… and orated dramatically by me.

Slash fiction, or ’slash fan fiction’, is a dark and worrisome genre of literature. If fan fiction wasn’t bad enough — really, who cares what Snape does on his day off? — slash fiction usually involves the destruction of an entire fictional universe for the sole purpose of the writer (and, sadly, the readers) getting their jollies. Harry Potter, being the most successful series of all time, has attracted more than its fair share of slash fic: seriously, almost any ‘combo’ you can think of has been done: Ron and Harry, Harry and Snape, lots of Harry and Malfoy… Dumbledore and Hagrid… dragons and Hagrid…

You get the idea. Slash fic is nasty… which is why I’ve included a few quotes from my favourite Harry Potter flash fiction in this week’s soundboard. The five buttons on the right definitely class as ‘too much information’, and I wouldn’t click them at work. You should also check out Lilu’s blog for more TMI — again, when you get home.

So, as with last week’s Pillow Talk Soundboard, the instructions are as follows: click the buttons. You can click multiple buttons at the same time, but it’ll probably just be confusing. I’m particularly proud of the last few spells; maybe a future of voice acting awaits… or not.

If you can’t see the soundboard below, you need to visit my blog.

P.S. most of the slash fan fiction quotes came from an entry at Topless Robot. It’s quite the most disturbing thing I’ve ever read, and highly recommend you read it… if you like that kind of thing.

Instructions: Hit the buttons. Order doesn’t really matter, but most phrases are grouped into ‘types’. Also, visit Lilu’s blog for more grossness, after you’ve had a fiddle with my soundboard.

Tips: You don’t have to wait for one sound to finish before you start another. Also, you might want to turn your volume down a little…

(If you can’t see the Flash soundboard below, you need to visit my blog.)

By all means let me know of any particularly nasty/nefarious combinations that you can come up with. And let me know if you use it, er, in the bedroom too.

A cheap and cheerful blog post today! Off the back of my ‘World of Whorecraft‘ post yesterday, where curious-cat Claire asked what I might sound like saying ‘Get your ass over here, bitch!’, I have decided to deliver the goods.

So, here you go: five different versions! I leave it as an exercise to you, the reader, to decide which accent I actually used in the story.

I know what you’re thinking: ‘any excuse to get that big, bulbous microphone out and impress the ladies, Seb…’ And you’re right. I’m such a narcissist.

Does narcissism even cover the loving of your own voice? I guess it does. Perhaps instead of self-portraits of myself around the world, I could take little audio clips instead… hmm…

(If you can’t see these audio players, you’ll have to visit the blog!)

• First! A very straight-forward and normal Seb:
   
• My (famous?) Deep South hill-billy accent:
   
• An accent I’m not really sure about. Common British, with a hint of Australian (?):
   
  (Really, this one just came out, and decided to keep it. It’s kinda cute?)
• Cool/City-dwelling American (Black?) accent:
   
  (Apparently, according to Abi, this one sounds like ‘the old guy with a tooth whistle‘ from Family Guy. I’m not sure how I feel about such comparisons. I was trying to sound young and black, not old and white…)
• Posh/David Attenborough kind of British accent (again, not sure what this one is really…):
   

I suppose, under the slightly-veiled guise of ‘research’, I should ask which accent you think I would have most success with…

I haven’t podcasted in a while — I’ve been travelling, or my house has been positively humming with activity and Americans — but now, with normality returning, I’m able to do some more podcasting!

So to celebrate my continued photographic excellence and sales, here’s a minute or two of a Brit bumbling his deep, burbling, heart-felt thanks for those that have bought photos… and a little more!

(It’s work safe — in fact, I encourage you to play it while at work. If you can’t see the audio player, you’ll need to visit my blog.)

(Also, if you didn’t yet, check out my first week of  ‘52 Weeks‘ — it turned out well, and next week will be even better!)

It’s been a while since I last wrote about music. Listening to music, like the appreciation of all art forms, is a very personal and subjective thing. You might like rock and I might like soul, but as long as we both get what we’re looking for, who cares? Well, I care! I listen to contemporary pop and sigh. It saddens me to think that, for some people, this is as good as it gets.

