… “I
had to start it somewhere
so
it started there” ~ Pulp
Yes, a new blogger and yet
another blog.
Even if I would prefer to
call it a column (with no newspaper backing, true), I fully
understand that we could begin straight away on a divergence of
opinion.
You can't be the victim of
yet another French man with delusion of 'grandeur', even though I'm
6'1'', which cast me aside of the historically famous one.
Furthermore, I never wear a bicorne hat and only occasionally play
with my left nipple, through the material of my shirt, under my
waistcoat...
However, it does look like
a blog – not my nipple, silly, this blog – and on Blogger too, of
all places, so you might have a point...
I just wanted to
have a few words of introduction, as you don't know me yet.
Why would you
otherwise be interested in what I could think of the price of locally
grown corn in the markets of La Paz?
On second thought,
even if you knew me, why would
you be
interested in what I can think about the price of locally grown corn
in the markets of La Paz?! Or anything else, for that matter?
But
eh! It isn't the point, is it? You're here to satisfy my
disproportionate perception of my self-importance as long as I, in
return, amuse and entertain you. A pretty much win-win, if slightly
disturbing, situation really, if done well...
So, hi! I'm Jeffw
(pronounce Jeffoo)
and I am an actor.
Before you ask, no,
not a failed
one, just
an
actor.
True
to say that what you generally see is that bright shiny crust of the
famous ones at the top, the star dusted icing of Hollywood, but
there's plenty more of us underneath (we
are the raisins of this giant fruitcake).
All those
cheap adverts and bad TV series walk-on parts don't act themselves
you know.
Still,
it's one of the professions with the highest rate of unemployment -
around 90 to 95% in average.
How
the none-working ones can call themselves actors if they don't “act”
and how the thing is calculated is a mystery to me far greater than
the lost city of Atlantis (which
I found at the bottom of my bath once. Well... I hope that's what it
was).
All
I know is that, like most of them/us, I've done hundred of other
things to make ends meet, to name but a few: manager of an Irish folk
band, window cleaner in the posh quarters of Paris, sea-diver in a
South-Pacific black pearl farm and guest-star in a sitcom on national
Welsh television.
I also
choose something years ago that my kind – the Homo Sapiens
Thespians – generally don't go for: life over career.
I
turned out to be a bit of a family man.
Instead
of trying to make a living out my 'calling', establish myself, reach
a substantial financial security before settling down, I went at it
all back to front. In a very 'boheme' spirit, I decided to
follow life for a while, to see where it would take me. And a good
idea it was too!
After
just a couple of attempts, I found myself a wonderful wife. We're now
happily growing home-made organic kids in rural Wales and all is
well.
“But
what of that artistic fibre of yours?” I hear you NOT asking as you
must be fast asleep by now!
It
is true to say that it is the kind of beast that you have to satisfy,
once in a while. Especially when life becomes quieter and when some
extra incomes would not go amiss – children do
need to be fed, who knew?!
What
am I suppose to do then? Leave my wannabe-widow and the sprogs of my
own evil behind and hit the road again? Well, yes, but the offers
don't come so often. So what?
Living
in an isolated village of West-Wales, so small that I could probably
kill its entire population and not make it to the national news, I
naturally turned towards an old friend; this activity you can do at
home and on your own, when you find a bit of time to yourself. No,
not that one, the other one: Writing.
I
have been writing for as long as I can remember (but
I have very little recollection of my pre-school years, which might
explain this).
My
earliest work include an manuscript Alphabet, of which I was only
really satisfied after numerous revisions, and a few stinging
and brief
pamphlets about a classmate called
Eric.
More recently I
became, at a short stretch of the imagination, a published author,
when one of my short-stories appeared in a specialised magazine –
and once again, no, not that kind of 'specialised', it was a
publication dedicated to literary short-stories, obviously. Mine was
all about Erotica.
No, it wasn't.
The blogging is a dramatic consequence
of that writing bad habit of mine. First in French
and now, here.
Am I trying to define and
recreate myself through my writing? Nah, it's just a bit of a laugh
really.
You'll find in these
pages my hopefully humorous rants on topics as diverse as news,
fashion, television, politics, why football?, inequality, religion,
parenting, my War Against Stereotypes, the unbearable cruelty of the
daily scalding of innocent spoons in boiling liquids (not
even always tea!), life, the universe
and the rest...
You'll find some
anecdotes, funny and less so.
You might find some
useful lessons too, but I doubt it.
You might also find,
if you're less lucky, some of my short fiction!
er...
And I'll try to keep
everything concise, of course.
