Well, it has been an eventful week in the life of the Kumquat, an eventful week indeed.
Not that anything that can be used for future personal growth or development has occurred, but a strange week nonetheless.
For starters, I nearly got ran over by Cheech and Chong as they mounted a curb in St. Kilda and aimed their hazy smoke emitting weedmobile right at me and two friends. I was saved only by my catlike reflexes, springing into the air and backflipping over the vehicle. Those same reflexes got me through the Nam, god bless 'em.
"Hey man, we nearly hit those guys like Cypress Hill hits the bong! Get it? Bong?"
But yeah, their van narrowly avoided flattening us as we traipsed without a care to the venue in which they were playing that night. Counting our blessings for this opportune chance encounter, we rushed up to the door to have a quick word with these legends of 420 culture. A chubby little ewok of a woman pushed past us and hurriedly thrust some photos at them. She was obviously a pro, so I honed in on her pen hoping to utilise that for some signatures of my own. But alas, it was not to be.
Their manager slithered up to the door and started pushing them inside, all the while placating us by saying that we'd have an opportunity to get signatures after the show. Not wanting to appear even more douche-like than my physical appearance suggests, I lamely agreed and went to line up for the show.
We had front row seats, so no complaints there, although the seats were so old I swear that the cushions were stuffed with horsehair and the frames carved by Christ himself, they were that archaic.
Modern is one thing that the Palais is not.
Don't do drugs kids.
Shelby Chong, the wife of the latter member of the eponymous duo, struggled vainly to excite the audience with a stand up routine which was, in all honesty, severely lacking in funny and dependent on her vicarious relationship to Chong, descriptions of which riled up the most laughs. Some of her material was amusing, but relied on cliched topics such as menstruation and dildo love too much to get much of a reaction.
Her gig was interesting to me as I've never really witnessed a comic bomb on stage, and credit where it's due, she dealt with an extremely wasted heckler in an amusing way, which wasn't all that hard considering he was waffling on about his mother saving him from going to prison for dwarf tossing, or some shit like that.
Being in the front row, you kinda feel obligated to smile and laugh to kind of comfort the comic, even if their material isn't all that. My cheeks hurt afterward from all the "good on ya! grinning" I was doing, whilst my buddy spent the entire show ogling straight up her skirt. Classy chap, my old chum.
But the smile fell from my face when , at the end of her show, the manager (Satan incarnate and crusher of dreams!) and herself informed us that if we wanted to meet with Cheech and Chong after the show, it'd cost us $150 to do so.
One Hundred and Fifty dollars? Seriously? What a muffinload of dogwank. So that was why their manager was so quick to whisk them away before the show, we were cutting into his product revenue. Sheesh, what a douchenozzle.
It's even more annoying when we later found out that they'd been at JB hi-fi nearly all day signing stuff... Even if only to compensate us for nearly plowing us down in their four wheeled chamber of smokey death, their manager could've allowed a measly signature. Even they seemed like they wanted to meet us, but oh well.
They were filming a documentary for their tour and we seemed to have blundered our way into that, so it should be interesting to check out come release.
"Man, who's got time for signing autographs when we've got to smoke all of this and then go pick up our suits made of money in our solid gold cars."
The show itself was superb, I've honestly not enjoyed any live show as much. Watching those classic sketches played out before me - Ralph and Herbie, The Mexican Ruffian and the old man, etc- Coupled with some really great, and topical, new material and a show stealing stand up performance by Chong, well, I can honestly say that I was in heaven... And still utilising lame literary cliches.
On the other side of the celebrity coin, I happened to catch one of Arj Barker's last gigs in Melbourne. I've always been a pretty big fan of the old Arjy Barjy, putting him a close second to Mitch Hedberg, who is my all time comedic idol.
The show, Bit's and pieces, was pretty good, albeit heavily composed of material from his last few appearances. Nonetheless, there were some great bits in there, such as a riff on audience participation, or lack thereof, and a piece about man's constant struggle to prove their dominance by their material possessions.
All in all, a great show, and highly recommended, even if, like me, you'll find yourself familiar with about seventy percent of the material, I guess that's why it's called Bit's and Pieces; Bit's of old stuff with pieces of new material.
However, it's a delicious nutritious treat for all, and I wholeheartedly give it five viagra induced seventy year old erections up.
(That's my rating system, in case you were wondering why I started waffling on about wrinkly codger todgers)
No funny caption needed.
