Hi all. I’m getting ablated tomorrow. It’s a standard procedure, http://www.bhf.org.uk/heart-health/treatment/ablation.aspx but I will be going under general anaesthetic for some hours, and given my usual fear of death and dicky ticker I think it’s quite reasonable that, in the event of my demise (about a 1% chance), I write a list of all the amazing things I planned to achieve. (See gigs page for gigs that may have to be cancelled)

Canadian tour of ‘Big Heart’ (Summer 2013 – not bought plane tickets yet, just in case)
‘Utter!’ Who (Nov 2013)
‘Utter!’ 10th anniversary shows & anthology (2014)
Show: ‘What the Fuck is This?’ (Edinburgh 2014)
E-book: ‘Not worth wasting a tree on’ (2014)
Richard Tyrone Jones Decodes his own Genome (show, 2015-16)
First poetry collection ‘DRKG’ (Faber, 2015)
Another series of Richard Tyrone Jones’s Big Heart on radio 4.
Buying a flat in Deptford and watching the value skyrocket as the Chinese take over.
Meeting and marrying a tiny girl of exotic ancestry with a long thin nose, round head, and assymetrical face.
Dune! The Musical.
Novel ‘Quarters’ (at the moment, in my head a kind of social science-fiction anti-Harry Potter about in/out groups, with advanced game theory instead of magic).
A Ritchie Scurvey sitcom set in 2004
‘Cunts like us’: sitcom set in Shoreditch/Dalston (Channel 4)
Sequels to ‘Quarters’ of ever-decreasing quality: ‘eighths’, ‘sixteenths’, ‘thirty-secondths’ etc, featuring the main characters’ children, grandchildren and so on
‘Great-Grandfather’: a film about a great-grandfather whose children and grandchildren are all suddenly killed, and he has to look after all of his great-grandchildren (not sure if comedy or tragedy yet).
‘Clown vs Clown’: A killer clown in a provincial town starts abducting children, and the local children’s entertainer is blamed! Can our hero clear his name, defeat his double, and rescue the children? (SPOILER ALERT! No he can’t, they’re all dead.)
Some kind of spoken word/clunkstep album.

In a way, it’ll be a shame if I don’t die now, as if I live I’ll actually have to go ahead and attempt to do these things, and possibly fail, whereas dead people and the things they could have done are invariably amazing, aren’t they?

My body is donated to medical science, as I do not intend to stop being an exhibitionist in death.

Love you all (except you X, you’re a total wassock).

Hey folks.

Well this is it! It’s all really happening – scripts have gone through Radio 4 compliance and tomorrow we start three days of recording at @topdogradio’s HQ in Leamington Spa. We’ve already had a read-through. Photo & Top Dog Blog here. Here’s the main cast list!

Richard Tyrone Jones, a conceited and ginger poet – himself. @rtjpoet

Sofia, a bibliophiliac Scottish nihilist and Francophile – Katie Bonna @katiebonna

Jacob (previously Gareth) Lewis: a morbidly excitable publisher and lawyer with a thick South Welsh valleys accent – Nigel Barrett

Prof Hu, a doctor of Chinese heritage – Lobo Chan

cameos:
Episode 1: Paul Birtill, a very depressing Scouse poet – himself.
Episode 2: Mixy Riccardi from Dead Poets – Coke Man @mixyric
Episode 3: Richard Sandling – Spak Whitman, host of WORDSOANGRY open mic. @squatbetty

Some of you have been asking me how the hell I managed to get a spoken word sitcom on Radio 4 anyway. Good question. So good in fact that I’ll have to write a separate blog entry on the long answer. But in the meantime, here’s the second-round pitch that won us the deal. When #rtjbigheart is broadcast on 14th, 21st and 28th July, 19.15 hours, just after the Archers, however, you’ll see that we had to make a lot of changes to the proposal. Not just changing the names (slightly) to protect the literary.

Richard Tyrone Jones’s Big Heart on Radio 4 – Three x 11.30am 28 minute episodes.

The set-up: Richard Tyrone Jones, healthy, gym-going poet, man about town and aspirant womaniser, finds himself, on his thirtieth birthday, stricken by an unexpected present: heart failure. Confined to hospital with a a dilated, literally-big heart, surrounded by old men, stuck on drugs and drips and forced to cope with curious medical procedures and even curiouser fellow patients, will he die, or worse, be doomed to life in a mobility scooter at home with his parents in Dudley?

Can he pull through, with the help of Poetry, cod philosophy, and friends – nihilistic Sophia, who tries to cheer his spirits with books by Houellebecq and Lovecraft, and his dour Welsh publisher / solicitor Gareth, who is in charge of his will, but might actually sell more books if he dies?

Will having a Big Heart shrink his romantic possibilities? And what of the (twelve) children Richard ‘fathered’ as a sperm donor at university – will he survive to meet them? And if he does, has he inadvertently passed on his big heart to these ‘biokiddies’?

Based on the true-life, four-star Edinburgh show (“fascinating, sobering, hilarious, and ultimately uplifting” – New Scientist) Big Heart is recorded live in front of a studio audience, but with play-in scenes from studio recordings. Featuring special humorous guest poets, each episode will illuminate a different aspect of the experience of illness and facing your own mortality with a sense of humour. Half-way between a sitcom and real-life storytelling, Richard will explain some of his illness’s progression through direct address and his own poems which, containing unexpected metaphors and similes, nevertheless clearly progress and explain the story of what actually happened to him, while communicating the more universal experience of facing a life-threatening medical condition.

The humour springs from Richard’s wry, sideways, poetic looks at the changes crashing in on his life, the verbal sparring with the friends who support him with their own grim humour, and how the indignity of his condition contrasts with his own self-image: particularly when trying to find romance against all odds. Each episode ends with both resolution and cliffhanger, so can be listened to independently.

