I King

Enero 31, 2003

Reminiscences

I walked by a dougnut shop this morning, as I do most mornings (they're rather ubiquitous in this city of yours), and my mind was suddenly overtaken by a memory of many years past. As it's a rather amusing tale and involving our one and only King, I thought I'd share it with you.

King and I spent a summer in England together about five years ago. Not a lot of people know that, but it's true. Anyhoo, we were staying out in the Home Counties, those provincial regions that hug the circumference of London town. One beautiful summer's day, we arranged to meet our chum Leonard in the Metropolis. We arrived at around lunchtime and proceeded to wander around the city in an aimless yet enjoyable way for a number of hours, chatting, gawking and cavorting as three lads are apt to do. At some point it was decided to stop for a pint, a harmless past-time done throughout Christendom from time immemorial. We found a nice little boozer somewhere near Covent Garden and sank a few, slaking our self-induced thirst. A gaggle of around seven people sat down beside us, plonking an enormous pink plastic bag onto the table. Emblazened on the side of this bag was "Dunkin Doughnuts". I had been in England for about nine consecutive months at this stage, and I must admit I was rather staggered by the sight of a dougnut purveyor's goods in such close proximity to me, as back then doughnuts weren't often found in Merrie Olde Englande. Clearly King was feeling the same way because he tapped the nearest girl on the shoulder and asked, "Are those doughnuts?". Now, perhaps the fact that the enormous pink bag screamed that it contained doughnuts answered his question for him, but the tone that this female used in her answer of "yes" was uncalled for and not very sporting at all in my opinion. King, judging by the look in his eye, was feeling spurned and insulted. Leonard and I attempted to pick up his spirits but to no avail, so we left King stewing in his own juices and conversed between ourselves. After a few minutes, King kicked my leg under the table, and lent in towards me. In a consipratorial whisper he said, "prepare to run". Before I could say, "why?", King had leapt to his feet, knocked his stool over, grabbed the enormous pink plastic bag of doughnuts and made a beeline for the door. I was fast on his tail while Leonard, not hearing King's warning, glided gracefully from his seat, bid the adjacent table a good night, and sauntered calmly from the pub. Or so it seemed to me as I chased King down the now darkened street to the tube station, where Leonard eventually caught up to us a couple of minutes later. We now realized that the snotty table hadn't sent anybody to retireve their doughnuts so King was well-pleased with his efforts. Leonard and I were mightily amused by his hijincks and told him so. We separated and King and I made our way to the train station to catch our ride back to the Provinces. The train ride was a picture of communal bliss and solidarity as King walked up and down the train feeding his fellow travellers the four dozen doughnuts liberated from some surly youth workers at a pub in Covent Garden.

Ahhhh, memories...

Posted by Sting at 01:27 PM | Comments (8)

Enero 25, 2003

French Kitty Litter

In French, they call kitty litter "Sanichat", a beautiful name I think. However, a question is begged: What word describes having a conversation with someone about your sanity?

Posted by King at 08:48 PM | Comments (3)

Enero 21, 2003

What Is The Sense Of A Deodorant Campaign? Smell This.

Reading this article reminded me that the people at Speed Stick are idiots. In the TV commercial for their Avalanche deodorant they ask the question: "What Is The Scent Of An Avalanche? Then they tell you that it's: "Icy Cool" and "Refreshing". First of all, neither of those are scents. And second of all, those aren't even good ideas for phony avalanche scents.

I 'm willing to bet that the seven people who died in the avalanche yesterday weren't going: "God, what's that refreshing smell?" More like "THE MOUNTAIN IS COMING DOWN!!! WHAT THE FUUCKKK!!! HOLY MOTHER OF CUNTING CHRIST!!!! WE'RE FUUUUUUUUCKED!!!"

Or maybe they were caught unaware, assuming it was just a powerful new deodorant.

Posted by King at 03:14 AM | Comments (25)

Enero 18, 2003

La Revolucion Nuevo De La Musica

The Barcelona Pavillion is a very meaningful new band -- I mean they're really just starting out, and they're doing very well. Especially in Austria.

I'm not sure that I understand their highly intellectual/post-mainstream/semiotically-saturated attack on what they call "the forced adolescence of 'rock n' roll' culture", but I find it compelling nonetheless. The attention to every detail of the identity and philosophy of the group is impressive. It's hard enough to write and play music, but it's even harder to work conceptually, in a cohesive way, collectively. And the music is good and stripped.

Barcelona Pavillion is playing quite regularly in the Big Smoke I hear, so te esta ojo avizor (keep your eyes peeled). They are gonna be big I think. Maybe not in the States, but I feel like the Scandos might get a hard on for their sound. I don't know about the Spanish -- I have to admit, I don't really know what Spaniards are down with. Except for paella. And gangbangs.

