Book 'em Danno

What has happened to Diagnosis Murder? I was watching that show and they seem to have forcibly removed it from the scheduling. It was one of those horrible programs that if you caught the first five minutes of, you were inexplicably hooked, a small but devastatingly overpowering defect of your personality forcing you to stay and find out who killed Sindy. (Usually the character wearing leather gloves.) Still I'm glad I never had Dr Mark Sloan as my doctor, it would be a nightmare! Imagine going to him for a check up, 'Hi doc, I've got this coff you see and...' 'Ah yes, looks like you've got a touch of murder!' 'What?' 'You've got murder, no doubt about it, that's my diagnosis.' And while we're on the subject spare a thought for poor Barry van Dyke. Why would you name your youngest boy Barry? Why would you name anyone Barry?! What else has Barry been in? Ever? He must have been pretty desperate when his agent called:

Agent: Barry, great news, I got you a part in a brand new TV show!
BVD: Whoa cool! What is it?
Agent: It's a crime solving murder mystery detective series, like Columbo but without the raincoat, and you get to be the cop! Steve Sloan! Homicide!
BVD: Steve Sloan? Sounds awesome! Wait'll I tell my dad...
Agent: Only-
BVD: What? Only what?
Agent: Well, there is one small catch.
BVD: What kind of catch?
Agent: It's a minor thing really, but Dick's in the show too.
BVD: Dad?
Agent: He plays Dr Mark Sloan, your character's dad.
BVD: He gets to be a doctor?
Agent: And actually, he solves most of the crimes each week, gets all the best lines, and the show revolves around him, leaving you looking like a rather pathetic nepotistic hanger-on.
BVD: Aww shucks, not again.
Agent: But on the bright side, Chachi from Happy Days is in it!
BVD: Aww shucks, not again.

My hair is on fire

Where is my soul these days? I had one at some point, definitely, did I lend it to someone? I think it was blue with red stripes if that rings any bells. Currently I am having long periods of doubt, wondering if, after all is said and done, I might be just a bag of neutrons and glucose, bouncing around like a spacehopper. If I were to be truthful then I would admit that I am rather simple, I consider the driving force of my existence to be my sight. I relate the proof of my reality directly to my ability to see, I judge myself in relation to the physical; my soul is my eyes, two windows looking out on eternity. When I close them and look at the darkness, it is the only reminder I have of not being. 'Not being' scares me considerably less than the idea of an afterlife. What if my soul gets lost, misplaced or mislaid in the changeover? I’m only one of many billions after all, what if I get sent the wrong way by mistake? Is there an appeal procedure? I don't think there is... Forever is a long time to watch the world go by, especially if you're downstairs. Before my earliest memories, all that comes to mind is a special kind of darkness, a void of nothingness, not the sight of darkness, but a black hole of absorption, like I was lost in a cupboard and forgot to come out. But it doesn't feel like I've just popped into existence, more like I was upto something for a while, and then just forgot what it was. And, if I were to be truly honest for a second time, I would have to accept that I often hope that one day my existence will come to an end. The thought of eternity is pretty tiring, and that these eyes will never stop seeing wears me out.

Cross

It's Easter Sunday! The day we remember the story of the magical bunny rabbit who came down from outer space to lay foil wrapped chocolate eggs and sell them to clever chocolate marketing people who put them in colourful boxes and make small children vomit profusely from their copious chocolate consumption. Hurrah! I don't know man, it's pretty weird if you ask me, how did we get here? A friend of mine told me that as a child she pottered home from Sunday School, knocked on her front door and declared to her mother 'I don't need to go to church anymore, Jesus is dead!' Times like that you need someone on hand to say 'Wait! It gets better! There's a twist!' But that seldom happens, so the whole day passes us by, blurred and obscured. I guess it doesn't take much to distort an occasion, for example have you noticed that if you lose the 's' you get Happy Eater?

Elected

                                  I miss her now. I
                                  smell her smoke
                                  on my jeans. And
                                  I miss her now.
                                  I take off my coat
                                  and see her ash
                                  flecked on my sleeve
                                  but I do not repent.
                                  And while the I's of
                                  this world may look
                                  on and mock, I say
                                  let them so. For I
                                  find solace with her
                                  and in those times of
                                  still moments she swims
                                  with me. And so I will
                                  hold out, I will sit
                                  pretty on an off
                                  chance. In case.

Help! The Aged!

