Archive for August, 2011

31
Aug
11

Meet My New Buddy Seasick Steve

12712637It’s just been one of those weeks. Things aren’t going quite according to plan and you find yourself staring out windows at the gathering storm wandering where it all went wrong.

You’re not alone brother. The Tiger’s also been feelin’ a little in the dumps lately but the good news is that this too shall pass, and while we’re fighting the good fight and waiting for that moment to come, I say let’s hang out with my new buddy Seasick Steve.

See, ol’ Seasick knows how bad things can get, before he made it he used to busk in the Paris Metro, only finding fame in his late fifties.

This guy is the real deal, from his frazzled grey soup-catcher to his beaten up John Deere cap and dungarees, he is everything that is badass about old-school blues.

 

 

He has a voice like an old grizzly bear and can change it up from the low, lonely, slit-your-wrists ballad I’m about to play you to foot-stompin, redneck country and western tracks that bring words like “yeee-haw!” and “hootenanny!” to mind.

I just think he’s fucking cool. I’ve got a soft spot for old veterans like my pal Seasick. He attributes his recent success to his cheap and weather-beaten guitar “The Trance Wonder” which he bought off a friend of his in Mississippi who later revealed to Seasick that it was haunted.

 

 

Get his album You Can’t Teach An Old Dog New Tricks if you dig this track. It’s the opener and by far the most gut-wrenching track on the album. The rest are a lot more upbeat and there’s even an entire track dedicated to whisky (So. Bad. Ass).

This one’s called “Treasures”.

 

 

-ST

30
Aug
11

Eastbound And Down – The Series I tried To Hate

anchormanWill Ferrell might be a comedic genius but there are only a handful of movies he acts in I actually like.

Anchor Man was hilarious and highly original, The Other Guys had me laughing from literally the first scene and even though Stranger Than Fiction had a bit of a shit ending, it was based on a great premise and it was refreshing to watch him in something where he hardly shouted or swore at all.

But you gotta give the man credit where it’s due. His flamboyant, completely unpredictable, loud, crass and bizarre acting style has spawned an entire genre of American slapstick humour which the series Eastbound & Down steals shamelessly from.

The protagonist (Kenny Powers, played by Danny McBride) is an egotistical, washed up ex-baseball player with a killer mullet who is a gigantic asshole to everyone he lays eyes on.

 

 

His unapologetic, borderline-retarded, male chauvinistic world view is so narrow that it encompasses him and no one else. This is made all the more cringe-worthy by the fact that while he used to be a pitching sensation and baseball superstar, at the start of the series he can barely hit the broadside of a barn, a fact that his gigantic ego refuses point-blank to accept.

Bottom line is I was determined not to like this series right from episode one and yet, I’ve just finished watching the series finale for season one and I have to admit, it’s a pretty funny series that threw a few unexpected curveballs (yes. I just did that) in the later episodes.

I also really enjoyed Kenny’s sidekick in the series, Stevie the band teacher at the highschool where Kenny ends up working. I swear to God, the minute they start giving Stevie more scenes this guy steals the show completely.

He’s like the male version of ‘Mel’ from flight of the concords, only more awesome. I almost felt more sympathy for his character than I did for Kenny himself because Stevie is hilariously dorky, awkward and totally unfaltering in his loyalty to Kenny.

 

 

Of course, the reason why the whole project feels like a Ferrell rip-off at first might have to do with the fact that he produced and acts in it, but it still has enough originality to break out of the Ferrell mold and the ending is one of the best cliff-hangers I’ve seen in a good, long while.

Needless to say, I’ll be jumping right into season 2 tomorrow and apparently season 3 is on the cards (that’s going to be the final series from what I’ve read) so hopefully the show can maintain the momentum it picked up over the course of season 1, but I’ll be sure to tell you how it all turns out.

For the time being, just watch season 1 if you haven’t already and tell me what you think, I’m always open to feedback. And group hugs.

C’mere. Mmmmmmmm…

-ST

29
Aug
11

Baby Shrapnel Kicks Off Season 2

Baby ShrapnelAwhile back you might remember I posted about this internet based animated show called the Baby Shrapnel Variety Show which I gave the highest honour this site can bestow on someone – The Tiger Stamp Of Approval.

