Pitching the World

Life’s tough sometimes. Luckily, I too am tough sometimes. Recently, my wife and I separated. Consequently, I have fled London and am now living in Bournemouth. I say living in Bournemouth, but it’s more squatting in Bournemouth. Bournemouth, for those who don’t know, has nice beaches, a relaxed, pleasant town centre and some of the dullest and shittest and stupidest people on the planet. I fit right in.

Luckily however, I am tough sometimes and although I may be dull and shit and stupid at the moment, I won’t be dull and shit and stupid forever. I’ve written a list, you see. At the top of the list I’ve written ‘2 Ways’ with two arrows pointing downwards. [By the way, this isn’t a very good post, is it? I think it’s been around seven weeks since my last entry and you’d probably be expecting something spectacular, and although my circumstances are spectacular – “my wife and I separated”; I’m “squatting in Bournemouth” – I’m not really doing them justice and just kind of glossing over them. Sorry about that.] The ‘2 Ways’ refers to the two different ways my life could be headed. At the end of one arrow I’ve written ‘Drink’. At the end of the other arrow I’ve written ‘Trumpet’, ‘Stoicism’, ‘Kickboxing’ and ‘Writing’.

Basically, if I continue to drink I’m in trouble. If, however, I learn to play the trumpet, practice stoicism, go kickboxing three of four times a week and spend the rest of the time writing then I’ll be fine. There’s a certain comfort there: knowing that if I do these four things then whatever life throws at me, I’ll be able to throw it right back at life.

Assuming you can be bothered, watch this space.

You’ll never guess what I’ve been up to this morning. I’ve only gone and started applying for more restaurant reviewing positions. Yes, as my breakdown-inducing deadline for this current batch (130) lurches ever closer (Sunday) and with time at a premium, I decided this morning to take a few hours off (I can’t afford to take minutes off at the moment, let alone hours) and tout myself around as an up-and-coming critic. I should be fucking locked up.

I put my loopy behaviour down to the absence of my wife, who has flown off to Hong Kong. I tend to go a bit tonto when she’s away. Yesterday I went into a Turkish barbers and theatrically instructed them to shave off all my hair. No longer do I look like an ageing Italian footballer. No, now with my skinhead I look like an egg, and not a particularly good egg. But the oddball behaviour doesn’t end with getting misjudged haircuts, applying for jobs that give me breakdowns or living solely off pate on toast and hot Ribena. Whilst reviewing a restaurant earlier today in Canonbury, the chef suggested I come in for a meal with my ‘lovely lady’. “I’d love to,” I told him “but she’s away at the moment” – and then, inexplicably, I winked at him. I don’t really know why I did this. I think somewhere in my junk shop of a mind I was trying to convey that my wife was in prison. Again, I don’t really know why. But I don’t think he got it – I don’t blame him – I think he just thought I was on some kind of spurious gay cruise.

And so it goes on. This afternoon will see me trudging the mean streets of Crouch End – to mop up the few places I haven’t reviewed. I’ve been to Crouch End several times over the last few weeks, know which restaurants I need to visit and yet I always seem to go back there. I’ll always leave a few, reasoning that I’ll do them ‘some other time’. But why? Why not just do them while I’m there – when I’m there and can actually see them – rather than thinking ‘it’s okay, I can come back’? I live a couple of miles away from Crouch End and never (apart from reviewing) have a reason to go there, yet my notebook is full of stuff like: ‘Afternoon – Crouch End?’ Or “Crouch End again toady?’ I know that I’ll go there this afternoon and leave at least one restaurant to do in my fast running out time. It’s ridiculous. And, perhaps, fitting. In fact, ‘Crouch End Again?’ could well be my epitaph.

Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in. My afflictions that is. As if being sort of fat, sort of bald, sort of mad and sort of broke wasn’t enough – and, come on, it should be more than enough – I’ve only gone and developed a twitch. My right eye’s going. My right eye has had enough and is trying to get out of me. I don’t blame it. I’d get out of me too, given the chance.