In two hours time I will be alone, alone but not unwatched, I'll be standing solitary on a stage performing a 30 minute cabaret for old people. Actually that's not very respectful of me is it? Senior citizens maybe? Seasonally challenged? Club 1930's? Whatever the terminology (no pun intended) I'm not convinced they'll be laughing at my jokes, and often I find audiences enjoy magic much more if they possess sight and sense. There's also the small matter of their final approach, I'm a little worried about pushing them over the edge, about sailing their boat off into the sunset. It's not gonna take much, a loud noise, a small shock, and I could not be the only one to die on stage. I've never killed a man, yet; perhaps today will be the day I tick that box. A friend of mine ended someone's sunshine once. He juggled axes over an 80 year old's head, and, the excitement too much for him, poor Ted passed away that evening on the coach ride home. Still if you're gonna book us, you've only got yourself to blame.

Hairy

Over the weekend, Saturday to be exact, I traveled to Birmingham to watch a play launch the British Red Cross's annual conference. It was a play I had written with a friend, hence my presence, and so at 10am I sat with 650 people, as they laughed at our words (it was meant to be a comedy). As I watched the transference of page to stage, I felt happy, happy that somehow, despite my usual indifference and ignorance, we had managed to contribute something to what these people are doing, not intentionally, not through some glorious self-sacrifice, rather that something that I had done for mostly selfish reasons was actually being used for a real good. I sat there humbled and grateful. Anyway this morning I found myself seated before 20 Toni and Guy students as my friend Efi snipped away demonstrating a radial point trim or something. She needed a model for the class so I saved myself the cost of an unaffordable and ultra cool haircut. I'm not saying the two are connected, I'm not saying I believe in any cosmic Karmic reaction, but it's nice to be a piece of the jigsaw.

Stunted

Required: One Half lime, divided horizontally. One table. One small glass. One video membership or student card. (If you have the time to try this, neither of these should be a problem.)

Spin the lime like a top on the table, get a good spin so it will stay good for a few seconds. Scoop the laminated card underneath the lime and flick it into the air. Reach out, grab the glass and catch the lime. Absorb the whoops of awe, the swooning of many ladies and the drinks of many buyers.

In a floating world

I am on Tower Bridge. The one and only Tower Bridge. If I shut my eyes and closed my ears I could be anywhere, asleep in bed, on a beach in Bournemouth, but when I open them I can only be in one place - Tower Bridge. How strange that this vessel of mine, this collection of limbs and darkness that contains me, or the essence of me, or my soul, or whatever, how strange that this container, this transporter, is on Tower Bridge. There is no bridge like this in the universe, this is the one from the pictures, a landmark, an attraction. Of course no two places are the same, that's obvious, otherwise they'd be the same place, but somehow these landmarks have a way of underlining this observation, bringing it out of the background. It's just more noticeable here, because in the whole of the universe, this is the only Tower Bridge; it's unique, totally isolated from all other things. And I stand on it. And I cannot change that. When I close my eyes I become a breath in a dark place, I disappear from sight. I open and I cannot believe I am truly here. The more I think about it the less material it becomes, it fades from sight like smoke in the breeze.

re:Drafty

On Monday I had a meeting about the last play I wrote. Everyone seems positive, but we decided that an event must be moved to the middle of the play. Quite an important event. Which means I have to rewrite most of it and I'll lose lots and lots of my lines and scenes. That I love. Tonight I had to sit down with all my words and break it to them gently:

I'm proud of you guys, I want you to know that, I'm proud of you. You bring tears to my eyes, and each and everyone of you are precious to me. We had good times together, I loved writing every single one of you here. But guys, I'm not gonna lie to you now, some of you won't make it. Good people will die. Clauses, paragraphs, whole scenes may be lost, wiped out before their time has come. But you must be strong, you must continue. You will meet new people on this journey, new landscapes of opportunity will arise. Brother will choose against brother, the world will change, but you must always keep the end in sight. Out of the chaos will arise turmoil, until finally a new dawn shall come, and you will be stronger, leaner, performable. And that day shall be known as the Third Draft.

Sell Sell Sell

'Do a commercial, you're off the artistic roll call, every word you say is suspect, you're a corporate whore and uh, end of story.' -- Bill Hicks

Buy This! You'd be stupid not to! - read an advert for online poker on the tube. How low can the advertisers stoop? Is anyone really concerned about their density because they fail to burn their virtual money with online strangers? More and more the adverts rot my soul, and more and more I am filled with contempt for human life. I'm not quite at a Bill Hicks' level of rage yet, although I think his comment on the Ad Agencies is quite on the money, 'You are the ruiner of all things good, seriously'. And why would it ever be that countless famous face-lifted faces, with more money than Bentleys, who try and sell me face cream to make me look younger, are ever going to convince me to part with my green? I'm 24! I'm quite happy with how young I look. So just leave me alone, I don't want to buy your shiny things, I want bread and water and no more.

