Marketeer

I've been struggling to write lately. Perhaps my brain is being slowly eaten by mites. So, instead of wordal content, here's my advert pitch for Loyd Grossman Sauces:

I think it's best to keep it simple. But if you need a tagline, I'd suggest: "TASTY SAUCE(S) FOR FOOD".

I can be reached through my agent.

Mission Statement

My new band is called Ear Mistake.

"We're Ear Mistake" begins the introduction in our debut album's liner notes. It's written in red.

"We're Ear Mistake. And this is our mission statement: STUFF NOTES DOWN THROATS. 

We don't believe in art. We believe in vibrations. Our songs are made to educate, flagellate and deform. These are liner notes. No-one even knows what liner notes are these days. Even releasing a physical CD is tantamount to rutting in the dirt. Well, good. Good. We do rut. We will rut. Come and rut with us. Play this loud.

Ji Ki - Vocals, Lead Mouth Organ

Chris Wade - Vocals, Clicking Noises

Chris Wade (girl version) - Drum Segments

Dorothee Justice - Bass

Navajo - Bloodsource

Produced by Ear Mistake, Vauxhall, 2012"

You may not see my name up there. That's because I'm working under a pseudonym. I'm one of those people with the funny names. I forget which one.

"We're Ear Mistake" begins our intro on stage. We've only had one gig, but this was the intro we used. We spoke it in green.

"We're Ear Mistake. This first song's called Into Question The Whole Status Quo."

Then we launched right into it.

Then we broke up and had all copies of our debut album pulped/melted/moved to Recycle Bin.

My old band was called Ear Mistake.

Under-appreciated at the time, but they've attracted a cult following since their demise.

RIP Dorothee Justice. Such a sad loss.

***

Fun fact: my spell-check doesn't recognise "Vauxhall". As an alternative, it suggests "Valhalla". Which is pretty much the same.

Suff.

That's my new quirk. I say "suff" to punctuate things I say. It can mean whatever you want it to mean. Suff.

I hope no-one's already using it. I've already had T-shirts printed.

A quick web search...

Damn.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=suff

I've really been misusing it.

Oh man, I just remembered I said it to a little girl... I wanted her to think I was cool. That explains why she returned my "suff" with such aggression and then dropped out of school.

Fun fact: "stands for shut up fuck face" is how I describe my political outlook on my new campaign flyers. I'm a shoe-in!

And that's the end of this blog post!

Spineless

You may think it's been over a week since my last post, but it has actually only been about ten minutes. Time is getting ever faster. I feel like my life is flashing before my eyes, but I don't even get the blessed consolation of an imminent death. [/upbeat paragraph]

I was going to write something about how I don't read modern fiction, but that seems like it might require some thought. I fear thought. I'd rather avoid it, if it's at all possible.

Oh. I don't think it is possible. The moment I thought about thought, it was all over. It's a fait accompli. There's no getting around it: I thought it. I fought it, but I couldn't abort it.

Why don't I read modern fiction?

Because it's all rubbish!

Ha ha ha! Oh Paul, you are a card.

It's not all rubbish. I don't believe that any more than I think all modern film, music or pancakes is/are rubbish. I've gone on record as hating the veneration of a golden past.

The main reason I don't read modern fiction (and I'm probably talking about anything written since, let's say, 1973), is that I have limited time. I'm obsessed with making the most of my free hours. So how can I justify spending my days reading an unknown prospect, when there are so many established classics for me to read? I can't justify it.

I'm already wasting so much time watching DVD extras and chortling at .gifs on Tumblr. I don't want to spend time on the latest Booker Prize winner, when (for all I know), it might be terrible. I haven't read A Tale of Two Cities. That has to take precedence. If I'm going to spend time looking at words and ideas on a printed page, I'm better off wading through the literary canon. Non-canon works are too much of a gamble.

