Former 96fm funnyman, pommy geezer, ant impersonator and all round top bloke, Matt Hale, is on the road for a world tour in his latest guise, Crap Elvis.
Yes, not content to take on the world in a selection of long shorts and loud shirts, Matty instead opted for a crap $30 Elvis suit and hence, Crap Elvis was born.
I recall discussing the plan late last December over a number of drinks at the PPR Christmas Party, where oddly enough he was in civvies while I was doing my best Crap John Belushi, aka Jake from The Blues Brothers, impersonation.
Little did we both know that the concept would engulf the world media faster than a West Aussie bushfire, sparked largely by a 'Hunka, Hunka, Burning Toast'. Yes, while the US script writers have put away their pencil sharpeners, Matty is on fire, penning such greats as 'Be My Terrorist' - 'strap a bomb around my waist and put a bomb on it, oh let me be, your terrorist'.
The toast of the Parkes Elvis Festival in regional New South Wales, Crap Elvis has swept all before him in taking out awards for being the worst looking and worst sounding Elvis EVER.
In an exclusive interview with The Perth Files, Crap Elvis has confirmed that his crapness has exceeded even his wildest expectations. "I knew I was crap, but until you actually get up on stage and convince the crowd to start waving their toast in the air, you can't know just how utterly crap you can be - it comes from a place deep inside me," Crap explained.
Take heed world, Crap Elvis is coming your way and I for one can't wait to see the footage of our man in the cheap faux satin suit belting out a rousing rendition of 'Be My Terrorist' at the Alabama State Fair and White Supremacy Convention.
7 comments:
Now I have heard everything. You Aussies making money, fun, and a mockery of an international symbol of love and peace such as Elvis. It is a poor show. First the Indian cricket team, now Elvis, your blog has sunk to new depths.
Eh? You've missed the point! Far more respectful to The King to acknowledge you're crap than to prance around on stage assuming you're doing the old guy justice! This guy's got the right attitude: compared to Elvis we're all crap! You go Crap Elvis! Show The King we're humble!
K Larson, sorry, but you thinking I've missed the point really is missing the point - you see, I get the point! Matty Hale, aka Crap Elvis, is one of the funniest blokes getting around and his latest incarnation is further proof of that - all power to him!
Hey Cookster, I meant that Anonymous had missed the point! I'm with you, the guy's a legend!! I reckon it's far better for Crap to be doing his outwardly Crap (and therefore brilliant) routine than pretending to be any good! The king would love it! (and he'd love that ant prank call...!!)
Bugger, talk about going off half cocked! Glad to see we're on the same page on this one. Viva Las Crap I say!
SOMETHING ABOUT MICHAEL GARDINER
The rise and fall of the West Coast Eagles Empire.
This story starts at the Settlers Tavern in Margaret River on September 22 2001 on a dual AFL preliminary final day. I was having a well-earned break down south at a complex of holiday Chalets owned / run by a mate and his wife who recently before had had their first child .A free accommodation holiday down the South West coast the coast that would have made Les Norton greener with envy than Canberra Raiders rugby jersey.
It was a troubled time to be rocking in the Free World.
You may have heard about the crisis of September 11, 2001. 11 days earlier.
No not that one, my crisis. After spending 5 years over achieving and reaching middle management status (and a top 10% wage for my age and education demographic) in a very successful well-known WA owned Construction and Engineering Company I was sacked. As the world was abuzz with Osama’s luckiest and only break I was co-erced into a signing a resignation letter on the proviso of a purely by the book legal payout. A months payout if I walked immediately and didn’t stir the pot with my generally well liked (by team) team staff of 14 with a 0% turnover over 2 years. I personally made this company nearly $7 million in 18 months looking after two large labour–hire construction contracts in Port Hedland and Dampier. This was when the Western Australian economy was minus the V8 motor. In the year Y2K - before Generation Y and China’s rampant natural resources addiction going off like a Hamas suicide bomber, Perth was a conservative city small minded town run by a network of corrupt businessmen, politicians, cops and all the young dudes with Masters of Business Administration post grad degrees. The oil price post 9/11 was $22.33 per barrel. The Gold price was $280m per ounce. The ASX All-Ordinaries index was under 3000 points. I was burnt out and didn’t do the company for unfair dismissal as that wasn’t the way I was brought up. To quote Jagger/Richards -
“You can't always get what you want
But if you try sometimes you just might find
You just might find
You get what you need”
Or deserved. SUCH IS LIFE.
