Why do I still read mX?
I’m glad you asked.
It’s simple. If you pan for long enough, every now and then you strike a rich vein of pure gold. And Monday 19 February 2007 was the day it finally happened.
Exhibit A would be this little story, entitled “Vanilla Vice Vice Baby” because any variations on the “Ice Ice” theme never gets old. Here it is in full:
“Vanilla Ice put on a drunken show at a New York Club on Saturday, the New York Post reports. Ice and his crew of five put away bottle after bottle of Jagermeister, and when he took the stage, spies said, he began screaming obscenities at clubbers.”
I thrilled that Vanilla Ice is still doing shows around 14 years after his career peaked with a non-speaking-unless-rapping-counts part in “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2: The Secret of the Ooze”. That alone would have pleased me endlessly. But I am even more pleased that he is clearly still living the dream, and that people who actually went to a Vanilla Ice show in the year 2007 had abuse hurled at them, even if it was hurled by the one person in the world who had absolutely no right to do so.
And we simply can’t leave this story without noting that mX apparently believes that the audience was full of “spies”. Yes, they pluralised it. Who on earth is spying on Vanilla Ice shows? Seriously, do we believe that the choreography department from “So You Think You Can Dance" were there taking notes in preparation for the release of “Ice Ice Benji?”* Were the remaining members of Queen sneaking in so they could steal back their own bassline after taking Bono’s comments at the start of Rattle and Hum far too literally? Were the Food and Drug Administration secretly investigating an anonymous tip that someone was planning to start cooking MCs like a pound of bacon without wearing a hair net? Will this ever stop?**
Surely, surely that was the high point of Monday’s edition of mX? No, there’s more.
A regular and usually pretty frustrating feature of mX is their “My Platform” section, where they ask a relatively inane question and clearly have decided that for efficiency’s sake they will print the first three answers they get NO MATTER WHAT.
So, in response to the question “If you could take anyone on a date, who would it be?”, answers one and two were “Jessica Alba. Because it’s Jessica Alba” and “Hugh Grant, there’s something mysterious about him.” Adam Eddington of Richmond, you are either a philosopher or quite lazy. Would it really have been so hard to come up with “Because she was in ‘Idle Hands’ and I want to ask her if Seth Green is as funny in real life as he was on Buffy”? And Laura Walters of St Kilda, what is so mysterious about Hugh Grant, other than the intriguing question of why so many filmmakers have apparently needed someone to play the role of Hugh Grant?
Fortunately, this otherwise unsatisfying segment was rescued by David McColl, the 21 year old concierge from Brunswick West, who answered “My girlfriend, of course”, which makes him my official nominee for Seriously Sweet Dude of the Month.***
BUT WAIT THERE'S STILL MORE.
No visit to the land of mX is complete without a visit to the letters page. And that’s where the finest piece of correspondence in the history of the world ever was to be found. And it said:
“Whenever I buy a DVD I have to sit through a trailer telling me not to watch pirate movies. Yet Johnny Depp stars in one and the posters all say it is a must see film. Please make up your minds, Hollywood moguls. – Craig, CBD
Regular readers of this blog are no doubt wondering if I wrote that letter. No, I did not. That letter was written by Craig, and I am clearly not Craig.
This did make me wonder if I had a long lost identical twin brother, which makes sense if you think about it. Presumably my mother christened me “I’m not Craig” so people would not get the two of us confused.
In any case, Craig from the CBD, we salute you for not only having the sheer nerve to submit this appalling dad-joke for publication, but for finding the one place where such a travesty would actually get published (other than this blog right here, obvs). And I am lost in admiration when I pause to consider that you not only wrote this joke, but you then had the stunning audacity to suggest that every mogul in Hollywood was at fault here.
If we ever meet in real life, Craig from the CBD, I will rush to buy you a beer just before the entire universe explodes.
* This is actually a great idea and if they haven’t thought of this yet they really should have someone please ring Mary Murphy right now.
** Yo, I don’t know.
*** We may run this competition every month from now on. Nominations are now open, etc.
It’s simple. If you pan for long enough, every now and then you strike a rich vein of pure gold. And Monday 19 February 2007 was the day it finally happened.
