Archive for the 'Uncategorized' Category



31
Dec
09

Goodbye 2009

I can never fucking remember which way around it goes. I mean, there was probably a time when I used to know this shit, and that’s probably why it stuck, but lately, man, who the fuck knows?

The idea is that you’re either an even year kinda person or an odd year kinda person. In other words, you either have good even years or you have good odd years.

When my buddy Stikey first told me this it had a great and terrible significance in my life. I remember at that point in my life (nearly 3 years ago) it all made sense, I could trace all the tragedies in my life back to even years and all the triumphs back to odd years, or was it the other way around?

I don’t fucking know.

All I know is that with each passing year the calendar of your life gets pockmarked with another tragedy or punctuated by another triumph and I guess after enough time, who can remember which years the big ones land on?

Also, who knows the significance of a triumph or tragedies until years and sometimes decades after they have passed?

I don’t fucking know. At times I like to think I know a thing or two about this life, but when I think carefully about that idea, I realise I know very close to fuck all about fuck all.

I wish I could make you smile one last time for 2009 and write a great blog post and a heartfelt send-off for 2009, but I can’t.

Sure, maybe it’s been a shitty year. Maybe that’s the big problem I’m having, trying to look back on a year that had more negative aspects than positive ones and trying to find the brightside.

And no, I’m not talking ‘I’m Mr Brightside’, I’m talking ‘Always look on the bright side of your life’, there’s a difference.

I’ll say this though. Thank you. From the bottom of my black heart, for reading this blog, you don’t know what it means to me.

I never understood how a world so full of people could be such a lonely place, but because of this blog and you reading it, my world at least, feels that much less lonely.

I hope 2010 brings you happiness, health and wealth. I hope it’s everything you could wish for and more than that.

Your buddy ‘ol pal,

 

 

-ST:)

29
Dec
09

This day can be summed up in a mere spattering of words

Ok, ready?

Here is today: wake up, watch Drag me to Hell with Action Jackson, get my ass handed to me in Smackdown vs Raw on the Xbox by Action Jackson, swim some, J-Rab comes home from work, I return the DVDs (we also hired The Boat That Rocked) and we make supper.

Guys, I’m not going to lie to you, nothing happened today. I made some headway on a script I’m working on, that’s about it.

BUT if you wanna know what I think about the two movies I saw, we can definitely go there:

The Boat That Rocked

 

A bunch of loud and unruly middle-aged dudes broadcast rock and pop from a boat anchored off England’s shores while the authorities try and shut them down. It’s a load of dung. If you’ve seen it, maybe you can help me with a few questions I have.

1. Why the fuck did they include the scene where the young guy on the ship nearly shags the chick the fat guy has waiting in the dark for him? How did that add to the story? Not at all as far as I could tell.

2. Why the fuck did they include the entire bit about Simple Simon getting married, then the two guys trying to out-chicken one another and eventually jumping off the masthead into the ocean? How did that add to the story? Another spectacular fail.

3. What was the story about? It sits squarely on the fence between a coming of age theme and the whole rebellious rock and roll theme (perpetuated by a cast of dudes who, like I said, are old enough to be your dad, what the fuck?)

4. What the hell did the young guy do on the ship besides just goof off with the other losers on the ship?

5.  Why the hell was the young dude so happy to get back with his love interest after she arrived on the ship and shagged the fat guy instead of the young dude because he took too long to get a condom? What a dirty little whore, I wouldn’t fucking want her after that.

6. Why were the bad guys so utterly ineffective and unthreatening in every way? They do two things throughout the movie to try and stop the good guys, the first is countered by the good guys instantly and proves totally ineffective and the second shuts down their whole operation.

I dunno. It felt lazy, it felt sloppy. If you liked this movie, I want you to watch the scene where the young guy sits down with the weather and news reader and the totally random other guy after the young guy has just walked in on the chick he was going to sleep with in bed with the fat guy.

Watch that scene and tell me what you saw, cause all I saw was a buncha total losers dunking biscuits in each other’s tea, eating the biscuits with naughty grins on their faces in a kind of ‘cheer up mate’ scene with not a word of dialogue.

Cringe-worthy.