Back to Margaret River on 9/22/2001. I was watching the Hawthorn v Bombers hanging out with my newly formed two day front bar posse of Surfers / Fishermen and members of an Perth Indie rock band who’s name escapes me that I had seen support Geelong rock band Magic Dirt two nights earlier at the Prince Of Wales in Bunbury.
As our gang grew in numbers and after a few failed mystery bets I put on a successful sport triple bet on Essendon and Brisbane winning that days prelim finals and Box Hill winning following day’s VFL flag. (I cashed it in at the Silver Sands Tavern in Mandurah the next day on the drive home). I had just been handed a handful of bush grown pot by an expressive fisherman with a crook back who was married to a girl I knew that was a family friend. The luck of the half-Irish to be sure.
A couple of amateur footballer / nearly made league WAFL type guys started talking to me and started telling me of the night club shenanigans of the West Coast Eagles Batman and Robin at the time, Michael Gardiner and Ben Cousins. They told me that were really wild boys. As a self-confessed occasional dabbler over the years in various illegal and Pharmaceutical drugs biography – I had no problem with that. Big deal – who with a sense of adventure hasn’t? I am a member of the West Aussie ‘I took Ecstasy when it was still legal club’. The only people that the Drugs really work for are the people selling them. There is more money in Oil and Gold.
As a foundation Dockers member from late 1994 with my late and great father – I couldn’t stand the Eagles. I thought they represented the Car Salesman / Real Estate agent made good Western Australian back-slapping ‘why would you want to live anywhere else’ dickhead Business world – much heralded by their media outlets at the time The West Australian Newspaper and the Western Suburbs Weekly. Remember the social pages ‘The Warhols’ or as a mate / ex-business partner of mine referred to them as The Assholes?
I had assumed that Michael Gardiner and Ben Cousins were straight laced footyhead dorks. 2001 wasn’t a glory year for the WA Football Commission. We (Fremantle) came last (not winning a game until round 18) and the Eagles 14th.
These unsubstantiated claims of drug use by the dynamic duo made me see a human side to them. At the time all I really was aware of them was that the Big One was attacked by 4 Footscray defenders in a final as a kid and a few years later gave Matthew Pavlich a prize-belting in one of the best footy fight days I haven’t been lucky to witness in person. The smaller one – Ben Cousins who was actually about the same height as me (I later crossed his path numerous times over the years at the now closed Blockbuster video store on Canning Hwy, South Perth and Essentials Deli across the road from Wesley College where Kim Beazley (who is thankfully far heavier than me) often buys the morning Australian and once said to me jovially that John Howard was a Little Wanker. Oh yeah …all I remembered of Cousins was that he was another product of my also beloved East Fremantle Football Club and as a kid he got savaged by the Angry Ant Brownlow Medallist from Footscray.
Life imitates fiction Libba and Cuz both ended up winning them. And I can honestly tell you that on the Wednesday after his Brownlow win and a few days before their Grand Final loss to the the Swans (they’ll always be South Melbourne to some of us) – a Black Eyed Cuz and his girlfriend got out the overnight rental DVD Racing Stripes.
I transgress. Since hearing that gossip about them in a smoky front Bar in Margaret River nearly a fortnight post 9/11 – I actually liked Michael Gardiner and Ben Cousins. They were the best players the Eagles had at the time and became Captain and Vice Captain. I still like them despite still nurturing my scorn of the Eagles. They still wear the Birthmark and the state of Excitement number plates in my opinion. Created by the 80’s brigade of dodgy crooks that run this town.
Something about Michael Gardiner.
Actually two things. I sat behind him, his Father and lawyer when he was in the WA Local Court room 37 for his headline grabbing Drink Driving charge. He was nervous. So was I was for a different reason. The Clerk of Courts snapped at me to take my sunnies off my recently shaved cranium – Gardiner was far more polite to the Crown! On that day he was well dressed private school graduate. So was I.
That was the second time I had seen Gardy in person. The first was in 2003 at the invite only VIP opening night of the Voodoo Lounge upstairs bar of the Red Windmill strip club. Dunno why I cracked an invite. I must have left a business card with ‘Chemical Alison’ during a ‘private’.
