Thursday 24 December 2009

Out With the Old

It’s a wonderful life, don’t get me wrong, but there can be no denying that it’s been a fusty old twat of a year. On the whole. If you don’t mind me saying. This is not a complaint, mind you. Heaven forfend. Just a mild and timely lament. End of the year. Looking back. Looking forward. All that.

I feel like it’s time for a change. You know? I’m bored with myself. I need a new direction and new things to occupy my time.

And what better time for embarking on a new direction than the beginning of a whole new decade? Sadly, however, it’s not as simple as that. Why are things never as simple as that?

The fact is, there are already some pretty exciting changes in the pipeline for the twenty-tens, but - alas - there are also already grumblings from concerned parties who don’t want me flapping my mandibles on the blog. Can you believe it? Can you believe I’m allowing other people to dictate what I choose to talk about? I find it difficult to believe. And monumentally frustrating. I just want to defy them. I want to follow my instincts, master my destiny, plough my own furrow and ride my own melt. But then I don’t want to fuck anything up. Or do I? Oh, it's so difficult to be sure.

One thing I do know for sure though, one way or the other there will be no more of this laborious doubletalk in 2010.

That's a promise.

Also, I’m pretty sure, 2010 is going to be smashing. Good years are like bald men – they skip a generation. 2008 was pretty great. 2009 was barely fine. 2010 will be great again. I feel it.

Last night I realised something quite shocking. I realised that I had drunk almost an entire litre of vodka in just two evenings. Alone. I consoled myself with the fact that I'd also gone through a bottle of Kahlua in the same time, but quickly and thankfully I realised that this was meagre consolation.



Things have definitely got to change.

2010.

My year.

You'll see.

Before we say goodbye for this year, however, I’d just like to share with you a couple of new year’s resolutions which I know I am destined to break almost before I have made them. But I want to make them anyway.

One, I resolve to stop reading film reviews on IMDb. This year I became a bit obsessed by them. Especially the bad ones. I would look up my favourite films and just read all the bad reviews. I'm not even sure why. Presumably I took some pleasure in the fury they gave rise to. On reflection, I don’t think that’s an enormously profitable way to spend one's time. Unless... unless I can make an unconscionably diverting quiz out of it all. Or even a marginally diverting quiz. Or even just a quiz, fuck it. Here it is.

THE 'GUESS THE FILM FROM THE IMDb REVIEW' CHRISTMAS QUIZ SPECTACULAR

Go!

1. 'I have no use for children porn and this is truly a disturbing film. The only remotely normal people are the Homosexuals who live next door. The three main family groups are all living on another planet. The acting is good but the story is a monument to the total meltdown of our culture.'

2. ‘I can't imagine how this could be more depressing. It has no forward momentum. It seems to lack the generous helping of wit that would push the material anywhere near the vicinity of "entertainment." Maybe you had to see it the moment it was released to have a fond recall of it. Maybe being a weed fiend would help. Maybe being British...’

3. ‘The performances here are lazy. The camera-work is not as good as Death Wish. Everything is sub par, including the awful soundtrack.’

4. ‘I mean the ending is so predictable and I guessed the ending of the movie since the beginning of the romance, breakup and welcome back and another (I will not mention the ending)... but you could have guessed.’

and

‘Now I am not one of those ignorami who hate movies made before 1970... While the work of [the leading actors] may have been good for it's time it is insufficient compared to todays advanced standards.’

5. ‘As a somewhat well read person, I thought this movie was a self indulgent poor imitation of a seinfeld episode.’

and

‘The movie crawls at a pace that would make operating heavy machinery while watching impossible’

6. ‘it is silly and immature and anyone who likes it must have the mind of a child. it is really stupid.please if your considering watching this please take caution.oh and if you were thinking of watching the other one please don't it is worse... the humor in it is just stupid i mean i see it on the screen and i just don't laugh it just not funny!!’

7. ‘None of the characters are likable or interesting and the whole experience is like someone being sick on your face.’

8. 'I watched this terribly long, boring, slow, bloody, gory, silly film several times. Why, or why was that so overestimated? What for? It has nothing, but too much blood, sex, more blood, more sex, child molesting, more blood, more child death, child sex, more blood, more slow talks, more long shots, more blood and more molesting. Raping, killing, talking, sex in a car, more fights, more sex... I am not a sick person. This film did make me feel sick. Why was it made?.'

