A brief review of Alienology has appeared online --> HERE! and now, if you're one of those complete weirdoes who hate paper, you can get the antho as an 'e-book' --> HERE!
I'm going to try and use today to finish writing, or nearly finish, a short story called WOUNDS, which is all about a former mental patient who returns home with news that something rotten's lurking beneath the civilised veneer of the town - but is it? Or is he still deluded? Clue: he's not. I'm going for a Lovecraft vibe (what a surprise!) but I think I'm going to nail it with this one - lots of creepy instances that something isn't right, but hopefully no one will guess what until the end ;)
Well, I will do this ^ if my computer doesn't crash. Last night it told me 'A kernal thread terminated while holding a mutex'. I can safely say I've never heard that one before. Hmmm.
And so is this blog.
Monday, 22 August 2011
Sunday, 21 August 2011
WAYNE GOODCHILD'S NOSTALGIA BOMB (AKA ARE ALL MEMORIES WORTH KEEPING?)
That's possibly the most emo thing I've ever written, so apologies for that. But, are all memories worth keeping? I'm going to tell you what I think anyway, so shut up.
This afternoon I rediscovered my 'bag of memories' - literally a plastic bag filled with old stuff from my youth. That pic up there is a collage of some of it, but it also includes postcards, band adverts and a surprising amount of phone numbers; one for a friend who passed away a few years ago, some for people I still see regularly/not-too-irregularly, some for people I've fairly recently reconnected with via Facebook, and one for an older girl I saw for a short while called ******. This one's written in dark red lipstick on the back of a torn-off corner from a gig poster (all that remains on the front is a guitar-playing guy with mod hair dressed in an Indian-style gown, with 'PROBABLY THE 2nd GREATEST' underneath him. Underneath this is 'plus Special SPICE GIRLS' and a date: SATURDAY 2nd AUGUST). The number is labelled (by me) as her 'home' number; there's something weird about the fact that, not that long ago, no one had mobile phones, and when you were a teenager, you had to brave a call to your girlfriend's parents and ask to speak to her, rather than having the luxury of a direct line. Unless you set up some kind of "I'll call you at 6pm on the dot so make sure you're near the phone" situation so as to avoid talking to the oldies.
Here're the postcards:
When I was at college, and for a little while afterwards, we seemed to have house parties all the time. "The best years of your life" vary from person to person, and generation to generation, but in many respects my mid-to-late-teens were them for me (although I wouldn't necessarily want to relive them). That lass who wrote the first postcard - Katherine - I haven't seen for many years, but she was part of our cosy little group at college. A Christian who had a sense of humour, and didn't take my "Satanism" (don't ask) at all seriously, which is just the way I liked it. One of the house parties I remember the most was at Katherine's. I tried my first joint (rolled with cherry tobacco so I would like the taste), made an archaeopteryx out of beer bottles, and went to sleep in the (empty) bath, only to be woken up when my friend Paul (the same one mentioned in her missive) poured a sack of potatoes on me. The 'Kirsten' she mentions is one of the people I've reconnected with (sort of) via FB, but this raises a point I'll come back to in a minute.*
The 'Steve' and 'Andy' from the second postcard are guys I still see now and again. We all used to be in bands together, with such names as 'Exploding Toasters' and 'Baybehedd'. Here're some press clippings for bands I was in, from when we played the Scunthorpe Rock Open (a battle of the bands) many moons ago - Toxin were Steve's own band, and as you can see they weren't very popular with the judges - ouch!
That's the glorious inlay to the Unholy Cheese Fiends' debut tape (yes, tape!). We were a novelty (I mean, post-apocalyptic jazz) band that kept the joke going for two delirious years. You can even hear our music HERE, if you're some kind of maniac. I was the frontman ;)
*A minute later...Nowadays it's even easier to reconnect with old friends/colleagues/whathaveyou thanks to the internet and social networking sites, but for the majority of people the question remains: why? Most of the time what've you got to talk about, unless you were especially close to that person many moons ago? "What do you do for a living? Do you have any kids? Whatever happened to your plan to walk along the Great Wall of China?" The other truth is, people move on, their lives move on, and whilst many of us would like to think we don't really change that much as we get older, some people do, quite considerably. There's nothing inherently wrong with this fact, as certain people inevitably NEED to move on, and stop being a stoner/benefit sponge/dreamer/etc that may have suited their long-haired younger days but once the real world comes knocking you have to answer the door sooner of later. Wow, that was a naff sentence. Does anyone still say 'naff'? Apart from me, just then?
Anyways. As much as I like the idea of 'connecting' with people, there's usually very little reason to. For instance, if I can finally mention writing in a blog post on a blog run by a writer ;) I have met lots of really nice and supportive authors online, and they're all pretty interesting. But not interesting enough that I should want to read their blog on a regular basis. Why? Quite simply, because our paths cross elsewhere online, by and large I know what they've got cooking, so I don't feel the need to actively peruse their blog. I don't feel particularly 'guilty' or 'ignorant' about this because I'm sure this blog is overlooked or ignored more often than not for the same reasons, which is fine - plus I usually talk rubbish so there really isn't that much of intellectual interest to read hahaha unlike one of my absolute favourite blogs that I do take the time to read on a regular basis: BIG AMERICAN NIGHT. Almost every post has something interesting to say, plus there are nice pictures and cool music. You don't need this things to make a successful blog, of course, but they're what float my particular boat.
To go back to my previous point: why bother reconnecting with old friends? Because it's a nice thing to do. That is the real truth. Even if, like me, you don't feel cause to regularly ask them what they're doing, it's nice to know they're only a mouse-click away. Is this some sort of Freudian ego crutch? I don't know.
