Shakespeare in Love and various other thoughts

We just watched Shakespeare in Love the 1998 film. It was very good and I enjoyed the music too. The passion for words and the wheeler dealing was funny too. I think Dame Judy Dench got an Oscar for it too, forgive me if I'm wrong. The Passions and Pain was all revealed too, I'd forgotten how good the film was. A long time ago I did a course on Shakespeare, you have to try and understand the style of the language too, the metaphors and old English language. All in all a very good film, with even a young Ben Afleck in it. So grab and pizza and get a copy from your local video store.

What Shakespeare also reminded me was how we all need to communicate to each other. If Joe knows cars then we speak in car metaphors. It not patronising its socialising, when I was working at the hotel 5 years ago if we had Scots visitors then the word "wee" would slip into my language it was the natural thing to do. We even had Top Cops conferences so I'd share a joke with a Chief Constable or two as I walked around the hotel on a security patrol. The joke was we had a sniper on the roof to keep petty car thieves away. We did have the most secure car park on the NEC site. The NEC is the biggest exhibition site in Europe, and bigger than the one in New York, so I've been told.

If talking to chefs you always listen with respect not just because the were masters in their field but because chefs have knives, lots of knives so its always best to have respect. The housekeeping crew knew everything about cleaning rooms and corridors, so  I'd share a word while I did my 30 mins patrols that took me everywhere. Some days I might even be helping them when the hotel was ultra busy. So I'd stay out of Vicky's way by cleaning the bathrooms while she cleaned the bedrooms. Its very hard work, but there is a sense forfillment when a corridor has been done. 15 rooms a day I think it was, though it could have been 20. I'd take off my front of house jacket and roll up my sleeve and put the rubber gloves on while I was on bathroom duty. My dec phone might ring then I'd be summons downstairs to help out at front of house. Its all like a mad and busy ballet, though I've never worn a tutu, though I have been positively vetted by a Chinese ballet dancer when I first met my wife, but that's another story.

Life is all about stories, if my story is appealing to another person then we may become friends, to others it may be boring and go on forever, so then I'm a bore. Its how our lives connect and how social jigsaws fit together that makes us all work as friends and as work mates. Sadly there are people who put themselves above us, it can be a boss or a priest in  church or the snob selling newspapers in the street. Life is about blowing bubbles in the air that blow this way and that way, they may stick together or blow randomly all over the shop. But bubbles are a glorious thing they make us like children, happy and innocent and willing to share our sweets.  I'm forever blowing bubbles, pretty bubbles in the air is the song. But the most important thing is the range of colours, the joy, the happiness that bubbles bring, just like Shakespeare's sonnets.

If I were a Fashion Writer, what would I write

To begin with let me explain. I was trawling through the jobs sites when I came across an ad looking for all kinds of everything for a Fashion Mag, non paid I might add. So it set me thinking. I do have a Shanghai wife who sets heads turning, and I have to comment on all the fashion she wears.So after more than 10 years I have learnt a little about Fashion.

I would no doubt be called Grandpa whenever I attended a Fashion Event, I have the same white hair that the famous fashion designer has, I don't wear gloves with the fingers cut off though. Though I do have thinsulate gloves in black and in red. Just as he has two colours. My waiste line is bigger, I'm  as big as 2 models, though you would never see me in purple lipstick and covered in rouge. Fishnet tights though, that's another matter, Men in tights and Pantomime is an English tradition. Google Pantomime if you have not heard of Panto. Men dress up as women and women dress up as men, perhaps as Robin Hood. Its fun for all the family. But I was talking about fish net tights before I was side tracked. Fashion makes a very big statement. Some of the high end fashion is not really fashion. It really is a work of Art. I saw a documentary once on TV and after watching the man with the funny gloves and the white hair go about his work I realised it really was Art and not just Fashion. Now what would I do at a fashion show? I'd drink the free champagne for starters, pity they don't serve hot dogs too, then I'd be in heaven. Some of the designers destroy what they are trying to achieve by too much hideous make up. The fashion really would be better served by well dressed dummies. Smearing a  beautiful models with soot just destroys the vision. The dead eyes that you see when models walk the cat walk is terrible. Yes Fashion is King, but if the models looked happy and you could almost believe that they all  fought to get into the dress they were wearing. Then you'd say, she looks so happy wearing that you can see the joy in her eyes. Then Fashion would be better served.  

There are other designs which are truly great but they are ruined because the colour palet is so bad. Its like when you see 2009 Punk Rockers, I remember the original ones 30 years ago so today's versions are just so passe. You can go into a shop and as you look around you see 40 shades or grey or 20 shades of black. Its not even worth trying the clothes on. Ditto when you can see the clothes are for 40 or 50 somethings. Colour is Great, so USE IT, life is in Colour so lets see it in the designs.

