Harry Whitewolf's Blog
November 18, 2023
The Night I Might Have Met Pete Doherty
A true tale by Harry Whitewolf
The Libertines are one of the few remaining bands I’ve always wanted to see live but never have.
Therefore, I was hoping Lady Luck would be on my side and I’d be able to get my mitts on one of the four hundred tickets that were up for grabs at the local haunt they’re playing as part of their small venue tour for the new album launch in 2024.
But it wasn’t to be. Even though I clicked the ‘Buy Tickets’ button at ten a.m. on the precise dot – the time the tickets went on sale – I was instantly number five-thousand-something in the queue. I figured I might as well wait for the queue to go down just in case I could still somehow miraculously be allocated a ticket. But at the end of the ten minutes of waiting, all I got was a ‘Bad Gateway’ error.
I was disappointed. But I already knew it would be a lottery getting tickets.
Maybe in another universe, I got lucky and I go to the gig.
As the day wore on, I started thinking in detail about the night from many years ago when I might have met The Libertines’ Pete Doherty.
***
During the last summer of the twentieth century, before my final year of university, I sublet a small room in London for a few weeks, somewhere near Finsbury Park. I was in the city to do work experience at Camden Arts Centre.
Although I’d been to London plenty of times before, as a shy and awkward young man who suffered from anxiety, it took me a while to get used to the day-in day-out big city life of grimy smog, blank faces, crowd-crushing-business-suits, rattling tube trains and espressos-on-the-go.
Still, the longer I spent there, often running errands from one side of the city to the other, the more I acclimatised.
Outside of working hours, in the evenings and at weekends, I made the most of my time in the capital. I strolled the streets, listened to buskers’ songs, chatted with homeless people, drank in bars, ate at cafés, visited museums and galleries, watched old Orson Welles films at the Curzon cinema, went to theatre productions and attended gigs. I even got to see Billy Bragg perform at a free festival.
One evening, as a newly-evolving poet who had only shared his work with a select few friends, I decided to find the well-known Poetry Café in Covent Garden.
The upcoming poetry events advertised in the window were too expensive - as it was towards the end of my stay and I was quickly being drained of funds - but there was a free open mic night on in a couple of evenings’ time. Having never attended an open mic poetry event – or indeed, any poetry event – I figured I’d go along.
Of course, I had no intention whatsoever of taking the stage! I was far too self-conscious, depressed and anxious to be able to do something like that. Besides, my poetry was sure to suck compared to that of the other poets performing.
As soon as I entered the premises on the night, the arty cosiness of the smoky soft-lit Poetry Café instantly felt like a haven for beatniks, hippies and outcasts; the sort of place I’d only imagined before, when reading the likes of Baudelaire and Ginsberg.
Though, its charm was doubtless mostly due to my inexperience with the wider world and it probably didn’t look the same way to the other patrons as it appeared to my early-twenties bohemian self.
The joint was about two-thirds full. I acclimatised to my new settings with a strong lager and a Cutters Choice rollie by the bar. Then, it was time to move into the other room for the performances.
While all were interesting, I was surprised that the quality wasn’t higher. I’d been expecting to be blown away by some of the seasoned pros who delivered their performances with the gusto of Brian Blessed on speed. But the quality of their works didn’t match their theatrics, I thought, and it was often the shyer types who shook with nerves and didn’t look their audience in the eye who had more to say.
Though, the only performance I clearly remember was by a rough-faced old cockney bird who was caked in makeup, clinking with gold jewellery and wearing a loose red dress; trying – but desperately failing - to make herself look younger.
She stepped up to the stage vigorously, clutching the mic like it was the last hardon on earth.
The woman then told her audience that she was a close friend of Mad Frankie Fraser, the notorious gangster and known associate of The Kray twins, and she went on to violently deliver a poem about how her dear Frankie had been hard done by.
It received some noticeably slow claps from the crowd.
After an hour, there was a break, so I went to the bar, ordered a pint and found a table.
Two guys who looked about the same age as me – maybe slightly younger – sat down at the next table. They soon started chatting to me.
One of the guys had a remarkably interesting face. It was the kind of face that you’d want to paint if you were an artist. That’s not to say it was beautiful. But the pale boyish face undoubtedly contained beauty.
His distinctive bagged round eyes were shining brightly, accompanied by flickers of twinkling eyelashes. And the charming cheeky grin above his drooping bottom lip indicated a mischievous and creative spirit. His scruffy dark hair poked out from beneath the brim of a porkpie hat. Or maybe it was a trilby.
The three of us got on well. Well, it was mostly me and the guy with the interesting face that were chatting.
“Are you a poet?” the guy, whose name may have been Pete but I can’t remember, asked me.
No one had ever asked me if I was a poet before.
“Well, I write a few poems, yeah,” I said, embarrassed.
“Are you going to perform?”
Are you going to perform? No one had ever asked me that before either. Well, not with regard to poetry.
“No! No, no, no…” I immediately responded. The thought had never entered my mind.
But fuelled by encouragement from maybe-his-name-was-Pete and his friend and the beer I’d just downed, I somehow found myself signing up for the second half of the open mic night.
If it hadn’t been for maybe-his-name-was-Pete and his friend (who could potentially have been called Carl) I may never have performed my poetry in public – which I went on to do many times over several years.
In fact, only a few months after taking the stage at the Poetry Café, I was performing at a literature festival and being personally introduced to the Poet Laureate Andrew Motion.
***
I have no idea whether the guy I met was actually the yet-to-be-famous Pete Doherty.
All I know is that when I first saw a photo of Pete Doherty in the NME, around 2003, I exclaimed to myself, “He looks exactly like that guy I met at the Poetry Café in ‘99!”
