random | Theycallmejack's Finest Hour

June 22, 2013

Your smile is like a breath of spring, your voice is soft like summer rain.

2 months later and I’m back.

Where have I been? Lots of place. I’ve just moved back home from university and I’ve been caught in a bit of whirlwind of seeing my boyfriend, and sorting out stuff for my house next year, and hayfever induced hour-long showers. It’s been a great deal of fun. Minus the last point.

This isn’t me. Don’t know why you’d go out in the middle of a field like this with hayfever. Foolish move there.

Also, big issue to consider as to where I’ve been is that on the 14th of June, Animal Crossing: New Leaf was released (blog about that coming VERY soon), three years after it had previously been announced. All I’ll say is that Animal Crossing is one of my favourite video game series of all time and three years has been a very long time to wait. So that’s happened.

If you haven’t got this game yet, you’re seriously missing out.

But, why, dear readers, have I chosen now to return to your lives? Like Jesus appearing from a cave of… did the cave have a name? I… I don’t care. Heavens, a gay guy just compared himself to Jesus. All across America’s Bible belt, idiots are punching the air. What ever shall we do. Well, let me be smitten if the big man is offended! No offence intended, sir, just a harmless metaphor!

Anyway, to answer the question which started that long, and debatably blasphemous paragraph, I am back on WordPress for the simple reason that I have just thought of something which seems too long to write one of my infamously hilarious tweets about, and too dry to get enough likes on Facebook to feed my ego. A subject, if you will, that is perfect for a blog.

Ya gots to love that 140 character limit!

I am going to be talking about the prickly subject of men writing about women. As a writer myself, it’s an issue that I will no doubt have to confront at some stage and late at night on the twenty second of June, 2013 seems as good a time as any.

Let me start by saying that I don’t identify as a feminist. I believe in equality for everyone, but those hardcore feminists who would take every joke as an anti-women slur put me off. I suppose that believing in equality for all kind of makes me a feminist. But if I was to start identifying as a feminist, then I’d probably also have to start calling myself a gay rights activist, and an anti-racist and a big pile of political correctness. Which maybe I am. But I can take a joke. Which political correctness doesn’t ever seem capable of.

IT’S POLITICAL CORRECTNESS GONE MAD!!!!! Sorry… I had to get that in somewhere.

And now that that tangent has bubbled away, let’s talk about the matter in hand. How do male writers write female characters? I do try to read up on interviews with talented, well-respected writers as much as I can. You never know when you’ll get a handy hint! The subject of men writing women (I was gonna say ‘men on women’ then, but that put disgusting thoughts in my head and made me a bit queasy) comes up quite a lot, and there’s a lot of conflicting opinions out there.

Y’all know how much ol’ Jack loves a good list (’twas not always so, feel free to check past blogs when I claimed time and again ‘I hate lists!’ (What you may not know is that I have always loved lists (I feel they are very organized) but I do also love Doctor Who and in one episode (The Waters of Mars) The Doctor noted how much he hated lists, and lo and behold, so did I!))* so let’s go through a big-ass list of things that men should or maybe shouldn’t avoid doing when writing about women.

Forgot how awesome Daphne was. Fred’s still my favourite though.