Characters: Richard Tyrone Jones, titular hero and real person. Born in Dudley, he’s spent his whole life trying to prove he is an intellectual; by using his middle name, escaping to London and becoming a poet. He also fancies himself as a Byronesque ladies’ man (wrongly). Each episode, Richard attempts a romantic conquest with nurses, poets, Sophia, but is cruelly frustrated by different aspects of his health condition making themselves known: his heart stopping, an angiogram, defibrillation, etc. An indefatigable poet, he is always looking for a way to wring some profound writing from his experiences. Or at least a crap limerick.

Sophia is Richard’s best female friend. Foxy and husky, everyone thinks they should go out… until they talk to her in depth, for she’s also nihilistic, dreamy and overly intellectual to the point of celibacy – Richard calls her his ‘anti-girlfriend’. Men often try to chat her up before realising her unattainability. She tries to cheer Richard up by bringing him obscure tomes from her publishing career but often ends up frustrating him due to her abstracted, idiosyncratic ways and crushes on unattainable French intellectuals.

Gareth is Richard’s publisher, but also his lawyer. He is cynical, venal and has a very dry sense of humour. Richard finds all this amusing, but sometimes Gareth just goes too far. Richard often tries to use Gareth as a wingman, but is let down by his lack of social skills. He is from the valleys, with a very rich South Wales accent, but now lives in Luton where he chases ambulances and the next big things in poetry.

Other characters include Rob, who read a tribute at Richard’s funeral, guest poets including Paul Birtill, other patients including Coke Man, various nurses, doctors and geneticists who may or may not be able to put his mind at rest about whether he is going to die, have an inherited condition, or retain his libido…

Episodes:
1. Crisis. Feeling awful, Richard drags himself to a poetry gig but, spluttering and coughing throughout, is forced off stage by a huge migraine. Soon bed-ridden on the cardiac ward, Richard looks back, with Gareth and Sophia’s help, to work out how he ended up there. In hindsight, it’s easy to regret the things you could have done to prevent a health crisis – not holding your own funeral for your 30th birthday… having your friends read tributes to you (with an extract)… or ignoring the phleghm thick as a McDonald’s milkshake.

Richard describes his echocardiogram in a poem filled with inappropriate film metaphors, answers endless questions and then, when it seems like he’s slightly improving… his heart stops. Unlike Fabreze Muamba, unfortunately there are no spectators there to see it happen… luckily, it is in poetry form. Richard survives to accept that things could be worse, as Gareth proves when he brings in the most morbid poet in the world as a visitor. ‘Crisis’ focuses on the shock of your whole self-image being suddenly turned upside-down, but beginning to find acceptance. (Script draft already complete).

2. Of coke dealers & cardioverters. What are the causes of Richard’s heart failure? After Gareth puts Dennis Potter-like ideas in his head, will a beautiful nurse bring about a ‘Singing Detective’ fantasy? What will the angiogram reveal? Richard is beaten to the title of youngest cardiac patient in the hospital – but who is ‘Coke Man’ and what does he want? After meeting the literally-titled ‘Heart Failure Nurse’, might an implantable cardioverter defibrillator be the answer to Richard’s prayers – or, as he can still barely walk, is leaving hospital as a patched-up, rusty cyborg just the beginning of his troubles? First, another drug gives him the blessing of the longest pee of his life. Ep.2 is about the amazing diversity of the human body and the astounding number of ways it can make you feel disgusting and messed up…

3. A convoluted convalescence. Richard is now free of hospital but trapped in his own exhausted body – and worse, in his home town of Dudley. Will visits from Sophia and Gareth relieve the boredom? Is his condition genetic, passed down to his doomed ‘biokiddies’? Can he fight his way back to health via a montage, or are drugs the only thing that can end disability? (No, don’t know, no, and yes.) As he improves, Richard tries to impress a mysterious Italian girl, getting carried away dancing with Gareth in a Wolverhampton nightclub, but soon finds out what it’s like to be electrocuted by a malfunctioning second heart.

Ruminating, back in hospital, on the limitations of the ‘new normal’, Richard may now be practically immortal, but, put on pills including rat poison, digitalis and viagra for the rest of his life, can a cyborg feel emotion and is his heart, ironically, now too big to find love? As he explains to Sophia that sperm donation is probably the only way he’ll ever breed, and the results of his genetic tests, will they answer that question? And if they can’t, will a kiss from Sophia? Probably not. Ep. 3 shows how we’re all at the mercy of medical science and genetic codes, and how our will power may have no control over our well-being.

The Talent: Writer, originator and performer Richard Tyrone Jones was once part of ‘Fat Fat Pope’, a Cambridge Footlights offshoot and ‘God’s Gift to comedy’ (The Observer), with ‘more talent in their little pinkies than a month of stand-up hacks’ (The List). Since switching to poetry and storytelling, Richard has run ‘Utter!’ spoken word in London and Edinburgh for nine years, published two books and won ThreeWeeks magazine’s ‘Editor’s Choice’ award. ‘Big Heart’s Wellcome Trust-supported stage show gained 4-5 star reviews. www.richardtyronejones.com/bigheart

Producer Nick Walker co-wrote and performed three series of The Bigger Issues on Radio 4 between 2000 and 2004, gaining some fantastic reviews, not least from John Peel who cited it as his favourite comedy of 2000. It is currently enjoying re-runs on BBC 7. Nick also has two published literary novels and wrote Radio 4 drama Messages to a Submariner and forthcoming serial The Further Adventures of the King of Mars.

Guest poets will include poet & playwright Paul Birtill, Rob Sears of Fat Fat Pope and hopefully, as Coke Man, Scroobius Pip.

Big Heart is a series, not a serial, each episode of which will work well standing alone, as every technical aspect of his illness is only mentioned if relevant to that episode. Richard’s personal situation always returns to the same point – lonely, sick but supported by his strange friends and, though poetically complaining, doggedly determined to make the best of his situation. If listened to together, they show a series of lessons in coming to terms with living with illness which, in our world of improving medical science keeping us alive longer, are relevant whatever your age…

The return of ‘Utter!’ – ‘Utter!’ Shite!

