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#i fear this borders on making no sense but OHH the LOVE they have for each other
hecatesbroom · 4 months
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I just watched that s7 episode where Rose, Dorothy and Sophia will have to move out if Blanche doesn't make them co-owners of the house and oh.... oh my god. I knew Blanche's grand gesture would hit hard, but Dorothy's talk to Rose before then?? Giving her an excuse for why she has to say, only to shrug that off and softly tell her the truth ("we love you") and proceeding to tell the permit guy that they're family!! They love each other so much & they can't be separated!! Rose's face throughout the whole thing!! It's so much
#i fear this borders on making no sense but OHH the LOVE they have for each other#it's so so clear and they acknowledge it too???#out loud?? to a stranger?? ;-;#i will say this episode was made at least 10x more painful with the knowledge of how it's all going to end in ±20 episodes#blanche makes the girls co-owners because she trusts they'll stay together forever#because the thought of parting with them is even worse than the thought of losing (part of the) ownership of her house!!#she places full trust in her girls because she loves them even more than this place that holds memories of george#& because she trusts them to treat that part of her life (and their life together) with respect#and then dorothy ends up leaving#i just-#i CAN'T#blanche selling that house to them *legally* bound their lives and futures together#they signed a contract!! excuse me for making the comparison but what isn't marriage if not a love recognised legally!!#(it's a religious thing too i know. but these were the 90s! marriage was becoming more and more of a tax benefit lol)#and uh#they signed that contract to get to *live together* without consequences#because they love each other and can't bear to be separated! they're a family!!#and then dorothy leaves?? yeah no i'm FINE#(side note but rose made a comment about having to sleep on top of each other#and by her very serious 'it's fine! we all wear pyjamas!' i'm inclined to believe they do in fact share a bed frequently)#the golden girls#anyway off to bed now#i had to write this down before i exploded sjfjdj
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mjihkaaaa · 4 years
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Transcript: “Randy Writes a Novel” by Randy Feltface
I have transcribed this hour-or-so-long comedy piece. if I put the transcript on tumblr, it might pop up in the search results of some poor sod wondering whether it’s a thing that exists. fAiR uSe DiScLaiMEr or something, I’m making no money off of this and am posting it out of the goodwill of my heart, and also I sat down for two hours to make the transcript so it’s probably work. /original date of transcription, not that it makes a difference: 2019-07-16 /link: you can find the actual piece yourself or buy the dvd like a good consumer
||[Beard guy] Hey Randy? Yeah mate? ||[Beard guy] Ready to do this? (exhale) Yup! ||[Announcer] Please, without further ado... Welcome to the stage... The purple one... Randy! (Applause) YEEES! HELLO! THANK YOU! LOOK AT YOU ALL, MMMH! This is so EXCITING! This is my favourite bit of the show, this bit; The expectation - You don't know what to expect, I don't know what to expect. I've got high hopes for you people. I think you're gonna be fantastic. Some of you may have never seen me before, there's probably a couple of you wondering what the fuck is going on right now - couple of people up the back probably regretting smoking that spliff before they came in... "... ... ... the fuck is that?" it's alright, just relax. Throughout the show I'm probably gonna walk from about here, over to here. Any further than that, it's gonna ruin the magic, alright? And, um, this is pretty much what it's gonna look like for the next fifty-fix-and-a-half minutes, so just adjust your eyeballs to this shit accordingly. Looks pretty good, we did my tech rehearsal today, and we set this lighting stand and was like that looks good, that's good, and Stu, my lighting guy back there, said "iS tHaT iT?" and I was like ehh... eh... no, Stu, we can turn on the lamp as well, like this ... (lamp turns on). Yes. So we did that just to justify Stu's certificate for... in fucking... theatre production. GIVE IT UP FOR STU! UP THE BACK! (Applause) Who's having an alcoholic beverage this evening? (wooing) Ah-WOOO! I don't drink anymore, I used to SLAM that SHIT into my FACE like a WEAPON but I quit ... and nothing really changed, you know, I didn't notice too many differences between being sober and being a drinker ... UNTIL ... the first time I got pulled over by a cop, and had to do a random breath test sober. Because my physcial and emi-seeonal reaction was exactly the same as it had always been when I was a drinker. Which was ... - "OOOOH fuck I'm fucked I'm fucked I'm fucked I'm fucked I'm fucked I'm fucked I'm fucked I'm fucked I'm fucked I'm fucked I'm fucked I'm fucked" - "wind down your window please sir" - "IIIII'm fucked I'm fucked I'm fucked I'm fucked I'm fucked I'm fucked" - "one long breath into the bag sir" - "NAAAAAAAAAA I'm fucked I'm fucked I'm- (blow) I'm fucked I'm fucked I'm fucked I'm fucked" - "... you're free to go mate" - !!! ... oh yeah, I am, and the sense euphoria I felt was the closest feeling I've had to being drunk since I quit drinking. To the point where I now drive around on friday and saturday nights, LOOKING for cops. And if I get pulled over, I pretend I'm drunk just to get an extra rush... AHHH! Seriously, if you ever get pulled over, and you're sober, pretend you're wasted. Oh, the BUZZ! It's like shelving nine pills at once, it's fucking sick. Seriously, the next time the cop's walking towards the car, just be like - - "ohh, shush everyone he's COMING! act normal he's comin- put it down! put it down, he's coming! shush he's comi-!! he's here!" - "... ... ... Wind down your window please, sir." - "yeah, I'ma do that, I'ma do that, I'M DOING IT! ... Ah, it's electric. The button's in the middle 'cuz it's electric." - "... ... ... Have you had anything to drink tonight, sir?" - "NOOO ossifer [officer] not on a tuesday" - "It's a friday-" - "NO friday either mate!" - "One long breath into the bag please, sir." - "yes I will, you fucking champion ... y'know, people say youse are cunts but I don't reckon youse are, PBRRTT (blow) - WOOO! hahaaa..." (Cop checks bag, shocked.) - "Uh... You're free to go." - "FUCK YEAH! BRRRRRRRRR MEEPMEEP" (Applause) I took it so far once, I got down to the station for a blood test - ahhahaAA, gets addictive when you get to that stage... I've got track marks, it's out of control! and laDIES AND GENTLEMEN - you're very close, aren't you. Hello! (Shriek) Um... The reason we're here is because, didididii, didididi-didii, I wrote a book! Yes! Woo! Yeah, you can clap, but I'm concerned that it might be a bit shit. I don't know. It's weird - this is it here - I'm not sure if it's any good 'cuz I think I'm too close to it, y'know, I can't tell anymore. I'm concerned that it might be, like, an ugly baby that I'm looking at through the eyes of a loving mother? And it's not until I take it out for a walk in its little pram and people start screaming in horror and crossing the street to avoid me that I'll realize I've made a piece of shit baby? There's nothing worse than a piece of shit baby, is there... - "Ah, who's this little guy- WAUGH YOUR BABY'S A PIECE OF SHIT!" - "God... damn it..." But do I need to be told it's good to know that it's good? You know, that's how it goes with comedy; If I come up here and tell a shit joke, you tell me it's shit by not laughing, and I stop telling that joke. But with a BOOK I won't know it's shit until it's out there. Forever. Until I DON'T sell a million copies. Just wake up one morning, surrounded by towering boxes of unsold books, featuring on