Delusions Of Grandeur

I recently told all my friends that I'll be doing stand up on Monday. Most of them were supportive, pleased or couldn't give a flying fuck.....I have nothing but respect for those people. However, one of my friends said that I was delusional. Now, I'm not the smartest person you'll ever meet, I chose to do stand up because all you have to do is stand up and talk. I've been practising all week and I'm almost there - I've qualified from lying down in a prone position and talking, through lying down in a supine position and talking and now I'm at kneeling but no talking. I should be okay by Monday. But I don't know what delusional means, so I looked it up-

"A small defensive eathwork or fort"

I had no idea how this was relevant to me but I respected my friend's opinion, so I chose to look in to this further...by looking up what an earthwork or a fort is. I understood the defensive part. I've been called defensive at every intervention my family has ever had.....no more so than the suit of armour intervention. I went back to my mate to ask him what he meant. I don't want to reveal who it is cos you might know him, but I said, "Listen, Fernando, what did you mean when you called me delusional? I am not a fort!". He explained that  I was an idiot and that he meant that I was a megalomaniac - That I had a belief in my own abilities far beyond my talent and that I'll never be a good stand up, "Thanks for explaining that" I said - I was so relieved.

I just want you to know that Richard Howarth does not have ideas above his station. His comedy will touch the hearts of millions and burn far beyond infinity. One day you'll tell your children his joke about ethnic cleansing or his bit about his racist penis. He is not a small defensive eathwork or fort. He is a stand up comedian (or a kneeling comedian).

My Eulogy

On more than one occasion I have claimed that I'm gonna live forever. I think when I said that I actually believed it. Call it the arrogance of youth, plain denial, or just the effects of  large amounts of cocaine and meth-amphetamines, who knows? All I do know is that I will die. It probably won't be today, or tomorrow, but one day I shall shuffle off this mortal coil and join the choir invisible (just kidding, he'll just be worm food).

I believe it's my right to have the kind of funeral I want (He worked all his life for it). As I've stated it many times, most of my friends will know that I want the music to be Smack My Bitch Up by Prodigy and My Way by Frank Sinatra. If I'm married then my wife can choose between playing or performing Like a Prayer by Madonna, one of the finest songs about a blow job I've ever heard. Magic.

The rest of it I want read out verbatim. Just fill the gaps in on stuff about my wife's name, number of kids, age of death (the stuff that doesn't really matter). And I don't care who reads it out, just as long as they give it a little jazz. Here we go -

Richard James Howarth. What is there to say about this man that he hasn't already said himself? (The irony isn't lost on me). He was born with a pair of bootstraps....and then he pulled himself up by them. Nothing was handed to him on a plate, he had a terrible porcelain phobia ever since he was four and he nearly choked to death on an egg cup.

It was at fifteen that Richard wrote his first real joke -"Furious with America and Coca-Cola's dominance of the soft drink market, Adolf Hitler, in collaboration with the owner of Becks beer, decided they would invent their own soft drink. Knowing that Hitler could be very demanding, Becks decided not to get too involved with the creative process. Months went by and then one night the owner of Becks received a call from Hitler, he explained how he'd been racking his brains for ages and then it suddenly came to him, "No Jews"- The product was a huge cultural and financial disaster." - The joke wasn't good but he was fifteen, he'd get better.

I think we'll most remember Richard for his sitcom, No You Didn't. Critics called it, "The sole reason for the dumbing down of our youth". "Poorly written, crude and obvious jokes, clichéd characters and re-hashed story-lines" - It was a massive success. He will also be remembered for that time he was doing stand up and he attacked a heckler with a tomahawk (god bless his soul). In his defence there isn't much of a comeback for "You're just not much of a performer"- well except for......oh wait, what's that? - Boom! Tomahawk!

I was with him when he met his wife (insert name), pretty face (of course), great personality (hopefully) and an ass like a seven year old boy (booya!). Together they have __ Children, called ______ , ______ and (though let's hope not) _________. They were perfect together, strawberries and cream, cocaine and hookers, Amaretto and eating pussy.......but they did other stuff together as well.

