You can hear audio of this at www.michaelgcasey.typepad.com
it includes a Pregnant Pause so continue listening until the phone rings
then contact me
Hello
, how about a Verbal Cartoon for Radio
I
grew up listening to the radio, we all used to hide under the blankets and
listen when we should have been fast asleep. Radio did change my life, a lodger
gave us a radio when he had to go back to Ireland to look after his sick mum.
In fact he left all his stuff and caught the first boat home. Months later he
came back to see us and said me and my brother could have his old Bush radio. I
spent 20 years listening to radio. That and being afraid of Mr Gallagher when I
was 8 changed my life, and improved my intellect.
Today
after 20 years of radio and 25 years of writing, 45 years in total I think I'm
a good writer, and thank God so do others. Yes I'm 55 now, in my head I'm 20,
though my wife would say 12.
I met my Shanghai wife in the old people's home, she was cleaning my
dad's room. I was positively vetted by a Chinese Ballerina from the Birmingham Royal Ballet, now we are
married with 2 bilingual daughters. I am the token male and English speaker in
the family.
Now
here's a few samples, what I'd like to do would be to read my shorts/blogs on
your radio. Each piece is about 90 seconds long, 90 seconds with Michael is the
idea, simple idea. I have gained 15,412
views on
Funny or Die for a sample 1st
chapter of Tears for a Butcher which will be my 8th book. Only the other day a
publisher said my book of shorts 300 and Not OUT was very funny. In fact I must
have 500 shorts, enough for over a year.
I
have started recording all my Shorts and have put 50+ of them on www.michaelgcasey.typepad.com I have a new mike now too, so listen in
reverse order.
My
7 books are on Amazon Kindle
and
www.michaelgcasey.wordpress.com
is my site.
Here's
the samples for radio or print.
Let
There Be Light ©
By Michael Casey
Let
my tears be my words
Let
the candle light be my eyes
Let
the flowers in bloom be my lips
Let
their scent be my blood
Let
the wind be my breath
Let
clouds be my mood
Let
children’s laughter be my hope
Let
widows’ sighs be my conscience
Let
a stranger’s prayers be my delight
Let
the bees be my wisdom
Let
the trees be my strength
Let
my patience reach to the stars
Let
me be always remembered in your prayers
Sleepover©
By
Michael
Casey
Sleepover
is exactly that, your sleep is over, you have laughing kids invading your
house, and driving you out of your minds. Well not always, but it is very
distracting. You can’t remember what you were doing and where has that file
gone on the computer. This is the 2nd time I’m telling this story, why, because
my Word, or upon my word, the story died or rather Word did not close properly,
so now you’re getting something different.
Total
strangers, or strangers to you arrive at the house and kind of invade it for a night.
You do shout up the stairs, keep them out of my room. Not because you have
anything worth stealing, but they are stealing your privacy, and that’s all you
have left if you have daughters in your house.
Then
the smell of nail varnish drifts down the stairs and permeates everywhere, its
worse than mustard gas from the Great War. You scream up the stairs, open all
the windows fully, what about your room, dad? Especially mine.
Its
then that your inner sanctum is breached as they bring their friends to help
them open the window. They see the Teddy Bear that you’ve had since you were 6
years old, the invader laughs. She also sees the deep heat by your bed, And he
complains about nail varnish.
Dinner
time arrives and you have to feed the cuckoo, only she doesn’t eat this or she
doesn’t eat that, on principle. So you say, you’ll have to stave then. Your
daughter, the host, is horrified, so you relent and flick a pound coin at them,
cholesterol free oil used to make the chips. So a compromise is achieved.
You
put Sky Sports on to watch the match, they say Qatar is going to build
underground stadia, novel idea. You are settling down to see Rooney when they
arrive back chip laden. Her friend just loves the ballet and Sky Arts has
Bolshoi on, so could they please please watch that. You say you’ll record it
for them. But you are as bad as a puppy murderer even for suggesting it.
