This Is The News

Main Stories for Friday 25th June.

It’s been announced today that Britain’s Got Talent judge and former editor of the Daily Mirror Piers Morgan has married his longtime girlfriend, Daily Telegraph columnist Celia Walden.

A small ceremony in the Oxfordshireshire village Swinbrook was followed by a reception in a local pub. Morgan’s colleagues Amanda Holden and Simon Cowell were not present.

The occasion was marred only by the fact that Mr Morgan is a great big cunt. Despite a successful career in journalism that could have kept him financially comfortable without inflicting him on the public regularly he now continues to whore himself unnecessarily in various media, most notably his vapid and torturous chat show Piers Morgan’s Life Stories, in which he makes his guests cry to get higher viewing figures.

It is not known whether his new wife, the daughter of the former Conservative MP George Walden, is quite as big a cunt or whether she wishes to develop similar cuntish traits now that they are married.

Fans across the globe are paying tribute to singer Michael Jackson on the first anniversary of his death at the age of 50.

Jackson died last year after an unexpected prescriptions drugs overdose at his house in Los Angeles. Famous for his long musical career and dancing backwards whilst looking like he was going forwards, Jackson is best remembered as a fucked up freak who showed children porn, touched them up in the shower and then forced them to sleep naked in his bed with him.

Unlike most child molesters, luckily Jackson was wealthy enough to bribe both his victims and their ghoulish families so that he could remain at liberty to continue molesting children, cutting bits of himself off, lightening his skin because he hated being black and occasionally producing increasingly turgid, cloying, self aggrandizing music.

Jackson has earned over a billion dollars in the year since his death but is unfortunately unable to use the fairground he built in his garden to lure kids in anymore.

David Cameron is attending his first G8 summit as British Prime Minister today and has urged his fellow leaders to maintain a “tight focus” in light of the continuing world financial crisis.

He also said that countries have a duty to make sure they “deliver for people” although gathered journalists and dignitaries really couldn’t concentrate on what he was saying to them as they gazed slack-jawed at his weird, plasticky face and shiny forehead.

Mr Cameron said there should be “fresh thinking and renewed political leadership” but we all know that he’s just another spoilt, privileged, upper class twat who wants to make sure all his equally twatty upper class friends hang on to their money and positions whilst the rest of us lead our dull, robotic lives in service to them.

Mr Cameron has been Prime Minister since the 12^th May when he struck a deal with the Liberal Democrat Party in order to bring about Britain’s first coalition government since the failed Lib-Lab pact of 1977. I bet he’s secretly a bummer too. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

 

Celebrity Sex Face

I was so bored today I did this:

Celebrity Sex Face

I’m supposed to be writing. Well, I am now, but I mean I’m supposed to be writing something specific, a short story to enter in the Bridport Short Story Competition (it’s a big prize, have a go) but as always sitting down and writing is not as easy as it could be. So far I’ve watched some funny videos on You Tube, signed up for some pinging sites to promote this blog, made sarcastic comments on other people’s Facebook profiles, listened to some music, read a bit of a book, made a bagel and generally pissed around.

I’ve started the story and I’m happy with what I’m doing. As usual when writing it starts off with me checking through my moleskin notebook for some phrase or anecdote I’ve written down (it’s invaluable, that notebook goes everywhere with me, everything gets written down) and then putting one of those things in a context and seeing what happens. In this case I took a phrase, put it as dialogue that someone had said and imagined who was listening to that dialogue, in what situation and what their response would be. Within a few minutes I had a central character, a location, a reason they were there and what they were up to. I then selected another random phrase to use as the title and instantly knew the last line of the story and where it ended up. Now it’s just a matter of filling in the bit inbetween, the bulk of the content of the story. I tend to start off most work like this. The inbetween bit is the enjoyable but difficult bit. I describe a situation or feeling and veer off into the character’s history or intentions for a bit and then veer back to more plot. Not that there is a lot of plot in my writing. There’s not a lot of plot in real life, or so I find personally. Life comes across to me as a series of incidents which are sometimes related and sometimes not. I do get days where synchronicity seems to lead me down certains paths and it seems that it has done so for a practical reason, but they are rare. When this happens it happens quickly and intensely. One such set of synchronous events nearly got me killed the other week but at the same time put me in the company of the person who prevented my death by a random, uninformed and instinctual act. It was freaky deaky.

So I’m not that concerned with plotting things out that much; even when writing something as large as a novel all the pieces seem to come together in the right order. I think I’m lucky enough to be able to do most of my writing unconsciously, up in my head, where things simmer away whilst I’m doing all the stuff writers do to avoid writing. At the moment I’m thinking my kitchen needs a thorough cleaning. Maybe later whilst I’m scrubbing the fridge listening to Radio Four my brain will be working on Thanks Peter God or figuring out some part of this short story. Or maybe it’ll just be worrying about girls, comics, cigarettes and the possibility of life on Saturn’s moon Titan.

Anyhow, my celebrity sex face is Eric Morecambe with his glasses half-off. Show me yours.

 

Thanks Peter God – Chapter Six

Here is chapter six of the new book I’m writing. Chapter six of the book but only the third chapter about the second protagonist, Peter Stone. Odd numbered chapters follow the story of Peter Godfrey, even-numbered chapters Peter Stone. Peter Godfrey is a bumbling excuse of a middle-aged man struggling still to form a lasting relationship and trying to get a writing career going after getting his first novel published. Peter Stone is an amoral, hedonistic, violent and charismatic man in his thirties who works hard for months and then parties hard a few months and so on. He likes sex, drugs and fist fights.

Guess which one gets all the chicks.

Chapter Six

Dysnomia

Peter Stone didn’t sleep well that night. He lay awake until the early hours of the morning despite going to bed before midnight. Not even two wanks helped him get sleepy enough to drift off. He just lay there, getting more tired, more anxious, more weary. He slept eventually of course; no matter what, exhaustion will override a human body and Peter had exhausted himself the day before. He woke with a start at 7am feeling spaced out and panicked. He had been dreaming about being lost in a maze of rooms; people’s living rooms, bedrooms, kitchens, all endlessly weaving together, from one house to the next through a series of doors and doorways. He’d found himself suddenly faced with a sleeping person on a bed in front of him or a family watching television, all of them turning to face him emotionlessly as he stumbled backwards and sought another way through. He was trying to get home.

He got up and felt no better. He put on some shorts, a t-shirt and his running shoes and went out the door as quickly as he could. He ran for twenty minutes. It felt as if someone had pounded the front of his thighs with a tenderising hammer. His belly felt like a separate weight strapped on to the front of him. His throat burned acid.

Back at the house he showered and then felt faint as he towelled himself dry. It was half seven now and he did not have much time. He had to choose between picking out the right clothes to wear or having an adequate breakfast. He could always eat later; he went with clothing. He wanted to dress plainly and unobtrusively but not without some semblance of style and not without looking like he had money to spend. No one liked to give money to those who looked like they needed it. He picked out a black vest and then over that a very black shirt with a stand up collar, almost like a priest’s. He put on straight dark grey pants, almost as thick as denim but not quite. Sensible shoes and a jacket finished him off. He looked in the mirror and regarded himself. He thought he looked casual but then confident enough to be casual – not sloppy or hurried.

It was too late to eat anything now so he put a roll of mints in his pocket and then made sure he had his phone on him (silent), his keys and his iPod shuffle. He placed them all strategically so they would not spoil the line and flow of the clothing. He put on a little scent, not too much, just enough to appear even more casual and confident. He had nothing else to do and now it was too early so he sat down and watched Tinga Tinga Tales on CBeebies.

At exactly eight o’clock he heard the car pull up. Exactly eight o’clock, not a second before or later, like it had appeared out of nowhere. Peter stood up and looked out of the window. The car was not a familiar model. It was large, smooth bodied but hefty and a dark, dark green. He thought it looked familiar and he did not know why. He went to the door and then out to meet the car.

He expected for a man in a chauffeur’s outfit to step out of the front seat and doff his cap at him. The windows were tinted dark enough that he could see nothing through the front windscreen. When nothing happened immediately he walked to the side of the car and saw that all the windows were like this. Now Peter expected that there would be an electronic hushed buzz as a window glided down but instead there was a soft click and the back door of the car that was facing onto the pavement swung slightly open. Peter stood for a moment to think; to actually, properly think. Was this a good idea? Was this a chance for an experience and some money or was it the first of a series of mistakes which would bring him misfortune and misery? He decided he really should have thought about that earlier than this point and walked towards the open door.

He put his hand on the side of the door; he could not see any visible handle. As he did he got a small static shock. He pulled the door back and a voice from within the car said:

“Get in.”

It was a deep, deep voice and even with those two words betrayed a strangeness of accent and intonation. Peter lowered himself onto a spacious and comfortable back seat. The car was exactly the right temperature. It smelt new. He squinted to see and then realised that didn’t help in the dark. The door swung itself shut.

“Your eyes will adjust to the light in a few seconds. I have an eye condition I have to be cautious about.”

“Okay,” Peter said back to what he presumed was Ratcliffe Fowler and then felt dumb for saying something so normal and inexpressive.

They sat in silence as Peter’s eyes adjusted. It was probably only for a matter of seconds but it could also have been an eternity. Peter suddenly felt stoned again but only the worst parts. Time dilated and he felt spaced out and paranoid. He did his best not to break out into a sweat. As his eyes got used to the darkness of the car he realised it wasn’t really that dark after all. It was a very bright and clear day outside and that had made it seem worse. He looked down for a few seconds but then just gave in and looked straight ahead and tried to make sense of Ratcliffe Fowler.

