Hello everyone who is reading this, and even anyone who isn't (just cause i'm nice).
I have news that makes me tickled inside my hands:
I am rehearsing Baron of You Know Where, my first two-act comedy with Sydney Uni Drama Society, and it will be on at the Cellar Theatre in March-April, so more updates closer to the date.
In other news, my third short play, Still Life, has been shortlisted for Short and Sweet, Sydney, and it will play for one-night-only, unless you show up and vote for it, at the Seymour centre, $25 a ticket for I don't know how many ten minute plays fit into two hours, I'm not a mathematician. It will be directed by my high-school theatrical chum Claire Smith, who has worked on such aspects of the Sydney scene as Wayne Tunks' many plays.
Still Life, and other short plays, as the evening has been dubbed,
will show at the Seymour Centre on Cleveland Street
on the 2nd February, a Sunday, at 3pm.
Hope to see you there,
Benjamin
Thursday 13 December 2007
Friday 28 September 2007
Blog: good poets you may not have heard of.
Tattoo
The light is like a spider
It crawls over the water.
It cralws over the edges of the snow.
It crawls under your eyelids
And spreads its webs there –
Its two webs.
The webs of your eyes
Are fastened
To the flesh and bones of you
As to rafters or grass.
There are filaments of your eyes
On the surface of the water
And in the edges of the snow.
- Wallace Stevens
Voyages I
Above the fresh ruffles of the surf
Bright striped urchins flay each other with sand.
They have contrived a conquest for shell shucks,
And their fingers crumble fragments of baked weed
Gaily digging and scattering.
And in answer to their treble interjections
The sun beats lightning on the waves,
The waves fold thunder on the sand;
And could they hear me I would tell them:
O brilliant kids, frisk with your dog,
Fondle your shells and sticks, bleached
By time and the elements; but there is a line
You must not cross nor ever trust beyond it
Spry cordage of your bodies to caresses
Too lichen-faithful from too wide a breast.
The bottom of the sea is cruel.
- Hart Crane
I'm Nobody Who Are You?
I’m nobody. Who are you?
Are you nobody too?
Then there’s a pair of us.
Don’t tell-they’d banish us, you know.
How dreary to be somebody
How public – like a frog –
To tell your name the livelong June
To an admiring bog.
- Emily Dickinson
O Me! O Life!
O me! O life!... of the questions of these recurring;
Of the endless trains of the faithless--of cities fill'd with the foolish;
Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?)
Of eyes that vainly crave the light--of the objects mean--of the struggle ever renew'd;
Of the poor results of all--of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me;
Of the empty and useless years of the rest--with the rest me intertwined;
The question, O me! so sad, recurring--What good amid these, O me, O life?
Answer.
That you are here--that life exists, and identity;
That the powerful play goes on, and you will contribute a verse.
- Walt Whitman
Tuesday 25 September 2007
Poem: Multiples of Leopold I
Anything beautiful
Is surreal
Except this sentence
And me when I breathe
Loud and obnoxious
In hopes someone will look my way
Say something strange
Like, oh how unexpected
A man who means something
Out of context.
I sing songs and you read books,
And this is the line that links us
If it says anything good.
Drafts of papers reproducing
Industry news and who’s who’s
Are portals Leopold chose to take
Years before we were watching.
He dove like a butterfly
With wet wings; tectonic shifts
Into oblivion and beyond
Lay an off chance Leopold would grow up,
His pleasures co-existing
But never awakening him.
But one life wasn’t enough,
Leo tried a couple at once,
No time for lying in flowerbeds
All day starting fires.
So Leopold was faced with a grave decision:
How best to exterminate someone dear to him.
He rolled the balls of his feet
On his stone lion’s forehead
And attempted metaphysical suicide.
I sing songs and you read books,
And that’s all there was between us.
Is surreal
Except this sentence
And me when I breathe
Loud and obnoxious
In hopes someone will look my way
Say something strange
Like, oh how unexpected
A man who means something
Out of context.
I sing songs and you read books,
And this is the line that links us
If it says anything good.
Drafts of papers reproducing
Industry news and who’s who’s
Are portals Leopold chose to take
Years before we were watching.
He dove like a butterfly
With wet wings; tectonic shifts
Into oblivion and beyond
Lay an off chance Leopold would grow up,
His pleasures co-existing
But never awakening him.
But one life wasn’t enough,
Leo tried a couple at once,
No time for lying in flowerbeds
All day starting fires.
So Leopold was faced with a grave decision:
How best to exterminate someone dear to him.
He rolled the balls of his feet
On his stone lion’s forehead
And attempted metaphysical suicide.
I sing songs and you read books,
And that’s all there was between us.
Friday 21 September 2007
Play: Being There (12m)
CHARACTERS
MOTHER
DAUGHTER
Insolent, sullen.
FATHER
seems to have no idea the kind of family he’s in.
MAN 1
does the talking.
MAN 2
has the power.
(A chair and small table downstage, where FATHER sits in the darkness, with a small book of French philosophy called “Being There.” )
(MOTHER enters far up stage, looking for her front-door key, and two PIANO MOVERS in work clothes freeze, carrying a body in a bag or a sheet.)
MAN 1
Hi.
MOTHER
(puts her hands on hips)
Hello… Is that…
MAN 1
Is this what you wanted taken?
MOTHER
I don’t know, who did you speak to?
(MEN lay the body down. MAN 1 looks at MAN 2, who gestures for MAN 1 to show her their log book. MAN 1 shows her the book )
MOTHER
Its blank.
MAN 1
Huh.
(flips through the book. Shrugs, looks anxiously at MAN 2)
I just started a new one. The other one’s at home.
MOTHER
What a surprise.
(sighs)
Did either of you take the call?
(MAN 1 looks at MAN 2, who shakes his head ‘no.’)
MAN 1
No.
(MOTHER sighs, goes to the body)
MOTHER
May I?
(MAN 1 looks at MAN 2, who shrugs. MOTHER sees MAN 2’s answer and looks in the bag/under the sheet. MAN 2 watches her with great interest)
MOTHER
(a bit lost)
I’m sorry, there’s been a misunderstanding.
MAN 2
(sighs, walks slowly over to her, referring to the body)
Its not yours?
MOTHER
(eyes him)
You shouldn’t have been called.
MAN 2
We got a call for something to be moved, we get here and this was on your front porch… Ready to be moved… What did we misunderstand?
MOTHER
I apologise, its not your fault, you just shouldn’t have been called.
(MAN 2 glares at her for a long time.)
MAN 2
Well, we’re sorry to have troubled you…
(MAN 2 ushers MAN 1 off stage right, and just before he goes, he turns and says, full of import)
And your friend there.
MOTHER
(glares after him, looks down at the body)
Dear dear dear…
(dusts her hands off, walks downstage where the lights come up
On FATHER, sitting in a hard-backed chair, squinting closely at a book, straining his brain more than his eyes.)
MOTHER
(throws her purse down with a clatter on the table, knocking FATHER’s book away, and startling the hell out of him)
I’m just about sick of cleaning up after that girl.
FATHER
What?
MOTHER
Well, she can’t go around killing everyone she disagrees with.
FATHER
Yes.
MOTHER
Apart from anything else, its just bad manners.
FATHER
Yes.
MOTHER
I’ll try and have a word with her.
FATHER
Yes.
MOTHER
(not listening to him)
Have I been a bad mother to her?
FATHER
(guesses, guesses wrongly)
Yes?
MOTHER
(not listening to him)
I just don’t understand where she gets it from.
FATHER
Yes.
MOTHER
Maybe its those soaps she watches… They’re probably filled with all kinds of things children shouldn’t be exposed to… All you’d have to do is watch one to find out… But would it be worth it?
FATHER
Yes.
MOTHER
I just can’t relate to her anymore, would you mind if I had her disowned…
FATHER
Whatever you think.
(pause)
Should I still call for a piano teacher?
MOTHER
(pause)
They cancel each other out. Its got to be one or the other.
(DAUGHTER bustles in from uni, throws books on table. FATHER and MOTHER stare at her, she’s oblivious.)
DAUGHTER
Where’s dinner, I’m starving…
MOTHER
(stares at her)
There’s no dinner.
DAUGHTER
Why?
(pause. They glare at DAUGHTER. DAUGHTER smirks)
Who died?
MOTHER
Your piano teacher.
DAUGHTER
(curious)
Oh yeah? How?
MOTHER
On my front lawn.
DAUGHTER
That’s not good.
MOTHER
Are you going to apologise?
DAUGHTER
Why should I?
MOTHER
Can I tell you a story?
DAUGHTER
Bit busy at the moment.
MOTHER
Today I had to eulogise
(she takes her overshirt/jumper off, revealing reverend’s collar)
old Smith and some kid, neither of whom I knew a thing about, and Mrs Smith wanted me to say what a wonderful card player her husband was, and the smaller one’s parents wanted me to say oh boo-hoo I’m really sad and boo-hoo it couldn’t have happened to a nicer kid… How the hell would I know? I don’t know any of these people, and they always make me say things when they die… I wouldn’t mind going if they didn’t always insist on me making a speech…
DAUGHTER
Can I go to my room?
MOTHER
(forceful)
No.
DAUGHTER
It would make me happy.
MOTHER
(Comes around behind DAUGHTER, poised to attack)
Oh, well that’s my life’s mission, isn’t it? That’s all I ever think about… I go to work, talk about dead people I don’t know, raise money to pay for your piano lessons … I hope you enjoyed them.
DAUGHTER
They were okay.
MOTHER
(applies pincer fingers to her shoulder, half-heartedly)
Is this okay?
(pause. threatening)
Stop saying “okay”, okay?
DAUGHTER
Okay!
(MOTHER lets go, sheathes her pincer in her armpit and begins to pace around her daughter)
DAUGHTER
God, mum, I just had this fixed.
MOTHER
Well, I’m terribly sorry to inconvenience you, I know how much trouble it is for you to get to the chiropractor, which you pay for by hosting your own funerals, I’m sure…
FATHER
(clears his throat. MOTHER glares at him.)
What was that?
MOTHER
What?
FATHER
In your holster.
MOTHER
(takes out her pincer fingers again. Flattered by his curiosity)
Oh, nothing.
FATHER
No, go on.
MOTHER
(a bit annoyed at the interruption)
Its just my pincer.
FATHER
Martial arts?
MOTHER
No, I made it up.
FATHER
Its really nice.
DAUGHTER
You said you wouldn’t use that stuff on me.
MOTHER
You said you’d start listening to your mother:
(turning her around)
Listen to me! You really upset me this afternoon. I don’t like surprises, and a piano teacher in a bag is not something…
(pause. DAUGHTER’s reaction is inscrutable)
I mean, How do you prepare for that? You’ve put me in situations before where I’ve had to pretend you were normal to keep the men from taking you away, but this…
(pause)
That golf bag was a present from your father…
(almost weeping)
It was our anniversary.
FATHER
(matter of factly)
We went hunting at the zoo.
DAUGHTER
So they found her in your bag?
(pause)
Huh.
(MOTHER looks suspiciously at DAUGHTER)
MOTHER
Do you hear how she spoke to me?
FATHER
Mm.
MOTHER
Its almost as if she blames me for her mistakes. Like I would waste the money we paid for a year’s tuition in advance!
(snaps)
I didn’t teach you those skills so you’d abuse them.
(pause, slowly, mournfully)
They were supposed to be saved for special occasions.
FATHER
Like anniversaries.
MOTHER
(calmly)
This time I’m putting my foot down. If you were grown-up enough to kill her, you should be grown-up enough to dispose of her body.
DAUGHTER
(humouring her)
Yes mum…
MOTHER
Its not that I mind you doing it. It’s your record they’ll go on, if you get caught. I didn’t mind it when you killed Uncle Archie…
(explaining it)
He smelt like eggplant. But if you make a mess, you clean it up. That’s the only rule we have… And you disobeyed it.
(comes towards her)
Your punishment shall be…
DAUGHTER
Hey… No more pincer.
MOTHER
Oh, I think your problems are too deep for that. You’ll get what you gave. Now, next time I, on a whim, indulge my baser instincts, you’ll clean it up. How do you like that?
(pause)
You won’t know when it’ll come… No matter how inconvenient it is for you... It might even be someone in this room… Depending on how nice you all are to me…
FATHER
(awkward pause. He feels like he should say something)
Were you just talking about me?
MOTHER
(snaps)
Glen!
DAUGHTER
Well…
(clapping her hands together)
Entertaining as always, but now I must away to my room, for I have some homework due!
MOTHER
(menacing)
Stay where you are.
FATHER
(awkward pause. FATHER feels he should fill it)
Should I make a note of that?
MOTHER
(holds up a single finger to silence him. FATHER silences his own lips with his own finger and looks down at his lap)
I’ve endured enough of your… tirades… I’m suffered… Oh, how I’ve suffered…
FATHER
I can second that, should I put that I second it?
MOTHER
But do you show me mercy? Will this torment ever cease?
DAUGHTER
You tell me, its in your head.
MOTHER
There you go again with your university degree, using your… Fancy brain, which I paid for, and again you choose to use it for wickedness…
DAUGHTER
(not too worried yet)
Seriously, I’ve got something due tomorrow.
(MOTHER her gesticulating arm drops, her shoulders slump, and she cries. Quietly.)
(now DAUGHTER’s worried. sighs)
Oh, not this.
MOTHER
(throws back her head and lets out a histrionic cry)
Oh ye gods! What have I done to deserve such a wicked child…
DAUGHTER
(frowning at MOTHER, then gets interested in fingernails, examines them for dirt… very important to undercut MOTHER’s display)
I ate garlic and slept upside down for a month, and still you would not give me a boy… A boy, my kingdom for a boy…
FATHER
(above his book, to audience)
The rational sex…
(DAUGHTER glares at him. He looks down at his book)
DAUGHTER
There you go, make a nice fuss… You’ll feel better.
MOTHER
I’ve always given so much… Ye gods, when will it be enough!
DAUGHTER
(lies MOTHER down)
Like a drink with your fuss?
MOTHER
Huh?
DAUGHTER
Yes… A nice drink. Of alcohol.
(pulls out a water bottle)
Like this one here.
(FATHER looks over, frowns)
DAUGHTER
You’ve had a big day, and this is what people do after big days, they drink them away.
MOTHER
Yes… It was quite big.
DAUGHTER
I know…
MOTHER
(Looks deep into the drink, then up at her, a bit suspicious)
I didn’t think we had any…
DAUGHTER
Its from my room.
MOTHER
(sits up, glares at her)
Young lady…
DAUGHTER
If I kept it down here it’d be gone in one…
(pause. Taking the piss)
Morning…
MOTHER
(indignant)
I suppose that’s my fault, too.
DAUGHTER
Its not like we force you to drink…
(MOTHER looks suspiciously at the drink)
DAUGHTER
Except this one time…
MOTHER
You’re a good daughter…
DAUGHTER
(pause. MOTHER thinks it’s a tender moment between them. DAUGHTER grabs the glass and brings it to her mother’s mouth)
Drink your drink.
MOTHER
(when she’s had enough, hurls the glass, which is actually plastic, off-stage)
Tastes salty. Like my tears.
(starts her off again)
DAUGHTER
Oh, shut up… Those tears…
(pats her head)
There… There…
(MOTHER becoming more drowsy, looks around for a pillow, sees Father’s coat, whips it out from behind him, FATHER has a delayed reaction. While DAUGHTER folds it into a pillow, FATHER feels around behind his back.)
There y’are.
(MOTHER makes happily sleeping noises)
Just think happy thoughts.
(MOTHER moans restlessly)
Like those two people you buried today.
(MOTHER smiles and moans happily in her sleep)
And the one you killed.
(MOTHER nods, in her sleep)
Well, that was easy. Dad, have you seen the… tape?
FATHER
(mystified)
What tape?
DAUGHTER
You know.
FATHER
We don’t have any tape…
DAUGHTER
The tape. Your favourite kind. I know you’re just playing dumb.
FATHER
If you’re going to be like that…
DAUGHTER
Okay, okay, I’m sorry… You know, the packing tape she’s so fond of.
FATHER
(frowns for a long pause, as if this isn’t true, then he remembers)
Oh yeah… Its…
(lifs up his legs, looks under his feet, peers into his top pocket, pulls out his trouser pockets, spilling coins all over the place)
Oops…
(grinning like an idiot, he kneels to scoop it all up)
Change… Fell…
(laughs nervously)
DAUGHTER
Dad, would you hurry up.
FATHER
Sure.
(Finds the tape, gives it to her)
Ah, here it is.
(Settles back to his philosophy, which he strains to concentrate on)
DAUGHTER
Now…
(Back to audience… kneels, hides her work, ties MOTHER’s hands behind her back)
Can I borrow your knife?
(FATHER hands her a large knife. FATHER does not seem worried. DAUGHTER pretends to be doing a delicate operation. The actor applies a red dot to end of MOTHER’s nose, some on her ear, and two lines between her eyes.)
Thanks.
(admires it)
Huh.
(hands it back to him)
FATHER
I like to think it can cut through bone, but I’ve always been too shy to try it.
DAUGHTER
It does cartlidge.
FATHER
Oh, well that’s something.
(PAUSE. DAUGHTER gets her bag, picks up a few things)
(like she’s going away for the summer)
Going so soon?
DAUGHTER
I have to.
FATHER
Well…
(pause)
Be safe.
DAUGHTER
(frowns, confused, exits)
(The calm before the storm. FATHER reads his paper, frowns a little, in the silence of the quiet stage, gets an itchy nose, moans a little about it, then is seriously shocked when)
MOTHER
(Her hands are tied. She looks all over here for missing body parts, twitches her nose. It feels strange. She assumes she’s been butchered, which she has. She groans in frustration… A hollow woofing kind of sound)
My ear. Where’s my ear gone?
FATHER
(not looking up from his paper)
Where did you last see it?
MOTHER
(pause)
In the mirror this morning.
FATHER
Well, that’s where it’ll be.
(MOTHER gets up, exits. Off-stage, she screams. Rushes back in)
MOTHER
Have you seen this? Look what that daughter of yours has done to me.
FATHER
(not looking up)
You look fine.
MOTHER
Excuse me.
(goes to slap him, finds her hands are tied… )
What now…
(Tries to look at how they’re tied, goes around in a little circle like a dog chasing its tail. Groans in frustration when she can’t slap him.)
She’s taken a bit off my nose… And put it between my eyes… Can’t you see the difference?
FATHER
(stares at her, squints)
Oh yeah…
(MOTHER’s head sinks)
Come here…
(holds her by the waist, brandishes his knife)
MOTHER
(touches the end of the knife)
There’s blood on it…
FATHER
Oh yeah…
(shrugs)
Turn around.
