Suggested Audio Candy:

 

Aerosmith “Eat the Rich”

 

I come bearing gifts this dusk. As Keeper it is my duty and privilege to share as my life story is no longer solely for me. I gave up the majority share the moment the ink first dripped from my Crimson Quill after spending large portions of my mortality squirreled away. That’s right, had my nut and I wasn’t sharing. I hoarded like a hobo in a soup kitchen and, when money was an object, simply used my discount. Five fingers equates to a large deduction in price evidently and my record collection was far denser than a fifteen year-old could ordinarily afford on their meager income as a result of such shenanigans.

I’m not proud of my actions but neither am I ashamed. I was the hormonal equivalent of a Colt 45 with the safety off and bullets already spent. A lost bairn, destitute and ravaged by hunger. My appetite just so happened to be LPs and 12″ vinyl. I began to feed my monster habitually and, in return, he would allow me to grab a dash of short-lived gratification. I’d sit amongst my material objects of infatuation totally mesmerized and stroke them softly each night, giving them all pet names. We’d have macabre dinner parties and drink root beer from fine china crockery. Once dusk came and the streets became secluded I’d take them to my special place; venture out into the marshlands about two miles west to an old decrepit war bunker. We cosied up inside this shrapnel canister and played charades whilst eating exquisite Belgian truffles.

Right through my adult life I fed my monster well; should I have taken a brief hiatus then I would feel safe in the knowledge that my beast was holding the fort while vacant. It never cried off with lame excuses or let me down and, at that point, I felt like life owed me something so I craved that constancy. All the while I felt it nagging in the pit of my cranium; reminding me that I couldn’t take material good where I was headed. I responded by telling logic to suck my swizzle-stick. “Sick balls monster” I cried and sick ’em it did, jarred them up and pickled them in a marmalade jar. Actually, they made delightful fleshy profiteroles, simply decadent.

The net started to close in at the height of my depression, as it invariably does. I’d constantly owned an automobile since learning to drive badly and it had recently been scrapped for parts. I’d always had money in my pocket where now the fabric led only to my testicles. The edges had commenced to close in around me, I went fetal but it wasn’t sufficient to waylay my asphyxiation as it pulled taut in all four corners and began to suffocate me. Should my lungs became constricted and the bile begin to rise in my larynx then I’d simply shut my eyes and imagine myself to be one of the ill-fated lab rats from Lifeforce. I don’t know about you Grueheads, but that space vampire chick would have had me well before hello. Some kisses are worth the rapid decomposition.

Anyhoots I’m a reel it in like Orca and get to the Italian meats and Danish biscuits of my little parable. I’m speaking of a delightful little pastime called curbing (no not curb-stomping) and haven’t mentioned it up until this very moment. It’s a technique which enables one to create an alter-ego for oneself, an alternative pair of carpet slippers to slide on when the draft excluder can no longer stave off Jack Frost. I kind of stole it, but prefer the term “paid homage”. It is actually the intellectual property of Larry David, the creator of Seinfeld and, more critically, Curb Your Enthusiasm.

For anyone unaware, and I’m guessing most of my Stateside friends are only too aware, Larry laid a plutonium egg in his own mind’s basket when concocting the idea of an accentuation of his own character which basically fills in all the gaps. By that I mean all the shit he wishes inside his head but is too smart not to act upon. Beyond delightful, Curb isn’t averse to naming an episode Beloved Cunt. Nor is it bothered in the slightest about Cheryl Hines getting caught hips thrusting, panties at knees and mid-wipe at a party while Larry negates his gate keeping duties and leaves the unboltable door unmanned. That scene was so funny that I actually pissed milk. He fashioned his own antithesis to Superman and it paid dividends to the tune of eight successful seasons.