Why is all this playing on my mind so much? It's just a bag of stuff, surely...? Friends I don't see very often/any more, a girlfriend I lost through emotional ineptness, goth artwork and flyers for club nights that no longer exist. Is any of it worth keeping? Yes, because they're all memories. And you can't be selective about the good ones. You need the bad or bittersweet ones to balance you out, otherwise someone would have invented a time machine by now so we could all stop looking through rose-tinted specs and actually relive those halcyon days, over and over again. And the fights, the arguments, the hangovers, the parental bollockings, the stolen girlfriends and forbidden kisses. Oh yeah, those would be really nice to relive. Well, maybe the 'kiss-I-shouldn't-be-having'... ;)
Melancholy isn't really my thing, baby, but the Bag of Memories(tm) has jacked into my current passive maudlin state - I lost a cousin recently (she was younger than me - only thirty years old) and one of my other cousins, who's maybe 15 years older than me, said "if this is an excuse for anything, it's to make sure those of us remaining make a point about meeting up" or "reconnecting". True enough, a lot of my cousins etc live very close to me, but we simply don't talk. I have no doubt this is partly down to the age gap (they're all older, married, in 'normal' jobs) and partly because, once you've not spoken to someone in a while, it becomes far easier to continue that silence than to make the effort to clumsily break it and risk finding out that being distant may not have been such a bad thing after all. I don't necessarily believe that, but it is a legitimate fear. I suppose only time will tell. And that's something none of us have a lot of.
Whoops. This has been an exceptionally heavy, and long, post. Better inject some levity via two pics of me on theme park rides doing a militant hand gesture and flicking a V:
And something pertinent I got out a fortune cookie years ago:
This afternoon I rediscovered my 'bag of memories' - literally a plastic bag filled with old stuff from my youth. That pic up there is a collage of some of it, but it also includes postcards, band adverts and a surprising amount of phone numbers; one for a friend who passed away a few years ago, some for people I still see regularly/not-too-irregularly, some for people I've fairly recently reconnected with via Facebook, and one for an older girl I saw for a short while called ******. This one's written in dark red lipstick on the back of a torn-off corner from a gig poster (all that remains on the front is a guitar-playing guy with mod hair dressed in an Indian-style gown, with 'PROBABLY THE 2nd GREATEST' underneath him. Underneath this is 'plus Special SPICE GIRLS' and a date: SATURDAY 2nd AUGUST). The number is labelled (by me) as her 'home' number; there's something weird about the fact that, not that long ago, no one had mobile phones, and when you were a teenager, you had to brave a call to your girlfriend's parents and ask to speak to her, rather than having the luxury of a direct line. Unless you set up some kind of "I'll call you at 6pm on the dot so make sure you're near the phone" situation so as to avoid talking to the oldies.
Here're the postcards:
When I was at college, and for a little while afterwards, we seemed to have house parties all the time. "The best years of your life" vary from person to person, and generation to generation, but in many respects my mid-to-late-teens were them for me (although I wouldn't necessarily want to relive them). That lass who wrote the first postcard - Katherine - I haven't seen for many years, but she was part of our cosy little group at college. A Christian who had a sense of humour, and didn't take my "Satanism" (don't ask) at all seriously, which is just the way I liked it. One of the house parties I remember the most was at Katherine's. I tried my first joint (rolled with cherry tobacco so I would like the taste), made an archaeopteryx out of beer bottles, and went to sleep in the (empty) bath, only to be woken up when my friend Paul (the same one mentioned in her missive) poured a sack of potatoes on me. The 'Kirsten' she mentions is one of the people I've reconnected with (sort of) via FB, but this raises a point I'll come back to in a minute.*
The 'Steve' and 'Andy' from the second postcard are guys I still see now and again. We all used to be in bands together, with such names as 'Exploding Toasters' and 'Baybehedd'. Here're some press clippings for bands I was in, from when we played the Scunthorpe Rock Open (a battle of the bands) many moons ago - Toxin were Steve's own band, and as you can see they weren't very popular with the judges - ouch!
That's the glorious inlay to the Unholy Cheese Fiends' debut tape (yes, tape!). We were a novelty (I mean, post-apocalyptic jazz) band that kept the joke going for two delirious years. You can even hear our music HERE, if you're some kind of maniac. I was the frontman ;)
*A minute later...Nowadays it's even easier to reconnect with old friends/colleagues/whathaveyou thanks to the internet and social networking sites, but for the majority of people the question remains: why? Most of the time what've you got to talk about, unless you were especially close to that person many moons ago? "What do you do for a living? Do you have any kids? Whatever happened to your plan to walk along the Great Wall of China?" The other truth is, people move on, their lives move on, and whilst many of us would like to think we don't really change that much as we get older, some people do, quite considerably. There's nothing inherently wrong with this fact, as certain people inevitably NEED to move on, and stop being a stoner/benefit sponge/dreamer/etc that may have suited their long-haired younger days but once the real world comes knocking you have to answer the door sooner of later. Wow, that was a naff sentence. Does anyone still say 'naff'? Apart from me, just then?
Anyways. As much as I like the idea of 'connecting' with people, there's usually very little reason to. For instance, if I can finally mention writing in a blog post on a blog run by a writer ;) I have met lots of really nice and supportive authors online, and they're all pretty interesting. But not interesting enough that I should want to read their blog on a regular basis. Why? Quite simply, because our paths cross elsewhere online, by and large I know what they've got cooking, so I don't feel the need to actively peruse their blog. I don't feel particularly 'guilty' or 'ignorant' about this because I'm sure this blog is overlooked or ignored more often than not for the same reasons, which is fine - plus I usually talk rubbish so there really isn't that much of intellectual interest to read hahaha unlike one of my absolute favourite blogs that I do take the time to read on a regular basis: BIG AMERICAN NIGHT. Almost every post has something interesting to say, plus there are nice pictures and cool music. You don't need this things to make a successful blog, of course, but they're what float my particular boat.
To go back to my previous point: why bother reconnecting with old friends? Because it's a nice thing to do. That is the real truth. Even if, like me, you don't feel cause to regularly ask them what they're doing, it's nice to know they're only a mouse-click away. Is this some sort of Freudian ego crutch? I don't know.
