On the back of the legendary Sir Alex Ferguson’s decision to retire, I find myself pondering all the tough transitions for big personalities who go from high pressure positions to having all the time in the world. No more glitz, glamour, acclaim, nuthin’. It’s all about idle minds, coin collections and hours and hours to eye-ball teenagers on shop corners and finally getting around to making that sex tape…

Here be a select few on the cusp of making that move away from the limelight and some insights, so hot off the press that the press hasn’t even been pre-heated at 180. And what better way to kick things off than with the man of the moment…

Sir Alex Ferguson:
The greatest Football Manager of all time? Yes. Well, aside from yours truly who, when playing Football Manager on PC took Torquay United from League Two to the Champions League in 2010. Beat that, Sir!

But big Sir Alex Redface leaves behind arguably the biggest job in football. A legacy built from twenty something odd years of man-handling players, self imposed media exiles, berating of match officials and spending billions of hours engaging in mind games with fellow managers, often while splitting a bucket of his own wine. What a guy.

No more sitting in the big racing car chair on match day. No more press conferences to unveil unknown and untried Brazilian footballers. No more hiding the racing guide under his team sheet. Sir now has a lot of free time to spend with the missus. He can rest his jaw after years of chewing gum battery. But most importantly of all, he’ll finally be able to catch that bus he’s been chasing.

Kerri-Anne Kennelly:
The first lady of Australian television; Kezza has been hard at work for roughly 212 long years. She’s swooned, crooned and Danoz-Directed and when she finally makes that leap into (full time) retirement, the world will finally be her oyster.

Quite literally, I mean. Kerri-Anne loves our cockled friends so much that she’s often heard in interviews mapping out her big plans to build an underwater shell haven. Filled with nothing but mirrors and soft silky pillows. Fear not for her oxygen stocks, thanks to a committed and loyal make-up team, unbeknownst to the viewing public she’s had gills the size of cookbooks on either side of her throat and what was at first a frightening birth defect has turned into a retirement godsend for ol’ KAK.

So when you do decide to go out into the big blue yonder, Kerri-Anne, remember us well. For we, will undoubtedly forget you ever existed.

Bono:
Pretentiousness has always been a necessity for musicians. Without thinking they’re the greatest thing since self lubrication they wouldn’t have the ego required to step out in front of thousands of people and thrust their groins in their faces with such vigor. But there’s pretentiousness and then there’s Bono. Yes, he says save the children and yes he says buy higher UV protection sunglasses to save your eyes even at night, but you know damn well that he’s just trying to sell records so he can basically buy your soul.

Bono is a prick. U2 is overrated and there’s a guy who calls himself The Edge whilst wearing an Ali G style cap everywhere he goes. It’s all quite ridiculous. But when Bono decides to hang up his douchebag cape, he’ll more than likely be found at your local pub. Chastising underage drinkers and feeling up the fake plants in the corner. Y’see, cos Bono doesn’t give a shit about anything except Bono. Which would normally be fine, but not when people keep handing the son of a bitch a microphone.

Donald Trump:
Trumpy, you big ol’ son of a gun. His scalp was declared legally dead on Christmas Eve 1979 and the poor bastard has been stapling litters upon litters of kittens to his head ever since. The biggest cover-up of the century, none of us ever had a clue.

So when Don sells his last whatever it is that he sells and closes the door to wherever it is that he makes those sales, the lights will truly be out for the big man.

But little do you know, dear reader, that Don has always preferred the quiet life. It’s all about a nice night in front of the fire, sipping on a Continental chicken and sweetcorn cup-a-soup. And when all is said and done and the little Dons have been put to bed, he likes to get out his big black book of past deals and insert his semi-erect penis between the pages. Not in a sick, perverted kind of way. He just likes to feel at one with his accomplishments. He likes to be right up in there with them.

He’s not shy on visitors either, he’s very generous with his time and his biscuit tin but maybe just give him a buzz first. No one likes a pop-in, especially not big Donald Dick-In-A-Book Trump.

