July 14, 2007
Parting is Such Tweet Sorrow
Alt title: Grief is for the Birds
Former Hollywood madam Heidi Fleiss's parrot has died. Fliess's reaction? She's opened a laundromat called 'Dirty Laundry' in Nevada, plus she's planning on building a legal brothel for women (i.e FOR women) called Heidi's Stud Farm. "I had to force myself to do something," Fliess said. "Nothing in my 41 years - nothing - ever affected me like this."
An odd overreaction, some might think. I had a parrot once, a cockatiel called Scruffy Whinge, or Mr Whinge if we were being formal. I loved that little squawker, how he followed me from room to room, whinging endlessly and smashing into cupboards. I was always thought it unnatural to get bird's wings clipped, but then again, I guess there aren't many cupboards in the wild either. And sure, I was upset when he died, and angry with the cupboards, but never once was I tempted to use it as an excuse to open a bordello. 'Polly want a crack whore?'
It seems to me that such a reaction is not a 'normal' way of dealing with the grief caused by losing a beloved parrot. This is a 'celebrity' way of dealing with it. Unlike the rest of us (and I count myself as one of you, for now), celebrities are seemingly entitled to be overly grandiose and mad with their reactions. They jump on the backs of trendy causes as if their OWN lives depended on it, demand strange things in hotel rooms, join bizarre religious cults, find god after spending a couple nights in jail, marry their 'soul mates' only to divorce them six months later (divorce is like the new 'breaking up with your boyfriend') ... it's all so very childish and self-indulgent, and it cheapens real emotion. We all have these childish fancies, but do we act on them? Well no, we can't – we don't have the money.
My dream, for example, is to own a house large enough to build a mirror maze in the basement. Not only will there be a mirror maze, it will come with laser gun toys that you can bounce off the mirrors to hit your opponents and score points. The construction of such a thing would certainly have gotten my mind off the passing of Mr Whinge, but unfortunately I lacked the resources. If I had owned the resources, I might have done it, and I might even have immemorially named one of the robots Mr Whinge. Sure. I would have. Hmmm.
I guess my distaste for the insane whims of celebs comes not from any actual righteousness, but more from jealousy. Having been found out as a hypocrite, I'd storm off to my trailer ... if I had one. Sigh.
*Originally published on www.rovedaily.com*
Posted by Sam Bowring at 05:14 PM | Comments (0)
Experts Say Yes Please to Porn
Statistically porn is very popular. According to Nielsen/NetRatings NetView, a world leader in internet analysis (and alliteration), 4.3 million Australians visited adult websites between January and March this year. These findings may be slightly skewed because one of the visitors was me, in my research for this article, so I wouldn't count as an actual 'porn user' per say. I can assure readers that I was in the office at the time (which is admittedly a home office, and doubles as my bedroom).
But wait on, hang on a gosh darn second here. Do I have reason to hide my forays into voyeurism with such feeble disclaimers, less I appear less human in the eyes of the moral majority? Should I feel sufficiently ashamed, to cover my rampant trawling of filth vendors like some starving fisherman searching for prawns in an oil slick? Apparently not.
A new survey entitled Understanding Pornography in Australia has found that porn might actually be good. Not just in its own right either. Good for people.
Dr Alan McKee (Queensland University of Technology) and his colleagues surveyed more than 1000 pornography users. Did they shake hands with them? That's besides the point. What they discovered was that a majority of users found porn to be pleasurable, educational, and re-assuring. "To find out that overwhelmingly people who use pornography experience it as good was surprising," says Dr McKee.
Should it be surprising that people think porn is good? Isn't porn essentially imagery of people enjoying themselves (or at least pretending to with gusto), designed to bring out a little enjoyment in others? Maybe even bring out some enjoyment onto the faces of their loved ones? To many people the revelation that porn f*cken rocks doesn't come as a surprise at all.
Apart from being great, porn has plenty of positive effects. Porn breaks through racial barriers, often depicting different cultures working in unison. Porn brings people together – sure, sometimes in protest – but other times in uninhibition (sic). Porn opens people's minds (among other things) to new experiences (among other things). And most importantly, as one teenage country girl told the researchers, "It teaches you how to have sex." Only if you don't want children darlin'!
In conclusion, it's wonderful that scientific study has finally validated porn's benefits to society. A word of warning however, to Dr McKee etc; there's still a lot of anti-porn sentiment out there, so be prepared to take criticism as you fight the good fight, and in times of doubt ... remember Galileo.
