Twitter Watch: Volume 1
An ode to Hunter S Thompson and are Neil Oliver and Elon Musk going to save the world?
An ode to Hunter S Thompson and are Neil Oliver and Elon Musk going to save the world?
It’s been somewhat of a strange day all round, the culmination of which leads to the penning of this, the first volume of my “Twitter Watch” series. I had been ruminating on such an idea for some time and whilst it’s hardly novel, I’m beginning this now at 2.43am on a cold winter’s night here in the UK whilst half watching the enthralling live cricket from a world and different time zone away in Australia, and after stumbling over a couple of tweets in that dark void we collectively call Twitter that really gave me pause for celebration, I felt it was the right time to kick start my anxiously bemused ramblings on the vacuous void of Twitter we all so thoroughly endure (enjoy? Politics Ed). With tea aplenty and a sliver of faith in humanity restored by a Scottish Historian and now TV presenter, the Australian ladies cricket team are on the verge of setting their English counterparts a stiff last day run total to chase and after watching every day of this Test Match I can confirm with great conviction that I’ve loved watching ladies Test Match cricket for the very first time. I could ramble about the delicious swing bowling of Anya Shrubsole or the aggressive fast bowling of Katherine Brunt, the huge century from England Skipper Heather Knight or particularly the fast bowling Aussie, Darcie Brown. Brown is just 18 years old. 18! And she epitomises the overriding impressions of fun, smiles and wholehearted joy I’ve seen in abundance whilst watching ladies Test Match cricket for the first time. I could indeed do this, but what does this have to do with Twitter?
Frankly, at this stage, absolutely nothing, but please bear with me dear reader as this next segment probably won’t veer into those dark Twitter waters either. Not yet. But I am a professional and we will get there, in time. But it’s been a strange day and now I’m sat here writing, with one eye on the cricket, the other on an empty tea mug and all the while wistfully hoping to resurrect the literary ghost of Hunter S Thompson whilst wondering if Elon Musk is in fact here to save planet earth after all? So it’s all rather discombobulating.
I mean, I’m getting to like the guy! This worries me, naturally, but we’ll get to those existential fears in due course, both here today, and in future volumes as I feel Mr Musk will be a regular returnee to these particular articles, providing of course our war mongering crazies don’t get their demonic wish for a nuclear conflagration with Russia. When this comes to pass, as surely it will, whether you’re Elon Musk, Neil Oliver, a ghost of a historical literary past or you and me: we’ll all be toast! But Neil has just released a quite wonderful and incredibly moving video on Twitter, Elon Musk has tweeted his love for the magnificently and twisted love story that is True Romance and I want to believe in Elon Musk, I truly do. But then again I really want to resurrect the ghost of my literary hero Hunter S Thompson and perhaps that should be our and indeed my, introduction into that weird howl into The Matrix void that is Twitter, and my strange continuing fascination for that particular social media madhouse.
So by way of an introduction to this, my first volume as I stand guard on “Twitter Watch”, I’ll provide the briefest of backgrounds to my presence there, my antipathy toward the mad shenanigans that take place there as well as my reason for leaving a quotation from the great man as a starting point for anybody who wishes to follow me. First off, I don’t overtly seek or chase followers, hence I’ve been on Twitter for nearly 12 years and still have a dwindling, if merrily thin band of followers. I follow back anyone who follows me out of gentlemanly conduct and I do likewise here. I don’t follow any A-Z list celebrities (nor the men under discussion today). They have large enough audiences and I have no wish to join their throng. A large enough audience means your Twitter message will seep through the fabric of The Matrix and that’s fine by me. The coming volumes here on Twitter Watch could be enhanced greatly by my following of certain accounts but I don’t, this will not change, and I see no reason for doing otherwise.
Secondly, my Bio page: Obscured in the shot above is a favourite Liverpool Football Club flag as a banner headline before a rather handsome photo from last Summer of your humble narrator and the admissions of being an unabashed sun worshipper, secretive member of both the CIA and my favourite band Radiohead and a steal from the film Four Weddings and a Funeral which I hope is more than a nod to my agnosticism in regard to organised religion.
