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4 Reasons to Pledge to the 'Being Frank' Kickstarter

I hate to say it, it pains me and torments me, but I bet there are some people out there for whom Frank Sidebottom remains a secret. These poor hypotheticals have never been entertained by his uniquely universal form of obsessively local humour; have never goggled at his orbed cartoonhead with parted crimson lips and dilated blue eyeballs flattened against its non-Euclidean dome; have never succumbed to the childish glee he exuded and still exudes through his every creative act. I pity those poor poor peoples.

Sadly Frank or more truthfully, to step outside of suspended disbelief for one moment, Chris Sievey the man fundamental to the fun and the face, passed away in 2010. But now his legacy is being documented in documentary by film-maker Steve Sullivan who once worked with Frank on the short Magical Timperley Tour. Steve is canvassing for funds on KickStarter and, fantastic news, has just reached the first phase target of £20,000. This is enough to fund the filming of a raft of exciting interviews with people related to the Frank Sidebottom story. But this is just the first step. Fund-raising continues, and further funds will go towards acquiring the rights to some or all of Frank's many wonderful and obscure television appearances including Match of the Day.

You should donate (by clicking HERE), and here are some reasons why; why Frank matters, why his legacy should be remembered and why we should help those poor poor people who don't know and love him.

4. His Music

I suppose Frank Sidebottom is chiefly a musician. A musical act. The character started off as an obsessive fan of Chris Sievey's band The Freshies, but took over and eclipsed with his own musical career. His range is surprisingly wide ( >>>spotify links>>> ): cute (Zoo Scrapbook), self-aware (Airplay) footbally (The Robins Aren't Bobbins), political (I Said, 'Hey You, Riot Policeman'), historical (Mr. Custard You're A Fool), sciencey-fictiony (Space is Ace), and even beautiful (Electricity). Then of course there is all the cover versions, wave after wave of popular hit usually with a key word in the title replaced with a reference to Timperley. Just listen. They are hilarious, catchy, masterful.

3. His Comedy

But then again perhaps he is chiefly a comedian. After all his act consisted of long periods of bumbling tomfoolery, tombola-ry, and jokery. Stewart Lee described him as an 'alternative Alternative comedian'. He was an amateur child in the body of a professional man putting on the act of a semi-professional entertainer man-child. Or something like that. And he did a bloody good job of it to.

He would chat away to himself, his audience, his band, his guests, but mostly to Little Frank, the tiny replica of himself with the flimsy cardboard body. Everything about the act was weird weird weird, but it was accessible to children and adults alike. One of my firm Frank favourites was the late-night test card he did for Channel M. It was seventy minutes of improvised nonsense which was played on a loop throughout the night on Manchester's now-defunct local TV channel. It's HERE on YouTube. Watch it, please. (“You shouldn't be watching this, it's only a test card. It's not viewing entertainment.”)

2. His Art

His head is a work of art. His album covers are art. The thousands and billions of felt-tip pen drawings he made are art. Comics he drew. The 1980s computer game he programmed! His animation. His websites, podcasts, radio shows, MySpace page, TV programmes... all of that stuff. One giant body of creativity, of art, of what Frank Zappa called the 'project/object' – an inter-connected lifetime of worked linked by themes, references and jokes.

He used to sell his drawings on eBay, and god I wish I'd bought one. A self portrait of Frank as Freddy Mercury, or Little Frank as a spaceman. After Chris was diagnosed with cancer he put on eBay a portrait of a hairless post-chemotherapy Frank. Proper beautiful art, like.

1. His Collection

Oh, his collection! How I want to dive into it (carefully!) and swim through the oceans of oddities! The toys and the records, all of which reflect his own tastes in quaint sci-fi, puppets, comics, toys and Paul McCartney. I believe there is talks of preserving the collection as some sort of publicly accessible archive, and I hope to Little Frank that this is true. I actually once had a dream that I had the money to fund this, and what a beautiful dream it was. And I have a waking dream of my own obsessions one day manifesting themselves as a large collection of silly stuff filling my house. How pleased my wife would be live amongst myriad wrestling memorabilia, octopus stuff, crazy religious pamphlets, postcards of Osaka, and drawings and sketches of this and that! You know she would, she really would!

