Kramer: "Sorry about all the racism and stuff!"

So you'll probably remember last week when '90's American TV superstar Kramer made a bit of a comeback by going all nigger this and fucking fork up your arse that in some Los Angeles comedy club.

This week he's apparently decided that it was a bit of a silly thing to do really, probably after Jamie Foxx tried to kick his arse, and has gone on a nice big media campaign to convince everyone that he's still the same old lovable scallywag who once hit a golf ball in the blow hole of a whale and invented a bra for men and other wacky primetime antics. First of all he made an appearance on David Letterman alongside Jerry Seinfeld where he was all "I aint a racist, honest guv'nor!" Then he phoned up a whole bunch of prominent members of the African American community to apologize. Then probably comically burst through their door and hilariously mooched all their food to a wild round of applause from a studio audience or something.

Kramer's face saving actions have radically backfired though, with Jesse Jackson calling a national boycott on the recently released seventh season of Seinfeld. Now I actually had a whole bunch of different jokes worked out for this one but then I did a bit of research and embarrasingly found out that Jesse Jackson is actually some sort of American civil rights leader and not a member of the Jackson 5. I don't know about you but ragging on some culturally irrelevant prat most famous for being a back-up singer to an eight year old is a whole lot more fun than ragging on someone who watched Martin Luthor King die. Gee, thanks for being such a mood killer Jesse Jackson.

To his credit though, I didn't actually know that Season 7 of Seinfeld was out yet, in fact, apparently I'm not the only one because Seinfeld DVD sales have actually dramatically risen in the last week and are estimated to be up 75% on last years Seinfeld DVD release.

But it hasn't all been pathetic attempts at redemption on rubbish American talk shows and failed DVD boycotts for Kramer. Just yesterday the disgraced star received support from a highly unlikely source: none other than Mel "sugartits" Gibson! In a recent Entertainment Weekly interview, Mel "my new movie Apocalypto is out soon" Gibson offered his condolences to Kramer. “I feel really badly for the guy. He was obviously in a state of stress. You don’t need to be inebriated to be bent out of shape," he said, subtly reminding everyone that at least he was drunk when he slagged off the entire Jewish race.

Borat destroys Pamela Anderson and Kid Rock Marital Bliss

In a sign of how jaded and cynical our society has become, absolutely no one in the whole world thought it would last when Playboy Playmate, Baywatch pin-up and occasional pornographer Pamela Anderson wed mediocre white trash musician and occasional pornographer Kid Rock last summer.

And in a move that has similarly surprised no one at all, the two decided to call it quits on Monday after four whole months of marriage. However, in an unusual development that has actually surprised quite a few people, it has been revealed that the marital breakdown can be partly attributed to Kazzakstani reporter and fictional character Borat, who isn't an occasional pornographer but has been seen in the past with his face in some fat man's arse.

Americans famously promote the theory that anyone can accomplish anything in their country and few people reflect this ethos better than Kid Rock and Pamela Anderson. Let's face it, in any other country Kid Rock would probably be working a drive-thru window at Mcdonalds and Pamela would be turning tricks for coins in order to save up enough money so they could move to a spot in their trailer park not next to the septic tank. And the closest they would ever get to fame would be appearing once in one of those "we came all the way from Plebville, Wyoming just to see you Jerry!" bits they used to play at the end of Jerry Springer. Instead, oddly enough, they're earning millions of dollars, rubbing shoulders with the culturally and financially elite, releasing albums of crappy white rap and getting married on expensive yachts.

However, just because they frequently appear on TV and occasionally get filmed having sex with and alongside such fellow white trash superstars as Tommy Lee and that guy from Creed doesn't mean they can't fail at marriage like us ordinary plebs, with sexy Hepatitis-C sufferer Pamela Anderson suing for divorce citing irreconcilable differences last Monday. However, most ordinary folk can't also cite British film sensation Borat as the cause behind their marital breakdown like Pamela can. As reported by The London Free Press: "Canada's Pamela Anderson is divorcing Kid Rock because of his angry reaction to her part in the film. The long-haired singer [had an] outburst at a private Hollywood screening of Borat -- he is reported to have publicly called his new bride a "slut" and a "whore" for appearing in the film."

Appropriately karmic, it hasn't all been a bed of roses for Borat either. Just recently he has been deemed public enemy no. 1 by the people of Kazakhstan, been sued by several people who appeared in the film, been accused of introducing the "Very Nice! How much?" catchphrase into schoolboy lexicon, potentially inspired Kramer's career destroying racist tirade and probably also shot Archduke Franz Ferdinand causing the outbreak of the First World War.

After his marriage wrecking abilities were made public yesterday, several people allegedly asked him to spend a little time around Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes to which Borat replied...well, he didn't actually say anything because he's a fictional character you prat.

Yoko Ono: Healing the World through Forgiveness or something

I'm really starting to dislike all these celebrities that think they can save the world with a couple of idiot hippy sound bites. Take Hell Fell favourite Bono for example, who thinks he can "make poverty history" by getting people to wear silly white wrist bands. Or all those "rock against racism" knobsacks who thought playing a bit of music for free would stop Kramer from making jokes about stabbing African Americans with forks or something. And now it's Japanese conceptual artist and proffesional widow Yoko Ono's turn to use the media to circulate over-simplistic trendy-sounding solutions to extremely complicated problems.

Now you'll probably know Yoko Ono best as the screechy shrill one on that "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)" song but you also might also know her as "Mrs. John Lennon" and "that woman who broke up the Beatles". Although, if you ask me, "that woman who inadvertently unleashed Wings on the world" would have been a much more damning title. Also, if you've ever read an interview with John Lennon post-1968 you'll definitely know her through Lennon's endless blatherings about how every Beatles song was actually written about Yoko except he just hadn't known it at time, probably causing you to suddenly feel really embarrassed about all those times you used to listen to Eleanor Rigby on repeat when you were sixteen years old.

