Things to do with your hands when not writing #1

While sitting in the dark, move your fingers in front of the glaring light being pumped out from your laptop screen. If you concentrate hard enough, you’ll soon be able to conjure up some short dramatic scenes performed in silhouette, with your digits portraying each of the characters. As long as there are not more than eight characters, of course. And if you’re concerned about your thumbs missing out, maybe they can take on the roles of dwarves. Bald, muscular dwarves.

For instance - yes, there is a for instance, because I do these things so you don’t have to - my right ring finger just brutally attacked my left forefinger during a re-enactment of a martial arts scene from a Quentin Tarantino movie of which I have only ever seen a few clips on the internet. It was surprisingly graphic. The re-enactment, I mean. Not the film. Though the film might be. I haven’t seen it. Only clips. But I mentioned that already.

Earlier this evening, I also performed my own backlit finger version of A Room With A View, the memorable 1985 Merchant Ivory adaptation of the E.M. Forster novel, using only my little fingers. It was dreadfully unconvincing, since neither pinky particularly resembled either Helena Bonham-Carter or Julian Sands. And after their first tender kiss, Julian Sands (right pinky) wanted to go further with Helena Bonham-Carter (left pinky) than she was prepared to allow due to her prim and proper deportment. Whereupon Julian became a sexually ravenous monster consumed by unrestrained Edwardian lust, and the whole scene descended into just another Quentin Tarantino martial arts movie, with Helena (left pinky) dealing Julian (right pinky) a swift blow to the clavicle followed by a sharp kick in the testicles.

I am currently immersed in the difficult task of planning the casting for my finger silhouette version of 12 Angry Men. It is proving traumatic. I may need to borrow two fingers from somewhere.

This is my life. Pity me.

I am not sure this series of posts is one of my better ideas. I feel - because to ‘feel’ is all the rage, you know - that it will not make it to a second instalment.Though I will, of course, keep you informed. Won’t we, left pinky? Won’t we, right pinky?

