A week of no gigs.  That was a good time.  Relaxing, a night of the old binge-drink, a weekend of rugby semi-finals, and just a good ol’ time.  But that was then, now we’re in the dark days.  Five weeks of no more respite than two days off at any time.

It started with Band of Skulls – some straight-talking no-nonsense garage rock.  In a venue which is more commonly used as a gay nightclub.  So yeah – walking into an underground cavern, with posters advertising all sorts of half-naked men oiled up, and the X-Factor rejects for some reason – to watch some strut-rock was kind of odd.  And then standing in a mob trying to get to the bar – with people complaining about service, and trying to push in front of each other like some crazed junkies, was great.  An annoying woman next to me constantly talking to me, assuring me that she’d make sure I was served straight after her (despite joining the mob after me) – and then haranguing the barman (while I tried as hard as I could to distance myself from her).  Ahhh – my faith in humanity, if not completely lost a long time ago, died a little bit that night.  Anyway – the gig.  Firstly I thought the sound was crap – but then I walked out from under the mezzanine, into the main area – and everything sounded much much better.  The band wasn’t particularly charismatic or anything – they just did the job.  Stand there, play some songs, and make some clumsy efforts at showmanship.

And soon thereafter, the weekend.  Which consisted of getting up very early on Saturday morning – walking to Kings Cross/St Pancras, and catching a train over to France.  For if I can’t be in New Zealand for a NZ-vs-France Rugby World Cup Final – where better than in France?  Got into Lille at about midday – perfect for a leisurely stroll into town, find my hotel to check-in and drop off my very small daypack, and then a wander around town.  Had some mussels marmite – and soon discovered that “marmite” seems to refer to the pot, and that I wasn’t actually getting mussels cooked in malty tar.  Wandered about some more – researching likely spots to watch the rugby the following morning, sightseeing, and shopping.    I discovered a fashion label named “Eden Park” – complete with NZ flag, a rugby ball motif, and the number 10 emblazoned on most items.  I was tempted to buy the shoes (the first items I saw) – but they were bad shoes.  Eventually, when I discovered what seemed like the French Harrods – I discovered the whole Eden Park range – and bought some gloves.  Refrained from the jeans, with their trademark back pocket detailing taking the form of half an oval – remiscent of a rugby ball perhaps.  Crazy frenchies.  Did my normal “wander around for an hour unable to decide on a restaurant” – before finally selecting an expensive seafood joint, and ordered the “little of everything the chef wants to give you” option, and a bottle of red wine – just to show them I can be unconventional too.

