Merry Christmas RanDummies and mighty blogaruu readers! Hope you are still getting your turkey sweats on. While you do, why not enjoy this piece which I wrote for an Irish paper recently. Pants off. Trifle. On!
A Hollywood Christmess Story
Is that Slash? Hmm. Is he looking at me? Hmm. Not sure. Is it him? Is he real? Am I drunk? What’s going on? Hmm. I’m going back for a kip.
Next morn. Stephen’s Day. Boxing Day? Not sure what they call it here in L.A. Eyes open. I’m on a couch at Robbie Williams’ house. Awake. Alone. Alive. Stiff back. Slept awkwardly. No sign of Slash. No sign of anyone. All left. Or upstairs. Sleeping. Sensible folk. Unlike me and my dry mouth. Tastes like glue. And so this is Christmas. Continue Reading »
Very sad day. Just took down my Christmas tree. Meant to do it last weekend but I couldn’t bear the thought/too lazy. Now it’s down. Meaning Christmas is over. Done. Dusted. Out. Buried. No more. Hard to take. Although the thing is:
Does Christmas ever even start in LA?
Ehh…
No.
Not at all.
Week leading up to Christmas: No buzz. At all. Few places had decorations up, of course. Shops were plumping and pimping out Christmas deals. But all felt fake. Selling. As opposed to cheerful. Plus, I too was working a good bit – Book on – so it kept my mind off the cold, hardened, heathen, non-Christmas buzz in the air. People don’t even say ‘Happy Christmas’ here. It’s all ‘Happy Holidays!’ Just in case you somehow offend someone? Funk. That. Christmas. On! Ye whures.
Pint Per Pub. Shots Encouraged, But Purely Optional...
As always, 12 Pubs of Christmas held high hopes for kicking the Christmas buzz into gear. As always, initial responses to the mighty pub crawl were lukewarm/confused/uninterested/horrendous. Mighty. Thankfully, closer to the day, a group formed, Christmas jumpers were purchased, and the crawl was on. (Either way I was going on it but always nicer to have others in dodgy Christmas jumpers join you on your way.)
That was a good hoot at least. Quite and polite at first. Chug and chug at second. Warming up at third. Banter at fourth. And people out of their shells at five. As always, one quiet guy in the group burst out of his shell with a demonic smile. Hilarious guy who I know only as Dave. Don’t remember much about him. Just that Continue Reading »
Dark. Dreary. Drab. Depressing. Dire. Dismal. Doleful. Dreadful. Downer. Dose. Big bulbous buckets of gushing water. Tut. The week before Christmas the rain held a reign of terror over L.A. Brutal. In every way. I know. But it did. People can’t cope. Simply melt away at the sight of rain. Panic kicks in. Folk freak out. Mighty fun really. Particularly the week before Christmas. The week when the fun and anticipation is meant to be kicking in. The week when the Christmas spirit is mean’t to be freaking you out! In a good way. Instead. Just surrounded by wet moaning non-believers (in Christmas). Kind of weird too seeing as Christmas is full on advertised everywhere. TV non-stop. Every show has a Christmas special. Every shop has a Christmas sale. Every person… Doesn’t really give a hoot aboot it. Almost everyone anyways. Almost all Americans at least. Europeans were believers. Just surrounded by non. Asked an American buddy if he was looking forward to his Christmas dinner… Dinner? I’ll eat dinner when I’m hungry I guess. A burger or something? I don’t know. What do you mean? Oh Jesus. Christmas buzz, in full swing! Closest it felt to being like Christmas in any way was when I accidentally knocked over the Christmas tree in the foyer of my building. Lugging in DJ gear out of the rain. Wet shoes. Wet leaf. Wet floor. Slip. Catch. Bag. Balls. Fall. Tree. Fall. Catch. Ish. Christmas balls. Everywhere. Picked it up and danced on as quick as a can. And you know how quick cans can dance! No harm done. Just my composure. Shhh. And so this was Christmas… ? Continue Reading »
Rollin’ & Scatchin’ (Chilly Gonzales Rework) – Daft Punk
While Ireland is being battered by all angles at home, it seems, I too have some important news to start off with: Got a hair cut this week. As opposed to a haircut. Hairdressers truly do baffle me. Ask for one thing, forced to deal with the some thing they give back. Tried to be as specific as possible. Almost as if I was asking them to do me this one favour, just one time. Please? Even had photos to help me describe what it was that I wanted. Hairdresser just looked at me. Down at me. Disgust. Contempt. Perplexed. Nonplussed?! All of the above. Eyes to heaven. And then went off and did her own thing. Cut one hair here. Cut half a hair there. Chat with her buddies. Slipped off to the bathroom. Still not finished. Please wait. Chilling and twirling in the chair while she disappeared. Returned. Did not cut one more hair. Decided, actually, she was finished. My hair was exactly as I had described. Twirled me around in the seat to show me the back of my head in the handheld mirror as if this was some sort of fool-proof proof that she did exactly as she was asked. Fooled me. Couldn’t see myself properly with their flattering light. Went to the bathroom to see if that was any better. Even worse. Made me look better. False light and smoke mirrors everywhere. Continue Reading »
Confession time… I am a turkey chump. Not just a turkey chump, I know. Soap. Porridge. Toothpaste. Toothbrushes. Mouthwash. Yogurts. T-shirts. Plenty more. Above all though, I’m definitely a turkey chump. Offers or deals enticing you to buy two instead of one, suck me in big time when I’m out buying food. Buy two of this item and you will save 4 pennies. Think of how much you will save over 10 years! A lot of pennies. Turkey slices are the worst. Problem is that the two packets of turkey don’t last twice as long as one packet might. In fact, they roughly last the same length of time as one packet alone. Just eat twice as much than before. Seeing as it’s there. In front of me. So just pile it on. Horse it into me. Go on the turkey! Continue Reading »
Horrendous is the best word I could use to describe the response for the 12 pubs of Christmas. Calling a spade a shovel, there was close to zero interest. Maybe I should’ve explained the concept more when I was sending out the rallying cry. One person thought it was just a spam email. Even after reading it. Didn’t get it. Well done. A lot of people were out of town for Christmas. And a few girls replied saying they’d love to meet for a drink. Sounds lovely. A nice quiet drink. Just the two of us. I don’t even think they read the email. Quiet drink… 12 pubs? Just the two of us… what part of ‘the more the merrier’ was lost in translation? In the end, numbers were down and out. There was my buddy Sharlotta. And there was I. Instead of me having a Royal Rumble type affair with 12 different dates, we went with just picking up stragglers along the way. Continue Reading »
Enough Talk, More Writing! 