And the more I looked at pictures of Pete Doherty and watched him on telly, the more I became convinced that my maybe-his-name-was-Pete and the famous musician, vocalist and wordsmith from The Libertines were one and the same.
However, I was never fully persuaded. After all, faces can look similar and memories can play tricks. In fact, I’m generally not very good at remembering faces of people I’ve only met briefly. But at the same time, that only reasserted the possibility that I was recognising Pete’s face correctly because that face I had met at the open mic night was one of the few that had always stuck in my mind so clearly and vividly.
***
I knew five of my short poems off by heart, so I recited those.
I couldn’t believe how well my poetry went down with the crowd! After all, I was clearly shaking and not used to speaking in public. But I arguably received the loudest and longest applause of the evening.
My poems, which I believe were Hungoverboard, Living Suicide, Smoker’s Bruise, Happy Head and Jigsaw Angel (which can be found in my books Primordial Youth and Propaganda Monkeys), seemed to be a hit.
After the poetry performances were over, I lounged in the bar for ages with my new two buddies, who were really excited by my poetic rhymes and so happy I had taken the stage. As we celebrated with several beers and lots of smokes, I felt like I’d made friends for life.
They started telling me about their band.
Let’s-call-him-Pete said, “We’ve got a gig on Thursday night. You should come along and perform your poetry before we take the stage.”
“What? You’re not serious!”
“I’m deadly serious!” He gave me a flyer for the gig and said, “Come down an hour or so early, mate. Just ask for me on the door.”
“I dunno…” I said, feeling incredibly anxious at the idea of taking the stage again so quickly – and in such a different setting.
“Look, just think about it. But I’d really love you to do your thing at our gig.”
“OK, I’ll think about it.”
I never went. The gig was the night before the private view for the art exhibition I was working on for Camden Arts Centre. There was loads to do. It was an early start. And I needed to be on the ball. I didn’t trust myself to not get wasted the night before – like a “two bob cunt”. Plus, I was feeling anxious at the idea of taking the stage. I was also fuelled with doubt that the Pete guy would even remember asking me. Maybe it had just been drunken talk. So, I never went.
***
In another universe, I went to the gig.
That quantum version of me recited his poetry and was such a success that he started regularly performing as the band’s opening act. The band gained more and more popularity over the next couple of years and it wasn’t long before they were signed. And while my other self didn’t climb quite to the giddy festival-headlining heights of the band – they became the last truly great British guitar band, after all - he did enjoy much success; releasing volumes of poetry, being featured in the NME and The Guardian, appearing on Never Mind the Buzzcocks and even reciting his poetry on a single-release by the band.
He was on track to become a cult John Cooper Clarke-like figure and he started hanging out with all the stars who frequented the scene. He even shagged Kate Moss before she and Pete became an item.
After a while, he started hanging around places like the infamous Hotel in the Sky, the creative crack den owned by Pete’s literary agent.
It was there that my other self tried heroin for the first time; believing that it could act as a tool for creativity. After all, Pete used – and he was one of the most gifted artists of his generation. Lou Reed and William Burroughs had used too. My other self was convinced he wouldn’t get hooked.
The habit didn’t take long to devour my other self. Within two years, he was broke and homeless – thieving to feed his addiction.
Before three years had passed, he was dead.
***
I can’t know for sure whether the guy I met on that memorable night at the Poetry Café was actually Pete Doherty.
Maybe I don’t want to know.
***
I wonder if that let’s-call-him-Pete I met ever wondered what became of the skinny long-haired poet he met back in ’99. Then again, maybe he was just sloshed and didn’t even remember meeting me the following day.
Whether you were Pete Doherty or not, thank you (and your friend) for encouraging me to perform and liking my words. You helped me to believe in myself.
The course of my life could have been very different if I hadn’t taken the stage that fateful night.
Maybe Harry Whitewolf books wouldn’t even exist.
“What became of the dreams we had?”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fuXMv...
The Libertines are one of the few remaining bands I’ve always wanted to see live but never have.
Therefore, I was hoping Lady Luck would be on my side and I’d be able to get my mitts on one of the four hundred tickets that were up for grabs at the local haunt they’re playing as part of their small venue tour for the new album launch in 2024.
But it wasn’t to be. Even though I clicked the ‘Buy Tickets’ button at ten a.m. on the precise dot – the time the tickets went on sale – I was instantly number five-thousand-something in the queue. I figured I might as well wait for the queue to go down just in case I could still somehow miraculously be allocated a ticket. But at the end of the ten minutes of waiting, all I got was a ‘Bad Gateway’ error.
I was disappointed. But I already knew it would be a lottery getting tickets.
Maybe in another universe, I got lucky and I go to the gig.
As the day wore on, I started thinking in detail about the night from many years ago when I might have met The Libertines’ Pete Doherty.
***
During the last summer of the twentieth century, before my final year of university, I sublet a small room in London for a few weeks, somewhere near Finsbury Park. I was in the city to do work experience at Camden Arts Centre.
Although I’d been to London plenty of times before, as a shy and awkward young man who suffered from anxiety, it took me a while to get used to the day-in day-out big city life of grimy smog, blank faces, crowd-crushing-business-suits, rattling tube trains and espressos-on-the-go.
Still, the longer I spent there, often running errands from one side of the city to the other, the more I acclimatised.
Outside of working hours, in the evenings and at weekends, I made the most of my time in the capital. I strolled the streets, listened to buskers’ songs, chatted with homeless people, drank in bars, ate at cafés, visited museums and galleries, watched old Orson Welles films at the Curzon cinema, went to theatre productions and attended gigs. I even got to see Billy Bragg perform at a free festival.