Dead people’s things for sale #5

So on and so forth

Hello. I have been thinking about trying to write here again. Or just write. Anywhere. But I am not sure. Not sure. Yet. So. How have you been? I hope you have been well. I have been. I have been somewhere. Things have happened. Other things have not happened. And other things have happened in other places in the lives of other people. Needless to say, however, I am not even aware of those things. Or those people. I do not talk about those things. Or those people. We do not speak. We are not on speaking terms. So. Yes. Writing. It’s difficult. Except it isn’t. Or it shouldn’t be. Mae West came to me in a dream. She looked old. And dead. Obviously. She was precariously balanced atop a small unicorn. She spoke to me in sleazy, come hither tones. She said: “You know you don’t have to act with me, Steve. You don’t have to say anything, and you don’t have to do anything. Not a thing. Oh, maybe just write. You know how to write, don’t you, Steve? You just put your lips together and … blow.” I was confused. I told her that my name wasn’t Steve. I also told her that she was wrong. That her most famous movie line applied to whistling. Not writing. That she was clearly senile in her old age. Or her old deadness. She was not amused. She hardened her gaze. She was no longer come hither. She commanded her pet unicorn to gouge out my eyes with its mythical horn. So now I sit here. Without any eyes. But only mythically. All because of Mae. I keep hoping that Katharine Hepburn will come to me in a dream and tell me the secret of inspiration. But she does not. She is too busy lurking in the subconscious of Ian McEwan. Probably. I don’t know. I have not spoken to Ian McEwan lately. Or at all. He doesn’t write. He doesn’t call. He doesn’t send me verbose billets-doux. Nothing. So. Writing. Not yet, I don’t think. I need to make these surroundings more aesthetically pleasing. Except I don’t. That is called procrastination. I need to make these pages prettier. Pretty. Prettify. No, I don’t. I am still procrastinating. But that is what I do. When I don’t write. I arrange. I am a flower arranger. But with words. I make words look good. Look better. I rejuvenate them. With my gouged visual designer’s eyes. Give them a nip here and a tuck there. Especially to ugly words. “Obsolescence,” I say, since obsolescence is a rather hideous word. “Obsolescence, you look twenty years younger. Obsequious, you no longer have a double chin. Obstinate, your skin is positively glowing.” I am working through words beginning with ‘ob’ at the moment. As you can tell. This will be a long process. So I know that I do not need to arrange words in ways that are pleasing to the restful gaze. Not needed. Needless. But I enjoy it. It keeps me off the streets. It keeps me out of gutters. Stops me sitting on kerbs, with my eyes gouged out by a unicorn, drinking methylated spirits and shouting at passers-by that I used to be somebody. Even though I didn’t. Used to be somebody, that is. I used to be me. I still am me. Still. Am. Apparently. But we’re not talking. We’re not on speaking terms. I don’t write. I don’t call. I don’t send myself verbose billets-doux. Only Ian McEwan cares. He keeps chatting to me via email. Or so I imagine. “Come out and play,” he says, like a five-year-old child. “We can build sandcastles in the sand on sandy beaches with buckets and spades and then write about building our sandcastles. It will be fun. My mummy has put me in shorts today. Just for this. I have scabby knees.” I ignore him. I have blocked him. Ian McEwan didn’t want to talk to me before. He didn’t want to oust Mae West from my dreams, heal my unicorn-assaulted eyes and inspire me to write. So I don’t want anything to do with him now. Goodbye, Ian McEwan. Haruki Murakami, though. Haruki’s a different matter. A different kettle of fish. He keeps calling me. Keeps calling me at work. In the middle of the night. Every hour of the day. Crying down the phone. Weeping. Wailing. He is begging me to recommence writing. That’s what I think, anyway. In truth, he is speaking Japanese. Of course. So he could be saying anything. So I speak to him in soothing tones. Though not erotic tones. We do not have that kind of relationship. Yet. “Haruki,” I say. “Haruki, you know I love and respect you. But you have to stop calling me. This relationship can go nowhere. I am not Japanese. I cannot speakee de lingo. Inglese. That’s Italian. Oh. Must speak Japanese. Konichiwa. Domo arigato. Sayonara.” But he doesn’t understand. Or he is offended by my clumsy attempts at speaking Japanese. So he hangs up. Only to call again a few hours later. Weeping. And wailing. Again. So. Writing. Yes. But no. But yes and no. I am undecided. I equivocate. I vacillate. I prevaricate. I have a thesaurus stuck in my throat that is preventing me from vomiting. I am trying to slowly work it free by drinking gallons of castor oil. It isn’t working. Writing. Definitely. Possibly. I think I should stop now. Temporarily. Fleetingly. Perhaps for longer. Sylvia Plath is on the phone. She is being pestered by Ted Hughes in death. She wants to talk to me about him. She is interested in someone new. Someone younger. Someone virile. Deadly virile. She has met Heath Ledger in heaven and wants to relieve her womanly urges by having phone sex with me whilst masturbating over centerfold pictures of Heath ripped from cheap and tawdry movie magazines. This is my life. You see? This is my life. I simply don’t have time for writing. My life is filled. Bursting. Throbbing and expectant. My head hurts. Both of them. So. Writing. No. I was going to close the comments on this post. Not because I hate you. I don’t hate you. I hate Ian McEwan and Haruki Murakami. I would hate Sylvia Plath too. But she is just about to erupt into a blissful wave of afterlife orgasm and it feels rude to interrupt. I am finding it difficult to concentrate. It is difficult when Sylvia Plath is breathing heavily and erratically down the line from heaven. So I don’t hate you. And I haven’t closed the comments. I was probably just feeling insecure. I am certainly feeling very brittle. I may snap at any moment. Like a twig. Or a cracker. Or a fortune cookie. Or a tibia. Sylvia, no. No, Sylvia. I won’t do that. It’s wrong. It would feel wrong. So wrong. Yet so good. So very good. No, I must not. You have significant mental health problems. And you’re dead. We shouldn’t forget that small fact. You are dead. You may have venereal diseases of the soil. Or worms. Or worse. Your deadened, dried-up lungs might still be full of gas from your oven. And Ted Hughes would hate me if I did you. Even if I did you only virtually. He would come after me on a unicorn, screaming poetic obscenities. And assisted by the black-robed figure of Death wielding his scythe. Death hates me. He does not like my writing. He used to read me all the time. But he stopped early last year when I lost the plot and started getting too obscure. There he is. Death. With his scythe. And a malicious grin on his face. I must go. Mae West, Katharine Hepburn, Ian McEwan, Haruki Murakami, Sylvia Plath, Ted Hughes and Heath Ledger are all after me. I’m feeling hounded and victimised. I will be back. Maybe. You know. Don’t wait up. You may pine gently, if you wish. Just don’t wait up. I will be. Thing. Stuff and nonsense. Back. Yes. No. Oh, I don’t know. Not right now. Don’t ask awkward questions of me. I may snap. Like a crocodile. Sylvia, stop it. Stop it, Sylvia. I’m going to hang up, Sylvia. I’m going to hang up. That’s it. Quite enough. That’s quite enough of that. And of this. I need to make a swift unicorn-assisted escape. Help me. Goodbye.

[Pause for dramatic effect]

There now follows an impromptu address to the massed ranks of witnesses to the unreliable. Please do not whisper, fidget or pick your nose whilst I’m speaking.

In truth, I hate entries like this. They’re the worst refuge of the self-important blogger. “Look at me!” they cry, whilst acting deliberately self-effacing and sternly instructing everyone to look away.

Be that as it may, I think this entry is more a form of home-produced Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for myself, in order to stop my itchy fingers feeling the pull of the empty white space on the ‘Add New Post’ screen, or succumbing to the irresistible lure of the ‘Publish’ button.

So. An Unreliable Witness is taking a long walk off a short pier. Though most definitely not a conclusive one, I hasten to add. I’ll be taking a lifebelt with me. I thought I might just drift around the coastline for a while, rather like a confused whale that’s taken a wrong turning out of the ocean because they want to see what life is like over there where the bright lights are shining in the dark. Whilst I’m aimlessly drifting, I will be considering a few small but not insignificant matters like how to find gainful employment that doesn’t make me want to eat my own brain cells with a long-handled spoon on a daily basis. Like whether I am still enjoying this thing we call writing, whether it’s really for me, whether I can still do it, and whether I even have any half-original ideas or words left in my echoing head. I might also spend some time packaging up and returning the various boiled bunnies I’ve received in the mail over recent months to their respective senders. I’m sure that it will all be very self-absorbed and navel-gazing - fascinating only to myself - and in fairness I really don’t see why any of you should have to suffer it.