But I won't remember him for any of that. I'll remember him for the time my wife left me. He was the only one who was there for me. I was in a pit of despair and he got me out. He got me out. I'll never forget what he said to me that day "Don't worry, they're all prostitutes. It's on me". And I really ran up some extras cos I'm into some proper weird shit, but he just charged it all to his production company......and even drove her to the hospital. What a guy.

My Epitaph -

Here lies 

Richard James Howarth 

17/10/1986-_______

Died rescuing orphans from a burning building, went

back to retrieve valuables, tripped on his own penis,

burnt to death.

My Secret Admirer

This is not just an excuse for me to brag that someone finds me attractive, I've said before that my modesty is my 6th best quality. This is more of a way to help find out who they are, for want of a better phrase, I'm trying to flush her out.........I thought Bracket Guy would have some sort of douche joke after that sentence, weird.

Anyway, a few weeks ago I got an e-mail from Bieberphile69@hotmail.com. It said that they were my secret admirer and to fill out the attached questionnaire. All I had to do was click on the answers and send it back. Here are the questions-

Who has a pair of binoculars, a basic grasp of French, and is crazy about someone? 

A) You

B) Tennis legend John McEnroe

C) This moi 

D) None of the above

It was a good job I was given the options otherwise I'd never of got it, so I clicked A

How many sexual partners have you had in the last year?

                  

I wanted to big myself up a little bit, try to impress whoever it was.....so I clicked 3, oh yeah.

Describe yourself in three words?

Again I was trying to impress so I went with, Intelligent, Caring, Barack Obama, Maverick.

I like to get to know someone before I sleep with them, do you think you'd have the patience to wait for me?

I wanted to respect her beliefs so I went with "I don't know who you are but if you were the right person then I would wait til you were ready, don't worry about me, I once went 21 years without sex.....then another 3 years.

Do you or anybody in your family have a history of mental illness?

I told her about my uncle John. John was a hard-working builder, all his life he worked hard and built stuff. Then one day, just after he turned 42 he was convinced that he was a black jazz blues musician. He left his wife and kids, changed his name to Leroy, and we never saw him again. But I'm not too sure that really counts

Have you ever had an STD?

Only clingyness

Have you ever been in love?

Not with anybody else

Would you say that you have a strong personality?

The one I have now had to overpower the other three, so pretty much

Are you allergic to anything?

Cat hair, gay people, condoms.

What's your biggest fear?


Velociraptors, spiders, intimacy

What's you idea of a perfect date?

February third, it just rolls off the tongue.

How would you impress me?

With my clothes on

Would you like to go on a date with me?

I said yes.

I sent the questionnaire back and waited. A week passed and I decided to I go over my answers again to see if there was anything that might have put her off........nothing. I kinda thought that was the end of it but last night something very strange happened. Before I tell you what happened I want you to know that I locked my flat before I went to bed and it was still locked when I woke up, there were no signs of forced entry. Now, I'll tell you what happened. I woke up this morning and found that I had come in my sleep.......you know....with my penis and that. Now I don't know how she got in or how she managed to do it without waking me up but I'd like to know who she is.

I don't like many women. In my whole life I've only liked five. There has to be something special about them for me to like them. I can't stop thinking about this one. While I was asleep dreaming about something really embarrassing that once happened to me in an R.E class, she broke into my flat and gently went to town on me. Amazing. I'm guessing that it's someone who knows me so if it's you, please send me an e-mail so we can meet.

Who could she be? (This moi)

Curriculum Vitae

I've been looking to get some part-time work over summer and I thought that this would be a good place to put up my C.V. If you know anybody that is looking to hire someone then please pass it on.