If we’re not careful the King of Pop will be nothing more than an honourific title thrown around by future generations in the playground: ‘Dad says the King of Pop died recently.’ ‘Yeah, sucks. Did you hear the latest Britney Spears song? It rocks!’ Unless someone — you or I — steps in and reminds children of what real music once sounded like and where their music originally came from, we can forget all hope of there ever being another King of Pop, Soul or Rock ‘n’ Roll.

* * *

The King of Pop, Michael Jackson. Not the Baron or Prince or Godfather — the King; the top dog upon which all comparisons are made and will be for years to come. I’m not going to talk about the last 20 years of his life but instead I will focus on the first 30, the three decades that revitalised a flagging music industry. In those thirty years, Michael Jackson became the greatest and most influential musician of our time. To those amongst us that appreciate music and its power; to those of us that are prone to bouts of aural sex: we have a lot to be grateful for! I just hope I can do Michael justice and nail the most important aspects of his influential and protean career.

While certainly successful, the first ten years of his life as the lead singer of The Jackson 5 were hardly monumental. The Jackson family were recognised as a musically-gifted family and Michael was nothing more than a charismatic and spectacular performer. But he could only grow so much, restricted by Motown’s draconian production rules and an oppressive father. The Jacksons were destined, unless something changed, to be a flash in the pan — certainly one of Motown’s biggest success stories (four successive number ones is nothing to be ashamed of!), but minuscule compared to what the Jackson family in general and Michael in particular were capable of. Perhaps the most important role of the Jacksons would be to become the first black teen idols. Breaking down barriers would be a recurring aspect of Michael Jackson’s life at the forefront of the music industry.

Stifled by Motown, The Jacksons jumped ship to CBS in 1975, a move that would finally grant the band the creative freedom it required. The Jacksons produced lots of albums in the following decade, but none of them approaching the success of their early Motown hits. But for Michael, it would be a different story indeed: in 1978 he met Quincy Jones on the set of The Wiz — “I hated doing The Wiz… I did not want to do it,” Quincy said later — they didn’t know it then but Quincy’s involvement with the film would soon change musical history and forge the greatest, most influential and successful collaboration in music history. Quincy Jones is a musician and conductor whose career and incredible influence spans five decades. With 27 Grammys and countless other awards, Quincy, like the Jacksons, broke down barriers that would allow future African-Americans to succeed in the culturally-biased media industry. The scope of Quincy Jones’ work is so varied and vast that it’s hard to comprehend: we’re talking about a legend that played alongisde Miles Davis during the creation of modern jazz and bebop, but then later produced the largest-selling album of all time (Thriller). He’s worked with Sinatra, Spielberg and even Bill Cosby. However, after Bad, his production and arrangement days were over — perhaps, after five decades of musicianship, the impresario had finally set down on paper the notes and themes that had run through his head for fifty years. Perhaps it was time to make way for future generations?

But I digress: it was on the set of The Wiz that this partnership of mentor and young prodigy begun. Off The Wall was born from the marriage of orchestral jazz, soul and 70s disco. Off The Wall fused sounds and melodies and dazzlingly energetic themes that had been building up for decades but never fully exemplified until this album was mastered and distributed. It’s worth noting, though their influences were not particularly significant, that both Stevie Wonder and Paul McCartney wrote tracks for Off The Wall — perhaps this shows just how much confidence these musical geniuses had in Michael?

If Quincy and Jackson’s first collaboration hadn’t quite cemented things — Off The Wall only sold 20 million copies! — their next album would prove beyond doubt that they’d hit the spot. Thriller would be the first and only album to become something more than just a finely-crafted collection of songs. The astronomical number of sales — 109 million — would thrust Thriller into the category of ‘household staple’ rather than ‘commodity’ — families would go to the supermarket to buy bread, milk and a copy of Thriller. To this day, Thriller has more than doubled the next-largest album (45 million — Dark Side of the Moon) and its universally popular appeal will no doubt continue its reign of supremacy.