So
being a nice dad you let them watch the ballet on your 46inch tv, while you
retreat to watch the match on the laptop upstairs. They never tell you about
this at parenting classes, just how to change nappies. Let’s hope William and
Kate are told.
After
the ballet they retreat upstairs for girlie music, and what were you doing in
their room on the laptop. Didn’t you know you are just a dad not allowed in the
inner sanctum. The Hits is switched on
their dab radio at volume 13, you retreat to watch the after match talk
on the big screen.
Later
its bath time, so you have to wait 2 hours for all the girls in your house,
including the cuckoo, to pollute the bathroom before you a mere dad, and bill
payer, can have a shave. Only your last razor has been used to save somebody’s
legs.
So
everybody goes to bed, all is well, holding your teddy bear, you sleep soundly.
Until 3am, when a banshee screaming wakes you, your wife and all the
neighbours. It’s the cuckoo, she’s having a nightmare, it must be the chips,
and the cholesterol free oil from them. Or half waking up and forgetting where
she was.
So
remembering to put on your dressing gown you have to calm everybody down, and
answer the door, to the police, as the neighbour from neighbourhood watch has
rung them. So the police come in and have a look. Flatulence is written down in
the Police note book. As you let the police out the house again your smallest
daughter hands you your teddy bear, its ok dad, it’s only a sleepover.
How
do Men Shop? ©
By
Michael Casey
There
is a difference between Men and Women, and thank God for it. But how do men
shop? Shopping for men is about getting what you need, my shoes have a hole in
them so I’ll go to the shop and buy another pair. A man will buy a new pair of
shoes that are exactly the same as his old pair of shoes, or if he’s being
adventurous he’ll have a pair of shoes which are exactly the same but with grey
laces and not black. Now to a man this is being fashion conscious. If a man
wants a new pair of trousers he just goes to the shop and sees if they have his
leg/waist size and then tries them on, making sure they don’t split when he
bends over and that his package is not squeezed. If a man needs a suit he
checks the trousers before putting on the jacket, the jacket must be able to be
done up without his belly exploding the buttons off. A man will never button up
his suit jacket, but he needs to know that the buttons won’t fly off and hit
anybody in the eye, if ever he does.
If
a man needs a shirt he checks the neck size, 18.5 in my case, and then he sees
if its full fit or not. Then he buys 5 shirts exactly the same all in plastic . For a lazy shopper he’ll go straight
to Slaters and get what he wants. In and out in 30 mins for everything. Then
he’ll go to the pub and meet his mates and have one pint too many and leave all
his shopping in the Queens Tavern. Luckily they are honest there and his
shopping is saved, otherwise he’s have to waste 30mins in Slaters, before going
back to the pub.
This
is basically the difference between men and women. Woman shop, men pick up
clothes or whatever like an order picker does, without any passion. A man gets home and puts his shopping away
and forgets about it. Just like in the film The Fly where the man’s wardrobe
contains suits all the same colour, clothes are just a thing so they are all
uniform.
As
for women shopping s something different, the clothes have to be tried on and
they must make the woman look perfect, her bum or boobs mustn’t be to big or
too small, everything should be right. To help the woman chose her clothes she
brings two or three mates or her children with her. Her man is forced to come
too, but he plugs Radio5 Live into his ear and listens to the football while she is choosing. Men know 5 colours,
red, blue, red, green, yellow or maybe one or two more; as for a woman there
are at least 50 colours, and just as the eskimos have 30 words for snow a woman
has 10 words for each colour and its hews.
This
brave man, or am I stupid, I just give my wife the debit card and say leave me
in peace, so she goes off with a smile with the girls with her, they are young
Fashionistas after all. I decided years ago what a wife needed was space to
shop and not constant looks at my watch. So that’s what she does and her
bulging wardrobe will testify to the wisdom of my decision. When a woman comes
home its 2 hours of mix and match to make sure that the new clothes match the
old clothes, the husband tries to watch the big match on tv but his wife is
prancing around the living room asking “does my bum show” and various other
questions. It’s a penalty, and you sit on the edge of your seat, the wife
appears and blocks your view, so you miss seeing why your side was relegated. Normal life in homes
up and down the country.