My right eye wants to go, I think, as result of my recent nervous breakdown. It happened last week on holiday. ‘Oh splendid’, I thought mid-breakdown, ‘of course who but me should be having a breakdown whilst on fucking holiday. How boringly predictable’. My breakdown was spectacularly pathetic: one moment I was sat eating breakfast, the next I was shaking, (sort of) crying, and wondering whether or not I should ask the waitress to call someone (I didn’t know who), hold me, or slap me in the face. In the end I didn’t, I just lost my mind for a couple of days and resolved to give up the booze.

Which of course I haven’t. But I am cutting down and I am addressing the root cause of the breakdown. It’s these bastard restaurant reviews. Loyal readers will remember the day when I officially received the commission and spent the afternoon watching Balls of Fury and wondering “Why? Why am I not working on this commission that took months to land?’ 

Well, it’s got worse. At the time I thought that two and a half months was ample time to conduct 130 restaurant reviews. Even if I did three or four a day they would get done with weeks to spare. Then, as time went on, the maths became tougher. Maths became my enemy. A month or so ago I was thinking ‘Well, if I do thirty-odd a week – and that’s more than manageable – then I should make it.’ Then I went on holiday and went (sort of) mad for a bit, but I was still thinking ‘Okay, I’ve fucked up, but I can still manage ten reviews a day when I get back. It’ll be tough, but it can be done.’ Now that figure is nudging up and my time is running out. What if by this time next week I’m still wrestling with the maths? ‘Right’ – and I know this is exactly what I’ll be thinking – ‘right, I’ve got three and a half days left. If I do 40 reviews a day I’ll be fine – more than fine’. And so on. Regular, loyal readers will know that the day before the deadline I’ll be sat in my sad flat wondering if I can manage 12 reviews an hour.

Why do I do this to myself? Put myself under such pressure? Partly because I’m an idiot, I think, but mainly because I know when the restaurant reviews are done the only work I have to look forward to is Pitching the World. And Pitching the World ain’t ace. I see Pitching the World as a kind of oddball son, a son who unnerves me a little and, if it were an actual son, I would keep him locked in the attic.

If anyone has a calculator, please let me know. 

A holiday, earlier

I’ve been reviewing restaurants today. It hasn’t been pretty. Throughout the day tiny insects have been falling from the sky and making me their home. I’m not sure why. They nestled in my hair, in my ears, below my eyes, in my shirt pockets. I was a bug magnet. But I didn’t know. I didn’t know until I started going into the restaurants I had to review. It wasn’t until then that these creatures decided they’d had enough of me and began to leap out. 

Like I said, it wasn’t pretty. A man fizzing with mental health issues, a spectacularly chaotic rug (if you thought my hair was bad before, you should see it now) and an unconvincing story about being the section editor of a well-regarded restaurant guide was previously enough to make the managers of the places I was reviewing to regard me with suspicion. A man with all the above but with bugs flying out of him clearly made them terrified. “Ah well,” I thought to myself as the insects dropped from me onto the floor, “this is a new low point in my life. In a life peppered with seemingly unbeatable low points, this just about trumps everything. From now on, I’ll be known in restaurant reviewing circles as the man who reviews restaurants with bugs falling out of him”.

What’s next, I wonder? Larger animals crawling out of my trousers as I try to convince my in-laws that their daughter married the right man? Stuff crawling out of my ass at the bus stop? Getting sectioned under the Mental Health Act? Nothing, frankly, would surprise me anymore. 

Whilst I drink away my problems and impress people in the pub with my bug show, here’s the reason I decided to do what I do. Arguably the greatest fictional journalist of all time.

Of course there are many good things about being a freelance writer, despite this blog relentlessly suggesting otherwise. I haven’t quite found it to be “the life of kings” as H.L. Mencken suggests, but if there weren’t parts of it that I didn’t enjoy, then why would I do it? Because I can’t do anything else? Because I either got booted out of or quit somewhere in the region of 70 jobs in the wilderness that was pre-Pitching the World? 

Partly. I do it partly because although I’m not quite good enough to do this, I’m better at doing this than I am at doing other things. Worrying, perhaps, but you should have seen me, for example, as a plasterer’s labourer. But there are other reasons.