It’s was made by two local dudes called Hugh Upsher and Graeme Barnes that I called “basically the crappest show I’ve ever seen” followed by the caveat “but fuck me it’s funny.”

Well, I got an email the other day from Mr Upsher himself telling me that Baby Shrapnel is back for a second season of exploring “the fine art of toilet humour from a uniquely South African perspective.”

I just dig it because it’s unapologetically politically incorrect, original and pretty goddamn hilarious.

How many of us have wanted to embark on similar projects with our buddies? How many great ideas have you had about stuff, whether it’s TV shows or life-changing inventions, that you’ve just let slide because you don’t have the time?

 

 

Well, these guys have made the time and their show is fucking cool. They made 10 episodes for season one, which are up on their site, I’d definitely recommend giving them a watch if you haven’t already before you launch into Season 2.

Season 2 kicks off with a brand new intro sequence, a freshly-drawn host and Graeme Smith being too awesome to handle.

So keep an eye on http://www.babyshrapnel.co.za/ for new episodes of Season 2 as the guys release them, and in the meantime, ease into your Monday with this bad boy.

 

Good times boys and girls.

Good times.

-ST

26
Aug
11

Lose Your Mind Friday

Yucko_the_ClownToday we work hard at losing our minds.

Because life is like a gigantic juggling act that never fucking ends. As you get older you take on more and more responsibility and each new responsibility is like a new ball to juggle.

Sometimes if you listen carefully you can almost hear the crowd chanting “Dance monkey dance!” while the organ grinder does his thing in the corner and the drugs they fed the lions kick in.

Sometimes it’s healthy to lose your mind. Drop all the balls and go nuts like my new Russian friends in the following fucking amazing music video…

 

 

Can you guys handle that?! I’ll give you a minute. Sometimes people just do things that are so fucking cool you have to take a minute to let it all sink in.

“Goalie goalie!”

The dude with the black eye is my favourite.

Have a killer weekend party people! Catch you on the flip flop Winking smile

-ST

25
Aug
11

SlickTiger And The 10 Year Highschool Reunion

I wasn’t sure if anyone gave two shits that I was flying up to the Big Smoke awhile back for my 10 year highschool reunion, so I never wrote a follow-up post saying what it was actually like.

Since writing that post though no less than three of my regular readers have asked me what went down so I figured I owed it to them to give a full account of the sheer insanity, the mind-bendingly twisted and life-alteringly fucked up shit that went down that night.

So pull up a chair, this post’s gonna leave you a changed person…

Cool, still here? Rad, sorry for the over-dramatic intro, the reunion wasn’t all that life-changing but I’m glad you clicked the link cause there was one funny thing that happened that night that bares repeating.

To be perfectly honest, I enjoyed the Friday night I spent up in Jozi way more than the actual reunion night itself on Saturday. I just kicked back at my good buddy Peggles’ place while a whole host of my Joburg buddies came by and we spent the night getting rat-faced at his flat and playing darts.

 

 

It was just good times. One of those waypoints on the road that is life where you get to catch up with old buddies and knock back a few tequilas, swap a few war stories and enjoy one another’s company.

Come Saturday, Peggles and I were driving to the reunion asking one another why the hell we had decided to go in the first place. We already knew exactly what it was going to be like – all the guy who never left Joburg crammed into one venue getting good and wasted and asking each other the same damn questions all night.

Which was pretty much exactly what happened. But strangely enough I really enjoyed it. Mostly because a lot of the guys had embarrassingly boring stories and were content to just listen to me babbling on all night about myself, which seemed to be going down really well.

 

 

What was fucking sick though was the fact that there were guys there who I literally haven’t spoken to in 10 years who not only know about this site, but read it regularly. Then there were the moments of pure win when I told one or two people that I write this site and they were like “YOU’RE SlickTiger?! Fuck bro, I LOVED that klapping gym post!”

Well, I say pure win, but obviously they hardly read the site or they would have seen the pictures I sporadically post of myself and made the connection sooner, but hey, at least I’m known for something.

Then, BEST part of the evening by far, was when a good buddy of mine walks up to me and says, “Cornelius dude, I gotta share this with you man,” (not my real name, but let’s just roll with this one…).

“So we’re having a conversation about how some of the guys here are clearly talking themselves up a little to sound more important than they are.”

