I have to admit, that last occurrence did shake me up. I just kept running. I ended up at one of the highest towers in London. I probably shouldn't say which one. I needed to get as far off the ground as I could because I was concerned that my vibrations were giving me away. I was having trouble walking without rhythm and was worried about that clown.
This tower has a bank based in it and I still remembered the names of some of the slickly glib and spickly obsequious bankerbots within. So I decided to call in a favour from times past and get them to let me up the tower. I managed to contact someone I knew from the structured products group and he met me in the foyer. I explained that I just needed to get high up, as far from the ground as I could get. So, after signing me in, he let me wander around with his magnetic pass card.
I took an elevator all the way to the top floor. I remembered being there before, long ago. Aside from meeting rooms, there was some unused space. In one of these unused rooms, the leveraged finance guys had set up one of those games which used to be in arcades and piers - right by the air-hockey table. The game with the long thin length of metal which was curled up into lots of funny bends, rather like the font of a 'Curly Wurly' bar. At one end, held on a bit of wound-up gaffer tape, there was a stick with a little metal loop, just slightly bigger than the diameter of the curly metal wire which passed though it. You had to very carefully guide the metal loop all the way along the curly wire, around all the loops and turns without touching it. If you touched the wire, it completed an electrical circuit and rang a loud buzzer. Man, those things were tense, weren't they? In this room, they had set up one of these games and connected it in series to two giant stacks of amplifiers so that if you touched the wire, the buzzer sound was deafening. They used it as a sort-of initiation device for new team members. I was told that interns had frequently soiled themselves from the shock of setting it off.
There were some glass doors out to a very small roof-top terrace almost at the top of the building. Sometimes, smokers would go up there for a cigarette but it was usually empty. Just inside was a set of soft benches, a vending machine and two flat-screen TVs showing Bloomberg and Reuters. I just went and sat down on one of the benches. It was a big rectangular cube covered in burgundy-coloured faux-leather. Soon after, two young Japanese women came in to the room. One was very slim and one had quite a round face but they were both pretty. They sat down on the soft bench next to mine and started studying a fold-out tourist map together. They clearly weren't dressed in business clothes but rather wild party clothes like only the Japanese can muster and I wondered how they had got in the building.
It was then that I felt a fart build up. I casually let it go. I let it slip out silently but regretted it immediately as soon as I had done so. I could smell it's ripe pungency rearing up almost immediately. Why had I done that? I should have held it in. There were only the three of us sitting there and they'd know it was me. There was no way I could pretend it wasn't me. It was obvious that it's provenance was a caucasian anus - it reeked of a western diet of dairy products and greasy fried animal fats. (In fact, I'd had breakfast at the 'Southern Greasy Fried Animal Fats' by Liverpool Street station.) I wondered whether to get up or not but it wouldn't make any difference - they'd still know it was me and I would be really embarrassed.
But just then I noticed that there were people outside on the terrace. Well, not actually on the terrace but, incredibly, hanging off a bar which was suspended from the top of the building and jutted out over the side. They were attached by safety harnesses but, still, they were sitting on the bar with nothing below them all the way down to the ground. My legs tingled from just seeing them there. There were four of them and they were all going through the same acrobatic motions on the bar - not quite in unison. I saw this as my chance to distract the Japanese girls from the smell of my rancid gas before it reached them and move them over to the window, so I leaned over and called to them, then pointed at the window, through to the people on the pole. The girls both gasped in high-pitched tones then each drew a sharp intake of breath through their teeth in a similar fashion. We all walked over to the window to see better. I was glad just to get us away from the stink cloud and to save my blushes. When we got to the window, we could see that the people on the bar were trying to copy the same acrobatic manoeuvres of another set of people on a bar below them - though this one was safely over the terrace itself. It looked like those on the bar nearest to us were making up the movements which the ones on the overhanging bar then had to try to emulate. It was extraordinary.
I felt a touch on my arm and looked down to see that the very slim Japanese girl had reached out to me to get my attention. On her wrist I could see what looked like a watch but it had no clock-face - only a matrix of multi-coloured LEDs which blinked cryptically. Her skin was pale and I could see a number of pink healed-over cuts on her arm. "This squid-smelling world should be completely destroyed" she said to me. I wasn't sure if she'd understood the English words she'd just said. Her friend pulled her away from me and sounded like she was scolding the thin girl in Japanese - something about "oyaji" - then the two of them rushed off quickly but with tiny, shuffling steps.
Friday, 30 January 2009
Wednesday, 28 January 2009
Reference Ends
After Sandy and I left the restaurant, he was stonily silent. I tried to engage him again by saying something profound, so I told him how we're all topologically tubes - you know, with the mouth and the anus, we're essentially tubular, topologically speaking.
"What about the nostrils?" he asked, and I had to explain that, broadly speaking, I meant sort of functionally tubular, really, that was the point.
"What about the eyes? What about the urethra, then? Did you think about the urethra?"
I didn't answer him but just carried on in a sulk as he was clearly not entering into the spirit of the conversation.
As we walked along, we went past a street entertainer dressed as a clown who was doing a comedy juggling act. He had a crowd around him and I had to step in front of some of them to get by on the pavement, so I had to pass right by the clown on his pitch. As I walked by, he deliberately dropped all the balls in an exaggerated fashion, throwing his arms up in the air and taking off his hat to collect money. He stepped up right in front of me and wouldn't let me pass, shoving the hat into my tummy for a donation. He was smiling and nodding and people were laughing at him while he did it but I didn't like it. I wanted to just push him out the way but he was a huge guy. He had a big body but his head was small. It was small and painted white and looked shrivelled like it had been pickled and bleached in a vat of vinegar for a month. I could see that he wasn't wearing a stick-on clown pate but that it was actually his own painted, bald head with his own long strands of greasy dyed-red hair over his ears. He had yellow teeth and his wide eyes were bloodshot from the make-up that had run in to them and were coloured light blue, almost white like a bright cloud-filled sky.
Uneasily, I tried to shuffle around him but he kept jostling and blocking me. Then, suddenly, he cocked his head quizzically over my shoulder to look at Sandy. In an instant, there was a look of mutual recognition on the two men's faces as their eyes met, the clown's smile narrowing to a snarl of malicious contempt, an expression of slowly comprehending horror growing on Sandy's face. "Oh f-ck..." was all he could mutter before the clown, with a furious roar, had hurled himself at Sandy, knocking him to the ground and raining down blows.
I stumbled back a few steps, not knowing what to do. Sandy was lying on the ground, I think already unconscious, his lips cut open, with the clown squatting over the prone body and hitting him still. The clown had taken off one of his big outsize-shoes and was using it as a weapon. Petrified, I watched each stroke in what looked like slow motion as he used his full arm length to deliver all his strength in long arcing blows across Sandy's face with the shoe - each blow spurting up a fountain of red-black blood and making a funny squeaking sound from the elongated clown-shoe - like the high-pitched squeaker in a squeezy toy.
At first, I think the crowd thought it was part of the act and carried on laughing. But as the blood started to flow, they realised, recoiling with horror, that the act was over. So I guess, in that respect, Sandy certainly had his point proved about some level of the delusional narratives we spin ourselves.
Over and over he pounded Sandy and, with each vicious impact, that bright-red baguette-shaped clown shoe sounded a bleakly comedic squeezy squeak. Eventually he stopped, gasping heavily from the exertion before starting to laugh, a deep booming laugh coming up from his huge lungs, through his yellow-toothed mouth held open in a wide 'O' shape like a ghastly clown megaphone. At that moment, he looked up and saw me. A blood lust was in his wide, exultant eyes. The movement triggered the switch of his clown bow-tie which started up - whirring around and spattering fine flecks of blood over his white face.
I lost my nerve. I turned and ran, ran like misty buggery.
I've still got Sandy's card with me. I keep thinking I should call him to see how he is but I'm ashamed to. I didn't do anything to help him at all. I just ran.
"What about the nostrils?" he asked, and I had to explain that, broadly speaking, I meant sort of functionally tubular, really, that was the point.
"What about the eyes? What about the urethra, then? Did you think about the urethra?"
I didn't answer him but just carried on in a sulk as he was clearly not entering into the spirit of the conversation.
As we walked along, we went past a street entertainer dressed as a clown who was doing a comedy juggling act. He had a crowd around him and I had to step in front of some of them to get by on the pavement, so I had to pass right by the clown on his pitch. As I walked by, he deliberately dropped all the balls in an exaggerated fashion, throwing his arms up in the air and taking off his hat to collect money. He stepped up right in front of me and wouldn't let me pass, shoving the hat into my tummy for a donation. He was smiling and nodding and people were laughing at him while he did it but I didn't like it. I wanted to just push him out the way but he was a huge guy. He had a big body but his head was small. It was small and painted white and looked shrivelled like it had been pickled and bleached in a vat of vinegar for a month. I could see that he wasn't wearing a stick-on clown pate but that it was actually his own painted, bald head with his own long strands of greasy dyed-red hair over his ears. He had yellow teeth and his wide eyes were bloodshot from the make-up that had run in to them and were coloured light blue, almost white like a bright cloud-filled sky.
Uneasily, I tried to shuffle around him but he kept jostling and blocking me. Then, suddenly, he cocked his head quizzically over my shoulder to look at Sandy. In an instant, there was a look of mutual recognition on the two men's faces as their eyes met, the clown's smile narrowing to a snarl of malicious contempt, an expression of slowly comprehending horror growing on Sandy's face. "Oh f-ck..." was all he could mutter before the clown, with a furious roar, had hurled himself at Sandy, knocking him to the ground and raining down blows.