Women are beautiful and the more intelligent 1/2 of our species, their beauty should be celebrated and enhanced by fashion. Colour and Cut matched to sympathic makeup will make women glow, and allow women to wrap men around their little finger even more. Good fashion does this and I know that when I look at my wife.

 Pax Vobiscum

 

BBC asks top writer to take course on drama

BBC asks top writer to take course on drama

Sunday, November 1, 2009, 02:00 PM GMT [General]

BBC asks top writer to take course on drama. I just read that in today's Telegraph. I'm trying to get my foot in the door in the writing game. I once posted my Internet Story  comic essay on a BBC site, where it was removed, why, because

"And help find a publisher for my book , and then you've guessed it , just send me 10 dollars !" Is the tag line for the joke at the end of the essay. But to the BBC I was soliciting money, so they removed it. If I had a Bafta and had the BBC telling me how to write , I'd slam it down on the desk of the idiot who asked me to do a test and ask them to write a thesis on "How to win a Bafta". Total BBC Idiots,

Sorry Moses you cann't part the Red Sea without Health and Safety assessment 1st. And as for that stick in your hand we will notify the Police, weapons are not allowed. As for you Gandalf, drop it now or we'll try this new mace on you, we've just imported it from USA.

Sorry no Loaves and Fishes or Water into wine either, you don't have A3 consent.

Sorry Gordon and David, those speeches have to pass the censor, and don't forget the 3pm watershed, we don't want kids home from school getting all confused, which one is the liar, is it always the one in Government or is it just the Opposition.

So the BBC has to bore everybody with fair and balance just like Fox news. Sadly I am not surprised, perhaps the stuff I write is never PC, so it will never be published or produced.  www.michaelgcasey.multiply.com

is where to find it, so judge for yourselves. My latest idea is to turn my non PC  play Shoplife into a Health and Safety piece by using reverse logic

If I were a Rich Man, though I'd settle for being able to Sing Like Topol

I wanted to write a piece to celebrate Halloween, Christopher Lee the great Dracula actor got Knighted today,  was  the spurr. However this time of year brings back a few memories to me. 1977 was a turning point in my Life. 1986 another turning point and 1999 a 3rd turning point.Why Autumn shoud be such a turning point I'll never know.The Love my father had for all of us stands out amongst these anniversaries. November was his Birthday as well, his last Birthday was his 80th, we had a gathering at my sister's house, he held his granddaughter in his arms, he'd beaten Death and had 5.5 years of extra time.

When I bought my house his advice was "Michael, buy that house" So I did. The dog  had actually found the house, he had cocked his leg and christened the gate post, and it was only then that I saw the for sale sign.

Now I dream of a bigger house for my girls, so that they can have a room to do art in, even if it is the garage. My youngest even has dreams about us living in a big white house, the one on the school run, and that we have a dog and a cat.I'd just love to have a bigger house closer to the park and the woods. That's been a dream of mine for 30 years at least, so I suppose I have brain washed my girls. Though I do miss the days when at the family home we did have a cat and a dog. One of the dogs even went to the seaside with us, even attending Mass, and delighting a blind boy by licking him all over when he bumbed into him on the beach.

I do sing If I were a Rich Man, from time to time, and then break down in pretend tears, saying why do I have girls, 3 girls, if you include the wife. They laugh as I do all the actions and become a Birmingham version of Topol, though the Jazz improvisations are all mine. Though I might add that my local priest does look like Topol and sing as well too, Life does immitate Art after all. When finally it is time for bed and I get my girls to say their prayers, they add " and please  Jesus can we have a big white house and a cat and a dog called SubWay"  

Direct and to the point, but Padre Pio used to say always ask for the big grace, so if you all excuse me for tonight, I just have to say my prayers before I go to bed, I was thinking about asking for a cat, and a dog called Subway just for the kids and maybe a big white house for us to share with the animals. It is Autumn after all and big things always happen in Autum or should I say the Fall.

Under My Bed

What's under your bed? We used to have an airline pilot stay at the hotel who would open his room door and leave his flight bag down proping the door open while he then rolled an orange under the bed. He said he travelled all over the world and this was his safety routine. If you go to a bad hotel you may find an uneaten Kentucky Fried Chicken still in its box, under your bed. Normally its an odd shoe or sock, if the housekeeping crew are trained well you will never ever find any of these things. Having cleaned a few rooms myself when I was at a 4star deluxe hotel for 3 years, I can say it is hard work and you have to be fast and furious. But so long as the hotel gets 6 quid or 10 dollars for the room then they are in profit.

