sob(be)sot

Presents:

[sob-be-sot]

Dear McSweeney’s, Please Publish Me

Dear McSweeney’s,

I am a 32-year-old comedian (which would probably make me about twelve in actual, real, human years). I have published a number of eBooks (that number being two): a book of experimental fiction—[1]in which I devised my own bespoke method of punctuation—­and a book of, what I have come to call, Quantum Fiction i.e. fiction so nuanced it can only be understood at a sub-atomic level.

As you might well imagine, I am struggling to make ends meet…. Please publish me.

As you can see, I’m pretty okay at writing. On the occasion that I do do a little literary faux pas (putting an I before an E (except after C); accidentally jamming a capital letter in the middle of a word, etc.) Grammarly, more often than not, will make me aware of the mistake, and the piece will be polished smooth. I’m pretty sure if given the chance (and appropriate backing) I could very well be this (or the following) generation’s Swift, or Allen, or (and this is about as low as I will stoop) Sedaris (David not Amy).

In short: you could help me make my dreams come true.

Please find attached a list of ten reasons why I should be published on your still-kinda-respected website.

A big warm hug from me (of the kind you might receive from an ailing aunt),

Fred

 Ten Reasons I Should Be Published by McSweeney’s

1) I’m cheap.

2) I’ve read Egger’s debut and did indeed find it Heartbreaking.

3) I’m English, and, as such, might be able to provide a foreigner’s interpretation of how fucked you, as a society, are.

4) I’m essentially non-partisan, so could take over day-to-day operations of the site when your team are all eventually thrown into a Gu-a-Lago© for crimes against the state.

5) I could pretty much write full time (as I’m on my final written at work, and I’m pretty sure shitting myself or screaming about how there is really, actually, only two genders would be more than enough to see me out the door[2]).

6) I am fluent in Native Advertising (see footnote 2).

7)  Please.

8) Please publish me.

9) Please give me a job.

10) Please give me a job, or I will kill myself and it’ll be your fault. If you don’t give me a job I’m going to kill myself, and before I do I will write a suicide note blaming you, and at the bottom of the note I’ll tell all my friends and family (of which there are many) to spam your submissions box with emails, the subject heading of which will read RE: Fred Samuels (whom you killed) where they will admonish you in clean, articulate prose, and the only thing I’d ask of you in this eventuality is to NOT PUBLISH A SINGLE ONE OF THEM. Because the last thing I need is to kill myself only to see one of my friends and family made famous in my stead.

[1] I will heretofore use punctuation that conforms to the American usage, so as not to confuse your obtuse readership.  

[2] I work for the famous English brewing company Brewdog, and we at the famous English brewing company Brewdog know that in this ever-changing world (full of rich complexity and copious amounts of fluid) you want a beer that (like you) moves with the times. That’s why we’ve just introduced our new gender-natural beer Zié, a smooth, crisp, culturally-sensitive brew, made from only the finest, culturally sensitive hops: Zié – Don’t Get Left Behind.  

[sob-be-sot]

[sob-be-sot]

Bad Joke

‘If you could smoke a joint with anyone alive or dead who would it be?’

We were sitting in the living room. It was hot. It’d been hot for the last week. No-one was used to it. It made everyone slow and languished. Kinda braindead. Bodies everywhere. The middle of the week, drinking beers. I asked the question.

‘Ghandi,’ said someone.  

‘Ah! But which one?’

‘… White Gandhi.’

‘Oh.’

Paul was skinning up. It was all laid out in a decorative box he’d been given by some demented relative.

‘How many Gandhi's are there?’ someone said.

‘What? In toto? ‘I dunno … six?’

We started listing them.

‘Black Gandhi, White Gandhi, Chinese Gandhi…’

‘Regular Gandhi,’ I said. People nodded.  

‘Regular Gandhi, Siamese Gandhi ...’

‘Where’s Siamese Gandhi from?’

‘Siam.’

Then nothing. Bad joke.

None of us had energy enough to be funny. The mechanism required had been fused. I hadn’t made a good joke in days. At least it’d felt like days. Or if I had they hadn’t landed. I was just saying words now. There was just structure, bravado.

I might’ve been able to pull some of them off if I’d only the energy to mug. But all my facial muscles had been exhausted by savage bouts of gurning. I could barely speak. So I just sat there, trying not to dribble. We all did.

There is a certain type of deep unease that comes from compound comedowns you are forced to experience communally. Some disconnect. We were all sat together, but there was some chiasmic disunion. I kinda alone together type thing.