DON’T MAKE HER THE DAMSEL IN DISTRESS/DON’T MAKE HER THE HEROIC SAVIOUR EITHER: Ok, so it’s kind of taken for granted that it’s inherently sexist to cast women in the role of ‘damsel in distress’. Yes, we all loved Daphne in Scooby Doo, but those days, like the days of teenagers driving around in VW Minivans and solving mysteries are long gone. Women kick butt, let’s be honest. Look at female politicians. They give their male counterparts what for every day of the bloody week. Also, as I was told back in my karate days, what ladies lack in physical strength, they make up in speed and flexibility, so really casting female characters as damsels in distress is just basically factually unstable. On the other hand though, apparently, according to an interview I read a while back, turning the tables and giving the traditionally male part to a female character is equally as bad. Apparently it’s seen as a very weak writing technique, designed only to showcase how politically correct the writer is, with minimal character development necessary. So what is the answer to this mystery? Well, ummm… I guess you can kind of allow women to be in distress sometimes, but don’t have them give up and wait for a man to come rescue them! Or maybe switch up the roles as the plot demands it, rather than based on the gender of your characters. Let the women do the rescuing AND let the men do the rescuing. Give everyone a turn. That’s what equality is all about!
Yeah, I love the Fable series too. AND I enjoyed Fable 3. So, yeah. Deal with THAT.
WRITE IN A NON-GENDER SPECIFIC WAY/DON’T YOU DARE WRITE HER AS A MAN THEN CHANGE THE NAME!!: Kind of similar to the last point in many ways. You can see the benefits of writing a character as whatever gender comes into your head, and then deciding that character’s gender later, it avoids anyone being sexist, but then equally it’s just a weak, lazy technique. The fact of the matter is that men and women are fundamentally different. They talk in different ways, about different subjects, with different people. Ever heard the phrase ‘men are from Mars, women are from Venus’? Well, so far science is yet to get a conclusive answer as to whether that’s true, but it’s certainly true that men and women think differently. That’s basic biology. So to write a non-gender specific character is not only lazy, but just not possible. Even most sexually androgynous people identify as one or the other. So there’s that mystery solved. Write female parts as women and write male parts as men. There’ll be a bit of overlap, no doubt, but it certainly doesn’t mean that the two should be handled in the same way. Otherwise we’re never get the Olympic rings. It’d just be one big fat ass circle. Probably not even multi-coloured either because marketing wouldn’t likely see the point in paying for all the different colours.
Obviously SOMEONE never read ‘The Picture of Dorian Grey’.
HAVE TWO WOMEN ALONE IN A ROOM DISCUSSING THINGS OTHER THAN MEN: I read an interview on BBC Writers Room that said this was a gauge of how much you can consider a work to have represented women well or not. If you have a few scenes of women talking about stuff other than men, then apparently you’ve got yourself a cheeky little feminist work on your hands. Except if that’s the case then Jane Austen was frightfully anti-men since her novels never once contain a scene of two men talking without there being a woman in the room. How can men be expected to write a believable dialogue between two women alone in the room when they don’t, and probably never will experience that situation? Not only that, but the whole ‘they shouldn’t talk about men’ thing doesn’t really work either. As the sassy gay best friend to a whole host of people of varying genders I have experienced both ‘man talk’ and ‘girl talk’, and both always seem to end up talking about the other anyway.
According to Google, this is what women talk about when men aren’t around…
DON’T WRITE HER AS ‘HARPIE’ OR A ‘PRIZE’: I got this one off a blog by a person called ‘Amy Suto’ about men writing women (you can check it out here, some good advice, some less so: http://amysuto.com/2013/02/for-men-how-to-write-female-characters/) Amy says that women shouldn’t be put on a pedestal or be evil just because they’re women. Which is fair enough. But then, it’s all about angles, ain’t it? A woman in her personal life, might not be put on a pedestal, but if you view the same woman through the lense of, say, a man who has an enormous crush on her, then of course she’ll seem to be on a pedestal. Equally, if a woman is seen as an evil bitch-cow by, for example, her ex-husband then of course she’s gonna be portrayed as a total harpy. I think the trick is knowing your angles and sticking to them. Everyone has shades of grey, and you need to show those shades of grey, even if only slightly, but obviously you’ll show them less from some angles and more from others. Like the dark side of the moon. (Weird simile. Ignore me, it’s late.)
Could have given you a picture of a harpy, but harpies are mean. So have a picture of a Rito from The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker instead!

And just like that, my train of thought is tired. The fever of hay is making my eyes itch. Dunno why, it’s quarter to three, those plants can’t still be pollinating can they?! I’m gonna end it here.

I have to be honest, I haven’t reached a satisfying conclusion of how to write female characters, because as a man, I lack the in depth knowledge of the female psyche necessary. However, one lesson I have learned is that to write well, you have to be prepared to give parts of yourself away, and that includes parts of the people you know. Perhaps the best way to learn how to write female characters is to base them on real women, to stop trying to prove how feminist you are or to stop having those childish fantasies about women (not like that, sit down ya filthy hetros!) and just write real women who you really know.

Do you have any handy hints on female characters? Or any ideas on writing characters in general? Or tips for writing in general? What are your least favourite literary tropes on character portrayal? I’m always looking for nuggets of literary gold so if you’ve got one, throw me a comment!

As ever, it’s been a pleasure!

Jack out.

