the ramble dump

My Big Orange File, or BOF, is something of a personal artefact. It spans roughly a year's worth of writing, starting from the end of 2002 to the fruitful backside of 2003, and contains the beginnings of such, er, well-loved creations as Agaffa, Master Beef, and the G'raffe Song. This, along with a mostly-empty Tesco Value notepad containing only a list of strange poem titles and the single one that actually got written, is my starting point, as I attempt to answer... a question.

In almost every interview with an author I've read, the author gets asked, 'Where do you get your ideas from?', which has always struck me as a rather stupid thing to ask. But, whereas most authors will answer vaguely, 'Oh, from all over the place, really...', and while I make no claim to being a 'proper', published author, I'm going to attempt to answer it properly. And I'm going to do it through The Aberration, because doing stuff through examples is the best way, dudes.

Alright, yes, this is just a bad excuse to waffle at length about a lot of my old stuff, and probably the only person it's remotely interesting to is myself, but I'd rather procrastinate on a grand scale than do any kind of proper work, and as this is my blog, I can do what I like. And anyway, there are some answers to such vitally important questions as, 'Why "Master Beef"?', 'What made you pick Fat Man In Tweed as your website name?', and 'Why does Amelia call you "muffinkid"?' in there somewhere. And also: pretty pictures.

Note: this won't be in much of a coherent order, as ideas don't have a habit of forming coherently. Be warned: random tangents abound.

Part 1: Bananas and Laxatives



(From the Fod conception scripts. Olli went over the green writing to make it more legible, using an illegible font.)



Fod, started in February 2003, was another attempt, after a long line of them, at a collaborative website with friend Olli Smith. My first idea for it was a spoof of the video game Halo. I named it Bananas and Laxatives, and it was the first time I'd really put any of my writing online. It was consciously bad quality, containing gratuitous swearing and all the character mutilations and twisted ways to mess up the Halo universe that my fourteen-year-old mind could think of. The Covenant, the main enemy, became the Convent: an alliance of nuns, prostitutes, politicians and pro-wrestlers.

(Random aside: on page 299 of The Fall of Reach, one of the official Halo novels, 'Covenant' is actually typo'd as 'Convent'. Well, I laughed.)

Most chapters were accompanied by a screenshot from the game, beautifully transformed in Microsoft Paint. (Ironically, Cortana ended up with long hair in Halo 2 anyway. They obviously modelled her on her B&L equivalent, Bore-Tana.)

A violin tune that sounded like a strangled cat (if they make any noise) played as Captain PLEEEAAASE gave Bore-Tana the bad news the Convent was rapidly approaching. Bore-Tana had a tantrum. 'But I don't wanna be a nun!' she wailed.

Reveille It Up!

Meanwhile, in the cry-o-tube place thingy, Master Beef awoke. He started crying as he got out and a small man rushed to him. It was Pitri.

'It's OK, sir,' he said. 'We'll have you warmed up in no time!' He handed Beef a hot cocoa with marshmallows as he sniffled. He slurped at it.

'Why's he crying?' asked Sam, calling and leaning on the very big fragile glass window on the wall.

'It's a cry-o-tube, Sam, you dumbass!'

'Sorry Pitri. I'll just bring his health online then.'

'I suppose you should.' said Pitri.

'He needs his shield, Pitri. Give him that, if you can manage.'

'Dumbass!' Pitri handed Beef a silver tea tray. 'It will come in very handy, sir!'

'Thank you, Pitri.' said Beef. 'Thank you, Dumbass!' he called up to Sam.

'Sir, my name isn't Dumbass!'

The line of thought when I wrote this was 'What rhymes with "Master Chief" that would be hilarious?' Of course, 'Master Beef' was the spectacular end result. His pink rabbit costume was just another result of the mounting ridiculousness...

There was a knocking at the automatic door (is that bloody possible?). Dumbass...er...I mean Sam...opened it. Then they flooded in; ghostly figures in black that glided across the room and surrounded him. 'We come in the peace and the harmony of the Universe,' one sang in a high voice. 'Stay calm as we melt your...BRAIN!!!' The last word was particularly high and screechy and the huge glass panel smashed, causing Sam to fall to his doom. What a dumbass...