The bone of contention that one usually comes across when examining Jackson’s career is thus: how much of the success was actually due to him? Did Michael’s career begin as a vehicle for Motown’s music machine and end as nothing more than the pop industry’s poster child? Is it important? If we can learn one thing from history it’s one thing: for better or worse, the outcome is what counts, not the minutia, not those that fall by the wayside. If you discount his later work and simply focus on his early-adult albums — Off The Wall, Thriller, Bad and Dangerous – you have a body of work that was not only phenomenally successful but also more influential than the creations of any other artist in the last 40 years. It’s because of Jackson that we have hip-hop and rap music. Jackson revitalised a pop industry that was suffocating under the burgeoning force of uncreative, uninspired electronica. The phenomenon of Michael Jackson caused a rebirth of popular music that inspired and influenced almost every modern R&B, funk and pop musician.

I haven’t even begun to touch on the immortal influence that Michael Jackson had on both the youth and adults of the world with his music videos and live performances. Jackson created the music video that we know today; he single-handedly launched MTV to stardom with Thriller. Jackson, through sheer artistic brilliance, destroyed the last vestiges of African-American inequality in the media. Michael Jackson’s choreographic style — oh, that white trilby, those hip-thrusts and those gloves — had an effect more profound than anything since Fosse’s jazz or Jerome Robbins’ West Side Story.

I hope that the world, the media-consuming public, can in the next few years put aside any moral objections they have to the man himself and simply focus on what he created. It is irrelevant to wonder whether he is solely to thank for his wondrous advances in music or if he was merely the focus of myriad prodigious input from Quincy Jones. The matter of the fact is thus: Michael Jackson pioneered and sat atop the pinnacle of a musical, a rich cadence that had been bubbling and building up for decades. It finally exploded with Michael Jackson’s solo albums and the world is a richer place for it. From Miles Davis to Stevie Wonder and the entire R&B, jazz and soul libraries that flutter and reside in between, Michael Jackson created, embraced and become the very embodiment of modern pop music.

* * *

The two best albums you could buy a child or musical neophyte are Davis’ Kind Of Blue and Jackson’s Off The Wall. There is no better way to be quickly brought up to speed on the roots and direction of modern music. And if you haven’t heard either of them, you are doing yourself and rest of the world an injustice!

RIP, Michael Jackson. Surely one of your sons must be reaching the age where he might show an interest in singing or dancing…

(Another entry, another podcast! Recorded all in one take without any kind of planning, so the voices you hear are ‘off the cuff’ — I’m particularly proud of my attempt at a crazed feminist. Hopefully there are no repeat or missing paragraphs. It sounds a little bit nasal and wet in places, but hey, I can’t and don’t want to fix that: excess saliva has always served me well in the past.)

Once upon a time there were was a seedy, fleet-footed fellow that only moved under the cover of darkness. Only after the sun had descended and the campus took on the dusky, dark-blue hues of night would he emerge in his long coat and broad-rimmed hat. His black leather boots moved with surprising grace, the slight squeak of foot against foot the only noise betraying his location.

He skirts the meeting point, watching his target nervously hop from foot to foot and light a third cigarette, its burning tip faintly outlining his hooded face. Eventually he approaches, sidling up next to the smoker. He grunts a quiet greeting.

‘Got the money?’

‘You got all the stuff I want?’

‘Of course.’

‘Even the ebony-and-ivory one?’

‘Does the Porn King ever fail to deliver?’

…

At university I ruled the roost. I was invited to all the parties and chicks clung to every limb. I was that guy on the white leather sofa, splayed out languidly like a snow angel, girls curled up in the spaces left between my arms and legs. Merely opening my mouth would cause those nearby to quickly hush and watch me; watch my lips, my teeth, the expansion of my ribs as I breathe in, preparing to speak.

‘The Porn King requires a blow job.’ A flurry of activity followed as the girls quickly clambered off the sofa onto the ground and two others standing nearby rushed to help.

I once lived a life of regal opulence. Hedonistic extravagance. Girls and boys available to me at any time for any need and every want: food, sex or even… conversation. I’d be given free tickets to the local cinema and I’d be rushed through the other entrance at nightclubs, the one without a queue. At restaurants I’d always get the best table, the freshest bread and it wasn’t uncommon for the chef to prepare a special dessert, just for me.

I felt just a bit like The Godfather.

