I wish Hesketh would get a shift on and
forward me that strand of a hundred insults because "Jesusophile", as he
terms himself here, lacks them all. Lack. Exactly. It's a lack. He
should have them because it's a lack. (Sorry, you'll only get that if
you've seen the video, which you mustn't). Videogum
drew this Shitwizard to my attention after he posted an argument for
the okayness of inflicting pain on women during sex. Someone else then
posted a video where he demonstrated AIDS passing through a condom with
some off milk and a strainer, at which point I smelt a rat and went and
did my own research. It was the interview above that convinced me he was
actually for real. Except he isn't. It says so on his youtube channel.
Oh curse you, Internet. "You obviously have no idea how evolution
works." "People always tell me this. It's such a weak argument." Okay
so he doesn't exist, and he's Dutch, but I didn't know that three hours
ago when I had to walk him off, and a good thing too, it was a
beautiful day and I ended up at the Natural History Museum. Passing the
animatronic T Rex I was struck for the very first time by how bare not
only he but most of the other reconstructions seemed to be, and became
thrilled by the idea that dinosaurs had once been covered in feathers,
not a new idea I know but one it became impossible to shift. Every
animatronic now seemed very obviously plucked, and how would we know? I
thought of those brilliant medieval bestiaries in which geese grew on trees and all that's known or cared about the crocodile is that it weeps after eating a man.
("Meh,
that's a crocodile, yeah it'll do. Might have got the wings the wrong
colour but sod it, it's a naturally occurring allegory, no need to sweat
the details.") And I passed an illustration of a T Rex sinking its
teeth into a hadrosaur and thought - Yes, if we've got that wrong, then
that's exactly how we get it wrong: Take what we know about something
and paint it killing something else. And for the first time since I was
probably ten I yearned to visit the Cretaceous period and find out what
it was actually like, which was GREAT because until that point all those
post-Jurassic-Park, CGI"reconstructions" had
pretty much seen off my childlike di-curiosity. But THIS, seeing the
bones, remembering how wrong we might have got it, gazing at a scene of
antlered hadrosaurs gathering at the water-hole, all this suddenly made
me want once again to see not a clone, but THAT SCENE. I wanted a time
machine. I wanted to step out of a time machine and see a T Rex at dusk
trailing feathers like a peacock and scavenging some long-dead carcass
while the hadrosaurs were left to butt heads in peace. Bliss.
One
of the best things about my stay in Crystal Palace was that the train
pulled up right next to Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins' placid - downright
pekinese - dinosaur enclosure. Googling "hadrosaur" I found an
illustration of Hawkins in his studio in New York working on new
wonders. Yes, New York: Apparently there was going to be a Paleozoic
Museum bang in the center of Central Park until the evil Boss Tweed
broke all the molds. You can read about it here,
lots of nice pictures... Now when I used to work at Quinto's
the second-hand bookshop - sorry if I've already told you this - there
was this anti-semitic, ghastly-headed twenty-something, Joe, a bright
and polite former monk with some very bad ideas. Among these was that
"the Passion of the Christ" was "accurate", and that the world was six
thousand years old. I took him up on this, and heard his thoughts on
dinosaurs. They'd drowned in the forty days of rain caused by the
bursting of Earth's original meniscus, an ozone layer of water that made
all carbon dating useless. He believed in evolution and "Survival of
the Fittest" but when pressed had no explanation for coal, or caves or
tectonic plates. Shortly afterwards he was dismissed following a chat
with our Spanish manager about Franco. But if ever you meet a
creationist don't raise the subject of dinosaurs. Surprise them with
coal, or stalactites. I mention Joe here merely to explain my
gullibility in the face of Jesusophile, and I post Jesusophile's video
up even though he doesn't exist, and isn't funny, because this is the
internet and I'm an atheist and it appears that that's what we do, we
like to make ourselves mad.
