Listen to This

Now that I've been shown my destiny, it's time for Inspiration to flow my way (now, of course Csikszentmihalyi would say that being creative has nothing to do with these Romantic ideas of divine messages working through the artist independent of the artist themselves, but he's the person who tells you what a sausage roll is made of while you're eating one - the Spoiler, I call him. Everyone can be creative? Oh, fuck you. I'm going to read Nietzsche. He'll tell me I'm special, like the wonderful, crazy, adorably-bearded elitist that he was).

Well, because I am so very special, it didn't take long for Inspiration to come for a visit, put the kettle on, make me a cuppa and give me some choice material. So here it is in two words:

MODEL CITIZEN

It's Citizen Kane meets America's Next Top Model. Pret-A-Porter meets The West Wing. Tyra Banks meets her destiny. It's pure US sitcom poetry.

The pitch: Due to a polling error, a famous supermodel is mistakenly voted into office as a congresswoman for a small town. Rather than correct the error, the model's agency decides it will boost her career. The staff of the office must deal with the model and make her look as competent as possible to keep their jobs in the face of overwhelming new public scrutiny.

American sitcoms. They're so wonderfully reliable. A limited range of settings (office, apartment, house, bar, coffee shop), stock characters (the ditz, the sleaze, the bitch, the gay -- always male, why is that?) and ridiculous situations repeated endlessly (Janice. Oh. My. Gawd).

And Model Citizen has all this and more! The limited location -- the office of the congresswoman. The ridiculous situations repeated endlessly -- the show is, the staff do the model's work because she's stupid. Great! And it also has the stock characters; the ditzy model, the sleazy researcher, the bitchy personal assistant and the gay public relations guy. It's basically what Spin City could have been if someone had completely fucked it up (which they didn't. Well, not while Michael J. Fox was in it, anyway).

The problem with my deliciously cheesy sitcom pitch is that it sounds brilliant. It's an ironic, comedic examination of the conventions of the US sitcom (but that's been done with the wonderful Matt Stone/Trey Parker show That's My Bush! I wonder if that's available on DVD...) and could be considered the best piece of work I will ever create.

And if you think about Jane Feuer's point that "in order to perceive subversion, we must look at something besides narrative closure...these are the moments that one remembers (Feuer in Creeber 2001, p.68)," Model Citizen could be seen as the ultimate comment on our obssession with celebrity and our need to popularise affairs that play out in the public eye. It's also an analysis of the way in which we can only allow ourselves to engage with something if celebrities are attached to it. The line between politicians and celebrities has been blurred and this ridiculous sitcom is the dramatic manifestation of an ideology already becoming dominant in society.

What a load of shit.

Reference: Creeber, G (Ed) 2001, The Television Genre Book, British Film Institute, London.

Ode to a writer

"All I do, is sit down at the typewriter, and start hittin' the keys. Getting them in the right order, that's the trick. That's the trick." -- Garth Marenghi.

Isn't it funny how sometimes, the person you wanted to be when you grew up is actually what you end up being?

When I was little, I went through several future occupations; librarian (so I could read books all day), writer (so I could read and write books all day), fashion designer (my Beverly Hills 90210 dress was the toast of the season), marine biologist (so I could read books with dolphins), filmmaker (so I could read books with Leonardo DiCaprio), and now I'm back to writer.

After three years of pretending to myself that I like performing risk assessments, struggling with trying to make a budget, ringing actors and trying in vain to keep crew members from killing each other, I realised something: being a producer sucks balls. To quote Mr Dylan, 'it ain't me, babe.'

And so, I want to pay tribute to one of my idols. F. Scott Fitzgerald? Well, yes, but that's not who I mean. Oscar Wilde? Lovely, but no. Hunter S Thompson? Well, of course, but no. I'm referring to a man who has essentially defined for me the art of genre analysis (it could be Daniel Chandler, but again, wrong. You suck at this.).

Of course I mean Simon Pegg. And let me count the ways:

He wanted to write a sketch about a man named Peter Parker who thought he was Spider-man.

Each and every project he makes with Edgar Wright shows such as detailed knowledge of genre and proves time and time again that they are aware of exactly what a set of conventions are; a game played between the producer and the consumer of a text.

This article about zombies: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/nov/04/television-simon-pegg-dead-set

He introduced us to Tyres O' Flaherty, and gave him pearls of wisdom like the following:

"Last Night was an A1, tip-top, clubbing, jam fair. It was a sandwich of fun, on ecstasy bread, wrapped up in a big bag of disco fudge. It doesn't get much better than that. I just wish that I could control these fucking mood swings!"

He managed to make David Schwimmer's dumbed-down version of British comedy fun.

The scar on his forehead, left forever unexplained...sigh.

On The Buses

A couple of years ago in a creative writing class, one of my classmates wrote a short piece about a collection of interesting strangers on a bus, observed by an unnamed protagonist. Discussion arose over who the unnamed narrator might be. I suggested that it was the bus driver.

But of course, Salad! That's what you're thinking. You obviously weren't in that class. And you're intelligent. And I think I love you because you recognise my brilliance. The author looked at me as though I was the most intellectually-deficient person and said, "yeah, but he's the driver. If he was watching people he would crash."

Never mind the term artistic licence (but he only has his bus licence), or the fact that there is such a thing as a rear-view mirror or that the bus driver has contact with everyone who gets on the bus. The thing is, the public transport system is a fertile ground to be farmed by even the most inept of writers.

Every day I witness a new narrative. A man finding God through music (possible drug addict raving about Jesus to an elderly lady), a mother and daughter bonding (they sat together every morning until the daughter's school friends started taking the same bus, but now the daughter's at uni they sit together every time), teenage boys becoming men (bunch of idiots texting their friend about a movie). It's all there!

The guy I like the most is a man who gets on the bus and reads from what looks like a diary. Yes, a diary. Not only that, but it looks like a girl's diary. It's pink, with a picture of flowers on the front. I see his lips move as he reads the diary and he always seems totally engrossed.

It is his diary? Has his teenage daughter run away and this is the only explanation, the key to unlocking the mystery of young women? Is he a creepo?

I prefer not to know, because the guessing is what makes it interesting. But the other day it was almost ruined by a woman desperate to bring down the walls of art, reveal the artifice of narrative like the Brechtian swine that she is. How did she almost achieve this coup for the realists?

She leaned over and asked him what he was reading. And he answered. But fear not, patrons of the arts! I didn't hear his response. What a relief.

Today a girl got on the bus with her baby. I've seen her twice before. Beautiful girl with clear skin, lovely hair, shining eyes. Every time before now I haven't heard her talking, just watched her playing with her adorable little girl. Well, tonight for the first time I heard her speak. And was disappointed. She is a total bogan. Oh well. That one was ruined but there will always be strange, beautiful people on the bus.

I wonder what they think of me in my corporate getup, white earphones jammed in my ears, my wayfarers concealing from no one that I'm asleep? Actually, I don't care. I'd rather just wonder about them.