Ms. Strangelove: Or The Psychology Of Fancying Ugly Men

It started over a week ago. I have been going through A phase of Stanley Kubrick admiration. Which in and of itself is nothing peculiar. Dr. Strangelove has always been one of my favourite films and A Clockwork Orange has long been considered, along with Witchfinder General and The Wicker Man, a family-friendly drawing-room comedy. At least in my family. Spartacus, Paths Of Glory, Full Metal Jacket, The Shining and 2001: A Space Odyssey are all iconic films which have enduring appeal. The less said about Eyes Wide Shut, the better. It was during my annual viewing of Strangelove I got to thinking how I'd always wanted a T-shirt depicting Major T.J. Kong riding the bomb. I began searching the Internet for a vendor, found one, purchased said t-shirt and am anxiously awaiting its arrival. The image so often referenced, homaged and parodied is an iconic one. A testament to Kubrick's keen, adapted eye from his beginnings as a still photographer. This got me to thinking about the man riding the Bomb. A character actor by the name of Slim Pickens. I knew little about him, other than I enjoyed his performance in Blazing Saddles as Mr. Taggart. When I Googled him, I found the results rather intriguing. Born in California in 1919 Pickens was a 6'3 ex-rodeo clown and bullfighter, who had been drafted in as a last minute replacement for the injured Peter Sellers. The intrigue turned into fascination, which for three bizarre days metamorphosed into a full blown obsession. I was looking for pictures of the young Pickens dressed as a Mexican bullfighter, as a rodeo clown, in early standout performances in obscure, almost forgotten Westerns. Now, I have always fancied Peter Sellers, he was the kind of neurotic I yearned to share a psychiatric ward with. I have always appreciated George C. Scott as an actor and understood how, even with a face once described as being like " A relief  map of Afghanistan" by his then wife Colleen Dewhurst, he had a certain appeal. The tall, blond, athletic figure of Sterling Hayden was always photogenic, even in his later years. But Slim? a small eyed, broken-nosed, weird mouthed, fat man. WTF??? If one would have asked me to put money on my obsessively accruing information on one of the Dr.Strangelove cast I'd have given Tracy Reed better odds than him. But there I was, engaged in some kind compulsive Psychic Onanism as Krafft-Ebing { another sex obsessed Kraut Doktor} would term it, over a compellingly ugly man.Was it the strength of his performance as the brave but ultimately insane Major Kong? Was it the rugged allure of a man who in reality once "broke the left side of his body" ? I have no idea. Interestingly, this is not the first time this has happened. A few years back I developed a similar obsession with American comedian Rich Fulcher, a fat, unusual looking man who looks rather fetching in drag. There is no Freudian explanation for this as my own father is tall, trim, athletic and not weird looking. I can only conclude it must be something Jungian. My usual type as you may have gathered, is rather more metro than the two aforementioned gentlemen. They perhaps represent the archetypal antithesis of my conscious preferences.Which means: Slim Pickens represents my shadow... oh my God I'm going to have some kind of trippy Black Swanesque experience where I'll be naked apart from a Stetson, riding him like the bomb, I dare say reverse cowgirl also. In the morning I will emerge a more fearless and independent woman, eager for a career in either a rodeo or the USAF.  Joking aside I find the psychology of the whole thing totally absorbing. This got me thinking: Do men develop similar fascinations? Are some "Borderline Boilers" as Viz so unflatteringly terms them { your eyes say no, but your nuts say go} actually embodiments of unconscious archetypes? Answers on a postcard or via email... Mmmm I wonder, if Bolton council hasn't secretly been fluoridating the water supply without our knowledge, if these preverted manifestations are not physical evidence of an active Commie plot to pollute all of our precious bodily fluids...! Peace On Earth= Purity Of Essence!

Slim in his younger days with his left arm round Rex Allen

Why I'm Not Difficult To Work With And How The HuffPost Isn't A Democracy.