Fowler was a big man. He was sat across from Peter, upright and rigid, knees bent at a right angle and hands neatly placed over his knee caps. He was immaculately dressed in a dark suit with a very faint pinstripe. He wore a dark shirt, colour indeterminable in this light and a tie as dark and green as the car’s bodywork. His neck flowed over his shirt collar slightly and from his jowls upwards his head was an elegant triangle interrupted by a black, ridged trilby. His skin was olive toned and behind his big, mirrored sunglasses Peter could not tell if Ratcliffe Fowler may be Chinese or not. Or Japanese. Or Korean. Peter found it difficult to tell between them.

Ratcliffe Fowler’s big, wet lips moved like two slugs surprised into slovenly action. As his face moved his skin looked like paper soaked in water which then dried instantly as he ceased movement. Peter could not help but stare at him as he spoke, gripped and senseless. Peter’s mouth could have been hanging open as he gawped, for all he knew.

“I was made aware of your skills, Mr Stone,” Fowler said, rumbling,” and as you seem willing to consider applying them to my problem I would be happy to compensate you for your time and effort.”

Peter became a little more aware of himself, as if a grip was slackened.

“Who made you aware of me?” he asked.

“Mr Faithless recommended you.”

“Oh. Yes. Mr Faithless.”

“Was he wrong to do so?”

Peter knew the name from somewhere. Faithless.

“No,” Peter said, taking himself in hand and focussing. He straightened up and rested his elbows on his knees, clasping his hands in front of him and leaning forward a little. “You mentioned two things I’m interested in. Your missing daughter and your money. Tell me about them both.” Peter felt proud of himself for this. He felt like he was in a movie now.

“I understand you do not have children at present Mr Stone. Is that correct?”

“That’s… correct.”

“I don’t think that there is any adequate way that a parent can express the boundless terror that fills their life from the moment their offspring comes into the world. It is a terror perfectly balanced with love but a terror nonetheless, a sheer, heart-rending fear of everything in the world that is not you and your child. Anything but those two things are a threat.”

Ratcliffe Fowler put his hand up to his mouth and made a fist as he coughed into it. The movement was so swift that Peter instinctively jerked back.

“Ahughh!!”

Peter watched the massive hand relocate itself to the massive knee.

“I have taken pains over the years to keep my terror at bay. I am fortunate – maybe not fortunate, maybe just disciplined enough – to have the means to keep it at bay. The means to keep at bay the solid, tangible threats. That I have been able to do without exception. The more insipid threats, those that come from within the family unit or from within one’s child themself; those have been more difficult.”

Another cough shook the car and startled Peter. The coughs reminded Peter that every time Ratcliffe Fowler spoke he could feel himself fall into an almost paralysed state, unable to generate enough coherent effort to move. There was an odd sing-song rhythm to Fowler’s speech, as if he was imitating someone, or as if he had only recently learned to speak after a lifetime of silence.

“My daughter has disappeared from my life Mr Stone. She has chosen to remove herself. She has chosen to do so with a young man that I cannot be sure will protect her from the threats that I have been able to protect her from. I have enemies too. It is of concern to me that she is kept safe from those who would use her life merely as a weapon to aim at me. To hurt me.”

Peter sat there, not knowing exactly what to say. This had gone from a Hollywood movie to one of those his friend Alan kept getting him to watch that made his head go to mush and just wound him up. For a good few minutes they just sat there in silence. Peter started to sag a little. He did not know what to say or what to do; he did not know what to make of this strange man whose car he was in. He didn’t feel any threat, just a disorienting sensation not unlike falling sideways. He looked down at the back of his hands and could have sworn they looked a little sunburnt.

When Peter looked up Fowler was sitting with his hand outstretched, a cardboard covered file in it. He had not even sensed the big man moving in the slightest.

“Take this from me,” Fowler said,” This will be enough to get you started on your way. There are details here of my daughter’s life and details of the man who she has gone with. He is unremarkable. She is young and impressionable. At this stage I am willing to disregard her mistakes and take her back under my protection.”

Another cough shook the car.

“Do you smoke Mr Stone?”

“Yes,” Peter said and it was all he could.

“I mean do you really smoke, Mr Stone?”

Peter thought he understood.

“Yes,” he said, slowly nodding as if to fall into the rhythm of the bigger man’s speech.

“In the file are the details I mentioned but there is also a cashier’s cheque made out for ten thousand pounds, simply as a retainer for your services. It is a fraction of the amount that you will receive on the safe return of Madeleine.”

“Okay,” Peter said and broke into a slight sweat on his forehead. If this man knew that he was faking through this he gave no indication, betrayed no sign of hesitation or suspicion. Peter felt that he could break a headstone over Ratcliffe Fowler’s head and he would not indicate any change in condition.

Fowler took one of his enormous hands and reached into his inner jacket pocket. The hand seemed to shrink down to normal size to get in there. It came out again with a small, golden cigarette case. As Ratcliffe Fowler gently clicked the case open Peter knew what was in it; the smell hit his nose before any information got to his eyes.

“Smoke this now.” Fowler said to him and it was not a question or a request. Peter nervously plucked a long, thin cigarette shaped object from the case and sat with it in his hands. Fowler reached to the right and clicked out of its holding place a hand grenade plated with silver. His arm went forward and reached Peter’s face easily and without the rest of Fowler’s bulk having to move.

Peter raised the elegant joint to his lips and then held the end up slightly, leaning in just a little. Fowler’s thumb came down and a bright flame came out in front of it, from the top of the hand grenade lighter. Peter pulled on the joint so that it lit but then felt nervous about taking another drag. He let it linger on the edge of his lip.

Fowler took another one of the joints for himself and lit it. He took a long, deep drag and held it in for a good thirty or forty seconds. He then expelled it directly forward and with such force that it blew all over Peter’s face. Peter felt uncomfortable like he had that time he’d watched that porn movie and halfway through another guy joined in but joined in with everybody.

“I have certain medical conditions, Mr Stone,” Fowler said, “I find that this drug helps me cope with the discomfort that living in this climate gives me. It is a stress for me, staying here. In this place. But I do it because I have chosen to.”

Peter dragged on the spliff and breathed it down and held it and let it go. His head span immediately and he didn’t know if it was today or yesterday or tomorrow or the end of time.

“Chosen to…” Peter said, limply echoing and little else. The life was draining from him, all pretence succumbing to a momentous and overpowering urge to lie down and pull this feeling over him like a big, safe blanket.

“Read the file, Mr Stone. Take the money. Be my eyes and ears because I cannot stand to be out there in this world. Be my strong arm. Find Madeleine Fowler and bring her home to me. Do anything you justify as reasonable to accomplish this task for me. I will bear the brunt of your actions. I will shield you.”

“Shield me…” Peter said and tried to open the file in his lap but his fingers didn’t seem to be connected to the tendons in his wrist anymore so they wouldn’t move around as he commanded them to.

“You need a fresh start Mr Stone. I can sense you are weary. My task is urgent but you must apply yourself to it fully and with energy. You will begin tomorrow. For today, here take more of my medicine.”

Fowler forced three or four joints into Peter’s side jacket pocket. Peter was truly stunned by this point and he felt his instincts kicking in. Someone reaching out and putting their hand in his pocket was unacceptable. Without thinking his left hand rushed out and grabbed Fowler’s retreating arm. Peter’s eyes widened. Fowler’s other hand reached over and detached Peter’s hand from the wrist with ease. Peter was shocked at Fowler’s physical strength; he had never known such a restrained power before despite all his years of fighting. Peter had been punched by men strong enough to knock him unconscious with one blow but he had never felt someone as strong as Fowler must be.

Peter’s hand hung in the air for a moment when Fowler let it go with a motion as casual as dropping paper into a rubbish bin. Then it fell to his knee and Peter relaxed, his frame going limp. He seemed to be sinking into something or other.

“Mm a detec’ ive,” Peter Stone said to Fowler, lolling back in the plush seat.

“Yes, I know you are,” Ratcliffe Fowler said and he clicked his fingers in Peter’s face.

Peter was sat on his sofa, bolt upright. He felt fresh and clear, rested but also confused. He looked at his wristwatch. It was two thirty in the afternoon.

 

 

Thanks Peter God – Chapter Five

Usual warning – swearing and sex. Don’t show this to kids, I’m in enough trouble as it is.

Chapter Five

A Sharp Intake Of Breath

Peter Godfrey had decided that he was in love. He came to the decision as he sat with his notebook in a local shopping centre, watching people come and go and occasionally writing down things about them. This exercise was supposed to generate ideas or at least food for ideas for his second book. So far he had written down a number of things including:

like Bill Nighy with smack habit

and:

large mono-brow woman on bench – black/grey

and even:

people who walk like they’ve just shit themselves.

None of these struck Peter as anywhere near a good idea or even a train of thought. He was sat in a shopping centre feeling tense and being petty, judgemental and shallow. He was just another shopper. His mind was not on writing, not on his work. He found the concept of writing being his work a difficult one to understand. It made writing seem like something he didn’t want to do. This, though, wasn’t the main problem stifling his creativity. The real problem was Anita Powell.

Today was the 15^th May and Peter and Anita had been sleeping together for the last two weeks. They had seen each other a few times after their initial meeting. They’d carried on talking on line a lot too, every day they would spend at least a couple of hours chatting on some messenger service. That had carried on for the best part of April but as the end of that month had neared Peter had seriously thought he had been going crazy. He still had not been able to get a handle on Anita Powell. She had started spending a lot of time with him and he had gotten on with her better than anyone else he’d met in a good ten years. Not that Peter had had a good ten years. Still, they had suddenly become best of friends and over a couple of weeks almost inseparable. They had for all intents and purposes started acting like a couple. They just hadn’t sealed it yet.

