The Vanilla Icing on the cake

Though white rapper Vanilla Ice (also known as Robert Van Winkle) is considered to be a one hit wonder with ‘Ice Ice Baby’, the 21 years that have past since its release has made people forget that he was once considered more than just a novelty act. The song’s seen as a bit of a joke nowadays, but ‘Ice Ice Baby’ was huger than what people remember or give credit for.

Vanilla Ice stealing someone else’s Grammys circa 2011.

Like any artist, he released other singles. Probably the most well known of Ice’s other songs was for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II soundtrack, entitled ‘Ninja Rap’, a title he obviously put a lot of thought into.

Ice also made a love ballad! I am not kidding. It really is such a romantic song, will thaw the coldest hearts out there. It is the thoughtfully titled ‘I Love You’ (further proof he doesn’t put much thought into naming his songs).

Vanilla Ice was so big in the early 1990s that he even had his very own movie! What was it called? Cool As Ice. Seriously. I have not seen it, so I can’t fairly judge it, but it seems like an early ’90s version of Footloose, and unsurprisingly is considered one of the worst movies ever made.

But like every other celebrity who ever became washed up, Vanilla Ice wanted to get back into the spotlight ASAP. How did he try to do this? Come up with a brand new song that will rock the world? No. He did a heavy metal cover of his own hit ‘Ice Ice Baby’! Again, I am not kidding. I thought he was unoriginal when titling his songs; this just takes it to a whole new level/low. Needless to say, this didn’t give Ice the comeback he desired. (To be honest, I actually like this version; the guitar riff kills it!)

After a while, Vanilla Ice saw the error in his ways and had to face the music about his music. He bared his soul to the world when he made this apology regarding the daggy dancing and fashion trends it caused (not for the song itself however!) that set white rappers back a decade until Eminem came along.

A little known fact about Vanilla Ice is that he dated Madonna back around the time he was famous. He featured in her sex book Sex (like Ice, Madonna didn’t put any thought into titling things). All the perverts old enough to remember this book and have “read” it (i.e. wanked over the explicit photos in it), you now know why the guy in the photo where Madonna is copping it doggy style looks familiar.

This pic makes Madonna’s song ‘Like A Virgin’ redundant.

Matt Wilson

Dodgy Song #1: Ice Ice Baby

Every now and then I’m going to write about songs that are popular at parties, bars, and nightclubs that have bad or “dodgy” lyrics or sounds or any other dodgy things in them. It can be anything what’s on the Top 40 at the time or a classic partying/clubbing song, ones that get all the drunks singing along late at night or when you’re by yourself driving around. It also gives me the chance to bag songs I don’t like.

My first one may seem like an obvious choice, but that’s preciously why I chose ‘Ice Ice Baby’ by Vanilla Ice. It is daggy, funny (albeit unintentionally), and is just plain catchy, and since most people are aware of the stigma this song has, it gives you a much clearer idea of what I’m getting at. For those who have been living under a rock for the past 21 years, or who just simply wanna hear whitey getting down, here’s the music video.

If someone really drove a 5.0 around a rough neighbourhood (how does a guy from the ‘hood afford a car like that?! Probably stole it.) like the one in the video, he wouldn’t be the cool guy he thinks he is. He’d get mugged and have his car stolen for sure! The dancing looks like they are in an aerobics class. At 1:56, what’s with the changing colours? Did the camera’s contrast stuff up when they filmed this video? I guess the Asian chick spraying “ICE” onto the camera lens really brought production values down. Speaking of her, that Asian chick is fuckin’ hot! The way she licks that ice cream… Oooh…

Let’s examine some of the lyrics:

‘Rollin’ in my 5.0, With my rag-top down so my hair can blow’. With that much gel in his hair, Ice shouldn’t worry about that.

‘The girlies on standby waving just to say hi, Did you stop no I just drove by’. What kind of rapper doesn’t try to chat up chicks in the street while driving a sweet ride? I’m assuming the only girls who’d hit on Vanilla Ice were hookers trying to make a quick fuck, I mean buck. But then Ice goes, ‘Yo so I continued to A1A Beachfront Avenue, Girls were hot wearing less than bikinis’. So he does want to hook up with chicks? I guess they got to be pretty much naked to get the Ice Man’s attention.