I stumbled back a few steps, not knowing what to do. Sandy was lying on the ground, I think already unconscious, his lips cut open, with the clown squatting over the prone body and hitting him still. The clown had taken off one of his big outsize-shoes and was using it as a weapon. Petrified, I watched each stroke in what looked like slow motion as he used his full arm length to deliver all his strength in long arcing blows across Sandy's face with the shoe - each blow spurting up a fountain of red-black blood and making a funny squeaking sound from the elongated clown-shoe - like the high-pitched squeaker in a squeezy toy.
At first, I think the crowd thought it was part of the act and carried on laughing. But as the blood started to flow, they realised, recoiling with horror, that the act was over. So I guess, in that respect, Sandy certainly had his point proved about some level of the delusional narratives we spin ourselves.
Over and over he pounded Sandy and, with each vicious impact, that bright-red baguette-shaped clown shoe sounded a bleakly comedic squeezy squeak. Eventually he stopped, gasping heavily from the exertion before starting to laugh, a deep booming laugh coming up from his huge lungs, through his yellow-toothed mouth held open in a wide 'O' shape like a ghastly clown megaphone. At that moment, he looked up and saw me. A blood lust was in his wide, exultant eyes. The movement triggered the switch of his clown bow-tie which started up - whirring around and spattering fine flecks of blood over his white face.
I lost my nerve. I turned and ran, ran like misty buggery.
I've still got Sandy's card with me. I keep thinking I should call him to see how he is but I'm ashamed to. I didn't do anything to help him at all. I just ran.
Reference Begins
Marty seems preoccupied whenever I speak to him lately and sometimes I wonder if he just wants me to give up on the whole 'Terry Badge' thing but doesn't want to tell me straight because we go back so far together. I tried discussing it again this week and did seem to get some response from him. He said that he'd been talking about the idea with one of his screenwriters - Sandy Merkin, in fact - and that he wanted me to speak to Sandy about it, so he set up a lunch for us.
I was excited as I knew that Sandy Merkin was the lead writer behind 'Rubbersnatch', which is one of my favourites. Anyway, I met up with him and Marty at a very fancy restaurant favoured by the meedja in-crowd. Marty had got us the best table, obviously, but didn't seem terribly focused on things at all. He sat there typing messages on his Wifi Dangleberry and didn't even hang around for food, so it was just me and Sandy in the end. I think that Sandy used to be an actor way back in the 60s and 70s but it didn't really work out so he went into screenwriting which turned out to be more lucrative for him. He certainly looks like an ageing-thesp - a bit gaunt with striking features and a distinguished roman nose and an immaculate 'fifties pompadour hair-style. I remember that he held out his hand to shake with the palm facing downwards - like a lady does.
He seemed pretty morose when we arrived and kept fidgeting but perked up when Marty had left as if he could relax and speak more freely. I ordered lobster and Sandy ordered soup. When the waitress asked him what kind of soup he just snapped back "any kind of f-ing soup." She didn't seem fazed by it at all but just muttered back his exact phrase to herself as she jotted it down, though exactly what she could have written, I can't imagine. When our food arrived, Sandy looked furtively around then pulled out a 250ml bottle of Smirnoff Blue Label Vodka and poured the entire contents into his bowl.
We started talking about 'Badge' and Sandy said that he and Marty had discussed it and had come up with some ideas to make it more commercial but that I wasn't going to like it. "You're not gonna like it, kid" is what he said. He kept calling me "kid" even though every time he did it I emphatically corrected him with my name. Anyway, he said that if it was going to be a runner they wanted to make Terry a surgeon who owned a restaurant and was a chef in his spare time. They could get TVChef to endorse it and produce a whole line of tie-in recipes and cook-in sauces. The dark side of this medic-restaurateur character is meant to be that he can't seem to be able to stop himself sauteing up some surgical waste every now and then and serving it in his gaff. I know, it's ridiculous isn't it but they said they know what sells.
Sandy could see that my shoulders had dropped in disappointment as he was telling me this - and he put down his spirit-scented spoon and leaned over the table towards me. "Listen kid," he said, "if you wanna make it in the biz we call show, you gotta get commercial. Forget art, forget self-expression, forget beauty, you gotta pen what sells. Look, you got a pension, huh kid? You wanna see my pension, here's my pension..." and he pulled out a photo from his jacket and threw it on the table. It was an under-exposed Polaroid picture of a hand-gun in a fridge.
I said to him that I'd spoken to the BBC and they'd tried to change Terry into Thomas Bufheiney.
"Rosie Hoal-Riemer was it?" he asked. "Yeah, thought so. Don't listen to her kid, she's behind the times. I know her. Me and Rosie, we used to have a bit of a 'thing' going. I wasn't good enough for her, though. Said I had writer's hands - and she needed 'the arms of an artisan awound her'" and he stared despondently at his hands outstretched in front of his face.
Then he leaned back and started waving his arms expansively, gesturing round the restaurant and talking loudly about how we all lead 'fictional lives', anyway. "First thing in the morning, you wake up and boot up and the universe clicks into view as your brain interprets the barrage of raw sense data into a consistent, cognitive whole, yeah?"
He slurped up a big spoonful of vodka-soup. "That's the first level of stories we tell ourselves, kid. Then, we get up and walk around and interact with the world and make sense of events by coming up ex post facto with a whole bunch of mini-stories from the chaotic cloud of causality which envelops us - little mini-stories that make convenient empirical rules to make us think we can explain why one thing leads to another. We group our experiences together by interpreted meaning - a synchronous, superstitious organisation of our lives regardless of the linking of events in the underlying true reality."
By now people on the other tables were watching Sandy as he waved his spoon in the air and held forth - "and on top of all that, there's the next layer of stories we make up. The memetic emergence of things we just don't talk about and pretend don't happen. The crazy thoughts, the mad rituals, the insane quirks which we all have, which we all do, which we often suspect each other of having but which we all keep secret deep down inside. You see, in the fictional lives we lead, these things don't happen - the bad thoughts, the bizarre perversions, the irrational tics - they don't figure in consensual conversation and we all pretend they don't live in our world. We have a smoother, artificial narrative devoid of prejudicial neurosis - one which is is free from real human manner, one of idealised humans - humans that don't really exist - which we have all conspired to agree is really real - and so we continue our lives of fiction - OUR FICTIONAL LIVES!"
He stopped, checked himself and went quietly back to his soup, muttering softly to me "and that's why you gotta pen what sells, kid. Makes no odds what the stories are. I gotta take a leak. Don't touch my soup." He got up, paused, eyed me suspiciously and then hawked up a big glob of phlegm in his throat and spat in his soup, stirring it in with his spoon.
I was excited as I knew that Sandy Merkin was the lead writer behind 'Rubbersnatch', which is one of my favourites. Anyway, I met up with him and Marty at a very fancy restaurant favoured by the meedja in-crowd. Marty had got us the best table, obviously, but didn't seem terribly focused on things at all. He sat there typing messages on his Wifi Dangleberry and didn't even hang around for food, so it was just me and Sandy in the end. I think that Sandy used to be an actor way back in the 60s and 70s but it didn't really work out so he went into screenwriting which turned out to be more lucrative for him. He certainly looks like an ageing-thesp - a bit gaunt with striking features and a distinguished roman nose and an immaculate 'fifties pompadour hair-style. I remember that he held out his hand to shake with the palm facing downwards - like a lady does.
He seemed pretty morose when we arrived and kept fidgeting but perked up when Marty had left as if he could relax and speak more freely. I ordered lobster and Sandy ordered soup. When the waitress asked him what kind of soup he just snapped back "any kind of f-ing soup." She didn't seem fazed by it at all but just muttered back his exact phrase to herself as she jotted it down, though exactly what she could have written, I can't imagine. When our food arrived, Sandy looked furtively around then pulled out a 250ml bottle of Smirnoff Blue Label Vodka and poured the entire contents into his bowl.
We started talking about 'Badge' and Sandy said that he and Marty had discussed it and had come up with some ideas to make it more commercial but that I wasn't going to like it. "You're not gonna like it, kid" is what he said. He kept calling me "kid" even though every time he did it I emphatically corrected him with my name. Anyway, he said that if it was going to be a runner they wanted to make Terry a surgeon who owned a restaurant and was a chef in his spare time. They could get TVChef to endorse it and produce a whole line of tie-in recipes and cook-in sauces. The dark side of this medic-restaurateur character is meant to be that he can't seem to be able to stop himself sauteing up some surgical waste every now and then and serving it in his gaff. I know, it's ridiculous isn't it but they said they know what sells.
Sandy could see that my shoulders had dropped in disappointment as he was telling me this - and he put down his spirit-scented spoon and leaned over the table towards me. "Listen kid," he said, "if you wanna make it in the biz we call show, you gotta get commercial. Forget art, forget self-expression, forget beauty, you gotta pen what sells. Look, you got a pension, huh kid? You wanna see my pension, here's my pension..." and he pulled out a photo from his jacket and threw it on the table. It was an under-exposed Polaroid picture of a hand-gun in a fridge.
I said to him that I'd spoken to the BBC and they'd tried to change Terry into Thomas Bufheiney.
"Rosie Hoal-Riemer was it?" he asked. "Yeah, thought so. Don't listen to her kid, she's behind the times. I know her. Me and Rosie, we used to have a bit of a 'thing' going. I wasn't good enough for her, though. Said I had writer's hands - and she needed 'the arms of an artisan awound her'" and he stared despondently at his hands outstretched in front of his face.
Then he leaned back and started waving his arms expansively, gesturing round the restaurant and talking loudly about how we all lead 'fictional lives', anyway. "First thing in the morning, you wake up and boot up and the universe clicks into view as your brain interprets the barrage of raw sense data into a consistent, cognitive whole, yeah?"