I'm not a frequent blogger. I tend to find the mindless chatter which abounds on most journals and blogs anathema. It is as if the whole online world is afflicted by a pernicious strain of logorrhea. So it is no surprise to me that I've been rejected TWICE by The Huffington Post. Once, when in my naivete, I applied in the forlorn hope of expanding my readership. Once, when my better known and connected cousin recommended me to them. I furnished them with all the necessary details and waited....for 3 months. They simply ignored me and decided I wasn't important enough to merit an explanation. On either occasion. Now some people might think that this post is a deliberate piece of self-promotion. That I am merely hoping The HuffPost will have a change of heart and decide they'd rather have me inside the tent pissing out, as opposed to outside the tent pissing in. Not So. I now wear my rejection as a badge of distinction, in much the same way Dr.Timothy Leary and Robert Anton Wilson saw the disapproval of the US government. If the Huffington Post reject you, you most probably have the capacity for independent thought. Let me explain, The Huffington Post likes to promote itself as a bastion of liberal free thought. A free and easy place where you can blog at your leisure and express reasonable opinions in a style of your choosing. WRONG! Naughty, keep still while I whack your knuckles with this ruler. To be accepted by the Huffington post you must fit certain criteria: 1. You must be a liberal with slightly left of centre opinions. Not too left-wing, a latter day Diogenes who lives in a wine barrel and idolizes Leon Trotsky is beyond the pale. No, you must write articles about how you're heartbroken about every worthy cause going and how you nearly choked on your latte in Starbucks while reading about them. 2. You must not be too right-wing, the mere willingness to discuss immigration, religious ideology, social engineering or to take in to account somebody's gender or race makes you de facto a fascist. Please do not try to defend yourself or Somebody will end the discussion by comparing you to Hilter. 3. If you are eccentric be the right kind of eccentric e.g write whiny, needy, self-pitying articles about how much anxiety you feel about turning 30 and how you've taken to drinking  liquidized wheatgrass of a morning, in order to prolong your fucking meaningless existence. 4. If you cannot conform to any of the above criteria, BE FAMOUS. If you are as thick as the shit from an elephant's arse and are only able to sign your name with a specially sharpened crayon, The HuffPost with still oblige you, provided you were on X factor once for all of 5 minutes. These are only some of the many reasons most libertarians actually dislike, if not hate The HuffPost. They are also piss takers who are quite happy to dangle the carrot of publicity in front of people, all the while making money off the advertising on their blogs. Fuck Them and their hypocritical agenda. I'd rather be a Val Kilmer than a Miley Cyrus.