Whatever it was it was bumming me out. I wished I could extricate myself. Be alone. But I didn’t have any weed. The weed was Paul’s. If I wanted to smoke I would have to sit there. ‘Cause the beer wasn’t working.

We’d  been drinking steadily all day. But there was no high to it. I think it was more to do with a kind of masochism. Maybe I’d seen it in a film, I dunno. It had started when we'd woken up; now it was just what was happening.

I felt inflated. Like if I lay prostrate and someone put pressure on my belly we could both travel around the room like a whizzing balloon.

‘Did you see that dog on the news that had peg legs where its own legs used to be?’

‘Yeah, I saw that.’

‘What was its name?’

‘I think it was Captain Legs.’

‘What a cruel irony,’ I said, ‘that a dog called Captain Legs would have his own legs replaced by pegs.’

‘Was it cosmetic?’

‘I’d say it was.’

‘What sort of sick freak would have its own dogs legs replaces by pegs?’

‘I’d wager an American.’

‘Maybe it was like a Munchausen sort of thing.’

‘You think the dog did it to itself?!’

‘No: the owner. Maybe something happened to the dog - you know, maybe it got loose from the yard-’

‘Vaulted the fence.’

‘Ran into the street and got hit by a car or pelted by a hockey puck or something. Nothing serious. But see the owner got a lot of attention from it: people sending get well cards; dropping round treats for the dog.’

‘Special pies.’  

‘And this owner gets a little too into the whole attention thing. And then when the accident’s-‘

‘If it was an accident.’

‘When it’s old news she decides: “you know what? Maybe this dog needs to get pegs for legs”. That’s all I’m saying.’

‘I wanna put pegs on the dog - Is that covered by insurance?’

‘You know what…. If I went home and my mum had converted my dog's legs into pegs, you know what I’d say? I go: “take those peg legs off my dog’s hinges, and put the proper legs on it pronto.”’

‘Capiche!’

‘If I’d wanted a peg-legged dog I would’ve bought a peg-legged dog!’

‘PUT THOSE PEGS OFF MY DOG!’

‘…’

‘I tell you something, though. If you did have a peg-legged dog, you know what you do: You get one of those industrial sized pencil sharpeners. Yeah. Here’s what you do: you sharpen those pegs. Sharpen them right up. Then you pick the dog up, strap it to a chest harness and you’ve got yourself a post-apocalyptic weapon. Yessiree bob.’  

Then nothing.

‘…’

‘Something about pegs,’ someone said.

[sob-be-sot]

An Open Letter to Anyone [02/03/2017]

Look: everything is very confused. And I’m too aspergil to form a set of coherent statements, so apologies in advance.

What is happening? Does anybody know?

I feel like my brain is about to reach saturation point. Pretty soon the top of my head’s going to start inflating like that baseball player in that Simpson’s episode from twenty years ago I wish I didn’t know about: ‘Good Lord! Gigantism!’

I think this is the crux of the problem.

I used to watch the 1986 sci-fi action fantasy Masters of the Universe, starring Dolph Lundgren and Frank Langella, over and over again. How am I supposed to understand anything with that shit buried in the lower levels of my psyche. And now America has decided to turn itself into the ultimate Reality TV Show. Am I expected not to watch?!

Even before my parents got divorced, I’d be walking with my Dad, and he’d not even amend his speed to take into account my little legs. That’s an adult person. Someone taller than me—who I literally looked up to. Now I’m a man and am expected to make decisions—Big, fuck off decisions—when I haven’t even really left my computer chair. Going to the toilet seems like a major event to me—I have to take a book in case I’m stranded.

And now I have to deal with this: Him.

He’s gonna kill us. And we’re gonna let him.

He’s like the Platonic Ideal of Media.

People keep going on about how dishonest he is and how knowingly he is lying to us, him and his hawkish cronies: saying one thing and meaning another. But the horrifying thing about it is: I don’t think he is. I think that’s just him. I think his pre-sets are set to spin 24/7. I think even in his most intimate moments his squamatal instincts have him jabbering propaganda that placates his pray and excises himself of all wrongdoing or responsibility. He seems to possess the evolutionary psychology of a cockroach. Constantly pugnacious. Scrapping with everyone or anything. Business incarnate. The perfect example of American enterprise.

Who better to sashay us off the precipice.

And us here watching. Forming half-baked opinions based on content we read on commuter trains and toilets. Semi-facts we glean through beaming bias—unpacked from confused egotism—for foreplay or sport.

There is a special kind of hell reserved for people who really truly understand their own motives: the ninth circle: petrification.      

