancing backwaxing penis enlarging muscle tensing hot-diggedy-damn MANLY band in the entire history of MUSIC.
This would be the band to show you all the reason why you exist. This would be the band to shake up the entire FOUNDATIONS of society as we know it. This was the band whose music was so damn good, it purposefully goes out at night and murders the music of other musical groups JUST TO SHOW HOW GOOD IT IS. This is the band that killed Martin Luthor King with their pure awesomness. This is the band that brought Elvis back from the dead with complicated musical riffs JUST to show him that he was no longer the King of Music. This is the band that had every copy of every Mozart song burnt, then played his entire set off by heart on the bass double-riffter guitar. Oh yeah, this is the band that had brand new guitar designed for them by swiss elves, the only type of guitar that could withstand the pure amount of tasty groovitude pumped through its titanium-coated strings. This is the band that would launch a thousand ships.
Well, I had the plan. Now, how was I to put it into effect?
I considered my own musical skills. Well, with two and a half years of recorder and one and a half of clarinet safely tucked under my belt, I felt that I was pretty well prepared for my future stardom. So what if I quit the clarinet due to the fact that after several hundred pound's worth of lessons, I couldn't get a decent sound of it? With a clarinet, it doesn't count. After all, the clarinet is famed for being one of the coolest instruments around, only eclipsed by the piccolo and flute for manly manlyness. So, I had my type of band; we were to be a rock clarinet outfit. Man.
BUT THEN IT HIT ME. Who was there to be my co-bandmembers? I mean, it couldn't just be anyone. I considered inviting the Hampton Orchestra French Horn Section, but then realised that I needed some real musicians, playing some real instuments. Who? Who? I had several IMPORTANT guidelines for prospective bandmembers:
1: As this band is going to be the manliest thing since Oli G's pecs, my bandmembers have to all be men. No women in this band. As, to be honest, women are all crap at music. If anyone wants to name me ONE decent female rock band, please, PLEASE, come forward. And, no, Madonna does not fucking count.
2: They all have to be on the cutting edge of fashion. No sixties rejects, BONO. Not that I think that Bono is a sixties reject, I just don't like him. Stupid sunglasses wearing tit. I'll stick him a moment that he can't get out of. A moment OF PAIN. Man, that's a good cuss, I might note that one down for Live 8.
3:: They must all be adept at channeling massive amounts of cosmic music godliness through their puny human frames. No cripples.
4: Just to make this clear, no women. And no gays. I don't have any problem with gays, but, come on, this is a proper band, not Dale Winton's Flower Time Singalong.
5: They all have to be drop dead goshdarn ATTRACTIVE. Not that I'm shallow, but name me one rock band that had ugly people in it. Ok, there are lots, but they wore cool makeup.
THEN IT HIT ME. The group of men who had long been rocking HARD while we all lay in our encrusted Britney Spears enduced cocoons of catatonia and depression. The men who brought a whole new reason to the word: ROCK.
These men are large masses of rock moving forward in a circular motion.
And, at the same time, they are portable firearms combined with the red flower of the plant genus Rosa laevigata.
They are, indeed, a city in America that rhymes with Moston.
Their front man is the defensive mechanism of a bee or, indeed, a wasp.
They dress up in white makeup and have implanted cow's tongues in their mouth.
They are one.
They are many.
They are...
Spandau Ballet
Spandau Ballet: SECOND MANLIEST BAND AROUND (after, of course, this one).
Right, after I had the Spandau Ballet boys on board, we had the discussion as to what to name ourselves. Tony, Garry and John were quite keen on naming us "Tony Garry And John and some others," whereas Steve preferred "The Reservoir Dogs". However, nobody likes Steve so we told him to shut up and go and stand in the corner while we discussed it. We decided that, being the head of the band, I was the biggest so could fire/explode the rest of the gang, so what I said went. This power struggle turned out to be important when it came to the album cover. And so, after a lot of discussion, we came to two possibles: Handsome Thomas Plus Five, or The Sans Culottes.
If you don't know what a Sans Culotte is, go onto Google Image Search and type in 'fecal japan'. It won't help you much, but it's funny.
We (I) decided on The Sans Culottes, as a suitably revolutionary name. It also meant that we didn't have to wear socks. And so we were born.
Then we had to decide on our image. As you all know, I am well known for my dashing sense of fashion (my taste in fleeces and bizarre sunglasses is legendary... everyone copies me, you know).
Although the original plan was to be at the cutting edge of fashion, I had a revelation. When the Sans Culottes sparked off the cultural revolution, as we surely would, FASHION as it existed would be changed. Who knows, people may end up wearing grey Mickey Mouse Tshirts, stipey blue and white trousers, long witch cloaks and zippy bags. We couldn't go on the fashions of today. It would be fasionable suicide, like a McFly wristband, or being Steve. So I decided to look back, back to an tireless and timeless age of fashion, where everything was cool and everything went, a time of beautiful fabrics and suits of shell. A time that has been long overlooked by the retro stylists.
