Monday, August 22, 2005
I have had a bad night in a Walkabout.
So did you miss me?
Right. Now that I’ve shed any of the rubbish that was hanging around expecting daily postings I can begin.
How you been? Good. Good. Me? Oh, you know, pretty good. The Wayneyboy was down last week and work’s been pretty hectic, that’s all.
So we didn’t go out that much, as it goes. We tried to find other ways of wasting money: running up a £40 bill in Ed’s; playing a round of golf; buying DVDs. Wayne found a nemesis in Donald O’Connor, which was unexpected. He could hardly bring himself to look at the man. Still, I keep humming that tune hoping that others will join in, and now that I have it on DVD I can easily skip to the good bits – the dancing, that is. He thought that The Greatest Five Minutes in Celluloid History was “alright”, so that was something, I guess. Now excuse me while I recollect.
I see that in my notepad here I’ve written, “The Hermeneutics of Gung Ho’s softball game” and “Impression I’d most like to perfect: Porky Pig.”
As for the former, I could talk about that, but in my day we just called it “following a story”. I should say though, as I was watching Mr Mom the other day it occurred to me that in the eighties American men seemingly chose Michael Keaton as their representative in a role playing game, “The Reagan Years”. How will this working man deal with increasing competition from Japan? How about the emasculating effects of unemployment? There is no equivalent to Michael Keaton today. We are all just a little poorer.
The Porky Pig wish came from watching twenty Looney Tunes shorts in a row. I’ve written something about Foghorn Leghorn too. It is perhaps a relief that I cannot make it out.
We met up with Marty and the Jakester one evening to play Frisbee. Don’t fret, we haven’t all suddenly become keeners – the Frisbee to Beer ratio was somewhere around one to twenty. And what did I find in Regents Park? I turn my head away for five minutes and softball becomes an acceptable pastime for men and women alike. What type of man signs up for such a thing? The only type that signs up for anything - the type that wants to meet chicks. And offer them patronising advice on their "swing". What price a London unihoc league?
After valiantly fighting his summer cold Jakester paid his respects and left. We rocked up to karaoke at the Feathers. Well, what can I say? We spoilt that crowd. Some microphone-misfiring put the dampers on Marty and my “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart”, but we’d already given a lot; Marty’s astonishing flow-perfect “The Real Slim Shady” goes straight into my all time favourite karaoke moments.
Parenthetically:
1) She Drives Me Crazy (Fine Young Cannibals) – Me; Leeds Metropolitan University bar.
2) The Real Slim Shady (Eminem) – Marty; The Feathers, St James’s.
3) Blue (Eiffel 65) – Beefqueen; Kings College Bar, Cambridge.
4) Bridge Over Troubled Water (Simon and Garfunkel) – Beefqueen; Dot Cotton nightclub, Cambridge.
5) Rebel Rebel (David Bowie) – Me; Retro Bar, Charing Cross.
A strong showing from Beef there. To be fair, with (1), I think I may be romanticising my first time.
Then we made a fatal, if understandable, error. We left and went to a Walkabout.
Did we have fun? I refer you to the title of this post.
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So did you miss me?
Right. Now that I’ve shed any of the rubbish that was hanging around expecting daily postings I can begin.
How you been? Good. Good. Me? Oh, you know, pretty good. The Wayneyboy was down last week and work’s been pretty hectic, that’s all.
So we didn’t go out that much, as it goes. We tried to find other ways of wasting money: running up a £40 bill in Ed’s; playing a round of golf; buying DVDs. Wayne found a nemesis in Donald O’Connor, which was unexpected. He could hardly bring himself to look at the man. Still, I keep humming that tune hoping that others will join in, and now that I have it on DVD I can easily skip to the good bits – the dancing, that is. He thought that The Greatest Five Minutes in Celluloid History was “alright”, so that was something, I guess. Now excuse me while I recollect.
I see that in my notepad here I’ve written, “The Hermeneutics of Gung Ho’s softball game” and “Impression I’d most like to perfect: Porky Pig.”
As for the former, I could talk about that, but in my day we just called it “following a story”. I should say though, as I was watching Mr Mom the other day it occurred to me that in the eighties American men seemingly chose Michael Keaton as their representative in a role playing game, “The Reagan Years”. How will this working man deal with increasing competition from Japan? How about the emasculating effects of unemployment? There is no equivalent to Michael Keaton today. We are all just a little poorer.
The Porky Pig wish came from watching twenty Looney Tunes shorts in a row. I’ve written something about Foghorn Leghorn too. It is perhaps a relief that I cannot make it out.
We met up with Marty and the Jakester one evening to play Frisbee. Don’t fret, we haven’t all suddenly become keeners – the Frisbee to Beer ratio was somewhere around one to twenty. And what did I find in Regents Park? I turn my head away for five minutes and softball becomes an acceptable pastime for men and women alike. What type of man signs up for such a thing? The only type that signs up for anything - the type that wants to meet chicks. And offer them patronising advice on their "swing". What price a London unihoc league?
After valiantly fighting his summer cold Jakester paid his respects and left. We rocked up to karaoke at the Feathers. Well, what can I say? We spoilt that crowd. Some microphone-misfiring put the dampers on Marty and my “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart”, but we’d already given a lot; Marty’s astonishing flow-perfect “The Real Slim Shady” goes straight into my all time favourite karaoke moments.
Parenthetically:
1) She Drives Me Crazy (Fine Young Cannibals) – Me; Leeds Metropolitan University bar.
2) The Real Slim Shady (Eminem) – Marty; The Feathers, St James’s.
3) Blue (Eiffel 65) – Beefqueen; Kings College Bar, Cambridge.
4) Bridge Over Troubled Water (Simon and Garfunkel) – Beefqueen; Dot Cotton nightclub, Cambridge.
5) Rebel Rebel (David Bowie) – Me; Retro Bar, Charing Cross.
A strong showing from Beef there. To be fair, with (1), I think I may be romanticising my first time.
Then we made a fatal, if understandable, error. We left and went to a Walkabout.
Did we have fun? I refer you to the title of this post.
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