A Goonblogger’s Confession
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.
*
I never imagined it would happen to me. Bloggers Block.
I always considered myself blessed to be unencumbered by the desire (or ability) to analyze tactics, or recall great swathes of significant statistics. I was a free-wheeler: writing about Life, filtered through a Gooner lens.
Armed with pages of Jack Handey’s “Deep Thoughts” and my trusty eTarot deck, I envisioned a free-flowing, weekly blog, simultaneously funny and sad. Ironic. Poignant. Like a Supertramp song.
“It’s raining again.
Oh no, my love’s at an end.
Too bad I’m losing a friend…”
Roger Hodgson’s pre-pubescent mama’s-boy vocal soaring over a relentlessly cycling I-IV-ii-V progression, bassline anticipating the down-beat: hopeful, driving. The song chugs along merrily like a nursery rhyme train, beneath cotton wool clouds and baby blue skies.
(Except it’s raining, remember? Love has ended. And a friendship’s lost.)
*
Sometime around August, last year, sucked into the seasonal madness of the summer transfer window, I decided to write a serious blog. About racism, and a readiness to judge. About indecent proposals, and deals with the devil. Double standards, kangaroo courts. He said/She said. And winning at all costs.
It was about Luis Suarez, and was written long before Arsenal foolishly – arrogantly – bet a poorly-informed pound on their future. Sure, the arrival of Özil provided some balm for that burn, but I can’t help looking over my shoulder and wondering “what if..?”
Anyhow. I digress.
My point is that by writing about something meaningful – personal – I seemed to have smashed some secret pact with my muse, broken some cardinal rule. Like a successful comic who steps out of character and expresses support for the NRA, bestiality, George W. or Spurs… I had somehow shattered that 4th wall: I destroyed the illusion of the carefree court jester, the marionette, the Fool On The Hill.
I showed that I cared. That I had dreams. Desires. Ambition. So, pretending otherwise in my bloggy musings was disingenuous. Duplicitous, even.
So. That’s how the well ran dry, and the blog dried up.
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.
*
Desperate times call for desperate measures.
If I don’t write something soon, I fear I may have to give up Twitter. (The jealousy is killing me. All those brilliant bloggers: churning out their weekly brilliance, receiving accolades, surrounded by their hordes of adoring sycophants. Psycho fans. Sycofans.)
And if I give up Twitter, I may as well give up watching football. Give up Arsenal. (What good’s an empty church? I don’t want to be a hermit in a cave, locked in an endless one-on-one with my god. If a tree falls in a forest, with no-one nearby to hear it – does it make a sound? If a football match happens in a vacuum, who gives a fuck?)
It’s life or death. The stakes are high. But what to write about? I’ve run out of Deep Thoughts. Besides, I don’t feel funny. And my fucking digital Tarot keeps presenting one card, over and over:
The Hanged Man.
I need some inspiration. Please! Somebody, give me a sign…
*
anthropomancy (n) – a form of divination using the entrails of dead men
*
FA Cup – Third Round – Arsenal v Tottenham Hotspur – 4th January, 2014
*
It had to be him. It was obvious. Words flowed out of him like snowflakes. Each one so fucking pretty, so perfect. Lilywhite and pristine. Twitter’s darling, the toast of football’s illuminati: lounging there on his limelit sofa.
Top of the toppermost on every who’s who’s list: sculpting exquisite words of art from his perpetual angst – rubbing my nose in it, week in, week out – it had to be him.
Wanna know how gifted he was? He was a Spud. And he had Gooners fawning over him. RT’ing him. FF’ing him. Taking it up the arse for him, every fucking Friday.
He was the Devil’s Spawn. Scum.
It had to be him.
*
Not so fucking special now, huh? With that look of horror frozen on your pasty white face.
One minute you’re whistling your way merrily to the store to fetch nappies for your newborn, or a refill for your Moleskin – the one filled with your endlessly fucking brilliant blog ideas. The next, you’re doubled over a slightly blunt carving knife, with a red-carded Adebayor-ish look of disbelief on your face.
Yup. I was worried that there’d be some kind of struggle. Some kind of resistance. But everything went rather swimmingly, I have to say.
The blade went in smoothly, just beneath the ribs. (Apparently serrations help, by creating little pockets of air between the flesh and the steel: stopping it from sticking. But I didn’t have a serrated knife long enough, so I lubed my grandmother’s sterling silver heirloom with WD-40. It worked.)
A gently constant upward pressure, and a slight twist, and the knife found its way into your cold, Spud heart. I hate to break it to you, buddy, but your blood is Arsenal red. Like North London. Like a rag to a bull.
Nobody noticed you: bent over my knee, and wheezing softly as you died; shoved, head-first, through the sliding door, onto the floor of my van; lolling gently from side to side as I drove you away from your immaculate murder.
Who’s LOL’ing now, huh?
*
Hic locus est ubi mors gaudet succurrere vitae
(This is the place where death rejoices to help those who live)
No hard feelings, mate: it was an opportunity too good to pass up:
- End my writer’s block
- Divine the result of today’s match
- Eliminate the competition
*
Using a scalpel is a lot easier than I thought. The body seems desperate to part beneath it, to reveal its secrets. Also: there’s surprisingly little blood. (Which is a good thing, because I generally tend to faint at the sight of it. At least when I cut myself, that is.)
*
Your large intestine slithered out of your new abdominal slit, spilling a slimy soup of oils.
*
Looking at your organs, curled up neatly in your abdominal cavity, reminded me of a Ferrari engine. Take that as a compliment.
*
Even with your insides out, lying in a steaming pile beside you, you still kinda looked like you. A paper lantern version of yourself.
I wonder what size bulb I’d need to light you up? You’d make a great conversation piece.
*
The results of my anthropomancy are inconclusive:
Judging by the state of your heart and liver, I’d say 2-1 to The Arsenal. But your spleen, kidney and lungs tell a different story.
They point to a nil-nil draw, as unlikely as that sounds.
*
(I accidentally dropped your lungs on the floor, and my dogs got to them before I could retrieve them. Sorry about that…)
*
I feel some remorse for what I’ve done. I mean – you seemed like a nice enough guy. But on the other hand – your kid has a greater chance of growing up a Gooner now. Some day he’ll probably thank me.
*
I decided to scrap the lamp idea.
I buried you (sans lungs) in a sunny spot at the far end of the vacant plot behind my house. Although it won’t always be sunny. Obviously…
Out of respect for your football club affiliation, I threw in a frozen Sainsbury’s chicken (free range) and a plastic beach ball.
*
Consider yourself dispatched.
·•~+~•·
If you don’t follow @sofalife, you should… Visit www.dispatchesfromafootballsofa.com
You don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone…
*
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4 responses to “A Goonblogger’s Confession”
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Other Arsenal bloggers should pack up and go home. Stunning stuff.
[…] Wise, truthful and sincere. Time though, is running out. I’ve got an Arsenal blogger fantasising about disemboweling me and I’m worried about stringing words together. I mean, you’re all busy people. What can I […]
Even better the second time of reading and I loved it the first time around.
Other Arsenal bloggers should pack up and go home. Stunning stuff.
Thanks Greg. Too kind.
[…] Wise, truthful and sincere. Time though, is running out. I’ve got an Arsenal blogger fantasising about disemboweling me and I’m worried about stringing words together. I mean, you’re all busy people. What can I […]
Even better the second time of reading and I loved it the first time around.