Unlike the Godfather though, I hadn’t built an empire based on coercion, fear and racketeering; this was an empire built upon something far healthier: sex and satisfaction. Not the human-trafficking kind either: sex, gooey and juicy, safely condensed into an easily-transportable disc.

The word ‘pornography’, perhaps aptly if you’re a ‘moralist’, comes from ancient Greek literally meaning ‘the writing/recording of prostitutes/prostitution’. That’s not a good start for an argument in favour of pornography, but wait!

Historically porn has been outlawed for religious reasons — monotheistic of course: the Greeks and Romans loved sex and all the sticky extras it entailed — but more recently the anti-porn brigade has been led by the feminists: ‘Porn is degrading to the female form!’ they decry. At the same time they claim that we’re now grown up enough, as a culture, to grant women the rights they’ve for millennia done without: to vote, to display and do with themselves as they see fit, to sleep with whoever they damn well please — to be a separate race or species: women. For the longest time women have merely been an extension of man, their subordinate helpers, humans without penises. Feminists — and most sane people — argue that it’s time women were allowed to plant their feet on the ground, look around, and strike out in any direction

The argument is, of course, that the actresses in porn aren’t ‘being women’; no, they’re prostituted lumps of meat, their bodies sold for money to the highest bidder for the satisfaction of a paying audience that’s sitting in front of their TV or computer screen, fapping, flapping furiously. But… is there something wrong with that?

It’s the classic problem: how restrictive do you make laws? You can’t re-outlaw porn — it just wouldn’t wash without the stranglehold that religion once held over law-making. You can’t point your finger at the mischievous boys and girls and say: ‘You behave and keep your clothes on now, y’hear?’ The cat — the pussy — is out of the bag.

Perhaps a better question to ask is: why is porn considered to degrade women, but not men? Is it because the woman always ‘receives’? Is it purely because women have been on the receiving end of male leadership and ownership since the dawn of time? What about gay male porn? Are there masculists out there campaigning for the rights of men that always ‘play the bottom’ in porn? Another case in point: I had to look up ‘masculist’ to see if such a word even existed. That’s how foreign the concept of ‘male rights’ are in today’s society.

It’s a shame that women and men must resort to starring in pornography, and no doubt it’s hard and unsatisfying work wrought with risk. In all but a few unfortunate cases however, it was their choice to take part — perhaps they like sex so why not be paid for it? It’s a lot safer to have sex on a porno shoot than with some random guy or girl that you meet at a club — for a start, you have a camera crew and director watching to make sure they don’t stick something in the wrong hole. That’s probably a better problem to address: the current urge for ‘modern women’ to screw anything with a pulse just because they can, but that deserves a separate topic of discussion.

It boils down to this, feminists, priests and conservative law-makers: is it possible to have too many human rights? Do you somehow pretend to understand more about ourselves than us? Ethics — the ability to decide what is right and wrong — is fundamentally personal. You can’t tell someone the right answer for any given situation: to retain the human right of free thought and self-determinism they have to decide for themselves. Instead of trying to govern our actions, educate us fully and hope that we come out the other end wiser and relatively unscathed.

As a race we’re great at getting through things if we know what we’re getting into. When we are blinkered by lies and propoganda, when we walk into a situation without unbiased information, when we are unable to see both sides of an argument due to outside influence — when we lose our ability to make rational and fair decisions, then we’re in trouble.

In an attempt to spice things up a little, I’m going to be podcasting a few blog entries — they’ll simply be an unabridged reading of the entry, possibly with a variety of retarded localised accents to make things interesting. I have no idea if it’ll work well or at all but I may as well give it a try — perhaps continue surfing the web while I read to you in the background? Forgive the vanity to your right… but I have to get my kicks somehow.

I can’t do a very good Italian accent, so don’t laugh! Fast forward to 3:40 if you want to just hear the ‘exciting’ bit with the shitty Italian accent, and a hint of Dan Brown-esque American storytelling…

Photographers have it easy compared to our painter comrades. We both deal in luminance and colour, tone, texture and saturation, but at the end of the day painters start with a blank canvas and nothing but the camera of their mind’s eye. Some painters will probably tell you that it makes their life easier, being able to create anything their imagination conjures up. Surely though, controlling the minuscule movements of mixing pigment and the brush itself is infinitely more difficult than raising the shutter on a camera. Then there are those that claim photography is harder — you can only work with what you’ve been given. There is some leeway of course: trickery of the eye and your ability to move props and pose models, but at the end of the day, that’s all you have: you can’t magic a dragon out of thin air.

