The Donkey Punch

I'm back again, within the space of a week. Don't get your hopes up, unless something else happens I want to comment about. I put a video up on youtube this week for my poem The Donkey Punch. I think the visuals compliment it rather than explain it. I always saw it as a companion piece to another poem of mine Farmer (see elsewhere in blog for this).

Hope you enjoy it.

Wordlegs

I know I've pretty much abandoned this blog but I'm stopping by briefly to tell you to check out the latest issue of Wordlegs, because I have a story in it. Check it out here.

2nd Person Narrative

As some of you may know I'm currently doing an MA in creative writing. One of my ambitions when starting it was to put a few more colours in my palate (this is a metaphor, I can't paint. Crayons are more my style). I was hoaking through some hands outs recently when I came across so pages from Jay McInerney's novel. Bright Lights Big City. Now if you follow that link it'll take you to the DVD but you being smart can find the book from there. You will also notice that you're now reading second person narrative. Yeow! The book is famous for being written in second person narrative. In my experience as a writer I've only ever used first and third. And even when I've taught creative writing I've only ever covered first and third. I've now loaned the book out of my local library. Yay me and yay the library for having it. It has a much less embarrassing cover than the DVD so I can take it out when I'm out for a coffee and be an interesting bookworm and not look like I'm reading a Dawson's Creek - The College Years style page turner.

I hope that reading the book might make me want to try my own second person narrative, we'll see. I hope it does. I wonder have any of my readers read or written second person narrative. The only fiction I've came across before in second person is the find your own adventure books I used to read as a kid. The second person worked because of how they involved you in the plot. You made choices for the characters and thus shaped the plot. I'm wondering how this will affect my reading of Bright Lights Big City, I'll soon find out.

BTW - Please don't put any spoilers in the comments section if you have read it. This is what dickheads do.

Human Beings Are Fragile Things

Having been a drama student I've been in some student films, most of which I'd not like to see, and I'd like it even less if other people saw them. There are exceptions to this and the following video is the best example of that.

The guys who made it did a really good job on it and when it was screened at a local club (the Brickyard in Carlisle) I have to say I felt cool as fuck.



Any of you who've seen the blood face photograph I use on social networking sites now know where it comes from.

Wonder what the guys who made it are doing now. If you are still making films give me a shout, I'm skint and come v.cheap these days.

I Predicted The Election Result

So David Cameron is now prime minister and everyone is a bit pissed off that the Lib Dems basically have abandoned their policies for some cushy jobs and the pleasure of being Cameron's Bitches (no not in that funky rapper way).

I'm not a political blogger so I'm not going to go into the finer points on anything. I know Gordon Brown ballsed a few things up but I think a lot of his unpopularity came from the fact that he's getting on a bit (New Labour is no longer young hip and sexy) and that he's a Scot (this is an admission that I recognise the prejudices of the national media - I personally think the Scots are cool).

I think it was a bit nasty how he went but when it comes to politics all ideas of fairness should be left at the door.

Anyways I knew this was going to happen and I could have spared brown the time and effort involved in a lengthy campaign. You see last year I made this video all about the what would build up to the end of the world.

I can't say how they're all linked because that's not how being psychic works. Instead today a little piece of the puzzle clicked into place and if you watch the sequence of faces that starts at 0:51 it'll make a bit of sense to you too. If you can figure it out I'm sure it can all be stopped. Save yourselves! And others!

Dear John - Review

Crap

Smallville - Dawson's Creek for Comic Book Geeks

Smallville has long been an excuse for the lonely teenage geek to indulge in slushy awkward romance fantasies while avoiding the ridicule that an admission of watching Gossip Girl or The OC would bring them.

You see regardless of the Lana Lang/Clark Kent/Lex Luthor/Louis Lane love rectangle that the teenager so eagerly watches sometimes adding Chloe (?) to it for the sake of making a magic pentagram to cast on the people that mock them for watching it, the teenager can always argue that they watch Smallville because it's about Superman and therefore it's comic book based and somehow not fair to slag it off.

If you look properly at it though Smallville tries to cash in on all the cheesy romance crap it can, from Clark's switching between good Clark and bad Clark to the cheeseball lines lex says. One memorable occasion was Lex quoting John Donne to Lana to show her that Clark couldn't have written her some slushy poem because "Clark doesn't understand that poetry is all about seduction"

Fuck sake Lex, you're supposed to be a fucking baddie.

The biggest proof that comic book fans watch Smallville for it's slushy sentimentality is all the Lex and Clark friends that grow into deadly enemies hints that are thrown out all over the place to allow sappy geeks to shout "A-ha!" everytime they hear one.

Here's one, the worst one, and please try to remember that Lex is supposed to be a baddie and not some character thrown in at the last minute because he was too bald for a Mills and Boon novel:



I mean if someone you knew said this to you, even if they were pished out of their face and you'd just done them the biggest favour of their lives, you probably wouldn't speak to them again, just incase they said it in front of someone that knew you.

Maybe it was moments like this that made Clark and Lex enemies in the end, not because Lex turned to crime but because Clark grew fed up with his ballbag, cheeseball lines.

Smallville fans would see this coming but since most comic book geeks have no friends, they have no basis for comparison and rely on me to provide them with the knowledge.

The Adventures of Boring Tom - Part 5

One day Boring Tom called the cops on his illegally parked neighbour.

The cops came and clamped the car.

Later that night someone broke Boring Tom's windows, and he didn't know why.

Boring Tom Stories by Gerard McKeown and Ryan O'Neill.