Twitter Followers

Twitter Followers ©

By Michael Casey

I’m trying Twitter out, in another vain attempt to track down a few readers, or a publisher or radio station that’ll do the hard work for me. I did try FB and LinkedIn only I just got tracked down by mad people, I know what you are thinking already so I’ll just say “shut your face” as Frankie Howerd used to say.

My michaelgcasey has also been abused by millions of variants, on FB I tried restarting my account and the first thing I was asked was how many of these names did I know and study with in, Hydrobad or was it Islamabad or and other bad, all I know was that it was BAD. So I gave up and forgot about FB. There is a Michael Casey in Birmingham but he is a not me, I’ll say no more just in case his account is hijacked. There is another in NY, he is a journalist for the New York Times.

So Social Media has its pitfalls, and I have fallen into all of them. I even tried the French version of FB/LinkedIn and yes you’ve guested it I was pursued by mad people. The usual I am dying and am a good Christian/Jew/Muslim with 14,000,000 in gold bars from a sunken ship that they want me to help to offload on the bullion market. I’d get 50% for my help.

The usual BS in other words.  If people want to send me an automatic Cartier Diamond Blue large version then feel free to send it to the  Lord Mayor of Birmingham England telling him to ask the police to find me, and if he cannot after 3 months he could raffle it for the dogs home.

Now I’ll get loads of emails about this, I would like a big house in Harborne too, so they can talk to the Lord Mayor about that too. He can find anybody, the police do know me after all. He’ll probably be banging on my front door tomorrow, dressed in all his regalia, all because of social media.

Before I forget, hello to readers in:- USA, Russia, Poland, Ireland, Germany, Norman no I mean Norway, Portugal and Spain, I may have missed out a country or two. I’m sure the British astronaut is following me too. I am a needle in a haystack after all.

So now I’m on Twitter, I don’t know how it really works, but strange things happen, and a few have happened today. Perhaps I should tweet Jerry Hall as she makes Rupert Murdoch laugh, hey Jerry get him to look at my comedy writing. Then perhaps I’ll earn that watch and house before I die. Though if I die my kids will get a dog, they got a cat when it was “only” heart problems. Or the Lord Mayor of Birmingham gets it all instead.

Just say NO x 1,000,000

Just say NO x 1,000,000 ©

By Michael Casey

I don’t know about you but I hate being pestered in the street for whatever reason. I have eyes and ears I can see and decide for myself. So I can cross the road and be a bad Samaritan, or I can be a good Samaritan. I can give a packet of biscuits to the ever growing beggar population in our area, or to our regular Big Issue sellers outside our supermarkets.

It’s up to me, to my conscience, to my values. I decide if I want to help, or if I think they are just cluttering up the street and bringing down the area even more. It’s up to me, it’s up to you, it’s up to all of us. We all can and do make up our own minds. I do get a regular God Bless from my Big Issue saleslady, her children like chocolate by the way. I do in fact treasure that God Bless, as you know I have now had 1 year of Grace after my unplanned quadruple heart bypass. So who knows it may be her God Bless that has helped keep me here in the land of the living. It may even be her God Bless that gets me into Heaven and keeps me from the Fires of Hell, so think about that. And maybe you’ll regularly donate a packet of chocolate biscuits to her and her children, it could be the ultimate insurance policy.

So you’ve had a glimpse into my heart and even soul. However if its mad people handing out leaflets for some religious cult, they could worship toilets and flushing is their way of praying. Can you think of some other religious cult that attracts the rich and famous, and gullible? Well whatever they believe in, I don’t want to be pestered on the high street or in the city centre, I just want to be left alone. I am a catholic from the nipple, see photo that goes with this piece.

My one trick is to speak Italian as they lean into my own personal space, No Parlare Inglese I say in my best fake accent, or accident as my Shanghai wife sometimes says. I can also use French or Spanish or German. Or I point to my ears and feign deafness. What I’d really love to do is what happened in Airplane, if you have good memories you’ll remember for yourselves, if not go watch the film. Sorry the dustbin is over there, or I’m not collecting rubbish today, or no thanks my diarrhoea is much better today, are some of my replies.