One evening, as a newly-evolving poet who had only shared his work with a select few friends, I decided to find the well-known Poetry Café in Covent Garden.
The upcoming poetry events advertised in the window were too expensive - as it was towards the end of my stay and I was quickly being drained of funds - but there was a free open mic night on in a couple of evenings’ time. Having never attended an open mic poetry event – or indeed, any poetry event – I figured I’d go along.
Of course, I had no intention whatsoever of taking the stage! I was far too self-conscious, depressed and anxious to be able to do something like that. Besides, my poetry was sure to suck compared to that of the other poets performing.
As soon as I entered the premises on the night, the arty cosiness of the smoky soft-lit Poetry Café instantly felt like a haven for beatniks, hippies and outcasts; the sort of place I’d only imagined before, when reading the likes of Baudelaire and Ginsberg.
Though, its charm was doubtless mostly due to my inexperience with the wider world and it probably didn’t look the same way to the other patrons as it appeared to my early-twenties bohemian self.
The joint was about two-thirds full. I acclimatised to my new settings with a strong lager and a Cutters Choice rollie by the bar. Then, it was time to move into the other room for the performances.
While all were interesting, I was surprised that the quality wasn’t higher. I’d been expecting to be blown away by some of the seasoned pros who delivered their performances with the gusto of Brian Blessed on speed. But the quality of their works didn’t match their theatrics, I thought, and it was often the shyer types who shook with nerves and didn’t look their audience in the eye who had more to say.
Though, the only performance I clearly remember was by a rough-faced old cockney bird who was caked in makeup, clinking with gold jewellery and wearing a loose red dress; trying – but desperately failing - to make herself look younger.
She stepped up to the stage vigorously, clutching the mic like it was the last hardon on earth.
The woman then told her audience that she was a close friend of Mad Frankie Fraser, the notorious gangster and known associate of The Kray twins, and she went on to violently deliver a poem about how her dear Frankie had been hard done by.
It received some noticeably slow claps from the crowd.
After an hour, there was a break, so I went to the bar, ordered a pint and found a table.
Two guys who looked about the same age as me – maybe slightly younger – sat down at the next table. They soon started chatting to me.
One of the guys had a remarkably interesting face. It was the kind of face that you’d want to paint if you were an artist. That’s not to say it was beautiful. But the pale boyish face undoubtedly contained beauty.
His distinctive bagged round eyes were shining brightly, accompanied by flickers of twinkling eyelashes. And the charming cheeky grin above his drooping bottom lip indicated a mischievous and creative spirit. His scruffy dark hair poked out from beneath the brim of a porkpie hat. Or maybe it was a trilby.
The three of us got on well. Well, it was mostly me and the guy with the interesting face that were chatting.
“Are you a poet?” the guy, whose name may have been Pete but I can’t remember, asked me.
No one had ever asked me if I was a poet before.
“Well, I write a few poems, yeah,” I said, embarrassed.
“Are you going to perform?”
Are you going to perform? No one had ever asked me that before either. Well, not with regard to poetry.
“No! No, no, no…” I immediately responded. The thought had never entered my mind.
But fuelled by encouragement from maybe-his-name-was-Pete and his friend and the beer I’d just downed, I somehow found myself signing up for the second half of the open mic night.
If it hadn’t been for maybe-his-name-was-Pete and his friend (who could potentially have been called Carl) I may never have performed my poetry in public – which I went on to do many times over several years.
In fact, only a few months after taking the stage at the Poetry Café, I was performing at a literature festival and being personally introduced to the Poet Laureate Andrew Motion.
***
I have no idea whether the guy I met was actually the yet-to-be-famous Pete Doherty.
All I know is that when I first saw a photo of Pete Doherty in the NME, around 2003, I exclaimed to myself, “He looks exactly like that guy I met at the Poetry Café in ‘99!”
And the more I looked at pictures of Pete Doherty and watched him on telly, the more I became convinced that my maybe-his-name-was-Pete and the famous musician, vocalist and wordsmith from The Libertines were one and the same.
However, I was never fully persuaded. After all, faces can look similar and memories can play tricks. In fact, I’m generally not very good at remembering faces of people I’ve only met briefly. But at the same time, that only reasserted the possibility that I was recognising Pete’s face correctly because that face I had met at the open mic night was one of the few that had always stuck in my mind so clearly and vividly.
***
I knew five of my short poems off by heart, so I recited those.
I couldn’t believe how well my poetry went down with the crowd! After all, I was clearly shaking and not used to speaking in public. But I arguably received the loudest and longest applause of the evening.
My poems, which I believe were Hungoverboard, Living Suicide, Smoker’s Bruise, Happy Head and Jigsaw Angel (which can be found in my books Primordial Youth and Propaganda Monkeys), seemed to be a hit.
After the poetry performances were over, I lounged in the bar for ages with my new two buddies, who were really excited by my poetic rhymes and so happy I had taken the stage. As we celebrated with several beers and lots of smokes, I felt like I’d made friends for life.
They started telling me about their band.
Let’s-call-him-Pete said, “We’ve got a gig on Thursday night. You should come along and perform your poetry before we take the stage.”
“What? You’re not serious!”
“I’m deadly serious!” He gave me a flyer for the gig and said, “Come down an hour or so early, mate. Just ask for me on the door.”
“I dunno…” I said, feeling incredibly anxious at the idea of taking the stage again so quickly – and in such a different setting.
“Look, just think about it. But I’d really love you to do your thing at our gig.”
“OK, I’ll think about it.”