But all of this is an aside, what's under your bed? We decorated a few years ago and I had hundreds and hundreds of photos in photo albums. We took down a couple of shelves while we decorated, but then we had a problem, one of them broke. The one which had all my photo albums on. I hadn't really looked at all these photos in years, so the bin beckoned. However I decided I'd keep them. So where to put them. Under the bed was the solution, we had an old suitcase so I put all my photos away. It must have weighted 25 kilos, or 55 pounds or 4stones in English terminology, which is as much as my big daughter weights, talking of weight my wife only weights 6 stones, light enought to be a jockey. Now there's an idea, my uncle Patrick used to keep a donkey just to cut the grass around the house in County Kerry. My wife could have become a jockey, if only my uncle and the donkey were still around. Life is all about timing after all.

So grunting and groaning I carried the old suitcase upstairs and slid it under my bed. There it remained for years. Two children later and today our smallest one wanted to look at all the photo albums, the ones we  keep in the pantry. Though technology has moved  on now and we have maybe 1000 photos on the computer and in cyperspace on our family site. But our smallest likes to see herself when she was even smaller. So I decided to drag out the suitcase and show both our girls photos of me from 25years ago and so. We had snaps from when my sister did her year abroad, from when my brother lived in Paris. There were lots of photos, 10 small albums of County Kerry, donkey included. All my cousins, my dad's brother had 10 children after all, my mum had 5 surviving  brothers and sisters. There were photos of the beach at Cromane , my cousin's son measured the distance from the corner of the house to the sea, just over 7 metres he said, or about 23feet in old  money. I remembered the Love my aunty showed to all of us, she was always the driver, 1000miles in 2 weeks seeing all the clan, she is truely blessed. From the base in Killarney to all points North/South/East/West you could put on a stone,or 14pounds in 2 weeks, 3 relatives a day, 3 meals a day. All my cousins were always so generous and welcoming, there was always so much gossip and stories to be heard.

All this lived in suspended animation in a suitcase under my bed. They all awoke like a Princess in a Fairytale story when I dragged out the old suitcase today. My girls said I looked so cool with my sunglasses and my moustache. I told them I was younger than mummy is when the photo was taken. Why did everybody have a moustache in them days?

I also found my copy of The Outline Of History By H.G.Wells ,  signed by Mr Lester the headteacher from my Primary school. It was a leaving present, believe it or not I was Head Boy at Primary school, it was a bit like being a jailer really, as I had the keys to the building and I locked up at dinner time. I also found a certificate from 1969 because I wrote a story for a competition, Junior Free Handwriting Story something. This impressed my big daughter.

I found my mothers prayerbook with lots of religious pictures inserted into the pages. Mrs Murphy in my novel, The Butcher The Baker and The Undertaker is based on my mum, but not just her but my Aunty in Killarney and the 2 other sisters. So my fictional Mrs Murphy is to the power of 4. While I'm thinking of it, I deliberately did not write about my dad in my book, however after I finished it I realised that Big Sid the butcher  he was my dad. Not because of any similarities whatsoever, but, the Love Sid has is the same Love that my dad had for all of us. Love is how you judge people, anything else is s*&%.

I also found a nice little book about Saint Martin de Porres, I'll try and get my daughter to read it, it must be 30 years old. All in all a lot of memories came flooding outjust because I looked under my bed. The suitcase I threw away, the history book is back on the remaining  bookshelf just beside me. I found a large strong plastic sack  and I put my photos back in the bag. The only thing I had to decide was where to put it. You know what I thing I'll put it back under my bed. Memories to sleep on 

Wrapping Paper

I was in Aldi and I spotted Winnie the Pooh wrapping paper, my smallest girl just loves all things Winnie the Pooh, so I got the paper. I wasn't sure whether to wrap her Birthday present in it or just let her have the paper. In the end I gave her the paper to play with. She was delighted, immediately she wanted to use the wrapping paper to wallpaper the walls with. As I've said before she once said she liked Winnie the Pooh because his belly reminded her of my belly. Such is a child's love, unflattering but love.

It did get me thinking though, why do we need wrapping paper? Packaging is part and parcel of ordinary life.  Easter eggs are the thing with the most packaging, so much packaging and then so little chocolate. My mother gave up on Easter Eggs because of the cost, there were so many of us Caseys after all. So we had bars of Cadburys chocolate instead, the Cadburys  factory is just a couple of miles from where I'm sitting. Easter came and we devoured the Cadburys bars, cheaper than the Easter Eggs but so very tasty.

People have wrapping paper or layers all around them,we can all remember what Donkey said to Shrek, so many layers like an onion. At the moment I'm dressing up in the wrapping paper called a "suit", so that I can get a new job. So people can see me at my best, hide my tummy and hope they forgive my premature white head of hair, as for my bushy eyebrows God alone knows what they may think. You can judge for yourselves by clicking on the photos on this site. How much do you reveal, how much do you hide as you have an unnatural experience that is called an interview. Perhaps interviews should take place in a coffee shop, as you may know LLoyds of London started in a London coffee shop 100s of years ago. Even better interviews could be held in a bar. You have two pints to prove your worth, so don't spill the peanuts over the interviewer's haut couture dress. Perhaps then at the 2nd interview you have to sing karoki with the 2 interviewers, and IF you can sing My Way word perfect then you get the job. It sure would be more fun.

