Phil Edwards

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jN2I9VHid60

An army of chemistry teachers couldn't water down Jack Johnson any further but this bastard has found a way. Jack Johnson sucks. He writes boring songs for boring people to listen to and sings them with a boring voice. Phil Edwards takes things a step further. Not only does this son of Hawkes Bay sound like Jack Johnson lite (which is pretty heavy on the lite) but he ticks every lame, summer cliche in what I can only assume is evidence of his obvious lack of originality, his man-love for Johnson (pun intended) or some corporate suits getting together and working out how to make a (s)hit.

Let's examine the video. It ticks every filthy cliche in the filthy Johnson canon. There's a beach. There are surfers. There's a chick in a bikini. There are shots of the band looking lame at what I assume is a lame summer festival. There are surfie freakin' hand gestures. In fact, Johnson and Edwards are to the ears what Tui and DB are to the tongue: two forms of shit that are barely distinguishable.

Let's examine the song. The musical cliches are covered. We have acoustic guitar underneath some bullshit, white-boy, wah-funk touches. We have a few reggae upstrokes. We have the snare set to "mellow" and the bass set to sound as phat as the sunset caressing the ocean. Lyrically, this song is awful. Listen to the themes. Summer, road trips, summer, waves, summer, golden sand, summer, feeling fine, summer, how much of dick Phil Edwards is and more bloody summer. How many soft rhymes can you fit in one song? I don't know, I didn't count when I suffered through his monstrosity!

Phil, look at me. Listen carefully. You're the kind of vermin who would say annoying things like "I didn't invent summer. I just took it to its highest level." I'm not feeling fine listening to you. I hope a seagull craps in your eye and you die while wiping out on a wave, getting carved up by coral and eaten by sharks. Anything less wouldn't be justice.

Restaurants whose hydration policy is 'maximize patron bloat'

Seriously man, I just took two sips and already there's more chilly ice and death-to-appetite water in there. I'm going to hide my glass in a minute! Fat lot of good that'd do though, you'll just bring out another one.

I can't see the business strategy here, other than looking to score cheap customer service brownie points. If you keep the water glasses full, the patrons will keep drinking and then they won't have any room for your delicious desserts! Or maybe you want everyone to take home half their meal in a box with your establishment's name on it, you know, for free advertising. Brilliant.

The Radio Hauraki of the 21st Century

Okay, I'd better say this first: New Zealand owes Radio Hauraki a lot. As a rock and roll fan, their "stuff you" attitude gave us The Beatles and Led Zep and all that good stuff. We wouldn't have had it otherwise. It was rock and roll, man. The conservatives who hated rock and roll were given the finger and revolution was in the air.

Therefore, it's a shame the station has fallen so far. They still play the same songs which are no longer revolutionary - they are part of the establishment they once pushed against. Not only that, they play non-classic rock that doesn't rock. Creed (shudder), Collective Soul (boring) and Nickelback (ugh) are all given air play. Stop playing the hits! We've heard them for decades. Give the nation the finger again and play the bootlegs, the B-sides, the lesser known bands (Big Star, The Buzzcocks, MC5, etc) and the lesser known but excellent songs by the likes of Steve Earle who anyone listening to you would think was a one song wonder. Shake the punters up a little! In fact, you could play extremely famous bands that for some reason you choose to ignore. Seminal and legendary punk acts like The Ramones and The Sex Pistols are still shunned by your station. They exemplify the rock and roll attitude you claim to maintain. Cos you know what? Anyone would think that you're a pack of overweight middle aged bores trying to relive their youth. You know more about prostate operations than The Pretenders. Just a thought.

Foreigner Night Life Districts

Here are things you can see/hear at the night life districts for ex-pats around Asia:

-A nine to one ratio of males to females.
-A handful of the trashiest skanks you’ll ever meet trying to pick up a chump to take them to America and pay for college.
-Music chosen by some idiot who thinks they know what all foreigners want to listen to when really what they choose is exactly what all stupid foreigners want to listen to…if you’re lucky.
-An assortment of English teachers and government employees who, even though they have been abroad for a decade, still want the “comforts of home” and still can’t speak any of the local language or tolerate the local culture.
-The American military who have left their military base or naval vessel just to be douchebags on the piss for a few days.
-White, middle aged assholes treating the sweet bar girls like shit even though they get paid approximately thirty cents to work 572 hours a week.
-You may be lucky enough to hear live music from someone talented enough to be a disproportionately large fish in a very, very, very small puddle of piss.

People getting antsy in security lines of any sort

Dude, everything is locked down these days, including OMG PLANES! Something happened in New York and for TEN YEARS NOW you go through the detector without your shoes, earrings, necklace, coins, belt, other necklace, other jewellery, and those other coins you keep in that other pocket. Yeah those ones.

Don't get angry at how slow the line is, these people are doing their jobs, and they don't set the policy, politicians do. And especially don't complain about the speed of the line and then be one of those twits who forgets the drill! It's OK to be that idiot (it happens to all of us), but it's not OK to be a shit about how everyone else is holding you up when you've got no f-ing clue.

The New Years Honours List

Who comes up with this shit and what the fuck is wrong with them?