The next morning – I awoke, and ignored all my research of the previous day – instead walking for a while, into previously unexplored area – searching for “the bar district”.  Which I quickly found, like a messenger pigeon returning home.  And then, walking past several big showy bars – I spotted a television screen through a small grimy window, of a small grimy bar.  Sold.  I entered a small dark and dingy room, with a handful of barstaff looking at me in surprise, and one or two obvious ‘locals’.  I took a pew at the bar, had a coffee, and waited for the game to start.  One barmaid loved the All Blacks shirt – and decided to support the All Blacks then and there.  Unfortunately, she seemed to only be there to set up for the day, and then left – leaving me alone in a slowly growing crowd of French.  By the time the game started, the pub had laid out a free breakfast (french bread, coarse pate, brie, ham, etc – not bad fare), and the pub was full of Les Bleus supporters, with quite the festive atmosphere.  I got a few curious glances, but nothing more.  And I think any New Zealander knows how nervous I was at that moment – I was downing pints of beer at a furious rate, unable to help myself.  The haka, the French counter to it (which I loved, and brought massive cheers from the locals) – and then the game itself.  Well – we all know how that went.  The head in hands when Cruden fell on the ground.  A couple of stifled cheers from some of the less well-mannered Frenchies came with that, but then the majority of them applauded in the right spirit when he left the field.  Overall, it was quite a good crowd – much like most crowds, generally a good bunch, with a couple of dicks who do things like cheering an injury, or booing when an opponent is lining up a kick.  Half-time, and I sensed that mood of the crowd had changed from “let’s go watch the All Blacks win, festival-type atmosphere” – to, “hell, we’ve got a chance to win this, and win the World Cup”.  And of course, my own feeling mirroring that, going from “yeah, let’s watch us win while in France, that’ll be a laugh” – to, “Oh no, not again, not again, no no no”.  And the last ten minutes – with everybody white-knuckled, just willing somebody to drop the ball, or hold onto the ball, or anything, just don’t lose this bloody thing.  The only way I can find to describe that whole hour – from the start of the 2nd half through to 20 minutes after the match – is through cliches.  Relief.  Monkey off the back.  They may be cliches, but they are just so apt.  Or to point you to a forum on The Silver Fern – which, along with the comments afterwards, I read yesterday – with something approaching a tear in the eye.  And then I watched a video which a comment pointed to – and yeah, that tear became fully fledged.  I don’t think anybody but a New Zealander will understand quite I mean – or why “just a game” could mean so much. More cliches are needed really – rugby’s embedded in the country’s psyche, it’s our national obsession, etc etc.  I’d always thought of them as empty meaningless cliches, too simplistic to really be true.  But, even though it’s depressing to admit, they’re true.  But that’s not as important as it used to be.  Because we did it – we knocked the bugger off.  We can watch the All Blacks again, with the attitude of it being a pleasurable distraction, not with a desperate need to win a trophy.  And soon, we can look forward to 2015, when we become the first team to defend the championship, the first team to win it 3 times, the true Champions.  Or not – we can lose, and we’ll shrug, without that devastating heartbreak of 2003 & 2007.  Maybe.  And I think the average New Zealander will be a nicer person now, without all that angst.  The only dark lining to this silver cup, is that the country is almost certain to be governed by the actual eye-gougers, the real dirty players, the actual Bleus Terribles with aspirations for nuclear power in New Zealand waters, for another three years.

Anyway – that was a lot of words to describe a game of rugby, coming from somebody who has traditionally shunned such things.  So onwards, with only a small (well, not really so small) portion of myself wallowing in the glory of 4.5 kilograms of gilded silver.  I eventually left the pub, once I felt comfortable that I could walk without falling to my knees with relief.  Walked back to the main plaza of Lille – taking congratulations from a couple of random passersby.  And sat in the sun, my back to the central fountain, reading a book.  Of course – I had partaken in quite a few pints during the game – and when I rejoined that book a couple of days later, I discovered that I had little to no memory of the majority of it.  But  I read my book, Silver Fern proudly displayed on my chests, sneaking into McDonalds to use the toilets every 20 minutes, daring somebody to even try and burst my bubble.  Nobody did.  I eventually made my way to a restaurant for some more mussels, a couple of leisurely wines – and decided it was time to make my way to the train station.  I was kind of right, but very nearly wrong.  As in, I got to the station, but they told me I was too late.  Until a nice man spotted the All Blacks shirt – and told me to follow him.  He then essentially led me through back passages, forced the customs guy to stamp my passport without filling out the necessary documentation, and led me straight onto the train.  Sacre bleu – how gracious can somebody be in defeat?  So – many many thanks to France, for making my visit as good as it could be, for really turning up to the final, for being – well – French, and for eventually letting us win.  And don’t listen to the trash-talking cheap media – we all know they’re scum.

And then, sadly, I was back in Ingerlund – my head still spinning from the mornings events, and the beers/wine.  Got a little lost finding my way home – but got there in enough time to drop my stuff off, send some drunken text messages trying to get people to join me at a gig that night – but eventually made my way to north London all alone.  To watch Michael Franti & Spearhead.  This was at Koko, which is only surpassed by Royal Albert Hall as being the most awesome venue.  And of course, I can’t watch a gig without some red wine – so I slowly became even more intoxicated, making my memory of the gig rather hazy.  But from what I do remember – it was fairly good.  Michael Franti was barefoot, and walked into the crowd on multiple occasions, and maybe even invited the crowd onto the stage for the last song?  Or maybe my brain made that up in a desperate attempt to please.  I do remember him giving some good solid hippie speeches, and my drunken brain coming to the horrible realisation that there was no way good old fashioned hippies, and the current protests – would ever really change anything, and that what was actually needed was a worldwide catastrophe – natural, man-made, or even just social – so that society could be rebuilt from the ground-up.  And even then, I’m sure that human (animal) nature would eventually result in the same self-centred society we have now.  (Read the previous with emphasis on the self-pity and hypocrisy).  Oh – and after checking youtube videos – there were also giant yellow balls.

