Oprah: "Glib".

If you looked up the word 'glib' in the dictionary you would find the definition: adj 1: marked by lack of intellectual depth; 2: having only superficial plausibility; 3: artfully persuasive in speech. But if you looked 'glib' up on one of those symbolic picture dictionaries that they always have on TV you would probably find a picture of annoyingingly omniprescent American talk show host Oprah Winfrey.

Yes. Oprah is glib, the very definition of trite, uninspired and middle-of-the-road. But of course, being a little bit shit, never stopped anyone from becoming really really popular, just ask Bono from U2. And Oprah is pretty damned popular, beloved by just about everyone from white upper middle class republican house wives who cite their high opinion of Oprah as proof that they're probably not racists to the CEOs of General Motors who use Oprah to shill Pontiacs.

Much in the same way that movie stars are elevated above normal people despite the fact their job description is pretty much just "saying words in a funny voice", Oprah has practically been granted sainthood mostly for not being gay with best friend Gayle, introducing Dr. Phil to the world and providing Tom Cruise a platform in which to scare people away from seeing his movies. As someone once said, "there's no accounting for popular taste" or, as someone else probably once said "people are fucking idiots."

Sidenote: Did you know Oprah Winfrey dated chubby film critic Roger Ebert? Well she did. For reals!

A few years ago she took time out of her busy Roger Ebert dating and non-Gayle dating social life to produce the most glib thing I've ever seen on TV. She had the cast of Friends on the show because their show was ending and she played this god-awful word association game where everyone had to say the first thing that came into their head for all the other cast members. The terrifying over-use of such words and phrases as warm-hearted, kind, lovable, generous etc. was so saccharine I had to watch Schindler's List several times just to balance out my blood-sugar level. Of course, it's not all bad. When she later tried to pull this shtick on Hugh Grant he looked repulsed for a few seconds then proceeded to tell Oprah that Julia Roberts has a gross oversized mouth. Ha ha. Top work Hugh but Mickey Blue Eyes is still a really shit movie. Sorry.

Hugh Grant isn't the only person to get me to enjoy the Oprah Winfrey Show. This week, Oprah gave her entire audience $1000 dollars. Then, after waiting long enough for the audience of upper middle class bints who probably didn't actually need the money to decide what they would spend it on, she told them they had to give the money to charity. Hilarious! Maybe Oprah isn't so shit after all, I thought. Of course then she spent the next ten minutes waffling on about how she loves giving away her things to charity and how everyone should do the same thing, forgetting that not everyone is a billionaire media personality who owns three extremely large mansions and their own successful magazine and TV show.

Realizing that this whole post makes it look like I've actually watched quite a number of episodes of Oprah, I'll add the disclaimer that those few episodes mentioned are probably the only ones I've ever watched. Honest.

Steve Irwin - Aren't you just a little bit sick of him yet?

Because I know I am. I wrote about the guy like maybe four days ago and he's already back in the headlines which is quite an achievement considering that he has been all dead and stuff for several months.

When normal people die, they're dumped in a hole in the ground, some people cry and then everyone gets on with their lives. However, when a celebrity dies it's often quite hard to tell if they're actually dead mainly because they seem to continue to do what they did when they were still alive. Take Princess Diana for example: as far as I can tell she existed solely to appear on the front cover of women's magazines. And she has continued to do just that ever since she died ten years ago. Or take Kurt Cobain; his whole schtick seemed to revolve around being miserable and making lots of money for his money-grubbing wife. Well, I'm assuming that Kurt Cobain is still miserable because he's all dead and stuff and Courtney Love made 50 million dollars this year by selling off Kurt's music.

Now I'm not suggesting that all celebrities are horrible undead zombies, roaming the earth using their horrifying brain eating powers to force you to become an African baby adopting, fur hating scientologist. That would just be silly (although it would finally account for Micheal Jackson, Liza Minelli and Cher). It is odd, though, how Steve Irwin can continue to appear on the front page of newspapers long after his body began to be digested by worms.

This time Steve Irwin is in the papers because a recent episode of South Park made a brief joke in which a dead Steve Irwin appears at a halloween party in hell and is mistakenly believed to be a person in a costume. According to the Salt Lake Tribune the Irwin appearance lasted for maybe half a minute:

"Dude, you know the whole 'Crocodile Hunter' thing, it's just a little soon, you know?" Satan tells Irwin in the scene, which shows a stingray sticking out of Irwin's bloody chest. "I mean, he just died a few weeks ago, and it's just not super cool."