[sob-be-sot]

An Other Modest Proposal—by Benoît Pronto

With the ban on foie gras coming into effect in the state of California, one feels (as one would hope anyone with a predisposition for culinary delights would feel) that unless something is done by the sensible reactionaries of this world, we will be forced to concede all manner of bodily opulence (acquired over centuries of murderous toil) and empty-bellied and lean may very well be forced into asking irritating questions of the spirit—like some balding friar.

With this in mind, one feels that a change is needed.

Now, I understand that change is not a word reactionaries much care to hear, but please bear with me—the C word should not be understood as anything other than (if one might follow me down a metaphorical digression) an excursional diversion of which a passenger may be vaguely aware, but one they take little notice of: paying little to no attention to the specific route travelled; simply indulging in various revelries until the desired destination is reached.

This change will involve a confrontation as to the problems relating to the preparation of said foie gras (translated ‘fat liver[1]’).

As the reader is well aware, gavage[2] based foie gras is a somewhat controversial subject amongst the left due in equal parts to a) misinformation as to how delicious it actually is (because their taste buds have been irreversibly damaged by excessive amounts of paprika), and b) the extreme pleasure they take from complaining about the various plights of the world (due no doubt to the pleasure they attain from voicing such complaints).

The left seems to have a problem with the way in which we go about creating the foie gras: they seem not to have a problem with the gras or the foie but rather the gavage (see attached).

Now, I think we can all agree that this is a particularly propagandistic portrayal of the process. I myself have seen a number of pictures portraying quite humane gavage being performed on happy, aesthetically pleasing ducks. Even the most sceptical of people would have to concede that the above duck is no James Mason. Regardless of this shameful propaganda (I mean, even I find myself sympathising with the wretched creature), might I remind one of what this necessary procedure produces (see attached).

Looks like gold, doesn’t it.

With the ban in California coming into effect, I have been inundated with emails by my fellow bon vivants (that’s ‘good liver’ in French—one who ‘lives well’—if you wanted to know.) These sensible, caring souls—and they do ‘care’ I can assure you. The charge by those who deem them ‘uncaring’ is fallacious. They care a great deal: they care about fine cuisine and good company; and one feels a charge of ‘uncaring’ could be brought against those who do not care about these things: one mustn’t judge; unless one is judging viands—These sensible caring souls fear there very way of life is under threat: ‘What’s next?’ they ask, ‘a ban on fish—The food of our Lord?’  

These emailic lamentations—sent to myself by the Amethyst Bamboo salts of the earth—fear that now California has joined the likes of the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, Norway, Poland, Ireland, Switzerland, The Netherlands (Holland) and the United Kingdom, in banning the preparation of this most delicious of gras, that it will not be long before it is entirely prohibited, and those of us who wish to taste this most ambrosial of foods will have to resort to clandestine and illegal acquisitions of it in a manner befitting a Negroed or Mexican.

They are right to be concerned.

With this in mind, I have a proposal. If the problem with the preparation of foie gras has to do with the way in which these poor animals are prepared (and I happily concede the fact that they are poor: for they do not possess wherewithal nor any means to acquire such). If the problem has to do with the way in which the animals are prepared: being fed a controlled amount of feed, typically administered using a funnel fitted with a long tube that is 20-30cm in length which forces the feed into the animals oesophagus, incrementally increasing the amount of feed from a dry weight of 250 grams (9 Oz) per day, to up to 1,000 grams (35 Oz) by the end of a procedure that takes 12 to 15 days for ducks (15 to 18 days for geese)[3].

If it is the problem of how the animals are prepared that the Coltan buying, Soy sippers have—the reason they feel the need to prevent us enjoying this most delectable of delicacies—then my suggestion (my Modest Proposal) is this:

Let us simply transfer the process of fattening the liver of these ‘poor’, ‘defenceless’ animals; let us take this process that the left (along with anyone who owns a pet and projects upon them a misguided anthropomorphism, erroneously believing them to possess anthropocentric ‘feelings’ of pleasure, pain—the feeling of ‘annoyance’ when caught at the end of a long shopping queue, say); let us take this process, this process of gavage; let us (to conjure once more the delicate metaphorical digression of earlier) divert our route (only slightly) so we might reach our destination—the destination of opulent satiety—in a manner that would void the complaints of those who believe we are needlessly harming innocent animals to satisfy our own insatiable greed and gluttony.