Well, #rtjbigheart for Radio 4 is cast, with me as me, Fringe First winner Katie Bonna as my antigirlfriend Sofia, Nigel Barrett as Gareth Lewis, Lobo Chan as Professor Hu (he was in Johnny English 2), Nina Ludovica Smith, Sarah Belcher, Nayashi Hatendi, Olivia Witteringham, Richard Kidd, with cameos from Mixy from Dead Poets, Richard Sandling as Spak Whitman and the most miserable poet in the world, Paul Birtill, as himself. We’re doing a read-through on Wednesday and recording in May!

UPCOMING GIGS – ‘UTTER!” SHITE!

It’s been well over a year since the last London ‘Utter!’ spoken word event. But I hope you’ll come and help me celebrate my 33 1/3 birthday and the closing of the first third of my life with a celebration of 33 1/3 of my favourite acts doing Shite poetry, poetry about shite, and about when life is shite on Saturday 27th April at the Star of Kings, 126 York Way, N1.
Here’s the FACEBOOK EVENT: please ATTEND and INVITE FRIENDS!
https://www.facebook.com/events/123581181166879/

Commencing at 3pm with £50 BAR TAB BINGO to get the party started, and going on till late!
Hosted by me, Richard Tyrone Jones, and friends.

With interludes and after-show DJing from Dave Bryant playing SHITE one hit wonders & novelty 33 1/3 records from the last fifty years… his blog is

http://left-and-to-the-back.blogspot.co.uk/

Lineup including Tim Wells, Lee Nelson, Dildo Dando, James Ross, Mel Jones (if she hasn’t got the shits), Dan Simpson, Leanne Moden, Alan Wolfson, Jude Cowan, Alain English, Dave Bryant, Mark Dean Quinn, Paul Birtill, Spinmaster Plantpot, and Christian Ward (probably).

More TBC plus open mic. If you’d like to perform, please email me your shite poem. Who knows, perhaps Ritchie Scurvey might even turn up, given recent events?

So come along. I promise it will be the best ‘Utter!’ Shite you’ve ever been to. Entry £3.33. Bar does food!

3. BIG HEART at CHELMSFORD POETRY FESTIVAL, Friday April 26th has been postponed till next year due to their main sponsor going bust.

4. WHAT THE F*CK IS THIS will be on at 10.30pm on the 29th, 30th and 31st July at the Etcetera Theatre, Camden, as part of the Camden Fringe. Tickets aren’t available yet but put it in your diary!
And as ever you can buy my books, read poems & see upcoming gigs at www.richardtyronejones.com – with my videos, poems and blog. Let me know what you think of it…

If you read this far, contact me with a word that rhymes with Thatcher and the best one wins three free tickets to ‘Utter!’ Shite.

So, here are the 25 poems I wrote in less than 25 hours at Mark Watson’s 25 hour show raising funds for @rednoseday – I was only there and writing for 12 1/2 – a fair compromise, I think, given that at Mark’s last ‘long show’ in 2009, I organised a 24-hour ‘Perpetual Motion’ machine – people reading Andrew Motion’s works in shifts – and a few months after developed heart failure. I’m not blaming Mark for me almost dying – but it probably was one of the causes.

Anyway, massive thanks to all my supporters and those at the show who gave me poem title ideas! We broke my target and raised £232.25 plus change donations. And you can still give at http://my.rednoseday.com/sponsor/richardtyronejones Some of the poems explain some of the crazy things people did: see http://www.rednoseday.com/whats-going-on/mark-watsons-25-hour-comedy-marathon. The whole night raised in the region of £50,000 for goats, malaria pills and Lenny Henry’s STD treatment (see poem below). Most of it was rich people showing off, but it’s all for a good cause.

1. Anonymous Sponsored £15.00 – not all the poems are going to be limericks, by the way.

Oh you cheeky Anonymous Hackers

 

3. For Gomboo: Can I get a limerick on the free-time habits of an ex-pope? Hell yeah!

A thin thin old ex-pope named Benedict

sprouted devil horns, just like a heretic

till two prog-rock poachers

ground one up for a potion,

and used the other one as a theremin.

4. Lara Sponsored £10.00

If you wrote me a poem would it be about breasts and James Bond? I hope so.

Lara, for you it would also be a sonnet.

 

The latest Bond girl is… a psychiatrist

The name is breasts, James Br – er, I mean Bond,

I like them shaken. Pushed up. Clad in silk.

Coated in gold. Or cream. Whatever, I’m fond.

Sorry? Did I not taste my mother’s milk?
M’s for mother? Thought it stood for Murder -

So my surrogate family’s MI6?

And Q equips me, like an absent father?

And running from my death I flee to sex?
The classic Eton profile. Psychopath.

I’m making sure to look you in the eyes.

I’m trying hard to choke derisive laughs.

The only breast I ever loved has died;

 

My greatest enemies, my closest friends,

the only things I ever loved are death’s.

 

‘it’s a condom that makes you last longer, Bond. It’s from Poundland’

5. Richie Brown Sponsored £20.00

I’m gonna be nasty and ask for a pantoum about Khartoum. You’d better hope you get 25 bigger donators or that’s your brief

 

Khartoum Pantoum

WHITE NILE’S RUNNING THROUGH MY MIND… WHITE NILE…

Flows away, cooling the heart of Khartoum,

New hotels glistening, blooming, five star style

In oil-drenched soil. The populace balloons,

 

Flows through, to pump the new heart of Khartoum,

named for its shape, the Elephant’s trunk tip,

now gushing oil. The populace cartoons,

a gulp, once taken, cannot be unsipped.

 

Named for its shape, the Elephant’s trunk tip,

known for its grass-snakes: Arafat, Bin Laden.

The Gulf, once opened, cannot be re-zipped,

Remember this is desert, not a garden.

 

Blown up for the Wanted, Arafat, Bin Laden,

New hotels listening, shivering, five star style

For the return of desert to the garden.

