Fame and Death
It’s hard to believe but there has never been a movie or a novel, not even a pamphlet, about the everyday trials and tribulations of a Hebridean bungee-jumping, kittiwake enthusiastist. It’s hard to believe but it’s true.
Clearly there is a big gap in the market for this sort of thing and, rest assured people, I’m on it. If I win fame and fortune with my weighty tome – clearly there’s a multi-generational, multi-volume epic in there, just look at the range of material! – well then so be it, so be it. And if I don’t, well then so be that too. That’s just the kind of person I am.
See I would write it for the love of the thing not for any crass commercial purpose. Getting caught up in the drama of RSPB kittiwake-counting expeditions set against the vast and moody panorama of the North Atlantic fringe (which is fraying by the way) would fill my days, while recounting tales of illicit and very (very – heh-heh) much requited love between star-crossed bungee-jumpers on training weekends to Scalpay would occupy my nights.
Universal themes would play out in harshly lit Youth Hostel kitchens and hovering in the background, perhaps peering in at the windows from the dark moor beyond, there will probably usually be a weather-beaten old stringy-haired crone through whose mad and rolling eyes we will watch the narrative unfold. But she will be an Unreliable Narrator and therefore nothing will be clear. Is Robert a psychopathic monster under that parka, or does he just remind the old crone of other psychopathic parka-wearing monsters she has loved in her mysterious past? I expect that questions such as these will haunt the reader and they will make mistakes in performing simple everyday tasks through being so completely preoccupied with the great themes and questions the book raises. The critics will love it. Everyone loves an unreliable narrator. Henry James really cashed in on that wee gimmick.
There will be passion of course, for passion is what rends and mends the fabric of human experience and no story is complete without it. Plus it will look great in High-Definition when the movie-version comes out. We will come eye-to-eyelet with bodice-ripping as the story opens in the late 1800s, and we will track the subsequent generations by means of what type of fabric is being ripped by the handsome kittiwake bounty-hunter/egg-nicker/Edinburgh Uni. research conducter/exotic foodpurchaser for Harrods (, grippingly they will all feature) at the time: cotton through satin through cheesecloth and fishskin(when times get tough) through tweed, tie-die and finally Gore-Tex; all will be torn from some pouty maiden. That right there is called a literary device. The fellow in the Times loves those. (If fame does elude me, it won’t be through lack of research and stalking and rummaging through Harold Bloom’s dustbins.)
But the novel will have a contemporary feel too, so I can make it into another genre heading on Amazon. I will touch on important issues of the day – a Wednesday perhaps – so that historians, looking back at the work, will come to understand what was important to people in the early 21st century. Terrorism, global warming, metrosexuality and hair-removal will all be themes and, throughout, just as 60s-era Rumpole espoused claret and justice, and post-apocalyptic Cormac McCarthy wrote of tinned peaches and tender filial love, I will advocate healthy-eating and an active 5-a-day lifestyle.
It’s sure to be a big hit but don’t envy me, dear friends in blogging. Don’t wish me ill or post me the gonads of my very own beloved cat, for I will remember you all when Barbara Walters and Letterman and Charlie Rose are all banging on my door for an interview. I plan to grant few and maintain a lofty remove from my fans which is dead impressive. I will probably wear black polo-necks a lot more but I will still just be the same old Sam and I’ll send you all something lovely from hampers.com providing you agree to say nice things about me in the papers when I make a tragically young end that leaves the literary world bereft and reeling and drinking too much and falling down and sobbing snottily into its own tasteful, success-scented sleeve. Otherwise, no dice.
But never mind all that – today is the Dia De Los Muertes in many South American countries, when people offer the favourite things – foods and music and snow-drops on kittens for all I know – of deceased relatives to their spirits. When I die I want Leonard Cohen on a loop, buttery-flakey rhubarb pie a la mode, a couple bottles of Bombay Sapphire and a puffer-fish, cos really, what better time to try some?
What would you have?
November 3rd, 2007 at 12:33 am
i’m going for red beans and rice, new orleans second line music and a catapult to fling my ashes over the savannah river…and someone wearing a red dress.
November 3rd, 2007 at 1:33 am
Savannah, brilliant! What a way to get sprinkled – yeeha!
November 3rd, 2007 at 8:09 am
Go for it, Sam. There’s something compelling about those movies set in northern windswept locations where nobody talks much, the pretty young girl stares moodily into the ocean and men with big hands do things with their hands. You just know there’s going to be an incredible sex scene.
