Theophilus Mog – Chapter Three

This story starts in a manger in Jerusalem. No, no, it doesn’t. That was for the humour quotient that my agent insists on.

This story really starts in a … hospital.

There is white, lots of it. Clearly, someone important decided that the most important thing a hospital should say is, ‘If you die in here, it’ll be from what you came in with.’ An excellent intention without a doubt. There were nurses in white with prim, starched uniforms and doctors in long overcoats exuding confidence and capability. Some of them had glasses and wide smiles, others had wrinkles on their foreheads and embarrassingly placed rashes, but only one had the destruction of the entire world on his mind. (But as he wasn’t Theophilus Mog, we’re not going to talk about him.) One of the doctors with the wide smiles entered a room to check up on a newly turned mother. The lady was sitting on her bed and staring in sheer relief at the bundle of joy and flesh that sat quietly in her arms.
“He seems so solemn.”
“All babies do, Ms. Winkleman. I’m sure you too were a very solemn baby. Er, where is Mr. Winkleman?”
“He’s just gone to eat something. I don’t think he’s eaten a single thing for 24 hours. Poor dear.”
“Ah, well, I’ll just go find him then.”
“Is there anything wrong, doctor?”
“No, no, nothing like that. I just need to have a word with him about the bill.”
The doctor smiled again and left the room but as soon as he left, his expression changed. The smile was replaced by a grim set of the jaw. He didn’t like delivering lying or bad news but it was nowadays as much a part of the job as signings things. And there was a LOT of signing. He found the father, Mr. Winkleman, sitting by himself in the cafeteria, gorging on a burger and some fries. Looked like chicken, might’ve been beef though.
“Excuse me, Mr. Winkleman?”
“Oh, hell, Doctor! Excuse me for a second.” And he turned away from the doctors view and stuffed the rest of the burger into his mouth. “Phleash schit dschown.”
“I’m afraid I have bad news.”
The man’s expression fell and he shoved his hand into his mouth and pulled out the ball of saliva covered burger that had been there. It looked as disgusting as it sounds. “What is it? Is something wrong with Philip?”
“Yes, there is. I don’t know how to say this. There is no easy way. But your son seems to have an abnormal heart beat. It’s incredibly strange and we don’t know how or why. All we know is it shouldn’t be like that.”
“What’s so abnormal about it? He seems fine.”
“The heart beats a regular beat, Mr. Winkleman. Your son’s heart is beating to the tune of the Village People’s YMCA.”
“What?! Thats crazy.”
“We know.”
And that was the beginning. It was a major surprise to everyone that Philip did not explode or simply die. Instead, he grow up normally and in a completely healthy manner. Except for one detail. He could never dance. Most children have an intrinsic understanding of music and dance when they’re young. They usually lose this as they grow up and start buying Teen Pop records. This phenomenon has not been fully explored bu the general consensus is that it’s about peer pressure and people generally suck more as they grow older. Those are almost the exact words of scientist, philosopher and general genius, L. Gomot who met Philip when he was enrolled as one of the guinea pigs for his study. Gomot soon developed a fascination for Philip which prompted his mother to call the police. This episode scarred Philip to such an extent that he could never even look at French fries again.

As he grew older, Philip came to realize he was special. Not in the way everyone was special. But special in a special sort of way. He never ever lost one sock. He didn’t really know to do with the skill though because he was young and stupid and he didn’t know he was young and stupid because he was young and stupid and he didn’t know that because… oh, you get it.

Philip learned business studies. College was a hideous disaster as almost everyone there liked to dance. Those who didn’t liked other things. Philip didn’t like any of the things they liked. He was so relieved when he got out that he became an investment banker. He didn’t mind his job and no one there ever asked him why he hummed the same song under his breath over and over again. And thus time passed quite cheerlessly and uneventfully until one day, Philip noticed a strange pattern in the stock market index. Every time he hummed the chorus line, the stocks would go up, just a little bit. Even as dull he was, he realized what he was onto. A gold mine! Humming the chorus repeatedly, he made a killing. He took the money and quit his job and decided to travel the world, find love and generally live a little. His car got hit by a truck on the way to the airport. He died instantly.

Theophilus Mog – Chapter Two

There are mountains and then there are mountains. The same way that there’s snow and there’s goddamn blizzards. Imagine a goddamn blizzard on a goddamn mountain and you’re halfway to imagining the scene at hand. Now picture a group of men, huddling together for warmth. They’re wrapped in layers and layers of professional looking mountain wear. They’re camped against the side of a large rock, trying to hide from the freeze. These men are on a mission.

A little way away, in a cave, another group lay huddled. But these people were very different. They looked rougher and coarser and wore clothes that you couldn’t buy at any store. They were dressed in the skins of wild animals. Many wild animals. There were 4 of them. Two men, a woman and a young girl. They were the last remaining survivors of a tribe of people who had lived in these forsaken mountains for hundreds of years. They had never ventured down from there. Blizzards were a part of their lives. They didn’t know any better. Around them the world had developed. Vaccines were invented and machines that could fly and pokemon cards, but these people knew not of such advancements. They knew the snow, the rain, the earth and the trees. And they knew the Yeti.

Yes, the Yeti. Well, not just one Yeti. That would be ridiculous. Yetis. The herd of Yeti that sometimes lived on the mountain.

The mission men didn’t know about the mountain men, and they wanted to know about the Yeti. The mountain men knew about the Yeti, but didn’t know about the mission men. The Yeti’s knew about both groups and thought they were both pretty stupid.

The storm passed soon enough and each of the three groups started to move again. The first confrontation happened between the mountain men and the Yeti. They bowed their heads and kept a safe distance. The next confrontation happened between the Yeti and a an alien from outer space. The third encounter happened between the mountain men and the mission men. Both were so surprised to see the other group that at first they didn’t do much. Then, finally, tentative greetings were stretched out. This discovery of an indigenous people that had lived without technology for so long made the mission men quite famous. The mountain men became celebrities. Like Shamu. But they were allowed their own bathroom so that was ok.

Theophilus Mog died on the alien dissection table in space.

(Just to tie up the loose end, the alien’s report was favourable. The invasion would be swift.)

Theophilus Mog – Chapter One

One of the biggest revelations that came in my research into the complex existence of Theophilus Mog was the startling fact that he was the second ever living organism on the planet. A tiny single cell of life. Alone in this vast wonderful world. Then he died.

(This would make an excellent start to the movie. The camera pans slowly around a bleak and deserted wasteland. Nothing moves. Then suddenly it focuses on something. We can’t see it. It zooms in closer and closer and closer until we can make out the contours of the spectacular Theophilus Mog. Producers, call me.)

The Many Lives of Theophilus Mog

Introduction

Theophilis Mog is not a man. He is at some points in time and space a man but he is also many other things. He is as much a man as he is a cactus. I repeat, he is not a man. I cannot stress on this enough as I’m acutely aware of humanity’s misconstrued idea that the world was meant for them. They’re not even the most advanced species on their own planet. That would be cockroaches. (Theophilus Mog was a cockroach once. There isn’t really much that he hasn’t been.) So, yes, Theophilus Mog is not a man.

But then the question arises, What is Theophilus Mog? Theophilus Mog is a being. A very special being. Theophilus Mog is the most reincarnated being in the history of the world. (The Universe is much too big to make statements about. I personally have not even seen half of it and would never even dream about saying anything concrete about it’s nature.) Theophilus Mog is a serial reincarnater. But he brings to each of his lives, such a vivid and passionate life force that one cannot help but be amazed. You might’ve easily walked past him on the street or bought a bagel from him or he would’ve been the wheat plant that made the bagel or the lice on your head and you would never have known it. And that is what makes him such a suitable subject for an autobiography. If you had known, you wouldn’t buy the book, would you? Oh wait, did I say autobiography? I meant biography.

Writing the biography of Thoephilus Mog has a few obvious drawbacks. The main being the problem of choice. With so many startling and astounding lives to pick from, how does one go about choosing which to include and which not to? And the answer is: Randomly. I do not jest. It makes as much sense to me to let the Goddess of Chance (haven’t met her) to decide the contents of this magnum opus, for after all, it was she that decided what lives he would lead in the first place.