Why is all this playing on my mind so much? It's just a bag of stuff, surely...? Friends I don't see very often/any more, a girlfriend I lost through emotional ineptness, goth artwork and flyers for club nights that no longer exist. Is any of it worth keeping? Yes, because they're all memories. And you can't be selective about the good ones. You need the bad or bittersweet ones to balance you out, otherwise someone would have invented a time machine by now so we could all stop looking through rose-tinted specs and actually relive those halcyon days, over and over again. And the fights, the arguments, the hangovers, the parental bollockings, the stolen girlfriends and forbidden kisses. Oh yeah, those would be really nice to relive. Well, maybe the 'kiss-I-shouldn't-be-having'... ;)
Melancholy isn't really my thing, baby, but the Bag of Memories(tm) has jacked into my current passive maudlin state - I lost a cousin recently (she was younger than me - only thirty years old) and one of my other cousins, who's maybe 15 years older than me, said "if this is an excuse for anything, it's to make sure those of us remaining make a point about meeting up" or "reconnecting". True enough, a lot of my cousins etc live very close to me, but we simply don't talk. I have no doubt this is partly down to the age gap (they're all older, married, in 'normal' jobs) and partly because, once you've not spoken to someone in a while, it becomes far easier to continue that silence than to make the effort to clumsily break it and risk finding out that being distant may not have been such a bad thing after all. I don't necessarily believe that, but it is a legitimate fear. I suppose only time will tell. And that's something none of us have a lot of.
Whoops. This has been an exceptionally heavy, and long, post. Better inject some levity via two pics of me on theme park rides doing a militant hand gesture and flicking a V:
And something pertinent I got out a fortune cookie years ago:
Thursday, 18 August 2011
IT'S ALL GONE DARK
My pc keeps crashing, obliterating most of the work I do.
I forgot I have a script to write about mental illness.
Still waiting for a story payment.
Another story's publication has been delayed by a number of months.
Never got a delivery of books I'm in and ordered last year.
Tried playing Silent Hill: Homecoming on the 'Hard' difficulty. It was a little bit too hard.
I asked for two bookcases for my birthday. I got one. And it won't assemble properly.
People keep stealing my thunder for no reason other than they have time to kill.
I have not had a proper roast dinner for a few weeks.
One of my closest friends forgot it was my birthday.
I stopped watching an episode of Supernatural this afternoon because someone was coming round. They never showed up.
I don't think any of this is particularly important.
I forgot I have a script to write about mental illness.
Still waiting for a story payment.
Another story's publication has been delayed by a number of months.
Never got a delivery of books I'm in and ordered last year.
Tried playing Silent Hill: Homecoming on the 'Hard' difficulty. It was a little bit too hard.
I asked for two bookcases for my birthday. I got one. And it won't assemble properly.
People keep stealing my thunder for no reason other than they have time to kill.
I have not had a proper roast dinner for a few weeks.
One of my closest friends forgot it was my birthday.
I stopped watching an episode of Supernatural this afternoon because someone was coming round. They never showed up.
I don't think any of this is particularly important.
Wednesday, 10 August 2011
THE PIGS WILL GET YOU IN THE END
Good golly! BACONOLOGY is now available! My story's called SISTERS OF BACON, is set in the 20's, and is about people turning into pigs. Every other story in the anthology is about bacon. WHAT MORE DO YOU NEED TO KNOW?
Get it now, or be condemned as a poncho-wearing vegan!
Get it now, or be condemned as a poncho-wearing vegan!
--> OINK OINK OINK OINK <--
Monday, 8 August 2011
I'VE BEEN RIPPED OFF. SORT OF. ALSO: HELLO, I'M STILL AWAKE!
In trying to remember the names of people I've remixed, I used Google and found *THIS*
It's some sort of bizarre, badly-translated version of this blog.
Except, it sort of isn't. It appears to be a random amalgamation of every blog ever. Very strange indeed! A part of me wonders if that link might kickstart a blog feedback loop. If it doesn't, maybe *THIS WILL*
But enough of that, it's almost 2:30am. Time to hit the hay!
It's some sort of bizarre, badly-translated version of this blog.
Except, it sort of isn't. It appears to be a random amalgamation of every blog ever. Very strange indeed! A part of me wonders if that link might kickstart a blog feedback loop. If it doesn't, maybe *THIS WILL*
But enough of that, it's almost 2:30am. Time to hit the hay!
Sunday, 7 August 2011
STICK *THIS* IN YOUR EARS, SUGARTITS!
Tuesday, 2 August 2011
ANTS! ANTS! ANTS! ANTS! ANTS! ANTS! ANTS! ANTS! ANTS! ANTS! ANTS!
I recently re-watched PHASE IV, an utterly strange sci-fi film from 1974 in which ants are bestowed superintelligence by cosmic rays (rather than the awful Dean Cain drug thriller with the same name). It is one of my favourite films for a number of reasons, least of all this mental premise. But more on that in a minute!
PHASE IV is a relatively sparse film. For the most part, we're either confined to the claustrophobic interior of the research dome, or treated to the vast expanse of the surrounding desert. There is no real in-between, save for a brief visit to a small farm, and a deserted settlement (the appropriately 'abandoned-hope-and-failed-glories' named Paradise City) but that's about it for locations. There isn't too much dialogue, and what there is is to-the-point. It's also probably fair to say that the majority of the film's remarkably short runtime (less than and hour and half) is taken up by footage of the ants themselves, which is no bad thing.
These bits are brilliantly realised, and help alleviate any chance of laughing at the inherent absurdity of 'super ants' - there's something creepy about watching different species 'conversing' (and with tiny weird symbols on their heads!), not to mention shots of stuff like an ant dutifully making rows of its dead brethren in a large chamber (above). Extreme close-ups of the bloated and wasp-like (because she actually is a wasp, fact fans!) Queen make for uncomfortable and squirm-inducing viewing as she squeezes out yet another egg, to add to a rapidly expanding pile of newborn ants.