Drag Me To Hell

 

 

Now this was an interesting movie, I’d recommend watching it if you’re a horror fan, but just be warned, the lead actress in it gets a LOT of shit in her mouth. Eyeballs, insects that get puked all over her, embalming fluid, fuck, you name it, she takes it right in the mouth.

Sam Raimi (director of Evil Dead and Spiderman) wrote and directed it and I really like the way he builds tension in the movie. It’s brilliant because his script is nice and lean and you know when everything’s going well and it’s all smiles and ‘Yay it’s over’ that it’s not fucking over and something even worse is just around the corner.

Now I’m indulging in a little more chillin to the max and then bedtime. Big day tomorrow. No idea why.

Later party people.

-ST

27
Dec
09

How to listen to the White Stripes

Buy every album they’ve ever recorded (which, in chronological order are: ‘The White Stripes’, ‘De Stijl’, ‘White Blood Cells’, ‘Elephant’, ‘Get Behind Me Satan’ and ‘Icky Thump’), throw them all into a playlist and play on shuffle for an hour.

People are so bitchy about them, but The White Stripes are a great band. There’s enough variation in the music they write to keep their sound interesting, and Jack White’s lyrics are a cool combination of insightfulness and inanity.

 

 

I’m kicking back with some White Stripes now spending the day swimming, eating mind blowingly good couscous salad (with bacon in there, avo, feta, rocket, chopped butter lettuce, salad dressing and baby Italian plum tomatoes), tidying the flat and playing Torchlight.

It’s the first day that’s actually felt like a holiday since I went on leave on Wednesday.

The weather has been better than perfect. Not a cloud in the sky or a breeze on the wind. Warm and bright and it feels good that J-Rab and I spent the day outside enjoying it and not cramped up inside like we do sometimes.

 

 

Tonight I’m thinking of going bowling. In the words of the Great Lebowski. ‘Fuck it dude, let’s go bowling.’

Later masturbators.

-ST

24
Dec
09

Meeeerrrrryyyyyy Christmas!

It’s been a cu-razy year, but I feel like it’s been a good one and so, to get into the festive spirit of things, I decided to write a Christmas well wishing list of all the people that I think are badass, kickass and have sexy asses:

  • My beautiful, incredible, smart and sexy girlfriend, Jessica Rabbit. You mean the world to me babe, Merry Christmas 🙂
  • My parents for kicking my ass when I need it most
  • My amazing, strong and gorgeous sister who is a voice of calm and understanding when I need it most
  • My somewhat addle-brained but loveable brother who I really should speak more often too – sorry bro, you know how it goes 🙂
  • My nieces and nephews (Mark, Nicola, Robbie and Katie, Stephanie and Amy) that keep me young and remind me that there is magic still in this world
  • My  aunts and uncles scattered from Cape Town to Portugal, you guys keep me (in)sane
  • My friends, who are like brothers to me: Peggles, Wopna, War and Skatter, Stikey and Jacey-Got-The-Aceys, Rikki T, Millerkie, Van Barmann, Pooperoo, Action Jackson – you were the guys back there with me before we even got to the trenches, back when things were free and easy and in some cases I’ve known you for longer than I haven’t known you. For everything, thank you.
  • The fighters, the rock and roll booze hounds and Tambourine men and women of Grahamstown and Thereafter: Graumpot, The Glaze, Guitar Jon, Mr. D, Billy Pineapples, Barbarian! you crazy fuckers, keep the dream alive.
  • Tribeca PR: Irish, Ticklishious, Tree Poon, SheBoss, THE MAEN – GIMME A HUG CHARNA! Nix, EL GUAPO, RIGHT HERE (^5), Num Nums, Trishalicious, Lizeb and Ricora. You have to put up with me way more than most, and that’s pretty damn commendable just on it’s own, nevermind the fact that you guys are the best colleagues and friends I have ever worked with. Merry Christmas.

That’s it from me guys, have an awesome night, be safe, take care and meeeerrrrryyyyyy Christmas!

 

 

-ST

24
Dec
09

Christmas Eve and all is quiet…

The one thing you don’t miss after Christmas passes you by is shopping for and wrapping Christmas presents. There’s a lot of kak you have to go through to get everyone exactly the right present, especially when you’re fighting your way through hordes of zombified Christmas shoppers while R&B remixes of ‘The 12 Days of Christmas’ pump out of every second shop window.