November 3rd, 2007 at 11:26 am
I’ll pick a plate buttery toast, a volcano of mashed potato with a baked bean moat, a bottle of Havana 7, a lime, some ice, Vide Cor Meum in the background and I’d like my ashes to be shot out of a blunderbuss, directly into the nearest Reiki centre.
November 3rd, 2007 at 12:05 pm
‘leaves the literary world bereft and reeling and drinking too much and falling down and sobbing snottily’
So no change there.
‘Dirt in the Ground’ by Tom Waits and Spicy Sausage Pasta. I’m all about the classics.
November 3rd, 2007 at 6:42 pm
Universal themes would play out , , ,
If you’re going for “murder father, marry mother and stop a war by refusing to put out,” it’s been done, too.
As for a funeral, I told the EMBLOS to take the kids, a bottle of Bud Light and some beef jerky, and scatter my ashes on the Continental Divide. That way, my essence can trickle to the Pacific, (or at least the Sea of Cortez) and the Gulf in good time.
Cheers.
November 3rd, 2007 at 8:27 pm
I’ve already had a lot of puffer fish (fugu), cooked, raw, roasted and stewed. And I am stymied by what I might want for my last meal — too much to choose from! Maybe dal and chapatis, or perhaps frijoles and tortillas. Because for once, the worrying after-effects would not cause me a moment’s concern.
November 4th, 2007 at 6:51 pm
‘What would you have?’
A girl I once met – she let me nibble, but try as I might, I couldn’t sink my teeth in far enough to take a proper bite.
November 4th, 2007 at 8:27 pm
it was the Day of the Dead here, too, and I feasted on boiled wheat, homemade bread and red wine (!!!tradition!!!)
I think I could be traditionalist and have the same – and a big thick steak!
And “Smoke on the Water” please, loud…. ’cause Ian Gillan just left the town and I missed the show
November 4th, 2007 at 11:03 pm
Bombay Sapphire? I prefer Tanqueray. To a mixed soundtrack of Dolly Parton (Jolene to be played at least 12 times), Justin Timberlake and Nick Cave. I also demand the deliciousness of toasted cheese and vegemite sandwiches, felafel, and chocolate soy icecream.
I do like the idea of your book. It sounds (reads? looks?) riveting.
November 5th, 2007 at 12:00 am
A bottle of Stoli from the freezer, with a lime, and club soda alongside grilled cheese and chips with lashings of ketchup. The song playing should be Sinead O’Connor’s “This is the last day of our acquaintance.”
And lots of Parliament Lights being smoked.
November 5th, 2007 at 5:56 am
Nanas, and luckily for the Scots our springy heathered landscape is like one huge posturepedic mattress, providing excellent lumbar support for all the pretty young maidens and big-handed men of a mind to get it on.
fmc, buttery toast is very fine, I have to agree, but I think the moat arrangement would cause uneven cooling of the beans in relation to the steaming mashed potato fortress. I’d make it a baked bean’n'mash volcano because that way all of the delicious tomatoey sauce is absorbed by the potato and none gets left congealing on the edge of the plate. I think I might have to have a rum baba too. And some very sharp cheddar. Oooh, and a herring fried in oatmeal and/or a kipper and potatoes. I could go on. Hot chocolate definitely.
Gimme, children’s lit. authors are the worst, they say. Complete junkies too, most of ‘em.
Randall – beef jerky?? Beef jerky, man? You want to depart this world on the back of beef jerky? When there are succulent garlicky scallops and raspberry brandy trifles in the world? Not to mention cod and chips! Be good to your family as they bid you farewell – insist on Miller Lite at the very least!
Mary, what’s fugu like? Isn’t fugu an acronym for fatally unhealthy gastronomic unusuality? You’re a brave woman. The only fish I eat are ones which don’t have the ability to morph into spiny spheres of death.
Mungo, well, I guess it would depend on what bit you were going for. Most women for example love to have their elbows gently nibbled on whilst watching current affairs programming by the BBC. Not a lot of men know that.
JenPen – did you say feasted on boiled wheat? Don’t you mean force-fed? What specific boiling practice was used for the wheat? Because unless it’s steamed according to the Fosby method, baby, you ain’t got no feast. I am almost as incredulous at you as I am at Randall and his beef jerky last meal. What of pan-seared morels and rosemary trout? What of rhubarb and custard? Tradition be damned – go with the steak!
