A Movie Pitch

When a redneck reality TV star is kicked off his show for homophobic slurs, he threatens to sue the network for discriminating against him as a Christian. The next day an idealistic young civil rights lawyer turns up to take on his case. Unbeknown to the star though, the lawyer is gay and has a cunning plan: to set a legal precedent establishing homophobia as a core tenet of Christianity, and thereby get the entire faith classified as a hate group. Unbeknown to the lawyer though, the star is just as gay, and before you know it, sparks are flying between the two.

Awkward situations reveal the attraction, flustering both characters. Even as the funds and support are pouring in from right wing politicians, pundits and the public, their attempts to maintain the pretense of heterosexuality become increasingly farcical--the star turning to ex-gay quacks, the lawyer narrowly escaping discovery in situation after situation. Eventually though, the absurdity of it all peaks, tension breaks, love gets its way, and a fateful night ends up with them waking together in bed the next day.

Now both begin to question what they're doing. Should the star really be defending his closet case homophobia? Should the lawyer really be exploiting the man he now loves? It all comes to a crunch as the court case is nearing completion, when the star decides he just can't go on living this lie--and fighting a cause that's against his very nature. Unfortunately, just as he's all set to declare his love, ironically hoping to persuade the lawyer to come out of the closet with him, now he finds out that his lover has been lying to him all along. The shit hits the fan, and after the inevitable bust-up both are left alone and miserable, each in their long dark night of the soul.

All seems lost, the lovers torn apart, neither knowing how to extricate themselves from the legal mess they've got themselves into, but at the last minute, spurred by the prejudice of their "supporters," the lawyer proves the depth of his love, and the star is reminded of the Christian principle of forgiveness. Just as the lawyer is about to withdraw the suit, the star shows up in court, as determined as ever to win. Which they do, in part by exposing the TV exec who fired the star as a hypocrite guilty of homophobia himself. Now the press conference gives the big reveal, as a friend planted as reporter in the audience points out the implications: Christianity is now legally arguable as a hate group.

There's a twist though: when challenged on this, the star has a simple answer: sue me. He all but invites a class action suit from Christians for slander and defamation, against him the justice system and the right wing newspaper that supported him throughout. He's happy to cop to it, we learn, and pay them off with the very funds donated for this anti-PC cause. Essentially our heroes have conscripted every non-bigot in the faith to deal with all the "violation of free speech" bullshit from politicians and pundits; if the faithful don't want to be considered homophobes by definition, it's up to them to quash the defense of bigotry as faith. In the end, the lovers go off together, having set the cat among the pigeons, with a little kicker to close: the lawyer would, of course, be entirely up for representing the Christians who considered their faith slandered.

The end.

A Stark Contrast

Tony Stark has just moved into his new multi-million dollar corporate headquarters cum bachelor pad. He's happy living the life of a drinking, womanising billionaire playboy who just happens to be the superhero by name of Iron Man too. Then one day, who should turn up on his doorstep but his distant cousin from some remote, backwards, vaguely European country... Ned Stark! Eight seasons of hilarity ensue in this classic 1980s sitcom, A Stark Contrast.

Now simply insert Robert Downey Jr and Sean Bean, in character, into this:



(Full credit--or blame--to Charlie Jane Anders, who had the vision to see that Tony and Ned should be in a sitcom together.)

Jesus Christ Superstar

The correct order of songs (regardless of what Messrs. Webber and Rice might say):

Act One

1. Overture
2. Pilate's Dream
3. I Don't Know How to Love Him
4. What's the Buzz
5. Strange Thing Mystifying
6. Everything's Alright
7. Heaven On Their Minds
8. Then We Are Decided
9. Simon Zealotes
10. Poor Jerusalem
11. Hosanna
12. The Temple
13. This Jesus Must Die
14. Damned for All Time

Act Two

1. The Last Supper
2. Gethsemane
3. The Arrest
4. Peter's Denial
5. Pilate and Christ
6. King Herod's Song
7. Could We Start Again Please
8. Judas's Death
9. Trial Before Pilate
10. The Crucifixion
11. John Nineteen Forty-one
12. Superstar

There. Now you know.

Update: Actually, I figured I may as well show my workings, so to speak. So...

Pilate's Dream is a prefiguration, so a blindingly obvious prologue. It also makes structural sense to put this at the start to play off against his role at the end, to create a bookended architecture. And on top of that, it conjures Jesus as mystery, rumour, legend--prepares a path, you might say.

But rather than cutting to JC himself after this, we get a second level of intro. Enter Mary alone, to conjure JC by his effect on her, to conjure the impact wave, the ramifications reaching out beyond him. Rather than the big showy crowdpleaser of "Heaven on Their Minds," we're opening low-key, building to his entry...

... which comes with all the hurly burly of "What's The Buzz," JC entering with his mob of disciples and followers, trying to preach a message that's being lost in their zeal. Mary's role is established ("cool down your face,") with Judas's role next, as in the original, with "Strange Thing Mystifying."

Dropping "Then We Are Decided" to later allows the conflict between Mary and Judas over JC here to play out fully, with "Everything's Alright" bringing it to a head, resolving with Mary winning the field and Judas losing.

"Heaven on Their Minds" then becomes a logical reaction to JC's dismissal of the poor and his grandiose "you'll be sorry when I'm gone" in the previous song. And sitting at the mid-point of Part One it gives a big narrative beat, a key turning point. In a classic Three Act Structure--Acts 1, 2a, 2b, 3--this is actually the end of Act One.

"Then We Are Decided" picks up on exactly the threat Judas fears in the opening to an Act 2a then, and switches the scene to Jerusalem. Me, I'd stage this as a (pre?)dawn meeting on the city walls, looking out toward Bethany. The trumpets that start "Simon Zealotes" play to that, setting this as the rousing of JC and co, their preparations for the entry in Jerusalem, the journey from Bethany, the crowds lining the road. Have them casting their clothes on the ground before him, and we're building to the triumphal entry here.

"Poor Jerusalem" now sits in the right place in the actual gospel narrative, JC pausing as Jerusalem comes in sight to lament, before entering to the great hullaballoo of "Hosanna," and heading straight to "The Temple," the uproar of which naturally leads to "This Jesus Must Die." And of course Judas's betrayal in "Damned for All Time," the big narrative beat ending Part One in the original and here too, as the mid-point of the whole show, the end of Act 2a.

