I’ve published 15 books
and I couldn’t pay anyone to care any less
So I was talking to my counsellor the other day (therapist for my North American readers) or if you’re a scum sucking shithead from a council estate like I am, a shrink, and quite frankly Cate (name changed to protect the innocent and in deference to Cate Blanchett for whom I have an ungodly crush but please don’t tell her husband lest he beat me to death with his didgeridoo) doesn’t care for my self-deprecating attempts at humour (or humor for the North Americans among you who can’t spell) and whilst my self immolating putdowns are frowned upon by the latest angel on my shoulder who listens patiently to my problems, I of course beg to differ. Self-deprecating humour (sic) is my only defence (sic) to a life and a world gone horribly awry and then I said some more troubling shit that would worry a man or woman of the cloth before Cate suggested we return to that November night of 1986 and I “sit” with my feelings of that ghastly episode in my wasted life and then, like a thunderbolt from the Gods, she said the word “important” and fuck me I was off again, weaving tangential webs as to the meaning of that particular word, past and indeed present, how I’ve never been of any importance to anyone, ever, and especially so now as I bound into my 54th earthly year like a sloth after a heavy dose of Mogadon tablets and with all the enthusiasm for life of a dead albatross. But important? Yeah I’m important I probably screamed (I didn’t, but I have a flair for the dramatic and a vivid imagination that runs wild after too many cups of tea and too much time on my hands reading books in an unseasonably warm burst of blazing sunshine), yeah I’m important I shrieked like a wild banshee beneath a full moon (I didn’t), that’s why I’ve published 15 books in under 3 years and barely anyone gives a flying fuck about them.
Tangents eh? Lots of them. Questions too. 15 books in under 3 years? Why does the image of a sloth having a dependency on sleeping tablets amuse me? A November night nearly four decades ago? What happened? Has anyone ever been charged with using a didgeridoo as a lethal implement? If so, did they insert it up their enemy’s rectum? Christ what an image. Impaled on a wooden instrument. Brings a whole new meaning to blowing your own trumpet, doesn’t it? Or maybe it doesn’t. Doesn’t bear thinking about, does it? Can you shake that image now that you’ve read it here? Pink elephant. I bet your mind has just conjured an image of a pink elephant. Am I right? Have you noticed that the internet is now just a bunch of random questions about absolutely nothing, posted by clickbait merchants with the IQ of a dead animal who have absolutely no fucking intention whatsoever in responding to the answers they receive to their fucking pointless questions? Oh dear, there we go again. More tangents. More questions. And we haven’t even skirted the subject of me walking around in the April sunshine, bouncing a tennis ball like Jack Torrance in the Overlook Hotel or spinning it from hand to hand like Shane Warne, looking for all the world like a madman who’s lost his dog or the fact I’ve been watching crown green bowls in the sunshine and pretending to be middle class as I watch a game played by nearly dead people as I wish I was, well, I’m sure you can fill in the remainder of this sentence for me.
Well I wrote that last night in what I believe the experts call a “fit of pique” and for good or ill, it’s staying in. A reader of mine (I have at least one) once rightly pointed out that regardless of my subject matter, I care not a jot for my audience. Which is an easy trick to pull off when you don’t have one. I’m also beginning to believe my audience of one is actually just a figment of my over eager imagination, another shattering fragment of my own creation from within the confines of my own Overlook Hotel of utter despair. Much like the old lady in room 217 (which Stanley Kubrick changed to room 237) or Lloyd the Barman or Delbert Grady, the blood soaked caretaker of the hotel. But no, I’ve always been the caretaker of this particular Hammer Hotel of Horrors, and I’m bouncing a tennis ball in the house again. Freud or Jung would no doubt point to the tennis ball as being a connection to my early teenage years (if they weren’t both dead) and they’d be right. A kid (desperately in need of company, or a dog) perfecting his cricket bowling action with a tennis ball, all alone with only a brick wall, some chalked cricket stumps and a head full of fanciful dreams for company. A kid, forever stuck at the age of 14, bitterly angry at a world he wasn’t a failure in yet, not yet, but those failures would soon stack up though, broken relationships and family life shredded in line with the ghosts of the Overlook, a shining devil on the shoulder (before the angels tried to take his place) forever reminding me that I’ve fucked up and there’s another fuck up in the mail as soon as the snow breaks on the mountain and the postman can deliver it. Failure upon failure. Rip it up and start again. Never give up. Keep on trying, Stephen. Your analogy about the Overlook Hotel isn’t real you silly arse.
It’s just a shame the ghosts are as real as my failures though.
15 books in under 3 years and still no sign of my home city organising a tickertape parade through the city before unveiling a blue plaque in my honour on the wall of my parents old flat. “Stephen Blackford lived here” it would say “and he was reasonably happy, if largely alone, until the age of 12, and then his life turned into a living nightmare. He published 15 books during his lifetime of sadness and leaves behind a trail of utter despair”.
15 books
15 failures
In a lifetime of failure
In a lifetime of ghosts
A dead man, waiting around to die
Surrounded by ghosts he keeps alive to keep him company while he waits
Well that was grim wasn’t it! It’s at this point I normally post pretty pictures of my books as I boast about how bloody great I am and hope you’ll be enticed into buying one of them. But that ship sailed long ago (and sunk almost immediately in the harbour) so here’s a link to my Amazon Author page:
Stephen Blackford - Amazon Author Link
There's no shame in being from a council estate (or housing project, as they are called in North America). A good number of the R&B artists I admire who came out of Chicago grew up in one there called Cabrini-Green.