Boyle: A defense

Frankie Boyle. There's a controversial way to start a blog post. I've mentioned Mr. Boyle before in my Julie Burchill column back in 2010 (which btw, hasn't aged well. Although I do admit to chuckling again at the thought of a care bear dying every time she tries to be witty). My general point at that time was that I found it impossible to be offended by Frankie for the simple reason that I don't believe for a second that he believes in 95% of the horrific things he says. They are jokes. He's a comedian. Comedians tell jokes. Why the offense? There are some times when he makes a political or social point where I do think he believes in what he's saying but these don't tend to be overly offensive. But when he starts garbling in a scary voice regarding "Michael Jackson's Children Hospital" ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RM8EVIbNxk4 ), you know that this part of the show is not to be taken seriously.

Frankie Boyle, despite not being your traditional comic, has a shtick. This shtick is simple but effective. He says incredibly offensive things and then people laugh. People laugh because hearing something offensive is funny. It's funny because its taboo. You won't agree with what's being said but you'll laugh because someone is actually saying it. It's not the actual content of the joke that you are laughing at but rather the awkwardness the jokes creates. It really is an excellent act all things considered because there is a disconnect between Frankie and the material. People who get this understand what Frankie is doing and enjoy his comedy for what it is. However, there are many who don't like Frankie's style of comedy. There are others who go out of their way to knock the man. Newspapers line up to chirp about the most recent "vile" thing he has said. They don't get it but they want to take that sort of comedy away from people who do. This infuriates me.

 

Frankie is hardly ever on TV these days with most channels seemingly black balling him. This makes no sense to me whatsoever. Yes, Frankie's material is exceedingly rude in the same way that Mr Kipling's cakes are exceedingly good, but that's no reason to deny him a slot on the idiot box. Put him on way past the watershed at something like 11PM. It might not do gang buster ratings but the people who appreciate him will tune in and those who don't like him can leave us all alone. 11PM is late enough in the schedules that it shouldn't be an issue. Parents should be capable of keeping their kids from watching it. Snobby TV elitists can be appeased by having it on something like Dave so that it doesn't "dirty" the major terrestrial channels. We can have our comedy and they can go and watch the proms.

We really need to start embracing comics like Frankie Boyle. For years, people like Mary Whitehouse campaigned for years to keep people like Frankie off the telly. Many opposed her and her acolytes because they knew that such forms of censorship are wrong. Television should be a world for everyone. It should be inclusive and not exclusive. If people are worried about the “wrong” people watching Frankie Boyle, then there are methods previously discussed in this blog post to ensure that they don't. I would have no problem with a parent saying their young child could not watch Frankie Boyle. It's a perfectly understandable stance and one I'm sure my parents would have shared when I was younger. However, the off chance a child may sneak past their parents TV security and watch the show is not, in my opinion, and adequate reason to stop a comic like Frankie Boyle being on television. Yes, Frankie Boyle is very, very, VERY rude but that's about it. He's not inciting hatred or calling for Katie Price to be assaulted in the streets. He's telling jokes. When did we become a society who couldn't take a joke?

Frankie Boyle's "Last Days of Sodom"
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Frankie-Boyle-Live-Last-Sodom/dp/B006TWMOPM/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1359412048&sr=8-1

Frankie Boyle's "My Shit Life So Far"
http://www.amazon.co.uk/My-Shit-Life-So-Far/dp/0007324510/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1359412126&sr=1-1

Warblings of an Ar(se)tist

The past two blogs haven't exactly been the most cheerful ones. Reading them back, they kind of come across as a cry for help. The last muted screams of my soul as it thrashes away in the ocean of despair, slowly being sucked below by a Giant Squid of......errrr........shit? That one lost itself a bit at the end didn't it? Sorry to subject your eyes to it, that must have been painful, like the pain a Yak feels squirming to excrete Jeremy Vine..

Writing these blogs is a way to ease the volcano that is my self hate. Otherwise it might explode, killing a small neighbouring village in the process. Thinking of their imaginary houses, melting into the volcanic rock, nearly brings an imaginary tear to my imaginary eye. Not that crying would help. I’m always amazed how women feel better after having a “good cry”. What exactly is a “good cry”? I’m not even talking about crying when you see something nice or beautiful. I was moved to an emotional shudder at the end of “The Snowman and the Snowdog” but that was only because I found the ending so unreasonably happy that tears of happiness started stampeding to the front of my eye-lids. Crying when your child is born, when the woman you love agrees to marry you and when Rocky finally beats Ivan Drago at the end of Rocky IV are all happy tears (Unless you’re Stalin of course). Crying due to sadness or through stress is never good. It’s good in as so much as a fart is good, in that is releases pressure from your body thus relieving certain stress on certain points of said body. But aside from physical and chemical reasons, it must surely be impossible to have a “good cry”? I've certainly never had one. Every time I've had to cry for negative reasons has been a thoroughly unpleasant experience that I have always felt like I would never want to experience again. As much of a social weirdo as I am, and that’s considerable, I have still yet to cross that bridge into thinking that crying is “good”. If I ever do, you might as well just stick the fork in me at that point because I’ll be done. 