The Eighties.
Sure, for some reason, the 80s has got a reputation for being a bad time for fashion. PISH POSH I SAY. I mean, how can a decade that gave us jerry curls and purple shell suits be known as BAD for fashion? Papah. So, yes, we would have groovy eighties haircuts and a nice line in spandex to kit us up. After hiring a top stylist (me), we were kitted out and ready. Me and the Spandsters were ready. The Sans Culottes were ready.
Nearly.
I just made one TINY alteration to the original plan before we were released on the world. We needed to sex ourselves up a bit more, and the huge mustaches weren't having the desired effect. Well, to be honest, I didn't need any more sexing up, but the Spandausters did. So I booked them in for some operations. The boys didn't like the idea at first, but I pointed out that a minor piece of cosmetic surgery never hurt anyone and, anyway, they didn't have a choice either way. They were a touch upset when they first came-to and saw the widespead nature of the procedure (especially Steve, who hadn't been told, but we hate him anyway so it doesn't matter) but after a few weeks, they got used to their new look as my backup singers. Hell, some of them even like it. Steve doesn't, obviously, but does anyone care about him? Raise your hand if you care what Steve thinks. Anyone? No? Nobody? Thank you.
So, ladies and gentlemen, I present to you... THE SANS CULOTTES!
Our first song "Death to that Fucking Crazy Frog", will be released some time in the near future. You'd better nail your socks to your feet if you don't want them to be ROCKED OFF.
Oh yeah. I rule. That picture was totally worth the solid hour of not revising.
ALL THE SPELLING MISTAKES ARE INTENTIONAL
So, I hope I have a teacher who has a good sense of humour, or a really lousy grasp of cultural psycology. Actually, Mr Simpson would be a good guy to mark my paper anyway.
But the crux of my 'argument' (if you can call it that, it was more of a random splattery ejaculation of incoherent thought) was that humanity will reject the baser forms of entertainment (crappy american movies, reality tv and... uh...) and seek higher enlightenment with better art, theatre and music. Basically, thinking about it, my reason for being hopeful about the future is that everyone's gonna watch foreign films.
This got me thinking. Well, to be honest, it didn't, but this makes a nice lead in to the rest of the post. Can't you see the effort that goes into this blog? It has introductary preambles to warm up the reader, a nicely linked narrative and a high level of professional journalism that includes proper spelling and grammar, and even the looking up of hard to spell words in the dictionery.
A ha ha.
Yeah. This got me thinking... I might get MORE marks if my essay is ACTUALLY accurate ie. if the cultural revolution actually occurs. Hell, my essay might make the news. 'Local boy forsees cultural revolution'. I might become rich off that essay. I might go on to a glittering carreer in writing, leaving you shit-wankers in my dust, reading the scraps from my brain that I'll burp into this blog every four weeks AND LIKING IT.
But... how was I to enact this cultural revolution? I can't just run down the street with a placard screaming "START A CULTURAL REVOLUTION, YOU FOOLS!" I mean, that's what Stephen Hawking tried, and look what happened to him. I would have to do something better and more musical than that. THEN IT HIT ME. I would have to form... A BAND. But not just any band, oh no. The most kickass, rawkin' and rawlin', jive hungry drug peddling stay up all night cigar smoking chairs into the swimming pool throwing alligator wrestling stadium selling-out Grange Hill murdering mofo badass afro owning spoon bending belly dancing backwaxing penis enlarging muscle tensing hot-diggedy-damn MANLY band in the entire history of MUSIC.
This would be the band to show you all the reason why you exist. This would be the band to shake up the entire FOUNDATIONS of society as we know it. This was the band whose music was so damn good, it purposefully goes out at night and murders the music of other musical groups JUST TO SHOW HOW GOOD IT IS. This is the band that killed Martin Luthor King with their pure awesomness. This is the band that brought Elvis back from the dead with complicated musical riffs JUST to show him that he was no longer the King of Music. This is the band that had every copy of every Mozart song burnt, then played his entire set off by heart on the bass double-riffter guitar. Oh yeah, this is the band that had brand new guitar designed for them by swiss elves, the only type of guitar that could withstand the pure amount of tasty groovitude pumped through its titanium-coated strings. This is the band that would launch a thousand ships.
Well, I had the plan. Now, how was I to put it into effect?
I considered my own musical skills. Well, with two and a half years of recorder and one and a half of clarinet safely tucked under my belt, I felt that I was pretty well prepared for my future stardom. So what if I quit the clarinet due to the fact that after several hundred pound's worth of lessons, I couldn't get a decent sound of it? With a clarinet, it doesn't count. After all, the clarinet is famed for being one of the coolest instruments around, only eclipsed by the piccolo and flute for manly manlyness. So, I had my type of band; we were to be a rock clarinet outfit. Man.