Saul Bass, Hitchcock's title designer, directs the 'human' parts with a good eye for weird visuals (plenty of solar eclipses and bug-eye vision) that are rendered surreal by their use, but what really sells this film for me, more than his direction or Ken Middleham's insect sequences, is the sound design. Electronic bleeps, bips and drones punctuate long stretches of ants wandering their subterranean hive, with a high-pitched chittering/shrieking/clacking noise soundtracking their attacks and time-lapse devouring of other creatures. I was reminded of one of my other favourite 70s films THE MUTATIONS (aka THE FREAKMAKER), in which copious use is made of time-lapse to show plants growing/dying, accompanied by weird, atmospheric electronic music. In that film, Donald Pleasance plays a scientist as unhinged as Hobbs, but one obsessed with creating human/plant hybrids. It's far more 'b-movie' than PHASE IV ends up being, but not to its detriment.
Once Hobbs is bitten, and poisoned, by an ant, he starts to unravel at an alarming rate, as his inherent obsession builds to fever pitch. He wants to utterly destroy the ants, whereas Lesko, acting with a rational mind, seeks to understand - and even communicate with - them. There are echoes of H. G. Wells' WAR OF THE WORLDS in how the scientists are themselves being studied by "intelligences greater than man's and yet as mortal as his own" and that these minds "slowly and surely drew their plans against us". This is the film's strongest theme, and is well-realised. PHASE IV is a bit like a chocolate-covered muesli bar, in that on the surface there's just the one thing to savour, but underneath there's more going on that demands some chewing over. That's not a bad comparison, given that I just thought of it cos I'm eating a chocolate-covered muesli bar.
Apart from the visuals, there are some very strong scenes in PHASE IV - and in one of the most chilling, it's primarily through a mixture of darkly humorous irony and human error that the only other featured characters meet their demise, as they stumble through thickening clouds of poison designed to kill the ants....who only return, stronger and more resilient than before. As for weak points, Davenport's portrayal of Hobb's burgeoning insanity is one of the only ones, as it edges over into the hysteria promised by the poster. Another weak aspect is Kendra, a survivor of a previous ant attack, who becomes little more than a plot device. However, having said that, her implication in the ants' plan is both chilling and weirdly optimistic - come the end of the film, humans may well still have a place on this planet, but not in the way we would hope.
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First things first, PHASE IV is no where near as hysterical and violent as that poster might suggest (although it is a cool poster). Rather, the film evokes dread more than outright terror, and fear more than horror. The movie opens with a voiceover from Lesko (played by Michael Murphy, who's been in a million things) musing about peculiar interstellar phenomena (shown via some stunning animation that looks a bit like it might have come from an old science-for-schools program but is still very pretty). No one's sure what this phenomena could mean, but one thing's for sure - its effect was completely unexpected.
It's affected ants, you see. And not just one type, but ALL species. Dr Ernest Hobbs (English actor Nigel Davenport), a scientist with a real mad-on for ants, cottons on to this and heads out to the Arizona desert to study the insects, accompanied by cryptozoologist and communications expert Lesko. Hobbs has noticed that ants have started working together to cleanse the area of their natural predators, and wants to find out why. It doesn't take too long before the insects make their intelligence known as they close-in on Hobbs and Lesko, who've set up a small dome in which to conduct their research.
PHASE IV is a relatively sparse film. For the most part, we're either confined to the claustrophobic interior of the research dome, or treated to the vast expanse of the surrounding desert. There is no real in-between, save for a brief visit to a small farm, and a deserted settlement (the appropriately 'abandoned-hope-and-failed-glories' named Paradise City) but that's about it for locations. There isn't too much dialogue, and what there is is to-the-point. It's also probably fair to say that the majority of the film's remarkably short runtime (less than and hour and half) is taken up by footage of the ants themselves, which is no bad thing.
These bits are brilliantly realised, and help alleviate any chance of laughing at the inherent absurdity of 'super ants' - there's something creepy about watching different species 'conversing' (and with tiny weird symbols on their heads!), not to mention shots of stuff like an ant dutifully making rows of its dead brethren in a large chamber (above). Extreme close-ups of the bloated and wasp-like (because she actually is a wasp, fact fans!) Queen make for uncomfortable and squirm-inducing viewing as she squeezes out yet another egg, to add to a rapidly expanding pile of newborn ants.
Saul Bass, Hitchcock's title designer, directs the 'human' parts with a good eye for weird visuals (plenty of solar eclipses and bug-eye vision) that are rendered surreal by their use, but what really sells this film for me, more than his direction or Ken Middleham's insect sequences, is the sound design. Electronic bleeps, bips and drones punctuate long stretches of ants wandering their subterranean hive, with a high-pitched chittering/shrieking/clacking noise soundtracking their attacks and time-lapse devouring of other creatures. I was reminded of one of my other favourite 70s films THE MUTATIONS (aka THE FREAKMAKER), in which copious use is made of time-lapse to show plants growing/dying, accompanied by weird, atmospheric electronic music. In that film, Donald Pleasance plays a scientist as unhinged as Hobbs, but one obsessed with creating human/plant hybrids. It's far more 'b-movie' than PHASE IV ends up being, but not to its detriment.
Once Hobbs is bitten, and poisoned, by an ant, he starts to unravel at an alarming rate, as his inherent obsession builds to fever pitch. He wants to utterly destroy the ants, whereas Lesko, acting with a rational mind, seeks to understand - and even communicate with - them. There are echoes of H. G. Wells' WAR OF THE WORLDS in how the scientists are themselves being studied by "intelligences greater than man's and yet as mortal as his own" and that these minds "slowly and surely drew their plans against us". This is the film's strongest theme, and is well-realised. PHASE IV is a bit like a chocolate-covered muesli bar, in that on the surface there's just the one thing to savour, but underneath there's more going on that demands some chewing over. That's not a bad comparison, given that I just thought of it cos I'm eating a chocolate-covered muesli bar.