“Sure,” I replied, “that’s a given, right?”

“So one of the guys turns around and is like ‘Ja, a lot of okes are doing that. I mean Cornelius is walking around telling everyone he’s SlickTiger!”

Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha! Too fucking funny I tells ya! THAT made the whole trip worth it, what a chop.

 

 

But I dunno, I’m not sure my life would have been that different had I not gone, so maybe let that be a lesson to anyone considering attending their 10 year reunion.

It’s going to be exactly the way you think it’s going to be.

Just pray when yours rolls around they stock the bar better than they did for ours – one hour in and all the tequila and Jagermeister was finished and at 1.00 on the knuckle they rang for last rounds and sent us all home.

If I could go back in time I definitely would have still gone, but not without first ingesting a LOT of acid.

Now THAT would have been a fun party Winking smile

-ST

24
Aug
11

Satan Parrot

128729488718892463If nothing else, the internet has proven without a doubt that people have way too much fucking time on their hands.

This translates into all manner of phenomenal internet videos that you could dedicate your entire life to watching and you still wouldn’t even scratch the surface. Just to give you an idea, people upload roughly 48 hours of video footage to Youtube EVERY MINUTE!

So let’s put that into context shall we? That means in one day 189 YEARS of footage is uploaded to Youtube alone!

Sure, most of it is utter crap, but that’s where I come in, bringing the crap direct to you, or your money back!

Here is a video some guy shot of his parrot after he prayed to Satan to possess it’s poor birdy soul. The results aren’t pretty, even if you are a huge metal fan.

 

 

Enjoy!

 

I honestly did not know a parrot could make sounds like that.

I feel violated.

-ST

23
Aug
11

The Excite Taxi Driver Who Lost His Mind

Excite-taxiInitially I thought it would be best if I didn’t write this post because it’s a very sensitive issue and it could potentially get Excite Taxis into a lot of trouble, but unfortunately I haven’t been able to forget what happened to us on Friday night and I think my readers have a right to know that there’s an Excite Taxis driver out there who is a very sad and fucked up person.

Around 8.30pm on Friday night, J-Rab, Jennyjen and myself called Excite Taxis to be collected from our flat in Vredehoek and climbed into a taxi shortly thereafter with a guy who, right from the get go, I got a very weird feeling about.

We went through the usual routine of telling him where to take us after which Jennyjen asked the guy if we could put on the radio, to which he abruptly replied, “No.”

We’d had a few glasses of wine at the flat (hence the reason why we weren’t driving) and so, on hearing that there was no music we broke out in spontaneous song and belted out what I felt was a rousing version of “Karma Chameleon”.

 

 

The taxi driver didn’t seem to share this opinion however, and I watched out the corner of my eye as his knuckles slowly turned whiter and whiter while he gripped the steering wheel, his eyes trained like crosshairs on the street in front of him.

We were driving to Long Street, a trip that probably takes about 10 minutes with traffic so it’s hardly as if we were droning on in this poor guy’s ear for 30 minutes. In fact, all we managed were two songs really, before things turned nasty.

This guy had a pasta salad on his dashboard which started sliding all over the place as he drove faster and faster, eventually almost klapping 100km/h as he came around Buitensingel to the tuneful accompaniment of the Bowie classic “Ground Control To Major Tom”.

It was at this time that the pasta salad slid right off the dashboard and almost into the guy’s lap, but he managed to grab it at the last  minute and throw it with all the force he could muster out his driver’s side window where it hit the road in a shower of elbow macaroni and mayonnaise.

 

 

Our singing had provoked what can only be described as a murderous rage in our taxi driver and the whole scene very quickly turned nasty.

He ran straight through a red light at the Buitensingel / Long street intersection and then shortly after that, grabbed his two-way radio and shouted, “Control I can’t hear what you’re saying until these people get out the car!”

“Excuse me!” J-Rab replied, indignant, “but if you want us to stop singing you can just ask us instead of driving like a maniac!”

“You people are bloody inconsiderate!” he shouted back at us.

“We’re just enjoying ourselves, there’s no need to behave like that! You could just have asked us to please be quiet!” J-Rab said, starting to get angry.

“You are inconsiderate! You have no respect!” he repeated, before dropping the bomb that blew everything out of proportion, “We forgave you for what you did!”

