Pearls Before The Best and Worst of Food

i don’t know Stephan Pastis personally [although i did meet him once and introduce him to No_bob, the world’s most famous dolphin and if we keep on harrassing him he will surely HAVE to include No_bob in a strip] but it is quite possible he is stalking me.

As is evidenced in these two strips i just saw on the best and worst of foods. It’s like he ‘gets’ me.

THE BEST:

THE WORSTish:

Well, not quite the worst. You need to rely on Garfield for that:

THE ABSOLUTE WORST:

Whereas clearly Mr Pastis has some work to do on this one:

[For more great Pearls before Swineness, click here]

[The time i met Stephan and introduced him to No_bob] 

 

 

 

Black Swan meets Bring It On [or Improv gone Wild]

This was recorded at our Improguise: Players of TheatreSports show last nite and is quite possibly one of the best scenes i have ever been involved in.

The best part for me is there was absolutely no planning or pre-thought or idea of what was going to happen until the moment Anne was behind me and i just launched into it and like a true pro she followed and the rest is Improv history.

This is why we do this. [With Anne Hirsch and Carolyn Lewis]

We play shows every monday night at the Galloway theatre at 8pm [except this coming monday as we are doing a photo shoot to promo our venue] ending early December so make sure you book and come and watch really soon… although we will be back early next year…

For more info check out our page over here. Or like our Facebook page over here. Or you can even stalk us on the Twitterer @TheatresportsSA.

 

 

Happy 5 Year Anniversary

Yes. A Boob cake.

This is the picture of the exact mug i have.

KHANNNNNNNNNN!!!!!

So HAPPY 5 YEARS BLOG POSTING ANNIVERSARY…

To me… and more specifically, Irresistibly Fish…

For those of you who have journeyed with me for some or most of that time, thank you. As much as this is the online diary of my general musings, it has also been a place where i have hoped to challenge and wrestle and encourage and entertain others and every time you show up and read and especially when you engage through commenting or sharing pieces you particularly like it starts to feel like a community is growing.

The ultimate aim of having this blog is as stated in my tagline – Chewing the marrow out of life – you know the hard to reach but completely tasty bits – life to the absolute fullest in terms of God and Relationships and Humour and just general life and being people who Love well – i hope that you have experienced that over the years and will continue to.

LOOKING BACK

Without a doubt the two sections i enjoy most on this blog [and which have seemed to have the highest popularity again and again] are:

Taboo Topics – This has been a place to mostly invite people to share their stories on topics rarely spoken about both in church and often in general life. Particularly some harder experiences [like losing a baby, infertility, being a parent of a child when it’s not been that easy and even singleness for some people] but also areas such as Adoption and Race which are not bad things in themselves, but which may have painful aspects linked to them. So many incredible stories and it has been so great to see the encouragement this has often been to people who might be going through the same thing but have not had a safe place to share their stories.

Relationships – From Single to Dating to Married as well as other aspects of relationship such as Mixed Race or Culture and of course Sex, these have been posts that have obviously related to so many different people in a variety of different ways and again it has largely been through inviting people to share their stories and things they have learnt along the way that have tended to be the most helpful.

In the Fun section, it is the Pearls before Swine strips that i share from time to time [my favourite comic strip by Stephan Pastis] and the absolutely ridiculous Dangerous Things You Can Least Expect videos my alter ego, brad Fish, puts out from time to time, that deserve special mention, although hands down my absolute funnest [to me] picture that i possess is this one of Cloud Man which makes me literally outloud laugh [or at least nose-snort] every single time:

AND THE WINNER GOES TO…

Okay, so there is no winner – hopefully different posts resonate with different people and i really love it when people engage with posts and some great conversation happens in the comments section, which often leads to follow-up posts and inspiration for series and so on.