Finally here's something I wrote for "Money", which fits fine here:
'I
want to show you something. I want to show you what we will look like
in 200 thousand years time. And before I do, remember: survival of the
fittest does not mean survival of the best at running. It means, or
did mean “Who fits here? They can stay”. Okay. Behold. The man of 200
thousand years time...And they say variety is dead. And they’re
right. Because look around, look – we didn’t adapt to this. We adapted
it. Evolution can stop now.
Variety is dead.
It’s “Where fits
us?” now, not “Who fits here?” Where fits us can stay. And the rest,
the deserts, the tundra, the bits with snakes, they go. And on their
remains will be built a city without frontiers.
And it will be very expensive.
But we’ll be able to afford it.
That’s
the other thing about the future. We’ll obviously all be able to afford
it. Something to do with technology. Thank you, man of the future.'
(Man of the Future comes courtesy Paleo-Future, another cracking source of odd and ahh.)
So
we all had a week off to take stock. Item: one work of genius, our new
home, this, "The Machine", with carpeting, crawl-space, trap-doors,
glass floors and lots and lots of banging. Item: another work of genius,
"Money" by Emil Zola, documenting the Paris Bourse Crash of 1882, and
settled on as a starting point for Shunt's new show all the way back in
June 2008, before any of those little caveats gabbled softly in the
closing seconds of a commercial came to pass and it all went down as
well as up. Item: one beekeeper's costume, three black hats. Item:
"frenetic activity", presumably to be specified at a later date and
possibly involving potted plants but ultimately, I mean, who knows...
Now our first two paying audiences, having paid and auded, are nursing
their din-weakened teeth and the promise of a free ticket to another
night, a night when we'll have the show that "MONEY" should be ready,
for we are not without honour, while the neat reprieve granted the Lounge - which was to have disbanded this month to make way for the priests and planners of Twinky's Mighty Teepee but
will now be staying open 'til September, hah! - means we're not without
money either. So it's back to the whatever-this-is-we're-doing board
and the plan I think now is - Well actually, I'm not sure how
confidential this is supposed to be... I mean as long as nobody knows
when you're going to open you never really have to. And although an
indefinitely extended rehearsal period may sound a bit like hell, like
actual Hell, like where you go when you die and you've been Hitler, a)
that's Shunt, and b) the good thing is we all have this at least in
common: What We Hate - and I think we pretty much all of us hated what was
performed last week. (When my trousers unexpectedly fell down on the
first night - not down, apart, they'd been torn in half during some
wrestling - I was actually relieved, I stood there relieved, because
this at least was SOMETHING not to react to, as opposed to all of that
NOTHING we'd been meant to be reacting to either side of it).
So
it isn't quite finished yet, no. But as I may have to explain to a few
producers expecting sketches later in the week, say, deadlines are very
well in their way BUT the best monsters are those born of eggs, yeah?
And sometimes an artist will, you know, just have to sit on that egg
until it hatches,
and but no because it's a monster, you know, and who *knows* when
they're going to hatch? (Then comedy producers, you go - That's a very
good point, S Le P, we'd better leave you to finish whatever it is you're doing on f*c*b**k,
oh and thanks for that alien-abduction-mentally-blanking-anal-rape
sketch with the xylopnone song in it by the way, we'll get word to the
Mail, don't you worry, no don't get up, don't move an inch). Bloody
hell, sketches. I'd better run a bath. Here's another machine:
Nice noises. There's more here. Oh, so what's the new plan? Well, finally, thankfully, do everything we can to make the audience the protagonist, Zola Karaoke. Throw everything out. Don't throw
everything out. Wait until it's finished. Stick the tycoons in the hold
and the orphans in the gallery. And turn it down. Monstah!
Day
Three, and my purchase now stands rampant... I see, so it's a that.
Well the image software's behaving itself at least. And I'm Jane Porter
from Tarzan. Yes I am inquisitive
and sweet-natured. I might not always know what I'm getting myself into,
but I'll make my way nonetheless - and things will very likely turn out
for
the best! So that's great. And now I must write five sketches. Very
quickly though: Does
anyone else know about the Scopitone? It was a jukebox that played
videos back in the fifties and sixties (decades before Queen was
supposed to have invented the promo). How does that work? I don't know.
But this website provides an
astonishing library of the kind of the stuff you could stand and watch
in a bar in San Remo before the trivia machines came along (Do they have
trivia machines on the Riviera? They must do. Bullseye's appeal is
universal.) It's like a secret history of the music video, this site,
like nothing you've seen before. At least I hope it's like nothing
you've ever seen before, because, well, LOOK at it! (Futurama fans
should be particularly interested/baffled/nauseated by the turn things
take a minute and a half in. Man, you think you know a reality, then
something like this comes along. Thank you, Scoptione.
[That video has since been removed along with its dancers in rubber with bits missing. Here at least, is what they danced to...]
LATE POST: It turns out this routine is also a perfect match for Praise You. No really, try it (total desensitization is your only friend round these parts!)
Day
Two. Pah. This picture was much bigger than it should be because Adobe
Imageready has got lost or some- I mean what even is it? - anyway I
don't have the thing to make it smaller (Posthumously this may have been
corrected). And It's just been intimated to me that "cockgoggles" is
not a suitable word for radio 4 at 6:30 in the evening. Sorry, Miklus.
Huh. Anyway... I'm a healer, says f*c*b**k, that's my "PURPOSE IN LIFE",
and I should get my eyebrow pierced. Thanks. (Sarcasm. And I've
remembered the asterisks this time, which is healthy.) I'm
also Spider-Man, Footloose and Audrey Hepburn and should marry Cameron
Diaz. Not my will, f*c*b**k but thine be done. However these are
revelations I have too little time to ponder now, no I just wanted to
stick up today's photo of the archaeopteryx... I wonder what interview
with Lars Von Trier I am. Ah, "Which Marginalised Disney Gal are you?"
Great, I'll take that one. Here meanwhile is a cartoon. X
Well I've added water now so we'll know in forty-eight
hours. I bought it today in South Kensington for... ah, American laptop, it
doesn't have pound signs... two pounds and sixty-five pee. I thought “something for
the room”. It was an odd shop that, painted tin trunks "in the style of
Jaipur lorries", scarves going for a grand and balls of twine for forty
quid, so actually 2.65 for an archaeopteryx was very reasonable I thought. I
took it upstairs to the till but there was no till, just a touch-screen beneath
a tapestry besides which I ostentatiously hovered clutching the purchase and a
fiver while the staff served free Turkish coffee to a troup of
sonorous poshoes instead. But am I not also posh! Am I not sonorous! I may be between
beards, these trainers may be fire-damaged and this belt quite obviously my
sister’s but my fiver is as good as theirs. I very nearly just walked out with
it. Did you, Charles Bukowski! Yes, I nearly did! That would have been great... It
was an excellent day... I glimpsed Jennifer Tilly in the V and A. Better still I
heard her. There is simply no verb for her voice. What both purrs and quacks?
It’s like a sackbut if a sackbut could ask for directions. And I've just learnt she’s fifty!
And the Marx Brothers didn’t start making films until they
were in their forties! But that’s not why I may not be leaving facebook just
yet.
Look
I haven’t been able to find that strand of a hundred insults that I
promised, but looking back over my "wall" here are some of the things I've learnt about
myself since I logged back on:
I am simply the life of the party. Life can get bumpy, but that's okay -- I
won't notice it anyway! (And it’s “Pooh”)
“What kind of lover are you?” I have completed the quiz, and I am in the top 5 %.
"Are you truly eukaryotic?" I have completed the quiz, and I am probably an evilvirus; re-enroll in college-level Biology.
"What Taylor Swift song are you?" I have comleted the quiz, and I am "Tim McGraw".
Who is Taylor Swift? Who is Tim McGraw? None of this matters. I am Tim McGraw.
"Are you on a boat?" I have completed the quiz, with the result “You're on a boat."
“Femija juaj I pare…cun apo goc???” I have completed the quiz, with the result “Cun..”:
But there are so many more quizzes still to take,so much more i have to learn about myself.
Join me tomorrow then, once I’ve run off these three sketches I hastily
promised Gareth Edwards for tomorrow HAHAHAHANOOoo... with the archaeopteryx
at half mast, and find out what I should get pierced. Or there’s one
called “WHAT IS YOUR PURPOSE IN LIFE?” Maybe I’ll take that.
Okay this formating's going mental. (I haven’t read Charles Bukowski. Is he good?)
In
fact, I think I'm all well. I would go for walks on Hampstead Heath and
check on my hand to see how my body was doing, like I used to in hospital,
then see that it was glowing and have to find a bench, but that was
back in February...
And, well, now, how to get from there to here? Am I just going to write everything? Maybe I should start by making my excuses:
1.
The lease ran out on my photoshop, which is half the fun of these posts
for me (so these images are bigger and duller than I'd like).
2. I *was* of course going to write about my steroid-induced psychotic episode next (so very Christian Bale,
so very topical back in February), but thought better of that until I'd
found somewhere to live... which, now I set it down in print, strikes me
as incredibly paranoid. Or is it? I don't know. Ah. No, but if I were
vetting potential flat-mates I'd probably google them to see if they'd,
say, started any fights in hospital with a club-footed Maori. Then
again, to paraphrase Lenny Bruce, I'd google mud.
Hmm. These paragraphs are more widely spaced than I remember, Yup, big
spaces... Anyway, I moved out of Susy's at the end of March, into a long,
uncarpeted, white-washed room in a large, airy, joss-sticky flat in
Gipsy Hill, and I lasted there a month. The land-lady didn't like my
hours, and who can blame her? The floor-boards creaked, her room was
right outside the bathroom, she slept with her door open so actually yes
I for one can blame her, but a home's a home, and that was hers, and I'm
not even sure I want one right now.
Time passes, shut up! as Dylan Thomas once wrote, and I've found a room now, with a carpet and a coffee table, three storeys up a tower-block in Clapham Junction, with gardens, pool, sauna, jacuzzi, and
loudly wuthering heights. I'm holed up across from the busiest station
in Europe, I've found a "Complete Works of Shakespeare" for a pound, and
Dr. Thompson's incomparable "Great Shark Hunt" for three, I'm pretending
I'm on tour, or a scatty writer assigned to LA, while my stuff – the charred
and the saved – stays in storage until I can face it, and the big
money's been coming in fine from Shunt whose new show's more physical aspects can be seen here under construction.
In
fact, they're still under construction. And with nowhere to work, and the
director up in Scotland, we have this week off. It's okay though, it's
all fine, I'm just in it for the company and the money, that's what I've
got to keep telling myself. I mean, it's great! I'm better! I can do
winch-work and wrestling, and I've got a pool and a sofa! And I've got
work, biggish commissions for both LaurenceandGus' and MitchellandWebb's
new radio shows, and it's work I can actually do (new stuff got laughed
at)! AND the insults Charlotte Hesketh and
I have been throwing back and forth across f*c*b**k for the past month
now number a hundred, so I can finally leave that! And here we are
rehearsing: Hey Spacey, copy THIS!
Whatsamadda,
Kevin Spacey, you chicken?! Oh yeh, you all: "I'm going to get a railway
arch and put art in and shit" and we all: "Let's drop this flowerpot on
the director's head a number of times before he leaves" and you all:
"Good luck with that then" and we all "Ow, uh...." Yes well lots to
catch up on then. Hello again, thanks for sticking around. A post every
other day as promised, once. Join me tomorrow for those hundred insults
then. I'm better. This is easy.
(Oh yeah, 3:10 AM. I remember. Hmm... still big spaces.)