“WHAT?!” Jennyjen replied, shocked, “DON’T YOU DARE BRING RACE INTO THIS! RACE HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THIS!”

“YES IT DOES!” he shouted back at us, “WE FORGAVE YOU FOR WHAT YOU DID AND NOW YOU THINK YOU CAN CARRY ON LIKE THIS!”

“WE’RE IN OUR FUCKING 20s! WE HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH WHAT HAPPENED IN THIS COUNTRY, WE WERE CHILDREN WHEN THAT WAS ALL GOING ON!” J-Rab replied.

“YOU’RE STILL CHILDREN!” he shouted, “YOU THINK YOU CAN TREAT US HOWEVER YOU WANT!”

“Oh my God, stop this taxi, I want to get out,” J-Rab replied.

“No, this isn’t where we want to be. I’m not paying for him to just drop us anywhere,” Jennyjen said.

And so we turned back up onto Loop street so we could go another lap, much to my delight.

 

 

“If we were upsetting you, you should have just asked us to please be quiet and we would have,” Jennyjen said.

“No you wouldn’t!” he replied, still fuming.

“Yes, we would have,” I said, trying to placate the situation, “and you also just threw a perfectly good pasta salad out the window man, what the hell was that all about?!”

“You all think you can just behave any way you want, but you’ll see, you’ll see,” he said, darkly.

“Why? Are you planning some kind of rebellion or riot or something?” Jennyjen asked pragmatically.

“You’ll see,” he repeated mysteriously.

A few seconds later we all piled out, the girls adamant that they weren’t going to pay him a cent. Of course I paid the man his money in full.

I felt sorry for him. I just got the idea that he’s been through and seen some horrible, horrible things in his life that have left him extremely bitter and furious at the world and from what I could gather, white South Africans in particular.

Which begs the question, why be a taxi driver in the first place? He must have picked up another 10 car loads of young white people that night 50 times more inebriated than we were, how did he handle them? By speeding around the streets maniacally, hurling pasta salad bombs out his window like Molotov Cocktails whilst making vague threats alluding to some form of catastrophic retribution he wants to inflict on taxi-singers throughout the country?

 

 

I’m not saying we weren’t to blame for what went down. We were behaving like idiots because we were happy, not because we were deliberately trying to piss the guy off, but his reaction was just so ugly and nasty and uncalled for.

Sure, tell us to shut the fuck up, not everyone’s a Bowie fan, I’m fine with that, but don’t turn the whole thing into a race issue, that’s not what it was at all.

I guess what shocked me the most is the fact that my generation (mostly) is so sheltered from racism like that, it’s actually really shocking watching it rear it’s ugly head like some fucking creature from the bottom of the black lagoon.

Despite all the awesome taxi rides I’ve taken with drivers of all races in this city who I’ve chatted to, laughed with and swapped stories with, from now on I’m riding in silence.

It’s just not worth the risk of ending up with one that jumps red lights instead of simply asking you to pipe down and treats a perfectly good pasta salad with such irrational contempt.

That just ain’t right man.

It just ain’t right.

-ST

22
Aug
11

The Trouble With Nancy Botwin

weeds-season-6This weekend we got a hold of the rest of season 6 of Weeds and the first 8 episodes of season 7 and proceeded to watch them all back to back because they’re like goddamn Eet-Sum-Mors – once you get started it’s too easy to just pop the next one in your brain and chew away.

If you’ve fallen behind in the show and are planning on watching all the newer episodes, it’s only fair to issue a spoiler alert before I launch into this particular diatribe as it has to do with the current direction the show’s taken and what I’ve come to realise is the trouble with Nancy Botwin.

At the beginning of Weeds Nancy was a great character. She was this sassy suburban milf who was dealing weed badly to anyone who would buy it in the sleepy little town of Agrestic (a fictional suburb of Los Angeles) because she’d lost her husband unexpectedly and was trying desperately to make ends meet.

Very early on in the series, two things quickly become apparent, 1) Nancy has gigantic balls on her, big hairy ones that see her getting herself into all kinds of trouble as she slowly sinks deeper into the criminal underworld and 2) She is so fucking impulsive it’s scary.

