The Ancient Shark Of Despair's blog

Monday, March 9th 2009

I spent most of last week watching TV. The only thing that really happened that wasn't TV was when the grocery kid came round. Every time I watch TV it feels good because it means that I'm catching up. It means that I've gotten a little better at TV.

I think that a lot of people must be a bit freaked out by TV, by how much of it there is. They must get this idea that even if they sat down and watched TV for the rest of their lives, they would never be able to get to the end of it. TV would beat them and they wouldn't even notice.

I don't have this problem so much, because I won't ever die. I can just keep on watching it at my own pace. I don't think they make TV as fast as I can watch TV, so I'm always winning. It's kind of funny that I want to start a TV company and will make my own TV show some day because it would mean that I'd be competing with myself. I'd still win though. A lot of people don't quite realise what living forever actually means. It means that, eventually, I will clock television.

When that happens, I'll still be me, but I'll have seen everything. I would get the context of every conversation and get every reference and new word. I'd be able to take apart a conversation in my mind and tell which part of it came from which TV show. Every possible phrase or feeling or joke or character type that has been on screen will be in my brain. You wouldn't be able to beat that. Nobody could.

So yesterday the grocery kid came round and I tried to tell him about how I was closer to clocking TV than ever but he didn't want to listen to any of that. He just wanted to talk about the crummy play he wrote years ago.
“Have you read it yet?”
“I've been really busy,” I said.
“You've been busy?” he said back at me.
“Yeah, sorry man, but I've got a lot going on.”
“You just told me you've been watching TV all week.” I didn't say anything. “Watching TV isn't being busy.”
“I kind of skimmed it,” I said. This was true. I think you can absorb a lot of something by reading just a few bits of it. Your brain seems to somehow know the best bits to read. It's all about recognising patterns and making theories about where the story would go, then checking quickly to see if those theories are true. I'm pretty good at it.
“You skimmed it,” he said flatly.
“Yeah, I just got the gist of it, you know,” I said. He was making me uncomfortable. My stomach hurt and I fidgeted.
“And what was the -gist- that you -got?-” He was definitely trying to make me uncomfortable. Even though it was working, I didn't let him see that it was having an affect. I stayed normal, even through this next part.
“There were these guys and they really liked each other,” I said. “They met in school and later on they did some plays that were a really big deal and then one of them died and the other killed himself. It was pretty lame, really, I don't like your stuff generally.” He drew up his face tighter than ever.
“Well, we knew that already, didn't we?” he said. “And he didn't kill himself. That was the whole point. The whole of the third act is him recovering and coming to terms with...”
“I didn't get to that part.” I helped. “I think it would be a better ending if he killed himself. It would be shorter, too. It's too long.”
“Do you remember a while back, a long time ago, when I went away and you all didn't know where I was? But then I came back - ”
“Yeah, you stopped being the landlord.” I said. I remembered that. People couldn't handle it. The landlord (who wasn't the landlord then) called me up every hour to say that nothing had happened.
“Do you know where I was? Do you know what happened?”
“No.”
“Nobody told you?”
“No, I don't think so.”
“And you never got curious?” I looked at him. “Think about the play. The play is about me!” he was just about shouting. I don't think I was doing a good job of looking comfortable at this point.
“Oh, okay,” I said. It sounded so quiet next to his voice but I was just speaking normally.
“Okay?” he snorted. Then he laughed but it was fake, you could tell. “That's it. You're okay with it. It's all okay. Good. Fine.” He said and I nodded to show him that it was true, that it was fine and I thought so. Then he erupted. “You don't care about me at all. You know nothing about me. You don't even know when my birthday is. I'm just the 'grocery' kid to you now and nothing else.” The landlord must have told him about that name I use for him. Landlord! “Well you can get your own fucking groceries from now on. Here - ” he bent down and put all of the bags of groceries up on the counter where they should be. Then he did a fake smile as he walked past me and went right out of the door. He went downstairs and I heard him talking to his dogs again. This time I listened really hard and I heard a bit of what he was saying:
“Yes, Sam, yes Willy, -your- daddy loves you, yes he does.”

I tried reading his play again later on but it really isn't very gripping. Sarah will be the new grocery kid. She's got a lot less attitude and stronger legs. That means she can carry more.

Wednesday, March 11th 2009

The first thing I told the landlord when he came round yesterday was that I needed a new grocery kid. He stopped, halfway through coming in the door. He stayed there for two seconds then closed the door, folded his arms and frowned.