In the meantime, you’ll still be able to find me spewing various web flotsam on my tumblr, ‘editing’ (in a manner of speaking) and putting some fantastic work by other people on Writers’ Bloc, as well as occasionally exercising my poetic muscles on PIFFLE. There’s also the archives of this very site. Over there. If you want. Though I wouldn’t, if I were you.

Back soon. Ish.

Sans

Fame puts you there where things are hollow

This morning, I woke up, wiped the sleep from my bloodshot eyes, and decided that I was going to be famous. Now. Now I’m famous. There. I became famous in the same moment that I typed the word ‘now’. At this precise point in time, right this minute, I am a legend. A legend in my own lifetime. My own lunchtime. It feels wonderful. You can touch me if you wish. I’ll let you touch me. I’ll let you breathe my rarefied air. The air that I breathe isn’t the same as your air. It’s better. It’s purer and cleaner. Because I’m now famous.

Back in the real world - or is it the internet world? I can no longer tell the difference - a cult writer called Tao Lin, who has achieved considerable fame and notoriety on the web, has (apparently) sold his Myspace account on eBay for $8,100.

In 1968, Andy Warhol said: “In the future, everyone will be world-famous for fifteen minutes”. Never one to knowingly undersell himself or his own artistic and philosophical statements, by 1979 he believed that his crystal ball-gazing had already come to pass: “My prediction from the sixties finally came true: in the future everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes”.

That’s £5,413., if you’re frantically trying to get your head round the currency conversion in these financially catastrophic times.

Rubbish. I remember 1979 - albeit only via the memories that I’m able to dredge up from the mind of a chubby eight year-old boy - and it was considerably more difficult to be famous back then. David Bowie was a superstar in 1979; my uncle Percy, who sang to flat-capped blokes and their flowery-skirted wives on Sunday afternoons at his local working mens’ club, was not.

The ‘lucky’ winning bidder received access to Tao Lin’s 1,500-plus Myspace ‘friends’.

Thirty years later, however, my uncle Percy could be famous if he chose to be. He could ask his friend Hilda - “I may be eighty-six years young, but I’m still sprightly on these pins” - to bring her grandson’s handheld camcorder down to the care home and record him weakly droning wartime singalong favourites to the assembled dribbling pensioners. Uploaded onto his own Youtube channel, I have no doubt that within days Percy would be receiving more views, embeds and bone-headed comments than all the available David Bowie clips on the time-wasting, video-sharing site. This is a fact. You know I’m right. Don’t even dare to disagree with me.

[Please note the ironic quotation marks scattered throughout this incisive italicised commentary. Indeed, please note all the ironic quotation marks, since they are an even more ironic stylistic reference to the writer in question, although you might not realise it if you don’t know the work of Tao Lin. Which means that I had to explain the joke. Which means that I have just entirely devalued it. Killed it. Made it lack all humour whatsoever. I can feel my lifeblood slipping away as I type this.]

Sadly, my poor uncle Percy will never be famous. He died sometime in the mid-1980s, before the internet came into all our homes. Thirty years on from being a singing sensation glimpsed only by a select but inebriated few (and their dogs), he is so extremely unmemorable that I can’t even remember the exact year in which he died. Or what he looked like. In fact, I could probably tell you more about Andy Warhol, whom I never met.

The possibly mentally unbalanced new owner of this Myspace account is also entitled to somewhere between 0.5 - 5% of Tao Lin’s “internet presence/identity”. Whatever that means.

If only Warhol had been able to foresee the tarnished golden age of the internet, skulking just around the corner with its tempting offers of free hardcore pornography and kitten videos hidden under its filthy trenchcoat, I have no doubt that his head would have exploded, causing his signature white mop of hair to shoot six feet into the air and land on an unsuspecting passer-by. That unfortunate but hugely comical moment would also be available on Youtube, thus allowing me to embed it below for your entertainment. The passer-by would gain worldwide attention and, proving Warhol’s theory, would go on to be famous for fifteen minutes.

At this point, I will freely admit that I have never read a Tao Lin book, poem, or indeed any of his writing. Nor have I any particular desire to do so. I am just commenting on the ridiculous situation, rather than any literary merits of the author himself.

Seven paragraphs into this ill-considered diatribe and I remain famous, whilst you remain the obedient Little People reading my words. Don’t you feel honoured? You can still touch me too, if you like. Please. Please touch me. Touch me. Just there. There. That’s the spot. There. Fuck. Yes. That’s it. Oh. Ohhh.

I suspect that only a small percentage of my circle of ‘internet friends’ know or even care who Tao Lin is.