Yes. It's a joke about how it's not cool to make jokes about dead celebrities shortly after their death. But determined to prove their reputation for being a culture bereft of satire and irony, roughly 5 million Americans have complained about the Irwin cameo for the exact same reason. However, Americans aren't alone in their condemnation of these foul, offensive 25 seconds of vile gutter trash. John Beyer, the director of the UK version of Media Watch is quoted as saying, "This is such bad taste, and the makers of 'South Park' should review their decision to show it. Steve's family are still grieving."

Which raises the question, how does Steve's family feel about all this? Probably they're thinking "good, all these fake controversies are doing a great job keeping Steve Irwin in the spotlight helping us shill all these crappy tribute DVDs we've quickly hobbled together in time for Christmas" but I don't have any references to back that up.

The NEW adventures of Pedro the Existential Cattle Herder

So here's my new timeless comic creation Pedro the Existential Cattle Herder. I created him when I was supposed to be writing advertising copy at work.

I'm pretty sure that Pedro will be warmly embraced by people of all colours, races and religious creeds. But mostly just by idiot che guavara shirt wearing teenagers who still think the word existential is cool.

Clicking on it makes it go bigger

I'm almost 100% sure that Pedro is the next Charlie Brown.

CD Review: The Movie Themes of John Williams Vol: 1

In an attempt to broaden the content of this blog beyond talking a lot about celebrities I'm starting a new CD reviewing feature. First up: The Movie Themes of John Williams Vol: 1.

So I picked up The Movie Themes of John Williams for two bucks in a sale bin at K-Mart. You'll probably remember John Williams as that guy who wrote the music for a whole bunch of Steven Spielberg and George Lucas movies that you've probably seen like Star Wars, ET and Raiders of the Lost Ark. And a whole bunch of movies that you probably haven't seen like Amistad, Always and The Terminal.

Now normally I wouldn't bother reviewing a CD of themes from old movies because that would be totally Melvin. However, this isn't just a CD of movie themes, it's a CD of movie themes remixed to sound completely disco! It's like someone thought, "You know, that screechy violin bit in Jaws was good and all but what would make it better is if I could dance to it dammit!" and then made an entire album based on this concept. It's totally the shit! And by the shit, I actually mean "It was amusing at first then become a chore to listen to after the novelty wore off." But I'm going to review it anyway.


Track by Track Review!

1. Star Wars Theme: The opening track does a good job of establishing what is to come: batshit crazy disco beats and seventies chika-chika guitar noises over the top of classical music. There's even synthesizer laser noises over the top of some parts. It's awesome. It gets extra points for featuring a bit of that kewl song that those vagina faced aliens play in that Cantina scene.

2. The Empire Strikes Back: This is actually one of the few songs on the album that is played straight. I was vaguely disappointed when I heard it because I thought I had just found a whole CD of classic movie themes turned into rocking dance tracks. Then I listened to the next song and became all happy and stuff when I found out that that is exactly what I had found.

3. Luke And Leia: This is an interesting one because they've actually selected a sad sounding piece of music here. But, of course, a silly thing like sounding maudlin didn't stop them wacking a whole bunch of wicked dance beats and laser noises over the top of it!

4. March of the Jedi Knights: I was a little bit bored of Star Wars by this time and admittedly skipped most of this. So blah blah blah disco, blah blah lasers.

5. Raiders of the Lost Ark: This one was a little bit disappointing actually. It was crazy and stuff but not the level of craziness I had come to expect unfortunately. You deserved better Indy. You deserved better.

6. Superman: This is pretty much the best song on the album. If this was made in 1977 it would have been released as a single. The only thing that could have made it more disco is three creepy horsey teethed brothers singing like girls over the top of it. My favourite bit is the minute long chika chika guitar solo in the middle during which none of the actual movie theme is played.

7. Close Encounters of the Third Kind: This one is my other fave. It's a bit different from the others in that it sounds a little bit more modern. It sounds a little bit house actually even down to the stuttering dialogue tracks. It kind of reminds me of music from crappy 80's Japanese cartoons.

