Who's Looking at Me

Who’s Looking at Me? ©

By

Michael Casey

Who’s looking at me is what I wonder every day when I switch the computer on. With my Blogger site https://butcherbakerundertaker.blogspot.co.uk/ and with my Wordpress site

https://michaelgcaseyfrombirminghamengland.wordpress.com/ I start my day by seeing the reaction to my latest story. I do read the newspapers first, as I am a news addict for 50 years now, since I used to watch Sir Robin Day interrogate the Politicians with my dad. Then I google michaelgcasey to see if any of my old stuff has floated to the surface. You may turn to the sports pages and see how your team got on, or you looking at the racing pages to see if you can lose any money on a horse today. Or just read the horoscopes, all are of equal worth, but as I’ve broken the Stars habit, I just read 3 newspapers before I look at how my writing has done overnight.

Sounds idyllic, I won’t mention the CkD and the arthritis pain, so take it as read, I’m not just enjoying my reading time. Its no beach, and the only tides I share are pain. But I digress. It’s nice to see people all over the world reading my stories, in at least 26 different countries. It’s nice to see an explosion of readers, and what appeals or does not. It’s impossible to know what will work and what will not. I am never explicit, its better to use a metaphor, and that in itself could be a metaphor. Fleetwood Mac are groaning behind me, singing Looking Out For Love. So that is ironic in itself.

As I write I tend to have music for company, so a line from a song, or just a piece of music will enter my head and lead to a sentence on the page. It might even lead me up another path, with you holding my hand, as we tiptoe through the tulips, you and me and Tiny Tim. I’ll also add a reference here and there which may bemuse you, but you can always Google to find out what the fat silver haired writer in shades from Birmingham is on about. Remember I have 55 years of memories to draw upon, plus another 20 years or more from the old films in black and white I used to watch plus old repeats from the radio.

I can fantasize too or just go totally surreal, Jon the Hippy whom I used to work with 30 years ago and more used to say Michael drink water because my surreal humour was too much when I was dehydrated. Just as tiredness can induce the sillies, when we were overtired on a night shift we all went through a Wall just like a Marathon runner, but on night shift it is the Sillies. You just laugh and laugh.But I digress.

I imagine that Hotel workers look on the internet at night and stumble over humour from Britain, as they stand to attention in the middle of the night in the Philippians, or maybe that was just last night, but hello to them anyway. Or maybe it’s a priest far from home who stumbles over me, a missionary reading me instead of his Bible. Would God be amused?  

French readers read me too, are they practicing their English or do they just think I’m Gorgeous, as Macron calls me when he emails. We are penfriends of course, he send messages me attached to pigeons, or is that a flight of fancy?  There are recipes attached to the messages too, but I could never kill the messenger, let alone eat it.

German readers read me too, they have spiked recently, maybe its because I look German, or perhaps they think I’m Carl Lagerfeld, due to the white hair and shades, not because of my appalling dress sense. Not unless Carl was in disguise. Maybe he’ll send me some gloves, or just throw down the gauntlet for being so cheeky. But if he sends gloves I don’t want any exposed fingertip ones he uses, I’d get frostbite when I throw snowballs. Haute Couture.

Perhaps Esol English teachers have found me and use me as a punishment for their students. So Michael Casey is a curse all over the world, desks are slammed and pencils thrown to the ground whenever my name is mentioned. Reading aloud a Michael Casey story, teacher can you just put me in the Chokey instead, or just cane me with the bamboo cane.

Italy has popped up recently as a reader, so is Pope Benedict reading me as Pope Francis complained about the loud piano practice. So Benedict has collected his eggs from the hen-house and reads me to the chickens as they cluck. But my stories are too much even for the hens, so as the cock crows twice Benedict has to put away my stories and head back to his retirement home in the grounds of the Vatican.

I’ve been read in tiny tiny places too, I’ve had to look them up on the map, and how they discovered me I just cannot explain. Maybe it’s a washed up and tired Pop star, getting drug therapy. And the therapist makes him read my stories, 461 Ocean Boulevard maybe, though the sheriff wouldn’t be shot just my books. Used to start the fire, not of inspiration, just in the boiler. So that’s my future, fuel for fire.

Well I hope you have enjoyed my food for thought, which actually is the title of a piece I wrote 10 years ago and more, I can remember some pieces but with perhaps 1800 now, including my plays and a 600 page comedy drama The Butcher The Baker and The Undertaker I obviously cannot remember everything, though I do try. If you are one of my readers anywhere I really do thank you for passing by.

 And if I can write then so can anybody, so give it a try, and if you are Carl Lagerfeld as a punishment get somebody to make me a suit, then people will be able to tell us apart.