Ambition realised. Besttoplessbeach.com liked one of my posts on Twitter. Fuck the respect of my peers, a company designed to advertise the easiest place to get a seaside cheepie regards my comic about Theatre as Voyeurism worthy of a big love heart. Take that, those of you who think that criticism is a thankless task.
Lately, I've been off the meds... legally acquired, safe as the ones that they gave to Elvis and Judy Garland, just a little something to take the edge off your mood, sir... no, I don't think the panics you are manifesting are a natural response to experiencing hyper-accelerated consumerism, sir, just take one of these with your breakfast coffee and try to stay off the heroine. Yes, I know, it does make life bearable, Mr Vile.
Cut them out and wobbled for two weeks - entire nervous system snapping and glitching like an Autechre b-side for ten days but now I have my personality back.
And I remember why I took the medication. I have a nasty, spiteful streak that no amount of conspicuous consumption or mindful prayer can shift. Worse than Lady Macbeth's damn spot, a seam of hateful savage bile (that, if left unexpressed, wells up and explodes as an abscess in unmentionable places).
For a critic who has been trying to remember that he is writing about real people when he complains about a play... this is not welcome. It's like waking up with a dagger on the pillow and - oh God. Whose blood is this?
I'd give it all up, and make like Johnny Cash, dedicate my life to a Christian blog that preaches love for all and wearing black for those who have not heard the word: except... I find it all too amusing, those perky snarks at the guilty, the sharp tongue, the victimless insult.
"But isn't that the way of it?" you ask. "Isn't the critic meant to be nasty, a vigorous corrective to the vanity of the artist, a mean-spirited joker at the feast of art?" No.
It's not... only a lazy critic mistakes insult for examination. I've been lazy, I like to admit it, I've done my turn of playing the player and not the game, but regret it.
And the seam of bitterness...
I respect those who can be generous and weigh the if'n' butts...
But this seam of bitterness...
Tell both sides of the story, I implore ya...
But this seam of bitterness...
It's as much about me as it is about you...
But this seam of bitterness...
Cut.
Back to where I began. Today, I was congratulated. Somebody saw my Facebook post that said I was 'in a relationship'.
(Never mind that I was 'in a relationship' with a plastic train off Thomas the Tank Engine... you know, the Bollywood looking one. She does have a cheeky grin)
I also did a post that nailed the mimetic power of lap-dancing, lending it a meaning that conforms to the Aristotlean idea of performance and identifying a more aesthetic way to address the matter (thereby avoiding the blindly moralistic approach and opening up a question of social context against the typical 'othering' of strippers and punters that dominates the discussion).
Silly me, I thought they were congratulating me on that, not the assumption that I was about to ruin someone's life by hooking them to my fading star.
Not to mention that I was 'in a relationship' with a fictional train. Because I thought it was funny.
Or was it - well done: despite looking like an elderly Jean-Paul Sartre, and being an inveterate bore, you got a pump.
Although I didn't, because it was a train who does not exist, at least in the strict terms of the scientific paradigm of reality.
That's all, that's all. At least Besttoplessbeach.com loves me.
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