But why am I famous? Why? I’m famous because I’m on the internet. I write a blog on the internet. I have written a blog on the internet since October 2000. Nearly nine years. That’s a lot longer than fifteen pathetic minutes, Mr Warhol. My site is linked in more than a few places on the web. I have readers. I have stalkers. I have met other people through the internet who also have readers and stalkers. We are all famous. All of us. Sometimes we meet up in our secret cabal of exclusive internet fame, going in disguise and stepping through the hordes of paparazzi snappers desperate to get pictures of us. We sit around discussing the stresses and strains of being so bloody famous. Later in the evening, when we’ve drunk as much champagne as we can stomach and vomited caviar into a bucket, we usually call up three or four ardent fans who are only too pleased to come over and allow us to snort cocaine off their bare ass cheeks, in return for an autograph scrawled across their tender young breasts. Or a mention on our blogs. Or a free copy of our latest chapbook.

Anyone else with whom I come into contact on a daily basis would probably greet the name Tao Lin with a blank stare, a slack-jawed open mouth, and a disinterested mumble of “Huh?”

Sometimes, in the dark moments, I am plagued by insecurity. I feel that the imposing edifice of fame I have constructed for myself out of the virtual attention that you, the Little People, so lavish upon me is slipping into the sand, falling back into its feeble foundations. That’s when I’m in the real world, though; the real world where, I’m ashamed to admit, my extraordinary internet fame means nothing. Not a thing.

But I don’t plan to embarrass myself by asking these people. They think I’m strange enough already, so I don’t wish to confirm all their worst fears about my odd behaviour.

It’s hard to believe, but there are those in my life - acquaintances, colleagues, relatives - for whom the internet is merely somewhere they go to send emails, browse the news, buy groceries, maybe download some music, possibly watch kitten videos, and occasionally bleakly masturbate over sweaty, grunting pornography. Their lack of internet knowledge means that, tragically, they fail to appreciate that even though I continue to do entirely normal things like go to the office, pay household bills, do the washing-up and visit the bathroom to excrete the same waste products as every other human being, I am different. I am more important. I am famous.

Instead, I will carry out a straw poll on Tao Lin’s unquestionably immense worldwide fame via those authoritative fonts of all knowledge known as London cab drivers.

I confess that I find myself at a complete loss about what to do with such people. They are ruining my natural karma. Should I refuse to speak to them? Should I delete them from my life? Should I remain indoors and live only on the internet for ever more, so that I can remain in my closeted world of virtual online fame? Or should I list their names here - each and every one of their sad, sorry, worthless identities - so that you can spew blind hatred at them into the comments following these words, whilst simultaneously massaging my ego to the point of noxious orgasm? I don’t know. I just don’t know any more.

I will, of course, report back on my findings. Possibly. If I’ve not been incarcerated for my own safety.

Before my towering self-belief overwhelms all of us, I wish to make clear that I am not entirely deluded. I know that there still exist some distant corners of the web where the virtual citizens have not fallen under my spell. They fail to be captivated by my obscure writings, and are not reduced to gibbering imbeciles when I bestow my presence upon them. Indeed, though it’s hard to believe, in some quarters both my chosen pseudonym and my real name mean nothing. Absolutely nothing. I cope with this traumatic realisation by ignoring such fools, imagining them perishing in particularly cruel and unusual ways, then turning back to the warm and reassuring glow of one of my many websites. Where I mean something. Where I mean everything. Where my fame bleeds out of every electronic pore. And where my devoted followers know my true worth.

Everything has gone slightly crazy, hasn’t it? I think the planet is shifting on its axis or something. A seismic event has occurred. Or not. Reality has become intangible, a mere concept. We’re all dying like drowned flies in so much sickly honey.

That’s it. No more. Enough meaningless adulation. Let’s talk hard capitalist profit. This website is officially for sale. An Unreliable Witness is up for auction. Let’s start the bidding at £5,000, shall we?

I feel ill. Help me understand what’s happening. I feel unwell. Help me, somebody. I feel nauseous. Help me, please. I feel lost. Help.

Hello? Hello? Is anyone there? What, don’t tell me my fifteen minutes are up already?

From the pen of Mr Chen

Gosh, that rhymes. Anyone would think I liked writing or something. But clearly not much. Anyway, enough about me. Really. Enough about me. This is an important public service announcement.

If you haven’t yet ventured into the world of Writers’ Bloc, why the hell not? You should do. It’s good. Better than cheese. Almost. Where was I? Oh yes. If you haven’t been reading Writers’ Bloc, now would be a good time to start. Really, it would. Because as the supposed editor of the aforementioned site, I have recklessly declared that this week is to be JIMMY CHEN WEEK. Why? Well, who needs a reason. Okay, there is a reason. Or two. It’s to mark the publication of Mr Chen’s flash fiction collection called Typewriter, but also because, well, he’s Jimmy Chen. And he’s great. Better than cheese. Definitely. So put down that hunk of Halloumi and that wedge of Wensleydale, and go get yourself a delicious chunk of Chen.

In retrospect, I’m not sure about this whole cheese metaphor.

World domination is all a matter of interpretation

They say that I need a plan. Whoever they are. I say that I have a plan. A twelve-step plan, I say. They ask if I am an alcoholic. I reconsider my reply.