Apart from the visuals, there are some very strong scenes in PHASE IV - and in one of the most chilling, it's primarily through a mixture of darkly humorous irony and human error that the only other featured characters meet their demise, as they stumble through thickening clouds of poison designed to kill the ants....who only return, stronger and more resilient than before. As for weak points, Davenport's portrayal of Hobb's burgeoning insanity is one of the only ones, as it edges over into the hysteria promised by the poster. Another weak aspect is Kendra, a survivor of a previous ant attack, who becomes little more than a plot device. However, having said that, her implication in the ants' plan is both chilling and weirdly optimistic - come the end of the film, humans may well still have a place on this planet, but not in the way we would hope.
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WAYNE GOODCHILD GETS ALL ROMANTIC [REVIEW!!!!]
Apparently so. Here's a review of the latest book I'm in, where it mentions my story MIDNIGHT IN A SMALL TOWN and picks up the vibe I was going for, but says the ending's...well, you'll see haha
Monday, 1 August 2011
DAWN OF THE SEXY VAMPIRE [OR IN EUROPE: SEX BLOOD MAGICIANS 2]
The first utterly thrilling instalment is HERE!
PART 2! That is to say, the next bit!
Tarquin Farquar could smell blood on the wind - he was a vampire hunter, and his nose was finely attuned to the smell of vampire trumps, because vampire trumps tended to smell like blood, because they drank a lot of blood, because they were vampires!
"Six years now have I been hunting these diabolical creatures," he mused to himself in a stern and badly-accented voice. Also, his sentence construction was a little weird. "Their rear exhalations make my nose burn, and my anger stir!" he declared in the exact same voice as he'd just used for that previous sentence. "When will it end, God? When will your holy crusade finally come to an end?"
"Not yet," God said. His voice always reminded Tarquin of Barry Manilow. "I made a terrible mistake putting over-sexed demons on the Earth, and I made an even terribler mistake putting those demons in sexy young bodies."
"But in your defence," Tarquin quickly interrupted, "you had no idea that, millions of years after you invented humans, some of them would get all funny in the pants about doing rude things with those sexy demons."
"That's true," God said. Although Tarquin couldn't see Him, he could easily imagine God stroking His beard thoughtfully. "Anyway," God continued, "I thought vampires might be a good way to keep ape men under control, by, you know, eating them. I should have just made more dinosaurs."
"Ape men and dinosaurs didn't exist at the same time, my Lord."
"Oh yes, that's right, they didn't."
"In fact, neither of them existed anyway, because you made Adam and Eve, and skipped right past all that other nonsense about an Ice Age and mammoths and all that."
"Very true. Sometimes I read books about them, and I think "they sound pretty cool; why didn't *I* think of that?'"
"What would your favourite dinosaur be?" Tarquin asked.
"Well, 't-rex' is the obvious answer, but in all honesty, I probably would have to say MechaGodzilla. All dinosaurs should be able to fire rockets."
"I wish I could fire rockets," Tarquin grumbled. "Anti-vampire rockets. From my fists."
"Patience, my friend," God intoned. "Your test comes from dealing with vampires with the gifts I gave you. That is, a finely-tuned nose and a deep, seething hatred towards ethnic minorities. Like most Christians."
Tarquin and God shared a chuckle at this obvious joke, although deep down they both knew they were laughing to cover the pain of miserable childhoods.
"I enjoy our talks, my Lord," Tarquin said, "but verily I must away, to do battle with the one they call 'Chris'."
"Oh yes, you've been hunting him for some time now, haven't you?"
"Ever since he exploded my niece, Sheila, I have been hunting him for some time now. Ever since he exploded her, in fact. That's how long I've been hunting him."
A beam of pure light shone over Tarquin, and God's dulcet tones said: "Good luck, Tarquin! I'm wishing you luck, and not in any kind of foreboding, ominous way, but because I genuinely like you and wish you luck in defeating the vampire called Chris, and maybe other vampires too, who knows? Not me! I don't know anything! Not really, anyway. I'm so out of touch with the world nowadays. I don't even know what an 'app' is, or why traffic wardens don't carry guns. Life is full of mysteries, and I, perhaps, am the greatest one. I sometimes wonder 'Who created me?' and then I start thinking back to my childhood, which wasn't very happy. And then I think, 'how could I have had a childhood if I don't have parents?' but maybe I was my own parents? So I must have had sex with myself, and that's a very disturbing thought. Oh golly, listen to me, this all a bit heavy for a pre-hunt pep talk. I'm sorry Tarquin. Tarquin?"
But Tarquin Farquar had already left on his perilous adventure. By the way, it was nighttime.
The moon was bright and plump, like a smart, fat girl at a school dance who's hopeful the star of the school football team will finally notice her. It's hard not to notice a fat girl, though, especially when she's squeezed into a corset and made to look like a fat girl's idea of a vixen. But much like the fat girl, the moon wouldn't stick around for long because it had a date with the horizon, whereas the fat girl didn't have a date with the horizon, but a noose in her grandparents' attic. She had no intention of hanging herself; she had a sick fixation on knots and liked to touch rope in dirty places, and the dirtiest place she knew was her grandparents' attic.
In any case, Tarquin knew he didn't have much time left to find Chris - every time he neared his quarry, his quarry didn't near him - he moved further away! His quarry, that is! Because his quarry was Chris, and Chris was...a vampire! But tonight...tonight he'd get him! "I'll get him, tonight!" Tarquin thought aloud (or: said). It was time to put his plan into action!
Tarquin opened his bumbag and withdrew a tightly-rolled tube of paper. He unfurled it to reveal an erotic poster of his niece, Sheila. Since her mother - Tarquin's sister - was a hopeless drunk, she had to earn money to pay bills, etc, and the easiest way was to pose for rude pictures, which then got blown up to A1 size so horny teenagers could put her on their wall. "I wish Chris hadn't blown you up," Tarquin sighed. His tears were held at bay by the sight of his niece's tits. If she'd not died, he could have stolen her away to his home country, where it was legal (and in fact, built in to the local law) for men to marry and sex up their nieces. Somewhere deep inside Tarquin, he knew this was his way of perpetuating the cycle of despair relevant to his family and bloodline, and that he was also technically an ethnic minority, so had God been laughing at him earlier...?
