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Still not happy with that title. Hey, let’s set up a competition –
whoever comes up with a wicked-cool replacement name for my weekly ramblings
wins a special, mystery star prize! Okay, you don’t, but what the hell
do you expect – I’m getting paid diddly squat for doing this. Moving
on though…
This column’s going to be a little different from last week’s. How so?
Well, let’s just say it’ll be a little more personal, but in a cool, totally
hetero way. I’m not going to start reminiscing about childhood summers
spent frolicking on the beach, if that’s what you’re expecting.
Anyway, there was never enough time on our holidays for frolicking, what
with all the fighting, arguing and sulking. In fact, I’m pretty sure
that’s what our ‘vacations’ (as you morons would call them) were for – two
weeks in some shoddy Spanish villa so we could air all our grievances with
one another. Agh, see what you made me do? A paragraph into my
‘personal’ column and I’m already sinking into super-gay territory where I
reveal all the dark secrets of my youth. Need to get back onto the
straight and narrow… sports, boobies, beer, wrestling, sweaty men touching
each other, damn it, NO! This calls for drastic measures - I’m in dire
need of porn to re-calibrate my sexual orientation. And not the kind
of porn that Poolboy’s ‘favourites’ list is full of. Nyuk nyuk nyuk…
Ahh, much better – lesbians of the world, I salute you. It’s weird how
two homosexual women can reassure someone of their heterosexuality.
Maybe I’ll examine that in another column, or maybe I won’t. Anyhow,
now I’m suitably confident that I’m -up, let’s move onto the story, which I
like to call:
CENSOR-SHIT, or
How Originality Causes You Nothin’ But Problems
Now, THAT’S a title. Anyway… as you might’ve guessed from the fabulous
quality of last week’s column, this ain’t my first writing gig. No, my
first project as a columnist was for my college’s magazine, back in the
heady days of the year 2000, when people still thought the millennium was
something to be excited about and saying ‘Wasssup?!?’ was thought to be the
height of wit, I also happened to be starting college. No, not stupid
American college, with your ‘frat parties’, ‘hula hoops’ and ‘roller
skates’, British college, where studying’s the name of the game.
I was just a fresh-faced 16 year old back then, with a hunger for attention
and a desire to impress that few people in the sleepy town of Solihull had
ever witnessed. I needed a way to release these urges, and I thought
the college magazine would be a perfect way to let them out out. There
was only one problem though – the magazine was CRAP. Well, maybe
crap’s not the right word, but it just seemed so… uninspired. There
was a sports section, a music section, a movies section, everything was in
its proper place, and everything was tedious. This pissed me off –
after all, aren’t college magazines supposed to be all about rebellion and
providing an ‘alternative’ voice? With that in mind, I invented ‘Tom’s
Super-Happy-Fun-Page’.
Interesting to see that two years later, I’m still just as bad at coming up
with titles for my work. I suppose some things never change.
Anyway, the Super-Happy-Fun-Page was fan-fucking-tastic, or at least so my
pals and I though. It was basically an opportunity for me to put all
the stupid ideas that had amused my cronies onto paper to share with the
world, or at least the rest of the college. Most of it was the usual
biting pop-culture satire/off-the-wall wackiness you’ve come to expect from
me. The crown jewel in my first column was my main article though,
which was entitled ‘Shoplift-A-Go-Go’. These were basically the
instructions to a ‘game’ I’d developed over a few weeks that, and now the
story should start to get a little more interesting….
Let me state something here and now, just so everyone understands –
‘Shoplift-A-Go-Go’ was a work of parody, nothing more, nothing less. I
tried to make the piece of writing explaining it as ridiculous as possible,
detailing the ‘points’ system involved in playing the game, which revolved
around stealing items of increasing value from various local shops. I
even encouraged stealing a shop assistant for a special bonus of 50 points,
although use of a big, brown sack would be tolerated in doing so. It
wasn’t great, but hey – I had a few people compliment me on it, including
some of the more ‘anarchic’ teachers who were so bored by their jobs, that
they eagerly anticipated anyone prepared to ‘stir the shit’ a little, as it
were. But no matter how much praise I received, nothing could counter
the backlash that was to come against it.
It appears that somehow, a parent of one of the students happened to pick up
a copy of said magazine whilst visiting the college, only to glance over my
article. Evidently, they didn’t take to my creative genius like others
had, and felt the need to complain about it. But who to complain to?
The college would be the obvious choice, seeing as how they were the ones
who published it, but the individual was so offended, they needed to take it
to a higher authority. The police then? We’ll get to them in a
minute or two, but no, not Solihull’s Finest. No, this character
decided to go to a far more influential party – the local newspaper.
THE local newspaper. The LOCAL newspaper. The local NEWSPAPER.