Posted by King at 07:25 AM | Comments (10)

Enero 17, 2003

Cockney sparrows!

Awright me old Julius Caesar's! Why don't you have a butcher's at this then. Hours of fun eh wot!

Posted by Sting at 03:58 PM | Comments (0)

Enero 13, 2003

Paederasses I have known

It grieves me to notify you of this awful occurrence. Pete Townshend is a good friend of mine, and when I say good friend what I mean is that I once stood outside his house in Richmond in the pouring rain on the off chance he'd come outside to pick up some ciggies or grab a pint at the local. Alas, it would appear he was busy doing "other" things. Please reassure me that this is all a plot by the Bee Gees to distract the reading public that the true British musical paederass exposed by American authorities is the recently deceased, hat-wairing Gibb brother.

Posted by Sting at 05:42 PM | Comments (19)

Enero 09, 2003

Engerland!

Last Saturday, I found myself in a fascinating scene. I spent the Christ mass period in old Blighty, the Mother Country, the Sceptred Isle, known colloquially and popularily as "England". And what a fine time I had, let me tell you. Anyway, Saturday I decided to leave my base of London town and bolt North to the former manufacturing centres of the universe, in this case the centre of the steel universe, Sheffield, South Yorkshire. My train left at 7.55 p.m. and I arrived at the gloriously gothic station of St. Pancras about fifteen minutes beforehand. I climbed up the stairs from the tube, bent over by the weight of my ludicrously heavy backpack, towards the train platforms. As I reached the top of the staircase, I looked up into the cavernous concourse and was confronted by the sight of seventy-odd policemen blocking my way. Curious, I thought. After a brief explanation of just where the hell I thought I was going, the local conbstabulary let me through their impressive cordon and I headed, as is only right, to the station pub. My way, however, was barred by a locked door. Peering through the window, I saw the landlord standing on the other side of two heavy glass doors, arms folded with a grim look on his face, shaking his head, confirming that no pre-train bevvie was on the cards for me. Looking around, I noticed a tabloid paper on a nearby bench. Flipping it over to the sports section, I soon deduced what all the fuss was about: FA Cup. This is the oldest football competition around and includes teams from every single level of English football. Massive stuff. Saturday is football day in England but this Saturday was made all the more important by that damn silver cup. St. Pancras is the station that links the Midlands and the Central North to London: Leicester, Derby, Nottingham, Sheffield, Leeds, all are served by this immense railway hub. Looking at the day's matches, I saw that Sheffield Wednesday, Nottingham Forest, and Leicester were all playing teams from the London area. The train scehdule indicated that my train was going to Sheffield via Leicester and another train was going to Nottingham five minutes later. Extreme violence was imminent. Sure enough, a couple of minutes later a group of about fifty Nottingham fans came charging up the stairs I had just climbed, held back by the police cordon. The dogs went mad, barking like hell, causing the old station with its cathedral-like accoustics to reverberate with canine mayhem. Shortly after, a group of Wednesday fans came waltzing into the station, heading towards the train, but passing directly by the cordon. A surge was seen from the mass behind the police, insults were hurled, fingers were wagged, general rage was evident, but the police held them apart. The Wednesday lads (my fellow passengers for the next three hours) hopped onto their train, laughing away contentedly. I looked around me, taking in the marvellous building, erected some 140 years ago, symmetrical, ordered, gothic, and looked at the still seething mass of humanity behind a line of fluorescent yellow-jacketed policemen, their dogs jumping and barking, and thought how strange this scene is. Life in England is a most polar experience.

Posted by Sting at 01:06 PM | Comments (2)

Enero 07, 2003

Top 10 Conspiracy Theories Of 2002

As far as I'm concerned, this shit is the real news.

They might as well change the word "news" to the word "entertainment", the word "entertainment" to a graph that represents varying degrees of an experience similar to boredom, and the words "conspiracy theories", to the word "news".

Posted by King at 01:23 AM | Comments (0)

Enero 03, 2003

One Of These Days

I King will get back on track. It will look better, and there will be things to read when you visit this page. It sucks to return to a page time after time and find that nothing has changed. Change is very important. Though most of us fear it, we must admit, that without it, things become the opposite of interesting, in a hurry. When I , myself, visit the internet these days, I don't know where to go. All I ever check is my hockey pool. My e-mail. And sometimes this porn site. And that's it.

In the future however, I can forsee that I might be inclined to explore the internet more, perhaps, who can really say.

Posted by King at 02:45 PM | Comments (1)