9. 'I was expecting a COMEDY for crying out loud. And I'm just waiting for a funny moment to arrive. All those stupid gags and dumb jokes and situations are so bland and tedious to watch. It gets too repetitive and uninteresting. I don't know, maybe its a European or American thing but this is not my idea of a funny movie. And what more can I say...even the makers of the movie knew that the jokes were so not funny that all those cameos had to be used...and still, to no good result. My recommendation...If u want a comedy movie on rock n roll watch "School of Rock".

and

'This is really not a good movie. I looked on IMDB and saw this movie on the top 250 and thought for sure it was one of the signs of the apocolypse... Please, oh please don't tell me "you must not have a good sense of humor" either, cause I know at least 50 people that have only met me once or twice that could tell you otherwise.'

10. 'This movie made absolutely no sense to me (and I'm not a stupid person...IQ in the 140's) until just before it ended...meaning I just sat there for about 90 minutes wondering what I was watching. '

11. 'I came to this movie expecting smart satire and cinematic invention. The first 30 minutes of this film offended me on every level possible! It is grotesque and perverse and sophomoric. I can't remember hating a film more. I never had the stomach to finish this disaster of a film, which is ugly to the eyes and the soul.'

12. 'The boxing scenes are very amateur in execution, none of them have the shocking realism of Rocky IV... Rocky movies make you sit up and take notice. They move you. [This film] moved me, too. Right out of the cinema.
’

Answers here.

Now tell me that wasn't fun. (Don't actually tell me. Unless you're that particularly unpleasant and embittered troll who keeps bothering me. You can tell me. And I shall ignore you.)

Secondly. No more pornography. It’s really vile. What reminded me of its vileness was reading the unspeakably rank Rock Her World by Seymore Butts. Do you know that despite the vastness of that review, there were still heaps of other quotes which, for one reason or another, made me shake my head. I wanted to share them with you, but there was no space. So, as a special Christmas treat, a stocking-filler, I present them here, as The Seymore Butts Guide to Life & Love & Whatnot...

Butts on sincerity: ‘Let’s face it, in order to bed over six hundred women you’ve got to be willing to say or do anything it takes to achieve your goal – whether you really mean it or not.’

Butts on feminine hygiene: ‘If you or anyone else are dumping loads of sperm into your partner and she’s letting them ferment inside of her instead of rinsing out after each deposit, you can expect her pussy to smell like the inside of a peep show booth.’

Butts on cunnilingus: ‘Let’s be honest, some of you guys approach pussy like a starving Indian would a tandoori chicken.’

Butts on the apparent non-existence of women experienced in anal: ‘You will encounter two types of women: those who are open to the idea of anal sex but inexperienced, and women who seem to be closed to the idea.’

Butts on bars and clubs: ‘These are what I call “sexually charged social environments” – places that, when I’m in a relationship, I avoid like I would being raped by Shaquille O’Neal as he sang, “Tell me how my ass tastes!”’

Butts on rejection, horses: ‘Get back on your horse and start looking for another filly to saddle up.’

Butts on successfully bribing a bouncer and getting into a night club ahead of a queue with a woman: ‘The next sound you hear should be that distinctive squish coming from between your date’s legs as she becomes turned on by your ability to take charge and get things handled.’

Butts on the embarrassment of being a woman: ‘Most of the potentially embarrassing situations that can and do happen during sex happen to women.’

Butts on Holly: ‘We might not have made it to the restaurant but that didn’t stop her from ordering up some stuffed sphincter with a side of ass à la mode or either of us from eating plenty of brown-eye pie. For our final course, it was hot loads of sweet cream in Holly’s hot buns as she screamed with delight.’

Butts on butter: ‘We wrapped after both girls lovingly snowballed Steven’s nut butter.’

Butts on the dangers of spicing things up: ‘No joke, you can very easily kill your partner by choking her. Don’t try telling me you know what you’re doing either; that’s what hundreds of guys say every year before they accidentally kill the women they are having sex with.’

And finally, Butts on life: ‘The proof is in the pudding.’

No, Butts. No, it isn’t.

So yes. That's that. Done with porn. It’s dirty. From now on, I shall devote myself to the works of Ellen von Unwerth. Thanks to the delightful piece of adorable that is ScruffyPanther, I came across Von Unwerth's photos only last week. (No porn intended.) And they're wicked.





Woof.

Thirdly - actually no. That's it.

Now I am out of here till Twenty-Ten, which sounds so far in the future as to be just silly. Will there be hover boards? Yes. Yes, there will. In the meantime, and for most of the rest of the decade, I'm back up here in the frozen North, where even skate boards still bring forth oohs and aahs of confused awe. I should be back in time to finish my vodka on New Year's Eve.