And this leads us to another issue, Theophilus while not being a Man, will be referred to with the male pronoun, not because of some deep-rooted chauvinism I possess, but simply because he has more often been male. By exactly one life. His current one. I’m sorry I don’t make the rules. Take it up with the universe, baby. Some of the lives chronicled here will most surely be of the feminine persuasion, and he will be referred to as she during those stories. If in any of these stories, he is neither masculine or feminine or both, the appropriate pronoun will be used. Gender is really just another detail to be honest. I don’t know why I have to waste so many words explaining myself to you. Go away. Get another language if you want equality. Bah.

Yes, where were we? Yes, my magnum opus, this book. I will let Chance decide the stories set in this tome and if you have any complaints or queries, this is her number: any number. Humour isn’t one of my many skills. But writing is. While I didn’t pick the stories, I did write every single word set down henceforth. It was no mean feat to gather details about the lives of Theophilus Mog that happened much before or after my time. That is why I made most of them up. Like all great biographies, I will not let reality get in the way of character progression and a wonderful story that has huge movie potential.

But let us not waste any more time in this charming prelude. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you, The Many Lives of Theophilus Mog!

My Cup Overfloweth

Yesterday, I was out for dinner at that vast cathedral of emotion, the institution on which my entire city is founded on, the MCC. Not the one in Melbourne, I live in Chennai. Which is ironic. At this dinner, or more accurately in the car on the way back, a learned uncle asked me if I blogged and dear readers, I looked deeply into myself before answering. I’m writing this now so as to not make myself a liar.

Among the things, I’m discussing today is Twitter. I’ve spent a ridiculous amount of time on it recently when I really should be doing more productive things like drinking banana ice cream milkshakes served by nubile lasses draped in grapes. I find the system of following completely ridiculous. It is clear as champagne to me that everyone on earth without distinction should be following me and I in turn should be following no one but myself. The fact that is clearly not the case only adds weight to the argument that God got the universe all wrong. It just doesn’t make sense. After all, the Artist can not be held to ransom by his audience. Quite the opposite, the Artist should hold the audience to ransom, till they all write eloquent blog posts praising his work. And by the Artist, I hope you know to whom I refer.

I’ve been reading a lot lately and I’ve also started on my next project. The previous script having run it’s course is now hanging in the limbo of all such works of art. It waits for the Director and the Actors to transform it, from the pure virginal form its now to that of a ravaged ruined Alexandria, holding only memories of greatness and no documents in triplicate asserting it. The reading is coming on much better. I’ve devoured, slowly and painfully at times, the biography of the tortured genius of Charles Baudelaire. I wish I could speak all languages for I feel poetry loses something when translated. I can not judge it on purely aesthetic levels any more but have to probe its meaning. For someone who delights in meaning in his own work, this is clearly a strange opinion. But the simple truth is I like things to rhyme. And translations don’t rhyme. It’s one of life’s tragedies. He was a very strange man, Baudelaire, and subject of the second biography I’ve ever read. The previous one being of Oscar Wilde whom I am in love with. I see similarities between both of them, pity one was French, or rather, its a pity I don’t speak French. And Latin and Greek and German and Italian and Spanish. No, forget Spanish, wait, did Borges write in Spanish? Ah, lets just keep it in there for now.

Have I said I loved Oscar Wilde? Just checking.

I have also meanwhile started running in the mornings to maintain my fitness. I use the word ‘maintain’ here in the understanding provided by the word ‘acquire’. This is of no importance to anyone else and hence, I derive pleasure by wasting your time with it.

I would like to quote some Baudelaire for you but I can not remember anything well enough to attempt to do so. Further reading of Les Fleurs De Mal shall be achieved to rectify this matter. Also, The Picture of Dorian Gray, sigh, it is hard not to revel in each line of dialogue. One regretfully moves onto the next one, taking solace that it too shall provide similar pleasure.

My desire to make music has not abated but has not been quenched either. I feel I’ll have to develop masterful songwriting skills soon if wish to continue to harbour these subversive pangs. The at of writing gives me huge pleasure and I’d like to thank you all for not ruining it by being here at this moment of time. Your tact is appreciated.