an episode of mentally deranged hoarders... We need to lay off hoarders, by the way. I think there's one too many television programmes "exposing the horrors" of people that like collecting shit. It's their house, let them do it! - "No we have to fix them!" No you don't, people are fucked up! If they wanna climb over a stack of cat shit stained national geographic magazines from the nineteen seventies to get to the kettle, fucking let 'em. THEY LIKE IT. - "Yeah but it's a mental illness-" Yeah, well, may be, but I would argue it's MORE insane to film them doing it, and then package it like a tacky microwave meal for one, so assholes can sit at home going "LOOK HOW SHIT THAT PERSON IS! They've got too many of the same thing..." ... Who's more insane in that sce-nario, I ponder... ANYWAY my book... My book is called "Walking to Skye", it's about a young man who walks from the southernmost borders of Scotland up to the Isle of Skye in the far north, retracing the footsteps of his great-great-grandfather and having a massive existential crisis along the way. It's a reeeeeeeeeeal HUMDINGER, and now that I've written it I'm terrified to let anybody read it, so what I've decided to dewwww, is; I'm gonna read bits of the book out, you're going to react, and then at the end we'll all collectively decide whether or not I should kill myself. Okay? Okay. Here we go. Hm-hm-hm. Ready? Everybody comfortable? No-one needs to go to the toilet, or get a drink, or anything? No? If you do, seriously, just go for it, because fucking... (waves hand in front of eyes). I'm not.. going.. to notice... Ahem, okay, ahem... Here we go. Alright. Here we go, here we go, okay. Khm. Blblbl. Okay. Phew. Alright. Here we go. Walking to Skye, chapter one. ... Phew. Okay. Khm. Blbl. Okay. Khm. Phew... (Sigh)... (Shivering) Read it... Just fucking read it... Come on man... Just... Son of a bitch... Pth... EHGgghhh... I'm too scared. (Audience goes "aww") No, fuck off. It's weird being scared for this, y'know, it's strange to be scared of something so intangible as JUDGEMENT. You know, I care what you people think, but taste is so subjective. Y'know, one man's "To Kill a Mockingbird" is another man's "Twilight" saga. Hello there, what's your name? (Matthew:) "Matthew." Matthew! N- where- right about there, mattie (adjusting line of sight)? Tell me, Matthew, what do you fear, what's your greatest fear, what are you scared of mate, we're all friends here, open up, unpack some shit, what are you-.. What's your biggest fear, Mattie? (Matthew:) "It must be rejection." Rejection? Same as me. <close> what do you know about my fear of rejection? </close> How old are you, man? (Matthew:) "Twenty-six" Twenty-six! The twenties are the time for rejection, my friend, it is the best time for rejection. Have you been rejected a few times? (Matthew:) "Quite a lot." Fucking rack it up, Mattie, rack it up mate, you just get- you wear those scars like a fucking warrior, mate! And then you get to thirty-six, my age, and you could not give a fuck, my friend. I'm telling you mate, rack up the rejection while you can, and then just.. fucking.. grab whatever's left. That's what you've got to look forward to. Let's hear it for Matthew! Yes! (Applause!) Rejection, eh? I think, actually, Mattie, Mattaroonie, Matterectomy, I think for me, Mattanoonles, I'm actually more scared of ... failure, in this case. I fear that I might've written a shit book, and as a result I'll fail, y'know. But I believe, Mattress, I believe it was Ernest Hemingway who put it best when he said "The first draft of everything is shit". And I often thought of that while I was writing my book, it's a great thing for young readers and young writers, sorry, to keep in mind, because it kind of lets you off the hook, y'know. And it makes you feel not so bad when you churn out something akin to Fifty Shades of Grey fanfiction. - "Every nerve ending in my body tingled as he boldly placed his swollen member directly onto my left shoulder ... and whispered into my ear ... 'tickets please' ... suffice to say, that won't be the last time I catch the bus to Broad Meadows." Khm. True story, true story. Okay, I'm gonna read the book - Broad Meadows, good suburb, Broad Meadows, good name! (Audience member goes WOOO!) Hahahaha, WEEEEEW! Has Broad Meadows ever had that reaction anywhere ever? How good is Broad Meadows- WOOOOOO! WOO! Wooing is one of few things you can do in a crowd. You can't woo when you're on your own, can you... You can't just be walking down the street like WOO! - "What's wrong with that person?" But if there's a group of you going "woo!" it's like, - "Naw, they're having a nice time, aren't they..." Wooing in- when you're in an audience is one of the few times you can get away with wooing. You can't, fucking- don't woo at the butcher's, y'know? - "I'll just have a ... 2 pounds of some sausages and uh, some pound of mince, and let me- six pound fifty WOOOOO!" - "I no longer wish for you to purchase my meat products." What was I talking about? Ah, Broadie? Yeah, Broad Meadows, it's a good name, Broad Meadow, like it makes sense, there was an expanse of just fucking... no stuff, there was some broad meadows, and they went "let's fucking build it here" and it was an honest name. All these new subdivisions now, they're all fucking, just... - "What are we gonna call this deserted swamp?" - "Um... Spring Valley Mountview Niceface." Fuck that! Name them honestly, y'know? - "Where are you living now?" - "Shitty water feature." - "Ah!" - "Where are you?" - "Stabbyville." - "Ah! ... How's that?" - "Yeah, it's good, it's close to schools, which is great, but um... We do get stabbed a lot though, it's a... You know, we knew the risks..." - "'Cuz it was in the name?" - "'Cuz it was in the name! yeEEeeAh." I like an honestly named place. I was Broken Hill recently, that's an honestly named place. - "We had a hill, we fucking broke it. Welcome to Broken Hill." Actually, Broken Hill have gone one further, they've named all the streets in the centre of town after elements. 'Cuz it's a mining town, they went thematic with that shit. So you're walking down Chloride, and you hit the corner of Bromide, or Oxide, I love that! That makes sense to me! I live in Collingwood - it'd be much easier to direct people to my house if I could send them to the corner of Soy Latte and Hipster Fuckwit. That'd take out all the guesswork ... When you're heading to Frankston, don't forget to check out the beautiful parklands on the corner of Bucket Bong and Pregnant Teenager. They are just enchanting. Alright. Gonna read the book. Blblblbl. You cool Matt? Sick. I'm gonna keep talking to you so you feel included. Therefore, not rejected. Khm, okay. Alrighty. Okay. Here we go. Alright. Shut up, I'm gonna read it. Okay. Phew. Walking to Skye, chapter one . . . Fascinating man, Ernest Hemingway. I didn't know a lot about him, but I kept thinking of that quote, "the first draft of everything is shit", while I was writing my book, and I started to think, "who are you to tell me my first draft is shit, Hemingway? What did you ever do that was sO fUckIng gOOd?" So I realized I didn't know anything about him, so I decided to do some research on him, and it proved to be an excellent means of putting off writing my book. And now I can tell you everything I know about him as an excellent means of putting off reading you my book, so... Swings and roundabouts, my friends, swoongs and rimbledibbledoodledoodoos, as they say in Scotland ... They don't say that. No-one has ever said that. Anyway, what I suggest we do, okay, is I'm just gonna tell you a little bit about Ernest Hemingway, bit about Hemmers, and then we'll just let the segway into reading the book develop organically. Like a runaway fungus at the bottom of a misplaced coffee cup. - "Aw, guys, how long has this been behind the couch? ... There's little people in it!" - "Save us! Save us from our porcelain prison!" - "wwWAAH!" (tosses cup) KSSSH - "We're free!" - (Running noise, tktktktktktk) - (Randy steps on the little people with an audible crunch) It's just for me, that bit, it's just for me!.. Okay. Okay, here we go, ladies and gentlemen, for the very first time I would wager in all of your living memories, I now am proud to present to you, the life and times of Ernest Miller Hemingway in approximately three and a half minutes. Go! (Background shifts) Born in Chicago in eighteen ninety-nine, son of a physician and a musician, reasonably uneventful childhood, decided to study journalism. Enlisted with the Red Cross during World War One, got blown up in Milan and spent six months in hospital with severe shrapnel wounds in both legs, fell in love with a nurse, they decided to get married. He came home to prepare, she stayed there and ditched him for an Italian soldier, which initiated a life-long pattern of him rejecting women before they had a chance to reject him. Take note, Mattie. Got a job as a foreign correspondent, fell in love with his roommate's sister, married her and moved to Paris. They hung out with Gertrude Stein, they kicked it with Pablo Picasso, he started writing in earnest, moved to Toronto, had a kid, moved back to Paris, published a couple of books, cheated on his wife, got divorced, married the other woman, converted to catholicism ... ... ...  Cut his head open after pulling on a cord thinking he was flushing a toilet, and instead ripped a skylight from the roof and smashed it onto his face, moved to Kansas City, had another kid, his dad committed suicide, he shot a lot of bears for some reason, had a car accident, had another kid, went to Africa to kill some wild animals and got dysentery - Karma! -, published another book, moved to Cuba, shot himself in the leg whilst aiming at a shark! Cheated on his wife, got divorced, married the other woman, published "For Who the Bell Tolls", sold half a million copies in a couple of months and got nominated for a Pulitzer prize, cheated on his wife, got divorced, married the other woman, became the self-appointed leader of a band of village militia outside of Paris, and was subsequently brought up on charges for contravening the Geneva convention and got away with it like a FUCKING CHAMPION! Got pneumonia, moved back to Cuba, and spent most of his spare time on his boat, tracking nazi u-boats with a machine gun and a pile of hand grenades - I AM NOT MAKING THIS SHIT UP! Had a few more car accidents, three more concussions, got clawed while playing with a lion! ... Got depressed, drank, got fat, published a couple of more books, went back to Africa to shoot some more wild animals and barely survived two separate plane crashed in the space of twenty-four hours, winding up with a fractured skull, internal bleeding, cracked spine, ruptured liver, first degree burns, and a paralyzed sphincter muscle - Karma! -, won a Nobel prize, had a file opened on him by J. Edgar Hoover, left a bunch of shit in a safe in Cuba and moved to Idaho paranoid that the feds were following him, which they were, because he spent most of the nineteen fourties working for the KGB! AGAIN, NOT-MAKING-THIS-SHIT-UP! Suffered from hepatitis, nephritis, hypertension, hemochromatosis, anemia, and impotence - Karma! -, got committed, received way too much electroconvulsive therapy and came out all fucked up, started hinting at suicide so immediately got re-committed, received another couple of months worth of electroconvulsive therapy, got released, put both barrels of his favourite twelve gauge shotgun into his mouth, and BLEW HIS FUCKING HEAD OFF. WHAT A GUY!!! (Applause) Ah... That is all true! What a fucking unit! Hemingway is the quintessential anti-hero, the talented, charismatic, belligerent, suicidal, alcoholic genius that can't keep his dick in his trousers. And he still found time to write about fifteen books! I've written one, and it took me ages, because I procrastinate like a motherfucker! I only got this written by doing most of the work in my local public library, because it's very difficult to masturbate in the reference section without getting caught. It's... It's almost impossible, in fact ... Almost. I don't even enjoy masturbating anymore, I just do it to avoid other tasks. And if it's something I really don't wanna do, I can seriously just go back-to-back wanks, just AARGH, just 'till it's painful, like NAAAAAAAAH, like hurty cum, like MWOOOAAARGH, WOOOMMMHHH MHHHH MMHHMHMMM RMMMMMHHHHOOkay fine I'll do the fucking dishes. And you know the weird thing about books is that you only really need to write one to be considered to be a great writer. Until last year, "To Kill a Mockingbird" was the only book that Harper Lee ever published. One book in eighty-nine years. To be fair that one book did win the Pulitzer prize and sold over fourty million copies, so she didn't really need to do another one, did she... - "Hey Harper, you gonna write another book?" - "Nope! Did you read the first one? FUCKING NAILED IT! FUCKING NAILED IT! I'm just doing the one. Just doing the one." Imagine if I did that. Came up here, told one joke, and then stared at you for fifty-eight minutes. - "You gonna tell another joke?" - "Nope! Did you hear the first one? FUCKING NAILED IT! I'm just doing the one." There's not many jobs where you can just do the one, is there... Just... Writers, and... Suicide bombers. Hard to do two of those... Or maybe UFC fighters that get punched in the head so hard in their first bout that cerebral fluid trickles out of their eye sockets. - "Ohhh, that's fucked Randy..." It happens. It's pretty much the perfect example of why we're sort of festering in this evolutionary cul-de-sac, isn't it? - "Welcome to planet earth, there's approximately seven billion of us, as you can see there's quite a few of us that don't have any clean drinking water, OH! Here's a large group of us that get paid millions of dollars to knee each other in the face! Obviously still... Ironing out a few of the kinks." Martial arts, mixed or otherwise, should not be the domain of fat-necked roughians trying to stomp on each other's ballsacks. Just as yoga should not be taught by twenty-two year old gym instructors that did a one week yoga retreat in Bali and now get around in low-slung fisherman pants with a bindy and a plat talking about mindfulness like they've ever had any fucking life experience at all. I'm sorry, you can tell me to relax and center myself when you spend maybe ten or fifteen years considering what that actually means. Until then, go back to taking photos of the froth on your coffee and shut the fuck up. And I'm torn! I'm torn because I do yoga! I buy oragnic vegetables. I blindly sign internet petitions without reading the fine print, give myself a good old pat on the back and go back to downloading hardcore pornography... I'm trying to be a good buddhist, I'm trying... But it's even difficult to identify as buddhist in the current climate without coming off as some sort of new-age pompous twat dipping his toe into the "What does it all mean?" kiddie pool while holding a beer in one hand, a cigarette in the other, and staring lecherously across the back yard at your cousin's tits. - "Geez, Tamara's grown up since last Christmas, hasn't she..." And I mean, Buddha was just a dude who found enlightenment sometime around the fifth century, and he decided to stick around and talk about it, y'know. But he made it clear that everything's optional, I guess, y'know, "here's the thing I've discovered, I think it's pretty nifty, but you can find your own way through it". He was kind of like a benevolent woodwork teacher, just overseeing the workshop, but allowing his students to discover for themselves which machine is most likely to cut their fucking head off. - BRRRRRRRRRRR-WAUGH! - "It was that one, Gareth, well done. A plus, matey, A plus for you." And there's been loads of other buddhas since, right, but they haven't necessarily felt the calling to stick around and talk about it. I