PS. You may be wondering why I chose a lyric from Dolly Parton’s ‘Jolene’ for this blog’s title. Because I could, as simple as that. If you take issue with that, pull yourself together.

*(By the way, did you like how many brackets in brackets I put in there? Just to be a cheeky little minx!)

4 Comments

April 16, 2013

Stripped to the waist, we fall into the river.

I’m back! And for the first time in ages I’m doing a purposeless blog.

Yes, yes, my last few blogs have been filled chock full with my views about important things that probably matter to someone somewhere. But, I was thinking last night, every blog in the world is about big important things! And as everyone knows; no one listens to bloggers blogging about big important things. So, I thought to myself, let’s redress the balance a little bit and make my blog a little more about me for a change! In my efforts to come up with a Jack-blog, I thought I’d just compile a list of my thoughts which are slightly too long to summarize into 140 characters, but are slightly too short to write a blog about.

Oh, and as for the title, A) I have wanted to use it for a while. B) Consider yourself falling into the river of madness that is my mind.

Me and my friend Katie were talking about the Westboro Baptist Church on Twitter. What a bunch of loonies. You know they’re picketing the funerals of the people who were killed in the Boston bombings? Why? Ummm… well really that’s anyone’s guess. Katie told me it was because they believe it was divine intervention that set the bombs off as punishment for the United States being accepting of gay people. How and why that explains their decision to picket these funerals I don’t know, but there you are. I suggested that instead of going to Iraq to drop some bombs, Obama should drop a couple on the Westboro Baptist Church. Katie suggested that bombs should be done away with and the WBC should be chained down and forced to watch gay porn until they die. Either way, it’s a problem that needs solving. How can America be so against religious extremism and then continue to let these idiots go on preaching hellfire and damnation?!
In lighter news, I am currently writing an essay about the role of personality in writing. Now, I don’t think writing 1500 words on that subject would be particularly difficult. I may even attempt it in a blog at a later date. No, the difficulty comes from having to refer to Virginia Woolf, Bertholt Brecht, Kazuo Ishiguro, Dwight Macdonald and various other writers in my answer. Frankly, I don’t give a damn what they think is the role of personality in writing. They all wrote these essays which I am going to include in my essay, and they weren’t having to reference all the people who informed their ideas. They just wrote what they thought. What a joke. The title of the module is ‘Why Write?’ well you know what? Who gives a crap why people write?! People do write. That is a fact. Who gives a rat’s ass as to why they write. We should probably just be assessing what they write and what writing means. Ridiculous. I don’t see how it helps my writing to know all about Fredric Jameson’s views on ‘The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism’.
I am ridiculously excited for the Great Gatsby film. Like, you have no idea. When that movie comes out, I will be in the cinema literally every night until it closes. Oh, and they released the Lookbook for it yesterday. If anyone ever needs to buy a present for me then some Gatsby bowties would go down extremely nicely.
Speaking of bowties. I was in Topman the other week. Yeah I know. Let’s not even get into how much I loathe that store and all the cheaply made, single use, trashion it pedals. Anywho! Something struck my eye in Topman. It was a bowtie. Obviously because it was in Topman it was a bowtie so heinous that even I wouldn’t wear it. But no, on the packaging the words ‘Bow ties are cool’ were emblazoned. Now, some of you may know that line. First spoken by the Doctor as played by Matt Smith, later spoken by me, but the fact is that there is no way Topman should be allowed to use that line. Topman wankers (shoppers) have been making life hell for people who like Doctor Who since 2005. They aren’t allowed to use that. Topman can fuck off.
I’m going to join a gym. In the beginning it seemed like liking Facebook pages full of sexy underwear models would be a brilliant idea. But now I have a ridiculous inferiority complex.
I want to be all over these like butter on toast.
I’m sick and tired of Twitter and Facebook constantly suggesting that I like/follow ‘Super Gay Magazine’, ‘Pick up men’, ‘Suck some big dicks’ etc. Just because I like to smoke a bit of sausage every now and then doesn’t mean I’m a massive gay slutbag. I have a boyfriend. We’ve been together for two and a half years. I just not the target audience for these website. But I tweet the word ‘gay’ one time and suddenly I’m considered so flaming I could be seen from space. It’s very annoying.
Not gonna post more slutty photos. Here is a sausage. The curvature amuses me for reasons I won’t get into.
I need to stop using internet slang to be ironic. #YOLO started as a joke, and now it has become part of conversational speech for me. Also, I need to stop hashtagging real life.
I’ve developed an unhealthy fan boy crush on Jon-Paul Bell. He was in a TV show last week and was on the cover of GayTimes last month and I’ve become obsessed. He’s pretty sexy to be fair.
I can’t decide which of the Jurassic Park trilogy is the best. It’s somewhere between the original and The Lost World. But I just can’t decide. The original has John Hammond at his best, but the sequel has the the Goldblum and I thought the plot was a little better. Plus the second one has all more dinosaurs… I’m torn. What do you think? Does anyone in the world actually prefer the third one?
Striking horror into children since 1996.
I’m running out of things to say.