*Originally published on www.rovedaily.com*
Posted by Sam Bowring at 05:11 PM | Comments (0)
Logo Dislike Ago-go
Unveiled on Monday, the logo for the 2012 Olympic Games in London has immediately attracted widespread criticism and finger poking. It has been described as a disfigured swastika, an scattering of beer mats, a window smashed in by a football, and a toileting monkey. One critic called it a "puerile mess, an artistic flop and a commercial scandal".
It could also be described as icebergs gangbanging the titanic, like an orange staring through a peephole, or the bargain bin at a carpet sample shop. It's what carrots being chewed looks like to your tonsils, the tail light of a car that's backed into the statue of David, or corn chips caught in high wind. It's sort of like someone started conceptualising a puzzle, then realised they'd left toast burning in the bathroom and never returned to finish the job.
However, as they say, a picture is worth a thousand words. So I don't need to use words to convince you what a badly conceived assortment of splotches and vomit stains it is. You only need take one look at this logo yourself to see that it's a jumbled contrivance of meaningless nonsense, a visual protest march against style and common decency. It's the kind of logo you might expect, not from the city of London, but from a Warehouse owner named Crazy Steve. Who needs words?
The logo design cost approximately £400,000 ($A954,000) and took one year for design company Wolff Olins to develop. I'd suggest that such a lot of money would have been better spent on things like filling up drain pipes, surgically attaching tits to a bull, donating books to the coma ward, and getting it mulched until it can be imbibed in a liquid state in order to be literally 'pissed away'. I guess it could be argued that, in order to discover a design as hideous as this, you would have to spend a lot of money.
Look, I could have spent this review talking about modes of design and use of space, or historical context and comparison of past Olympic logos. I could have used some kind of 'argument'. I just don't think it's necessary. Just LOOK at the damn thing will you?
It's SHITHOUSE.
I can't wait to see who their mascot is. Lenny the cancer pigeon?
Go Sydney 2000!
*Originally published on www.rovedaily.com*
Posted by Sam Bowring at 05:08 PM | Comments (0)
Third Leg Claimed to be Cause of Speeding
A new RTA road safety campaign implies that male drivers who speed have a small penis. The ads shows observers of speeding males wiggling their little fingers, to signify the driver is in possession of a puny pants package.
The reasoning, I suppose, is to make speeders feel like losers. My question is, how does this campaign affect guys who actually DO have Allen’s sized trouser snakes? As if they don’t have enough problems without a massive ad campaign basically saying ‘Look at you - you’re as bad as criminals!’
I was under the impression our society considered it reprehensible to vilify people based on a physical characteristic. You couldn’t, for example, make an advertisement that goes ‘Drink Drive and You’re a Fatty Boomba.’
How about a Centrelink ad like this:
Girl 1: Did you hear about Annie? She’s been claiming centrelink payments without actively looking for work.
Girl 2: God, she’s as bad as a paraplegic!
I don’t imagine scripts like that would get onto television, yet for guys with minute manhoods, the gloves are off. Let’s put those gloves back on - any extra bit of thickness helps.
RTA director John Whelan said the adverts aim to make speeding look socially unacceptable. Follow his logic and he may as well say he thinks having a mini meat-sock is socially unacceptable! What’s this guy’s problem? Were his parents murdered by a dude with a small cock? Was he beaten up by little dicks at school? Whip whip whip oh that stings ...
Will this method of discovering criminality take off across the board? Will suspects in police lineups have to drop their pants? ‘Yes officer, that’s the man who stole my handbag – I can tell, because he’s got such a petite prick. Definitely a crim!’
Incidentally, I’ve always wondered if this generalisation works both ways. Like, if a guy drives a very modest car and always stays ten kms under the speed limit, does this mean he wields a massive schlong? Has he got to wear ribbed condoms all the time to support the extra heart he’s got beating down there to get enough blood to his cathedral cock?
In case anyone’s wondering, I catch the bus. I don’t even own a car. Ladies?
In the meantime, small dicked men suffer in silence, unprotected by society’s sheltering arm. What can they even do about it? March in protest?
Somehow I don’t think many dudes would show up.