Let us—with noble heart, in the name of progress—do what needs to be done. Let us—without compunction—do what is surely the only logical conclusion to this whole needlessly complex topic:

Let us gavage the criminals, the rapists, the paedophiles, embezzlers, the traitors to the crown, tax evaders, child murderers, sodomites, the pederasts, homosexuals (who do not cook), the philistines, the bad seeds, and the mentally retarded: all of whom are in possession of the opposable thumbs and dexterity needed to be cajoled or coerced into signing consent forms.

  [1] One is constantly amazed at how the French language makes even the most matter of fact appellation sound most positively romantic—this may be why they are so successful with the ladies: even the name Bernard sounds better in French.

[2] Introduction of nutritive material into the stomach by means of a tube

[3] 9 Oz = the approximate weight of a human heart; 35 Oz = the approximate weight of the combined human hearts of a quartet of Sous Chefs.  

[sob-be-sot]

Ten Expurgated Milo Yiannopoulos Quotes Deemed Antithetical to His Brand [Declined Mcsweeney's List]

1. ‘I mean, if I’m being honest, this is all pretty much conjecture at this point…’  

2. ‘Sometimes I lie in bed staring at the ceiling and a single tear rolls down my cheek and I feel very sad indeed.’

3. ‘I can’t believe Jessa would sleep with Adam when she knows how much it will affect her relationship with Hannah.’

4. ‘Donald Trump touched my balls and it made me very confused, because sure I’ve thought about it but I just don’t think America is ready for a gay FLOTUS I mean what d’you think, diary.’

5. ‘Every time I get excited for a computer game I buy it and within ten minutes I’m like, “am I even enjoying this?!”’

6. ‘My Au Pair used to make Moussaka every other day, and you know what: I just got a bit sick of it. That’s the root of it, I think.’

7. ‘The thing is: I was pretty close to deactivating the account anyway because after a while you kinda just get bored of having to manufacture opinions.’

8. ‘Sometimes when people are talking to me about Politics and stuff I’m like nodding my head and pouting and things but what I’m really doing is thinking about how cool it’d be to be Maxwell Caulfield.’  

9. ‘I reblog my opinions from other blog posts.’  

10. ‘Although it pains me to admit it, in truth, sometimes I just don’t feel particularly funny.’

[sob-be-sot]

10 Star Wars Plot Spoilers That Will Melt Your Brain

Star wars has leaked. I’ve just watched it and it’s nerdtastic. Below are ten spoilers that will Melt. Your. Brain

Proceed with caution.

1. Rey turns out to be Luke Skywalker in a dress.

2. Darth Vader has been stapled back together and lives in a space tin.

3. Han Solo has developed cryo-sickness and has shrunk to the size of a golf bag.

4. The Millennium Falcon has a brother.  

5. Stormtrooper Finn keeps stealing space orbs.

6. Lando Calrissian sells Ewok pelts to Mos Eisley tourists and suffers from chronic bronchitis.

7. Boba Fett explodes out of the Sarlacc and goes on an indiscriminate killing spree before ploughing head-first into a dense sand pile.  

8. Princess Leia attempts to piece together Alderaan from the inside out and accidentally glues herself to the planet’s core.  

9. A star destroyer lands on Chewbacca’s head and his arms fall off.

10. C-3PO is pulled apart by Banthas.

[sob-be-sot]

An Honest Review of an Honest Review

Jesse Eisenberg thinks he so smart. He thinks he has the erudite wit to write short stories and what’s worse is he’s even got a book published and it’s got a terrible title. It’s called Beam Me up Hiccups and not even the idiots on Amazon like it—they gave it three stars—and they’re basically idiot consumers and most of them are probably fat as well.

Jesse Eisenberg writes like the idiot bastard son of Woody Allen and Woody’s probably even got a court injunction preventing Jesse Eisenberg from telling anyone about it because he probably took one look at this idiot bastard and thought, “Jesus Christ would you look at that neurotic idiot, he’s flailing about like a horny fifties housewife and you know what he blinks far too much to be trusted,” and Woody probably went home to Soon-Yi and had a well-earned giggle.

Jesse Eisenberg made his film debut in a terrible indie film called Rodger Dodger and he’s been playing the same neurotic virgin for the last twenty years and the only difference in any of his performances is that in Wes Craven’s terrible werewolf film Cursed he straightened his idiot head with hair straighteners because that’s what cool new werewolves do—and it’s about as much character development as I’ve seen from him.  Cursed was terrible and I’ve seen pretty much every one of Jesse Eisenberg’s films to date and they’ve all been terrible, and guess what—I didn’t even pay for them so there. Who’s the idiot now, idiot!

