All entries for May 2010

Sex etc.

There are only a few things that are certain in the modern world. Kerry Katona will get fat again, cry about being a coke addict, snort the ashes of one hundred thou sand crushed Atomic Kitten CDs and die, leaving nothing in her wake but a five page epitaph in the Daily Star.

We will always care more about Kerry Katona eating sushi than we will about Cleggmania, Sam Cam and that rabid Scottish bull dog, no matter how hard Rupert Murdoch tries. McDonalds will make you fat. Burger King will make you fat. Nick Clegg will make you fat. The Andrex Puppies will make you fat. Gok Wan will tell you that you’re fat but you’re fabulous, or something, and make you expose your stretch marks in front of your grandma and The Nation. Everything onTVis for and by The Nation, an anonymous group of twats who spend their Sunday afternoons masturbating to Racing on Channel 4 and deciding that Joe McElderry is now the voice of The Nation be cause he’s cute. Or something.

More than this, we all know that sex sells, apparently. Whenever anything vaguely sexual comes on TV, there will al ways be some pil lock near by who wants to justify the sudden awkwardness in the room with an oh-so witty anecdote about the economy of sex on TV. Say ‘sex sells’ enough times and it be comes about as monotonous a drone as the white noise that will forever leech onto my null and void collec tion of analogue TVs. Except the white noise isn’t quite as self-​righteous as the lager wielding, Times-​reading sofa commentator.

I’m not exactly the most clued-​up person on the economics of tele vision, and I am sure that TVprograms with lots and lots of fucking in them make lots and lots of advertising revenue for lots and lots of television executives. And good for them, truly! But does every single TVpro gram need to be reduced to a base, sexual level?

I’m not saying that Newsnighthas become a late night haven for Paxman fetishists waiting for the closing five minutes in which he strips down to his off-​white Y Fronts and performs a disturbingly erotic dance, but there is definitely a misplaced emphasis on sexual attraction and seduction across the entire sorry spectrum of TVshows.

There are, of course, overtly sexual TVshows. There have been for a long time. Sex and the Cityploughs on with its second movie com ing soon, and I’m sure that scenes of menopausal women hav ing their way with bare ly post-​pubescent boy toys will be titillating enough, but in com par i son to the bawdy romps of the TVshow, the new Sex and The Citywill always pale in comparison. Sex and The Cityis reflective of how stan dards of sex on TVhave gradually dis integrated from people fucking to make a point to peo ple fuck ing be cause there needs to be a sex scene in every single post-​water shed program. The once perky labia of your TVset is drooping lower than a fat man sleeping in a loosely strung hammock.

Every taboo has already been broken. Queer as Folkintroduced rimming to middle England at the start of the millennium. Joan Collins’ character in Footballers’ Wiveshad sex with her adopted Brazilian football megastar son. Channel 5 ran a documentary about a man who has sex with his car. Rebecca Loos masturbated a pig on The Farm. Kinga made sweet sweet love with a wine bottle on Big Brother. Every single combination of midgets, obese prosti tutes, eighty-​year-​old male strippers and inanimate objects have all cheated on each other on some godforsaken daytime chat show.

Sex can be innovative and in spir ing in the right context. The rim ming worked on Queer as Folknot be cause it was shocking but be cause it made gay sex beautiful. Footballers’ Wivesworked be cause it was campy and kitsch and the weird sex scenes were so extreme that they be came cartoonish. Rebecca Loos’ indulgence in bestiality was just shocking, crude and in appropriate.

And then there’s TV’s obsession with sexualising the seemingly in nocuous. Children’s TVpre sen ters seem to know the score, and it’s almost a rite of passage for every female ex-Blue Peterpresenter to appear in the glossy pages of FHM.

Perhaps Bob the Builderwill turn into Bob the Rent Boysoon enough to in crease ratings. Dora the Explorerhas already been given a more revealing outfit. Heck, in a desperate move, the final series ofBig Brothercould bring back Moira Stewart to per form lap dances.