‘Take heed ’cause I’m a lyrical poet’. So this is why everyone keeps comparing rap to poetry!

‘Shay plays on the fade slice like a ninja’ (a prelude to Ice’s other song ‘Ninja Rap’?)

‘I grabbed my nine all I heard were shells, Falling on the concrete real fast, Jumped in my car slammed on the gas’. This is as graphic drive-by shootings in rap songs got circa 1990.

Speaking of that year, I want to state again that ‘Ice Ice Baby’ was released in 1990, NOT in the 1980s like everyone thinks it was! It clearly states “© 1990” at the end of the music video. Even the game Singstar ‘80s has ‘Ice Ice Baby’ on it, though it isn’t from that decade! That’s like putting ‘Twist and Shout’ by The Beatles on So Fresh Winter 2011!

Another bit of confusion this song caused was from its bass line. It clearly ripped off the bass line from the Queen song ‘Under Pressure’. I say confusion because whenever you hear the intro to either song, you don’t know which song it is! This very same situation happens whenever either ‘Thank You’ by Dido or ‘Stan’ by Eminem play.

If this song proves anything, it’s that Vanilla Ice isn’t pretty fly for a white guy.

Matt Wilson

Drugs are bad, mmmkay

Party drugs are almost universally considered bad by concerned parents and politicians wanting to get said parents’ votes in the next election, but popped away by young party goers. It makes ravers dance harder/stupider and the rest of us get a good laugh out of it.

However, there is of course a dark side to drug use. The harsh reality of drug use depicted in such depressing films like Pineapple Express, Dude, Where’s My Car?, and Scary Movie only show the tip of the iceberg of what drugs can do to someone. Watch the below video of a former drug addict talking about his harrowing story of how drugs have affected his life. (Sorry the image is all reversed, but this was the best video I could find).

Matt Wilson

Dealer or No Dealer

After all that ranting, I mean discussion, about the Ecstasy: Face Facts campaign, it is only natural I rant a bit about the very folks who bring clubbers these pills from the dirty, dingy kitchen to let all the flavours burst in your mouth (oh wait, that’s Starburst). Anyway, I’m of course talking about drug dealers.

Cameras are becoming really expensive apparently.

A group of people Amy Winehouse was all too familiar with until her recent demise, most people think drug dealers all appear like the hooded camera distributor above. Like STIs, you never know who has drugs. When out clubbing, any one of the other patrons could be an amateur chef specialising in entrees made out of hair bleach, battery acid and the such during the day. (Now you know what’s in ecstasy, unlike the government who think you don’t!). At least the dickhead ravers who look like a bad student in an aerobics class have seen a dealer. Here’s a funny example of how a drug deal might go (apparently drug dealers get really defensive!):

I remember once at Billboard, I was waiting at one of the benches while my friends were getting drinks, and some guy came up to me and asked if I or any of my friends want eckies. I said no and the guy was about to walk off, but then my friends got back and one of them said hey to the dealer and then introduced him to me, my friend having no idea what just happened. Awkward!

There was also the time I was at Parklife when some guy asked me if my friends and I had eckies. After saying no, he showed me the secret hand shake to do with drug dealers to score eckies, which was basically moving your hands around in a real gangsta looking way. The guy said it was guaranteed to work, though I didn’t get a 12 month warranty on it. So you if see some people at a rave festival or nightclub doing strange hand signals, it’s probably not sign language.

I guess Smarties and lollies don’t cut it with the kids anymore (though these products have been cut).

The life of a drug dealer would be quite a risky one at times. Having to be careful no one sees you do the deal, not getting ripped off, making sure your product isn’t being misrepresented in government anti-drug campaigns. Got to feel sorry for these shady characters of the night. On the old version of the Bars and Nightclubs website on the Melbourne page, there was a description of Melbourne’s nightlife and it said something to the effect of, ‘You know you’re in a party town when there are police sniffer dogs all around the streets’. Talk about a backhanded compliment!