Richard James Howarth

Let's get things straight from the start, if you were looking for someone who is on time and does what they're told then you're gonna be gutted. I'm a maverick. I used to work at a printing company, one day we ran out of white paper and just started using blue. The boss calls me into his office and tells me that he liked my use of initiative and he called me "Maverick", since then I've tried to cultivate that nickname. Do I use spellcheck? Absolutly not. Do I spike the water cooler with hallucinogenics? Most definitely. Have I had sex on my desk? Sort of. Us renegades don't play by the rules, we break 'em and then make our own. I often arrange dog fights and other bloodsports to take place at lunch time. I will not wear pants. I also like working as part of a team and I am willing to work weekends. Maverick!

Experience

2002-2005: Big Business Bullshit

Working for the man

• Turning up everyday
• Not being drunk
• Not selling meth-amphetamines on business premises
• Burning the candle at both ends
• Serving burgers 

2005-2007: Entrepreneur
Kingpin/Tony Montana

• Importing/exporting
• Organising a large team
• Not getting high of my own supply
• Smacking bitches upside the head
• Driving an ice-cream van 

2007-2011: Unemployed
Laying Low

• Being totally stealth and badass
• Playing Donkey Kong
• Eating takeaway
• Not paying taxes
• Living in my mum's basement
• Getting Hench

Education
While many people were reading books and passing exams, I was graduating top of my class in the school of life. I may not be the best at equations or algorithms but I can tell you 1/8th of an ounce is 3.55grams, who needs to know more than that? I know how to fix dog fights and how to make it appear like your company is profitable. I also went to Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard and Hogwarts and I have a degree in Science and Making Money.

Additional Experience

• Powerpoint
• Synergy
• Recycling
• Carbon Emissions 
• Tax Evasion
• Barack Obama
• Jetpacks
• The Internet

Interests
Drinking, High Stakes Gambling, Moonlighting as a Gigolo, Recreational Drugs, Unprotected Sex, Forming Unions, Bomb Threats, Skiing.

All references are unavailable due to them either being dead or filthy liars. 

My word is my word.

The Perfect Woman

For those who don't know, a dream board is were you take images of all the things you want and make them into a collage, you then focus all your positive energy on these images and then you will get them. It's that simple (every idiot does it). I thought what I'd do is make one for the perfect woman, it must be easier to get one thing than a bunch of 'em. Now, I'm not going to make a collage for two reasons: One - A collage would be made up purely of images and I'm not so superficial, to me beauty comes from within (he was just saying that to his friends, Black Guy and Green Eyes Girl). Two- I think if you're male and making a collage of want you want then it'll probably be of a man's penis in or around your mouth.

So I'll just list them (Great, another list of funny items, you haven't done that before) - Bracket Guy is such a bitch, I bet his collage would just be pictures of his parenthesese before they were murdered, loser.

• Someone that makes me want to be a better man - No wait, I mean someone that let's me think I'm Batman. Over time sex with the same partner becomes predictable. With my last girlfriend I would stand in front her wearing nothing but a fedora, she would make sure that Britain's Got Talent isn't on T.V and it was business time (business hours were short). But the monotony effects everyone and to alleviate the boredom it's good to role play every now and again. I liked to pretend I'm Batman and she liked to pretend that she still found me attractive. We broke up after I had my cape on and we were going at it and then she starts saying, "Yeah, you like fucking Lois Lane, don't you?". I was fuming, I was like, "No, you're Vicki Vale you silly bitch, Lois Lane was Superman's missus. I'm Batman", she made a speeding bullet joke and that was the end of it. So what I'm looking for is a woman who enjoys the Batman films and has maybe taken an improv class or two. Simple.

• A woman that likes to laugh - A wise man once said "Laughter is the greatest noise a woman can make with her clothes on, and the worst if my clothes are off" - It was me, I said that. That doesn't mean I want a woman to laugh at all my jokes 'cos I don't (he absolutely does), I want someone fun who I can laugh with. Sharing a sense of humour is important, so if you're mean-spirited, angry and sarcastic then you should give me a call, alternatively, if you like Peter Kay, Lee Mach or Miranda Hart, then you should go fuck yourself. I'm just kidding, Include Little Britain on that list too.

