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Urban’s Alcoholism No Myth

Dan — Sun, 22 Oct 2006 02:00:00 +0000

Urban enjoys dinner with ice bride

Keith Urban’s battle with the bottle has been an open secret in certain circles for some time now. Ever since he attempted to exchange wedding vows with one of the specially commissioned garden ice sculptures back in June, rumours have spread about his unfortunate alcohol problems.

Most guests were originally prepared to explain away the gaff as a combination of wedding day jitters and wife Nicole Kidman’s legendary lack of human warmth. But when he chipped off his prospective bride’s arm so he could have his scotch ‘on the rocks’, tongues began to wag. In addition, pre-marital nerves failed to explain why Urban was wandering around wearing only a cowboy hat, nor why he’d nailed human tongues to the tails of the dogs in the first place.

Urban’s AA sponsor, Mr Hugh Jackman, agreed to break all kinds of confidentiality oaths to further clarify the situation in exchange for not referring to him as ‘Wolverine’. According to Jackman, the source of Urban’s alcoholism can only ‘partially’ be blamed on his wife slowly morphing into something from mankind’s most primeval nightmares.

Wolverine went on to reveal that Urban, in fact, lays most of the blame for his addiction at the feet of 1) talentless newspaper subeditors who insist on making pun ‘Urban’ headlines, 2) a deep-seated loathing of country music and 3) (and less explicably) Ron ‘Horshack’ Palillo.

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Urban’s Alcoholism No Myth

Chubby Checker Fires Film Director

Dan — Thu, 19 May 2005 02:00:00 +0000

I see twistin

Chubby Checker, the singer who tantalised the world in the 1960s with his twin hits Let’s Twist Againand The Twist (reverse order), today announced that he was looking for a new director for the upcoming movie based on his life story. The original director and Checker have parted ways, citing ‘creative differences’ and a ‘fundamental lack of respect for dance crazes’.

Chubby Checker, whose name was derived as a play on words from Fats Domino (who, in turn, derived his name from Chinese pop star, Porky Mahjong), explains that he got the idea for a movie based around his life after watching Ray, the Academy Award-winning parody of Ray Charles.

“I figured that if they could make a successful movie about him, they could make an even more successful one about me,” said Checker. “After all, what was the only hit that Ray Charles ever had? Shake A Tailfeather. Which was a song all about dance crazes such as The Twist. I say: go straight to the source, baby.”

“So the first thing I did was get on the phone to my agent/dentist and ask him to hire ‘the best Twist director in Hollywood.’ Unfortunately, I ended up with him,” said Checker, referring to original director M. Night Shyamalan, director of such ‘shock ending films’ as The Sixth Sense,Unbreakable and that other one.

“It was all a ghastly mismatch from Day One,” confirmed Shyamalan. “I’d been hired to put my style on the film, so I was thinking, y’know, what if Chubby’s at a concert, but the concert is being attended by aliens? Or what if Chubby can do the twist, but not if he’s exposed to water? Or what if we watch the whole movie before we suddenly discover at the end that it’s not Chubby introducing us to the twist but rather the rest of humanity introducing Chubby to a more normal way of relating to music?”

“You see what I had to put up with?” said Checker. “I just wanted a simple movie – maybe me singing a few songs, dancing a bit, showing off my beef jerky franchise. Throw in a car chase and some underwear models and we’re done. I don’t need ghosts or creepy-ass kids who can see ‘twistin’ people’. But he wouldn’t let it go. Eventually we agreed to part ways.”

M. Night Shyamalan revealed that he did, however, depart with a small triumph. “I never told him what the ‘M’ stood for. I’ll just cling to that one.”

“Who cares?” responded Checker, when told of this. “‘Mad as a March hare’? It doesn’t really matter. All I know is that Shyamalan has no sense of 60s dance crazes – no feel for them, no connection to them. And that is his loss.”

“Shows what he knows,” retorted Shayamalan, before dropping his voice to a whisper. “The ‘M’ is for ‘Mashed Potato’. Yes. As in the dance craze of the same name.”

There was a brief pause before Shyamalan came clean. “Actually that’s not true, but it would have made for one hell of a twist to this story, don’t you think?”

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Lauren Bacall Releases List Of Legends

Dan — Mon, 27 Sep 2004 02:00:00 +0000

Donny Most, the most legendary screen redhead of them all

Lauren Bacall today released her much awaited finalised List of Legends, a ranking of the people she considers legends and, implicitly, those she does not. Bacall, who leaked Days of Thunder Oscar-winner Nicole Kidman as a notable red-headed exclusion from the list only last month, says that her list will “surprise and titillate”.

And the screen veteran has fulfilled her promise. Along with the expected members of the list – King Arthur, Robin Hood, Gilgamesh, et al have come a number of startling surprise inclusions.

The late Sir Donald Bradman made the list, thanks to Bacall’s long-standing love of cricket. More controversially, Indian swing bowler Ajit Agarkar also made her list. “I like the way he moves the ball around,” was her only comment on the oft-wayward pseudo-all-rounder’s inclusion.

Other surprise nominees on Bacall’s List of Legends were James Brown (“how could I omit ‘The Godfather of Soul’?” was her only explanation) and Christopher Columbus (“kudos to him – the world isn’t round and he was the one who stood up and said so. Also, I love those Home Alone movies he made”).