Photography is all about working with what you’ve got. There is a small amount of knowledge that you need to know before you can operate a camera but we’re talking 3 or 4 simple equations — and the ability to push down a button. Point, and shoot. You can affect how much light enters the camera and that’s it. It’s because of this simplicity and the switch-over to digital cameras that we’re now swamped with thousands of photographers; you, your mother and her mother can be a photographer. It’s no surprise then that selling photos has also become a lot harder: there are more photos in circulation and thus it’s harder to be seen. You can still get lucky, but more than likely your only chance to make money today is as a stock or paparazzi photographer. Like almost every art form it’s one big labour of love: you pray that one day you’ll become the next Monet or Ansel Adams but chances are you won’t.  There are so few rich artists, it’s depressing.Whether it’s due to a lack of talent or saturation of the market I don’t know. What I do know is the one thought that courses through the mind of every person that’s made art their life-long dream: will I only be famous after I die?

To separate themselves from the pack, to stand out, artists try to be different. ‘Yet another photo of some daffodils’ isn’t quite as appealing as ‘Exploding daffodils in the bedroom of the woman that broke my heart’. Almost every photographer you’ve heard of or seen today will have been unique — that’s what it takes to not sink into the mire of boring, formulaic photographers, your voice forever unheard, your view of the world unseen.

It’s all about chasing the perfect photo. Like storm-chasers, train-spotters or groupies chasing the perfect tornado, rare train or celebrity photographers must try so, so hard to get the perfect photo.  Place yourself one centimeter to the left and you might ruin the entire photo. You might have to wait for a cloud to cover the sun to get the perfect light conditions, or even wait for the sun to be in the perfect position before you take the photo. A landscape could be completely average and nondescript at midday, but the most beautiful sight you’ve ever seen at 5pm as the sun begins to set.

Photographing people is another beast entirely: the merest flick at the corner of a girl’s lips might make or break a photo. A glint of sun refracting off her eye could change the meaning and the impact. Is she breathing in or out; are her muscles tensed or relaxed? Even the greatest photographers of all time might take thousands of photos of the same  setup — as the years go by, the ratio of good-to-bad photos will improve but you’re still searching for perfection, and sometimes that’s like looking for a needle in a haystack.

Fortunately I’m a landscape photographer. I’m quite good at portrait work, I just don’t have the experience — and being a good photographer takes a lot of experience. Landscapes don’t go anywhere: the sun continues to rise, the clouds roll on by — you can keep practicing and practicing, with landscapes. With people… it’s a little trickier. One day I’ll put in the hours and chain down one of my photogenic female friends, get the lights out and go to town! One day.

So there I was in Venice, up a clock tower. It was 3pm and sunny, not a cloud in the sky. Being the geek that I am, I phoned my dad and asked him what time the sun would set — 6pm, 3 hours away. Fine, I can wait 3 hours. I’ve got a book and a bottle of water. There are all sorts of pretty tourist girls swanning around that I can chat to, and take photos of (with their own cameras, of course!) Two hours pass, it starts to get dark, my pulse quickens. I dart around the tower, surveying how different Venice looks in the fading light, looking for the perfect angle for the perfect photo.

‘The tower will be closing in 10 minutes, please take the elevator back down.’

Shit. I smile and nod at the Italian, my mind quickly working through the available solutions: I wasn’t about to head back down the tower after waiting for two hours! It wasn’t a big tower, and there weren’t any obvious dark corners. I looked up and wondered if I could wedge myself inside the bell itself. Maybe in films… but not here in real life. I was out of time and only one option remained: climb out one of the windows and cling to the wall. They do it in films… they inch themselves along a thin ledge…

The Italian usher was slowly walking around the tower, shooing people into the elevator. I only had 30 seconds to decide — wuss out and waste two hours of my life, or… chase the photo. I jumped onto the windowsill and looked down — Shit — I turned around and inched backwards until my toes were on the ledge — Crap — I reach to the left and grab the edge of the next portal — Phew — I’m safe for now, but the pounding of my heart against the ancient brick wall would suggest I’m still in in a wee spot of bother. Finally, the sound of the descending elevator! I slide myself along the ledge, my feet now splayed like a ballet dancer’s and pull myself back inside.