8. Theme from Schindlers List: Since I'm probably a jew I was really looking forward to hearing the sound of five million of my kinsmen being led to their deaths...but with a disco flava! Unfortunately they play it straight. The PC bastards.

9. Theme from JFK: I haven't actually seen JFK, mostly because there are no dinosaurs, aliens, superheroes, Nazis, lightsabers or giant man-eating sharks in it. I totally skipped this one.

10. Dracula: I haven't seen this one either. Skipped.

11. Theme from ET: This one continues the ever popular trend of remixing sad sounding music into dance hitz! A disco version of ET? I bet there's a superior Micheal Jackson version of this lying around an old recording studio somewhere.

12. Theme from Jaws: Admittedly it's been a few years since I last saw the movie but this sounds absolutely nothing like the theme from Jaws. It's alright, I mean there's a kewl flute bit in the middle but I'm just not getting giant man-eating shark from this.

13. Theme from Jurassic Park: I didn't really like this one either which is a shame because it sounds like they put a little bit of effort into it. They put a little bit too much effort into it truth be told. It's sort of like when Hanson all matured and stuff and started really trying with their music and then everyone stopped liking them because they weren't a one-note joke anymore. Which is a shame because it is obvious that a lot of love has gone into this track what with all the harps and violins and shit. You can really tell that it wasn't cracked out in a couple of minutes with a synthesizer and a Casio keyboard.

14. Theme from Jaws 2: I find it funny that they got John Williams to score Jaws II. The theme from Jaws 1 is better.

15. Hook: I really hate Hook. That movie was shit. Skipped.

Extra Special BONUS TRACK!!!
16. Summon the Heroes, the Theme from the Atlanta Olympics, 1996: Skipped.

All in all a compelling take on some of cinema's most memorable tunes. And by compelling I mean fucking weird.

Thought of the day: If I spent as much effort working at my place of employment as I do writing up track by track reviews of cheap CD's I probably could have been promoted by now! Ha ha.

John Stainton: the Paul Burrel of the Crocodile Hunter Empire

Whereas in the wake of a tragic death, some people need a little bit of time away from the rigours of everyday life in order to grieve, other people deal with tragedy by getting on with their lives. Subscriber to the latter grieving process is recently deceased Steve Irwin's manager John Stainton who has refused to let a little thing like his star client dying get in the way of making lots and lots of kickass money and getting lots of media attention!

It was a sad day for the world at large when early reports suggested that Steve Irwin had been seriously injured by a character on Australian soap Neighbours, then later reports confirmed that he had, in fact, been killed by an actual Stingray. His death was keenly felt with several bogans at his public funeral offering such entertainingly glib platitudes as "I wasn't this upset when my grandfather passed away" and "I didn't cry over Princess Diana. That tells you how much he touched me." In more global news, such is the overpowering influence of Steve Irwin that an 81 year old man getting stabbed a little by a stingray can make international headlines and inexplicably feature in the entertainment section of google news despite not containing any mentions of African orphan adoption, Scientology or Kabbalah.

Of course, no one was more saddened by the tragic passing than Mr. Stainton. We know this because he has been endlessly banging on about Steve Irwin ever since. First there were his claims that he and Steve Irwin were Best Friends Foreva despite Steve Irwin already officially declaring that his Dad was his BFF. Then he was back in the headlines when he embarrassingly declared that Skeletor with menopause Barbara Walters was a lovely, charming woman after the staff at Australia Zoo almost unanimously decided that she was actually "rude, mean and nasty". Then he started telling everyone who would listen that Steve Irwin's daughter Bindi would become more famous than her dead father mere days after he died.

Most recently, in a publicy released statement that is absolutely not an attempt to keep the Steve Irwin franchise in the public eye, Mr. Stainton slammed American rapper Ras Kass for using the line "You're the waste of LA, you the Crocodile Hunter, I am the stingray" in some sort of hip hop diss-off, despite roughly 59% of the world having already made a similar Stingray joke months ago. Ras Kass fought back for his right to diss dead celebrities by pointing out that "Mr. Stainton doesn't seem to be the least bit concerned with other references that one could misconstrue as homophobic or misogynistic, let alone is he concerned with the potential violence in Hip-Hop or black-on-black violence." He then further defended himself by saying "I am a Hip-Hop artist. Hip-Hop is like any other art form; nothing is sacred, nothing is off limits." Because trash-talking someone over the top of a drum machine is apparently art.