Carolyn – I guess I just like the bottle more than anything. I’m a marketing manager’s dream, me. Sucker for a purdy bottle. I’m going to forget you said Justin Timberlake. It won’t be easy but that’s what friends do for one another.
Medbh, I want to depart the coil a little the better for a beverage too. It ought to be slightly surreal, dying, oughtn’t it? I mean if you get the chance to plan it. I wouldn’t go out to Sinead although that’s a pithy song to depart on. I’ve always been fond of “Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head.” Prolly have to go with Lenny Cohen though. Just to keep the mood light for the crowds and crowds of weeping mourners I expect will show up.
November 5th, 2007 at 12:34 pm
Fugu is absolutely nothing special — just fish. It’s expensive, so the only times I had it were when I was being treated by students on the last day of class (I never went with classes that I didn’t like or vice versa, for obvious reasons), and there was always someone drunk enough to take the first bite and serve as our First Line of Defense — after that, you don’t have to wait long to know whether those pesky nerve toxins have leaked out.
I can’t imagine anyone better than Leonard Cohen when it comes to really doing one proud at a funeral: almost all of his songs have that wonderful, dirge-like quality, but they’re all real crackers. I could listen to him 24-7, and for some reason, his music does not depress. At my own funeral, though, I want Diana Jones playing full blast: “That Better Day.” I can picture that my kids will sing along lustily.
November 5th, 2007 at 3:25 pm
The best treats are after a bit of hardship so I would have a long walk in a winter’s afternoon in Yorkshire in a blizzard and the distant glint of a light in Joe’s Caff which is miraculously open and after hot tea and toast and chocolate cake, a drive in the car back to the cottage and a steaming hot bath.
November 5th, 2007 at 10:07 pm
Do you know how hard it is to rip gore-tex off? It’s really hard. I’m fairly certain her pout would turn into an “ow! that flippin’ hurts, you lummox!”. But then, maybe you can maintain a pout with that line. I suppose it would depend on the actress. Hmmm…
November 6th, 2007 at 11:42 am
Bacon and egg, washed down with a very good prosecco. Then, as the sun sets, pop me into my gondola on a special beach on the Irish west coast. Lastly, fire me up send me after the vanishing sun…
November 6th, 2007 at 1:29 pm
Sam you little beastie.
I thought this was a very clever and witty post when I read it first but I’ve been musing on it now for furggin days.
Drumm beat me to the flaming galley to Valhallah.
Funny how things like this get under your skin and make you think of the uselessness of it all. Or maybe not.
I would like the classic.
Prawn Cocktail
Sirloin Steak with roast and mash potatoes (chef’s veg selection)
Black Forest Gatux with fresh double cream
Then lay me down to die in a cream Maseratti dowsed in petrol and drive it off Coire an t’Sneachta.
November 6th, 2007 at 7:41 pm
Bombay Sapphire is for the living, ma’am.
Absinthe. That’s my prescription for my personal day of the dead.
November 6th, 2007 at 9:38 pm
Ave, Ceasar, give me that piece o’meat then… traditions are not the ones we remember.
and pass me that red wine, we’re alive, the Day of the Dead was LAST week.
November 7th, 2007 at 1:29 am
Mary – God, not too lustily I hope. I want my family wailing and rolling in the aisles at my funeral. And I’ll be watching to make sure they do.
Pat, you’ve made me homesick again – I’d love a long walk in the wind and rain about now. Only I’d have Campbell’s Cream of Tomato with my tea and toast.
Kara, I’m thinking Angelina Jolie – I don’t think there are many circumstances in which she could possibly fail to pout.
Ah, Conan, that’s beautiful. Would you have a flotilla of family members in dinghies to ensure your gondola doesn’t get snagged on any rocks?
Doccie, I see you’ve dined in the Caberfeidh Hotel in Stornoway before now. But think of the environment before you rev up your cream Maseratti for your final spin in the country! Wouldn’t it be more earth-friendly to go in a hydrogen-powered veehickle? You could always put a Maseratti shell on it.
Jali, you’re right of course. And a genius. Absinthe! Of course – it’s perfect! You are wasted in your current job, do you hear me – wasted! You need to become a discreet Appropriate Alcohol Adviser to the rich and famous so they’re never caught looking anything other than supremely cool with their beverages. I bow to you.
Jen, huzzah – lets hear it for the alive! And the wine-drinkers! And let the wine-drinkers come in numbers unto our Jester!
March 4th, 2008 at 3:34 pm
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