Mike Culpepper:
I now speak of a man who has craved retirement ever since he first stepped off the school bus back in Seattle in the year XXXX (removed by editor). Mike Culpepper loves the finer things in life and doesn’t care how he gets them. He won’t break the law (define break), but he’ll certainly borrow your refrigerator and your couch even if you’re using them. But you won’t seem to mind and you most certainly won’t ever want either of them back.

Retirement will be one awesome never ending party for MC. Sipping on cocktails, dancing the good dance, living the dream. Mike will go out into the world and be with his people. For they are truly his people and his alone. And when all is said and done, and his retirement moves onto that dark place on the cusp of the end, Mike will lay still on his deathbed with a contented smile. His arms draped around a woman or two. And he’ll move quietly into the night knowing he did it Sinatra’s way.

Clayton (RRH)

Clayton (RRH)

Occasionally while rummaging through grimy boxes in op-shops or scanning over trestle tables at markets, I’ll purchase a comic book just because it reminds me of Superman Is A Dick. I’ve never come across any quite as amusing as those on the website but here are a couple that I just fell in love with for some reason. I knew the stories inside wouldn’t be that amazing but staring at the covers for long periods has definitely made up for that. I can only hope that you enjoy them too.

What mighty villains have managed to put the caped crusader on the back foot? The Joker? Poison Ivy? Killer Croc? How about a middle aged chunky-calved office lady from the deep south? Look out Batman! She’ll do your taxes! I read some of this comic and had absolutely no idea what was going on. It was never clear who was a member the Suicide Squad and who wasn’t or what anyone was supposed to be doing. Batman did turn up in the final few pages though, and pretty much beat the shit out of everyone. Then left.

Is Doctor Doom really that unpopular? They have to promise readers that he won’t be in an issue so they won’t run out of the room screaming? Jesus, no wonder he’s trying to destroy the world. And in case you’re wondering; no, the the startling secret of Frankie Raye isn’t that startling. She’s black.

I am totally not turned on by this space woman, and if you are then you’re crazy. Wow. If this was issue 1 where could they have possibly gone in issue 2? Alien Worlds is a collection of short stories and I actually doubt there was an issue 2, which is a big shame. This comic, unlike most of the others listed here, is awesome. The story involving this hottie and her little lizard friend in particular is amazing.

Savage Dragon is a great character with big muscly arms and he likes girls with big bouncing boobs. His girlfriend, Rapture, a prostitute turned superhero if I remember correctly, is having his baby, obviously, although the cover is the most graphic part of the birth we see. They had a boy. The relationship didn’t last.

Peter (RRH)

Clayton (RRH)

Some start out on Milo then move onto tea before finally arriving at the final stepping stone that is a solid heroin addiction, I mean coffee. A coffee addiction … Of course there are others who are so damn cool they jump straight from chocolate milk to a long black with one. Nice. I’m yet to meet a person who never made it past Milo (or the gateway drug as I like to call it) but there are some who stopped at tea after giving coffee a go while they were at uni before deciding “it just wasn’t for them”. Most of us are pretty much chasing the brown dragon though. I, myself, have often been lying awake in bed at night, sweating and mumbling to myself, hardly waiting at all for the morning’s next. Big. Hit.

Once we get to the stage of “huffing coffee” in order to “live” we tend to all split off into our separate groups or “Coffee Clans”. Of course these terribly protective clan members only meet civilly when the moon is in the seventh stage of Hibrades and 43 rabbits have been sacrificed on the altar of Brimm in the foothills of Wild Widonia. Which is roughly five days a week if memory serves. There are three of these clans: the Machines, the Plungers and the Instants; and they are all unmovably devoted to their respective ways of “life”.