But the biggest talking point was the inclusion of former Happy Days star Donny Most, who played Ralph Malph. Bacall confessed to it “being a toss-up” between him and Anson ‘Pottsie’ Williams, but Most had eventually won based on both his “superlative surname” and his “erotic red hair”.

Upon hearing the latter quote, Kidman remained stoic about her exclusion. “Lauren is right. I’m not a legend,” said the Mule In Rouge star. “And, besides, I’m in fine company. Many great actors were excluded from Lauren’s list and if it’s good enough for my best friend Naomi Watts to miss out on the list, then, heck, it’s good enough for me.”

When informed that Miss Watts made the list on the second page, Miss Kidman responded with an earthy and heartfelt “Fuck!” before declaring the media conference over.

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Spine Experts Gather To Study Kylie Minogue

Dan — Tue, 14 Sep 2004 02:00:00 +0000

The misshapen spine of Miss Kylie Minogue

Chiropractors, physiotherapists, Jude Law and back specialists from around the world have gathered in Vienna, Austria in a desperate bid to salvage the spine of pop sensation Kylie Minogue.

Minogue, 36, suffers from ultrascoliosis, an extreme curvature of the spine that makes it impossible for the pop songstress to maintain a normal posture, even when threatened by large men named Rocco. The First Annual Kylie Minogue Conference attended by over 8000 experts in the back was the brainchild of Dr Mark Hamill, Chiropractor To The Stars and a doctor in no sense.

“The tragedy for Kylie,” said Dr Hamill. “Is that it would havebeen such a simple condition to treat if only we had discovered it earlier, perhaps in her teen years or, ideally, just out of thewomb. An ongoing course of regular weekly adjustments for the rest of her days would have prevented the misshapen vertebrae damage we now all see.”

Professor Huey Lewis of The Garvan Institute for the Criminally Insane and Troubled by Back Pain disagrees. “Miss Minogue’s condition is dietary – a lack of calcium has resulted in weak bones and malformed growth in the back region. Calcium tablets, spinal surgery and regular exercise will get her back on track.” He grinned at his pun, but the other doctors were too busy arguing with his diagnosis to appreciate its cleverness.

And so it went. Each new physician had varying hypotheses as to the cause of Miss Minogue’s condition and the optimal treatment of it. Some blamed lack of exercise and proposed “hanging froma trapeze each night”, others blamed her ailment on her rigorous schedule on the Australian television soap opera Neighbours and suggested a complete spinal transplant was the only cure.

But it was Dr Richard Burton who stunned everybody when his keynote address claimedthat Miss Minogue’s ailment could be directly traced back to her dalliance with the late INXS singer Michael Hutchence and offered “compelling evidence” that her back condition would onlybe eased when “the Hutchence bloodline was finally severed and the curse put to rest”.

Shining through the squabbling however was one shining beacon of consensus. Spending a week studying picture after picture of a scantily clad Kylie Minogue was by far the best excuse for a conference they had ever come up with. Dr Hamill even suggested that they might be able to get Kylie herself to come perform for them next year, assuming, of course, that something could be done about “the restraining order problem”.

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Disappointing Olympics For Stanozolol

Dan — Mon, 30 Aug 2004 02:00:00 +0000

A disappointing Olympic Games for the hard-working drug Stanozolol

As the Athens Olympic Games draw to a close, the performances of Stanozolol, a long-time powerhouse in the Olympics medal tally, have drawn harsh criticism.

Stanozolol, a banned anabolic agent, finished a lowly seventh on the Olympics table with 6 Gold, 9 Silver and 2 Bronze, for a total of 17 medals. This compares unfavourably to previous games, such as Sydney (20 medals, 8G, 4S, 8B), Atlanta (24 medals, 10G, 10S, 4B) and Mordor (31 medals, 15G, 12S, 4B).

Other substances have come from nowhere to dominate the medal table. Chorionic Gonadatrophin finished top of the table with 81 medals, including a staggering 41 golds in disciplines as diverse as weightlifting, sprinting and Pictionary™.

Synthetic Erythropoletin also performed strongly, taking home 25 golds, while the exciting newcomer Genetic Enhancement took home a gold in the Synchronised Archery. Seasoned observers expect Genetic Enhancement to be far more formidable in Beijing around about 2008.

Critics claim that this is no excuse for Stanozolol’s poor performance, however. Drug Observer Skeet Ulrich thinks that Stanozolol has simply become complacent. “What Stanno has to realise is that one can’t simply stand still. New drugs are appearing all the time. New standards are being set. One must strive to keep up or fall into irrelevance. Does he want to end up like High Altitude Training or, perish the thought, Natural Talent and Training?”

IOC President Don Henley has applauded the performance of all substances that have taken part in the Games, reminding us all that the Olympic movement is “not just about the drugs that win the medals”, but celebrates the “participation of all drugs”. He went on to add that “These games were an unforgettable dream Games – and that’s down to the marijuanas and tijuana floating balls as much as anything else. The IOC applauds all the drugs that have made these Games such a dizzying, surreal experience.”

He then proclaimed himself the reincarnation of Zeus, declared war on the Underworld of Hades and hurled himself from the balcony in a failed bid to summon Amazon princesses from the very clay of the Earth.

And with that, the Athens Games were over.

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