More wrapping paper is used when we are embarrassed or too shy to explain things to our doctor, we waste 5 mins talking about the weather and the Fall leaves before we finally blurt out that its a boil on the bum ort something below the waistline. And why is it that on these occasions the doctor on call is one of the opposite sex, why cann't it be your usual doctor.

Wrapping paper is used an awful lot in Faith, we lie to ourselfs and our God/Gods by thinking we don't have to do this or we don't have to do that. Faith can become a Buffet, we lie to ourselves and God, this bit does not matter, so we'll show God only so much of ourselves. A bit like cheating in an exam. I'm sure  God's smiling as he watches us, perhaps the Saints place bets on who will finally come clean, clean being the opperative word. The Saints queue up ready to interven, which 999 or 911 call will come though so that a Saint can be dispatched. I know in1996 when my mum had died suddenly and then 8 bare weeks later my dad was given 1 week to live, we actually picked the hymns for his funeral he was so bad. Then all the layers, all the wrapping paper was off, Padre Pio came to the rescue. So that I met my wife in the old peoples' home, 3 years after my dad came back from the dead. Dad lived long enough to hold his granddaugher in his arms, 5.5 years after that massive heart attack.

The ultimate wrapping paper is love, its hard to say you love somebody when your heart has been broken so many times before. Its hard to take a chance when somebody might laugh in your face. Slowly you reveal one thing, then another, then another, yes I can see  the idea of a Monty Python joke as I write this. I do write comedy after all. But when 2 strangers become friends, when 2 become one, then all the wrapping paper is off. She may not mind your hairy back or fat stomach, he may not mind her big feet or whatever she feared. It can turn out that  what one thinks is ugly your Love may find attractive. Love is Blind after all, Love conquers All, Love is all you need. Together naked, the wrapping paper is discarded.

 

Attachment: Padre Pio and Me.doc

The White Door

The White Door, or the dirty white door to be exact. I had a dream last night and I  saw a door,  a dirty white door. There were two nails driven into it in the top left hand corner of it. That's all I remembered, we do have 2 white doors in our house but neither are like that.

So what was I dreaming about? Years ago I had a dream dictionary, I would have eagerly read that to find out. So instead I'll have to use the Internet, google will have an answer  no doubt.

I've said for years that I'd only get a real publisher IF somebody opened the door for me. A negative friend always says you have to make your own opportunities. I take the view that its not ability but knowing somebody, the old saying, its not what you know but who you know.

I knocked on loads of  doors via emails, but still after 20 years no publisher for my novel. A friend said its not just a door but maybe a window  I'd may have to sneak my talent through  a window before I finally got my chance, before my boat comes in.

My smallest daughter said she had a dream last night too, she dreamt we moved house to the big white house we walk past  daily on the school run, and that we had a cat and a dog. The dog will be called Subway. She was all excited as she told me. Children just love animals, but I've said no animals till we get a bigger house. Somebody somewhere has to find me and like me, and then publish me before our dreams can come true. Or my 32 year old lottery ticket could finally come up trumps, thought I doubt it.

You never know whats around a corner my old boss once told me a long time ago, she was right, I met the wife in a most unbelieveable way. Its all in Padre Pio and Me and my Literary Criticism essays. Doors can be opened and closed, closed in your face. For 3 years I stood by a door when I worked at a 4star deluxe hotel, the whole world passed through as I was a 30 second living commercial for the hotel. Best 3 years of my life in  a way.

Doors in the mind are the best doors to open, because they free you to experience more, I'm not talking about taking pills or whatever, just in case any Old Hippies are out there and reading this. Just open your heart and you will open a door to experience more, to remove barriers that leave you in a box, full of your own prejudices. Think of it as food, we always have this and we always have that. Because thats the way we have always done things. Then we meet somebody different and our food world changes, our doors are open. Imagine me meeting a Shanghai girl 10 years ago , I told her fish and chips was haute cuisine. Now you need a degree in oriental languages to know what's what in our fridge. The kids love going to Subway as its a change from daily Chinese food. Thats why if ever we move house the dog will be called Subway.

I'll leave it at that now, though I can say that Fear opened one door for me. I was so affraid of my Primary school teacher when I was 8 that I started to read books, and it changed my life. Getting an old Bush radio from one of our lodgers also opened another door for me, expanding your mind is a great adventure. If you are lucky it leads to a corridor full of doors and opportunities. I suppose writing these blogs as well as the essays and plays and the comic novel is a door too, you the reader are seeing into my mind, I just hope you like the view.

 

 

 

Attachment: Padre Pio and Me.doc