Luckily, the few nuns that fell through with him ended their lives with a sticky splat, but Pitri and Beef were running out of time. 'Quick sir!' said Pitri. 'This way!' The two of them ran through an automatic door (which apparently you can knock) and Beef knelt down to tie his bootlace. Pitri ran on ahead, but the nuns' echoing voices made his head explode.

'Bugger!' exclaimed Beef. Now he had no weapons and, because Pitri was gone, no shield either. The nuns had probably engulfed his tea tray. He looked back through the door window. NO!! They were using it to have a tea party! They had those cursed china toy cups and saucers too!

'Would you like some tea, Maggie?' one sang. 'Yes please!' chirruped another.

This whole thing was a disaster! Maybe if he looked into his new costume he would find help. NOOOOOOOOOOOO! It was a fluffy pink bunny costume rented from WarrenWorld Theme Park! The best thing he could do was to take a sharp turn left and go through the girls' bathroom.

And so it continued...

'Beeeeeef!' came a deep, irritated voice from one of the other cubicles. Beef plodded through the cubicles following the voice until he opened the final cubicle door and there was a head sticking out of the toilet. 'Beeeeeef! You made it!'

'What the fuck are you doing in there?'

'It's a long story,' said the captain. 'But I'll bore you with it anyway!'

After some confusion, Bore-Tana and Master Beef found themselves stuck in Gecko 4-19 with Poo Whammer and five mindless Marines. One, called Billy, had a perpetual smile and wouldn't take his eyes off Beef. 'I have new socks on!' he grinned, revealing red socks with some balloons on.

'Right, you motherfuckers, get off my Pelican! I have work to do!' The metallic ship suddenly went on a slant and the seven of them slid out of the cargo bay and hit the sandy ground hard. As Gecko 4-19 flew off, another Pelican landed and dropped off five more Marines.

'Wahoo! All right! Let's party!' The ten of them started doing the conga as Master Beef and Bore-Tana watched in dismay.

Beef armed himself with his assault rifle and followed them, keeping his distance.

He rubbed his hands together. 'Oohoohoo, this'll be fun!' He climbed in and made doubly sure that he found the turret switch while Sam got in beside him. 'Here comes Master Beef, protector of the universe that's not even worth saving!' He laughed loudly. 'Ooooooooh, it has machine guns, too!'

The tank, in all its half glory, rolled over and crushed the landscape, proudly and merrily. The three comrades sang true patriotic songs ('The wheels on the tank go round and round...') as they aimed for nowhere in particular.

'Brghgeehfghe!'

'What was that?'

'What?'

'Brhghefhghe!'

'The door, it's...opening!'

'God, no! How can this possibly be?'

'Shut up, Jenkins!'

'Brhghegfhdgfdgehghe!'

'Argh! It's on my face! It's small and brown and tasty and it's attacking me! Argh!'

'Haha!'

'Shut up Jenkins and fire your weapon! No, Jenkins, don't pick your nose again. What the--argh!'

'Hello, Mr Small Round Person! Wha? Get away from me! I don't like you! Argh!'

>>>UNEXPECTED HALT X. BLOCKBUSTER NOTICE: DAMAGED TAPE FINE $10. PLEASE VISIT US AGAIN SOON.

The Crud

Beef took his helmet off. 'That was odd.'

'Brhhghgefhehhghe!'

'What the--'

'Brghghghfhfhghfhfgmmmmmmmmm!'

'Uh oh...'

Suddenly, small, round, brown creatures came oozing through the doors.

'M...M...' Beef stuttered.

They crawled and bounced closer towards him; he armed himself with his assault rifle.

'Muffins!'

One of them lunged at his mouth and exploded in his fur.

'Oh my fuck, they're double chocolate!' He fired rapidly at them; dozens of chocolate explosions alerted more of them, and soon all six doors became muffin entrances.

He turned to the door he had originally come through. There, stood the Sarge of the previous gang, but he wasn't the old Sarge. He was...one of them. There was a strenuous fart, a constipated sounding wheeze and the mutated Crud-form Sarge lunged himself at Beef.

The shotgun was always the answer to everything.

Beef escaped while he could, running through the continuous waves of Crud, who had conveniently starting appearing since they were introduced to the storyline. Beef encountered countless muffins, Crud-Marines and even Crud Nuns. The most horrific of all, though, were the huge muffin-headed ones that stupidly fell over and exploded, scattering dozens of new muffins.