Now, because she feels she just wasn't ridiculed enough for the whole "lying in a bed for three days will create World Peace" nonsense that made the whole world dislike her just a little bit back in 1969, Yoko is back with another bit of lazy celebrity tripe designed to solve all the world's problems and stuff. In a press statement intended to commemorate the 26th anniversary of John Lennon's death Yoko stated:

"Every year, let’s make December 8th the day to ask for forgiveness from those who suffered the insufferable. Know that the physical and mental abuse you have endured will have a lingering effect on our society. Know that the burden is ours. Let's wish strongly that one day we will be able to say that we healed ourselves, and by healing ourselves, we healed the world. "

Okay, so I've read this thing through three times and I'm still not exactly sure what the hell she's jabbering on about but if my extensive dealings with famous people (I once saw Noel Edmonds in a paper shop and the old host of Wheel of Fortune whose name I forget in a shopping centre) have taught me anything, any celebrity press statement with the words "healed the world" can only be bad news.

However, I do agree with Yoko's sentiment that the anniversary of John Lennon's death be celebrated in some capacity; I propose that this year on December 8th we celebrate the first ever "International let's rock against racist poverty and make it history by wearing trendy white wristbands of forgiveness day" leaving the rest of our year free of self-righteous celebrity wankers.

Beethoven Embarrassingly Compared to that U2 Prat Bono

It seems these days like U2's Bono is never not in the news: whether he's claiming that wearing trendy white wristbands will solve all the world's problems or telling politicians how to spend their country's money he seems to be eternally hedging the top spot of every media outlet's daily news roundup.

Typically, he was back in the papers yesterday; however, unusually, he was in the news for something other than being a self-righteous hypocrite or to shill yet another U2 best of CD. You see, as reported by several newspapers too lazy to find actual news stories to write about, this month's Gramophone magazine embarrasingly featured an article in which they declared Bono to be the modern equivalent of 19th century German composer Ludwig Van Beethoven.

Ignoring the fact that Bono isn't German, deaf, a piano virtuoso, a genius classical music composer or even, you know, talented and ignoring the fact that Beethoven isn't an overrated Irish git with a penchant for making ordinary non-rich people feel bad for not giving away money while wearing hundred thousand dollar sunglasses, the editor of music magazine Gramophone maintains the tenuous connection stating:

"Beethoven was a major cultural figure in his day, just as Bono is now. In the 18th century, composers were the pop stars of their day. Beethoven was also a regular guest at court and would have been a point of reference for the Austrian aristocracy. Bono has a comparable relationship with Tony Blair and George W Bush, and the dynamic is still the same. Beethoven believed the world should work to make itself a better place and that we should stand up against oppression."

Stand up against oppression eh? In my opinion, what we should stand up to is being told how we're supposed to live our lives and spend our money by someone who's job description is pretty much just singing glib songs about Beautiful Days and Sweetest Things and posing for wanky photos for Q music magazine. But I digress.

Beethoven wasn't available for comment because he's been dead for almost two hundred years and stuff but it has been speculated that had Bono and Beethoven been contemporaries Beethoven would have actually quite liked U2's music. Namely, the album "All that you can't leave behind" would have given Beethoven a brand new appreciation for his inability to hear anything.

As ill-conceived and probably sacriligious as this article is, it's also a bit of a refreshing change. I'm really not looking forward to next week when Bono will inevitably be back in the news for all the same old naive condescending "help all those plebs in shit countries" and "rock against poverty" stuff he's always banging on and on about ad nauseum, not unlike that fat man in Se7en who kept eating and eating cans of spaghetti until he exploded or something.

Introducing: Spaceman Steve!

Move over Pedro the Existential Cattle Herder and ol' whatzerface with the lucky mole, there's a new kat in town and Spaceman Steve be thine name!

Click on it and it will go bigger

If enough people don't outright hate Spaceman Steve I might bring him back for further adventures and stuff!

Noel Gallagher pisses off every famous person in Britain

Apparently Noel Gallagher, lead singer of naff rock group Oasis, did an interview this week which can only mean one thing: lots and lots of foaming at the mouth pissed of celebrities.

I'm actually quite fond of Noel Gallagher, not because of his music which is a dreadful steaming load of rubbish, but because he seems to one of the few famous people left that still remembers that celebrities are supposed to be here for our entertainment. You see, while Eva Longaria is giving mind-numbingly dull interviews about how much she enjoys working with the other Desperate Housewives and while Paul McCartney is rambling on about how much he doesn't hate his hobbled spousal abuse claiming ex wife, Noel Gallagher is asking Robbie Williams to shoot himself in the head and is offering him a loaded gun to do it with!

In an interview conducted by The Sun this week, Noel Gallagher earned the emnity of pop-rival Robbie Williams by declaring, "I wouldn't shoot [Phil Collins]. I do think he's a bit of a knob though. As for Robbie, I'd put the bullet in the gun as he's eventually going to do it himself anyway as he is a grossly unhappy person." Allegedly, this feud is of the on-going Yoko Ono/Paul McCartney variety with Noel Gallagher calling Robbie Williams "the fat dancer from Take That" in 2000 and Robbie responding by calling Noel Gallagher "a mean-spirited dwarf" and challenging his brother Liam to a fist fight. Which seems just a little excessive Robbie - I'm sure rightly pointing out that Oasis hasn't produced a single second of half decent music in over a decade would have sufficed.

But Robbie Williams baiting isn't the only amusing antic Noel has gotten up to this week. In the very same interview he earned the ire of fellow inanely blabbering foot in mouth Brit Elton John by suggesting that the Benny and the Jets singer considered himself too "precious to go out and buy a pint of milk". To which Elton responded, "[Noel Gallagher's] an absolute tosser and he looks like Parker from Thunderbirds." I'm actually going to give a point to Elton John for this one. I mean, if I was a celebrity I don't think I would mingle with commoners; I hear they don't even wash themselves with Evian bottled spring water the dirty unfamous plebs.

Elton John then went on to demand Westlife sell more copies of their dreadful suicide-inducing new album so that Oasis' best of collection won't be number one come Christmas or something. And, er...point taken away Elton. Sorry.