Then you walk on past the sad people, they may even been double glazing salespeople, or ambulance chasing lawyers, who are the worst kind of people. And on it goes. However what is even worse are cold callers on the phone. Why are the cold callers even worse? The worst of the worst. Because they invade your very home. Imagine you are in the bath and a man with a clipboard appears from  under the toilet seat, demanding you do a survey. Or you are admiring yourself in mirror, naked as you have just got out the bath, when a man appears from inside the wardrobe. He wants to know about your finances.

These things don’t happen, well not unless you are a drinker or taking illegal substances, or plant food which is legal but should never go up your nose. Anyway the next worse thing is the phone caller, from far far away in the land of Shrek. They just won’t take no for an answer. You can tell them you are dead, that you are a ghost or John Doe and your wife is Jane Doe. Then you curse and hang up. You were just about to watch The Voice on tv, or put on your wife’s clothes, cross dressing is your religion, that’s why you shaved your legs and were admiring yourself in the mirror.

Then they ring two hours later, just as you and your wife, or somebody else’s wife, it is Tuesday after all, anyway you were about to have relations, and this does not mean your brothers are coming around to play Monopoly either. Relations not Relations. So you answer the phone and you hear the static from an international call centre, and there is even a 3 second time delay. They want you to tell them everything, even your inside leg. So you swear at them in 3 languages. And you ask them do they know the meaning of this crude word in English. Then the phone goes dead. Victory.

The next day just as you are on the toilet the phone rings, you think is John with results of that big tender you put in, so you hurry, and soil your pants, then you fall down the stairs and split your soiled pants. You answer the phone, they want you to confirm who you are. After falling down the stairs and having split your soiled pants you don’t know who you are, you are just very angry. They want you to confirm you address, so boiling over with rage you tell them, I am Dr John Doe, 27 Cemetery Lane, Wokingham, Kent, WK9 7XP  The guy on the phone is triumphant, he gets his £5 bonus, enough for a month’s worth of rice.

And why does the international nuisance caller want your address that he’s found on the Internet from when you used to live in England. Because there is a toilet paper promotion and they want to send you some free samples. David Walliams must have got his idea for Billionaire Boy because he too had these persistent nuisance calls.

Nobel and Me

Michael Casey shared a link.

19 minutes ago near Birmingham

Something from 7 years ago when my life changed

Nobel and Me, or what people say behind your back

Tuesday, July 21, 2009, 07:52 PM GMT [General]

Nobel read his own obituary and was so shocked by what he read that he changed. When you leave a job people say goodbye or good riddance to bad rubbish. It can be quiet a shock. I've been deeply shocked and humbled by what one of the late shift secretaries said to me an hour ago. At least I'm no Nobel.

People also shake your hand and say keep in touch, then forget who you are once they have their 2nd drink. People can get sad and weepy, I'll miss you all.

What's the truth behind all these emotions? I'll find out on Friday when my Life changes again. 10years ago was the last time I was made redundant. 10 years ago I had finally met the right one, and sent her back to Shanghai to tell her family all my bad points, 6 months later she came back to me.

Now 10 years on, we're married with 2 beautiful girls, and they are in Shanghai as I talk to you, Summer with the Mother in Law, Me I'm here Home Alone and about to be redundant. I still dream of getting my 2 books published, or getting a play or two on the stage, www.michaelgcasey.wordpress.com is where my "talent" is wheel clamped in Cyber Space. Will some kind soul pay the "fine" and unleash my writing onto a pubic that loves Big Brother and Britains Got Talent. While I look for a new job and my CV fights it out with other CVs for a job, any job will do, to paraphase Joseph and his Technicoloured Dreamcoat. Perhaps Andrew Lloyd Webber could turn my comedy play Shoplife into a Musical with the "Hairy Angel" in the lead. Would the Public like that or would they prefer Dennis Norton in another show.

Who knows or who cares? But at least I'm NOT Nobel.

WE didn't get a dog day

We Didn’t Get a Dog Day ©

By Michael Casey

Veronica sent me a message tonight so I thought I’d try out this joke on her to see if she’s on my wavelength. 13^th Jan, in 2 days’ time it’s a year since my big Op. I had told my nagging daughters they could have a dog if I died and a cat if I had a heart attack, so Fate being Tempted I had a totally unplanned Quadruple heart bypass. So I was talking to my daughter, my small daughter and I said should we celebrate my first anniversary, and I called it We Didn’t Get a Dog Day. She thought for a moment and said we should call it Two in One, as Totoro our cat behaves like a dog.