Jack out.

1 Comment

February 6, 2012

What makes you so damn sure that you’re perfect, huh?

So I was pondering this subject on the bus, and I thought I’d write a blog about it.

This is one of those fairly generic blog posts where I’m not going to bother talking about anything interesting or relevant, and instead I’m going to wile away my time discussing my thoughts on this particular subject in a rambling, incoherent manner. There’s your warning.

I’ve been considering people. People who are just brilliant. In my opinion, most people are brilliant, but there’s those few who are extra specially brilliant. I’m talking about those people who seemed to be graced with every available natural positive trait.

You know who I mean, the people who look a little something like this:

That person you know who’s just effortlessly good at everything. You know that one person. Who’s just flippin’ sexy, looks really good even if they’re just wearing scruffy stuff, seems to be inexplicably talented at EVERYTHING, and also seems to be more popular than sliced bread. That person. That bloody irritating chap/chappette who always seems to pop up and ruin your vague attempts at self-esteem.

See, I bet, if I got that exact outfit that the guy from the picture is wearing, made that exact same gesture, in that exact same place, I wouldn’t look as good. Because he’s just one of ‘those guys’, who’s always gonna be just brilliant. Gah. How irritating.

The worst thing about these super beings is that most of the time, they have no idea that they’re making everyone else feel so completely inadequate in comparison. And those who are aware of how generally great they are are always complete tools about the situation, dragging them down to the level of normal people who are just not as great.

Maybe that’s the point; its all just a coincidence, and a random set of genes which come together to produce such a person, and you’re not supposed to compare yourself to them. But, seriously, I don’t think if you looked right the way across the world you’d ever find a single person who wasn’t envious at least once of the natural graces of another person…

The whole thing depresses me somewhat.

But hey! There’s more to this blog than some kind of endless mope about how inferior I feel to those handsome devils! After all, that’s why I’ve been writing this whole thing in a somewhat satirical fashion. Because y’know what’s really brilliant about people?

Everyone is different.

So yeah, I find that guy whose picture I posted really attractive. And I bet there’s probably lots of other people who do too. But some people will thing he’s hideous. So even if I think he looks like he’s one of them ‘superior beings’, he probably has people who he thinks the same of. Because nobody is perfect to everybody.

I could sit here all evening and moan about how hideous I feel when I’m around those people; how I don’t look as good in clothes, how I can’t do all the things they can do, how I’m often a socially awkward lil critter, how people don’t like me as much as them, but here’s the point:

I was talking to Mat about some guy from college who is one of those people. And my boyfriend stopped me and said ‘he’s got nothing on you, whatever he does he’ll never be as perfect as you’.

As shit as I can feel about myself sometimes, I can’t deny that I’m loved. There’s at least one person out there who believes that I’m the pinnacle of ‘that guy’ness. Which is brilliant. And I’m pretty confident that for every single that person out there, there’s someone to think you’re the perfect one.

And that’s what makes me so damn sure that I’m perfect.

Jack out.

1 Comment

January 4, 2012

Its all about the exposure, the lens, I told her.

Hello, long time no blog.

Nearly a month of not blogging. I got all busy with Christmas stuff and Twitter and bowties and it all got a bit… confusing. And on top of that, I didn’t have much to discuss. Usually I do a bit of an end of year blog on here, but really, this year, with college and such, I’ve only really blogged about major events anyway, so most of what I’d say has already been documented…

2011 started crap, then got good, then really good, before sinking to crushingly terrible, before steadily climbing up and up and up, and then, having a bit of a shortfall over Christmas. I think that one sentence sums up my entire year. Made a few new friends, lost a few old friends; college drama – the usual.