As for Part 2, Acts 2a and 3, they're basically ordered fine. No change there, except for putting "Superstar" right at the end as an epilogue, because duh. Why on earth you'd have this before "The Crucifixion" and "John Nineteen Forty-one" I have no idea.

So, yeah, an explanation for you. It's all quite simple really.

Update 2: No, wait! Actually, I think Part 2 could use a bit of shuffling too:

1. The Last Supper
2. Gethsemane
3. The Arrest
4. Pilate and Christ5. King Herod's Song
6. Could We Start Again Please
7. Peter's Denial
8. Trial Before Pilate9. Judas's Death
10. The Crucifixion
11. John Nineteen Forty-one
12. Superstar

Because "Take him to Pilate! Take him to Pilate!" rather cues up the first confrontation between Pilate and JC. "Peter's Denial" meanwhile could easily be segued into from "Could We Start Again Please," with the first as JC is being brought back into Pilate's court, the latter after he's disappeared inside.

And because "Judas's Death" makes more sense as a reaction to the scourging, and bringing it in between JC's sentencing and crucifixion draws out the parallel of the two deaths.

OK, now we're done.

Sodomite Songs

Talking of queer drama, I slapped together the full songbook for Sodom! The Musical, editing it with a few tweaks from the text as blogged. If you want to read the finished version, go here.

I didn't tell you, did I, of what I'd really like to do with this? Cause, yeah, if I was only, like, a Scottish Chris Lilley or something, I'd totally make this the basis for a six-part TV mockumentary, Staging Sodom. (Or something like that.) I have, as they say, ideas.

The pitch? At Leviticus International's new UK flagship Centre for Orientation Conversion, counselor Richard Alcott, PhT is staging a production of Sodom! his grand stage musical re-envisioning of The Farce of Sodom. His cast: a group of gay teens sent to the boot camp to be "reoriented." His audience: a group of visiting dignitaries from the US Head Office. Over the coming weeks, we'll follow Richard's struggle to thrash his material into shape, and we'll meet some of the troubled young men into whose hands he'll be putting that material, for them to bring it to life:

Roger, who insists he's straight and doesn't even belong here. Roger is forced into the play and mortified to be cast as Puckinello, the King's Catamite. From Richard's touchy-feely direction it's blindingly clear that Richard is besotted with him. He "does a Steve McQueen," in the penultimate episode, throwing everything into disarray.

Tom, the flaming power-bottom who desperately wants to play Puckinello but is miscast in multiple minor roles "because his face is a bit bland, you know, so you can do so much with it!" So we end up with him in a giant handlebar moustache as General Buggerman, a waxed moustache as Virtuoso the dildo-maker, and a full beard as Flux the physician -- all of them looking absurd on the slender, girlish youth. Naturally, at the last minute, when Roger goes on the run, he gets to step into the role.

Lucy/Luke, a trans girl -- i.e. biologically male, female-identifying. Despite not being remotely flamboyant, Lucy is cast as Cunticaea to give "him" the opportunity to be "as dazzling as he wants to be... but within the perfectly safe tradition of the pantomime dame." Lucy is determined to get gender-reassignment, which she's thoroughly researched, and become an accountant. Lucy escapes with Roger, forcing Richard to step into the role.

David, the new arrival. We first meet his parents as they drop him off, worried about the self-proclaimed "bicuriousity" of their son; cut to a prepubescent child, who we'll find out doesn't actually knows what the word means. David is cast as Prickett, the young prince of Sodom who's debauched over the course of the play. He has no idea what's going on, just wants to go home. John takes on an elder brother role for him.

John, the actor cast as Bollox. It's an open secret that John and Tom are a couple trying to patch up a split, blatantly obvious to all but Richard. They use the play as a pretext to meet, with Roger helping to cover for them, but have a huge bust-up over Tom's infidelity. It's resolved when Jack's fraternal relationship with David is insanely assumed to be sexual, and Tom storms in to tell Richard that his bf is not a fricking paedo. The two are about to be disciplined when Roger's escape is discovered.

Episodes would move along chronologically but also each focus in on one particular character, with the others interviewed but their own narratives backgrounded.

Week 1 -- The concept -- Richard
Week 2 -- The auditions -- Roger
Week 3 -- The cast -- Lucy
Week 4 -- Rehearsals -- David
Week 5 -- Dress rehearsal -- Tom
Week 6 -- Performance -- John

*

Some little details, thoughts on the sorta stuff that would be in here:


Centre for Orientation Correction? Picture the sign outside, the initials with a K spraypainted on the end.

PhT? Stands for therapist of philosophy, rather than doctor of philosophy. It's "not exactly" a medical degree... or a philosophy degree. It's "sort of the middle ground, where therapy reaches out to philosophy and philosophy reaches out to therapy."

Reoriented? "We don't call it 'cured,' because it's very important to us not to stigmatise homosexuality as a disease in and of itself. Also we're not legally allowed to use the word cure."

A stage musical? It's "a crucial part of the therapy to give these young men a healthy outlet for the sensitivity and creativity that might otherwise lead them astray" -- as Richard explains earnestly while, in the background, a chorus line of boys in hotpants practises the gayest dance number ever.

The Farce of Sodom? A Restoration play by the notorious libertine Lord Rochester may seem a curious choice, but really it's "a scathing indictment of the depravity that leads to disease and fiery demons." See, King Bolloximian unleashes sodomy, and the kingdom falls apart. Incest, bestiality, paedophilia, everything! But right at the very end, on the very last page, the fiery demons show up to give the king his come-uppance. "So it's all OK!"
    Interviewer: So they drag him to hell, like Faust or Don Giovanni?
    Richard: No, no, he escapes. But they make it very clear that he's a bad man.
    Interviewer: On the very last page?
    Richard: That's right. But the entire play is spent up to that point showing how depraved the kingdom becomes.
    Interviewer: Like where stage directions call for a dozen naked men and women to come on and "fall to fucking?"
    Richard: Exactly!

