Grumpy With Timid Travellers

We're in Denia right now (or "in denial" as The Dreaded One typo'd on Facebook), but my new Grumpy column is due so this is what it is. These people were so frustrating. But there is material everywhere.

Going to try my hand at travel writing too. With a Grumpy bent. There are a couple of comps about that appear worth entering. Wouldn't that be the best way to make a living? Being paid to go to interesting places and write about the funny shit you encounter there? May as well give it a bash.

Oh and I might be able to keep writing for Drum and 3D while here. No reason I can't. I just received an email from a guy who did a drag show last year and he wanted my story for quotes to use somewhere. He said it was his favourite piece in all the Sydney media. Not bad given that I'm straight and Drum is rock n roll and thre are quite a few gay street mags in Sydney. He wants me to cover his next show when I get back to Sydney, got me thinking, why can't I interview him (and anyone else) from here, write up the story and email it in? I'm writing Grumpy from here and it's being published in Queensland.

Anyway, hope you enjoy this Grumpy column.

Grumpy

I'm standing in an unnecessary queue at reception in a nice hotel in Lisbon. I'm allowed to be in a nice hotel in Lisbon because I've just spent a week dancing in the dust at Boom in Portugal, living out of a tent. I deserve a little luxury hit. The queue is unnecessary because the people in front of me are treating the information guy like a tour booking agent, which he more-or-less is. They have a facility to book tickets for you, but she's settled right in and is asking him all sorts of stuff that she should already know. Surely in these situations you already know where you want to go, and you book the tickets. Me, I just want 30 seconds of his time to get my password for wifi connection. But she's all elbows-on-the-counter while asking for his opinion on where he thinks they should go. Dad is gazing with lust at the hotel bar while Teen Boy looks very much like he's trying really hard to be invisible.

“Okay,” Mum says in the most annoying of Brit accents, “so we'll book a day tour for Sintra and the coast on Friday, another day tour on Saturday... that leaves Friday night free. What do you suggest we do on Friday night?”

Info Guy looks a little exasperated. “Well what do you want to do on Friday night?”

“Do you have restaurants and bars and things in the area? Not too far away because we'll get lost if we go more than five minutes away. Is there a show nearby that you can recommend?”

Dad pulls out of his bar-lust for a few agitated moments. “Darling, do we really want to do so much. Won't we be exhausted? Don't we want some time to just relax and take in all that we've seen?”

What he's really saying is can't we have some time to just sit in the bar and drink beer, like back home?

Invisible boy remains invisible, probably daydreaming about whatever game it is he uses to block out his awful reality... probably a game involving shooting family members with high powered weaponry.

In the end Mum hands over a huge wad of Euro for their day trips. Especially when you do the conversion to Australian dollars, it's a silly amount of money. Especially especially as I've just come from Sintra on the train for a two Euro. I spent a whole day wandering around the main attractions of the Moorish Castle, Pena Palace and Quinta da Regaleira. You could spend the best part of a day in each and there are plenty more. And the coast of Sintra as part of a day trip? You must be shitting me.

As for any bars or restaurants in the area... did these people run blind-folded from their taxi straight into the hotel? There are massive plazas of bars and restaurants just outside the hotel door. And if you walk a block or two away, you'll enjoy top quality food at half the price in authentic, friendly restaurants.

I feel sorry for timid travellers. Sure, these clowns can go back home and talk of all the wonderful sites they saw, but a quick glance is just missing out. Toughen up. Check out the public transport system and use it. Stay in a place. For the hundreds of Euro she was paying for these day trips, the family could have been in Sintra in less than an hour, stayed the day or two it really takes to experience it, then bussed it to the coast and stayed there at a couple of beaches for a couple of days. And time constraints be buggered; they have more days in Lisbon. I know because I've been listening to them for almost 20 minutes now.

And I've just designed a new game that involves timid travellers who get in the way of my wifi being blown to pieces by high powered weaponry.

Lee Bemrose is Grumpy with timid travellers. He's a freelance writer, leebemrose@hotmail.com

Everything Is Funnier In A Scottish Accent

Grumpy

Sitting in a pub. A woman sitting at another table comes back from the toilet with a bit of her long skirt apparently tucked into her panties. Her arse isn't on display or anything, it's just pretty obvious that there's a bit of wardrobe malfunction going on. For some reason she continues to stand and talk to her friend, and I'm really hoping she'll realise what's happened because it just looks a bit... it just looks a bit... wrong.

I lean over to The Dreaded One (so called because of her fluro dreads) and tell her, “I really feel it's my duty to tell her that her skirt is tucked into her panties.”