Machines
It takes time to make an espresso and steam milk. Time and practice. An espresso machine can also be temperamental so members of the Machines group stare danger and near-annihilation in the face every day. Yes, there’s the risk, but there’s also the great reward. Machines are often go-getters and helicopter pilots or bungee jumping enthusiasts but a large number of them are also old people with lots of time and money on their hands. This is why Machines rarely see eye-eye on a range of coffee issues. New world beans or old? Luke-warm milk or lava-hot substance no longer resembling anything like milk? Mmmm. They also live in constant fear of their coffee machine turning into Arnold Schwarzenegger and murdering them with a steaming wand. It’s not an easy life.
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Plungers
Constantly, and perhaps unfairly, referred to as the ‘Toilet Cleaner’s by the other groups, Plungers have a lot of issues, bad habits, stains on their clothes and really are a sorry lot. Their issues aren’t just related to coffee wither. ‘Daddy syndrome’, ‘Mummy love’, ‘Lack of Mummy love, ‘kleptomania’, ‘God complex’ – the list goes on. And they have to put up with insipid coffee that lacks body and character. Plus they smell like shit.
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Instants
Life on the run is never fun. For those outside the group system, Instants are often thought to be an undignified bunch, but strangely enough they are envied and admired among the Machines and Plungers. Not a care in the world and always at work on time, Instants have the world at their feet. Instant coffee manufacturers have even changed the market to cater to this group; creating better instant coffee (Nescafe Black really is an incredible cup of coffee) and asking George Clooney to invent the Nespresso machine to make Instants feel like they’re actually doing something when really all they’re doing is pay $400 for a spoonful of instant coffee squeezed through some tubes.
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People are probably reading this and thinking ‘But I don’t smell like shit?’ and no, you probably don’t. You’re also most likely not a Plunger. Not a real Plunger anyway. Sure, you drink it. But do you live it? I do.

Peter with illustrations by Mystery T (RRH)

Enter, The Big Issue.

Men, women and sometimes pets stand in malls or on street corners, wearing high vis t-shirts and waving a plastic covered publication in the air in a half hearted manner (the people do, not the pets, that’d be weird). Occasionally muttering “Big Issue… Big Issue…” whenever the required energy can be mustered.

It’s a sad state of affairs, isn’t it? Because you know, I know and especially they know they’d rather be anywhere else doing just about anything else than that.

And there’s nothing worse for them or for you than repeated contact. Or, as it is for me, walking past the same person FOUR TIMES A DAY.

I head into work in the morning, he’s there. I go out to lunch, he’s there. I come back from lunch, uh-huh, still there. Then when I’m absolutely exhausted from sitting in my comfy work chair, drinking free coffee all day and drag my sorry arse onto the street. That’s right, there again.

Which got me to wondering. Business must be really slow for these guys. More often than not it’s the same old people walking past and the same old people ignoring them. That can’t be right, can it? It can’t be helping anybody. There’s got to be a better way and I dare say I’ve got at least one idea on making that shit better. Better for them, but most of all, better for us.

Variety.

Sell something different. Each day. To keep people interested. To keep people buying. How many times can you buy the same edition of a magazine for a whole month? As many times as you want probably, but you almost definitely won’t. It’d be different if The Big Issue was cheaper than my local paper and I could buy it to provide some assistance to the seller whilst lining my puppy’s pen for safe toilet training (it’d help if I had a puppy too), but otherwise, I’ve got no reason to repeat my business transaction until another 29 or so days have passed.

Introduce a lucky dip scenario, for instance. A random bag of wrapped items that the buyer can choose from. They can be wrapped in Big Issue articles for all I care, but integrate some mystery and some excitement into peoples lives.

I’m not saying I expect the homeless to entertain me if they want my hard earned silver (or maybe I am and I do?), I’m saying “where is the variety?” (just like the Black Eyed Peas did) and I’m saying it under my breath as I cross paths with each and every soldier in God’s unwashed army.

Call me insensitive (please, harder!) but I just think I’ve evolved with society’s thirsts for greater stimulation.

I want something new, exciting, emotive, proactive, insightful, vengeful, risqué, prudish, factual, fictional, self indulgent or at least surprising and I want it in my hand yesterday. And if I’m going to feel obliged to part with any of my money, I think it’s within my right to ask for a little more.

And that more is in the variety. The Big Issue has done incredible things and helped hundreds of thousands of people who can’t help themselves. I know this first hand. Well, not exactly first hand but pretty fucking close to my hands, let me tell you.