In Conclusion

That is it, four reasons why Frank is really great. And all these and more will, I'm sure, be documented in the documentary Being Frank. The more the raise the more we will get to see and hear. So come on people, lets get to it. Spread the word, to Frankophiles and Frankophobes alike, and don't forget to donate.

(Also, come to the unveiling of the Frank Sidebottom statue in Timperley at 11.37am on 23^rd June 2013!)

 

Frank Sidebottom Statue Fund - My Drawing for sale on eBay

It's a discovery I just made. Searched on eBay for Frank Sidebottom, as I occasionally do in my hunt for delightful paper ephemera and other assorted tat, and found this:

Frank Sidebottom - great pen drawing FRANKOPHILIA fan art [statue fund]

So, there it is. It's a drawing I did three years ago and posted on this blog. It was done around the time Chris Sievey (i.e. Frank sans Papier-mâché tête) died, either just before or just after. I can't remember when exactly and if only I had kept some sort of easily accessible digital record I could find out exactly when. Sadly I don't know of one. Anyway, I digress, I really do, you know I do.

I was then contacted by the curator of an exhibition called Frankophilia dedicated to Mr. Sidebottom and more specifically to his fans. She had found my blog and wondered if I wouldn't mind donating it to the show. I was happy to obviously. And blah blah, donated to statue fund, blah blah, time time time time, and here we are now. Great isn't it. I mean great that we are here of course. Not that the drawing is great because it is clearly rubbish. Still, you should buy it, if only to donate to the statue fund.

Being Frank

Frank Sidebottom is really fantastic. Pledge to the Kickstarter fund HERE; help with production costs and receive all kinds of jolly good rewards!

Stay tuned for a muuuuuuucccccchhhhhhh looonnnnnnnngggggggggger blog post about this nonsense!

607: Creepypasta, wooooo-ooooo!

Creepypasta. That's a strange word. It's one of those weird, semi-nonsense internet words that you have nowadays. It's essentially what, in the days of H.P. Lovecraft and his contemporaries, used to be called Weird Fiction. Strange horror stories about monsters, murderers, aliens and technology. Weird. Creepy. Apparently there is something called Copypasta (like Copy-Paste) which is stories copied and shared around the internet. Switch the word Copy with the word Creepy and all of a sudden those stories being shared are off the horrific variety.

Some of them are great, some not so. A lot of them (including the one I wrote, but I won't mention that yet, it's a surprise) are about lost episodes of favourite telly programmes, such as the one about the episode of Spongebob Squarepants in which Squidward finally snaps and kills himself.. Some of them are utterly inspired such as this one, An Egg, which is conceptually brilliant. I won't spoil it but I insist you click the link and read it.

The Creepypasta wiki is a collection of scary stories, some are very much of the internet age, but also posted are public domain classics like Dracula and Frankenstein. Anyway, what I'm getting to is that I have written one, the subject of which was thought up by Scott Ackerman of 'Unrested' YouTube Channel (visit his channel for loads of videos about life in Japan from the perspective of an gaijin American with a healthy nerdy interest in comics, horror, etc).  It's called ALF Autopsy and it describes the first person adventure of a European visitor to Japan who discovers a mysterious old Laserdisc with a horrifying lost episode of the 1980s American sit-com ALF. (The real ALF ends with an awful cliffhanger in which ALF is captured by the government who presumably do all experiments and stuff. The show was cancelled so whatever was supposed to happen was never revealed leaving room for all sorts of speculation.)

Read my ridiculous story here. 

606: kevin, Kevin, KEVIN

My name is Kevin.

Kevin, Kevin, Kevin.

Kevin, Kevin, Kevin.

Hey Ho, It's The Kevin Eldon Show,

It's the Kevin, Kevin Eldon Show,

It's called It's Kevin.