He slurped up a big spoonful of vodka-soup. "That's the first level of stories we tell ourselves, kid. Then, we get up and walk around and interact with the world and make sense of events by coming up ex post facto with a whole bunch of mini-stories from the chaotic cloud of causality which envelops us - little mini-stories that make convenient empirical rules to make us think we can explain why one thing leads to another. We group our experiences together by interpreted meaning - a synchronous, superstitious organisation of our lives regardless of the linking of events in the underlying true reality."
By now people on the other tables were watching Sandy as he waved his spoon in the air and held forth - "and on top of all that, there's the next layer of stories we make up. The memetic emergence of things we just don't talk about and pretend don't happen. The crazy thoughts, the mad rituals, the insane quirks which we all have, which we all do, which we often suspect each other of having but which we all keep secret deep down inside. You see, in the fictional lives we lead, these things don't happen - the bad thoughts, the bizarre perversions, the irrational tics - they don't figure in consensual conversation and we all pretend they don't live in our world. We have a smoother, artificial narrative devoid of prejudicial neurosis - one which is is free from real human manner, one of idealised humans - humans that don't really exist - which we have all conspired to agree is really real - and so we continue our lives of fiction - OUR FICTIONAL LIVES!"
He stopped, checked himself and went quietly back to his soup, muttering softly to me "and that's why you gotta pen what sells, kid. Makes no odds what the stories are. I gotta take a leak. Don't touch my soup." He got up, paused, eyed me suspiciously and then hawked up a big glob of phlegm in his throat and spat in his soup, stirring it in with his spoon.
Monday, 26 January 2009
See
Marty came out of hospital over the weekend - his giant girlfriend carried him out. I went to see him and we had a brief chat but he wasn't particularly focused. He was unfocused. He was unfocused and uncommercial. We exchanged a few pleasantries and reminisced a little, anyway. I talked to him about the old school days and mentioned Bozza and Plappy and Marty suddenly said that he remembered Bozza and how he was the one who was football mad and would only ever talk about football and how he gave Marty that stripey scarf with 'We All Agree, Marty Parmy is Magic' printed on it. I tried to explain that that wasn't Bozza and that Marty was thinking of Smiffy, but he was unfocused so it was no use.
He remembered Plappy again, though. He remembered Plappy from when we all worked together. He started talking about that time Plappy shat in Marty's shoe and Marty didn't even realise. He asked me if I knew if Plappy remembered that. Well, Marty says he remembers it like it was yesterday. It was a lunch time when Marty was using the gym showers. He didn't use the gym at all but he used to use the showers at lunch because the air-conditioning used to make him sweat. He didn't even realise Plappy had done it and was walking around that afternoon followed by that disgusting stench. He was telling me all of this again and then suddenly he pulled out the actual shoe from his desk drawer. He's kept it preserved in a sealed plastic bag.
Well, Marty suggested we all meet up some time. He said it would be great to see Bozza again but, to be honest, the way he described him, I still don't think he has a clue who Bozza is. What he really seemed keen on was seeing Plappy again. He said he wants to see Plappy. He asked me to ask Plappy if he'd be able to make it for a get-together. He says he knows a special place where we can meet - it's an old disused brick factory miles from anywhere.
He remembered Plappy again, though. He remembered Plappy from when we all worked together. He started talking about that time Plappy shat in Marty's shoe and Marty didn't even realise. He asked me if I knew if Plappy remembered that. Well, Marty says he remembers it like it was yesterday. It was a lunch time when Marty was using the gym showers. He didn't use the gym at all but he used to use the showers at lunch because the air-conditioning used to make him sweat. He didn't even realise Plappy had done it and was walking around that afternoon followed by that disgusting stench. He was telling me all of this again and then suddenly he pulled out the actual shoe from his desk drawer. He's kept it preserved in a sealed plastic bag.
Well, Marty suggested we all meet up some time. He said it would be great to see Bozza again but, to be honest, the way he described him, I still don't think he has a clue who Bozza is. What he really seemed keen on was seeing Plappy again. He said he wants to see Plappy. He asked me to ask Plappy if he'd be able to make it for a get-together. He says he knows a special place where we can meet - it's an old disused brick factory miles from anywhere.
Thursday, 22 January 2009
Slant
Yo, ma' cru,
Word up.
It's becoming clear that I just don't seem to be getting anywhere with Marty on 'Terry Badge, PI' and all I came away with from Channel 4 was the ridiculous concept of 'Tina Flange, Lady Lawyer', a few Custard Creams and a chocolate Hobnob.
So, I submitted 'Badge' to the BBC via their Radio 4 script competition - and got a letter back saying they were interested. I phoned the number they supplied and was put through to a lovely woman named Rosie Hoal-Riemer. I must admit I thought I'd dialled the wrong number when she cheerily announced her name at the other end, thinking it was some kind of personal services business I'd got.
Aaaanyway, she was very nice and friendly and enthusiastic - and had a terribly posh accent and kept quoting Latin. She told me she loved the whole 'Badge' concept - she loved the energy and verve - she loved the sweeping eclectic allegory, she loved the idea of the humble-rooted hero...
"Aahh... potest ex casa magnus vir exire," she said.
"What?" I said.
"Ooh! Denuone latine loquebar? Me ineptum. Interdum modo elabitur," she tinkled.
Well, just when things were going so swimmingly, she suggested making a couple of "teensy-weensy changelets". First of all, Terry becomes Thomas Bufheiney - an uneducated but sensitive fine furniture restorer and Eleanor Tight becomes Lady Edwina Chafingly-Drighchuff, Thomas' landed landlady. Yeah, I know! But - get this - the worst of it is that Terry, or rather Thomas, doesn't do any crime solving at all - with or without complex nonlinear mathematics. Lady Edwina does all the sleuthing, cracking the crimes by referencing precedent analogs in the worlds of classical Greek and Latin literature! All that's left for Thomas is to come to the aid of the scholarly Lady Edwina in her lapses of peril with his "strong artisanal arms" - to rescue her delicate porcelain self "roughly and with vigour", in fact.
"Achally, maybe we should call her Wosie," Ms. Hoal-Riemer then mused, "but the important thing is wuffly and vigorwussly, yah?"
Well, by this time old Rosie Hoal sounded somewhat distracted and started breathing heavily and muttering to herself excitedly something about masterful grasping and tool-belts, so I thanked her for her time and hung up. I mean - can't they see it's the perfect formula already? Why do they want to muss up the artistic integrity of it? I don't know - it seems crazy sometimes. You'd have to make it up if it weren't true. Oh well, keep trying, I guess.
Lung tahm respec', yeah,
Lay'uhz
Word up.
It's becoming clear that I just don't seem to be getting anywhere with Marty on 'Terry Badge, PI' and all I came away with from Channel 4 was the ridiculous concept of 'Tina Flange, Lady Lawyer', a few Custard Creams and a chocolate Hobnob.
So, I submitted 'Badge' to the BBC via their Radio 4 script competition - and got a letter back saying they were interested. I phoned the number they supplied and was put through to a lovely woman named Rosie Hoal-Riemer. I must admit I thought I'd dialled the wrong number when she cheerily announced her name at the other end, thinking it was some kind of personal services business I'd got.
Aaaanyway, she was very nice and friendly and enthusiastic - and had a terribly posh accent and kept quoting Latin. She told me she loved the whole 'Badge' concept - she loved the energy and verve - she loved the sweeping eclectic allegory, she loved the idea of the humble-rooted hero...
"Aahh... potest ex casa magnus vir exire," she said.
"What?" I said.
"Ooh! Denuone latine loquebar? Me ineptum. Interdum modo elabitur," she tinkled.
Well, just when things were going so swimmingly, she suggested making a couple of "teensy-weensy changelets". First of all, Terry becomes Thomas Bufheiney - an uneducated but sensitive fine furniture restorer and Eleanor Tight becomes Lady Edwina Chafingly-Drighchuff, Thomas' landed landlady. Yeah, I know! But - get this - the worst of it is that Terry, or rather Thomas, doesn't do any crime solving at all - with or without complex nonlinear mathematics. Lady Edwina does all the sleuthing, cracking the crimes by referencing precedent analogs in the worlds of classical Greek and Latin literature! All that's left for Thomas is to come to the aid of the scholarly Lady Edwina in her lapses of peril with his "strong artisanal arms" - to rescue her delicate porcelain self "roughly and with vigour", in fact.
"Achally, maybe we should call her Wosie," Ms. Hoal-Riemer then mused, "but the important thing is wuffly and vigorwussly, yah?"
Well, by this time old Rosie Hoal sounded somewhat distracted and started breathing heavily and muttering to herself excitedly something about masterful grasping and tool-belts, so I thanked her for her time and hung up. I mean - can't they see it's the perfect formula already? Why do they want to muss up the artistic integrity of it? I don't know - it seems crazy sometimes. You'd have to make it up if it weren't true. Oh well, keep trying, I guess.
Lung tahm respec', yeah,
Lay'uhz
Friday, 16 January 2009
Still
I was thinking that I should do my bit as a patriotic consumer unit and do some consumption right away, so I decided to splurge up a load of hard tinsel on some tech. I was going to get one of those hand-held electronic-paper book readers but I found that I could replicate the experience faithfully by reading a normal paper book through a toilet-roll tube.
So, instead of that, I thought I'd get me a mammoth-screen home cinema experience. I asked for the biggest screen that exists. They showed me a wide-screen monster plasmotron that has its own time-zone but it still wasn't big enough. So then they introduced me to the latest thing - PixelPaint by Panasonic. With this stuff, I painted an entire wall to become a giant screen the size of a house. It cost a bomb - but it was worth it for the complete televisual immersion - like diving into a warm bath of multicoloured glowing tellybeans.