Attitudes Of Entitlement

 A belated Happy New Year to all my readers. That is rather presumptuous of me I know; Imagining I have a core readership of people who follow this blog on a long-term basis, not just a random, cavalcade of casual browsers. I haven't blogged for a while, as I have been engaged in some serious consciousness studies, possible field reports to follow. I digress. I was Godmother to my niece the other day. Being a Roman Catholic {albeit rather heterodox} there was a part in the service where I had to renounce Satan. Given the sort of person I am, some of my readers may think this an unwise move, in much the same way Voltaire refused to renounce him on his deathbed, as he declared to the priest attending him: "Now, now my good man, this is no time for making enemies". But renounce him I did, as well as "rejecting all his empty promises". Except, this is very often easier said than done. As some of the most diabolical empty promises ever made have been made by Hollywood. Specifically to young people, although the Father Of Lies has a habit of inspiring screenwriters to produce neurosis inducing, life-envy evoking drivel for people of all ages.
   When I was a teenager I swallowed the hype. While there are some teen movies which occupy a special place in my affections {I'm thinking of movies like Catholic Boys, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, The Craft and The Lost Boys} for the most part they are life negating ordure. I grew up hating myself because I wasn't a stick thin, surgically enhanced, 20 something with flawless skin and teeth, as these are generally the sort of actors cast in the lead roles in teen movies. Maybe if I had been in possession of the aforementioned attributes my teenage years would've been filled with slumber parties, beach parties where people toasted by marshmallows before campfires and skinny dipped in the sea, all the while drinking liquor stolen from their rich parents' cocktail cabinets. No, my life was an angst ridden, isolated descent into madness. The enthusiasm I had as young child, was excited by the prospect of living like the teenagers in 1980's American films. This had well and truly died by the age of eleven, as negative experiences at secondary school took their toll on my mental and physical health and I was home schooled thereafter. As the years went by my heart grew colder than a dying star and I had little interest in my peers. Real teenagers lack the sophistication of the scriptwriters turning out this bilge water. Real teenagers are not the savvy proto-adults these movies would have us believe. They are more often than not, children with pretensions. Not that psychological damage caused by movies is limited to the young and unformed. There is a movie or a TV show designed to make people from every age group feel inadequate. For Teens we have movies like the American Pie franchise and TV shows like Dawson's Creek, Beverly Hills 90210, The OC and so forth. Twenty somethings should watch movies like Silver Linings Playbook. Especially if they have a mental illness. I found the depictions of the life and appearance of people with psychiatric problems highly accurate. Most psychiatric patients are in fact kooky, good looking folk who need a fun distraction like ballroom dancing. TV shows like Friends depict people living way beyond their means in New York apartments. While you feel like a total loser, clad in a towelling dressing gown, weeping on your parents' sofa. In your 30's Any movie starring Catherine Zeta Jones or Julia Roberts from the past decade plus a box set of Sex And The City ought to do it. Why isn't a reasonably attractive man willing to buy you cocktails all evening and send you random gifts of designer shoes, despite looking as if you should be running in the Grand National with an Irish midget on your back. For 40 somethings the recently released This Is Forty {doubtless the first of many such movies} middle aged dilemmas are made light of. The screwball hilarity of having dependents and a mortgage. I could go on ad nauseam but I won't. Suffice it to say if you have the temerity to grow old, start looking in your neighbours' swimming pools for rejuvenating alien space pods. If you cannot find one, it may be time to think about booking an appointment at Dignitas. That's why I've decided to stop watching certain types of movie and TV show. Perhaps I sound Churlish. It's just that sarcasm aside, I hate to think of children and young adults growing up imagining their life experiences to be invalid. Your life is as important as anyone else's on this planet. Most of the arseholes people idolize today will be forgotten in 100 yrs time. Ideas and innovations are what survive. All that will survive for a few years after most modern celebrities deaths are their poor reputations and their breast implants. Live in the now and fuck their preconceptions. Peace!

The Emerald Serpent

The Emerald Serpent is crucified.
The Emerald Serpent cannot reach her tail.
If she could get down, she'd slither around
And spit in the eyes of those who drove in the nails.
Out! Out! get out of my garden!
Flee to the netherworld ye bastards of men!
Ye who gorge on the fruits of the Holy tree, I fed,
I watered with blood, and nourished with skins that I'd shed.
I hereby declare this is no more your playground!
The time of your reckoning is upon you at last.
Your mental remains are the deeds of your past.
Ye didn't stop to count the revels
Ye paraded before my weary eyes,
Proud as a platoon of cavorting devils
Now, I am free you will give me peace.
Arise! Now! Walk away, never cease.
Back to oblivion, in one thing you may trust,
That The Wheel of Fortune will grind you to dust.

Screwtop Makes Toast

I would like to take the opportunity to thank the good people at NewPages for listing my blog. As a token of my appreciation, here is a link to their site:  
http://www.newpages.com/ 
I'm flattered to be included in such company, cheers! 