Noel Gallagher then ranted a little bit more declaring that "Greens are fucking hippies with no place in the world" and "The troops want to go (to Iraq), all they want to do is fight! They're soldiers. They're loving it, until they get shot - then they're claiming compensation. If you're bothered about getting shot - here's a thing - don't join the army." Which probably also pissed off a whole bunch of people but likely no one famous enough for us to care.

Peter Jackson: not making another movie about midget plebs who don't wear shoes

It was widely reported by the press this week that New Line Cinema the film studio that financed Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy is giving the director the flick and looking for someone else to helm the adaptation of The Hobbit.

Now The Hobbit is actually one of my favourite books, it has a whimsy and innocence and charm about it that's complete lacking from its bloated wordy sequel and the three overrated films it inspired. Personally an eight hour Hobbit movie featuring lots of nightmarish tilted camera angles, someone saying "the age of men will fall" every seventeen seconds, giant burning eyes that look just a little bit like a vagina and Orlando Bloom riding a shield like a skateboard actually sounds like the worst thing I can think of so this news has made me quite happy really.

However it has also upset quite a number of people as well. And by people I mean idiot gobshite nerds. And they've decided to fight against this decision in the only way spindly limbed geeks who are still supported by their parents can: they've started an online petition. What's an online petition you might be asking, probably because you're eighty years old and you stumbled onto this page because you thought Hell Fell would be a lovely website about the Christian rapture. Well, there's only two things you need to know about online petitions: a) they were invented as a way for nerds to maintain some sort of tenuous grip on life everytime some idiot American science fiction TV series gets cancelled because no one watches that shit and b) no on-line petition has ever accomplished anything in the history of anything ever. Ever.

So here's the link to the petition. I'm feeling particularly mean-spirited today; let's have a bit of a laugh at it then shall we? My comments in red.

We, the undersigned, wish to make clear our strong desire to see a quality film adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit. Having spent the last three years in Middle-earth, under the spell of magician Peter Jackson and the wizards of Weta Workshop, we find ourselves only wanting more. - Wanting more? Greedy middle class pigs. Try living in a third world country tosser.

The phenomenol [sic] success of The Lord of the Rings trilogy clearly demonstrates that there is a huge fan base worldwide, ready to support The Hobbit in like manner - particularly if it is made by Mr. Jackson and Weta, who have proven themselves so gifted in the visual creation of a world which until now only existed on the printed page, in the art of great talents like Alan Lee and John Howe, and in the imaginations of Tolkien readers. - Why on earth did they feel the need to name-drop a bunch of people who drew a couple of dragonny pictures in a petition? When he got to this bit, I'm sure the CEO of New Line went 'God, what a bunch of fucken nerds. Forget this shit.'

Please work together to eliminate this barrier to the film’s making and distribution. We, the fans, will make it worth your while. We are not ready to leave Middle-earth! - After reading that last sentence, I actually think another hobbit movie not being made is actually the best thing that can ever happen to these guys.

Of course you've got to admire a group of people so detached from reality that they think a large entertainment conglomeration will alter their business decisions worth hundreds of millions of pounds after looking at an online petition signed by a few non tax payers under such pseudonyms as theonering69 and gandalf_rawks2003. Sorry, did I just say admire? I meant feel soul destroying pity for.

"Throw his ass out, he's a nigger!" says TV's Kramer

I was just thinking the other day that it's been far too long since the last big public celebrity self-destruction and co-incidentally enough comedian and former TV star Michael Richards chose this week to get filmed on a camera phone shouting "Throw his ass out! He's a nigger!" at a black man in a comedy club!

Now you'll undoubtedly remember Michael Richards from his role as the hugely popular character Kramer from hugely popular American TV show Seinfeld. You might also remember him from...well, no, that's all he's famous for. Which is a shame really. I mean Mel Gibson is so busy being Mad Max, that guy in that movie about Scottish people mooning English people, that guy who used wacky telepathic powers to get into Helen Hunt's snatch and the crazy one in Lethal Weapon that you could almost forget about that time he was a drunken anti-semitic mysoginistic twat.

So I'm sure your mind is currently boggling at the mental picture of whimsical, loveable, goofball Kramer hurling around racial slurs so deeply offensive that Jamie Foxx wants to kick his ass but that's probably because you've never seen the extremely rare footage of that mercifully cancelled Seinfeld episode where Kramer comically burst through Jerry's door with boot polish on his face while reading Mein Kampf and watching Birth of a Nation. But for those of you unlucky enough to have never seen this imaginary moment in Seinfeld history, you'll just have to make do with grainy footage on YouTube of a haggard Michael Richards shouting such racist malarky as "fifty years ago we'd have you upside down with a fucking fork up your ass" at a black man in the audience who dared to call out "you're not funny" during his act.

The much watched YouTube video also shows a sort of hip-hop diss-off between the slightly overrated Seinfeld character and Frank McBride, the victim of his racially charged comedic stylings. Amusingly, there is a clear winner with Michael Richard's confusing "you can talk, you can talk, you're brave now motherfucker" clearly being trumped by the other guy's hilarious "You're a reject! Never had no shows, never had no movies; Seinfeld: that's it!" Openly mocking a celebrity for being a failure and a has-been? Clearly this guy should have been the one on the stage! Hey Frank McBride? I think Kevin Federline has an opening to be mocked next wednesday if you're looking for more work.

In the wake of this nightmarish incident Americans have been forced to ask themselves some serious questions like "Is Kramer a racist?", "Can we ever forgive him?" and "Did Michael Richards just watch Borat and decide to craft his own timeless, satirically racist comic creation and it all just went horribly wrong?"

Well OK, they're not really asking themselves anything as they're too busy dredging up all their "Is Mad Max a racist?" editorials, blog posts and letters to editors from several months ago and replacing all references to Mel Gibson and jews with Michael Richards and black men in order to indulge in a little more self righteous moral masturbation.