A cynical person might suggest that John Stainton is actually enjoying this brief moment in the spotlight that has come at the expense of his apparent best friend's life. However, I'm not a cynical person so I won't suggest this at all.

Captain Great's guide to Greatness Part 1: Popular Music

It is an established objective fact that the moment something becomes popular it loses its indie street cred and thus ceases to be kewl. This is a point of frustration for many young, cultured hipster types who quite liked said cultural product yet also enjoy the modicum of kick-ass indie street cred that they already wield.

This dilemma occurrs quite often in the world of popular music; I'm sure you recognize this scenario yourself: you find a mostly not that shit new band, you shill out a couple of extra bucks to get their album imported by that creepy guy with the neckbeard at that smelly underground music store that you don't like going to. Then six months later, said band are loved by the lazy masses when one of their songs gets played over the top of a crappy "Marissa tries to commit suicide episode" of the OC. This then forces you to a) make sure everyone knows that you liked them for at least a year before they became popular, then b) deny you ever liked them once their popularity peaks and they start to become a bit passe. However, this tiresome process can be completely avoided. All you have to do is pretend to like the following three bands (or genuinely like if silly things like being a massive phoney worry you) and your indy rawk street cred will probably never again be questioned!

1) Radiohead

But, I hear you say, Radiohead are like totally popular and stuff! True. However, you can't afford not to like Radiohead. You see, Radiohead has sort of become this symbol of artistic integrity in its purest form or something and has thus split popular music into two factions: you either like Radiohead or you're an idiot yuppie airhead who only likes musicians from naff reality TV shows and you probably also own that Abba tribute record by Steps, All Saints and every other rubbish musical act of 1999 and the Backstreet Boys Boardgame. If you really want to push it, make sure everyone knows that you prefer Radiohead after they turned all weird and experimental and shit.

2) Boards of Canada

Who? I hear you ask. Well they're pretty much the best band eva, yo but I'm sure you already knew that because generally only people who aren't shit have heard of them. But in case you are a little bit shit here's a rundown: they're mostly an electronica act so they will never be hugely loved by the masses at large. But they're just well known and respected enough to make you look heaps cultured and shit. You should already like them anyway though you idiot yuppie airhead.

3) Go Old-Skool
It's alright to go a little old-skool. In fact, I would recommend it because then you get to look all superior in comparison to all the plebs who still dig the current rubbish music scene. You have to be careful though. For example you should probably avoid Led Zeppelin, The Clash, Sex Pistols, Joy Division and The Cure because everyone and their grandmother are already pretending to like these bands. A safer bet would be Frank Zappa, Buffalo Springfield, The Kinks and to a lesser extent Pink Floyd. I normally wouldn't recommend Pink Floyd because for some reason everyone in the whole world owns Animals on Vinyl. But you can probably get away with it if you obnoxiously refuse to acknowledge the existence of the band after Syd Barret left. Because shamelessly name-dropping Syd Barrett apparently wins any argument or something.

For some reason everyone in the whole world owns this on vinyl

You now have 17% more indie street cred just for reading this page alone. Go get 'em Tiger! Just one last tip: ignoring the fact that I've used the word like 27 times on this page alone, never actually use the word indie because that just makes you look like a pretentious wanker. Unless you're discussing kick-ass archaeologist Indiana Jones. Then it's alright.

JonBenet Ramsey: Not ready for Prime Time

You've may have heard about that new movie Little Miss Sunshine. In case you haven't, it charts the comic misadventures of "one of the most endearingly fractured families ever seen on motion picture screens" (taken from the film's own website) as they make their way across the country. So, basically National Lampoon's Vacation but without Chevy Chase, the geek from Sixteen Candles and that really hot 80's model who inexplicably married Billy Joel. Seriously, it is exactly the same right down to the "let's hilariously cart our dead relative across the country in the boot of our car" sub-plot.

However, despite having three strikes against it (being overrated by its own website, being exactly the same as a pre-existing movie and suspiciously not having Chevy Chase in it at all) I actually thought it was very good. But this blog entry isn't a review for Little Miss Sunshine. You should probably go pick up a newspaper or a magazine for that because those people are actually paid to review movies and like write things and stuff.