Jesse Eisenberg got an Oscar nomination for his ‘portrayal’ of mark facebook—like anyone gave a shit about mark facebook the guy was an arsehole and the only people that care about facebook anyway is old people now, posting idiot platitudes and pictures of cats and liking too many comments. Put them away, old people. No one wants to see them, you’re pictures of cats. And so Jesse ‘idiot’ Eisenberg got an Oscar nomination for playing someone no one likes … and guess what … he did a great job because no one liked Jesse Eisenberg in The Social Network. Everyone thought Jesse Eisenberg was a neurotic arsehole. And so what, he gets a Oscar nomination for being himself? Who does he think he is, George Clooney. Guess what Jesse Eisenberg—you’re about as Clooney as a fucking spanner.

Jesse Eisenberg has peeked. Everyone knows. He’s so peaked he’s gonna start advertising ice-cream soon. You watch. He’s gonna be on a massive billboard somewhere with a spoon jammed into his stupid face. And he’s gonna be so desperate for the work that the ice cream company won’t have to pay him with money. No, they’ll pay him in ice cream and you know what he’ll be happy to get even that. He’ll be happy to be paid in ice cream. Can you imagine? What a fucking loser.  

And he’ll get fat.  Jesse Eisenberg will get fat. Brando fat. So fat they’re gonna have to shoot him with a wider lens. And how the other actors will laugh. They’ll laugh and say, “Here comes Fatty Eisenberg. Here he comes with a tub of ice cream under his arm and another under his chin. Not so smart now are you, fatty. Big fat Jesse Eisenberg.”

Jesse Eisenberg wrote a terrible article that was published by the New Yorker and guess what— it’s as terrible as anything Jesse Eisenberg has ever done. It’s Get Real terrible. It’s The Education of Charlie Banks terrible. It’s Camp Hell terrible. It’s as terrible as that interview where he mistakes flirting for bullying. It’s on par with every terrible thing Jesse Eisenberg has ever done. And d’you know why? Because Jesse Eisenberg is terrible. He’s terrible. Terrible.

Jesse Eisenberg stars in The End of the Tour which is set to come out next month. A film the Wallace estate objects to—And for good reason. The Wallace estate object to putting David Foster Wallace’s name … on dog shit. Simple. And what James Ponsoldt and Jason Segel—but especially Jesse Eisenberg—have done with The End of the Tour is: they’ve dug up Wallace’s grave, they’ve pried open Wallace’s casket, and they’ve each taken turns shitting into the mouth of David Foster Wallace’s partially decomposed corpse. That’s what he gets. That’s what David Foster Wallace gets for seeking truth in art. A drawn out vegetarian stool to the gob.  The fucking pity of it.

I hate Jesse Eisenberg. Jesse Eisenberg is bitterness. Jesse Eisenberg is bile. Jesse Eisenberg is everything wicked in the world hidden beneath a jew-fro. He’s not smart. He's not funny. He exists and resides in the purgatorial kingdom of Smarm. There with all the other halfwits of America stupid enough to believe they are wise.

[sob-be-sot]

Frank (Imagined)

There’s this guy—let’s call him Frank. Frank is someone I’ve just conjured. How it works is, you think of something: a brick, a tree, a cloud, or a person like Frank, and if you have a good enough imagination you can make them or it, whatever it is, pretty much do whatever you want. So for example this guy Frank who I’ve just invented, he doesn’t really have a face or shape or anything like that because I’ve only just conjured or invented him. So at the moment he’s just kinda formless. I mean he’s got a name, Frank, but aside from that there really isn’t any form to him. So let’s give him form.

Let’s make Frank fat. Why not. We can call him fat Frank if he pisses us off or if we’re in a mean mood. No, actually, let’s make him round. Like a Mr Men kinda round. Sort of cartoonish round. So now we’ve got a name for this thing: Frank, and we know he’s kinda cartoonishly round like a Mr. Man. We can all see that pretty easily in our mind's eye, yes. A big round Mr. Men type thing what’s name is Frank. Okay. Let’s continue. Let’s give Frank some limbs. Now what type of limbs shall we allow Frank to have. It’s up to us after all. We are his creator. He exists in our mind. They could be long, or short, or a little of both. It’s up to us. Okay, let’s give Frank one very long arm, say his left arm. So his left arm is very long. And we’ll give him a kinda slug, yeah a slug, something … not nice, in place of his right arm. So his left arm is very long, too long, and his right arm is a slug, an arm sized slug. Very nice.  How about his legs, what kind of legs should we give Frank. They should be congruent to the rest of him, don’t you think. No. Well what are you thinking. A boat. A torso in a boat. That’s very strange. So Frank hasn’t got any legs then. Okay, so instead of legs Frank has instead a boat … where his legs should be. How strange. Well, you know, as I said, Frank exists in our mind, we are his creator, and we can pretty much make him whatever we want. Let’s let our imaginations run wild. Okay.