Monday morning – I went to work.  Apparently – because I haven’t been fired or reprimanded.  But to be honest – my head was still in quite the daze, and I have little memory of Monday at all.  But I had two days to recover, before the glut of gigs started again.  Wednesday – it was a group of scots named Sons And Daughters.  A gig which was originally scheduled for Heaven (the same venue as Band of Skulls) – but was moved to Dingwalls, where we saw Don McGlashan last year (or year before?).  I suspect this was due to poor ticket sales – as Dingwalls is much much smaller – and even then, it was a very sparse crowd.  But it was a good set, nice songs – played with just enough crowd banter, etc.  Terrible bar service – really really terrible.  And it reminded me that whenever I head to Camden, I think I would quite like to move there.  Until I spend half an hour there, surrounded by the terribly pretentious twats, and realise that no – nice to visit, wouldn’t live there.

The following night – the only band (to my knowledge) named after MacGyver’s employers – the Phoenix Foundation.  Again – a rather sparse crowd – which I thought strange.  Kiwis usually love to flock out in droves to see any homegrown talent – and these guys are also doing rather well in their own right as an international act.  But yeah – very limited crowd – which allowed Justin and myself to get much closer to the stage than our grumpy old man “bloody kids everywhere” mentality usually allows.  I was already rather drinky after work drinks – and then the barmaid seemed to dislike how much wine a standard “large” pour actually was – so insisted on essentially doubling it – serving me red wine in pint glasses, nearly full.  This was at the Garage – so if anybody is heading there, look for the short fairly pretty barmaid, and order a wine.  In fact – I believe I have a gig scheduled for there next week.  Sweet.  Back to the music – yeah, really good.  If you haven’t checked out the latest album – Buffalo – you should do.  It is really good, an excellent maturation of these guys who have been “gestating” (a word I picked up from somebody else’s review of them) back in New Zealand for some time.

And that has been my week.  With more of the same (minus the overnight jaunt to France) scheduled for this week.  And next week.  And the next.  And the next.  Oh, what a life.

(edit: I realise some of the above got a little over-emotional, and particularly over-political.  Maybe one day I’ll give a full accounting of my political views.  I hate people who say “right-wing are scum”, “hippies are stupid”, etc – without any reason to backup that view.  That is just social-attitudal racism.  So maybe, one day when I’m bored, I’ll attempt to justify my views.  I still feel guilty after telling certain members of my family “If this country votes in John Key, I will leave – and not come back until New Zealand wakes it’s fucking ideas up”… and then realising that every single one of them was going to vote National.  Yeah – um, sorry for that.)

So – I figure the best time to write about my most recent jaunt into Europe is while I’m fully regretting it.

I’m currently trying to write the documentation to support the work I did the other week.  And I hate writing documentation.  Even writing the kind of document which I would want to receive (ie: a list of specific stuff.  This was set to that.  This: 1.  This: 23.  This: 100.  Reading it: Perfect – all I need to know on a single page.  But writing it: what order do I put it in?  What’s the most logical tree structure?  Aaaarrgh!)  Sorry – mind is frazzled from trying to write my most hated of documentation – long wordy descriptions of what should be short one-liners – and with screenshots.  Oh – now you’ve got me started on screenshots.  I view screenshots as the vice of the lazy documenter, and the crutch of the incompetent reader.  Unfortunately – I’ve been specifically requested to include screenshots.  Hence my presumably imcomprehensible rambling about this shit that you certainly don’t care about.

Anyway – all this started with my trip to Madrid last time.  And then two weeks ago – another trip.  This time – a ridiculously early train to Paris.  Straight to the office, work until late.  Then to the hotel.  And my room has a balcony (ish) with a view of the Arc de Triomphe.  (And really, no offence, but where did the French borrow the nerve to build a monument to Triumph?)  But anyway – a rather long day – and that pretty much just set the scene.  Essentially a week of spending 16 hours a day with work colleagues – who aren’t even my own work colleagues, and for whom english is not their first language.  Which would normally be all fine – but with me having very little sleep already – it was just that slightly too tiring to cope with for an entire week.  Anyway – enough whinging.  First day ended with some bieres and what-not.  And the next few days – long days in a small office in suburban Paris – miles away from anywhere – then back into central Paris to drop off bags, and then head to random places for dinner.  Who has a few days in Paris – so decides to travel all the way across town to a burger restaurant?  But I managed to escape eating a burger – and had steak tartare instead.  All good.  And crepes.  And I saw the Eiffel Tower, and Notre Dame, and things like that.  I would nearly cross Paris off The List – except I was too tired to enjoy any of it – and I didn’t see the Louvre.

Oh – and I managed to watch some of the opening rugby matches – streaming over internet.  A lot of my screenshots (grumble grumble whinge whinge) – are great – each showing two monitors, one full of nerd-action, the other with a snapshot of the morning’s rugby.  And the other light-hearted aspect which will hopefully counter-balance the above crazy ramblings – was the exchange of language between myself and my spanish workmates.  I taught them the word “cleavage” – (by special request – with meaning conveyed with a lot of hand gestures and imitation) – while they attempted to teach me – well, some terrible terrible phrases.  Which I was too tired to remember – sadly.  I remember what they meant – and I just don’t know what to think about a culture which would say things like that.

But finally – it was Monday – with a lovely 6am flight to Madrid.  Where I headed to my hotel, thinking I would just be able to leave my suitcase there, and head to the office – and check-in later.  But no – they let me check in at 9am or so – which allowed me to have a shower and head to the office.  Which shouldn’t have brought me so much joy – but I’m pretty sure I would have fallen asleep at the desk otherwise.  But yes – two more days in Madrid – this time out in the suburbs – and then finally back to London.  On a 5am flight – landing at London City airport – just in time for a taxi straight to my ‘usual’ client – and get in at 10am, in order to help a vendor who’s come in especially for the first big piece of work on my current project.  And yeah – I wasn’t particularly “on the ball” that day.

But that’s what you get when you’re some kind of jet-setting business traveller like myself, I guess.

Oh – and did I mention that immediately after work on my day of return – I then headed off to my first fencing lesson?  Luckily we didn’t get given any solid time with epees, foils, sabres, or the such on that night.  But I made up for it the next week – when I knew that we would be handed our first swords – by having a few wines beforehand.  This behaviour was correctly summed up with the comment “You’re a retard”.  It wasn’t my fault – there were work drinks to welcome/farewell somebody visiting from India.  Who doesn’t drink.

Hmm?  Yes – I’m attending fencing lessons.  En guarde!

Sorry everybody.  I’m tired, bored, and probably got a bit of the old heat-stroke.  So – sorry for the rambling mess which follows.  It’s a fraction of what I’d like to discuss with Evan, but far too much for anybody else to have to put up with.  I’m too scared to re-read what’s written below – because I just know it’s disjointed delirious drivel.  But some bullet points beforehand, so you can skip the rest of it if you wish.  I would recommend: yes.

• Summer seems to have arrived in Ingerlund.  Hooray.
• Give money to my sister.  I will match every dollar you donate, if you let me know.  And – you’re not really giving money to my sister – but you’re giving money to the Kids.  And you know that these kids will be more likely to want to work in medicine when they grow up, to cure cancer and stuff – so you’re really donating to the kids, AND to cure all sorts of stuff.  It’s like donating to every charity at once.  It’s a bargain.

In case you missed “evan smith”‘s rebuttal to my informative & educational expose on snakes - here you go:

• ok heres the deal snakes all of this that you just spent on writting was a watse of your time as well as my time for reading it. Second thing snakes are not things that go around killing things all the time. Their just doing what they suppose to do in order to survive.Trust me on this one. i own two of them and they dont try to eat me or my mother or my father.I bet you know almost any thing about them.the thing is that they only eat onc a month not every day they only eat what they need for that one time.Oh all of that stuff about making them extinct yea no here loke at it this way what if there was a being that didnt like us hu. that wanted us extinct that sounds nice hu?Oh and how long where they on earth be fore we even lerned how to even walke on two legs and then because of your little fear of these animals it give you the god given wright to kill all of them off no it doesnt so there you go Oh one more thing I LOVE SNAKES so there you go get over it panzy

As you may notice – I decided not to edit the piece – as I honestly would have no idea where to begin.

At first – I thought “evan smith” was a certain person I know trying to wind me up.  Although I figured I was being quite generous in granting this person the possession of the imagination it would require to create the above.

So – before we get to dissecting his counter-view on snakes – let’s examine what we know about “evan smith” the person.

1. “evan smith” calls himself “evan smith”
2. yet “evan smith” has an email address named not “evan smith”, but rather after an anime/manga character
3. “evan smith” utilises an Internet Provider based in Alabama – which is one of the so-called ‘United States of America’
4. “evan smith” uses “myspace.com” as his URL
5. “evan smith” likes snakes

So – what conclusions can we come to?  Now – I’m torn between being honest here, or being kind.  I mean – it is kinda like kicking a puppy, isn’t it?  But – I think we can all be fairly safe that “evan” isn’t going to read this.  So – my next fear is the amount of other people I’m going to offend.  I’ll tell you what everybody – before you get offended – here’s my official response to “evan” – which you can take to be directed at yourself also:

“Very sorry evan – that I disparaged snakes, which obviously mean a lot to you.  Please accept my apology – and believe me when I say that anything I write here under the tag of ‘Rants’ should not, I repeat NOT, be taken seriously.  I will use unfair stereotypes, generalisations, exaggeration – and sometimes outright lies – in order to support whatever nonsense I am spouting.  Except when it comes to snakes.  Snakes are nasty.”

Right – back to figuring out what makes “evan smith” tick…

Okay – he’s from Alabama.  I did a quick search for famous people from Alabama – to see what kind of people this area produces.  The list was dominated by two definitions: “NASCAR driver”, and “white supermacist and co-conspirator in the 16th Street Baptist Church Bombing”.  Next, I try to narrow it to musicians – as I like to propogate a very simple (and very simplistic) theory that one can judge states by their main musical export  eg: New Zealand = Crowded House.  Australia = Akka Dakka.  Anyway – Alabama… Wikipedia lists two subcategories under “Musican groups from Alabama” – these are “Alabama Heavy Metal musical groups” and “Alabama rock music groups”.  I’ve found all I need to know about Alabama, I think.  I mean when Neil Young sang about her, I hear old Neil put her down.

Oh – sorry – one more thing I felt necessary to research about Alabama.  After re-reading evan’s written piece – I felt a sudden urge to do a quick check on education in Alabama.  An interesting fact: I found that Mississippi has the lowest high school graduation rate in the ‘United States of America’.  But back to Alabama.  Well… Alabama can be proud to have a higher rate of high school graduation than Mississippi.

So – at this point, we know there is a 25% chance that evan has not, and never will, graduate high school (based solely on state-wide statistics, ignoring other evidence such as his style of prose).  But in case he’s still hoping (fingers crossed buddy) – here’s a few pointers:

• That first scramble of words until the first full-top… I don’t know what that is, and I’m not sure how to help with that bit sorry.
• “writting” & “watse” are not words – I think you meant “writing” & “waste” – perhaps simple typographical errors?  Fair enough.
• This one is for everybody – please don’t use “Their” when you mean “They’re”, or vice versa.  It may seem like punctuation/spelling prudery – and sure, it may be.  But – it IS wrong.  Which means that if somebody knows the correct meaning of punctuation/spelling – an initial reading just makes no sense.  Take note:  “Their” is a possessive adjective.  Or – in Alabama english, it is used when “They” own something.  So – one might say “The Irish hired a crazy Scotsman named Patrick to get rid of all the snakes, because the vicious little serpentine bastards were eating all their babies”.  Or – to make it easier – just remember the correct meaning of “They’re”.  This is the easiest one to remember – because it’s actually two words, both of which I’m sure you know.  “They” & “are”.  The apostrophe has been used to replace the “a” so that us lazy folks can amalgamate the two words into one syllable.  Okay?  “they’re” = “they are”.  Easy.  “I hate snakes because they are cold-blooded killers” = “I think we should eradicate all snakes becauase they’re obsolete in the modern ecosystem”  I will leave it to you to figure out what “there” means.  But here’s a hint – it’s spelt like “here” – but with another letter.
• Time out:  sorry about that little outburst.  But the whole their/they’re/there thing really does get to me.  I honestly have to re-read any sentence with errors in it a couple of times – because I’m just assuming it will be written in English.  My own punctuation/spelling is not perfect – I accept that, and I’m sure some of you will be able to put together a dozen or so mistakes from this post.  Go on then, jerk.  But at least I try.  I do the English.
  
• The word “i” should always be capitalised.  That means it will be big and tall, like so: “I”.  You’re big and tall, aren’t you evan?  Then make your “I” big and tall and strong.  Also – it just rubs salt into the wound when it’s also the first word of the sentence.  You know that the first word of a sentence should be capitalised, don’t you evan?  Did you think that if there are two rules both saying that a word should be capitalised – then they cancel each other out?  They don’t, evan – they don’t.
• Speaking of which, evan, why don’t you capitalise your name?  You should, you know – it makes one seem like a real person.  Are you a fan of ee cummings, perhaps?  Something makes me think not so.  Anyway – those stories about him legally changing his name to remove the capitalisation are all lies.  He just signed some poems withough capitalisation – perhaps because he was lazy, perhaps out of humility when he’d realise it was shit.  Anyway – he was a yankee.  You don’t want to imitate a dirty yankee, do you Evan?  You’re a good solid southern dust-kickin’ boy, ain’t ya Evan?
• “I bet you know almost any thing about them.” – I’m going to interpret this as poetry Evan.  I think your intention is clear, and it is portrayed in a most lyrical manner.  I bet you know almost any thing about them.  Beautiful.
• Okay – your closing statement, or series of statements.  “Oh all of that stuff about making them extinct yea no here loke at it this way what if there was a being that didnt like us hu. that wanted us extinct that sounds nice hu?Oh and how long where they on earth be fore we even lerned how to even walke on two legs and then because of your little fear of these animals it give you the god given wright to kill all of them off no it doesnt so there you go Oh one more thing I LOVE SNAKES so there you go get over it panzy“.  Once again – poetry.  But I would like a little more structure here Evan.  I’m not sure when to pause for breath.  Or is that the point?  Regardless – get rid of the “w” from “wright”.  Remove the space from “be fore”.  Strip the “e” from “walke”.  Maybe add an “h” to “yea” – but maybe that’s a dialect thing.  No biggie.  I assume “loke” is supposed to be “look”.  I don’t know what “hu.” is – or if the full-stop is in the right place.  That bit really does confuse me quite a bit.  I think I’ve decided it’s supposed to be “huh?” – considering the context of both this and the subsequent appearance.  Finally, try spelling “lerned” as “learnt”.  I know – all very pedantic – but seriously, it helps Evan.  It helps.
• I didn’t want to split up the last piece – so included it all above, but I think I can safely say that the following can be logically seperated for the purpose of discussion: “Oh one more thing I LOVE SNAKES so there you go get over it panzy“  Yes, well.  Firstly Evan – please be careful.  Snakes are not capable of emotion.  They do NOT love you back.  They may pretend to.  Oh – they will pretend to love you.  But then one night – you, your mother, your father – everybody – will be found lying dead in your caravan/trailer – one little snake mouthful taken from you – to keep your little snake fed for a month while it makes it’s getaway.  I’m telling this to you as a friend Evan.  Despite, or perhaps because, of you calling me a panzy.  Is this a very clever joke Evan?  Have you surplaced the central hinge of the word “pansy” with the initials of my homeland – creating the word “paNZy”?  Very good Evan, very clever.

So – pedantry over.  It’s for Evan’s own good.  He needs to know these things, to become not just another Alabama statistic.