• Women who drink- A lot of women are so bothered about seeming proper and lady-like that they never fully relax. They never properly let go. To them, a night out is just another opportunity to have their photos taken holding a wine glass in their new favourite dress. I like women that are unhinged, the kind of woman that will get so drunk there's an equal chance of her blowing you in the taxi home as there is her trying to stab you with a stiletto. I like women with crazy eyes and drink problems, because life is more fun when there's a chance you might die (words we should all live by, though maybe not for long).

•  Recreational drug users - This is similar to the drinking thing really, don't really need to add much more. I'm not advocating the use of strong drugs like crystal meth or heroin, or drugs you have to smoke like pot or crack, or anything hallucinogenic like acid, but all the other ones. I wouldn't do any drugs myself, I'd just enjoy watching her take it (like that swingers party he took his last girlfriend to)

• Likes music by bands, has been in a band, hasn't fucked anyone in a band- I would settle for one of the three, funnily enough my ex was one of the three when we first started going out, until she went out in Shoreditch and met one of The Horrors. She didn't even know who he was, her mate had to tell her, next thing you know she's getting nailed in some bedsit by guy a guy in skinny jeans. She then pulls up her underwear, pulls down her dress and uses his straighteners. She comes round to mine and asks me if I've heard of them and if I liked their music. I could still smell him on her. It smelt like hairspray and betrayal. Broke my heart.  So..... girls who like music with guitars in and that.

That's about it really. So what I'm gonna do now is print this off and focus all my positive energy on it (he doesn't have much) and then one day, you never know, she might walk into my life. I'll be on the lookout for an alcoholic drug user, who laughs a lot and makes stuff up....possibly with a guitar. Come to think of it, I think my perfect woman is working in the subway near the supermarket......I always imagined the perfect woman wouldn't stink so much of piss, of course some piss....just not as much, but beggars can't be choosers, eh?

Peace and Fucking. Believe. 

My Life in Pieces: Piece One

I'll start at the beginning, I think it's best to write biographies in chronological order otherwise there's a lot of exposition, sentences like "I recalled this man, I had met him earlier, you'll read about him later when I earlier meet him....later?"- very confusing.

A lot of biographies are often like biopics typed out on paper, whereas this will be like my mind fucked a dictionary to produce a sexy-word child. There will be no filler, no umms or aahhs, just pure word -meat, or meaty-words. Meaty-words like trampoline, vicious and length. You will have read biographies before, but I assure you that this is completely different....as I am a different person and have lead a different life (If you are re-reading this biography then it may be similar to biographies you have read before).

My birth was very normal, my mother was pumped with drugs until she was nearly unconscious and I just fell out of her lower half. Textbook. The only minor problem was that the umbilical cord was wrapped around my neck and had to be removed, my psychiatrist thinks it may be the reason that I have a penchant for auto-erotic asphyxiation but I'm not too sure (He also thinks I'm a racist, he shouldn't just use black and white Rorscach cards, course they're gonna look like a scary black face every time).

My mother always said that I was like a single quintuplet, she said that I seemed like I was part of a group, that's why she always dressed me the same. Every time she introduced me to people she would tell them that I was an only quintuplet, "uniquely generic" was her nickname for me. My mother was warm (because of the booze) and giving (mostly of me to strangers), and she loved me like a son which was convenient.

My father was a cold and distant man. In fact a colder and more distant man you're unlikely to find (he was like a chest-freezer that you keep in the garage). My father told people I was a mistake, "Potentially my child" he would proudly tell people. I had a very happy childhood, my mother gave me enough love for four children and my father loved me unconditionally after he won his case against Durex.........though that love did come with conditions. 

I learnt to play the piano before I could walk - I was five, the cage I was kept was too cramped for me to stand. At age six I composed a series of variations of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, nothing spectacular but there was beauty in their simplicity, my dad said they were shit and asked me if I knew any Motley Crue .

By age six I was too big for my cage and was left to roam about our spacious maisonette. Well, I thought it was spacious, turns out that my parents had moved house without telling me, the house was empty. This was an issue for me as, at that age, I had little grasp on the value of money....or how to earn it. I remember how the local shop owners would take advantage of me, I once paid £12:43 for a Curly Wurly and a can of Fanta (I'm used to that now in London but this was Preston in 1992, outrageous).