Totoro will fetch a piece of scrunched up Aldi till receipt if you throw it, she will dribble better than Rooney all over our living room carpet. She also will come running to the sound of roast chicken being removed from plastic wrapping paper. Totoro will also SIT on command, and stand up on 2 legs like a Meerkat while she decides what she wants from you.

Totoro will sit on the piano like a candelabra, waiting for my daughters to start and play. When they are not here she’ll just free run all over the piano and up the sofa and launch herself onto the bookcase. Luckily she hasn’t broken my cheap hifi yet. The piano is kept closed at all times otherwise she would have broken it by now.

Totoro’s other hobby is sitting in the front room window watching the world go by. That’s when she has finished jumping up and tearing the net curtains. She also likes tunnelling too, just like that Mexican drugs baron in the dirt vest, only in her case its going under the throw cover for the chair in the window, then she falls asleep. The throw is a good blanket after all.

Speaking of sleeping, Totoro is a house cat now, ever since I let her out and she came back with fleas, it was decided by the management, my 3 girls that is, that she would not be let outside. Instead she has the full run of the entire house, if you leave the stairs unguarded she’ll race upstairs and disappear for hours, or until she hears the sound of a chicken wrapper being opened.  

Totoro will sleep on a bed, or under a bed, or under the duvet, or on a cupboard, or if she can prize a door open she’ll sleep in a wardrobe. She just likes sleeping, anywhere. Her favourite place is in fact under my bed as it’s the warmest place in the house thanks to the way our central heating works, it is South facing too, so first she’ll sunbathe then she go under the bed for 40 winks, or 400 in her case.

In exchange for this lifestyle she has to help my big daughter with her homework. This means she gets stoked while my daughter learns all her science, which is a lot as my daughter wants to be a doctor. So my daughter will be Dr Casey Totoro, it has a miaow to it don’t you think?

Well Veronica I’ve mentioned you name twice and we’ve only just met, so I’ll throw in the towel now, I have to take some pain killers, as Arthur has come out to play now.

Cheerio, and thank God they didn’t get a dog.

Influence

Influence ©

By Michael Casey

Under the influence, is when you have had too much booze and you do something bad or stupid. But having influence is even better, especially if you don’t have responsibility, you can get the good result without having to pay for it. Grandparents can enjoy their grandkids but hand them back afterwards, they don’t have to tidy up their mess. Because of my age I’m mistaken for my kids’ granddad, so do I have influence or responsibility?

I try to influence my kids by sharing the films we watch together, be it a Jane Eyre or a Sandra Bullock film, or I try to introduce them to quality music, my 12 year old has developed a liking for Sinatra. So at every stage of their early life I’m encouraging and influencing them. My 14 year old wants to be a Dr, 2 years ago it was Vet, now its Dr, and judging from her test results, Dr it will be. So how did that happen? My dad was a blacksmith and then spent 40 years in a steelworks. Her  Shanghai granddad was an estate agent, this is the closest translation I ever got. Her Shanghai granny was an accountant for the bus company, my mum was a full time housewife.

Did seeing my health suddenly nosedive, first with arthritis which I inherited from my mum, and then heart problem which I inherited from my dad, did this influence my daughter’s life choice. I have joked to Ken when we were waiting in Argos if I were adopted maybe I’d never have gotten these diseases. I am very lucky though, a neighbour died the other week who was of similar age as me, his heart gave out, his daughters are in the same school as ours.

In other areas of life influence can help you, or hinder you. I have sent the usual letters to publishers and media about my writing, and have had great replies. The trick is finding that needle in the haystack and then getting published or on the radio. Though I did have a theatre say they would produce my play Shoplife back in 1989. And I did have a producer look at my novel with a view to filming it. The thing is though is finding somebody with influence, to take a look.

There are always smart Alecs who just want to appear smart and never help, discouraging is their game, a clique which is by invite only, and they will never help anybody. They boast they are published authors, the American terminology. The History of the American Porn Star is their only book, it sold 30 million, only because it had pictures in it. Though scientific writers do make lots of money as its hard work, and only a very few dedicated people are capable of writing them.

So nowadays I am only ½ hearted in my attempts at being published, so I contact people with influence  in the vain hope that they may help get exposure for my writing. Or I tell people I meet to google michaelgcasey to find me and my words, that’s the only influence I have.