They say that I need a plan. Whoever they are. I say that plans are for careerist swine, for capitalist scum, for faceless and spineless tools of the system. I say that I will get wherever I am going - not that I know where I’m going, or even where I am - by steadfastly refusing to do what The Man tells me. By rebelling. They ask me what I am rebelling against. What have you got, I answer. For a moment, I feel just like Marlon Brando. Except alive, obviously. For another moment, I feel just like a spiky-haired, phlegm-spitting, safety pin-wearing punk. Anarchy. anarchist, anachronistic. I feel like Johnny Rotten. Before he started wearing tweed and selling butter in primetime ad breaks, obviously.

They tell me that I need to sell myself, push myself forward more, put myself out there, spread myself around, open myself up. I tell them that I am not some kind of cheap whore. I am not spreading for anyone. Though momentarily I consider offering salacious pictures of myself, albeit festooned with black strips to censor the most disturbing parts from innocent pairs of eyes.

They tell me that I need a line - a single line - which makes people stop. Stop and blink. Just once. Stop and think. More than once. Stop and think - yeah. Or wow. Or wow and yeah. Or gosh, if they’re posh. I tell them that, finally, they might have a point. A clue. They might be talking sense. That sounds like a plan, I say. A good plan. A line. I need a line. A line to add at the end of my words, after my signature, dymo taped to my forehead, written across my hairless chest with a cheap, leaking ballpoint pen.

“An Unreliable Witness is currently working on his first novel.”

No, they say. Don’t be ridiculous. Or pretentious.

“An Unreliable Witness is currently working on his first navel.”

Better, they say. Certainly more achievable, more realistic. Though arguably, you have been working on that navel for some years, and gazed at it endlessly.

“An Unreliable Witness is currently working on his first anvil.”

That’s rather too luddite, they say. Think of the white heat of technology, they add. The future. Look to the future. I am short-sighted, I respond.

“An Unreliable Witness is currently working on his first duvet.”

Yes, that’s it, they say. That’s the one. That’s the motherfucking one. That says everything. All that we need to know. All that anyone needs to know. Forever. And ever.

But I don’t answer. I am too busy. Under the duvet. Shivering. Laughing. Not laughing. Gasping. Holding my breath until I can’t. Hold. My. Breath. Any. Longer. And.

Self-publicity or nervous breakdown? You decide

If you think my writing is impenetrable, obscure, even pretentious, then standby for a revelation, for I am about to speak plainly. Or should that be write plainly? I don’t know. Indeed, I probably don’t care either. But whichever it is, I will be plain and simple and straightforward in the delivery of what I am about to say. Or write. And the words shall be offered here, in stark black and white, without excessive obfuscation, ornamentation or another word beginning in o and ending in -ation.

I am suffering from a crisis of confidence.

This crisis of confidence is brought to you by the letters F and J, and the number 6. Also by a chronic lack of inspiration, a dearth of words, and a surfeit of utterly tedious, stress-inducing life. (I hate my life. Did I mention that? If I didn’t, I should have done. Because I do. Hate my life, that is. Harsh, brutal, but true. So there.)

At the risk of spelling it out and spoon-feeding you until you’re dribbling baby food from the corner of your greedy mouth like so much sweet-smelling vomit, none of the above are known for being useful contributing factors towards bouts of frenzied creativity. They’re not, you know. Because I said so. Don’t argue with me, because I’m not in the mood.

If I was a drama queen, I would now climb into an old tin bath filled to the brim with cheap gin, and scrub myself with the business end of a cheese grater, whilst wailing and weeping about being unloved. I would carry on in this manner until someone paid me some attention. Or shot me in the side of the head like an old nag. Or I died of entirely natural causes, like intense boredom. Whichever came sooner. I’m not fussy about the means of my tragic passing.

But I am not a drama queen - not this week, anyway - so I am merely going to make myself feel better by behaving like a spoilt brat and forcing everyone to look in this direction by hosting a Pointless Competition. So look at me. Look at me. Look at me.

Drum roll, please.

A Pointless Competition

First, you might wish to acquaint (or if you’re a devoted stalker, reacquaint) yourself with a series of entries from the tail end of las year, entitled I am giving up writing because …. There are twenty-five of them, so feel free to just get a flavour of the content rather than reading all of them and bringing on a coronary.

Once you’ve done that, all I require you to do is to leave a comment in which you answer, as inventively and as scurrilously and as indecently and as unsentimentally as possible, the following questions:

1. Why should I (that means me, not you) not give up writing?
2. If I (that still means me, not you) did give up writing, what could I (me, still me, still not you) usefully do instead?

There is also an exciting tie-breaker (because in the tradition of all cheap and tawdry competitions found on the reverse of cereal packets, I demand a tie-breaker):

“An Unreliable Witness is better than …”

Win prizes and stuff

I’m not just doing this for the publicity. Mostly, yes, but not completely. I’m doing this because I love you - each and every one of you foolishly swooning readers - and I want to give you something for your trouble. Not bodily fluids, no. Or skin scrapings, fingernail clippings or strands of my hair. No, something better than all of those.