Sex on TVis ridiculous and worthless. Expect to see David Cameron awkwardly writhing in dirty underwear in a desperate attempt at quelling Clegg-​mania in Thursday‘s debate.

: 01 May 2010 15:06 |  Tags: Review TV |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

browless

Drops of water chase down the window of the train. There’s a child, young boy, black hair, teeth, opposite me. He has one hand on the table and the other in his lap. His mother holds a rucksack, his rucksack, decorated with a smiling cartoon that I don’t recognise.

I follow the rain as it falters, mid window. It shivers as the train moves, but it stays stuck. 

The child stares at nothing. His mother is restless. Her eyes are shadows. One hand gets a firmer grip on the rucksack. The other is everywhere. In her hair in one moment. In her handbag, the next, scrabbling for a tissue or a list or whatever mothers need. 

There is a conversation about politics on the table next to me between a pin-stripe and a black-suit businessman. ‘I mean, it’s just ridiculous.’ and ‘I totally agree, they’re all wankers.’ etc. 

I reach across and ask them for the time.

‘It’s 6pm.’

The woman opposite me checks her watch.

‘More like five past’

and pin-stripe does a half nod smile and ‘er, so yeah. As I was saying’

The child looks at me, straight into my chest. I smile at him. He stares into my chest, and I carry on smiling. He seems to be unaware of all the hedges, trees, sheep, buildings, metal, wood, metal jetting past his head. Smiling and staring, I see everything.

A lonely tree in an empty, green field. Its branches crawl across the dusking sky. Men where there are no men. Tricks of the light. Jumps and hands firmly in pockets. A man standing, bald. In the big windows. Still. and bald. And blue. The room was blue. A house reflection in the shadow. A whole pool of shadow. A leap. I almost-

The child looks at me, straight into my eyes. The mother’s a shadow, blind to the busy seats, the inane chatter and idle connections. As if I shouldn’t look at anything else. 

He is browless. His eyes a light brown. I wanted to see a miracle. I just see colour, and a pit of black.

No. 

I turn my head towards the window. The rain has all gone. I missed the race. Now there’s just reflections. Reflections and trees and a purple moon, boy in the light with black hair, head shake faster and faster and fall, onto the table, mother with lipstick, through my eyelids a shatter, train slows and doors poft. 

Train shudder. Just the sound of the train.

Eyes open, and I’m alone. I walk to the toilet, wash my hands. And I wait for the train to stop. 

: 01 May 2010 14:55 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Castles and stuff

He had bushy eyebrows. There was an ingrown hair above his lip. He had more hair on his inner thigh than on his shin. His shin was shiny, and smooth, if you touched it right.  

*

There are birds on top of the pylon. Muted by eighties fuck-rock in the bus. Most of everyone is background chatter, playing on phones, matching heads for love, giggling and there might be some commotion, soon. I see the birds on top of the pylon, and then they’re gone.

white line on the road, again, again, again, again.

We could be here forever. The head on my shoulder stops and starts to snore. I like the rhythm, I like the heat. I like the way our hair touches. Perhaps we will get stuck, and we could be here forever. 

The English Teachers talk about tax and everyone does anything behind them. Once someone got a blowjob in a school-trip bus. Someone told me. A teacher found them and told them to stop, and nothing came of it. 

*

He had a straggle of hair under both of his knees. There was one long hair above his left nipple. He never touched his armpit hair. His chin was clean, and he never scratched me. 

*

We’re at the ruins of a castle or a monastry or somewhere people lived and prayed. We are with the rocks. A man in a cossack leads us around, speaking words. 

There aren’t any clouds in the sky. There’s a ditch covered in brambles behind all of the rocks. I think about running and jumping into the ditch, about having dirty palms, about bleeding and tearing into my polka-dot dress, about drinking the ditch water and swallowing and swallowing until

The monk stops and asks if anyone knows anything about rituals. My bus buddy, awake, raises her hand. 