(he cuts the tape, swivels her to face him)
(looking closer at her new face)
Actually, I hate to say it, but…
MOTHER
(tries to stop him, but its too late)
Don’t you…
FATHER
I think she’s done you a favour.
MOTHER
This is my face, no-one’s allowed to work on it unless I’m paying them… Why do you always side with her… Is it because I’m… old?
(she begins to boo-hoo loudly, only breaking boo-hooing to articulate her following lines)
FATHER
There there…
(He stands up to embrace her, she falls into his arms.)
MOTHER
I hate her.
FATHER
I know you do.
MOTHER
I’m going to…
(makes lazy stabbing motion with both hands, then waves it away)
FATHER
(in response to her mime)
Its only fair.
MOTHER
And then I’ll…
(she ties a big bow in the air and pulls it upwards to make a noose then clasps her hands together and pumps them)
FATHER
(in response to her mime)
No-one would think badly of you.
MOTHER
(she’s just sniffling now, and lying on his chest, plays with his shirt)
Can I have a new daughter?
FATHER
We’ll send off the application in the morning.
MOTHER
I’ve still got you!
(They smile at each other)
Unless you piss me off…
(Pincers him in love handles and he makes a noise half way between a laugh and a scream)
(NOTE: his unexpected noise punctuates the end of the play, and co-incides with lights off)
CURTAIN
END OF PLAY
MOTHER
DAUGHTER
Insolent, sullen.
FATHER
seems to have no idea the kind of family he’s in.
MAN 1
does the talking.
MAN 2
has the power.
(A chair and small table downstage, where FATHER sits in the darkness, with a small book of French philosophy called “Being There.” )
(MOTHER enters far up stage, looking for her front-door key, and two PIANO MOVERS in work clothes freeze, carrying a body in a bag or a sheet.)
MAN 1
Hi.
MOTHER
(puts her hands on hips)
Hello… Is that…
MAN 1
Is this what you wanted taken?
MOTHER
I don’t know, who did you speak to?
(MEN lay the body down. MAN 1 looks at MAN 2, who gestures for MAN 1 to show her their log book. MAN 1 shows her the book )
MOTHER
Its blank.
MAN 1
Huh.
(flips through the book. Shrugs, looks anxiously at MAN 2)
I just started a new one. The other one’s at home.
MOTHER
What a surprise.
(sighs)
Did either of you take the call?
(MAN 1 looks at MAN 2, who shakes his head ‘no.’)
MAN 1
No.
(MOTHER sighs, goes to the body)
MOTHER
May I?
(MAN 1 looks at MAN 2, who shrugs. MOTHER sees MAN 2’s answer and looks in the bag/under the sheet. MAN 2 watches her with great interest)
MOTHER
(a bit lost)
I’m sorry, there’s been a misunderstanding.
MAN 2
(sighs, walks slowly over to her, referring to the body)
Its not yours?
MOTHER
(eyes him)
You shouldn’t have been called.
MAN 2
We got a call for something to be moved, we get here and this was on your front porch… Ready to be moved… What did we misunderstand?
MOTHER
I apologise, its not your fault, you just shouldn’t have been called.
(MAN 2 glares at her for a long time.)
MAN 2
Well, we’re sorry to have troubled you…
(MAN 2 ushers MAN 1 off stage right, and just before he goes, he turns and says, full of import)
And your friend there.
MOTHER
(glares after him, looks down at the body)
Dear dear dear…
(dusts her hands off, walks downstage where the lights come up
On FATHER, sitting in a hard-backed chair, squinting closely at a book, straining his brain more than his eyes.)
MOTHER
(throws her purse down with a clatter on the table, knocking FATHER’s book away, and startling the hell out of him)
I’m just about sick of cleaning up after that girl.
FATHER
What?
MOTHER
Well, she can’t go around killing everyone she disagrees with.
FATHER
Yes.
MOTHER
Apart from anything else, its just bad manners.
FATHER
Yes.
MOTHER
I’ll try and have a word with her.
FATHER
Yes.
MOTHER
(not listening to him)
Have I been a bad mother to her?
FATHER
(guesses, guesses wrongly)
Yes?
MOTHER
(not listening to him)
I just don’t understand where she gets it from.
FATHER
Yes.
MOTHER
Maybe its those soaps she watches… They’re probably filled with all kinds of things children shouldn’t be exposed to… All you’d have to do is watch one to find out… But would it be worth it?
FATHER
Yes.
MOTHER
I just can’t relate to her anymore, would you mind if I had her disowned…
FATHER
Whatever you think.
(pause)
Should I still call for a piano teacher?
MOTHER
(pause)
They cancel each other out. Its got to be one or the other.
(DAUGHTER bustles in from uni, throws books on table. FATHER and MOTHER stare at her, she’s oblivious.)
DAUGHTER
Where’s dinner, I’m starving…
MOTHER
(stares at her)
There’s no dinner.
DAUGHTER
Why?
(pause. They glare at DAUGHTER. DAUGHTER smirks)
Who died?
MOTHER
Your piano teacher.
DAUGHTER
(curious)
Oh yeah? How?
MOTHER
On my front lawn.
DAUGHTER
That’s not good.
MOTHER
Are you going to apologise?
DAUGHTER
Why should I?
MOTHER
Can I tell you a story?
DAUGHTER
Bit busy at the moment.
MOTHER
Today I had to eulogise
(she takes her overshirt/jumper off, revealing reverend’s collar)
old Smith and some kid, neither of whom I knew a thing about, and Mrs Smith wanted me to say what a wonderful card player her husband was, and the smaller one’s parents wanted me to say oh boo-hoo I’m really sad and boo-hoo it couldn’t have happened to a nicer kid… How the hell would I know? I don’t know any of these people, and they always make me say things when they die… I wouldn’t mind going if they didn’t always insist on me making a speech…
DAUGHTER
Can I go to my room?
MOTHER
(forceful)
No.
DAUGHTER
It would make me happy.
MOTHER
(Comes around behind DAUGHTER, poised to attack)
Oh, well that’s my life’s mission, isn’t it? That’s all I ever think about… I go to work, talk about dead people I don’t know, raise money to pay for your piano lessons … I hope you enjoyed them.
DAUGHTER
They were okay.
MOTHER
(applies pincer fingers to her shoulder, half-heartedly)
Is this okay?
(pause. threatening)
Stop saying “okay”, okay?
DAUGHTER
Okay!
(MOTHER lets go, sheathes her pincer in her armpit and begins to pace around her daughter)
DAUGHTER
God, mum, I just had this fixed.
MOTHER
Well, I’m terribly sorry to inconvenience you, I know how much trouble it is for you to get to the chiropractor, which you pay for by hosting your own funerals, I’m sure…
FATHER
(clears his throat. MOTHER glares at him.)
What was that?
MOTHER
What?
FATHER
In your holster.
MOTHER
(takes out her pincer fingers again. Flattered by his curiosity)
Oh, nothing.
FATHER
No, go on.
MOTHER
(a bit annoyed at the interruption)
Its just my pincer.
FATHER
Martial arts?
MOTHER
No, I made it up.
FATHER
Its really nice.
DAUGHTER
You said you wouldn’t use that stuff on me.
MOTHER
You said you’d start listening to your mother:
(turning her around)
Listen to me! You really upset me this afternoon. I don’t like surprises, and a piano teacher in a bag is not something…
(pause. DAUGHTER’s reaction is inscrutable)
I mean, How do you prepare for that? You’ve put me in situations before where I’ve had to pretend you were normal to keep the men from taking you away, but this…
(pause)
That golf bag was a present from your father…
(almost weeping)
It was our anniversary.
FATHER
(matter of factly)
We went hunting at the zoo.
DAUGHTER
So they found her in your bag?
(pause)
Huh.
(MOTHER looks suspiciously at DAUGHTER)
MOTHER
Do you hear how she spoke to me?
FATHER
Mm.
MOTHER
Its almost as if she blames me for her mistakes. Like I would waste the money we paid for a year’s tuition in advance!
(snaps)
I didn’t teach you those skills so you’d abuse them.
(pause, slowly, mournfully)
They were supposed to be saved for special occasions.
FATHER
Like anniversaries.
MOTHER
(calmly)
This time I’m putting my foot down. If you were grown-up enough to kill her, you should be grown-up enough to dispose of her body.
DAUGHTER
(humouring her)
Yes mum…
MOTHER
Its not that I mind you doing it. It’s your record they’ll go on, if you get caught. I didn’t mind it when you killed Uncle Archie…
(explaining it)
He smelt like eggplant. But if you make a mess, you clean it up. That’s the only rule we have… And you disobeyed it.
(comes towards her)
Your punishment shall be…
DAUGHTER
Hey… No more pincer.
MOTHER
Oh, I think your problems are too deep for that. You’ll get what you gave. Now, next time I, on a whim, indulge my baser instincts, you’ll clean it up. How do you like that?
(pause)
You won’t know when it’ll come… No matter how inconvenient it is for you... It might even be someone in this room… Depending on how nice you all are to me…
FATHER
(awkward pause. He feels like he should say something)
Were you just talking about me?
MOTHER
(snaps)
Glen!
DAUGHTER
Well…
(clapping her hands together)
Entertaining as always, but now I must away to my room, for I have some homework due!
MOTHER
(menacing)
Stay where you are.
FATHER
(awkward pause. FATHER feels he should fill it)
Should I make a note of that?
MOTHER
(holds up a single finger to silence him. FATHER silences his own lips with his own finger and looks down at his lap)
I’ve endured enough of your… tirades… I’m suffered… Oh, how I’ve suffered…
FATHER
I can second that, should I put that I second it?
MOTHER
But do you show me mercy? Will this torment ever cease?
DAUGHTER
You tell me, its in your head.
MOTHER
There you go again with your university degree, using your… Fancy brain, which I paid for, and again you choose to use it for wickedness…
DAUGHTER
(not too worried yet)
Seriously, I’ve got something due tomorrow.
(MOTHER her gesticulating arm drops, her shoulders slump, and she cries. Quietly.)
(now DAUGHTER’s worried. sighs)
Oh, not this.
MOTHER
(throws back her head and lets out a histrionic cry)
Oh ye gods! What have I done to deserve such a wicked child…
DAUGHTER
(frowning at MOTHER, then gets interested in fingernails, examines them for dirt… very important to undercut MOTHER’s display)
I ate garlic and slept upside down for a month, and still you would not give me a boy… A boy, my kingdom for a boy…
FATHER
(above his book, to audience)
The rational sex…
(DAUGHTER glares at him. He looks down at his book)
DAUGHTER
There you go, make a nice fuss… You’ll feel better.
MOTHER
I’ve always given so much… Ye gods, when will it be enough!
DAUGHTER
(lies MOTHER down)
Like a drink with your fuss?
MOTHER
Huh?
DAUGHTER
Yes… A nice drink. Of alcohol.
(pulls out a water bottle)
Like this one here.
(FATHER looks over, frowns)
DAUGHTER
You’ve had a big day, and this is what people do after big days, they drink them away.
MOTHER
Yes… It was quite big.
DAUGHTER
I know…
MOTHER
(Looks deep into the drink, then up at her, a bit suspicious)
I didn’t think we had any…
DAUGHTER
Its from my room.
MOTHER
(sits up, glares at her)
Young lady…
DAUGHTER
If I kept it down here it’d be gone in one…
(pause. Taking the piss)
Morning…
MOTHER
(indignant)
I suppose that’s my fault, too.
DAUGHTER
Its not like we force you to drink…
(MOTHER looks suspiciously at the drink)
DAUGHTER
Except this one time…
MOTHER
You’re a good daughter…
DAUGHTER
(pause. MOTHER thinks it’s a tender moment between them. DAUGHTER grabs the glass and brings it to her mother’s mouth)
Drink your drink.
MOTHER
(when she’s had enough, hurls the glass, which is actually plastic, off-stage)
Tastes salty. Like my tears.
(starts her off again)
DAUGHTER
Oh, shut up… Those tears…
(pats her head)
There… There…
(MOTHER becoming more drowsy, looks around for a pillow, sees Father’s coat, whips it out from behind him, FATHER has a delayed reaction. While DAUGHTER folds it into a pillow, FATHER feels around behind his back.)
There y’are.
(MOTHER makes happily sleeping noises)
Just think happy thoughts.
(MOTHER moans restlessly)
Like those two people you buried today.
(MOTHER smiles and moans happily in her sleep)
And the one you killed.
(MOTHER nods, in her sleep)
Well, that was easy. Dad, have you seen the… tape?
FATHER
(mystified)
What tape?
DAUGHTER
You know.
FATHER
We don’t have any tape…
DAUGHTER
The tape. Your favourite kind. I know you’re just playing dumb.
FATHER
If you’re going to be like that…
DAUGHTER
Okay, okay, I’m sorry… You know, the packing tape she’s so fond of.
FATHER
(frowns for a long pause, as if this isn’t true, then he remembers)
Oh yeah… Its…
(lifs up his legs, looks under his feet, peers into his top pocket, pulls out his trouser pockets, spilling coins all over the place)
Oops…
(grinning like an idiot, he kneels to scoop it all up)
Change… Fell…
(laughs nervously)
DAUGHTER
Dad, would you hurry up.
FATHER
Sure.
(Finds the tape, gives it to her)
Ah, here it is.
(Settles back to his philosophy, which he strains to concentrate on)
DAUGHTER
Now…
(Back to audience… kneels, hides her work, ties MOTHER’s hands behind her back)
Can I borrow your knife?
(FATHER hands her a large knife. FATHER does not seem worried. DAUGHTER pretends to be doing a delicate operation. The actor applies a red dot to end of MOTHER’s nose, some on her ear, and two lines between her eyes.)
Thanks.
(admires it)
Huh.
(hands it back to him)
FATHER
I like to think it can cut through bone, but I’ve always been too shy to try it.
DAUGHTER
It does cartlidge.
FATHER
Oh, well that’s something.
(PAUSE. DAUGHTER gets her bag, picks up a few things)
(like she’s going away for the summer)
Going so soon?
DAUGHTER
I have to.
FATHER
Well…
(pause)
Be safe.
DAUGHTER
(frowns, confused, exits)
(The calm before the storm. FATHER reads his paper, frowns a little, in the silence of the quiet stage, gets an itchy nose, moans a little about it, then is seriously shocked when)
MOTHER
(Her hands are tied. She looks all over here for missing body parts, twitches her nose. It feels strange. She assumes she’s been butchered, which she has. She groans in frustration… A hollow woofing kind of sound)
My ear. Where’s my ear gone?
FATHER
(not looking up from his paper)
Where did you last see it?
MOTHER
(pause)
In the mirror this morning.
FATHER
Well, that’s where it’ll be.
(MOTHER gets up, exits. Off-stage, she screams. Rushes back in)
MOTHER
Have you seen this? Look what that daughter of yours has done to me.
FATHER
(not looking up)
You look fine.
MOTHER
Excuse me.
(goes to slap him, finds her hands are tied… )
What now…
(Tries to look at how they’re tied, goes around in a little circle like a dog chasing its tail. Groans in frustration when she can’t slap him.)
She’s taken a bit off my nose… And put it between my eyes… Can’t you see the difference?
FATHER
(stares at her, squints)
Oh yeah…
(MOTHER’s head sinks)
Come here…
(holds her by the waist, brandishes his knife)
MOTHER
(touches the end of the knife)
There’s blood on it…
FATHER
Oh yeah…
(shrugs)
Turn around.
(he cuts the tape, swivels her to face him)
(looking closer at her new face)
Actually, I hate to say it, but…
MOTHER
(tries to stop him, but its too late)
Don’t you…
FATHER
I think she’s done you a favour.
MOTHER
This is my face, no-one’s allowed to work on it unless I’m paying them… Why do you always side with her… Is it because I’m… old?
(she begins to boo-hoo loudly, only breaking boo-hooing to articulate her following lines)
FATHER
There there…
(He stands up to embrace her, she falls into his arms.)
MOTHER
I hate her.
FATHER
I know you do.
MOTHER
I’m going to…
(makes lazy stabbing motion with both hands, then waves it away)
FATHER
(in response to her mime)
Its only fair.
MOTHER
And then I’ll…
(she ties a big bow in the air and pulls it upwards to make a noose then clasps her hands together and pumps them)
FATHER
(in response to her mime)
No-one would think badly of you.
MOTHER
(she’s just sniffling now, and lying on his chest, plays with his shirt)
Can I have a new daughter?
FATHER
We’ll send off the application in the morning.
MOTHER
I’ve still got you!
(They smile at each other)
Unless you piss me off…
(Pincers him in love handles and he makes a noise half way between a laugh and a scream)
(NOTE: his unexpected noise punctuates the end of the play, and co-incides with lights off)
CURTAIN
END OF PLAY
Poem: Drunken Conversation
If I was a pillow I’d stay
Here all day with you.
If my fingers were keys
So I had, like, key-hands,
I’d never lose my keys;
And they'd be ready,
If you’d follow me.
I don't know about touching you...
I might just have to say nice things,
And hope that was as fulfilling.
What if you were so normal
It surprised you
My wearing a pink bow
And saying “happy birthday,”
Brain leaking
Out across my cheek?
I can go ages without seeing you
But I can’t ever leave once I do.
If the windows had bars…
Do the windows have bars?
Anyway, I’d do the same thing
All the time. But if I died,
I’d come back; make things up;
Have you believe them.
Or I could teach you to fly
So high we asphyxiate.
Or even higher.
Depends how far away the sky is –
From down here, it looks like a while.
Sep, 07.
Here all day with you.
If my fingers were keys
So I had, like, key-hands,
I’d never lose my keys;
And they'd be ready,
If you’d follow me.
I don't know about touching you...
I might just have to say nice things,
And hope that was as fulfilling.
What if you were so normal
It surprised you
My wearing a pink bow
And saying “happy birthday,”
Brain leaking
Out across my cheek?
I can go ages without seeing you
But I can’t ever leave once I do.
If the windows had bars…
Do the windows have bars?
Anyway, I’d do the same thing
All the time. But if I died,
I’d come back; make things up;
Have you believe them.
Or I could teach you to fly
So high we asphyxiate.
Or even higher.
Depends how far away the sky is –
From down here, it looks like a while.
Sep, 07.
Poem: Abortion
I was born
The other day
It was strange.
I didn’t have
A thing to say
Or anyone to blame.
I began
In a round
(Wrong around)
About way
Wet with stuff
From inside mum
And tear ducts.
I didn’t know
I didn’t think
No-one did,
‘Cept I came
With no hair
And went with
No sense.
I lived;
I live;
But if that’s all,
Is it enough?
Does one word
Follow another
Because it doesn’t
Know any better? like
A line of ants?
What if I
Got my hand
And stopped
The other day
It was strange.
I didn’t have
A thing to say
Or anyone to blame.
I began
In a round
(Wrong around)
About way
Wet with stuff
From inside mum
And tear ducts.