So at the moment Frank—wait what race is Frank. Maybe we should give him an ethnicity before we get too far ahead. Is Frank black, is he Japanese. He hasn’t got a race, you say. Well how would that work. I mean, he is a person, isn’t he. And all people have a race, don’t they. There isn’t a person without a race, is there. It wouldn’t make sense. Okay, well if he isn’t a race what is he. He’s nothing. But how does he exist. How does he exist if he is nothing. Oh, I see.  He exists because we Will him to exist. Well that is very clever of you. Okay. So at the moment Frank is a round Mr. Men type person with one long arm and a slug for the other and has a boat for legs and doesn’t have a race. Okay. Do we want him to have eyes. Do we want him to see. One eye, you say. One eye that sees only pain. What does seeing only pain mean. It means pain, does it. Oh that isn’t very nice. Well, okay. So he has one eye that sees only pain. Where is this eye. On his shoulder. Okay well what’s on his face. Does he have ears. No ears, eh. How does he hear. He doesn’t. That must be awfully lonely, are you sure you don’t want to give Frank any ears. Okay, well. Does he have a mouth. He does. And what does it say. Kill me. It says kill me. Does it say anything else. It doesn’t. It just says kill me.  Okay, well, if we stop imagining Frank then he won’t exist and it’ll be kinda like he’s dead. So shall we do that. I mean he doesn’t seem very happy, does he. He’s a round Mr. Man with a long arm and a slug, he’s got a boat where his legs should be, he’s got one single eye that sees only pain, no ears, and all he does is keep asking us to kill him. So shall we. Shall we kill Frank. If we stop imagining Frank he will disappear and be at peace. Shall we. Shall we stop imagining Frank. What’s that. No. You don’t want to. You don’t want to stop imagining him. You want to imagine him forever. Oh dear.

[sob-be-sot]

[sob-be-sot]

The last person you can count on in this world is a dame

I

The bar is full of dames. I walk in wearing a cool jacket and shoes made out of a crocodile. Everyone notices me and a middle aged lady swoons. She is dragged off the dance floor and everyone continues to jive. They jive this way and they jive that. Everyone is all sweaty and glisten like fish. I pass this sultry scene and head to the back, passing the bartender who manages the bar like a professional.

Sonny is beating a snitch, who is begging for his life like a dog begging for a banana. He tips his hat as I walk pass and punches the snitch right firm in the kisser. The snitch's names is Eddy and he asks me to help.

           —Sorry, Kid. Don't play with the piper if you can't handle the tune.

I move through the scene like a bullet, and am in the back before Sonny has another chance to swing. You've gotta move fast in this business if you don't want to be made invisible.

I get into the service elevator and the operator asks me what floor.

           —I'm going straight to the top.

           —Well I guess you mean business. Because that's where Mr. Malone is and if you don't have an appointment, he'll throw you out of the window. I've seen it before.

           —I bet you've seen a lot of things, I say.

           —I've seen enough, says the elevator man.

           —Well how much to see a little less?

I slip him the wad of cash and he happily accepts.

           —See what?

           —You pick up fast, I say.

The elevator man lets me out on ten and tips his cap. I click my fingers and shoot him the finger and move up the hallway with feet like a sparrow.

I kick the door open with powerful legs. The room smells of cigarettes and cocktail sauce. The chick on the bed is halfway through eating a potato and I tell her to scram. I hear sound coming from the bathroom and make my way with feet like a sparrow.

Malone is in the Jacuzzi and wears a medallion. His chest hair soft like the rug of a house. He sips champagne and his toupee rest in the dry like a fat hamster. He turns to me and I raise the revolver.

           —What are you gonna do, whack me over a broad?

He offers a smile.

           —Who says it has anything to do with her.

He goes for his pistol and I put one in his gut. He slowly sinks to the bottom and rises back up, his belly looking like some kind of hairy island.

I'm out before the sirens.  

II

She sits resting her legs on the desk, smoke coming out of her mouth like a bus from a tunnel. She smiles at me and my legs turn all jelly. I move over to her and she ask if I want a smoke.