2010.

My year.

What about you? Anything special planned for the next decade?



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24 comments:

Droopy said...

Those couples photos are amazing. I've seen a few of them before, but the whole set is just brilliant.

La Bête said...

Innit? I know. I particularly enjoyed the inclusion of Monica Bellucci's breasts.

Droopy said...

Those two are ALWAYS a welcome addition to any group of photographs, or, indeed to any blog entry.

SOPHIE said...

Firstly - thanks for sharing Ellen Von Unwerth, her photographs are amazing. Woof indeed!

Secondly - up until this morning I thought I might be the only person that read bad reviews on IMDB (then got angry) as some form of strange entertainment. Apparently not! Har.

Merry stuff and all that. x

nondisbeliever said...

I got Raging Bull and Spinal Tap, and had a feeling about the Withnail one, but apart from that they're just so horrendously generically awful that I couldn't tell.

As for 2010, I'm aiming to get back on track, career-wise. I was hoping to be settled into a career by the time I hit 30, but given that my birthday is a week after the New Year, I now somehow doubt that'll happen.

Still, I share your optimism about the coming year. I'm done feeling sorry for myself and helpless about the direction of my life. 2009 has been a crap year, but lessons have been learned and I've nothing but excitement about 2010.

Antipo Déesse said...

Hippy Crassmas to you Stan. I shall raise my champagne glass to your good health and look forward to some more of your writing.

Anonymous said...

The Von Unwerth collection is beautiful; the reviews are not. I've seen most of those movies and couldn't relate to ANY of those reviews - especially the one of American Beauty, which I loved.

And about the porn: sex is often more tender than what you see portrayed in porn. But I don't need to tell you that. Maybe going cold turkey is no bad thing.

I hope 2010 brings you lots of tender, hot, loving sex and much happiness. You deserve it. And thanks for making my 2009 a bit more bearable with such a beautifully written, entertaining, thought-provoking and hilarious blog.

A Twitter friend. Happy New Year

Anonymous said...

May I just say Stan that the highlight of my year was reading your most excellent book. I laughed, I cried, I dyed (my jeans).

Anonymous said...

I won't be sorry to see the back of 2009 either. Here's to 2010 and flapping mandibles.

Hope you're well. If I don't drunkenly stumble into you later on Google Chat, have a very merry one.

x

the fly in the web said...

Goodness...the only reason you're not flapping your mandibles is because you see money in the offing.
Nothing against money, or you getting some, but less hypocrisy, please.
Too coy by half.

La Bête said...

Hey, Sophie. Excellent. I kind of assumed I was the only one never to have heard of her. I'm glad to pass her on.

Hey, Nondisbeliever. If you like, we can share 2010. It can be your year too. Here's to it.

AD, same to you. Thanks for your many kindnesses this year too. You're a brick. x

Thanks, ATF. I hope 2010 brings you all you wish for me. x

Anonymous, that is a very sweet thing to say, although obviously I can't believe you. Bless you for saying it though. Bless you.

NK, if you like, you too can have a share in this coming year. Do you want in? Go on, it's yours.

Fly in the Web. Oh, what an unpleasant thing to say. As it happens, you're completely wrong - it has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with money. But I forgive you. Do have a super Christmas.

Anonymous said...

Hey, I guessed Withnail and I right!

WTF? I LOVED Donnie Darko!

Wizard of oz? Sick on face? WHAT???!!

Maria in Oregon

Luka said...

Unmoved by the couples photography thing - all a bit crap perfume advert, aren't they? All that lipstick and skeleton on show. They all need a pie.

That's by the by though, I just stopped by to wish you all the best for the year ahead and to say I just loved your Seymour Butts book review.

Jake Barnes said...

Hi BdJ, I only guessed Spinal Tap. Not really read IMDB reviews before, but 1-star Amazon reviews often prove to be just as entertaining.

I bought your book several months ago, but only got round to opening it this Christmas. About half way through and enjoying it immensely. Merry Christmas and I hope 2010 brings even more success on the writing front. And the romantic front.

Beleaguered Squirrel said...

What a fun quiz! It took me a stupidly long route to remember the name of number one. All I could remember was that some bloke who I thought might have been called Kevin was probably in it. To find out maybe-Kevin's name I had to think what else I'd seen him in, which wasn't much use cos it was another film whose name I couldn't remember, but then "Kaiser Soze" came into my head so I googled that, arrived at The Usual Suspects, googled that to get Kevin Spacey, then googled Kevin Spacey and finally arrived at American Beauty.

And when I looked at the answers I felt super-clever cos I'd also got Withnail and I correct, but after that the only other one I got was Spinal Tap. Which of course was well worth relating cos you are all fascinated. Aren't you? Oh.

My next decade... Um... well... as usual I'm wishing my children's lives away and dreaming of how my own will be when they're old enough to stop bothering me and start leaving me in peace to read a book in a corner at this time of year. That should happen some time this decade. And I'll get a new job in my new career. And maybe write another book. Maybe not. Maybe I don't want to anyway. Maybe writing books is a mug's game. Fuck knows.

What am I, clairvoyant?

Pah.

Anonymous said...

LOL at your Seymour Butts stuff, it's hilarious!!

However, I know of a sex writer who's much, much worse.

Now, I hesitate to recommend this horrible thing to you, because it's quite a bit like introducing some unsuspecting soul to the delights of crack cocaine.

But I've found a guy who makes that silver-tongued cavalier Mr Butts look like one of the most charming knights at the Court of King Arthur.

As you'll see, the below cut-and-pastey-thing links to my own description of it, so you can decide for yourself if you want to dip your toe into its dark and murky waters.

Be warned, though, it's not for the faint hearted...

http://thenewadventuresofjuliette.blogspot.com/2009/08/haters-of-roissy-3-bad-obsession.html

J x

La Bête said...

I know, Maria, I know. What can you do though, eh? What can you do?

Hi, Luka. Mmmm, pie. All the best to you too.

Cheers, Jake. Very glad you’re enjoying the book and I hope 2010 brings you a massive amount of joy. Massive.

Hey, BS. Thanks for that. Here’s to the freedom of the twenties.

Juliette. Hello. I’d never heard of that guy. He’s interesting. The first thing that occurred to me is that he’s actually intelligent – which is to say, that he can write well and persuasively – so he’s already in a very different league to Butts. Which is not to say he isn’t Satan. Anyway, too much to say here. I’ll email you. Cheers.

CCB said...

I'll be trying hard to regain my health in 2010 - not what I would have originally planned but 2009 has been literally the worst year of my life so it's down to me to change it because I've not had much help so far... so when Big Ben chimes the New Year in I'll be sat there ruminating on the bad things of this year... and you know, I'll be thinking of you... hee hee.

La Bête said...

CCB, hello. And blimey. Don’t ruminate too hard, will you? Happy new year. Best of luck.

Anonymous said...

I am going to have a very large mid life crisis. Best way to start a new decade, I reckon. I hope life continues to suprise, delight and infuriate you. Write it out x

'aveagudun.

Ann Anon

Doc said...

No further than the third paragraph and I feel the need to bitch...

I honestly don't understand something. You say it's not as simple as all that, yet here you are, the man who just a few years ago decided to completely change his life, and to do it publicly, and WHOA--a book deal, several new friends and what appear to be a few half-decent lays later, you say it's not easy? OK, maybe not, but if there is anyone out there who can set his mind to something and achieve it, YOU are that man!

And FFS what an awesome level of fun we'll have reading about it!

Best wishes for 2010, mon cher Bête, and please, find your way to France. You have a rather large fan following here and we all want autographs.

clumpf said...

'ere bete, completely off topic, but how's your granny?

clumpf x

La Bête said...

AA, hello. Good luck with the crisis, but do make sure it’s not just a drama. Either way, write it down. It’s good therapy. Bonne Année, Ann Anon.

Doc! Half-decent lays, madam? Half-decent lays?! I am pleased I have a rather large fan and I hope that you will find an awesome amount of fun in 2010. I’m sure I’ll be in France some day. I’ll bring a pen.

‘Ey up, Clumpf. Grandmother is well, thank you, although in so much pain that she says she’s thinking twice about having the other foot done in the summer. She might reconsider when the foot heals and feels better than it has for years. I hope you had a suitably festive season. Farewell!

clumpf said...

Oh bless your grandmother, it's no fun getting old is it? I'm sure you're looking after her marvellously.

Christmas was fantastic - we went to the very end of Cornwall in a cottage with no-one around. NO-ONE. It was perfect.

We flew back and the only disconcerting thing was that there was a slight delay as we were sitting on the runway waiting for take off.

The crew then announced over the tannoy that they couldn't close the back door of the plane. So they were all booting it - even the pilot came out to have a go.

Made it more fun I guess.