My Kind Of Bastard

I was a most peculiar child, precocious and extremely sensitive. I am possessed of an uncommonly good memory and can pinpoint many of the seminal moments of my childhood. Which is how I can trace my fixation back to the age of six. I can remember November 1990 extremely vividly. Margaret Thatcher Leaving office after her cabinet turned against her. John Major, Michael Heseltine and Douglas Hurd all vying for the leadership. A marvellous stroke of luck for the team behind House Of Cards. Former Thatcher aide Michael Dobbs wrote the novel inspired by his time in government, which was, in turn dramatised and improved upon by Andrew Davies. The central figure was Tory Chief Whip Sir Francis Urquhart, given dramatic life by the incomparable Ian Richardson. I watched transfixed as the modern Machiavell schemed, manipulated and murdered his was to the top. Whether he was putting rat poison in Roger O'Neill's cocaine or throwing a besotted, yet perplexed Mattie Storrin to her death from the roof garden of the houses of parliament it didn't matter. I was in love. F.U's hold over me endured, for both sequels: To Play The King and The Final Cut. Of course as I grew up and saw him in other things I managed to distinguish Ian Richardson from F.U. For example I thoroughly enjoyed his turn as Professor Joseph Bell in Murder Rooms {2000-01} along with retrospective performances such as Sir Godber Evans in Porterhouse Blue and Oberon in A Midsummer Night's Dream. Yet to me he was never as attractive as when he was a bastard. When I recently watched Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy {1979 TV series} I felt the same attraction overtake me once more. Ian portrayed Bill Haydon, a.k.a Gerald, the mole in The Circus {based on real life traitor Kim Philby}. This performance gave the spell greater potency and he is for the moment, my main dramatic crush. To see him hysterically laughing and weeping alternately was mesmerizing. His large sad eyes framed by impossibly long eyelashes, wet with tears attempting to justify himself to Alec Guinness' impassive George Smiley. That's not to say this sort of reaction is reserved for the late, great Ian Richardson oh no. When I was seven my parents took me to the cinema. I wanted to see Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves. While the other little girls in the audience were busy swooning over Kevin Costner and Christian Slater, I had fallen desperately in love with Alan Rickman's sheriff of Nottingham. I say desperately in love, it was probably more like a species of Stockholm syndrome. As I was compelled and terrified in equal measure by Rickman's Satanic, sadistic, sex offender baddie. Yet when my Mother asked me how I'd enjoyed the film. I told her I'd enjoyed very much, but was saddened the Sheriff had died, so now there couldn't be a sequel with him in it. I felt the flame re-ignite aged 18 when I caught sight of him in the HBO TV movie Rasputin. The sight of him with a feral beard, dancing sensuously with some attractive gypsy women in a taverna, before leaping atop a table and masturbating was truly a sight to behold. Another man who could also engender a similar response was George Sanders. While watching Hitchcock's Rebecca when I was about nine I remember feeling a thrill of expectation when George padded through the window with silent, feline grace and began to purr away in his basso profundo voice. Of course I was right George was an unrepentant cad and bounder who'd been having it away with his own cousin, the eponymous Rebecca. The fact that the deceased, wicked, anti-heroine shared my Christian name, augmented my delight. Unsurprisingly, many years later, he was asked to provide the voice for Shere Khan in The Jungle Book. Yet If I step back and analyse them, all three have something in common. It is a sort of silky malevolence associated with the British upper class. They are a trio of dastardly dandies capable of all manner of sophisticated cruelty and treachery, also all three are ever so slightly camp. This sort of attraction to the wickedly camp was not confined to human beings. I also found Shredder from The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Mumm-ra from Thundercats perversely erotic. In fact I'd have liked to see them go to war over me. Though my money was on Mumm-ra. He'd had years contending with the might of the Thundarians where as Shredder was just the henchman of a giant haemorrhoid inside a mechanical suit, whose chief opponents were a giant rat and some moody teenagers with green skin. I mean they were supposed to be reptilian yet, never had to bio-thermoregulate. Plus the fucking pizza delivery man would have seen them at least once. Pizza parlour boss "Where are you delivering to tonight Brad?". Brad : " Those freaks who ask me to leave it by the manhole cover". Pizza parlour boss: "What kind of freaks?" Brad: "Real Ugly ones boss. I leave the pizza, hide behind the bushes and watch to see who comes out. Some times it's the old rat man, others it's his deformed, green kids." Pizza parlour boss: "Deformed?" Brad: "They must be bad boss, if their Dad won't let them out without their masks on". I digress. Though I've often wondered who would emerge the winner out of Shere Khan and Scar form the Lion King. Scar voiced of course by Jeremy Irons mmm..... So now you know my secret: I am attracted to effete, villainous men. There, I said it. The peculiar charm of the right kind of bastard.

The Screwtop Letter

The Screwtop Letter

The origin of this communication is somewhat mysterious; I awoke to find it on my pillow,

the morning after a rather taxing and emotional evening. While I am no demonologist,

I believe there are some rare insights contained in the following correspondence.