I never went. The gig was the night before the private view for the art exhibition I was working on for Camden Arts Centre. There was loads to do. It was an early start. And I needed to be on the ball. I didn’t trust myself to not get wasted the night before – like a “two bob cunt”. Plus, I was feeling anxious at the idea of taking the stage. I was also fuelled with doubt that the Pete guy would even remember asking me. Maybe it had just been drunken talk. So, I never went.
***
In another universe, I went to the gig.
That quantum version of me recited his poetry and was such a success that he started regularly performing as the band’s opening act. The band gained more and more popularity over the next couple of years and it wasn’t long before they were signed. And while my other self didn’t climb quite to the giddy festival-headlining heights of the band – they became the last truly great British guitar band, after all - he did enjoy much success; releasing volumes of poetry, being featured in the NME and The Guardian, appearing on Never Mind the Buzzcocks and even reciting his poetry on a single-release by the band.
He was on track to become a cult John Cooper Clarke-like figure and he started hanging out with all the stars who frequented the scene. He even shagged Kate Moss before she and Pete became an item.
After a while, he started hanging around places like the infamous Hotel in the Sky, the creative crack den owned by Pete’s literary agent.
It was there that my other self tried heroin for the first time; believing that it could act as a tool for creativity. After all, Pete used – and he was one of the most gifted artists of his generation. Lou Reed and William Burroughs had used too. My other self was convinced he wouldn’t get hooked.
The habit didn’t take long to devour my other self. Within two years, he was broke and homeless – thieving to feed his addiction.
Before three years had passed, he was dead.
***
I can’t know for sure whether the guy I met on that memorable night at the Poetry Café was actually Pete Doherty.
Maybe I don’t want to know.
***
I wonder if that let’s-call-him-Pete I met ever wondered what became of the skinny long-haired poet he met back in ’99. Then again, maybe he was just sloshed and didn’t even remember meeting me the following day.
Whether you were Pete Doherty or not, thank you (and your friend) for encouraging me to perform and liking my words. You helped me to believe in myself.
The course of my life could have been very different if I hadn’t taken the stage that fateful night.
Maybe Harry Whitewolf books wouldn’t even exist.
“What became of the dreams we had?”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fuXMv...
May 6, 2023
Unhappy Coronation Day
The Coronation’s Not Up My Street
I’d rather snort some Charlie
Than shout hoorah for Charlie
With a Chas and Dave knees-up in the street.
Yes, you can keep your coronation.
It’s not the time for celebration.
It’s the time to make blue blood obsolete.
But even without the new king,
Kingmakers would be in full swing.
Royalty’s just one part of the con.
But let’s start with the monarchy;
The oppressive atrocity.
Let it crumble until it is gone.
Don’t take the mickey, our Charlie.
And don’t be a Charlie, mate.
Don’t be a thickie, you subjects.
The subject’s up for debate.
Let us all be Robin Hood,
Acting like we’re in Sherwood,
Robbing the rich to give to the poor.
Let’s take the crown away,
Or we’ll drown and decay
On rotten Albion’s soiled shore.
View the vile viral media spiel
About Old Chuck and Camilla de Vil.
Then wonder why you’re in the red.
If you don’t want to serve,
And if you have the nerve,
Shout out loudly: “Off with their heads!”
I’d rather snort some Charlie
Than shout hoorah for Charlie
With a Chas and Dave knees-up in the street.
Yes, you can keep your coronation.
It’s not the time for celebration.
It’s the time to make blue blood obsolete.
But even without the new king,
Kingmakers would be in full swing.
Royalty’s just one part of the con.
But let’s start with the monarchy;
The oppressive atrocity.
Let it crumble until it is gone.
Don’t take the mickey, our Charlie.
And don’t be a Charlie, mate.
Don’t be a thickie, you subjects.
The subject’s up for debate.
Let us all be Robin Hood,
Acting like we’re in Sherwood,
Robbing the rich to give to the poor.
Let’s take the crown away,
Or we’ll drown and decay
On rotten Albion’s soiled shore.
View the vile viral media spiel
About Old Chuck and Camilla de Vil.
Then wonder why you’re in the red.
If you don’t want to serve,
And if you have the nerve,
Shout out loudly: “Off with their heads!”
March 17, 2023
FREEjecttIIon!
![ReejecttIIon - a number two by [Daniel Clausen, Harry Whitewolf, Mr. Wolf]](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/hostedimages/1679073506i/34049273.jpg)
Whatever you do, don't reject the current promotion for ReejecttIIon - a number two.
After all, the book (a collaboration between myself and the talented Mr. Clausen) contains colourful short stories, funny flash fiction, hilarious cartoons, riveting reviews, wondrous anagrams and other assorted skits and titbits of under-achieving literary genius!
It's free on Kindle for five whole days - Friday 17 March - Tuesday 21 March.
Amazon US: https://www.amazon.com/ReejecttIIon-n...
Amazon UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/ReejecttIIon...
Thanks for your support!
January 15, 2023
Andy Seven: A Writer You Should Know
I’ve been a fan of Andy Seven’s work for quite a few years now, and his latest releases certainly deliver. His book Hot Wire My Heart is a punk noir delight, while his latest spoken word work Sea Level Drive shows another side of this author’s clever capabilities. The poetry and experimental sound-ology that Seven mixes in Sea Level Drive will blow you away.
I highly recommend these two works, and Andy Seven’s back catalogue!
Hot Wire My Heart Review
With Hot Wire My Heart, Andy Seven has returned to his punk noir novel roots, following Every Good Boy Dies First and Every Bitch for Himself, and it is perhaps his best.
