Posted on by qscrisp

Blog-Tag Drive-By

Well:

I hate to do a drive-by on you, Quentin, but…

Tag. You're it!.

I am now, officially, 'it'.

I have been blog-tagged by Amber Simmons.

Despite the fact that I have recently given a list of one hundred factoids about myself, I am now under the inescapable obligation to give five more. There will by a slight difference, however, since the previous one hundred were the first things to come into my head. This time I am working under one of the guiding principles of blog-tag, to provide five facts about myself that are not commonly known. This is difficult, because I think I have, by now, given away just about all that I'm willing to. I'm practically public property, in the words of someone or other, "easy meat and a reasonably good buy".

Nonetheless, after much rumination, I managed to come up with the following:

1) For a period in my life I was quite into transvesticism, and would wear a dress about the house, and sometimes go out for walks in that condition. However, I never had enough money to buy really nice dresses, and I wasn't very convincing. I had a kind of daydream of someday being a princess for a day and being utterly beautiful and irresistible, but it never happened. I even knew a girl for a while who wanted to go out on the town with me as a lesbian couple, but that never materialised, either, unfortunately. And now I'm older and all hope of me attaining such beauty, if it ever existed, has flown.

2) I started smoking at about the age of twelve. However, I wasn't really a heavy smoker, and never became really addicted until I went to Japan, in my twenties, where cigarettes were very cheap and life – for me – was very stressful. For a while in my life smoking was just about my only pleasure. I used to wash down my anti-depressants with green tea and go and stand on the balcony and smoke another wakaba cigarette, gazing out at the ugly sprawl of roads and buildings below.

3) I used to be a big fan of Tori Amos. I have seen her in concert a number of times (at least three). On the last occasion, I went with someone I did not know very well. I even paid for his ticket. He drove me there, but refused to go in, because he'd recently broken his arm and was afraid of getting it hurt. I tried to explain to him that Tori Amos gigs were not like that, but he wouldn't have it. He gave the ticket, instead, to a friend of his. When we came out he said he had sat in the car throughout and heard the whole caterwauling thing. I haven't actually listened to her music for some time. I wonder what she's doing at this very moment.

4) Obscurity is interesting to me in and of itself. For that reason, I like to get ultra-obscure references into the stories I write. I was very pleased when a friend and fellow-writer appreciated the Stryper reference in one of my stories. In the novel I am currently writing, one of the characters is based on an actress called Elizabeth Banks – no, not that Elizabeth Banks – who had a quirky little role in a short-lived children's magazine programme for the disabled on British television many years ago.

5) One of my all-time favourite films is Parents, directed by Bob Balaban. It concerns a young boy who suspects that his parents are feeding him human flesh. It is directed throughout from a child's-eye point of view, and reminds me very much of David Bowie's After All. I used to think it was quite significant that I share with Bowie the astrological conjunction of Moon and Pluto, which supposedly gives one a direct line to the unconscious. I remember a remark he is supposed to have made about LSD, that it didn't do much for him, because he was already in touch with his imagination.

Well, that's my five.

I now tag the following people. Should they wish to accept the challenge, their mission is to, well, do what I've just done:

Panda Shaving Torture, or possibly, Pandas Having Torture.

Wicked Lizard.

Lokutus Prime.

Cristolfo.

14 Replies to “Blog-Tag Drive-By”

  1. Don’t feel bad. I was being arch about being under obligation – it makes me seem less narcissistic. I haven’t even heard Choirgirl Hotel, how is it? I’d consider being a lesbian if she asked me to, too.

  2. I don’t know how I managed to miss the 100 things post. I feel bad now for making you list 5 more things. I had a hard enough time with my 5; I can’t imagine posting 105.I’m quie a Tori fan, myself. Or rather, I used to be. I haven’t bought anything of hers since Choirgirl Hotel; I guess I jus gor burnt out on her. I still love her though, and would consider being a lesbian if she asked me to.

  3. Choirgirl is good; here are some very pwoerful songs on there. But I’ll always be partial to Under the Pink and Little Earthquakes, if for no other reason than that I discovered them in college and they hold powerful sentiments for me.She’s kind of an alien, though. I never have any idea what she’s talking about in interviews (of in most of her songs, now that I think on it). But that’s also part of her charm.

  5. “She’s kind of an alien, though. I never have any idea what she’s talking about in interviews (of in most of her songs, now that I think on it). But that’s also part of her charm.”For some reason I haven’t read many of her interviews. I do remember her talking about masturbation when she was doing a gig (probably just before singing Icicle), which led to me reflecting that perhaps it’s easier to talk about masturbation in front of three hundred people than in front of three, or thirty.There was a bit of a thing amongt some of the boys in North Devon when Little Earthquakes first came out, so that I remember a female friend saying something like, “What’s going on with everyone getting all moony about Tori Amos?”I don’t think I have that album with me at the moment, I suddenly feel like listening to All the White Horses. Oh, how time has flown! “oh! i ´ve been tagged…I´ll come back to this… cool!”I await in eager anticipation.

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