The
next day you watch the match again in peace, you remembered to record it on
Sky+ and as for the wife she’s gone back to the shop to return ½ of what she
bought because it doesn’t match her shoes. And it’s your fault because you
wouldn’t give her your debit card again so she could buy cheap £100 shoes.
All
Things Bright and Beautiful ©
By Michael Casey
I haven’t written a non-pain piece in a while,
so I’ll try and forget the pain and write something new. We’ve just had the
half time holidays and my girls have been playing “shop-girls” as they call it.
They even have a sign on their bedroom door saying “open” or “closed”. They
steal my wife’s clothes and prance about upstairs. Our eldest daughter has
bigger feet than my wife now so that’s a relief as she cannot steal my wife’s
shoes any more, but it does not prevent her younger sister from wearing mum’s
shoes. There is also the matter of the beret with silver sequins, that’s an
absolute Fashion Must.
Me,
I’m not fashionable at all, three girls in the house is enough, if I gave in to
them they’d be beading my eye brows, I do wear pink on occasions, so that’s as
far as I go. If I were maybe 3 stones lighter I’d try other things, I did see a
nice cord jacket in Cotton Traders 48R, it was bright blue, Kingfisher Blue, my
girls called it a “Clown Jacket”. With encouragement like that what am I
supposed to do? I did say if I win Euro millions I WILL buy the jacket. My wife
has a nice light brown one, although as she is a woman there will be a more
accurate colour name, men don’t do colours. If you think of it its black and
white, blue, green, orange as far as men go, but women at least another 40
names for colours. As far as my hair goes, its silver, though a friend used to
say I was an old man with white hair. As the colour of our hair change it’s the
7 ages of man.
I
remember Ali saying why wasn’t it “Whitemail” instead of blackmail. We are in
the Pink if we have good health, I long to be back in the pink myself. We say
we hope be back in the black not in the red when we do company accounts, we
look for the silver linings. We look look look for the rainbow as the song
goes, we may find the crock of gold, all our troubles may be over and we can
pack them up in the old kit bag. Hope springs up within us, it is now Spring
after all, and as Chance the Gardener said “in the Spring there will be
growth.”
Cheese
and Chorizo ©
By
Michael Casey
The thing about girls is that they steal your
stuff, you think they are nice and sweet smelling, but they are not. If they
get up before you they’ll raid your side of the fridge and eat your cheese and
chorizo. Cheese and chorizo on toast, with hot chocolate to follow, this is how
your daughters treat you. This is how my girls treat me.
Yesterday
mum bought biscuits, and did she share them? NO. The girls got some but I got
none. They were the ones I really like,
its always the ones you really like. I looked high and low, just like an Ah Ha
song, but nothing. JJ the wife just laughed at me as I went from pillar to post
looking for a biscuit, the Tunnock ones. See this is how the 3 girls in my life
treat me, I am biscuitless. Finally after much derision my small daughter
showed me where the biscuits were, a new
hiding place, that’s why I could not find them. So I was victorious, I sneaked
a biscuit into my pocket and slipped away to eat it in peace.
Shoes
are a big thing, so our small daughter walks around the house in mum’s shoes,
mine are too big so thankfully they are left alone. However having two
daughters who like Textiles, which is the fancy word from school for sewing and
making things. If they like textiles then your clothes are not safe, they drag
a shirt or two out of the wardrobe and say they want to turn it into something.
Jumpers are not safe either, they can cut them down to make a dress or even a handbag. And as for needles, it’s
like having a porcupine in the family, DANGER. You only realise that after you
have sat on a needle or two, the wife just says its free acupuncture, no need
to asked Dr Hu to pay us a visit, and yes he really is Dr Hu, not Dr Who, but
Dr Hu.