Trans? As far as Richard is concerned, playing Cunticaea is a safe context for Luke (as he insists on calling her) to explore that flamboyance
    Richard: I mean, really, it's sort of a fetish.
    Lucy: It's not a fetish.
    Richard: For someone like Luke here --
    Lucy: Lucy.
    Richard: -- transvestitism --
    Lucy: -- transgender --
    Richard: -- is about the costume... the grand facade! About being, just for a little while, someone else --
    Lucy: -- that I actually am.
    Richard: And I understand, I do, how desperately one can want to be someone else. Anyone else!
    Lucy: [gives a look: yeah, we know you're fucked in the head, mate.]

The Pooñata? A piñata shaped like a giant pair of buttocks which Richard has the boys beat with a baseball bat.
    Richard: There's been a lot of research over the years into the roots of homosexuality. An aversion to an overbearing mother. A desire for a distant father. The current theory is that it goes right back to infancy, to feelings of pleasure and shame associated with the poop-shute -- whether it comes from spanking or an early experience with suppositories. The homosexual is trying to get revenge on their bottom, you see, either directly or with another man's bottom as surrogate. And beating the buttocks allows them to vent all those feelings in a healthy way.

Cunt? Richard is convinced that this is not obscene if said "in an authentic Olde English accent."
    Richard: Back then it was a medical term, so you just have to say it like they would have back then. I mean if I was to say it like--" [mouths "cunt"] "--except of course, I'm not actually saying it, because that would be dirty -- but if you imagine me saying it like--" [mouths "cunt"] "--well, that would be bad language. I wouldn't expose the boys to that sort of filth. But if I say it in the right accent. Cunt. You see? Cunt cunt cunt cunt cunt. I can say it as much as I want and it's fine. It's just like saying, 'lady parts'. "
    The rehearsals episode might well kick off with Richard trying to coach David to say it "correctly." His pronunciation is of course indistinguishable from the way David is saying it. I imagine a frustrated Richard screaming, "Cunt! Cunt! Cunt! Cunt! Cunt!" in the poor kid's face. Cut to the interview explanation, then quick cut through Richard "correcting" this or that performer over every swear word in the play.

*

So, yeah, unfortunately I'm not the Scottish Chris Lilley. I wouldn't put myself in charge of a project like this, so I can't imagine anyone else would. Even if they did, I wouldn't know where to start. If you happen to be the Scottish Chris Lilley though... like, some comedian-cum-mockumentarian with a burning desire to make something in the mould of Summer Heights High or Angry Boys (with a hint of Jerry Springer: The Opera thrown in for good measure)... dude, call me.

No, really. Call me.

Savagery With the Sequins

Had fun last night at a Glasgow cabaret night, The Not So Secret Society, held in the rather swanky surroundings of the Art Club, a private member's club for artists -- posh! Even apart from showing support for some friends, in the shape of San Fran & the Siscos and Miss Leggy Pee & Charlie, I was most up for it. On the bill were The Creative Martyrs (awesome, as I knew already,) and a Tom Waits tribute act called Frank's Wild Band I was well curious to see. (They didn't disappoint -- also awesome.)

It got me thinking of a blather I had with Neil Williamson though, a couple of weeks back. What I love about the Martyrs' act, see, is the way it really nails the dark and edgy bite of proper '30s Berlin cabaret (or at least how I imagine it.) In black suits, whiteface and bowlers, they come across as some twisted Laurel & Hardy turned fugitives from the Third Reich... by way of the People's Independent Soviet Republic of Ruritania, I'd say. And it's not cheesy pastiche; with songs touching on CCTV an the surveillance state, it's an act that draws on that past but as a way to speak to the present.

Anyway, in the full show they did at the Fringe last year, a narrative is woven between and through their songs, of a cabaret being clamped down on as a repressive regime kicks in, so Neil and I ended up talking of how that sort of frame could easily be opened up, how they'd essentially make perfect compéres for an evening that stepped away from the lighter vibe of Glasgow's DIY variety scene and went full-on disturbing. Cause the cabaret nights I've seen here are all cool (e.g. Spangled Cabaret) but they tend to remind me of the old easy listening night I used to frequent, Casino Royale. I loved that night, don't get me wrong, but we're talking... camp fun rather than creepy undercurrents. What I want to see is... you know that song in Cabaret with the gorilla in a dress, "If You Could See Her Through My Eyes"? With its punchline ending, "She doesn't look Jewish at all"? I want to see the act that does to Islamophobia what that song does to anti-Semitism.

"Without an element of cruelty at the root of every spectacle," Antonin Artaud wrote, "the theatre is not possible." Damn straight. I want savagery with the sequins.

So, I ended up, in that chat, trying to think of the sort of act I'd do, in my limited capacities for live performance, and came up with a vague notion of "The Magnificent Mister Fox." With his top hat and tails, moustache and goatee, with a sidekick in a monkey costume and a barrel-organ/hurdy-gurdy that plays something like... you know the theme from Carousel? Dee dee dee DEE, Dadada, dee dee dee DEE, Dadada, dee dee dee, dee dee dee, DEE!

Yes, see the Magnificent Mister Fox make his monkey dance!

"Immigrants!" he shouts.

Dee dee dee DEE, Dadada, dee dee dee DEE, Dadada, dee dee dee, dee dee dee, DEE!

"Al Qaida!"

Dee dee dee DEE, Dadada, dee dee dee DEE, Dadada, dee dee dee, dee dee dee, DEE!

"Gay marriage!"

Dee dee dee DEE, Dadada, dee dee dee DEE, Dadada, dee dee dee, dee dee dee, DEE!

And so on. You know where I'm coming from, right? We all know the Magnificent Mister Fox all too well, I'd say, master puppeteer in the Society of the Spectacle. (Hmmmm, he thinks. A monkey marionette, perhaps?)

It'd be something of a one-trick pony at just that, right enough, but I did end up musing on it a bit further in the last few weeks, even working up a sort of theme song for the bastard. After last night I got to thinking: given that there's more than a whiff of the Proprietor to Nowhere Town here, might the Magnificent Mister Fox work best as an MC rather than an act in his own right? We're pretty much talking Evil Impresario, after all. "Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls... bastards and bitches! Welcome to the End of the World Club!" If I wasn't such a lazy and disorganised motherfucker, I'd be sorely tempted to go scouting for a venue and just go for it. Sadly, I'm far from the right person to be actually arranging an evening like this.