Back in my younger days, I used to be a drummer in a band called “The Viaduct” and during that period I used to write maudlin songs about things that didn’t really matter. That’s essentially what music is, a bunch of people complaining, praising or bragging with instruments making noises in the background. Loses some of its romance when you describe it as that doesn’t it? The songs that I would write were outlets for my inner disenchantment. I say that like they were some sort of high artistic endeavor but most of them were about how I wished I had a girlfriend or how I wish people respected me as an artist. When I read them back now they come across as the warbling of a deeply deluded fool. I actually managed to get some poetry published in a student journal during this period as well and that was equally as self centered and whiny. After studying poetry from my school days all the way up to university, I think this is a central theme. A poet in his or her poem is never just trying to write something you would enjoy. A poet is ALWAYS trying to use their poem to somehow promote themselves in one form or another. This includes all poets from Rossetti to Shakespeare to Heaney. Hamlet is just Shakespeare showing off, which is probably why the play drags on for hours. When Hamlet goes upon one of his many arduous soliloquy's, that is basically Shakespeare patting himself on the back. You’re supposed to read or listen to it and think “Wow, isn't Shakespeare talented?”.

Every Shakespeare play is him showing off with a plot shoe horned in. This is most poetry. Every poet wants you in some way to marvel at their own skill. So does every musician. So does every entertainer. They are never just doing what they are doing simply to entertain or inform. Deep down, they want you to like them. They want you to think they are talented. I remember being struck by a Heaney poem in secondary school. It was a deeply depressing poem about going to a small boys funeral and how profoundly it effected Heaney and the village in which he lived. All I could think while reading that poem, even in my younger days, was how tasteless it was that he was turning this into a poem, into art. Heaney was trying to describe his own grief at the situation but he was doing it in a way that would make you admire his penmanship. He was deliberately using particular phrases and language, all designed to impress upon the reader his own skill. And he is skilled. Let’s make no mistake here, Seamus Heaney is outrageously talented and a keen word smith. This is why he’s a poet after all. However, I couldn't help thinking that he cared more about what you thought about his talents than the story upon which he was trying to tell. This was a true story as well, the events in question DID happen. It’s one thing to create a story for a poem or play but to actually take a real situation and then, for better lack of term, tart it up with extravagant language, just doesn’t seem right to me. Turning such a tragic and real event into an excuse to promote yourself in that fashion is why I don’t think I could ever bring myself to write a poem again.

This blog is very self centered. I use language in this blog constantly to add flavour and spice to events and stories. Some of these are personal accounts. I haven’t plagiarised or taken on loan as The Smiths state so eloquently in “Cemetery gates”. That being said, I write everything, including this actual sentence, because part of me wants you to think that what I’m writing is of good quality. I may want it to make you laugh, get angry, feel grossed out and even feel sad. Ultimately though, I’m doing what I’m doing because I want you to think I am some way talented and what it is I’m doing. It’s why anyone does anything. However, I think it’s time that anyone who takes part in any form of artistic endeavours treads carefully when dealing with a real event. Describe it, make the readers/viewers/listeners understand why it’s important; let them know why you care and why so others do. But please, don’t turn it into an excuse to show off why it is you are so talented in the first place. There will always be some one somewhere, with a big nose who knows the situation and they may not take kindly to you using their own personal tragedy to impress people with your mad skillz (the z makes it cooler!). And here I was trying to do an upbeat post this time! Seems that no matter what I intend, it’ll always end with a rant and some good old fashioned self hatred. Way to go Mikey! Way to go!! Another dose of misery heaped on the masses! 

Seems so unfair, I want to cry

The F World

Fat. Fat, fat, fat! I can say that word cos I am it. Ignore the picture on here. It's long out of date and from a simpler and kinder time. Plus, I'm wearing black in it aswell. Kind of like how African-Caribbean people can say the “N” word and Homosexuals can use the “P” word. I am fat. Not “chunky” or “husky” as I have tried to delude myself in the past. I am a fat man, and I’m taking the word back baby! That’s right, you “Thinners” out there can’t use the “F” word but bonafide porkers like me can. It’s political correctness gone mad! MAD I SAY!!! As a society, I think it’s fair to say we are generally getting pudgier here in the west. We’re living in a fat world (Or “F” World if you’re frustratingly skinny as a garden rake). I think too many of us heavily endowed aren’t doing enough to try and limit our girth and I think it’s time we do something about it.

