Pleasing an Audience

Pleasing an Audience ©

By Michael Casey

I was listening to John Denver on the computer using the Groove feature which sounds better than Windows Media Player to my ears, judge for yourself, assuming you have your 5 John Denver albums loaded to the computer. Some of the tracks I remembered well, I was a fan 40 years ago, me a book and a John Denver album till my next giro for unemployment came through. Thankfully I got my break in computers, and the neighbours were spared non-stop John Denver. Or me stopping up late at night reading all the Alistair MacLean books.

These were the simple pleasures that pleased me all those years ago, in my reading by the yard days. My girls read by the metre nowadays as they are modern and ½ Shanghai Chinese, though I will say invest in a cheap Kindle for your child, it is a godsend. Amazon must be wondering what kind of person I am judging from the reading habits, it’s not me it’s my daughter who is reading all these strange books, some I’d find to horrid to read. I would like to find a way to put my 12 books on her Kindle without having to pay for my own books, though I would get a Royalty payment for each, but I’d still be paying 30% of the cover price.

Tonight’s theme is about pleasing an audience that’s why I mentioned my own reading habits 40 years ago. My other girl likes watching operations on her computer, stuff with more blood in it than any late-night film. So now that the government is watching everybody even more they must be wondering what kind of household we are. We have a doctor cum pathologist wannabe in the house, hence all the gore.

Not forgetting Japanese videos on makeup that the wife watches. Me I mainly watch news and newspapers. So we each have something that pleases us the audience. But what if you are the information provider, what if you are me, yes me the fat silver haired writer from Birmingham who shops every day in his local Aldi.

Well and I did say I’d use well instead of so, well should I try and please my audience or just write for myself. I spotted that Russia was reading Michael and The Chink in the Wall an hour or so ago. That piece got high praise when the old Daily Telegraph posting place still existed, so I smiled when I noticed Russia was reading it. I also thought should I or could I write more stuff like that. Actors don’t like to be typecast and I suppose writers are the same.

So should I be a writer of sensitive pieces or hard sarcasm, should I be shy or should I be all Trumpian, the new President has entered the word vocabulary now. I like the variety each day brings me, look out the window and there’s another story approaching, just as the seagulls land on the neighbours roof. Where do seagulls go for a change of scenery, Birmingham, the furthest point away from the sea in Britain.

Should I have a notebook and work my way through the alphabet writing about this and then writing about that.  Should I pretend to like football in an attempt to get a Knighthood, to be honest I should never accept any honours. Being alive every morning is the greatest honour I get, and that comes from God, so nothing personal Marg, I’ll stay Mr Michael Casey, the fat silver haired writer from Birmingham.  

It’s nice when people like what you write, even if it’s, a you??? Total unbelief that a fat silver haired Birmingham guy who’s dad was a Kerry Blacksmith could write such words that touched and made them laugh or cry. I loved the film Amadeus, I loved the idea that a scruffy mad common man had been touched by God. Mozart was God’s imagination turned into sound, get the film out on video wherever you are in the world. I remember being dragged to the Futurist cinema in Birmingham to see it, in a corner a woman was crying.

You see God really does have a sense of humour, Ivan why has Mikail  got the prettiest wife in Saint Petersburg you know it’s true. Because even though he has that limp and a stammer too, what has he got that nobody else has got? He has that look in his eyes, and he listened to the BBC World Service and learnt a trick. If he sings he loses his stammer.

So he sings night and day to Olga, his eyes are like a puppy dog begging, but when he sings women all women, the whole of Russian Womanhood want him. But she Olga has him, he is hers. He was just her driver but he became her husband, because her mother and grandmother loved him and his singing. Yes it was madness but isn’t love madness? So Mikail married the daughter of a Saint Petersburg billionaire.

Ivan knows this to be true and if ever I finish Tears for a Butcher then true love overcomes any disability, in my story that is. Perhaps in Saint Petersburg there is a billionaire’s daughter married to a singing driver with a limp, is it just in my imagination or can it be true can it be really true.

I should finish there but just a sentence to say you can see how I went with the flow and wrote something to please my Russian readers, there are hundreds of short stories in my books, you never know what you will find, a bit like Ivan’s stew, he is such a  terrible cook, once he boiled his football boots with all the vegetables, but it was the best stew he ever made, his mates thought the laces were noodles.