Look down there then, and you’ll see the definitive guide to what I’m snappily calling “some good things – but not all the good things – about being a freelance journalist”:

1. Anything can happen. This is true. As a journalist you never know what’s going to happen from one day to the next. Well you sort of do, but other journalists say that you don’t so you might not do. You could get a call one morning from an editor asking you to go on an all-expenses trip to the Antarctic, or to spend six months undercover in a crack house in Tottenham, or something else equally exciting. This has never happened to me but it might do. See? Exciting. Knowing that ‘anything can happen’.

A crack house in Tottenham, earlier.

2. You get to interact with the public. Even though you may hate the public, get scared by the public or not know exactly who the public really are, you get to interact with them. Even if you just sit at home chain smoking Camels and the only public who you interact with is yourself in the mirror whilst you’re ‘trying out’ other personalities, point 2 is still a valid one.

The public, earlier.

3. You can make a difference. Whether this is exposing a scandal, helping to shape policy, or simply putting a smile on the public’s faces, journalists can and do make a difference to the world. That this journalist doesn’t – nor ever will – do any of the above is moot.

The earth, earlier.

4. The pleasure of writing.  Doesn’t really need examining – can be pleasurable. Plus, I’m getting a kick out of being able to insert images into my posts. It’s only taken eight months to work this out.

Someone getting pleasure from writing, earlier.

5. You can be your own boss. Meaning you can choose when to work, and how to conduct yourself when you’re at work. I choose to conduct myself by smoking and drinking lots, opening the fridge lots and seeing how many kick ups I can do with a tennis ball lots (14, at the last count). That said, this is exactly how I behaved in my previous 70-odd jobs; perhaps an indication of why they didn’t last.

Someone smoking lots, earlier.

This morning I sent a pitch to Sabotage Times. I say pitch but it wasn’t really, wasn’t really at all. More of a bio. I had been on the recently launched Sabotage Times website and wanted to be part of their impressive list of contributors. They all had bios. Here was my effort that I sent to the editor: 

“Pitching the World got thrown out of Truro School at 16 for handling stolen goods and selling drugs. Since then he’s worked as a door-to-door salesman, a croupier, an antiques restorer, a chainboy, a removals man, a barman, and an unemployed man. He’s now a writer man and has contributed to all the usual toss. Steven once made a film about a man who claimed to be both Clint Eastwood and the King of Spain but just as it was about to get commissioned, he fucked it up. In December 2009, aged 34, he had a trial for Colchester United but fucked it up. He did go on to write about his experience for the Guardian, but fucked that up as well. In June 2009 he worked as a political speechwriter in the Caribbean, and for a while didn’t fuck up at all, but in the end he did. He now runs the award winning Pitching the World (www.pitchingtheworld.wordpress.com) – a blog about pitching all of the 642 magazines listed in the Writers’ & Artists’ Yearbook. He hasn’t fucked this up yet, but will do. He is married to a psychopharmacologist and lives in Stoke Newington. He claims to be ‘a regular guest’ on Radio 4, but research suggests that he has only been on there once.”

The Radio 4 stuff is true, I was a guest last Saturday. The other stuff is (mostly) true, too. 

Anyway, Sab Times is run by James Brown, founder of Loaded, contributor to just about everything and bearer of an uncanny resemblance to the anti hero in The Adventures of Pitching the World. He was once voted more influential than the Pope and Margaret Thatcher (and presumably, more influential than the other James Brown) by Channel 4 and The Observer. In short, a big deal. But not so big a deal that he didn’t respond to Grandmaster Pitchy almost immediately.

His response:

Two things: one I like your pitch, two we don’t pay. 

So if you fancy pitching some ideas on these terms go ahead.

cheers James  

What to do? Pitchy doesn’t like to work for free (and has never done), but does want to work for Sabotage Times. Here’s the next instalment of The Adventures of Pitching the World, which neatly sums up my dilemma. 

Alright Shoulders. I’ve had that James Brown emailing 

me all day. Bit persistent really. Wants me to write for them.

Might – might – not get paid for it though. You may have

to get a second – I mean third – job. 

Please don’t leave me. 