The lucky winner of this competition will receive:
(i) a single sock as worn by my left foot (washed, unless the winner requests otherwise because of some kind of disturbing fetish);
(ii) a piece of prose written by me, here, on this very site, about the winner, using select details that I shall gather from them via email and/or various cruel and unusual methods of torture.

The rules

There are no rules, man. We’re breaking the rules. Because we’re wild and carefree and full of bile and aimless juvenile rebellion. Or something. Not happy with that? Oh well, you know - be nice to animals and old people. Don’t light fires under small children. The closing date will be when I get bored (and I get bored very quickly). Bribery will probably not be accepted but will be actively encouraged. The prizes are non-negotiable, unless you have an allergy to feet or (heaven forbid) an allergy to my writing.

Always read the small print

That’s all. I feel sick now. I blame you. I may have to stick my fingers down my throat and spew diced carrot all over my keyboard.

Like therapy, minus the Freudian overtones

With an uncharacteristic degree of self-confidence that briefly lulled me into thinking I might be a ‘somebody’ in online writing terms, I let Ryan Manning ask me a series of deep and meaningful questions for his interview site, thunk.

Good luck reading to the end of all I said. I was clearly labouring under the mistaken impression that I was talking to a shrink. Or maybe Ryan really is a shrink, who uses the medium of a seemingly harmless internet interview to get under the skin of his patients. Or maybe I’m just prone to paranoid flights of fancy.

There’s a whole host of better-dressed and better-tanned writer types spilling their verbal guts on the site. They’re probably wittier, too. I feel decidedly uncool in such company.

Dead people’s things for sale #4

Kill all angels

Imagination is a whore. A filthy yet fickle whore. Comes to me and for me, spread-eagled and pouting, offering up everything on a wooden platter. Then she withdraws, closes up and turns away. A frost descends. She’s ice cold, white and drained.

yes i know you want fucking angels and more fucking angels and all i want to give you are fucked angels and angels fucking each other brutally and breathlessly and heartlessly and oh my despicable god he’s not listening yes fucked-up angels with slashed wings and bloody praying hands turned into grasping clawing talons

Imagination wants you to fire her up on an oft-burned spoon. She wants to bubble and fizz for you, wafting across your senses before you shoot her up into your veins. Bliss. Then she wants to leave you cold, shuddering, shivering, dribbling like a blithering babe, newly sprung.

oh go on please tell me about the silken angels the singing angels the silent angels the angels that pray over your soul that stand guard over you on rooftops until daylight dawns and despair dissolves and shout hosannas over your saved soul and every scathing stroke you scratch across the paper cuts and ribbons

Imagination is drunk and deadly. Pissed and delirious. She sits by the side of the cold enamel evacuation tube and tries not to puke into God’s ear. But everything’s swimming, and she’s gurgling. She is never drinking again, swearing as she explodes into an acidic wash.

you don’t talk about angels any more you don’t why don’t you talk about angels any more why don’t you why won’t you talk about us any more you are we dead are we dead are we as dead as dead can be leave us here floating on street corners and in gutters and beaten up in alleys and pissed on by leering lads and with our heads beaten against the broken brickwork by roaming gangs and assaulted verbally and bodily and intimately in cellars but why goddamn you why

Imagination has been fucked senseless and drugged senseless. She’s drunk herself horizontal and had the shit beaten out of her until comatose. She feels glorious and glamorous, vacuous and violated. Imagination knows it’s wrong, but she found herself in the pulsating heart that she now squeezes to pulp between her fingers. Imagination seeps into the white. She goes. And she’s gone.

Three-ring circus

Down on my luck, with a few scrapings to my real name and even fewer clippings to my virtual one, I took myself off to the end of that slow and once graceful meander, where the well-heeled luxurious palaces - built in styles of architecture bearing their regal inspiration and carrying blue plaques paying testament to the presence of unknown dignitaries - suddenly splay wide open, letting loose a seething mass of humanity into a soulless circus of gaudy hoardings and incessant graphical blinkings.

Buy me, buy one, buy another, buy more. They’ll scream and shout until you do. You can’t take it with you, and the clock is ticking. There are only so many minutes remaining before you inevitably decay into dust.

I tapped on the driver’s window. I told him of my weariness, my bitterness and my rancour. I was full of hate, and the only solution I could see was to try for assimilation. I wanted to be accepted as just another anonymous figure lurking under cover of an umbrella, shielding myself from the grimness. He seemed to understand, and agreed to bear me in a funereal procession without end. Just round and round until the money ran out, until there was nothing left of me because I would have at last been eaten away by the clamour of all the worshippers speaking in tongues, as they sought enlightenment in the drizzle sodden temple of conspicuous consumption that surrounded us.

I felt dirty and used, filthier even in thought and deed than the fellow travellers outside my windows. At least they had a single-minded reason to be standing stock still in the middle of this unearthly din, staring up in wide-eyed wonder at the messages writ large, then writ large again. And again and again and again. Slowly scrolling them into submission. Making them believe each neon boast.