WHITE NILE’S… RUNNIN’ THROUGH MY MIND… WHITE NILES…

8. For Bernadette Reed

Richard I am sponsoring you for £5.00 to write a poem about the pharmaceutical industry and how it ‘answers’ questions that it makes sure keep on coming. Cheers Bdette x

I’m afraid Bernadette, given I didn’t have the internet at the show, or access to Ben Goldacre’s ‘Bad Science’, I didn’t have the information to properly fulfill the commission. However, while Bernadette is an alternative therapist, and I am a confirmed empiricist with the pacemaker & meds to prove it, I thought I’d come at it from a different angle…

 

It has some use…

My ex comes to visit every couple of weeks,

for a chat, a quick hug, and a kiss. On the cheeks.

She drops in. I’m on her route home, though no longer her route to one,

I keep in touch although my mates say I should make her do one.

She talks about her course on reiki and crystal healing,

I of my clinical trials into the neurological basis of feeling.

We’re still friends, it was a joint decision,

but she’d view any trial resumption with derision.

Her heart is warm, if covered with fairies

Her hands lukewarm – noli me tangere.

So each time she pops in, I make sure I’ve washed up

putting myself into it, then rinsing, cup to cup

so that as she puts her lips to her cup of herbal tea

I kiss her again – via homeopathy.

 

 

9. A clerihew for Zach Braff (who we killed on twitter when he wouldn’t visit the show, and was later spotted eating fish & chips)

 

RIP Zac Braph,

whose performances generated more energy than a Van de Graf.

But he scorned #25hours, so let this be a parable -

we made him choke on mackerel.

 

 

10. Beverley Hills chihuahua (for Ollie F)

The man who watched Beverley Hills Chihuahua

for a day, felt like he’d been deflowered

by the pack of toy dogs

crushed inside his mind’s cogs

But no-one can say he’s a coward.

 

11. The world’s longest hug

(((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((HUG)))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))inappropriate erection))))))))))))))))))))x))

 

12. When zombies ate Aberysthwyth

The flesh-eating Zombies of Aberystwyth

chose their victims based solely on dick width.

They moaned ‘boners!’ not ‘brains’

raided schools, homes and trains,

till its blokes all had naught left to piss with.

 

12. Never enough cake (not that good to be honest)

    ‘I’ve never seen so much cake in my life…’

    Gemma from Exeter – at 3pm, exit her.

    ‘She’s bought that much cake, give her a wristband’.

    One that will no longer fit.

    But you can have too much cake –

    there’s almost a whole fat person’s worth left

    I tell you who just can’t get enough.

    Depeche Mode. Let them eat cake.

12. Woman in a bath

Woman in a bathtub, I know, I know it’s serious

My my my my my my fingers are prunes

Woman in a bathtub your situation’s precarious

My my my my my your tootsies are cold

 

She’s been livin’ in a bath

She’s been livin’ in a cardboard bath

(It’s very strong cardboard).

 

I found it hard to find enough things to do

in Bath for five hours,

let alone a bath for 25.

Still, it makes the rest of Norwich

seems interesting.

 

 

12. 800 balloons and no helium

It’s the Johnny Cash song they suppressed

Equivalent to Bowie’s ‘The Laughing gnome,’

Cash is a hard-luck, working class cowboy

drunk-punches his boss, has to leave the land

Become a children’s entertainer.

Now he finds himself in an empty hall, surrounded

by eight hundred balloons and no helium

crushed by the rising price of floating -

- crushed by the man -

With echoes of Fulsom County Prison Blues

and despite the eccentric subject matter

he’s just about about to pull it off, before

the final verse, in which, without consent

the helium arrives, too late to save the party,

his voice is suddenly sped up, Chipmunk-style

and June Carter enters the hall berating him

you washed-up drunk! you old pathetic clown!

 

 

 

12. The tyranny of time (for Kate, who was part of the Perpetual Motion machine)

Why don’t we do this more often?

Why can’t every day be a #25hours day?

Why can’t every month be Edinburgh?

Time has a strong arm: it has all the time in the world.

The tongue in the skull that the clock ticks out

Is like being hit in the face by a pie on the hour, every hour,

as the piano player gets faster and faster – for

The real life in real life is just the tip of an iceberg finger,

the end of the wand that has the magic in,

and is over in an eyeblink, short as a night’s sleep.

 

12. Two Scottish red noses in space (For Mark Cunningham)

Equal Opportunities in the Scottish Space programme

Twa alkies in a tin can

metaphorically

Twa alkies in a tin can

literally

Where once the earth span round for them

waiting to hurl

Now they spin round the Earth

waiting for the slingshot to hurl them away.

Red noses burst by pressure,

not by booze

And soon Mars looms,

a huge red nose.

 

They remember Alex Salmond’s proud hand-shake

how MSPs waved them off from Cape Moray

how stages dropped away, drained of oil

slur of how they fell for a Government experiment.

Still, someone has to investigate

the effects of alcohol in space.

If only there was a hostel

on Phobos or Deimos

If only there was love outside

not a vacuum

 

And as they fall into orbit in the Kuyper belt,

realise there was never meant to be a Homecoming

 

 

 

12. James the Busker – who spent 29 hours busking

 

Brave endurance busker, James Farrimond

(Whose favourite font’s probably Garamond)

had numb legs, so freezing

he was thinking of leaving

but Mark’s enthusiasm transfusion meant he carried on.

 

19. Love sonnet for Gemma & Chris

 

Gemma de Niro’s streaming, talking Italian;

With Stevenage’s @only1jones tuned in

a bored, insomniac rapscallion

‘Who judges the judges?’ Why, it’s him.

 

And he judged she looked good, so he sent

one tweet ‘is she single’? Emma Kennedy

replied ‘She likes you. Report to the tent.’

You know the one, red with a smell of wee.

 

So when he got the train down to Islington

Both were glad of this curse of insomnia,

cos they hit it off, got this romantic business on

because at Mark’s shows… Amor vincit omnia.