I am naturally fat. I know that’s a cop out answer but it is at least partially true. My genetics are legitimately awful. If it wasn’t for doctors, nurses and a titanic piece of luck, I wouldn’t be writing this right now. All things considered, I was shittingly lucky to born in the 1980’s. If I’d been born in Tudor Times I wouldn’t have lasted a week.  This isn’t a bit of joyful self-hatred either.  When I was born I had a serious virus that I only survived due to modern medicine. I think I’ve been on borrowed time ever since and I’m also pretty certain that the virus left me with permanent damage.  I’ve always been a bit sickly and I naturally tend to be quite inflexible and un-athletic. I’m a genetic failure in all honesty. Whenever I eat so much as a slice of bread it clings to my frame like a busy bumble bee sticking to whatever it is the fuck they stick to. My dad is on the large size too and my uncle isn’t what you could call svelte. I guess the male Fitzgerald’s are just naturally chunky monkeys.

However, I am mature enough to know that I can’t hide behind the “I’m naturally a big fat bastard” defence any longer. Some people can eat 7 buckets of chicken and not gain an ounce. Nature has dealt me a fairly crappy hand but sitting around whinging like a big fat whinger isn’t going to help me or others similarly afflicted. Like most large folk do at the turn of the year, I’ve been making a conscious effort to do more exercise. I’m going for a run after I’ve written this for example. My knees and back are already plotting to make the experience a deeply unpleasant one. Joy.

Also, I’ve returned to the dreaded “D” word (What is it with me and using one letter to describe words today? I’m a right “C” word aren’t I?). The “D” word in question is “Diet”. Ah, “Diet”. No word causes more fear and angst to a lifetime chunker like me than that word. Copious amounts of salad, fruit, vegetables and other assorted joyful food treats *shudder*. I’ve also come to the harrowing conclusion that I pretty much have to have this diet forever. My body is such a shambles that it’s the only way to ensure it doesn’t balloon like a zeppelin.  Forever, forever, forever-ever! To be fair, people should aim to eat healthily regardless of their size. And honestly, whoever thinks there won’t be days when I crack and eat something I shouldn’t is as deluded as Jeremy Vine thinking that “Egg Heads” is a good use of his or anyone else’s time. It will be impossible for me to ALWAYS take the healthy option because

1 – I’m only human

2 – Healthy food places tend to be in harder to reach times and places than unhealthy ones

And

3 – Me a big fatty fatty who like eat fatty food!!!

But I’m certainly a lot more conscious about what I eat than I have been in the past. I think after a while I’ll “train” my body to not crave certain things and it will be easier to stick to a healthy diet. At the moment though, my body wants one thing and that’s junk. I spent my walk home a few days ago fantasying about KFC Drumsticks. I am not making this up. I actually started drooling as I clopped along, my thighs rubbing against each other like two of those huge spinney things covered in Donner Meat. I’m actually drooling a little bit now thinking about it again. All along the route I take home there are countless posters for Big Mac’s, Chicken Wraps and Confectionary. I passed a petrol station with a poster outside it for Crème Eggs and it took every urge I had not to walk in and buy some. I don’t even like Crème Eggs but feed me nothing but radishes and I’d eat a trough of the bastards without thinking twice.

Every waking moment I see something that reminds me of the food I can’t have. Even if nothing visually sets it off, my mind will still conjure up memories of the foods I can’t have. My taste buds will then jump in and I’ll get a taste memory of them on my tongue. How thoughtful of my body eh? My body and mind don’t seem to realise that having a diet and sticking to it would be something that would benefit all three of us. They are both enjoying my plight and torturing themselves in the process. It’s an on-going cycle of self-hate and self-punishment that only a loser like me could put myself through. I’m not just a loser, I’m also a genetic loser. Born into the world as a failure. A physical freak who shuffles through live until deaths sweet release finally decides to put me out of my misery. Oh god, mentioning deaths sweet release has now got me thinking about Mars Bars (Because Mars Bars are sweet, not because they cause death. I want to make sure I’m very clear on that in case Mars solicitors happen to be reading). My mind is a swimming pool of food and it’s taking all I can to paddle in the shallow end. Someone throw me a life jacket!