Christmas itself was rubbish. I went away to Yorkshire with the family. Annoying doesn’t even begin to cover it. But when I got home on the 27th, things rapidly took a turn for the better with Mat, various parties, and other good shinanigans! And since then, things have been brilliant!

Anyway, so here’s something I was thinking about today in Ancient History. I’m sitting in my bedroom on my laptop writing a blog, and then its gonna get beamed through space and wires and stuff, and it’ll end up in a warehouse in a server somewhere. I don’t even know where WordPress’ servers are… but what if, in two and a half thousand years, someone finds that server, and then this very blog is the subject of conversation for some scholarly chaps somewhere, like those diaries they find from Ancient Romans. Slim chance I know, and very little for scholarly debate over, but its an odd thought… if anyone in the future does read this; hi!

Here’s another thought from me; friendship. Its so confusing. Especially at my age. Aristotle reckoned there were 3 kinds of friendship:

Friendship for utility – Being friends with someone because its mutually useful.
Friendship for pleasure – Being friends with someone because you enjoy someone for having the same interests as you etc.
Friendship for friendship’s sake – Thought to be the strongest type of friendship because its loving someone for who they are, not for any reason other than that.

I read about those a while ago, and I’ve been thinking about them a lot lately because of various reshufflings in the state of my friendship groups.

Near as I can tell, a lot of people at college are friends simply for political reasons; if one person is particularly popular then it makes sense to stay close with them as you become popular by association, and falling out with that person, even if they are particularly nasty and you can clearly see this, is something which must be avoided at all costs. Also, the way people are ‘civil’ to those they dislike is part of the same family; a lot of people I know take this approach with their social lives, and frankly, I’ve never understood it… I don’t see why it benefits anyone to act as if you’re friends with someone when actually both you and they know that you don’t like them. I suppose maybe people don’t want to be seen to be unreasonable or bitchy for disliking the people they dislike? I certainly don’t think I’m above behaving like this, and I don’t think I can think of a single person who doesn’t behave in much the same way…

Then friendship for pleasure. I don’t think I have any friends who are my friends only because I share mutual interests with them, because mostly, I like being able to talk about loads of stuff with my mates, rather than just one or two specific subject areas.

The last one is the one I like most. I think me and Aristotle have something in common with thinking thats the strongest kind of friendship. If I really think hard about it, probably only a handful of my friends fall into that last category. I know without even having to think about it which those people are.

And another thing you need to take into account is random chance. Of course it isn’t actually random, but it seems random sometimes… like, one day everyone is disliking one person, and then someone thinks about it and they decide to forgive this one person on a whim, and if you don’t keep up with that rapid change in liking/disliking, then you can end up on the recieving end of the distaste which was once being heaped at another person… and then linked into that is friendship loyalty, if your friend hates someone then more than likely you’ll come to have that view as well. Confusing times.

The problem is that the word ‘friend’ is so ill-defined. I’m pretty sure that no one would ever say that a ‘Facebook friend’ is the same as a ‘real life friend’. What even constitutes a friend? My Gran says that she hates most of her ‘friends’, and yet you see people who claim to ‘love’ all of their friends, do Facebook friends count in that? And then what about people who claim to be friends, and then spend such a lot of time bitching about someone behind their back, and are as nice as pie to their faces?!

I suppose, at my age, when at college and surrounded by loads of different people everyday ‘friendship’ is easier to come by, all in all though, I think its mainly a case of sorting the wheat from the chaff and then you can grow up and fly away from the chaff and take the wheat with you. And then make some bread with it. Don’t bake your friends though… or eat them… or put them out for the birds…

Well I think I’ve got that knot of disjointed and complicated thoughts out of my head for the time being, so I’ll draw this to a close here… And before I go, here’s a picture highlighting how unusual and bizarre friendship can be…

What are everyone elses thoughts on the subject?

Jack out.

1 Comment

July 17, 2011

I didn’t mean to make you cry, I’m not sorry, no I’m not sorry.

I really don’t know what I’m gonna do a blog about today…

But still, a picture of a funny monkey (technically an ape) is worth something eh? I like monkeys/apes! I think they’re pretty cool animals! They’re funny because they’re so like humans, but so different at the same time! Yeah, primates are one cool group of animals!