guess they just become enlightened and fuck off. I think that's fantastic. But ... Are you only enlightened if you're able to share it with people? Y'know? If I write a book and nobody reads it, is it still art? What is the collective noun for monkeys? ... ... ... Seriously, does anybody know what it is? I was trying to think of it all day. Anybody? (Inaudible audience response) What? (Audience member:) "Gang" Gang? Gang of monkeys? Coming through on my gang of monkeys, we're a little gang of monkeys, ooh-A-A-A! It's not gang! Anybody else? If you come up with something stupid, I'll sing a dumb song about it ..? What else? (Inaudible audience response) What is it? (Inaudible audience response) ... Oh you people are fucked. Does anybody know what it is? It's not barrel, by the way. It's troop. What, what did you say, uhh... Gang. Who-what, what's your name, who said gang? Where are you? (Victoria:) "Victoria." Victoria? How are you, Victoria? (Victoria:) "Great." Thanks for coming to my show. Hey, Victoria, riddle me this m'sister, have you read "Go Set a Watchman"? Harper Lee's new book? (Victoria:) "Naw." Naw. Has anybody read it? (Audience member:) "Half." Half. That is the best book review ever. - "I read half." Has anybody read "To Kill a Mockingbird"? (audience responds yes) yEES we reAD IT at scHOOL, fuck off. For those of you who haven't- for those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, "Go Set a Watchman" was the Harper Lee book that came out last year, right, and if you don't know the backstory, alright, I'll just fill you in. Victoria, listen up. Um... Basically, Harper Lee, right? So, Harper Lee, she had a stroke in two thousand and seven, and until she died earlier this year, she was in like, assisted care, she was in a wheelchair, she was deaf and she was blind, and her sister Alice had been taking care of all of her affairs, until Alice died in twenty fourteen at the age of one hundred and three, like a fucking boss... Anyway before Alice died she was pretty much the last line of defence between Harper and this 'lawyer' that had just sort of been loitering in the wings, right. And when Alice died, this 'lawyer' just happened to discover the manuscript for "Go Set a Watchman" in the locked safety deposit box in an obscure vault in a random bank, where it had been busy minding its own business for the last fifty-six and a half years, and according to the 'lawyer', Harper was delighted that the manuscript had been discovered, and suddenly reversed her life-long vow to never ever ever publish another book ever ever again, particularly not "Go Set a Watchman" which she actually wrote before "To Kill a Mockingbird" and didn't think was very good. Other people think that maybe the 'lawyer' was attempting to get filthy rich by brutally fist-fucking an eighty-nine year old stroke victim, but the question is; ... ... ... The question is, if "To Kill a Mockingbird" had've stayed in that vault, alongside this newly discovered manuscript, would it still technically be a work of literary genius? Or is it only when something's been evaluated by the world and possibly someone's made some cash off it that it's considered to be valid artistic expression? Is art only art once it's been witnessed? Acknowledged? If I don't take a bow at the end of this show, does it devalue the performance? Will you feel unsatisfied? Or rejected? ... I recently read that book "The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work" by Alaine de Button, and in it, he says; "we might consider art as anything which pushes our thoughts in important, yet neglected directions". Now, I'd like to consider what I do artistic expression, but that sort of poses the question - do people really need their thought pushed in the direction of old ladies being brutally fist-fucked? Is that my artistic legacy? Is that what I'm gonna leave behind? Y'know, "Randy... He was the old lady fisting guy, wasn't he? Eh. Very droll, very droll. Yeah." Because Ernest Hemingway is remembered more for his literary talents than for being an insufferable cunt with a penchant for killing shit and cheating on his multiple wives, does his artistic legacy outshine his tactless and unfortunate personal life? Is it better to be a mindful human that leaves no palpable remnants of artistry behind, or a violently unlikeable sexual deviant that shits handfuls of heart-breakingly beautiful sonnets and sonnatas out of his asshole before brunch? Because it's the image of the tortured, self-destructive artist that prevails nine times out of ten. Amy Winehouse was just a girl that wanted to sing some songs, do you know what I mean? So... Should I just keep my fucking mouth shut? And try to navigate towards enlightenment, leaving behind an intangible trail of good deeds? Or do I dive deeper and deeper into the inky, black ocean of self-destruction and self-indulgence until I nail my chosen art form, leaving an echo for the eternal wonderment of countless future generations that will just breeze over my asshole personality? ... it's what's keeping me up in the night times. Eh... (Pause) Y'know, from the moment we're born we become less than human? You know that? E-... E-hh... Eh... All the bacteria from our mother is passed onto us on the way out of the womb, and from then on, we just continue to collect shit, on the inside and the outside, until the day we expire. Occasionally, you get to choose what that shit is, but most of the time you have very little say in where it comes from or when. You just have to duck and weave your way through the shit for as long as you can, until the chunk of shit with your name on it finally-AAARGH! cleans you up. Look, I know this was billed as a comedy, but a-ha-ha-HAA! LET'S TALK ABOUT DEATH! Woo! There are some pretty fucking ridiculous ways to die, though- OH, like that guy, that scuba diver they found when they put out the bush fire! *oh my go-od have you heard this fucking sto-ory?* They put out, like, a bush fire, and they found a dude in full scuba gear, and they figured out that the water bomber plane or helicopter that scoops up the water to put out the fire accidentally picked up a diver and dumped him into the flames! What a fucked up way to go! It's pretty much the polar opposite of "He died peacefully in his sleep", isn't it? Just dumped out of a plane into a blazing inferno... with a highly flammable gas tank instead of a parachute strapped to your back? - "NOOoo!" (Explosion noice) "I just wanted to look at the fish..." What do you say to his family? - "Uhh... At least he died doing what he loved." Well, he was a firefighter that enjoyed skydiving and water sports, but I'm not sure he ever wanted to combine the three... That's better, isn't it? - "Tell more jokes you little purple fucker." I had a good joke the other day - How do you know if a hippie has been to your house? ... They're still there. Haa... How do you know if someone's vegan? ... They'll tell you, yes, ahaHAHAA! Hahahaha, I'm vegan. Um... I initially became vegan for environmental and ethical reasons, and now I just do it to give people the shits at dinner parties. Like, - "Get it away, I can't eat that, meat is murder, STOP HAVING FUN EVERYONE!" It's a funny conversation, the vegan one, you bring it up, people just go - "... shut up fuckhead" But it's funny, 'cuz you know you don't actually need to eat meat. You don't NEED it. Nobody actually needs it. Unless you're on hemodialasys and you have to inhale a rare porterhouse steak every three hours to stop your kidneys backing in, you don't actually need it. That makes it a choice, and it's your choice. As long as you understand that that choice is born from belief and that particular belief is called "carnism". It's an inherited belief system that sort of conditions us to eat meat, and the notion is so... pervasive, I guess, it's viewed as a given rather than a choice. But it's totally a choice. - "Where do you get your proteins from then you little