"TARQUIN FARQUAR!!!"
The vampire hunter started from his reverie - Chris had appeared, and even now floated in mid-air as if suspended by invisible wires or perhaps Hollywood CGI trickery. But this wasn't Hollywood, this was real life! The vampire wore a Terrorvision t-shirt, and appeared to have put on weight. But Tarquin had to secretly admit the monster looked good in a cloak.
"Vampire!" Tarquin shouted. "You have fallen into my trap!"
"I have't fallen anywhere," Chris said. "I'm flying, you idiot. And I didn't realise this was a poster, because my night-vision only picks up tits, whatever medium they may happen to be in."
"So you admit you were fooled by my decepticon!"
"Deception?"
"That as well!"
"Maybe. Also, I've secretly been following you because I heard you were trying to kill me, and wanted to see how dangerous you are. You've killed quite a few vampires, haven't you? And werewolves. And Creatures From The Black Lagoons."
"I'm working my way through the types of classic movie monsters, so that I am more relevant in this crazy world of high-tech pop culture references and gimmicks. No one wants to hear the exploits of a bog-standard vampire hunter. They want to know that he can also deal with other monsters!"
"Are you basing this assumption of a particular movie or book or something?" Chris asked, cautiously.
"Probably. Whatever, the time has come for you to say goodnight to the night, foul sexy demon! You have had sex with, and drank blood from, your last desperate housewife and/or emo teenager and/or fake goth!"
"I did just work my way through an entire college campus, followed by a book club. The ladies were reading Interview With a Vampire, which might have been funny if we were in 1995 or something, and people gave a shit about that sort of thing any more."
"Silence!" Tarquin roared, yet managed to modulate his voice so that he didn't say it in capital letters. "Eat stake, demon!"
"Would you believe I'm a vegetarian?" Chris said, and they both shared a final, jovial laugh. But the laughter only served to hide the fact that they'd both had miserable childhoods, and in fact grew up together, and in another fact, this revealed that what Chris had said in the previous instalment about being 317 years old, was in fact, a lie! He was only a bit older than Tarquin!
Tarquin, unaware of all of this, levelled his crossbow at Chris. "Let's see if you're faster than a speeding bullet!"
"That makes absolutely no sense in this context," Chris said.
POW! the crossbow said, in a voice like thunder!
Chris might have been able to fly away from the bolt by himself, but as it happens, he had help evading it - from GOD!
A beam of light sliced through the night sky and held the crossbow bolt in mid-air. "My Lord!" Tarquin shouted. "What are you playing at?!"
"I'm sorry for this decepticon," God said. "But I have to admit I was using you all along to find Chris. You see, I can't see vampires, and certain other demons like chatshow hosts, because the Devil has put his mark upon them. So, even though you didn't hear me wishing you luck earlier, I was being a little bit ironic, because I knew this twist was coming from the outset."
"I don't understand any of this," Tarquin and Chris said in eerie unison.
"The sun is on its way," God explained. "But I have no desire to destroy Chris. Instead, I figured out that if I bathe a vampire in holy light the moment the sun's rays hit one, they get converted into a good guy. Well, maybe not entirely good, but they'll be more liable to work for me to help me destroy the rest of the sexy monsters loose upon the world."
"But...but that's what *I* do!" Tarquin cried.
"Chris will keep all his vampire powers, so make a more effective hunter," God said. "You know, you two could work together. I bet that'd be pretty cool. And I might even be able to sell the rights to a television network."
"Never!" Tarquin screamed. "He killed my niece with sex! He is my enemy! And now, you, God, are my enemy, for forsaking me!"
"Don't be daft, Tarquin. You two grew up in the same town, anyway. So you're almost like brothers, in a way. My plan makes more sense than anything else you might have witnessed before."
"I will not listen to this madness!" Tarquin roared.
"Your niece raped me, Tarquin," Chris said. "If you'd read my exploits online you'd know that."
"I don't know how to use the internet!" Tarquin sobbed. "And reminding me of that particular inadequacy makes this officially the worst day ever!"
"That's right, it IS daytime! Or rather, dawn." God bathed Chris in holy light before the vampire could burst into flames, or whatever it is he's supposed to do. "Now you are my holy vampire warrior!" God declared.
"I feel great!" Chris said. "But I could really go for a pint...of real ale!"
God and Chris laughed. "You thought I was going to say 'blood', didn't you, God?"
"Yeah, I did!"
"Well I didn't!"
"I hate you both!" Tarquin flung himself melodramatically from the rooftop. "I would rather die than live in a world ruled by a God as ridiculous as you!" is what he planned to say, but his fear of heights kicked in as he plummeted towards the ground, and all he could say was "AAAIIIEEE!" even though, technically, the closer he got to the ground the less his fear of heights should have bothered him.
Both God and Chris flinched as Tarquin Farquar hit the pavement with a meaty splat. "Hmmm," God mused. "Tarquin always liked the theatre, and *I* always said one day he'd make an impact on Broadway."
"That would be pretty funny if we were in New York, rather than wherever-this-is," Chris said.
Both sighed at the thought of what might have been, and rode off into the sunrise, towards new and sexciting adventures.
Meanwhile, Tarquin woke up in Hell. "SATAN!" he shouted.
"What?" The Devil appeared in a purple and green dressing gown. "I was getting ready for bed. Who're you?"
"Tarquin Farquar. I used to be a monster hunter, but just now God double-crossed me, sort of, and I'm mad at him. So I committed suicide to meet you and make you a deal."
"I'm listening."
Tarquin marvelled at how Satan's voice sounded like Dick Van Dyke from Mary Poppins, but he didn't comment. Instead, he said, "Give me the powers of all the monsters I've killed and send me back up to Earth."
"Why should I do that?"
"God can't see any of the sexy demons up there, so if you give me their powers he won't be able to see me. Then, I can sneak up on him and KILL HIM!"
"Kill God?!" The Devil spluttered, spraying coffee everywhere. Oh yeah, when he first appeared he was also drinking coffee. Yeah, before bedtime!