The worshippers’ faces were ecstatic, bathed in the pulsating electronic glow as it spilt out into the night and polluted the puddles beneath their feet. These people had come from every distant point - places I couldn’t even imagine, couldn’t even pronounce - to see the sights and soak up the dubious culture, yet here they were captivated by capitalism, raising their exultant gazes to read the few words they understood.

Sony, Samsung, Sanyo and Sega are all alive and well, right here on the streets of Sodom. Wish you were here. Wish hard enough to hell, and you could be.

From fecund to feckless

I’ll try and speak and shout and scream above the sirens for you, dearest. Raise my faded energy loss voice and alcohol addled larynx above the soused spectators on the streets outside and down and dead. So, yes, you should be warned that there’s one stinking shitload of Friday night frenzied fucking and festivities going on, leaking obscenely into Saturday morning shagged senseless and spewing. Just so you know. Just so you get it and get what to expect. But I’m tired. I’m so terribly, terribly tired. If I had the purpose and the commitment and the nerve, this is how it would be. Could be. Should be. Listen. I want to hold you, spoil you, treat you. Treat you like a force of nature, like the animal you keep pleading with me to become. I yearn to drag your battery battered bruised carcass into the middle of the floor, knifing you from head to butt like a master butcher, splitting you bloodily and reaching in to scoop out your innards. You, you never stop, do you? Well, do you? Try as I might I can’t staunch the flow. I can’t stop you seeping through my fingers, sliding down into my hollow palms and dripping from my murderous hands. Hey, but this is art, so that’s okay. It may be arid and antiseptic and rotting in its own juices well past the sell by date, but it’s art for art’s sake and for fuck’s sake. And it’s for mine and everyone else’s sake that I throw your flesh and gristle against the four walls of my cell. To see what sticks. To see if you stick around for seconds. To see if you stick around to the end of this minute. To see if you can stick to me like glue until I sleep, dream, toss and turn. To see if you’ll wake me at dawn with a choral clashing of beauty and violence, a breathless climax that comes in my cranium. Can you last the distance, lover? Can you? You’ve proven yourself for nine years, but can you improve yourself for nine or nineteen more? Here’s the deal, right. Here’s the deal. I’m not asking for much - only what you want to give me that I’m too shy and goody two shoes to take. Except when I gorge on you in an act of self-loathing word lust, of course. So. Give me your straight backs, your crossed lines, your dotted eyes, your parted thighs, your dangerous curves, your seamy underbelly and your pregnant pauses - and then I’ll see what I can do. I’ll see what I can do. I still won’t promise to kiss you on the mouth, though. I’ll just hide away here, scrabbling in the dirt and scribbling for dear disastrous life, croaking ‘til I croak my last. Because it’s all I know. It’s all I am. It’s all I do. And that’s an end to it.

The sickly smell of sacrifice

Jesus had been hanging around on the cross for three long days. Frankly, he was getting rather tired of it. His arms hurt from all that stretching, the strain was tearing them from their sockets, and he had bloody great holes in his hands. As for what all this exposure to the elements was doing to his once smooth, unblemished skin - well, he just wished that the guards would dab some moisturiser on him now and then. He might be redeeming the world from its sins, but that was no reason not to look his best.

The miscreants on the other crosses - who unlike him hadn’t claimed to be the Messiah, but were there for relatively minor offences such as molesting sheep, taking the Lord’s name in vain, stealing car stereos and impaling Roman soldiers on their own gleaming spears - had come and gone so many times that he had lost count of how many agonising deaths he’d already witnessed. The latest batch, however, were all merchant bankers, which pleased him no end. Yeah, he thought, I always said you guys would be first for crucifixion when the revolution came. He smiled when he thought of how his dad would soon be sending bolts of lightning to smite them. Pow, pow, pow. And sizzle. Fried financier, burnt to a crisp. Delicious. Any day now, any day now it would happen - a few thousand volts aimed at their hearts, with another rather gentler crack of the white heat of electricity to tear through his shackles and free him from this cruel and unusual torture.

“Did you say something?” Jesus asked one of the bankers sharply. They had been mumbling amongst themselves in their loud-mouthed, wide boy tones for hours, and it was beginning to drive him righteously nuts.

“No, no. You’re okay, pal. We were just chatting through stock options on tombs in Gethsemane,” said one, quick to try and reassure the maybe Messiah.

“No, we weren’t, Steve,” butted in an incongruous Londoner, who had moved out to Jerusalem to make his fortune selling tourist knick-knacks in the temples. “Why are you skirting round the facts? We’re all blokes here. He’s not some flippin’ pansy, is he? He can take it. Listen, J - is it okay if I call you J? I’m not really a believer, you see - listen, right? It’s just that you’re beginning to Jimmy Cliff a bit …”

“Jimmy Cliff?”

“Whiff. Jimmy Cliff, whiff. Get it? Smell, me old mate. You’re beginning to smell. Do you have any roll-on deodorant? Even a moist scented towelette would help. When did you last take a shower?”

“Not recently. With the arrest, the show trial, and now three days up here with everyone shouting insults at me, cleanliness hasn’t been uppermost in my mind. I’m sure you know how it is. One of the guards has taken pity on me - he says I’ve got kind eyes and I apparently look like someone called Robert Powell - so he keeps coming up and thrusting that wet sponge into the open wound in my side, or using it to moisten my parched lips, but that hardly counts.”