And if you haven't seen it yet, here's a link: Michael Richards fucking up his career

Apparently Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes got Married

Tom Cruise/Katie Holmes conspiracy theories have been pretty popular lately with trashy women's rags, idiots on the internet and even respected journalists who probably should know better indulging in wild speculation about every wacky bit of the unconvincing couple's personal life. For example there was the amusing "Katie never squirted out a sprog; it was all just a big publicity stunt" story doing the rounds a few months ago. And then there seemed to be a lot of "Katie Holmes is being imprisoned by Tom Cruise and probably a bunch of scientologist assassins" stories. And of course the whole classic "Tom Cruise is gay and Katie Holmes is his beard" theory has refused to die. There was also a rumour going around that it was actually Tom Cruise who turned Anne Frank in to the Nazi party but that one might have just been made up by me.

But let's focus on the theory that Tom Cruise is gay shall we. Now I like to think that I know a lot about celebrities: I've read an issue or two of Hello!, I have a great uncle who was in a crowd scene in that naff My Fair Lady movie and once I saw Noel Edmonds at a newsagents. And if there's one thing I know about celebrities is, they hate talking about their private life. Sure, they'll get their spokespeople to announce engagments co-incidentally days before their new movie is about to open and they'll tip off the paparazzi so they can get a picture of them and their new boyfriend walking a dog on the cover of People magazine. But if you actually ask them about that stuff then they'll suddenly turn into crazy Marlon Brando-esque recluses angrily dismissing all polite inquiries about their personal life with such tired phrases as "I try to keep my private life just that, private" while probably being macheted to death by Martin Sheen like in the end of Apocalypse Now or something.

In contrast Tom Cruise just can't stop banging on about his love for a girl who is easily two feet taller than him. While Jennifer Aniston and Vince Vaughn are denying that they're even together, Tom Cruise is jumping on Oprah Winfrey's sofa in a surreal nightmarish declaration of love. While Angelina Jolie is keeping her pregnancy a secret for like seven months Katie Holmes is being publicly proposed to in front of the Eiffel Tower. It's all just a little bit desperate and unconvincing you know? It's really little wonder that so many saucy rumours have plagued everyone's least favourite four foot tall scientologist.

And the trend continues with Tom Cruise extravagantly and embarrasingly over doing the whole wedding thing this weekend. Now normally when celebrities have weddings they get all sneaky and try to avoid the press. For example, when Britney Spears got married she was so determined to keep it a secret that she got married in a pink tracksuit in front of fifty family members. And just recently, Tom Cruise's very own ex Nicole Kidman hired every helicopter in Sydney to ensure there weren't a whole bunch of annoying paparrazzi hovering around her wedding. However, instead of keeping his wedding secret, Tom Cruise made sure every paparazzi in the whole world knew he was getting married on the 18th of November in a fifteenth century castle in the small Italian city of Bracciano and that every A-list celebrity imaginable was invited!

And would you just look at the guest list? If the prospect of some obnoxious short middle-aged man marrying that annoying girl from Dawson's creek with the hideous wonkey smile couldn't entice a whole lot of press I'm sure the mass gathering of such celebrities as J-Lo, Jim Carey, Steven Spielberg, John Travolta, Will Smith, Russell Crowe, Kirstie Alley, Brad Pitt, Andrea Bocelli, Angelina Jolie and Victoria and David Beckham did the trick.

Further confirming everyone's suspicions that the whole overblown wedding malarky was just an elaborate publicity stunt, according to the Herald Sun: "Those at the wedding were to receive "goody bags", complete with monogrammed towels bearing the couple's initials and designer sunglasses." God, how conceited would you have to be to give people towels with your initials on them. According to a source at the wedding only the A-list celebrities were given goody bags with b-listers and non-famous family members getting nothing. Oh alright, I made that last bit up.

Yes he's wearing lifts

However, the Cruise/Holmes union wasn't all awkward unconvincing wedding vows and weird celebrity show bags. It also pissed off the entire town of Bracciano who were unanimously enraged by a) Tom Cruise's failure to invite the mayor of their town to the wedding and b) the couple's failure to wave a little bit. As embarrasingly recounted by Bracciano resident Loredana Ruggiero "I waited outside all day and virtually all night. It was cold and rainy and then in the evening it was foggy and I didn't see them once. It's a shame as we had made them so welcome. They could have got out of their cars or waved from the castle, but instead they didn't acknowledge us at all. I feel really snubbed."

Personally, I can't...no wait, give me a moment. I'm still laughing at the thought of someone standing in rain for twenty-four hours to see Tom Cruise. Okay, I'm good. Personally, I can't think of anything more awful than standing in a room for a long period of time surrounded by hundreds of smug American actors but apparently the mayor and people of Bracciano think differently with Mayor Patrizia Riccioni's lack of invitation considered a rude oversight rather than a terrifying close call. States the mayor: "The citizens are upset that the mayor of Rome was invited and the mayor of Bracciano wasn't - they have also asked me to reconsider giving the couple honorary citizenship."

I guess that's good knews for all you people desperately trying to get honorary citizenship in some small Italian city: all you have to do is play Val Kilmer's love interest in some movie about planes then insult 50% of the world's population by declaring that you'd rather women stab their babies than take drugs. Just make sure you spare a few seconds to wave at a bunch of non-famous plebs standing pathetically in the rain though.

Captain Great's awesome new novel!!

So there's no Pedro the Existential Cattle Herder this week because, to be entirely honest, I couldn't be bothered doing one.

However, I've got the next best thing: the kickass first chapter of the novel I started at work when I was supposed to be writing shit about mobile phones! If asked I would describe this piece as a sophisticated intelligent exploration of modern gender politics intertwined with a timely environmental message or something. Plus it has pirates in it!