poofter!?" PEAS! (Gasp) It's crazy. And I know it's easy to just lump veganism in with all the other food allergies and just go - "They're the annoying fuckheads that don't eat the good stuff" which I get, I totally get... We're having Christmas at my house this year, right? Three months out, my cousin calls me to discuss her son, my cousin's son, which makes him... Someone I couldn't give a fuck about, anyway; She calls me up, the first thing she says - she doesn't even say hello - the first thing she says is "Brayden can't have blue." - "What the fuck? - "BRAYDEN can't eat BLUE FOODS." Apparently this kid, if he eats anything with a blue food preservative in it, he just KLKH (imitates death) just taps out. That is bullshit! Firstly, don't call your kid Brayden. Secondly... secondly, blue is not even a natural colour for foodstuffs. It occurs very rarely in nature- name me one blue food. (Audience member:) "Blueberry." BLUEBERRIES ARE FUCKING PURPLE! I'm talking about mentos blue, like seven eleven slushie blue, what flavour is that? Fucking highlighter? - "Ah no Randy, blue means mint-" MINT IS GREEN- if you planted mint and it came up blue, you would SET that SHIT on FIRE. - "And that's cool! It's cool! it's like ice, it's like water!" Water is clear. The only time water is blue, is when there's billions of tonnes of it and it's all in the one spot. And then it's got all sorts of shit in it, like salt, and SHARKS ... BLUE MEANS SHARKS IN IT! don't eAt iT it'S gOT SHARKS IN IT! You know, when sharks eat people, it's fucked, but it shits me how they immmediately go out and kill the shark like - "awrH it's gONe roGUe. iT's gOnE rOgUE!" No it hasn't, it's just doing what millions of years of evolution have programmed it to do, fucking swim around eating shit. - "yeeeeeeeah but ... ... ... it came into our bit. thIs bit's oUR bit oF tHe ocEAn." No-see that bit there? That big fucking wet bit? That's its bit. This bit here, all of this dry bit here, that you're standing on with your legs, your legs that have evolved to stand on the dry bit, that's your bit. You go into its bit, you're going to get bit. That's the lesson. ... Paddle out next to a seal colony and wiggle your ass around like a slutty little ol' dove, complaining when you get munched. It's that weird disconnect, y'know, it's the same thing as carnism, it's like if I imagine a pig is just a pig, and all pigs are the same, then I can detach what is on my plate from how it got there. It's just how most of us are brought up, y'know. But if you saw someone slit the throat of a Labrador, and then string it upside down to die an excrutiating death just squirming and bleeding out at the end of a steel hook, you'd think it was a bit fucked. How is a pig any different? It's not. It's actually not ... I said that on stage in Rock Hampton, in Queensland about four months ago. I was like, "how is a pig any different?", and a man in the audience yelled out "BACON!". Touché, sir. You win this round. He actually came up to me after the show - I was standing at the merch desk not selling anything - and he-.. I saw him coming from the other side of the room, just this massive dude, like - (stomping noises) - "Ah, you're a large man" and he said - "I was the one that said bacon" - "fucking don't kill me" and he goes - "nah, you alright mate, you alright mate, you alr-" It's the most passive-aggressive Aussie male thing you can say to another- - "naah, you alright mate, you-" It basically means "I wanna punch your fucking head in, but I don't wanna upset me misses. You alright mate." Anyway, he goes to me, - "Mate, you're not gonna make any friends in rock hampton being vegan. Did you know that Rocky is actually the beef capital of Australia-" - "ah fuck I didn't know that" - "-with over two and a half million head of cattle within a two point five k radius of the town centre?" - "fuck I didn't know that either" - "And that is a fair wack of the thirteen million head of cattle in Queensland alone, seventy percent of which is bred purely for export. Few fun facts for ya matey, few fun facts." I said - "thank you sir I did not know any of that" Did you know that, globally, cows produce thirty-eight percent more greenhouse gas than every single car, truck, bus, boat, train, and plane combined each year? That breeding animals for food uses up one third of the planet's fresh water? Takes up fourty-five percent of the earth's surface, and is responsible for a whopping ninety-one percent of amazon destruction, making it the number one leading cause of species extionction, resource consumption, and environmental degradation destroying the planet on a daily basis? FEW FUN FACTS FOR YA MATEY, FEW FUN FACTS FOR YA! Now, I'm aware this is in danger of becoming a TED talk at this point... - "jesus, a lot of statistics, is there gonna be a test?" It's alright, it's fine, I'll read the book, alright? I'll read the book. Not forcing my opinions on you, I'm merely saying them with a microphone, and you're paying for it. LOCK THE DOORS-no, seriously, okay, here we go. Khm. I'm gonna read the book. Y'know we've got McDonald's home delivery now? Does anyone do that? (Audience responds) You... You do? You know you can already get it in your car? You can get it without getting out of your car, but what McDonald's have now done is they've removed the gruelling walk from the front door to the car, so you no longer have to do that humiliating - "BWAAAAAARGGGGGHHHHH- WUUUUUUUUUAHHHH! OOOOOOOAAAAARGGHHHH! Now I have to reverend carpool! Oh, God damn you, God damn you -click- MRRRRRRGHHHH! HMMMMMRGHH! MMMMOOUUHHH WHY CANNOT THEY JUST BRING IT TO MEIN HAUS?" Well now they can. I think it's a good thing. Keep the fatties off the streets, STOP 'EM HOGGING UP THE FOOT PATHS, if they wanna eat shit, let them do it in their own home- WHO'S WITH ME? (Audience starts applauding) Don't clap that, it's a horrible thing to say. yoU'RE moNSTerS! ... Okay. You all good Mattie? Sweet. Okay, here we go. Blblblblbl, okay, kh-hm, alright, here we go, buggedabuggedabuggeda, okay. Stop it! Okay ... Do you like my typewriter, by the way? Isn't it beautiful? It's basically here just as a prop, but occasionally I am always tempted to just go ... (humming). Eh? A few "Murder She Wrote" fans in the house? Heyo? Everyone else going - "What? What is that? Sounds like an old person's joke." ... it is! It is! It totally is! Alright. Here we go. Okay, fuck, here we go. Blblblblbl. Walking to Skye, chapter one ... I bought a bookshelf on Gumtree recently, um, it was an amazing experience, I'll quickly tell you about it and then I'll read the book, but- I found it strange, becasue it made me start to think about the way our, like, methods of communication have sort of changed over the years, y'know? In the old days, if you wanted a bookshelf, you'd just go see Gareth the Bookshelf Guy, 'cuz he was the dude in your tribe that made the bookshelves, he had a little bookshelf cave, he was REPUTABLE. Now any mad bastard can sell their shit on Gumtree, you know what I mean? As a species, we're sort of able to cope with knowing and gossiping around like a hundred, or a hundred and fifty people. That's like the limit of our tribe. Any more than that, it starts to get confusing, which is why we created abstract constructs like territories and deities to unite larger groups of people under an imaginary common factor. And it works the trick, because we only really gather en masse on special occasions, but I think like social media and mmmh... It's fucking all that up, y'know? I think we're able to deal with the thousands of people we're connected to on a daily basis, and as a result we neglect our immediate one fifty, y'know? That's why I never get invited to parties anymore. It's not 'cuz I ramble on about veganism and fisting old ladies, it's because I'm not on facebook and everybody just assumes you are. I am so behind on the births, deaths, and marriages of my friends that I feel like the time traveller's