The following piece was pointed out to me a couple of days ago, I’d missed this snore fest of a non-review when it came out.. It is by someone called Kate Muir and comes from “The Times of June 23, 2007”. It dates back to when I appeared at The Poetry Shack that summer: The piece is called “The Dark Ages” and is much longer, but since it is really boring I’ll only quote the bit about me::
“Then a man in a black T-shirt runs on bearing a brown stuffed creature that might be a dog or a monkey. It turns out he’s a drunk ventriloquist, and the dog will speak his carefully crafted words, Sixty Nine (sic) Things to Do to a Dead Princess. Now Portia and I are hooting and crying, while the recycled bag ladies tell us to hush. Surely this can’t be serious?
“He’s an idiot savant,” suggests Portia, as the dog-ventriloquist recalls line after excruciating line. After an hour of this dreck, we can take no more. It might get better. Perhaps the children’s party stuff is a warm up. Although the DJ-sleb Phil Jupitus will be performing later, we never see him because by then I’m in the Ladies’ opening a vein… ”
Well actually I wasn’t drunk, it is an act, but obviously it isn’t hard to fool an idiot; it would be pretty amazing if I could get plastered and still do a combined ventriloquism and memory act without cocking it up. Actually the British courts take calling someone drunk when they are not pretty seriously. The point is it could make professional bookers think I’m unreliable and loose me paid performance work.
But what I think is worse is that in the context of the whole piece Little Katie – who thinks she’s so grown up and sophisticated – creates the impression I’m reciting poetry rather than prose (yeah I know my prose is good but even so what I was doing that night ain’t poetry). So should I threaten to sue this moron who can’t write and doesn’t know the difference between a stage act and reality? Or can you all think of lots of insults to email her instead (post them underneath, I can sort out getting them to her later if I can be bothered). BTW: does anybody know who Kate Muir is?
And while you’re at it don’t forget to check – http://www.stewarthomesociety.org/ – you know it makes (no) sense!
Comments
Comment by Locked & Loaded on 2009-01-09 08:32:14 +0000
I heard she is the real identity of the Belle De Jour book and blog… A secret contact told me, I can’t tell you who because its a secret….
Comment by Alex on 2009-01-09 14:10:33 +0000
Kate is pure horny.
Comment by Terrance Gelenter on 2009-01-09 14:15:10 +0000
If you click on my name, it’ll take you to a link where you can see a pic of her that I took in Paris just before we went up to my apartment for some “coffee” and an interview that was amongst the most satisfying I’ve ever done. She’s certainly one horny bitch
Comment by Kate Muir on 2009-01-09 14:21:00 +0000
Hey stew…I was a bit drunk myself that night and didnt mean to fuck you up, (bitch) but that ventriloquist act was wack.
Comment by The Real Kate Muir on 2009-01-09 16:46:24 +0000
“It is easy to scorn what you cannot get” (Aesop, “The Fox and the Grapes”)
Comment by Stewart Home on 2009-01-09 17:11:35 +0000
Eat my list, moron!
Comment by Mister Dog on 2009-01-09 17:16:31 +0000
oh it’s common knowledge around the Blackwall tunnel that Home and Muir have been shagging for years and it was inevitable that his research for the ‘Down and Out in Shoreditch and Hoxton’ novel, added to her contacts in the glossies could result in a best-seller.
Comment by jlkjlk on 2009-01-09 17:29:18 +0000
i think she fancies u man (don’t tell her husband)
Comment by Anna K on 2009-01-09 18:43:06 +0000
thats right comrade the bougies are out 4 blood. katybelle’s hubby ben mcintyre works for mi5 (see link on my name) and they are fucking pscyhic paedos who rape their children’s minds with bourgeois filth on a daily basis. but u never heard it from me bruvs
Comment by Díre McCain on 2009-01-09 22:25:04 +0000
Lemme at her… (knuckles cracking)
And she’s certainly fond of the following eleven words, isn’t she?
“After an hour of this dreck, we can take no more.”