Writing is heaven, spell check is hell. You can quote me on that.  I’ll be hurt if you don’t.

I now use a wonderful program called Q10 to write. Courtesy of an eavesdropped twitter conversation (twittersation?) by @adithyab who writes Daily Fiction. I’ve capitalized that for a reason. Nothing is co-incidence.

The new play is yet to be born. It is still in the womb, in between that act of being conceived and being delivered. I have sometimes mourned the ideas I’ve had that will never see the light of day. Then, I read about Oscar Wilde and Baudelaire and feel much better. Baudelaire would advertise his forthcoming books, all on very interesting topics, on the covers of his published work. Most of them never stopped being anything other than ‘forthcoming’. Wilde on the other hand said wouldn’t write out his brilliant ideas because they required ‘a few hours of study in the library’. And Mitch Hedberg also, ‘If I’m lying in bed and I think of something funny, I reach for a pen and paper and I write it down. If I can’t find a pen and paper, I convince myself it wasn’t funny.’

I spend too much time in front of a computer. My eyes hurt. Good night, dear readers. I leave you with a quote from David Mitchell’s Observer column: “But small children are idiots. As each human foetus sloshes into the world, wailing and weeing, unable to walk, crawl, speak or even sit – a helpless lump of ignorant self-interest – society takes a deep breath because, in just 18 years’ time, that blob will be allowed to vote.” If at this point, you think of him as being anything but a master, I suggest you learn about a thing called context. Or don’t bother, you’re clearly a fool.

Again, good night, you lovely people.

The Decay of Silliness

Ah, the sweet smell of a new blogpost after days of sterile facts and figures, what could be sweeter? Hang on, almost everything else you can think of.  It’s ridiculous how there’s so little on this site. I’m a creative genius of such epic proportions so where exactly is all the creativity going? Bah. So yes, in an effort, a quite deliberate one, to improve this empty parking lot of ideas, I’ve decided to write a piece that has culture as well and not just some jokes tied together with a weak string of rhetoric. Today, I write about Oscar Wilde and Me…Er, I. Oscar Wilde and I.  Not exactly sure about what I’m going to say but I have a beginning in my head. Lets just see where it goes shall we.

(What spawned that paragraph wherein usually I would have dived straight into the post was the fact that as I changed skins I noticed the little line under the heading and was immediately inspired to take up the gauntlet it had thrown down. Psychedelic Egomania, indeed.)

Oscar Wilde wrote something called ‘The Decay Of Lying’. And after reading it, I was sitting on my bed, half-asleep and thinking about pretentiousness and silliness and remarked in the caverns of my own vast mind that silliness was dying. We’re all so keen on realism and telling the ‘true story’, the nitty-gritty, the sad lives of the marginalized and so on.  All this talk of sadness and strife is very upsetting to one of the gentle disposition as myself.  And it struck me that this might’ve been the exact same thing that Wilde was so poetically expressing in his work. Of course, he could’ve been talking about the decay of lying and makes a good case for it being the subject of his actual text by mentioning it a lot but hey, then this post wouldn’t be as cool as it is. And it is cool. Very cool. So cool, that ice cream wouldn’t melt if I put some pictures of it up.

And, getting back, Wilde talks about how the best artists are the biggest liars. Take Shakespeare for instance, I hope no one’s argueing the Bard’s greatness here, he set his plays in Verona and Florence when the man hardly left his own county. If someone was to do that now, the critics, that charmed race of men, would be on him like a pack of starved wolves. I dont understand why they’re so  starved. There’s so much dosh coming out, they should be like detestable  Santa Claus-es, all roly-poly, stuffed with hate at their own inability to create. My god, I am feeling good today, aren’t I? But its a serious problem, in Wilde’s piece in question, he discusses the matter in the most forced conversation style I’ve ever seen. Did people actually talk like that? One line questions followed by huge philosophical ramblings? Well, they probably did, and still do. Listen any conversation between two people, one who is learned and one who is fan of dance-pop, and you will find that only one of them does all the talking, while the other just sits and interjects with suitable questions. I’m very careful not to mention which is which. This is on purpose. Just wanted to mention it.

