Writing Style, Snowman Dreams, Anton Chekov, Comedy for Minors.

This is the first ever blog that I'm going to include an audiotrack for you to listen to me read out the words and things, it might be fun, you might love my voice, so here ya go...

The mark on any fiction I write always has a few of the same elements, the protagonist is always a writer in some shape or form, the subtext is pregnant with alcoholism or addiction and there's always some unattainable beauty who the hero may lust after (I don't know if he gets the girl, because I haven't finished what I've started). I realized this the other day and this made me come to think everything I conjour up isn't as analytical and planned as I want it to be, but crafted with my own bubbling-under-the-surface emotions/neurosis, this worries me. Anyone who reads what I write might be able to see me slumped in the corner of my own subtext, bitterly babbling cynicism into the reaches of their subconscious, let's just hope people who enjoy me in the future aren't impressionable, then we'll have droves of misanthropic underdogs thinking they need to drink, write and lust after the unavailable gem. DON'T. PLEASE GOD DON'T. I don't want anyone stealing the cut of my jib.

Yeah there's snow outside, I dislike the coldness of the snow, I dislike the cold, but the snow itself ain't too bad. I had a pint with a snow man once and I said to him "I won't make any puns about your temperature, as long as you pay" The guy was pretty sound.

I was doing some acting this week at the ol' Colegio. We were participating in scenes from the Chekov play "Uncle Vanya" and I was the eponymous character, who is a melodramatic, bitter old drunk, who can't get with the bird he wants to (yeah typecasting is a bitch), I was originally meant to be doing this scene with me pale ol' comedy pal Robin, but he had to leave college because of them SAAS being a military and stuff like that, so I did it with wee Jamie. Once we performed it in front of the class on wednesday, I realized I made my scene comical, since this scene was performed with two different "Vanya's" I found it odd that I had to be funny, and if it was with Robin, I'm sure we would have made this scene as comical as we could have. This got me to thinking:

1. Why doesn't everyone want to be funny?
2. Why do people take life seriously?
3. Why do I seize every opportunity for myself to make people chuckle?
4. Why do I despise those without a sense of humor?

The answer is fairly complex and boring but I will answer no. 4. I hate those without a sense of humor (or a fairly diluted and rubbish sense of humor which I don't class as one because it ain't), because I've been striving to make people laugh since about the age of 3 or 4.

When I was 5 I saw my first Jim Carrey film (Ace Venture: Pet Detective) and I consumed it with my child brain and thought "I want to be a comedy actor one day". So I assumed the mannerisms of Ace Ventura, spouted his catchphrases in the same fashion as (my hero) Jim Carrey and welcomed the laughs. Now some say I was just stealing my jokes off of that movie and the style was very derivative of Mr. Carrey, but I was 5 and no-one actually said that.

In primary 7, I must of been about 11 going on 12 there was an end of year performance for the P7's to the rest of the school, two guys covered nirvana's version of "The Man Who Sold The World", some other guys sang a busted song (yeah it was around that period where they were cool, but I didn't like them) and I, your loyal-to-comedy chump of a kid, wrote some sketches and got people to perform them (not the cool kids, the nerds). Now if I could remember them I would write them out but I can't so fuck you, but I remember parts of it, the first part I remember is that one of the sketches was completely ripped off of a comedy sketch show (that I can't remember) which I obviously stayed up late to watch, because I always stayed up late to watch comedy. The second thing I remember was that the sketches I wrote were mainly linguistically based: puns, punchlines etc.. The last thing I remember was since I skived off school a lot over my school years just to stay at home and watch tv, the ending to the last sketch got changed (that pissed me off) and instead of my [probably shit] punchline end to the skits, soak up applause, bow and exit, there was this stupid, physical comedy bit where we all got shot or something and someone was wearing a wig. I FUCKING HATE SLAPSTICK. well not really, but they changed my script. That was my first experience with writing and performing comedy, to a crowd.

I was doing some research this week and I found out that Anton Chekov famous russian playwright, was a prankster at school and had the nickname "Bomb-Head" because he had a great big fuckin' head. I would've just laid low if I had a great huge noggin.

Do svidaniya,

Dusty "Cornish Guilt" Smith