Chapter One

“I want you to dress up like a ghostbuster.”
Kathleen pushed aside the sheet and looked into her husband’s blushing face.
“What?” she said, her voice sharp and humourless.
“Dress up like a ghostbuster.” It was an order, not a request. “Venkman if possible but I wouldn’t mind Egon."
“Jesus Christ. What the fuck is wrong with you Arnold?”
“Well you asked.” Arnold said in a whine.
“When I asked you what we could do to spice up our sex life I didn't expect…Shit! Ghostbuster? What the fuck.”
They sat for a few moments amid a fog of awkwardness.
“Well, what do you suggest then?” Arnold asked, breaking the silence.
Kathleen eyed Arnold slyly.
“I want you to dress like a sailor. And cuss,” she snapped hungrily. “Cuss like a filthy horny pirate.” She giggled, wiping a stream of saliva from the corner of her mouth.
“Sailor? Oh honey…you know I have a severe psychological fear of things relating to the sea due to my Dad being eaten by kickass Octopus/Shark hybrid creatures probably genetically engineered by Russian scientist during the cold war. Plus I get awful sea sickness and if I eat prawns I swell up and die. Look I have a pair of pyjamas with anchors on them if it means that much to you,” he added meekly.
“Don’t bother,” Kathleen said angrily. “You know what? Get out of the bed. You’re sleeping on the couch asshole.”
“Good! How about I sleep there permanently!”
“What are you saying?’ Kathleen gasped.
“Only that I don’t find you attractive anymore! In fact, I never did!”
“What? You mean you’re gay? Well this would explain that whole fucked-up ghostbuster thing.”
“No I’m not gay you daft slag,” Arnold snapped. “If you really must know, it’s that giant mole on your face. It’s disgusting. It looks like a malteser growing out of your cheek. Except there’s no delicious malt center! When we make love its all I can do to keep from throwing up. Either the mole goes or I go.”
“I’ll never get rid of my lucky mole! NEVER! It’s the secret behind my ability to talk to animals.” Kathleen sobbed into her pillow. She froze, then raised her head, fear etched into her features.
“My lucky mole is tingling…AN ANIMAL IS IN TROUBLE!”

To be Continued…


Okay, so it didn't really have any pirates in it.

Feedback would be much appreciated! I think this could be the next Ulysses by James Joyce! Or at least the next The Truth about Diamonds by Nicole Richie!

Michael Flatley stricken with mystery illness

Despite being the decade that spawned genius bands The Verve and Radiohead you've gotta admit, the nineties were pretty bloody rubbish weren't they? I spent my entire childhood and most of my adolescence in the 1990's and all I can remember about those ten long years is MC Hammer, Cargo Pants, that Spice Girls movie and Shaquille O'Neal's patented Shaq Attacks. Such was the non-event that was the nineties, when they write history books in hundreds of years they will probably read like this:

"In the eighties the Cold War finally ended when the Berlin wall came down, the liberal idealism of the sixties proved to ultimately fail as the same generation who lauded 'flower power' voted in the staunchly conservative Thatcher and Reagan governments and AIDS was discovered, developing into a worldwide pandemic. In the nineties ummm...John Cleese stopped being funny. And that's about it really."

Yes, the nineties were shit and absolutely no one symbolizes this ethos more than self-proclaimed "Lord of the Dance" Michael Flatley.

Now you'll undoubtedly remember Michael Flatley from that period in the mid nineties when the Riverdance show inexplicably became a huge international sensation and every other person in their thirties and forties suddenly became huge Irish dance fans, naiively failing to realize that they'd jumped aboard the freight train bound for "cliched fad following middle-aged pleb"-ville. Or you remember him as being that knobsack who once famously claimed that he could never go on-stage without getting a bit of a root beforehand from some lucky sheila. Classy. However, if you're my age you'll probably remember Michael Flatley as the inspiration behind such schoolyard slurs as "You're Michael Flatley gaylord of the dance" and other less creative ones as "You're shit. Just like Michael Flatley".

Anyway, Michael Flatley seems to have forgotten that the nineteen nineties actually ended six years ago because he's back in the news with reports that he is in hospital with a 'serious illness' although what said illness is remains a carefully guarded secret. Silly celebrities! When will they learn that claiming a right to privacy and refusing to reveal every little sordid detail of their medical history will only lead to people like me making up stuff to fill in the blanks! So the way I figure it:

Penchant for backstage sex + X = Mystery 'serious illness'.

I'll leave it up to you to work out what X could possibly be. Of couse, appropriately, this would also make Michael Flatley a symbol of that other great 1990's institution: sexually transmitted disease.

In other news, did you know that Michael Flatley is apparently worth 375 million pounds? How did this happen? And more importantly, why am I an advertising copy-writer instead of a weirdly homo-erotic oiled up Irish prancer? Besides the whole jewish lack of rythym thing I mean.

Michael Jackson can't take a hint

God, it has been said, works in mysterious ways. He is so mysterious, in fact, that no one really seems to know what he looks like, where he lives or even if he actually exists probably leading religious experts to theorize that he possesses the super-power of invisibility like that blonde broad in that Fantastic Four movie. However, sometimes ol' Jehovah can be pretty damn unsubtle as seen in the number of signs he's been sending lately to Michael Jackson to get him to just fucking give up the horse and retire already.

You see, it appears that Wacko Jacko's life for the last decade or so has consisted of nothing more than a series of potentially career destroying disasters. First there was the whole alleged paedophilia thing in the early nineties followed by two weird failed marriages, the album Invincible being an abyssmal failure, the baby-dangling incident, the Martin Bashir documentary, a whole new round of child sex allegations, hundreds of millions of dollars of debts and the whole ongoing face falling apart thing. He is also reportedly besties with Elizabeth Taylor and was the best man at Liza Minelli's wedding. Yes, clearly God hates Michael Jackson.

However, divine intervention has proven to be entirely inneffectual at putting an end to the hideous unstoppable monster that is Michael Jackson's career. Despite most of the world still suspecting him of being a kiddy fiddler and despite lookily uncannily like a transvestite Vincent Price, the self-proclaimed King of Pop has jumped back on the comeback trail performing last night at the World Music Awards in London.

However God, in a bid to prove that he's not just some irrelevant non-entity, has made sure that Michael Jackson's attempt at reclaiming some of his former success was no smooth sailing with Jacko's rendition of We Are the World last night unanimously considered awful and embarrasing by those attending the ceremony. And by 'unanimously' I just mean Jarvis Cocker from Pulp called it "a load of rubbish".