I didn’t know
I didn’t think
No-one did,
‘Cept I came
With no hair
And went with
No sense.
I lived;
I live;
But if that’s all,
Is it enough?
Does one word
Follow another
Because it doesn’t
Know any better? like
A line of ants?
What if I
Got my hand
And stopped
Blog: For sale. Baby shoes. Never worn.
I just found out Hemingway once, on a bet, thought of a complete story in six words.
For sale. Baby shoes. Never worn.
- Hemingway
I can't believe I never heard this before.
That's all.
Also, the title of my blog mentions a supposed work-a-hole world; now, I don't know if anyone noticed, but I've been seriously considering becoming a part of this world, going so far as to begin a vocational degree, in teaching, as if such a thing is possible; I still don't know that it is.
I don't mean to separate myself from the world people are in when they're building a library or fitting together links in a causal chain that proves who killed JFK, but I don't feel like this little world my words live in wants to mesh with that world. No matter how many people I attempt to teach something they insist they don't need to know, this world will go on. A cheshire divided against itself CAN stand; and I can stand it.
For sale. Baby shoes. Never worn.
- Hemingway
I can't believe I never heard this before.
That's all.
Also, the title of my blog mentions a supposed work-a-hole world; now, I don't know if anyone noticed, but I've been seriously considering becoming a part of this world, going so far as to begin a vocational degree, in teaching, as if such a thing is possible; I still don't know that it is.
I don't mean to separate myself from the world people are in when they're building a library or fitting together links in a causal chain that proves who killed JFK, but I don't feel like this little world my words live in wants to mesh with that world. No matter how many people I attempt to teach something they insist they don't need to know, this world will go on. A cheshire divided against itself CAN stand; and I can stand it.
Poem: My best and shortest poems
Surgeon School
This guy’s made a tossed salad
of my insides.
I shouldn’t have given my body to science
while I was still alive.
My Culture
I love a skin cancerous country
A land of babbling blokes
Who wouldn't know high culture
If you shoved it down their throats.
The Great Australian Bite
I took a bite out of the ass of Australia;
Spat it out, it tasted like shit.
Bonfire at Night
The sweet smell
Of a bonfire at night
When you have a crush
On someone nearby.
You’d give the world
To touch;
And nothing separates
The days.
Poem: Hole in the Ear
I’ve got a hole in my ear
Its not the regular one; its further in
Where maybe something should be
But no-one remembers enough to mention it.
Its got an eye of its own
And a shutter, closed.
My doctor made it a woolen jacket
Which sounds like hearing damage.
A broken ear is worse than a holey ear
Which can’t be bad (if you know your Bible).
Holes can let light in; or souls out
But they don’t think, so they’re safe enough.
Holes are the reason why no-one can
Find the mind; it slipped out, at some point.
Or so I heard.
Its not the regular one; its further in
Where maybe something should be
But no-one remembers enough to mention it.
Its got an eye of its own
And a shutter, closed.
My doctor made it a woolen jacket
Which sounds like hearing damage.
A broken ear is worse than a holey ear
Which can’t be bad (if you know your Bible).
Holes can let light in; or souls out
But they don’t think, so they’re safe enough.
Holes are the reason why no-one can
Find the mind; it slipped out, at some point.
Or so I heard.
Thursday 13 September 2007
Lyrics: Beyonce Redux
Smith/Beyonce/Eriksen/Hermansen/Lind/Bjorklund/Cheshire
To the left, to the left x2
There’s a queue there, not the letter, but when people stand together
To the left, to the left x2
There’s a guy with X-ray vision, he can see through television
He comments to his wife, who’s not wearing knickers
Who am I to judge, it seems to work for them…
You must not CHORUS
I’ve even seen some people you wouldn’t see in cyclopedias
They’re the things that, if you listen, tell you more than what words mean…
I saw a young man, with a tired heart, with all his stories torn apart
He just sat down, when that happened, took a page out, and started again…
All his bookshelves were, filled up with picture books, and he couldn’t drag, a thousand words from them…
You must not CHORUS
There’s a big sky, and a paper mountain, an Achilles courtyard fountain
There’s a moon, in june… When you run dry, just drink again…
What were the words I said, when I was writing this,
Thing for beyonce, that I knew they’d change…
You must not know about me, you must not know about me… Beyonce…
If I had worn a dress, and I had changed my sex,
Would I still be… Would I still be… To the left…
To the left, to the left x2
There’s a queue there, not the letter, but when people stand together
To the left, to the left x2
There’s a guy with X-ray vision, he can see through television
He comments to his wife, who’s not wearing knickers
Who am I to judge, it seems to work for them…
You must not CHORUS
I’ve even seen some people you wouldn’t see in cyclopedias
They’re the things that, if you listen, tell you more than what words mean…
I saw a young man, with a tired heart, with all his stories torn apart
He just sat down, when that happened, took a page out, and started again…
All his bookshelves were, filled up with picture books, and he couldn’t drag, a thousand words from them…
You must not CHORUS
There’s a big sky, and a paper mountain, an Achilles courtyard fountain
There’s a moon, in june… When you run dry, just drink again…
What were the words I said, when I was writing this,
Thing for beyonce, that I knew they’d change…
You must not know about me, you must not know about me… Beyonce…
If I had worn a dress, and I had changed my sex,
Would I still be… Would I still be… To the left…
Lyrics: Mickey (Mouse)
Chapman/Chinn/Cheshire
I’m ashamed to show you round, cause you look just like a mouse
But I can hardly shut my mouth, cause you’ve stunk up my house
You hear everything I sing, cause your ears are really big
When you make a squeak, and I think that you speak,
Oh, mickey, it’s a pity, you don’t understand,
You take me by the heart, and you take me by the hand
Oh, mickey, you’re so pretty, can’t you understand,
Its mice like you, mickey,
Ooh what you do, mickey, mouse mickey, smell up my house, mickey…
Ooh, look over here, while I feed him beer,
To loosen up his claws, and loosen up his jaws…
I keep him in a cage, till he can say my name
He’s no good to me, without fluency…
Ooh, look over there, there’s a little chair,
If I could make him sit, I could do anything…
If he sleeps inside my sock, he gets an electric shock
I don’t know what I’d do, if he shat inside my shoe…
I’m ashamed to show you round, cause you look just like a mouse
But I can hardly shut my mouth, cause you’ve stunk up my house
You hear everything I sing, cause your ears are really big
When you make a squeak, and I think that you speak,
Oh, mickey, it’s a pity, you don’t understand,
You take me by the heart, and you take me by the hand
Oh, mickey, you’re so pretty, can’t you understand,
Its mice like you, mickey,
Ooh what you do, mickey, mouse mickey, smell up my house, mickey…
Ooh, look over here, while I feed him beer,
To loosen up his claws, and loosen up his jaws…
I keep him in a cage, till he can say my name
He’s no good to me, without fluency…
Ooh, look over there, there’s a little chair,
If I could make him sit, I could do anything…
If he sleeps inside my sock, he gets an electric shock
I don’t know what I’d do, if he shat inside my shoe…
Lyrics: Heaven
I went to heaven
It was okay but I thought it would be better
There were no angels
Everyone was queuing up orderly to pay their
Taxes in the rain, cause they didn’t care
Why? Cause nothing matters once you’re in heaven…
I felt a bit dirty
Being a round so much cleanness and perfection
I tried an exper’ment
I spat in some eyes but saliva there tastes like
Perfume and it stings
But no-one seemed to care
Why? Cause nothing matters once you’re in heaven…
Well, I was in heaven,
I tried to hum but my mum said it was forbidden
They let me audition
And I went (audition noises)
No-one seemed to hear,
Unless you’re in the choir,
Can something else maybe matter if you’re in heaven…
I went to heaven
But I never thought my report would be forgotten
I went to heaven, it was okay but I wouldn't go back if you
Shot me with a gun, until I got things done...
Why? Cause nothing matters, if you're in heaven.
It was okay but I thought it would be better
There were no angels
Everyone was queuing up orderly to pay their
Taxes in the rain, cause they didn’t care
Why? Cause nothing matters once you’re in heaven…
I felt a bit dirty
Being a round so much cleanness and perfection
I tried an exper’ment
I spat in some eyes but saliva there tastes like
Perfume and it stings
But no-one seemed to care
Why? Cause nothing matters once you’re in heaven…
Well, I was in heaven,
I tried to hum but my mum said it was forbidden
They let me audition
And I went (audition noises)
No-one seemed to hear,
Unless you’re in the choir,
Can something else maybe matter if you’re in heaven…
I went to heaven
But I never thought my report would be forgotten
I went to heaven, it was okay but I wouldn't go back if you
Shot me with a gun, until I got things done...
Why? Cause nothing matters, if you're in heaven.
Lyrics: People I Knew When I Was Four
My mamma told me to read a lot
She never told me my eyes would go
Daddy told me chicks were great
He never told me they’d make me ache
I stand in awe of
The people I knew when I was four
They told me I’d grow to be a big boy
Now I’m grown, but not tall, so what for?
One of my grandpa’s is a troglodyte
The other’s scared of reality
One of my grandma’d kiss me if I was sick
The other’d say get away quick
I stand in awe - of
The people I knew when I was - four
They told me I’d grow to be a big – boy
Now I’m grown, but not tall, so what for?
One of my uncles said I’d had my best age
And the other said I’d just have to wait
Then a wise man said stay at home
But the other said you’ll have to roam
And I stand in awe - of
The people I knew when I was - four
They told me I’d grow to be a big – boy
Now I’m grown, but not tall, so what for?
The other day I was caught by the cops
Driving my family in a getaway car
He just asked me where was I heading
In a car full of people like me
So I told him...
I stand in awe - of
The people I knew when I was - four
They told me I’d grow to be a big – boy
Now I’m grown, but not tall, so what for?
Lyrics: The Day You Left Me
I laughed since the day you left me
I laughed when you said goodbye
Its quieter now, without your talk
I talk to myself, and get more sense than I ever did from you
2. I laughed since the day you left me
But I cried when you dropped back in
I’ve changed the locks, a day too late
Now you’ve burrowed in, and you’re leeching off of my philanthropy
3. I laughed since the day you left me
But I swore all the time when you returned
I’m going out, and coming back,
When I come back… You won’t be here, you won’t he here still…
(Will you?)
4. I laughed since the day you left me
Cause I could pick my nose and fart without a fuss
But you fucked that up, didja know, I liked life better when you were on the road.
5. I laughed since the day you left again
Though I kissed your fucken ass while you were here
I’d like to see you find me now
Cause I’ve sold the house to a gang of bikers with hunting licenses
6. I laughed till they laid you down
Cause in the end I guess I’d had some fun
That’s the main thing, ain’t it, dear
Hope this finds you well or down a well.
7.6.07
I laughed when you said goodbye
Its quieter now, without your talk
I talk to myself, and get more sense than I ever did from you
2. I laughed since the day you left me
But I cried when you dropped back in
I’ve changed the locks, a day too late
Now you’ve burrowed in, and you’re leeching off of my philanthropy
3. I laughed since the day you left me
But I swore all the time when you returned
I’m going out, and coming back,
When I come back… You won’t be here, you won’t he here still…
(Will you?)
4. I laughed since the day you left me
Cause I could pick my nose and fart without a fuss
But you fucked that up, didja know, I liked life better when you were on the road.
5. I laughed since the day you left again
Though I kissed your fucken ass while you were here
I’d like to see you find me now
Cause I’ve sold the house to a gang of bikers with hunting licenses
6. I laughed till they laid you down
Cause in the end I guess I’d had some fun
That’s the main thing, ain’t it, dear
Hope this finds you well or down a well.
7.6.07
Blog: Update
Too much has been going on since my last post; if you're wondering why I'm so seriously neglecting my online life, its cause I've been so busy with my real life.
I'm studying to be an english teacher, and I just passed my first prac. I recently submitted two new poems to a host of magazines, after rekindling a love for poetry thanks to Harold Bloom's "Genius" and facebook's poetry shout. Who needs blogspot when you have facebook, really...
At time of writing, I'm making my directorial debut of Being There (the second of my plays to be performed; which is not affiliated with the Peter Sellars movie); a domestic black comedy of around 20 minutes, which is part of a short play festival with Sydney Uni Drama Society and the 2007 Verge, arts festival. Getting actors to bring my ideas to life is an electrifying experience. Seriously, I got a shock at one point. It might have been static electricity, I'm still waiting to hear back on that.
I'm just preparing videos of a gig I recently did with Ali on violin at Madame Fling Flong for youtube; and John Columbus have our EP completed and mastered, and it sounds terrific; I'm so proud to have been involved.
I'm studying to be an english teacher, and I just passed my first prac. I recently submitted two new poems to a host of magazines, after rekindling a love for poetry thanks to Harold Bloom's "Genius" and facebook's poetry shout. Who needs blogspot when you have facebook, really...
At time of writing, I'm making my directorial debut of Being There (the second of my plays to be performed; which is not affiliated with the Peter Sellars movie); a domestic black comedy of around 20 minutes, which is part of a short play festival with Sydney Uni Drama Society and the 2007 Verge, arts festival. Getting actors to bring my ideas to life is an electrifying experience. Seriously, I got a shock at one point. It might have been static electricity, I'm still waiting to hear back on that.
I'm just preparing videos of a gig I recently did with Ali on violin at Madame Fling Flong for youtube; and John Columbus have our EP completed and mastered, and it sounds terrific; I'm so proud to have been involved.
Thursday 7 June 2007
Blog: "My Imaginary Friend, Jesus" Completed
I'm pretty serious about getting my full... Or medium length play (its maybe 40 minutes, haven't timed it, not huge) read. Boris from Rag and Bone productions has said he'll organise it. Its pretty good, so I'm looking forward to it. If it was bad, then I might be a little skeptical.
I've basically finished the first draft of it. I rarely finish first drafts of long works... Haven't finished a novel in over five years, and no-one hardly reads those two I wrote when i was 18-19 except my close friends, which might be you if you're reading this...
I'm not sure whether to post my Jesus on this web site... Its the kind of thing where its really better getting a proper dose of it.
Ben
I've basically finished the first draft of it. I rarely finish first drafts of long works... Haven't finished a novel in over five years, and no-one hardly reads those two I wrote when i was 18-19 except my close friends, which might be you if you're reading this...
I'm not sure whether to post my Jesus on this web site... Its the kind of thing where its really better getting a proper dose of it.
Ben
Sunday 4 March 2007
Novel: 'Food That Eats You' 1. Kidnapped!
Go to Food That Eats You's page
1. Kidnapped!
Voice like a gremlin on the phone, pouring aural poison down the line: ‘Delivery of filth, four o’clock.’
‘Not for me, thanks, don’t bring it here.’
‘Delivery of filth, coming your way.’
‘If you bring it here, I’ll call the police. They were just here. We’re on speaking terms.’
Gremlin pauses. ‘Uhhh… Special delivery…’
‘I’m hanging up, and I think you should either stop drinking coffee or see a trachiologist, you may need some tracheotomical (sic) surgery. I saw a documentary on it.’
Hang up.
Tinkling at doorbell. Drag knuckles on ground over to edge of void. Fight tide of boredom well enough to focus on what people are saying.
Men with knight-sticks, coffee-stained lips. Scratch my leg and look lopsided. ‘What?’
‘Yes, ah, can we come in?’
‘I don’t know, can you?’
‘Well, may we?’
‘I don’t know, I’m kind of busy right now… I’m just watching television, its my only creative outlet.’
Inspectors notice my foodscraps, probably from hunger, envious of my exotic lifestyle.
‘Reports have registered from this region, they’re of a suspicious nature, regarding the life-force of a gentleman known only by his profession… What was it, Higgins, a dentist? A drunkard?’
‘Doctor.’
‘Doctor, recently deceased, as late as last night.’
‘There’s no dead doctors here.’
‘Oh, really? We’ve had reports there were… from a certain Maitre’D at a certain revolving restaurant.’
‘Listen, the doctor lives next door and he’s fine. I thought I might have piledriven him into a table but you can see for yourselves he’s fine.’
Begrudge myself out into the corridor. Rap tap tap.
No answer.
Turn, toothy grin. ‘Look, he’s in there; he’s just not answering – he tends to do that.’
‘I think you should come with us.’
‘No thanks.’
‘Yeah, you better.’
‘I’m right.’
‘Higgins…’
Men with badges smell of overripe coffee grains. Breathing heavily, I look over, coffee grains frosted to a shoulder-pad.
‘Hey, coffee...’
‘Shaddup.’
Bumbling Looney Tunes music sees us down the network of corridors. Something tells me there’s a Russian Caravan at our backs with a giant rolling-pin steamroller. Panic sets in.
‘Quick, it’ll smoosh us.’
‘Shaddup.’
‘I can feel it…’ Primeval howl of anguish… begins to crush my legs, I’m going under… Oh the humanity.
‘Higgins, club ‘im.’
Lights out.
+
On the radio a simulcast of a political rally: General Chemistry, drumming up support for the nothing he’s done. A whisper’s been heard thorough the eaves of the sooty city. The Journalist Factory have not picked up on it yet, but no-one tells them things anyway. Decree that all sport shall be heretofore played with metallic balls for General Chemistry’s ancient-roman pleasure. A mere distraction tactic from the unexplained weirdness of the food piles. Can’t solve one problem, create one you can. The boys don’t seem to care one way or another.
‘Do you ever just feel like wearing a neck-brace?’
‘What?’
‘To take the pressure off a bit.’
‘Um…’
‘From holding your head up.’
‘Not really.’
‘What would you know Higgins...’
Open my eyes. Lights up on a cage which keeps me from scratching out inspectors brains, if so inclined. Sitting waist-high in fast-food wrappers: all the best chains. For some reason shouting... From the place where I'm sitting... Caused by something in body or out, it depends.
‘Is this where you keep your conquests… YOU’RE SICK!’
‘Someone just got up on the wrong side of the cop car...’
‘You drive like a prisoner of war – GET A LICENSE!’
Inspector not-Higgins about-faces. ‘If you don’t shaddup I’ll make Higgins sit back there
with you – and you won’t like that.’
‘There’s no room – it’s like my apartment back here. GET A CLEANER!’
‘We wouldn’t need one if Higgins wasn’t such a pig.’
‘I shouldn’t have to clean, isn’t it enough I do the driving – I thought you agreed…’
‘No, I agree on this: I’m your supervisor, you obey my commands. If I say you do the driving and the cleaning, and appear in the TV spots, and shine my shoes, you’ll do it, and all at once, if the situation calls for it...’
‘Now you’re being unreasonable.’
‘I’ll tell you when I’m being unreasonable.’ Pause. ‘Not yet.’
Phone rings for the unnamed man, the one who calls the other one Higgins every five seconds.
The face starts twitching. The hands tied, so… can’t rub it better… Won’t stop. Can’t remember if I set it off, but its really swinging now. Gets worse more think about it.
