Born under a bad sign

I awoke after yet another sleepless night, and there’s little more dreary and disheartening than having to face the world and its relentless inequities with a sluggish, cotton-laden mind. What is doubly frustrating is that the night before I had a reasonable night’s sleep (4 hours or so) Anything more that that is a bloody miracle, and I’m not the only poor twonker still waiting for one of those elusive beauties. This glorious 4 hours of untrammelled bliss was then interrupted by an unbidden phone call, rudely censoring my zesty sex dream into illegible shreds, and hurled me screaming into a most unwelcome wakefulness. Yet today when I would actually welcome the distraction of a spontaneous call to ease the suffering insomnia affords, none is forthcoming. Am I to understand that this is to be my lot, 4 hours of uninterrupted sleep every 2 weeks? My cup do indeed runneth over!  Much of the last 8 months has been me starring at this wretched screen and writing under the mischievous influence of sleep deprivation; the perverse thing about all this is that I am close to completing my very best work thus far, but the herculean effort it took makes me sick to the stomach to think about it.   Where’s the cheery call today? How are ya, mate? Never happens. Doesn’t work that way, but those cunts from Virgin are bound to call (again!) desperate to sign me up to something I already have. “You can see by my fucking direct debit’s what monies I’m giving to you capitalist arse-smears; if I wanted anything else I’d ask for it....FUCK OFF & CHOKE IN TOXIC SLURRY YOU INVASIVE SHIT-FLAKES!”  Ditto when I go into a shop and some wan-faced cretin slimes up to you like an odious tapeworm... “I don’t need any fucking assistance, shit-neck, I’ve been buying underpants for over 30 fucking years! I know the fucking drill,colon-breath; those underpants over there in a garishly coloured bag clearly marked underpants, see them, well do you, cunt?  yes. So can I, fuck off! The next time that plastic-chinned, corporate drone assails me in the aisle I will repeatedly slam my elbow into his throat; and I can do 250 push ups without crying, dingle-chest; so it’s gonna’ fucking hurt you far more than me, piss-house!    

OFF TANGENT:

I have to complete the final re-writes today and it appears that my anonymous, creaky chair has now unhappily turned into a malevolent, De Sardian contraption; making my current writing jag seem like a particularly piquant torture that I would gladly avoid. (The irony being I’ve just spent 45 minutes writing this bloody thing!) But scribbling sleep-deprived, stream of consciousness guffnal is quite healing; which is quite indicative of the initial stage of prose writing itself, the first swathe can almost appear to be automatic; writing as creative delirium, the graft is honing it; which by its very nature is wholly unpleasant as you have to accept that much of your ‘creative delirium’ is little more than an ill-shaped heft of ungainly granite; like a sculptor extracting beauty from the craggy rock; the dedicated writer has to hack and slash at all the self-generated narrative detritus with all the unsparing rigor of Chuck Norris in his brother’s ‘Missing in Action’ opus.  So you wake up (Hopefully after at least  2 hours sleep) turn your computer on and dread the discovery of all the glaring errors of syntax, repetition, lack of spontaneity etc; so your first clarion call to your working day is always “You’re shit! Why the fuck would you write that, WANKER!” this is, naturally, followed by a coruscating, derisory laugh. I understand that some individuals awake to the unctuous smell of coffee and toast made by loved ones; clearly your own mean-spirited ego calling you a pigeon-clawed wanker is a poor replacement for said cup of tea/coffee and a hug. (I actually feel misty-eyed as I write this as tomorrow will  commence with yet another Robert Plant-ian bray of “CALL THIS A RE-WRITE? CUNT!  Maybe you should’ve have concentrated a bit more, rather than replayed the sequences with Elke Sommer in ‘Dealier than the Male’. You’re emphatically not a suave Richard Johnson type, you are merely: "Jason" an alienated, opinionated, follically-needly, over-muscled, cave-dwelling scrivener with a hopelessly unfashionable appreciation of Stacy Keach films....CUNT! (It’s the final contemptuous cunt that always get’s to me; I appear to be quite the cruel taskmaster) That wretched phase ‘Your own worst enemy’ is most apropos in my case;  but how on gedrills earth do you usurp yourself?  I was boggin' myself aht so I chopped myself in the fucking neck; knocked me spark out! (You can see the flaws for yourself)

         

There has, unhappily, been some psychic legislation in place for some considerable time now : ‘Sod’s Law’; our American cousins might be more familiar with its transatlantic bedfellow: ‘Murphy’s Law’. Since much of my life has been blighted by said philosophical algorithm it has become a tiresome bane, coming to the point where I am loathe accepting that anything nice could ever happen to me, since I know it simply won’t last. Like so many sensitive, creative individuals I am a product of a profoundly disharmonious childhood. People repeatedly say ‘Sod’s Law’ as if it contained no more malice than a prosaic nose-sniffle, but it’s truly a vicious motherfucker and it has made a blight of much of my life thus far (again, I can imagine I am not alone in this realisation) What might be more spontaneous and agreeable would be this amusing little variable: All within my life’s delicate schematic is currently dogshit and this stifling ordure is swiftly leavened by something beautiful, sublime, and agenda free...Nil fucking points there, chief; what actually happens is: ‘Everything is currently dog shit and the celestial, guardian hound of all things faecal still manages to squeeze out yet another fragrant turd of oily despair: Magic!  I am entirely reconciled by the equation of joy being regularly interrupted by unpleasantness; without this we would have no valid perception of joy itself; but what concerns me is this repetitive corrosive syndrome of misery stoked upon misery.  What am I supposed to glean from this hateful formula?

