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8.11.05
Pond Scum: Shaped by Idiots Rising Like a Sun
(Or, the Anniversary Edition)By Steve Finbow
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Happy birthday to me. Happy birthday to me. Happy birthday, dear Pond Scum. Happy birthday to me. That’s right, folks, Pond Scum, in all its reeking, gurgling, spitting and burping glory, is one year old today. And I’m gonna treat myself. I’m gonna lay down, in this week’s edition, all the things I meant to write about but didn’t get around to. All the things I hate – and that’s a long long list. And all the things I love – that list is kinda short. Here we go. Watch them tremble, watch them quiver and shiver. Watch them scream, and then I’ll stop, and then I’ll make them scream some more.
By Nicholas Allanach
Things I meant to write about. Sorry, this is an in-joke. Forgive and indulge me on my birthday – what I meant was – things about which I meant to write: Sport. Why I hate basketball. I mean, come on. The last three seconds of any game are the only ones worth watching. A non-contact sport played by acromegalic millionaires. But basketball is not nearly as boring as baseball. Jeez – have you got four hours to watch endomorphs in romper suits chucking a ball at a piece of wood? And don’t get me started on cricket – have you got four days to watch endomorphs dressed in white chucking a ball at a piece of wood? Okay, I just found out that baseball and cricket bats can be aluminium, but you get my point. I like football, both UK and US. I support Liverpool and so had a good season. Other than that, I don’t follow sport as much as I used to. I did get into the Tour de France – and am watching with interest the burgeoning political career of the mono-orchid Lance Armstrong. Oh, and I don’t like those rubber wristbands – charity as a fashion statement? I do not like field athletics, motor racing of any kind, yachting, bowling (crown green or ten-pin). I can watch, but not for long, track athletics, golf, tennis, and er... I meant to write something on the subject of sport as war – take tennis, the single combat of tanned titans – but I couldn’t be arsed.
I meant to write something on my favourite American writers: Thomas Pynchon, Don Delillo, Bret Easton Ellis, Lorrie Moore, Mark Leyner, and why I think the new crop of decent American writers – David Foster Wallace, Jonathan Lethem, Dave Eggers, Stephen Elliot, Julie Orringer – have a lot to live up to, but I couldn’t be arsed. I think I’ll save that for another time.
I meant to write something on the theory that non-fiction is superseding fiction in my reading habits. I think some of the best writers are working in non-fiction: the pre-sans tête Hunter S Thompson, Tom Wolfe, Jon Krakauer, Philip Gourevitch, Susan Orlean. On my recent reading list, eight out of ten books have been non-fiction. I will have to look into this and get back to you when I can be arsed. Later.
I meant to write about the changing face of New York. I went to the Kettle of Fish Bar – it had moved – it used to be on 3rd Street and Sixth Avenue. It is now on Christopher Street where the Monkey’s Paw used to be. And St. Mark’s Bookshop is no longer on St. Mark’s. Why move and not change name? Couldn’t they be arsed?
I meant to bring you the results of the American version of Our Survey Said. I asked my American friends and their friends similar questions i.e. name three British counties, artists, writers, etc. The response was, well, underwhelming is the word – God save the United States of Apathy. They couldn’t be arsed.
Oh, I nearly forgot, here is a little present from me to you: here and here.
I hate: ash, armpit hair, bubblegum, Beckett, coat hangers, chameleons, dandruff, dentures, empathy, eejits, family, fuss, gi(g)antism – see above – gristle, hirsute dudes, hippies, idiots, the Irish, jell-o, The Jam, Special K, Kiran Gill (long story), litter, love-handles, Manchester, mange, Nike, nepotism, opera, oneness, pets with silly names -- i.e. a red setter called Keith and an Irish wolfhound called Michael -- purple, the queen, Quonset huts, ruddy ducks, rude assholes, some guy who got in my way while I was trying to walk through the park, some other git who was weaving all over the place talking loudly on his mobile, that idiot who was laughing so loudly at his own jokes that I felt like rolling up my copy of Juan Goytisolo’s Landscapes of War and shoving it so far down the back of his throat that his eyes popped out of his shrieking head, that other prat who always gets to the pub before me and sits where I want to sit and then I have to sit at the back of the pub and it’s dark and it makes it difficult to read, unbelievably loud tellers of stories in small restaurants, unwelcome intrusions on my personal space – it’s all about proximity, man, very rude people – they seem to be in the ascendancy, vain, vacuous, and vociferous actors, wet liberals who are really conservatives but do not want to offend anybody, the watusi, my ex (you’re gonna have to guess which one), Xanthippes – that goes with the previous, Yorkies (both chocolate and dog), you – you bastard, zealots (of whatever persuasion), zero tolerance.
I love: America, beer, cats, drinking, emails, fluids (kinda see a theme here), gadgets, Houellebecq, I, jokes, Kate, Lola, Marmite, nomenclature and noctilucent, one night a long time ago in Liverpool – did I really do that? punk, quiet, Russian restaurants, Sooty (my ex-cat), torture, Unter den Linden, Natalia Vodianova, walking, being xyloid, you, Zanti Misfits.
According to a parenting website, as a one-year-old, Pond Scum should want attention when waking, have a varied appetite, experience a language “explosion” – that’s two or three words in my vocabulary – show independence without knowing what it wants, crawl, insist on feeding itself, try to dress itself, practise making familiar words, babble, make up words to describe objects or people, imitate people, have a sense of humour, and explore and play with genitals. Sounds about right.
Click here to read previous Pond Scum columns.
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Steve Finbow writes out of London, England. He has worked for the poet Allen Ginsberg, the writer Victor Bockris, and the artist Richard Long. His fiction, essays, and short plays appear, or will appear, in Eyeshot, 3am Magazine, Yankee Pot Roast, uber, Locus Novus, InkPot, Dicey Brown, The Guardian Online, and Pindeldyboz. He is currently working on a novel (Yeah, right). He can be contacted here.
© 2005 Me Three