 

But alas, before Gemma got to know him

He fucked off, to commission this poem.

 

20. Medium sized dog acts as a metaphor for a large dog. For Tom Phillips.

After Winston Churchill

 

I am being stalked by a medium-sized black dog.

I am being stalked by a dog-sized medium – black magic.

I am being stalked by a small black dog that dreams itself a medium dog:

I am swamped by its baggy magic costumes.

I am being dogged by a medium sized-stalk. It shags my leg black.

I am doggedly being with a medium sized blackleg. We magic.

I am a magic dog. We are medium-size legged black stalk-beings.

I am being stalked by a size dog.

In being, I am. Stalk a black medium, doggledy, dog.

I am dog-sized magic. Warm turds blacklegs.

We am magic turds. Medium magic turds.

I stalk through medium black magic dream-turd beings;

the medium is the stalking dog.

 

 

21. Iambic pentamer including the phrase ‘sex nose’, for Dec Munroe.

I done a pantoum

 

40 red nose days

Lenny Henry is wearing his sex nose.

He’s doing charity sex for forty days.

As he French kisses fat girls their necks glow

He’s off cross country-skiing with two gays.

 

He’s doing charity sex for forty days.

The venue is his home town, Dudley’s, zoo.

He’s off cross country-skiing with the gays.

He’s overcome his fear of smell of poo.

 

The venue is his home town, Dudley’s, zoo.

dressed as a lion, fucking Tracey Ullman.

Coming tears of fear over lion poo.

Henry’s pulling more trains than a Pullman.

 

Dressed as a lion, he’s fucking himself up, man

doing charity sex for forty days.

As he French kisses fat girls their legs go.

O, Lenny Henry’s worn-out red sex knows.

 

22. For Mhairi McGhee – another sonnet

Reality TV is ethnography,

And I don’t just mean My big fat gipsy wedding.

-except it bunks, not debunks, myths of geography

it’s unlikely they’ll follow the glam male slags of Reading.

Chelsea, Essex – they’re not tropical

jungles, cut off from the world’s hive-mind

though although their cannibalism’s merely metaphorical,

Each’s clique’s about the size of African tribes.

But that earlier ‘reality’, Big Brother

introduced TV to heroes with orange faces

Soon the Only Way was Essex or The Other

If you voted out the wrong culture, you were racist.

And the world, and all tribes in it, showed disgust.

Reality TV’s ethnography; discuss.

 

 

23. Daffodils ‘Version’ – self-plagiarism for Elizabeth Cirio

 

the wind farm gazes out to sea, hands casting benison on the sheep being transported to die in Caerwent’s non-Roman arenas. Screwing themselves deeper into the landscape with each turn of their petals. The odd one halt, standing to attention. Slowly slowing down the world-wide wind. Black sheep silhouette on the hillside. Beating nothinghood into electric submission. Bended scythes threating absence into power. With the surefootedness of canoodling words. On the hillside behind, in March, sprout, Nature’s touching faint echo, springs of pale assenting daffodils, nature guided by the cyclops eyes of their elder brothers. Oh yoga class of skirl-armed derricks! O wells of clean odourless oil! Spin, spin like dandelion clocks in God’s breath, proving that he loves us, he loves us, he loves us, for it is St David’s Day!

 

24. J. Edgar Hoover clerihew – for Rebecca

J. Edgar Hoover

Saw himself as an American society’s improver

Until Mike Tyson

Caught him dressed as a woman sucking himself off with a Dyson.

 

25. I don’t want to sleep, I want to go on an adventure with you

    (title suggestion by ‏@Mr_Ydir – I didn’t write about the show, because the poem itself would have ended up about 25 hours. I took it to the personal with another goddamn sonnet…)

You know them. Annoying loving couples,

Tongues dancing like two epileptic slugs

Nibbling on each other’s waxy lugholes,

hands up each other’s underwear like Muppets.

Splashing cash in pubs, acting profligate

causing cash and pheremone inflation,

practically practising mutual masturbation.

It’s enough to make you wish you’re celibate,

but not quite enough to stop you watching

 

those smug, faded, wrinkled thirty-somethings

imagining they’ll soon be dirty humping

on beds who posts bear far too many notches

I’d like to cut their hearts out, hobble them

Worst thing is – you and I are one of them.

 

If Adrian Sztucki would like to contribute I will happily still write his suggestion to:

Write a poem about inbreeding in the immigrant Romanian dog community and I will give you nothing. But teach me how to write a poem about the inbreeding in the immigrant Romanian dog community and I will be able to feed my family for 47 minutes.

 

Ladies and gentlemen, as a break from all the incessant plugging of my solo tour show ‘Big Heart’, I present a true story from a healthier, more innocent time, when I was much younger, and had a lot more puff. Taken from my forthcoming autobiography ‘Richard Tyrone Jones: A Vindication’, the story of the Raspberry Blowing Competition.

Pontins, 1986, or possibly 7. We’ve been abandoned by our parents to the Bluecoats. ‘We’re going to have a…. raspberry blowing competition’! Shouts Captain Crumble, the lead entertainer. Over the last couple of days, Crumble has become like a TV personality or a pop star to us despite having, I will later realise, merely lifted his entire stage persona from Frank Spencer of Some Mothers do ‘ave ‘em.

‘We need three or four volunteers to join in.’ My hand rockets to the end of my flagpole arm and flaps there, me lifting myself as high as I can with one buttock off the floor, wriggling like a bee in a school play. Captain Crumble chooses deliberately, first a small blonde kid, one who can blow raspberries under his arms – a threat! – then a girl, and then, finally, as I doubtless shout ‘me, me, me’ – me.