Bob Charles hit a golf ball and won a major nearly fifty years ago. He’s just been knighted for doing his job. Alison Holst has written nearly one hundred recipe books that have sold over four million units. She’s been knighted for doing her job. Most outrageously, Michael Hill has been knighted for services to business. Services to business?! In other words, getting rich, right? Surely that’s rewarding in itself. I would’ve thought so but apparently not. We’ve gotta give him a knighthood so cue my grimace.

Now, contrast this bullshit with the second tier prize given to Ray Avery. This man rose from nothing to help no less than thirty million of the world’s poorest people through developing vital medical technology. How is his achievement worth less than those that played sports, told us how to cook or made themselves rich? It’s not. It’s worth far more and the people that select the recipients for these rewards need to reprioritise to make them credible.

Dress Up Parties

Wow, yeah, let's dress up and get pissed, it'll be sweet. We'll look stupid, and be pissed! Wuckid! What a waste of time! Dress up parties are for people who aren't interesting company under normal circumstances. Getting a costume is a bitch and most hosts choose stupid themes. How about next time, instead of getting a costume, you get a personality?

Irish Bars

Your uniform has a shamrock on it. There might also be a shamrock or two on the wall. I see what you're getting at here-shamrocks are Irish and you want me to think this is an Irish bar.

Well, good plan but when I scratch the surface, your bar is disappointingly un-Irish. You serve Guinness and maybe Kilkenny, but they are dwarved by a selection of bland local beer. You play traditional music on St Patrick's Day and maybe have a "jam" session on a Tuesday night while the rest of the time (6 nights a week, including Friday and Saturday) you play music from Britain and North America.

Does your playlist have any more than ten songs? Hell no, you just repeat the same shit: Summer of 69, Living on a Prayer, 500 Miles, Blister in the Sun, Copperhead Road, Wagon Wheel, etc, etc, etc. Douchebags dance to these songs because they think listening to a live band somehow makes them better than those who listen to the same songs played by DJs. Wow, actual musicians, not souless DJs! Holy fucking moly. Guess what? They're bored! They hate these songs and they hate the people who like them. You're all pissed morons. In fact, the only similarity between your bar and Ireland is that everyone is pissed. Boring.

What school did you go to?

To be fair, I totally understand why people in Christchurch ask this question. Christchurch is very small sometimes and once you know the school a new acquaintance attended you can discover mutual contacts. However, far too often with this question, the interviewer assumes far too much about the interviewee from their response.

The connotations of Christchurch schools are frustratingly robust. If you say you attended Villa Maria, many will assume you're a pregnant slut, despite the fact that Villa's most famous export is the upstanding netballer, Bernice Mene. If you say you attended Shirley Boys High School, many will assume you're a brain-dead sportshead, despite the fact that the school has excelled in cultural pursuits as evidenced by a list of alumni including Mark Walton, the current head of the Christchurch School of Music and James Instone and Keith Spragg, both of whom were formerly clarinettists in the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra. Clearly it is wrong to assume much from a person's school of origin.

The other reason this is such an awful question is that I left school many years ago and yet it still seems to matter where I attended. In fact, when I was 23, my boss (who was from Tauranga and worked with me in Fox Glacier) still thought it was important to know at which school in Christchurch I was educated. At 25, a German girl I met in Vietnam asked what school I went to. At the age of almost 26, an Aucklander I met in Nepal thought it was essential to ask anyone from Canterbury what school they attended. Since leaving school I have travelled internationally, changed my career aspiration, developed new interests and met a whole range of people who have greatly influenced my views on the world. In other words, if my school environment was ever entirely responsible for my outlook - and it wasn't - then it definitely isn't now because I have taken on board more information in the last five minutes then I ever did in five years of high school. That's not to say that my school didn't offer a range of perspectives - it most definitely did - it's just to say that I've met more people since I've left school and any moulding my school had on my perspective has been severely diluted since leaving. I am nearly 26. Think of a new bloody question!!!!!!!

Bands describing themselves

If you are in a band, you probably suck if your autobiography includes the phrase, "we're an eclectic mix of..." Why? Because you're not the first band to combine the elements you combine that you claim make your sound original or eclectic. Blues and rock have been combined for decades, but please don't claim to be "an eclectic mix" of the two if you want to tell everyone you're a retrospective, sub-par, Cream/Hendrix styled, try-hard, guitar wank trio. Similar things can be said for folk and rock or funk and rock or funk and rap. It's been done. You're nothing new. Fuck off, or at least admit you have no new ideas so we can judge you more favourably against what you claim to be.

Christchurch Summer Weather

Recently, I was in an airport in China, waiting on a plane to take me to New Zealand. I struck up a conversation with a young lady from Ashburton. We’d both been in Asia for a while. She missed New Zealand but was amazed that I didn’t and suggested I think about the “good, old Christchurch summer.” Well, Miss Ashburton, what part of the Christchurch summer would you like me to think about? The fact that it is only ever hot when it is blowing an uncomfortable gale from the north-west (followed by rain once the heat leads to precipitation)? The fact that Brighton Beach is always fifteen degrees colder than the rest of the city so you cannot escape the heat in any sort of comfort? Perhaps it’s option three, the lethal Canterbury pollen count we’re disproportionately allergic to? Do you see what I’m getting at? The Christchurch summer sucks!