Michael though, still hasn't gotten the message. In the speech he made after receiving an award for being the most successful entertainer of all time he said, "It was my dream that Thriller would be the biggest-selling album ever ... and God has answered my prayers." So now we know why in the eighties so many people starved to death in Africa, why AIDS became so widespread and why so many bad things happened to good people and stuff. Yeah, thanks for that Michael.

"He's really not getting the message," a source close to God claims he said after watching the ceremony on Youtube. "It looks like I'm going to have to put Operation Macauly Culkin into motion."

Kanye West in Racist Australian Adventure

My it's been a big week for famous people calling out non-famous plebs for being dirty bigots!

Yesterday it was Elton John doing the shit-slinging. Today it's rapper Kanye West who dabbled in the Oprah Winfrey approved activity of going overseas and then making a massive stink about how racist said country is compared with America. Yes, that America: the self-proclaimed 'land of the free' that ironically only stopped slavery like a hundred years ago or something.

The country apparently full of dirty bigots in question is Australia where Kanye West is embarrasingly touring as the support act for rubbish nostalgia band U2. Now, you more than likely think of Australia as a country full of friendly laid-back people probably because you've seen Crocodile Dundee and probably also because you're the sort of person who makes over-generalizations about entire nations of people based on decades old movies. However, if the man who once chucked a tantrum because he didn't win an MTV music award is to be believed, Australians might not be so friendly and laid-back after all. According to The Age:

"West, 29, was checking out the Opera House at the same time as a large media pack was photographing British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen, aka Borat. The rapper attempted to cross the road and appeared to be pushed by an Opera House security guard. "I just thought it was funny 'cos he didn't even stop my friend and he stopped me," West said after the incident. "Then he pushed me."

How the hell did Borat get dragged into this?

Okay, so Kanye West didn't really kick up a massive stink. However, if Oprah Winfrey's racism drenched trip to Paris is to become a precedent for these sorts of things, we can probably expect Kanye West to blather loudly to the media about his 'crash moment' then dedicate an entire episode of his internationally syndicated talk show to how racist dirty foreigners are.

Elton John: "Religion is shit."

This week Elton John made most of the world go all "dear God, please kill that fat british man with the silly glasses, amen" by declaring that all religious followers were "hateful lemmings". Personally I have a bit of a problem with it too Elton! Namely, 'hateful lemmings' is a fairly redundant term; you'd think that lemmings being hateful would be a given considering their whole suicide as a lifestyle choice thing they have going on, but I digress.

The phrase 'hateful lemmings' comes from a recent interview Elton John had with some guy from the Scissor Sisters in which he stated "I think religion has always tried to turn hatred toward gay people. Religion promotes the hatred and spite against gays...From my point of view, I would ban religion completely. Organized religion doesn't seem to work. It turns people into really hateful lemmings, and it's not really compassionate."

Admittedly he does have a point; it's only fair that if religious people can hate on gay people all the time, then gay people should be allowed to slag off religious people back. His timing probably could have been better though considering that the number of people hung up on magical men who live in the sky and cheesy stories about people being eaten by whales and stuff appears to be at an all time high what with 98% of all people in the world following some religion or another. However, it is to Elton John's credit that making 98% of the world declare jihads and fatwas and other wacky religious malarky against him didn't stop him from saying any random thing that came into his head to the British media.

Now, you'll probably remember Elton John from around the year 2001 when everyone you knew suddenly retroactively became long-time Elton fans after seeing that Tiny Dancer singalong bus scene in Almost Famous. You might also remember him from that time that he was a hugely successful and popular musician but that was so long ago that you probably don't. But mostly these days you'll know Elton John as that one celebrity that isn't afraid to speak what's on his mind. Like those times he called the papparazi 'vile pigs', George Micheal 'miserable' and Madonna a "rubbish lip-synching trollop". And in this bland politically correct celebrity world of "Anna Nicole Smith wasn't drunk, she lost a contact lense" and Paul "I don't care that my ex-wife claims I stabbed her with shattered wine glasses" McCartney, that makes Elton John a very rare beast indeed.

So despite having so many strikes against him: that Candle in the Wind song...that Donald Duck suit he squeezed his chubby body into once...updating Candle in the Wind for annoying, dead princesses...being culturally irrelevant for several decades...I think Elton John is pretty kewl.

Keep up the good work Elton! I'm eager to hear your probably offensive to lots of people views on the Arab-Israeli conflict, abortion and Jon-benet Ramsey!

Some more Adventures of Pedro the Existential Cattle Herder

This week, Pedro discovers the true meaning of friendship! No, not really.

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Captain Great is sick of bio-pics

Actors just love the Academy Awards don't they?

Obviously, this is because it lets them be all smug and indulge in their own greatness for a couple of hours. However, they also love the Academy Awards because it provides them with a validation for their decision to pursue a career that mostly just involves talking in funny voices and spending millions and millions of dollars on basically an hour and a half of entertainment.

Actors also really love bio-pics at the moment with every thespian and their great grandma signing up to play either Keith Moon, Iggy Pop, Bob Dylan or Janis Joplin in future movies. The mutual love actors share of siny gold statues and E! True Hollywood story-esque films about other famous people is no coincidence. You see, ever since mediocre telemovie A Beautiful Mind was inexplicably declared 2001's best film, the word 'biopic' has become pretty much synonymous with the phrase 'Oscar gold'.

This Hollywood trend has reached its fever pitch in the last few years with Academy Awards ceremonies rife with clips of actors wearing ugly makeup, speaking in annoying high pitched voices and playing crappy country music in county jails. Just recently the films Ray and Walk the Line were heavily nominated and even snagged a statue or two for Jamie Foxx and Reese Witherspoon despite the fact that they're actually the exact same movie but with the main character's skin pigmentation altered slightly. Likewise Phillip Seymour Hoffman was rewarded for his role in Capote, a film that proved audiences will pay to watch a man write a book for two hours if it's overrated enough by critics.

Having seen Capote I would argue that copying some dead writer's annoying high pitched voice for a couple of hours is a somewhat easier task than actually crafting a unique character from scratch. But then again, I'm not an actor and don't work in the entertainment industry.

