Outta my way, jerkass!

Ah, repetition. I'm in Stuttgart again, trying to remember where to put the merchandise. This is my last show in over 2 months, so I'm trying my best to be super-efficient, so as to leave on a good note and not be replaced while I'm on paternity leave. That said, there's not really much to do.

For anyone interested, here's my post from last time I was here- it has ineffectual middle-class terrorists...
http://dancanrant.blogspot.com/2008/02/welcome-to-stud-garden-dont-touch.html

In other news, mothers- hold onto your daughters, rabbits- stay in your holes; I am a motorist...


Yep, I've crashed a couple of cars, but I've never owned one before. I think I managed to pick up a speeding ticket within 5 minutes of getting behind the wheel (stupid 50-zones and signs being blocked by AA vans) but I finally understand the satisfaction a manly-man gets from polishing his throbbing beast on a Sunday morning.
Cleaning the car was alright, as well.

Hey-oh!!

dancanrant - now welcoming perverts

I see someone from not-at-all-repressed footballer's-playground Dubai found their way to my little-viewed site by searching for woman live horse um.. okaaaay. I hope you found what you were looking for. I will now in no way encourage further visits from such degenerates with some alluring labels...

This just in!! Er, it's snowing. In January. Umm, this is awkward. Yep, sorry, we got nothing...

I'm getting confused. I flew home last Sunday (totally surprised my girlfriend by the way- big points) and when I woke up on the tourbus the day of my flight there was a lot of talk about the weather in England. 'Ooh, all the flights are being cancelled, Danny' and so forth. So of course I start shitting it, and since it's meant to be a surprise, I can't ring anyone for a weather report.

I'd noticed on the Hotmail news page doohickey that Britain was 'bracing itself for severe weather' for about a week already. I'd done some checking and it appeared the South was going to be hit and the North would escape. Ha, tables turned! How do you like that, soft southern shites?

Well, turns out they didn't like it one bit. 900 flights cancelled out of London, and even cancellations as far up as Leeds. Since that's only 90 miles away from Newcastle, I was starting to get nervous. Not helped when we spent 30 minutes parked on the runway. Maybe the pilot forgot his packed lunch or something, I don't know.

Anyway, flying over Northumberland and the North East it was all very beautiful and snow-covered but the airport was actually pretty clear. When I got to my house on the coast, there was no snow at all, no sign that there'd been any and no sign that any was on the way. I had expected the shitty weather to catch up to us, calling into question my return journey 3 days later.

I never saw any snow. However I heard that 6million people took Monday off, terrified of the 'treacherous weather conditions'. I know people take a bit of snowfall as a licence to drive like a chimpanzee on RedBull in mating season but, come on. I'm not even in the country, and I had a week's warning about this. Where were the gritters?

It's only snow, people! It melts in your hand! It doesn't crawl up your nose and eat your brain.

Did I miss my medication this week? Did someone spike my Earl Grey? Or do the news shows and papers have so little to talk about that they're turning a weather pattern into a catastrophe?

I dunno. I saw CNN or Skynews or some tripe last night (I'm in Switzerland, by the way, and this was deemed newsworthy?) and they had a computer demo of how icy, vengeful cold winds from the east invaded the coastline and clashed with low pressure surging up from the south resulting in a fearsome struggle between evil and more evil culminating in a clusterfuck of..... er, soft white stuff that fell on the ground, looked pretty for a while and then melted. I felt kind of embarassed for the newsreader.

Big. Fucking. Whup. I've had it with the media.

Watch out people, the sun is going to come out tomorrow. Do you know how hot the sun is? The surface is 5,400 degrees centigrade!!

It's going to rain next week! Sailors have been known to drown!

Piss off. Here's an idea - on days when there's no news, how about just not putting the news on? Just show a couple of episodes of The Simpsons instead, and fill the paper with tributes to me.

What a Fabulous Bastard

My good mate Simon and I have been threatening to write a sitcom together for about 5years. Sadly, I'm not really very funny. But he is, and it looks like he's finally doing something about it.

Crown Prince of Piss

I've been carrying this particular rant around for a few years now. I feel it's finally time to just unleash that bitch and get it out before my hairline recedes any further. *deep breath* Here goes...

I'm sorry hipsters, I just don't get it. I share my tour bus with 6 Dutch people. Now, I've covered their strange habits before. Their sense of superiority, their insistence on always taking the same seat. i can forgive that stuff. But this?

No matter where we are in the world, they all demand Corona. If we don't have it, or if it's warm, they stick out their lips and ostracise me for the night. They continue to peeve about it into the next day. Bear in mind, on a lot of tours you don't get free beer every night. You certainly don't get to choose what sort you would get. And if you did, I should hope you had the taste, nay, the common fucking sense, not to choose this enchanted water.

Back when I worked in a bar, we would mock the douchewanks who came in and asked for Corona, then got huffed and ordered something else if we had no limes (we would often run out, such was demand for this piss-yellow devil's excreta. In summer, we would get through thousands of bottles per week, and thousands of limes (which even in bulk are about 5 times more expensive than lemons, penny-pinchers).

Granted, I would also mock the smart-arses who would smugly say 'You know, in Mexico they put the lime in to keep flies out, it serves no other purpose' These people have obviously never tasted Corona. With lime, it tastes like, well, a lager shandy in a dirty glass, made with flat lemonade and a squeeze of lime-juice. Without, it tastes like, I don't know.. an angel-fart. Nix, nada, nothing.

THIS BEER HAS NO TASTE!

I've even started drinking Beck's Gold, for fuck's sake! I have even, in my lowest moments, drank an original Beck's or a fucking Brand to avoid another night drinking this chihuahua piss. I'm lobbying for a blockade on Mexican beer. Come on Obama, I demand change. Defend my rights to drink a Guinness or a Rivet Catcher, dammit!

Next time, I'm voting for this guy.

Here I go again, on my own

I'm in Munich again. Tthird time, as previously featured here and here*. This must be my favourite venue, for the majesty of the architecture, the tragic history and the pretzels. Three years on the trot, and it's been different every time. The first was, undoubtedly, the best. It was a bit later in the year (Valentine's Day to be exact), spring was in the air and I had a dog to babysit. When my boss was still on tour he brought his puppy on the bus, and left him with me a lot. It was a bit demeaning, and I grumbled, but honestly, I was glad of the company. It was the first time I felt any attachment to a venue, the first one that had any character or history.

Last year when we came back it was grim. Cold, wet, a building-site in and out. Whole sections of the arena were off limits and there was cement-dust in the air. The disappointment only added to my general unhappiness.

This year they've at least finished workng inside, and the heaps of rubble outdoors are dusted with snow. It was -10 here last night. I assume that's celsius.

However, this time I have the best feeling; I've got a great girl and we're in love, in 3 months we'll have a son (unless that doctor guy doesn't know his nads from his tootsies), I'm in control of my more dangerous and damaging habits and I finally understand what the rest of the guys on my bus are talking about. it's still no more interesting, but at least I know they're not slagging me off.

So, on the first day of the second month of the ninth year of the second millennium (may require correction), I wish you all even a slice of the happiness I'm feeling right now.

Don't worry, I'll be back to moaning in a couple of days.

*Not real links. Sorry. Use the search doohickey if you're that interested. Please. The first one is actually pretty good.