That's not to say that I'll like everything in the canon. But at least it's worthy. The book might have a historical significance. It's probably referenced in all manner of articles, late night discussion programmes and tweets by Stephen Fry. Even if I don't enjoy it, it's equipping me with some useful tools for the long climb towards pretension.

My prejudices tend to be confirmed on the rare occasions that I do read something from the last forty years. I pretty much always find what I'm reading to be underwhelming. "Is that it?" I might say to whoever's sitting next to me. "It was OK, but... man. It took me eighteen hours to read this. I could have built a ship in a bottle in another ship in that time."

I might be similarly nonplussed by a Joseph Conrad novel, but at least it will be a nonplussing of some pedigree. I can attend lecturers on the nonplussing, and see how it has influenced later works of mild dissatisfaction.

But there must be some great modern fiction out there. There must be something that I'd love. I'm probably just looking at the wrong things.

Or perhaps my bias means that I'm predisposed to hate any work that might use The Bee Gees as a reference point. I'm looking at current fiction with shit-tinted spectacles, just as I accuse other people of doing with music! What a fool I've been! I've been hoist with my own petard. I shouldn't have bought one really. Who needs a petard? But I was conned by a clever marketing campaign.

I think the real reason that I don't read modern fiction is nothing more than confusion. I find the whole thing completely baffling. Who are the good modern authors? Are they respected? Are they critically acclaimed? Is this book seen as trashy fiction? Is that book something of substance?

I look at a rack of bestsellers and the covers might as well be pictures of question marks (though to be fair, The Riddler's autobiography is a smash hit). Perhaps I fear that my critical faculties (which for film, TV and music have been carefully honed by years of reading snobbish hipster edicts) will let me down when it comes to the printed word. What if I really love Dan Brown? What if I love Twilight? I'd never be able to show my face again. My reputation as a person who only likes good things will be in tatters. Which would be terrible, even though I'm the only person aware of that reputation, and I seem to believe that it was tattered in the first place.

Can I get on the modern fiction horse? I could. But would I be able to look at things objectively? I don't know. I just don't know.

That's why I find it safe to stick with known quantities. Venturing into the unknown is a scary prospect. You might find that you're a rubbish hiker and are afraid of campfires.

Knowing nothing about modern fiction makes me less of a well-rounded person. Then again, who's to say that a knowledge of professional wrestling is any less roundening? I don't have to be an expert in every field. There are people out there who are devoted experts on modern fiction, but who don't know where I put my keys. Swings and roundabouts. What's good for the goose is greener on the scratched back of my hand as it washes my other foot.

In conclusion, I don't need to bother reading modern fiction.

Most of my conclusions are ones which validate my own inadequacies and postpone self-improvement. My conclusions are really holding me back. But you can't argue with them. They are the final word.

All Hail Conclusions.

***

That's the end of this week's thought. Join me again next time for more letters in the same font.

I might write about a Nominal Inanimate Enamel Animal.

Flow

Time has begun to move more quickly.

In genuinely has. It's not like one of those situations on a workday afternoon when someone (usually me) says "Man, hasn't today gone slowly?". As though my subjective experience of time will be shared by the person I'm talking to. If we do agree about the speed of the day, it's only coincidence.

It's pretty much always the slow days I remark on. Colleagues sometimes say to me "Wow, is that really the time? Today has just flown by!". And I agree out of politeness, because for me it has been a crawl through zero-g treacle. You may have been aboard the flying day, but I was left behind, inhaling the exhaust fumes.

This isn't like one of those things. Time actually is moving more quickly.

I can prove it.

Yesterday, I got into the shower. Physically. (I metaphorically got into showers in the late 90s; the fad having been brought to prominence by Gus Van Sant's Psycho remake. I've been a fan ever since.)

Just as I turned the water on, I realised that it had only seemed like seconds since I'd last had a shower. It hadn't - it had been a whole day. But my previous shower seemed so recent that I became confused and accidentally swallowed a soap.