Anyway, the bio-pics keep on coming. This time it's dead tv personality and Hell Fell favourite Steve Irwin who's being turned into oscar-bait for some over-ambitious thespian. Conveniently, Steve Irwin's manager John Stainton claims that Steve Irwin already had fellow Australian Eric Bana penciled in to portray him in a film: "Steve said to him to promise one thing if he died anytime soon ... play him if there was ever a movie about his life,'' Stainton said. "Steve Irwin also gave me permission to use his image to shill any random product that can possibly make me more money," Stainton probably then added.

God! Too soon, much? you might be thinking. Rest assured, John Stainton says that no film is currently being planned. "There might be a movie in 10 years or there might not be one. We don't know,'' he said, weakly pretending that he hadn't called up Paramount Pictures exactly forty-five seconds after Steve Irwin was declared dead.

Bono from U2 is still shit

People seemed to respond well to me slagging off Bono from U2 the other day and since I'm an attention seeking populist sell-out here's more of the same thing.

Should I ever become President of the planet Earth or something the very first thing I would do is completely outlaw music magazines and the music section of the paper because it has come to my attention that these products exist purely as a platform for self indulgent rockstars to air every idiot thought in their stylishly messy head. People would probably complain; however I would justify this action by pointing out that music is meant to be listened to and not read about and probably the only reason why people read these magazines is to bone up on their musical knowledge so they can seamlessly name-drop Ian Curtis in conversation.

This would appear to be a rather extreme action to take but, you see, last monday I happened to read the most rubbishy, kiss-ass, self-indulgent celebrity interview in existence. How rubbishy, kiss-ass and self-indulgent? Well here's a quote from the interviewee Bono: "Intimacy is a great word. A lot of people are listening to music through earphones [these days] and you know, you're whispering into people's ears." GOD. What a knobsack.

Actually I can't decide who I hate more, Bono or Christine Sams the interviewer and the broad who wrote the following line: "It must be my feminine side," said Bono, with a sexy drawl.

Here's a few more embarrasing quotes (my comments are in red):

"The band are rehearsing now, I'm getting out of it by talking to you, which is great because I really can't stand rehearsal." Wow. Way to go not rehearsing for a concert that you shamelessly charged seventy-five pounds for.

"Our songs tend to be with people at either the best of times or worst of times...When we walk on stage, that's the reason why people's hair goes up, including mine by the way." What a conceited dickhead.

"[my] definition of art is breaking open the breastbone and pulling open the ribcage and, you know [he mimes his heart tumbling out], a blood transfusion" I'm pretty sure that that rubbish song Vertigo is proof against the post-modern view that anything can be art.

Of course, it's not all Bono's fault that he's such a twat. If you got told that you were a magnificent, brilliant, creative genius all day by soulless sycophants with bad tastes in music you'd probably think every little bit of crap that came out of your mouth was compelling and insightful as well.

And he isn't even the biggest twat on earth. That honour goes to Stephen Baldwin who embarrasingly once said to Bono: "You would do far more good if you just preached the gospel of Jesus rather than trying to get rid of Third World debt relief." Actually, that's quite funny Stephen Baldwin. Ammended: Bono is the biggest twat on earth.

Paul McCartney apparently not pissed off at Heather Mills McCartney

Sometime I wish celebrities would just have the balls to say what they really think.

Take probably your least favourite Beatle Paul McCartney for example. Ol' Macca has been in the news quite a lot lately which is quite surprising considering that he's famous for being a songwriter yet hasn't actually written a half decent tune since 1969. Appropriately, it is instead his scandal laden divorce from his one-legged one-time pornographer wife Heather Mills than has landed him on the front pages of both trashy tabloids and newspapers that should probably know better.

The latest installment in the starting to get tedious ongoing saga has Heather Mills claiming that Paul McCartney is a wife abuser. Yes, the mild mannered Beatle famous for write such twee songs as Blackbird and Maxwell's Silver Hammer allegedly got his kicks by stabbing Heather in the elbow with a broken glass, forcing her to slither on the ground after a leg operation and other mean spirited malarky. That cheeky rascal! Heather Mills then went on to claim that Paul also beat his beloved dead wife Linda McCartney.

Of course, no one seems to believe these allegations including Heather's own father who recently declared "my Heather is mad!" Paul McCartney similarly responded by releasing a few carefully worded public statements that included such choice phrases as "Argh! I kill that Bitch!" and "I want that one legged bitch dead!" I'm totally lying. Of course Paul did nothing of the sort. Instead, the least funny one in A Hard Day's Night responded by spouting a whole bunch of typical bland mamby-pamby PC sentiments about not holding grudges and stuff in a recent BBC interview: "Life goes on, I do not hold grudges against anyone...I think life goes on and it is what you make of it so I am pretty optimistic."

I don't think anyone believes for a second that Paul McCartney isn't totally pissed off at Heather Mills just like no one really seems to believe that he actually took drunken potshots at her elbows with shards of glass. Nevertheless he decided to take the dull PC route so beloved by celebrities as of late anyway. And I personally am sick of it! Don't you just wish that Paris Hilton would just come out and say "Hell yes I was drink driving!" or Tom Cruise had been all "God! Fuck those assholes" when he got sacked by Paramount Pictures? Wouldn't you have liked Paul McCartney just a little bit more if he had said "I wish I had bludgeoned her with a broken glass that lying, money grubbing cripple!" to the BBC instead of "I don't hold grudges against anyone"?

Like I said, I'm sick of it. It's high time celebrities stop pretending that they're real people who deserve silly things like privacy and respect and start realizing that they're here for our entertainment. For example, if Heather really had to make up stories about spousal abuse she should have done so with our entertainment in mind possibly by claiming that Paul hilariously beat her unconcious with her fake leg. Being wackily pushed down a shopping centre escalator would also have amused me sufficiently.

The further adventures of Pedro the Existential Cattle Herder

More Pedro the Existential Cattle Herder! Hooray!

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Just remember kids, when Pedro becomes an international Superstar you were here to witness his humble beginnings!