Almost on cue, however, the woman must feel something is not right because she reaches behind and tugs frantically and not as discreetly as she would like at the skirt. It takes a bit longer than is probably desirable (it's a full length skirt and there are many folds to be negotiated in a quietly frantic way) but finally the bit of hem is extracted from the panties. Phew. She quickly looks around to see if anyone noticed what just happened, knowing that that probably everyone saw what just happened.

I lean over to the Dreaded One without missing a beat and tell her, “I now really feel it's my duty to tell her that she's got a small bit of poo-stained toilet paper stuck to the bit of skirt that was just stuck in her panties.”

There is no poo-stained toilet paper, but the idea has amused me.

Not so much The Dreaded One. “That's disgusting,” she says.

“You wouldn't say that,” I assure her, “if Billy Connolly had said it.”

Silence.

I lean over to The Dreaded One and tell her, “Och, ya noo, ah feel it's mah dooty ta tell the lass that there's a wee bit 'o poo-stained bog roll attached to her skirt.”

If I'm not capturing it here in writing, trust me that in real life it was a damned fine Scottish accent. And The Dreaded One's reaction? Sprayed her drink and almost fell off her chair laughing.

I propose an International Talk Like A Glaswegian Day. It will be the funniest day of the year.

Grumpy is Lee Bemrose, freelance writer. Contact him at twobluefish@bigpond.com

New Psycle, New Year, New Pants

Hello and welcome to 2010. Wonder what this year will be like. For me, it's already off to a better start than the last couple of years.

Christmas day was fun. Had a couple of friends around for turkey, wine and nonsense. The day is a bit of a blur now but it was a lot of fun. The moment I remember most clearly was when I decided that it would be an awesome idea to light the entire box of sparklers at once rather than going through the packet one at a time. I was half joking when I made the suggestion but a friend, Lizzie, whipped her lighter out so damn fast I knew there was no going back. I'm not sure what I was expecting but what I got was a hand-held solar flare. It was blindingly bright and really quite hot. Fortunately I had the presence of mind to take the sparklers out onto the balcony. Unfortunately our inflatable wading pool is also out on the balcony... was out on the balcony.

We managed to get a late night soak in the pool before it completely deflated. The Dreaded One was a bit pissed that not only did I break the pool but I also used up all the sparklers in a nanosecond AND she didn't even see it all happen.

Anyway, much merriment was had with the last of our guests leaving at about 5am. It was then that we realised how loud the music had been. Boxing Day was very sleepy.

Filled in the next few days hanging out with my spiritual kid sister. Had lots of laughs, played tennis and a fun game called Connect 4. I think I've got the tennis bug again... except that both of us got pretty sunburned and my knee is doing weird things, which could be a result of stomping at the New Year's dooof or when I took a pretty hard fall on the rocks on the dry river bed.

Ah, the doof. The directions I printed out were next to useless but we found our way there anyway. We've been to the site twice before but it was stilll difficult to remember details. We were greeted at one of the inner gates by the owner of the property who knew the rain was going to make the roads tricky when leaving and had spent all day laying hay in the muddier sections. He was covered in mud and gave the car a glance (family station wagon and not the 4 wheel drive we should have been driving) and said, "You're all totally fuckin' mad. I hope in fuckin'rains and yers get stuck her for a fuckin' week. Look at me, eh? Covered in shit... looks like I've been sleepin'with the fuckin' pigs, eh?" Lloyd is actually a really nice guy (who believes his property is inhabited by yetis and frequently visited by UFOs).

There were a lot of good friends at the party. The music leading up to midnight was pretty diabolical - a puffed up MC and dub step and drum n bass... yes yes my loathing of both styles of music is well acknowledged but it wasn't just me. The dancefloor was devoid of energy with a handful of stragglers wandering around wondering what the hell was going on. The MC was probably fine and in another time and place with another crowd the music might have gone down well but it was not what this particular crowd wanted. Proof was when they did the countdown to midnight and the psytrance came on the dancefloor was instantly rammed and jumping. Insto-energy. Suddenly, musically, everyone was having a great time.

Oh - back track a few hours. After setting up our tents by the river I sat down with my friend from Chicago. We met accidentally online and here were, somehow, sitting in the Australian bush having a beer. I just never thought it would happen. Hadn't considered it a possibility. I said words to that effect and it was a nice moment. Then a couple of dogs came thundering by over the moon with happiness at being dogs. It set me off on an imaginary dialogue about dogs being given the opportunity of being any other creatures but they just wanted to be dogs. DOGS! Ann later said she could hear my friend's resulting laughter off in the bush... a nice moment made nicer with laughter. (The dog thing willl be the subject of a Grumpy column, I feel).

Dancing in light rain all weekend. Various levels of intoxication. Couple of moments of drama that weren't needed but were unavoidable. Many hugs and a lingering appreciation of having good friends close by, friends who don't think twice about hugging you and voicing their feelings for you at random moments.

