Party Dark God

Cthulhu bringing chaos and madness to a pizza

Cthulhu bringing chaos and madness to public transport

Cthulhu bringing chaos and madness at home.

 It's the last day of half term, I have spectacularly procrastinated every piece of homework given to me until Sunday evening, I have come to the conclusion that I may have just wasted two weeks of my life and I spent a good portion of today feeling severely dehydrated due to excessive alcohol consumption at a party (which was, by the by, the reason why I did not write anything last night. Most of the creative juices flowing through my veins was vodka grape punch which tasted nice until I added popcorn, pizza, pickles, margarine and yogurt to the mix in a sudden fit of alchemical experimentation.)

In the end I decided I would attend the Halloween party dressed as HP Lovecraft's finest creation, Cthulhu, the octopus faced agent of madness and marine dwelling bringer of the apocalypse.


 Apparently Cthulhu was a little too obscure and though I originally explained that I was a madness inducing terrifying agent of the old gods whenever a random curious bystander asked what I was dressed as, soon I was overcome by the futility of the action and simply replied that I was a green octopus. If Cathulhu is out there, reading my blog, then I humbly beg for its mercy for not defending its honourable and terrifying name to the last. This would make it the second deity I offended that night seeing as I swore on the goddess Gaia two months ago that I shall never drink again. I await divine retribution with fear and a little bit of excited anticipation. In the meanwhile I shall receive retribution from my angry Scottish art teacher for the half term homework due in tomorrow that I am yet to complete. His wrath is potentially more terrifying than that of Cthulhu.

Chaos

 This morning I was expecting to wake up to the sound of panicked screaming, the subtle tinkle of glass shattering in the distance, the incessant shrill wail of a car alarm and the hungry crackle of uncontrollable flames. As I lay entrapped within the folds of my comfortable bed last night, I worried about how I would have to step over all the mangled bodies, some suicides, others not, as I walked towards the bathroom for my morning session of bladder emptying. I imagined how I would be forced to toast my morning bread on the burning corpse of some stranger while slicing another cadaver into bite sized chunks for topping.

 To my extreme surprise I in fact arose to the pleasant sound of civilization as we know it not collapsing and had a peaceful morning in a reassuringly non post apocalyptic world. Contrary to my expectations, it turns out that failing to write a blog post for one day does not result in the immediate end of the world. Which I suppose is, although a little disheartening, generally a good thing. Especially considering that my excuse in the event of being held responsible for the termination of the human race would have been quite poor. Standing atop a smoldering mountain of rubble looking down at a disgruntled mob of rag tag survivors seeking vengeance and simply stating, "I'm sorry everyone for causing the apocalypse, I didn't write my blog post for yesterday because I was having a Halloween horror film fest," probably would not have tamed their anger.

 However if its any consolation to anybody, it wasn't that good a film fest. For one thing we watched about one and a half films which probably doesn't quite constitute a film "festival". At best, with extreme optimism, it was a film "autumn-fair-held-in-a-sparsely-populated-village-in-the-countryside", though realistically speaking it probably didn't even achieve that low height and was perhaps something more akin to a film "birthday-party-of-that-unpopular-kid-in-school-who-isn't-even-bullied-because-the-bullies-haven't-even-noted-his-amazingly-insignificant-existence-yet".

 This lack of actual film watching was due largely to the presence of beer in the lower levels of the house and the general tendency for teenagers to migrate towards the presence of alcohol and consequently, in this instance, away from a showing of the "Rocky Horror Show" but this did not necessarily make it an enjoyable night.

 The first wheel was presumably invented when a caveman, lets say Ugg, found a circular piece of rock and decided to attempt to roll it. Having found that this was extremely entertaining and potentially useful, Ugg then contacted his friend Arg via the use of vocal cords and together they created the second wheel. That night, celebrating the invention and hopeful future mass production of wheels, the two cavemen entrepreneurs hold a party. Its held in Ugg's cave and Arg arrives a few minutes late, carrying a chunk of mammoth leg as a present. He walks into the cave, where a roaring fire has already been lit and is just about to call out when he spots Ugg, sitting in the shadows, making out with Ugga, the girl from the cave next door. That was the invention of the third wheel.

 Winter is apparently the season of romance and relationship forming because the number of couples seem to be increasing exponentially. They spawn in the slightly shady corner of every room in a house holding any thing remotely like a party, multiplying and infecting every possible location within a domestic setting like some sort of romantic mold growth fueled by desperation and alcohol. And this film "autumn-fair-held-in-a-sparsely-populated-village-in-the-countryside" was no different.

 I was at all times throughout the evening, a third wheel if not more. But at least a third wheel is something, its a tricycle. True, tricycle's aren't the most popular of transport means but at least toddlers still enjoy them so the third wheel is a vital role in bringing happiness to toddlers. Of course what brings about this realization that being a third wheel is a relatively good role, is the experience of being a fifth wheel.

 Even then you can still find comfort in the fact that vaguely important fifth wheels do exist in the world, those wheels attached to the back of big range rovers for example. There, presumably, in case some thing like a randomly occurring shard of diamond on the road manages to puncture one of the monstrously thick tires made specifically not to be punctured. Indeed the event is extremely unlikely to occur but the fifth wheel is an important back up, an existence necessary to give emotional and mental comfort to the paranoid range rover driver.