How his football boots ended up in the stew pot is another story, if you can write it then Ivan will give you a bottle of his uncle’s best vodka, just invite him to dinner for the next 77x 7 weeks.   Why 77 x 7 because if you remember your Bible that is the number of times you should forgive me.  

Clearout

Clearout ©

By Michael Casey

We or me to be honest had a Clearout yesterday, I need to do a bit more painting, no models or Picasso involved, just a big tin of white paint. I didn’t have the energy to do the actual painting, I was up in the middle of the night writing my 1,000,000th word after all. So I just did a bit of prep, and yes I’ve noticed as well that SO seems to be a popular word when I’m talking to you all, maybe I’ll change it to WELL.

I’ve also noticed that Russia is looking at my writing more often now. It may just be a punishment for any coder whose coding is not up to scratch. They have to translate manually with a paper dictionary 2 stories of mine, or is it Edward Snowden translating it into Russian for his new friends in the coding team. A really horrid punishment, not unless VP, Mr Putin has become addicted to this fat guy in Birmingham, who does he think he is Chris Cringle, I can almost hear him say. Well in my imagination anyway.

But back to the clearout, and yes I know you should never start a sentence with a BUT, and all the other rules, I’ll just remind the late comers, and do sit down at the back and get your books out at page 76, where was I, yes this is RADIO. Did any of you work that out yet, ok clever clogs Kumar at the back, that’ll teach you to send me a SEO email, I’ll just put your name in a story. You can boast about that for the rest of your life, and the fact you came 2nd in the annual Farting competition. La Petomane as the French call it. I bet you’ll deny any knowledge of me now, whatever happened to those who fart together hold their noses together, such a sort lived friendship.

I seem to have gone sideways, and I wasn’t talking about my waist size, Kumar you are such a naughty boy, I’ll throw you out of my class. Silence at last, that’ll teach him. What I threw the wrong boy out, who did I throw out then? Stalin, he’s a nice boy, he’s training to be a priest, or did he say pilot, no doubt he’ll let me know in 6 years time when he is ordained.

Yes Clearout, when you have a tidy up or clearout you are amazed by what you find under the bed in an Aldi plastic bag, no not twenty bags of crisps and a lost sock. But your old class reports from whenever. I actually got 80% in Chemistry then I dropped it. Then I end up with a friend who has a PhD in it, and a wife who has a degree in it, a nephew who is doing it at University and finally my daughter will study it on her way to being a doctor. All this because of what I find under my bed, in an Aldi plastic carrier bag.

Thankfully there was no book on the Titanic, to have our house sunk by an iceberg and then to sink beneath the waves would have been too much to bear. Though the sound effects would have been magnificent, if we used La Petomane to represent the gurgling of the waves, now that would be great Radio, or am I the only one with Imagination.

The things you find all have meaning and memories, Putin no doubt still treasures his first watch, a plastic micky mouse one, a Russian copy, powered by motion. That’s why he is such a good sprinter, he had to keep the power reserve up on the watch. I still love watches, if ever I am rich I’ll get a Cartier Diamond Bleu automatic, this will prove to me that I’ve arrived, and on time, though I cannot sprint.

Odd socks and old shoes are also found under your bed or at the back of your wardrobe. I found this soft brown leather jacket that I bought in Barcelona in Feb 1999, 18 years ago now. So I’ve cleaned the leather with malt vinegar, it smelt like a bag of chips for 2 days. Then I used leather furniture spray, and then finally I used Dove aftershave face lotion.  It was in the back of the wardrobe for years after all. You can see the photos in one of my posts.

I now have a very good leather jacket and I have restored part of my life my memories to the front of the queue in my mind. It has stopped smelling of malt vinegar and chips now. Though we do have a great chippie at the bottom of our road. The jacket does look shinny and nice now, and still very very soft, as good as new, very well polished with furniture polish.  The Dove aftershave lotion has made it so supple too, as soft as a baby’s bum, but not as smelly.

Sometimes you find an old album, a CD and then the memories coming flooding back.  I can even remember when CDs were invented too. I’m listening to Queen’s last album with Freddie Mercury as I talk to you, it cannot be all those years ago when it came out. Music has so much power over us, just look how excited the North Koreans are when they hear music. Wait till Elton John turns up and play for them this Easter, the place will really rock. Ossie Osborne and Black Sabbath are the warm up band for Elton, those lucky lucky North Koreans.