 

 

But the good news is it’s all done and now all there is left to do is enjoy the next two days, eat, drink and boogy on down.

Tonight we’re going to a nice and fancy Christmas Eve party at friends of my parents. My folks assure me it won’t just be fogeys attending and that the food will be excellent so I’m pretty excited about that. I’m just hoping it feels nice and festive for J-Rab, she’s missing her family like crazy and keeps saying that it doesn’t feel like Christmas with them in Boston and us in South Africa.

In other news, I finally got the first couple of paragraphs written for this epic work of fiction I’ve had bubbling in my mind for awhile now and I’m really happy with them. I love those moments when you sit back, admire something you’ve been working on and think to yourself, ‘Fuck, did I just do that?!’

It’s the first step down a road that will take thousands more steps before I get to where I’m going, but when I get there, you’ll hear all about it 😉

I’m belting out a separate post with Christmas wishes cause I’m a big softy like that.

Peace out party people and a meeeeerrrrrryyyyyy Christmas!

-ST

23
Dec
09

The Home Stretch

These are the twilight hours of 2009 in the office. Right now it’s only the Irish man and the Irish woman and me left.

It’s been a good year for our little company and I’ve been proud to be a part of this award-winning outfit of badass PRs. Nothing can fuck with us, there’s nothing we can’t PR, you name it, we’ll PR it and we’ll PR it well.

In other news, this is post number 91 guys, that means in another 9 fucking days we’re gonna hit post 100, hol-ee shitballs! I just used my advanced skills of a mathematician and worked out that that means post no. 100 will happen ON FUCKING NEW YEAR’S DAY!

Wow, that’s rad… except I think I’ll be so fucking wizasted I’ll be incapable of anything, possibly not even living.

 

 

I get these hangovers man, they come creeping up on me in slumber, close their evil claws around my brain, my internal organs and try squeeze the life out of me.

But I always come out tops. Slipping through the cracks, the guy who manages to just squeeze through the closing escape pod door as the spaceship explodes behind him.

I’m listening to Modest Mouse as I write this and I swear to God, ‘We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank’ is one of my all time favourite albums. Just fucking buy that album please, I’m not sure if we can stay friends until you listen to it.

 

 

In fact, I think what’s missing from this year is a post dedicated to SlickTiger’s most underrated albums of 2010. I might get onto that tomorrow. Today it’s 30 degrees outside and all I want to do is hit the open road with J-Rab, drive until we hit the coastline, strip down and jump into the ocean. Then lounge in the sun with a couple cold beers, stare at the sky awhile, think of sweet, sweet fuck all.

My Christmas shopping is about 80% complete, all that’s left to do is wrap everything, which is a total nightmare in itself.

I’m a pro at wrapping stuff up with bubble wrap. Give me 5 meters of bubble wrap and a mountain of product and I’ll work wonders, but normal wrapping paper? That shit is evil. Ask any man, he’ll tell you that getting that shit right is like trying to wrestle a pig lubed up to the max with axel grease.

It gets messy.

Also what’s fucking scary is that I’m getting glasses for Christmas from my old lady. Glasses guys. As in ‘four-eyes’ fucking ‘urkel’ god, how’d I get so old?

 

 

Actually I’m fine with getting old, as a man it’s much cooler when you get older cause you accumulate power and wealth, and therefore men have a way longer shelf life than women because of this.

Sure, there are exceptions to every rule, there are millions of women who become more powerful as they get older and are able to bag young hot guys, but they still have to be in kinda good shape. I’d wager that there are a lot more old, siff fat dudes dating 20 year-olds than the other way around.

Reason why is simple. Women are naturally attracted to powerful men because men like that offer security, wealth and a comfortable lifestyle. The uglier the guy the better in some cases because then the young hottie in question can really get her claws deep into him and control him more easily.

But I tell ya, for everyone of those young hotties that hooks up with a big fat rich older guy there’s probably a young, hot, poor dude in the wings who she’s banging. What do you think kept Europe’s royal bloodlines so strong over the centuries? It was the archers and castle guards and infantry men that the queens were shagging behind hubby’s back.

The world is governed entirely by one ruling principle and that is irony. You need to have a healthy sense of it to get by without losing your mind completely.