One night I was sleeping in my cage (it was too small but for some reason it made me feel safe) when an urban fox crept in the back door. He scampered about the kitchen looking for scraps of food, finding nothing he headed into the lounge and up to my cage. I told him to leave me alone and get out of my house, but, of course, he was a fox and only spoke limited Portuguese. I tried my best with some Spanish but he could only understand the odd word.

We bonded over our mutual love of pointing at things and shouting in our respective languages. I called him Badger and he called me Bambino (which is odd). I insisted that he and his wife, Felicia move in with me, he accepted. Once we'd overcome the language barrier there were very few problems, we all had our own strengths and helped the group as a whole. The only time we ever fell out was when I rubbed beef paste on my balls and got Felicia to lick them (she couldn't help herself, once she smelt that beef paste she went to town). Badger walked in and saw his missus licking my balls and wagging her tail like no tomorrow. He was furious. I instantly regretted what I'd done, he was my best friend and confidant and I'd betrayed him by rubbing beef paste on my balls and getting Felicia to lap at em like a pro. He got me back though, he bit my arm and I got rabies and nearly died so now we're even.

Read the next instalment of "My Life in Pieces" to find out what happened next.

Writer's Block

It was long past there point where he should have done something. If, in future, he looked back at this moment within a timeline, it would be placed somewhere between almost too late and definitely too late, and just before giving up and watching T.V. He’d been staring at the blank screen for what seemed like an age, but, what was probably only forty-seven minutes. It was time to write something.

He had been in this position a million times before, sat at his desk, staring at his computer and TV screen combo, naked. It’s the way he’s written essays, it’s the way he’d written sitcom scripts; it’s the way he writes e-mails to his bitch ex-girlfriend. It’s not that he likes sitting in an uncomfortable chair staring at one 32” screen and one 19” screen, both of which are six inches from his face, it’s that he is limited by a lack of means and space.

He gets up to stretch his legs, he considers going for a walk to the shop but prefers the nakedness to the outsideness so he forgets that idea. He walks into his en suite and looks at himself in the mirror, he looks tired and dishevelled, grey patches under his eyes, his skin a slightly paler grey. He has just enough facial hair to hint that he might be able to grow a beard before he reaches the age of forty, a deviated septum and bad teeth. This is the writer, your writer. The man who can create worlds in the blink of an eye, the man who can paint pictures with the written word, pictures so vivid you can almost.....wait, is that a poppy seed in his teeth. He gives them a quick floss and decides to make himself a brew.

Tea in hand he sits back his desk and looks along his bookshelf for inspiration, two books on the life of Peter Cook (unread), Washington Square by Henry James (unread), Franny and Zooey by J.D Salinger (unread), I am America (and so can you) by Stephen Colbert (listened to the audiobook), The Bro Code by Barney Stinson (read on toilet).

He isn’t much of a reader, which, for a man doing an English and creative writing degree, isn’t ideal. He is possibly one of the only aspiring writers in history that had written as many words as he’s read, in other words: he isn’t a writer.

His lack of literary skills aren’t entirely his fault. He is a product of his generation, a man brought up with the internet and a thirty-second culture, constantly bored, constantly consuming new media. He watches film after film, sitcom as after sitcom, spending hour after hour on Youtube looking at the latest viral hit. He and his whole generation have H.D.A.D.D: they can’t pay attention to anything at all but what they do has to be in high definition. To him, the printed word is dying and it’s being replaced by three minute videos of a man saying “Gap ya”. And he doesn’t care.

Leaning back on his chair he notices the poster in the corner of his room. He designed the poster himself, at the top reads the slogan, “Ambition is the enemy of success:  Just give up”. Below is a picture of a cat trying to hang itself using a washing line. He stares at this poster for a minute or so, finishes his cup of tea and decides now he will actually do some work.