"Do we have a deal?" Tarquin held a hand out.
"Why not?" Satan said, and shook Tarquin's hand. "This ought to be good for a giggle, cor blimey lord love a duck!"
THE END?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!???!?!?!?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!??????????????????????????????
UNLIKELY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!?????????????????????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?
Dedicated to the memories of Colin Hall-Williams, Sarah Hall-Williams, and Chris Heald. They're not dead, I just like thinking about them.
PART 2! That is to say, the next bit!
Tarquin Farquar could smell blood on the wind - he was a vampire hunter, and his nose was finely attuned to the smell of vampire trumps, because vampire trumps tended to smell like blood, because they drank a lot of blood, because they were vampires!
"Six years now have I been hunting these diabolical creatures," he mused to himself in a stern and badly-accented voice. Also, his sentence construction was a little weird. "Their rear exhalations make my nose burn, and my anger stir!" he declared in the exact same voice as he'd just used for that previous sentence. "When will it end, God? When will your holy crusade finally come to an end?"
"Not yet," God said. His voice always reminded Tarquin of Barry Manilow. "I made a terrible mistake putting over-sexed demons on the Earth, and I made an even terribler mistake putting those demons in sexy young bodies."
"But in your defence," Tarquin quickly interrupted, "you had no idea that, millions of years after you invented humans, some of them would get all funny in the pants about doing rude things with those sexy demons."
"That's true," God said. Although Tarquin couldn't see Him, he could easily imagine God stroking His beard thoughtfully. "Anyway," God continued, "I thought vampires might be a good way to keep ape men under control, by, you know, eating them. I should have just made more dinosaurs."
"Ape men and dinosaurs didn't exist at the same time, my Lord."
"Oh yes, that's right, they didn't."
"In fact, neither of them existed anyway, because you made Adam and Eve, and skipped right past all that other nonsense about an Ice Age and mammoths and all that."
"Very true. Sometimes I read books about them, and I think "they sound pretty cool; why didn't *I* think of that?'"
"What would your favourite dinosaur be?" Tarquin asked.
"Well, 't-rex' is the obvious answer, but in all honesty, I probably would have to say MechaGodzilla. All dinosaurs should be able to fire rockets."
"I wish I could fire rockets," Tarquin grumbled. "Anti-vampire rockets. From my fists."
"Patience, my friend," God intoned. "Your test comes from dealing with vampires with the gifts I gave you. That is, a finely-tuned nose and a deep, seething hatred towards ethnic minorities. Like most Christians."
Tarquin and God shared a chuckle at this obvious joke, although deep down they both knew they were laughing to cover the pain of miserable childhoods.
"I enjoy our talks, my Lord," Tarquin said, "but verily I must away, to do battle with the one they call 'Chris'."
"Oh yes, you've been hunting him for some time now, haven't you?"
"Ever since he exploded my niece, Sheila, I have been hunting him for some time now. Ever since he exploded her, in fact. That's how long I've been hunting him."
A beam of pure light shone over Tarquin, and God's dulcet tones said: "Good luck, Tarquin! I'm wishing you luck, and not in any kind of foreboding, ominous way, but because I genuinely like you and wish you luck in defeating the vampire called Chris, and maybe other vampires too, who knows? Not me! I don't know anything! Not really, anyway. I'm so out of touch with the world nowadays. I don't even know what an 'app' is, or why traffic wardens don't carry guns. Life is full of mysteries, and I, perhaps, am the greatest one. I sometimes wonder 'Who created me?' and then I start thinking back to my childhood, which wasn't very happy. And then I think, 'how could I have had a childhood if I don't have parents?' but maybe I was my own parents? So I must have had sex with myself, and that's a very disturbing thought. Oh golly, listen to me, this all a bit heavy for a pre-hunt pep talk. I'm sorry Tarquin. Tarquin?"
But Tarquin Farquar had already left on his perilous adventure. By the way, it was nighttime.
The moon was bright and plump, like a smart, fat girl at a school dance who's hopeful the star of the school football team will finally notice her. It's hard not to notice a fat girl, though, especially when she's squeezed into a corset and made to look like a fat girl's idea of a vixen. But much like the fat girl, the moon wouldn't stick around for long because it had a date with the horizon, whereas the fat girl didn't have a date with the horizon, but a noose in her grandparents' attic. She had no intention of hanging herself; she had a sick fixation on knots and liked to touch rope in dirty places, and the dirtiest place she knew was her grandparents' attic.
In any case, Tarquin knew he didn't have much time left to find Chris - every time he neared his quarry, his quarry didn't near him - he moved further away! His quarry, that is! Because his quarry was Chris, and Chris was...a vampire! But tonight...tonight he'd get him! "I'll get him, tonight!" Tarquin thought aloud (or: said). It was time to put his plan into action!
Tarquin opened his bumbag and withdrew a tightly-rolled tube of paper. He unfurled it to reveal an erotic poster of his niece, Sheila. Since her mother - Tarquin's sister - was a hopeless drunk, she had to earn money to pay bills, etc, and the easiest way was to pose for rude pictures, which then got blown up to A1 size so horny teenagers could put her on their wall. "I wish Chris hadn't blown you up," Tarquin sighed. His tears were held at bay by the sight of his niece's tits. If she'd not died, he could have stolen her away to his home country, where it was legal (and in fact, built in to the local law) for men to marry and sex up their nieces. Somewhere deep inside Tarquin, he knew this was his way of perpetuating the cycle of despair relevant to his family and bloodline, and that he was also technically an ethnic minority, so had God been laughing at him earlier...?
"TARQUIN FARQUAR!!!"
The vampire hunter started from his reverie - Chris had appeared, and even now floated in mid-air as if suspended by invisible wires or perhaps Hollywood CGI trickery. But this wasn't Hollywood, this was real life! The vampire wore a Terrorvision t-shirt, and appeared to have put on weight. But Tarquin had to secretly admit the monster looked good in a cloak.
"Vampire!" Tarquin shouted. "You have fallen into my trap!"
"I have't fallen anywhere," Chris said. "I'm flying, you idiot. And I didn't realise this was a poster, because my night-vision only picks up tits, whatever medium they may happen to be in."
"So you admit you were fooled by my decepticon!"
"Deception?"
"That as well!"
"Maybe. Also, I've secretly been following you because I heard you were trying to kill me, and wanted to see how dangerous you are. You've killed quite a few vampires, haven't you? And werewolves. And Creatures From The Black Lagoons."
"I'm working my way through the types of classic movie monsters, so that I am more relevant in this crazy world of high-tech pop culture references and gimmicks. No one wants to hear the exploits of a bog-standard vampire hunter. They want to know that he can also deal with other monsters!"
"Are you basing this assumption of a particular movie or book or something?" Chris asked, cautiously.
"Probably. Whatever, the time has come for you to say goodnight to the night, foul sexy demon! You have had sex with, and drank blood from, your last desperate housewife and/or emo teenager and/or fake goth!"
"I did just work my way through an entire college campus, followed by a book club. The ladies were reading Interview With a Vampire, which might have been funny if we were in 1995 or something, and people gave a shit about that sort of thing any more."
"Silence!" Tarquin roared, yet managed to modulate his voice so that he didn't say it in capital letters. "Eat stake, demon!"
"Would you believe I'm a vegetarian?" Chris said, and they both shared a final, jovial laugh. But the laughter only served to hide the fact that they'd both had miserable childhoods, and in fact grew up together, and in another fact, this revealed that what Chris had said in the previous instalment about being 317 years old, was in fact, a lie! He was only a bit older than Tarquin!
Tarquin, unaware of all of this, levelled his crossbow at Chris. "Let's see if you're faster than a speeding bullet!"
"That makes absolutely no sense in this context," Chris said.
POW! the crossbow said, in a voice like thunder!
Chris might have been able to fly away from the bolt by himself, but as it happens, he had help evading it - from GOD!
A beam of light sliced through the night sky and held the crossbow bolt in mid-air. "My Lord!" Tarquin shouted. "What are you playing at?!"
"I'm sorry for this decepticon," God said. "But I have to admit I was using you all along to find Chris. You see, I can't see vampires, and certain other demons like chatshow hosts, because the Devil has put his mark upon them. So, even though you didn't hear me wishing you luck earlier, I was being a little bit ironic, because I knew this twist was coming from the outset."
"I don't understand any of this," Tarquin and Chris said in eerie unison.
"The sun is on its way," God explained. "But I have no desire to destroy Chris. Instead, I figured out that if I bathe a vampire in holy light the moment the sun's rays hit one, they get converted into a good guy. Well, maybe not entirely good, but they'll be more liable to work for me to help me destroy the rest of the sexy monsters loose upon the world."
"But...but that's what *I* do!" Tarquin cried.
"Chris will keep all his vampire powers, so make a more effective hunter," God said. "You know, you two could work together. I bet that'd be pretty cool. And I might even be able to sell the rights to a television network."
"Never!" Tarquin screamed. "He killed my niece with sex! He is my enemy! And now, you, God, are my enemy, for forsaking me!"
"Don't be daft, Tarquin. You two grew up in the same town, anyway. So you're almost like brothers, in a way. My plan makes more sense than anything else you might have witnessed before."
"I will not listen to this madness!" Tarquin roared.
"Your niece raped me, Tarquin," Chris said. "If you'd read my exploits online you'd know that."
"I don't know how to use the internet!" Tarquin sobbed. "And reminding me of that particular inadequacy makes this officially the worst day ever!"
"That's right, it IS daytime! Or rather, dawn." God bathed Chris in holy light before the vampire could burst into flames, or whatever it is he's supposed to do. "Now you are my holy vampire warrior!" God declared.
"I feel great!" Chris said. "But I could really go for a pint...of real ale!"
God and Chris laughed. "You thought I was going to say 'blood', didn't you, God?"
"Yeah, I did!"
"Well I didn't!"
"I hate you both!" Tarquin flung himself melodramatically from the rooftop. "I would rather die than live in a world ruled by a God as ridiculous as you!" is what he planned to say, but his fear of heights kicked in as he plummeted towards the ground, and all he could say was "AAAIIIEEE!" even though, technically, the closer he got to the ground the less his fear of heights should have bothered him.
Both God and Chris flinched as Tarquin Farquar hit the pavement with a meaty splat. "Hmmm," God mused. "Tarquin always liked the theatre, and *I* always said one day he'd make an impact on Broadway."
"That would be pretty funny if we were in New York, rather than wherever-this-is," Chris said.
Both sighed at the thought of what might have been, and rode off into the sunrise, towards new and sexciting adventures.
Meanwhile, Tarquin woke up in Hell. "SATAN!" he shouted.
"What?" The Devil appeared in a purple and green dressing gown. "I was getting ready for bed. Who're you?"
"Tarquin Farquar. I used to be a monster hunter, but just now God double-crossed me, sort of, and I'm mad at him. So I committed suicide to meet you and make you a deal."
"I'm listening."
Tarquin marvelled at how Satan's voice sounded like Dick Van Dyke from Mary Poppins, but he didn't comment. Instead, he said, "Give me the powers of all the monsters I've killed and send me back up to Earth."
"Why should I do that?"
"God can't see any of the sexy demons up there, so if you give me their powers he won't be able to see me. Then, I can sneak up on him and KILL HIM!"
"Kill God?!" The Devil spluttered, spraying coffee everywhere. Oh yeah, when he first appeared he was also drinking coffee. Yeah, before bedtime!
"Do we have a deal?" Tarquin held a hand out.
"Why not?" Satan said, and shook Tarquin's hand. "This ought to be good for a giggle, cor blimey lord love a duck!"
THE END?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!???!?!?!?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!??????????????????????????????
UNLIKELY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!?????????????????????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?
Dedicated to the memories of Colin Hall-Williams, Sarah Hall-Williams, and Chris Heald. They're not dead, I just like thinking about them.
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