‘Rituals are things that people do over and over again’ 

and I force my fingers into my palm. I look at the sky. I feel the lace under my left shoe. There is hair over my eyes. I can see all the blue and there’s two planes above me. One flies over the other’s jet-stream. It looks like it’s going back in time. 

My tights are sore around my thighs. I try to breathe but my tights are sore

hands clutching the stretch, ripping a hole. a huge hole. and another. they might meet. and cross each other. what then?

*

He was bald, but hair matted to his chest. My hair lay cold on the pillow. His hair matted to his chest. 

*

It’s all whispers and a Teacher in my face. Girls with pigtails laugh and the boys are on the ground, away from all of the commotion.

‘Speak to me,’ the teacher. ‘What’s wrong?’

the brambles look thick. I curl my finger. I moan. Through the hole in my tights, I moan. I throw my head back, I open my mouth. I let the sky into my mouth, and I moan. Thinking about his matted hair, his hairy thigh, his stretch stomach, 

‘Christ. Everyone’ but they’re being hurried by the monk, to some more rocks, 

‘Stop it. 

You have to stop it’

his grey eyes, his frown and the way he hummed along to Bach and taught me how to play Liszt on the piano

‘Christ almighty. Stop it.’

and the way he made me love, I didn’t want love, but he gave it anyway, and the way his teeth grinded when he stopped

a Teacher grabs my waist and I am on the ground. I am under a jacket, and on the ground. 

laughing and laughing and laughing

at how the sky is so full and 

*

He was getting the post. I ran. And I ran. 

*

: 01 May 2010 14:54 |  Tags: Fiction Prose |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Pro

Moon haze stains the window. My eyes are too heavy for the cotton sheets. They are nothing, here. They are no-one’s and they are nothing. 

Heels arch. Toes curl. Lips like a fist and take it. Take it.

And again, back pressed to the grey duvet. Silence and zips. And breathing through my nose. Silence and turning the light back on. Silence and then door lock. 

I’m wearing a nightgown. Ribbon around my waist. I don’t need the money when I’ve got ribbon. Ribbon for the world. And my hair can be ribboned and I can find a tree and I can climb the tree and I can see a field from the branch-

Feet flat on the duvet. Grease hair, white shoulder. Something happens.

I don’t know if that’s the moon or just pollution. I hear there’s too much pollution.

My fingers are fingers, and I touch the glass lightbulb. The searing lightbulb. I touch it with my fingernail and scour nothing. Feet flat on the duvet. Ribbon around my waist. Lips like a claw and I touch it. Touch it. 

I door click, I light off, I breathe through my nose. Zips and silence. And I breathe through my nose. And again, back pressed to the grey.

And I want to peel the moon haze and press it to my face. All around my face, so I see nothing but the mist and the impression of a star in the glass of my eye. And I have eyes, and I can swallow, choke, I can choke the dark and. And something happens.

A lightning flash. Or a choke, and die.

Silence and zips. And door click. And grey, again. My eyelids are too thin for the yellow ceiling. They are no-one’s and they are nothing.

Duvet feet. Upright and I caress the glass of the lightbulb. There is a man, down on the street. I know I can see a man. My fingers creep to the metal at the top of the cold glass. And my claw is like a fist. And my fist is like a fist. And my feet are fists. The ceiling is a fist and it punches, and I throw the lightbulb smash, and I dance, fuck it, fuck it, I dance with my fists and I hope for the moon and there is brown, everywhere. 

Soaking the blood. 

Door click. Silence and zips. It will be morning, soon.

: 01 May 2010 14:49 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Hello again

Back after what seems like forever and ever. Lots of stuff to post. I actually have a proper BlogBlog now: http://theburningboy.blogspot.com/

I do proper blog blog stuff there. ER. Yeah. Here. 

: 01 May 2010 14:46 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem