The Green Green Grass

In the 21^st century where everyone has equal rights (in theory) and democracies like the European Union and the United States pride themselves on a free society it amazes me that uptight hypocrites get their way on the green issue. And I’m not talking about recycling.

It is unbelievable that so many people could be universally wrong on the subject of marijuana. Not just wrong, but outright ignorant. Maybe they are stupid, maybe they just miss the point, maybe they believe their own bullshit, I really don’t know what motivates these people to want weed to be illegal.

At the risk of scaring off anti-weed readers, let’s look at the facts they like to ignore:

1)      Alcohol, nicotine and tobacco are far-and-away more harmful to the human body. So is ibuprofen. Chocolate is for fuck’s sake.

2)      It has undeniable medical purposes.

3)      It is a natural plant that has been used for centuries.

4)      No one has ever died or overdosed using it.

5)      It will always be in use, even illegal it will continue to be circulated on underground markets.

6)      In the event people can’t buy it, they are going to turn elsewhere, which WILL harm them.

7)      Crime rate falls significantly in every area that it is legal.

8)      It enhances creativity. Just ask The Beatles and, erm, EVERY MUSICIAN THAT HAS EVER LIVED!

9)      It relieves stress (obviously, I haven’t used any writing this).

10)   It is non-addictive.

Convinced? Of course not, you’re an ignorant shit, and you likely have some arguments of your own.

A)     It is a gateway drug.

Baffling logic: You legalise this non-fatal, non-addictive, non-harmful drug and eventually you’ll have to legalise cocaine and heroin. There is always one of those stories: my sister’s boyfriend’s friend’s cousin’s son was a good student, and then he started using weed and died of heroin overdose. Yeah, don’t believe you. You find me every similar case in the world and I’ll find you 100 cases of alcohol doing the same thing for each one.

B)      Crime rate will increase.

Weed is currently an underground drug selling on black markets. It funds crime. People are being arrested for possession. That is how it is when it is illegal. You legalise it and regulate it it will no longer be funding crime and users will no longer be arrested for carrying it. Less crime. And if you are thinking users generally commit crimes themselves you are wrong. Cannabis makes you spaced it, it makes you buy snacks, it makes you stare at the pattern of the carpet for an hour, it doesn’t make you hold up a bank.

C)      Everyone will use it, including the children.

You mean like cigarettes and alcohol? Quite frankly, if everyone uses it, good. People could do with a come down every now and then. As it stands now, if kids want it they can get it, so why not regulate it and make it safe? Slap an age restriction if you care so much.

D)     It makes you stupid.

So does day time TV, I don’t see that being made illegal.

E)      It gives you cancer / it is unhealthy.

While I’ll give you one thing, all smoke filling the lungs can result in cancer, but if you want to stop this you’ll have to make bonfires and BBQs illegal as well. Health issues are nonsense, simple as that.

No matter what angle you look at it, it makes no sense for marijuana to be illegal. Zero. How long is it going to take the rest of you to realise this?

Quickie

Just a quick drop in for is just going to be a status update too big for Twitter. (/DanielWalker319 by the way, not like anyone reading this didn’t find it through Twitter anyway).

I have aspirations of getting this semi-big. Enough to pull a Caption Contest out of my arse every now and then and get more than 5 entries at least. Maybe even a few opinion polls here and there. The only way this can happen (as I am a cheapo and refuse to get a proper domain or advertise myself) is for you to tell your friends. Or even if they are not your friends. Just choose a random number in the phonebook and let them know I exist.

In return I am hoping (not promising) to become more active with more varied content. I need to get some reviews done (WTTJ.net gets plugged here),  comment on the news every so often, more Top 5s, less-rants-more-informative pieces. Feel free to send me any other ideas.

Next few blogs I have in mind:

• Wrestling: Why I Like It, Why YOU Should Like It
• MMA vs Wrestling: What A Stupid Rivalry
• Sleepless In Stockton: The Stuff That Goes Through My Mind At Night
• The Green Green Grass: Legalise Weed, Kay?
• Future Shock: I Predict My Life
• THE WORLD’S BIGGEST iTUNES GAME! FEATURING WHY WE USE A SMALL i FOR iTUNES, iPOD, iPHONE, etc.

(Distracted by my mother and aunt talking/shouoting. Why the fuck do they do that? Friendly discussion and they shout over each other? For fucks sake. And they’re still fucking doing it despite aunt saying she had to go 20 minutes ago.)

So yes, feedback, whore my name out, lets get this shit off the ground. YEAH!

P.S. If anyone wants to contribute feel free. walkersthis@gmail.com

Harsh Truths Of Comedy Writing

This one has been on my mind for a while and it is coming from the frustration and anger I get from comedy writing. Not just from my own, but from others. I go onto various websites, like Chortle (cunt-central btw, I’ll get onto that later) and BBC Writer’s Room and find myself slapping myself in the forehand at the pure, unadulterated bullshit. This should be a worth-while read for most budding writers, and one I strongly suggest for the deluded ones who write already.

The big thing is writing these days, and writing a sitcom is the lowest of it for reasons I will mention later, but first I must point out what you are labelling yourself as when you call yourself a “writer” or “comedian”. Baring in mind “comedian” is more a personality trait you are dubbed with in school or in the workplace for being a twat, I’ll leave that, but “writer” is the most worrying. It used to be the case in the 90s that you could walk up to someone at a party and say “Hi, I am a writer.” and expect an easy fondle to follow, but this is the twenty-first century and every fucker with a hand writes. I feel sorry for any girl that gets the “writer” line, because I imagine she’d be instantly bored.

What is the first thing to go through your mind when I say “writer” for example? I see a fat, sweaty saddo who lives with his mother and works with spreadsheets. Certainly the windswept and interesting ideal of writers is gone now that none of them leave their house on weekends. Instead they spend them on Chortle, getting their worked critiqued by other amateurs, which leads me to my next point …

Do you really want to join a group of people that are, more often than not, pretentious, elitist dickheads with delusions of grandeur? The thought of becoming like that actually makes me sick to my stomach, yet you look around you’ll see most writers, especially comedy writers, are exactly like the picture I am painting of you.

To explain those insults, pretentious comes from what they think to be intelligence. To shock the world, reading doesn’t make you intelligent, it only helps. When one takes the writing style of a classic author, e.g. James Joyce, and turns it into a talking style: that isn’t intelligence that is being a cock. It is reading with the intent of trying to look intelligent or learned, which anyone can tell makes you, to use playground vocab, a poser. I don’t know why, but they believe they have to look intelligent to write comedy, and I find something twisted about that. And seeing as I thought that was a cleverly woven link to the next paragraph about the delusion of grandeur …

What I mean is comedy writers think they are great, or, more accurately, they think what they do is great. To put it bluntly, they think comedy writing is “art”, are you fucking kidding?

(SIDE NOTE: This isn’t exclusive to writing though. Quite a lot of things get called “art” to give them some sort of prestige through the cloud of smoke and wank.)

People will argue with this, spouting defences like “comedy is subjective, like art” or “it is the art of making someone laugh”, and all I can say is pffft. If you want to put comedy writing in some sort of boundary, it isn’t art, it is social studies. It is taking an attitude or personality and exploiting it for the benefit of humour and therefore producing entertainment. Fact is, comedy writers are so pathetic they will call it art one minute and smut the next (see Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps).

Cunningly linking us to elitism, but I’ve already wrote an article about that on Chortle HERE, albeit a heavily edited one which the runner of the website clearly disagreed with, proved by his quickness to publish two responses to it and subsequent refusal to publish my response. Check it out anyway, at the risk of giving them hits.

You take all this: the elitism, the pompousness, the pretentiousness, the all-round twatishness, where does it all come from? The desire to succeed, which is the ultimate harsh truth for you budding writers. Maybe it is just that writers are just naive when they start out and grow delusional, I really don’t want to go into a large study about it, but the truth is no, sorry, you are not going to succeed.

All the websites avoid telling you this; they word something like “It is very difficult to make it in the comedy industry, but hardwork and determination will get you there!” If it was up to me I’d publish something more along the lines of “You will fail. Email me if I’m wrong.” and I bet the only emails I get are from people crying and/or complaining and/or selling me Viagra. I would love to write something like “Don’t get me wrong, I do hope someone reading this proves me wrong.” but seeing as about 3 people, give or take, will end up reading this I doubt there is any chance of that happening.

I haven’t counted them up, but I bet there are more people in Britain earning a living on football than there are people making any money at all on their comedy writing. It is just a sad truth and a harsh truth that can be proven by just looking at the facts, but it all boils down to one thing really: Most people don’t succeed because they are not good.

Just look at the internet, there is trash all over. I’ll gladly send you some of my stuff for you to wipe your arse on, they were that bad. People complain about Two Pints but I bet most writers would give their bollocks to have wrote it now, it is simply better than 90% of the stuff I’ve seen on the internet, mainly because the ones that aren’t shit are out performing and trying to get their foot in the door. It isn’t even that the writers themselves are bad, it is because they are writing stuff at, on paper, sounds awful and when performed from paper are worse. I have confused myself with that statement, which is how weird this whole thing is. The formula for writing comedy is so down-trodden and old that it cripples any writer that uses it, and that is why it is an awful thing to write. To be good you need to be excellent, to be better than good you need to somehow break the formula yet make it transferable, which is near impossible.

The saddest thing about this entry is I myself am a comedy writer. I do it sparingly these days, but I did write a sitcom with a friend a couple of years ago. Did I want to make it? Did I think it was good? Yes, of course, I was naive. But really, what was I doing it and why do I keep doing it? Because I enjoyed it.

That is my moral for you: If you enjoy it, do it. Don’t focus on making it. Once you stop enjoying it, all hope is lost. Trust me, I’m there.