Back to the blog, I did go to see Harry Potter last night! Mat took me because he couldn’t make it out on Friday night! He needn’t have taken me out to the cinema and paid for me and got us premier seats or anything, but it just proves what a lovely guy he is I guess! I feel so lucky to have him! He’s so sweet! He picked me up from work as well, even though I was like 20 minutes late coming out! AND he held my bag when I did a mid-street, mid-walk costume change out of my work outfit! What a great guy! I love my Mat! 🙂

Oh and Harry Potter was good too! Very good! End of an era, and it went out with a bang!! I was glad that they didn’t build up the battle scenes so much that they became hollow, even the most dramatic, action packed scenes were filled with emotion, power, and resonance! Overall, a great film, I’d thoroughly recommend it, though I would encourage watching the film 7 movies first if you haven’t already seen them…

Also, I’d recommend that you all watch Torchwood: Miracle Day, and catch up on it if you’ve missed the first (and second if you live in America) episode if you haven’t seen it yet! That’s another brilliantly produced, written, and acted thing!

Hmmmm… not quite sure what else to blog about… let’s have a look at the random lyric I picked out for the title… hmmm… that is actually a pretty fitting lyric for my life… I mean, the people that know me know I don’t take shit. I don’t dick around with… well, anything really. Telling it how it is is something of a speciality for me. I don’t mean to upset people when I tell them the truth. But whether I do or not, I won’t take it back if its the truth. Perhaps I should feel bad, but I don’t. If there’s one thing that can be said for me, its that I’m not two faced. I’ll say to people’s faces exactly what I say behind their back! So yeah, there’s a summary of why that song lyric is a good fit for me…

Mat has a spoon on his nose on Skype… just thought I’d let you guys know…

Anyway, at the risk of going on and having nothing to say, I’m gonna be off now…

Jack out.

1 Comment

March 1, 2011

Ever since puberty, everybody stares at me, boys, girls, I can’t help it baby!

My friends said they like cheerful blogs, so I’m writing a cheerful blog!

I like the lyrics in the title! They’re totally not true about me in the slightest, but I think they’re kind of funny, so we’ll go with that!

Well, I’m gonna try to be cheerful, but knowing me, and because I’m tried, I’ll probably dissolve into something either thoughtful or depressing later on. Or possibly both. Because I can. Because I’m Jack. And that is what Jack does.

So let me tell you about my dog. Because she’s a rascal. She’s coming up for 10 years old in April, but she’s a scamp nonetheless. She’s a chocolate labrador, and if any of you guys own labradors, you’ll know how they’re completely led by their stomachs, and this is the basis for my story. I took her out for a walk yesterday, and I was walking along, singing to a bit of Glee, when I turned around, and she’s gone!! So I run back down the path looking for her, and I find her in this disused farm, which is basically an industrial deposit now. So she’s there on one side of the fence, eating a dead… something. I didn’t stop to look. So I’m there, about to throw up, but then I have to get this thing off her somehow. So I find a tiny little gap in the fence, and squeeze through it, and I mean literally squeeze through, and I run up to her, and she grabs whatever she’s eating and flees back through the fence. And we’re there climbing back and forth through the fence as she tries to avoid getting caught for about 5 minutes. Anyway, so I corner her, and we’re sprinting down the path, she’s carrying a dead something in her mouth. And we get to this field at the end of the path, and I finally catch up to her, and I’m trying to wrestle this thing out of her mouth for about 5 minutes, without touching it myself, and without letting her escape. And I finally got it out of her mouth and put her back on the leash. Then I turn around and there’s this nine year old stood behind me, and he just says ‘I could phone the RSCPC on you. That was dog abuse.’ I was speechless for about twenty seconds before I finally said ‘I’m training her to join the army. She needs to be tough enough to beat up some terrorists.’ Then I fled with a distinctly ‘George Bush’-like aura of outrageousness about me…

I was thinking earlier about the things that some people get naturally but other people really struggle with. I mean, if I could change some things about myself, I’d love to be able to sing well. I hear my friends singing, and I can’t say that I’m not more than a little jealous of their voices…

Heck, I’d love to get up on stage and just sing my heart out. Even if I got no applause at all, I’d still love to do it. Just to sing something that meant so much to me, and make people listen. I mean, I express myself through my acting and my writing, but both of those are kind of regimented. With acting you have to follow the script, and with writing you’re bound by the constraints of plausibility and character and all sorts. Plus, when you sit there writing, no one can hear your emotions. And in fact, they can sit there and read your piece and project a whole new range of emotions onto it.