But there are posts which have proved popular than others and after 5 years of blogging, according to the WordPress stats, the Top 10 blogs in order of views are the following:

[1o] How much Sex in Marriage? [2500 views]

[9] Taboo Topics: Sex Before Marriage [Intro] [2673 views]

[8] Taboo Topics: Living with Disabilities – Meet Uel Maree [Spinal Cord Injury – Unfortunate diving accident] [2950 views]

[7] Taboo Topics: Sex in Marriage [Intro] [3143 views]

[6] Married People [and how to maybe do it even better] [3462 views]

[5] i kissed dating: the parts [4049 views]

[4]  Marriage through the years… part Intro [4424 views]

[3] How to raise your children as world changers: Meet Nigel and Trish Branken and their family [4770 views]

[2] How to save a marriage [before you need to] – the parts [4838 views]

So you guys are all about Sex and Marriage for the most part it seems?

Although in 5 years of blogging the absolute number one most visited, shared and popular post has been:

[1] Taboo Topics: Singleness [Intro] [5057 views]

i wonder what this list will look like five years from now as the blog continues to gain more traction and as our base of subscribers grows – i hope we will move to a time when this feels  a lot more like a community of friends and travellers trying to do the best thing with this life thing that we can.

i really do want to thank all of you who made it down this far and are a part of the community – every time you like and share and comment it ups the chances of an article or series being seen by more people and hopefully encouraging, challenging, humouring and more the people who you really care about.

MY FIVE YEAR ANNIVERSARY PRESENT

If there is something you can give me as a gift for this moment of celebrating five years, i would like to ask you for a SHARE. If there was a post on the top ten popular posts that particularly resonated with you then please stick it on your Facebook, Pinterest or Google + page or Twitterer it to all your followers. If there was a particular Taboo Topic that you found meaningful, then post that link and tag the people you think it will encourage. And if there was a relationship post or series, then stick a link on the page of three or four people you think might appreciate it. If you’re just here cos you’re a Brad Fish fan then choose your favourite ‘Dangerous Things You Can Least Expect’ video [which is probably this one!] and post it on your page and tag your friends who appreciate ridiculous to check it out.

Otherwise SUBSCRIBE to the blog and have each post link emailed to you directly, so you can choose which posts to check out and which to leave.

With 300 plus subscribers at the moment, if each one of you shared a post or series in your social media field, it would invite a lot of new people to come and check this out.

Finally… you might be wondering, why ‘Irresistibly Fish’?

Well FISH which has been my nickname since 1993 [i’m THAT old!] stands for Faithful In Serving Him [which is something i really do try to do with my life]

The ‘Him’ in there is Jesus. God. The One who gives my life meaning and fills me with the capacity to Love [which, yes, i can and need to do a whole lot better]

I try to live my life for Him and believe that it is the best way to really experience life to it’s absolute full. It is not always easy or straightforward. But it is always good. Even when it doesn’t seem to be.

That’s my experience anyways.

Happy 5 years to me. I hope you’ll be around for the next 5… and bring your friends! 

If you send me one of these you will be much loved.

marvin the marshoes

Abbott and Costello and Pearls Before Baseball ‘n Roll

Is this the best ever Pearls before Swine cartoon strip ever made?

Quite possibly yes although it does require you have a bit of a history of foreknowledge to fully appreciate it.

And to be honest, as much as i knew the skit it comes from, i had never watched the original til this very moment and it is incredible.

Abbott and Costello and if you haven’t seen this, do yourself a favour – this is insanely pulled off:

Now that you’ve got that under your belt, check the greatness that is Stephan Pastis and Pearls Before Swine:

[For more great Pearls before Swine strips, click here]

 

 

Pearls before Skeletons

It has been a while but here is a classic Pearls Before Swine misdirection [one of my favourite forms of comedic] to get you smiling:

And a bonus one depicting Pearls creator Stephan Pastis working SO HARD to get to his intended punclusion:

 

Gotta love the Pearls… and if you do…

[For a classic stupid Croc Pearls, click here]

[For more Pearls Before Swine strips than you can shake a very long stick at, click here]

Streeps ahead of the rest.

If you go and watch just one show during the Cape Town Fringe festival happening over the next ten days in Cape Town, then go and watch another one as well and let is be ‘The Brother Streep: Stand-up Musician’ at the Dragon Room, which is happening every evening for the next four nights.