There I am, all alone and king of the hill! I camped out for another hour, constantly assessing the landscape, sizing up the prey, waiting to strike. An hour later, I struck gold — a full moon! A total fluke, but completely deserved. I pulled out the camera, struck a pose not unlike a war-time sniper and… wait! A big ship too! Click. Bang!

That’s how I chased my perfect photo of Venice. It’s not a stereotypical view of Venice but I challenge you to find another like it.

It was getting cold and I had no food; I was out of water and thirsty. I packed up quickly and pushed the call button on the elevator. Nothing. I pushed it again. Still nothing. I looked out through a window and grinned in the darkness, wondering if it was possible.

To be continued…

If you can’t see the audio player, you’ll have to view it on my blog. But it’s only a minute long, and not that exciting, so you can probably skip it, unless you want to hear my impression of a throat-cancer victim.

If you hadn’t gathered already, I’m big and imposing, like two conjoined Pavarotti Siamese twins. I’m a fairly prolific person; I don’t do things on a small scale. When I take photos, I take a lot of photos (and I’m getting quite good — proof below!) When I play games, I play them for hours and hours (immersion is key!) When I write, I write thousands of words; carefully thought-out, heart-felt and well-researched words. The great thing is, no matter what I turn my attention to, I love doing it! There’s a reason excellence is one goal we all strive for: it feels damn good when we finally get there. No one ever feels good after finishing half-assed job, right? But when you put down your paint brush or pencil or microphone and you’ve done good, it feels great!

The problem with typing on this kind of scale is that it causes repetitive strain injury (RSI) in my fingers. You just can’t sit at a desk and type for 12-16 hours a day without repercussions. Fortunately it’s not permanent — yet. Normally I catch it, slowly creeping up: I take a break, go for a walk; stretch my fingers and my lungs (don’t get me started on my cardiac fitness…) Historically, I’ve interspersed my computational orgies with travel, but this year all of my trips have been scuppered! Three of them! Wales, Ireland and Scotland; February, March and April. I hope to make it to Ireland later in the year, but until then, I’m stuck here in front of my computer, sucking on my sore fingers (which is surprisingly soothing, even when you do it yourself).

Can you believe the trip to Wales was cancelled because the incredibly cute girl pulled out at the last minute? Usually that’s my job. After I’d booked some hotels! Man, she had the Welsh accent and all… (Obvious when you think about it, considering she’s from Wales, but still, a wistful sigh is required at this point.)

So today, instead of solid, insightful prose, you get a few pretty photos and some audio tomfoolery. My travel stories are almost up to date (with the huge exception of America), so it’s actually time to write about my most recent trip: Italy! I’ve been wanting to write about it for ages — strike while the iron is hot! — but I’ve been a very good, patient boy and kept to the chronology. I should do America — I owe it to all of you lovely Americans — but after all of the ‘how I blew it with yet another girl’ stories from the last few weeks, I want to write about something else.

You get 3 photos. Two beautiful landscapes and one idiot. If you can correctly identify the odd one out, I’ll give you a cookie.

Florence:

Venice:

Venice again:

Also this month:

• More guest blogs! One of which I am promised will involve indecent exposure; another will be far too intelligent for any of us to understand (damn doctorate students)!
  
• Why Americans rock! A long-overdue piece that will probably come towards the end of the month.
• Things I don’t like. So far I’ve been fairly fluffy and easy-going; philosophically benevolent, even. Now I’m going to write some slightly more angry entries (in the absence of sex, hitting a keyboard angrily and with gusto is about as good as it gets. Help.)
• And much, much more! How about another ‘Pirate Special‘, but this time… ‘The Animal Special’! Watch this space as Seb gets down right bestial.

Today is Floreta’s birthday.

