7280/19800
9/11. Never Forget.
I played Twitter double tick Hokey-Cokey today as in the afternoon Elon Musk (presumably) personally gave me an extra free grey “Official” tick to go alongside my currently free blue dick. I was like a one bollocked man with two ticks. They seemed to have been doled out seemingly at random though. Joe Biden didn’t have one, but I did and so did Rosie Holt. Maybe they were just giving them out to people who had made statements that supported the right. I didn’t care. I’d go full anti-woke for Musk’s approval and was happy to leave behind the no-tick nobodies. And I told them so. Fuck the lot of them.
Then as soon as it was given, it was taken away and I had to back down and remind my followers that we’re all the same and all on the same side and none of us is better than another. Then my grey tick appeared again so I told them to fuck themselves. And then it went away again so I called for everyone to come together as one. It was a fucking rollercoaster of emotions.
In the meantime I have tried to get to grips with Mastodon which I apparently joined in 2017 (but don’t remember that). I think it might be a bit hard to get to grips with for most people and the jury is out for me - mastodon could sweeten the deal with a couple of ticks - but after a couple of days of floundering around I’ve just about worked out how to use it. I am on mastodon.social and my handle (as the cool kids call it) is Herring1967. Give me a follow if you can get through the secret maze and the hidden swamp and we’ll see what we end up with. At the very least it might be a fun place to be polite to each other and keep away from the idiots. I hope Twitter will continue despite the self-laid booby traps that Musk is putting in. But in a way I still wonder if it would be good to be freed from the prison full of mirrors and spikes.
I had a pleasant day of recorded conversation, heading into Hitchin Town Hall to be interviewed by Spencer Chaplin, the grandson of Charlie Chaplin. He wanted to talk about me attempting to reclaim the moustache for Chaplin and how The Great Dictator had influenced me of this podcast,
Chaplin Talks.
It was exciting to meet Spencer, which I noted did show the power of the huge celebrity that his grandfather had. And Spencer has Chaplin’s eyes, which is quite uncanny, even if not all that surprising giving their genetic relationship. I think we had an interesting chat about fascism and comedic invention and the usually short shelf-life of comedy. It’s interesting that Chaplin’s work mainly still works today, but that I don’t think I could perform a lot of Hitler Moustache now (mainly because I was so wrong about the likelihood of right wing politics taking hold again) and that was from only 12 years ago. I will let you know when it’s available.
In the afternoon I was interviewing Brenna Hassett about her fantastic book “Growing Up Human”. That book mentions a display in Hitchin Museum which is attached to the Town Hall. I have never visited the museum before, but it seemed too much of a coincidence for me not to take the time to have a look. It’s rather a tragic display of the skeleton of
a woman who died in childbirth around AD 70, along with the tiny skeletons of her triplets. One had been a breach birth and so two of the babies were inside her and the one who had been born was also in the grave. I wrote about something similar in my play Excavating Rita, but seeing all this in person was moving and upsetting as well as being a poignant illustration of how dangerous child birth has been for mothers.
Brenna was a terrific interview subject, herself a week away from giving birth and I had fun talking to her about penis spikes, how placentas aren’t human, why forceps were kept secret and the extraordinary things that ancient teeth can reveal. I once again felt very privileged to be able to quiz an author about their book, as I was to talk to an actual Chaplin about Charlie. It slightly reignited my interest in writing a play about Chaplin being captured by Hitler too. Maybe that’s the way to revisit the themes of Hitler Moustache. Though dare I risk it, when I was rewarded for the stand up show by losing a ball.