Witty, catchy, laugh out loud funny in places and just completely silly and clever, this five person version of the two man band that has been bringing mirth and merriment to audiences around small venues in South Africa for years [in between writing theme tunes for Pop Idols, appearing on the Graham Norton show via satellite to sing their homage to Anna Paquin and being the Steri Stumpi jingle song guys].

You don’t want to get caught sitting in the front row because they might get up close and personal with you [although not in a die-from-embarrassment Corne and Twakkie way] but you also don’t want to get caught sitting in the back row cos lead singer Simon Streep might actually [like he did last night] pick you up on your chair [i doubt he would have managed it with me] and carry you to the front as he did for some poor [but lighter than me] woman last night. Although wherever you sit, you will still be expected to sing along with them when they whip out their generic school theme song that perfectly describes your time in that institution where Geography told us clouds were water based natural phenomena, while Computer Literacy informed us clouds were places for storing data [so confusing].

What you will get is an evening of fun and silly and very clever [or was that painful? or both] word play that will no doubt have you smiling and laughing and tapping your feet.

With moments of perplexion [it’s a word!] as they sing a song titled ‘The day after Christmas’ which is all [obviously] about people watching sport to see fights break out, or fight amongst themselves about whether they will sing a song about Restaurants or Politics [with the five person band somehow managing to be cut right down the middle on that one] and even a balladic love song by Dylan Streep on his love for Disney princesses – don’t be fooled by thinking you have what they’re about until that very last line and yet another AHA moment.

And even when they mess up. No, wait, was that a mess up? No, it’s part of the show. Or was it? They  do it so creatively, or was it that they planned all that beforehand? That it is so hard to tell. The Improv and scripted moments go so hand in hand that it all feels like a spaghetti bowl of assortedflavourments.

There may be better shows at the Fringe [they will suggest that to you themselves] but i doubt there will be any quite as fun. And go prepared with your hundred bucks to get one of their newly produced cds [they may mention it for a moment from the stage] so that you can be taking these catchy songs home with you and sharing them with your family and friends.

Don’t miss out. You really should go and watch the Streeps, ahead of the rest.

 

it is time for GYHOOYA to become a hashtag

i don’t particularly like using the word ‘ass’ – in fact i tend to avoid it.

but there is one time when it feels completely appropriate and it is linked to an acronym i came up with a few years ago when i was still in Stellenbosch

it is the acronym GYHOOYA and it stands for ‘Get Your Head Out Of Your Ass’ as so beautifully illustrated by the creepy pic at the top

i know, i know, the older generation and the more polite and elegant and self-righteous tut their tuts and shake their heads and make you-should-know-better noises at me…

but i REALLY like it, almost as much as i like the word CRAP. and for the very same reason.

it just says exactly what is sometimes needing to be said. you can say something is ‘rubbish’ or ‘junk’ or anything like that, but the word ‘crap’ actually much more perfectly describes the thing.

and you can rarely face-to-face or even on social media tell someone to get their head out of their ass, but you can quietly say, “GYHOOYA” [pronounced Gie-Who-Yah] and smile knowingly to yourself.

HASHTAGTIVISM

although i think the world is about ready for it, so maybe you can join with me in finding the times and place and people where a directed GYHOOYA would be the appropriate thing to say.

# people [especially men] who don’t understand what ‘Rape Culture’ is or who refuse to engage in healthy conversations around it.

# people [especially white people] who don’t understand what ‘White Privilege’ really means and refuse to engage with it and learn from those who are speaking about it.

# people who think being the church is only about attending a meeting at a specific place on a specific day

# Westboro Baptist ‘Church’ and anyone else who calls themselves Christian and refuses to act in love

# people who start sentences with the words, “I’m not racist/sexist/homophobic but…”

And more i’m sure – just every now and then something happens and someone responds in the most ridiculous of ways and deserves their very own GYHOOYA.

What about you? Who would you add to the list of people who need to receive a GYHOOYA?