Them's Fightin' Words

What can I say guys? I failed you. I failed you all and I’m a lousy, good-for-nothing faily-failure who gets right to the finish line and then fails.

I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender. I coulda been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am, let’s face it…

I mean things started out well enough. J-Rab and I got all suited up and hit the One & Only for the pre-drinks at 5.30, made some pleasant chit chat with the people there and took sneaky hits off my tartan hip flask when no one was looking, on all counts it was a great start to the evening.

Oh, and did I mention that J-Rab looked smokin’ hot? You feel like the King of the world with that girl on your arm, no shit. You walk in there head held high because you know you’ve got the hottest girl in the place and nothing and nobody can fuck with that.

From the pre-drinks we were ushered downstairs where the blog awards were taking place and given fucking mind-bendingly strong tequila cocktails that went down like a freight train. Naturally I had one or two to take the edge off my nerves and then possibly another one or two because I needed something to do with my hands.

Next thing I knew we were all being asked to take our seats for the awards to begin which they did with an opening address by JP Naude that stressed a number of points to make the poor guy look better in the face of all the accusations being levelled at him that the nomination and voting procedures for this year’s awards were retarded.

Personally I couldn’t give a rat’s ass. I got to the final two in my category so I was happy.

The highlight of my evening was our Honourable Premier Lady Z’s speech she made at the awards. She’s a great public speaker and was actually really funny too which I wasn’t expecting at all.

Then came intermission during which J-Rab turned to me and in no uncertain terms said, “Babe, if you win there’s no question about it, you’ve got to go onstage and drop trou.”

“Huh. That’s a pretty crazy idea.”

“C’mon! You have to do it, this whole awards thing is so stuffy and boring. You have to drop trou if you win!”

“Lemme have a tequila and think about that…”

(3 tequilas later)

“Fuck! You’re a genius! I’m SO dropping trou when I win that fucking award! Ah man, this’s gonna be PRICELESS!”

“Atta boy!”

“I even practised in the bathroom, getting my jeans off, this is gonna be AMAZING!”

And so I marched purposefully back to my seat, really happy that I’d girded my loins with my “Tiger Scants” when I was suiting up earlier (the Tiger Scants are very sexy black undies with a growling Tiger’s face right where your junk sits).

I think there’s only one other pair of undies more badass than the Tiger Scants, but they’ve been universally banned because they killed a subway full of people with their sheer awesomnity.

I was ready. I was going to do it. I was going to unleash the Tiger and I already had four people waiting to give me a standing ovation as soon as my jeans hit the stage.

But yeah, in a profound Sad Trombone moment they didn’t read the name of SlickTiger that night, no, they read the name of Brainwavez and your poor buddy ol’ pal Slick’s hopes and dreams were shattered against the jagged, rocky shoreline of reality where he isn’t the blogging demigod he thinks he is.

He’s just a man with a clunky laptop banging out fightin’ words, a crazy man, maybe one day a great man, but not today.

From there things got a little blurry, but the anti-climax of not being able to drop trou onstage proved too much for me to bear so I spent the rest of the evening dropping my jeans at any given opportunity and “unleashing the Tiger” to large groups of unsuspecting people who reacted in much the same way they would had I unleashed a real tiger.

On that note, if anyone out there on the interwebs manages to unearth pictures of me “unleashing the Tiger” or just any pictures of me and J-Rab at the awards, I’ll reward you handsomely for your efforts by posting the pics IMMEDIATELY and writing a humorous limerick about you that you can show your friends.

Needless to say, we didn’t stick around for long after the awards. I could sense I was dangerously close to committing the kind of Tiger faux pas that gets you tarred and feathered in blogging circles. So we caught a taxi to The Fez instead and boogied on down with some of my closest and oldest friends who consoled me with drinks, pats on the back and kind words like “Fuck those fucking fuckheads man! You did good dude, you got the the top 2 IN THE COUNTRY! I mean that’s fucking impressive, that’s th – wait, are you even listening to me? Oh Christ, the tiger underpants again…”

To sum up, I’d like to quote one of my favourite novels of all time:

It eluded us then, but that’s no matter – tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms further… And one fine morning –

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

This is not the end.

-ST