Lastly, the pinned tweet: I have adored the writings and ramblings of Hunter S Thompson for over two decades now and I regard him simply as both a literary as well as a life hero. I have flat out stolen some of his writing mannerisms but my writing style studiously reflects me as a human being. My mind rambles in scattershot directions all the time, I smile at the obscure and inane and become frustrated at the tiniest of insignificances and I have this annoying voice in my head that constantly screams “I have questions!”. I’m not equipped to answer these questions but I pose them, rhetorically, nonetheless. I’m a bloody minded contrarian and the older I get the more I enjoy viewing the world from a sideways position and I’m now penning these words just after 1pm on a cold, frosty and blisteringly sunny Sunday afternoon, and after just a few snatched hours of sleep. The older Hunter became, the more annoyed and frustrated he became, but not particularly so with a world he still viewed through his own “Gonzo” lens. He always watched late night sport as he wrote, through the night, and whilst he didn’t watch the nail biting cricket I have all night (incredible, down to the wire, drawn game) he wrote voluminously, slept, and did the same thing all over again. Hunter has many legends, many stories attributed to him and about him, and is quoted amongst the literary greats of our generation. The quote I use is from the first volume of his letters (see picture below) and it’s an abstract and throwaway line tucked deep within a huge trove of his early letters to friends, editors and people he desperately wanted to dance with politically. Hunter’s famed quotes are as voluminous as his late morning breakfasts before he caused his daily havoc. The quote I use is the very epitome of Hunter S Thompson and I’ve always felt it a rather fine mantra for life.
So for good or ill, that’s my Twitter profile. I rant and rave. I write obliquely amusing references that only a tiny fraction of people will get or enjoy and I despise the Twitter madhouse as the time sucking howl into the darkness of The Matrix that it is. But rather like that uninvited guest who stays at the party all the way until the end, I’m staying for now. Otherwise, how else would I know that Elon Musk now loves True Romance and the protesting Canadian truckers, that we’re on the brink of nuclear war with Russia and that a Scottish Historian with an incredible hairy beard and a hairstyle I’m deeply jealous of, would make me cry at 2am on a Sunday morning? So I’m staying on Twitter. For now. And as Hunter would often refrain:
“And why not?”.
Why not indeed.
Before we delve into the heart of the matter in this first volume of my “Twitter Watch” and whether Neil Oliver or Elon Musk are indeed going to save the world, the following film review of True Romance is taken from my vast film blog on the director Tony Scott entitled “Tony Scott — A Cinematic Legend” and the entire blog covering all of his 16 films can be found within my archives here. As you may have noticed from the bookshelf picture above, I have a fondness for all things Bruce Springsteen, Radiohead and The Doors amongst others shelved to the left of my Hunter S Thompson collection. You may have also noticed my books on Quentin Tarantino and whose films I obsessively adore, and so here we have the saviour of the world tweeting how much he loves a film I LOVE, penned by a writer/director I equally love, and this obviously worries me. I really want to like and believe Elon Musk, I really do. But I fear he could be Drexl Spivey rather than the Clarence Worley he presents to be these days. I mean, he’s supporting those pesky protesting Canadian truckers, so he must be the real deal, right? He must be Clarence, a lover of human life, a dreamer, the very epitome of the good guy making good. Right?
Anyway, I’ll return to this shortly. First, here’s a film review I penned a long time ago in a galaxy nearer than you may think:
Released 20 years ago, this film continues to be in my personal all time favourites list and continues to age like a fine wine. Still as sharp and crystal clear in every frame, a film I can endlessly quote dialogue from as I’ve watched this all time classic on too many occasions to admit. There are many reasons why, but principally because the character of Clarence is everything I aspire to be, aside from the drug running, shoot outs and Elvis worship, obviously! A film geek, an idealist and a man who falls in love with the woman of his dreams. That’s Clarence (and me) and much more besides.
As the title suggests, it’s a love story and a very powerful one at that. Written by Quentin Tarantino, you shouldn’t be surprised that this is at it’s heart a powerful love story, for the majority of scripts/films written by Tarantino are love stories at heart. This is often overlooked as the concentration rests on the ultra violence and pop culture references normally bathed in a Tarantino film. As a lifelong Quentin Tarantino fan it’s easy for me to be bombastic and describe the screenplay as unsurpassed and without equal but on this occasion it’s true. This has everything and so much more. The violence is up close, graphic at times and occasionally difficult to watch. It is also stylised to a point, culminating in a timeless shoot out amidst a cloud of cocaine and feathers. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves already, and overlooking the fact that this is a love story, an unusual, Quentin Tarantino style love story, but one that continues to resonate with me 20 years after it’s initial release.
Outside a Movie Theatre, following a Kung Fu triple bill, our lovers first discuss their plans:
Clarence: “You came to see 3 Kung Fu movies?”
Alabama: “Sure, why not?”