That’s about it for now as I have to go to Aldi, I hope you all have memories worth keeping and sharing. If there are memories that hurt you then build a bonfire at the bottom of your garden and invite friends around and have hot food cooked on the bonfire. If some of the memories are not tied to objects then play the song Making Love on a Mountain, and get those skiing things out and go do it. But do make sure you bring enough Russian vodka with you, and a Kindle with all my books on, just in case you get bored of the vodka, or Making Love on a Mountain, the song, not the real thing, though do bring some Coca Cola too.

me-17dec16.jpg

The Greatest Story Ever Told

The Greatest Story Ever Told ©

By Michael Casey

I did not intend writing this now, right now 3am on 4^th Feb2017, but time and tide waits for no man, and if you cannot sleep you may as well get up and write a story.  This one will be 960 or so, Google Blogger keeps a tally, I do not. I had been thinking how to celebrate my 1,000,000^th word, the official kind of one, or rather 1,000,000^th one. I could get all pretentious, but as you know I abhor pretention.

You think shall I do a bit of comedy, or pathos, or my usual mix of all kinds of everything. I did have an idea to take this piece this way or that way, but now as I’ve got up at 3am I’m deciding to go another way entirely. Yesterday was a strange day as I had a lot of pain and could not sleep, then when I got up I got an unexpected email from the witch, which is the pet name I have for the wife, though she calls me Panzi which I thought was fat fat  boy, but in fact means PIG, my bilingual daughters finally told me. 

Anyway the witch summoned me to attend a viewing on a house that popped up last night on www.rightmove.co.uk , it was my turn to take first look and if I liked it then all the family would attend. Simple, if you’ve had a good night’s sleep, but if you have not and altogether it’s a 3mile round trip up hill in the cold. Then that is different. I could tell before I entered the house that it would not suit us, and I was proved right, I did console the owner by telling him that it would sell in a week. Our area is hot at the moment and they do sell that quickly.

I had a rest when I got home and wrote Twitter Me I want to be Famous and I was pleased with the result.  How it normally works is that I write something and then I read it back aloud to the girls asking them their opinion. They always say they are being tortured and will ring the Hague and ask them to try me for war crimes to their ears. Or they just lie and say another fantastic piece of Literature dad, one day we will inherit your money, the sooner the better too.

The normal family banter, I hope. I then post my piece to Wordpress and Blogger before doing my security. I was in a computer room nearly 40 years ago so I know about backups, believe me I do. DSC it was called then. Later on I can see who in the world is reading my stuff, I had India today, I think it may have been Kumar who sent me an email today, which I bounced back with my Elevator Ad. I sometimes add my photo in the orange polo where I look like a drunk. 

Unfortunately my inline photo thing does not work anymore, but at least they get an Elevator Ad as a punishment for sending me a SEO advert of theirs.

My words go far and wide maybe 20 countries scattered everywhere, which proves to me that my English via Comedy idea would work. So Angel investors do get in touch. I could teach Chinese billionairesses English too, I was an Esol teacher in the past, and I did teach my wife English.

But back to the writing every story is a fresh page, a fresh start, I can try this or I can try that. Satire or my version of in as in the Twitter me story is very easy. I prefer more thoughtful stuff, that is thoughtful for me. Ok I’m a pig but I wear lipstick, my wife does call me Panzi after all.

You can come up with words that are so really really touching, such as in The Dead and The Living, or in Let My Tears be my Words. Or the true story Padre Pio and Me, then some may say I’m a conduit, I can barely spell the word, but it’s too easy to say I’m not the writer, it’s a Gift. 20 years of listening to BBC Radio4 speech radio and then writing for 30 years, so 50 years in total, this what a Gift is.

I suppose the greatest Gift we all get is our parents, the Love they pour into us, my mother has not stopped pouring, she’s in charge of the tea in Heaven, and dad has found a hot spot where he can warm himself, as he was in a steel works for 40 years. He could never end up in Hell, as it would have felt cold for him, besides Charity was running through him, and  as your know Faith, Hope is always followed by Charity.

Twitter Me I want to Famous

Friday, 3 February 2017

Twitter Me I want to Be Famous

Twitter Me I Want to Be Famous ©

By Michael Casey

I just had a scan of the newspapers and what you notice most of all are people selling their Soul in an attempt to be famous. Why do people want to be 3^rd rate Z List celebrities, Andy Warhol must be cursing his luck in Heaven as everybody crowds the place out, how can he do Cloud Art with the Angels if the place is overcrowded with the newly dead 3^rd rate Z listers. If you remember  your Bettlejuice  Heaven’s waiting room is overcrowded with people like that.