I had recently got my decree nisi (Divorce) in Family Court. Funnily enough the day I got divorced Dad and myself had a celebratory drink in the café of the Duxton Hotel. The much slandered by newspapers John Kizon was sitting at the next table with a short lawyer from Perth and a probably more expensive one from over East. Kizon was wearing a cool looking denim jacket – the old man spotted him and said to me “Hey that’s that Craig Christian bloke!’
Anyway The Red Windmill which has now closed was in William St, Northbridge and managed by the then El Prez of the Coffin Cheaters Outlaw Motorcycle Club Ed Withnell. All I can say about Eddie Withnell is that in probably a dozen times or more I have spoken to him etc as a patron of one of his bars he has treated me with more respect and dignity and ‘cut me more slack’ than another pub / bar manager in this town. He once politely told me at my age (at the time late 30’s) I should think about cutting back on the booze and slowing down about. Another much slandered – by – the press bad boy and what I would call a mate of mine Tim Zoehrer (once gave me the same advice). Zoehrer was a few years older than me at school. Withnell went to our rival Christian Brothers College. I went to the same school also as the new Boy Wonder (and ex-collar and cuffs topless waiter and ex- inner city flatmate of Chris ‘Mainy’ Mainwaring) of the West Coast Eagles - Mark Barnaba. He was also a few years older than me. The more famous member my school alma-mater was Troy Mercanti – unfairly represented as a redhead in Episode 4 of the hcnnael 9 series Underbelly. He was two years younger than me. Decent guy and talented footballer at school and on the very few occasions that I have run into him over the last decade mainly at nightclubs but once at the footy he has always been pleasant and shook my hand.
Gardiner was out of order at the opening night of the Voodoo Lounge at the Red Windmill. I’ll leave it at that. As a man now in his early 40’s I can honestly say I have behaved much worse on licensed premises. After ignoring a good 10 minute lecture by a black pinstripe Australian wool suit wearing host Ed Withnell – Gardiner got marched downstairs and out by five nervous looking bouncers. He left compliantly. I couldn’t believe how big he was up close. If I was a 18 year Matthew Pavlich I wouldn’t have had the guts to have taken him on before the siren in the goal square at the Subi Station end. If he wouldn’t listen to Withnells’ advice what hope had his thug AFL footy coach that roughed up a teenage Winston Abraham in the first Western Derby. Yes I refer to the hard man ‘Woosha’ Worsfold that Malthouse dropped for his last game when he was a season past getting a game on football talent. I would put my money on Withnell v Worsfold in a scrap.
Anyway…I am writing this tale in support of Ben Cousins and Michael Gardiner. They were the second wave of neon Gods made by the Indian Pacific noteholders (anyone feel like a chuckle when I mention the names John Walker and Richard Colless?) The win at all costs Perth white-shoe brigade corporate raider mentality won the West Coast Eagles the 2006 flag. Cousins and Gardiner got chewed up and spat out. Their new Chairman worked for Alan Bond in Dallhold Holding’s ‘Last days of Saigon’, went to do an MBA in the USA, worked for the world renowned McKinsey Management Consultancy (who’s South East Asian principal partner by the way once recorded a 8 track demo tape – the lyrics to 6 of the songs which where written by me) and won a WA Business news 40 under 40 award. Good on him. From my very vague memory of his football talent at school he could not have got a kick in a Sherrin factory. Mixing footy and business – I ask you is it worth it?
I am not a criminal. I haven’t abused recreational drugs in years. I am in stable employment in a well paid white collar job – on St Georges Terrace no less. I don’t smoke. I drink too much beer and wine – but I am probably an extra in a cast of hundreds of thousand of Sandgropers there. I now choose my own company when I must in preference to hanging out with hypocrites and energy vampires. I hope to remarry and have children one day. Failing that I may try and track down that beautiful pole dancer from the strip club – Chemical Alison.
Best of ‘Freo’ luck to Ben Cousins this year – whatever he ends up doing. Best of luck to Michael Gardiner for his season at St Kilda as well. You two were the good guys. The Dockers would have loved to have you.
And most importantly best of luck to the Fremantle Football Club. Hope you win a flag for my recently departed family members Dad and Matt Price.
FFC Membership Number 012155
I think that comedy is one of the most noble activities because it is based in making feel good to others. And that is very important, and is hard to achieve because in different countries people have different taste for jokes.
I am one of the best real estate agents in my town and have customers in different countries where the interactivity with them is completely different; I imagine that in humor must being worse make the work done with these people.
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