Had any time passed between the two showers? Had I experienced the intervening day's worth of activity? I wasn't sure. I wasn't aware of anything being amiss during the day, but that shower made me think I'd been in suspended animation.

Could my mind be playing tricks on me? Or could I be playing tricks on my mind?

How can one differentiate between real experience and memory? Had my consciousness been static for 23 hours and 40 minutes (give or take)? Was my consciousness only awakened by a stream of hot running water?

But it's not just the shower. Weekends are coming faster. It's Friday today. But it was Monday, like, yesterday. I'm sure of it. I haven't lived for a whole week. Before I know it, it will be Monday again. Time is speeding up. I'm being buffeted on its [specific rafting terminology].

It's already August. August 2012. About three weeks ago, it was 2011. Last year, it was four years ago. Five years ago was the whole Bay of Pigs brouhaha.

At first, I thought it must be subjective. I thought it was like the "Man, hasn't today gone slowly?" scenario. After all, wouldn't other people have noticed?

A watched pot does boil. I thought I'd just been watching my pot too closely, and subsequently underestimating the water temperature.

But I found definitive proof.

It's been ages since we last filled up a bin bag. It used to happen more often. But now it is happening less often.

Why? Because time is moving more quickly. There's less time to use things and create waste. There's not as much garbage time as there used to be. It's the only explanation.

(Unless our recycling regiment has improved - those items are stored in a plastic box and dealt with on a different schedule. That's another explanation.)

So, time is moving more quickly. It will be the end of the world soon. The flow of time is increasing exponentially. Quick! Someone build a dam!

I'm going to alert the authorities by tweeting a link to this blog and hoping one of them (the authorities) follows me. The chances are slim, but dot dot dot.

Actually, now that I think about it, I'm probably just getting old. I'm on the downward slope, and things move more quickly here.

When you're a child, a week is a year. When you're a teenager, a week is six months. When you're thirty, a year is a week. When you're fifty, they've brought in some new metric/decimal year system and you find the whole thing confusing.

When you're old, you're weak for a year. When you're dead, you can't see your watch calendar, because your family ignored your EXPLICIT INSTRUCTIONS to put a night-light in your coffin.

It reminds me of that song about the passing of time. I forget which one, but I think it used a leaf metaphor.

I started writing this blog post a second ago. I didn't have time for a proofread.

Eureka

Settle down, class.

I could never be a teacher. (Stop talking) I don't have the patience or the tolerance for people younger than me. I'm afraid of metre sticks. Bells make be violent. I can't read. I encourage fights. I have no teaching qualifications and no desire to get them. I have a beard.

But some people can do it. They must be driven by selfless ambition. (It's your own time you're wasting) They want to mould young minds and prepare the generation of tomorrow for the rigours of... tomorrow. And Saturday.

They probably like children. That's what they've got going for them. And I'm pleased. We need teachers. I couldn't be one of them, but that's not to say that all teachers are control freaks, pedants, show-offs, failed stand-up comedians or chalk addicts.

Yes, chalk. I'm aware that chalk makes me sound like an old man. I'm sure your touch-screen blackboards don't need chalk. Or, if they do, it's a special kind of invisible wi-fi chalk that's also an atlas.

When I'm older, my experience of chalk will be totally alien to young people. It will be our equivalent of racism or disco.

"How did you live like that?" they'll say.

And I'll say: "We lived with a permanent undercurrent of melancholy that would only dissipate with the coming of Nicki Minaj."

They'll say: "Nicki Minaj? Is that your current cultural reference. She's older than you. Also, given that this is the future, she's probably dead by now."

I'll say: "Not only that, but I don't really know who she is. I just heard it once. I didn't even know how to spell her name. I thought it might be "Menage". It was all chalk and menages back in my day."

Then they'll turn off their consciousness-circuits out of boredom.

In the future, young people will be robots.

Where was I?

Ah yes: teaching.