Anyway, the film in question ends with a thirty minute sequence damning that great American tradition of painting small children up like prostitutes and forcing them to dance about like malnourished monkeys attached to organ grinders. I am of course talking about creepy child beauty pageants. Surprisingly, considering the film's fairly hostile stance on the practice, the film features real life beauty contestants. In an article I read on Saturday, the co-director of the film Valerie Faris revealed that all the parents decided to let their children be in the movie because they believed that appearing in a Hollywood Film meant their daughters had somehow made it.

Personally I think these stage-parents get a bad rap. For example, the thought of some idiot famewhore housewife thinking that her daughter will get a ten million dollar/five picture deal with Disney on account of her role as "hideous woman-child #3" in Little Miss Sunshine gave me a much needed belly-laugh.

Okay, so I'm still working this one out; appearing in a modestly successful indie film for a few seconds apparently constitutes making it for the beauty pageant set? Oh my god, did infamous tarted-up murder victim JonBenet Ramsey make it then or what!

You'll remember who JonBenet Ramsey is on account of how her picture has been published on the front of probably every magazine ever created and has featured heavily on 24 hour news networks more devoted to slightly interesting old murder cases than, you know, famines, droughts, political insurgencies and other boring words. She has also been the subject of multiple totally not exploitative at all tele-movies and once on Entertainment Tonight I saw this creepy montage of JonBenet tarted-up like a store mannequin while Mary Hart rambled on about how she was the most beautiful child ever and in between vomiting in my mouth a little I remember being convinced that Mary Hart probably wanted to have sex with her. Because you know you've made it when you've been lusted after by Mary Hart.

JonBenet was back in the news recently when alleged really creepy guy John Mark Karr (middle name included by the media because he is like totally on the same level of infamy as John Wilkes Booth and Lee Harvey Oswald) claimed he was probably behind the murder but then it turned out he probably wasn't, shocking even beauty pageant mothers with this excessive act of famewhore-ness.

I could make some pithy observation here about American culture but I'm sure you're already thinking it.

Sting totally overrates himself

Singer songwriter, former frontman of shit band The Police and 70's key party enthusiast Sting recently savaged today's contemporary music scene with a few controversial statements totally not intended to get Sting's name back in the limelight in time for the release of his new album.

Yes, in case you were wondering, Sting does have a new album out: a compelling-sounding collection of Dowland lute music called Songs from the Labyrinth. In what some would argue is merely a weak justification for creating said pretentious self indulgent vanity project of outdated music Sting has declared, "Rock music has come to a standstill -- it's not going forward any more, it only bores me."

Admittedly he is probably right. The bands frequently being given such lofty labels as "the next big thing" and "the saviours of rock and roll" by rubbish music rags such as NME and Q are getting increasingly worse (see The Libertines, Jet, Arctic Monkeys etc.) This, of course, is all a bit rich coming from the guy who wrote that glib "every step you take" song everyone played a lot when Princess Diana died. And it is an established objective fact that popular music actually went a little bit backward the day Puff Daddy sampled said song inexplicably to much success.

However, Sting doesn't need some random guy on the internet tearing apart his musical credibility; he does a good job of it himself! In the same interview he states that he got into the music industry for the money: "Forty years ago it was my dream to break out of Newcastle and never be poor again." And if my twenty-something years of life spent listening to self-important, blow-hard and ironically rich rockstars has taught me anything, it is that any musician with the desire to make a bit of cash out of their quite often awful melodic warblings is instantly a dirty rotten sell-out and probably also a commie hippie terrorist Thatcherite.

Plus Sting was in that terrible Dune movie so he really does have no credibility went it comes to these things.

But just before you start to think all aging rockstars are bitter, old, untalented jealous has-beens who should have died when they were 27 ala Jimi Hendrix, Pete Townsend frontman of The Who has done his bit for elderly musicians who aren't actually all that shit. In an interview with Rolling Stone magazine he declared that nostalgia acts were total arse and he had no desire to see "old guys in their self-congratulatory mode." I can relate; I watched the Simon and Garfunkel reunion DVD Old Friends the other day and was repulsed by what I could only, perhaps a little dishonestly, describe as two guys masturbating while listening to April Come She Will.

Pete Townsend then went on to state that he felt like a "triumphant liberating giant come to release a million captive children" but for the purposes of my argument that Pete Townshend = good, Sting = BAD we'll pretend that he didn't actually say that.