But still, I thought I'd air my thoughts just cause it's on my mind, and chuck up the lyrics just for the hell of it. You might well imagine it being sung to kick off proceedings, the Magnificent Mister Fox dancing his way through the audience to the stage, with the spry skip of a Childcatcher in his step, and a twirl of cane most useful for bashing heads in. Can't describe the tune, of course, but if you imagine the style of "Big Spender" with maybe a hint of "After the Fox"...

The Magnificent Mister Fox

The Magnificent Mister Fox,
He's just too delicious,
Walks head up high,
Fell out of Heaven,
God-given,
Straight-up kinda guy.

The Magnificent Mister Fox,
He's a vulpine, vicious
Vox Populi,
A twenty-four / seven
Nine / eleven,
Twinkle in his eye.

Oh what a spectacle!
Oh what a show!
As the Magnificent Mister Fox
Brings the news you need to know,
That the streets are overrun
With drugs and immigrants and guns!
So stay glued to your box,
Says Magnificent Mister Fox.

Cause it's murder, mayhem, monsters out there,
We got movie stars in meltdown live on the air!
Which celebrity's a junky?
Is the president a monkey?
Can we cure all the gays?
Let the people have their say!

[break]

The Magnificent Mister Fox,
He's so family-friendly,
Talks eye-to-eye,
Balanced and fair,
Never swears,
Sweet as apple pie.

The Magnificent Mister Fox,
He's so fuck-you-gently,
Stalks softly by,
Then hand in your hair, he's
Suddenly scary --
Babe, you gonna die!

Oh what a carnival!
What a cavalcade!
As the Magnificent Mister Fox
Calls us to his black parade,
Full of terrorists, insurgents
Gonna kill for twenty virgins!
So stay glued to your box,
Says Magnificent Mister Fox.

Cause it's murder, mayhem, monsters out there,
We got movie stars in meltdown live on the air!
Which celebrity's a junky?
Is the president a monkey?
Can we cure all the gays?
Let the people have their say!

The Magnificent Mister Fox!
He's a spectacular
Magnificent Mister Fox
In the vernacular
Magnificently malevolent,
He's malevolently magnificent!
He's the cock of the walk,
The Magnificent Mis-ter Fo-o-o-o-o-ox!

My Mind, Melded

I have been mindmelded. They asked me, "If you had the power, what would your ideal SF television show look like?" After my initial thought, "Just bring back Stargate Universe," I figured I might as well have fun with my imaginary empowerment:

OK, here's the series I'd be showrunner for if anyone was crazy enough to let me: Hellhound, I call it. Think The Littlest Hobo meets Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Think Supernatural meets Highway to Heaven, only nobody told Michael Landon they'd finished shooting I Was a Teenage Werewolf -- no, scratch that, they didn't get Michael Landon for either role at all; they got Vincent Gallo and gave him all of Charlie Sheen's drugs...

Another Mad Project

So, in my continued quest to find the most impractical project in the world, I came up with an idea for an experimental movie. I blame it on too much Jodorowsky myself; I recently watched El Topo, Fando Y Lis and Sante Sangre in quick succession, with a little Bruce La Bruce (Raspberry Reich) thrown in for good measure, and a sprinkling of John Waters's Cecil B. Demented just for fun. They brewed in my head, and suddenly I found myself thinking of a sort of... metafictional mockumentary, I guess you could call it.

The idea: OK, so this auteur of a documentary director decides to make a contemporary retelling of the Gospels, starring himself as Jesus... but not in the traditional manner, with actors and sets and shit. No, instead he's going to basically re-enact/reconstruct the various scenes in modern settings, filming without permission on cameraphones and suchlike, and see what happens as it goes along. Like, the whole thing should be constructed as much from faux YouTube and news footage as from anything; it's sort of a documentary about the making of itself.

I mean, he's out on the streets preaching; he's interrupting church services to denounce the latter-day Pharisees; he's using video editing techniques to perform miracles -- and, as the narrative presents them, they are miracles. As in some crazy William Burroughs book, he's "editing reality." Film a withered hand, pan up to jacket sleeve, cut; switch the person in the jacket, action; pan down to normal hand, cut. Playback. Cut to cameraphone footage of crowd reacting to the healed hand, as in some David Blaine street magic malarky. Shit like that. Camera tricks and an unreliable narrative? Maybe, but it's presented as actual miracles. And this latter-day miracle-worker has the same effect on the authorities, natch, as young Yeshua did in his day. Cause you know he would, man. Shit, I reckon he'd put Pullman, Dawkins and Hitchens to shame in his attacks on the religious establishments.

So think Cecil B. Demented only done for real, by someone who's slowly getting sucked into his own messianic role. Think Kenneth Anger taking his message out onto the streets, making cinema as an occult ritual. Think Derek Jarman doing Christ as a queer. (Cause hey, "Beloved Disciple," man. Not to mention that bit cut out of the Gospel of Mark.) Think of this film-maker gaining the notoriety of Marilyn Manson, as the Christian Right gets up in arms about the "false prophet." Think of the Sermon on the Mount as a talk show interview. Think of the man who preached poverty and threw the moneylenders out of the Temple, how he might react to a televangelist telathon, say. Think of the protagonist in a face-to-face confrontation with Christian Right protesters outraged at his queering of Christ, challenging them to "stone the sin, not the sinner."

(Cause that's a scene I want to write at some point, somewhere, a line I want to use. Hate the sin, not the sinner, eh? Well, fucking stone the sin, not the sinner. Come on then! Can you do that, you self-righteous motherfuckers? Can you? Can you throw a stone at the "sin" you hate, and not break the skin and bone of the "sinner"? No? But you think you can hurl words as weapons without the same harm, words with all the weight and force of your pious contempt? Here's the fucking stone, ya bastard. Do it, if you can: stone the sin, not the sinner, motherfucker.)

Of course, to do the film properly, you'd have to have a film-maker who was actually willing to play into the metafiction by acting as the director character himself. (With a cameo for yours truly as the writer of the script he's working off, the John Baptist to his Jesus in the narrative, heh.) And you'd want to do as much of it as possible in that guerrilla cinema mode. Like, go out there and get in the faces of some Westboro Baptist fucks, and see if you can get the footage you need. So throw in some Werner Herzog while you're at it, in terms of obliviousness to personal safety.

You see what I mean by "impractical," yeah?