So why do people want this drug so much? Am I one of them? In my case I only want my words to be famous, I have no desire to sell my soul. Look at my chest I don’t wear a vest, look at my legs they go right up to my bum. Look at my bum I’ve been injected with a barrel full of oil to make my bum so large it almost explodes, just make sure you are not standing directly behind me.

Look at the notches on my bedpost I’ve slept with 1000 men or was it women I cannot tell the difference, because I am straight/gay/bio whatever, or was it a robot in the bed, enough said. Westworld. And on it goes, does anybody care or is it just so very very boring. The sexual revolution was back in the 1960s, so now 50 years on to hear it all over again as if this generation were the 1^st to discover what was underneath the undergarments, is so very very BORING.

Celebrities are famous for being famous, everybody is a HERO now, I put 5000 paperclips up my nose and I am in the Guinness book of records. My brother put 7000 up his, up his, I can say but I won’t say, anyway he is in the adult version of the Guinness book of records. It’s called the Guinness with Whisky chaser book of records, with cross eyes.

People do stupid things to chase fame, then they put it on Twitter or Facebook. Thousands of likes and repeats or whatever it is called follow this, until you have 1,000,000 likes for a man who can fart fire and light a candle on a birthday cake 10 feet away. And of course in real life he is a fireman, so that makes it more interesting and his mates hose him down every time, so they can share his fame.
Hashtag #fartingfiremanlightsbirthdaycake is an explosive hashtag, and spreads like wildfire.

Then the next week obviously he dies while at work saving a life of a child. So his Twitter goes wild and his Facebook has a flaming bum with smoke spelling the work RIP rising from his behind. Yes this really is the level we have reached. People just want to be famous, now more than ever. Jade Goody would no doubt agree with me, may she rest in peace.

So why the need to be famous or all over Twitter and Facebook. Is it a weakness in the human spirit, Trivia being more important that Real Life. If people live in that Bubble where Kylie being cheated on by her toyboy is more important than the Manchester United results you have to wonder what is going on in the world.

Now I just threw in the line about Man U to see what reaction I’d get from you the reader, in India or Russia or USA or even here in UK, you lot are a scattered group, my readers. Maybe you should have a Tee shirt with michaelgcasey is the FAT Birmingham writer. Then you know what would happen, some little Indian guy in Calcutta would make a fortune in Tee shirts.

He could have  a 2^nd Tee with  MichaelGCasey Calcutta is the Last Word, and when people asked him what it meant he’d say it’s the last word in   The Butcher The Baker and The Undertaker, whatever that is.

Me I wouldn’t get a dime from it. He would storm Twitter and Facebook, he would be the face of Michael Casey the Fat Birmingham Writer, even though he’d be a little Indian and I’m the large fat silver haired guy who looks like Santa after a visit to rehab to remove all the HO HO HOs from my wherever they are.

Such is fame, the irony is my best friend is a little Indian guy from Calcutta, who has a PhD in Biochemistry, with his help I no longer fart fire. And on that note I’ll have a toilet break.

Thank you Russia and France for being big readers

Glad Russia and France stopped by to read my stuff. All the other countries are most welcome too.

feel  free to buy a book on Amazon worldwide


https://www.amazon.com/Michael-Casey/e/B00571G0YC

I'm waiting for a pain killer to kick in before I go to bed, tonight its chest pain, but it could be anywhere else on my body. And yes I know your grannie in Anytown has far more pain, but like I said its not a competition. 4 years ago I had none of this.

https://michaelcaseyfrombirminghamengland.blogspot.co.uk/   is my backdoor which has  a ton of stuff on.

I have written 140 pages or 58,488 words of my next book so far.

It will be called 2018 New Horizons, but it'll be Christmas 2018 before I launch it as my 13th book, like I said before I never expected to write so many, there were only 4  Evangelists after all.

My back door will close suddenly, once Donald Trump finishes reading it, or Putin. I'll accept readers from anyplace anywhere. The actual 1,000,000 th  actual word is in  2018 New Horizons, there will be no prize for working out what it will be.

In The Butcher The Baker and The Undertaker the final word was chosen and it was Calcutta, if you read that book then you will know why.

