TOUGH Lad of the week: Forrest Griffin

Unlike our last TOUGH CUNT of the week, Forrest Griffin isn’t being honoured for one hard as nails incident, but rather for being a tough lad his entire life. A professional Mixed Martial Artist for the past 10 years, at the age of 31 Forrest has become a fan favourite in the UFC for his exciting fights. He is also a gas man, and I recently read and enjoyed his first book “Got Fight”. It is part autobiography, part training tips, and gives a great insight into the mind of a guy that I consider one of my idols.

The best thing about Forrest Griffin however, is how much of an everyman he is. He is not like a Mike Tyson or an Anderson Silva, who are basically machines and can be counted on to win nearly every time. Forrest is just a guy who loves fighting, and doesn’t have many things in his favour other than his determination to win and willingness to take a beating. One of the most famous stories about him involves a fight he had in Brazil before he got famous. In this fight, Forrest had his arm broken blocking a kick from his opponent, but just kept fighting and won the fight by knockout with his other arm. This got him serious attention, and now he is one of the top ranked MMA fighters in the world.

He is also prettymuch mental, and not just in a wacky, Mel Gibson in Lethal Weapon (or real life) kind of way. Before becoming a fighter he was a police officer, but was supposedly discharged after failing the psychological tests required to fully qualify. After this, he started training with some friends, and entering various underground tough guy competitions. In an contribution in his book written by one of his friends, he says that Forrest often used to get drunk before training each day, figuring that he would most likely be drunk if he got in a fight, and so that was the best way to prepare. If you have never seen one of his fights and intend to watch one, you better not be skittish at the sight of blood. He has been in so many fights that his face is covered in scar tissue, and he bleeds a little bit easier after every fight. 

When I think of a hard lad, Forrest Griffin is always the first person I think of. I admire his straightforward approach to everything in life, and have tried to become more like this myself since reading his book. He suggests getting over fear of confrontation by going out and letting yourself get into a few street fights, and openly admits to losing as many fights as he won while growing up. He also has a second book Be Ready When The Shit Goes Down: A Survival Guide to the Apocalypse, which I intend to read as soon as I figure out which section of a book shop I can find it in.

This has to be the best book cover of all time

Never was a man more deserving of the title TOUGH CUNT.

History's Greatest Monsters, Pt. I - Tim Burton

I absolutely can't stand Tim Burton. Every few months I have to put up with his newest piece of kooky gothic CGI tripe starring Johnny Depp or/and his wife to offend my eyes and ears, while I stand and watch him being showered with accolades for the SAME FILM spewed from his vile gullet year after year. I’ve taken it upon myself to demonstrate and hopefully convert you as to why I hate him so much, as it seems whenever you ask people about him reactions range from 'OMG BEST DIRCTOR EVAR' to 'Hey, leave him alone, that one film he did was great!" (It wasn't: whichever one it is was shit).

First off, I want to make it clear I don't know a lot about films, so any part of this coming across with a degree of cinematic pretentiousness is not why I don’t like him. I've seen the same amount of films the average person has in their life (or possibly less), so I don't consider myself an expert - but I know a shoddy and lazy film when I see one. I doubt many film buffs hold this prick in a high regard anyway, so it doesn't really matter.  

Anyway, my belief is this: the biggest sign of an untalented director is one which rests on his laurels. You could see the first 20 seconds of any upcoming Tim Burton film and know that it’s his work straight away: after all, no other director debases themselves with such sellout repetition like he does. His genre is always a supernatural gothic setting, with the main plot device centering around romance, death or a mixture of both. The only exception I can think of directed by Burton is his remake of Planet of The Apes, which is so bad it deserves its own article anyway, so disregard it.

Burton also lazily employs the same actors in all of his identical films, knowing they work in the only genre he knows how to, and desperately need money as much as he does.  Before you point out that Quentin Tarantino does the same thing, at least Tarantino has the audacity to have virtually all of his films in different genres, even if they happen to feature the same actors. How does Johnny Depp keep getting scripts from Burton and not be bored out of his tree at making what is basically the same film? Sadly, it seems that both Burton and Deep finds themselves as too much of a shower of untalented hacks to collaborate into other genres.

They even look like a pair of wankers

Tim Burton fills a niche as a director pandering to preteen emo girls, at this point across two generations. Burton has been making his identical films since the late 80's for so long that his new generation of followers fail to notice the fat stacks of cash he reaped by doing the exact same thing he's been doing now a decade before. To demonstrate my point further, let’s have a look at his next two upcoming films, shall we?

**Dark Shadows (2012): "An upcoming supernatural drama film based on the 1960's gothic soap opera of the same name. The film is directed by Tim Burton and stars Johnny Depp as the vampire Barnabas Collins."
**Frankenweenie (2012): “A young boy who makes monster movies tries to bring his dog Sparky back to life after he has been hit by a car. Seven actors who previously worked with the director will rejoin him on this project providing the voices.”

Jesus Christ, does no-one else see that these are the same fucking films over and over!? Seriously, I never see anyone give out about him - why is he allowed to get away with this? Film making is an incredibly hard and thankless industry to make money in, and this balding Bono lookalike can just stroll in and create his life savings through the most shameless career path i've ever seen? - I can't justify him as anything but an absolute coward and a liar, and I truly hate him more than life itself for that.

And his wife is ROTTEN

TOUGH Lad of the week: Sean Bean

This series was inspired by a story I read a few minutes ago about an experience that actor Sean Bean had last weekend. You will all know Sean Bean as Boromir from Lord of the Rings, and Eddard Stark from the newish series Game of Thrones (if you haven’t seen either of those, get the fuck off this blog and don't come back until you have watched them). 

Basically, Sean (52) was out in London on Sunday night with his young ride of a girlfriend April, who happens to be 30 years younger than him and a Playboy model.  

Schwing!

Some lad came up and started mouthing off to April, so Sean Bean threw down his gauntlet (I assume he carries it everywhere) and told your man he would batter him. The guy ran off, and Sean went back inside to drink to his victory. A while later however, Sean went out for a smoke and the lad he had vanquished earlier came back, hit him a few times, then stabbed him in the arm with a bottle. The police came and the chap was arrested, so Sean decided to ignore advice to go to the hospital, went back inside and ordered another drink.

I don’t know about the rest of you, but if I was ever in a position where I was considering stabbing Sean Bean, I’d take this into account. I always assume people go off to Hollywood and become softboys, so it was a pleasant surprise to hear that a big time actor can shrug off being stabbed as easily as us common folk. Also, he has a scar from where Harrison Ford once hit him with a boat hook, look it up. 

Fuck James Bond

Tune in next week for your next TOUGH CUNT of the week.

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