           —No thanks, I say. I'm trying to avoid bad habits.

           —Suit yourself, she says and pockets the death sticks.

           —So. What's the sitch?

 I tell her that Malone is dead and that I shot him with a gun. She smiles and moves close. I feel her hot sweaty breath on my face. I grab her by the arms and we kiss hard like an octopus.

           —I knew I could count on you, she purrs.

I look at her all serious.

           —Baby, you can't count on no one in this world.

She rest her head on my chest.

           —You can count on me. She says.

I shake my head like the P.I I am.

           —Baby, the last person you can count on in this world is a dame.

[sob-be-sot]

A rejoinder RE: @timheidecker's comments on @megh_wright's comments on comedy

Let me begin by saying that I shouldn't really be doing this. I'm far too busy writing scripts and books and coming up with amazing television pitches to write a silly little rejoinder. But then again, it is to an American, so shouldn't take that much time or  effort. Especially as it's an American who writes for Splitsider.

For anyone not in "show business", Splitsider is a kind of spoonerism, isn't it. The mixing up of words for comic effect. A kind of word game, like what a Seth MacFarlane or a  Tyler, the Creator would do. It has a mixture of humour and cool that Americans seem to feel is needed. It's the sort of humour Bill Hick's employed rather successfully in the 80's. Leather jackets. Cigarettes. Reagan.

Bill toured with his act ceaselessly, dying before he got the chance to hit big with his TV Show "Free Press". And so people assimilated his cold, dead act into their own (some, before he was even dead) to massive success. You could even argue that Bill stole Sam Kinison's act/way to begin with. But what are you gonna do?

People steal, don't they. Even if they don't really mean to. Even if it's completely subconscious. Some intelligent, honest people even admit it. I mean, we're all silly little human beings. It's doubtful that much is original, especially now. That's why it's always nice to come across artists who approach this whole comedy thing from a unique angle.

I think it's rare. I mean, not in England. We're all kind of bred this way. Bred to be funny and unique. It's in the culture. No, I mean Americans. It must be very hard for you, because you had all that civil liberties stuff, didn't you. And Vietnam, where it became fashionable to care. And now you're all very serious really, aren't you. Underneath it all. I bet you must have lots of impassioned conversations. Talk about policy. Listen to public radio. It must be awful. I bet most of you even vote. Bless. We haven't really done anything political since the civil war. Unless you count that silly Occupy movement. I spent a day with those hippies and they couldn't even organize emptying the Portaloos.

It must be hard to grow up in America and not just be a vacuous know-it-all. You're kind of Parisian in that way. If it's happening, it's happening in America. I mean, that's where Hollywood is. That's where all the good studio picture are being made that don't exist. But to us, America is the sort of place we send the exiled. It's where we kicked John Oliver. And he seems to be doing well, despite being useless. We tried to give you Russell, but I think he escaped with one of your queens. Oh well. Anyway, America is awful. And I was somewhat relieved to find that you did actually have funny people there. You just don't promote them.

Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim are two of the funniest comedians you have, Megh Wright. The only reason you don't know that already is because you're a stupid American. Don't worry, it's not your fault. It was probably your parents. But unfortunately you've wound up ignorant. Not of some things. You probably know how to punctuate, and spell words. Useful skills of the past. And I'm sure excellent spelling comes in handy when compiling a crossword.  But you are ignorant of comedy. And I know I come off sounding like an egotist when I use phrases like "ignorant of comedy". But guess what? I'm better than you. I know more and am better.

Danger 5 is what happens when you put the TV show Thunderbirds into the kind of American blender Americans use to make them feel like they aren't destroying the earth and blend it with its live-action counterpart starring Brady Corbet and Bill Paxton.  The result: trash.

All the good parts are pilfered from other shows. It's Darkplace if Darkplace were an ad for Foster's lager. It is a parody of a parody. And exactly the kind of diluted rubbish I'd expect someone working in a Portlandia sketch to like. How do you justify your existence, Megh? I assume it must be depressing being the epitome of western indulgence. Do you look at the brave men and women risking their lives on the front line for Al Jazeera and weep? Have you ever applied for a job as an embedded journalist? Or White House Press Corp? Do assistants ride around on Hoverboards where you construct these uninformed, meaningless opinions? You must drink a lot.

