Patrick Stewart sings cowboy classics, and wins the internet for 2016 …
You can purchase “P. Stew’s Cowboy Classics” here
All proceeds to International Rescue Committee to assist crisis-affected families in Europe, the Middle East, and elsewhere around the world.
I am walking the few short blocks from my office to get myself some lunch.
I am minding my own business, quietly plodding along this narrow footpath on this quiet street, and I am at peace with the world.
For I am going to buy a pie.
Yes.
And a can of Coke. A pie and a can of Coke, that’s all I need.
And a cigarette for after. A pie and a can of Coke and a cigarette for after. That’s all I need.
And then my reverie is shattered, nay, exploded, eviscerated, shot all to fucking buggery if you prefer, as, leaping out in front of my path, blocking my path, comes a young woman who yells at my face, just a few inches from my face …
“HOW!!ARE!!YA!!BUDDY!!YA!!HAVIN!!A!!NICE!!DAY?!!HAVE!!YA!!GOT!!A!!COUPLE!!OF!!MINUTES!!TO!!HELP!!OUT!!A!!WORTHY!!CAUSE!!HOW!!ABOUT!!IT!!MATE?!!JUST!!NEED!!A!!COUPLE!!MINUTES!! …”
So rattled am I by this sudden assault on my senses and invasion of my personal space that I am almost moved to lash out with a well-placed thumping to the offending party’s noggin, but I am not a violent man, and my instinct for civil behaviour in public places remains firmly intact.
I mutter a “No”, and gesticulate accordingly, yet despite this, the young woman in question sees fit to then follow me about a dozen steps further along the footpath, gibbering at me in an excitable fashion, at which point I stop and say, firmly, but precisely, “LEAVE ME THE FUCK ALONE! FUCK! OFF! … Jesus Christ almighty …”, and that seems to do the trick.
I then continue on my way and, upon purchasing my pie (a chicken and vegetable pie, and a fine pie it was at that), I take a different route back to the office so that I may avoid encountering the aforementioned individual again.
Listen …
I do not know what the agencies whom charities engage to find them their spruikers use as criteria for selection, but whatever it is, it’s fucking rubbish and I’ve had a gutful of it.
In streets and shopping malls everywhere now, I am regularly assailed by these irritatingly enthusiastic dickheads who seem to think that shoving themselves in my path, flinging their bloody hands about in my face or addressing me in an aggressively over-familiar manner will, somehow, encourage me to give up some coinage for their cause.
It does not.
It never has.
It never will.
You call me “buddy”, you fail first time.
You get an “attitude” if I do not wish to engage with you and feel some remark is in order?
Fuck you, fuck your charity, may you die of cancer.
I don’t think that’s quite the desired response.
If, however, the spruiking was more along the lines of, “Excuse me sir, we’re collecting for this particular cause today, and wonder if you’d like to contribute”, I may be a little more amenable, a little more receptive, maybe even downright charitable in my response, let’s say.
But for now, I swear, anyone jumps out in front me again gibbering like a fucking monkey and asking me for money while I’m quietly just going about my business, I am going to go all Strother Martin on their arse, mark my fucking words …
The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation have just announced that David Simon is among 23 recipients of a $500,000 “genius” grant to do with as he chooses.
The MacArthur Fellows Program is awarded over a five year period to individuals “who have shown extraordinary originality and dedication in their creative pursuits and a marked capacity for self-direction”.
Reckon so.
The grants are awarded each year to a broad range of professionals, and previous recipients have included sculptors, astrophysicists, a developmental biologist, a geriatrician, writers, musicians, choreographers, psychiatrists, and historians to name but a few.
It is presumed Mr. Simon may well have just cause to feel rather pleased with himself right now.
Reckon so …
God has a wife. Her name is Luciana. Together, they have proven to be most admirable deities.
Firstly, over at Groupthink, I ponder the future of a regulated internet and offer a brief history of Australia from a young dinkum bloke …
And I posted this yesterday as a Tongue of the Day, but I’ve deleted that post and would like to add this …
We have all, over the years, suffered through that peculiar form of aural torture known as the “charity” or “tribute” song, which is typically some maudlin piece of feeble tripe performed at funereal pace by a bunch of lumpy old farts enthusiastically throwing their lumps about with wild and often embarrassing abandon and constipated expressions of pained sincerity wrinkling their already well-wrinkled faces (if I never hear R.E.M.’s “Everybody Hurts” or Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” again in my life, I will die a happy man, and don’t even get me started on “We Are The World”).
However, on all too-rare occasions, some artists who still retain something in the way of musical credibility will throw something together for a worthy cause (Haiti in this case) that flat-out rocks the dog’s bollocks and flips the bird to all that other crap …
SMELLY TONGUES 