 

 

These two character traits seem to serve her well in the beginning, but ultimately lead to her making some very, very fucked up decisions, namely:

  • Marrying a DEA agent
  • Involving Andy and Doug in her ever-expanding marijuana business, despite the fact that they are both lazy, unreliable and pretty much functionally retarded
  • Befriending the ex-wife of the DEA agent after she has him killed
  • Enlisting the help of the slimeball Mexican drug dealer Guillermo
  • Burning her house to the ground
  • Boning the mayor and crime lord of Tijuana, Esteban Reyes, falling pregnant with his child and then marrying him
  • Lying to Silas for his entire life about who his father was

Those are just the few that come to mind, but there are many, many more that literally had me groaning whilst watching out of sheer “why-the-fuck-did-you-just-do-that?!” exasperation.

 

 

Sure, it’s a TV show and if she just did the right thing all the time, it would be pretty boring to watch, but the result of all the fucked up, and in many cases selfish decisions she’s made over the course of the show is that I really don’t like her as a character anymore.

Especially in season seven where, after serving a 3 year stint in prison, she is released early and finally given a shot at a new life in a halfway house in New York only to jump straight back into the weed selling business and start all the shit that fucked her life up all over again!

The trouble with Nancy Botwin is that, seven seasons in, she hardly has one redeeming quality that makes me sympathise with her any more. She’s just a hopeless drug dealer who drags her poor family into her fucked up little world again and again and again and seems to feel no remorse for doing so.

 

 

The key lesson here kids is never deal weed, no matter how tempting it may seem.

But tune in next week for a breakdown of the latest series of Breaking Bad where the ley lesson is never cook crystal meth (SUCH a fucking awesome show. The main guy is the dad from Malcolm In The Middle, but you’d NEVER guess it).

-ST

19
Aug
11

Awesome Work Time-Wasters (Part Vi)

Cyclomaniacs5Seeing as it’s Friday, Friday, gonna get down on Friday (HA! Good luck getting THAT out your head…), I figured I’d post the most epic work time waster I’ve come across in a good while, courtesy of @justnormalafro.

Now I know every time I post a work time-waster I claim that it’s the most epic one yet, but you have to see this shit to believe it.

The game’s called “Cyclomaniacs” and it’s by far the most fun you can have whilst stealing time from your employer.

As you probably guessed from the name, it involves unlocking sick characters and levels and pulling off stunts whilst cycling on your badass little bicycle.

 

 

What I loved about the game is there are so many levels and achievements to unlock. As you complete races and stunts you earn more cash to upgrade your bike so it’s easier to destroy EVERYONE.

The more sweet jumps and stunts you pull off while racing, the more your stunt meter fills up and when it’s full, flames start coming out the back of your bike and you get a speed boost that makes doing more stunts easy as falling off a piece of cake.

 

 

To be perfectly honest, I haven’t played this game as much as I’d like to because I’ve been working at a face-melting pace recently and have had no time for shenanigans.

But that’s no excuse for you not to play it. And besides yesterday was Thursday, Thursday, today i-is Friday, Friday and we, we, we so excited right?

TOTAL TIME WASTED: About 2 hours so far, but the game remembers your progress so you can jump back on the site and pickup from where you left off whenever it so pleases you. (Translation: I’ll probably be playing this for the next 2 weeks…)
TOTAL ENJOYMENT LEVEL: 85%
FINAL VERDICT: You’d have to be a complete turd not to like this game, so give it a spin and tell me how much ass it kicks because nobody likes a turd

So get your cycle awn and I’ll see you crazy kids next week for some more internet enlightenment courtesy of your Tiger pal.

Have a killer weekend Winking smile

-ST

18
Aug
11

There will be no post today…

party-hard-watermelon-man-5751Sorry guys.

I got some fucking amazing news yesterday, work-related stuff but seriously awesome, so I did what any self-respecting man (or person) does when they get good news, I went out and got shizit-faced with all my buddies.

As a result all I got for you today is this sorry, whisky-soaked post that smells like old socks and reads like a hastily scrawled message on a bathroom wall:

Metallica rocks.

Metallica sucks.

You suck.

Fuck you.

But here’s a great picture I found on the internet awhile back of a tree-house made from toothpicks in a broccoli tree.

This is my happy place. It’s where my mind goes to on days like today, when I’m too hungover to function coherently.

Enjoy.

 

 

-ST