BUT THEN IT HIT ME. Who was there to be my co-bandmembers? I mean, it couldn't just be anyone. I considered inviting the Hampton Orchestra French Horn Section, but then realised that I needed some real musicians, playing some real instuments. Who? Who? I had several IMPORTANT guidelines for prospective bandmembers:
1: As this band is going to be the manliest thing since Oli G's pecs, my bandmembers have to all be men. No women in this band. As, to be honest, women are all crap at music. If anyone wants to name me ONE decent female rock band, please, PLEASE, come forward. And, no, Madonna does not fucking count.
2: They all have to be on the cutting edge of fashion. No sixties rejects, BONO. Not that I think that Bono is a sixties reject, I just don't like him. Stupid sunglasses wearing tit. I'll stick him a moment that he can't get out of. A moment OF PAIN. Man, that's a good cuss, I might note that one down for Live 8.
3:: They must all be adept at channeling massive amounts of cosmic music godliness through their puny human frames. No cripples.
4: Just to make this clear, no women. And no gays. I don't have any problem with gays, but, come on, this is a proper band, not Dale Winton's Flower Time Singalong.
5: They all have to be drop dead goshdarn ATTRACTIVE. Not that I'm shallow, but name me one rock band that had ugly people in it. Ok, there are lots, but they wore cool makeup.
THEN IT HIT ME. The group of men who had long been rocking HARD while we all lay in our encrusted Britney Spears enduced cocoons of catatonia and depression. The men who brought a whole new reason to the word: ROCK.
These men are large masses of rock moving forward in a circular motion.
And, at the same time, they are portable firearms combined with the red flower of the plant genus Rosa laevigata.
They are, indeed, a city in America that rhymes with Moston.
Their front man is the defensive mechanism of a bee or, indeed, a wasp.
They dress up in white makeup and have implanted cow's tongues in their mouth.
They are one.
They are many.
They are...
Spandau Ballet
Spandau Ballet: SECOND MANLIEST BAND AROUND (after, of course, this one).
Right, after I had the Spandau Ballet boys on board, we had the discussion as to what to name ourselves. Tony, Garry and John were quite keen on naming us "Tony Garry And John and some others," whereas Steve preferred "The Reservoir Dogs". However, nobody likes Steve so we told him to shut up and go and stand in the corner while we discussed it. We decided that, being the head of the band, I was the biggest so could fire/explode the rest of the gang, so what I said went. This power struggle turned out to be important when it came to the album cover. And so, after a lot of discussion, we came to two possibles: Handsome Thomas Plus Five, or The Sans Culottes.
If you don't know what a Sans Culotte is, go onto Google Image Search and type in 'fecal japan'. It won't help you much, but it's funny.
We (I) decided on The Sans Culottes, as a suitably revolutionary name. It also meant that we didn't have to wear socks. And so we were born.
Then we had to decide on our image. As you all know, I am well known for my dashing sense of fashion (my taste in fleeces and bizarre sunglasses is legendary... everyone copies me, you know).
Although the original plan was to be at the cutting edge of fashion, I had a revelation. When the Sans Culottes sparked off the cultural revolution, as we surely would, FASHION as it existed would be changed. Who knows, people may end up wearing grey Mickey Mouse Tshirts, stipey blue and white trousers, long witch cloaks and zippy bags. We couldn't go on the fashions of today. It would be fasionable suicide, like a McFly wristband, or being Steve. So I decided to look back, back to an tireless and timeless age of fashion, where everything was cool and everything went, a time of beautiful fabrics and suits of shell. A time that has been long overlooked by the retro stylists.
The Eighties.
Sure, for some reason, the 80s has got a reputation for being a bad time for fashion. PISH POSH I SAY. I mean, how can a decade that gave us jerry curls and purple shell suits be known as BAD for fashion? Papah. So, yes, we would have groovy eighties haircuts and a nice line in spandex to kit us up. After hiring a top stylist (me), we were kitted out and ready. Me and the Spandsters were ready. The Sans Culottes were ready.
Nearly.
I just made one TINY alteration to the original plan before we were released on the world. We needed to sex ourselves up a bit more, and the huge mustaches weren't having the desired effect. Well, to be honest, I didn't need any more sexing up, but the Spandausters did. So I booked them in for some operations. The boys didn't like the idea at first, but I pointed out that a minor piece of cosmetic surgery never hurt anyone and, anyway, they didn't have a choice either way. They were a touch upset when they first came-to and saw the widespead nature of the procedure (especially Steve, who hadn't been told, but we hate him anyway so it doesn't matter) but after a few weeks, they got used to their new look as my backup singers. Hell, some of them even like it. Steve doesn't, obviously, but does anyone care about him? Raise your hand if you care what Steve thinks. Anyone? No? Nobody? Thank you.
So, ladies and gentlemen, I present to you... THE SANS CULOTTES!
Our first song "Death to that Fucking Crazy Frog", will be released some time in the near future. You'd better nail your socks to your feet if you don't want them to be ROCKED OFF.
Oh yeah. I rule. That picture was totally worth the solid hour of not revising.
ALL THE SPELLING MISTAKES ARE INTENTIONAL
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