Hagen's House

On to the next one!

2013-09-21T20:58:00.002+02:00

If you are here, be aware that this is the old version of Hagen's House! The new blog is at here. Please drop by and let us know what you think!

100 Greatest Movie Insults

2013-08-29T11:06:00.002+02:00

Stooges 1970

2013-08-26T13:55:00.001+02:00

Iggy Pop invest stage-diving at the 1970 Cincinatti Summer Pop festival. And also smears peanut butter all over himself.

The State of Curation

2013-08-23T10:40:00.000+02:00

The problem with earning a significant amount of money is that you have to spend it on something. The temptation is to invest it in further business ventures, but that only ends up earning you even more money. And then what do you do with that?

You can only sleep in one bed at a time, and you only require one vehicle to ferry yourself around town. So only catering to your practical needs isn’t even going to make a dent in your liquid assets. You could dedicate yourself to philanthropy. But if you’re a high-net-worth individual, you can build a school and still have a whack of money left over. It’s a problem.

So the very rich have come up with a novel pastime to dispose of their wealth effectively: they become collectors. When you’ve bought a mansion, a car, a yacht, some wine and some beautiful art without even making a dent in your fortune, it’s a sign from the gods that you need to become a collector.

There is no greater sign of refinement than becoming a connoisseur of the rarest, most exclusive, most coveted items on the face of the earth.

Of course, when you begin dealing in large numbers of top-end items, you’re back to investing again. You find the value of your collection appreciates. But that is the burden of the wealthy to bear. Money attracts money, and nobody said being rich would be easy.

Wheels of fortune

The quintessential rich man’s purchase must be the sports car. So if you can make a name for yourself as the most noted car collector on earth, you’ve achieved something.

For some, a car collection is a status symbol, but for others, like comedian and host of The Tonight Show Jay Leno, a healthy salary is simply a means to indulging an honest love of automobiles. The 63-year-old American has a legendary collection comprising around 90 motorcycles and 100 cars of historical significance as well as spine-tingling power. His collection is diverse, including vintage cars, classics, race cars and sports cars. He owns a steam-powered 1906 Stanley, as well as the first Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren supercar in America.

Noble and authentic as Jay’s love for cars is, his collection pales compared to that of Texas lawyer John O’Quinn. O’Quinn made his money in civil lawsuits, winning $1 billion against Wyeth Laboratories for the effects of its diet drugs and $17,3 billion in a tobacco lawsuit for the State of Texas.

In the course of his 68 years, O’Quinn amassed a collection of 800 cars, including John F Kennedy’s 1962 Lincoln Continental, a Ford Escort that once belonged to Pope John Paul II and the Batmobile from Batman Forever. He also owned what was said to be the oldest car in existence, an 1884 De Dion Bouton et Trapardoux Dos a Dos steam car. After his death in 2009, it was sold at auction for $4,6 million.

O’Quinn would sometimes buy 14 cars at a time at auctions. By 2004 he had clean lost track of how many cars he had, and it was months before he noticed his Ferrari 575M and a Ford Mustang had gone missing. It turned out employee Zev Isgur had been ripping him off. That is, of course, the eternal problem with collections of heinously valuable items: you need to keep them somewhere, and if there are a lot of them, someone’s going to be tempted to steal them.

Watchmen

Someone unfazed by such risks is Russian President Vladimir Putin. Who would dare steal a watch from him? Russian opposition group Solidarity says he has a watch collection worth $700 000 despite earning only $112 000 a year. “Putin apparently did not eat or drink for six years to acquire this collection,” said solidarity member Boris Nemtshov in a blog post.

Watch collections are having a bit of an image problem, then, if you consider that disgraced financier Bernie Madoff also had one.

Redeeming the pastime somewhat is Milan banker Alfredo Paramico, who has a collection of Patek Philippes worth an estimated $25 million. So passionate and so knowledgeable is the 44-year-old Paramico that he has established an investment fund based solely on vintage watches.

The fund, with Luxembourg-based Elite Advisors SA, last year consisted of 512 luxury watches – mainly Patek and Rolex – housed in an underground bank vault. It was worth more than $20 million. Elite Advisors offers an investment product called Passion Investments, where the firm collects fine, classic objects on behalf of clients. “Investments in tangible, easily understood assets emerge as an obvious, real alternative to traditional financial investments,” says the firm.