*Originally published on www.rovedaily.com*
Posted by Sam Bowring at 05:05 PM | Comments (0)
Not Safe to Scratch Bum in Public
A new internet service by Google, called Street View, has caused privacy activists to emerge from their mountain dwellings, shaking their fists. Found on the Google Maps webpage, Street View allows users to zoom in at street-level for 360-degree views of major US cities. These images are captured by vans equipped with multiple cameras driving down public streets, like giant rogue eyeballs.
These hulking paparazzi terminators have been criticised for basically rumbling about taking unflattering images of people without their knowledge or consent. No longer do people feel comfortable doing compromising things in public, which is a strange sentence in itself if closely examined. I suppose it's really a matter of scale. I mean I don't care if the greengrocer and one old lady see me picking my nose, but I don't want it broadcast out to the universe.
It's clearly an intrusion on civil liberties to know that anywhere in the world someone could be watching you, in your own neighbourhood, watering the lawn in the middle of the day, or having sex with the homeless in an alley. One resident in the Street View affected area, Mary Kalin-Casey, says it 'gives her the shakes' to know that anyone in the world could zoom in on her living room window and see her cat sitting on its perch. Mrs Casey did not comment on what her cat had to hide.
Rob Shilkin of Google Australia had this to say; 'The Street View feature enables people to easily find, discover and plan activities relevant to a location'.
Oh come ON. Why do companies feel they have to come up with a socially acceptable justification for their products when everyone knows what they're actually for? As if ANYONE is going to Street View to find, discover and plan activities! 'Shall we pick up a Lonely Planet? Or shall we watch pictures from a truck with cameras on its head drive around randomly, and hope it passes a restaurant we like the look of?'
No! It voyeurism plain and simple! People are bored with their own streets, they want to look at someone else's! They want to see me picking my nose! They want to zoom in on Mrs Casey's cat! Doesn't Mrs Casey's cat deserve his/her privacy?
Currently this 'service' is restricted to the US, but plans have been mentioned for Australia. You have been warned! If you see a seemingly innocent van covered with rotating lenses, don't be fooled - it may not be as innocent as appearance suggests. It may indeed be a minion of Google, searching hungrily for people with g-strings riding up. So if you don't want a diesel fuelled Eye of Mordor zooming in on your cat, perhaps you need to find the 'ring' (a rock) and throw it into 'Mount Doom' (the camera lens).
Take heed.
*This piece originally appeared on www.rovedaily.com*
Posted by Sam Bowring at 05:01 PM | Comments (0)
Please Feed the Animals
Lions and tigers at the Western Plains Zoo in Dubbo have discovered that lifelong incarceration sometimes comes with a downside. It seems the animals are being deliberately underfed, in order to make them more responsive when given food by visitors. As everyone knows, it’s boring when animals don’t react in entertaining ways at the specific time we choose to go and look at them. That’s why we invented things like tapping on aquarium glass, tying a cat’s tail to a saucepan, and CGI. But just because it’s hilarious to tip over a sleeping cow, does that actually make it right? Many people would argue ‘no’.
Yet it seems that the big cats of Dubbo are no longer receiving their weekly feed of carcasses (Homer voice: Mmm, carcasses) because instead management is charging tourists $50 to hand-feed them. The cats need regularly to consume whole animals, including bones, intestines and organs – yet the food given by visitors is palatable looking cubes of red meat, falling quite short of a lion’s complete breakfast. So not only are the animals being underfed, they’re being underfed the wrong thing. Imagine that in human terms: if you never got a proper meal, but rather someone came past every hour to toss you half a banana and cheese sandwich. It would get annoying.
Surely there must be a compromise between commercialism and proper care. I don’t know why it’s got to be one extreme or another, money or neglect. I mean surely, if you want to feed the animals correctly AND you also want to make some money from it, just give visitors proper lion food. Get some intestines into people’s hands! You want to feed the lions buddy? Fine, that’ll be fifty bucks, here’s a bucket of stomachs. You can use this crooked zebra bone to stir them with, then chuck it in too! Simple!
Mealtime might not be pretty, but at least the experience would be authentic. The zoo could even raise the price, as people will pay MORE for an authentic experience, as has been shown by prostitution and Irish Pubs.
And if being fed right make the lions less responsive to visitors, well ... you could always find an extra big saucepan to tie to their tails. It may be demeaning, but it’s kinder than starvation.
*Originally published on www.rovedaily.com*
Posted by Sam Bowring at 04:54 PM | Comments (0)