Still he could not tell if she liked him or not. Well, she obviously liked him, no one would spend such a great deal of time with someone unless they liked them. But did she like him like him? This he could still not fathom as the end of April had come rushing up at them. Luckily for Peter Godfrey drink had taken the job away from him. Anita had invited him to a book club meeting at a pub local to her. Anita had been a bit giddy about the evening from the start; she had felt like it was something special turning up with Peter, turning up with an actual published author. She had been sensible about it on the evening apart from watching how much she had to drink. Anita liked red wine. Red wine liked her right back.

By the time they left the pub it was obvious to Peter that he was going to have to be the gentleman and walk Anita home. It wasn’t far to her house. He had not been there; neither of them had invited the other around and this was one of Peter’s big arguments for not making a move yet. Surely, he’d thought, she would have asked me on to her own safe, territory if she liked me and trusted me that way. Anita had been thinking exactly the same thing; she was not dumb, she knew that Peter was fucked up when it came to relationships. She had made a decision to take things very slowly, hoping that he would stick around long enough if it was worth anything. She hadn’t realised she’d been torturing him so.

It was a nice night. The clocks had gone forward a few weeks ago and the weather had warmed. There was a clear sky and that smell of moisture in the air that promises rain but only in the night when you’re fast asleep. Then you can wake up to the fresh, new day. Peter was taking this in as he struggled along with one arm propping Anita up. The air had hit her once she’d come out of the pub and she’d gone a bit wobbly. She wasn’t scared of throwing up, she had to drink a hell of a lot more for that, she knew. She just didn’t want to seem all girly and stupid in front of Peter. Not yet, anyway.

Peter being Peter he could not quite keep away the more sexual thoughts that just her presence next to him were bringing on. He knew it was probably nothing – all he had was her arm lopped over his and her head against his shoulder but for a man who had gone the best part of a year without sex and the best part of a month wondering if this woman he lusted after lusted after him as well, well it was too much. All he could feel was the warmth of her body through her clothing. All he could smell was her hair, all clean and sexy smelling. Well, he could smell the booze on her as well, but that hardly mattered. Booze and perfume were a fine mix on a woman. They were a promise that was sometimes kept.

They chatted a little but were mostly quiet. She acted the embarrassed girl. He let her. Peter had had just a couple of pints himself but was a lightweight and it had gone to his head in a good way. He felt happy and oddly for Peter he felt relaxed. He let go of his fears about Anita. He decided that at that very moment he felt very good about himself and where he was and who he was with. If that meant that something else was about to happen to make that even better, so be it. If it wasn’t, he could wait. He really felt like he meant it as well.

Of course if Peter Godfrey had gone home that night after waving the drunken and attractive Anita goodbye at her front door, trudging off to get a bus to town or to make himself walk all the way as punishment, that would have been another matter. It didn’t matter how happy Peter felt at that exact moment, it didn’t matter that it felt like an epiphany; if he had just left her there with nothing having happened he would have been miserable within seconds. Peter was never any good at hiding feelings and they came up on him so suddenly sometimes.

That night, though, when Peter Godfrey walked Anita Powell up to her front door he didn’t find himself walking away again, despondent. She stumbled as she put the key in the door and he grabbed her to stop her falling. He ended up with both her elbows in his hands and Anita pushed back against him so his face was almost in her hair. She turned her face just then, a slightly shocked look on it. In that moment it became clear to them both what was going to happen next. After a month in the box next to Schrödinger’s cat Peter was suddenly released from his state of quantum uncertainty and knew instantly that Anita had liked him (like that) all along.

The kiss happened in its own slow time. They both did that thing that characters in movies do; they looked at each other’s eyes and then they looked down to each other’s lips, both at the same time. Peter, his head always a whirlwind of unnecessary thought, found himself thinking about this: why would I need to glance down to make sure where her lips are? They’re where they’ve always been. Why do people do that?

Anita was not thinking anything at all; her mind was a wonderful, shining blank, all feeling and no thought. She had slipped up into a trance state, a magical state. Peter would have been jealous had he known – a silenced mind and the bliss that came with it seemed to stay out of reach for him and was exactly what he needed.

And then their lips touched.

Peter was always surprised by kisses or rather by the feel of a woman’s lips on his. It felt like it was always the same experience but also as if every single woman in the world was so completely different and individual that it was amazing. Every time was a revelation. It was like reading the same book, year after year, always familiar but with new levels of meaning as your life built up your experiences and memories and acted as a new filter for the information that you thought you knew so well. Anita Powell tasted soft and sweet, she tasted that urgent way that living, warm, human flesh tastes, that way that makes you crave more and more and makes it never want to end. Well, until the biological imperative gets its way and then tells you to just go to sleep.

Peter wondered how it must feel for Anita; he always found himself unable to conceive of why a woman would want to kiss a man – the stubble alone must make it a horrifying experience he thought. He found it amusing; men craved the softness, the sweetness, the perfume of women – in return women wanted the roughness and the stink of men. It seemed such an alien concept to him, as if both sexes were mixed up and wanted the wrong things. Men didn’t worry about getting silken soft sheets for their beds or making sure their houses and flats smelt delightful and flowery, didn’t concentrate of making their environments pretty and attractive. But that is exactly what they wanted in a woman. That’s what felt right without thinking though; no-one sat down and figured this out in their early teens; it just happened and one day it happened so powerfully that it dominated the rest of your life. As a child you were obsessed with simple things like getting more sweets, more toys – in an indescribable way, an impulse that couldn’t be explained. One day that impulse moved and suddenly you were a man who couldn’t stop himself turning around to check out a woman’s ass because it just seemed impossible not to. Peter figured that the most likely causes of his death would be either the torture of a long, cancerous illness as he had always feared most or just simply being hit by a bus because he had stepped out into the road whilst looking backwards at some tight fitting jeans on a killer ass and legs. He had tried his hand at being a new age, concerned post-feminist man but had conceded defeat. Whilst he was sincerely discussing the needs and importance of the women’s movement he would usually also be thinking I wonder what her nipples are like. Peter had given up on thinking of himself as at all progressive and understanding a long time ago.

I wonder what Anita’s nipples are like, Peter found himself thinking as the kiss went on. I think I might just find out. He was right – he did find out, within seventeen minutes of having the thought.  The kiss at the door lasted a long time but as it started to rain more heavily they both reluctantly left that perfect little first moment behind and went inside. It felt a wrench to move on; if every relationship in the world could stay in that perfect little moment, Anita thought, then everyone could be happy forever.

Moving away from that first moment entropy set in. Movements and intentions became clumsy and less defined, thought intruded onto instinct and made things more difficult. Both Peter and Anita had been through this all before, many times and because of that knew that it never got any easier. In practicality it might seem easier to get naked with someone and then have sex with them – you might be more used to it, better at it, more thoughtful and practical – but this was not just two people having sex. This was the beginning of something and that was much more complex. This was a ritual, a ceremony which would initiate whatever it was they would go on to have together. A beginning is a delicate time, rituals are easy to muddle, magic is powerful and difficult to control. The human will must be focussed to achieve clarity and power; lack of focus and lack of true will can only lead to an unclear and uncertain. It is not easy, it takes hard work. Which of us has it in them to be so sure, so confident and self-aware to get this part right? Certainly not Peter Godfrey and Anita Powell.

In Anita’s big, comfortable and sweet smelling bed they performed their ritual, they made their magic, they opened a door onto the future. It was tender and loving enough and it was shot through with a craving and urgency that came of want and lust. It was pure enough of intent to be a start. Afterwards Anita brought out some cigarettes – it turned out that for all her lecturing she sometimes secretly smoked at home. The pack was half empty and Peter wondered silently if one of those earlier cigarettes had been smoked by another man who had sat up here in this bed with Anita lying against him having fucked her.

It was a Friday night and neither of them had to be up early for any reason. They put on the radio and listened to it silently for a while. Then they had sex again, slowly, longer, less urgent but in a way more intense. Then they slept for a little while until Anita woke around 1am and made them some snack food. They talked then for hours with the World Service mumbling on in the background and the birds starting to talk through the opening in the bedroom window. They talked until it was sunrise and then they made love again and then slept until late morning.

Ahead in time on the 15^th May Peter Godfrey sat in the shopping centre and went over as much detail of that night as he could. He did not make notes in his moleskin reporter’s pad for this. He wished he could – he wished there was a way to truly capture memory as it originally was not as he knew it turned into; a recollection only, re-read, re-written and moved around in your head until you have fictionalised everything that went before. He didn’t like losing the past like that, he knew he was too good a writer and that turned him into the author of his own life, though only the life that had already gone before.

He had made his decision now though; two weeks in he was sure that he was in love. He decided that he wanted to be in love and this made it true. This felt important; this was an official decision and not one taken lightly. He had not dared consider himself as in love for a number of years. He had avoided it for as long as possible. He had been in love; a decade ago now and he had messed up and messed up so badly that he had damaged his own future. It was with a woman he’d considered as the woman he wanted to spend the rest of his life with. He had loved her more than anything or anyone before in his life but even this had not stopped his depression, paranoia and neuroses from wrecking the relationship. Once he had wrecked the relationship Peter Godfrey had watched himself slide into a long, miserable depression, a self piteous rut that only now was he even starting to pull himself out.

There had been other women over the years, quite a few  and some of them genuinely had loved him, but they all paled compared to the lost love and he wore that love as a hair shirt. He was scared of loving again of course; he felt he had managed to push away the one person he had found so far in his life that seemed destined to love him forever. Of course he was scared; anyone would be. So he had kept his head down, wallowed in his own misery, written his book and along the way had brief affairs, always ended by himself if he thought it was all getting too loving and scary.