‘Like ta help ya out thar, Chucksta, but already have goods en route… Hang on a tic, mate. Higgins, he’s pulling faces, take care of that would you? Sorry, mate.’
About faces… once, then again. ‘Oi, cut that out.’
Amble along. Not-Higgins continues his personal call to possible drug-courier business contact.
‘Are we on this weekend?’ Mean laughter. ‘Poco loco!’
Burble of static from receiver, not-Higgins reels back, winces.
‘Fucken thing.’
For whatever reason, this strikes me as hilarious, so cackle uncontrollably.
‘Higgins!’
About-face: ‘Shaddap-you...’
But I was off...
‘Right, that’s it – pull over, Higgins. I’ll take the wheel - you get back there.’
Higgins sits on my lap, supposedly to hold me down, and just follows non-Higgins’ directions. Non-Higgins is a far less competent driver than Higgins, so because of his anxiety over concentrating over-hard on driving, he gets rather slap-happy with directing Higgins, who stays poker faced while he applies his palm liberally to mine, painting it all kinds of purple, as I can see in the backwards mirror.
‘Don’t flinch!’
Tongue begins to loll, blubber some jibberish about overseas aid workers and the sexually transmitted disease AIDS, and the import-export flow from cuba to the United States during the Cold War. Just the kind of thing I like to jibber when I’m half-conscious.
Lights out again.
%
The next cage is worse: its no longer moving. Smells like a log cabin: pine, perhaps. Up in the mountains. Soft flushing of the bottom of a waterfall nearby, constant replenishing. Candles, chatter. A party is in progress. Just a candelit evening at the Higgins’ mountain retreat. Appears they live together: partners in the line of duty and life partners too. How cute. Some painters arrive – The Higgins’ offer them what they have: a game of chess, refreshments, a sneak peek at their latest acquisition. They have to come inside and open a door to get from the party to me.
‘When’d this come in?’
They eyeball me, dressed white with technicolour yawn. They sniff.
‘Smells like teen spirit.’
Higgins’ sniff.
‘So it does.’
‘I’m older than that.’
‘So you are.’
‘I’d really rather not be detained her so long without medicine, I have a condition you know.’
‘And what condition is that?’
‘The condition of requiring regular medicine.’
‘Just sit tight. You’ll enjoy tonight: we're having you for dinner.’
$
Roll me out on cross, naked, wet dishcloth for modesty.
‘Maybe I won’t stay for dinner…’ I say.
‘No, I think you should...’
Guests... Painted faces, jockeys, flying kites and ducking between the trees leering down the hill to a river… Take it all in… Possible escape route: river. Appears an entire postwar generation of middle-aged doctors and mothers on call are invited to the Higgins tonight for a show, a play of some kind. Tribal music plays: someone beats the drum. Floor is moving. Woozy… maybe drugged, maybe paranoia, maybe fatigue… A bass-player, for no reason, stands in corner, fag lolling on lower lip, smoke effusive in humid night. One of them mothers a prepubescent daughter… Lovely thing, I’m looking at the insignia on her dress… There’s some historical signal on there… Catch the mother’s eye: she’s caught mine, or thinks she has.
‘He was staring at my daughter – the filthy brute!’
‘I never.’
Could mention the insignia, the dress, but who'd care...
‘I thought he might,’ non-Higgins says. ‘You should learn to look ahead.’
Wags a finger. Paints my chin with a kiss.
‘Higgins, bring out the fruit.’
‘No Higgins…’ I try.
‘We’re here to feed you… Think of the starving kids… How can you refuse?’
They wheel out a buffet-table filled with the ugliest torture weapons you’ve ever seen: heavy, misshapen fruit with spindles, small ninja-star fruit, the largest unpeeled carrot you’ve ever seen, which must only have been grown for one purpose… Some seriously perverted hydroponics was going on in these hills.
As the pineapple needles dig into my flesh my mind wanders. Send out a mental task force to investigate the neighbouring fruit-stalls. Dust for great-ape and monkey fingerprints. Issue a few directives. If I were General Chemistry I’d have the state issue nutritional pamphlets decreeing proper hygiene, food preparation techniques, instead of the current state of gastronomical laissez-faire. I’ve a few questions for this General Chemistry, should I run into him – like, what kind of cereal-box military academy did he attend, and what decorations does he have to recommend him? Build in my mind a corrosive explosive all-doubts-forgotten get out of jail device; from a no frills beer top and a reserve of creative energy didn’t know existed. Joy! Implement the device quickly, footsteps outside, pausing to give thanks to whoever I inherited this particular deus ex machina from and vowing to forever cherish no frills products and campaign for their domination of the market. Only, what name will I put on the banner… Have to invent a logo… Hmm… Dear Mr Frill, writing to inform of heretofore unimagined use for your product…
I’m running, I’m free… Somehow it worked… No time to wonder now. My feet find the boards outside the log-cabin – please no splinters – bundle my sore bones downhill, sticky soles thicken with soil as I go. Short trip down, mini-preview of the rapids ahead…
Boatdocked, loosen rope, speed… Over shoulder voices ricochet zigzag from tree to tree. Higgins this and Higgins that. Ladybug – what’s she doing so close to the edge! Ahh – rope burn!
Weathered old boat ambles along waters; plinking sounds at contact points. Suddenly a tranquil moment to look back and smile, lay back and look up, think about things I’m grateful for - watching TV with dad – our favourite cop shows – Him showing me how to… Building um… I’m sure there were times when I learnt something useful from him, but… they escape me. River’s not the most conducive to that kind of thinking, maybe.
Pictures crop up from time to time, projected on the fog – just the news reel... Or are they real? Careers advisers. Curmudgeons. Men kneeling in bushes buggering, downstream more men night-fishing and a congregation of feminist nudists nightswimming. River swims ahead, lucky someone’s marked it with streamers for me, or I might drift off course. Someone knew I’d come this way. There’s only one river, but still. Leaving behind the city of dun, gradually, as the river develops from rapids to Sunday afternoon walks the scenery becomes sleepy and green.
Go to Food That Eats You's page.
1. Kidnapped!
Voice like a gremlin on the phone, pouring aural poison down the line: ‘Delivery of filth, four o’clock.’
‘Not for me, thanks, don’t bring it here.’
‘Delivery of filth, coming your way.’
‘If you bring it here, I’ll call the police. They were just here. We’re on speaking terms.’
Gremlin pauses. ‘Uhhh… Special delivery…’
‘I’m hanging up, and I think you should either stop drinking coffee or see a trachiologist, you may need some tracheotomical (sic) surgery. I saw a documentary on it.’
Hang up.
Tinkling at doorbell. Drag knuckles on ground over to edge of void. Fight tide of boredom well enough to focus on what people are saying.
Men with knight-sticks, coffee-stained lips. Scratch my leg and look lopsided. ‘What?’
‘Yes, ah, can we come in?’
‘I don’t know, can you?’
‘Well, may we?’
‘I don’t know, I’m kind of busy right now… I’m just watching television, its my only creative outlet.’
Inspectors notice my foodscraps, probably from hunger, envious of my exotic lifestyle.
‘Reports have registered from this region, they’re of a suspicious nature, regarding the life-force of a gentleman known only by his profession… What was it, Higgins, a dentist? A drunkard?’
‘Doctor.’
‘Doctor, recently deceased, as late as last night.’
‘There’s no dead doctors here.’
‘Oh, really? We’ve had reports there were… from a certain Maitre’D at a certain revolving restaurant.’
‘Listen, the doctor lives next door and he’s fine. I thought I might have piledriven him into a table but you can see for yourselves he’s fine.’
Begrudge myself out into the corridor. Rap tap tap.
No answer.
Turn, toothy grin. ‘Look, he’s in there; he’s just not answering – he tends to do that.’
‘I think you should come with us.’
‘No thanks.’
‘Yeah, you better.’
‘I’m right.’
‘Higgins…’
Men with badges smell of overripe coffee grains. Breathing heavily, I look over, coffee grains frosted to a shoulder-pad.
‘Hey, coffee...’
‘Shaddup.’
Bumbling Looney Tunes music sees us down the network of corridors. Something tells me there’s a Russian Caravan at our backs with a giant rolling-pin steamroller. Panic sets in.
‘Quick, it’ll smoosh us.’
‘Shaddup.’
‘I can feel it…’ Primeval howl of anguish… begins to crush my legs, I’m going under… Oh the humanity.
‘Higgins, club ‘im.’
Lights out.
+
On the radio a simulcast of a political rally: General Chemistry, drumming up support for the nothing he’s done. A whisper’s been heard thorough the eaves of the sooty city. The Journalist Factory have not picked up on it yet, but no-one tells them things anyway. Decree that all sport shall be heretofore played with metallic balls for General Chemistry’s ancient-roman pleasure. A mere distraction tactic from the unexplained weirdness of the food piles. Can’t solve one problem, create one you can. The boys don’t seem to care one way or another.
‘Do you ever just feel like wearing a neck-brace?’
‘What?’
‘To take the pressure off a bit.’
‘Um…’
‘From holding your head up.’
‘Not really.’
‘What would you know Higgins...’
Open my eyes. Lights up on a cage which keeps me from scratching out inspectors brains, if so inclined. Sitting waist-high in fast-food wrappers: all the best chains. For some reason shouting... From the place where I'm sitting... Caused by something in body or out, it depends.
‘Is this where you keep your conquests… YOU’RE SICK!’
‘Someone just got up on the wrong side of the cop car...’
‘You drive like a prisoner of war – GET A LICENSE!’
Inspector not-Higgins about-faces. ‘If you don’t shaddup I’ll make Higgins sit back there
with you – and you won’t like that.’
‘There’s no room – it’s like my apartment back here. GET A CLEANER!’
‘We wouldn’t need one if Higgins wasn’t such a pig.’
‘I shouldn’t have to clean, isn’t it enough I do the driving – I thought you agreed…’
‘No, I agree on this: I’m your supervisor, you obey my commands. If I say you do the driving and the cleaning, and appear in the TV spots, and shine my shoes, you’ll do it, and all at once, if the situation calls for it...’
‘Now you’re being unreasonable.’
‘I’ll tell you when I’m being unreasonable.’ Pause. ‘Not yet.’
Phone rings for the unnamed man, the one who calls the other one Higgins every five seconds.
The face starts twitching. The hands tied, so… can’t rub it better… Won’t stop. Can’t remember if I set it off, but its really swinging now. Gets worse more think about it.
‘Like ta help ya out thar, Chucksta, but already have goods en route… Hang on a tic, mate. Higgins, he’s pulling faces, take care of that would you? Sorry, mate.’
About faces… once, then again. ‘Oi, cut that out.’
Amble along. Not-Higgins continues his personal call to possible drug-courier business contact.
‘Are we on this weekend?’ Mean laughter. ‘Poco loco!’
Burble of static from receiver, not-Higgins reels back, winces.
‘Fucken thing.’
For whatever reason, this strikes me as hilarious, so cackle uncontrollably.
‘Higgins!’
About-face: ‘Shaddap-you...’
But I was off...
‘Right, that’s it – pull over, Higgins. I’ll take the wheel - you get back there.’
Higgins sits on my lap, supposedly to hold me down, and just follows non-Higgins’ directions. Non-Higgins is a far less competent driver than Higgins, so because of his anxiety over concentrating over-hard on driving, he gets rather slap-happy with directing Higgins, who stays poker faced while he applies his palm liberally to mine, painting it all kinds of purple, as I can see in the backwards mirror.
‘Don’t flinch!’
Tongue begins to loll, blubber some jibberish about overseas aid workers and the sexually transmitted disease AIDS, and the import-export flow from cuba to the United States during the Cold War. Just the kind of thing I like to jibber when I’m half-conscious.
Lights out again.
%
The next cage is worse: its no longer moving. Smells like a log cabin: pine, perhaps. Up in the mountains. Soft flushing of the bottom of a waterfall nearby, constant replenishing. Candles, chatter. A party is in progress. Just a candelit evening at the Higgins’ mountain retreat. Appears they live together: partners in the line of duty and life partners too. How cute. Some painters arrive – The Higgins’ offer them what they have: a game of chess, refreshments, a sneak peek at their latest acquisition. They have to come inside and open a door to get from the party to me.
‘When’d this come in?’
They eyeball me, dressed white with technicolour yawn. They sniff.
‘Smells like teen spirit.’
Higgins’ sniff.
‘So it does.’
‘I’m older than that.’
‘So you are.’
‘I’d really rather not be detained her so long without medicine, I have a condition you know.’
‘And what condition is that?’
‘The condition of requiring regular medicine.’
‘Just sit tight. You’ll enjoy tonight: we're having you for dinner.’
$
Roll me out on cross, naked, wet dishcloth for modesty.
‘Maybe I won’t stay for dinner…’ I say.
‘No, I think you should...’
Guests... Painted faces, jockeys, flying kites and ducking between the trees leering down the hill to a river… Take it all in… Possible escape route: river. Appears an entire postwar generation of middle-aged doctors and mothers on call are invited to the Higgins tonight for a show, a play of some kind. Tribal music plays: someone beats the drum. Floor is moving. Woozy… maybe drugged, maybe paranoia, maybe fatigue… A bass-player, for no reason, stands in corner, fag lolling on lower lip, smoke effusive in humid night. One of them mothers a prepubescent daughter… Lovely thing, I’m looking at the insignia on her dress… There’s some historical signal on there… Catch the mother’s eye: she’s caught mine, or thinks she has.
‘He was staring at my daughter – the filthy brute!’
‘I never.’
Could mention the insignia, the dress, but who'd care...
‘I thought he might,’ non-Higgins says. ‘You should learn to look ahead.’
Wags a finger. Paints my chin with a kiss.
‘Higgins, bring out the fruit.’
‘No Higgins…’ I try.
‘We’re here to feed you… Think of the starving kids… How can you refuse?’
They wheel out a buffet-table filled with the ugliest torture weapons you’ve ever seen: heavy, misshapen fruit with spindles, small ninja-star fruit, the largest unpeeled carrot you’ve ever seen, which must only have been grown for one purpose… Some seriously perverted hydroponics was going on in these hills.
As the pineapple needles dig into my flesh my mind wanders. Send out a mental task force to investigate the neighbouring fruit-stalls. Dust for great-ape and monkey fingerprints. Issue a few directives. If I were General Chemistry I’d have the state issue nutritional pamphlets decreeing proper hygiene, food preparation techniques, instead of the current state of gastronomical laissez-faire. I’ve a few questions for this General Chemistry, should I run into him – like, what kind of cereal-box military academy did he attend, and what decorations does he have to recommend him? Build in my mind a corrosive explosive all-doubts-forgotten get out of jail device; from a no frills beer top and a reserve of creative energy didn’t know existed. Joy! Implement the device quickly, footsteps outside, pausing to give thanks to whoever I inherited this particular deus ex machina from and vowing to forever cherish no frills products and campaign for their domination of the market. Only, what name will I put on the banner… Have to invent a logo… Hmm… Dear Mr Frill, writing to inform of heretofore unimagined use for your product…
I’m running, I’m free… Somehow it worked… No time to wonder now. My feet find the boards outside the log-cabin – please no splinters – bundle my sore bones downhill, sticky soles thicken with soil as I go. Short trip down, mini-preview of the rapids ahead…
Boatdocked, loosen rope, speed… Over shoulder voices ricochet zigzag from tree to tree. Higgins this and Higgins that. Ladybug – what’s she doing so close to the edge! Ahh – rope burn!
Weathered old boat ambles along waters; plinking sounds at contact points. Suddenly a tranquil moment to look back and smile, lay back and look up, think about things I’m grateful for - watching TV with dad – our favourite cop shows – Him showing me how to… Building um… I’m sure there were times when I learnt something useful from him, but… they escape me. River’s not the most conducive to that kind of thinking, maybe.
Pictures crop up from time to time, projected on the fog – just the news reel... Or are they real? Careers advisers. Curmudgeons. Men kneeling in bushes buggering, downstream more men night-fishing and a congregation of feminist nudists nightswimming. River swims ahead, lucky someone’s marked it with streamers for me, or I might drift off course. Someone knew I’d come this way. There’s only one river, but still. Leaving behind the city of dun, gradually, as the river develops from rapids to Sunday afternoon walks the scenery becomes sleepy and green.
Go to Food That Eats You's page.
Blog: Silent Film Festival, end of April.
I recently received this email, and wanted to spread the love to any secret silent movie fans among the people I've come across and directed to this blog...
Hello Ben
I see you’ve reviewed a Keaton silent film at IMDB (my review - BC) and thought you might like to know about Sydney’s inaugural Silent Film Festival to be held March 30 – April 1 at the Hayden Orpheum in Cremorne and the Art Gallery of NSW. Saturday afternoon will feature 2 Keaton films; The Goat and Steamboat Bill, Jr, but you can check out the entire program and further details at their website.
Best regards,
Barbara
I thanked Barbara personally, almost as personal as her invite to me, we're like so close to being best friends... Many more interesting things than this have happened to me lately, I promise. Just the other day I dropped my phone into a toilet... Had I had a computer, and an internet, in the vicinity, I may have thought to peruse this web site and save myself a modicum of trauma... Not too much, though... You want to preserve a little trauma in each day, so that you have stories like this to recount to people.
Hello Ben
I see you’ve reviewed a Keaton silent film at IMDB (my review - BC) and thought you might like to know about Sydney’s inaugural Silent Film Festival to be held March 30 – April 1 at the Hayden Orpheum in Cremorne and the Art Gallery of NSW. Saturday afternoon will feature 2 Keaton films; The Goat and Steamboat Bill, Jr, but you can check out the entire program and further details at their website.
Best regards,
Barbara
I thanked Barbara personally, almost as personal as her invite to me, we're like so close to being best friends... Many more interesting things than this have happened to me lately, I promise. Just the other day I dropped my phone into a toilet... Had I had a computer, and an internet, in the vicinity, I may have thought to peruse this web site and save myself a modicum of trauma... Not too much, though... You want to preserve a little trauma in each day, so that you have stories like this to recount to people.
Thursday 1 March 2007
Play: Skipping (short)
For Zoe
GIRL skipping, two chairs.
BOY enters, surveys the scene, exhales happily. Sees the chair closest him, decides he wants to set up camp. They are total strangers.
BOY: Is someone sitting here?
GIRL: Not really.
BOY confused, pulls a face, decides not to make a scene, sits down happily.
BOY: I like this place.
GIRL: (Stops skipping) I like you…
In a sudden fit they lunge at each other and begin playing tonsil-hockey, knocking over the chairs, almost falling over, finally resting, her head on his chest, both panting. They should be standing when they’re done. Somehow, GIRL needs to secret skipping rope away during this bustle.
GIRL: Wait, will this change things?