I'd like to congratulate all of the people brave enough to stand in front of a pack of savage infants and try to get them to do long division. You're the real heroes. You don't even get to kill people, like soldiers or inept fire-fighters. Your only perks are really long holidays and the pride of a job well done and Apple Tango from the vending machine.

(No smoking, boys and girls. Shut up and drink ink.)

Teaching.

***

I didn't want to talk about teaching. I just started typing. I have no say in this process.

Lor.

See? No thinking man would type "Lor".

We nearly saw a squirrel get run over this morning.

Well, not nearly. But nearly nearly nearly.

The driver saw it and hit the brakes. But for a few seconds, we were frozen in terror. Imagine seeing a squirrel being run over! It doesn't bear thinking/writing about.

The driver saw our shock and smiled. I hope he was just happy to have saved the life of a cute mammal. I hope he wasn't laughing at our concern. He might have thought we were overreacting, just because Lucy screamed "HITLER!" and I dropped a tropical fish tank.

But I'm sure it was the first thing that made him smile. The kindness.

No doubt the squirrel is laughing about it with his friends right now. Its whole life probably flashed before its eyes. Acorns of many hues, branch leaping... some other things. Squirrels lead very full lives.

Lor.

Pluh. I'm sick of this "this afternoon" business this afternoon. I'm impatient. Another reason I couldn't teach. I just want to go somewhere else. The evening, maybe. I'm on my way there, but the commute is a long one.

Let's play a game. I'm thinking of an animal.

...

...

...

...

...

No, it was a French pig.

Your go.

...

...

...

...

...

Is it a fish?

Oh. That was easy.

...

No, I'm bored now.

***

I was raised by wolves.

My parents just kept throwing them into the well, until the water level was high enough for them to pluck me out.

You might think I would have been mauled by the drowning wolves. But no - they were already dead. My parents have always been extremely thoughtful.

They could have thrown any object into the well to displace the water. That's basic Archimediary thinking. But wolves were all they had to hand. Dozens of dead wolves.

They also could have lowered a rope. But I was already clutching two wolves (I'd been holding them when I fell), and to let go now would have set back the taming process.

So they did the right thing. I was safe and sound. They told me not to play too close to the well any more, especially whilst enwolfened. I agreed. And from that point on, we've been firm friends.

They can no longer use the well (or the wolves) for water. The area has been cordoned off as a warning to people who might think that any of the things I've discussed today are worth doing.

They are not. None of them.

New Personal Best (Or: I Hate That You Love)

I just scrapped an opening poem, which began:

O 'lympics!

And ended:

You currently top the meddle table

And had nothing of worth in between.

So, the Olympics!

Everybody's talking about them! Every newspaper has a pull-out, every pole has a flag, every tweet has an agenda.

So let's break it down:

I hate people who love the Olympics.

I hate people who hate the Olympics.

I love people who hate that I hate those people, because they're right to hate me. I hate me for it too.

In conclusion: hating someone for being excited and happy about something (unless there's some moral issue involved) probably makes you a bit of a dick.

It's human nature, but nevertheless: dick.

***

I wrote that on Saturday. It's an Olympics blog post in note form.

I intended to flesh it out with a coherent argument. It probably would have been very comprehensive, and would have involved a high-minded, long-winded exploration of the function of sport. I would have compared sport to art, I would have talked about evolution, I would have complained about people who complain. I would have brought up my own hypocrisy and then got sucked into a vortex of self-analysis.

It probably would have included three jokes. One of them would have been about badminton, and we all would have had a big laugh.

But the time has passed. I've moved on to bigger and better things.

Just to sum up: stop whining. Being miserable doesn't always give you the moral high ground (except sometimes it does). And something about a shuttlecock.

Let's move on. I'm positively engorged with ideas. I can barely fit under the desk. My bulging idea sack has raised it several feet off the ground, and I'm worried it might explode, covering people in imagination.

Idea #1

A Smaller Pencil

I've peaked too early.

