Directory of Lost Causes (By Quentin S. Crisp)

Fate has just handed it to me

Hello.

Recently, in Waterstones, I picked up a book called It Is Just You, Everything is not Shit, which was a reply to the book, Is It Just Me, Or Is Everything Shit?.

Basically, where the latter is an encyclopedia of everything that makes life shit, the former is an encyclopedia of everything that makes life great. Simple really.

Anyway, I picked up this book and started reading. I appreciated the idea, actually, but I had my quibbles with some of the entries. For instance, Harold and Maude. I know it's Mary's favourite film (in There's Something About Mary (have I got the right name there? Mary suddenly sounds strange for some reason. I know that the film has a great many admirers, but sadly, I cannot count myself one of them. I don't know, I was a bit blitzed when I watched it, so maybe my judement wasn't the best, but I found it embarrassing. And then there are entries like 'Falling in Love'. I suppose he had to include that one, and he even apologised for its cheesiness.

The point is, I thought that I could probably make a better list. Perhaps I couldn't, actually, but then again, I think I probably can. It won't be as long as Steve Stack's (I think that's his name, not sure) list, because I haven't got the time right now, but, after all, as I'm so keen on pointing out, it's quality not quantity that counts, so without further ado:

1) Where to start? This will have to be random order, so... Kate Bush. We live in a cynical age, but somehow I just find it impossible to believe that Kate Bush is not a lovely person. I'm not even envious of her success (maybe just a bit) because there's no way I can begrudge it.

2) Working with the writer Justin Isis on the blogzine Chomu and in other ways. Justin is one of the best writers I've ever read.

3) The fiction of Mark Samuels. Underrated, if you ask me.

4) Bettie Page.

5) The smell of an extinguished match.

6) The extreme pessimisn of Thomas Ligotti.

7) The fact that Mark McGuinness is doing this.

8) Sheridan Quaint. I'm a big fan of.

9) Lawrence Maynard aka Le Soldat Perdu.

10) Momus aka Nick Currie, scottish singer/songwriter and best blogger on the planet, not to mention, a great lyricist.

11) Robin Davies calmly and steadfastly debating with me about science on this blog.

12) Sarah giving me an 'I love your blog' award, which I was too curmedgeonly to pass on to anyone else.

13) Pete Black. Great guitarist and all round great guy. (The Dead Bell, Dorothy etcetera.)

14) Ed Gaughan, the most talented comedian on the planet.

15) Lots and lots of people who I am too shy to mention here, mainly because they don't have a public profile, and that's GREAT!!!!

16) Discovering Flight of the Conchords.

17) Discussing obscure Bowie tracks with Mr. Wu.

18) Morrissey keeping on going.

19) Tony Crisp, dream interpreter.

20) Marmite on toast.

21) Interbreeding, because it's definitely one of the best blogs on the planet.

22) Ian Dury, diamond geezer. Reasons to be Cheerful, indeed.

23) Everyone who's helped make my current move more bearable.

24) Talking with Stuart Young in the pub about Ken Wilbur and other such things.

25) Gordon Ramsey mentioning on Jonathan Ross that it's not good to eat cod, because they're almost extinct, even though Ross was a bit of a tosser and said that it didn't matter because science would invent a new fish called the crod or something.

26) Going for walks. I like going for walks. I don't really explore, to tell the truth. I'm a creature of habit. I stick to the same old circuits. But sometimes (every day) I feel the need to get out of the house and take my constitutional stroll.

27) The memory of Emily.

28) Underwear.

29) Reading Japanese novels in the original (I'm just showing off now).

30) Getting messages from strangers over the Internet telling me they love my writing and then they never contact me again, probably out of shyness, of because they have realised that I'm a complete idiot.

31) Lord Whimsy, mammal of paradise.

32) Rroland and his strange celestial music.

33) Cheese on toast. Also known as Welsh rarebit, or is that something else.

34) The extreme dementia of Aidan Smith and his Panda Shaving Torture.

35) Handy bendy Ghandi.

36) The writers group in Twickenham and Langton's bookshop.

37) Fantasy Centre on Holloway Road.

38) The lyrics of 'Painting and Kissing' by Hefner.

39) My ongoing depression.