Well, with this, I had also to get proper content. Content, yeah? I needed contehehnt. It's all about con'eehehehehehnt. So I got the latest. A brand new Sky Phatbox IV. It's totally membrane, totally digitally membrane. It comes complete with a year's subscription to 'Sky Displacement' - the most absorbing channel there is. Also, it's got this amazing automated recording ability on a hard disk that comes with a 'near-queue' for today's programmes and a 'far-queue' for the rest of the month. It's great, whenever I turn it on, it announces "far-queue, far-queue" in a robotic voice.
Well, if that were ever to weary me, it also comes with a shuffle button - like on CD players. That means I can set it to automatically switch over channels randomly every few minutes. I don't even have to bother myself by pressing a button on the remote control - it does it for me - presenting my face with an endlessly changing kaleidoscopic array of twenty-four hour TV tubejecta. It forms it's own primary-coloured narrative of semi-cognisant streel and I don't need to move a muscle.
In fact, it's better than that. I've blended a dozen catering packs of spicy scalpsalt-flavoured 'Doritos' with a vat of sun-dried scabdip into a thick gunky fluid which sits in a big tub next to me. In another tub, I've got a few dozen litres of bright pink generiberry-flavoured hydrogenated sugar-boosted dog's-milk shake. With a a tube from each going to either corner of my mouth, I don't have to take my eyes of the good-watchin' for a second - or even move at all to lap up my tellysnack.
And why stop there? Here's me moving my own eyelids like a sucker when the whole blinking business could be automated. So, I've stuck open my eyes with sticky tape and got a couple of pipettes filled with eye-drop solution strapped to my head which steadily drip tear-solution into my eyes and let my ducts just kick back that little bit easier. And I know what you're thinking - sure, I sound pretty comfy but what about that whole breathing gig? Who bothers with all that in-out-in-out effort these days when there's the leisure envelope to stretch to the max. Well, I got it figured. I've rigged up some scuba breathing apparatus, flipped over the demand valve and set it to a timer, so now I get my air pumped directly into me without even wearing out my lung muscles.
Oh, and it goes without saying that the question of voiding waste is pretty straightforward. I put in a rubber sheet under the pillows and basically I just sit in my own filth.
Man, I have it sorted. Like this, I can remain in a completely motionless conscious unconsciousness for hours. If I could be bothered to move my mouth, I could give a wry smile to the second law of thermodynamics and enter a state of absolute minimum entropy and still be entertained up my head for days. I like to call this a state of optimised entrotainment.
So, instead of that, I thought I'd get me a mammoth-screen home cinema experience. I asked for the biggest screen that exists. They showed me a wide-screen monster plasmotron that has its own time-zone but it still wasn't big enough. So then they introduced me to the latest thing - PixelPaint by Panasonic. With this stuff, I painted an entire wall to become a giant screen the size of a house. It cost a bomb - but it was worth it for the complete televisual immersion - like diving into a warm bath of multicoloured glowing tellybeans.
Well, with this, I had also to get proper content. Content, yeah? I needed contehehnt. It's all about con'eehehehehehnt. So I got the latest. A brand new Sky Phatbox IV. It's totally membrane, totally digitally membrane. It comes complete with a year's subscription to 'Sky Displacement' - the most absorbing channel there is. Also, it's got this amazing automated recording ability on a hard disk that comes with a 'near-queue' for today's programmes and a 'far-queue' for the rest of the month. It's great, whenever I turn it on, it announces "far-queue, far-queue" in a robotic voice.
Well, if that were ever to weary me, it also comes with a shuffle button - like on CD players. That means I can set it to automatically switch over channels randomly every few minutes. I don't even have to bother myself by pressing a button on the remote control - it does it for me - presenting my face with an endlessly changing kaleidoscopic array of twenty-four hour TV tubejecta. It forms it's own primary-coloured narrative of semi-cognisant streel and I don't need to move a muscle.
In fact, it's better than that. I've blended a dozen catering packs of spicy scalpsalt-flavoured 'Doritos' with a vat of sun-dried scabdip into a thick gunky fluid which sits in a big tub next to me. In another tub, I've got a few dozen litres of bright pink generiberry-flavoured hydrogenated sugar-boosted dog's-milk shake. With a a tube from each going to either corner of my mouth, I don't have to take my eyes of the good-watchin' for a second - or even move at all to lap up my tellysnack.
And why stop there? Here's me moving my own eyelids like a sucker when the whole blinking business could be automated. So, I've stuck open my eyes with sticky tape and got a couple of pipettes filled with eye-drop solution strapped to my head which steadily drip tear-solution into my eyes and let my ducts just kick back that little bit easier. And I know what you're thinking - sure, I sound pretty comfy but what about that whole breathing gig? Who bothers with all that in-out-in-out effort these days when there's the leisure envelope to stretch to the max. Well, I got it figured. I've rigged up some scuba breathing apparatus, flipped over the demand valve and set it to a timer, so now I get my air pumped directly into me without even wearing out my lung muscles.
Oh, and it goes without saying that the question of voiding waste is pretty straightforward. I put in a rubber sheet under the pillows and basically I just sit in my own filth.
Man, I have it sorted. Like this, I can remain in a completely motionless conscious unconsciousness for hours. If I could be bothered to move my mouth, I could give a wry smile to the second law of thermodynamics and enter a state of absolute minimum entropy and still be entertained up my head for days. I like to call this a state of optimised entrotainment.
Gunther
This creditcrunch (tm) is like a sprawling toxic oil slick which needs to be amputated like an infected engine running on empty.
We need Gunther. Has Gunther taken control yet? Is he in charge?
Somebody better a get a grip if it's not Gunther because I've got screenburn on my visual cortex. All I can do is stare straight ahead with slack-jawed impotence through semi-transparent images of gurning celebrities I've never heard of, menacing post-ironic pornographic shockdocs and twittering newsdroids spouting voided doubledrivel. They've burned in to my cerebellum and appear like a technicolour heads-up display over the slightly less brightly hued, slower moving shadow of reality beyond.
Gunther, get Gunther. Get him with chalky alacrity.
We need Gunther to take control and fix the mess of mixed metaphors.
So construed, we could face unjaded the gaping anal turpitudes.
Maybe there'll be new furniture - Guntherstuehle. Will there be a buffed-up bench? Will there be a polished office? Will there be shiny bankslabs rubbed up supernuts with frantic diligence and waxy Gunthersputa? I hear that Gunthersputa is the finest there is. Smooth-running and ambiguously opaque. No acidic burp-ups in that stuff, no sir.
I sometimes think that acidy belches have become society's 'forgotten reflex'.
Listen, word of warning. Gunther could face strong opposition. Those at the top of the pile can get accustomed to the social perks, don't you know. I remember way back. I was in the toilets when I bumped into the top man. "Power?" he said, "you want to see power?" and he immediately lobbed his knob over the side of a basin and started pissing in the sink - his arms thrust into the air like a celebrating footballer and he bellowing out dark opera with a deep tenor voice that echoed round the cubicles. Then he told me to get him a hen.
That was the place with the big scandal a couple of years back. Yeah - one of the directors was demanding uncompromising fellation from a loose-limbed intern who noticed he was heavily chafed with featherburn from finchfocking a ripe goose. You know - he thought he'd evaded the enraged mob by hiding in a big vat of glaze but bobbed to the surface and found them all waiting patiently arrayed around the rim.
The Microsoft paperclip is telling me to kill.
We need Gunther. Has Gunther taken control yet? Is he in charge?
Somebody better a get a grip if it's not Gunther because I've got screenburn on my visual cortex. All I can do is stare straight ahead with slack-jawed impotence through semi-transparent images of gurning celebrities I've never heard of, menacing post-ironic pornographic shockdocs and twittering newsdroids spouting voided doubledrivel. They've burned in to my cerebellum and appear like a technicolour heads-up display over the slightly less brightly hued, slower moving shadow of reality beyond.
Gunther, get Gunther. Get him with chalky alacrity.
We need Gunther to take control and fix the mess of mixed metaphors.
So construed, we could face unjaded the gaping anal turpitudes.
Maybe there'll be new furniture - Guntherstuehle. Will there be a buffed-up bench? Will there be a polished office? Will there be shiny bankslabs rubbed up supernuts with frantic diligence and waxy Gunthersputa? I hear that Gunthersputa is the finest there is. Smooth-running and ambiguously opaque. No acidic burp-ups in that stuff, no sir.
I sometimes think that acidy belches have become society's 'forgotten reflex'.
Listen, word of warning. Gunther could face strong opposition. Those at the top of the pile can get accustomed to the social perks, don't you know. I remember way back. I was in the toilets when I bumped into the top man. "Power?" he said, "you want to see power?" and he immediately lobbed his knob over the side of a basin and started pissing in the sink - his arms thrust into the air like a celebrating footballer and he bellowing out dark opera with a deep tenor voice that echoed round the cubicles. Then he told me to get him a hen.
That was the place with the big scandal a couple of years back. Yeah - one of the directors was demanding uncompromising fellation from a loose-limbed intern who noticed he was heavily chafed with featherburn from finchfocking a ripe goose. You know - he thought he'd evaded the enraged mob by hiding in a big vat of glaze but bobbed to the surface and found them all waiting patiently arrayed around the rim.
The Microsoft paperclip is telling me to kill.
Wednesday, 14 January 2009
Tailor-made, boys, tailor-made
On the way back from the hospital, I had some woman following me with a dog. She had white skin and bright ginger hair and her little dog kept straining on its lead, barking and yelping and whining and barking and yelping and whining - never stopping - straining and barking and yelping and whining and barking and yelping and whining. The woman had crossed over the road, dragging her dog with her and was walking behind me shouting at me: "you don't deserve it, you don't - you don't deserve it..." It was driving me nuts, she went on and on, the dog went on and on, they wouldn't leave me alone. In the end, I just covered my ears and ran until I had lost them.