Other minds then followed suite with Ricky Gervais doing a fine job with The Office and Extras of making TV to make you feel downright uncomfortable one minute then its best buddy the next. Whilst witnessing David Brent’s heart shatter into iddy biddy pieces was a delight of the premium order, Larry…is…just Larry. I loved his approach, refreshingly forthcoming, with ever-accelerating hijinks and delicately woven story arcs to provoke a man’s mental testicles into clubbing each other to the death. I cherry-picked the hell out of his exploits. I guess it was then subconsciously that my neurons began to scheme.

Curb Your Asphyxiation

 

By curbing your asphyxiation, or enthusiasm, you allow that inner voice to have a little more say in proceedings. Ingestion is the key as, by absorbing the strength of others, you are left with all manner of masters of ceremonies to give any press junkets on your behalf while you recuperate. I understand that you may be confused right now so how’s about a case in point? Let’s start with Seth MacFarlane’s Family Guy and, for Keeper even more crucially, American Dad (but most definitely not The Cleveland Show). I love myself a good metaphor as does Seth and he has no filter, much like I. Actually it isn’t that it doesn’t exist but he uses it sparingly. I love everything from the pacing to the humor and visual description. The beloved flashback is inevitable and drums roll as it comes but, credit to MacFarlane he hits the target like a seventies cop, much in the vein of Keeper.

Comedy plays a large part in my prose but really I’m attempting to give the full cinema experience to my readership. Suggested audio candies are now being provided, although it took an age to fathom this simple task. That’s Keeper: Literal Godhead, technical gibbon. I source my images meticulously for it is the designer in me. I wish to have a finger in all the pies and, more often than not, my penis too. Ergo, I began ingestion. What started with Andy Warhol soon escalated. Larry David and Seth MacFarlane soon followed and, I must report, they both tasted delightful. I suddenly found myself ravenous for more genius minds to ingest and the next logical port of call was the great Stanley Kubrick. In truth, I would’ve settled for a nibble on Charlie Kaufman too but he was out for brunch with John Malkoviches so Kubrick it was.

This guy was highly regarded by his peers for good reason so, when he reached inside me and grasped the truth so adeptly, it’s only obvious my knees would buckle like a bow-legged fawn. He eviscerated me with the most delicious swipe from his mental rapier and it tore through my silken blouse and ran deliciously against my bared chest. And then we rolled around gleefully naked like Oliver Reed and Alan Bates junk-on-junk. Actually, hold up. That part didn’t happen.

You got me guv’nor, I ingested this man weeks before his physical shell dissipated. What a marvellous miraculous mind he housed in that beautiful domed cathedral. Quite clearly desperately bonkers, this man managed to hold himself together long enough to produce many of our favorite screen memories from The Shining to Lolita and his beguiling and misunderstood swan song Eyes Wide Shut. He tasted really grand, slid down in his own succulent juices and nuzzled into to my esophagus without concern. I never knew that ingestion would cause such incandescent results but it allows me to spread my wings wide as a scribe and create something I believe has been missing from literature since moving into the download generation. Interaction, I wish my words to dance off the screen and make love with your ears, eyes, mouth and anything else flapping.

I desire to love everyone and exhibit that by giving you a parable you can snuggle up with your cocoa to before bedtime. Love is expressible in many different guises and comes in shapes and sizes too, making it a spiffing choice around festive periods. I scribe each piece with only love and yearn to read it to each one of you by bed light, tuck you in and rub some vaporub into your chest to help you sleep. If you wish I can lay beside you, spoon you, nibble your lobe and bear-hug you tightly. Of course I’ll kiss your temple and tell you everything is going to be fine and dandy, it would be my pleasure. Coitus? Well…go on then.

 

So what can YOU do for Keeper? Simple, if you are true grue or feel compelled to share with me your findings in my comments box then my happiness is distilled perpetually. Lovely kind messages scroll through my Twitter feed like turbo credits and, whilst I like to have a finger in all pies, here you are within the Rivers, surrounded by people who love you. Share that with Keeper via my litter tray and you shall have my heart forever. Right now, I have some more great minds to ingest. Was thinking of Bill Plympton next. Whaddaya reckon?