***

It's later now.

I'm worried that my blog-writing style is devolving. Or at least stagnating. I've been at this for... how long...

Oh dear. I've missed my five year anniversary! It was five years in July.

I should have done some kind of cavalcade. People like cavalcades.

Over five years, and I'm still doing this. Surely I should have matured by now.

Five years, man!! FIVE! FIVE years.

(Please read the above in the style of Jeremy Piven:



Oh great. Now where does the closing bracket go? Oh just take it and get out of my sight - )

Am I standing still? I don't feel like I'm moving forwards. Or maybe that's just an illusion created by moving forwards less quickly than I used to.

Let's track my progress. What have I historically had to say at this time of year?

On August 7 2007, I wrote an eloquent book review:

It's actually a book about astrology. The title page alone is fantastic entertainment: The Principles of Astrological Geomancy; The Art of Divining by Punctuation, according to Cornelius Agrippa and others. I obviously took this to mean reading the future through the examination of apostrophes and the semi-colon. I am already proficient at this. I can predict just by seeing that someone has used the symbols ;-) that this person is a cunt.

I swore more back then, but at least I had a TOPIC.  I was engaging with culture and meaning. And I was only 24. (It just took me much too long to work that out.)

On August 4 2008, I had nothing to say. Almost exactly like today.

WRITING IN CAPITALS MAKES ME FEEL LIKE A BIG MAN! LIKE MURDER WOULD! 

I also may have accidentally used an apostrophe for a plural, but that's a matter of interpretation. Have I moved on from here? No. I am now as I was then. But older and more into chocolate croissants.

On August 7 2009, I had even LESS to say. The downhill slope continued. Or, if not downhill, the level slope.

The biggest surprise for people is that I'm not actually a human. Even though I walk on two legs and own a Travis album. I'm actually a tiny planet. I have several moons.

I was lying! I've never had moons.

On August 8 2010, I was in Edinburgh. Imagine! I was far afield, pursuing my dream (and getting close enough to realise my quarry might not be worth the chase).

"The.. Morning Magician?"

"The what?!"

Fantastic stuff. Clearly, I'd improved. The 2008-2009 lull was over, new horizons were on the cusp, and all kinds of cusps were there for the taking. And take cusps I did. Dozens of delicious cusps, all the way from Scotland.

On 13 August 2011, I did a tweet compilation (which doesn't count). But on 16 August 2011, I wrote a masterpiece. It really is quite special. Especially if you like William Sadler.

__-----___
}~~~~~{
    ''''    ''''
  @   @
     ^
     =

ISN'T SHE BEAUTIFUL?

And on this day (whenever I get around to posting it) 2012, I've done this.

Worthless.

Maybe I should change my training camp. I could work at altitude, do some punishing pun-work, hit the heavy bag and get some coaching from a Guardian journalist.

On the other hand, maybe everything's fine and I don't need to do anything.

What this historical study has shown is that August is often a bit of a lull. Except when I was in Edinburgh, or had something interesting to say.

It's probably the weather and the school holidays.

I'm fine.

Five years is a long time, but I'm still swinging (punches and baseball bats, not sexually or on swings).

Let's end this section with a hip hip hooray and a jolt.

***

It's earlier now. I literally wrote this before the above piece, and put it down here. I'm messing with time. I don't even know what I've just written. I could look quite the fool. Future Paul may want to punish me for playing Time God. My fate is in his (or her) hands.

***

It's later now. Later than the first later, and later than earlier.

As it turns out, I did unintentionally sabotage my earlier words by rambling for so long that everyone would have forgotten the whole "it's later now" section opening, diluting the impact of the "it's earlier now" follow-up (or preceding-up, as the case may, and did, be).

It just goes to show.

It's been an interesting start to the month's blog posts. We'll play the cards that August deals us, and will be ready to start the new school year with a bang, a thump, and a muffled yelp.

To end, please stand for your own national anthem and then file out.