Easy burn

There is a site out there in the great history of webspace that has a collection of Charlie Kaufman scripts, and so it was that a while back I found myself reading his adaptation of Phillip K Dick's novel, A Scanner Darkly. As I read through the first fifty pages or so, I was laughing harder and harder, it was just incredibly funny even for a Kaufman script. Wanting to know how much of this was from source, I bought a copy of the original book and was changed. That book is one of the greatest books ever written by anyone at anytime ever. Not only is it gut-wrenchingly funny, it is tragically melancholy and painfully honest, there were moments I was in tears, actual tears pouring down my face. Jeez, it's only a book man, but that's the effect it had. Well anyway, although they dropped the Kaufman script, they continued in production of the film and it's coming out this year, written and directed by Richard Linklater. I even found you all a trailer, which has to be seen to be believed, surely this is one of the most beautiful looking films in existence, I almost lost my cornflakes over it this morning. Mmm, it sends shudders...

The Third Way

'Carry my joy on the left
Carry my pain on the right'
                                  -- björk

Yes or no? Stay or go? Rain or snow? Some questions should have binary answers, a simple on or off. Yet women have a knack for finding the third option, the route hitherto undreamt of by the plucky young male enquirer. And is this third way a good one? Never! An outright denial can be dealt with, consigned to experience, forgotten, an affirmation can be happily accepted, but the third way is neither a promise nor a demise. It is an enigmatic puzzle of an object to be turned over late at night and observed from every angle, never offering a solution, never offering solace. And so each day we live in limbo, lurching from pole to pole, elated, deflated, debilitated.

Flew

Coff coff. Guys, I think it's nearly over for me. It's getting dark momma. Coff coff. Say goodbye to ol' yeller for me. Hack hack coff coff. After mercilessly mocking my brother last week over his alleged flu, surely a mere cold I taunted, I woke up yesterday unable to move. Couldn't stand, couldn't sit, just lay there in agony. The one advantage is that I get to drink Benilyn... mmm Benilyn. Love that stuff, love it, but only the non-drowsy variety. Whatever they put in it to keep you awake makes a hell of a difference to the taste, the original flavour is disgusting. I'm also sipping the Lemsips, though avoiding the max strength type this time. The last time I had that I felt remarkably perky for quite some time, and also very unable to sleep. After reading the ingredients I realised they'd laced it with caffeine of red bullian proportions, in an attempt to buzz you out of your face. It worked for me.

Conspiracy?

Have you noticed that since Cornettos have become more popular, unicorns have all but disappeared. Especially the Mint Choc Chip ones. If you look really closely at the ingredients of a Cornetto, they have one of those warnings: 'This product may contain traces of nuts... (and unicorns)'

Time Out

Ugh, you guys, seriously, relax a little. Everyone, please, just relax. 'Ah, but john, diaries have feelings too,' you say. No they don't. They lie to you. Seriously people, it's getting really crazy, even I, the unorganised of all-over-the-place, can't do anything less than a month in advance. Who's running my life? Me or my schedule? I want my spontaneity back. On the train in the mornings people are on their phones, yammering away as if their life depended on it. Guys, you're not that important. I know you want to be, but you're not. Let it go, relax, have a little peace on the way in, because it's gonna get bad in a minute; you're just about to work a 12 hour day. It'll get done, someone somewhere will do it, I promise. No matter how irreplaceable you think you are, you're not. If you fell off a log tomorrow, the world would spin by. But don't get down, enjoy that. Take it easy. And most importantly, get off your phones! It pisses me off.

In the quiet times we are silent

Seventeen seconds is a long time to be alone; considering it all. If you’re asking him to be honest then he would admit that it was the first time they met that he was overwhelmed by her. With a smile to melt the dust, he would later realise this was the moment he had first lost his touch. For now though, he pulled the hood of his jumper over his head, and softened his thoughts. Closing his eyes he watched the darkness pass by as he slid in and out of sleep, until some time later when he heard her pad down the stairs, imagining her soft socks on the carpet, her toes wrapped up like a rice cake.

‘I want to write about her,’ he wrote, and knew that he did. Not for anyone to read, or even for anyone else to know about, but just so that he could keep something back. A small something, to go uneaten by the worms. The walk home took longer that day. Usually it is the promise of the arrival that delays a destination, but all he felt now was the pull of each step, taking him further and further away, stretching the elastic between them.

He was dizzy, his vision starting to blur, and as he crumbled, like soft earth breaking apart, he could not place the one moment leading up to this. There was no outstanding incident that brought me here, he thought, but more of a train of unstoppable inevitability, ploughing through stations and crossings, running every red signal in its path.