To anyone reading Only Fools And Sweethearts it was blindingly obvious that this was a story written in heartbreak and an attempt to understand that heartbreak and put it aside. That is, until they read the end of the book and realised that it was by and about someone who had refused to let go of what they had done and the damage that they had caused. It was about someone who was deciding to carry on torturing themselves because all the narrative had done, all the writing of the work had done was reinforce for them how miserable, pathetic and lacking they were. It was not a happy ending.

When Anita had read the book she read the ending as one of hope, as one demonstrating an exorcism of past demons. She took it that the protagonist and so, she assumed, the author, had put themselves through a cathartic experience but then realised that the ultimate sacrifice also had to be made. When the protagonist tried to kill themselves, only to be reborn as an unfeeling, emotionless thing, Anita actually took this as a positive sign. She took from this that Peter Godfrey had done this to his protagonist in order to kill his old self off completely, allowing himself to carry on and be normal and new.

Anita Powell was very, very wrong. Now that self-loathing, self-pitying man who could not get over what he perceived as his greatest failure had decided that he was in love with her and that it was time, despite everything, to try and make that love work.

 

THE LONELY GRAVE OF MARGIE SCHOEDINGER

As the most important British General Election since the last one nears I’d like to remind myself and others about how exactly this world works under the current system(s) of government prevalent in the Western Hemisphere. There is one person’s name that illustrates how things work more than any other that springs to mind. You will probably have never heard of it before.

Margie Schoedinger. She died aged 38 of a gunshot wound to the head in Missouri City, a suburb of the American city of Houston on the 22^nd September 2003. You can check that fact here: http://bit.ly/8ZrhA3, that’s the Fort Bend County public records. Not much detail, sorry. So have you ever heard of Margie Schoedinger?

I bet you’ve heard of Monica Lewinsky. She is famous for having President Clinton shove a cigar up her vagina and for performing fellatio on him and getting his semen on her dress. Type Monica Lewinsky into Google and you get 662,000 results. Her Wikipedia entry is substantial and heavily referenced. The Starr Report that investigated her relationship to President Clinton led to his impeachment. That cigar that went up her nearly brought down the head of the most powerful nation in the world. The mainstream American press and numerous right wing commentators fed on the story for months.

Type Margie Schoedinger into Google. You’ll only get 3,550 results and when I first heard her name it was just dozens. You won’t find any search results that lead back to any major news networks, certainly not Fox, CNN etc. Her Wikipedia entry is four sentences long. From that entry http://bit.ly/17GkZc you can see why some people might think she’d be better known. She filed charges of rape and physical abuse against an incumbent President, in this case George W. Bush. She did this in December 2002 and that is a matter of public record. I would link you to the records but for some reason Fort Bend County have now removed them from their website. I did read them fully myself, shortly after her death, which I only found out about because I was trawling through conspiracy websites whilst researching my novel Goodnight Horses.

At first I was sceptical; I’d been reading a lot of ridiculous conspiracy websites backed up by very little evidence. However, hidden amongst the ridiculous I would find real stories too; I remember reading about Abu Ghraib prison and the torture and deaths going on there at least 18 months before it was covered in the mainstream news. I remember thinking, surely this can’t be true or else the BBC would be covering it. It was all true, every horrible detail and it didn’t turn up on the BBC until a year and a half after independent journalists had been putting their lives at risk to get the story out. I do mean literally putting their lives at risk; just prior to the invasion of Iraq the US military clearly and openly stated to many independent journalists (including a bemused Kate Adie) that not only would they not safeguard any journalists unwilling to be embedded with US or UK military units but that they would in fact target them if they got “in the way”.

Anyhow, back in the USA a couple of reporters certainly not working for mainstream news companies finally took an interest in Margie Schoedinger’s story after Pravda, the Russian news service, ran the story http://bit.ly/a7SDtZ. It was run in Russia before it ever appeared in the USA. If this had been a time before the internet no one would ever have known. This piece http://bit.ly/qQqKm by Jackson Thoreau (possibly a pseudonym or so I’m led to believe) gives the best overview and deals generally with the case and its oddities and inconsistencies. This article http://bit.ly/BEr1W deals more with the lack of media scrutiny and shows that at least one British newspaper took some notice.

What’s known to be true about the case of Margie Schoedinger is that she did file charges against George W. Bush alleging that he sexually assaulted both her and her husband. She further brought charges against the Sugar Land County police force for harassment and assault. When questioned about this by journalists the Sugar Land police lied and said no charges had been filed. The journalists found the files confirming the charges. Sugar Land police did however discover that George W Bush had dated Margie when she was a minor, he did know her at one time. Margie Schoedinger did not seek publicity. She was extremely reluctant to meet or talk to journalists. She made no money from her allegations. There have been suggestions that she was mentally ill but there is no evidence of this from her reported behaviour or her history. She died from a gunshot wound to the head which the coroner judged to be self inflicted. It is very, very rare for women to choose this method for suicide. It is much more likely amongst males.

Trawl through the search results on Google. There isn’t much information about this woman. There is nothing that’s really negative or damning about her, just mostly the facts of the case as above. Most of all there is a vacuum of mainstream interest in Margie Schoedinger. I cannot say whether her allegations were true, whether she was deranged and delusional. As I said she didn’t file the charges in order to get famous and make money. Why she did and whether they were true we can’t now know as she died from a shotgun being fired into her face.

I’m not interested in whether Margie’s allegations were true. Not anymore. I’m mainly interested in the fact that almost every major news agency in the entire world ignored a story handed to them, fully backed by filed court charges, with allegations of a violent and sexual nature against the most highly placed man in the United States of America. Let’s face it, George W Bush wasn’t much out of the newspapers for his two terms in office and was always a figure of controversy, constantly attacked by the mainstream and left wing, constantly defended by the mainstream and the right wing. So why did every single major news network in America and 99% of every other news networks in the world choose to deliberately ignore the story of Margie Schoedinger, all at the same time? Because that’s when they were offered the information –  all of them at the same time, just when the charges had been filed. These are the same media outlets that a few years previously had covered the Clinton-Lewinsky story, without exception, every single day for years.

When you’re going to the polling booth this week think about Margie Schoedinger. Then think about the person and the party you’re about to vote for. Think about the media coverage you’ve seen concerning the election. Think about all the bad bits and all the good bits. Then think about the other bits you haven’t seen. That would be most of it; most of the election has happened off screen for everyone. There isn’t enough screen time and newsprint in the world to cover every single part of an election, so that’s fair enough. But think to yourself, who decided what I should see about the election, what policies I should know about, what incidents, what quotes, what people. Who decided? Someone decided that we didn’t need to know about Margie Schoedinger; well, lots of people all over the world did although I don’t know their names and probably never will. Think about that then, this week, think about the people who decide what you should think about and how you don’t even know their names. Mind you, you probably didn’t know Margie Schoedinger’s name before reading this but you do now.

 

 

THANKS PETER GOD – CHAPTER FOUR

PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS CHAPTER HAS SEXUAL REFERENCES. DON’T READ ON UNLESS YOU’RE OKAY WITH THIS.

Chapter Four

Deimos

Peter Stone pulled himself out of a girl called Chloe and flopped back on to his bed with a woosh of air blowing between his lips that made them vibrate. Chloe giggled and told him he sounded like a horse. Peter did not laugh but just lay there, getting his breath back and starting to feel tense. He didn’t like bringing girls back to his place; he didn’t really like bringing anyone into his home at all. His home was his alone. He knew where everything was and everything was in it’s right place. He did not want anyone interfering in this. In this case the girl he was with was only in her early twenties and still lived with her parents. He’d had no choice but to bring her home to fuck her.

He lay there thinking about her clothes piled on the floor by his bed. He’d had no trouble throwing them there as he had stripped them off her but now as his orgasm faded away he could not help but think of them, lying there when there should be bare, pristine, clean carpet in their place. He sighed; he was used to this process and knew he just had to tolerate it, at least until he got horny again. He wanted at least one more fuck before he told her she had to leave.

She started making `mmm’ noises as she turned and snuggled against him, her hand flat on his chest and her right leg up on his. She was attractive – a pretty face and a thin body with ample ass and tits – the way he liked women. She was young enough and pert enough to be acceptable to him as someone he may see a few times. To this end he was tolerating her affections; the snuggling, the cute noises, her inane pillow talk. He knew it was necessary in order to maintain some semblance of interest. He made no effort to reciprocate but he had learned from years of this that reciprocation was not needed, just a disinterested tolerance would do. He remained still and dispassionate but was careful not to do or say anything negative; he knew that a lack of action would be enough in itself. In the absence of any evidence at all she would attach her own meanings and emotions to the situation and to him. He did his best to remain a blank slate that would allow her to write her own version of him on to it. He even enjoyed this process, watching girls assume what they wanted or needed and not dispelling their myths until he found it necessary to so that he could be rid of them and move on to the next one. He found that most girls, like most people in general, didn’t want to really know a person or feel affection for a person; what they wanted was a set of circumstances that they were comfortable with that made them feel safe and normal. He thought that this was perhaps why most people were unhappy and left a trail of failed relationships behind them. They imagined that they were looking for that special someone when in fact they had a rigid idea of who or what that person should be and when they couldn’t jam a real person into the role then they blamed that person and the relationship failed.

Peter Stone knew that people were really far too ugly, stupid, fearful and cowardly inside for anyone else to truly love them. To love a real person would entail loving all those mean, petty and shallow things that really went into making them who they were. If you did that you would  be forced to recognise those traits in yourself. Peter thought that he knew very few people who could ever come to terms with their true selves. Relationships were doomed to failure or a slow, lingering, diseased decay that trapped both parties inside it.

