Dead beat

10 November 2003
George has dreams

I want to live forever. I really do want to learn how to fly. [Think of the clothes! Amazing flowing capes (in warm toasty fleecy material) that you could soar through the sky in; the goggles and gloves.]

These are things that I do not hold to be directly associated with being famous or a world-class Wife Swap, Stars in Their Eyes, held in a perspex box celebrity. I do not hold my immortality to come from or be defined by my own personal skincare tips in Heat magazine. If I'm known today for dating someone who sang something who dated someone who danced somewhere who was fathered by someone exceptionally beautiful who was whipped frequently by the then home secretary - what use is that? Tomorrow there'll be other people dancing and being beautiful, and I'll have to be locked in a different house with new camaras and constant video surveillance.

Moreover paper and silcone won't last; not until the new self-replicating periodicals and programmes come into play. A video of me whipping up my famous 7-cheese omelette before a delighted daytime audience will disintegrate into dust and, quite honestly, none of my features are distinctive enough to make a lifetime impression when described non-visually. [Except for maybe my tiny tiny nose.]

I'm lumping creative achievements into the fame category too. For one, I refer you to my previous point about the fragility of the raw material; nothing gold can stay. On the other leg, there's simply too much noise out there to make a bang, to create a lasting impression on the retina (on the palms of the hands), and isn't winning hearts and minds what this is all about? Even the most amazing things are chewed up and spat out the next week. I could blow up the world, but who would be around afterwards to remember it?

So fame and glory is out. I would like to draw the attention of the audience to my next point: blood. Ladies and gentlemen, I present vampires and all of their crushed-velvet pointiness. Who would protest about being wedged between Kiefer "Lost Boys" Sutherland and James "Cheese-slicer cheekbones" Marsters (with David "Pork chop" Boreanez looking wistfully on) as they fought it out over who would sire you? Slashlust aside, vampirism makes a strong and pointy case for the life eternal, with fun and games and proper Bloody Marys along the way. Sleep all day, party all night and avoid aging UV rays.

My main draw to this is the pointy pointy teeth and the carnivorism, both of which are good and right things. I cannot calculate how much raw steak would need to be ingested daily to fill up the daily blood levels, but it wouldn't be enough. [Sushi could probably be used for top-up levels though.]

The low side? I'm concerned about the clothing; the general moodiness; the seemingly obligatory red shirts. I have one red shirt - it's rather festive and I usually only wear it around Christmas. The red t-shirts that I own are covered in space-invaders, golden ducks and Cardcaptor Sakura, and would probably be sneered at by Kiefer and his boys.

And ginger wampires? The flaws are becoming more apparent.

More pressingly though, vampires aren't actually true immortals. They'll live forever providing you don't push them out from under their palm tree into the sun. They'll survive to the end of time if you don't wave a pointy bit of wood at them. They are the one true race of the night when they're not being shoved face-down into a plate of garlic risotto. It's all a bit shit really. By this logic, every one of us here in this dusty lecture theatre is a certified immortal, with our fatal flaws being speeding cars, dodgy fishcakes and heart disease.

Blood is out then. [Although the raw steak continues.] I come now to my master-stroke, my genius plan to be around until entropy reverses and fire fills the skies. Through slowly lowering my core body temperature I plan to slow my metabolism down, and coax my heart-beat into a leisurely one beat per day. The cold will push my body into a state of protected stasis and calm that will survive the rising of the oceans and the crumbling of the mountains.

Thus I'm freezing my tits off in this icy computer room (where the damn windows are jammed open), waiting for last bus home.

Current clown:

18 December 2003. George writes: This List

Most recent ten:

15 December 2003. Jamie writes: Seven Songs
11 December 2003. Dan writes: Spinning Jenny
8 December 2003. Victor writes: Rock Opera
4 December 2003. Matt writes: The Mirrored Spheres of Patagonia
1 December 2003. George writes: Charm
27 November 2003. James writes: On Boxing
24 November 2003. Jamie writes: El Matador del Amor; Or, the Man who Killed Love
20 November 2003. Dan writes: Rights Management
17 November 2003. Victor writes: Walking on Yellow
13 November 2003. Matt writes: Disintermediation
(And alas we lost Neil, who last wrote Cockfosters)

Also by this clown:

1 December 2003. George writes: Charm
10 November 2003. George writes: Dead beat
20 October 2003. George writes: Shortening
29 September 2003. George writes: Manhattanites are Cleavage-Starved
11 September 2003. George writes: How to Bring Us in Line With the Future
18 August 2003. George writes: Slashtastic
28 July 2003. George writes: Underground Independent Small Press Comic Fight Club
7 July 2003. George writes: Careering
16 June 2003. George writes: Choose your own adventure
26 May 2003. George writes: Revelations
8 May 2003. George writes: Picture Perfect
14 April 2003. George writes: MetaPirate
24 March 2003. George writes: Preparation X
3 March 2003. George writes: F of x
13 February 2003. George writes: Three is the magic number
23 January 2003. George writes: Recorded Delivery
30 December 2002. George writes: Meat Bingo or Death
12 December 2002. George writes: Royal Inquisitor
21 November 2002. George writes: This Clown is Cancelled
28 October 2002. George writes: Shopping with God
3 October 2002. George writes: SaferSpoony
16 September 2002. George writes: Supercalanthropomorphicexpealidocious
26 August 2002. George writes: The deformed animal menagerie
5 August 2002. George writes: Plaice that Funky Music, Whitebait
15 July 2002. George writes: Safe as Houses
24 June 2002. George writes: Two Lions (DB/DS)
30 May 2002. George writes: Series 8
9 May 2002. George writes: Market Stall
11 April 2002. George writes: I, the Enlargened, Crunchy Product
18 March 2002. George writes: Cakexterminator
21 February 2002. George writes: Fiction Suit
28 January 2002. George writes: Spunk Gunk
31 December 2001. George writes: Fairytale of New Pork
10 December 2001. George writes: Circular
15 November 2001. George writes: A Man With No Ass Is No Man At All
22 October 2001. George writes: One Night in Heaven
27 September 2001. George writes: Uncut
3 September 2001. George writes: Porn Pants
9 August 2001. George writes: Names of the Roses
19 July 2001. George writes: No Fun Here
21 June 2001. George writes: All Your Elections are Belong to Us
28 May 2001. George writes: Pierced as Fuck
3 May 2001. George writes: My Lovely Horse
9 April 2001. George writes: Eight Hundred and Forty-Three
12 March 2001. George writes: Kill 'Em All
19 February 2001. George writes: Formal
25 January 2001. George writes: Sticks and stones
11 January 2001. George writes: A Thought on Morality
11 December 2000. George writes: You can't put that into a soufflé
13 November 2000. George writes: Lyrical Genius
19 October 2000. George writes: Wet wet wet wet wet
25 September 2000. George writes: Built on an Indian burial ground
31 August 2000. George writes: This Way
31 July 2000. George writes: Runt of the Litter

We are all Upsideclown: Dan, George, James, Jamie, Matt, Neil, Victor.

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