In 2009 the Passion Investments portfolio was 30 per cent in luxury collectibles like cars, boats and jets, 22 per cent in art, 23 per cent in jewellery, 14 per cent in coins, antiques and wine and the remainder in investments like sports teams, horses and musical instruments. The firm notes that wines are a good starting point for new collectors, as entry prices are still relatively low.

Grape investment

With some investors becoming disillusioned with intangible financial products and unpredictable markets, alternative investments like collectibles have become viable. Some of them even have their own financial indexes. The Liv-Ex Fine Wine 100, for instance, has risen 5,6 per cent since the start of 2013.

Wine collections can be managed by brokers much like traditional investments. However, the Financial Conduct Authority in the UK classifies wine as a “complex and risky investment” and mandates the use of specialist brokers. Ironically, wines are an illiquid investment, since little of it will have willing buyers. The only wines generally worthy of investment purchase are reds from particular French estates – Chateau Lafite Rothschild for instance, or Chateau Latour and Chateau Haut-Brion.

The largest private wine collection in the world is in fact held by Bern’s Steakhouse in Tampa, Florida. The place was established by Bern Laxer in 1956 and is still owned and run by his family. The restaurant has been rated the best in America and its wine cellar is legendary. Bern’s stocks 500 000 wine bottles and 6 800 labels. Their wine list runs to a telephone book-size 212 pages and they host their own annual wine festival.

The cellars are so vast that from time to time they unearth forgotten bottles of enormous value. In 2010 they stumbled upon a bottle of the legendary first-growth Bordeux, Chateau Latour 1947, worth $30 000. It was added to the wine list, and, unsurprisingly, diners wanting to order it will first have to make a cash deposit with their booking. Again, this collection is for enjoying, not simply gathering dust.

Another such collection was that of legendary British wine writer Hugh Johnson. When he moved house, he sold off the contents of his five-room wine cellar for more than $150 000. His collection included an amphora dredged from a shipwreck at the bottom of the Mediterranean and dating back to 100AD.

Needful things

Any discussion of passionate collectors of means would be incomplete without mentioning Russian tycoon and Chelsea Football Club owner Roman Abramovich. The man bestrides the luxury collectibles scene like Mike Tyson did boxing in the Eighties. He’s like the Tiger Woods circa 2007 of the premium objects and exclusive portfolio items game. He’s the main owner of investment firm Millhouse LLC and his $14,6 billion fortune sees him ranked the 50th richest man in the world by Forbes. But it’s what he does with his fortune that really distinguishes him. Besides being a player in many established collections fields, Abramovich collects things that nobody else does.

For instance, he has a collection of luxury yachts that has numbered up to eight at times. He currently owns five yachts, which have been called “Abramovich’s Navy”. The flotilla includes what was at the time the world’s largest privately owned yacht, the 533ft Eclipse, worth more than $400 million and coming with its own mini submarine.

The Abramovich air force includes a Boeing 767-33A/ER with a 30-seat dining room and an Airbus A340, reputedly worth $200 million. The latter is the largest personal plane ever built, with a Jacuzzi, Turkish bath, gym, conference room, bar and restaurant. He also owns three Eurocopter helicopters, which ferry him to and from his yachts and numerous palatial residences.

The latter constitute a collection of flabbergasting note. He has bought five neighbouring properties in the Lowndes Square area of Knightsbridge, London, and connected them, creating a 2 700 square metre mansion. The properties cost him $20 million to purchase, but the combined value today could be ten times that! Besides this, he has an estate in St Barts, West Indies, a mansion in Aspen, Colorado, a chateau in the south of France, an estate in Sussex and another mansion in Kensington, West London.

But perhaps most indicative of the plight of the man who has everything is his recent purchase of New Holland island in St Petersburg.

Abramovich and his partner Dasha Zhukova are serious players in the contemporary art market, and have assembled a vast collection, including famous works by Lucien Freud, Francis Bacon and Russian artist Kabakov. Abramovich paid the highest price yet for a post-war work of art: $86 million for Bacon’s Triptych.