Comment by mistertrippy on 2009-01-09 22:27:48 +0000
Try to imagine Kate Muir’s ‘achievements’ over the next decade. I did and this is what I came up with. I predict she will engage in an idiosyncratic attempt to prove that the Celtic languages were the Edenic tongue from which all other languages were derived. She is herself of Scottish origin and is said to be fluent in Franglais (but despite moving to London she has refused to learn any Cockney). Her philological and linguistic works will be judged as completely devoid of any worth (I already view her novels and newspaper columns to be devoid of worth anyway). Kate will become a laughing stock by attempting to demonstrate that Hebrew, Basque, Greek, Estonian, Finnish, Japanese, Swahili and Latin were all derived from Celtic roots. She will pursue this endeavor through seven books. Then in a despeate bid for literary credibility she will reveal that she was in fact the author of the Belle de Jour books and blogs, but no one will believe her…..
Comment by Observe on 2009-01-10 05:13:04 +0000
my playlist as a young 14 year old in late 1977 — I just found it again.
Yeah Yeah Yeah :Vibrators
Into the Future: Vibrators
Motorhead : Motorhead
No One : Johnny Moped
Foggy Road : Prince Far I
Message to the King : Prince Far I/Culture
Janie Jones : The Clash
Satellite : Sex Pistols
No Fun :Sex Pistols
MPLA : Tappa Zukie ( Click 45 , not the album mix )
Don’t get Crazy : Tappa Zukie
Train to Rhodesia : Big Youth/Barrington Spence
White Line Fever : Motorhead
2OTH Century Boy : T Rex
Is it Love? : T Rex
Identity/Bondage: X Ray Spex
MC5 :Kick out the Jams
Big Youth : Jim Screechie
Comment by Observe on 2009-01-10 08:55:25 +0000
Precisely — I am sure you know that term that our society uses for people who “fit in”, calling those people on the “right track” with society, “Well adjusted” — WTF !!!!! — I remember hearing that for the first time as a teenager, and thinking quite rightly — WELL ADJUSTED TO WHAT for fucks sake! Well adjusted to a neurotic, divided, spilt, aggressive, society that’s what. IMHO, People have to be mean, sly, vicious; to an extent full of hate and spite and even evil to “get on” in the world– either that, or people get bent out of shape trying to adapt to those “standards” and “norms” of behaviour. It’s fucked — I’d far, far rather go my way than involve myself with c**** who adapt to those “standards.”
Comment by Observe on 2009-01-10 09:14:51 +0000
more tea vicar
Comment by Observe on 2009-01-10 09:20:13 +0000
Stewart, I saw many of the bands you did in the late 70’s — Though I don’t like them now, and old film footage looks awful ( pantomime circus punks) The Damned were always good in the late 70’s and seemed so very fast. Of course, many people play much, much faster/more chaotically now, but at the time…. Seeing Motorhead play to an audience of amphtamine feulled punks in their very early days was a revelation….I never saw them as Heavy Metal in their very early incarnation — too fast, to chaotic and aggressive.
Comment by mistertrippy on 2009-01-10 11:08:44 +0000
Wow looks like you fell through a wormhole. I saw many bands I didn’t like in the late-seventies too… including actually Motorhead, and I walked out of that gig, although I don’t mind the first single….
Comment by Observe on 2009-01-11 01:02:48 +0000
What I find odd is a kind of apparent memory prism — many of the punk bands I saw in the late 70’s, seemed totally wild, fast fast FAST — but now, if I see old footage, many of them seem like glam rock bands in different trousers.
That doesn’t alter memory and perception though — the chill of the cold night air before the gig,walking down East London streets that seemed eeriely Dickensian, and keeping a wary eye out for skinheads that got occasionally pleasure from giving young punks a kicking.
Comment by Observe on 2009-01-11 04:28:23 +0000
I think in 1977, lots of skins saw us 14 year old punks as camp — naive faces, hand painted T shirts, ripped and tight too small leather jackets,teddy boy crepe shoes etc. I suppose we did look camp compared to them. Our young punk liking for funk and militant dub along with the early punk 45’s probably helped widen the gap too.