40) Kate Winslet.

41) Dr Magnus Pike.

42) Free porn on the internet.

43) Choosing to spell 'internet' with a lower case 'i'.

44) Bill fucking Hicks.

45) People who want to write, but never get around to it.

46) The poetry of Jeremy Reed.

47) The walk along the Thames from Twickenham to Richmond.

48) Suehiro Maruo.

49) People who actually get round to writing.

50) Eckhart Tolle.

51) Wales.

52) The fact that I can more or less like Prince, even though a friend archly said to me that it's just a short step from Prince to Tina Turner.

53) Weird Al Yankovic.

54) Going around doorknocking talking to people about the environment as if it were a proper job.

55) The fact that, on the Late Edition, whatever his name is, I can't remember, severly dissed Jeremy Clarkson and the Hamster bloke.

56) The word 'bloke'.

57) The fact that I can use American slang such as 'dissed', because I'm English (mixed blessing, perhaps).

58) Philip Larkin, whatever anyone says.

59) Sexual innuendos concerning Smow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

60) Extravagant and crippling shyness.

61) Quoting Morrissey and just not caring.

62) Nabil Shaban.

63) The fact that I can write all this without the intermediary of a publisher and editor.

64) The fact that I'm not making any money doing it.

65) J-pop.

66) Paul Whitehouse. Brilliant.

67) Leonard Cohen getting into Zen.

68) The group unconscious.

69) LSD.

70) I'm sure the world's authorities are actually very scared.

71) Yann Martel sending a new book every two weeks to the Prime Minister of Canada.

72) Michael Moore getting flack from liberals because he 'gives liberals a bad name', but doing it anyway.

73) Monty Python.

74) Terry Gilliam.

75) Not being 'autistic' (surely that word has got to drop its negative associations soon) about the world, as Momus wonderfully says that rock music is.

76) Author's reading their own work, even if they do it badly.

77) Nagai Kafu.

78) Mishima Yukio actually fucking disemboweling himself.

79) The fact that the Final Fantasy musician bloke linked Morrissey and Mishima in an interview, and that a reviewer described my story 'The Tattooist' as a blend of Mishima and Morrissey.

80) Spike Milligan. And Peter Sellers, too.

81) I think I'll keep going to a hundred and then stop there, or this will go on forever.

82) Tartarus Press.

83) People organising farewell dos for you, because you're too busy writing blog posts. (And packing and stuff, to be fair to myself.)

84) Being able to hate George Bush even though everyone else does.

85) New Scientist magazine. I know that I'm a bit of a wind-up merchant about science, but it is asking for it, really. Anyway, this is a quality magazine and everyone should read it. And the graphics are fantastic.

86)The comic 2000AD still being called 2000AD even though we've past that year now, so that implications of futurism there are appropriately fucked.

87) Moaning about people not keeping in touch with me, and then being lazy myself about being in touch with others.

88) Tom Butterworth, whether he likes it or not.

89) The fact that I think I probably will succeed as a writer, whatever that means.

90) Tom Baker's Doctor Who. You know it's true. And Lalla Ward, too.

91) Death.

92) H.P Lovecraft, and the fact that Michel Houellebecq severely digs him.

93) Fireworks - remember remember the fith of November. One of the strangest national festivals ever, whose Macabre overtones fascinated T.S. Eliot.

94) Syliva Plath and Ted Hughes.

95) Me fucking up a lot of interpersonal encounters by appearing to be standoffish, or too eager or something stupid like that.

96) Unashamedly being a Momus fanboy.

97) Being sexually unattractive.

98) We're almost at the end now, but there's still so much more to say, like John Lydon digging Kate Bush.

99) The Cure, whatever Morrissey thinks.

100) David Bowie in The Man Who Fell to Earth. Surely enough to turn the heads of even the most red-blooded heterosexual male. And I'm going to cheat here by including an extra one about me actually having been christened Quentin Crisp, whereas the more famous Quentin Crisp was born Dennis Pratt, before he 'dyed' his name.

I'm sorry for everyone and everything I've missed off, but I had to finish somewhere. And, to unashamedly quote Morrissey appropriating a cliche and recontextualising it, "Good Night, and thank you."