In some ways that’s a really special thing. But I’d like to just sing for a crowd, and have everyone in that crowd know what I’m feeling, and be able to understand it, maybe even empathize…

The trouble is, no one wants a bad singer on a stage unless it’s kareoke, and everyone is drunk in that anyway so its rendered pointless, because no one remembers it the next day…

I don’t even know what I would sing if I could… I’d sing something for Mat, I’d sing something for all the times I’ve been hurt, I’d sing something to celebrate all the best people I know, I’d do something inspirational, and I’d do something that meant a lot to me. So, ummm… ‘The Only Exception’ by Paramore for Mat, ‘Fuck You’ by Cee Lo Green for all the times I’ve been hurt, ‘Silly Love Songs’ by Paul McCartney (Glee cover though obviously) for all the best people I know, ‘Firework’ by Katy Perry because it’s inspirational, and I don’t know what I’d do for me…

I do this a lot. Parallel syntax. I just learned what the name of it is the other day. Where you repeat words, clauses, or phrases in a concise manner to emphasize a point.

But is that weird? I spend half my life talking about myself, as I am doing at this very moment, but I don’t know what I’d sing for myself. I guess it’s because I’m defined by all of the other things in there…

My beautiful, perfect, kind, sweet, funny, cute, lovely boyfriend, who I want to spend everyday of my life with. The pain I’ve suffered has defined me and made me stronger. My friends and family are fantastic people, each and every one of them. I feel like I owe something to a world which has given me so much inspiration. And then in the centre of all that, I’m here. I’m like a spider in a web. The web is beautiful. In the right conditions, a cold frosty morning, the web is even more beautiful and it sparkles. But the spider can’t live without that web, because the web provides everything that the spider needs.

I was annotating a poem before in English ALS. By Phillip Larkin. I can’t remember what it was called… ‘Love Songs in Age’ I think. It was about how when you’re a teenager you listen to these songs about love and achieving your dreams and nothing ever works out. It’s all false promises. Well it shouldn’t be. Why does no one fight for what they love anymore?! Eurgh.

I’m winding myself up. Mat, friends, mum, writing, acting, drama – that’s what makes my life good! I mean, my friends, even those people who don’t consider themselves to be close friends with me, I value them just the same.

All that survives of us is love.

Jack out.

P.S. How many of you can say that your local bus station has had a song made about it? I’m in this place 6 days a week!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNnidSVtmUs&feature=player_embedded

1 Comment

July 29, 2010

Oh hi there. Yes, you read that right. There are no unnecessary a’s in this title.

You know what really pisses me off? When people write stuff like ‘hai’ and ‘bai’.

I’m not quite sure why it bothers me so much, but it properly annoys me. It just makes you look really really thick, and I don’t see why bad spelling should be encouraged. Bloody indie kids trying to be original. Fuck off.

Oh, and while I think about it. Me and Samantha have finally setup the review blog: It’s called Black Tie Reviews. I think it’s a lovely blend of influences. Black Tie is obviously an item of clothing worn around the neck, like Blue Scarf, but it’s also a reference to what you see movie stars wearing at premieres! I love it! So here’s a link. There’s nothing on there that you haven’t seen before if you’ve been following this blog for a while, but I went to see Toy Story 3 today and Samantha saw Twilight: Eclipse, so my verdict on the former, and Samantha’s take on the latter will be up very soon! So here’s the link! http://blacktiereviews.wordpress.com/

Oh and by the way, Toy Story 3 is incredible. It’s the most tear jerking film I have ever seen. I nearly cried. And I NEVER get emotional over films. EVER.

And now I’ve said all that, I want to have a big ass rant! So here’s a few thing that are pissing me off at the moment.

Firstly, Dailybooth. I don’t know how many of you know what it is/use it, but it’s basically Twitter using pictures. I find it completely pointless. I mean, it’s basically just a great place for paedophiles to get pictures of you because anyone can access your profile and what’s the actual point? So you can show off your mediocrity? I mean, you might not even be mediocre, but someone out there is bound to think you are, so you’re just creating even more mediocrity around yourself. Stupid Dailybooth.

