We've for the certificate through for my latest DVD, "Oh Fuck, I'm 40" and I am delighted to say that for the second year running those bigwigs at the BBFC have made me an 18. None of the other artists on
Go Faster Stripe have achieved this accolade and I've got there twice! Get in. Hopefully the DVD will be available to buy within the next three weeks. I will let you know when it is on sale. It is the perfect Christmas gift, for anyone whois 18 or over. I can't even really think of anything in the show that was that disgusting (which isn't to say that there wasn't any disgusting stuff, only that my memory is bad), but maybe having "Fuck" in the title makes it an automatic adults only affair.
In other Go Faster Stripe news, the cover for the book version of the first six months of Warming Up (called "Bye Bye Balham) has been designed and so we're one step nearer to publication. There's loads of extra content as I've included some stories that I felt were too personal to mention at the time, as well as commenting on my own 35 year old stupidity, plus you can carry it around with you and read it anywhere you like. Again, you will be the first to know when that is available for purchase.
The other day, as you may recall, I was discussing the poetry of every day existence and how much I liked the phrase
kiss of life. We should all be striving to create such beauty from the ugliness of our daily grind. But today I got thinking about a phrase that only adds to the ugliness - no doubt deliberately, but nonetheless it is quite unpleasant. It's the phrase, "You don't shit on your own doorstep," which as you're probably aware is taken to mean you don't have sex with a flatmate or workmate or someone who lives nearby for fear of the repercussions. But isn't it a horrible way to express that (and yes, I know that's the point, but it still hadn't quite struck me before).
Firstly, taken at face value - you don't shit on your own doorstep - only a fool would defecate on the front step of the place where they live (presumably because they have a toilet only feet away - though sometimes desperation can be a terrible thing). They'd have to clean up the mess themselves and cope with the smell and unpleasantness. No one would do that. Though there is an implication that it is OK to shit on someone else's doorstep. It's fine to go around shitting on doorsteps as long as it's a doorstep that is some way away from your house and which belongs to someone you don't know. I mean who goes shitting on doorsteps anyway. If you are desperate for a shit then you go in a pub toilet or behind a bush or maybe down a dark alley. To even think about shitting on any kind of doorstep you have to be some kind of anti-social psychopath. It's the kind of thing that those people who dressed up as "Hamilton's Familly" would do if someone who was not exactly the same colour of skin tone as them moved into their town and they didn't have their grey wigs and boot polish with them.
The phrase implies, "By all means shit on someone else's doorstep," whereas I would argue that a more useful phrase would be, "Whatever you do and however desperate you become, never shit on anyone's doorstep. If it's an absolute emergency then maybe go in the gutter. But don't shit on doorsteps, please. It's nasty."
But the phrase was obviously made up by someone who liked shitting on doorsteps, but had learned (possibly from bitter experience) that it's no fun if you shit on your own.
Possibly if Jesus had been around he might have countered, "Shit not ye on anything that you wouldn't like someone else to shit on if it was yours," and the argument would have been won. But where was Jesus? Swanning around in Heaven. He comes down once in the whole of human history, gets a bit crucified and thinks that he's done his job. Lazy bastard.
But then the second horrible thing about the phrase is that it is equating the act of lovemaking with defecation. Not just defecation, but the kind of anti-social, selfish and unpleasant act of fouling the entrance to someone's home. To the creator of this wonderful phrase sex is something which should be done far away, with the respect and haste that one would employ by emptying one's bowels in the recipient's porch.
Now I have nothing particularly against casual sex and whilst I acknowledge that there is some kernel of good advice in amongst this scatological confusion - ie it's not always a good idea to have sex with someone you work with or live with if you're not really interested in taking it much further - I still think that whoever created this saying had a repulsive and unusual attitude to both sex and shitting. In fact the attitude to shitting is almost worse.
If you think that having sex with someone is similar to shitting on their property, then it is probably a good idea not to sleep with anyone you know. But also maybe you should think about not sleeping with anyone at all until you've sorted out your rather weird attitude to sex and the function of doorsteps.
How about adjusting the phrase to "If you're going to have casual sex with someone, then it's probably a good idea to make it with someone that you don't have to deal with on a day to day basis, though if you're open about the casual nature of the sex and respectful to them in bed then that might still work out ok. However still more sensible to have casual sex with someone with whom it won't be a massive issue, but even then why not trying being respectful and honest with them. And not think about having sex with them as in any way equating to shitting on anything, especially not a doorstep. Unless that's what they're particularly into. In which case it's probably not a good idea to "shit on your own doorstep" because it'll be really embarrassing to have to see them on a day to day basis if the whole thing didn't really work out too well for you."
Why can't that be the phrase?
If you work for a dictionary of phrases then I hope you will update as necessary.
And if you are just a regular person coming up with stuff to say, then try and be more "kiss of life" than whoever that anonymous doorstep shitter was.