The plot involves Dante, a young punk who writes gossip about bands for a squat-based local music rag (the more sensational the gossip, the better, as far as Dante’s concerned), causing an inferno of trouble after he uncovers a story about a politician’s son called Tommy Shock (who’s well known on the local punk scene) sleeping with an underage girl. From thereon, things get complicated and gather pace. Storylines entangle to create a sort of serious farce. It seems like everyone is out to get someone else or to avoid getting involved in the shenanigans that are going on, as the plot comes to an exhilarating crescendo.
Under the surface, the book deals with subjects like rich kids in bands pretending they’re on the same level as the punks who rose from the gutter, the divide between the rich and the poor and the punks and the hippies of 1978 San Francisco, and the sensationalism of gossip that ends up in print.
Seeing as Andy Seven was an original punk from the era, and both played in bands and wrote for music rags, he’s the ideal person to write this tale. He really captures the American 1970s punk scene (not that I was there) and has a knack of being able to create believable but almost cartoon-like heroes and villains. (Actually, most are villains in some shape or form.)
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It’s absorbing, flowing, original, clever, violent, funny, and invigorating. Andy Seven is a true artist.
I highly recommend Hot Wire My Heart. So, cross those wires, put your foot on the pedal, and enjoy this fantastic hundred-mile-per hour crime fiction ride.
Sea Level Drive Review
I don’t really know how to review this brilliant spoken word work, but I came up with this:
Experimental etymological sparkles collide with dirty banshee-like basslines and pretty mandolin plucking to create a beat noir jazz cacophony of supersonic phonics, candy bars, catchy tunes, electric Lynch-like noise and hustler ghosts.
‘kin marvellous.
Hot Wire My Heart on Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/Hot-Wire-Heart...
Listen to Sea Level Drive on Bandcamp:
https://andysevenltd.bandcamp.com/
I highly recommend these two works, and Andy Seven’s back catalogue!
Hot Wire My Heart Review
With Hot Wire My Heart, Andy Seven has returned to his punk noir novel roots, following Every Good Boy Dies First and Every Bitch for Himself, and it is perhaps his best.
The plot involves Dante, a young punk who writes gossip about bands for a squat-based local music rag (the more sensational the gossip, the better, as far as Dante’s concerned), causing an inferno of trouble after he uncovers a story about a politician’s son called Tommy Shock (who’s well known on the local punk scene) sleeping with an underage girl. From thereon, things get complicated and gather pace. Storylines entangle to create a sort of serious farce. It seems like everyone is out to get someone else or to avoid getting involved in the shenanigans that are going on, as the plot comes to an exhilarating crescendo.
Under the surface, the book deals with subjects like rich kids in bands pretending they’re on the same level as the punks who rose from the gutter, the divide between the rich and the poor and the punks and the hippies of 1978 San Francisco, and the sensationalism of gossip that ends up in print.
Seeing as Andy Seven was an original punk from the era, and both played in bands and wrote for music rags, he’s the ideal person to write this tale. He really captures the American 1970s punk scene (not that I was there) and has a knack of being able to create believable but almost cartoon-like heroes and villains. (Actually, most are villains in some shape or form.)
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It’s absorbing, flowing, original, clever, violent, funny, and invigorating. Andy Seven is a true artist.
I highly recommend Hot Wire My Heart. So, cross those wires, put your foot on the pedal, and enjoy this fantastic hundred-mile-per hour crime fiction ride.
Sea Level Drive Review
I don’t really know how to review this brilliant spoken word work, but I came up with this:
Experimental etymological sparkles collide with dirty banshee-like basslines and pretty mandolin plucking to create a beat noir jazz cacophony of supersonic phonics, candy bars, catchy tunes, electric Lynch-like noise and hustler ghosts.
‘kin marvellous.
Hot Wire My Heart on Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/Hot-Wire-Heart...
Listen to Sea Level Drive on Bandcamp:
https://andysevenltd.bandcamp.com/
June 2, 2022
A Poem to Celebrate the Queen's Jubilee
Jubilant Jubilee
Johnny Rotten’s putting up bunting
For the cunting queen’s jubilee.
Don’t get me started on the street parties
And all the bonkers bank holiday glee.
Troops are colouring in your minds
With lies to feed your loyalty.
Andrew’s sweating like a ham.
Fuck all the fucking royalty.
Queen and country’s a fan club
And a symbol of all that’s wrong
With this land of hope and glory
And the buying-it throbbing throng.
Celebrate with burgers and beer,
And a sunny day off work.
Me? I played God Save the Queen
LOUDLY, with a smirk.
Johnny Rotten’s putting up bunting
For the cunting queen’s jubilee.
Don’t get me started on the street parties
And all the bonkers bank holiday glee.
Troops are colouring in your minds
With lies to feed your loyalty.
Andrew’s sweating like a ham.
Fuck all the fucking royalty.
Queen and country’s a fan club
And a symbol of all that’s wrong
With this land of hope and glory
And the buying-it throbbing throng.
Celebrate with burgers and beer,
And a sunny day off work.
Me? I played God Save the Queen
LOUDLY, with a smirk.
March 16, 2022
A Chat with James Morcan About His New Film
I recently had a chat with writer, actor and director James Morcan about his upcoming film Anno 2020, which was filmed in seventeen cities across five countries on four continents during the global lockdowns.
You can check it out here:
https://youtu.be/z_ET50eH5RU
August 30, 2021
The Best Books That Will Make You Rethink Ancient Egypt
Can I tempt you to learn more about alternative Egyptian history? If so, check out my list of The Best Books That Will Make You Rethink Ancient Egypt.
https://shepherd.com/best-books/rethi...