Captain Great's McDonalds EXPOSE (!!!) Part 2!

I'm sure you know who Grimace is. But just in case you live under a rock or you're a blind deaf-mute here's the lowdown: he's a furry, big boned muppet that sort of talks like Forrest Gump and is corporate shill Ronald McDonald's best friend foreva (or until the character is inevitably phased out ala Mayor McCheese and Officer Big Mac). Basically he's the snufflufagus to Ronald McDonald's Big Bird. Or as the McDonald's website poetically puts it: "the friendly big purple thing that's always seen by Ronald's side." The McDonald's website also describes Grimace as being "always ready to do fun things" and "a bit slow and clumsy." So my Forrest Gump reference totally wasn't arbitrary.

So you know who Grimace is. What you probably don't know is that when Grimace originally debuted in 1972 he was known as evil grimace and had four arms! For reals!

A friend told me about this ages ago, then I looked it up on Wikipedia and stuff and it turns out it was true! His original schtick long before he became Ronald's retarded pity friend was not dissimilar to that currently used by other popular McDonalds figurehead Hamburglar. In a delightful light-hearted homage to Charles Dicken's classic fictional character The Artful Dodger, Grimace was a thief who used his, then, two sets of arms to steal as many thickshakes as possible from McDonaldland, a fantasy realm probably inspired by Tolkein's Middle Earth. Probably.

I guess these sinister origins explain why the purple blob thing is called Grimace despite being a happy, positive person. Also slightly interesting is the fact that Grimace's apparent obesity problem was a reflection of his gluttenous intake of sugary soft drinks and therefore not intended by McDonalds as a cynical representation of the effects the company's products have on the bodies of their consumers.

I also discovered on Wikipedia that Grimace is supposed to be a tastebud and has a relative called Uncle O'Grimacy who is "a green coloured Irish-version of himself". And someone apparently thought it would be well worth their time to write out an entire Wikipedia entry for McDonald's Fruit and Walnut Salad. So there you go.

Sidenote: What the hell was up with Birdy? I vaguely recall her being introduced to the McDonalds mythos when I was a little kid but I'm pathetically intrigued about the justification for her existence. As far as idiot fast food franchise muppets go, she's just so random you know. In a bid to avoid doing actual work at my place of employment I've extensively considered the Birdie enigma and come up with two possible theories:

• The McDonalds Fat Cats decided to put a token girl in their cast of cheeseburger shilling monsters
• The McDonalds Fat Cats decided that a cute animal mascot was required to sell crappy happy meal toys and sparrow was the only animal meat not used in McDonalds burgers. Snap! Of course McDonalds apparently doesn't use weird animal products in their food.

Update: Someone I work with informs me that Birdie's full name is "Birdie the Early Bird" and she represents the breakfast menu or something. She still fucking weirds me out more than a red headed man in heavy stage make-up who plays with small children all day.

Captain Great's McDonald's EXPOSE!

So McDonald's recently put itself onto my radar by starting a whole new ad campaign. You know those ads; the ones embarrasingly trying to target all those fast food cynics by declaring that their chicken nuggets probably aren't made from chicken's feet or something. The ad campaign also plays the dual role of emphasising how McDonald's huge international fast food corporation is altogether not that dissimilar to all those local take away chinese food places that are always having to claim that there's no cat in their beef stir fry. And personally I'm always a little dubious of dining at restaurants with giant "you aren't actually eating cockroach infested pig semen" posters plastered all over their walls but that's just me.

These entertainingly misguided ads are probably a response to a bit of bad press McDonalds has had over the last couple of years. First there was the McLibel case where a bunch of people hated Happy Meals so much that they decided to be embroiled in a massive law suit with McDonalds for over a decade. Then there were those hella-bad-ass-subversive McFuck shirts everyone was wearing about five years ago. And by everyone I mean a bunch of university age faux marxist douches and idiot middle class teenagers most likely also wearing a Barbie backpack as an ironic statement. And then finally there was the film Supersize Me and...well actually I quite liked Supersize Me so I have no snarky, savagely witty barbs there I'm afraid. Sorry.

What I wanna know is, when exactly did McDonalds become the incarnate of evil anyway? I'm sure they've done some fucked up shit but they're hardly sending jews to gas-chambers or stomping on puppy dog's spines (that I know of). And personally I think there are worst things things for me to worry about than kids getting fat because their idiot bogan parents keep buying them godawful, rubbish food. Like global warming, child prostitution and Australian turned British feminists slagging off embarrasing dead media personalities.