Exhibit A would be this little story, entitled “Vanilla Vice Vice Baby” because any variations on the “Ice Ice” theme never gets old. Here it is in full:
“Vanilla Ice put on a drunken show at a New York Club on Saturday, the New York Post reports. Ice and his crew of five put away bottle after bottle of Jagermeister, and when he took the stage, spies said, he began screaming obscenities at clubbers.”
I thrilled that Vanilla Ice is still doing shows around 14 years after his career peaked with a non-speaking-unless-rapping-counts part in “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2: The Secret of the Ooze”. That alone would have pleased me endlessly. But I am even more pleased that he is clearly still living the dream, and that people who actually went to a Vanilla Ice show in the year 2007 had abuse hurled at them, even if it was hurled by the one person in the world who had absolutely no right to do so.
And we simply can’t leave this story without noting that mX apparently believes that the audience was full of “spies”. Yes, they pluralised it. Who on earth is spying on Vanilla Ice shows? Seriously, do we believe that the choreography department from “So You Think You Can Dance" were there taking notes in preparation for the release of “Ice Ice Benji?”* Were the remaining members of Queen sneaking in so they could steal back their own bassline after taking Bono’s comments at the start of Rattle and Hum far too literally? Were the Food and Drug Administration secretly investigating an anonymous tip that someone was planning to start cooking MCs like a pound of bacon without wearing a hair net? Will this ever stop?**
Surely, surely that was the high point of Monday’s edition of mX? No, there’s more.
A regular and usually pretty frustrating feature of mX is their “My Platform” section, where they ask a relatively inane question and clearly have decided that for efficiency’s sake they will print the first three answers they get NO MATTER WHAT.
So, in response to the question “If you could take anyone on a date, who would it be?”, answers one and two were “Jessica Alba. Because it’s Jessica Alba” and “Hugh Grant, there’s something mysterious about him.” Adam Eddington of Richmond, you are either a philosopher or quite lazy. Would it really have been so hard to come up with “Because she was in ‘Idle Hands’ and I want to ask her if Seth Green is as funny in real life as he was on Buffy”? And Laura Walters of St Kilda, what is so mysterious about Hugh Grant, other than the intriguing question of why so many filmmakers have apparently needed someone to play the role of Hugh Grant?
Fortunately, this otherwise unsatisfying segment was rescued by David McColl, the 21 year old concierge from Brunswick West, who answered “My girlfriend, of course”, which makes him my official nominee for Seriously Sweet Dude of the Month.***
BUT WAIT THERE'S STILL MORE.
No visit to the land of mX is complete without a visit to the letters page. And that’s where the finest piece of correspondence in the history of the world ever was to be found. And it said:
“Whenever I buy a DVD I have to sit through a trailer telling me not to watch pirate movies. Yet Johnny Depp stars in one and the posters all say it is a must see film. Please make up your minds, Hollywood moguls. – Craig, CBD
Regular readers of this blog are no doubt wondering if I wrote that letter. No, I did not. That letter was written by Craig, and I am clearly not Craig.
This did make me wonder if I had a long lost identical twin brother, which makes sense if you think about it. Presumably my mother christened me “I’m not Craig” so people would not get the two of us confused.
In any case, Craig from the CBD, we salute you for not only having the sheer nerve to submit this appalling dad-joke for publication, but for finding the one place where such a travesty would actually get published (other than this blog right here, obvs). And I am lost in admiration when I pause to consider that you not only wrote this joke, but you then had the stunning audacity to suggest that every mogul in Hollywood was at fault here.
If we ever meet in real life, Craig from the CBD, I will rush to buy you a beer just before the entire universe explodes.
* This is actually a great idea and if they haven’t thought of this yet they really should have someone please ring Mary Murphy right now.
** Yo, I don’t know.
*** We may run this competition every month from now on. Nominations are now open, etc.
posted by I'm not Craig at 8:44 PM
12 Comments:
Ahem!
What was supposed to be at the bottom of the post, as referenced by "*," "**," and "***?"
Thank you!
I smiled all the way through that post, INC. Thanks. It was good.
clearly all people called craig are pretty fun. as well as all people called i'm not craig, not to make you feel left out.
i seriously wish i could draw a venn diagram of that relationship above.