Below is more or less the craziness of the lives of drug dealers and their customers (quite a few of them being celebrities; so why isn’t Amy Winehouse in it? Oh, right).

Matt Wilson

Ecstasy ads: Face Facts

On further thought, I realised the Ecstasy: Face Facts campaign is even worse than I thought! Their ads are telling people the ingredients to make ecstasy! Oh my god! Because of the government’s incompetence, there’s going to a drug epidemic unlike no other!

They might as well do what cooking shows like Ready Steady Cook do and not only list what ingredients are needed to make ecstasy, but also go through every step of how to make them! They’d be like, ‘Okay folks, you can make ecstasy pills by putting in a dash of speed, 2ml of drain cleaner, 3ml of hair bleach, 2g of battery acid, and a hint of ketamine. Then you just have to put it in a pot for an hour, give it a nice stir to make sure everything gets mixed in. We don’t want those silly little buggers at nightclubs thinking we just gave them Mentos now, do we? Here’s some I prepared earlier. Let’s see how that goes. [Puts pill in mouth]. Mmm, off the hook, motherfucker!’ [Starts dancing like an epileptic person being electrocuted].

Drug peddling scum.

Had the Face Facts campaign been around in 2007 instead, it could have taken advantage of how in the popular mockumentary Summer Heights High there is a musical about the dangers of drug use. That musical’s leading number ‘Naughty Girl’ would have not only reached millions of young people, but also both far more informative and effective at dealing with the issue of young people using ecstasy than that Face Facts campaign is.

Tony Mokbel must be devastated that the very same government that put him in jail is now teaching youngsters how to make their own eckies, so even when Mokbel gets released, he’ll be broke from lack of profit. To put this into perspective, think of this as the drug equivalent of everyone found out what KFC’s secret 11 herbs and spices were; they’d run out of business!

Matt Wilson

Ecstasy: you DO know what’s in it

Another government campaign aimed at keeping young people going out clubbing safe is the National Drugs Campaign, specifically their Ecstasy: Face Facts campaign. Like with the Championship Moves campaign I am here to bag, sorry, I mean discuss it.

I searched high and low on the internet (well, I searched about medium really, since my computer’s monitor is place right in front of me), and unfortunately I could not find any of the radio ads anywhere (not even on the campaign’s own website!). The below video is the closest thing I could find:

I have heard their ads on Nova FM and Fox FM numerous times, where they list the various chemicals in ecstasy pills, such as drain cleaner, hair bleach, battery acid, etc. By telling listeners what’s in eckies, you think they would reconsider using them. While I’m all for what the campaign’s trying to achieve, I do have a gripe with it. This is because, like with the Championship Moves ads, the government patronise its young audience by stating at the end of the ads, ‘Esctasy; you don’t know what’s in it”.

Um, yes, I do know what’s in it. You just told me a second ago. Seriously, what the fuck? Are the people who made these ads just tacked that on at the end because they’re not sure what’s in ecstasy either? This immediately makes the ads discreditable and young people aren’t gonna take it seriously. They may even take eckies just to spite these ads! And yes, I’m aware different eckies contain different chemicals and no one’s gonna know what’s in it when buying them at clubs, but it’s not like young people are going to think they contain chocolate and sugar. If that was the case, then there would be a campaign against M&Ms!

I think all this effort and energy going into stopping young people from using ecstasy would be far more productive if it was used to stop young people from using M&Ms. You eat too many of them, and you will get a sugar high, put on weight, and worst of all, have chocolate and various colours all around your teeth, making you far less attractive to the opposite sex (so this will eventually cause a population shortage!).

Matt Wilson

Championship moves that actually work!

After bagging the Championship Moves campaign for making bullshit moves that wouldn’t work in real life, I have come up with my own Championship Moves, which are not only more realistic, but far more effective.

Championship Move #1: The Nutcracker

Named after the well known ballet, getting kicked in the testies will give any man, no matter how sleazy he is, the hint to fuck off, and gives you ample time to run away. This move does not work so well when used on women.