What Tim, Eric and their righteous band of cohorts do is far beyond the parodical or "intentionally bad". From Tom Goes to the Mayor onward they have created unique comedy. It comes from what makes them laugh. And the reason that it is so unique is because they are a couple of oddballs who have with the help of their team created a nightmare universe of their own. And what has happened over the last ten years is that their own brand of humour has been picked apart and assimilated into the heinous American Zeitgeist. And the parts of their comedy that "worked" for a general audience of American slovens, through conscious malice or unconscious stupidity, now permeates the comedic landscape of the world. Because American businessmen export culture for money.

And you're a part of that, Megh. You and you're terrible website are helping to create an uninformed, witless populace, who know nothing of art, who know nothing of originality,  who can be seen walking down the street screaming the C-word at the top of their lungs. "Content," they shout. "Content!"  

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25 Quid Job (In the City)

 I got a £25 a week internship at a company that described itself as “the Silicon Valley of Clapham. It’s above a chip shop. I found it whilst searching for a media job on gumtree. My sister told me that I had to get a job and start paying my way if I wanted to continue sleeping on her couch—I don’t think her husband likes me. It was between the media internship and the high-street modelling of a six foot cancerous testicle for the charity “Fright4Life”. I decided on the internship as I am not particularly theatrical.

 On my first day I was greeted by a fellow named T_Bolt. T_Bolt was called T_Bolt on account of his lightning fast ideas, he said. One of the first things T. told me was to never wear shorts, as shorts were his thing. He offered me a mint and I liked him immediately. As he showed me around I became very aware of how sticky the floor was. T. assured me that the floor was sticky because of all the ideas and that once I’d gotten settled he’d sort me out with my own pair of thinking crocs also. I had absolutely no idea what anything he said meant but was excited to meet someone who obviously new how to fashion.

 The “intern’s area” was one of the more shabby bean bags in a room littered with bean bags. T. told me that everyone was very laid back, and that the beans bags reflected this. Most of the bean bags were occupied by sleeping people who all seemed very nice. T. told me that they were all geniuses, before showing me his office which was a toilet. He said that the toilet was the perfect workplace for the modern man. The toilet was peppered with postit notes of stickmen karate-kicking army tanks. I asked him if I could use his office take make proper, and he declined.   

 There was a computer in the kitchenette, where a man slept soundly in a bin bag on the floor. I asked who the sleeping man was, and T. told me that he was a “well-wizard tech-genie”.  A computer monitor was in the sink atop an exploded microwave.  T. told me that the microwave was exploded in a team building exercise and that one of my jobs as intern would be to locate more devices to explode. He then asked me if I knew any good rubbish tips, and I said no.        

 After T. showed me the office he took me to a pub called “The Comely Maiden” to celebrate my internment. It was there I discovered that the company was in the business of developing lucrative phone apps. When I asked him what kind, he showed me a video of a man being sick on a rollercoaster. The man was fat and looked uncomfortable so I laughed. T. told me that it was his business to stir the technological pot. I asked him where the technological pot was, and he laughed and said I was “total irony”. He ordered multiple shots of “Flaming Mess”, and we played several games of “Guess the Number”.

 When we finally left the pub, T. told me that obviously the drinks were coming out of my pay, whilst he attempted to karate-chop a grounded pigeon. We spent the next hour-and-a-half trying on hats at a place called “Hats³”, where T. used the phrase “Fedora the Explorer” six times and bought me an intern’s beanie that had a propeller on it. I spent the rest of the afternoon rotating the propeller whilst trying not to vomit externally—as T. was making karate sounds in the bathroom, and I didn’t want to make the floor any stickier.  

 At about 6pm the sleeping people on the beanbags began to wake up and check their beanbag tablets. One of them had been sent an animating gif of a rollerblading duck, and was laughing uncontrollably. An androgynous man with a faux-hawk asked me who I was and why I was on Eddie’s beanbag? I asked who Eddie was, and he said that Eddie was an asshole. I told him I was the new intern, and that I didn’t know what time I was supposed to finish.  

 Twenty minutes later I was at the top of a dilapidated stairwell playing lookout for the beanbag man whilst he scored hash out of a flat door post-box. He explaining through the door that soon he would be rich enough to successfully avoid paying tax, and that his credit should reflect this, whilst the voice behind the door offered sonorous replies in a language I didn’t care to understand.    

 On the way back from the botched deal, I asked the beanbag man if he happened to know the name of the company that both he and I worked for. He asked why I cared. I told him that if I went back to my sister without even the name of a company I supposedly worked for she would most likely kick into homeless. He said that they had yet to finalise the design, but likened it to the Prince symbol. 

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The Silly Walk @GlastoFest 

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I'm Sick to Death of Being White 

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Making a Man Ep.1 (Ed Sheeran)