wife every time I go to a party, I'm like... - "This is Tim, he's our son, he's six now-" - "Fucking... Didn't even know you were pregnant." Anyway, you know smartphones, aren't they great? You know that, right, they're not, they're not that great, you don't need the internet in your pocket, you work at Cole's, okay? You're not working for the president, you don't need it, you don't need that much information. And also, what was the point of developing opposable thumbs for you to take a photo of your head, post it on the internet, and then just stand by for validation. No-one gives a fuck about your head! They'll only validate it in order to gain permission to post a photo of their own head on the internet and stand by for validation. The people who give a fuck about your head will at some point see it in real life. Fuck your head and the neck it rode in on. Your vanity is sucking up my bandwidth ... Anyway this is what's going through my head as I'm on Gumtree looking for a bookshelf, because- you know when you put something on the... on the... in like... in the search in booktree- in booktree? what the fuck- When you put something in the search on Gumtree - I'm having a stroke up here - When you put something in the search, right, and like, there's always a couple of things that come up in the list that are like the polar opposite of what you searched for, and like "get out of my head gumtree algorithms, CONSPIRACY!"? No but seriously, it's all you type, it's like "bookshelf", and it's all bookshelf, bookshelf, bookshelf, grammophone? Huh. Bookshelf, bookshelf, bookshelf, combine harvester? What the fuck? ... Huh, that's actually a pretty good price. Anyway, on this particular day, I found two bookshelves that worked for me, in terms of cost, and more importantly, geographical convenience, 'cuz I'd be fucked if I'm driving to Broad Meadows to pick up a bookshelf, right? So I type in bookshelf, and I see the two things, and I'm like okay, one seller is Cathy, the other is Morgan. I send them both the same text message, "Hello! I saw your bookshelf on gumtree, is it still available?". Cathy texts back straight away, saying - "sorRRY iT wENt thIS MorNING!" - "That's cool, Cathy, I'm sorry I gave you an annoying voice in the retelling of this story." Morgan's response came through a couple of minutes later, and simply read, - "It was my wife's bookshelf." ... HOW DO YOU RESPOND TO THAT? Aside from the fact that it doesn't answer my fucking question... His use of past tense in that sentence unnerved me slightly. I'm like, aahhh, I should probably just find another bookshelf... And then I noticed he lived in the suburb next to me, so I replied; - "Is it still available?" He responded with the letter Y. Just a Y. Is he asking me why I wanna know if it's still available? Or is it a Y for "yes", and he's so in the throws of grief that he can't manage the E and the S? I assume it's a Y for "yes" and respond, - "Cool! I'll take it. When's a good time to come and pick it up?" No reply for fifteen minutes, I'm like... ah he's forgotten about it, fuck it, I'll find another bookshelf, and then when his reply actually does come through I realize he spent those fifteen minutes crafting his response, because it's a FUCKING THESIS. He must've felt so bad about only using a single consonant in his previous text that he just massively overcompensated with this one. Also, for some reason, felt that the use of punctuation? Entirely unnecessary. So it's just one obscenely long sentence, which reads; - "You must come and pick up now I only have short time here at house and also it wide so bring van or trailer and there's stair but I can help you carry it down stair if you come park out front walk up path ring bell and I will help you carry it to trailer or van I only accept cash and if you do not come now I will sell it someone else" (Shriek) Again I'm thinking, ahhh, I should just find another bookshelf at this point, but now I am FASCINATED by Morgan, and I simply must meet the man. So I drive over to his house- before I left, I sent him a message saying - "Cool, I'll be there in ten minutes" and he replied "ok", but spelled it OK-A-Y which just fascinated me more, that he'll use four letters to spell a two letter word, but only one letter to spell a three letter word, MORGAN IS OFF THE FUCKING CHAIN! And as I'm driving over to his house, I'm trying to picture what he's gonna be like, y'know... His pidgin English might suggest ethnicity of some sort, but I don't wanna racially profile him; Maybe he's an old man who recently lost his wife and is not that very good at texting, or maybe, and I'm really hoping this is the case, Morgan is just batshit crazy. So I get to his house, and I go up to the- ehe, I park out front walk up path ring bell, and I... I brace myself for the door to be opened by like, an old man in a smoking jacket, wearing fishnet stockings and suspenders, just puffing on an opium pipe while a butler just creepily polishes a goldfish in the background, and then a tiny pugdog wearing a fez hat just trots up the hallway, sits on the mat, looks up at me and says "RELCOME TO OUR ROVERY ROME!"... And then the door opens, and I am thoroughly disappointed. Before me stands an average caucasian male in his mid-thirties, dressed casually, hipster sheek, stubble, glasses with designer frames, expensive watch - I immediately think "architect?" but the house is too cheesy for that - it's like a double story doll's house with bay windows - but definitely a designer of some kind? Maybe a graphic designer? He's too skinny for manual labour, but he's too hip for the public sector, BUT THIS CAN'T BE MORGAN. Because Morgan's text messages would suggest that he's not that technically savvy, and then the man standing in front of me says - "Hello my name is Morgan" AND THE PLOT THICKENS! He invites me in, shakes my hand, closes the door, and twenty minutes later, I will be witnessing Morgan perform some of the most aggressive acts of violence I've ever seen in my life, and I will be speeding away in my car bleeding from the face. Here's how this shit went down... I go into the house, and I notice two things immediately; One, this is a house in the throws of renovation. Nothing too extreme, but there's like drop sheets on all the furniture, there's freshly painted walls, there's a bathtub wrapped in plastic in the hallway, awaiting installation- someone's doing some work on this house. The second thing I notice, on the way up the stairs to the second floor, on the first floor landing, is a wedding photograph featuring a very cleanly shaven Morgan with a very beautiful bride. Very much in love! The photograph is very much on the floor, and the glass in the frame is very much smashed. She's not dead, she's left him, and THE PLOT THICKENS A BIT MORE FOR MORGAN! And as Morgan unceremoniously like, kicks the photo frame to one side on the way up the stairs, I really wanted to pry into Morgan's life and ask heaps of inappropriate questions... But he was clearly a broken man. He had this terrible air of sadness around him, so I didn't wanna intrude. Luckily for me, though, I didn't have to, because Morgan immediately began oversharing and told me the whole fucking story aaAAAH! Thank you Morgan! I shall hang off your every word and then retell your tale to two hundred strangers and record it for a fucking DVD! He IS a graphic designer -YES!