Laughter is all we got. You want to fight back against the tyranny and injustice of this world, learn to laugh.

I mean, even from a scientific perspective it makes sense. The world is ruled by opposing forces, we all know this – light dark, god and evil, blah, blah, blah. But we totally overlook the most powerful one, GRAVITY.

Fucking gravity, that relentless bastard, bearing down on us, working all the time, pulling us slowly toward the ground and our final resting place. It’s fitting that we bury people, it makes sense that eventually gravity drags you 6 feet under.

Morbid I know. So what’s the opposite of gravity? Levity, lightness and what’s the most powerful form of levity?

Laughter. It’s laughter. If you ain’t laughing, you ain’t living. It’s the only weapon we have.

 

 

Learn to laugh and the world will be a better place because of it.

Ok, enough philosophising from your tiger pal, I got a couple things to get done before I blow this popsicle stand for the year, but tune in tomorrow for more cu-razy shenanigans!

-ST

19
Dec
09

The Saturday Post (Brought to you by SlickTiger)

Thunder is grumbling as I write this and a steady fall of lazy summer rain is drenching the world outside. But here inside there is only quiet and calm as I lie like a big lazy lizard on my girlfriend and she dozes peaceful and warm underneath me.

 

 

Today was a frenzy of Christmas shopping and I’m really happy we got a lot of it out the way. My family is small up here in Joeys so I really just have to worry about presents for the folks and something radass for J-Rab.

I already have it all planned out – what I’m gonna give her, how it’s all gonna pan out and I think it’s going to be the best Christmas ever 🙂

 

 

But I gotta run, Graumpot and M-Class just arrived and they’ll think I’m rude if I just lie here, blogging naked.

Later party people 🙂

-ST

18
Dec
09

If you think your company is rad, think again

I really don’t have much today guys, I’m sorry. 2009 is basically over, I seriously doubt there are many people left actually working right now except for a handful of poor saps like me (says the guy who has no leave left because he used it all up in July / August when he spent 3 weeks in the Algarve in Portugal, yeah, who’s jealous now bitch!).

Ahem! Where was I…?

Oh yeah, so I feel bad because I haven’t written one of those soppy year-end ‘My life in 2009’ or maybe ‘Highlights of 2009’ or even just ‘Please fuck off 2009’ posts, but hey, there’s still another 13 days left of this big, ugly bastard so maybe I’ll get around to it in the space between Xmas and New Year when I’m on leave.

Ahh, leave. Sweet, sweet summer leave. I think I’m going to spend my time off redesigning this site a little, tweaking stuff here and there, adding more pages, making the whole experience more streamlined.

Otherwise I just really want to read and lie in the sun and do as little as possible. Good times 😉

So, with no further ado, lemme show you why my company is 10 times radder than yours could ever be.

May I present to you the newest member of Tribeca PR, Bella:

 

 

Then I came up with an ingenious method of finishing those last few drops of milk that are always left in my cereal bowl:

 

 

Promptly thereafter puppy-lups decided to take a well deserved time out after her exciting morning:

 

 

Guys, it doesn’t get much cuter than that. Remember when life was that simple? Those were good times I tell ya.

Have a killer weekend, good luck with the Xmas shopping and I’ll catch you all for a long, killer Saturday Post tomorrow.

-ST

15
Dec
09

Let’s have a round of applause for Mr Loserpants

The first thing you learn about being a SlickTiger is that it’s impossible to be Slick ALL THE TIME, sometimes you’re just a regular Tiger and sometimes, well sometimes you are Mr Loserpants.

 

 

I feel like Mr Loserpants today because I’m not going anywhere on holiday. Yeeesss yeesss, thaatttss right, laugh, laugh at Mr Loserpants.

This will be the first time in something like five years that I’m actually going to stay in Joburg for Xmas and New Year and not go on a badass adventure somewhere.

I love roadtripping. There’s nothing better than striking out there in your car, hitting the open roads and just driving until all the buildings and skyscrapers fade away. Out there you’ll hear bird calls you never heard and at night when you look up a hundred thousand stars will shine back down on you.

 

 

I’m not a religious man, but I swear, if I had a night sky like that above me every night I could become one.