Championship Move #2: The Spray

Temporarily blinding a dickhead hassling you gives you enough time to run off and for another sleazoid to start hitting on you. Warning ladies: This move may not work if the guy has had pepper spray squirted in his eyes a million times already as he will be immune to it. Observe the below scene from Family Guy:

Championship Move #3: The Point

You probably feel you’ve well and truly outgrown the old primary school trick of pointing behind someone and saying, ‘Look, what’s that?” and they turn around, giving you enough time to run off. However, as people always react to anything during the heat of the moment, especially while arguing and being drunk, it won’t be too hard to get the other guy to turn momentarily so you can disappear faster than Mel Gibson’s career after talking loudly on the phone.

Championship Move #4: The Ghost

People are far more gullible when drunk, so if you see one of your mates is about to get into a fight with someone else, quickly put a white bed sheet around your body, make loud “ooo….” noises and the drunkard will be scared shitless and run off and never return, thinking the bar is haunted. You won’t be able to do this one unless one of the tables happens to have a white table cloth, or for some reason you’re carrying a white bed sheet around. Maybe guys on the prowl could be carrying bed sheets around and if girls ask them why they’re carrying it, the guy could say, ‘These are the bedsheets I want us to wake up in tomorrow morning’.

Warning: some may think you’re a member of the Klu Klux Klan when wearing a white bed sheet, so prepare to run for it if this happens!

Championship Move #5: The Flash

My personal favourite move. Nothing in the world will get a man’s attention more than female nudity. Just like babies when they see see their mother’s mammary glands, women instinctively know what to do if they see their guy friend is about to get into a fight with some dickhead. Men will just look at a small bit of cleavage when they can, so on the rare occasion when women show their milk dispensers in all of their glory, said dickhead will be far too distracted to fight your guy friend, who will run off. Overweight guys should not try this move; this will just anger the dickhead even more!

However, there are two very possible unfavourable results for women from doing this move:

1. Your guy friend may also subdue to his primal urges and just stare at your chest too, defeating the purpose of flashing your bosoms in the first place.

2. The other women around you will get bitchy and call you names like slut, skank, etc.

You may have noticed how, unlike the real Championship Moves, that I have put my moves into numerical order both on the headings and the posters themselves. Unlike the government, I don’t patronise my audience with not at least putting into effect the proper way to count that we all get taught in kindergarten. This also makes up for how crappy the posters look, ha ha.

Matt Wilson

The government got the moves to keep making unrealistic ads?

Since 2010, the Victorian government has been promoting the Championship Moves campaign to stop violence happening in bars and nightclubs. While they have good intentions, these “moves” are fucking ridiculous and wouldn’t work this easily in a real life brawl! If anything, using these moves on your mates would aggravate them even more! Let’s examine these moronship moves.

Championship Move #26: The Chef

The vegetarian brunette clearly overreacting to being offered a hot dog.

If you were to try the move where you stuff your mate’s big mouth with food, how are you going to get the food so quickly? Even if the bar you’re at does serve its customers some tucker, you’re not going to the food until it’s cooked, which will take ages. And even if there’s a hot dog or kebab stand outside the venue, if you’re actually stupid enough to try this move in real life, there is no way in hell the bouncers will let you bring outside food in and they will bash you when trying to get into the club anyway (why aren’t these bouncers doing their job by trying to stop the fight going on inside when they’re starting one outside?!). By this point, your mate is now a corpse.

Championship Move #21:The Lasso

You try to grab your drunken mate to keep them with the group and to avoid getting into trouble, but then they get violent with you and start voraciously bashing you! What if you’re so drunk that you can’t see that trouble’s brewing to round up your friend like a bull? This whole move is utter bull! And why does that guy have a yo-yo when he’s going out clubbing?

Championship Move #15: The Receptionist

Didn’t it occur to the stuck up bitch that Jase is so drunk that he’s hitting on (and dry humping) the pillar? He’s barely looking at her! Why didn’t she simply just walk away? Oh right, she’s blonde.

Championship Move #11: The Waterboy

Shorty should have told his mate that it’s vodka in the bottle instead of water; the fight would have ended straight away!