I had two wardobe malfunctions - I ripped the arse out of two pairs of pants in exactly the same place. Excellent work. Especially given that on one occasion I was going commando. Apologies to the beautiful warm and fuzzy friends who saw my fuzzy arse cheek.

The drive out was an hilarious adventure. Come back later for that one.

Meantime, hope you've had as good a start to the year as I have. Counting down the days to Rainbow Serpent. Hope 2010 is a good one.

McSweeney's

I haven't got very much funny at the moment so I'm going to have to depend on the funny of strangers.

I recently discovered McSweeney's Internet Tendency (thank you Jillian).

From the page titled Open Letters To People or Entities Who Are Unlikely To Respond comes this gem about a gormless spider and this one about a crass T shirt. McSweeney's is my new favourite interweb thing.

Oh and this one just made me laugh so much I did that out-loud thing.

Moth... er F*cker

Sorry about the previous post. I'm putting together a piece about various comedians and some of those comedians just happened to swear a lot. But just because that filthy minded Lenny Bruce c*cks*cker was a dirty mother*f*cking pottymouth doesn't mean I have to be one.

And just because Bill Hicks screamed... Totally f*cking screamed at a heckler because she was a drunk c*nt, it doesn't mean I have to sink to his depths.

So I'm sorry about that.

And. So. Tonight. I'm all gentle and stuff and I'm saying goodnight to my Anngel and apologising because I was in a hyper mood because of all of the laughter yesterday and I'm telling her I love my friends and I love her too and reading about all these funny guys who died young, I tell her that I kind of like that I didn't die on August 9th five or so years ago, because fucking hell there are new people and the quality old people and the laughs... and it's really a sweet second chance. I nearly died. I didn't die. I thank the universe for that almost every day.

Then at this tender moment this offspring of nature makes its way into the room. It's a moth. This powdery moth with its wings and its eyebrow feeler things and its sweet determination to do... what exactly?

And I don't know how it happens but suddenly I'm standing on the bed and I'm clenched fists and sinewy necks... sinewy neck and I'm enraged and I'm fucking totally screaming at this fucking moth right into its sensitive little moth ears, "CAAAAAAARNT! YOU MOTHERFUCKING CAAAAARNNT! DID I FUCKING INVITE YOU INTO MY HOME? NO I FUCKING DID NOT SO WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING HERE YOU FUCKING CUNT OF A FUCKING MOTH?! HUH? WHAT IS YOUR FUCKING PROBLEM YOU FUCKED UP FUCKING FAAAAARCK!"

I have to start reading some Enid Blyton.

Why I Think Bill Hicks Is A Cunt

That's right - not past tense, present. Is. He is a cunt. He made a mark and it's still here, so present tense it is. Bill Hicks is a cunt.

Some of the things he said were so utterly funny. I've been drinking up all this information about a few comedians and it wasn't until I started reading some of his material that I started laughing out loud. If you know me you'll know I don't laugh out loud much, but there I was alone in front of my computer screen falling about in my chair because this guy was fucking brilliant.

And dark. Man he could savage people. People in the audience who came to see him... he could turn on them and verbally fuck them over. It could be brutal. Same with idiots and wankers. He despised them and showed no mercy and sometimes it wasn't all that funny, yet strangely funny.

But that's not why I think Bill Hicks is a cunt. Wankers are despicable and idiots can be difficult to tolerate. Worse kind of person in the world is a malicious idiot who thinks highly of themselves. So I kind of enjoy watching Bill Hicks put the boot into marketing people, trailer trash and Billy Ray Cyrus. Especially marketing people.

Bill Hicks is a cunt because he bailed on us way to early. Dead at 33. It's like he knew it was going to happen. Got cracking on the comedy thing and was doing stand-up at the age of 14. Less than two decades later it would be all over.

Bill Hicks is a cunt because for all his dark humour and all his hilarious savaging of people, reading about his death moved me to tears. Fucker had a good heart. (Just had a shithouse pancreas). Superstar funnyman gets sick and what does he do? He moves back home with his mom and dad and he plays music on his guitar for them. And tired of the world and the way it was taking him away far too early, and not being a Christian with a glowing afterlife to look forward to, he opened Tolkein's Lord Of The Rings and re-read it. And for some reason that small and gentle act of escaping to that fantasy world really moved me.

I don't like it when people fuck with my emotions. And that's why you're a cunt, Bill Hicks. A funny, funny, magnificent cunt.