So if Wilde, the great Oscar Wilde, could use dialogue as his medium for that piece when really it was more of an essay, then why cant I? Why can’t I write these horrible dense lines between two people that only serve as markers in a vast tract of factual prose about the reproductive system of elephants? Why? Because its horrible and ugly. So take that Oscar Wilde, you absolute genius, I’ve just said you didn’t have style. Ha. Double Ha. Suck on that you dead homosexual.

No, seriously, the thing is while movies like Precious have their place, and people like their poverty porn, when you write a script as I am in the process of doing now, wang wave, you dont write what a person would actually say, you write what they should say. All our TV shows would be absolute bores if we saw scene after scene pass by with the protagonist missing opportunities for witty comebacks and slick repartee,  only thinking about them after he’s left the building! Ah yes, you’re thinking but thats obvious, all these things just hold a mirror to life, they show the best side of humanity, they are what we want to be and not what we are. Everyone knows we like to be deluded.  We watch these things to forget our own inability to come up with comeback followed by a comehither. If they showed ‘real’ shows, people would be sad all the time. (Look at ‘reality’ television,  leading cause of suicides in the last century, terrible shame.) And you would be right.  But Oscar Wilde thinks you’re a Philistine none the less. Take that, you know-it-all schmucks.

But why stop there? If you’ve come to forget your damn problems, let me tell you a tale of talking walrus or the story of the man who didn’t exist (its a very short story), there’s so much more than cynical old men! Where have all the myths gone and where all the gods? The best satirists are very smart people. This is a fact. I dont know what its doing in this paragraph at all. So who’s up for writing a whole new mythology? With gods and goddesses and really fat men! Where the bad people are ugly and talk funny! Actually forget it. Sounds like too much work. Um, who’s up for ditching journalism as a whole? For being creative and taking whatever we’re thinking and doing the opposite! For being absurd! Life’s given us a lot of questions and no answers so who knows it might well be 42! ‘So come on, lets be 1905 but not 1917, lets be heroes, lets be martyrs, lets be radical thinkers, who dont need to test drive the least of their dreams, lets divide up the world into the damned and the saved and charge into the valley like the old light brigade! Something something and they’ll celebrate our deaths with a national parade!’ Forget everything! Just forget everything! Who’s with me?

AWWWWWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

A Purely Academic Follow Up

Since last week’s (month’s would be more accurate) post,  United have won via a 96th minute goal in a 94 minute game and a 93rd minute own-goal. I REST MY CASE, YOUR HONOUR. Get out the pitchforks and gasoline, lads, we have us some burning to do.

Angry Mob 101

Also, Arsenal were stunning and beautiful and amazing and fantastic and sexy. And cool. And delicious. Damn, I need a cold shower now. Lets do the burning tomorrow. Toodles!

Red Devils Come From Hell

There are certain incidents that when they occur cannot fail to make you double take and ask yourself whether or not you did actually see that puddy-tat. This post is not one of them. And it is with that subtle (a word I pronounced as sub-till for a very long time, but that’s for another time) opening quip, do I plan to unveil one of the world’s biggest and most well kept secrets: Football, my passionate friends, Is A Joke. And by Joke, I don’t mean a knock-knock or a pun, but more along the lines of a Divine Comedy. For those who have actually read Shakespearean comedies and laughed, be warned, you might actually find this denouncement amusing. The rest of us might as well get the tissues out now. This is not going to be pretty.

I haven’t worked out the full enchilada myself but I’m afraid to wait any longer lest They come in the night and wipe my mind clean. (How many people would notice the difference?) It involves Manchester United and a conspiracy theory of Pantheon-like proportions. It all started with a situation that I think the entire 1% of all football fans who don’t find the term ‘Red Devil’ a compliment will be familiar with. I was alive, watching football and I said, ‘Fuck. This just isn’t fair’. Yes, that was it. A completely normal happening that transformed into something resembling an epiphany except with more fries and less cheese. Well, wake up, lads and lassies, join in the awakening, football isn’t fair. Here comes the cold, hard, naked truth: Manchester United sold their sold their soul to Satan a long time ago. It’s true! Scouts honour. However, even ol’ Lucifer couldn’t keep up with the British Judicial System which clearly states in illegible small black font that an Artificial Juridical Person such as a football club will never really ‘die’. This makes them signing a soul-selling agreement wholly redundant because the time of fruitation of the contract will never come to pass i.e. Mephistopheles got owned by the Mancs.