– This is fun, isn’t it? Us, being in a cartoon. Means 

I don’t have to do any pitching. Can’t, can I? Not in

a cartoon. 

– Your hair could do with a bit of work. Shoulders a bit

big too.

– Please don’t leave me. 

Coming soon: The Adventures of Pitching the World. Below is a sneak preview of the hilarious comic strip based on the life of a failing writer. Also starring Dr Mrs Pitching the World, Bingo, Alan and Boz.

Disclaimer: this is in no way a desperate attempt to claw back some readers and to dodge the business of writing. And while we’re at it, it didn’t take me three hours to knock up the picture below and it isn’t nearly four o’clock in the fucking morning. 

For a few months now my wife, who I suspect is beginning to hate me, has been looking at my career with increasing alarm. Frankly, I don’t blame her. I’m on her side. I’ve been looking at my career with increasing alarm too. In fact, my career terrifies me. If I’m not writing and sending off unsuccessful pitches, then I’m writing and filing unsuccessful (i.e. not good) copy to unsuccessful (i.e. not good) magazines. Then I sit back with increasing alarm and wait to get paid unsuccessfully (i.e. not enough, not on time, sometimes not at all).

Regular readers will know that this is nothing new. Nor are my battles with other things, including an ongoing battle with my hairline (not good), waistline (not good, getting worse) and attempts to stay sane (not good, going to get much worse). Still, I have a list. The list was dreamt up by me and my wife, round about the time when I suspected she was beginning to hate me. It reads:

By June 6th 2010:

1. Get in restaurant reviews (130)
2. Finish pitching for Pitching the World
3. Write proposal/synopsis & covering letter for pubs/agents
4. Other work?                                                                          

Items 1 and 4 on the list are under control. Well, as under control as they can be. Restaurants are being reviewed (surprisingly successfully) and other work is rolling in. And although when I think about my deadline for the reviews and the deadlines for the other work that is rolling in I have to scarper up the road, by a can of super strength lager and hide in a bush in the park drinking it, I think I’m doing about as well as I can. 

No, the problems don’t lie with items 1 and 4. The problems lie with items 2 and 3. I look at “Finish pitching for Pitching the World” and want to puke. My pitches stink. They haven’t got the colour or vim or zip or whatever it was that they used to have when I was okay at this (and for a while I was okay at this, rather than an almighty fuck up at this) and, more alarmingly perhaps, they don’t contain any information. I realise that I don’t have any knowledge of anything: so I’m sending off bland pitches that lack any information to obscure publications and the editors don’t really know what to do with them. Well, they do know what to do with them: ignore them. Ignore them, because they’re not really pitches even, I’m not really sure what they are, but I do know that I don’t like the little shits.

Yep, problems. Problems, because I can’t hope to write a book about Pitching the World if my pitches (which aren’t really pitches, just little shits) aren’t getting anywhere. The best I can hope for is a flash of inspiration or a leg-up. I’ve thought as far as joining the Masons for my leg-up. Seriously. This is my answer to everything right now: join the Masons, I say to myself, and everything will be alright. 

Here’s a pitch that worked, from a while back (for the Independent, before I was an almighty fuck up at this):

I read with considerable interest your article on anaphylaxis and allergies in general, published last July in The Independent. Earlier this year I was admitted to emergency departments on two separate occasions with anaphylactic shock. The first time the complaint was relatively mild: a rash covered the whole of my upper body and face and I had slight swelling of the lips and tongue. The second time was far more severe and I nearly had what was described as “a complete system collapse”. Thankfully adrenaline and steroids – and indeed doctors – are wonderful things, and after seven or eight hours of observation I was released. Rather less thankfully, my GP said that although my initial reaction was due to penicillin, I could be allergic to anything or, in fact, “nothing”. So there could be no obvious trigger. I could – and I know this is a very shaky hypothesis – be allergic to writing this email. Doubtful I know, but reason enough to be brief. Essentially then, I would like to write both about my experience of anaphylaxis and have a broader look at why we may becoming increasingly prone to such reactions.

Try and let me know if you are in any way interested. 

With very kind regards,

Grandmaster Pitchy.