Peter prided himself on being able to see this. He counted himself amongst that small number smart enough to recognise the traits in himself and smart enough not to be afraid of them or let them direct his actions. He realised that this meant the same thing for him as for everyone else, a self destructive failing that would make a mockery of any attempted long term relationship. He felt that this could have caused him, like it caused so many others he saw around him, to deliberately blind himself to these wrongs and blunder ahead regardless of the consequences he knew all too well would follow. Instead Peter Stone embraced his shallowness, his pettiness, his lack of emotional interest in the well-being of others – he felt that it set him free and once free he could completely be himself. It never once occurred to Peter Stone that he was in charge of his own life and could make another decision or be another way completely.

So he learned the tricks of appearing normal and he applied them just sparsely enough to maintain the requisite facade. Not only did this pass with women it drew them to him – his confidence, his chilling assuredness, hardly masked beneath his muted exterior, was probably the real reason for this, he thought. Girls fooled themselves that they fell for his looks and pretence of normality but Peter knew the truth; they recognised, however unconsciously, his cold disregard and they responded to this truth without ever really knowing or being able to admit why, least of all to themselves.

Chloe murmured some more and hugged closer to him. Peter lay still as a rock in a riverbed, letting the attention wash over him like cold, fresh water. He turned then, to look at her. She had dark auburn hair with a natural curl, falling on to his shoulder, her lips red with a cheap lipstick but full and smiling, her long lashed eyelids gently closed. His eye lingered on an exposed piece of neck, flawless skin there and then his attention wandered up to a perfect little ear. She looked beautiful here, a warmth against his inner chill. The sheets were thrown back and he looked down at her body – her soft breasts with dark nipples lying against his chest. Her perfect, angular pelvis at an angle to his, soft brush of hair down there in the middle. Peter looked down at himself and saw he was fully erect again.

He looked back at Chloe again. Only twenty one or twenty two, he couldn’t quite remember… soft, beautiful, strong, sweet smelling and sweet natured with it. A girl any man would desire and many would want to fall in love with. Peter decided he would fuck her doggy style this time, pulling her head back by tugging on her hair. Then he would see if she would take anal. If not he would have to content himself with cumming over her face instead.

Chloe had been gone several hours when Peter found himself sitting in front of his computer reading through his emails. He trashed the spam mail and then went through the ads he actually subscribed to and found little of interest. He answered a couple of emails from friends – always brief and to the point – and then he found himself faced with one last email that he couldn’t quite get a hold on.

He remembered that a couple of years ago he had received all those weird emails – just lots of text, paragraphs and paragraphs of it, nearly making sense but not quite. It had been like someone had carefully cut up a novel and repositioned it so that it imitated a novel but did not make the same sense a novel did. There had been no links in those emails, no spam message, just weirdness and a strange sense of dread. Looking at this email he had now in front of him he felt a similar sense of dread and did not quite know why.

The message was quite formal. It claimed to be from a Ratcliffe Fowler, a name that Peter sensed he should recognised but couldn’t quite figure out where from. It sounded like a local politician or businessman. It sounded made up. The message was this:

Dear Mr Stone

Having failed to make contact with you through my lawyers, Brownsword and Moon, I have decided to appeal to you directly. I am need of your services, as you must know from previous correspondence. You have been recommended as the best at what you do and I require nothing but the best in this case.

Finding my daughter is the single most important thing in the world for me. All my wealth and resources stand for nothing if I cannot use them to do this one thing.

I implore you; please help me in this – I need your singular skills and talents.

Please reply to this email directly and I will be happy to set up a private meeting. I am more than prepared to extend a substantial monetary advance in order to secure your help.

Yours in hope,

Ratcliffe Fowler Esq.

There was no address, phone number or other contact details, just the return email address of r.fowler@ratcliffefowler.com. Peter checked to make sure that it really had been sent to his email address, peterstone1972@hotmail.co.uk, but of course it had, he wouldn’t have even been looking at it if it hadn’t been. He then checked www.ratcliffefowler.com only to find it brought up nothing but one of those “we cannot find this web address” messages.

Peter would have been tempted to discard this email if not for three things. Firstly, it had been addressed to a Mr Stone and he was, clearly, a Mr Stone and it was also sent intentionally and directly to his email address. He did consider that it may have been intended for someone with the same name but an email address one digit different; no real way to check that considering how common the name was. He didn’t remember getting any previous emails from a firm of lawyers but supposed that he might well have junked them without much consideration.

Secondly he was intrigued by the content of the email; it was a mystery and despite the fact that Peter Stone lived and breathed certainty and steered away from the unknown, this mystery reminded him of ones he had read about in books; lost ,daughters, detective work. It sounded fictional enough to have gotten and to have held his interest.

And the third thing? The promise of a “substantial” amount of money, of course. How many months could Peter Stone spend fucking and drinking on some real money? He couldn’t really imagine, it sounded so good. Taking years off instead of months at a time maybe… that would be worth a little uncertainty. He had no trouble lying to people – he did not especially enjoy doing it but was practised at it because he was comfortable with people who deceived themselves on a daily basis. If he needed to lie, he could lie.

So what next? Reply to the email, he supposed. That was the next logical step and the one the person who had sent the email expected. Peter considered the fact that this might be some trap or scam, something designed to extort money from him or simply to fuck with him because the person who sent it did not like him. He knew it was enjoyable to fuck with people, often for no good reason, but there were plenty of disgruntled boyfriends and husbands out there who may have laid low, making plans against him. He was not afraid of that. He was too confident of his strength and his temper. If anyone wanted to fuck with him they would find themselves fucked with instead. Peter Stone enjoyed violence too much to worry about it being perpetrated against him.

He had time on his hands. He typed in reply:

Dear Mr Ratcliffe

Name a time and place were we can discuss this matter. Bring a cash advance, how much I leave to your decision. We should meet alone to keep the matter confidential.

Regards,

Peter Stone

His finger wavered over the left mouse button for a few seconds and then clicked. The email was sent. It was eight o’clock at night so Peter didn’t expect any reply today. Anyway, he had plans. He’d spent most of the day in bed, first with Chloe and then for a few hours on his own recuperating. He intended to go out and do what he did best.

Next morning Peter Stone found himself waking up next to a sleeping blonde. The first thing that went through his mind as he struggled to his elbows was “nice ass but too skinny for me”. Despite this thought he managed another bout of sex when the girl, whose name he did not bother asking, woke up and offered him a couple of lines of coke for breakfast. The sex was brisk and exuberant; too skinny or not he made sure he got her number and then fooled one of her housemates into giving away her name so he wouldn’t look foolish asking just after sex. He discovered from the housemate that the girl he’d just shagged was called Sarah. Blonde, skinny Sarah with the nice, pert ass he said to himself, filing that sentence away. That was how he remembered them; a string of associations. It always worked. Well, with the ones worth remembering anyhow.

He had some toast with Sarah and her housemate, a girl called Mandy who was also blonde but not so skinny. He filed her away for now as well; it would be good to see if he could get them to agree to a threesome. He figured that there was enough casualness about the drug taking and they were young and naive enough to be persuaded into it. He felt good but a bit strung out – spread a little thin for his liking. He felt like getting home and eating a lot.

He left their house and found that it was eleven in the morning, much earlier than he thought. He figured he hadn’t gotten back to their house before 5am and he had to factor in at least two hours for sex, so he thought that he’d maybe had three hours sleep, four at the most. He felt the drugs keeping him going but knew he would start crashing this afternoon.  He kept a little weed at home in order to help him sleep deeply in situations like this.

Peter had forgotten all about the email at this point. His only concerns were his cock and his belly and his ears. One was taken care of for now, the second he was making plans for and the third he was shoving his Bose earphones into now. His head started nodding as he started listening to Holy Fuck. He liked how simple and noisy and straightforward it was. He didn’t much like music with lyrics or meanings. As he walked along, slowly, moving along with the rhythm he was unaware of the large, dark green car which was also moving slowly along the road a few houses behind him. It rolled along quietly for a few more streets and then stopped. A man got out of it and held something up to his eye. Maybe it was a camera, but there was no flash as he stood there, pointing it down the street in the direction that Peter Stone was slowly bopping along.

Peter Stone was easily distracted. He had walked into town and bumped into a former work colleague. Lunch had been had, leading to more drinks. He had finally gotten home after 6 when the sky was beginning to darken. He’d been careful to drink lots of water between his beers and felt quite sober. He was looking forward to lighting up a nice spliff and watching some crap TV before having an early night. It was just part of his usual routine to check the computer. The email from Ratcliffe Fowler still wasn’t at the forefront of his mind.

So it was more than a little unnerving when Peter got to the email marked URGENT. It wasn’t from Ratcliffe Fowler or Brownsword and Moon Solicitors. There was no reply to his email from yesterday that he could see. The only email was the one marked URGENT that was from Brad_Faith@gmail.com and it simply said:

Have information for you. Do not trust Fowler. Mail me back but do it quickly. Do not let anyone you do not know into your house.

Peter felt confused at first, then unnerved. He could feel himself crashing from the long day, the drinks and the drugs. He knew he should eat but suddenly didn’t have an appetite for it. He sat himself down and rolled a joint, making it fairly strong. Right now he was craving the tobacco as much as the weed itself. He rolled himself a regular cigarette too and smoked that first. It made him feel relaxed but sick so he started up the spliff straight after. He had a good couple of drags before he noticed the piece of paper lying over by his front door. He went to pick it up, expecting it to be a takeaway leaflet or other local advertisement. Instead it was an A5 size piece of paper folded in two with “Mr P Stone” written neatly on one side. Peter Stone unfolded the piece of paper and read it. It said:

Thank you for your prompt reply. I appreciate your attention in this matter and by that I really do mean your full attention. My car will be round to pick you up at 8am tomorrow morning. We shall discuss terms and details then.