“Did you fire him again?” He said, a little sarcastically. I told him that he fired himself. He'd come to the conclusion that I wasn't caring enough. I didn't know that was part of the deal. I don't see which part of bringing me my shopping has to do with me knowing all the names of his dogs, or whatever. “Well, Shark,” said the landlord as he leaned his back against the door. “Maybe – listen here, I'm not trying to judge you, but maybe you -could- take more of an interest.”
“He doesn't do anything interesting!” I pointed out. “All he does is be old, moan and act like a jerk.”
“He only does that because he thinks you don't like him any more.”
“That's because he doesn't do anything interesting!” The landlord made a lot of sighing noises with his mouth and kept changing his arms around and touching his face.

“I want Sarah to do it,” I said.
“No, Shark.” he said.
“I want Sarah to be the one to fetch my shopping on Sundays. She's ready. She cares for people, professionally.”
“That's really not a good idea,”
“Why not?” I shouted. I didn't mean to shout but I guess that I just really needed to.
“Because...” he said and then closed his eyes until he could make up an answer that wasn't something about how he just didn't like Sarah because she was young and pretty. “You saw what she did last time she did the shopping. You saw how much money she spent. You can't trust her. She's bad at it.”
“I can control her,” I said, looking hard into his eyes. “I've thought about this. I can give her a list.” He came and sat next to me on the bed and looked down. I looked down too. I thought he was looking at something and by the time I realised he wasn't, he was already talking.
“Maybe you should think less about how to replace him and more about how you should make up with him,” he said.
“No,” I said. I was feeling assertive. “He's the one who quit. He's the one with a bad attitude. He should try being without a job for a while.”
“He has a job, Shark,” said the landlord. “He writes those books.”
“What books?” I asked.
He got up and left the room, but he made a sign with his hand that said that it was okay, that he'd be back soon. I heard him go downstairs to his house. Then after a little while he came up again holding a thin book with a colourful cover.
“I can see what he means about you not paying attention,” he said as he put the book in my lap. It was called 'Die Hotel Eensaam Kelner.' It had a name on it but it wasn't the grocery kid's name.
“I've got hundreds of these downstairs,” said the landlord. “He does one about every two weeks. It's good money and work's picking up.” There was a man and a woman on the cover. The man was black and dressed like a waiter. He was standing behind the woman holding a plate of food with a lid on it. He was looking at her and she was kind of turning to look at him but we could still see her face. She looked rich. She looked like she'd seen things.
“This looks pretty interesting,” I said.
“How about I leave it here for you?” He said. He did and I've nearly finished it now.

I e-mailed Sarah and she said that she'd love to get my groceries. She's going to start this Sunday.

Friday, March 13th 2009

I've been reading quite a lot these past few days. Actually, I suppose I read a lot every day. Being on the internet is basically reading and watching TV is like reading only you use your ears as well as your eyes. So there probably aren't many people who read as much as me. But I've been reading something different from most people. I've been kicking back, spinning up some Burzum and reading the grocery kid's books.

The book are really interesting because they make you want to find out more about the story and the characters in this great way. First there's the set-up: Every book has a different deal, but it always comes down to a girl and a guy. It always comes down to love. Sometimes there's a husband or wife on the scene but they are never a good person. They are an obstacle or a loser. This is kind of realistic because most marriages don't work out, for good reasons. The guy and the girl don't even always end up together in the end – sometimes the story is sad. The grocery kid isn't afraid to take risks like that.

I haven't just been reading the books, I've been playing around a bit with the text on my computer. First I type up a piece of a book, like “Hart van die Luiperd,” but then I change the names of the characters to the names of people I know so all these funny situations crop up, like the landlord and the kid fighting over Henrietta on a boat, or Celene hooking up with @groombridge (not possible.)

I sent a few e-mails to David with some of the remixed stories I made. I swapped all of the boy names to 'David' and the girl's names to stuff like 'Sarah,' or 'Nikki,' or once, for a joke, 'Clar.' Then I did a few scenes from the grocery kid's play. It turned out pretty funny.

Sarah says she will definitely come on Sunday. The landlord helped me draw up a list of all the things she has to buy. She's not allowed to buy any of the stuff she did last time. It's not all bad because some of the things she bought, the dips and the dry food, it's still around. You don't have to buy everything every time.