I found myself in front of a trendy-looking fish and chip shop. As I was peckish, I thought I'd pop in. The door was locked when I pushed at it, though. I checked the notice for opening times and saw that it should be open, so I knocked on the glass door. Inside were two people talking to each other across a table. A woman who was facing me and a middle-class man who had his back to me. The woman looked up when she heard me knock but just shook her head slowly at me. Even after I had gestured to my watch and then to the notice with the opening times on it, she shook her head again and then looked back to the middle-class man and continued her conversation.
I couldn't understand it. According to their notice, they should clearly have been open. So, I started banging violently against the big glass windows with the flats of my hands and shouted "I killed some animals with a hammer... I say..? I say..? I said I killed some animals with a hammer..."
The woman looked back up at me and, not taking her eyes off of me, fumbled across the table with one hand to pick up the telephone, dialled three numbers and started talking into the receiver, still looking straight at me.
At that moment, the middle-class man suddenly whipped around in his chair and, with the vehement chagrin that only a miffed member of the middle-class can muster, threw something straight at me with surprising strength. Bang! It hit the window and really made me jump. After a fraction of a second, it peeled away and fell to the floor, leaving an oily residue on the glass. I think it was a perch.
I found myself in front of a trendy-looking fish and chip shop. As I was peckish, I thought I'd pop in. The door was locked when I pushed at it, though. I checked the notice for opening times and saw that it should be open, so I knocked on the glass door. Inside were two people talking to each other across a table. A woman who was facing me and a middle-class man who had his back to me. The woman looked up when she heard me knock but just shook her head slowly at me. Even after I had gestured to my watch and then to the notice with the opening times on it, she shook her head again and then looked back to the middle-class man and continued her conversation.
I couldn't understand it. According to their notice, they should clearly have been open. So, I started banging violently against the big glass windows with the flats of my hands and shouted "I killed some animals with a hammer... I say..? I say..? I said I killed some animals with a hammer..."
The woman looked back up at me and, not taking her eyes off of me, fumbled across the table with one hand to pick up the telephone, dialled three numbers and started talking into the receiver, still looking straight at me.
At that moment, the middle-class man suddenly whipped around in his chair and, with the vehement chagrin that only a miffed member of the middle-class can muster, threw something straight at me with surprising strength. Bang! It hit the window and really made me jump. After a fraction of a second, it peeled away and fell to the floor, leaving an oily residue on the glass. I think it was a perch.
Freckles
I popped by briefly to see Marty again but it wasn't very successful. This time, the pretty nurse at reception just let me straight through with a distracted smile. The phone on her desk was ringing but she wasn't answering it even though she didn't seem to be doing anything else. She just stared at it and cheerily said "ring ring" after each ring. I thought it was nice. You know, nice like wasabi when you make time.
Marty's door was open but when he saw me coming he started going crazy, waving his arms and legs under the bed covers. "Get outta here, get outta here!" he was yelling, "you're too bleak, you're way too f-cking bleak, you bleak freak!" and he threw his bedside alarm clock at me, which flew just a few yards from the feeble effort.
Then I saw the head of his girlfriend pop round the side of the door at waist height. She must have been sitting on a chair behind the door. As I approached the increasingly agitated Marty, I saw her head rise as she got up from the chair. She grasped the edge of the door and, with a steely smile just as I was at the threshold, threw it shut right in my face. The force of the door slamming against the oaken jambs was so immense that I felt the rush of compressed air blast past me and the shock of the impact carry back down the corridor, rattling the open windows in their frames and blowing out the curtains like tissue pennants in a wind-tunnel.
I think they may have Marty on some strong medication. That can be my only conclusion.
Marty's door was open but when he saw me coming he started going crazy, waving his arms and legs under the bed covers. "Get outta here, get outta here!" he was yelling, "you're too bleak, you're way too f-cking bleak, you bleak freak!" and he threw his bedside alarm clock at me, which flew just a few yards from the feeble effort.
Then I saw the head of his girlfriend pop round the side of the door at waist height. She must have been sitting on a chair behind the door. As I approached the increasingly agitated Marty, I saw her head rise as she got up from the chair. She grasped the edge of the door and, with a steely smile just as I was at the threshold, threw it shut right in my face. The force of the door slamming against the oaken jambs was so immense that I felt the rush of compressed air blast past me and the shock of the impact carry back down the corridor, rattling the open windows in their frames and blowing out the curtains like tissue pennants in a wind-tunnel.
I think they may have Marty on some strong medication. That can be my only conclusion.
Monday, 12 January 2009
Futurity
I went to see Marty at the hospital. I couldn't find him first of all - he's got his own private suite where he's being treated. When I got to the reception for the private wards and enquired after Marty they asked if I was his boyfriend. "No," I said with some irritation. Then they asked if I was his lawyer. "No, I'm just an old friend of his," I had to explain with some impatience, then "why did you say 'boyfriend' first?" Well, anyway, they said I could go through but didn't think I'd stand much chance of getting to see him, though they wouldn't explain why.
When I got to his room, I just went straight in - and there he was. Lying back in a huge bed in a beautiful oak-panelled room. He looked awful, though - really pale and haggard, with a massive shiner bruising up one eye. He smiled when he recognised me and greeted me with a feeble but warm "hello". I noticed that he'd stopped using that silly Brooklyn accent that he'd recently taken to putting on and had reverted back to being the plain old Marty that I've known for all these years.
Then I had a strange sensation like the air in the room had suddenly changed density and I looked around behind me to see Marty's huge girlfriend. Somehow, she had noiselessly walked up the long corridor and was standing there in the doorway dressed - well, dressed in a skimpy black leather nurse's uniform with stockings and a red PVC apron, taut over her washboard stomach. Her eyes gleamed with malice and, immediately, she started striding straight towards me with an uncanny speed. I was scared, I tell you. I haven't been that scared since that episode with the cakeybiscuit - you know. Anyway, I flinched, I don't mind telling you, I flinched and cowered under her mountainous shadow but she passed straight by me and stood between me and Marty, massive steel-like arms crossed over her giant, unyielding tits. There she stood, great muscular legs tensed apart, nostrils flaring and her powerful chest heaving with a barely restrained energy - the tightly-stretched leather of her 'uniform' creaking with each swirling breath like the eery sound of the rigging and tack of some vast black galleon groaning in the wind.
It was clear that she didn't want me talking to Marty at that moment. She edged back slowly and started stroking Marty's brow with one of her huge, discus-like hands, to which he smiled and squirmed with feeble contentment . Fearsome a sight though it was, she looked caring, tender, and I couldn't help looking on in wondrous admiration at this woman who stood so protectively over Marty, like some nuclear-powered pneumatic she-wolf cyborg watching over her cyborg cub. It was then, for the first time I think, that I really noticed the fine features of her face which was, at that moment, gazing with genuine affection and concern at Marty. Her lips were fulsome and round but the rest of her face was ectomorphic in an almost elegant contrast to the solid frame of her rugged body. I looked at her delicate, gentle chin and slight, up-turned nose and saw perhaps what Marty could see when he looked at her.
I thought it was better that I just leave, so I went out and started talking to some of the nurses who'd been tending Marty. They said that his girlfriend hadn't let anybody in to see him since he'd been patched up by the doctor. A couple of porters had gone in to change the bedding but one had come out with three broken ribs and the other they hadn't found yet. They explained that Marty was providing such generous donations to the hospital, though, that they'd turned a 'blind eye' to his idiosyncratic treatment as he seemed perfectly comfortable with the whole thing. They said that she'd been by his side the whole time, only going out occasionally to bring back food - always some kind of strange red cabbage soup - and nothing but cabbage soup. She'd also been sharing the same diet as Marty, in sympathy, as she was gently feeding him - the whole time her muscular frame nourished on nothing but a cloudy red cabbage broth.
In fact, it was because of that, that the only other people to have entered the room were in a team of firemen. The nurses said that early this morning, from behind Marty's door, they'd heard a sudden, violent reverberation which lasted about thirty seconds, shook the tea cups across the ward, and sounded like what they described as "a vast hessian sack being ripped from seam to seam" - and simultaneously setting off the smoke alarm. The firemen had gone in with breathing masks and had had to smash open the window to let out the pungent stench.
When I got to his room, I just went straight in - and there he was. Lying back in a huge bed in a beautiful oak-panelled room. He looked awful, though - really pale and haggard, with a massive shiner bruising up one eye. He smiled when he recognised me and greeted me with a feeble but warm "hello". I noticed that he'd stopped using that silly Brooklyn accent that he'd recently taken to putting on and had reverted back to being the plain old Marty that I've known for all these years.
Then I had a strange sensation like the air in the room had suddenly changed density and I looked around behind me to see Marty's huge girlfriend. Somehow, she had noiselessly walked up the long corridor and was standing there in the doorway dressed - well, dressed in a skimpy black leather nurse's uniform with stockings and a red PVC apron, taut over her washboard stomach. Her eyes gleamed with malice and, immediately, she started striding straight towards me with an uncanny speed. I was scared, I tell you. I haven't been that scared since that episode with the cakeybiscuit - you know. Anyway, I flinched, I don't mind telling you, I flinched and cowered under her mountainous shadow but she passed straight by me and stood between me and Marty, massive steel-like arms crossed over her giant, unyielding tits. There she stood, great muscular legs tensed apart, nostrils flaring and her powerful chest heaving with a barely restrained energy - the tightly-stretched leather of her 'uniform' creaking with each swirling breath like the eery sound of the rigging and tack of some vast black galleon groaning in the wind.