Many thanks to the guys at Shepherd.com for inviting me to write the post!
https://shepherd.com/best-books/rethi...
Many thanks to the guys at Shepherd.com for inviting me to write the post!
July 18, 2021
Guest Post by the Talented Mr. Clausen
I may be biased 'cos I've written a couple of books with Daniel Clausen, but I'm a big fan of his writing.
And years before I wrote the jazz-smash-cacophony that is New Beat Newbie, Daniel was writing his own jazzy-jamming-written story, which has naturally become one of my favourites of Mr. Clausen's. So, here it is in all its glory.
This short story comes from Daniel Clausen’s short story collection The Lexical Funk. You can buy a copy on Amazon or hassle the author for a free copy on Goodreads here: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...
Lexical Funk: how the white boy learned to settle down and love the Afro
Etymology is the science of coolness, you dig? But you can only master its power through Jazz. Mastering the etymological sciences was a “Pan-stylistic rhythmic bebop, with a side of bacon, you dig, man?” I blurted out one day in English class. That’s how I got the reputation for being the “Freaky deaky white boy” at my school, after I had had the reputation of being just the “crazy white boy” at my school.
Mr. Davis, my fourth period English teacher told me that language changed over time, and that you could trace the history of words. Miles Davis was an improvisational genius. Mr. Davis was a teacher in a twenty-dollar suit, but he had soul, man. Words like music, words inspired by muses. I was on a one-way train to improvisationsville, and the Davises had given me both the beat and the feet.
Until then, all I knew was that language changed. I wanted to know the origins of all words. I wanted to know history, because history explained the context of language, then I needed to explain the historical context of language, so I needed historical theory to explain the historical context that was supposed to explain language. I spent a lot of time away from home in the library, away from my whore mother and her pimp boyfriend, Johnny. Johnny, the b-movie boyfriend. Johnny, James Dean in a time warp. Johnny, Fonzy with a beer-belly.
Yes, the library. My vacation from b-movie, beer belly, James Dean in a time warp, “Ayyyyye, you’re not so cool anymore” Fonzarelli. Just me and the words. And the words that described words.
But maybe I was just bored, because it turned out etymology just didn’t do it for me. So instead, I decided I would become a Jazz aficionado. I met this girl Ashonte Brown one day when I was punching the walls outside a library. My hands were bleeding. They were cool red. She said to me, “Hey, you’re that crazy white boy in my French class.” She took pity on me and said she’d be my friend and help me if I would help her pass French. I told her she didn’t need my help because nobody learns French in French class—everyone just sits around and talks, makes out, makes crude comments, and pretends they’re cool. She called me a “crazy white boy” but showed me all of the old classics at the library: Coltrane, Monk, Miles Davis, and I even liked Ahmad Jamal. It wouldn’t be until my sophomore year that I started getting into the underground stuff.
Still, for that first year I was something of a dilettante. I didn’t have anything better to do, and the girl I had spent all my time looking at still didn’t look at me in biology, even though I knew the origins of the word “weird”—assuming the form “wyrd” in Beowulf. And I knew that the words “Eugenics” “Euthanasia” “Euthenic” all came from the same Greek root “eu” which means good. If she knew this, she would like me.
My eyes grow bad from reading too much and I’m black from all the Jazz I listen to. My Afro is still growing in, but my skin is already dark brown. I’m “funky,” I’m “hip,” and I can explain the origins of both these words, and I know the other black kids can see it because they don’t pick on me as much. They’re scared of me because of what I know. And soon they’ll be scared of me for what I can do, with the help of muses in snappy suits, and the two Davises.
I dream of being the snapper in a Jazz band. Some funky cat in a black suit with a look that kills, right next to the bassist, snapping away some rhythm. And then, when I get really good, I do solos, and lead—and the horns, the piano, the base, they revolve around me. Me. And then Amy will notice me, and I won’t get picked on. “You hip?” I ask the bassist.
“Not as hip as you, Charlie Brown.”
Charlie Brown. Charlie Brown. Charlie Brown. Ashonte called me that once. When she calls me my name, I ask her to call me that instead.
“You crazy white boy. I never called you no Charlie Brown.”
My eyes are worn thin and my mom won’t send me to get my prescription changed because our insurance doesn’t cover optical care anymore. She says if it’s important I can get a job as soon as I’m sixteen and work for it. I have no car, and I know I’ll have to ride my bike to work. I ask for Coltrane for Christmas—CDs are expensive, but I may get one anyway. It’s all “eu”, a euphony of euphometically phrased eulogical “eu”-rhythms, you dig. It’s all “eu” because the local library has lots of Jazz. And I can ride my bike that far with no problem. I just don’t want people staring at my afro.
A black kid slaps me on the back of the head and calls me “cracker.” I tell him to watch it or else my Afro won’t grow in. He calls me a “fucking cracker” and then a “crazy white boy,” but he doesn’t pick on me anymore. He senses that my fingers could snap him into oblivion, and my oh so sweet lexicality could send him to an un-“eu” funk so deep, the longest run-on sentence in the history of sentences running on to oblivion couldn’t save him if that run-on sentence were rope made out of hair from an afro oh so black but full of the knowledge of a kid who wanted to know etymology so he would be cool enough to win the heart of that princess Amy, euphometically speaking that is.
I’m cool with my pimp suit and my pimp books. I know this, like Ahmad Jamal knows April in Paris, and I know that Amy has taste because I saw her with that T-shirt that had Einstein on the front—his gray hair curving around the sides of her breasts. Einstein could have been president of Israel, and in another time I could have snapped my way through solos into her heart. I know I could have. But Einstein is probably happy that he has settled as the only colonist on the curves of Amy’s breasts. But I know, my etymologically endowed brother, there is room for two, you dig?