No matter how you say it, it still doesn’t make sense. Anyway, like I
said before, I live in a pretty slow town, but I never realised how slow
before this happened – the story of me writing a mock article ‘encouraging’
shoplifting within the college magazine was deemed headline material by
aforementioned paper. Truth be told, it was pretty cool – a big
headline entitled ‘COLLEGE ENCOURAGES SHOPLIFTING’ – they couldn’t mention
my name, for some reason, but they printed extracts from my column in the
story, making sure to make me look like a scumbag in the process, rather
than a slightly misguided teenager, but hey – it impressed my friends, and
lead to my status amongst the ‘cool kids’ shooting up a few points, so I
soon got over the initial shock of being bad-mouth. Also, the college
took most of the blame for me, explaining that they should’ve checked it
before allowing the story to go to print. So, to clarify – I was
feeling pretty damn pleased with myself – my first ever published article
had gained me the respect of my seniors, the adulation of my peers and made
quite an impact on my community. There were actually letters in the
paper over the next few days from various ‘senior citizens’ who
populate my community that pretty much blamed me and ‘my kind’ for all the
problems in the world, which is a little confusing. One vigilante also
decided to berate me for ‘living in a big, fancy house and driving a BMW’,
which is totally out of line. Everyone knows I won’t drive anything
that isn’t marked with the Mercedes badge.
And still, the fun isn’t over. Don’t worry, I’ll be done soon, and
some consider this the best part anyway. I soon found out that not
only were people writing to the local newspapers to put me down, they were
also contacting the police. These ‘radicals’ were so desperate for
things to do that they were contacting the local lawmen to deal with me for
my unholy crime against society. So, as it happened, I got a call one
evening inviting me down to the police-station – being young and naïve, I
assumed I’d just be getting a slap on the wrists and a brief explanation as
to why shoplifting is naughty and bad. But instead, they arrested me.
To be fair, they were pretty nice about it. I was annoyed that they
didn’t come to pick me up in a panda-car, but the fact remains – they were
pretty courteous about it. It was surreal, really – a couple of them told me
they had read my article, and actually found it funny, which was kinda cool,
but also pretty sickening – it was clear that they weren’t particularly
interested in ‘bringing me to justice’, but had been overwhelmed by the
pressure put on them by the public. They even had to invent a new
crime for me to break, as there was nothing on the database that fitted my
offence. So apparently I’m guilty of ‘attempting to incite others to
commit a crime’, even though I hadn’t done anything vaguely illegal since I
was 6 and lied about how many liquorice allsorts I had in my sweetie-bag.
So, I had my photo taken, as well as my fingerprints, and they kindly showed
me around a cell. They also recorded an interview I had with a
deputy-lieutenant, involving such taxing questions as ‘do you know why you
were arrested?’ and ‘are you sorry for what you did?’. The guy was a bit of
a prick, unlike the others, and it was obvious he was just trying to scare
me into ‘straightening up and flying right’, so I’d never break any made-up
crimes again. They allowed me to take a tape of the interview home,
and it’s actually pretty funny, especially when he asks me what the
difference between ‘freedom of speech and freedom of expression’. I
admit to not knowing what it is, and it’s clear that he doesn’t either, as
he struggles to explain it to me for 20 seconds or so. Eventually I
got out, a little shaken up, but with my pride intact. Yes, I fought
the law, and as in so many cases, the law won, but I like to think that I
still gave ‘em a pretty decent fight. I never really got to write
another decent article for the college magazine, as they were all so worried
I’d write something else to make them look bad that I was unable to include
anything even vaguely ‘controversial’.
Anyway, that’s my story. Sorry if it was a little self-serving, but I
think it’s still a reasonably interesting example of what’s wrong with the
level of influence the media holds over authority figures. And heck,
even if you hate me, you get to read about how I got put in the slammer, so
there’s something for everyone. As ever, tell me on the Crapper board
what you thought of it, or e-mail me at the usual address:
tommyb_uk@hotmail.com.
Anyway, it’ll probably be back to the usual next week, hopefully with a
brand new column name! That’s something to be excited about, right?
Oh, and just for the anyone who might be pissed that this column has nothing
to do with View Askew Productions ™, here’s a haiku I wrote.
Haiku, How Are
You?
View Askew, my love
With films both wistful and fun
Snootch to the nootch, bunnnnng!
Jesus, I hope that doesn’t become a regular feature. Seeing as how I’m
such a crazy and unpredictable guy though, who knows? Maybe the whole
of next week’s column will be done entirely in haiku form, so all you
pedantic twats out there can check each and every one of them to make sure
I’ve got the ‘5-7-5’ formula right. Right, that’s me done.
Haven’t you people got homes to go to? |