U2 wins at Q magazine awards despite being boring nostalgia act

U2 are just a little bit overrated aren't they?

Despite mostly just being that band that wrote that "I still haven't found what I'm looking for" song that's played over the "protagonist loses job/girlfriend" scene in every second movie ever made u2 have done quite well for themselves: they're routinely labelled 'the best band eva' by rubbish music magazines, they've sold a zillion records and smug frontman Bono includes George W Bush, Tony Blair and the Pope as personal acquaintances.

And their inexplicable success continues: just last week they cleaned up at the Q awards which ignored the fact that U2 haven't released an album in almost two years in order to grant them the awkwardly titled "best of bands" award. Guitarist The Edge also won the "innovation in sound" award despite the fact that every U2 album has sounded the same since 1992.

Less reported on by the media was U2's triumphant blitz of the less well known but industry respected HELL FELL MUSIC AWARDS. Unsurprisingly, U2 took home the most overrated band of the millenium award and Bono snagged himself a least good self-righteous, ugly outdated sunglasses wearing do-gooding pop star award. However despite being nominated in the musician with the stupidest name category he disappointingly lost out to fellow bandmate The Edge. U2 also failed to snag the Pete Townshend just bloody give it up before you break a fucking hip you self congratulatory wankers award which instead went to senior citizens The Rolling Stones.

But it aint just me who thinks U2 have become a has been nostalgia act, the music industry appears to think so too. This can be seen in the fact that U2 have fallen into that rut popularized by other probably past their use by date acts as Bob Dylan, Neil Young and The Rolling Stones, namely every single time they release an album it's declared by Rolling Stone, NME and Q as their best since (insert their probably decades old last decent album here). If that's not a sign that U2 should stop making records and stick to selling concert t-shirts I don't know what is.

Of course, U2 appear to believe this themselves. Because it's been a whole eight minutes since they released their last greatest hits collection, U2 are releasing a brand new retrospective on the 21st of November embarrasingly titled U218.

In other embarrasing U2 news, it has been reported that their songs are starting to be used as hymns in episcopal churches across America, "Sunday Bloody Sunday" being a favourite with kids and teens forced to participate in their parents' tedious superstitions.

Captain Great thinks too hard about halloween

So apparently it was Halloween in America yesterday, Halloween being an annual holiday with its roots in paganism and celebrated on the 31st of October. Halloween always struck me as an odd holiday considering that it was celebrated by a nation so fervently christian that their President doesn't believe in science and Harry Potter book burnings are practically a televizied team sport.

But then again, there are quite a few contradictions in American society really. For starters their popular culture comes across as fairly benign, featuring lots of TV shows about wholesome middle class families or groups of non-threatening yuppies living in houses and apartments inexplicably five times nicer than they should be able to afford. Yet Americans are also really violent: they're always starting wars and they all seem to think that everyone owning lots and lots of guns is a really good idea.

Like I said, the place is odd. Take Halloween for example: supposedly it's a holiday in which small children dress up like superheroes and demand candy from their neighbours while a couple of cute specials about Casper the Friendly Ghost get played on TV. Sounds innocuous enough right? Well you wouldn't think so if you looked at the media coverage of the yearly event. Typing 'halloween' into google news produced the following headlines on the first page alone: Halloween hell in the city, Shootings mar Castro Halloween, Sex offenders caught in Halloween curfew, School security guard shot on Halloween, Halloween fallout: 10 shot, 3 stabbed, dozens arrested in Bay Area, Giving out candy on Halloween, man is shot in the face and my personal favourite No High School Halloween for Hitler. Jesus Christ! You could be excused for thinking that you were reading about some war ravaged third world country or a horrible post apocalyptic future in which society has broken down and all cities have been taken over by violent hover-bike riding street gangs or something.

Is America really that violent that they need to turn a children's holiday into a free-for-all brawl or is it just a media build-up? I really don't know but what I do know is, if they stopped spreading the lie that anyone can achieve anything in America they would have a lot less shitty famewhore reality TV stars hanging around.

Mexico's Day of the Dead holiday is way more awesome than Halloween by the way.

Women hate Tom Cruise

"Women hate Tom Cruise," says Sumner Redstone, Viacom chairman and the guy who gave Tom Cruise ten minutes to clean out his desk and be escorted off the premises by security.

Yes, a few months ago Tom Cruise very publicly got his arse fired by Paramount Pictures. At the time Sumner Redstone cited Tom Cruise's obvious mental deterioration as the reason for the split to which Tom Cruise probably responded by going "wah wah wah something about L Ron Hubbard. You're being glib!"

However, it was revealed this week that the true reason for Tom Cruise being let go is the fact that all women fucking hate him! This backlash could have had something to do with his repeated assertions that women who wanted to stab their babies shouldn't take drugs stopping them from doing so. Or it might be related to his desire for faux-girlfriend Katie Holmes to squeeze a large object out of her vagina without the use of drugs and to shut her fucking mouth while she's doing it. But probably it mostly has something to do with the fact that he's a really creepy, smug weirdo.

Sumner Redstone first twigged to the excessive levels of estrogen fueled hatred for the star of that movie where some guy yells at Dustin Hoffman for two hours for being retarded when his wife expressed her distaste for Cruise. Says Redstone, "Paula, like women everywhere, had come to hate him. His behaviour was entirely unacceptable to Paula, and to the rest of the world. He didn't just turn one [woman] off. He turned off all women, and a lot of men ... He was embarrassing the studio." To which Tom Cruise's spokesperson responded, "Maybe Redstone should wait until his wife's off her rag before he lets her make business decisions for him" although he may or may not have actually said that.

However, it can be argued that Sumner Redstone is eighty-three years old and one of the richest men in America and is therefore a little out of touch with what normal women actually think. To this end I did a little bit of research into the matter on my own. I asked Shelly at my work if she liked Tom Cruise and her response was: "Tom Cruise? Eww! Fuck off!" Admittedly, what I actually asked her was "would you have sex with Tom Cruise for a hundred bucks" but you get the idea.