Anyways, as I was scribbling down some notes, trying to organise the source texts into potential act structures and scenes, it occurred to me that a fair whack of the gospels consisted of the parables, which aren't exactly cinematic. I can't think of any Jesus films -- The Last Temptation of Christ, The Passion of the Christ, The Greatest Story Ever Told, etc. -- that actually make use of them. But, well, a somewhat cracked idea kinda occurred to me, as I read a couple of them, that what might work is doing them in voice-over as a stand-up routine -- like you might get in a documentary on the life of Bill Hicks or suchlike, dig? Hell, the Parable of the Rich Man and the Beggar already reads like a joke. All it takes is a little twist this way or that... and a bit of canned laughter, the more artificial the better.

Cause I'd want it to be vaguely creepy, you know, like that faux sitcom bit in Natural Born Killers. I mean, some of those parables are all lovely and Jesusy, and some you can actually play with a bit of wry humour, but there's some that are, well, big on the "weeping and gnashing of teeth" that sinners are in for. And frankly some are just plain fucked up. Like that one about the vineyard workers who work all day and get paid the same as the ones who worked for an hour. Dude, how anyone can read that and not see the owner -- i.e. God -- as a complete fucking cunt, I have no idea. Yeah, some of that stuff is just messed-up.

"... and tortured the shit out of him!"

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA.

"But without letting him die!"

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA.

"Forever"

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA.

So, yeah, long story short, I ended up with a forty minute... well, monologue, I guess, which is currently called "The Parables of Jesus Motherfucking Christ, Live at the Palladium." It's not a text story I can flog to a magazine; with the laugh track a major ingredient, it's something that, I reckon, really has to be heard rather than read. And in the absence of a film-maker bugfuck crazy enough to use it in the context intended, I have fuck all idea what to do with it. So I thought I might as well post up the first part for your... entertainment? edification? whatever. Don't know that it's that funny, but hey, it's not actually a stand-up routine, more a... work of twisted experimental audio art. There are four parts and an encore in total, so if bizarro blasphemy is of interest to you, by all means let me know and I can maybes make it another direct sales thingy. Otherwise... enjoy?

The Parables of Jesus Motherfucking Christ - 1. Seeds & Weeds

The Legion of American Watchers

Shot down in the skies over Pearl Harbour, leaping from his plummeting P-36 Hawk without a parachute, Captain Steve "Steadfast" Sturgeon can only pray for a miracle. And a miracle he gets! Struck by lightning at that exact moment, he finds himself standing before the Archons of the Cosmos, with a choice between Eternity and Earth. But for Steve Sturgeon, no choice needs to be made. In the history books, it says there was no third wave to the Japanese attack, but any airman who was there that day will tell you those Nips were turned back by a strange sight in the sky... an angel sent from Heaven, an American Angel. And so began the daring deeds of the hero known as Captain Steadfast.

"We'll finish what you started, No-Joe Tojo! And that's the truth!" (Captain Steadfast #13)



To the people of Atlantis she is Princess Naia, half-mortal daughter of the Oceanid Queen Metis and her long-lost human consort. To the surface-dwellers she is Water Woman, sensual and spritely as Aphrodite, fearless and feisty as Artemis... Water Woman, Mistress of the Seas. (Not "The Meaty Whipped Lash". I mean, "meaty"? WTF? Anyway...) When Princess Naia investigates a disturbance among her dolphin subjects, she discovers Ensign Hank Murray, the sole survivor of a German U-boat attack. And even though her people are sworn never to intercede in the affairs of surface-dwellers, she saves his life. Exiled from her beloved Atlantis as a punishment, what's a girl to do but... fight Nazis with her electric eel-hide whip!

"His strange skin... so... pink!" (Top-Notch Comics #8)



Polio-stricken cub reporter Gary Gordon may walk with a cane, but when he shouts the magic word three times in less than a second -- "Thunderbolt!Thunderbolt!Thunderbolt!" (try it, kids!) -- it activates the powers given him by a mysterious wizard masquerading as a doctor, and Gary transforms into the fastest man on the planet: the Human Blur, the Blue Streak... the Thunderbolt! Well, of course, that's the Golden Age origin. The Thunderbolt who heralded the Silver Age with his 1956 revival had his particles accelerated to the speed of light by blue omicron rays... but that's another story. Either way, he can run rings round the super-villain, save the planet, and get the copy in before the Globe's "star" reporter, Clark Parker has even finished his coffee. Often with some friendly banter aimed at fellow Legion member Flameboy along the way.

"Yeah? Well, light me up a Lucky, hotshot. I'll try not to snuff you with my slipstream." (Legion of American Watchers #18)



Attacked by bandits and left for dead in the Sahara Desert, millionaire playboy Franklin Wallace stumbles on the lost oasis of a mysterious green-robed Moor, Amir Al-Hazred. Bound for centuries by an evil sorcerer's curse, Al-Hazred plays on Wallace's greed and gratitude to trick him into a death-match... where the true conflict is in Wallace's heart. ("Am I only fighting to win this 'great treasure' he guards? Or to give a poor madman the release he prays for... in death? I... I don't know!") Only as Al-Hazred dies in Wallace's arms does he reveal the truth, that Wallace was led there to take his life... and his sacred duty as the Archon of the Earth's "Champion of All Life." For only a man on the cusp of redemption, a man whose past is vice and his future virtue, can take up the Kamir Husam -- the Green Blade, a sword (later proteanite power-blade) that can cut through anything, even space and time itself.

"When lesser man and greater man / Together with a single hand / Strike out for freedom on command / Then vice will fall and virtue stand!" (True American Comics #16)



Professor Miles Quant is on the verge of replicating the primal state of matter in his physics lab, when he discovers one of his colleagues is a Nazi spy sent to steal the secret for the Germans. Knocked out and left in an overloading photon chamber, exposed to an "uncertainty field" beyond all measure, his atoms are thrown into pure flux. (It's only later, during AC's "Catastrophe For Two Worlds" event, in an attempt to simplify the morass of rationales for superpowers, that the Prof's "primalised matter" is revealed to be none other than the proteanite toxic to Overman, but in an omicron-irradiated form harmless to the Man of the Future.) Able to transform himself into any element, to shrink or grow at will, even to teleport by swapping places with something of equal mass, he is no longer Quant, M., Phd., but is now The Quantum, Master of Matter!

"Turn lead into gold? No, Dr Von Strann... Into the very stuff both elements are made of!" (True-American Comics #3)



Caught in the blast of a meteorite, its exotic alien minerals vaporised on impact, permeating every cell in his body, Jake Walker wakes up in the crater, apparently unharmed but for a weird golden glow to his skin, fading even as his head clears. With his thrill-seeking nature though, it's not long before a practice run in an abandoned Speedway track reveals the truth... that when excitement sparks in his heart, that spark ignites his very molecules, transforming him into Flameboy -- Flameboy, the Comet Kid, shooting fireballs from his fingers, blasting through the sky like a human rocket. Fighting villains for the fun of it, ribbing the other Legion members, (which often ended with him doused by an irate Water Woman or blown out by the Thunderbolt,) Flameboy's rogueish charm made him an instant hit with fans. While the friendly banter between "the Blunderdolt" and "Ginger, the Dancing Zippo" (a reference to Ginger Rogers as much as Flameboy's red hair,) was notably condemned by Dr Werther Fredericks in The Corruption of the Young (1954) as "blatant homoerotic flirtation, rife with sexual innuendo," this pairing has remained one of the most popular double-acts in comics, with the limited series "Flameboy and Thunderbolt: Red Shift, Blue Shift" one of AC's all-time bestsellers.

"You're light on your feet for a hoofer, Twinkletoes. But me? I'm just plain smokin'!" (Legion of American Watchers #18)



A villain wakes from a nightmare, heart pounding, hands grasping the bedsheets in panic. What was that noise? A whisper? An echo? A moan of the soul, a groan of terror in a guilty heart? And in the dark, a shadowy shape slips away, for the Secret's work is done. Dream on, you wrongdoers who think that you are safe! Imagine that no one knows your foul deeds! But there is one who walks among the sleeping, one who can damn you with a single word whispered softly in your ear. His origin unknown, none can say from whence his powers came, whether the terrible torments he brings to the wicked are magic, mechanics or mesmerism. But of this you can be sure: you can cover up your crimes, hush up and hide your sins in silence... but the Secret will haunt you to the grave!

"An iron cage? Hah! There are some secrets that cannot be kept, my friend. Whatever you do, they will... slip out." (Awesome Comics, #40)

A Homage to Heroes

This Hero Factory doohickey is fun. Even if you can't set the name (which is Overman, just so's you know). I mean, "The Pure Avenger" is more of a byline than a name... though as such it's not bad for a hero sent back from the 51st century to escape the Earth's destruction, seeing as his power comes from his "hyper-evolved cells" being able to absorb kinetic energy, and his ultimate goal is to prevent the fascist takeover of America that will lead ultimately to aforesaid destruction... but without preventing his own birth!

"But even bound by the Paradox Protocol, powerless to end the war raging on in Europe, Overman does not lose spirit. For he knows that even the smallest battles may win the greatest victories!" (Adventure Comics #23)



It's also little annoying that it can't do the right style of mask for the Hookman. (No, not "Hookman". "The Hookman.") Or the hook that should sit atop his cowl, like a metal mohawk or a centurion's crest in cold pointy steel. Or the spring-loaded longshoreman's hooks built into his gauntlets... yanno, for combat or climbing. What do you mean, "a bit Batman"? But he's a child of the streets! Mother dead in childbirth, see, orphaned when his old man was killed for his gambling debts, hung by handcuffs on an abbatoir meathook and shot dead as the boy watched from his hiding-place. Lucky he was sent to juvie where a boxing coach set him on the right path, got him a job as a stevedore and his first pro bout... only for Coach to be murdered when our man refused to throw a match for a crime boss! Little did he know when he donned his costume to bring a reckoning on the racketeer...

"That voice, those eyes... could it be? The Shark is... the man who killed my father!" (Defender Comics #27)



And then there's Monkeyboy. No, not "Fearless Wizard". What kind of name is "Fearless Wizard"? That's just rubbish. OK, so he's missing his tail, and his sideburns, and it should be a straight staff rather than that lumpy thing. It all began on a field trip to a museum, you see, an innocent excursion interrupted by a criminal heist. Sent crashing through a display case in the panic, young Harry Houlihan throws a cut hand out to steady himself, but when his blood hits the staff of the ancient Chinese Monkey God, its power courses into him and he transforms into... Monkeyboy! Leaping from lamp-post to flagpole, firing himself through the air with a staff that can spring from six feet to sixty in an instant, fighting those Sixties super-villains... but he still has the problems of a typical teen.

"Why do I have hair there?! Oh my gosh, I have a tail?!" (The Marvelous Monkeyboy #1)



And, of course, you're limited to the one body type, whereas Monkeyboy should be less of a jock and more of a gymnast. As should Kid Swift, teen sidekick to the Hookman, shown here in what is clearly one of his more modern, less... um... flouncy interpretations. There have, of course, been a number of Kid Swifts over the years, with various origins. My favourite is the second, Todd Jonas, an orphaned street kid like Hookman himself (by then, the "the" in the character's name had largely been dropped,) he survived by his wits, "hustling and grifting" until the Hookman took him in. Yes, the fan-voted outcome of the controversial late-80s "The Costume in the Closet" storyline was disappointing, but with his resurrection in the wake of AC Comics' Ultimate Catastrophe cross-over, one can only hope the world's first sodomite superhero will actually get to do something other than suffer and die.

"Golly gosh gumdrops, Hookman! I don't think it's just the Jester's laughing gas, that's making me feel so gay!" (Hookman, Season 2, Episode 5)



Next... Support the war effort! Buy war bonds! And be as ever-vigilant as... the Legion of American Watchers!

A TV Series: The Republic

Episode One, pre-credits:

We see the ARTIST, with a guitar case slung over his back and a GIRL draped round his arm, entering a hotel lobby. He goes up to the reception.

ARTIST
(peeling notes out of his wallet)
I'd like a room for the night -- King Size bed if you've got it, mate.

CLERK
Do you have a credit card?

ARTIST
(looks a bit shifty)
Can I pay in cash?

CLERK
We still need to see some ID.

ARTIST
(sighing, peeling out a card)
Bollocks.

CLERK
So the name is...

CUT TO:

ARTIST and GROUPIE stumbling into hotel room.

GIRL
I can't believe I'm with the one and only --

ARTIST
(puts a finger to her lips)
Fuck that shit. I hate that bullshit.

As she moves past him into the room, he closes the door and we get a close-up of the rakish grin on his face that tells us, really, he's loving every second of this. He puts the guitar case down on a chair. She starts getting undressed.

GIRL
You know, I love artists. I feel so lucky.

ARTIST
I'm the fucking lucky one, love. Believe you me.

As they start undressing each other and getting it on, we fade to black. Then, in voice-over:

ARTIST
Fuck!

It's morning. The ARTIST is standing in his shorts with his empty wallet in hand. The GIRL is nowhere to be seen. He throws the wallet across the room.

ARTIST
Fucking bitch! She fucking ripped me off. Fucking... bollocks! You fucking wanker.

He rifles through his clothes for his mobile phone, switches it on. The display shows 'no signal'. He sits on the edge of the bed and picks up the phone on the bedside cabinet, dials. We hear a tone, then an automated voice on the other end of the line:

VOICE
This number is not recognised. Please hang up and try again.

ARTIST
(slamming phone down)
Fuck.

He picks it up again, dials for reception. The TV remote is beside the phone. As he waits, he picks it up, switches on the TV and starts flicking channels. We get a montage of news shows, reality shows -- no soaps, no fiction.

A weather report:

WEATHERMAN
In the aftermath of Huricane Katrina --

A reality show:

HOUSEMATE
(shouting at fellow housemate)
-- I don't know where I am with --

An armchair discussion show:

ACADEMIC
-- history, changing in ways we never expect --

ARTIST
Hello. Yes. I'm trying to get an outside line.

RECEPTIONIST
What number are you trying to reach?

ARTIST
It's...

A news report on the TV. Scrolling headlines say "Yancy steps up security" beneath visuals of a White House news conference:

ANCHORMAN
President Yancy today stepped up the security alert after...

ARTIST
(distracted)
What the fuck? Uh... 07789 998 654.

PRESIDENT
And I can promise America this: that no artist is going to...

RECEPTION
I'm sorry that number doesn't apear to exist.

PRESIDENT
... not on Talbot W. Yancy's watch.

ARTIST
Yes it bloody does. Sorry. Look, it's my manager. It's a British phone but it works over here, love; I've called him before. Can you try again?

CLERK
British, sir?

ARTIST
(looking at the TV in confusion now)
Yeah. You know. Tea and crumpets. God Save The Queen. The Sex Pistols, you know? The Rolling Stones. Jumping Jack Flash, he's a gas, gas, gas.

CLERK
Is this a joke, sir? [pause] Am I on TV?

ARTIST
No. What are you... hang on, what the fuck is on TV?

PRESIDENT
... the activities of artists -- musicians, painters, so-called novelists -- these have no place in America. These have no place in the Republic...

RECEPTIONIST
Sir, are you feeling OK? You sound disturbed.

ARTIST
I am fucking disturbed, love. Look, I'm over here touring with my band. I'm trying to get in touch with my manager because some bloody floozy... look, never mind. All I want... [staring at TV now] what the fuck is this?

PRESIDENT
... the great and ancient principles on which this Republic was founded. We will have no painters in the Republic. We will have no musicians in the Republic...

RECEPTIONIST
A band, sir? You mean as in... musicians. Sir, do you realise what you're saying to me? Sir, you're admitting to criminal activities. I'm going to have to report this. I'm going to have to call security, sir. Sir? Sir?

The ARTIST lowers the phone, lets it dangle and drop as he stands, staring at the TV screen in shock.

PRESIDENT
President Talbot W. Yancy won't stand by while these writers spread their lies, while these artists create their painted images, while these musicians seduce our children with their songs. Not in my America. Not in the Republic.

Three security men burst in the door of the hotel room. Two grab the ARTIST and wrangle him to the ground. The third goes to the guitar case.

ARTIST
What the fuck is happening here? What the fuck are you doing? Look, I don't have any drugs in there. It's just a fucking guitar. I'm a musician, you know, a fucking "performing artist". Jesus Fucking --

CREDITS

MUSIC: Opening with Iggy Pop's roar of "Loooooooord!" from "TV Eye", we get a shot of the ARTIST standing in the middle of Time Square, camera view circling him as the background morphs, all the ads for musicals and shows dissolving into Stars & Stripes, the President's face, ads for everything but shows. Then as the guitar riff comes in and the song takes off we cut into a montage of character close-ups interspersed with dystopian shots. These gives us the credits and (re)establish the basic premise -- Yancy saying "We will have no artists in the Republic", shots of police breaking up gigs, guitars being smashed, manuscripts being burned, stacks of records in football stadiums, newspaper headlines from the 30's about singers being lynched in Alabama, from the 50's about FBI smashing illegal printing press operations. When the music gets to the break and the song pauses, we cut to the ARTIST in a police interview room, leaning over the table at a cop...

ARTIST
I don't know how I got here. I don't know if there's any others like me. All I know is one day I woke up and I was in the Republic.

Guitar riff kicks back in and we see musician on stage playing it, then we're plunged back into the flashcut montage of dystopian police state imagery -- choppers, batons, riots, ending with the anarchist Circle A sprayed in black over the Stars and Stripes and then the title:

THE REPUBLIC

***********************************************

OK. So. This is the pitch: It's The Prisoner for the Neo-Con era, The Fugitive for Bush's America. It's about a musician who finds himself in an alternative history version of America -- a version based on Plato's Republic, where all art is outlawed.

We never learn the character's name; he only ever introduces himself as some contemporary artist or musician who will never have existed in this world...

-- Who are you? a character asks him at one point.

-- Jackson Pollock, he says bitterly.

He's a criminal in this world, on the run, and he doesn't even know how the fuck he got here. Only thing he knows: in the first episode as he's being led out of the hotel by the police, it's the girl who ripped him off who sets him loose (denying that she knows him? describing herself as a "sympathetic soul"?)... before disappearing.

So in the long-term story arc, he's looking for the girl because she's gotta, he thinks, have something to do with him being there. Is she part of some resistance movement? Did she use some technotoy to bring him over from his own reality, to be some crazy-ass musical messiah? Because as he travels through this dystopia he's going to be acting as a catalyst for change in each episode in classic Kung Fu / Highway To Heaven style (Hmmm... I think I wanna end the first episode with him headed out of town, hitching a lift with Highway To Hell as the soundtrack). Thing is, he's really not that great a musician; he's big label and middle of the road. His songs are puerile nonsense and he doesn't really give a shit about saving the world. That's all bollocks, mate. So maybe she (they?) just brought him here as a distraction, to take the heat off while they plot in the shadows. That's the SF theory of what's going on.

Then there's the alternative reading that isn't SF but Fantasy. Maybe he's dead, this is his personal Hell and she's some sort of psychopomp leading him a merry dance through it. Maybe he's Orpheus and (as his quest for her becomes more and more obsessive) she's (becoming) his Eurydike. Maybe she's Death. Is this SF or is it Fantasy? Is he gonna get back to his own world, or find out that he's dead, or be reunited with whatever lost part of himself the girl represents? Well, when the multiple endings are shot a la The Fugitive and one them gets broadcast, then we'll find out, but until then, that's a mystery the audience will just have to argue over in the pub. I ain't telling.

Things I want in various episodes:

1. As the series progresses he'll start to find the underground. There's graffiti and rap in the ghettoes. Rap is art with no tools as evidence, after all; all you need is a fast mouth and talent. The cops can bust the illegal gatherings but they can't control it completely. Also, this gives an inroad to address racism and "low" art, street culture, the fear of the black man and his music, the association of that with "base" urges, going back to the reaction against Rock and Roll, Jazz and Blues, as "negro music".

2. That fear of music and the attempt to suppress it will be explicated further in an episode where the Artist meets a woman whose mother who was involved in the 60's protest movement in this world. She remembers the marches where thousand of people would sing, until the National Guard were sent in with water cannons and rifles. She talks about this song taught to her by her mother, but she refuses to sing it until the end of the episode, when, in this angelic voice, wavering at first, and then stronger, more resolute, she sings "We shall overcome".

3. I want the ARTIST to introduce himself as Donald Sutherland in one show and get into deep shit for it because here Donald Sutherland is a Solzenhitzen-style novelist who can never show his face in public but whose fiction circulates in samizdat form. I want Donald Sutherand to play himself, and having seen his Hard Talk interview on BBC News, where he was in fucking tears over the current state of America, hell, I think he'd be fucking up for it. At one point in that interview, Sutherland said it was like he'd just woken up one morning and America had changed. He didn't know how they'd got here, but somehow, somewhere along the way, it stopped being his America. And that's fucking exactly what this show is about.

4. I want Martin Sheen to play the President. I want Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins as guest stars. Fuck it, I want every motherfucking liberal activist actor who's right now looking at what Bushfeld Inc. are doing to America (and, by extension, the whole bloody world) and thinking, how the fuck did we come to this?... I want them all to have a chance to spit in the face of the Right Wing arsewipes. Actors, writers on guest episodes... brothers and sisters, I say unto you, come forth and nail yer colours to the mast. Cause, let's face it, this doesn't have a hope in hell of getting made without some serious fucking Big Name leverage.

5. A full-on assault on the dumbing down of culture. Why is TV allowed?

-- TV isn't art, says one character. It's news and reality shows, game shows, fly-on-the-wall documentaries, sports. Art has themes. Art has subtext. Art lies to us.
-- And you think that shit doesn't? says the Artist.

6. The Artist has the only electric guitar in existence since this "Platonist Republicanism" (need a proper name for it) took off, like fascism and communism in the first half of the 20th Century. By the time, they should have been wiring guitars for sound, the Republic was busy with its purges. So I know this is hokey as fuck, but I want a scene of the Artist hooking up his Fender Stratocaster to a PA, sticking a switchblade in the speaker and showing this world some Louie Louie. Hokey, yes. But, hey, it would still be cool as fuck.

7. Stand-up comics are allowed... as ersatz philosophers, creators of commentary rather than art... right up to and including the bitter savage humour of a Lenny Bruce or a Bill Hicks. But they're still trapped in the system, pressured by commercialisation, network culture. Rebellion appropriated and commodified for mass consumption. An episode with a Bill Hicks figure, perhaps, kicking against the pricks.

8. A mad Cecil B. Demented style "art terrorist", full of shit in philosophical terms but fucking trying at least. How far can you push Dadaist / Surrealist / Situationist performance art so the authorities can't call it art? How far do you go before direct action becomes terrorism? Playing this idealist off against a more cynical hero let's you explore the idea in more depth.

9. A painter and decorator who's always had aspirations to art, doing a Jackson Pollock style "decoration" of a public building. Take the whole philistine reaction to Modernism and invert it. "Is it art or is it not?" Well, here, the philistine's are damn well sure that it is art. And that's why they hate it.

10. Jukeboxes with tracts -- stirring speeches like that Battle Hymn of the Republic but without musical backing.

11. At a football game, there's no Star-Spangled Banner at half-time. No, they have some fucker up to emote the Pledge of Alliegiance while everyone stands, hand on their hearts.

12. Stars & Stripes armbands. Christ, is it that far off from those fucking lapel badges every goddamn anchorman seems to wear? Really?

Specifics I haven't yet decided:

Is America isolated (huge fucking walls sealing it off from Canada and Mexico), with the rest of the world dancing in the streets? Or is it Pax America, with the whole of Western culture basically having adopted the Republican model? On the one hand, the Artist could be trying to get the fuck out but finding Homeland Security at every turn, scared shitless about getting shipped off to Guantanamo Bay. On the other hand, getting deported back to Britain wouldn't be such a bad thing if the rest of the world is free. I kinda like the idea that the Artist has no escape from the Republic except back to his own world; it's purer.

So...

OK, so it's not the most subtle political allegory ever, and there's not a single network that would touch it with a barge pole, but I don't fucking care. It's a simple set-up for a series, and it's got a lot of scope, I think. And I think it's fairly pertinent. Christ, it's the End of the Enlightenment, mes amigos, and I got this nightmare vision of a future where the philistines and fundamentalists are in charge, and they can do whatever they fucking want while us liberal types sit idly by and watch our world go to shit. Oh. Wait. That's not the future, is it?

Christ, I want to make this show.

(As a "btw": that Sonnets For Orpheus entry expanded a few times over last week as I updated it. There's 12 of them in total now. Just in case ye were interested in my anti-religious vitriol but missed the additions. Anyhoo...)