In 2010, Abramovich spent $200 million on New Holland, a crumbling former army base surrounded by canals in the heart of St Petersburg, Russia. The plan is to convert it into an art museum – perfect for housing his burgeoning art collection.

Thus do the interests of talented businessmen coalesce. His passenger plane, art and property portfolios can now supplement each other as he flies himself to St Petersburg to live aboard his yacht while viewing his art collection in the latest addition to his vast property holdings.

It’s good to be king, and no one loves things like a king.

Top-end collecting is big business. Behold some of the auction prices achieved for rare items

Wine
In 2011 a bottle of Chateu d’Yquem 1811 white wine was sold at auction for $118 000 to private collector and restaurateur Christian Vanneque.

Letters
In 1953 Francis Crick, co-discoverer of the DNA molecule, wrote a letter to his 12-year-old son Michael explaining the discovery, which would win a Nobel Prize. The letter was sold for $6 million at auction, making it the most expensive letter on record.

Drawings
The most expensive drawing ever sold was “Head of an Apostle” drawn by Raphael in the early 1500s as a study for his later painting The Transfiguration, which hangs in the Vatican. The drawing fetched $47,9 million at an auction in 2012.

Books
The Codex Leicester, one of the original scientific journals of Leonardo Da Vinci dating from the 1500s, was sold for $30,8 million in 1994.

Cars
A 1957 Ferrari Testarossa was sold at auction in Pebble Beach in 2011 for $16,4 million, making it the most expensive car ever sold.

Coins
The highest selling price for any coin in history is $10 million. The price was paid in a private treaty sale earlier this year for a “Flowing Hair Dollar” from 1794. The coin was the first dollar coin minted by the US federal government.

Paintings
The Card Players, painted by Paul Cezanne in 1893, is currently the most expensive painting on earth. It was sold for $268,1 million in a private sale in 2011.

Watches
A Zenith pocket watch given as a gift by India Nehru to her famously ascetic friend, Indian leader Mahatma Gandhi, later became the most expensive watch in history. It was auctioned in a lot with his spectacles, sandals and a bowl and saucer for $2 million. It was bought by Indian industrialist Vijay Malaya, chairman of the UB group and owner of the Royal Challengers Bangalore IPL cricket team.

This piece first appeared in Afropolitan

Orphic Oxtra – Skeletons Having Sex On A Tin Roof

2013-08-16T10:49:00.006+02:00

In the mood for something weird? No, really weird? Okay.

Twelve-foot Slip-n-Slide loop with 4X4 tow-in!

2013-08-13T17:53:00.001+02:00

This has it all. Ingenuity, action, bloodshed, massive courage and ultimate transcendence!

Probably the best site on the Internet...

2013-08-12T23:48:00.000+02:00

It's called Bass Dogs, and the basic idea is taking pictures of people playing fingerstyle bass guitar and replacing the basses with wacky images of massive, fluffy dogs, so it looks like the dude is holding a hound and tickling it.

This would be your Slipknot bass dog, right here...

Perfect, right?

The dude who does it calls himself Michael M. During his formative years building up to his triumph with Bass Dogs, Michael M's other successes included the websites Ignore Hitler, Atom-O-Vision and Serious Men Holding Birds. Behold his greatness here.

Ladies, you had your chance...

2013-08-12T11:37:00.001+02:00

Big hair, big heels, big jackets. Colosally lumo colours, with big belt buckles and big slogans splashed across everything. Big dreams, big attitude and big scrunchy elastics to give you big, vertical, off-centre ponytails so you look like your head was exploding.

But those are the fashions, and you have to follow them – ’specially if you're a teenager.

If you're a girl you’ll have been crimping your hair with crimping irons before squeezing it into your vertical pony.

You, with your blue and pink eye-shadow, glossy pink lipstick and your fake Madonna beauty mole. I saw you at the open party.

I asked you to dance to Take on Me by A-ha, but you turned me down because I was wearing pin-striped Instinct drawstring slacks.

And everyone knows cobalt blue is the coolest colour.

But who cares about that whole plastic nightclub music scene anyway? Androgynous overly made-up stars with false eyebrows that point up at the ends? Boy George and Culture Club and Queen and New Romantic ponces with platinum blonde hair and kuifs the size of lounge curtains hanging in their eyes.

Bollocks to that.

Although I did check you at the Petit Cheval concert, that time they played support for eVoid. You were looking fine in your plastic belt, neon pink leg-warmers and your lumo-green Frankie Says Relax top.

Mainly I'm a beach cat, chilling on the sand with my 5’11" Levin twin-fin with channels and a box for optional tri-fin conversion.

No, I got it together. Bit of a kuif going on, sure, but more like the dudes from Depeche Mode than ABC.

But with my lumo-green zinc sunblock and my reflective Style Eyes mirror sunglasses on, you just can’t resist me. Especially not when I’ve also got my Bear International muscle top on. Yeah, baby I’m just oozing sex appeal when I get that sucker out.

It makes a perfect ensemble with my pastel pink towelling walk shorts – the ones so short that my goolies hang out of them if I sit down.

Which is why I normally wear my bright orange knee-length Gotcha boardshorts when I’m surfing. I got the skills.

You checked me doing verts in the bowl, I know you did. Lank kief verts, and layback tube-rides, and bunny-hop aerials, ja, I know you been watching me.

I checked you there on the pier with your Ray-Bans on, with your boob tube and your tight stone-washed jean. Looking so fine. Although, so did your mate with the layered hair like Charlie's Angels, in her super-tight pink mini skirt and the torn purple pantihose. Those hoop earrings were sharp.

I think I sharp your mate just as much as you. Why don’t you both come visit some time?

We can go shopping – I need some checked trouser braces and a rhinestone Michael Jackson glove to go with my High Chapparel cowboy hat.

We can also pick up some stickers from the surf shop. Surf Rats ones, and maybe a Country Feeling Surf Africa T-shirt and a pair of Ugg boots to go with my Rip Curl tracksuit pants.

If you’re not into that we can just chill at my place and do the Rubik's cube, or watch the A-Team.

Unless you girls aren’t into boys stuff and just wanna stay home with your Hello Kitty collections and your Cabbage Patch dolls. But whatever, I’m cool with that.

I know how you eighties girls think about boys. "If they don’t give me proper credit, I just walk away-ay," like Madonna said. Respect.

We can get to know each other better when we’re all grown up. In the 90s some time.

Till then, I got my double-wing twin-fin to keep me busy, with its fluoro green leash and lumo yellow lemon-scented Sex Wax. Yeah that baby keeps me entertained.

And when I’m over that, there’s always my dad’s Scope collection, my Atari TV games and my Juluka LPs.

But if you change your mind, give me a scotch call from the phone box or leave a message with my mom.

I’ll phone you back, or I’ll come visit, or we can go to Milky Lane.

Anyway, you’ve had your chance. If I don’t check you soon I’ll see you some time round the year 2000 and then you’ll be sorry.

You’ll realise you could’ve had a dude as cool as me back in the eighties, but you missed out. I can see you kicking yourself from here.

Sexy star of the internet Shay Maria

2013-08-06T22:15:00.001+02:00

Class war, same as before

2013-08-06T22:01:00.001+02:00

It's class war, same as before. The neoliberal consensus insists it doesn't exist, but I don't think so. And don't forget, the poorer I get the more socialist I get, so I'm not decided yet. And I like SuperSport too much to give up the crutch of privilege and entitlement that keeps me up above the people who talk to each other.

The people not anaesthetized by J.Lo cameltoe and how fat she look now she pregnant and did she use a surrogate and I'm talkin' shit but you know who I meant... And if there's anyone who doesn't maybe they weren't educated and trained for 20 years of their days to consider considerations of celebrity vacations and glam swag Facebook statuses and who Heyneke Meyer got at eight for Four Nations.

They put us to bed. Got us sleeping through double history. I'm rocking these cool sneakers coz I saw them in a magazine and I like to read magazines coz I see them on TV and I like to watch TV coz I saw it on the internet and I like to surf the internet coz I saw it on the internet and I like to surf the internet coz I saw it on the internet and I like to surf the internet coz I saw it on the internet...

They put us to bed, man! Fashion, sport, news, celebrity, all that stuff on DStv... It's like a lullabye. Like a ritalin remedy for your critical faculties. Entertainment, action... It's all just a distraction. From reality. To put us to sleep!

They got us sleeping through history. But Govan Mbeki said that history's on the side of the people. Now we just gotta decide... Is that us?

Coz it's class war. Same as before. The neoliberal consensus insists it doesn't exist. But I don't think so.

I believe I can fly!

2013-08-06T12:33:00.002+02:00

Tibetan Sky Burial

2013-08-05T13:46:00.002+02:00

Tibetan sky burial is a practice whereby the dead are left on a mountaintop for their body to be consumed by wild animals, especially predatory birds like vultures.

The body is cut open in various places to aid consumption and as you can see from the images here, funeral attendants – either monks or bodybreakers named rogyapas return to cut up and crush the body parts further in the course of the ceremony.

The ceremony dates back to the 12th century and is practical in the Himalayas where fuel is scarce and the soil is only centimetres deep. This makes both burial and cremation less feasible. Buddhist principles hold that life is impermanent, and that once the spirit has departed the body, the corpse holds no special significance.

How to take a selfie!

2013-08-02T11:55:00.001+02:00

"A picture is worth a thousand hashtags, so be sure to use a thousand hashtags"

Here's some bro tips on how to take the ultimate selfie after a gym sesh, when you're still swole, during the anabolic window. Then, how to optimise it so you become the king of instagram.

Proper hilarious! We're betting all the video cuts were from breaking character and bursting out laughing!

Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa

2013-08-01T12:04:00.002+02:00

This features a style not unlike that favoured by South African icon Leon Schuster. It's scripted comedic fiction mixed with real-people stunts and pranks. Good ones, though.

We had our hands over our face, peering through our fingers, concomitantly pissing ourselves and shocked at what we were seeing.

The movie is directed by Jeff Tremaine and written by him and fellow Jackass stalwart Johnny Knoxville. Knoxville also stars as 86-year-old Irving Zisman, on a road trip with his eight-year-old grandson Billy.

It's depraved, shocking and incorrigable. It encourages child stripping and interfering with corpses. It will be awesome and we can't wait to see it.

Beer drinkers, behold your new god!

2013-07-26T15:59:00.001+02:00

His name is Mark Manger, and he is the creator of the GrOpener, (Grab-Opener) the latest bottle opener design. the GrOpener is so quick and effective, it makes old-school bottle openers look like a hammer-and-chisel approach.

So beer drinkers, behold your future...

Fanny Neguesha: Namorada de Ballotelli

2013-07-25T09:24:00.002+02:00

An execution with a twist

2013-07-24T11:36:00.002+02:00

...or is it a bossa nova?

Limp Bizkit feat. Lil Wayne – Ready To Go

2013-07-22T09:56:00.001+02:00

Limp Bizkit and Fred Durst are still in the game. This is off their forthcoming seventh album, Stampede Of The Disco.

Fred did a pretty cool AMA on Reddit recently, where he came off all intelligent 'n' shit. The music is still Limp Bizkit, though. Lil Wayne gives it a go on this latest track, probably seeing as LB recently signed to Cash Money records.

Kinda works. And perhaps the wheel of social trends has turned to the point where people are ready to say fuck political correctness again and pretend that they're twelve. We shall see.

Nelson Mandela: Long Walk To Freedom trailer

2013-07-21T17:28:00.002+02:00

Planetary vehicles, supermodel feet, and the nostrils of Jennifer Lawrence

2013-07-19T12:51:00.002+02:00

The other day as I was plucking my own nosehairs in my rearview mirror and sobbing quietly into my fist, I began to muse on evolution.

Am I evolving because I now remove my nostril hairs? Or am I devolving, because I have nostril hairs?

I’m inclined to think I am actually evolving, and let me explain why.

I once had the nostrils of Jennifer Lawrence, so bald were they. I had the nostrils of Scarlett Johansson! Now my nose holes resemble light fittings in the roof of an abandoned YMCA, where renegade thatch plants have taken root.

Once I could’ve been a nostril model, I tell you. My nose would have featured on billboards the size of train depots! They would have been advertising… I don’t know, nosebuds, or something.

While the entire package has never been much to write home about, in the pomp of my youth I could have been a body model for at least three parts of the anatomy.

I have awesome thumbs, elegant yet manly, and quite a sexy thumbprint, a policewoman once told me. My feet have a width and solidity seldom seen outside Tahitian stone-lifting. Also, my lips have an expressive charm, as if I am always in the middle of speaking French.