Where's the estimated expiry date?

While this leaves the Prince of Darkness to twiddle his thumbs and pore over constitutional amendment forms in triplicate, United now enjoy the Devil’s own luck and can now freely direct the plot of the Premier League according to their own whims and fancies. Doesn’t the idea of them signing an unknown Portuguese winger for a song, making him the best player in the world, winning three titles at a stretch with him and then selling him for 80 million to Real Madrid, sound a bit too good to be true? The fact that Cristiano is the anti-Christ only gives further weight to the argument. (And don’t even get me started on Real Madrid! They probably put through a power-sharing agreement in virgin’s blood so they could lease the Champions League in short 5 year spells. No one bothered to inform Eintracht Frankfurt though. Else, they might not have bothered showing up back in ’60.)

Only a ‘Red Devil’ (A co-incidental nickname? HA! They probably couldn’t stop laughing in their plush leather Gucci armchairs when it caught on.) would then proceed to allow Liverpool to win more League titles just so they could rub it in their faces when they eventually overtook them. Only they could sign a player called Best and then make it actually come true. Only a truly sick-mind patting itself on the back after cheating Beelzebub himself would give its players and manager everlasting youth just so their opponents could suffer the ignominy of losing to a blistering strike by a pensioner on crutches directed by a centenarian who should have graduated from Crutches to Death 20 years ago!

Who does he think he's kidding?

Of course, some of them weren’t all bad. One young brave soldier of truth did on discovering the truth behind the club immediately procure himself a way out of the club. Legend has it, that the shock of realization caused him to hit himself on the head with a shoe repeatedly. Something which spawned numerous (and to be honest quite unbelievable) stories about how the Manager had thrown them at him and so on. Its strange how some people will fall for anything written in the papers. But even at that tender age our poor hero was tainted by their evil and had no choice but to unconsciously release the worst perfume brand ever created. We will never forget you, David.

But let us not in our attempt to bring a pseudo-happy ending to the story, forget its topic! Of all the crimes against humanity, this one has to be most spiteful, the most pointless and the most painful. For what? For fame? For pride? For the glory of sticking your balls in a net? For the subjugation of a mindless number of empty-headed followers who are willing to purchase any memorabilia you stick your logo on? Bingo.

Isn’t it blindingly obvious? Of all the moneymaking deals made in Tartarus, this one must get its own office. Football just doesn’t make sense otherwise.

The Daily Douglas

I vaguely remember my schooldays. They were what was going on in the background while I was trying to listen to the Beatles. – Douglas Adams, Writer.

True Victory

Hello, my friends, …. its been so long
Since I last sat down to write a song,
Will these tried limbs still remember,
Or has the art set wing and fled forever?
The pen was my friend, an ally true,
The paper was my first love, few really knew
Now I see them again, a joyful reunion,
They are the same, but I a little different.

I raise the nib and carefully write,
The strange recollections of last night,
My hand trembling, my jaw clenched,
My heart weeping, my mind drenched.
‘Tis a change that was oft foreseen,
The death, the death, the death of the queen.
A clock is turned, a circle completed,
Will this world have me? Am I still needed?

My pens and papers they wish me to stay,
But, my friends, fate has its hand to play.
Ah, her cards are cast and my dice rolled,
Falling over the edge, they hit the floor.

Course! The door in my heart! Now its obvious to me,
My senses died, but the third eye still sees.

Black robed, bone white, eyes like death
The Reaper beckons me with a hand outstretched.

Ah, at last I see, my wonderful friends,
You will sing my song for me,  I am not dead!
The Reaper doth lead me gently by the hand,
Because my soul he canst never command,
Its pressed deep into my pens and pages,
To sustain my being, though destiny rages.
‘Tis Victory,  I have conquered the final frontier,
And He bears me no grudge, so shed no tears.

‘Tis Victory. True Victory.
Rejoice, my friends.