Oh INCraig,
If you knew me in the real world, you would be shocked to hear how many times I use the phrase:
"In the immortal words of Vanilla Ice, "will it ever stop/yo, I don't know". Usually I get a splutter for using the words "immortal" and "Vanilla Ice" in the one sentence. I like what you did there.
Also: SPIES implies that MORE THAN ONE PERSON went to see a Vanilla Ice show in the first place. Is he now po-mo?
ALSO*: I don't know about anyone else who reads this blog, but I'm pretty sure I almost delete the "I'm Not" from your name subconsciously. Which is why if we were to meet in person and you were really called, say, Derek or as my friend Derek would like to be called, CLINT, it would be something of a shock to me, even though I know you are NOT Craig**. Finding out your name was CRAIG on the other hand, would not surprise me one bit.
* Note increasing urgency/lack of thesaurus.
** Refer to earlier cynicism on this point circa September 2006.
Grover
Sorry Dude. Hope the footnotes were worth the wait.
Meva
It is very nice to know I made you smile. Thanks.
MG
That diagram would have three circles. There would be a very large circle called "pretty fun", with two other circles inside it. One of those would be a medium sized circle called "Craig", and the other would be a really small circle called "I'm not Craig".
The important thing about that diagram is that the medium circle and the pretty small circle would not overlap at all.
Giggles
Regarding Vanilla Ice, I think "spies" = "guys employed to serve drinks"
Also, as you can tell from MG's Venn diagram, you would indeed be in for a surprise if we met, as you would find out that my name is, well, somehing other than Craig.
The assumptions we make about each other as bloggers are always interesting. If I ever meet Harpo, I will be genuinely surprised that he doesn't look like his profile photo (and even more surprised if he does).
It's confusing.
Who says I don't look like my profile shot?
[laughing at harpo's comment and photo]
can i ask a question, inc. and others.
how many of you have met or know each other outside of the blogs?
have you had any blogger eyeballs?*
* please refer to smokey and the bandit phrase-book circa 1974 edition, cq cq good buddies.
Melbournegirl,
To the best of my knowledge, I have never met any of the bloggers who read or comment on my blog.
I don't even have that many people I know in the real world reading or commenting on my blog. It's a bit of a separation of powers on my behalf I suspect.
Of my links, I have only met two of the people in real life, but that predated my involvement in blogging (and I'm not convinced they would recognise me from my blog).
I've been thinking about that a lot lately actually.
MG, I've never met any other bloggers, to my knowledge. And only a couple of people I know are aware that I have a blog.
Harpo
Hey, hi, no-one knows, the mystery deepens once again.
MG
I know one person from my blogroll, as she has been a friend for many years and was our bridesmaid and stuff like that (our best man was, of course, Craig).
I have told a few people I know in real life about this blog. I know that my cousin from Perth has read it at least once.
Another friend of mine left a couple of anonymous comments but I saw him last night and he didn't mention it so I gather he has probably stopped reading.
He also abused me the first time we saw each other after he started reading this blog because one of the first posts he read was the one about streaking to the clothesline. He considered this a less than pleasant mental picture. He also claimed that he needed therapy after reading that but I think that was merely an unnecessarily offensive exaggeration.
I have not had any blogger eyeballs yet, although I am still hoping that one day I will be down at the Bell Park and I will hear someone yelling "Hey John, tell Princess and Gigi it's time to leave" and I will rush over and loudly announce "you don't know me but my name is something other than Craig" and hope like hell it's you I'm addressing rather than some random and utterly freaked out person.
How the wedding planning going?
Gigglewick & Meva
I find this whole idea of bloggers meeting in real life fascinating, so I'm glad that MG asked and you answered. Thanks, as ever.
Dude, man this post made me laugh so hard. I'm not sure I would have found Craig's letter that funny without your editorial comments.... but whoa! the combination of Craigs and Not Craigs is comedy gold.
As you kids would have picked up, I've met a few of the Brisbane bloggers by now and we all get along smashingly. They are probs going to be what I miss most when I move back to Melbs.
Adam
Wooah, I'm so glad you're still with us. I thought we might of lost you when MG and I started solving problems with maths
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