My heart leaps as I walk up on stage, my mouth already beginning to salivate. What they don’t know is that I have been obsessed with blowing raspberries since I saw the Two Ronnies’ serial ‘The Phantom Raspberry Blower of Old London Town’ (written, I would later find out, by another of my favourites, Spike Milligan). Every week I would draw a comic version of what had happened in the serial, sell it to my grandparents and run round the house re-enacting it, blowing raspberries from the bottom of my lungs and the top of the stairs. And I already have very big lungs for a seven year old. I’m going to give them the raspberry of my life.

But first, the competition. The little blonde kid’s raspberry is piping, tuneful – like a fawn’s. The fat kid’s are audible squirtings coming form under his arms and I am envious because that’s a skill, like whistling, that I have never been able to master. The little girl is no threat, even aged seven I have awareness enough of gender politics to know that she has been chosen by Captain Crumble to keep all the other girls in the audience involved.

It’s mine to lose. I gasp, drawing stale smoke-hung ballroom air into my lungs like a vacuum cleaner, give a tiny pause, as if I were to commence a saxophone solo. (I really should have been learning an instrument at this point – but sadly, my parents weren’t middle class).

It’s a filthy fart rolled out like a red carpet, a steam-punk machine exhalation of enormous Victorian bellows. Dew flies everywhere and Captain Crumble tilts backward comic-nervously. They repeat: tiny warble, squit squit squit – the speccy little girl tries much harder, does slightly better, and this time, I manage to add a Buddhist-meditation undertone to the main voice of the raspberry, a prefiguring of puberty or godhead.

And the older brothers and sisters are shouting encouragement: ‘blow a proper one!’ ‘stick yer tongue out!’ ‘Make your armpit more sweaty!’ I can’t remember now if my own little sister was in the audience with them or off clambering over a diddy aeroplane without the 20p to put in it but rocking it violently anyway. I can’t remember if all parents just abandoned their kids to run around completely unsupervised in those days or just ours.

I’m slightly out of breath for the third round, but still ready to blow a wet junior alpenhorn of a rasp. But no: ‘I’m not going near him again’, Captain Crumble has decided to leave me out and run away for comic effect. I had actually showered him with spit. I am worried for a while that he is going to give it to one of the others on some conjured-up technicality, to make them feel included, that I have been too good.

But no, Crumble is a fair Captain, deserves his sobriquet as a leader of men. I am a powerhouse of poop sounds. My tongue throbs like a Harley-Davidson. It is wet and healthy as an Alsatian’s nose. Normally, I am an unsocialised, unpopular ginger kid in NHS aviator specs, but today I am not just in my element; I am the element. I am raspberry triumphant. I am sure this was both the beginning, pinnacle and climax of my stage entertainment career.

Twenty-one years later, CRB-checked and somehow given temporary custody of a bunch of 4-7 year olds, I held a raspberry blowing competition myself, under a bridge in Hoxton, ostensibly to scare away trolls. I noted with some satisfaction that none of the children were as accomplished at raspberry blowing as I had been.

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With thanks to Genetic Counsellor Marion Turnbull – click to watch the video:

The first of two videos looking at the science behind my Wellcome trust-supported show ‘Richard Tyrone Jones’s Big Heart’, with me talking to Genetic counsellor Marion Bartlett about what causes heart failure, and whether I should undergo genetic testing, or indeed be allowed near women at all.

Filmed & edited by Tracey Emin collaborator Sebastian Sharples.

Last LONDON show at the Albany next Weds 10th Oct!

Ok, so your first and last chance to see the full show in London is Wednesday 10th October, 7.30pm. Tickets are £7/5, with support from Amy Acre and ‘Utter!’ paid gig contest winners Niall Spooner-Harvey and Keith Jarrett.

The show itself’s about what I got for my 30th birthday – heart failure, features animation, anecdosage and jokes, got a raft of 4-star reviews at the Edinburgh Fringe and is “fascinating, sobering, hilarious and ultimately uplifting” (New Scientist) and “a curiously life-affirming show from a charismatic and likeable performer” according to The Skinny.

As if all that wasn’t enough, there’ll be an impromptu launch for the book in the Amersham Arms afterwards, with £150 behind the bar for crowdfunders and those with a ticket or book. So please RSVP on facebook, but more importantly:

Book tickets here! (no booking fee): www.thealbany.org.uk

The Albany, Douglas Way, Deptford, London SE8 4AG
(Box office 0208 692 4446)

The show’s in association with Apples & Snakes, with whom I am October’s Poet of the Month! Yay!

More dates coming up in October and beyond across the UK – see ‘gigs’ page to get tickets!

Sage & Time on October 17, 2012 7:45 pm

Big Heart at Brighton Comedy Festival on Sun October 21, 2012

Richard Tyrone Jones’s Big Heart – Canterbury festival on October 23, 2012 7:30 pm

Richard Tyrone Jones’s Big Heart + Matt Harvey + Harry Baker – Plymouth on October 25, 2012 7:30 pm

Big Heart Manchester (+Monkey Poet & cardiac Q&A) on Fri November 2, 2012 7:30 pm
Hammer & Tongue Cambridge on Weds November 14, 2012 7:30 pm
Richard Tyrone Jones’s Big Heart Cambridge – Holly McNish & more on Weds November 21, 2012 7:30 pm
Bilston Voices with Emma Purshouse on Thurs November 22, 2012 7:30 pm
Richard Tyrone Jones’s Big Heart + local support – Wolverhampton on Weds November 28, 2012 7:30 pm
WORD! – Leicester, + local support on Tues December 4, 2012 7:30 pm

If you’d like to book me for gigs or writing workshops (and I still have funding from Wellcome Trust to do half-price workshops for you on a biomedical theme), drop me a line at richardtyronejones@gmail.com.

It’s been a funny old Fringe, but 723 people seeing my show, ‘Richard Tyrone Jones’s Big Heart’, three four-star reviews and one award, not a bad Edinburgh really. I started off with some good pre-fringe publicity in Week 0 with an interview on Page 4 of ThreeWeeks magazine, a quote from me in The List and also in the Scotsman in an article by Jenny Lindsay (host of Utter! Scots, who’d then go on to win the BBC’s Edinburgh Poetry Slam – congratulations Jenny!) though how much of this actually translated into bums on seats is debatable.