- and he's really good at it. He does like massive rebranding campaigns for large corporations, he gets flown all over the world doing this shit, right? About four years ago, a woman hired Morgan to rebrand her florist business, and he did such a great job she married him. And he thought everything was just fine, until about three months ago. Morgan had to do a presentation in Sydney, right? But he was on his way home from overseas and got stuck in Dubai due to a flight cancellation, so rather than cancel the meeting, Morgan suggested to these businessmen in Sydney that they do a Skype chat, because he's so technologically savvy, despite his fucking baffling text message style. So Morgan checks into a hotel, cracks open his laptop, and starts skyping with this room full of businessmen in Sydney, who are all watching Morgan on a massive screen on their boardroom wall, right? And everything's going great, Morgan is totally nailing it, until about halfway through; He realizes that a file he wants to show these dudes is on the desktop of his home computer back in his home office in Melbourne. And he decides to live share the desktop of his home computer on the Skype chat. He knows how to do that, he can remote control his computer from anywhere in the world, it's not particularly new technology, but Morgan makes it sound so impressive. So this room full of businessmen are all watching keenly, like - "OOAHP! MARGARET, BRING IN SOME BISCUITS, THERE'S SOME NEW-FANGLED SHIT GOING ON IN HERE!!!" as Morgan clicks a few buttons and (click) brings up the desktop of his home computer on the Skype chat. Now, what Morgan doesn't realize is that his wife has been using the "Photobooth" app on that particular computer to take pictures of herself. To take naked pictures of herself. To take naked pictures of herself... doing some pretty fucked up shit. It's embarassing, to say the least, just as Margaret came back in with the biscuits- - "I've got you the b-WHUIEAAAAURRRHHH!!!" Now, those of you who are familiar with the Photobooth app will know that how it works, is it accesses the built-in camera in your computer and with the click of a button, (click) takes a photo of you when you're standing in front of your screen. And if you know that, you also know that if you leave that application open, the camera also stays open, witnessing whatever may be happening in front of the computer, in real time. Such as your wife, in your home office, fucking your best mate. OOOOOOOOOO NOOOOOOOO MOOOOOOOORGANNNN... Nooooo... Morgan then goes on to tell me she's keeping the house, his former best mate is moving in, and while they're out for the day shopping for fittings, Morgan must suffer the indignity of moving his shit out, and selling the stuff they don't want on Gumtree to this guy. Ahhh... It's at this point of the story that Morgan starts crying, he breaks down, and I do not blame the man, it's fucking horrible and I just wanna give him a big hug and say "Everything's gonna be alright, Morgan", but I am holding the full weight of a BOOKSHELF halfway down a set of STAIRS and Morgan is the only thing stopping that bookshelf from caving my face in- I was like, MORGAN! MMMMORGAN! And Morgan managed to pull himself together ... for about eight seconds? And then just went BAHHH and let the bookshelf go. I fell backwards, it literally rolled over me, and took out the light hanging above the staircase, I'm now lying on my back getting showered in broken glass, as the bookshelf turned end over end and just went FONK right through a freshly painted wall at the bottom of the stairs. I'm like, AAH. aaAAAh. aaAAAAAAhhh. aaAAAAAHHH. I've got a tiny cut on my forehead which is just pissing blood, for some reason - apart from that, I'm fine. Morgan, however - he's not fine! Morgan is the opposite of fine. Something happened when the bookshelf lodged itself in the wall and his sadness just (click) went away in a second, and he started PISSING HIMSELF laughing. Hysterical. And he had the creepiest laugh I've ever heard in my life- I'm standing there like "this is weird" and he's like "mwhueHUEUEEUEUEUE! mhhwuEUEUEUE!" like some sort of demonically possessed baritone cookaburra, - "mwhueEUUEUEE, a-HOGUGUGUGAGAGAGA!" - "Um... Uh..." - "mwueEUEUUEUEUE" - "can I still have the bookshelf?" - "yuuEEEEAAH" We extract it from the wall - the bookshelf, incidentally, showing no sign of having just rolled down a staircase and smashed through a wall. We carry it out to my car- we had to stop about six times, 'cuz Morgan was like - "Hang on a minute, mwueHUEUEUEUEUEE" We got it to my car, put it on the trailer, and Morgan was in such a great mood he let me have the bookshelf for free. Ohh! Hahaha... Mm... And that's where the story SHOULD end. But there was something about the bookshelf going through the wall that flipped a fucking switch in Morgan's head, and he is now hungry for more destruction. So as I started tying the bookshelf down to my trailer, Morgan just strolls over to like an upright mailbox on the front lawn and just starts trying to wrench it out of the ground. Really putting his back into it. I'm like, "are you okay buddy" and he's like "YEAP" (struggling) HUAH! He pulls it out of the ground whereupon he wields it like a fucking battleaxe and just starts smashing up the front garden, just beheading the daisies, fucking up the lavender... I'm like, "uhh, hey Morgan, maybe you wanna stop and think about that" and he whirled around and looked at me like Jack Nicolson chasing Shelly Duvalle up the stairs in the shining and said - "WHY DON'T YOU MIND YOUR OWN FUCKING BUSINESS?" ... yep, yep, cool, man, yep, yep... Now, I like tying knots. I'm quite good at tying knots if I tie something down I take my time because I want it to stay there... But as Morgan nonchalantly strolled up the driveway, rolled up the garage door, and put the mailbox through the windscreen of an Audi!? I must admit, I kind of rushed my knot tying job. I got in my car, I'm about to drive off, I'm like, looking at the house going "ah, I'm sure he'll be fine" and then an armchair smashed out of an upstairs window and just went DOINK DOINK DOINK DOINK down the front lawn. I was like "... what's my duty of care in this situation?". I didn't want to call the cops on him, I didn't want him to trash the house, I'm like - "daw fuck I'm gonna have to talk to Morgan" So I got out, I walked up the driveway shitting myself- you know when someone does something really violent and you're just like "ah, fuck, we're not supposed to do shit like that!"? Yucky, just yucky feeling in my tum-tum- and I'm standing there, standing there in the garage and there's like an adjoining door in the garage that leads into the house. I can see in through the door into the house, up the staircase, it's like a wooden staircase, and I'm standing in the garage just going - "ah fuck..." (gulp) "morgaaaan. Morgaaaan!" Like I was calling a cat for its dinner? "Morgan! Moggie-moggie-moggie-moggie-moggie!" And then I notice a small trickle of water start to come from the top step. And then a little bit more water, and then QUITE A LOT OF WATER, just pissing down the stairs like shitty water feature, I'm like "aw that can't be right" and then Morgan appeared on the top step holding a hammer like this: - "BAAAH!" (jumps out) I was like - "WOAH!" and he's like - "mwhuEUEUEUE" Starts running at me wielding the hammer, like "UEUEUEUE", I'm like "aw no no I just wanted to buy a bookshelf..." he's like "UEUEUEUEUEUE-.. RRAH!" runs straight past me, I'm like - "Where are you going?" he's like - "UEEEH!" made a beeline for my car, I'm like - "NO, MAN! STOP!" he's like - "UEUEUEUEUUEUE" - "STOP IT! JUST STOP!" He spins around and goes - "I just checked my phone, she texted me fifteen minutes ago saying she'll be here in fifteen minutes, WE'RE GONNA GO!" and gets into my car! - "fucking... jesus... fuck me" I run down the lawn, get in the driver's seat, I'm like - "What was with the water?" he goes - "Ah, I put plugs in all of the sinks and turned all the taps on!" I'm like - "Oh that's fucked" He's like - "JUST DRIVE!" I was like - "AAH!" I took off so quick, rounded the corner of his street, and the bookshelf just went "mrrreeUUWh-BOOSH" and exploded against the guard rail, just exploded in a shower of badly tied knots and broken dreams... So me and Morgan just fucking left it there, like a little breadcrumb for his ex wife to find on the way home to her destroyed gingerbread house. I dropped Morgan at a train station. I have never seen him again. And