Hmmm… what else? Oh, when people say ‘I don’t care what people think!’ Bollocks. Everyone cares what people think to some degree. The thing that really gets me is that people who claim that they don’t care what people think actually care most what people have to say about them. I am very interested in what people think of me purely because if I wasn’t I’d probably let myself go so much that I’d be repulsive. So seriously people who say that you don’t care, you do, so listen to what I’m saying now: Shut up and stop trying to be better than the rest of us.

People who have more followers than me on Twitter. Sort it out folks! I only have a measly 38 followers since I deleted all the ones which aren’t technically real people… My Twitter feed is beside my blog, so get yourself subscribed to 24 hours, 7 days a week of my rants and thoughts on the world! What more could you ask for? Not much, that’s what.

Oh, the way that everyone always tells me ‘you’re not my type anyway’ and when I ask why, they just say ‘I dunno…’ Eurgh. It proper pisses me off. I mean, seriously, I ask a simple question and they can’t give me a simple answer. Honestly, people are so mindful of my feelings its stupid. I reckon it’s because I’m far too outspoken, brash, and ugly to be fancied. It’s not that difficult to tell me that. How can I possibly hope to improve myself if no one ever tells me whats wrong with me. And if anyone tells me that I should just be myself instead of caring so much about what other people think, I will personally hunt you down and rend you limb from limb.

The people who will take what I just said as a dare, and then tell me that, and put a little 😛 on the end of it. Bugger off.

The way that barely anyone my age actually reads this, and if they do they never tell me!! Just drop me a comment folks, I don’t bite… hard… haha! No, seriously! I love new commenters more than cake!!

Fit guys who are straight. Just go away.

The way this blog has brought out my self-concious side to the point where I’m actually wondering what people will be thinking of me as they read this…

The way that I’m too tired to write properly or even properly finish my rant. Curse you, time!!!

Jack out.

P.S. I just sneezed. Twice.

4 Comments

July 15, 2010

Odd socks…

I have 11 minutes to write this blog before Waterloo Road comes on.

Make that 10.

Anyway, I have been wearing odd socks all day today. Not that they’re very different. They’re both black with red heel and toes, but one has 2 different colours of red on it, and the other only has one. I still feel like a fashion reject/quirky funny man though!

What else? Hmmm… I went to town today, met some friends by accident. It was fun! All I bought was a Frappecino (better than the other day) and the new edition of Official Nintendo Magazine, and a birthday present for a party I’m going to tomorrow!

Oh crap, just wasted a minute trying to find a good song on my iTunes playlist. It’s not that I dislike any of the songs that I have on iTunes, except a few Glee ones which are slow and depressing, but sometimes you just can’t be arsed listening to certain songs, know what I mean?

Anyway, yesterday I was helping out by working as a teaching assistant in my mum’s primary school. I spent all day filing the children’s work, marking maths work, supervising, and deciding to never become a teacher. I know I’ve said it before, but my heart yearns for the stage! Lights, cameras, red carpets – that’s my gig! It may not be the easiest of existences, but it’s the one I’d love most!

What else? Someone was having a fight with me because I was being bitchy and manipulative earlier. I am bitchy and manipulative. Get over it. It annoys me when people only see one side of me and then assume that I’m always like that. And yeah, that goes for the people who only see the nice side of me as well!

Anyway, this a blog of random parts and I really just wanted to write something down, there’s really no reason for this random blog based outburst. Still feeling a little bit rutty, I guess. Oh, and I found out what a rut is in relation to deers, so that’s good. But not as good as a Rusk. Rusks are good, bowties are cool, zombies are bad. Etc etc!

Hmmm… also, lying. Is it better to keep someone safe and happy by lying to them, or to tell them the truth and needlessly hurt them. I’d choose the former, but let’s see what you think!

Anyway, I’m going to watch Waterloo Road but I’ll probably continue this blog after I return! See you in a bit!

Ok back. Well, after that I’m feeling all loved up and so sickly sweet you could choke on me faster than you could say sherbet lemon! … That was a poor anology…

Still, it’s one of those things. So I’ll tell you something world. This is me, I may not be perfect, I’m not always happy, I say a lot of stupid things, I can’t always control my emotions, and my life is by no means flawless, but you know what? I’m good with this, right now.

Jack out.

2 Comments

Tag: random

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: