Thursday, September 28, 2006

Petrol infused cheese


Some people in life are seriously misguided. Others, are just plain stupid. But then, then there's that lovely little wedge of people who are just deluding themselves.

In what could be regarded as the creation of a social black hole, a couple of years ago two of my relatives formed a cunning plan; not any old cunning plan, I might, add, no. For this plan would not involve a weasel, nor cake, nor tequila shots. It's safe to say that psyonide and I were well clear of this plan.

It started off well... it involved wine, cheese, tasty treats, comfortable settings, and extremely expensive high definition stereos. Sounds excellent, right? Yes... until you realise that all of this flagrant display of fine living is a rouse to make the fact that these people are actually just sitting about watching V8 car racing seem less bogan.

At first, they attempted to invite me over for said event, only casually mentioning, nay - dropping, at the end of invitation, the fact they would be watching 5 straight hours of Australian boganism at the same time. I laughed. They were offended. And that's when I realised they were serious.

And it only got worse. Next thing, they started serving food that matched the colour schemes of their favorite racing teams. As if on queue to cover this fact up, they started buying Bob Dylan vinyls and playing them while waiting for the coverage to start. They'd stand about the stupidly expensive turntable setup, with fingers on chins, wine in hand, nodding thoughtfully. The only thing missing from the scene were the black skivvies & berets. I observed in disbelief. It was like there had been some sort of cosmic tear in the universe that had resulted in the concepts of cretinous post-modernism colliding with cronulla drag races to a spectacularly bloody and messy end. I again checked under the cusions for any rogue berets.

It was ridiculous. You could cut the pretentiousness with a knife, yet the whole premise - watching the V8's - deserved nothing more than flannelette & VB. I mean, I don't have a whole lot of problems with V8 racing, but lets be fucking realistic about it, yeah? Have you actually been to any of these races? It involves a lot of flannelette, mostly in shirt, rug and thermos designs. It also involves a lot of people sitting about in the baking sun, the pouring rain - or in the case of Victorian races, both. On deck chairs and picnic rugs. Sometimes sitting in the back of the ute a mate has parked on the hill around the circuit. There are mullets literally everywhere, and I swear that at least half the females are actually named 'Shazza'. There's not a single bottle of wine or round of cheese in sight, either. The closest thing you'll get to that is a Kraft Single in some kids' sanga - or maybe a cheesestik, and VB... found in the hands of just about everyone in attendence over the age of 12. For fucks sake, the only food you can get at these joints that isn't a meat pie is a fucking sausage roll.

'But rantolotl,' you say... 'there's nothing wrong with trying to enjoy your interests in style! Give them a break.' Not a fucking chance. I have no time for pretentious wankers, and this pair have really taken the cake. I know plenty of people who watch, and even enjoy, AFL football. And while I think their taste is at the very least questionable, I have no problem with them. Why? Because they don't try and cloud this fact by wearing fucking tutu's, carrying ribbons and dancing around the room pretending it's a ballet recital. Culture is so inherent in Australian sport - mainly because we're a nation of card carrying nationalist idiots who think this island will fucking sink if we don't passionately declare our love of something stupid and 'Australian' (VB, Footy, Utes or Pies) every ten minutes - but the fact remains, we are overly dogmatic about absolutely fucking everything, and sport is no expection. You can't avoid it. You can't even pretend to avoid it. You just have to embrace it, and clap yourself on the back for being a good sport. Or something like that. Either way, you can't hide the fact with wine and cheese. That only works for book launches.

Their conversation is at best, utterly ridiculous. They rant and rave and carry on, and try and demonstrate that motorsport is an amazingly intelligent sport, not just an elaborate advertisment for car & petrol companies. But no, that's me being cynical again, and not upper crust enough to enjoy the finer points of such a sport. I mean, art.

Oh! Look at me! I have wine and cheese! I can't possibly be a bogan!
Ohhh, yes! that's right! Oh! An ad break, quick! lets talk about something civilised.
Ohhhhhh yes! Lets!
Hahaha, yes, we're not bogans at all!

Wankers.

And you know who else are wankers? And delusional? Those fucking tree-hugging fucking asshat collective of hippies known as 'Ultimate Frisbee'. Equally fucking delusional. At first, I thought to myself, Awesome! People play this competitively! I want in! And then I learnt what they actually do... they just toss a fucking frisbee back and forth to each other. Here I was thinking of bitterly oppossed teams, manning people up and tackling opponents out of catching the disc. Like fris-rugby or Rugbee, for the concise among us. Why the fuck does frisbee not have a real league yet? One that's technically a bloodsport? And then I found it... The League for Bloodsport Frisbee. Fantastic!

Finally, a sport where wine & cheese are welcomed alongside pies & beer.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Fucking lunatics!

Anonymous said...

I used to go to pretentious art exhibitions for the free wine and cheese. Funnily enough the wine didn't make any of the weird "modern art" any easier to understand.

Anonymous said...

I laughed my arse off at this before work today.

Fandango Jones said...

Right at this very moment there is a black gunship knifing through the sky towards Hanover st. full to the brim with Wiki-police and riot gear.
They're coming for you - Wikipedia is not a medium to toy with!

They'll be followed shortly be a flannel-clad lynch mob. With pies.
You may have to eat your way out!

Bozza said...

MMM PIES