Y’see, my friends and I befriended our local Big Issuer back when we lived in London. Every few days we’d venture to the local supermarket to stock up on essentials (at least that was the plan) and we’d mosey on down with bread and cereal on our minds and end up walking out with a bag of mixed lollies and a few cartons of Holland’s finest(ly priced) alcoholic prescriptions.

And it was outside the supermarket that stood this figure. Smiling away, trying to make eye contact, engaging whoever, however to make a sale. So one fine day we struck up conversation and learned a tale of unhappy times. A story of loss and of heartache and of addiction. And it is because of this briefest of encounters that I can now fully appreciate the magnitude of what The Big Issue is about.

I take no satisfaction in saying that printed news is going to be a dying art and that The Big Issue will absolutely receive one of the first bullets in the gun and that my friends is a really sad thing. So maybe, just maybe, there does actually have to be a better plan for survival of this great institution rather than keeping on with the tried and tested norm…

I’m no son of a preacher man nor do I even live on a prayer, and maybe if I’d done even the most half-hearted of research I’d discover that The Big Issue has gone digital and started handing over iPads for five bucks and they’re now on some Forbes list or whatever. But don’t let the facts get in the way of a really nice idea. And don’t let a really nice idea stop you from outgrowing it.

I’m Clayton. And this is the end of this announcement.

Clayton (RRH)

If you take the time to actually watch the trailer you’ll see that this incarnation of the game based on the annihilation of your opponent is very gritty and dark in comparison to its predecessors. This seems to be the pattern these remake/reimaginings are taking; the recent Dredd movie was all serious whereas Sylvester Stallone was hilarious in his 1995 (the magic fucking number) version. You can picture Street Fighter (1994 unfortunately) coming out again in two years being shot through a grainy lens or filter with slow-mo knockouts and it’ll be about gangs in Columbia hiring some mercenaries with special powers to fight each other in a ‘winner-takes-all’ death match and those characters will have gritty dark backstories that nobody really understands and some obscure kung foo actor from the eighties will play a cameo. Woo-hoo!!!

Actually I kinda miss the super fake costumes and terrible sets of the 90s versions. At least I could see what was going on and not have to cringe at the gross special effects that the Dexter and CSI: Miami production team put together. But putting aside all that crap, the one thing you may have enjoyed the most from the (seven-minute????!!!!!!) Mortal Kombat trailer is the awesome backstories they give the characters. Reptile, for instance, was born with some genetic disease where his skin turns to fucking crystals (or parts of his skin?) and can’t absorb water and usually the babies die after two weeks from the ca-razy condition but he’s managed to make it to thirty. Oh, and these babies are also born with inside-out eyeballs. And because of all this Reptile has decided to live his life cutting off people’s heads and eating them when he feels like a snack. Baraka (who I don’t even remember) was a ‘failed doctor’ who decided to take out his vengeance (on who, it isn’t quite clear) by mutilating his body, surgically inserting massive fucking blades into his forearms and killing twelve people. And he learned karate somewhere along the line in order to become a better killing machine, I guess.

Johnny Cage was an actor and you see his head get cut off in the trailer, so … who gives a shit. Wait, wasn’t he like, one of the main guys in the game? Shit …

They gloss over Sub-Zero and Scorpion having a feud or whatever so there’ll no doubt be some cool shit in the movie about them, but I was wondering about the other popular characters and their possible backstories. Mmmm. Yes. I wonder what, say, someone like Raiden went through to become the lightening-wielding hat-wearing mother fucker that we know and love? Mmmmm, yes I wonder …

Raiden

Former pizza delivery boy turned pre-opp transvestite turned born-again Christian, Ray Den (codename Raiden) decided to become Thor, god of thunder. Unfortunately Ray didn’t have any cool viking helmets or axes or anything (pizza delivery just hasn’t gone on to become the boom business we all thought it would) so he just swiped a lampshade from his mum’s lounge room and strapped a 30,000 volt battery to his back. Some people call him mad. Others call him delusional. But the only name Ray answers to is Ray … Den.
Likely Time of Death in Movie: Let’s face it, he won’t be in it.