“Why you all dirty, white boy?”
“I slept out on the lawn yesterday. Things got bad with b-movie Johnny yesterday. I got angry and called him a motherfucker. My mom slapped me good and told me I could sleep on the lawn.”
“Don’t you know better than to call your mom’s boyfriend a ‘motherfucker’?”
“That’s what he is though. I could have meant it in a good way or a neutral way.”
“You are crazy, white boy.”
During French I begin writing down words: EuMotherfucker (good motherfucker). Malemotherfucker (bad motherfucker). My mother’s sperm donor. Charlie Brown. Crazy white boy. Crazy White Boy.
I tear up the piece of paper and run out of French crying, embarrassed at my lack of lexicality. I want to kill Johnny. I want to kill Johnny. Instead I go to the library and listen to some Jazz and spend some time with an older copy of the Oxford English Dictionary. “Mama can’t dance, mama can’t rock and roll,” Chick Corea says over sweet melodies. I pull out another piece of paper. I write: Amy, Einstein, Ahmad Jamal, Crazy White Boy….and then it comes, like a blast from the trumpet of Mr. Armstrong. That Freaky Deaky Caucasian.
I smile. That Freaky Deaky Caucasian.
“Mama can’t dance, mama can’t rock and roll.”
My mother’s fucker, I write. My mother’s pimp. Matrasexual fishmonger, with extra tadpoles, you dig? Oxford English Dictionary: my guide to pan-stylistic rhythmic orality. I cross out “orality” and write “bebop” instead.
My bassist smiles and turns to me. “You going to say something or you just going to go on snapping your fingers?” he says. “You got something to say to that special lady out there in that there audience?”
“You know it,” I say back.
“Baby, I’m coming to climb the mountains to Einstein’s Israel. You and me going to settle down in jivesville, make it “eu”jivesville, away from all the matrasexual fishmongers. I’ll be that freaky deaky Caucasian you always needed in your life, and I’m going to pleasure you with my orality. I’m going to put my tongue on your heartstrings, and I’m going to play the sweetest of beats on your eardrums. Oh girl, you’ll love me. Oh girl, girl, you’ll love me, with my pan-stylistic rhythmic bebop. Oh girl. Oh girl.”
“Man, that some sweet jive, white boy. What you call that?”
“I call it my Lexical Funk. Ain’t for no lexical punk. I’m that freaky deaky white boy, uh, Caucasian with the pan-stylistic rhythm, you dig?”
“I can dig,” he says. And I snap my fingers into a cool, funky “eu”blivion.
And years before I wrote the jazz-smash-cacophony that is New Beat Newbie, Daniel was writing his own jazzy-jamming-written story, which has naturally become one of my favourites of Mr. Clausen's. So, here it is in all its glory.
This short story comes from Daniel Clausen’s short story collection The Lexical Funk. You can buy a copy on Amazon or hassle the author for a free copy on Goodreads here: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...
Lexical Funk: how the white boy learned to settle down and love the Afro
Etymology is the science of coolness, you dig? But you can only master its power through Jazz. Mastering the etymological sciences was a “Pan-stylistic rhythmic bebop, with a side of bacon, you dig, man?” I blurted out one day in English class. That’s how I got the reputation for being the “Freaky deaky white boy” at my school, after I had had the reputation of being just the “crazy white boy” at my school.
Mr. Davis, my fourth period English teacher told me that language changed over time, and that you could trace the history of words. Miles Davis was an improvisational genius. Mr. Davis was a teacher in a twenty-dollar suit, but he had soul, man. Words like music, words inspired by muses. I was on a one-way train to improvisationsville, and the Davises had given me both the beat and the feet.
Until then, all I knew was that language changed. I wanted to know the origins of all words. I wanted to know history, because history explained the context of language, then I needed to explain the historical context of language, so I needed historical theory to explain the historical context that was supposed to explain language. I spent a lot of time away from home in the library, away from my whore mother and her pimp boyfriend, Johnny. Johnny, the b-movie boyfriend. Johnny, James Dean in a time warp. Johnny, Fonzy with a beer-belly.
Yes, the library. My vacation from b-movie, beer belly, James Dean in a time warp, “Ayyyyye, you’re not so cool anymore” Fonzarelli. Just me and the words. And the words that described words.
But maybe I was just bored, because it turned out etymology just didn’t do it for me. So instead, I decided I would become a Jazz aficionado. I met this girl Ashonte Brown one day when I was punching the walls outside a library. My hands were bleeding. They were cool red. She said to me, “Hey, you’re that crazy white boy in my French class.” She took pity on me and said she’d be my friend and help me if I would help her pass French. I told her she didn’t need my help because nobody learns French in French class—everyone just sits around and talks, makes out, makes crude comments, and pretends they’re cool. She called me a “crazy white boy” but showed me all of the old classics at the library: Coltrane, Monk, Miles Davis, and I even liked Ahmad Jamal. It wouldn’t be until my sophomore year that I started getting into the underground stuff.
Still, for that first year I was something of a dilettante. I didn’t have anything better to do, and the girl I had spent all my time looking at still didn’t look at me in biology, even though I knew the origins of the word “weird”—assuming the form “wyrd” in Beowulf. And I knew that the words “Eugenics” “Euthanasia” “Euthenic” all came from the same Greek root “eu” which means good. If she knew this, she would like me.