With my friends & poets-in-crime James McKay & Lee Nelson flyering for me we got a full house for the first night on Saturday 4^th, but after that, the whole fringe was a bit dead during the Olympics. I managed to get a good techie for £10 an hour – Pete Mitchelson – but it’s surprisingly difficult to get good flyerers in Edinburgh who will commit to a particular regular time-slot, even for £10 an hour, well above the going rate! And as I had to spend the half an hour before the show setting up projector, screen and getting water to stop people fainting, when we had flyerers sorted out, we had a full house. When we didn’t, we didn’t.

The venue, the Banshee Labyrinth cinema, is a good one though it gets very very hot with more than about 45 people in it, so that the audience quietens down massively – or faints, as happened once – and gives less in the bucket. We seemed to either have a small number of people in (the smallest was 12, on the day I had no flyerers at all) or for it to be a bit too full and uncomfortable to perform in, even with the fan on. Sadly I had made the wrong choice in room in the venue. The Chamber room at the Banshee Labyrinth was available, though last time I’d been in it it had a bar in there and so limited capacity. This year, however, Ed, the manager, had really worked on it, and it had a massive screen, was much cooler and had no bar. It would have been ideal for www.patternfightperformance.com ‘s interactive projections, which were a great and much-commented upon part of my show, and in my opinion should be reserved for shows that need projections in future.

We got my new books around 3 days in and it was a lot easier to get people to give me a tenner in exchange for a book. Though most people seemed to prefer to give me a fiver for my old book instead. So much so, I began to ran out half-way through and raised it back to the cover price of seven quid… Charlotte Young’s ‘My __ died of __ and all I got was this lousy t-shirt’ didn’t sell quite as well as I’d expected, though, with two left by the end of the run.

Hardly anyone attended the accessible dates I did in Princes’ Street Mall: and disappointingly, no-one with any accessibility issues. It’s almost-impossible to flyer for the space – the Mall won’t let you flyer in the Mall – and the space is dead, acoustics and lighting-wise. I recommend the Free Fringe loses this venue and concentrates on permanent ones with a bit of soul.

There was also a complete lack of interest from the printed press. We were on the Scotsman’s list for review but then were completely ignored, even though the Scotsman did a two-page spread on Spoken Word including Ben Mellor’s deserving show Anthropoetry. So given they weren’t ignoring the Free Fringe’s Spoken Word, it seems very silly of them to ignore the show by its Head of Spoken Word, supported by Wellcome Trust, who’d later go on to win ThreeWeeks’ magazine’s Editors’ Choice Award. Even the Morning Star, who told me they’d review it, didn’t turn up despite their being at the venue. Hopefully this will be rectified at the London date – Oct 10^th at the Albany, Deptford. This meant that the positive reviews had almost no affect on the number of people who came to see the show. Neither did the advertising in ThreeWeeks daily, though.

In short, nothing works except the Free Fringe & Edinburgh Fringe brochures, flyering, people you know already coming or the odd audience member who’d seen my article in Wellcome News, or had a professional or health interest. Many of these came on the 14^th, and twelve stayed for the interesting Q&A with Edinburgh Royal Infirmary’s Head Heart Failure Nurse.

But these are the negative aspects. Most everybody who came to see the show loved it, including reviewers from first, Sabotage: then The Skinny: then Broadwaybaby: I have had offers of work from PAN, the Highlands & Islands rural touring network and Dr Claire McKechnie at Edinburgh University. Also, three different BBC radio producers came to see it and all three told me how much they enjoyed it – I’d love to turn the show into a radio show, but as programme commissioning is a notoriously difficult process so watch this space, but don’t hold your breath…

Also in the middle of the run, on the 15^th, I did something completely new. This is the second year I’ve challenged myself to write a brand new show in about three hours in the middle of the Fringe (last year, it was ‘Richard Tyrone Jones reads stuff off bits of paper’). This time, the show was called ‘What the Fuck is This?’: me saying, shouting, whispering and singing ‘What the Fuck is this’ for 57 minutes, in a variety of different styles, to a variety of different slides (most of them of Eddie Murphy), pictures, people, and cheesy chips covered in milk. The audience loved it, even the fact that the first five minutes was just me asking my own Mac ‘What the Fuck is this?’ I gave the performance of my life and approx 1/15^th of the audience wanted to sleep with me afterwards. Though I only got £40 and €5 in the bucket, like last year, I was nominated for the Existentialist review awards for the show (later losing to Barry Ferns and his children, who belong to Lionel Ritchie), whom I gave Viagra while he blew the ceremonial horn. Given that my main show has taken me two years, and this one four hours, if I return to the Fringe next year I may just do ‘What the Fuck is this’ as I’m obviously trying too hard. I may add a loop pedal so I only actually have to say ‘What the Fuck is this’ once, at the beginning.

Getting up at 6.30am on the 19^th to rush to Liverpool in the middle of the run to do DaDa (Disability and Deaf Arts) fest was a great experience, despite the venue, The Bluecoat, being almost as hot as the one in Edinburgh – and at last, some wheelies turned up! And my old friend Fun Chris. In fact, they asked me back to take part in a conference on dynamic disabilities – sadly it clashes with a wedding! Here’s a review: http://www.disabilityartsonline.org.uk/?location_id=1862

Sadly, ‘Utter!’ was almost a complete wash-out, and this was mostly my own fault for not leaving any time for flyering inbetween Big Heart and it, half an hour later. I was hoping our reputation, Edinburgh mailing list, the strength of out lineups and themes, and attendees themselves would draw in audiences. They didn’t. We paid for the flyers, and were mainly full for Utter! Scots and Utter! Salt – the ones hosted by people other than me! – but I think I was competing against myself, against all the other brilliant shows I programmed, as well as the BBC Poetry Slam, which was also free, and frankly much more exciting. I even lost all my judges due to two of them getting into the final, so a massive thank you to Monkey Poet, Jess and James who were excellent, hard but fair replacement judges. So even though I think the new formats I tried, like ‘Utter!’ Chat, worked quite well, I wasn’t able to do my own crazy ideas, like ‘Utter!’ Christmas, the justice they deserved.