And Evan – what up with anime/manga?  That stuff will rot your brain.  The Japanese are crazy Evan – absolutely batshit insane.  Don’t trust them.  Remember Pearl Harbour Evan?  The Japanese were responsible for that.  Oh yes – without the Japanese, Ben Affleck might have faded into obscurity, and we’d never have to have seen his smug fat face ever again.  But no – that’s not the case, is it Admiral Yamamoto?  Sorry Evan – Affleck works me up as bad as poor punctuation.  Anyway – manga.  It’s sick.  It will undermine your good fine true christian american beliefs.  How can you believe that God the father of Jeebers personally spoke to George W. and told him to invade Iraq – when your mind is full of teenage girl ninja warriors being seduced by metallic tentacled monsters?  Oh no – Evan, the Fox News syndicate would not approve at all.  Violence Jack is not a good role model.  Whoever is on Pop Idol/X-Factor – there’s a role model.  And you’ve got the same taste in anime/manga characters as Richard Gere.  That’s not cool, Evan.  Namine, Haruno Sakura – gay.  And – please, would anybody call themselves Roy Mustang unless they were over-compensating for something?  (Sorry Evan – I’m making all that up.  I don’t know anything about those characters – they may be fully bad-ass MFs.  Except Roy Mustang – that’s definitely covering for distinct lack of testosterone.)

• If anybody’s got any words of encouragement for Evan – I can pass them on.  Urge him to give high school another go?  Wish him condolences on the upcoming murder of his family by his beloved pets?  Or just put in an order for some moonshine?  You just know he’s got the good stuff.  Whatever y’all feel.
• Snakes still suck.  An unnecessary evil.  The bad guys in ‘Arry Potter – what’s their emblem & favourite animal and what-not?  Snake.  The criminal in The Simpsons – what’s his name?  Snake.  What’s the one thing Junior Jones is afraid of?  Snakes.  Bad guy in Karate Kid III?  Snake.  Villain in Powerpuff Girls?  Snake.  Villain in pretty much every single B-grade movie?  Snake.
• Further rebuttal eagerly anticipated.

ophid·io·pho·bia (n) : \ö-¸fid-ë-(¸)ö-’fô-bë-?\ : abnormal fear of snakes

Okay – I think it’s fairly well known that I hate snakes.  And yes – I think you could say I am scared of them.  And the fear quite likely goes some way towards creating that hate.  But – and this is important – it is NOT an irrational fear, and certainly should not be abnormal amongst other rational humans – nay – beings.

I wouldn’t go so far as to say snakes are evil, per se.  Well… maybe I would.  Because if there is such a thing as ‘evil’ – then the whole spirituality thing comes into play, innit?  So – if I was to subscribe to the ideals of ‘good’ & ‘evil’ – then I would point out that the main ‘baddie’ in the first ever (and still overall) bestselling novel – The Bible™ – was a snake.  In fact – the core and genesis of all evil – representing itself on earth as a snake.  So – did the devil choose to portray himself as a snake, because that’s what tickled his fancy (you know his type – listens to heavy metal down in his cave, probably got a tattoo of a skull with a  snake coming out an eye socket on his bicep hidden by that even more stylish red cape) – OR, did he have no choice in the matter – a snake merely being the natural form attributed to him when he appeared in the Garden?  Either way – not good evidence for presenting snakes as benevolent beings we should have any trust for.

But – laying all aside the mythology – down to pseudo-science.  Researching the scientific term for the phobia of snakes – I came across the following:

“Care must also be taken to differentiate people who do not like snakes or fear them for their venom or the inherent danger involved. A ophidiophobic would not only fear them when in live contact but also dreads to think about them or even see them on TV or in pictures.”

This quote had no citations to back this up.  Because it is nonsense.  It is not irrational to dread thinking about them, or seeing them in TV or pictures.  Try thinking of one now!  Slithering, sneaking, sneaking up on you with malice in it’s gleaming nasty eyes so it can bite you with it’s vicious little teeth – maybe poisonous, maybe not – I don’t care, it’s not cool.  And seeing them on TV or in pictures just reminds one that these monsters are actually real.  For really real real.

Immediately following the above – was the following:

“Recent studies conducted have theorised that humans may have an innate reaction to snakes, which was vital for the survival of humankind as it allowed such dangerous threats to be identified immediately”

This  DID have a citation (from the hallowed National Geographic no less) – and makes a helluva lot more sense.  “innate reaction to snakes”, “vital for the survival of humankind”, “dangerous threats” – the National Geographic don’t just take pretty photographs – they know their shit.