that, my friends, is why I no longer shop on Gumtree. Thank you very much! Thank you very much. (Applause) Haha, ah, fuck... You know my favourite bit of that story? I just made it up. Yes, not true. There is no Morgan. MMMH! It's very unsatisfying, isn't it? - "But I saw him in my head. I saw Morgan in my head." ... ... ... Why is it we can feel so robbed when someone tells us a story we just heard isn't true, and yet so satisfied at the end of a fictional novel? Y'know? You know that? ... You know the other great thing about that story? First draft. FUCK YOU HEMINGWAY! ... (sigh) Can't end on that, can I? - "Those LIES? WE DID NOT COME HERE TO BE HOODWINKED, SIR!" The truth, eh? ... The truth is, I'm... I'm not an exceptional person, y'know? Nothing interesting really ever happens to me, I'm massively flawed, and I think I'm quite forgettable, if I'm being a hundred percent honest. And this isn't the shit bit at the end of the show where I get on the cross, I'm like "lOve mE on the wAY OUt thE doOr". It's not that, it's just that I don't think- on a scale from one to memorable, I'm not that memorable. Not on like the Morgan sort of scale, not on the Ernest Hemingway scale, certainly, y'know... But if I tell a great story, maybe people will remember that instead. Remember the card trick and just... pretend that they don't know how it's done, y'know? ... But must we leave a legacy? MUST we make an impact? Do we HAVE TO leave a footprint? Is it okay to just settle, seek safety, nest, y'know? Or must we constantly shake our lives up, or suffer the indiscriminate cruelty of having it shaken against our will? Must we try to carve a path through the tall grass, feeling as though no-one has ever felt how we feel? Terrified at what may be lurking low in the grass on either side of us, but just pressing ever on with that paleolithic instinct deep within our chromosomes that the only way is forward, that you HAVE TO keep going? That eventually you'll stumble upon the edge of the field, hitch a ride from a passing car, and meet up with the rest of the gang for tea and sandwiches at the old town hall? ... (deep breath) Do we feel like the path that we are carving through the grass is all our own? Only to finally float above the field with the sweet relief of expiration and realize that the field is insignificantly miniscule in size, and that there's only one path through the grass - the exact same one that every human has trod before us will ever after, just stumbling blindly along a tiny hyphen between the words "birth" and "death". And when reduced to that level of crisp simplicity, fear cannot exist ... So. (pausing, readying) Phew. Walking to Skye, chapter one: (Blackout) (Applause and credits)
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Iiiiiiit’s OC Thursday!
This time I’m coming in with a whole group of cats from a whole new group of clans I’m working on. So here’s the sketches (bcuz I’ve been too busy to actually do full digitized drawings of them hhhhhsvshs)
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We’ll start with Splinterstar. She’s the graceful ace (asexual) leader of Lumberclan! She’s got a weird sense of humor, but she’s extremely kindhearted and will help anyone - even if they’re not from her clan - in any way she can. She’s moderately fearful of heights, which designates her to the ‘leafwalker’ class of warriors (Lumberclan and Carrionclan each have special classes within the warrior rank), a class that rarely ever has cats chosen as leaders since the clan is typically known for being extremely skilled in climbing and fearlessly leaping through the branches of the trees. She’s a diplomat by nature, and just wants to do the right thing.
Larkstar is next. He’s the stern, passionate leader of Fieldclan who takes his role as leader very seriously. Skilled and stealthy, he makes up for what he lacks in brute strength with his ability to lay low and stay nearly silent. He isn’t cruel, but he is very strict and demanding, ensuring that the codes of his clan are never broken…. except by himself. Larkstar has a relationship with a cat from outside his clan - but not just any cat; its the leader of another clan - Rotstar. Larkstar’s relationship with Rotstar is extremely important to him, and despite his loyalty to his clan, if he had to choose between his clan and his partner - he would wholeheartedly choose his partner.
Rotstar is a rather interesting cat. He only recently became leader of Carrionclan after the old leader had an unfortunate encounter with a vulture fighting over a sheep carcass in the compost pile (Carrionclan lives near a farm compost and receives all of its food from livestock carcasses that get sent there to decompose), and despite his outwardly confident nature, he’s very nervous. Prone to anxiety, he constantly second-guesses himself and is worried that he might accidentally ruin his clan. Even worse, he fears what his clanmates might do to him if they find out he is romantically involved with the leader of their neighboring clan. Still, he tries to take it all in his stride and is known to be amiable and loves to make others laugh and smile. He tries to help his clanmates lighten up, but at the same time he upholds high standards for his clanmates and himself. He is highly intelligent, though sometimes his fear gets in the way of his plans, but is regarded as one of the best ‘plotter’ class warriors the clan has ever seen.
Rushstar is a ruthless, cold, vile, unforgiving she-cat that rules over Alderclan with an iron paw. She takes no excuses and no prisoners, and most of the clan would admit they perceive her favorite activity to be throwing dissenters or outsiders out onto the thunderpath (the highway) at a place the clan calls “Justice” (its just a pavillion between the woods and the road). She, along with most from her clan, believes that Alderclan should have control over the entirety of the territories, despite the fact that their territory is already the biggest of the four, and will stop at nothing to ensure that the borders of Alderclan are pushed further and further into the other territories, starting with Fieldclan. What she lacks in raw intellect she makes up for with dizzying speed and brute strength. All the while, despite her attitude toward outsiders, she has a secret - one that perhaps gives reason to her coldhearted nature… and explains why she can sometimes be heard whimpering and crying from in her den.
Finally is Condor. A sleek, independent she-cat skilled in many ways. She is talented in the trees like a Lumberclan cat, stealthy like a Fieldclan cat, swift and agile like an Alderclan cat, and possess qualities of each class of Carrionclan warrior - her highest of which is manipulation and deceit. She was born in Carrionclan, alongside her brother who now leads the clan, but was instantly banished as she possesses a deformity (which is a big no-no in Carrion clan) - she has two tails. This was due to her partially absorbing another kitten in the womb, and the only part left of that other kitten was its tail - not that the cats know that, though. Had it not been for this deformity, she likely would have quickly become one of the all-time most successful and skillful cats in Carrionclan, and wholeheartedly believes that had she been given the chance, she would’ve made a better leader than her brother ever could. She has a relationship with Rushstar, but her manipulative nature leads the relationship to be highly toxic, and has left Rushstar with a great deal of physical and emotional damage. Condor believes she can use Rushstar and the whole of Alderclan to take over the entirety of the territories and bring about a new reign where cats with deformities and illnesses are raised up as royalty, and those who are normal are swept away like dust - quoting “it is what they find wrong which makes us strong.”
ohh interesting
edit: also i forgot, really good anatomy!
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