“Wait, are you serious? Three days? You’ve been here for three fucking days? Jesus! Pardon my French. I mean, Christ almighty - ”

“Thank you. But there’s really no need. We are all equal here, under the Lord our God. My dad. The big G. Bless them, Father, for they know not whose body odour they criticise.”

“Right. So is there any chance of this doting daddy of yours sending, like, a torrential shower of holy water to clean you up a bit? I don’t want my last dying thought to be about the horrible stench that comes from your loincloth and assaults my senses when the breeze happens to blow in my direction.”

“I have greater concerns than the mere biological failings of one’s bowels when tortured and tormented by vicious acts of brutality,” replied Jesus, solemnly. He could feel his halo beginning to burn into his scalp, which was always a problem when he was feeling particularly saintly. “Our God - your God - is saving the world from the sordid depths of its unspeakable sin, decadence and abomination by sacrificing me on this cross. My time here is almost at an end, so why should I heed the trivial niceties of earthly ablutions? My soul shall be truly cleansed and made as new when I ascend to heaven to sit at the Lord’s right hand; when my father maketh mine enemies into a footstool.”

Jesus couldn’t help but pointedly direct that remark at his Cockney interrogator. He scowled, as much as his piercing blue eyes would allow him. You’ll get yours, he thought. You’ll bloody well get yours. I’ll make sure I don’t wash my feet for a week. Those unhygienic sandals gave me quite the worst fungal infection.

It was at times like this that Jesus wondered about his father’s suitability for the role of Chief Executive and supreme creator of Heaven and Earth. He had been running the show for such a long time that when the whole thing started going all Sodom and Gomorrah, it had plunged the old man into a deep, dark depression. He had even taken to drinking, and Jesus had spent more nights than he cared to think about listening to God bemoaning the state of the world whilst swigging neat gin: mother’s ruin, if only he’d had a mother. Apparently, according to the Lord, that apple business had upset the whole apple cart; free will had been his biggest mistake ever, and next time he’d be a heartless dictator and make the bastards worship him, no questions asked.

After seeking therapy following the unfortunate flood incident - one night, overtaken by a drunken rage, he had impulsively decided to get shot of the whole damn lot - God had slowly reconciled himself to his mistakes. His angelic psychotherapist had helped him come up with a ten-point plan for putting the world to rights, and putting his one and only son on a wooden cross to have insults thrown at him by non-believers was the penultimate step in this grand scheme. Yet Jesus was still unconvinced, just as he had been when his father first told him about the idea: go down to Earth, do a few miracles to create some publicity, sign up a few eager believers, start the process of getting people to mend their ways, absolve the sins of the feckless wastrels by dying for them, then finally get resurrected and ascend back to heaven a few days later once he’d had all the necessary travel jabs. God’s words echoed round his tormented mind: “Thirty-three years. Blink of an eye. You’ll barely notice it, son”.

To Jesus, however, it had been an age and a half. He had soon realised that these people didn’t want his help; they didn’t want to be saved, and had made that much abundantly clear. He was doing this death thing grudgingly, to say the least. When Satan had shown him what he could have if he came over to the dark side, he had secretly been sorely tempted. He had been even more tempted - and decidedly sore - by the lustful curves of Mary Magdalene, too. But crucifixion called, and Jesus was just too damned disciplined to say no.

It was time, high time, to get the hell - if his dad would pardon the phrase - out of this place. Time to see the storm clouds come rolling in and watch the skies go as black as night. Time for the Roman centurions to fall to their knees and recognise that, yes, he really was the son of God. Time to put on an apocalypse to end all apocalypses. Time for him to summon up the last reserves of his dwindling strength, take a gasp of stale air into his failing lungs, and shout out the agreed secret code phrase at the top of his weary, cracked voice.

“Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?”

There was no answer. Not a sound. Jesus scanned the heavens, desperately and fervently looking for a sign. Anything. Even the comedy celestial right hand would do: emerging from between the clouds to point at him like he was the lucky winner in some lottery advertising campaign, followed by his father’s booming voice intoning that this was his beloved son, with whom he was well pleased. Even that. Couldn’t he just have that? He wasn’t asking for much. Not really. Just some sort of acknowledgement that his miserable existence on Earth hadn’t been a complete waste of time.

But there was nothing. Nothing.

Jesus choked, straining for each individual breath. He was wracked and bleeding, giving up the ghost. This was it. This was the end. Thank you, world, I hope you’re grateful. Thank you very bloody much. It’s been a pleasure. A real stinking pleasure. Honestly, I don’t know why we bothered, dad. I really don’t. Let ‘em have it, let the bastards have it.

The son of God had only one final thought. One final thought to wrench from his broken body and his defeated spirit before death took him in its cold clutches. He looked downwards, fixing his eyes on the Roman soldier scrabbling in the dirt, wailing, begging and grovelling for forgiveness and mercy. This pitiful specimen would be the historic recipient of Jesus’ very last utterance on the situation.

“Fuck.”