Liu Kang

Billy Ray was a preacher’s son and when his daddy would visit he’d touch up poor Liu Kang in the back shed while everyone else was tending the BBQ. Which is why Liu Kang took up Kung foo at an early age and later studied ‘Happy pants’ design and manufacturing at UCLA. Upon graduating, Liu went into the foightin’ business, defending the innocent from evil and instructing the unknowledgable on the benefits of a good perm and big pecs. As this is a Hollywood production (more like off-off-off Hollywood) and no one can pronounce his name anyway, Liu Kang never got a codename.
Likely Time of Death in Movie: He’ll win the damn thing.

Jax

Always looked like the most bad ass of all the MK characters, Jax was actually never any good at winning fights. All his legendary power was formed by sleepless nights punching shopping trolleys and jerking off in equal measure using each hand. A big lover of suede shoes, Jax once walked in on his wife having intercourse with a man without shoes. Permanently scarred by the experience, he has never taken off any clothing from the ankles down. And yes, his favourite fucking snack is a box of Jax.
Likely Time of Death in Movie: Second round.
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Goro

Lost his way in life after being sacked by Subway after refusing to make sandwiches with the fiddly pita bread stuff. The last words he ever muttered while in a green and yellow shirt were “Foot-long Honey Oat with cheddar cheese!” as he burst out of the store to live out his days in a sewer. After bathing in a toxic ooze (no, not like Ninja Turtles) he grew some extra arms (which would’ve made him Manager material back at Subway) and a pretty fucking sweet ponytail, he changed decided to devote his life to ripping the noses off Bubble-O-Bills and working part-time as a bouncer at a local gay bar, The Loin Cloth.
Likely Time of Death in Movie: Won’t actually fight, will just be the door bitch.

Kitana/Jade

Going through her whole life thinking she was two people wasn’t easy for Kitana Jenkins. Going through life as two people who hated each other’s guts certainly didn’t make it any easier. We can only imagine what it felt like when she found out her worst enemy’s father had been having an affair with her mother but there’s no excuse for the atrocities she exacted on her arch enemy, Jade Jenkinson. Herself. It’s hard to tell which half of Kitana’s body is more scarred but not as hard as it is for the writers to figure out how to work this stupidly complicated character into the storyline. Oh wait, they’ll need some tit and arse shots, so they’ll no doubt find a way.
Likely Time of Death in Movie: Somewhere in the middle. In a shower scene.
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There’s absolutely no information about the release of the Mortal Kombat movie on IMDB so maybe (or hopefully) this fucking shit will never see the light of day. Of course it could also be a prank like that Thundercats trailer with Brad Pitt and Vin Diesel. In which case I am kind of relieved but also really pissed off that they got me again. I was really looking forward to Thundercats.

Peter with special comments from Clayton (RRH)

Now I’m older, my earliest memories have somehow organized themselves into a coherent whole. Part of this comes from distance in time, but I’m sure a lot of it comes from the lessons of experience. Having observed my nephew grow from a tiny crawling thing into a little person, I’ve come to realize that my earliest memories were not so much events as vague impressions in which reality and imagination melted together. Watching my nephew crawl, I remembered that I first experienced the world as a wide expanse of carpet that was there to be explored. My first friends were a gang of distorted, comical faces that seemed to swim towards me from the pattern of the carpet. Towards its edge, the pattern became a racetrack on which I could make an ashtray into a racing car.

It wasn’t long before this sense of wonder began to dissipate. It retreated into the corners and shadows until it was only accessible through certain portals I had to search for. When I became able to walk around the room, I discovered that one of these portals was the cobwebbed gap between the radiator and the wall. I peered into it and sometimes dispatched cars and helicopters to explore it on my behalf. Years later, when the radiator was taken off the wall to be fixed, these pioneers were rediscovered and given back to me like gifts from my younger self.

There was another portal in an upstairs room. It was a small wooden table with a wind-up device on its underside: the kind usually found in a music box. Just staring at the intricate workings of the device was enough to transport me, but if I wound it up, it made yearning music that spoke to me of a deep and secret meaning to everything, just beyond my reach. As the song progressed, the music would slow down until I thought each clear note would be the last, and when it finally did stop, I would wind it up and listen again. My mother told me the music was called Lara’s Theme, from a movie made years before I was born. Even now, hearing the music gives me a feeling of being safe and comfortable with all the best adventures yet to come.