Scientific studies people – pointing out that even the not-so-smart cavemen knew enough to be scared of snakes.  Are you dumber than a caveman?  Christ – they didn’t even know how to hang bead curtains at the mouths of their caves.  But – they DID know enough to know that snakes are ‘dangerous threats’.  And – they weren’t selfish.   Sure – Peking Man could have pretended he wasn’t afraid of snakes – and gone to show off in front of that hot Woman X teasing a viper or something – hoping to get back to her place (got one of them new ‘Fire’ you know), but he didn’t.  No – instead, he settled for someone a little dowdier, not so high maintenance.  And he stayed alive – “for the survival of humankind”.  Thinking of the children.  Thanks, Peking Man (sorry – xie xie, Beijing Man).

Snakes are not cool.  They’ve got no legs!  Look at Heather Mills.  She’s got one leg, and she is at a ridiculous level of psychosis, nastiness, and just not-cool.  So, via extrapolation – you’ve got to imagine ‘no-legs’ takes things to yet another level.  A level where the venom isn’t just crazy paranoid rambling – but actual poisonous kill-you-dead venom.  A level where the nastiness isn’t just spewing out bile in crazy television interviews – but sneaking around in the grass, up drainpipes, under beds, in rubbish, kitchen cupboards – and then striking out with nasty sharp fangs.  I would say – A level where the greed isn’t just “I’ve got more money than anybody could spend – but let’s go for more, and some reputation maybe” – but more “there’s a big piece of meat a thousand times my size – let’s kill it and take one bite out of it”.  Except, it can’t be greed.  A snake knows perfectly well it can’t eat me  (Well – an anoconda could at a stretch) – it’s trying to kill me for fun.  Nasty, nasty piece of work.

Snakes are cold-blooded.  You know where else the term ‘cold-blooded’ pops up?  “Cold-blooded killer”.  That’s not a coinicidence.  Snakes are killers, by their very nature.  We already know they’ll kill you even knowing they can’t eat you.  It’s just what they do.  And I don’t think it’s too bigoted to say – I don’t like that.  I don’t like things that just want to kill me – for no reason other than wanting to kill me.  I’m alright.  In fact, some people would rate me above average [citations needed].  But snakes want to kill me!  It just isn’t right.

Now – the whole cold-blooded thing – you might take the logical extension of this, and state “well, by that logic – all reptiles & fishies and what-not are killers”.  Well – yes, you’re right.  Sort of.  They all WANT to be killers.  Only some have the capability.  Take the Tuatara.  I love them – and would become an illegal international endangered species trader in a second if I could find one to purchase.  BUT – I would have no illusions.  If one of those suckers developed venom, or opposable thumbs and tool-making capabilities – I would be murdered within the day.  Just look at all the things in the world that can kill you.  Mammals – plenty of big strong things that can kill you if you endanger their young, or if they’re just hungry.  Reptiles, fish, insects, archnids – heaps and heaps of little things, big things, medium-sized things – that can kill you in various strange, painful, masochistic fashion. Piranha.  Candiru.  Spiders.  Insects.  Electric eels.  Stingrays.  SNAKES.  Not one of these could you stand up against in a fair bout of fisticuffs.  A tiger, lion, bear or elephant – I would give myself a chance of survival with a bit of the old rough-and-tumble, and a fair fight.  But – if that blood is cold, you got no chance – because you’re fighting a dirty little cheat, who probably killed you before you saw it.

So – what are we to do about it?  We can’t just get rid of all the snakes, can we?  YES – we can.  There are estimates that between 35-150 much cooler species become extinct every day.  So – a few species of snake in such a wildly varying estimate range would be alright, wouldn’t it?  Oh yes, oh yes – we can’t just go making things extinct willy-nilly – we don’t know the impact on the ecosystem, right?  Yep – agree wholeheartedly.  However – we know what snakes brought to the ecosystem.  They kill things.  The little ones kill mice, and the bigger ones kill anything they see.  Well – will that be sorely missed?  We’ve invented mousetraps, right?  We’ve invented right-wing pickup-truck driving hunters.  I think we’ve got the whole killing thing covered.  Snakes are obsolete.

And that is what I think about snakes.

By Micheal Kruse Age: 33