Out there at night you’ll be lulled to sleep by the sound of the ocean washing up and down the shore and when you laugh it will be easy and it will feel good right deep down inside.

Your days will be spent in the sun, your skin will glow warm as you lounge on a towel, completely immersed in a good book. You can take pleasure in the simple things out there, it’s ok, I won’t tell anyone 😉

You will be free and easy out there, all the shit back here, it won’t matter anymore and you shouldn’t fucking let it.

What I want from you, more than anything else while you’re on holiday, is to imagine a world where we can, all of us, be on holiday all the time. A world where we are not forced into office cubicles in artificial environments all day to breathe in other people’s farts and have to put up with their shitty moods.

You, me, and everyone else that reads, understands and enjoys this blog is better than that.

Make no mistake brothers and sisters, we’re building an arc here, we’re separating the chaff from the grain, this is fucking important. This is fucking important because I know there’s a life everyone one of us wishes we were living instead of the one we are, and fuck, I want you to live that life and I know the only thing stopping you from living that life is balls.

You need bigger balls.

 

 

Hell, so do I, but I’m working on it and I want you to work on it too. There’s something you’re afraid of doing right now, it’s lurking in the back of your mind, maybe you’ve been putting it off for a day, maybe you’ve been putting it off for a year or longer.

Do that thing now. Right now. Today. Stop fucking around and reading this and go do that thing.

Tomorrow we can meet up back here and you can tell me all about it.

Keep on truckin’ 😉

-ST

08
Dec
09

Loving the haters

When I started down this road, about 3 months back, I can honestly say I was a different tiger entirely from the slavering beast that now sits facing my laptop screen.

 

 

Back then I was full of wonder, hope and was known on occasion to fart rainbows. Being a blogger has changed all that and I’m all the better for it.

One of the biggest problems writers face is that they are far too over-critical of their own work, often to their own detriment. In a way this is a good thing because otherwise just about anyone who could wield a sentence would be out there, guns blazin’, firing off a whole load of codswallop (love that word, say it with me, codswallop) and defending it with the time-honoured cop out, ‘Well like this is just my opinion you suck.’

Oh wait… I think I just described the internet…

But anyway, my point here is writers are precious. They’re a quiet and secluded bunch who hang out in dark corners at parties scribbling mostly unintelligible purple prose on cocktail napkins only to leave two hours later, blind drunk and alone.

 

 

And it is for this reason that I would encourage any wannabe writer to start blogging. Blogging is the single best way to a) Find your voice as a writer and b) Interact directly with your audience.

Think about what a difference this simple function of blogging would have made in the lives of millions of struggling writers throughout history. It’s an incredible moment when you fly right out there, post the most crazy-assed shit you can possibly muster, and instead of being greeted by general disapproval and criticism, receive positive comments from complete strangers who understand 100% where you’re coming from.

 

 

Of course, there is the other side of the coin where you post what you firmly believe is an excellent post, worth of some kind of literary award, and some fucking mouth-breather who doesn’t even understand the basic rules of sentence construction and punctuation jumps in there and in his best rhetoric responds with, ‘YOUR A TURD!!!! LMFAO, PWNED!’

This too is a good thing, because if nothing else, it should serve as a reminder that you are far better than these people in every conceivable way. Don’t climb in there and throw shit back at them, you’ll only get your hands dirty.

Three months ago a negative or overly critical comment felt like a death-blow to me. The voice that speaks to me inside my head (that sounds like Humphrey Bogart) would read the comment over and over again to the point of obsession. Then I would go out, get good and drunk and punch the first person who looked at me funny.

 

 

It was a crash course in growing the fuck up and I’m glad I went through it. Now when I write something that sparks off a few dozen comments about what a jerk I am, I really enjoy it.

It means that I’ve shaken people up and that’s never a bad thing. You gotta love the haters because they shout louder than anyone else out there on the interwebs and get you famous twice as fast.

It’s a sad fact of life but notoriety sells because, like they used to teach us back in Journ 101, if it bleeds, it leads.

And to quote one of my favourite movies of all time:

“This is blood for blood and by the gallon. These are the old days, the bad days, the all-or-nothing days. They’re back! There’s no choice left. And I’m ready for war.” – Marv, Sin City.

Words to live by 😉

-ST