My eyes grow bad from reading too much and I’m black from all the Jazz I listen to. My Afro is still growing in, but my skin is already dark brown. I’m “funky,” I’m “hip,” and I can explain the origins of both these words, and I know the other black kids can see it because they don’t pick on me as much. They’re scared of me because of what I know. And soon they’ll be scared of me for what I can do, with the help of muses in snappy suits, and the two Davises.
I dream of being the snapper in a Jazz band. Some funky cat in a black suit with a look that kills, right next to the bassist, snapping away some rhythm. And then, when I get really good, I do solos, and lead—and the horns, the piano, the base, they revolve around me. Me. And then Amy will notice me, and I won’t get picked on. “You hip?” I ask the bassist.
“Not as hip as you, Charlie Brown.”
Charlie Brown. Charlie Brown. Charlie Brown. Ashonte called me that once. When she calls me my name, I ask her to call me that instead.
“You crazy white boy. I never called you no Charlie Brown.”
My eyes are worn thin and my mom won’t send me to get my prescription changed because our insurance doesn’t cover optical care anymore. She says if it’s important I can get a job as soon as I’m sixteen and work for it. I have no car, and I know I’ll have to ride my bike to work. I ask for Coltrane for Christmas—CDs are expensive, but I may get one anyway. It’s all “eu”, a euphony of euphometically phrased eulogical “eu”-rhythms, you dig. It’s all “eu” because the local library has lots of Jazz. And I can ride my bike that far with no problem. I just don’t want people staring at my afro.
A black kid slaps me on the back of the head and calls me “cracker.” I tell him to watch it or else my Afro won’t grow in. He calls me a “fucking cracker” and then a “crazy white boy,” but he doesn’t pick on me anymore. He senses that my fingers could snap him into oblivion, and my oh so sweet lexicality could send him to an un-“eu” funk so deep, the longest run-on sentence in the history of sentences running on to oblivion couldn’t save him if that run-on sentence were rope made out of hair from an afro oh so black but full of the knowledge of a kid who wanted to know etymology so he would be cool enough to win the heart of that princess Amy, euphometically speaking that is.
I’m cool with my pimp suit and my pimp books. I know this, like Ahmad Jamal knows April in Paris, and I know that Amy has taste because I saw her with that T-shirt that had Einstein on the front—his gray hair curving around the sides of her breasts. Einstein could have been president of Israel, and in another time I could have snapped my way through solos into her heart. I know I could have. But Einstein is probably happy that he has settled as the only colonist on the curves of Amy’s breasts. But I know, my etymologically endowed brother, there is room for two, you dig?
“Why you all dirty, white boy?”
“I slept out on the lawn yesterday. Things got bad with b-movie Johnny yesterday. I got angry and called him a motherfucker. My mom slapped me good and told me I could sleep on the lawn.”
“Don’t you know better than to call your mom’s boyfriend a ‘motherfucker’?”
“That’s what he is though. I could have meant it in a good way or a neutral way.”
“You are crazy, white boy.”
During French I begin writing down words: EuMotherfucker (good motherfucker). Malemotherfucker (bad motherfucker). My mother’s sperm donor. Charlie Brown. Crazy white boy. Crazy White Boy.
I tear up the piece of paper and run out of French crying, embarrassed at my lack of lexicality. I want to kill Johnny. I want to kill Johnny. Instead I go to the library and listen to some Jazz and spend some time with an older copy of the Oxford English Dictionary. “Mama can’t dance, mama can’t rock and roll,” Chick Corea says over sweet melodies. I pull out another piece of paper. I write: Amy, Einstein, Ahmad Jamal, Crazy White Boy….and then it comes, like a blast from the trumpet of Mr. Armstrong. That Freaky Deaky Caucasian.
I smile. That Freaky Deaky Caucasian.
“Mama can’t dance, mama can’t rock and roll.”
My mother’s fucker, I write. My mother’s pimp. Matrasexual fishmonger, with extra tadpoles, you dig? Oxford English Dictionary: my guide to pan-stylistic rhythmic orality. I cross out “orality” and write “bebop” instead.
My bassist smiles and turns to me. “You going to say something or you just going to go on snapping your fingers?” he says. “You got something to say to that special lady out there in that there audience?”
“You know it,” I say back.
“Baby, I’m coming to climb the mountains to Einstein’s Israel. You and me going to settle down in jivesville, make it “eu”jivesville, away from all the matrasexual fishmongers. I’ll be that freaky deaky Caucasian you always needed in your life, and I’m going to pleasure you with my orality. I’m going to put my tongue on your heartstrings, and I’m going to play the sweetest of beats on your eardrums. Oh girl, you’ll love me. Oh girl, girl, you’ll love me, with my pan-stylistic rhythmic bebop. Oh girl. Oh girl.”
“Man, that some sweet jive, white boy. What you call that?”
“I call it my Lexical Funk. Ain’t for no lexical punk. I’m that freaky deaky white boy, uh, Caucasian with the pan-stylistic rhythm, you dig?”
“I can dig,” he says. And I snap my fingers into a cool, funky “eu”blivion.
March 29, 2021
YOUTUBE DICKHEADS BANNED MY VIDEO
Check out my brand-new poem YouTube Dickheads Banned My Video on YouTube.
The poem about online censorship and the coming death of free speech was written in response to YouTube recently banning my poetry performance vid Constable Cunt.
It would have to be the only poetry vid of mine that went viral (with 4.3K views) wouldn't it?
November 11, 2020
NEW INTERVIEW!
Many thanks to my mate Jason at the Gnome Appreciation Society for asking me to do this interview with him. We talk about my new books They're Making It Up As They Go Along and The Gulag Village Green, Red Dwarf, the 11:11 Phenomenon, and much more!Check it out here: https://felcherman.wordpress.com/2020...
Cheers!