Yours,

R Fowler Esq.

Peter’s head swam from the weed and from being drunk and tired and not realising it. He sat down heavily and put on the television. He switched between a few channels but could not decide what he wanted to watch. He took a few more drags on the spliff and his head slowly settled back down onto his shoulders. He could feel his strength draining but doubted he’d make it off the sofa tonight. On television a man was talking about the solar system and a computer animation showed weird rock shapes orbiting Mars, strange things, not like he expected, not like the Moon. Peter felt a sense of dread and fell asleep.

 

MANIFESTO

Everybody else is publishing their manifesto today so thought I might as well publish mine. It makes a lot more sense than most of them. Click to enlarge.

 

I’LL TEST MY LOG WITH EVERY BRANCH OF KNOWLEDGE

This was my art degree dissertation. Originally it was going to be something quite different but the tutor assigned to me was quite set in her ways and we got into massive arguments every time we met. In the end the essay became a defence against her narrow world view. She had no confidence in my writing abilities; she assumed that because I held opinions at variance with her own that it meant I simply could not write. She got quite a shock when the dissertation was awarded the highest mark anyone on the degree had ever been given.

I typed this up again from the original and in doing so have been frugal in making changes – I was tempted to re-write the whole thing but there’s so many things I could add I would never have stopped. I settled for correcting some grammar, spelling and bad sentence structure. I also decided to leave in some of the bad grammar and sentence structure simply because it still needs it to sound like me thirteen years ago.

I’ll Test My Log With Every Branch Of Knowledge

Thoughts On Perception And The Films Of David Lynch

1997

Introduction

‘Yoda sits on a large root, poking his gimer stick into the dirt.

Luke turns to see a huge dead tree, its base surrounded by a few feet of water,

Giant twisted roots form a dark and sinister cave on one side.

Luke stares at the tree, trembling.

LUKE: There’s something not right here. I feel cold, death.

YODA: That place… is strong with the dark side of the Force. A

Domain of evil it is. In you must go.

LUKE: what’s in there?

YODA: Only what you take with you.’

(Leigh Brackett and Lawrence Kasdan, 1979)

A beginning is a delicate time. In his collection of essays named ‘Travels in Hyper-Reality’ the semiologist Umberto Eco expresses the opinion that:

‘variability of interpretation is the constant law of mass communications.’

Eco, 1987

This essay was originally intended as a discourse on the state of fine art and what I felt to be its lack of success as the relevant language through which culture can be expressed (and whether it ever had or ever could really fulfil this role). A comparison of fine art to cinema, a mass communicative form which embraces fine art concepts and techniques but reaches a much larger and well trained audience, was to be used to this end. When this was narrowed further to a study of the films of a director whose work has interested me for many years and who was trained as a fine artist (a painter, something he still does), it became apparent that the scope of the essay would have to be much larger and the focus of it could not be a critical examination of his work but a critical examination of the criticism of his work and following from there, the interpretations which can be made from any piece of artwork, film or otherwise, which brought me close to my original intent.

Complex arguments over the authorship of work and the responsibility of interpretation have become the larger concern and the main difficulty has become editing down or rather selecting, which material to use or not use, something which is somewhat hampered by the very subject matter that I am dealing with. Excuse this essay if it seems to rush past subject areas that would seem to deserve a deeper look; in order to get the correct overview of the works and subjects under discussion I have had to be ruthless in the length of subject discussion.

I will refrain as much as is possible from expressing opinion regarding Lynch’s work and instead will attempt to focus on its perception, trying to create a discourse of learning and debate rather than conjecture. This is not to say that there are not very specific arguments in this work, but as with my previous essays I have absolutely no intent of entirely proving my point; whilst I cannot help but reach some conclusions I am all too aware of the fragile nature of conclusive arguments. Rather I would like the reader to have been made aware of some facts that they may or may not have known before, or made to think by the construction of an argument or debate that they may not have thought of in that certain way before.

Chapter One

When it comes to defending his movies, Lynch doesn’t bother. In Lynch on Lynch, Chris Rodley states his frustration at interviewing Lynch and gaining little more knowledge than before;

‘Even when Lynch seems aware of the precise, personal meaning of certain sequences, he often responds with a ‘don’t know/won’t tell’ combo… Lynch is unwilling to assign specific words to images or sequences in his movies simply for the purpose of explanation or justification. He clearly believes this to be an irrelevant and unnecessary part of the creative process.’

Rodley, 1997

Many critics interpret this lack of cohesive dialogue as Lynch’s ‘genius’ gambit; by saying as little as possible in a mysterious manner he can inflate the aura of artistic genius around himself. Whether this is true or not is irrelevant; many critics berate him for this obvious machination whilst others embrace this image and praise it as part of him. For the purpose of this essay everything Lynch is quoted as saying will be taken with a liberal pinch of salt. Whether this image, project or not, correct or not, is true is not the concern; it is its existence which promotes discussion. Some critics choose to plant him firmly in the mainstream because of this view. In Parkett magazine’s article ‘(Why) Is David Lynch Important?’ the novelist Kathy Acker says that

‘it is undeniable that in TV and film Lynch has made an impact on media-Hollywood culture… his work, at least his zeitgeist, fits in with the demands of the reigning powers. But whether Lynch’s oeuvre has affected the arts and cultures of the various communities and tribes is the only interesting question. Because, for me the McDonald’s culture of the United States can go to hell.

…the only art that now matters is that which has a cult following and the only culture, that which is provincial.’

Parkett, 1991

Acker puts Lynch on the other side of the artistically acceptable fence from herself, placing him firmly within mainstream Hollywood culture because of his perceived `genius’. Is it purely her opinion that distances this or has she some exclusive access to a certain truth that guides her? In the same article the writer and curator Lynne Cooke talks about Lynch’s films in very different terms;

`…in each case a classic genre provides the vehicle for an unexpectedly rich and haunting reconstruction via a fascinated savouring of the intimate details and peculiarities of homespun America. Far more than simply revelling in the craziness, perversion and disturbance below its conventional surfaces, Lynch examines it by way of a fresher metaphor.’

Parkett, 1991

Two separate opinions, or readings, of not only Lynch’s films but his intentions are presented for us and we can only take them in sincerity. Is one necessarily right and the other totally wrong? If Lynch has created his films with certain subtexts and ideas, cinematic or social, how can they possibly be read in such different ways?  And if Lynch is failing to communicate his singular vision directly then can he truly be the auteur some critics accuse him of being?

In `Film Theory: An Introduction’ Robert Lapsley and Michael Westlake talk about the displacement of the `auteur’ theory by a wider reading of cinema’s social function. They define auteurism as

`…the belief that cinema was an art of self-expression and that its great directors were as much to be esteemed as the authors of their work as any writer’

Lapsley and Westlake, 1988

But cinema is difficult to pin down as `fine art’; it is a highly collaborative process, ensuring that a singular vision is an almost impossible task; surely this affects the `purity’ of the artist’s message. But like other fields of art it has its own pre-set rules which govern its interpretation and the role in which its makers are cast.

Annette Kuhn talks of how

`Spectators, as part of their socialisation as cinema-goers, build up an understanding of how to read films, so that the act of reading may eventually become automatic and taken for granted.’

Kuhn, 1982

It is not such a great leap to imagine that this argument can be said of art criticism in general. Arguing about the intent and responsibility of filmmakers concerning the reading of their texts, Kuhn goes on to say that

`It cannot be emphasised too strongly, however, that in concrete situations institutions and texts do not operate in isolation from one another…’

Kuhn, 1982

Whilst she is talking about the institutions of society and the institutions of film affecting the content of motion pictures it can again be applied to criticism and representation as a whole. Whilst criticism cannot exist independently of film it influences filmmaking to the point that the reading of a film depends as much on past readings/criticism possibly more than the filmmakers intent, As Kuhn says,

`The cinema-goer’s purchase of a ticket at the box office buys the right… only to look at a series of images projected into a screen.’

Kuhn, 1982

How we interpret that series of images does not depend solely on the series of images itself, which are retained in memory and therefore instantly subjective and subject to further change but also on a person’s class, gender, political leanings, sexuality, education and any other number of very individualistic traits. To assume that we will all take the same message from a single series of images would be incorrect, though broad bands of perception through different groups can be estimated; a socialist may see a political subtext to a work that a politically inactive person may not or a feminist may read a meaning not obvious to a non-feminist.

Roland Barthes first proclaimed `the death of the author’ (Appignanesi & Garratt, 1995) in 1967. He was stating plainly that the reader of a text had the final say over how they created meaning from the text; certainly that reader’s cultural background and ideas will influence this but so will the authors. It is a unique combination of the two which truly creates meaning. Even Barthes initial statement is open to interpretation and may not mean he same thing to a reader as to its author. Does this mean that artists and critics alike are trapped by the very work that they produce/critique? Can a genuinely balanced effort be made to read a text?

In a similar way but in a much broader sense Derrida talks about meanings including and implicating the reader or observer of them. He states that

`There is nothing outside of the text.’

Appignanesi and Garrat, 1995

Indicating his belief that nothing can exist for us without a structured system of meaning but that meaning is not just inherent in languages or images but in the interaction between them and those who perceive them. What this can be boiled down to for the sake of this argument is that there is never just one meaning because of the inherent difficulty in relating the meaning of a text to those conditioned through and by other texts which in relation to each other may produce unique structures.