I could have been amazing – a thumb, foot and mouth model – earning thousands worldwide. But it was not to be. When I should have been at thumb castings, I was at large on the social scene, hitch-hiking, playing quarters, and jamming slap bass in an intergalactic funk band.

It was similar with my supermodel feet and my lips of the gods. I took them totally for granted. When those things were in their prime, I was setting sambuca shooters aflame inside my mouth and running half-marathons in my jolling sneakers.

No man knows he is young while he is young, GK Chesterton once stated, and he was right.

Being young is to be blessed with a planetary vehicle – a human body – fresh off the showroom floor and undamaged by the harsh challenges of life. You have no maintenance skills, because you’ve never had to repair it. For all you know, it’s going to last forever.

I think part of one’s evolution as a man involves realising your body requires careful navigation and maintenance, then learning to look after it. You spend a few years giving it flat box, taking the machine to its limits and seeing how it handles. Then you pull back and operate within your reasonable parameters and do what’s required to keep the show on the road.

Starting out, maybe you’ll go to one Oppikoppi and not sleep for 62 hours, just to see what it’s like. If you survive that, there’s no reason to do it again.

As you grow up, you get a car and you do less hitch-hiking and running. Cars also have limits, but you still need to find out what those are.

Maybe once, leaving Vanrhynsdorp on the 300km drive through the West Coast badlands to Springbok, you’ll think, “Should we check the oil? Nah, I’m sure it’s fine.” Then, you’ll run the engine bone dry for three hours, blow a gasket, pop a hose seal and crack the cylinder head. The vehicle will never be the same again and will require a litre of oil a month from there on out.

As with cars, so too with men. Our maintenance schedules evolve over time. Our looks become less youthful, but our stories become more interesting.

We need to work harder and harder on our grooming routines, and the goal is no longer “looking hot” but being well maintained. Grooming, once a sporadic act dabbled in more out of curiosity than necessity, becomes a vital routine.

When I first started shaving, every ten days I would announce to my housemates, “Oh well! Just going off to have a shave now!” Otherwise, they’d never have known I was even of shaving age.

Today, seasoned campaigner that I am, I darn well better shave and moisturize every few days, or I start to resemble someone you give your doggie bag to at the robots.

But I’ll be the first to admit that I have evolved. My growing up has forced it upon me. If you don’t evolve as you grow, you become the guy in the Limp Bizkit T-shirt at the awards ceremony. The only single dude at the braai. Not to mention, the scruffiest person in the staff photo.

Think of it as sticking to the service intervals in your body’s log book. If you do so, you can age with style and grace and still cruise like a champion.

Look, don’t overdo it! No one’s calling for male make-up or cosmetic surgery. But you, like your Polo, need a maintenance plan.

Learning to accept that is the first sign of evolution already.

Disturbing? Yes! Thought-provoking? Hmmm.

2013-07-18T21:11:00.001+02:00

This mind-bender is from a heinously successful Cartoon Network series called Adventure Time, which you can find out more about here. There is a sweet allegory in there, if you can watch past the screams!

Mrs World 2006: a proper shambles

2013-07-16T21:14:00.002+02:00

As total cock-ups go, this was right up there. If you ever wished you were presenter Alan Thicke, this will cure you of that affliction.

Look out for Mrs South Africa speaking truth to power and pointing out what a travesty this is. Who's the winner? Mrs Costa Rica. What? We're in Russia? Okay, sorry. It's actually Mrs Russia!

Hooray.

Danny K – Brown Eyes

2013-07-15T16:48:00.002+02:00

Quality. Even if it wears it's influences on its sleeve. Or bra straps, as the case may be.

Tile: About bloody time!

2013-07-09T23:26:00.000+02:00

This cunning new invention allows you to keep track of any physical possession you can think of. Plus free punt by the developers. When your new app/gadget is as cool as this, we'll allow it.

Delicious in its terribleness!

2013-07-03T17:25:00.001+02:00

As it says on the packet, a deliciously terrible version of I Will Always Love You. You always wonder how these things end up getting posted on the web. Most normal humans would immediately delete a travesty such as this.

But for some of us there's a narcissism that refuses to accept the idea that that we're not awesome...