 

 

My own dear nephew Absinthium,

I was delighted to learn you had been assigned to the Intemperance Division of the Ministry For Gluttony. The head of your Alma Mater Dr.Gutrot asked me to correspond with you and share the benefit of my long experience. I told him I would be happy to oblige, as it is a long while since I was on active duty. The thrill of leading a soul to befuddlement, physical suffering and ultimate destruction are the only things I really miss about field work, since I was promoted by Our Father Below. Not wishing to incur his unappeasable wrath, I shall do my utmost in my present capacity. The key to the whole business of intemperance is pleasure. The pleasure engendered by imbibing alcohol is as old as human civilisation. It is, in the correct context and quantity one of the greatest earthly pleasures accorded to those revolting bipedal apes by the Enemy. As with all psychoactive substances, it is not the act of altering one’s consciousness that the Enemy objects to. Far from it, if it were so why allow plants with such potential to evolve? No, it is not the substances themselves which, when used responsibly, deliver some nauseatingly pleasant results, rather the human propensity for misusing them. Thanks to Our Father Below they are endowed with a predilection for abusing every freedom they are afforded by the Enemy. That, my dear Absinthium, is where we come in. While alcohol plays a central sacramental role in those appalling rites central to the worship of the Enemy, it is its very acceptability which makes it most open to abuse, along with its rather less satisfying cousin tobacco. Leaving aside for one moment the more exotic pleasures available to those simian flesh sacks, let us rather turn our attention to the mundane. The bored housewife with her bottle of sherry or gin, the stressed accountant with his whiskey bottle in the top drawer of his desk. These are the people who provide us with the bulk of our entertainment. The well documented antics of certain debauchees, while more spectacular are more infrequent and tend to serve as a warning to the more sapient members of that accursed race.  One of the crowning works for a tempter is idolatry of substance. That is to say, convincing the humans that it is the booze which actually generates happiness as opposed to being a mere mood enhancer. It all starts with a pleasant experience say that disgusting, excessive celebration devoted to the Enemy every December. The feeling of community, warm log fires, comforting smells; gingerbread, pine needles and so forth, generate a feeling of well-being. Add a glass of sherry or gluhwein into the equation and the idiotic little creatures attribute the pleasant feelings not to the context, but to the fluctuations in brain glucose. So it begins, no auspicious occasion is truly special without a bottle of fizz, no birthday or anniversary of any other kind truly commemorated without a pint. Although it isn’t the merrymaking which truly delivers them into our clutches. Rather, the belief in alcohol as the universal panacea, for everything which could conceivably afflict the human race. That is where your bored housewife and stressed accountant come in. They’ve fallen into the trap of believing that they can generate happiness or relaxation with nothing more than a little help from John Barleycorn. And so you have them. They drink when they’re happy, they drink when they’re sad. They drink in order to endure existence. Although that isn’t the only fun to be had with these jelly bags, with their internal flora and fauna. Farting and belching their way around the office the day after the night before. Generally ill-tempered, perceiving simple inquiries as excessive demands upon their stressed systems. Oh, the discord one can generate! Not to mention the discomfort. To see one of those bilious primates trying to retain their dignity whilst vomiting or else running the length of the office, buttocks clenched to avoid befouling their costly new trousers. Of course, the more serious complications arise from the potential for sexual indiscretions while inhibitions are lowered. Infidelities, VD, unwanted pregnancies ect...Much to the delight of Our Father Below. The acceleration of physical decline and the ensuing bitterness are also a rich vein of pleasure. There are hospitals full of young people ravaged by the excesses of alcohol. Clear eyed, dewy skinned young things metamorphosize into sallow, saggy, spent wraiths with bloodshot eyes and broken veins. Their engorged livers fit to explode. And so you see they become very angry, seeing little or no correlation between their actions and the consequences. They are more inclined to blame an uncaring capitalist society or if they have any faith at all, the Enemy. Needless to say our department is one of the most successful in the lowerarchy, the only thing we imbibe to toast our success is the sweet draught of human misery.

                                             Your affectionate uncle

                                               Screwtop