The next chapter will study the differences in meaning to be taken by various parties from one David Lynch movie, in an attempt to prove that intent and interpretation are not precise. During the course of this it will continue to question his motives and persona as a filmmaker and/or artist.

Chapter Two

Apart from rare interviews and press conferences at film festivals Lynch does not make much effort to talk about his work much less defend it from criticism, which he still feels as acutely as anyone. In fact, Lynch’s reason for becoming a filmmaker was his famed `hatred of words’. His ex-wife Peggy Reavey states that

`He didn’t talk the way a lot of artists do. He would make noises, open his arms wide and make a sound like the wind. The Alphabet (a short film) was a way of expressing his frustration with the need to be verbal. This film talks about the hell of a person with a non-verbal nature.’

Rodley, 1997

Again, this backs up the interpretation of Lynch as struggling artist, desperately trying to communicate his ideas in the only way he can. But is Peggy Reavey’s interpretation of her ex-husband’s work any more clear or correct because of her presence at some of its creation, or because her personal relationship with Lynch? And does she mean to communicate the message that this writer has just read from her words or is that meaning tampered with by the author of the book in which it is presented?

Lynch’s fourth film, following on from the financial and critical catastrophe of Dune (1984) was Blue Velvet (1986). Blue Velvet is the story of a young man who becomes embroiled in the seedy underbelly of what appears to be typical, small town, safe America. It repeats some of Lynch’s seeming obsessions with the hidden world beneath the surface of society but introduced a polarity between good and bad that becomes increasingly blurred throughout the film. This was carried through to much of his future work, most notably Twin Peaks. Lynch first uses the focused character of evil that repeats through his other films here; in Blue Velvet it is Frank Booth, a psychopath, sadist, torturer, kidnapper, cop killer and drug killer. The Frank Booth archetype becomes split between the crime boss Santos and the amoral, Bobby Peru in Wild At Heart, Killer Bob in Twin Peaks and the Mystery Man in Lost Highway. They all seem to represent different aspects of evil and mystery, sometimes with a supernatural overtone but always with a solid link. Blue Velvet very obviously plays with mainstream Hollywood genres, using familiar narratives and stereotyped characters. What Lynch does with these familiar aspects is what is interesting about Blue Velvet, whether it is seen in a negative way or not and of all Lynch’s films up to that point it is the one with the most levels of interpretation. The rest of this chapter will examine the different readings of Blue Velvet and attempt to discern some pattern. I do not mean to do the authors of the following articles a disservice by breezing through their work; rather the limits of space force me to choose extracts carefully and sparsely.

In an article in Neoformations, Barbara Creed approaches Blue Velvet from a Feminist perspective, concentrating on what she sees as a blatantly psychoanalytical film.

`David Lynch’s film Blue Velvet threatens to make interpretation redundant, so openly does it flaunt its Freudian themes and narratives’

Creed, 1986

This is her opening line. Who is she addressing? When I first saw Blue Velvet I was completely unaware of Freudian theory and my interpretation of the film did not embrace this notion at all. Creed is talking to a reader who she assumes has a similar learning to herself and is aware of the same issues and therefore likely to read the same meanings into the text that she has read. Not only this, she is so sure of her reading of Blue Velvet as Freudian that she assumes it was David Lynch’s sole intent to have the film read in this manner and talks of the redundancy of interpretation. Why? Because she has got the one and only interpretation of the film right?

The basic argument of Blue Velvet as a Freudian text is well backed up by a straightforward Freudian reading. It’s reading as an oedipal drama, where the young Jeffrey Beaumont fucks the symbolic mother figure (Dorothy) and kills the symbolic father figure (Frank Booth) is easy to accept. The figure of Frank, as mentioned earlier, is one paralleled in later Lynch films. In Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, Laura Palmer’s killer is her own father, who has been possessed by the symbolic figure of Killer Bob, under which guise he has been abusing her for years. In Blue Velvet Frank can easily be seen as the father figure, reacting to Dorothy’s mother figure when acting in a sexual/violent situation.

` surface knowingness and playfulness, the ironic tone and insistent parody of family values, mark Blue Velvet as a post-modern text. It also displays the expected generic pastiches of film noir, melodrama and pornography. The send-up of Freudian themes…suggests a deliberate trap for the earnest or unwary theorist.’

Creed, 1986

It would seem that we are learning more about Barbara Creed than Blue Velvet; she locates the film within the post-modern, seems well acquainted with film theory as well as psychoanalytical theory and she is beginning to talk about interpretation as a whole instead of presenting an interpretation of the film directly. Here she is stating that the film is about interpretation; the insinuation is that Lynch is trying to bluff us into ignoring dangerous subtexts of the film by presenting certain issues and then running away from them and saying that the film is about film itself or has no interpretation anyway.

Lynch again fails to pinpoint any meaning when he is questioned about the film. In Lynch on Lynch Chris Rodley directly quizzes Lynch about Blue Velvet, psychoanalysis and interpretation;

`Rodley: I remember talking to a film theorist/lecturer at the time of the film’s release. Over the years she has done a lot of work on psychoanalysis and film and her response to Blue Velvet was “the filmmakers are doing it for themselves!” In other words, the movie had almost made her redundant. It didn’t have a subtext. It was all on the surface, in plain sight.

Lynch: It’s all there, yeah (laughs.)

Rodley: The movie does seem to display or illustrate, almost perfectly, certain Freudian concerns and theories – and in one extreme, undiluted way. Was that intentional?

Lynch: Let’s put it this way: my reasoning mind didn’t ever stop and say, “What the hell am I doing?” That’s why I keep saying that making films is a subconscious thing. Words get in the way. Rational thinking gets in the way. It can really stop you cold. But when it comes in a pure sort of stream, from some other place, film has a great way of giving shape to the subconscious. It’s just a great language for that.`

Rodley, 1997

There are several things at work in this extract. We can see the similar interpretation of Blue Velvet expressed and also the issue of interpretation again, so we can say that the film had a similar meaning for two critics with psychoanalytical and film theory backgrounds which Lynch does not deny. But when Rodley says `It was all on the surface, in plain sight` and Lynch just laughs and says `It’s all there, yeah’ we can also see Barbara Creed’s point about the film being a `deliberate trap for the earnest or unwary theorist`; she goes on to talk of the film putting itself `beyond’ analysis and specifically talks of it in terms of `it’s own surface`. The film is not beyond analysis, of course and only by reading the text in terms of a specific critical school of thought could this be put forward; but it is just as relevant for Creed to go beyond analysis of the film’s structure and look at its relation to other films in an historical context, it’s relationship to its `author’ and it’s relation to interpretation as a means of reading film as a whole.

Writing in Sight and Sound, Sean French makes no mention of Freud at all in his article. Instead he frames his paragraphs on Blue Velvet with references to other directors and artists.

`Blue Velvet is Lynch’s first film set in either present day or in a recognisable version of America. The setting, Lumberton, is a familiar kind of town, familiar from Frank Capra and Preston Sturges… Lynch himself…is like an amiable character that has wandered out of an Andy Hardy movie… In one camera movement a scene from Norman Rockwell becomes a jungle out of Douanier Rousseau.`

French, 1986

Whilst Creed reserved herself to arguing a certain reading and debating interpretation, French presents us with an opinion, as well as a straightforward movie buff’s referenced guide to where some of Lynch’s styles and ideas may have come from. French thinks Blue Velvet is an `extraordinary film…’ though it is only his judgement which backs this up. It is a much shorter article with no major political point to convey and written by someone who is openly appreciative of Lynch’s work.

In his article `Out To Lynch’ (the use of Lynch’s name in headline puns will be discussed further later) David Chute relies on large chunks of Lynch’s own words to illustrate the meanings of Blue Velvet. He does not argue against Lynch’s points; obviously this is another article without a particular political manifesto, or rather one which chooses not to have one, though it does tough on some aspects of interpretation. Rather than dealing with Blue Velvet’s brutal sex scenes from a Freudian or feminist point of view Chute discusses them from the point of view of an imagined audience that can only read the film from its surface.

`Some moviegoers will react to the brutalization of Isabella Rosselini in Blue Velvet with unalloyed disgust. Those sequences could invalidate the film for them. It is a peculiarity of the visceral way we respond to movies that we don’t necessarily assume that the disgust has been evoked intentionally or that the director shares this feeling. The person who staged the action, who dreamed it up, often becomes the object of the negative reactions it provokes’

Chute, 1986

Chute appears to club together all members of the viewing public quite happily; `the visceral way we respond’, `we don’t necessarily assume’ and pre-judges the reaction of the audience, already taking a defensive stand against  something he can obviously read into the film himself but imagines to be a mis-reading. Maybe this stems from the initial quote from Lynch which opens the article:

`Blue velvet is not a movie for everybody. Some people are going to really dig it, but we’ve experienced some negative reactions, too. We had a sneak preview in the valley that was a disaster. People though it was disgusting and sick. And of course it is, but it has two sides.’

Chute, 1986

The plain speaking colloquial Lynch covers himself from every side again.

In a Camera Obscura article based on a paper given to a Psychoanalytical Studies conference, Lesley Stern echoes Barbara Creed’s thoughts on Blue Velvet’s slipperiness when it comes to fixed interpretation. Stern states that Blue Velvet

`specifically poses interpretation itself as perverse.’

Stern, 1992

Whilst both Stern and Creed’s articles are well researched and often dense arguments about Blue Velvet’s context and content that contain many similar points they do vary in interpretation. For Creed the term Blue Velvet evokes a specific meaning;

`In pornography, “velvet” (often liquid velvet) is a generic term used to signify the interior of the vagina.’