Every week the It's Kevin title theme is slightly different, changes to the sight gags and what have you, but every week, the day after watching the latest episode I am forced to spend the entire day with 'Kevin, Kevin, Kevin. Kevin, Kevin, Kevin. Hey Ho, It's...' etcetera, etc, &c circling round and around inside my head. It's very close to actual laugh-out-loud-and-run-naked-down-the-street mania. At work today I was telling someone about It's Kevin. 'Watch it,' I said, 'It's fantastic.' And then began explaining about the addictive nature of the theme tune and how brilliant/disturbing it is for a fellow Kevin.

A third person joined the conversation at this point having missed the bit about it being a TV show. As I explained how I had this 'Kevin, Kevin, Kevin.' refrain circling in my mind and sang a little snippet this third person began to look suspicious and concerned. It was as if they no longer trusted me and feared I may suddenly leap about the place flinging socks and crushing bananas in my armpits. As though I might suddenly dive forwards and attempt to affix stamps to her recently severed head. 'Erm... was... was this a dream?' she asked. 'No, it's a TV show,' I informed her. The look of relief on her face was stunning: 'Phew, he is not a manic, psychotic, schizophrenic, barmpot,' she thought, but 'Oh, really!' she said. And then she walked away to thank her lucky stars, or whatever.

And then the words in my head change involuntarily:

Hey ho, it's the Jelly Baby Show, it's the Jelly Jelly Baby Show
Hey ho, it's the Sherry Trifle Show, it's the Sherry Sherry Trifle Show
Hey ho, it's a Television Show, it's a Telly Telly Telly Show
Hey ho, it's the Belly Button Show it's the Belly Belly Button Show
Belly, belly, belly.
Belly, belly, belly.
Etcetera, etc, &c.

605: (I Get) Grumpy When I'm Hungry

… such as when I wrote that previous post about Thatcher. I obsessing over every petty little detail, going over it in my head on the bus home. I had to find a scrap of paper and scribble bits down, repeating sentiments and sentences, in order to purge my mind. I have been meaning to bring this blog back more regularly, not daily like before, but once or twice a week would be nice. It's good to keep a historical record of one's thoughts and about the wider world. With that in mind I wanted to write something about the old divisions this Thatcher thing has brought back to the surface.

The 1980s I was born into was one which despised Thatcher. Hating Thatcher is the nearest thing I have to a religion. I was raised with it. Early memories of anti-Poll Tax marches, my Ghostbuster-themed Poll Tax Buster t-shirt, chants of “Maggie, Maggie, Maggie, Out, Out, Out.” During the inevitable divided Facebook discussions someone pointed out “It as a long time ago, get over it,” which infuriated me (but I don't think I responded to). At the time the person wrote that I was about to have my tea, I was hungry and thus grumpy. I ate then happily clicked to unfollow the discussion.

And now I'm not hungry I can see the truth behind the point. It was a long time ago and I should get over it. Other people were more, much more, effected by Thatcher's unsympathetic destructive tendencies. Should they get over it too? Yes, eventually. Maybe not now, but as soon as possible. Does the country need to get over her legacy? God, yes. The sooner the better. But being unable to get over past wrongs is the cause of so much hate and continued destruction. My wife is from Northern Ireland and she, along with myself and plenty of other people too, wishes that the people from back home who have wronged and been wronged by their neighbours could just try to get over it. To eventually forgive and forget, the sooner the better. Simple to say; so much less simple to actually do, and understandably so.

The more people force themselves to remember the longer these things go on. The problem is when there are reminders all around you: murals and bombings there; Thatcherism, rampant greed, Tory cunts and New Labour here. Ooops, I dropped the c-word. Maybe I am getting a little hungry. I better go and eat something, or I would if Thatcher hadn't taken all my milk (and cheese), yeah right on!

Earlier I said that hating Thatcher was the nearest thing I had to religion. That seems like a bad thing to me. It's an intellectual effort to get over childhood indoctrination, but one worth doing. It's important to get over accidentally or intentionally imposed prejudices and hatreds. Prejudice is never justified, but sometimes hatred can be. Still it's important not to let single view-points entomb you. That's surely an enemy of growth and progress. Now if I can get over past injustices I can concentrate of building a future, and by that I mean I can calm down a bit, have a cuppa and crack on with a bit of creative writing.