Comment by Michael Roth on 2009-01-11 07:33:52 +0000
Kate Muir is actually my drag queen persona. I’m sorry I was cranky that night. My Real Doll had not arrived yet and I was in a very foul mood.
Comment by mistertrippy on 2009-01-11 12:08:28 +0000
Yeah, I remember not looking so great in 1977, I had a very nice tonic jacket from Oxfam but would wear it with jeans and a T-shirt, come 78 my hair got shorter, I’d wear a Brutus trim fit button-down and sta-pres (tonic was best for that too). But things just kept getting more eclectic… but the fashion wasn’t so hot then… But then in my drag queen persona, now that was different…. And a lot of those bands were terrible… I mean The Adverts, just the absolute pits!
Comment by Observe on 2009-01-11 13:02:23 +0000
Yeah, agreed, though I kind of liked the way I looked — I miss my “Jackson Pollock” hand made T shirts, teddy boy shoes and slashed up and grimy teds drape coat.
As for the bands, yes, many were bad; no more than glam/r n b bands with new haircuts — I had a beat up little black vinyl record box ( you remember them ) full of the DIY punk 45’s of the day,yet most of them sounded so bad by about early to mid 1978. They dated that fast.
I get taken by surprise every now and again though nowadays,by hearing a band or record I had utterly dismissed decades ago, and finding them to be alright. Records like “No-one” ( Johnny Moped ) and “Into the Future”( Vibrators ) aren’t bad at all,yet I must have last bothered with them in early 1978.
Comment by mistertrippy on 2009-01-11 15:37:19 +0000
Oh doing the hand painted T-shirts was a groove… then I heard about subliminal advertising and I was putting hidden words in mine like ‘fuck’ and ‘sex’… But the plastic bag and bin-liner T-shirts were awful… and very sweaty too.
The difference between the good and bad records is usually in the musicianship and production… The production on those DIY records is generally dreadful… and very often the bands could barely play. Whereas groups like The Vibrators had been around for a while, and of course front man Knox had started in Shadows cover bands at the start of the sixties, so they had some musical chops and knew what they were doing… as well as experienced producers, like Mickie Most on the first Vibrators single!
Comment by Observe on 2009-01-12 01:36:45 +0000
Ah, you have just reminded me about the rubber T shirts and bin bags,….yes, I DO remember…
Comment by shrieking toad howling wizard on 2009-01-12 10:37:32 +0000
I don’t like the sound of all of these reminiscnces…. I am going back to my cave. People are no good.
Comment by mistertrippy on 2009-01-12 12:19:45 +0000
Hey Wiz, people are good but cpatialist society is bad (and that’s bad meaning rubbish not bad meaning good)…. Don’t spend to long in the cave our you’ll end up going for some Platonic idiocy about this world being illusion…..
Comment by Christopher Nosnibor on 2009-01-28 12:55:47 +0000
Strange sense of deja vu….
Comment by mistertrippy on 2009-01-28 22:51:15 +0000
Me too… but what do you think Kate does for naughty kicks, read Famous 5 books???
Comment by Rosco on 2009-04-05 03:02:46 +0000
You really are a disgusting little little prick arn’t you Mistertrippy if this passes for wit then you are truly witless.
Comment by King of (t)he World on 2009-04-05 06:08:59 +0000
Kate Muir definitely attended one of the following — Oxford, Cambridge, St Andrews, LSE.
She probably hails from a rich area of Guidlford or Tunbridge Wells, and attended a convent nearby. Mummy and Daddy had a “crash pad” off Sloane Sq or in Pimlico.
The fact that she actually seemed to want to listen to a DJ set by Phil fecking Jupitus of all people — says it all.
Comment by Bob Marley on 2009-04-05 18:03:27 +0000
I’m singin’ that
When the cat’s away,
The mice will play.
Political voilence fill ya city, ye-ah!
Don’t involve Rasta in your say say;
Rasta don’t work for no C.I.A.
Rat race, rat race, rat race! Rat race, I’m sayin’:
When you think is peace and safety:
A sudden destruction.
Collective security for surety, ye-ah!