Three Things That Made Me Laugh This Weekend

Overview of a large weekend: Finished my temporary shitty cafe job at 3pm, headed in to Sydney Opera House for another full shift at 4pm. Home. Sleep. Opened the shop Saturday morning as I received a text from shop partner who was supposed to be taking over at 3pm so that I could head down to The Opera House for another night shift. He's been out all night and even though it's 11am he's still kind of out and can I please organise someone else to take over at 3. Lots of expletives. That squiggly vein on my temple throbs a lot. I call around but the backups have plans. I ask a friend who has never worked in the shop if she can do it and she proves what I have long suspected; she's a bit of an angel. I spend the first couple of hours in the shop writing out instructions and procedures. Then I flick my brain switch and write the review of the play I saw on Thursday, which is due first thing Monday morning. I hit The Opera House at about 4.30pm. Finish at 10.30pm. The Dreaded One and I have planned to go to a psytrance night but don't actually get our shit together until about 4am due to the high level of nonsense we are talking whilst blobbing on the couch. We go to the club and have a couple of hours of fun. Back home at around 6am and prepare to go to a psy party in the park. Make it there at around 11am and have a blast. Serious fun. It is going until 10pm Sunday night but I have an Important Meeting with a Cool Dude on Monday afternoon (which I have just returned from) so I attack the day early with the intention of straightening up enough to be Mr Charming Pants for The Cool Dude. We get home around... sketchy on the details here, but I did have the strength of will to leave what was a pretty damn fun party early. Fell asleep on couch. Woke self up with inadvertent finger poke to the eye due to sleepy head nod. The Dreaded One laughed at this. Food appeared. Ate. Drank wine. The Dreaded One fell asleep so I poked her in the eye and laughed at that. Made it to bed at about 10.30pm, having packed in rather a lot.

So the three things that made me laugh?

At the club for our brief appearance. Dancing. Loads of Israeli's who love their psytrance almost as much as the Brazilians do. They're all pretty drunk. I feel disturbingly sober. Still, it's fun in a messy kind of way. Spilled booze makes it the stickiest dance floor ever.

At one point this big wall poster comes away from the wall and wafts down to the floor. It sits on the sticky floor, just being all big and white and oblongular. There's a girl dancing just in front of me, dancing just on the edge of the poster, so I tap her on the shoulder and say, "Excuse me - you have a little piece of toilet paper stuck to your shoe."

She freaks out a little and looks for the little piece of toilet paper stuck to her shoe. I say no, this piece of toilet paper and wave my arms at the poster. She gets what I mean and doubles over laughing. She looks up at me as she laughs and I laugh too, and isn't that the best feeling? Making someone laugh like that.

Then her boyfriend who has watched this without knowing what was so funny comes over all possessive and wraps his arms around her and starts snogging her. And I'm thinking it's cool, dude, I didn't want to put The Big Kahuna inside your girlfriend, I just made a joke.

Second thing that made me laugh... at the party in the park there are these weird sculptures scattered around the place (it's a psytrance party so there are also lots of scattered people scattered around the place). They look like elongated doughnuts... or like big eggs with holes through them (and yeah, I'm talking about the sculptures, not the scattered people). Someone tells us that earlier in the day someone was taken to hospital because they tried to dive through the hole through the middle of the sculptures and split their head.

Like, I feel for them and everything, but this is exactly the kind of shit tripped out psy-people are doing all the time, so I can't help but laugh (and it's just reminded me that I still haven't told you about the tripper who tried to make friends with the ostrich). And looking at the hole they tried to dive through, it's not exactly small. In fact it's so big that I consider having a go at diving through one myself... but I have an Important Meeting with A Cool Dude the following day and I don't really want to explain that the fresh stitches in my face are a result of trying to jump through the hole in the middle of a giant egg in the park.

Third thing that made me laugh... talked with lots of people in the party in the park Had a really good conversation with a lovely girl called Jocey. Music's pumping, people are stomping or sitting around talking and laughing, everything good. We're having a really good chat about lots of stuff. Standing there chatting. Listening. Talking. Not moving. The ground, being a park, is big and green and flat. It is also not moving.

Suddenly Jocey starts flapping her arms about and kind of teetering like she's a tight rope walker. I'm a bit stunned because I have no idea what brought it on. Her arms do spastic windmills in the air and she bends at the waist, first one way, then all the others. Her back arches backwards and she bends fully until she is touching the ground with her fingertips. She stays like this for several seconds while I helpfully stutter, "Erm... what... are you... is this a normal thing... um..."

Jocey finally kind of springs back to a standing position, looks at me, giggles a bit and says, "That was close."

"What was that?" I ask. "What did you just do?"

"I've had vodka and I think I just fell over. Happens all the time. Friends tell me they don't know I'm drunk because I hold myself together so well, but sometimes I fall over."

I've just remembered more things that made me laugh. You'll have to come back another time.