But don't you go thinking that I don't have any beef (ha ha) with McDonalds! This article wasn't called Captain Great's McDonald's EXPOSE (!) for nuthin'. Tune in for part 2 where I reveal a carefully guarded McDonald's secret that may just violently transform the entire western world! But probably not.

My thoughts on Mel "Goldie Hawn's boyfriend in Bird on a Wire" Gibson

So you might remember Mel Gibson as the smug Academy Award winning director of that shit movie about scottish people mooning British people or something. Or you may remember him as that smug guy in that magical adventure about men using telepathic powers to get into Helen Hunts vagina. But most likely you know him as that guy who got drunk a couple of months ago and claimed that "all the fucking jews are responsible for all the fucking wars in the world."

This last example famously pissed off a lot of people with 96% of all people in the world deciding that he was an asshole leading them to write innumerous letters to editors and blog entries detailing exactly how they were repeatedly and violently offended by his drunken racist outbursts. Then Mel Gibson sort of dissappeared as people either stopped caring or, more likely, it became passe to hate on Mel Gibson and people returned to hating Tom Cruise.

And to all the h8ers I say bah! It is well known objective fact that the moment anything becomes popular it instantly loses its kewl indie-street cred! This is relevant because you see, I have been hating on Mel Gibson for years! I hate him for all his shit movies (The Patriot, Passion of the Christ, Payback and especially Lethal Weapon 4). I also hate him for his awful politics (google the words "Mel Gibson" and "abortion" sometime). But mostly I hate his smugness. Look at him! He's so goddamn smug all the time!

But of course all this has been taken away from me by all those newbies jumbing on the Hate Mel Gibson bandwagon! Since there is no more kewl indie-street cred in hating Mel Gibson I've taken a different tact: I now luv Mel! It's always fun to watch a celebrity self-destruct and Mel Gibson self-destructed in a spectacular (entertaining) fashion! And he gave the world a crazy new phrase in form of 'sugartits'. And because I'm a probably a jew he gave me cause for a bit of self righteous moral indignation for a couple of weeks. Hurray!

Anyway, Mel's back! In a move coincidentally co-inciding with the release of his new film Apocalypto, Mel has decided to grant an interview to some American woman I've never heard of but whom is already alright in my books for asking Mel such fabulously schlocky questions as: "Is there hate in your heart?" and "If the police officer had been black, what would you have said?"

The thing I love best about Mel is that he has inspired some fantastic news headlines. Taken from google news today (exclamation marks added by me because they make everything greater): "Jews not responsible for Wars!", "Joan Rivers: Mel Gibson must Die!" and my personal favourite: "MEL: I Could be the next goose-stepping maniac!" The mass media is bat-shit crazy.

You're probably fatter than me.

Well you probably are.

My name is Captain Great (no it's not my real name dickhead) and this is my blog.

A couple of fun facts about Captain Great!

I like to liken myself to the token controversial "say what the audience is thinking" judge on those Pop Idol type shows but without the rubbish TV show. Because I'm a member of generation Y and have to define myself by pop-cultural cliches.

I'm probably jewish. And by probably Jewish I mean I never had a barmitzvah and never had a grandparent die in auschwitz or anything. However, I do have maternal jewish ancestors and I was nailed to a plank of wood once in oldey-time Jerusalem. Or something.

Winner aren't grinners. In fact I hate those idiot smiley faced gits.

I also really hate Robin Williams. He is, in fact, my least favourite celebrity eva! I hate him more than James Blunt, Tom Cruise and that hideous bar hag who's married to Antonio Banderas. And umm...Hitler.

I'm not gay but I totally have a hard on for Bill Murray.

Joseph Heller and Douglas Adams would like totally want to be massive best friends foreva with me if they knew me in real life. And weren't all dead and stuff.

I once saw the old host of Wheel of Fortune in a mall. For reals!

But enough about me. Please stick around and frequently visit my blog. I'll be your best friend! Or at least I would if the coveted Best Friend to Captain Great position wasn't all filled up with dead celebrities and stuff.

Finally, in a saavy bid to attract that vital internet 80's nostalgia demographic here's a picture of Mr. T in a sombrero: