Friday 30 May 2008

In Response To Mutley

“You try too hard to be funny Mr M... sometimes real feelings are the important thing. Let us know about your real self...” (Mutley the Dog)

And so, Mutley jams his finger (or is that paw?) into an exposed nerve. Trying too hard or not trying hard enough: I feel doubly damned. I have neither the will nor the energy to be funny today. Yet, should I try, I suppose I’d only be accused of trying ‘too hard’. And you know what? I really don’t give a damn any longer. I’ve had it with blogging.

Now, I know what you’re thinking: Madeley’s having one of his tantrums. You might be right. I might feel different on Monday. A publisher might ring me this evening to say that they care enough to take a punt on my talents. I might get a writing gig that earns me a pittance but restores the belief that it is all worth it. It’s probably only today that I feel like I really do mean it when I say that I’m quitting this world of blogs. I’ve been writing them for over three years, written well in excess of 1500 posts, and in all that time, in the real world, my Channel 4 gig has come to an end and I’ve risen to the position of a desk jockey stuck in a serviced office somewhere between Manchester’s Chinatown and the Gay Village. Today is my payday and I have £30 to last me four weeks. That’s always a sobering thought when you sit down in the morning and try to make strangers laugh.

Not that I have many readers. People must have tuned into to the show just to see Judy. Nobody tunes into read me. Some say I write too much, others that I write too little. It’s my own fault. I suppose. I never pandered to the sex and knickers brigade, where every post involves a sex toy and a lubricated donkey. I don’t post porn, filth, or even bad language. There too, I misjudged the British public. I should reinvent myself as a prostitute and, tomorrow, give you the inside leg measurement of my first punter. Would you read me if I turned tricks? You needn’t answer that one.

I should have spotted where I was going wrong. Every morning I go through half-a-dozen mailboxes to delete the emails and comments I receive because of my blogging activities. How many mornings do I read something along the lines of: ‘you know its like you think your funny but your not funny you are just sad and i want you to die’? Eventually the poorly written insults from teenage girls weaken the spirit. For the first two years, it was all quite amusing. Now they are just a sad incitement of education in this country. Even our insults have fallen below the standard expected of a fully functioning Western liberal democracy. And when the Belgians can hurl more imaginative insults than your own people, you know your country is in trouble...

Damn, there I go, trying to be funny. And I’m clearly not funny. Why else would my novel get dumped a couple of months before it was due to be published? But then, blogging was always a delusion to match that of my writing. There was a time when I laughed at the emails I received from people wishing me dead. Now I’m tired of it. Why did I expose myself to the petty ridicule of a few and the desperate pleading of others? Just for the thanks of a very small minority?

So, I’ve had it. I concede defeat. And I suggest that we all give up. The mainstream media win again. Only those with real talents get a place on Jordan and Pete’s latest talk show. Say what you want about Katie Price but she’s gone out there and achieved what the rest of us haven’t. You can all mock her but how many of you were nominated as best children’s author at this year’s Galaxy Book Awards? I would have been so proud to have presented her with that award. I mean that. So very proud.

As for me, I’m going to save what little remains of my dignity before I become one of the slaw-jawed misanthropes with a chip on their shoulder because they’ve not had their manuscript published about the man who invented sea salt. I always wanted to write professionally. Moaning about my lack of success was never how I thought it would go. So, before it goes any further, I’m going to play elsewhere. You might see me on satellite TV. Watch out for me on the next series of ‘Eye of the Storm’.

Mutley, you’ve done a great thing. Your comment was the straw that broke this camel’s last vertebra. I’ve clearly been trying too hard and now I’m not going to try any longer.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

No matter what you do you can't please everyone, no use trying. Unfortunately the unsatisfied are much more vocal than the content. My suggestion? Write however you feel and screw the detractors. If they don't like it they don't have to read it.

Anonymous said...

i feel that with your talent and energy (even in a depressed state), your writing will go underground and turn up elsewhere, perhaps in the form of another novel, who knows? - in any case, as you know i've taken repeated breaks from my own blog and found myself much better for it.

i think i worked somewhere near you about 18 months ago, i was right next to the gay quarter too.

If you do go dark i look foward to an eventual novel or script or short story...

Anonymous said...

Fair well my friend, I have appreciated being in your Society.

Anonymous said...

..for I am firmly persuaded that every time a man smiles,---but much more so, when he laughs, it adds something to this Fragment of Life.

Uncle Dick Madeley said...

Okbye, true words. Which is perhaps why I will go quiet for a while. To be away from the constant voices.

Elberry, you are aware that your email prompted this mood. It might not last or I might go and blog elsewhere. I have ideas and things I'd like to try.

Twitch, I've not gone yet. To be honest, I don't know what I'm going to do. I'm in a terribly bad mood today. I might feel different next week.

Anonymous, such wisdom. Sterne knew a thing or two about making people laugh. And that's really my problem. I try so hard to make people laugh but (in spite of such supportive comments) I also get lots of trouble, insults, and petty spite in return. That's not even to mention the poverty, the miserable life, and the struggle of seeing idiots make a success of their lives.

All Shook Up said...

It's all about packaging and hype, Richard.. that or soap opera, these days.

Keep it going somehow, you (the blogger) have an enviable talent too good to lose.

Selena Dreamy said...

I really don’t give a damn any longer. I’ve had it with blogging.

This, it seems to me, is a legitimate view to take. And it can be said of me as well, that I am not going anywhere. Chiefly, I realize, because I've already got there. This is as good as it gets. A martyr to freedom and freedom of thought, my only contribution to the blogosphere has been to combat hypocrisy.

“I’ve written well in excess of 1500 posts”!

Compared to that, Shakespeare’s output was meagre. And our mutual friend Mutley? He may not have appreciated how well his injunction applies to himself. Not only can he make the barmiest baloney about himself plausible, he’ll encouraged others to participate in it. Don’t mind the puppy. Others, at their best are sharper debaters, but at their worst just time-servers. And while Elberry cultivates the air of an Old Etonian, debonair, floridly eccentric and staunchly proslavery, and I, myself, totally repudiated the principle of equal rights for all classes of society, you cannot expect anything to change, Richard, unless you yourself change, and that, frankly, would be a great loss to all of us.

Your narrative hums with allusions to human frailties, fellow celebrities, incidents, accidents, stereotypes, synchronicities, oddities and - if that’s not an inappropriate suggestion - your own idiosyncrasies. Subtly ironic and self-mocking, you are the true heir of England ( evocative of Wodehouse and Jerome, rather than Morecambe & Wise). But publishing seeks sensation. And let‘s face it, Richard, the overwhelming majority of writers die before they get published, thus sparing themselves considerable agony and distress. Nor am I suggesting that this should influence any decision you may be taking in the matter, but I am rather hoping that you will continue to stay with us, because, believe me, although this is mere blogging, and plenty of passion can be worked up about nothing, without you I should not only have failed to have my own site, but I should also have omitted to strike a blow at hypocrisy, illiteracy, equal opportunity, Rohypnol, goody-goodness, the official existence of a Supreme Being, English football, Tesco’s electronic check-outs, Winner’s Dinners, Operation Sea-Lion, the Theory of Everything, the Pope and what not...

I salute you, Richard, you’re a pal!

Dreamy

Anonymous said...

Well said, Miss Dreamy. i too owe a great deal to Monsignor Madeley - not least is the world generally feels less shit after i read his work.

Lola said...

As you wrote to me once, some people don't get it. That's why they send you hate mail (or 'stop it you're not funny' mail). It's not you, it's them.

I have found your writing amusing, informative, hilarious and sometimes thoughtful. Never forced, even if it was. I hope you will continue, but of course that will depend on so many things.

If and when you return, I will be here as quick as my mouse will bring me.