Creed, 1986

And she relates it to the severed ear through which the camera travels at the opening of the film, taking both as the opening to places physical and theoretical. Perhaps it can also be taken as a metaphor for Frank using Dorothy’s own sexuality to brutalize and silence her. Stern takes the term more literally and relates it to the physical presence of the length of blue velvet used to gag the character of Dorothy and also her link to Frank.

`it is effectively a double bind and a running gag; it invites interpretation (to be identified as umbilical cord, fetish object and so on) and gags criticism (or interpretation).’

Stern, 1992

Whilst the main thrust of the arguments are the same there are obviously differences in the way that each writer has come to their conclusions. This would seem to run contrary, however, to the argument that the film `gags’ interpretation or shies away from declaring its meaning as anything other than postmodern pastiche. The mere fact of the existence of thorough and thought-provoking articles (as well as those of a shorter and more complementary nature_ proves that a film cannot stifle the discussion of its own meaning by simple means.

In this chapter I have attempted to reserve judgement on the authors and their articles in deference to the discussion of their meaning and even their necessity. In the next chapter I shall take a more critical approach to the critics.

Chapter Three

Whilst Blue Velvet attracts mainly Freudian attention, Wild At heart is the target for a more generalised field of discussion. Arguments seem to attach meaning/s onto the films narrative, characters and subtexts with such a broad stroke as to cover your every paranoia.

Several articles in particular attack Wild At Heart, or rather Lynch, for blatant sexism and racism. In an article that appeared in 1990 in East-West Journal, Sharon Willis draws a direct connection between Lynch’s name and his works. Considering it is an article mainly criticising Lynch’s movies making `shock tactics’ Willis does not mind using the shock tactics of journalism, right from the start of her essay:

`A recent issue of Movieline magazine… exploit(s) the semantic richness of the signifier “Lynch”. The magazine’s cover headline, “Wild At Heart: Love, Sex, Violence, Lynch,” …a fashion spread whose models are actors from Twin Peaks… “The Look: The Lynch Mob.” So that the title plays on possible titillating connections with Lynch’s signature. Chillingly enough, this advertising gimmick is only reading what Wild At Heart has placed up front, Lynch’s signature. The murder that opens the film is a “lynching” whose double entendre is imposingly obvious, as we witness a black man’s unaccountably vicious murder by a white man.

Shocking for its detailed brutality, this scene is all the more chilling for the utter silence of the narrative with regard to its cross-racial nature. In its apparent lack of concern for a racial determination of the violence, the film invites (whether consciously or not, it doesn’t really matter) the kind of glibly ironic dismissal of the historical resonances of the term “lynch”, with which the Movieline fashion section so casually plays.’

Willis, 1990

Willis accuses Lynch of shock tactics and very direct racism. She suggests a direct link between the filmmakers surname, Lynch, and the act of `lynching`, specifically the historical tradition in America of hanging black people (although Willis only links this to black males). David Lynch did not choose his surname and cannot be held directly responsible for journalists such as those working for Movieline magazine using his name in an article in such a way. Whatever meaning is attributed to it in this way is the responsibility of the journalist writing the copy, his editor and the reader (in this case another journalist, Sharon Willis). Willis talks about Wild At Heart inviting 1the kind of glibly ironic dismissal of the powerful historical resonances of the term “lynch”. Does this suggest that if the film had been directed by someone else, or that David Lynch had been David Smith that the scene could not invite a racist reading? She states that the film invites this dismissal `unconsciously or not, so it doesn’t really matter’. A conscious invitation, however, would suggest that Lynch is using the film to directly promote racism and that this is in some way due to him being named after the act of killing, whereas an unconscious invitation would suggest that the reading into the film (and the Movieline headlines) of a racist subtext was entirely the work of Willis herself, implicating her as the figure of racist stereotyping and prejudice. Willis cannot separate Lynch from the entire content, narrative and subject of his film, thus inviting the notion of Lynch as an `auteur’. She twice mentions `Lynch’s signature’; the first time she is referring to his name and the second time to his auteur style singularity. When she first mentions his signature she is really referring to his name, as if redefining his name as his signature will validate the argument that seems to suggest that Lynch would have chosen his own surname to use as a racist weapon.

In an article in Sight And Sound Amy Taubin expresses a similar view;

`…Wild At Heart is peopled with the director’s routine obsessions – anomalies (physical and otherwise), sadistic cruelty, sex crimes… the woman’s body is contested terrain but the conflict here is more insidious. In Wild At Heart the struggle over Lula and the journey are launched by the death of a black man… Later… a white woman screams “fuck me” to a black man who pulls the trigger on a white man sandwiched between them… this tradition, in which white supremacy is the unspoken subtext…’

Taubin, 1990

Again, Taubin quite blatantly accuses Lynch of promoting racism, to the extent of talking about the white supremacist movement and Lynch’s films in the same sentence, though she does not make the tenuous link to his surname that Willis does. She does state that the film is people with Lynch’s `routine obsessions’ – in the same way it is also people with his trademark characters; no one in the film is really that morally redemptive, even the main characters. She chooses to ignore that in the film most of the characters act in a very similar amoral way, whether black or white. Interestingly Taubin goes on to counterpoint the perceived racism/sexism in Wild At Heart with a scene from Ridley Scott’s Thelma And Louise, in which the main characters have locked a Highway Patrolman in his own car’s trunk. Scott then has

`a black Rastafarian cycling incongruously into the picture…’

Taubin, 1990

The trapped cop shouts for help,

`…only to have the Rasta blow back the exhaust of his spliff in reply. The American landscape has ceased to be the exclusive province of white masculinity.`

Taubin, 1990

It seems odd for Taubin to accuse Lynch of racism and then praise Scott for using the clichéd, clumsy and insulting stereotype of a black Rastafarian cycling through the American desert smoking dope (the only prominent black character in Thelma And Louise is Yaphet Kotto’s police lieutenant, a standard, `safe’ stereotyped casting for many black actors). As for the American landscape being reclaimed; as discussed earlier, Lynch is as much making a movie about movies; therefore about Hollywood and a very, white, heterosexual dominated society. Of course the American landscape (and especially the landscape of film and Hollywood in particular) is the exclusive province of white masculinity. Ridley Scott, of course, is a white, heterosexual male.

Lynch says of Wild At Heart that it is:

`… a violent comedy. Some scenes are a game with clichés. Wild At Heart has a lot in common with B movies film violence. I love those honest film-films which do not have any purpose other than being a film.’

Rodley, 1997

Again Lynch is relying on the excuse that a film is beholden to nothing but other films and therefore neither is he. Of course as discussed earlier this is not just his opinion or cultural stance. He is grating himself the broadest of artistic license. Whilst arguments can be made about the contents of his texts, we cannot argue against the contents of his thoughts and therefore his intent. If we do not take his sincerity at face value, it leaves us a very difficult task of judging the truth of an interpretative art.

Conclusion

In the excellent `Woman’s Pictures, Feminism and Cinema’, Annette Kuhn succinctly sums up the problem of authorship and interpretation;

`I have already advanced the argument that no set of meanings already inhabits a text, but rather a text is, in some measure at least, created in its reading or reception. If this is the case, then the whole area of reception becomes a political issue in its own right… Given the distinct nature of the film-viewing situation, this has highly specific implications for cinema. Nevertheless, to set aside completely both intention and textual organisation is perhaps too extreme a stance to adopt.’

Kuhn, 1982

This dichotomy is why I promised nothing in my introduction. Whilst texts can be read in a variety of manners and this relies on the author, the critic and the reader (amongst others), it would seem reasonable to want to lay the responsibility for interpretation at a single door.  It is not only political or class or gender differences that can sway interpretation; time can change the viewers eye for detail. I can certainly no longer watch Blue Velvet in all innocence as I once did; now it is loaded with many levels of meanings most of which I am not sure I fully understand. Barthes said that

`You can read a text for pleasure and sense… but you’re finally left with an enigma, a final sense which the text doesn’t express or refuses to surrender. A sort of unyielding thoughtfulness. It is like the thoughtfulness on a face which tempts one to ask… “What are you thinking?”’

Appignanesi and Garratt, 1995

It is not the individual genius of the artist which contrives or hampers interpretation but the unfathomable mind of the reader, poisoned by experience.

`AL (to Renee): Do you own a video camera?

RENEE: No. Fred hates them.

The Detectives both look at Fred.

FRED: I like to remember things my own way.

AL: What do you mean by that?

FRED: How I remember them. Not necessarily the way they happened.’

Lynch and Gifford, 1997

 

WOODY SMITH FOR PRESIDENT

This is a piece I did on my Fine Art Degree some years ago. I faked up some i.d. and ran for President of the Student’s Union as my fictional artistic counterpart, Woody Smith. I attended a few meetings, made some recordings of them, did about 15 minutes of actual campaigning and got hundreds of votes. Below find links to some of the campaign material, a leaflet and several posters and flyers. I used images of myself, comic book material and also used a lot of slogans and phrasings found in Jehovah’s Witnesses pamphlets such as Watchtower. Just to cover myself – Captain America is copyright Marvel Comics. Please don’t sue me, Marvel/Disney.

Campaign Leaflet Front

Campaign Leaflet Back

Campaign Poster – Are You Curious About Yourself?

Campaign Poster – Guard Your Sense Of Urgency

Campaign Poster – I’ve Paved The Way For You

Campaign Poster – Why Am I Left Out Of All The Fun?

Campaign Poster – When No Wind Is The Right Wind

Campaign Poster – Strive To Be Inadequate

Campaign Poster – We Can Control Our Thinking

Campaign Poster – Slogan Only

Campaign Poster – Woody Photo Booth Pictures

Strip Flyer – Woody Child Image

Strip Flyer – Flag Image

Strip Flyer – Words