It was clear that she didn't want me talking to Marty at that moment. She edged back slowly and started stroking Marty's brow with one of her huge, discus-like hands, to which he smiled and squirmed with feeble contentment . Fearsome a sight though it was, she looked caring, tender, and I couldn't help looking on in wondrous admiration at this woman who stood so protectively over Marty, like some nuclear-powered pneumatic she-wolf cyborg watching over her cyborg cub. It was then, for the first time I think, that I really noticed the fine features of her face which was, at that moment, gazing with genuine affection and concern at Marty. Her lips were fulsome and round but the rest of her face was ectomorphic in an almost elegant contrast to the solid frame of her rugged body. I looked at her delicate, gentle chin and slight, up-turned nose and saw perhaps what Marty could see when he looked at her.
I thought it was better that I just leave, so I went out and started talking to some of the nurses who'd been tending Marty. They said that his girlfriend hadn't let anybody in to see him since he'd been patched up by the doctor. A couple of porters had gone in to change the bedding but one had come out with three broken ribs and the other they hadn't found yet. They explained that Marty was providing such generous donations to the hospital, though, that they'd turned a 'blind eye' to his idiosyncratic treatment as he seemed perfectly comfortable with the whole thing. They said that she'd been by his side the whole time, only going out occasionally to bring back food - always some kind of strange red cabbage soup - and nothing but cabbage soup. She'd also been sharing the same diet as Marty, in sympathy, as she was gently feeding him - the whole time her muscular frame nourished on nothing but a cloudy red cabbage broth.
In fact, it was because of that, that the only other people to have entered the room were in a team of firemen. The nurses said that early this morning, from behind Marty's door, they'd heard a sudden, violent reverberation which lasted about thirty seconds, shook the tea cups across the ward, and sounded like what they described as "a vast hessian sack being ripped from seam to seam" - and simultaneously setting off the smoke alarm. The firemen had gone in with breathing masks and had had to smash open the window to let out the pungent stench.
Shoal
I heard back from Marty. He was calling from hospital.
Said he fell down some stairs. I was going to ask him whether everything was still go for 'Badge' and finding a new actress for the part of Eleanor Tight but thought it might be a bit selfish to raise that in light of his problems. Then a terrible thought suddenly occurred to me - I mean, you don't suppose that... well, I mean, if he told his big woman that she couldn't, well, no - surely not. It must have just been an unfortunate accident like Marty said.
Said he fell down some stairs. I was going to ask him whether everything was still go for 'Badge' and finding a new actress for the part of Eleanor Tight but thought it might be a bit selfish to raise that in light of his problems. Then a terrible thought suddenly occurred to me - I mean, you don't suppose that... well, I mean, if he told his big woman that she couldn't, well, no - surely not. It must have just been an unfortunate accident like Marty said.
Friday, 9 January 2009
Perspective
I just heard from Marty. He apologised for that last stunt he pulled in his office. He said that he was genuinely sorry and, when he started thinking about it, realised that we do go back a long way and that he trusted me with the casting for 'Badge'. He said that he really would tell his girlfriend that she couldn't play the part of Eleanor Tight. He sounded pretty subdued, actually, and like he really meant it. I guess it won't be easy for him to tell that iron giantess of his. I suppose that she'll be disappointed - but she has to realise she's just not right for the role.
Well, I don't know if I can really believe Marty on this one. He says stuff all the time. Sometimes I feel that he just has me dangling on a piece of effing string for amusement. Thing is, I really need his production company to get 'Badge' on the screen - especially after I've burnt my bridges with Channel 4 and nicked their biscuits. He did sound serious this time, though. Oh well, we'll see.
Well, I don't know if I can really believe Marty on this one. He says stuff all the time. Sometimes I feel that he just has me dangling on a piece of effing string for amusement. Thing is, I really need his production company to get 'Badge' on the screen - especially after I've burnt my bridges with Channel 4 and nicked their biscuits. He did sound serious this time, though. Oh well, we'll see.
Thursday, 8 January 2009
New
That cakeybiscuit thing really shook me up, I can tell you. It was on the way back from seeing Marty. I can't believe what happened there, either. I decided to tell him straight - no compromise on Eleanor Tight - she's an integral part of the whole Badge world and it would ruin the whole show to have Gargantua play her through completely unmerited nepotism. I'd really wound myself up for it - by the time I'd finished I was actually standing up and shaking from the impassioned delivery. Well, I have to say, Marty's response shocked me. He just calmly leaned forward in his chair and beckoned me to sit down again with his pudgy little girly hands and softly started talking about how hard it must be for me - how here he was with everything - a successful production business, critical acclaim, the 'perfect dame'. Then, sure, as soon as he started thinking about his mammoth Ukrainian moll again, his gaze drifted off wistfully into the distance and he started telling me about this thing where she inserts and apple but an orange comes out. "I mean, where does the apple go..?" he muttered dreamily to himself, staring with absent eyes out the window. I actually had to clap my hands together to bring back his attention.
Anyway, upshot was, he said that he'd tell his girlfriend that it was no dice and that we'd get a proper actress in and I'd have a material artistic contribution to the whole casting process. I couldn't believe it - it was like having the old Marty back again - he just seemed so human and accessible again. Limply, he held out a little white hand for me to shake and just as I reached forward he whipped it back, placing his thumb on his nose and wiggling his feminine fingers in the air in a silly insulting gesture. "Gotcha!" he said and immediately the closet doors opened and a camera and sound crew came spilling out.
They'd recorded the whole event. He was trialling a brand-new format for one of his shows. Can you believe that!? He stood there telling me how today's audience is just not interested in physical humiliation any more - they want mental anguish. He's just putting together a new format called 'Hurt Your Friend' where members of the public get to engage in long and elaborate (sometimes lasting months) psychological torture of their best friends in exchange for cash prizes.
Not only that, but the whole thing is structured to benefit from the new subsidies the government is offering for creating new jobs. He said that the way they'd done it was for each contestant to be technically 'employed' by a subsidiary of Parmesan Productions. There were some complications - in order to benefit from favourable tax treatment, each contestant-employee had to demonstrate that they had their clearly delineated work space. To do this, they were all getting a little rectangle of carpet which they could stand on while signing contracts. Marty was pretty excited about it all. He whipped out his own rectangle of carpet material and slapped it on his desk. Then he started banging it with his soft little fists and started saying that he was "making investments now and for the future and failure to do so would make it harder for us all in years to come."
"I will not stand idly by," he continued, "and let that happen," and with a final thump of his little square of carpet, "not on my swatch."
Anyway, upshot was, he said that he'd tell his girlfriend that it was no dice and that we'd get a proper actress in and I'd have a material artistic contribution to the whole casting process. I couldn't believe it - it was like having the old Marty back again - he just seemed so human and accessible again. Limply, he held out a little white hand for me to shake and just as I reached forward he whipped it back, placing his thumb on his nose and wiggling his feminine fingers in the air in a silly insulting gesture. "Gotcha!" he said and immediately the closet doors opened and a camera and sound crew came spilling out.
They'd recorded the whole event. He was trialling a brand-new format for one of his shows. Can you believe that!? He stood there telling me how today's audience is just not interested in physical humiliation any more - they want mental anguish. He's just putting together a new format called 'Hurt Your Friend' where members of the public get to engage in long and elaborate (sometimes lasting months) psychological torture of their best friends in exchange for cash prizes.
Not only that, but the whole thing is structured to benefit from the new subsidies the government is offering for creating new jobs. He said that the way they'd done it was for each contestant to be technically 'employed' by a subsidiary of Parmesan Productions. There were some complications - in order to benefit from favourable tax treatment, each contestant-employee had to demonstrate that they had their clearly delineated work space. To do this, they were all getting a little rectangle of carpet which they could stand on while signing contracts. Marty was pretty excited about it all. He whipped out his own rectangle of carpet material and slapped it on his desk. Then he started banging it with his soft little fists and started saying that he was "making investments now and for the future and failure to do so would make it harder for us all in years to come."
"I will not stand idly by," he continued, "and let that happen," and with a final thump of his little square of carpet, "not on my swatch."
Wednesday, 7 January 2009
Cakeybiscuit
This was incredible. I stopped off at a motorway service station. I was thinking about my past. I decided I'd get a cup of coffee, premium coffee - you know, a giant pail of superheated milk with a couple of dark dirty shots straight from the shiny metal coffeeteats. There were no other customers at the coffee counter. In fact, apart from the two baristas behind the counter, the place was eerily deserted. So I went straight up and ordered my coffee. Barista A took my order and relayed it to Barista B who milked the machine with noisy malice, banging the Gaggia with manic metal-udder-clanging rancour. Barista A just stood there, seemingly oblivious to the noise behind her, staring wordlessly straight at me with a faint smile on her face.
Eventually, with a slow, calm deliberation, she asked me for the money, which I gave to her. She collected the change and held aloft the receipt from the till.
"Here's your receipt" she said, holding it still and level with her eyes. "This is your receipt," she whispered slowly, leaning forward, "once you take this... that's it... it's all over... we're done." Then she jerked back into an upright position, gestured to the counter and said brightly "unless you want a cakeybiscuit! Do you want a cakeybiscuit?"
I declined the cakeybiscuit, cupped my coffee, scooped my change and reached forward with an almost hypnotically bemused caution for the proffered receipt. Gripping it between forefinger and thumb, I tugged gently at the little strip of paper but Barista A refused to let go. I noticed that Barista B had crept up to the counter and was looking up, with a wide-eyed anticipation, at the receipt held mid-air. He let out a little, snorting laugh of excitement.
"Remember," said Barista A, "once you take it, that's it - no going back."
I nodded in agreement and Barista A deftly released the receipt, my hand snapping back a little where I had been unconsciously tugging at the paper. Confused and hotly uncomfortable, I crumpled the receipt in my hand and started to turn away from her as she held me in a gaze of cruel amusement, Barista B also watching me intently with a noiselessly gibbering grin.
"You think that's your receipt, don't you?" said Barista A, and the two of them began to laugh. "You think that's your receipt! That's not your receipt! That's not your receipt!" Then her face darkened, she took a long deep breath and screamed: "THIS IS YOUR RECEIPT!" and she held up a scrap of paper as the two of them shrieked with wild, grotesque laughter. "It's not over," she wailed, "it's not over - this is your receipt - I've got your receipt right here!"
I felt a cold dark mess slumping into my guts. Barely keeping a grip on my coffee in my left hand, I opened my right hand to look at the 'receipt' I had taken. As it unfurled, I could see written on it in large, black capital letters:
'CONTER SPILL: CHOD-TINTED CONTER SPILL'
My head reeling, I stumbled back a step and backed into someone. I turned and saw that, where there had been nobody, there was now a long queue of people for the coffee shop, all staring impatiently at me. A whistle sounded behind the counter and, as one, everyone in the queue took three steps forward, feet marching over the tiled floor in perfect unison - stomp, stomp, stomp! As they trudged forward, their collective gaze snapped to the counter and, in an uncanny monotone, together they chanted "cakeybiscuit, cakeybiscuit, cakeybiscuit..." a baleful crescendo, "cakeybiscuit, cakeyBISCUIT, CAKEYBISCUIT", ending their fearful incantation in a sudden, synchronised silence.
I felt my breath catch in my throat, too fearful to make even a movement with my lungs. Then, a small boy in the queue started giggling and cried with falsetto glee "cakeybithkit, cakeeebithkeeet!" His mother, white with fury, bent down and slapped him across the face with such force that he fell to the floor with a noise like crunching chicken bones.
With a palpable shudder, my nerve gave completely. I dropped my coffee. The cup buckled and exploded as it hit the polished floor, vomiting out coral-shaped ejecta of milky-brown froth. I turned and ran, ran with a frenzied intent, struggling to get air into my fear-frozen lungs - the only sound behind me the mocking, sing-song voice of Barista A: "you've forgotten your receipt, come and get your receipt..."
Eventually, with a slow, calm deliberation, she asked me for the money, which I gave to her. She collected the change and held aloft the receipt from the till.
"Here's your receipt" she said, holding it still and level with her eyes. "This is your receipt," she whispered slowly, leaning forward, "once you take this... that's it... it's all over... we're done." Then she jerked back into an upright position, gestured to the counter and said brightly "unless you want a cakeybiscuit! Do you want a cakeybiscuit?"
I declined the cakeybiscuit, cupped my coffee, scooped my change and reached forward with an almost hypnotically bemused caution for the proffered receipt. Gripping it between forefinger and thumb, I tugged gently at the little strip of paper but Barista A refused to let go. I noticed that Barista B had crept up to the counter and was looking up, with a wide-eyed anticipation, at the receipt held mid-air. He let out a little, snorting laugh of excitement.
"Remember," said Barista A, "once you take it, that's it - no going back."
I nodded in agreement and Barista A deftly released the receipt, my hand snapping back a little where I had been unconsciously tugging at the paper. Confused and hotly uncomfortable, I crumpled the receipt in my hand and started to turn away from her as she held me in a gaze of cruel amusement, Barista B also watching me intently with a noiselessly gibbering grin.
"You think that's your receipt, don't you?" said Barista A, and the two of them began to laugh. "You think that's your receipt! That's not your receipt! That's not your receipt!" Then her face darkened, she took a long deep breath and screamed: "THIS IS YOUR RECEIPT!" and she held up a scrap of paper as the two of them shrieked with wild, grotesque laughter. "It's not over," she wailed, "it's not over - this is your receipt - I've got your receipt right here!"
I felt a cold dark mess slumping into my guts. Barely keeping a grip on my coffee in my left hand, I opened my right hand to look at the 'receipt' I had taken. As it unfurled, I could see written on it in large, black capital letters:
'CONTER SPILL: CHOD-TINTED CONTER SPILL'
My head reeling, I stumbled back a step and backed into someone. I turned and saw that, where there had been nobody, there was now a long queue of people for the coffee shop, all staring impatiently at me. A whistle sounded behind the counter and, as one, everyone in the queue took three steps forward, feet marching over the tiled floor in perfect unison - stomp, stomp, stomp! As they trudged forward, their collective gaze snapped to the counter and, in an uncanny monotone, together they chanted "cakeybiscuit, cakeybiscuit, cakeybiscuit..." a baleful crescendo, "cakeybiscuit, cakeyBISCUIT, CAKEYBISCUIT", ending their fearful incantation in a sudden, synchronised silence.
I felt my breath catch in my throat, too fearful to make even a movement with my lungs. Then, a small boy in the queue started giggling and cried with falsetto glee "cakeybithkit, cakeeebithkeeet!" His mother, white with fury, bent down and slapped him across the face with such force that he fell to the floor with a noise like crunching chicken bones.
With a palpable shudder, my nerve gave completely. I dropped my coffee. The cup buckled and exploded as it hit the polished floor, vomiting out coral-shaped ejecta of milky-brown froth. I turned and ran, ran with a frenzied intent, struggling to get air into my fear-frozen lungs - the only sound behind me the mocking, sing-song voice of Barista A: "you've forgotten your receipt, come and get your receipt..."
Tuesday, 6 January 2009
Slow Top
Oh no! I do not believe it. That Marty Parmesan is a total pool of dried-up plimsollpiss. I can't believe I'm wasting my time with that curly-topped creasy twatwedge.
So he says he'll produce 'Terry Badge' - great - but there's a catch. He wants his massive Ukrainian girlfriend - or his 'Golden Number One' as he's started calling her - to play the part of Eleanor Tight. I mean, how on earth is that going to work? Eleanor Tight is a chic, elegant woman who is also a highly professional and effective detective inspector rising rapidly up the ranks - keen as muffmustard, savvy as girlfroth and sharp as a sharpened ladyknife. I can't have Marty's flinty bint taking the part - it would spoil the whole show.
Marty says that she now wants "to progress her acting career" and he's there to support her doing that. What acting career!? Have you ever heard her utter a word of English? She doesn't look like a sleek, wily woman of substance - Eleanor Tight should be the fantasy offspring of Jim Rockford and Juliet Bravo - not Dolph Lundgren and Jordan. I started trying to explain this to that ringdrip Parmesan but he just holds up his soft little hands - palms outwards, closes his eyes and whispers "noo noo noo" - it's something he's started doing a lot, lately and it really annoys me. Prick.
Well, anyway, I just don't know what to do. I mean, this is the big chance to get 'Terry Badge' on the small screen and you've only got to look at Marty's amazing track-record to see that he knows how to score a hit ('Frotscape' is widely tipped to pick up another Golden Ballsach this year, by the way) but I just feel that the whole thing would be totally spoiled with old Concrete-Titski playing Eleanor. There'll be no subtle sexual frisson between her and Badge - it's one of the key elements of the show.
I told Marty I'd consider it and he started jabbing his finger in the air at me and saying "yah, yah, you do dat, you do dat" in that stupid Brooklyn drawl that he's started affecting but I just don't know what to do, I really don't.
So he says he'll produce 'Terry Badge' - great - but there's a catch. He wants his massive Ukrainian girlfriend - or his 'Golden Number One' as he's started calling her - to play the part of Eleanor Tight. I mean, how on earth is that going to work? Eleanor Tight is a chic, elegant woman who is also a highly professional and effective detective inspector rising rapidly up the ranks - keen as muffmustard, savvy as girlfroth and sharp as a sharpened ladyknife. I can't have Marty's flinty bint taking the part - it would spoil the whole show.
Marty says that she now wants "to progress her acting career" and he's there to support her doing that. What acting career!? Have you ever heard her utter a word of English? She doesn't look like a sleek, wily woman of substance - Eleanor Tight should be the fantasy offspring of Jim Rockford and Juliet Bravo - not Dolph Lundgren and Jordan. I started trying to explain this to that ringdrip Parmesan but he just holds up his soft little hands - palms outwards, closes his eyes and whispers "noo noo noo" - it's something he's started doing a lot, lately and it really annoys me. Prick.
Well, anyway, I just don't know what to do. I mean, this is the big chance to get 'Terry Badge' on the small screen and you've only got to look at Marty's amazing track-record to see that he knows how to score a hit ('Frotscape' is widely tipped to pick up another Golden Ballsach this year, by the way) but I just feel that the whole thing would be totally spoiled with old Concrete-Titski playing Eleanor. There'll be no subtle sexual frisson between her and Badge - it's one of the key elements of the show.
I told Marty I'd consider it and he started jabbing his finger in the air at me and saying "yah, yah, you do dat, you do dat" in that stupid Brooklyn drawl that he's started affecting but I just don't know what to do, I really don't.
Tinge
Yes! Finally - Marty has given the green light - 'Terry Badge' is coming to a screen near you!
Marty's not so bad, really. I know that he acts a bit funny sometimes but, at the end of the day, he's a top guy.
Marty's not so bad, really. I know that he acts a bit funny sometimes but, at the end of the day, he's a top guy.
Monday, 5 January 2009
Champ
Oh man, today I heard Marty and that 'Pantagrueletta' of a girlfriend of his doing 'it'.
I was over at Marty's glitzy TV-world office suites to talk more 'Badge' - he'd already had me waiting for at least thirty minutes because he said he had an "urgent call States' side" to deal with. So I just waited there quietly in the oppressive silence of his anteroom - just me and his PA sitting behind her desk - the only noises being the blub of the water cooler, wetly belching with chaotic periodicity and the click of the PA's computer mouse and fizzle of her tights as she crossed and uncrossed her legs.