In time, there were fewer portals and I had to travel further to find them. With each new discovery, I felt like a brave explorer carrying out grand and important work. The focus of most of my explorations was a wasteland on the far side of the local park, which everyone called “the Pits” for a reason no one seemed to remember. In the summer, gangs of children built tree houses there with jagged pieces of wood, damp carpets and dripping sheets of plastic. If I tried to climb into one, an enraged gang of children would always appear from somewhere nearby, shouting for me to get out. The tree houses elicited a fierce, territorial pride in their makers. Even if I knew them from school, around their tree houses they were transformed into savages, unmoved by reason or ties of friendship. Looking back, I realize that they were only protecting their own portals as they disappeared around them, perhaps sensing that in a matter of years there would none left at all.

Adults saw the world in a different way to me. Where I saw portals, they saw distractions. They could only transport themselves from the real world by forcing themselves into a kind of trance with a book or some music. After coming back from a long shift at work, my father would lie silently on the sofa with his eyes closed, listening to classical music. When he was out working, my mother sometimes listened to Across the Universe by The Beatles over and over again as she cleaned the house. John Lennon, recently dead, sang “nothing’s gonna change my world,” his voice thin and plaintive under the sound of the vacuum cleaner. I played with a Matchbox car in the corner, lost in the music of it all.

Adults had imaginations, but these seemed limited to fears about certain dangers. Each adult seemed obsessed with a different danger. My grandmother, for example, lived in fear of creatures she called “glue sniffers.” In her mind, they swarmed into every corner of the city the moment dusk fell. She thought they infested a passageway between her house and the house next door, which she called the “ginnel.” I was not allowed there. When I asked her what glue sniffers were like, she told me that they went around in packs looking for secret places, where they would crouch down together and put bags over their heads. From my grandmother’s stories, I became convinced that the city at night teemed with shambling wraiths with bags over their heads, looking for ginnels and other evil places. In my mind, the glue sniffers became a dark army with supernatural powers, performing unspeakable rituals at night and howling at the moon. Far from being afraid of them like my grandmother, I secretly wanted to find them so I could see them weaving their dark magic.

But my parents had their own magic. At night, if I left my door open and stayed awake for long enough, I would sometimes catch sight of them as they carefully made their way up the stairs in the dark. I could only make out the orange glows of their cigarettes. They seemed to float like friendly fireflies.

Then I would fall into a deep sleep, secure in the knowledge that everything was going to be all right forever.

Elron (RRH)

Unfortunate as it is for me, however, is the very painful truth that one cannot simply turn off their genius. It follows them around. Haunts them. Keeps them constantly moving towards greatness, searching for theorems and whatever Matt Damon could’ve done if he just stopped hanging out with Baffleck in the Good Will Hunting documentary.

So something as ordinary as waiting for your game to load on your selected gaming device might seem like a moment of nothingness to you. But for people such as myself, it’s yet another canvas on which to paint my wisdoms in bold, striking colours.

There’s a PlaystationMove warning sign before all games as they load which says ‘allow enough space for use’, then shows the risks and measures one should take in order to avoid bodily harm or death to thou plasma. Just another set of rules and manipulation from the man to keep you toeing the line. Not me, man. I’m not going to swallow their corporate shit! I’m going to outright ignore their messages and go to the smartest people on the planet for real ‘in the moment’ quotations to share. And who be smarter than the celebrities?

So I observed my celebrity friends over a night of computerised badminton and I report back my findings to you here today.

And because I’m such a great guy, I’ve included an empty one here for those of you who decide to join in on the fun by submitting a captioned version of your own celebrity obversations on our Facebook page. Ya never know, you could win yourself your very own limited edition RobertRedfordsHair t-shirt just for getting involved! Oh the humanity, such amazements present themselves!

Come forth. Be bold. Be brave. Just be more b’s.

Clayton (RRH)