 The seventh wheel however, the seventh wheel is inconsolable. There is nothing like sitting on a sofa and realizing that you are in a tight competition with the empty beer bottles strewn across the floor for the number one spot of most obsolete object in the room. And taking into account the fact that glass beer bottles can be near endlessly recycled and reused, as well as at some point having had the honour of containing the beautiful happiness inducing substance known as alcohol, whereas you are just a purposeless pile of flesh sitting on stuffed leather while using up oxygen that the three other couples making out in the room presumably have more of a dire need for considering all the panting their making, you are probably the champion of unnecessary existence.

 So the moral of the story is, I need another bottle of beer or three.

Personal

 As the damp air grows colder and the gnarled trees grow balder, the time is fast approaching the celebrated eve of Halloween. The night of the supernatural, when the terrifying ghosts of the dead are said to wander amongst us and the even more terrifying juvenile delinquents, who are still unfortunately of the living, more than definitely loiter malignantly amongst us, armed to the aggressively gritted teeth with eggs and insults.

 I am also, unfortunately, still entirely unsure as to what to wear as a Halloween costume. Last year I wore a dead child, lovingly constructed out of cardboard and red paint, on my head but that has, rather cruelly, been specifically banned by the hostess of this years Halloween party.

 Hence I have decided that, in the manner of a true problem solver, I shall procrastinate thinking about the costume until absolutely necessary (that is to say, on the night) and for the time being ponder about the major Western festival proceeding Halloween, the festival of Christmas (entirely ignoring some other slightly minor festivals such as the celebratory burning of the effigy of a dead terrorist bomber. I am not referring to some obscure annual Bin Laden hating celebration, which in all probability exists, in the Southern United States but to the long running British festival of Bonfire Night.)

 No other festival in existence places such a damning emphasis on desolate loneliness than Christmas. Not only is it commonly celebrated in union by romantic couples, Christmas also enforces the giving of presents and cards to loved ones, friends and family. Which then  automatically marks out, highlights and isolates those with few caring friends or family.
 I for one remember one particularly depressing year when I received the grand total of one Christmas card. A cheaply manufactured thing, probably bought en mass at WHSmith but nonetheless treasured by me, occupying the pride of place on my windowsill for the best part of a year, as proof of the fact I was not entirely devoid of amicable companionship within this world.

 The interior of the card was, to put it positively, minimalist. A white space occupied by the mechanically printed words "Merry Christmas" under which was written my name, scribbled carefully in the dead and shriveled worm like handwriting of my friend, Underling Book, and another accompanying sentence of well wishing. It was not that much but it was more than enough. The fact a card had been sent to me with intention of being sent to me, proven via the messy writing which would, to the untrained eye, appear like Arabic, was more than sufficient evidence that the sender cared about me.

 However the latest card manufacturing companies would deny me even that scrap of happiness because according to their adverts people now need to go to new lengths of personalization, involving adding photos of the recipient and choosing pointless humorous fonts, in order to create a greeting card that proves they care. Which would, by default, suggest that in their expert opinion, the dear Christmas card I received (with Underling Book's near encoded writing of well wishing) is worth very little sentimental value due to the fact that it didn't have a massive photo of me cropped onto it combined with a hilarious punning title in the style of some tabloid newspaper or a poster or some other god forsaken format which has been granted the license of being sufficiently caring and festive in the eyes of the bloated greed-filled executives of greeting card personalization companies.

It has always been the ambition of humans to leave a legacy in the world, some sort of sign of their existence, to confirm their place within the universe, to leave a notable mark in society. The rulers of ancient civilizations did this by creating epic monuments, personalizing blocks of stone to leave as an indicator of their short existence on this planet. Now it seems everyone wants to be in on the act, desperate to make some personal, uniquely distinguished mark of their own on everything from a greeting card to the clothes they wear.
This trend of personalization appears to be spreading like an uncontrolled marketing infection. With decorative stickers being sold to personalize everything from your keys to your phone as if the amount of crudely made glittery diamond shaped plastic you attached to your iPhone case would help reaffirm your place within the world. Perhaps soon there will be a day when everything is personalized, every gift and every possession stamped with your face on it to confirm that the object did indeed at one point belong to you. Sperm given in at a sperm bank, each cell complete with a smiling microscopic photo of the generous man who sacrificed a minute of his time and exercised his hand to make the donation. Or organs given in for transplants, all meticulously engraved with the name and caricature of the now deceased donor. Perhaps even children put up to adoption with a photo of their not very responsible biological parents super glued to their back.

 This mad wave of commercially encouraged uniqueness further causes an inflation in the value of personalization and raises the bar indicating what the bare minimum socially acceptable display of caring is. Before the arrival of the customizable cards, the simple greeting or congratulatory cards brought at a news paper agents to have someone's name hurriedly scrawled in must have seemed sufficiently personalized and caring.

 Therefore it is only logical to assume something else more personalized than the current cards on offer will soon appear on the market, a vicious cycle that will continue escalating until it is no longer sufficient to just print with normal ink because normal ink is what every non-personal and therefore uncaring people are using in their greeting cards. Then what personalized liquid can you use to write your message? Why not use your own blood? After all, nothing is more personalized than your own DNA. But should you print the message on paper? Paper is what all the non-personalizing cold heartless people are using, why not used the far more personal alternative of your very own skin to show the recipient that you really care?

A truly terrifying image of the potential near future. Indeed at present it seems the one most truly frightening thing in the world is the development of personalized greeting cards which will ultimately and inevitably result in human self mutilation and destruction.

 Now that gives me a sudden blindingly bright flash of artistic inspiration, since I have often heard it said that the best creations in horror are based off the real fears of the creators, perhaps I should go to this year's Halloween party dressed entirely in personalized greeting cards. I'm sure such a costume would receive a frightened scream or two.