badinia, Author at Virginia Jones ⋆ Page 30 of 63

Learning Cockney Slang: Don’t Be A Berkeley Hunt

Kevin Keegan, not a vegan

In Cockney rhyming slang, “I’m going to the Fatboy Slim” means “I’m going to the gym.” This is interesting, because as far as I can tell, Norman Cook’s fitness regimen is cocaine, which in cockney is “charlie.”

To call someone a “Berk” is short for “Berkely Hunt”, which rhymes with something that is the reason why the Mighty Boosh can never be shown in prime time in England, because the inoffensive-sounding “berk” is slang for something very dirty, something that rhymes with “hunt”, and starts with a “c”.

In cockney, to say something is Kevin Keegan, after the legendary footballer and coach, means that something is vegan. My tiny friend Emiko from Foodfightgrocery.com let me know this triv, that if you are at a party and pointing at various foods, asking “Zat Kevin?”, you are asking if it’s free of animal products, not made of an unlucky friend.

I took a picture of this sign at Nike, which makes me laugh but doesn’t make anyone else laugh, because it implies that the hallway is vegan. I think it’s Eddie. (eddie money=funny.)

byronbowie

Postscript: Like most of us, I was watching the Julien Temple short film, Jazzin’ for Blue Jean, on the treadmill last night (sidebar: Bowie was 37 when this film was made, and in my opinion at the height of his personal awesomeness. Goals, people.) Anyway, in this film, when Bowie is portraying the most challenging role of his career, a scheming poster-hanger named Vic, he says “I’m a berk!”, which means that Bowie tricked MTV into letting him say “cunt” repeatedly on their network in 1984, which is just another reason he’s my hero.

A Deranged Millionaire

I knew that Long Beach was hosting this year’s illustrious TED talks, but I was surprised to see Deranged Millionaire John Hodgman walking up my street.

I gave him the traditional surprised, over-excited nerd HI, which he shrank from, and I later tweeted him that I didn’t mean to yell HI at him.

You might wonder: How does a Deranged Millionaire dress to blend in seamlessly with the TED populace and pass undetected?

Why, he wears a navy arctic fleece half-zip pullover.

It’s obviously a joke on the fact that people in SoCal will bundle up like Serbian prisoners when the temperature drops below 60 degrees.

Tonight in Seal Beach!

Doing a show tonight with my dear friend Eddie Pence! I’ve been told it’s the nicest Irish bar at this address!

Izzard at Largo

I got to see Eddie Izzard do a workshop show at the Largo! Despite cost, inconvenience, and the cruel indifference, there are some real advantages to living in LA.

Eddie Izzard announced a show at Largo two days before it happened and did an amazing sold-out work-in-progress show, and I got to go. These things still feel like magic to me. I used to see her announcements that she was coming to do shows in LA and I would try to figure out how to go. She’s stopped doing as much working-out in the States, but I loved seeing these shows.

Portlandia!

So, I was in the third episode of Portlandia this season, and I’ll also be in the season finale. Pretty much everyone in Portland gets a turn to be on the show. While they’re shooting, people just line up at Powell’s Books downtown and wait to get picked up by the Craft Services bus. My first episode is available at Amazon.com here, because this world is modern. The most fun thing was asking Carrie about the time she called in to promote herself on the OPB show about comedy I was on, and how I gave her crap for it.

Noel Fielding’s Luxury Comedy

What if you had to make a comedy show with only the use of your right brain? Watch for the robot Andy Warhol.

The Dead Man’s Quarter

This is a story about one of my last big adventures in Portland.

I got a job in California, and, dreading the commute, I bought my first new car, a 2012 Jetta, my second Jetta and my fourth Volkswagen. It smelled so new and looked so pretty.

I also had a photoshoot that week. We had a lot of fun in the graveyard, and took lots of pictures.

At one point, the photographer found a raised grave that he decided that he would like for me to lie down on, since it was thirty five degrees out and wet. I balked a little, but he showed me some mud on his knee to indicate that he was also “getting in the muck” and working hard. The pictures we got are now some of my favorites, because they look like 4AD record covers.

As I got up, I picked up a quarter from the edge of the grave. I said “I’m taking this, because I’ve earned it!” and I put it in my pocket. It was a 1981 quarter, and the face and back both had a sanded quality, from being rained on for a long time. I went on with my day, and later told the mortician’s son about the quarter. He was very suspicious about my decision, saying, “That quarter’s not yours, and you’d better put it back!” I laughed at him, and we went to dinner.

The next night, I totaled my new Jetta on my 6th day of ownership. Yes, the road was icy, and yes, the car in front of me had stopped short, but none of those are good reasons for driving my car into the back that car. I blacked out briefly on impact, and came around to an ODOT worker telling me that I should get out of the car in case it exploded. Here is my car, after the fact. I had made it into a large paperweight.

On the first day, I was embarrassed and appalled with myself for having smashed it, but on the second day, I thought about how lucky I was. I came out of the accident with a small airbag burn on my wrist. The other driver was also OK. He was driving a 1979 Cutlass, so his body damage amounted to having the bumper pushed into the body. I considered not telling anyone what I had done, but I thought it might raise questions when I just wordlessly reverted to driving my 1996 Jetta.

That week, I drove to Seattle for a gig, and took my best Pete with me. I showed him the dead man’s quarter and he recoiled, and said, “Why did you bring that thing on a road trip?

By the time I got home from Seattle, I had started to have second thoughts about the Dead Man’s Quarter, so I asked the mortician’s son to escort me after dark to return it. I hated to admit to myself that in the dark and the rolling fog, it was a little spooky in my lovely little cemetery. I put the quarter right back where I found it, and haven’t totalled a car since, so- that worked!