Now
that our 11year old is 5feet tall, as big as mum, she wants to wear her
clothes, but you can imagine what kind of clothes a Shanghai girl wears. So
there is debate in Chinese, I cannot understand a word, but SANINGONGA is heard
quite often which means no. Which also means my girls, our girls will return to
steal from my wardrobe again. In a way it’s like having moths, but instead of
holes in your clothes, entire items just disappear. BUT it’s not just the
girls, its mum too, she’ll decide that the Fashion Police would not like this
item or that item, so it disappears. When do I find out? Never, or nearly never,
until I walk past a charity shop and see a tent sized item in the window, it’s
my clothes.
So
if you want to keep the clothes on your back, don’t have daughters. If you want your favourite food safe in your
side of the fridge, the none Chinese side of the fridge, then don’t have
daughters. If you want to save your pennies, don’t have a Shanghai wife. But
then life would be boring, just make sure you look before you sit.
From
A to B from Sat Nav to Blocked Sink ©
By Michael Casey
Well I hope you are all fine this morning. For
us the Sat Nav debate continues. In the old days a Black Taxi would not be seen
using an AtoZ, it was beneath his dignity. He'd done the Knowledge and it was
all up there in his head. Jack Rozenthal wrote a great play about it, was it
30years ago? Maureen Lipman was his real wife.
Delivery drivers have and egg and bacon butty
in one hand dripping egg on to the AtoZ in their other hand while they try and
deliver a chest of drawers, with 5 days growth of beard for good measure.
Bus drivers know their route, so once they've
done it a while its automatic, they know what they are doing. All they have to
do is put up with kids trying to use a 3 day old ticket, and not get too high
from all the cannabis on the bus. Or remember when they have switched routes
because that can lead to strange directions.
Door to door salesmen all those years ago,
with the rap at tat tat on the back door had their route carrying the suitcase
with samples in. I can vaguely remember one at our back door did my mum buy a
clothes brush? But that must be 45 years ago.
So
basically we all know what we want and where we are going. Going further back
they say people only knew a six block radius around their home. Going to War
changed all that as did radio and then more importantly tv. Tv being our eyes
on the world, previous to that only Merchant Seaman knew of the world. My own
granddad was a merchant sea man, I sometimes wonder did he ever get to Shanghai
Or
was it me, his grandson who got there first. Had he visited at the turn of the
19th/20th Century 100years and more ago.
Which brings us back to Sat Nav. Me I use a
bus which is fine apart from the pot heads who sit next to you on the bus and
all I want to do is puke. My wife is a car driver, so she and our girls love
the car. But my wife has borrowed a Sat Nav and likes the ease of it so now she
wants one of her own. The result is that I’m being nagged to provide one. You
pay, me pay, yes you pay, why me pay, because you are the husband so you pay,
no way me pay, you pay you pay yourself, I say. And on the ding dong, sing song
goes. Which is the fun part. Me I no pay, use computer I say. You can get
perfect directions off the computer all you then have to do is print them off,
if our printer was still working we’d be doing that. So really all the wife has
to do is copy them down, in English.
She’s
busy with the wok as I talk to you, she’s compromised now, she only
wants me to pay half. So I say I’ll be doubly generous and double the share I
won’t pay, I’ll pay zero and she can pay 100%. That’s the true spirit of
negotiation, now I have another thing to resolve, she’s blocked the sink, so
pardon me now as I take the plunge, or rather take the plunger to the sink, no
need to use a Sat Nav to get there, its over my shoulder in the next room, just
turn left at the tv and go straight on to the sound of bubbles. Love is
everywhere don’t you know it, just find it, no Sat Nav required.
Thanks for reading this, that’s if Junk did not get it. I have come
close and not got a cigar many times in my life, so I decided to try you. Radio
is the medium for my words, 90 seconds with Michael, could go nationwide, it’s
a simple idea, with great words, mine if I can be boastful. I have already
recorded 150 of my 500+ shorts, they can be heard at www.michaelgcasey.typepad.com
listen in reverse order I haved a new microphone now.
Cheerio,
Michael Casey
www.michaelgcasey.typepad.com to hear 50+ stories
7 ebooks and 2 Printed on Paper Books
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