Then suddenly, from behind Marty's closed door, there was a loud clatter of objects falling on his floor which made me jump in my seat. I looked at his PA, who just put her hands to her face and started slowly shaking her head with a resigned pathos while donning the headphones of her iPod and turning up the volume. Next thing I hear is more crashing, scraping furniture legs on the floor and then frantic panting - Marty's unmistakable gasping - bursts of wheezing, adenoidal rhythmic whining, rising up in time with the dull thump of some heavy object being shunted along.
There was a wince of pain, a pause of muffled conversation, then Marty's short, sharp grunts resuming again, this time accompanied by what sounded like someone repeatedly slapping a blancmange with a table-tennis bat in time with his falsetto, nasal puffs.
I tell you, it was embarrassing. I don't know how long that went on for - me flicking self-consciously through a copy of 'Broadkastpork', his PA turning up her iPod further and furiously iclicking away on her iBook, refusing to acknowledge the incoherent wailing from beyond - but next thing I remember is Marty's girlish gasps increasing in tempo and, slowly, inexorably, what sounded like the distant rising rumble of something dreadful and menacing which made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. As Marty accelerated in frantic soprano yelps, I heard another voice, a good octave below Marty's, growing in volume to a wild, visceral bellowing - a single, drawn-out yell, like a fearsome battle-cry... "wwooouuuooaa..." it went, "...aaooouuaahhrrraaa..." it went, "...aaaarrgghghgh..." it went - not pausing for breath, incessant, terrifying, louder and louder... then the insane sound of massive, flesh-muted hammering impacts - like two great legs of ham were being relentlessly battered against a slab of cold marble by a mad drummer with superhuman strength. A picture fell off the wall, the water cooler toppled in a bubble-blobbing burst, my chair shook underneath me, the PA had her head stuffed in her Prada handbag with her hands over where her ears were... then... silence.
Silence followed a second later by a single, barely discernible, pathetic wheeze from Marty, as if he had sneezed feebly through his clenched teeth.
Two minutes later, his massive Ukrainian bird came striding out, towering over me ominously, completely blocking out the light from the windows - thick, knotted-rope-like muscles bulging through a tight lime-green one-piece dress that had just been rapidly re-stretched over her. Giant chunks of dazzling jewellery clanking like heavy iron links in a ship's anchor-chain, she walked straight past me, broad, angular shoulders swaying, and chewing a piece of gum with loud, violent smacks of her wide-open mouth. Stopping at the exit, she swivelled round on her teetering heels and, through her swollen bright-red lips, blew out the gnarled chunk of her chewing gum with such force it hit the inside of the waste bin and toppled it over with a clang. Then she widened her vast mouth of monolithic white teeth into a predatory grin and unfurled one of her huge, vein-popping hands into a crimson-taloned outstretched palm and blew a kiss back to Marty who had emerged from his doorway.
I tell you - I am getting sick of Marty acting like this. There must be other production companies out there who would be interested in 'Terry Badge'. It's getting worse - every time Marty has to be the big shot and play these stupid power games - rubbing it in my face. He's now started to affect some kind of Brooklyn accent too which, I admit, does kind of suit his natural nasal drawl. So, shamelessly, he stood there looking like he'd just been pulled out of an industrial tumble dryer, and pointed at me with index finger, thumb raised, in the stylised shape of a gun and said "hey... shoot!"
I mean, what a knob. I was lost for words. His PA was just taking the handbag off of her head with restrained dignity and resetting her hair in a hand mirror when Marty turned to her and started yelling "clam chowdah" - just like that - like he could only move his jaw all the way up or down in spasmodic jerks - "clam chowdah - clam chowdaaghh - go gettusum clam chowdah willya - yeah?" as he tossed a wad of bank notes over to her desk.
I remember when this guy was at school and everyone used to tease him for his mass of curly hair. Well, I guess he showed us. But at what cost? That's what I ask you - at what cost?
I was over at Marty's glitzy TV-world office suites to talk more 'Badge' - he'd already had me waiting for at least thirty minutes because he said he had an "urgent call States' side" to deal with. So I just waited there quietly in the oppressive silence of his anteroom - just me and his PA sitting behind her desk - the only noises being the blub of the water cooler, wetly belching with chaotic periodicity and the click of the PA's computer mouse and fizzle of her tights as she crossed and uncrossed her legs.
Then suddenly, from behind Marty's closed door, there was a loud clatter of objects falling on his floor which made me jump in my seat. I looked at his PA, who just put her hands to her face and started slowly shaking her head with a resigned pathos while donning the headphones of her iPod and turning up the volume. Next thing I hear is more crashing, scraping furniture legs on the floor and then frantic panting - Marty's unmistakable gasping - bursts of wheezing, adenoidal rhythmic whining, rising up in time with the dull thump of some heavy object being shunted along.
There was a wince of pain, a pause of muffled conversation, then Marty's short, sharp grunts resuming again, this time accompanied by what sounded like someone repeatedly slapping a blancmange with a table-tennis bat in time with his falsetto, nasal puffs.
I tell you, it was embarrassing. I don't know how long that went on for - me flicking self-consciously through a copy of 'Broadkastpork', his PA turning up her iPod further and furiously iclicking away on her iBook, refusing to acknowledge the incoherent wailing from beyond - but next thing I remember is Marty's girlish gasps increasing in tempo and, slowly, inexorably, what sounded like the distant rising rumble of something dreadful and menacing which made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. As Marty accelerated in frantic soprano yelps, I heard another voice, a good octave below Marty's, growing in volume to a wild, visceral bellowing - a single, drawn-out yell, like a fearsome battle-cry... "wwooouuuooaa..." it went, "...aaooouuaahhrrraaa..." it went, "...aaaarrgghghgh..." it went - not pausing for breath, incessant, terrifying, louder and louder... then the insane sound of massive, flesh-muted hammering impacts - like two great legs of ham were being relentlessly battered against a slab of cold marble by a mad drummer with superhuman strength. A picture fell off the wall, the water cooler toppled in a bubble-blobbing burst, my chair shook underneath me, the PA had her head stuffed in her Prada handbag with her hands over where her ears were... then... silence.
Silence followed a second later by a single, barely discernible, pathetic wheeze from Marty, as if he had sneezed feebly through his clenched teeth.
Two minutes later, his massive Ukrainian bird came striding out, towering over me ominously, completely blocking out the light from the windows - thick, knotted-rope-like muscles bulging through a tight lime-green one-piece dress that had just been rapidly re-stretched over her. Giant chunks of dazzling jewellery clanking like heavy iron links in a ship's anchor-chain, she walked straight past me, broad, angular shoulders swaying, and chewing a piece of gum with loud, violent smacks of her wide-open mouth. Stopping at the exit, she swivelled round on her teetering heels and, through her swollen bright-red lips, blew out the gnarled chunk of her chewing gum with such force it hit the inside of the waste bin and toppled it over with a clang. Then she widened her vast mouth of monolithic white teeth into a predatory grin and unfurled one of her huge, vein-popping hands into a crimson-taloned outstretched palm and blew a kiss back to Marty who had emerged from his doorway.
I tell you - I am getting sick of Marty acting like this. There must be other production companies out there who would be interested in 'Terry Badge'. It's getting worse - every time Marty has to be the big shot and play these stupid power games - rubbing it in my face. He's now started to affect some kind of Brooklyn accent too which, I admit, does kind of suit his natural nasal drawl. So, shamelessly, he stood there looking like he'd just been pulled out of an industrial tumble dryer, and pointed at me with index finger, thumb raised, in the stylised shape of a gun and said "hey... shoot!"
I mean, what a knob. I was lost for words. His PA was just taking the handbag off of her head with restrained dignity and resetting her hair in a hand mirror when Marty turned to her and started yelling "clam chowdah" - just like that - like he could only move his jaw all the way up or down in spasmodic jerks - "clam chowdah - clam chowdaaghh - go gettusum clam chowdah willya - yeah?" as he tossed a wad of bank notes over to her desk.
I remember when this guy was at school and everyone used to tease him for his mass of curly hair. Well, I guess he showed us. But at what cost? That's what I ask you - at what cost?
Saturday, 3 January 2009
Snout
Did you see 'Rubbersnatch Investigates' last night? It was well membrane. It's another one of Marty Parmesan's productions. Rubbersnatch used his twentyforce - amazing special effects. I watched it with a bag of inky slits and a soft liquorice mound.
I was talking to Marty the other day, actually. He was telling me all about his towering Ukrainian girlfriend with huge hands, again. Apparently, she hotknuckles his spaniel-tucks without him having to ask. With her immense strength, he says his feet actually leave the ground in a grunting melee of frittered pantspume. Well, I congratulated him gruffly but I didn't really know what on earth he meant.
Marty said he's focusing on more serious programmes this year. He's fed up with people shouting 'Knockercake' in his face all the time. He's just finished a new human-interest documentary - 'Decline a Coarse Vagina'. Also, he's produced an expose of that company who found that with sufficient hydrogenisation and irradiation, it was possible to manufacture high-margin foodstuff from actual shit and market it as bars of 'Mountain Stule'.
He is really odd, though - he'll sit there and tell you about his programmes and the next thing, he starts saying how his Slavic squeeze trumps with such raw muscular force, it sounds like a heavy-duty hessian sack being ripped from seam to seam. I don't understand why he tells me these things.
I know that Marty and I go way back but sometimes I just get tired of that puffed-up, mop-topped, adenoidal squitbubble. I'm tired of constantly sucking up to him and having Miss Gargantua sneering at me with her solid tits and unwholesomely rugged hands. There must be other production companies out there who'd make 'Badge'.
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