Clarence: “Nothin. Nothin. It’s just you’re a girl after my own heart, that’s all”
Alabama: “Do you know what time it is?”
Clarence: “It’s about 12:00”
Alabama: “Suppose you gotta get up early?”
Clarence: “No, not particularly. How come?”
Alabama: “It’s just after I see a movie, I like to go get a piece of pie and talk about it. It’s sort of a little tradition I have. Do you like to get pie after you see a good movie?
Clarence: “Yeah, I love to get pie after a movie”
Alabama: “Would you like to go get some pie with me?”
Clarence: “Yeah, I’d love some pie”
Cue “In Dreams” by John Waite and the first tears of the movie from me!
For those reading this completely unaware of this all time classic film, here’s my cryptic premise for you: Clarence, obsessed by Elvis, comic books and films, falls in love with a Call Girl and obtains Dr Zhivago by accident. Looking to sell this masterpiece for a fraction of it’s price to a real film Director, he sells Dr Zhivago to enable his dream life with Alabama and Elvis.
That’s all you need to know for now!
For a myopic film fan such as myself, this film truly does have it all. A stellar all time cast list (fully detailed below) even down to minimal supporting roles from some giants of modern day cinema. A joy of a musical score from Hans Zimmer including the iconic “You’re So Cool” title track which is a lullaby of pure joy, and many more tracks throughout the film from Aerosmith “The Other Side”, Billy Idol “White Wedding”, Soundgarden “Outshined”, Big Bopper “Chantilly Lace” and The Shirelles “Will You Love Me Tomorrow” personal favourites. There are many more. The screenplay from Quentin Tarantino is unsurpassed, rich in pop culture references, coarse language and dialogue to die for. The characters created will long pass into cinematic history as with usual Tarantino panache the characters are rich, quickly back storied with multiple layers of intrigue, before being brilliantly depicted on screen by a wonderful cast that infuse so much into these characters. Director of Photography Jeffrey L Kimball again excels in a Tony Scott film, bringing to life and lighting some incredibly diverse settings throughout the film. In the opening minutes alone the short scenes outside the movie theatre, the restaurant (especially), the comic book store and outside Clarence’s apartment are brilliantly depicted, framed and shot, and this trend continues throughout. Joint Editors Michael Tronick and Christian Wagner also deserve great credit cutting this film to the perfect length of two hours.
One of The Weinstein’s first productions, helmed brilliantly by Director Tony Scott, he tells this unusual love story well, mixing the ultra violent outbursts with the tender love of Clarence and Alabama amidst some wonderful cinematography and central performances. The love story itself is heart breaking at times, joyously uplifting at others, with both a darkly comedic thread running parallel with an openly funny one. It’s self referential and stylised at times, bathed in Tarantino pop culture references and the tender moments are often juxtaposed against brutal violence or openly graphic sexual play. The film never relents, nor does it ever apologise for what it is, a modern day account of a love that will not be broken or destroyed, and of a man wanting his idealised world now, and his love forever.
The supporting cast alone is a who’s who of all star talent even 20 years ago, many of whom have gone on to shape many fantastic films in the intervening 20 years. Val Kilmer plays Clarence’s “Mentor” and the less said the better here as his reveal is obvious, yet subtle, over the top, yet brilliantly included. Samuel L Jackson plays “Big Don” as only Samuel L Jackson can and Michael Rapaport brings “Dick Ritchie” as a geeky, awkward film wannabee to life brilliantly. Bronson Pinochot brings “Elliott Blitzer” to life with a camp charm and inserts much needed fun and humour with him, as does his Boss “Lee Donowitz”, the irrepressible Saul Rubinek.
Three further giants of the big screen also play small cameo and supporting roles, with James Gandolfini as Mafia Hitman “Virgil”, Chris Penn as “Nicky Dimes” and Tom Sizemore as “Cody Nicholson”. This is a brief list of the supporting roles on show, all of whom bring something very special to their roles and each infuse dark humour to an already black comedic film. The main roles are of rich characters, expertly portrayed, and are briefly outlined below:
“Clarence” (Christian Slater) A career defining performance from Slater as he carries both the film and your heart for the duration of the run time. A geeky loner desperate for love and recognition who grabs his one chance to set up the life he’s always craved for and with the woman of his dreams.
A superlative performance.
“Alabama” (Patricia Arquette) From Call Girl to Avenging Angel. The narrator of the film and of our dreams. Never better than here, another career defining role superbly portrayed.
“Clifford” (Dennis Hopper) Clarence’s Father brilliantly portrayed by one of the best character actors of our generation. His verbal stand off with Christopher Walken is a joy to behold.