EPILOGUE:

Everyfuckingtime I listen to Albert King’s Immortal ‘Born Under a Bad Sign’ album I always get an emotive frisson on hearing the bitter-sweet line....”If if wasn’t for bad luck I’d have no luck at all” This legendary Bluesman/epic guitarist manages to capture all the grotesque travails of life in one haymaker line.   The best those fatuous Zeppelin bloaters could come up with is ...”Squeeze my Lemon”  Squeeze your own fucking lemon you vitamin-crazed, braying oaf! Or I’ll give you every inch of my knee into your coke-addled, pussy-stinkin’ face. There is something wildly cathartic about hating on Zeppelin as it cheers my febrile soul (Excluding Zep III, naturally, really bloody annoying that; for once Page stops being a sausage-fingered hack and goes all nimble and Bert Jansch-afied, so I can’t actually bring myself to hate on it, it’s actually rather splendid; Plant miraculously becomes self-aware and tones his wretched screech down to a more melodious timbre) 


Still, I’d rather be listening to Black Sabbath...Should have that put on my fucking headstone. 

New Characters

Whilst walking down to the supermarket t'other day I happened to spy upon two rather unfortunate-looking fellows; this crumpled individual before me was particularly crazed and soiled-looking, as he trundled away in his knackered trainers, heavily soiled slacks and threadbare Jumper circa '86' (either Primark or Debenhams? sadly, even brand new it would remain a profoundly unsightly garment) But what really struck me were his intense staring eyes and the way his long, unlit cigarette just bobbed in his mouth as he traversed speedily, with such resolute purpose up the road. This cat's image stayed with me for the rest of my walk. Then, moments before wending my way into the supermarket this tall, gaunt, almost Dario Argento-looking knave caught my eye. Fortunately it was a brisk afternoon so all his nefarious stenches were wafted away from mine oh so sensitive, button nose; again, this wan-misfit, with his oily visage and ill-fitting toupee remained with me all during my brief shopping excursion. (I never realised you could also buy wigs replete with such a greasy veneer?) When I returned home I rapidly wrote about them only to discover to my joy that I now had two brand new characters which was, of course, entirely splendid; especially since I had only popped out for three tins of boneless & skinless sardines and 200g of Mature Cheddar Cheese. These new characters will be, of course, quite disgusting, and their mis-adventures shall be profane, expletive-ridden, or even possibly obscene, depending on one's sensibilities (Ha! Ha!). 

Bastard re-write!

After 8 long, sleep-deprived, booze-addled months I am nearing the final draft of my new (and first!) play. Even though I have been a writer for over 20 years I was wholly unprepared for how fucking intense and angst-inducing this project would be. It now seems somewhat naive of me to think that I would be finished by my birthday (August); even working 7-days a week it seemed to be a task with no visible end: re-write, re-write, re-write; endlessly chiseling away until each monologue, joke, rant, philosophical tangent was perfect. Primarily being a screenwriter, gag-meister and music writer I am still dazed by the degree of insane detail that goes into constructing a play! (Some of the monologues took weeks to perfect) The truth (always an unpleasant taskmaster) is that regularly writing for prolonged periods about something so personal, and so mind-scrafingly deranged demonstratively took it's toll on me emotionally and physically. Spending hours, upon hours creating yet-more obscenity for this main character to indulge in, ultimately became entirely wearing. Misogynist, cannibal killers think bad thoughts; all the bloody time! There's no break in their routine of filth and degraded perception. Incorrigible swine, they are. While this piece is ostensibly a black comedy, the black; goat of mendes! The black began oozing out of my pores like rotten Indian ink. Can't even write about it anymore, no catharsis to be found in wordplay; no cure for alienation; I clearly cannot write my way out of soul-withering loneliness; it's like having icy deposits permanently and incessantly grinding away in your delicate bone marrow; going to bed each night alone has it's very own singular coda of misery; with no one to mop your sweaty brow, or coo soothing words of encouragement into your exhausted ears, one seeks a fools solace in alcohol (abject lunacy!) and guess what? Sobriety isn't much better either. To paraphrase a friend of mine ..."Sobriety is overrated" Indeed; but yet again it's another case of damned if you do, damned if you don't.   If this is the kind of head-fuck shit Hemmingway went through each day, it's somewhat miraculous that he didn't exit sooner than he did.