“She looked empty, empty in the way you imagine Mother Nature would look after a hysterectomy”- he liked that opening line. It had only taken him four Chuck Palahniuk books and staring at a blank screen for two hours but he had done it. Opening line: done!  He was on such a roll he considered writing a book consisting purely of opening lines, but, as great as that idea sounded, he wasn’t prepared to write a book that just went on beginning forever.

Instead he thought he’d go for the more traditional option: hundreds of sentences, not too dissimilar to his opening one arranged around a plot. Now all he needed was a plot. Many people would think it was foolish and naive for him to start writing a short story without having a plot first. He felt that maybe he was like a jazz musician, able to produce impromptu magic at will. Of Jazz music, Miles Davis one said “it’s not the notes you play, it’s the notes you don’t play”. The writer wished he could be judge by the same yardstick, so far he had written fifteen words and not written fourteen-hundred and eighty-five. The fifteen words were good, but the fourteen-hundred and eighty-five were almost perfect.

Before he compromised the potential of another word, the writer decided he needed a plot, and some characters. He sort of had the idea for the female character. He knew the kind of person she was but she wasn’t quite fully formed. When writing sitcom scripts the writer would compile huge biographies on his characters before he wrote a single word. Pages and pages of irrelevant information, such as what watch they would buy, where they bought their underwear from etc. Was this anal?  Perhaps. Did this female character like anal? Absolutely not. Now he was getting somewhere.

He closed his eyes and pictured her, she looked cheap, she looked cheap in a way that suggested she’d done stuff in the presence of animals and clergymen. She had on thick red lipstick and had a cigarette hanging from the left corner of her mouth. She raised her left hand to the cigarette, holding it between her middle and index finger and she took a puff. As she pursed her lips, deep indentations showed around her mouth, she had been a smoker for a while.

He quickly scribbled all this down, the character in his head was beginning to take shape but he needed to get it down on paper before he forgot it all or before she morphed into something else. He furiously wrote for some time. He stopped, he had transcribed everything he’d imagined, the character that was in his head was now on the notepad in front of him. He read over what he’d written and paused, he then wrote “banging tits” and underlined it.  This man would never be one of the greats.

Now that he had the main character sorted, he just needed a plot. Was it going to be a fish in water story like Finding Nemo? Or a fish out of water, in water, then a fish out of water, on land like the Little Mermaid? Or was it going to be  just a plain old fish out of water story like that haddock he had for his tea last night (spoiler alert, it was delicious).  He just didn’t know.

He didn’t have enough knowledge of novels to draw on for inspiration, but he had seen a lot of films. Now, he was no idiot, he knew that a book was basically a film that has been transcribed. His book didn’t have plot, all he needed was inspiration from a filmmaker that makes films despite the fact that they don’t have a plot, who else but Michael Bay?

Using Michael bay as inspiration, the writer came up with an idea: The short story would consist of nothing but glossy pictures of attractive people, glamorous locations, explosions, guns, drugs, flashy cars etc and all the reader would to do is repeatedly beat themselves about the face with these pictures until something kinda made sense. The writer toyed with the practicalities of submitting a series of photographs as a piece of work for a short-story course for quite some time. He eventually decided that this was the worst idea ever “What was I thinking” he exclaimed “who in their right mind would copy Michael Fucking Bay”. He then broke down and cried for thirty-seven minutes.

After regaining his composure, the writer stood up, went over to his window and opened the curtains in his room. Daylight. It was the first time they had been open since he moved in. The sunlight was dazzling, the sudden exposure made him feel slightly abash about his nudity, this soon passed. He stood at his window and saw a pair of twins walking through the courtyard below. At that moment he had a brilliant idea, he would write a story about not being able to write a story. It was a great idea. He racked his brains thinking if it had been done before, then he realised that Charlie Kaufman had done it. He closed his curtains and sat resigned in his chair. Once again his poster of the cat caught his eye “Ambition is the enemy of success”.

He began to type “It was long past there point where he should have done something”. Charlie Kaufman may have done it first, but nobody had done it this badly.