“Vincenzo” (Christopher Walken) One scene is all Walken has to work with, but with supreme anger he brings Tarantino’s words to life brilliantly during his “Q and A” with Clifford.
“I’m the Anti-Christ. You got me in a vendetta kind of mood”.
“Drexl” (Gary Oldman) Yet another powerhouse performance from Oldman, infusing his distasteful character with an odd charm and relying heavily on Tarantino’s mixed heritage background. A frightening performance from Oldman, gold teeth, scars and dreadlocks as he remarks “I know I’m pretty” in his showdown with Clarence.
“Floyd” (Brad Pitt) Seemingly never away from his couch, perma stoned and hilarious to boot, a very different role for Brad Pitt but one that always makes me smile as he struggles to simply form a sentence as aptly demonstrated when confronted by machine gun toting Mafia hitmen:
“You want to smoke a bowl?”
Another in the bracket of the “Greatest Films of All Time”. I’ve loved this film for 20 years, and I’m looking forward to the next 20.
An astonishing film.
So is Elon Musk our Clarence Worley for the 21st Century or is he a deviously disguised Drexl Spivey? Anyone who loves the above film is alright in my black book but I worry when someone says the human race will become “extinct” if we don’t jump aboard Matthew McConaughey’s space rocket and venture interstellar toward Mars. That same man also has the patents to Tesla technology and hence why no free energy from the free energy supplier? I also worry about his “Neuralink” technology and the proliferation of those once mocked microchips and the conspiratorial thinking that they are intended for all of us, and sooner than we may wish to believe. In the wrong hands and in such a frighteningly upside world that we are enduring daily through somewhat disbelieving eyes, such technology could signal the very end of what it is to be human. But Mr Musk also loves the Canadian truckers and supports their right to protest the draconian enforcement of medical mandates. For which I heartily salute him. Bravo! But I can’t shake the feeling of distrust for a man who’s short tweets, where once they infuriated me, have now begun to charm me. He supports that quaint old fashioned concept of liberty and freedom, publicly, and to an audience of over 72 million followers.
So I plead for Elon to be Clarence and for the truest of romances to blossom in the coming volumes here, providing we’re not all hunkered down amid a nuclear winter of war. Have you noticed how gleeful those war hawk figures are when they grandly pronounce that war is inevitable? You perhaps wouldn’t notice this as despite their passionate zeal for death and seemingly always getting their way, these abhorrent demons are never happy are they? Just look at their eyes, every damn one of them, they all share a dead and soulless expression even if their dreams of war are coming true. Perhaps these zealots need to take a leaf out of Elon’s book and fall in love with True Romance all over again?
To reiterate my earlier Twitter rules, I do not follow Neil, nor indeed GB News, which is seen as a kind of right leaning Fox News, but that is patently and laughably absurd. I do not watch any “News” of any flavour as each channel represents their individual paymasters and whose friends remain in the darkest of shadows. I stumbled over Neil via retweeted pronouncements of his from others in my timeline and I’ve grown to greatly admire him and his human stance, and this is never epitomised more than in the 9 minute video above. It is the monologue to open a much longer regular TV show on the news channel and I haven’t seen the remainder of the show, or any of his previous shows as I simply don’t watch the channel. But in this monologue alone Neil paints a quite beautiful picture and one that moved me to tears. He commences with a written letter (his receipt of such letters is now famous on Twitter) received from a desperate mother of a family who are being forced to move and seek some form of refuge from the ever increasing medical coercion, before ending with a resolute confirmation that he stands with both that family and the protesting Canadian truckers that Elon Musk fully supports too.
But this is only the framing of equally more pressing human concerns that may affect us all: Where can we run to as liberties and human rights throughout the world are being deleted, in lock step, everywhere? Why are we on the precipice of yet another war to be, in the words of Cosmologist Carl Sagan, “Military masters of a fraction of a dot”?. Neil also opines the loss of a childhood innocence and a return to a simpler world of the 1970’s but he focusses the majority of his monologue on the Space Probe Voyager 1 and that manmade wonder that is currently in the deep void of space and our message in a bottle to our alien cousins. The probe has a map to earth, pictures of men and women, whale song, baby cries and vintage and contemporary music all wrapped up in a gold plated disc that is currently spinning through infinity and just waiting to be found. In 1990, Carl Sagan directed the onboard camera to turn toward earth for a final picture and the captured image shows a speck of dust in a sunbeam and what has become known as “The Pale Blue Dot”.
Our “Pale Blue Dot”.
And an earth that Neil is sure that we can’t leave on interstellar travel, but which Elon Musk is determined that we have to. Our generation may still find discussions such as these patently absurd or impossible, but our children’s generation, or the one after that? Maybe not. I want to believe in interstellar travel as much as Christopher Nolan or Elon Musk but I also want to believe in the theories, the real human life theories, of Neil Oliver. We cannot simply continue to watch the vexatious, vacuous vaudeville show that is our lives in 2022, of another war, a probable NUCLEAR war, and sit on our hands. Nor can we accept a convoy of 60/70 miles long descending on Ottawa, Canada, in protest at medical mandates and wonder why on earth, our own cherished pale blue dot, that this is not screaming headlines news. It isn’t because it doesn’t fit the narrative, a narrative driven by the paymasters of the television channels that aren’t showing you the biggest protest for human rights in known human history. Surely, regardless of your views on the pandemic, the coercion (or not) of medical mandates and the right to protest, you have to question why those paragons of the truth, the “News” Media, aren’t covering this story? The same “News” Media which is, by the way, funded by NGO’s and “Foundations” that indirectly fund or support the talking heads on the very same “News” networks that seem far too pleased to be screaming aloud for war.
Or maybe I’ve just had a particularly strange day and drunk far too many cups of tea? I can never tell these days. As the gloaming begins to descend on yet another day and at 4.26pm almost exactly 24 hours since “Brother Andy” left after aiding me in the consumption of those cups of tea, I suppose I had better draw a veil on proceedings. The day started with a challenge for my son, to provide me with 3 random topics for discussion on which I had to write an article before the day was out between us and frankly, that’s when the strangeness began in earnest. My son, of a similar age to Aussie fast bowling talent Darcie Brown (she of the beaming smile of utter joy that seems to light up ladies cricket) looked on in bemusement at my request and with the kind of look I can only describe as “Dad, look, you know I love you. But can you just leave me alone!” and before I knew it a brother (who isn’t my brother) turned up to drink my tea and the discombobulation had really begun to stir.
“Brother Andy” saw me in both a skittish mood and a performing mode as we slurped our teas and told our tales. Mine were performance lead as I rolled out my current “tight 3 minutes” of material and bitterly poked fun at a world we both find rather oddly dystopian. I miss my brother’s company and his infectious laugh, and I miss the conviviality of just “being”, just drinking tea and shooting the shit through the breeze of a life I fail to fathom any more. I gave myself a 6/10 for my performance, waved my brother (who isn’t my brother) back on his way before returning to the task at hand, that article for my son. By this time he’d obviously forgotten all about his task and gave me the lovingly blank stare only a loving teenage son can produce and before I knew it I was kissing him goodbye and settling in for a long night with some highly talented lady cricketers who currently live in The Matrix future of Australia.
And that’s when things turned really strange as I entertained myself during those infuriating advertisement breaks that sport so often inflict upon us, and I ventured into the dark web of Twitter and before I knew what had hit me I was crying to a beautiful video and smiling as my newest of loves, Elon Musk, was loving a film that I love just that little bit more than he does. But it’s a start, and surely the man who loves True Romance and who loudly supports the Canadian truckers must be a good guy after all? Please be Clarence, Elon, and not Drexl. Prove my distrust wrong! Then maybe, just maybe, I’ll let you take me to the cinema and we’ll watch a Kung Fu triple bill before going and getting some pie together. Deal?
It’s been a strange day. I may be falling in love with Elon Musk and Neil Oliver’s video made my heart sing. My beautiful son made me laugh and my brother did too. I was going to write a completely different article to this, and in all honestly I haven’t written about Twitter at all here, and that pleases me greatly and if you’re new here, it’s very much par for my course. Tangents and sideways thinking is where it’s at my friends. Maybe I just want to be a spaceman and live in the sky? Who knows?
It’s been a strange day, it seems that anything is possible, and as my old friend Hunter S Thompson used to say:
“And why not?”
Thank you for reading. Should you desire more on my questioning love affair with Elon Musk or indeed the rhetorical questions of life itself, please consider the immediate link below. There’s also a handy link to my behemoth film blog on all 16 films from the much missed presence of filmmaker Tony Scott too.
Rhetorical questions round a rectangular dining table
Vol 5. First impressions, lasting impressions and why is Elon Musk supporting the Canadian truckers?medium.com
Tony Scott (1944–2012). A Cinematic Legend.
All 16 films. All lovingly appreciated. All spoiler free.medium.com