BOY: Change them from what? There was nothing before. This has got to be better than that.
GIRL: No, but…
BOY goes to speak.
Sorry, you go.
BOY: Well, I was just thinking…
GIRL: Wait… Can’t we just stay like this…
BOY: (not following) Like what?
GIRL: Shhhh…
BOY: (pause, irritated) Why do I have to Shh?
GIRL: Talking’s overrated (goes to kiss him.)
BOY: (he ducks it, protests) You really think so?
GIRL: Mostly. The people I know…
They stand in silence, growing increasingly awkward in their embrace.
BOY: (getting frustrated) Why don’t you want to talk?
GIRL: (growing increasingly agitated, lays head on his chest, strokes him like trying to shoosh a baby) Come on, just a minute longer.
BOY: (pause, significant) In case something spoils it.
GIRL: (as if, miracle, he understands) Exactly.
BOY: Because its too precious.
GIRL: (even more impressed, exclaims) Its like we knew each other our whole lives!
BOY: (unfurls himself from her, folds his arms) Alright, name one thing about me.
GIRL: (hesitates) Alright. (walks a little distance, on her own invisible pier, begins a mystical recitation, as if a psychic calling up ephemera from the deep. BOY watches with a bemused expression, himself now just one of the audience) You own a business… A little rabbit farm where you and your brothers used to roll in the hay when you were young… (scoffs at the level of her delusion) That’s where you developed your interest in football… The girls at school didn’t appreciate you… (now BOY is disturbed) What did they know… You hadn’t yet grown into your body… You don’t like it when a girl talks dirty… You like her to be your princess… You’re decent, and kind, and decent, and rich…
BOY: Alright, that’s just enough. (GIRL startled, as if woken from dream) This is what you don’t want me to spoil?
GIRL: (like he’s crazy) Hey, its your story…
BOY: (incredulous) Where the fuck did all that come from? ('hell' is fine if any minors present, but strong word needed)
GIRL: (pouts) If that’s how you’re going to treat me, I’ll walk out.
BOY: You’ll walk? I’m gone… See ya later. (BOY walks… Almost gone, comes back to her, wags a finger in her face) You wanna know something? I’m actually not that nice a guy. I was never chubby and the girls did appreciate me…
GIRL: Ah! (puts fingers in ears) La la la, I can’t hear you!
BOY: (shouting to get through to her) I partied my dick off…
GIRL: What?
BOY: (quickly, embarrassed at having stooped to her level) Nothing. (shakes her hand) You need help. (goes towards exit again)
GIRL: (feigning a feint) You never appreciated me…
BOY: (calls over shoulder) We only just met!
GIRL: (swoons) A lifetime ago…
BOY: (comes back) No, it was five minute ago… You were skipping, I came in…
GIRL: I was skipping? How old do I look?
BOY: I definitely remember some skipping.
GIRL: (looking to female audience for commiseration) See, more of his lies…
BOY: If I can find a skipping rope around here, will you admit you’re cracked?
GIRL: Probably, alright.
BOY: And get some help?
GIRL: (smiles sweetly) And if you can’t?
BOY: Then we’ll agree to disagree. We’ll go on our separate ways, and that’ll be the end of it. Alright?
GIRL: Sounds fair.
BOY: Alright. Just give me a minute here…
Gets ready to have a good look around.
GIRL: What are you doing?
BOY: I’m stretching… I can’t be getting down on the ground without the proper… Precautions… (mocking her) I’ve got a big game tomorrow… Of football, which I play, according to you.
GIRL: What of it?
BOY: (dismissive) Alright, how bout you don’t distract me so I can find this thing and go home.
GIRL: Alright.
BOY searches for skipping rope, on hands and knees… Just pretend it’s a tiny little earring… Just look, don’t need to shift any imaginary objects. Focus must be on GIRL.
GIRL begins to follow, walking slowly around him, her back slowly coming to the audience, for the last reveal, holding the rope in one hand, the other hand clutching the rope-hand’s wrist, bobbing leisurely.
GIRL: Did you find it yet?
Lights dim slowly.
GIRL skipping, two chairs.
BOY enters, surveys the scene, exhales happily. Sees the chair closest him, decides he wants to set up camp. They are total strangers.
BOY: Is someone sitting here?
GIRL: Not really.
BOY confused, pulls a face, decides not to make a scene, sits down happily.
BOY: I like this place.
GIRL: (Stops skipping) I like you…
In a sudden fit they lunge at each other and begin playing tonsil-hockey, knocking over the chairs, almost falling over, finally resting, her head on his chest, both panting. They should be standing when they’re done. Somehow, GIRL needs to secret skipping rope away during this bustle.
GIRL: Wait, will this change things?
BOY: Change them from what? There was nothing before. This has got to be better than that.
GIRL: No, but…
BOY goes to speak.
Sorry, you go.
BOY: Well, I was just thinking…
GIRL: Wait… Can’t we just stay like this…
BOY: (not following) Like what?
GIRL: Shhhh…
BOY: (pause, irritated) Why do I have to Shh?
GIRL: Talking’s overrated (goes to kiss him.)
BOY: (he ducks it, protests) You really think so?
GIRL: Mostly. The people I know…
They stand in silence, growing increasingly awkward in their embrace.
BOY: (getting frustrated) Why don’t you want to talk?
GIRL: (growing increasingly agitated, lays head on his chest, strokes him like trying to shoosh a baby) Come on, just a minute longer.
BOY: (pause, significant) In case something spoils it.
GIRL: (as if, miracle, he understands) Exactly.
BOY: Because its too precious.
GIRL: (even more impressed, exclaims) Its like we knew each other our whole lives!
BOY: (unfurls himself from her, folds his arms) Alright, name one thing about me.
GIRL: (hesitates) Alright. (walks a little distance, on her own invisible pier, begins a mystical recitation, as if a psychic calling up ephemera from the deep. BOY watches with a bemused expression, himself now just one of the audience) You own a business… A little rabbit farm where you and your brothers used to roll in the hay when you were young… (scoffs at the level of her delusion) That’s where you developed your interest in football… The girls at school didn’t appreciate you… (now BOY is disturbed) What did they know… You hadn’t yet grown into your body… You don’t like it when a girl talks dirty… You like her to be your princess… You’re decent, and kind, and decent, and rich…
BOY: Alright, that’s just enough. (GIRL startled, as if woken from dream) This is what you don’t want me to spoil?
GIRL: (like he’s crazy) Hey, its your story…
BOY: (incredulous) Where the fuck did all that come from? ('hell' is fine if any minors present, but strong word needed)
GIRL: (pouts) If that’s how you’re going to treat me, I’ll walk out.
BOY: You’ll walk? I’m gone… See ya later. (BOY walks… Almost gone, comes back to her, wags a finger in her face) You wanna know something? I’m actually not that nice a guy. I was never chubby and the girls did appreciate me…
GIRL: Ah! (puts fingers in ears) La la la, I can’t hear you!
BOY: (shouting to get through to her) I partied my dick off…
GIRL: What?
BOY: (quickly, embarrassed at having stooped to her level) Nothing. (shakes her hand) You need help. (goes towards exit again)
GIRL: (feigning a feint) You never appreciated me…
BOY: (calls over shoulder) We only just met!
GIRL: (swoons) A lifetime ago…
BOY: (comes back) No, it was five minute ago… You were skipping, I came in…
GIRL: I was skipping? How old do I look?
BOY: I definitely remember some skipping.
GIRL: (looking to female audience for commiseration) See, more of his lies…
BOY: If I can find a skipping rope around here, will you admit you’re cracked?
GIRL: Probably, alright.
BOY: And get some help?
GIRL: (smiles sweetly) And if you can’t?
BOY: Then we’ll agree to disagree. We’ll go on our separate ways, and that’ll be the end of it. Alright?
GIRL: Sounds fair.
BOY: Alright. Just give me a minute here…
Gets ready to have a good look around.
GIRL: What are you doing?
BOY: I’m stretching… I can’t be getting down on the ground without the proper… Precautions… (mocking her) I’ve got a big game tomorrow… Of football, which I play, according to you.
GIRL: What of it?
BOY: (dismissive) Alright, how bout you don’t distract me so I can find this thing and go home.
GIRL: Alright.
BOY searches for skipping rope, on hands and knees… Just pretend it’s a tiny little earring… Just look, don’t need to shift any imaginary objects. Focus must be on GIRL.
GIRL begins to follow, walking slowly around him, her back slowly coming to the audience, for the last reveal, holding the rope in one hand, the other hand clutching the rope-hand’s wrist, bobbing leisurely.
GIRL: Did you find it yet?
Lights dim slowly.
Blog: Updates
There are various updates all around this blog you may not have noticed, I've been working mainly on my novel, Food That Eats You. If you are intrigued by the chapter in February, you may not know, there's a link right down the bottom which you can click on to get the next ten... Have also just created a secret blog for Baron in the Hen House which you can access via the easter egg down the bottom of its page in February.
NOTE: CLICK THE LITTLE ARROW NEXT TO MONTH ON LEFT TO DROP DOWN ITS MENU.
B.C
NOTE: CLICK THE LITTLE ARROW NEXT TO MONTH ON LEFT TO DROP DOWN ITS MENU.
B.C
Monday 19 February 2007
Blog: What I'm Reading
Currently carrying around David Foster Wallace's ridiculously long 'Infinite Jest.' Tis a library copy, though... If anyone has a copy (and has read it) would love advice on whether you think its pleasant to read in paperback. Im reading hardback, and though its size of phone-book to carry round, print is large enough so you can forget you're reading a page and just get engulfed in the sentence... Er... Then there's the problem of which edition... Whether the ten year anniversary edition has any other perks other than Dave Eggers introduction... Is print different size, book easier to handle... Thinking of investing in a copy... Will pay $50 if its right book for me...
Recently aquired (library) copy of William Gaddis The Recognitions and begun listening to language on first few pages... Definitely must aquire personal copy for life-long perusal... Am currently just signing up to study a B.Teach to enable myself to be paid to teach English in New South Wales high schools... Because I basically don't give a fuck about academic articles, so I wouldn't go down that road... Also just yesterday had a gig at my old primary school in which nobody paid any attention to me - something I will never get used to. Actually, I don't mind it when people leave me alone off-stage, but once I'm on there... I vow never to play to anyone at a cocktail gathering, or where any consumables aside from beer are involved... Wasted so much good material on unreceptive ears... Apparently I have a lot to learn about how receptive the world is going to be to me... Or fuck that. Have recently developed a penchant for swearing in everyday speech... Haven't yet tried it out on loved ones... Its great fun but.
Um... Am working, when I do, primarily on my food/crazy piece currently called 'Flux' aka Food That Eats You! Veering away from sillier title... I enjoy stories with humour, but I hardly ever read things with joke titles... I take my humour seriously! Think that's probably it. Um... Also working at my old primary school, same school where I had gig - that's how I got it. We're having a health inspection soon... And today on the news there was a botulism scare... All these things are milling around my head... 'Infinite Jest' is full of names of drugs and diseases - loads of jargon. That kind of technical detail doesn't interest me as much as the concepts... As far as my own writing...
Am enjoying 'Infinite Jest', up to pp 60 ;)... Gaddis is calling me though... He's saying strange things...
Recently aquired (library) copy of William Gaddis The Recognitions and begun listening to language on first few pages... Definitely must aquire personal copy for life-long perusal... Am currently just signing up to study a B.Teach to enable myself to be paid to teach English in New South Wales high schools... Because I basically don't give a fuck about academic articles, so I wouldn't go down that road... Also just yesterday had a gig at my old primary school in which nobody paid any attention to me - something I will never get used to. Actually, I don't mind it when people leave me alone off-stage, but once I'm on there... I vow never to play to anyone at a cocktail gathering, or where any consumables aside from beer are involved... Wasted so much good material on unreceptive ears... Apparently I have a lot to learn about how receptive the world is going to be to me... Or fuck that. Have recently developed a penchant for swearing in everyday speech... Haven't yet tried it out on loved ones... Its great fun but.
Um... Am working, when I do, primarily on my food/crazy piece currently called 'Flux' aka Food That Eats You! Veering away from sillier title... I enjoy stories with humour, but I hardly ever read things with joke titles... I take my humour seriously! Think that's probably it. Um... Also working at my old primary school, same school where I had gig - that's how I got it. We're having a health inspection soon... And today on the news there was a botulism scare... All these things are milling around my head... 'Infinite Jest' is full of names of drugs and diseases - loads of jargon. That kind of technical detail doesn't interest me as much as the concepts... As far as my own writing...
Am enjoying 'Infinite Jest', up to pp 60 ;)... Gaddis is calling me though... He's saying strange things...
Sunday 18 February 2007
Lyrics: Take Me To Your Planet
I used to know you well, now I don't even figure
In your master plan, for the future of the race, wo, wo, wo.
Your space-ship leaves today, for your alien planet
Two examples of perfection, plus me in the baggage cabin, wo, wo, wo.
CHORUS:
I plan to make you take me with you
I'd hijack a personality if I had to...
In preparation, for the breeding zoo...
Please, please, cldnt i come along,
As an example of what went wrong,
I'll just quickly grab my jacket,
then take me to your planet...
I might look like a freak, but my DNA is beautiful
like my personality, I keep it on the inside, wo wo wo.
I might have an extra toe or so, amputated by a war
from a slight case of incest, in my ancestry wo wo wo.
CHORUS
Probably expected something else; Me i'm not set on myself,
Performing all my life, I'll play any part you like, wo wo wo.
Dont say i'm on the short side, you might get knifed in your backside
Unless you've got an eye there, dont walk by here, wo, wo, wo.
CHORUS
I watched you fly in the sky; To a world where there's no rain
Without saying goodbye; you left me to decay, wo wo wo.
Now that I've lost my place, In the perfect human race
I don't even feel I belong, Inside this little song...
CHORUS
In your master plan, for the future of the race, wo, wo, wo.
Your space-ship leaves today, for your alien planet
Two examples of perfection, plus me in the baggage cabin, wo, wo, wo.
CHORUS:
I plan to make you take me with you
I'd hijack a personality if I had to...
In preparation, for the breeding zoo...
Please, please, cldnt i come along,
As an example of what went wrong,
I'll just quickly grab my jacket,
then take me to your planet...
I might look like a freak, but my DNA is beautiful
like my personality, I keep it on the inside, wo wo wo.
I might have an extra toe or so, amputated by a war
from a slight case of incest, in my ancestry wo wo wo.
CHORUS
Probably expected something else; Me i'm not set on myself,
Performing all my life, I'll play any part you like, wo wo wo.
Dont say i'm on the short side, you might get knifed in your backside
Unless you've got an eye there, dont walk by here, wo, wo, wo.
CHORUS
I watched you fly in the sky; To a world where there's no rain
Without saying goodbye; you left me to decay, wo wo wo.
Now that I've lost my place, In the perfect human race
I don't even feel I belong, Inside this little song...
CHORUS
Saturday 17 February 2007
Prose: The Baron's Childhood
Introduction by the Author
THIS PIECE IS COMPRISED OF TWO EPISODES FROM THE VERY FIRST THINGS I EVER WROTE ABOUT THIS CHARACTER CALLED 'THE BARON.' I THINK I'VE CORRUPTED HIS CHARM A LOT SINCE THEN, SO WHILE THIS PIECE IN PARTICULAR, BEING ONLY 5 PAGES INTO THE FIRST 100-page BARON DRAFT, MAY SEEM HALF-BAKED, I THINK IT HAS A CHARM ABOUT IT...
The Baron's Childhood
I am a lover of words, yet in the castle where I spent my formative years, it was words I was denied. Father once said:
“The greatest constipation and procrastination in the history of our species has been the fault of words.”
Before I could open my mouth in defence of language, my father would bark for me to eat my caviar and be grateful I hadn’t been sent to a workhouse years before, as all his other children had, and his father’s children, and his father’s father’s children, ad infinitum.
Though my father detested language, he realised it was the bread upon which the outside world was buttered, so, to acknowledge this, he bought me a wall-chart of the different titles one must use to address those at different strata of society, which everyone knows is the most trying social law a boy must learn. Here is a sample for your pleasure of “The Forms of Address” chart by Franz Kafka:
If addressing a lady one does not wish to wed, the title “Dear Lady” is fine.
If addressing a lady one wishes to wed, the title “My Lady” is kosher.
If addressing a woman who is not a lady, the title “woman” is common.
If addressing an old lady who is rich, one says, “old lady.”
But if addressing an old lady who is not rich, one says, “old woman.”
If addressing the son of a rich man, one says, “Good Man.”
If addressing the son of a poor man, one says, “you boy.”
The chart was impressive indeed, I remember, almost covering an entire wall. A number of my peers, on Sundays when Visitors were allowed, remarked upon its forbidding massivity. Father was proud that I put it up and was determined to learn it; and I felt it was a good present indeed. I was well on my way to starting off in society by learning it, my father said.
“Your father did alright for himself without learning it,” mother said. I was puzzled by this.
“Why did you not learn the chart, father?” I asked him.
“I was raised as a stinking rat in a workhouse, like your brothers,” he replied. And I never brought up the subject again. He used to speak at great lengths about his life in the workhouse, relishing in descriptions of grime, languishing in descriptions of pain – but never did he tell it to me, and nor did I ask about it, but I’ll get onto that later.
The driving force of my family has always been lineage. Our great quest has been to march forward, on and on, into history. You might call it a modest cause: some families aspire to greatness in their group profession, some to smuggle their way into the royal family. But the Spanglers were satisfied with merely pushing on, with existing ad infinitum. And with any luck, centuries from now, some noble descendent of mine might remark that in some way every Spangler from back in history has lived forever. And what more could the world ask, but to be enriched with Spanglers to all eternity!
I do over-simplify the cause, however. It is not sufficient merely to blow one’s seed on just any willing participant; one must extend the line within the confines of The Social Code, at all costs. Which generally means obtaining the most socially respectable applicant possible, to give the line the greatest chance of vivre eternal. And “applicant” is not an un-apt term, for auditions were held for the position, in the days of my mother’s reign. You see, my father ruled the castle during the first ten years of my life, after which he got lazy and allowed my mother to usurp his position; so it was that my mother was in charge of finding me a suitor during my adolescence. Woe betide she who presented herself to my mother as my potential mate. My mother took out a lease on a storefront in town, to my great embarrasment, and called it “Auditions for Good-Quality Wife.” I remember on our first day of business we were bombarded by a horde of desparate spinsters, to who, naturally, it was my job to break the bad news that the husband in question was none other than myself. The horde voiced their displeasure at this information by hurling insults and spitting on me, until suddenly a bottomless supply of rotting fruit materialised, which seemed to do the job much better. I took these complaints on board while mother waited patiently inside.
Mother had to amend the sign to read “Auditions for Future Wife of Society Child.”
I’ll never forget the day a girl called Ursula took us by surprise outside the scheduled audition times one day at a pet store, where we were looking at fertiliser.
The girl tugged at my mother’s skirt, then blushed and curtseyed. She seemed totally unaware of the chocolate smudges on her cheek.
I liked the way the girl looked, even her little stomach that poured over the top of her pants. But mother broke out in laughter at the sight of her, much to my distress. “Well, what do you expect to find,” she remarked, “when you go to a pet store, but an animal.”
Ursula looked at us like a little Buddha, as if with some secret knowledge, as my mother led me out the store, cackling as she went. I fell in love with Ursula that day, and began my courtship the next. It did not last, however, as she was not faithful. She was five years older than I, as were all the girls my mother introduced me to, for she was an ambitious woman.
My mother prided herself on being the best at everything. Or, at least, if she were not, we would all have to pretend she was, including my father and homeless uncle Milton, for fear of a smack. To my great misfortune, this pride of my mother’s also applied to finding me a beau. I was to have a beau before any other boy in polite society, for fear of a smack, even if it meant starting at an age where girls are generally believed to possess certain toxins fatal to boys.
I’ll never forget the day my mother showed me the correct way to squat and relieve myself, which owing to the painfulness of the memory, I have never been able to do any other way. It was a Sunday Evening at Lord’s, a gigantic department store which was having a clearance sale of wedding dresses. My mother and all her girlfriends, all seventy-seven of them, made up a large part of what the Ancient Romans might have called an angry mob, who rat-a-tat-tapped on the big imperial doors of the shopping palace at exactly nine o’clock in the morning, like so many screaming banshees. It was a frightful scene, and enough to turn any boy against marriage, let alone courtship. Boy I was, and boy was I expected to start early, which was not helped by the fact that mother insisted on publically shaming me at every possible opportunity. I still hold that she did it accidentally, like at the department store, for instance. We were in the dressing room, and I told her politely, reasonably, that I would really like very much to go to the bathroom. She ignored this request, so I dropped my pants and pissed on the hospital-smelling carpet.
This was, I admit, a gross error in judgment; but I was, after all, only eight years old. Well past the age of pissing in public, I am aware, but it wasn’t something I considered appropriate, more an act of desperation. My mother was, to say the least, not understanding of my plight. She began to scream bloody murder at me, at the top of her voice declaring what an inviolate little brute she had for a relation (she used this term). She began to spank me, and drag me out of the change rooms, before I had time to pull up my drawers. She managed to drag me, against my will, along the floor of the department store (which can’t have been sanitary on my bare rump), still managing to bend down and aim a good spank at my person every now and then. But the worst part, her favourite torture, was when she began to list a catalogue of my previous wrong-doings:
Just like the time you pulled down your pants for the girls at kindy, you pervert;
Just like the time you embarrassed us all by spanking the bottom of the Jenkinson’s daughter,
Or the time you ran away from me at the grocery store,
Or ran onto the road in Lodge City,
Or threw that tantrum at that Jetson’s theme restaurant because George wouldn’t sign your autograph book. I told you, his hands weren’t real, how could he hold a pen! And you cried like a little girl.
After each item, she would shake her head at me, and steam would emanate from the bolts in her neck. As I said, my mother was a determined woman. She was determined, on this particular occasion, to have my offending organ displayed to the entire department store community, and drag me, body and soul, to the front of the store, where I was to apologise to the store managers for so foully defacing their property. This was her plan of action, and by golly she was going to carry it out. By the time we did reach the front of the store, the store manager was not difficult to find, since he was busily trying to find us, and usher us out of the store. It seemed nobody felt I was welcome there. What had previously been the angry mob, now seemed like merely a lot of separate people, quite normal people, staring at us. The shoppers, including mother’s seventy-seven society mothers, watched as my mother shaped my body into a squatting position of the floor in front of the manager and said “that’s how polite girls piss, not standing up like brute – if you cry like a girl, piss like a girl,” she told me.
The onlookers, who included mother’s seventy-seven girlfriends, looked on, with dropped jaws as the manager tried to calm my mother, saying things like “ma’am, he’s just a child,” or “he seems like a fine boy,” or “really ma’am, I’m sure it was just an accident,” but she would not be consoled. At this point she re-directed her fury at the manager (who turned out to be a university-educated public relations man, instead of a manager, someone with real authority, which only seemed to inflate her anger), which seems like an appropriate place to end this episode, since my mother used words that would be considered inappropriate if this writing is to maintain its (g) rating.
"I don't know," Mother told me, on our way out to the carriage, "if your behaviour is acceptable to the outside world, it will do danger to you to be in it. Quickly, to the castle before we're corrupted any further."
Lyrics: 'Love Song At The End Of A Rope'
Introduction by the Author
FIRST LINE'S A REFERENCE TO THE FAMOUS GETTYSBURG ADDRESS... THIS SONG IS AN EXAMPLE OF HOW I'M EQUALLY AS SERIOUS AS I AM NOT... SERIOUS. ITS SUNG BY A MAN HANGING BY THE NECK, IN THE SECOND WHEN WORD SAYS 'YOUR LIFE FLASHES BEFORE YOUR EYES'... ONLY I DIDN'T USE THAT CLICHE, I WROTE THIS INSTEAD:
Love Song At The End Of A Rope
Four score and heartache ago
Butchered and bargained to know
The length and the love of my life
Trees have hands and they’re coming alive!
And now I’m going black and blue
And I'm not fit to see you.
I would give a thumbs up
But my thumb's falling off
Oh it hangs from a thread
Tenuous at best
I lie asleep on the rack
There's bodies asleep on my back...
Coins in the hollows...
Light in the gutter..
Now I’m going black and blue,
And I’m not fit to see you...
And so pull off my arms
If you’re strong enough
String me up, baby
I’m in nature & I’m in love...
Squeeze out my eyes
And make me surprised
Eat me for lunch
I am nature and I’m in love...
I numbered among your dead
Shouldered up above your head
A victim of a shady past
And a flag at half-mast
And now I’m black and blue
And I’m not fit to see you
So bring me a quill
Bring me a sheet
What do I own
I can bequeath
Lay me a bed
Leave me in peace
Return me to nature
Return me and leave...
FIRST LINE'S A REFERENCE TO THE FAMOUS GETTYSBURG ADDRESS... THIS SONG IS AN EXAMPLE OF HOW I'M EQUALLY AS SERIOUS AS I AM NOT... SERIOUS. ITS SUNG BY A MAN HANGING BY THE NECK, IN THE SECOND WHEN WORD SAYS 'YOUR LIFE FLASHES BEFORE YOUR EYES'... ONLY I DIDN'T USE THAT CLICHE, I WROTE THIS INSTEAD:
Love Song At The End Of A Rope
Four score and heartache ago
Butchered and bargained to know
The length and the love of my life
Trees have hands and they’re coming alive!
And now I’m going black and blue
And I'm not fit to see you.
I would give a thumbs up
But my thumb's falling off
Oh it hangs from a thread
Tenuous at best
I lie asleep on the rack
There's bodies asleep on my back...
Coins in the hollows...
Light in the gutter..
Now I’m going black and blue,
And I’m not fit to see you...
And so pull off my arms
If you’re strong enough
String me up, baby
I’m in nature & I’m in love...
Squeeze out my eyes
And make me surprised
Eat me for lunch
I am nature and I’m in love...
I numbered among your dead
Shouldered up above your head
A victim of a shady past
And a flag at half-mast
And now I’m black and blue
And I’m not fit to see you
So bring me a quill
Bring me a sheet
What do I own
I can bequeath
Lay me a bed
Leave me in peace
Return me to nature
Return me and leave...
Prose: 'Tom Foolery' Chapter 1
Introduction by the Author
THIS IS THE OPENING EPISODE OF THE PROJECTED ADVENTURES OF TOM FOOLERY, WHICH CONCERN TOM BEING HIRED BY A MAN TO DISTRACT HIS BROTHER DURING A BIG BUSINESS DEAL.
1.
I have a little writing desk set up in the sun room of my apartment. I don’t use it, but it gives the impression I have something to say at parties. The kinds of parties I get invited to are given by the kind of people whose parties I wouldn’t want to attend, unless it were to have a bit of fun at their expense. Even though I’m by far more attractive, I'm consistently neglected in favour of my brother, because I’ve often inspected his garbage and found invitations pre-dating mine by the time it took him to receive and reject his. This phenomenon exists for many reasons, but, to scratch the surface, my brother is higher up than me because he rarely accepts invitations, and is generally entertaining and well-rounded. I, on the other hand, am unfulfilled and have rounded out since my days as a swimming champion. In our youth, ah, things were different. When I was about seventeen, my father once told me he admired me. He said he admired that I maintained my social profile despite my atrocious behaviour. If he meant it, it might be the only thing anyone ever admired about me that wasn’t my body. My body used to be something to behold, particularly at swimming carnivals where all but the most modest per centage of it would be on display: rosy-nipples, taut skin, jaw-line well drawn as if by a master sculpter (who I do not believe in), just some of the highlights. Externally, I was a work of art. I had a different girl at every party, with none to tie me down. No matter how offensive I behaved, people still laughed. Then my twenties happened. My father didn’t live to see my twenties. He died of emphysema, smoked himself out of his hole. If he did, I’m sure he would have said it was my fault for losing my hair, my fault for not getting picked for those swimming teams, my fault for quitting. Quitting is something I’ve taken pride in doing far too many times. By the time my thirties rolled around, I was no longer someone receptionists were glad to see, and it bothered me into bitterness, so I took comfort in making everyone else feel worse than I did. Developed it into an art.
I never dreamed someone would pay for me doing it until one evening when I was minding my own business, abusing a society mother (who must have escaped the under-30 screening process at the club) for asking me for my brother’s autograph.
“You slug, you worm,” I was saying to her, in good humour, “if this is all you live for, shall I strap you in bed, rig you up to a drip, liquefy my old Disneyland autograph book and feed it to you, because I have it at home underneath my bed beside my Danish pornography,” then I nudged a white-capped gent beside me and uttered, sotto voce, “the Danish material is,” and mimed how delicious it was by kissing my thumb and forefinger and winking. “You know, eh? Am I right?” But the gentleman was not very supportive and shook his head vehemently, causing spittle to fly from his floppy lip. He was entertaining two girls who looked just barely too old to be let in. If they were under half his age they were twice his shoe-size. Standing together they looked like a “W,” but one of those voluptuous handwritten W’s with a middle stalk at half-mast. I continued to stare at the gentleman because I thought it bothered him, when suddenly something occurred to him. He put on his monacle and said, “would you say that again?”
“Ah, certainly.” I cleared my throat and began from the top, even though my virtue was spontaneity and I withered with repetition. “… am I right?” I finished.
“Oh I see,” the gentleman said. If he was eighty the two giant ladies must have been forty, on my earlier arithmetic, which is the best age to still be in one piece, one better than forty-one.
The gentleman utterly surprised me by quoting his profession, with no relevance to the current situation.
“Sir, I’m a sort of freelance entertainment agent, and…”
“How very nice for you. I’m a daytime bat exterminator.”
“I didn’t know there were daytime bats.”
“There aren’t many, but when there are, they’re ill-tempered. My work requires immense creativity: in passing the time, and in getting jobs, before the great daytime bat extermination of last week, it wasn’t as if we could get hired by average citizens to kill wild bats, what claim did they have over a particular bat? Then the government gave us our biggest job since we opened ten years ago and we’ve been living off it ever since last week.”
“Are you trying to be funny?”
“Lord no, actually I’m trying to be irritating – is it working?”
“Actually, its mildly entertaining.”
On all levels, an unsatisfactory response. He paused and examined every shadowy place on my face his eagle-eye could dart in a moment. “Can I buy you a drink?”
“I don’t know, can you afford it on your pension?”
He looked down at his liver-spotted hand and smiled wryly. “I am a working man. I think I mentioned it.”
“Did you? I think I’d recall such an improbable claim from such an old gent,” I said, still just about as curious as I am in antique shops, as we entrenched ourselves at the bar, laying down fortifications against the encroaching hordes of go-getters and gimme-that’ers, all clad in I’m-important city-gear, suits or dress-suits, itself protective armour against the X-factor of the city. I made no excuses to the forgettable characters I’d accidentally got bogged down with about pairing off with the old gent. I was a free agent at this party, I’d brought no wife, lover, poker buddy or lawyer with me just so I could maintain the liberty to go where I please till I was (god forbid) ready to settle down.
“You must be the oldest working man in the country,” I jibed him.
“I’ll be eighty next August.”
“You’re mad - that’s what happens if you plan your after-life poorly.”
“I work because I’m the only person in my company who knows the identity of our biggest-paying clients. The day I retire, they’ll have to look for another patron who shares my… discretion.”
I felt my face elongate like a talking television horse.
“Sir, you have intrigued me like reality television has failed to do for the past few weeks.”
“I’m flattered to hear it.”
“Don’t be.”
The bartender finally paid attention to us, at which point my new little old friend whispered something to the bartender, which caused him to nod and click his fingers (literally) which, in turn, caused a genie in a white suit to appear.
“Good evening Mr Trowell, I trust your evening has been fine.”
Trowell, eh? When I first heard it I thought of a garden implement, which made me think of a garden gnome which in turn brought a pet cemetery to mind; a strange chain of command which stuck like embalming fluid to my mental picture of this “Trowell” from that moment on.
“It has been fine, Robert,” Mr Trowell said and some money exchanged hands in a secret hand-
shake.
“Hey!” I said, darting my face down to make a fuss. “What was that?”
“It was nothing,” Trowell smirked, “lead on Robert.”
“I saw that, you gave him money,” I was carrying on, fishing for a reaction, still cock-eyed to the fact that this man might be offering me a job, which was lucky, because it transpired he was after somebody who refused to behave himself.
“I’m glad,” Trowell said, baring a gold tooth at me, which made me flinch the first time I saw it.
The fellow Trowell had given money to for no apparent reason – tipping is an uncommon practice in Sydney, Australia – led us to a velvet door deep in the bowels of the club. He knocked thrice upon its threshold and the face of yet another good-looking romeo appeared (all club-staff are chic and matchlessly cloned).
I heard “Robert” say something about a velvet room, which gained us access to some inner-sanctum. My tongue was numb from anticipation, but it wouldn’t have mattered what he had on his mind, I would have agreed to anything, no matter how repellent I usually would have found it. As it turns out, his proposition was to be the single most delicious of my career. It was my career.
The short hallway was dark but for strips of lights that appeared to have been lifted from the aisle of a very tiny aeroplane, a minor aberration in taste for an otherwise exquisitely designed club. He sat me down in the most exclusive environment in the entire club. Two martinis were waiting for us. Something told me he was trying to impress me.
So I thought of the only critical thing I had on my mind.
“Those lights on the floor out there are a bit tacky,” I said, looking into his bloodshot eyes.
He rubbed his receding scalp. He looked exhausted – I’m sure if there was any other place for him to meet potential clients and employees he would have been there.
He took his monacle off, which was a relief because it had been tickling my funny-bone ever since he put it on.
“I’m not going to ask you why you acted like a fool out there, and I’m not going to ask you whether you want to give up bat-farming.”
“Well, its bat catching, if its anything.”
“Its not important. I’m not going to ask you what you really do with your days, because I know I won’t get a straight answer out of you, but luckily I’m not interested in getting a straight answer out of you. I want to hire that quality, and the others you displayed outside, and perhaps more you’ll acquire, to loan out to private contractors who need
“Its part private detective, part reality television, but there’s no cameras rolling. You might be asked to play the stooge at a family gathering, to pretend to be somebody’s husband who wants to never have to see their relatives again. You might be hired to trip somebody up, just a quickie, or perhaps, a slow-burner, to work alongside them, gradually driving them crazy.”
“How would that work if they didn’t hire me?”
“Our organisation could take care of that.”
“How…”
“We are a small agency well supported by our wealthy clients, and we reciprocate this trust by keeping their identities secret. I’m not on the lookout for new clients, and nor will you ever find out about that part of the process, so don’t even consider trying. You will never be asked to enter a situation with the client themselves. Whatever the character, clients come to my group, which is very secretive, because we don’t ask questions. If you contravene that clause of your contract, it will be terminated. Any questions?”
“About a million…”
“Even though I just told you I’m after people who don’t ask questions?”
I still had to think for a moment. “Now I think about it, maybe I don’t have any questions.”
“Good. I don’t want you to think I don’t appreciate what you do – its what I’m hiring you for, but if you learn to focus your identity and switch between the persona required when you’re on a job, and the more reasonable gentleman who talks about that persona in the third person, then you might better preserve your sanity.”
Following the train of this logic almost made my eyes uncross: I have lived with one lazy eye and one hyperactive brain for as long as I can remember, and I’ve always found it gave me a head-start in convincing people I was unhinged. I’ve never really needed to say much to accomplish this, but I do say a lot because it brings me joy.
“How does that go hand in hand with sanity?”
“You must distinguish between your identities in an orderly way, like a scientific expert on your own identity.”
“Alright pops, I’ll see how I feel about it when the time comes.”
I got up to go but Trowell seized me by the wrist and pulled my ear down close to his.
“That time has already come and gone.”
I brought my good eye around and looked right into his: from this distance I could see the guy sitting in the next room behind him.
“And you made the wrong choice. Get in control of your personality, Bygber, before it begins to control you.”
I shook myself free of him, adjusted my black coat and uttered the obvious: “I didn’t tell you my name.”
Trowell showed me his teeth again and tapped the side of his nose conspiratorially. “Now you’re getting it,” he said.
I frowned at him, more confused than I was normally comfortable being. “Alright, Trowell, you’re the boss.”
He liked that, I could tell because it made him bare more of his teeth than I’d yet been privy to, which made me wish I still hadn’t been privy to them.And that’s the story of how I met the man of my dreams. I must admit Mr Trowell was about sixty years, a sex-change and an appointment with a dentist-to-the-stars miracle man away from my tastes. The jockey-past-his-prime thing left nothing to be desired. On a scale of stranger to open book, I would say I had a mere sketch of Mr Trowell. I knew the way he talked, the way he looked and some vague conjectures about his business, but did I know where it was located, its business hours? How about what brand of underpants he favoured, his understanding of fine wines or the great inventor Leonardo Da Vinci who managed to imagine humans flying and paint an ambiguous picture of a woman (both world firsts)?
* I have only 11,000 words so far, let me know if you think this is worth going on with.
THIS IS THE OPENING EPISODE OF THE PROJECTED ADVENTURES OF TOM FOOLERY, WHICH CONCERN TOM BEING HIRED BY A MAN TO DISTRACT HIS BROTHER DURING A BIG BUSINESS DEAL.
1.
I have a little writing desk set up in the sun room of my apartment. I don’t use it, but it gives the impression I have something to say at parties. The kinds of parties I get invited to are given by the kind of people whose parties I wouldn’t want to attend, unless it were to have a bit of fun at their expense. Even though I’m by far more attractive, I'm consistently neglected in favour of my brother, because I’ve often inspected his garbage and found invitations pre-dating mine by the time it took him to receive and reject his. This phenomenon exists for many reasons, but, to scratch the surface, my brother is higher up than me because he rarely accepts invitations, and is generally entertaining and well-rounded. I, on the other hand, am unfulfilled and have rounded out since my days as a swimming champion. In our youth, ah, things were different. When I was about seventeen, my father once told me he admired me. He said he admired that I maintained my social profile despite my atrocious behaviour. If he meant it, it might be the only thing anyone ever admired about me that wasn’t my body. My body used to be something to behold, particularly at swimming carnivals where all but the most modest per centage of it would be on display: rosy-nipples, taut skin, jaw-line well drawn as if by a master sculpter (who I do not believe in), just some of the highlights. Externally, I was a work of art. I had a different girl at every party, with none to tie me down. No matter how offensive I behaved, people still laughed. Then my twenties happened. My father didn’t live to see my twenties. He died of emphysema, smoked himself out of his hole. If he did, I’m sure he would have said it was my fault for losing my hair, my fault for not getting picked for those swimming teams, my fault for quitting. Quitting is something I’ve taken pride in doing far too many times. By the time my thirties rolled around, I was no longer someone receptionists were glad to see, and it bothered me into bitterness, so I took comfort in making everyone else feel worse than I did. Developed it into an art.
I never dreamed someone would pay for me doing it until one evening when I was minding my own business, abusing a society mother (who must have escaped the under-30 screening process at the club) for asking me for my brother’s autograph.
“You slug, you worm,” I was saying to her, in good humour, “if this is all you live for, shall I strap you in bed, rig you up to a drip, liquefy my old Disneyland autograph book and feed it to you, because I have it at home underneath my bed beside my Danish pornography,” then I nudged a white-capped gent beside me and uttered, sotto voce, “the Danish material is,” and mimed how delicious it was by kissing my thumb and forefinger and winking. “You know, eh? Am I right?” But the gentleman was not very supportive and shook his head vehemently, causing spittle to fly from his floppy lip. He was entertaining two girls who looked just barely too old to be let in. If they were under half his age they were twice his shoe-size. Standing together they looked like a “W,” but one of those voluptuous handwritten W’s with a middle stalk at half-mast. I continued to stare at the gentleman because I thought it bothered him, when suddenly something occurred to him. He put on his monacle and said, “would you say that again?”
“Ah, certainly.” I cleared my throat and began from the top, even though my virtue was spontaneity and I withered with repetition. “… am I right?” I finished.
“Oh I see,” the gentleman said. If he was eighty the two giant ladies must have been forty, on my earlier arithmetic, which is the best age to still be in one piece, one better than forty-one.
The gentleman utterly surprised me by quoting his profession, with no relevance to the current situation.
“Sir, I’m a sort of freelance entertainment agent, and…”
“How very nice for you. I’m a daytime bat exterminator.”
“I didn’t know there were daytime bats.”
“There aren’t many, but when there are, they’re ill-tempered. My work requires immense creativity: in passing the time, and in getting jobs, before the great daytime bat extermination of last week, it wasn’t as if we could get hired by average citizens to kill wild bats, what claim did they have over a particular bat? Then the government gave us our biggest job since we opened ten years ago and we’ve been living off it ever since last week.”
“Are you trying to be funny?”
“Lord no, actually I’m trying to be irritating – is it working?”
“Actually, its mildly entertaining.”
On all levels, an unsatisfactory response. He paused and examined every shadowy place on my face his eagle-eye could dart in a moment. “Can I buy you a drink?”
“I don’t know, can you afford it on your pension?”
He looked down at his liver-spotted hand and smiled wryly. “I am a working man. I think I mentioned it.”
“Did you? I think I’d recall such an improbable claim from such an old gent,” I said, still just about as curious as I am in antique shops, as we entrenched ourselves at the bar, laying down fortifications against the encroaching hordes of go-getters and gimme-that’ers, all clad in I’m-important city-gear, suits or dress-suits, itself protective armour against the X-factor of the city. I made no excuses to the forgettable characters I’d accidentally got bogged down with about pairing off with the old gent. I was a free agent at this party, I’d brought no wife, lover, poker buddy or lawyer with me just so I could maintain the liberty to go where I please till I was (god forbid) ready to settle down.
“You must be the oldest working man in the country,” I jibed him.
“I’ll be eighty next August.”
“You’re mad - that’s what happens if you plan your after-life poorly.”
“I work because I’m the only person in my company who knows the identity of our biggest-paying clients. The day I retire, they’ll have to look for another patron who shares my… discretion.”
I felt my face elongate like a talking television horse.
“Sir, you have intrigued me like reality television has failed to do for the past few weeks.”
“I’m flattered to hear it.”
“Don’t be.”
The bartender finally paid attention to us, at which point my new little old friend whispered something to the bartender, which caused him to nod and click his fingers (literally) which, in turn, caused a genie in a white suit to appear.
“Good evening Mr Trowell, I trust your evening has been fine.”
Trowell, eh? When I first heard it I thought of a garden implement, which made me think of a garden gnome which in turn brought a pet cemetery to mind; a strange chain of command which stuck like embalming fluid to my mental picture of this “Trowell” from that moment on.
“It has been fine, Robert,” Mr Trowell said and some money exchanged hands in a secret hand-
shake.
“Hey!” I said, darting my face down to make a fuss. “What was that?”
“It was nothing,” Trowell smirked, “lead on Robert.”
“I saw that, you gave him money,” I was carrying on, fishing for a reaction, still cock-eyed to the fact that this man might be offering me a job, which was lucky, because it transpired he was after somebody who refused to behave himself.
“I’m glad,” Trowell said, baring a gold tooth at me, which made me flinch the first time I saw it.
The fellow Trowell had given money to for no apparent reason – tipping is an uncommon practice in Sydney, Australia – led us to a velvet door deep in the bowels of the club. He knocked thrice upon its threshold and the face of yet another good-looking romeo appeared (all club-staff are chic and matchlessly cloned).
I heard “Robert” say something about a velvet room, which gained us access to some inner-sanctum. My tongue was numb from anticipation, but it wouldn’t have mattered what he had on his mind, I would have agreed to anything, no matter how repellent I usually would have found it. As it turns out, his proposition was to be the single most delicious of my career. It was my career.
The short hallway was dark but for strips of lights that appeared to have been lifted from the aisle of a very tiny aeroplane, a minor aberration in taste for an otherwise exquisitely designed club. He sat me down in the most exclusive environment in the entire club. Two martinis were waiting for us. Something told me he was trying to impress me.
So I thought of the only critical thing I had on my mind.
“Those lights on the floor out there are a bit tacky,” I said, looking into his bloodshot eyes.
He rubbed his receding scalp. He looked exhausted – I’m sure if there was any other place for him to meet potential clients and employees he would have been there.
He took his monacle off, which was a relief because it had been tickling my funny-bone ever since he put it on.
“I’m not going to ask you why you acted like a fool out there, and I’m not going to ask you whether you want to give up bat-farming.”
“Well, its bat catching, if its anything.”
“Its not important. I’m not going to ask you what you really do with your days, because I know I won’t get a straight answer out of you, but luckily I’m not interested in getting a straight answer out of you. I want to hire that quality, and the others you displayed outside, and perhaps more you’ll acquire, to loan out to private contractors who need
“Its part private detective, part reality television, but there’s no cameras rolling. You might be asked to play the stooge at a family gathering, to pretend to be somebody’s husband who wants to never have to see their relatives again. You might be hired to trip somebody up, just a quickie, or perhaps, a slow-burner, to work alongside them, gradually driving them crazy.”
“How would that work if they didn’t hire me?”
“Our organisation could take care of that.”
“How…”
“We are a small agency well supported by our wealthy clients, and we reciprocate this trust by keeping their identities secret. I’m not on the lookout for new clients, and nor will you ever find out about that part of the process, so don’t even consider trying. You will never be asked to enter a situation with the client themselves. Whatever the character, clients come to my group, which is very secretive, because we don’t ask questions. If you contravene that clause of your contract, it will be terminated. Any questions?”
“About a million…”
“Even though I just told you I’m after people who don’t ask questions?”
I still had to think for a moment. “Now I think about it, maybe I don’t have any questions.”
“Good. I don’t want you to think I don’t appreciate what you do – its what I’m hiring you for, but if you learn to focus your identity and switch between the persona required when you’re on a job, and the more reasonable gentleman who talks about that persona in the third person, then you might better preserve your sanity.”
Following the train of this logic almost made my eyes uncross: I have lived with one lazy eye and one hyperactive brain for as long as I can remember, and I’ve always found it gave me a head-start in convincing people I was unhinged. I’ve never really needed to say much to accomplish this, but I do say a lot because it brings me joy.
“How does that go hand in hand with sanity?”
“You must distinguish between your identities in an orderly way, like a scientific expert on your own identity.”
“Alright pops, I’ll see how I feel about it when the time comes.”
I got up to go but Trowell seized me by the wrist and pulled my ear down close to his.
“That time has already come and gone.”
I brought my good eye around and looked right into his: from this distance I could see the guy sitting in the next room behind him.
“And you made the wrong choice. Get in control of your personality, Bygber, before it begins to control you.”
I shook myself free of him, adjusted my black coat and uttered the obvious: “I didn’t tell you my name.”
Trowell showed me his teeth again and tapped the side of his nose conspiratorially. “Now you’re getting it,” he said.
I frowned at him, more confused than I was normally comfortable being. “Alright, Trowell, you’re the boss.”
He liked that, I could tell because it made him bare more of his teeth than I’d yet been privy to, which made me wish I still hadn’t been privy to them.And that’s the story of how I met the man of my dreams. I must admit Mr Trowell was about sixty years, a sex-change and an appointment with a dentist-to-the-stars miracle man away from my tastes. The jockey-past-his-prime thing left nothing to be desired. On a scale of stranger to open book, I would say I had a mere sketch of Mr Trowell. I knew the way he talked, the way he looked and some vague conjectures about his business, but did I know where it was located, its business hours? How about what brand of underpants he favoured, his understanding of fine wines or the great inventor Leonardo Da Vinci who managed to imagine humans flying and paint an ambiguous picture of a woman (both world firsts)?
* I have only 11,000 words so far, let me know if you think this is worth going on with.
Prose: 'The Baron Blows The House Down' (short)
Miraculously, all this demolition had given me an idea. Breaking social rules had not worked. Acting like a crazy homeless person had not worked. I had somehow to convince the town I was now high-ruler or that my past-history had been forged. That my castle was counterfeit, just a movie-set, hollow on the inside.
The simplest way to do this was to plow the thing down.
It was a grand decision to make, and the power that came with making it was exhilarating.
That castle was my family’s past. I was playing with fire; but I had forgotten all my other aspirations for the present. All I wanted was to be able to spit in public. I had forgotten reason, I had forgotten the traditional virtues, I had primarily forgotten my family’s quest to carry on the line. But this was not haunting me yet.
The next day I walked around the castle, choosing ten possessions from everything I owned to save from the “natural disaster” about to befall Spangler Manor. I did not have many left to choose from, since Olivia had expunged most of them. She took apart my Decorative Poisons Rack, tore up my banned literature and dismembered my armament cabinet. All my antique rifles, bayonets, grenades, even my prized canon, one of the first ever constructed, were deposited at the local tip one day when I was away at the university. I did not even get the chance to get marvellously richer out of them – who knows what my cannon might have retrieved at a private auction, or how many potential bidders it might have taken out, cannonball-style. She also had my Ned Kelly helmet removed from the castle – I never found out where it went either. It was an original. It came with a signed picture of its original occupant and a declaration of ownership from said bushranger which ran:
I Ned Kelly do solemnly swear that this is the original helmet I wore during all that bushranging I did including the one I was shot down in and hung in. Signed, Ned Kelly.
Though it was considerably less articulate. I’m sure Ned, wherever he is, will thank me for socio-economically improving upon his articulation. Anyway, of my remaining possessions, I rescued these:
1. My 16mm print of Frankenstein.
2. My projector.
3. My copies of Tristram Shandy, The Great Gatsby, Ragtime, The Bible – all others, to the bulldozer.
4. My mother and father.
5. Of my staff: Gran, Mortimer and Head chef Marion the Faithful. All others, to the bulldozer.
6. My claw-footed sponge bath
7. The wall chart of the forms of address my father had given me.
8. The skeleton key to the whole manor, which I’d taken charge of when I relegated my folks to the dungeon. I fixed it to a necklace and wore it round my neck, with fond remembrance.
9. The urn of my wife, just to be sure she never escaped again.
10. My autographed copy of The Social Code, in case it ever came in handy.
(There is another story, but I shouldn't tell it here, as I'll forget the present one...)
At 10:46 the next day, on the great hill where Spangler Manor had stood in all its glory and acres of surrounding dead land, was nothing but rubble, and dead land.
Maddeningly, high society loved me for it. In the new air of the 70’s, it was as if I was saying “down with the old,” or “down with the establishment” by pulling down my old digs. I was taken up by everyone. The working classes took me for a working-class hero, since they recognized the tractors, bulldozers and workmen and associated me with them; the lower classes thought I was allying myself with them, since now we had a lack of a home in common; and high society found everything amusing, and loved how eventful my action was. I had given them something to talk about, so they heralded me for it. Literally. Instead of actually talking about me, they would say: “yes, but you have to admire the man, look at the excitement he’s given us all. Look at what he’s given us to talk about.” So they would end up not getting around to scorning me, because everyone would take up the call of saying how much they had to talk about. The bourgeoisie, at least, were the only ones not impressed.
Everyone else, though, embarrassed me to tears when they began carrying placards saying what a top bloke I was – I had unified what was usually a properly stratified society. Then, predictably, as soon as the bourgeoisie saw everyone else doing something, they had to get in on the action.
“Down with the castles!” “Down with the old!” “Spangler forever!” “We Love Spangler!”
“Hertfordshire is the new Spangler Manor.” “Spanglerland!” “Spangler for King!”
King, eh?
I wrote a letter to the Queen that requested the recession of Hamphertfordshire from the monarchy, and requested Hamphertforshire to be recognised as its own monarchy and empire, with Baron Spangler as King and Lord High Ruler.
The note was rejected, but I didn’t tell anyone that.
I had Mortimer erect signs outside town saying “You are now entering the monarchy of Spanglerland.” And “You are now leaving Spanglerland.” I also set up toll-booths and passport checks on the border, and had an airport built, not to reinforce the point too much.
I was so occupied with my new duties of being a monarch that I forgot my quest. I kept wanting to be ejected from society, but everything I seemed to do only raised me higher up its ladder. I hoped, deeply, that the old adage was true: the higher they rise, the harder they fall.
When all else had failed me, and my wife and I stood on the wreck-site like Buster Keaton and
his girl next to the railroad tracks where a train had just demolished their portable home, I kissed Marjorine longingly, lovingly. When we broke away, she stared into my eyes, confused but happy.
“You know, my dear,” I said to her, “I think I did care for you after all.”
She grinned, but suddenly felt cold in her chest. She put a hand there. “Suddenly I don’t feel…” she started to say.
“But you know, dear, I simply can’t have anyone thinking they control me. I mean…”
Her face started to go green.
“I’ve let this go on for a while now – through my ruling a university, a fun-park, a town, and now a realm. But now…”
Her face was contorted. “I feel bad,” she said.
“And so you should, my dear,” I told her. “But I forgive you.”
She collapsed on the ground at my feet.
I had had an arsenic capsule on my tongue. A special design, designed for a kiss of death.
The simplest way to do this was to plow the thing down.
It was a grand decision to make, and the power that came with making it was exhilarating.
That castle was my family’s past. I was playing with fire; but I had forgotten all my other aspirations for the present. All I wanted was to be able to spit in public. I had forgotten reason, I had forgotten the traditional virtues, I had primarily forgotten my family’s quest to carry on the line. But this was not haunting me yet.
The next day I walked around the castle, choosing ten possessions from everything I owned to save from the “natural disaster” about to befall Spangler Manor. I did not have many left to choose from, since Olivia had expunged most of them. She took apart my Decorative Poisons Rack, tore up my banned literature and dismembered my armament cabinet. All my antique rifles, bayonets, grenades, even my prized canon, one of the first ever constructed, were deposited at the local tip one day when I was away at the university. I did not even get the chance to get marvellously richer out of them – who knows what my cannon might have retrieved at a private auction, or how many potential bidders it might have taken out, cannonball-style. She also had my Ned Kelly helmet removed from the castle – I never found out where it went either. It was an original. It came with a signed picture of its original occupant and a declaration of ownership from said bushranger which ran:
I Ned Kelly do solemnly swear that this is the original helmet I wore during all that bushranging I did including the one I was shot down in and hung in. Signed, Ned Kelly.
Though it was considerably less articulate. I’m sure Ned, wherever he is, will thank me for socio-economically improving upon his articulation. Anyway, of my remaining possessions, I rescued these:
1. My 16mm print of Frankenstein.
2. My projector.
3. My copies of Tristram Shandy, The Great Gatsby, Ragtime, The Bible – all others, to the bulldozer.
4. My mother and father.
5. Of my staff: Gran, Mortimer and Head chef Marion the Faithful. All others, to the bulldozer.
6. My claw-footed sponge bath
7. The wall chart of the forms of address my father had given me.
8. The skeleton key to the whole manor, which I’d taken charge of when I relegated my folks to the dungeon. I fixed it to a necklace and wore it round my neck, with fond remembrance.
9. The urn of my wife, just to be sure she never escaped again.
10. My autographed copy of The Social Code, in case it ever came in handy.
(There is another story, but I shouldn't tell it here, as I'll forget the present one...)
At 10:46 the next day, on the great hill where Spangler Manor had stood in all its glory and acres of surrounding dead land, was nothing but rubble, and dead land.
Maddeningly, high society loved me for it. In the new air of the 70’s, it was as if I was saying “down with the old,” or “down with the establishment” by pulling down my old digs. I was taken up by everyone. The working classes took me for a working-class hero, since they recognized the tractors, bulldozers and workmen and associated me with them; the lower classes thought I was allying myself with them, since now we had a lack of a home in common; and high society found everything amusing, and loved how eventful my action was. I had given them something to talk about, so they heralded me for it. Literally. Instead of actually talking about me, they would say: “yes, but you have to admire the man, look at the excitement he’s given us all. Look at what he’s given us to talk about.” So they would end up not getting around to scorning me, because everyone would take up the call of saying how much they had to talk about. The bourgeoisie, at least, were the only ones not impressed.
Everyone else, though, embarrassed me to tears when they began carrying placards saying what a top bloke I was – I had unified what was usually a properly stratified society. Then, predictably, as soon as the bourgeoisie saw everyone else doing something, they had to get in on the action.
“Down with the castles!” “Down with the old!” “Spangler forever!” “We Love Spangler!”
“Hertfordshire is the new Spangler Manor.” “Spanglerland!” “Spangler for King!”
King, eh?
I wrote a letter to the Queen that requested the recession of Hamphertfordshire from the monarchy, and requested Hamphertforshire to be recognised as its own monarchy and empire, with Baron Spangler as King and Lord High Ruler.
The note was rejected, but I didn’t tell anyone that.
I had Mortimer erect signs outside town saying “You are now entering the monarchy of Spanglerland.” And “You are now leaving Spanglerland.” I also set up toll-booths and passport checks on the border, and had an airport built, not to reinforce the point too much.
I was so occupied with my new duties of being a monarch that I forgot my quest. I kept wanting to be ejected from society, but everything I seemed to do only raised me higher up its ladder. I hoped, deeply, that the old adage was true: the higher they rise, the harder they fall.
When all else had failed me, and my wife and I stood on the wreck-site like Buster Keaton and
his girl next to the railroad tracks where a train had just demolished their portable home, I kissed Marjorine longingly, lovingly. When we broke away, she stared into my eyes, confused but happy.
“You know, my dear,” I said to her, “I think I did care for you after all.”
She grinned, but suddenly felt cold in her chest. She put a hand there. “Suddenly I don’t feel…” she started to say.
“But you know, dear, I simply can’t have anyone thinking they control me. I mean…”
Her face started to go green.
“I’ve let this go on for a while now – through my ruling a university, a fun-park, a town, and now a realm. But now…”
Her face was contorted. “I feel bad,” she said.
“And so you should, my dear,” I told her. “But I forgive you.”
She collapsed on the ground at my feet.
I had had an arsenic capsule on my tongue. A special design, designed for a kiss of death.
Prose: 'The Baron's Bust of JFK's Killer'
But my most-missed artifact, deposed by the reign of evil Olivia, was a bust of John F Kennedy’s Killer (it was a rather unfinished sculpture, not enough to make a positive identification, simply titled ‘anonymous’). It was intimidating when it snuck up on you in the dark hallway, but it made for a good guessing game with new guests.
This reminds me of an amusing story: I once invited the Head of the University Senate, who I thought was very important because of his fancy title (but since have found out that the senate is largely composed of a revolving body of senior (but nevertheless) students, who are a nuisance but a necessary part of the university machine.) The things I said to that stupid kid (who I wasn’t much older than, but I was working on my second run through) when I thought he was a person of significance. I took him under my shoulder (I could afford to do this as I was and remain quite tall) and praised him for,
“I mean, throw caution to the wind, you’re young after all.”
“That’s right,” he smiled politely like the stupid sycophant he was.
“Who cares about the current trends,” I said, looking desparately into his eyes, daring him to disagree. “Shirt out! Who cares about shaving – cause you’re dealing with stupid kids all day. Delinquents with too much money.”
He looked confused – good.
“Smash their faces in – who cares, they’re stupid kids.”
Now he really got awkward – remember, he was still nestled under my arm.
“You agree with that, shorty? You believe all foreigners should be killed?”
“Now hang on a second,” he said, breaking free.
“Ah!” I said, menacingly, raising a finger to him. “Good, you passed the test. I was testing you, Grahame.” That’s a silly name, why did I waste a name on this stupid kid.
“I don’t think you were,” Grahame said.
“No?” I said, pursing my face up sarcastically. “Lucky no-one cares what you think, kid.”
“Don’t call me ‘kid,’ I’m the head of the University Senate!”
“So I keep hearing. Good for you, Grahame. But let me show you something I want you to keep in mind.”
And I again steered him with my giant muscular arm. I led him, as I’ve led many a better man before him, over to the window and nodded out at the moat.
“You see that down there. See those little jumping fish. See them?” I shook him and he answered with a pathetic nod.
“Yeah, well they’re not jumping cause they’re happy friendly little fishes, yeah. This is not a children’s book, Grahame.” Grahame – pah! The number of sods I’ve set fire to without giving a passing thought to what their names might have been, and yet this little twerp’s name somehow escaped the sandpapering of time.
“What do you mean?”
“What do I mean? I’ll put it another way.” And I led him out into the front hallway, right near the guests. I had to intimidate through coded messages. “I’ll put it this way: do you know who this is?”
“Its not anyone, it just looks like the artist sold their raw materials to you as a finished piece.”
I let go of him so I could cross one arm across my chest and tap a finger on my lip. This was my thoughtful pose.
“Hmm,” I said, further adding to the impression that I was deep in thought. “Are you an art collector?”
He turned and looked me in the eyes. I pretended I didn’t notice, then darted a glance at him while he wasn’t looking.
“No,” he answered.
“Hmm,” I said. “Are you then an appreciator of the fine arts?”
“Well, not really.”
I was satisfied I could get away with pretending any knowledge of art, so I began, “then how dare you abuse my most prized possession. This is a very important artifact dating from the… Jurassic era of conceptual self-sculpture. It expresses the artist’s longing for identity and ultimate rejection of the ideal of communism. Do you deny this?”
At this, he had the nerve to smirk. “I’m loathe to deny anything about art, since I’d never consider myself an expert, but my sister is an art critic and… well, I’m pretty sure you have no idea what you’re talking about.”
I rolled back on my heels and resumed my intrigued posture. I smiled and nodded, then I bowed to him. “You are a worthy opponent, sir. Could you follow me out to the moat? I have something I just need to show you for a second…”
He studied me. “No, actually. I think I might see what’s happening with the appetizers…”
“Quickly, come on.”
“No, I’d rather not…”
“Come on, outside with you.”
“Gee, its getting late,” he said, pantomiming a big yawn. “Maybe I better go home.”
“Alright. I’ll escort you out.” I motioned for Mortimer to make sure no-one followed me out.
It was a frost-bitey night outside. The crickets were roaring in a chorus, seeming to toll the end for glorified extra Grahame.
We stood at the edge of the moat. I smoked my pipe and looked contemplatively at the jumping piranhas.
“You know I could have been an important person in your story – I’ve got a proper name and a title – you like people with titles.”
“I like sirs and dukes and corporals.”
“If you let me live I’ll call you Baron.”
At this moment, miraculously, the sun came up. I looked at my watch. It was ten p.m at night.
“That is strange,” I said, “but I refuse to be impressed.”
This ‘Grahame,’ against my best wishes and machinations had touched on a nerve. I had always wanted someone to call me Baron. I could pretend I was a Baron to my heart’s content, but having someone who was prepared to call me it regularly was quite tempting.
I drummed my lip (this time I was actually thinking). “Okay, boy. I’ll keep you on my staff as a part-time sycophant, but you’ll have to forfeit your position at the university.”
“What a tempting offer," he said. "I'll take it."
"Great," I said, smirking. I was watching his eyes - a long moment passed - I knew what he was going to do. He was going to run off to his university the second my back turned.
I clasped my hands together, held them high, and bumped him with my hip, sending him down into the moat.
Don't get me wrong, I have fond memories of him, but I have fonder memories of taking over his position at the university...
This reminds me of an amusing story: I once invited the Head of the University Senate, who I thought was very important because of his fancy title (but since have found out that the senate is largely composed of a revolving body of senior (but nevertheless) students, who are a nuisance but a necessary part of the university machine.) The things I said to that stupid kid (who I wasn’t much older than, but I was working on my second run through) when I thought he was a person of significance. I took him under my shoulder (I could afford to do this as I was and remain quite tall) and praised him for,
“I mean, throw caution to the wind, you’re young after all.”
“That’s right,” he smiled politely like the stupid sycophant he was.
“Who cares about the current trends,” I said, looking desparately into his eyes, daring him to disagree. “Shirt out! Who cares about shaving – cause you’re dealing with stupid kids all day. Delinquents with too much money.”
He looked confused – good.
“Smash their faces in – who cares, they’re stupid kids.”
Now he really got awkward – remember, he was still nestled under my arm.
“You agree with that, shorty? You believe all foreigners should be killed?”
“Now hang on a second,” he said, breaking free.
“Ah!” I said, menacingly, raising a finger to him. “Good, you passed the test. I was testing you, Grahame.” That’s a silly name, why did I waste a name on this stupid kid.
“I don’t think you were,” Grahame said.
“No?” I said, pursing my face up sarcastically. “Lucky no-one cares what you think, kid.”
“Don’t call me ‘kid,’ I’m the head of the University Senate!”
“So I keep hearing. Good for you, Grahame. But let me show you something I want you to keep in mind.”
And I again steered him with my giant muscular arm. I led him, as I’ve led many a better man before him, over to the window and nodded out at the moat.
“You see that down there. See those little jumping fish. See them?” I shook him and he answered with a pathetic nod.
“Yeah, well they’re not jumping cause they’re happy friendly little fishes, yeah. This is not a children’s book, Grahame.” Grahame – pah! The number of sods I’ve set fire to without giving a passing thought to what their names might have been, and yet this little twerp’s name somehow escaped the sandpapering of time.
“What do you mean?”
“What do I mean? I’ll put it another way.” And I led him out into the front hallway, right near the guests. I had to intimidate through coded messages. “I’ll put it this way: do you know who this is?”
“Its not anyone, it just looks like the artist sold their raw materials to you as a finished piece.”
I let go of him so I could cross one arm across my chest and tap a finger on my lip. This was my thoughtful pose.
“Hmm,” I said, further adding to the impression that I was deep in thought. “Are you an art collector?”
He turned and looked me in the eyes. I pretended I didn’t notice, then darted a glance at him while he wasn’t looking.
“No,” he answered.
“Hmm,” I said. “Are you then an appreciator of the fine arts?”
“Well, not really.”
I was satisfied I could get away with pretending any knowledge of art, so I began, “then how dare you abuse my most prized possession. This is a very important artifact dating from the… Jurassic era of conceptual self-sculpture. It expresses the artist’s longing for identity and ultimate rejection of the ideal of communism. Do you deny this?”
At this, he had the nerve to smirk. “I’m loathe to deny anything about art, since I’d never consider myself an expert, but my sister is an art critic and… well, I’m pretty sure you have no idea what you’re talking about.”
I rolled back on my heels and resumed my intrigued posture. I smiled and nodded, then I bowed to him. “You are a worthy opponent, sir. Could you follow me out to the moat? I have something I just need to show you for a second…”
He studied me. “No, actually. I think I might see what’s happening with the appetizers…”
“Quickly, come on.”
“No, I’d rather not…”
“Come on, outside with you.”
“Gee, its getting late,” he said, pantomiming a big yawn. “Maybe I better go home.”
“Alright. I’ll escort you out.” I motioned for Mortimer to make sure no-one followed me out.
It was a frost-bitey night outside. The crickets were roaring in a chorus, seeming to toll the end for glorified extra Grahame.
We stood at the edge of the moat. I smoked my pipe and looked contemplatively at the jumping piranhas.
“You know I could have been an important person in your story – I’ve got a proper name and a title – you like people with titles.”
“I like sirs and dukes and corporals.”
“If you let me live I’ll call you Baron.”
At this moment, miraculously, the sun came up. I looked at my watch. It was ten p.m at night.
“That is strange,” I said, “but I refuse to be impressed.”
This ‘Grahame,’ against my best wishes and machinations had touched on a nerve. I had always wanted someone to call me Baron. I could pretend I was a Baron to my heart’s content, but having someone who was prepared to call me it regularly was quite tempting.
I drummed my lip (this time I was actually thinking). “Okay, boy. I’ll keep you on my staff as a part-time sycophant, but you’ll have to forfeit your position at the university.”
“What a tempting offer," he said. "I'll take it."
"Great," I said, smirking. I was watching his eyes - a long moment passed - I knew what he was going to do. He was going to run off to his university the second my back turned.
I clasped my hands together, held them high, and bumped him with my hip, sending him down into the moat.
Don't get me wrong, I have fond memories of him, but I have fonder memories of taking over his position at the university...
Lyrics: Sinner & The Saint
Introduction by the Author
With a title inspired (read: stolen) from a Charlie Mingus jazz album (the late Mingus had the kind of personal life that led him to dedicate the "Black Sinner" album to his psychiatrist... and his jazz shouldn't be identified with any other generic label other than "craz-y". This is a simple -song, probably, because I fear its irony is either not detectable or not detectable enough - but that's the basis of a recurring nightmare I have where I'm trapped in a vicious circle where no-one can understand me, and my feet are hands, and... Well, I shan't go on.
Anyway, the narrator of this song is a man of god... And he don't take too kindly to unclean women... That's about the depth of it. I've posted this in case my band and their fans are interested in knowing the actual lyrical content which is most likely (going on every other gig I've ever been to) incoherent owing to a certain quantity of white noise being produced by drums/sound guy incompetence/room space/life...
So if these lyrics are disappointing, they should at least give that satisfaction of "ah, that's what the fuck he was saying"...
Sinner & The Saint
Rolling her words
With permission from her
Understanding is more
Than I like to offer
She lies around
On her back on the ground
She’s given up
On washing it off
Send a lease/Alise
To be sure...
To the sinner
A whore with a heart of gold...
On the tongue of a saint
Here lies her name
She should like to be said
By sterilized lips
But where is my mind
Thinking of her
Up in my tower where
Everything’s pure
CHORUS
ROCKOUT
With a title inspired (read: stolen) from a Charlie Mingus jazz album (the late Mingus had the kind of personal life that led him to dedicate the "Black Sinner" album to his psychiatrist... and his jazz shouldn't be identified with any other generic label other than "craz-y". This is a simple -song, probably, because I fear its irony is either not detectable or not detectable enough - but that's the basis of a recurring nightmare I have where I'm trapped in a vicious circle where no-one can understand me, and my feet are hands, and... Well, I shan't go on.
Anyway, the narrator of this song is a man of god... And he don't take too kindly to unclean women... That's about the depth of it. I've posted this in case my band and their fans are interested in knowing the actual lyrical content which is most likely (going on every other gig I've ever been to) incoherent owing to a certain quantity of white noise being produced by drums/sound guy incompetence/room space/life...
So if these lyrics are disappointing, they should at least give that satisfaction of "ah, that's what the fuck he was saying"...
Sinner & The Saint
Rolling her words
With permission from her
Understanding is more
Than I like to offer
She lies around
On her back on the ground
She’s given up
On washing it off
Send a lease/Alise
To be sure...
To the sinner
A whore with a heart of gold...
On the tongue of a saint
Here lies her name
She should like to be said
By sterilized lips
But where is my mind
Thinking of her
Up in my tower where
Everything’s pure
CHORUS
ROCKOUT
Lyrics: 'Reasonable Guy'
Introduction by the Author
The following lyric is a good sample of my approach to songwriting. I was very influenced by a subject I did in my MA on the way the wave of singer/songwriters in the 70's were able to play with their own identity as the "I" in their songs. This is a thing I love doing in my songwriting, but I think I run into the same problem Randy Newman does (see Short People). After one of my gigs this old barfly was getting enthusiastic, as they do, about classic artists... You know the kind, real authentic genuine artists... Unlike the one he'd just been witness to before he started hounding me about Paul Simon (who I love, incidentally. If you don't like him, you might be swayed by the (dickily titled) pre-moustache album There Goes Rhymin' Simon, which, though it doesn't contain the jingoistic cultural imperialism of his more famous solo work (see Graceland for African music and Paul Simon for reggae), Rhymin' Simon contains such maturity and beauty its an album to take with you, for as long as you both shall live.
Reasonable Guy
(20.5.06 )
I don’t mean to entertain you
Its a happy accident
I mean to shout and spit
And run very fast in quiet places
I’ve kicked so many asses
My legs are different lengths
I’ve loaned my character out so much
I introduced myself to him
I’ve leaned out over ledges
And trusted way too much
Don't I deserve
As much?
CHORUS:
Why, I’m a reasonable guy
Except that one time I told you to die
But hey! People can change
I swear I’ll never swear at you again
I’ll be clever at least twice
Then shut the hell up
I’ll trust my instincts only once
Then trust everyone else
I’ll say only six unique things
The rest’ll be a mess
I’ll go on a genius binge
Then take an IQ test
I wouldn’t say I’m dangerous
My head is full of bread
I eat glass for breakfast
And clean my teeth with lead
Still, I’m a likeable guy,
Except that one time I told you to die
But hey! People can change
I swear I’ll never swear at you again
My bedroom is a maze
Full of things I hate
I waste half my life each on
Collecting and navigating
I go loud unexpectedly
Go quiet when I’m mad
Even I wouldn’t trust me
To sound like who I am
My levels need adjusting
Could you monitor them?
While I skip out for a bit
I’ve got some errands to run
CHORUS
The following lyric is a good sample of my approach to songwriting. I was very influenced by a subject I did in my MA on the way the wave of singer/songwriters in the 70's were able to play with their own identity as the "I" in their songs. This is a thing I love doing in my songwriting, but I think I run into the same problem Randy Newman does (see Short People). After one of my gigs this old barfly was getting enthusiastic, as they do, about classic artists... You know the kind, real authentic genuine artists... Unlike the one he'd just been witness to before he started hounding me about Paul Simon (who I love, incidentally. If you don't like him, you might be swayed by the (dickily titled) pre-moustache album There Goes Rhymin' Simon, which, though it doesn't contain the jingoistic cultural imperialism of his more famous solo work (see Graceland for African music and Paul Simon for reggae), Rhymin' Simon contains such maturity and beauty its an album to take with you, for as long as you both shall live.
Reasonable Guy
(20.5.06 )
I don’t mean to entertain you
Its a happy accident
I mean to shout and spit
And run very fast in quiet places
I’ve kicked so many asses
My legs are different lengths
I’ve loaned my character out so much
I introduced myself to him
I’ve leaned out over ledges
And trusted way too much
Don't I deserve
As much?
CHORUS:
Why, I’m a reasonable guy
Except that one time I told you to die
But hey! People can change
I swear I’ll never swear at you again
I’ll be clever at least twice
Then shut the hell up
I’ll trust my instincts only once
Then trust everyone else
I’ll say only six unique things
The rest’ll be a mess
I’ll go on a genius binge
Then take an IQ test
I wouldn’t say I’m dangerous
My head is full of bread
I eat glass for breakfast
And clean my teeth with lead
Still, I’m a likeable guy,
Except that one time I told you to die
But hey! People can change
I swear I’ll never swear at you again
My bedroom is a maze
Full of things I hate
I waste half my life each on
Collecting and navigating
I go loud unexpectedly
Go quiet when I’m mad
Even I wouldn’t trust me
To sound like who I am
My levels need adjusting
Could you monitor them?
While I skip out for a bit
I’ve got some errands to run
CHORUS
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