After the show, Arj even took the time to sign some dvds and cds for us, and have a quick chat about his tenure at the comedy festival and his role on "Flight of the conchords". Overall, he was as accommodating as a celebrity can be, and a true testament to comedians everywhere.
So there you have it, two differing accounts of celebrity encounters... Sorry about the lack of funny, I couldn't find the switch.
On another note, my previous blog about "Kung-Fu Christ Vs Mecha-Jesus" got plagiarised by some religious website called "images of jesus". Now, it's not the theft that irks me, it's the butchering of my blog by, I'm assuming, feeding it into a translator server, picking up the crap it excretes at the the other end and then smearing it all over their blog page.
I'm pretty sure that this is a recent photo of the article stealing culprit.
Fecal analogies aside, the page, I'm assuming it's German, has made such a botched attempt at translating the article that I thought I'd post it here and let you see for yourself.
Kumquat Turtleloaf: Kung Fu Christ VS Mecha-Jesus
April 16th, 2009 · Keine Kommentare
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http://imagesofjesus.edublogs.org/2009/04/16/kumquat-turtleloaf-kung-fu-christ-vs-mecha-jesus/#more-95
So, anyway, a given of the esoteric things I do solely because it amuses me is assemble adventitious ass pictures of Jesus Christ, the from leading to bottom removed from the household idea of Jesus, the happier. Although my anthology is comparable in add up to the amount of Russians named Oksama that Mel Gibson plows from leading to bottom (See! I CAN be local!), The two most prized images of our Jesus and friend in need in said anthology depict Jesus dealing missing some Hulk Hogan mode even-handedness, minus the OJ Simpson sympathetic comments, (WOW! Two local jokes! I’m on FIRE!)and the characterize misguided of some fireworks purchased in do a number on of New Years adorned with images of MECHA-CHRIST. Say it with me. MECHA-CHRIST. Yeah, that’s opportunely, Jesus isn’t indeterminate some lanky bearded creativity dresser who was the son of demigod and has not in any manner been rightfully portrayed as being of mid-section eastern descent (Can’t sooner a be wearing anyone effigy allusions between him and Bin Laden just now, can we?), He was also a cybernetic praying motor car sent lifestyle due abjure from the to be to come to effect disorder on heathens. So just now I call up my incline in the bible renewed with out-and-out oomph. Now, the idea of Mecha-Christ is audibly meant to report Jesus, as substantive close by around his adornment with images of the blessed irascible on his astounding fuck-off make an effort pads and his cross-topped flagpole, but also close by around the label of the firework itself, KING OF KINGS.
I Never realised that there were chapters in which Christ laid the smackdown on the gamblers in the synagogue, or that he grafted his organs with those of robots to endanger a in agreement iron crusader in do a number on of the Jesus. I must’ve been weighed down the insignificant of day they covered those chapters in Sunday teaching. Maybe the church should reconsider the archetypical images of Jesus either as a placid, bearded girly-man or a freakish lynched austere, and assume up the visage of Mecha-Christ as the idea of the allmighty. He can’t be stopped. I’d be noxious of some titan robotic squib coming lifestyle due abjure to avenge his wrongful decease, the creativity dresser already resurrected opportunely away.
And he’s pissed. AT US. The secondarily coming. Passion of the Christ could sooner a be wearing been ten times happier if Christ was played close by around Vin Diesel, had chainsaws in do a number on of hands and dominated the power to moulder every brace of female panties within a twelve mile radius with indeterminate the power of his do not give a secondarily regard to! Michael bay could usher and Disturbed could do the text ditty. This forthwith, it’s in the flesh. Yeah! High-Five!How would they hammer the nails in although? A pneumatic fret gun? And they would dire a harden reinforced crucifix to backing his bulging, strapping, no irresolution well-oiled entrap. Somehow I reckon the not manner that Mecha-Christ could be stopped was to pitfall him in a smelting transfer and ditch him into a vat of brilliant metal, the not manner ALL undisturbed things can be destroyed.
Watch T2. Watch that actually odd at the forthwith of Gumby. Watch Alien 3. Then report me I’m go phut.
Next week we chat about the theological implications of this recently unearthed painting of CRACKPIPE CHRIST.
Damn translator machines. Haven't they seen terminator? This is how Skynet begings! Mistranslation! Judgement day is here!
Kumquat Turtleloaf is currently preparing for the day of judgement by unplugging every toaster within a six mile radius and learning how to farm ants.