Well, those were my shows. What about Spoken Word on the Free Fringe at large? Well, apart from a handful, I think myself and PBH programmed a pretty solid 50 or so shows. We at the Free Fringe were about 50% of the shows in the Official brochure’s spoken word section. Disappointments were when Sean Gittins dropped out completely without apology or explanation, and when Clara Lilly consistently overran (I overran myself, particularly into the Hull Poets’ show, but have apologised, apologise now, and never got into slanging matches with them…) another show was tragically underdeveloped. And some acts, despite doing a good show, need a masterclass in how to flyer (you CANNOT flyer with sunglasses on)!

But most shows were bloody excellent. Mixy and Rob Auton both got 5* reviews (okay, Rob reclassified himself as comedy, but I still persuaded him he was ready for a solo show so like to take some of the credit). Harry Baker, Monkey Poet’s Murder Mystery, too many to mention (and too many to actually watch), including Lucy Ayrton’s – so bloody great by all accounts, I kicked myself for programming her at the same time as me! I mentioned Ben Mellor, and at the Tea Fuelled Art slam final, as I was watching Tim Clare do his poem about a comic who wants to be taken seriously as a poet – a true tour-de-force – I was on the verge of tears, thinking about the quality of the shows the Spoken Word community has put on and how much we’ve achieved in Edinburgh. Then as I leapt up to pop outside to flyer before everyone left, Lucy Ayrton accidentally swung a bucket in my face, and I was over the verge of tears.

Massive thanks to Edd, Andrea and all the team at the Banshee Labyrinth who were kind, helpful and 100% behind what we were doing. One thing they might like to do is add air-con to the Cinema Room, if they can afford it. It’s a great room otherwise, they’ve invested a lot in the venue at large, making it a great place to do shows (it was a good place before, don’t get me wrong) and it deserves it. I’m so glad we’ll be able to come back next year: well, when I say ‘we’ I mean Spoken Word in general – I’m planning to be off in Canada but I’m so glad that Fay Roberts, Banqueting Hall Venue Captain, head of Cambridge Hammer & Tongue and my publisher www.allographic.co.uk has agreed to take over as Head of Spoken Word at the Free Fringe next year – so any applications should go to her! And a big thankyou to Alan Sharp, Venue Captain in the Cinema as well, Hitch & Mitch and the Eidnburgh Revue who were on after & before me & coped very well with my tinkering.

The worse thing at the Fringe was I lost / had my ipod stolen, probably from the Cinema Room. It could have been anyone or a member of the public who nicked it but at the end of the Fringe I found a 30GB ipod while cleaning up, so if anyone has accidentally swapped ipods, please do get in touch with me to swap them back anonymously, without recrimination… cheers! But if that was the worst thing, it wasn’t a bad fringe, was it? A final massive thank you not just to the Wellcome Trust, who helped me do my first solo show (almost) properly, and to the man himself, Peter Buckley Hill, for sixteen years of hard hard hard hard work, without which none of us would be here at all! I wish him a wonderful retirement (punctuated by enjoyable gigs & sage advice to the new committee!)

Hello folks, @rtjpoet here. It gives me great pleasure to unveil the new trailer for Richard Tyrone Jones’s Big Heart, directed by Tracey Emin-collaborator Sebastian Sharples:

Pretty good, eh? It’s just part of the media onslaught. I will also be one of Three Weeks magazine’s ‘Three to see’ in their preview edition (see an interview with me with them about Spoken Word at the Fringe here), The List have also interviewed me for their first issue, there is an article on the show in Wellcome News (download it for free here, there’s also an interesting article on aspirin), not to mention Tooting Free Press and even my Housing Co-op’s excellent in-house magazine The San although you’ll have to come round my house for a cup of tea to read that one.

There’s also an interview with me and an exclusive poem from the upcoming book in Mr Tim Wells’ latest august publication Rising, this edition of which I am sponsoring. I’ve not actually seen it yet, as I’ve been too busy to go round his house to pick some up. I am however reading poems at the launch of South Bank Poetry magazine at the Poetry Cafe, 22 Betterton Street, on Thursday 17th July, 7.30pm, which I’ve also sponsored. I could have spent loads advertising in poetry mags where no-one knows or cares who I am but I’d much rather support the poetry mags I actually read and submit to.

I’m also being represented by Steve Forster PR, but most importantly, I have engaged the best flyerer in the world – a man so in demand he’s turned down well-paid jobs for comedians he doesn’t think cut the mustard. I’m very glad I do, and am being flyered for by the Unwrong Quiz’s very own Mr @markdeanquinn.

So what I’m trying to say is, when you come along to see my show, 6pm daily Banshee Labyrinth Cinema Room, venue 156, 4th-25th Aug (not 13th or 19th) it’s not only free but also UNTICKETED so do get there early. Or come to one of my accessible afternoon dates on the 12, 18 or 25th.

And if you can’t make it to Edinburgh, most of my UK TOUR dates, surgically supported by the UK’s best spoken word acts including Matt Harvey & Holly McNish are now booked including Aberdeen (28 July) Liverpool (19 Aug), Birmingham (Aug 30) and London (10 Oct). All my dates and links to get tickets are up at www.richardtyronejones.com/gigs so do book now – or if you’re one of my beautiful crowdfunders, let me know which dates you’d like your tickets!

Well, with ‘Utter!’ spoken word at the fringe to finish programming, the book due out at the beginning of August, as well and the last preview on Wednesday 18th July in Ealing, I had better stop chatting and get on with editing the book and Powerpoint on my lousy moribund mac before the Circle of Death kicks in…

See you at the shows!

Richard Tyrone Jones