How I spent my day….

 

 

So I watched the whole of the first season of the comedy series Community today. I can only say that it is funny, not quite on the same level as Arrested Development, which is also partly directed by the Russo Brothers but its very good. The meta humour and endless T.V references satisfy the major part of me that is essentially Geek/T.V addict. I love getting reference within shows or shows within shows, especially when others don’t. My brother got one more Star Wars reference in the Sean Pegg film Paul yesterday, I couldn’t speak to him for at least 24 hours. I have now re-watched the original Stars Wars clip forty times on youtube and I realise I never would have got the reference in the first place. On the geek scale he is by the far the winner. In some ways I guess the loser as well, but only in the English, fake version of what we think American high school is like, with its groups and categories all with that overpowering smell of teen angst. Some thing like a cross between Malcolm in the Middle and Brick. Coming back to my geek, which has exponentially increased since I am now unemployed, broke and minus a girlfriend. On the plus side I have started running though. Community is a very good show and I have come to it late as its been around since 2009 but its well worth a watch. My favourite scenes are with Troy and Abed, who have a slightly homoerotic and do ending sequences together which includes a funny spanish rap. As several job descriptions recently have needed me to have seeking of master status as a social media presence, I need now to do three years worth of tweets within an evening. I hop they are not dated. Maybe tumblr is the way forward….

A lot has happened in the last few days…..

A lot has happened in the last few days, Murray lost the final of Wimbledon, some guy named Marry won it though and I Murphy have finally graduated. There is very little reason why I have linked all three of these names together like this, as the only similarities between all three is the first letter ‘M’. I think the baseline in tennis has more sporting prowess that I do in comparison to the previous named sportsmen. Yes, I graduated. Very happy as I should be I suppose. Having thought for about six months of this year that I had pissed away, 25,000 grands worth of education but no I made it stumbling, unshaved, bleary eyed and hungover but I made it. There is a lot to be said for just finishing ask the Tour de France guys, an underestimated achievement in my opinion. All this is very good and I am relieved that I have finished and come out with a half decent degree but what the fuck now…………

This is the immortal question which I will leave for another blog because I don’t have the answer and I don’t think that anyone does really even that wise guy I saw in the pub the other day who could hold a cigarette like he was the reincarnation of Socrates. It might not be the next blog, can’t promise, might leave the suspense for a little longer. Maybe forever, and come back to this blog in fifty years time and tell you all what the fuck I did. That assuming i’m not in a gutter somewhere vomiting over several unpublished manuscripts and a good stock of unsold Big Issues.

In Defence of Jex Moxey

Here is an article I have written for Wolvesnews.co.uk

Its about my beloved Wolverhampton Wanderers and their chief executive, a marmite figure amongst the supporters.

The Romantic Alcoholic

I recently had a Hunter S Thompson omnibus which lasted till about three in the morning. I watched The Rum Diaries and Fear and Loathing in Vegas, just before I went to sleep in that order meaning my mind was in completely the wrong state to even say the word sleep let alone actually do the thing. Both these films along with Withnail and I, which is by far the best film out of these three, in some respects romanticise the artistic drunk, the creative alcoholic, the melancholic piss-head. Its a certain archetype we have now in modern cultural discourse, that our creative thinkers, our writers, our actors even to a certain extent our academics have to have some deep, underlying emotional and mental pain that manifests itself through alcohol and drug abuse. As with all stereotypes and archetypes there is a small slither of truth in it. Anyone of us can list plenty of writers etc which fulfil this role. However this, like all stereotypes, is limiting to the whole race that call themselves writers. Now I like the odd drink, hence the image earlier, and it can certainly help me write sometimes, but destroying my life for a drink really doesn’t appeal to me, and I hope I will never do it. Saying this however there is a strange part of my brain down in the depths of my brain which sees it as an important part of writing. There is something romantic about it seeing writing as the only way of dealing with your life. This however would be very self indulgent, pretentious of me to describe my life as shit, having to take to drink to cope with it. I’m not going to stop drinking but on the same level I not going to become Withnail where you are drunk all the time, wasting your talent because you spend too much time drinking as opposed to working. This is epitomised by Withnail at 8 in the morning ‘We have ran out of wine, What are we going to do about it?’

Moving Home

I have just moved back home into my mothers house which has given me an uncontrollable urge to listen to Bruce Springsteen again. I know I will never be forgiven, i’m now heading for purgatory. Moving home was all I could do, I have no money and despite the best efforts of myself and apparently my whole family looking for jobs for me I have not got one yet. But all is not lost i’m writing more now and hopefully I get back into poetry writing, which I seem to have lost a little since my dissertation was handed in. Along with ‘The Boss’ I have now become the professional cleaner of the house, in previous times a butler might have been used to clarify my job title. Unless I get up redonculously early I don’t know what i’m going to do with this whole writing lark. From now on be carful reading this blog, because it might turn into a form of therapy for me. I hate that idea, but you never now. I’ve warned you so in the future no-one can complain. Well you can I will just ignore it.

Julius Caesar

At the moment on BBC iplayer there is a wonderful film of RSC’s production of Julius Caesar. One of my favourite Shakespeare plays shot on location and at in the RCS’s theatre in Straford-upon-Avon. This a great retelling, placing the characters in a modern African state with with the tyrant Caesar about to seize power. Well worth a watch.

True Love

The recent four part series on the BBC called True Love, of which I have only seen two, is a partly improvised drama which looks at different aspects of love through the relationships of several people mildly related living in Margate. Written and directed by Dominic Savage known for his BBC2 drama Freefall, with a stella cast which includes David Tennant, BIlly Piper and David Morrissey, True Love never gets further than cliche. The first episode revolves around Nick a happily married, father of two who has an affair with an old girlfriend who left him years ago for an unknown reason. It’s implausible with Nick (Tennant) seemingly being forgiven for his behaviour by his wife with a one word apology. The dialogue which could quite easily have come from a cheap valentines card, ‘I can’t live without you’, ‘Its always been you’, grates so much I had to decide whether to run to the toilet before or after I changed the channel. Improvised drama/theatre/comedy only works when the actors enjoy doing such work and have a strict frame to work within, to prevent things like cliches coming out. Cliche is often the first thing to come to mind when posed with a topic especially one as located as love. A strict outline from the director prevents this from happening. This programme is never able to climb out from the valentines card and really tackle love in a new and interesting way like 500 Hundred Days of Summer does or even BBC drama The Shadow Line. This could have been a really good showing for improvised drama but at every point it made gag and claw for a script as inflexible as Samuel Beckett’s.