That's all for tonight. Hope you all like my selection of silly photos that I post with my stories
I DETEST horrid posed photos. I still need a lottery win or you all to buy a ton of books then I can have a nice family home, and a Labrador called Camembert, but God is Good as my mum used to say, So I never give up Hope.

Michael

p.s. I never use a dictionary, what hits the page stays on the page, Jackson Pollock inspired me

Perfect Press Coverage

Perfect Press Coverage ©

By Michael Casey

I was going to call this Perfect Press Person, but that would have been too much alliteration, perfect for school teachers perhaps and their exam taking students, or bloody bastards as they are illiterately called in the Staff Room. It was just a thought, you see I’ve been watching a few press conferences on tv lately, as we all have, and one guy stands out, the problem is though that he sounds like a Cartoon.

He knows who he is and if I were to tell you his name I would immediately insert my opinion into all your brains, and you would never get it out again. You know like the Emperor’s New Clothes, once mentioned there is no turning back. If you say Michael Casey looks like George Clooney immediately you will always see me instead of him, though my wife says I look more like Huw Edwards the BBC news reader. I am a better looking than the real George Clooney, you can only tell us apart by the coffee,  I drink Kenco Rappor instant with semi skimmed milk, no sugar.

As for this press person, he really does sound like a cartoon, not like Officer Dibble more like a Wacky Races character, I cannot remember which one exactly as Peppa Pig has overtaken our telly. Listen to his voice next time he’s on tv, and he is on most days, and close your eyes as he speaks, then the realisation will overcome you like a wave on a beach.

What he says is like a WWW Wrestler hammering you into the canvas, but the voice his voice is pure cartoon voice. Which means he cannot be taken seriously, well not by me at any rate. Einstein looked stupid but was 50 years ahead of his time, but this cartoon will always be a cartoon for me.

Now look at the wordcount I haven’t even started and 327 words are on the clock, if only I were paid by the word, you get quality too, but I am a word count, or have a counter in the corner so as I pause for a drink I notice how many words there are and I think its write to share it with you. By the way write was right in the last sentence, I thought it might amuse the writers out there as I talk to you. 

Sometimes I make mistakes with sound alike words because I’m going too fast for my fingers to keep up with my brain, as you know we think 4 times faster than we speak, and maybe 8 times faster than we type.

Which brings me to my topic in hand, and by the way Ronnie Corbett and Joyce Grenfell seem to have permeated my writing style or rather talking to you style, they are worth a Google. Where was I, yes, bathroom break.

Now a press release is just that, you are releasing information to the press in the hope that they will give favourable coverage to your product or company. Nobody releases a press release hoping to sabotage their own product. Though we all remember Ratner who really did shoot himself in the head by saying his Jewellery was so cheap because it was crap, so all his customers decided if he thought that why should they buy it.  

A successful press launch involves alcohol, an average person drinks so much, for a press launch multiply that by 5, per person. Journalists like to wet their whistle, they need spit to help them get their pencils ready to write in their notebooks. There was once a journalist who did not drink, he was dispatched to America and ended up in Salt Lake City, married 3 times they say, simultaneously, and had 19 children. He would have ran for President only he was not born in the country.

At press launches there are freebies, goodie bags of alcohol and glossy literature. The glossy literature goes straight in the bin, it’s so heavy to carry after all, you have to make space for the 2 bottles of cheap, 50 quid a bottle champagne. They say many a baby is conceived in a bottle, I am in fact Charles Dickens’ son, or is it Will Shakespeare’s, some pub anyway.

So I think you all have gotten the picture about press releases and press launches, obvious the gentlemen and ladies of the press will say I’m pushing a stereotype. All I will say is that in Tears for A Butcher, which needs a journalist’s copy typist to help me finish it, the climax does involve a pub, the editors scream down the phone, buy the pub, so that the press pack can stay close to the hospital where a life and death situation is happening.

That pub is the Windmill, and this has been a glimpse into the Windmills of my Mind, for the priest from the church next to that pub used to call me Sancho Panza, a fat guy on a donkey. Or am I  really George Clooney?

 p.s. I always have silly photos to make me outstanding in my field, 500 years of farmers after all

There is only one michaelgcasey its me in BIRMINGHAM beware of others with same name

There is only one michaelgcasey its me in BIRMINGHAM beware of others with same name

 https://www.amazon.com/MichaelCasey/e/B00571G0YC

found my old leather jacket from 1999 when I was in Barcelona