Wednesday, March 18th 2009

I'm making progress on the food. It's hard, eating more than you're used to. This morning I had to force myself to eat a whole box of spaghetti. I ate it right from the box. It's actually quite nice, eating spaghetti like that. It's like eating chips but healthier.

The landlord had a lot to say about the whole situation with me having two grocery kids. He had said that getting Sarah involved was a bad idea and now, apparently, the whole world had proven him right.
“Be cool,” I said, “I've got the whole thing covered.”
“What was that?” he asked.
“It's my gangster voice,” I explained. The landlord doesn't watch a lot of TV unless he's with me so he probably doesn't see a lot of gangsters. I guess they don't have gangsters on the radio, not real gangsters anyway. I went back to my normal voice for him: “I can do this, I can eat all of the food. I'll finish it by Sunday. No one will even find out,” I said. I'd even been putting the rubbish from the extra food into separate rubbish bags that I'm keeping in the back room, in case anyone checks through my garbage on Monday.
“That's not the issue, Shark! It's the money. We need to tighten things up with you. Once we move to Greyton there's not going to be any more rent coming in. All we'll have is the money from the sale and my pension. We can't have you spending all this money again.”
“But the grocery kid fired himself!” I protested. None of this was my fault. I didn't want to have to defend myself like this.
“Come now, he didn't mean it. He was just upset with you. And anyway, I'm not talking about this weekend, I'm talking about the bigger picture.” I looked at him. I wasn't too clear on what he was talking about. I'm only allowed R100 a time now – sometimes R200 if I ask for it a lot – what more can he take from me? “Hentietta -” he began, then sighed. “She told me that you said on your computer that ... when we move out, you don't want an allowance as a regular thing, you want all the money we plan to set aside for you given to you all at once.” I froze. It felt so weird that people were talking about me and making plans about me without me knowing. I don't think it's fair to do that to someone. Neither the landlord or Henrietta has the full picture of me. If they talk about me then they don't know what they're talking about and shouldn't talk about it.

“Shark, it's not going to work that way. You can't have all the money at once.”
“Why not?” I asked, reasonably.
“Because you'd spend it, that's why! You've have three people doing your groceries, three grocery kids in here, you'd eat pizza every day – you'd give half of it away to anyone who knocked on the door!” He said these things like they were obvious but I wouldn't eat pizza every day because that would make me sick and I don't even want to get started on the 'three grocery kids' thing. I fidgeted. I wanted then to stop talking to the landlord. I had more important things to do than deal with a man who is never fair. @groombride needed me. He'd said so earlier. I did all the signals that told the landlord I was done and I went back to my computer.

@groombridge was glad to have me back. He'd always fair. He needed help writing up his profile on a dating site. He's had the profile for a while but he doesn't think it's working very well because he still hasn't got a date. @groombridge isn't very creative, like me. He doesn't know what words can do.

I started writing and the landlord left after a little while. I'm going to save @groombridge from loneliness. Everyone deserves a second chance.

Thursday, March 19th 2009

Here's @groombridge's dating profile I made for him. It's supposed to attract women in America / Canada, so if you don't like it, it's probably a cultural thing.

Groombridge
A man who understands

About me: I always wanted to be an astronaut. I could have done it – I went to all the training. They looked at my personality and said it was okay. They spun me around every day but I did not throw up. They taught me how to use a gun in case stuff went down on the space station. The President shook my hand and everyone clapped.
But I knew deep in my mind that I couldn't do it up there. You can't see the whole Earth at once and still care about tiny things like family or love that only involve a few people at a time. I didn't want to change, I wanted to still care about things. So I stayed here. I poured all of my energy into love and my kids and they've turned out pretty cool. One of them has a metal blender which was very expensive. I don't think they would have been good people if I'd put my energy into staying alive in a vacuum and trying not to cry into the void.

I'd like to meet: Someone who has been hardened into rock-like stability by the loneliness, someone who walked though the desert of life alone and came out stronger on the other side, who has practiced and practiced and is now ready for the third act. Smell is important, as is being an Ashkenazi or similar. A female Leonard Cohen.

He says he likes it and he'll put it up after he's changed a few things. I'm not entirely happy with that, with the changing. Now I have to wait until it's time for Americans to go to work and start looking at dating sites before anyone replies to him. That is hours away. I'd go and work on my statue in the meantime but there is too much stuff in my kitchen right now. I'm going to try and eat my way through it all tonight.