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Eight Hundred and Forty-Three

9 April 2001
George can't hear you.

It's nearly been a year now since we seven were briefed by the master clown - "Original writing for the net! Everything out there is just meta; I want new and shiny stuff". Fair do's. In that time we've covered nearly everything; clowns, flooding, fetishes, musicals, shopping, the next century, and CheetaraBritneyfucking. We've given up kilowords of glory, creative juice splurting out over the screen. We've lied through our teeth, getting emails from narked parties confused and just a little upset about our untruths about the towns that they live in. We are an "evil cartel of seven" who have brutally refused to give time and space to any other potential clowners. We have offended. Many of us are, or would like to be ginger.

All of the above is true. I am sick of the lies.

I suppose that I have weblog envy - the ability to air your feelings over the web at any time of day or night; to have a little "About Me" button with a cute description of yourself. To post photos of your family, friends, blogmeets. Until my financial status improves and I can buy up "www.littlescrubby.co.uk" such pleasures are denied to me. Instead my webspace consists of 1000 words of freeform writing every twenty-five days where I can be anything and anyone that I want to be. But my anonymity is wearing. I do get the occasional links and comments from my fellow clowns' blogs but only on a superficial level; it is known that I exist but anything else is at the discretion of the reader. In cyberspace I am faceless. Having now recognised this, I am devoting my clown to some truths about myself; not necessarily ego-massaging but enough to define my personality for those who care to know or imagine. This is all true.

I am 5'3". I hold dual nationality - British and Australian. I am one of the would-be gingers, and owe much of this to henna. As a consequence, the cream carpet in my dad's flat is now spotted with orange which will never come out. I, however, came out to my dad three and a half years ago, which all seemed to be OK. I was born in London, raised in the Midlands and have lived by the sea for the past six months. Seagulls are huge; I'd never realised how big and vicious the fuckers were until they started circling by my bedroom windows. I hate grey English weather as it makes me depressed. I am scared of daffodils - the trumpety bits of the flower look like some horrible mouth thing (made worse by the quivering stamen within) and it always seems like they were going to eat me. April is the cruellest month, entire fields full of the bastards all looking at me.

This is harder than I thought it would be. Not for me the luxury of brief comedy paragraphs about how awful work is or meeting up for drinks with other bloggers. No links to other sites; comedy pages about men who collect empty yoghurt-pots or extended essays on the nature of US environmental policy1. Not even an amusing drunken rant written at 2 a.m. after a heavy night out (I rely solely on sugar especially Reeses' Pieces and caffeine to get me through my writing and haven't written a drunken Clown yet). No, I have to hold the attention span of the readers2 for that full page of size-12 text with no space to hide. Some other clowns have the magic computer know-how to do exciting html links between their pieces and other pages, so that the reader can distract themselves for a few minutes with another site before returning to the Big Top. I have no knowledge of such trickery and must amuse, entertain and titillate with the sheer wonder and glory of my words alone.

I am writing this from my Midlands home town with a headfull of henna and some children's' books for distraction. I am recovering from a hangover. It is 8.10 pm. I've just spilt Caesar salad dressing on the computer keyboard which my parents will not thank me for. I am listening to my brother's CDs for inspiration. My brother is currently in Canada so he won't mind.

I'm going to wind this up now. I've nearly reached the requisite word count, plus the computer has crashed five times in the course of writing. I need to wash the henna off, eat, and watch Rory Bremner before I go to bed. I apologise for the tone of this clown; for those readers (not Readers) who were expecting a whimsical yet dark piece on child couture geniuses, wait until next time. For now I'm going to see about buying the Little Scrubby rights.

FOOTNOTES
 
1 [back]
Although www.explodingdog.com and "Playground Law" at www.disappointment.com are both excellent.
 
2 [back]
I was referred to as a Reader (with the implication of the capital in the pronunciation) by several webloggers. In the same context as "Breeder", "Muggle" and other outsider insults.

 

 
     
Previously on upsideclown

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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

Let meeeeee entertain you

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

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