If you don’t know Floreta — the Solitary Panda — she’s one of my many geeky online friends (actually, she’s probably even a bit dorky, and if you don’t believe me, just wait until you watch her video blog). She’s a poet and photographer, and likes to while away the hours by putting on dark, pensive make-up and pondering existential conundrums.

Anyway, I asked her what she wanted for her birthday, and here’s what she said:

“Seb, that gentle, melodic, breathy British voice of yours really gets me hot under the collar. In fact, when I’m listening to your podcasts, I sometimes have to press pause and… well, take a break, you know? Anyway, it would be totally awesome if you recorded a reading of my poems. It would make my day! And night…”

Who am I to deny a cute Asian girl such a great birthday request? So I recorded two poems, one where I play a gay teenage boy circle-jerking with some other boys (…) and the other is far more serious, about love and fear.

But then, things got interesting. She remembered that I’d asked her to write me a poem, about, er, me. Not only did she want to write me a poem, in return for my dramatic readings, she also wanted to perform the poem. Dramatic-like.

Trust me when I say it’s an experience that you don’t want to miss. She even shimmies. In a gamer geek t-shirt. And gets a little too excited when she says ‘Seb’.

Follow this link for Floreta’s video guest blog and follow this link for my readings of her poems.

I’ve talked about music before — musicals, really — but what I haven’t told you is that I, like most grown men, have dirty, dark secrets hidden away in my music collection.

Secreted away, in places that even a competent government agency would struggle to find, I have music by artists such as William Shatner, Meatloaf and even, though I hesitate to admit this, Dashboard Confessional (that folder is hidden and encrypted, for obvious reasons…)

If that wasn’t dank and disturbing enough, you could dig even deeper. Delving further, you would find another directory; a directory with just a single file in it. The file is ominously titled ‘Unimportant-Dont-Click-Me-Please.mp3′. If you’d found this file, and saw through my epic ruse, you’d be be greeted with this:

Yes, I love Beyonce’s ‘If I were a boy’. Don’t ask me why… I just do! I don’t really want to discuss it, so I’ll just move on to the actual point of this entry — I’ve re-written the lyric to ‘If I were a boy’. A cute little American songwriter, upon reading the re-worked lyric blurted out that: ‘You have talent, Seb!’

I’m not too sure about that, but if you even laugh once, I’ll consider it time well spent. As the lyric is, er, geeky, I’ve hyperlinked some of the more esoteric terms, so you an understand it fully!

Press play and try to sing along… it fits… just about!

If I were a geek — sung by Beyonce Knowles, written by Tony Gad & BC Jean

If I were a geek even just for a day
I’d roll out of bed in the evening
And throw on a black t-shirt
And go ‘round  Sheldon’s with dice

And chase after elves
I’d roll dice as much as I wanted
And I’d never get a girlfriend but it
Doesn’t matter ‘cause neither does he

If I were a geek
I think I could understand
How it feels to love myself
I swear I’d be a better nerd

I’d listen to my GM
‘Cause I know how it hurts
When you lose the ‘toon you levelled
‘Cause a hacker got your password
And everything you had got destroyed

If I were a geek
I would turn on my iPhone
Tell everyone it’s awesome
‘ Cause I can watch porn when I’m alone

I’d swing my sword first
And read the rules as I go
‘Cause really, no one questions
A geek with a sword, and lightning bolts, lightning bolt!

If I were a geek
I think I could understand
How it feels to love myself
I swear I’d be a better nerd

I’d listen to my GM
‘Cause I know how it hurts
When you lose the ‘toon you levelled
‘Cause a hacker got your password
And everything you had got destroyed

It’s never too late for you to go back
Say it’s just a mistake
You should take it right back
If you thought Hilton hotter than Leia
You thought wrong

But you’re just a geek
You don’t understand
(And put the Gaiman book down, oh)
How it feels to love a girl
Someday you wish you went out more

You don’t listen to her
You don’t care how it hurts
Until you lose the ‘toon you levelled
‘Cause you took the chinaman for granted
And everything you had got destroyed
But you’re just a geek

***

I am currently in talks with a talented singer to perform the song with my new lyric… I will of course post it, when she does so!