(I later used the muffin on the right of the image above as an avatar on a message board. Eyebrows were raised, questions were asked, and, well, the muffin became an integral part of my dazzling persona. That, ladies and gentlemen, is why Amelia calls me 'muffinkid'.)

Suddenly, a microwave started to hover over his head. 'Greetings!' it said in an accent that was supposed to be English but you could tell it was American. It pinged, its door flung open and a pie went flying into a huddle of nearby muffins. 'I am 343 Salty Mark. This has got out of hand. I ask you to come with me, but in the end you haven't really got a choice, because I'll just teleport you anyway. Come.'

There was some yellow ambience and the two of them disappeared.

'Beef?' came the voice of Poo Whammer on the radio. 'Beef, I've lost your signal! Beef? Beef! Haha, sucker.'

343 Salty Mark, also known as The Microwave, was the result of a conversation with my brother as I was playing the final level of Halo, jumping around and throwing grenades into things. He commented on how he thought it was all very unfair on Guilty Spark and the Sentinels, because they were just trying to protect themselves. I asked how the machines had formed, not really knowing the background to the game in much detail. He replied, 'I don't know, they evolved from microwaves or something.'

We laughed.

Then Salty Mark remembered that the Crud were lurking closely. 'We must avoid the you-know-what,' he said. 'I am not a public cafeteria and do not have enough pies for all of them!'

Beef took a book off one of the shelves.

Salty Mark Snacks
The Definitive
Salt Snack Guide

'You're an author?' Beef asked.

'I prefer to think of myself as a chef, but yes, if that's what you want me to be.'

'Actually, I couldn't care less.' said Beef. 'I'm just trying to make small conversation for the hell of it.'

'Debt Reclaimer?'

'Yeah?'

'You are an ass.'

''K.'

Bananas and Laxatives was never properly completed, although I did start writing the sequel, Bananas and Laxatives 2: Fragmentation Memories, supposedly the 'third person' diaries of Master Beef chronicling the events that took place after Beef returned home. It was to feature the return of such characters as the Convent, Sam and Salty Mark, along with new characters such as Lara Schmoft, Captain Knees, a talking walrus taking residence at WarrenWorld themepark, and Master Cheese. Most of the ideas I had for the sequel were jotted down on several post-it notes that I still have. A third story was also considered, a Matrix parody in which Beef wasn't even the main protagonist, but was to die spectacularly at the end.

But...it wasn't to be, and Bananas and Laxatives was abandoned after a rather nonsensical final chapter for the original story was posted on a message board and completely ignored, revealing Halo and the events surrounding it as a huge conspiracy staged by a massive laxatives company.

And, well, I quite liked writing about the character of the hilariously named Master Beef. And so I continued to do so.

Labels: a history of development, agaffa, bananas and laxatives, excerpts, halo, i am the ramblemaster, the aberration, videogames

# posted by Chris @ 12:06 AM 0 comments

In a world of clichés -- no, cliché is a word tired from use, and I shall not use it here. In a world of IMITATION, there are few who truly seek innovation. The world is trapped in a state in which people find comfort in the done-before, and it is their undoing. There are few who dare to transcend the insipid commonplace, and I am one of those few. I have shown that confirmity is oppression. And thus they have elected me as PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.

A monologue I'm working on for a friend. With more artistic/designer stereotype ramblings as above, and accompanied by a few visual gags, hopefully I'll be able to make something quite interesting.

I've got quite a lot of new stuff planned for the near and not-so-near future. A while back, I said I'd say a few words about this idea I've had for a novel, which I've for over a year but haven't really started writing yet. It's been slowly evolving and changing in my mind all this time. So a teaser for that is on its way.

I'll also be starting a big blog feature soon, in which I'll attempt to answer a stupid question. That's going to require some deep digging into dark and secret places of the past.

Work on the next chapter of one of the three stories in the prosefolio has begun. Which one it is, you'll just have to wait and see. Ideally, that'll be up by the end of April.

And...there's also a possible something else. But, my lips are sealed.

Labels: excerpts

# posted by Chris @ 1:15 PM 0 comments