Not to be confused with the Adam Sandler movie of the same name, you simply give your friend a bottle of water to distract them. But if they’re out to get pissed, wouldn’t it be better to offer them another beer they can drink at their table to lure them away from trouble? The other dickhead they’re arguing with would probably yell, ‘Water? What a soft cock!’, making things worse!

Championship Move #32: The Muzzle

That bearded guy just doesn’t have a sense of humour! Wouldn’t you be laughing at some tool making silly noises? I would’ve recorded the drunkard with my phone and put it on YouTube. I laughed when the guys cheered and high-fived each other after pulling the move (laughed at, not with).

Championship Move #34: The Diplomat

All that red make this poster look like anti-Communist propaganda from the 1950s.

Getting your mate to apologise to the other person is very unlikely to happen, especially when drunk. This didn’t work for Bill Clinton when he played diplomat between Israel and Palestine, so why should it work for two randoms who are ready to kill each other!

The photographer should have stepped back to get Monica Lewinsky into the shot too.

While having looked at the above posters and videos of the mischief that same group friends get up to, you probably noticed how the numbering of the moves is out of whack. These are the only six moves this campaign has, yet they are numbered like this. What happened to all the other moves in between the aforementioned moves? Clearly the government put so little effort into all this that they didn’t even bother to have a consistent numbering system!

Matt Wilson

Arnie cumming to the rescue!

With all the cocky muscle men out there working out and working girls at nightclubs, you have to wonder why these guys are so obsessed with working out and getting laid to prove their masculinity. Perhaps Arnold Schwarzenegger, the most infamous muscle man/womaniser of all time, can tell us what satisfaction these guys get from all that working out.

After watching it, it’s no surprise that Arnie chases up women as much as he works out. Maria Shriver should have seen it coming.

On that note, I wonder if Arnie shouts ‘Hasta la vista baby!’ when he’s about to shoot his load? All I know is that I bet Arnie wishes he knew about his illegitimate son earlier so he could go back in time and have it terminated.

If it wasn’t Arnie who made men worldwide wanna bulk up, then it would have been Sylvester Stallone. Just check out the motivating clip below; how can you not wanna work out after watching that!

Matt Wilson

Buff guys cocks get smaller while their cockiness goes up

I finally got to play Duke Nukem Forever, a game that not only took a ridiculous 12 years to make (seriously!), but depicts the titular muscle bound hero as the ultimate ladies man who has babes throwing themselves at him and all offering to root him. This got me thinking about whether real girls get so quickly wooed by the bumpy armed he-men they see at nightclubs who are only a bedroom away from living at the gym.

Hail to the king baby!

For those who haven’t played this game, here’s how all the female characters react whenever Duke’s around, which is more or less how muscly guys reckon chicks act when they’re strutting their stuff:

I can’t imagine those with vaginas liking being depicted like screaming teenage girls who have just seen Justin Bieber walk past, but that’s how a lot of buff guys genuinely believe women act around them.

When it’s a buff boys night out, they all put on their tight tees to show off not just their muscles, but more importantly their egos. In fact, the main reason these guys pump iron and steroids is to set themselves apart from the crowd to become the alpha males. A lot of these guys’ main pastime is working out (they actually do it for fun!) They don’t really dance at clubs because it’s not “manly”, but that changes once a lass comes their way and the dirty dancing begins. This is because, besides trying to one up their mates by saying they bench 30kgs more than the others do, buff guys also talk themselves up when bragging to their mates about some “mint” girl who looked their way and (according to the Arnie wannabe) got said chick to feel their pointy veins, and I don’t necessarily mean the ones on their arms!

He may have big muscles, but the steroids have made his most important muscle very small.

You gotta love how arrogant these guys are. Whenever they see another guy who’s competition for them with a girl, they automatically gotta go up to them and flex their muscles before going, ‘Hey, this is my girl, bro! I’ll smash ya if you don’t fuck off!’ Once said wimp buggers off, the buff guy’s ego skyrockets while the skinnier males glare at them, wanting these guys just to piss off.

In Duke Nukem Forever, Duke has an ego bar rather than a health bar to indicate how much life he has. Perhaps this is how it is for the aforementioned dickheads whose life is 95% gym.

Matt Wilson