My Booky Wook 2 (23 page)

John McCain? Don’t vote for him, he’s a war criminal or something isn’t he? [I thought this was great, because he is in fact a war hero and the lazy misunderstanding of such a significant distinction is amusing.] You shouldn’t vote for him. Plus he can’t put his arms over his head [this is due to injuries sustained whilst being held as a prisoner of war – this struck me as a good area of jesting]; you can’t have a man who can’t put his arms over his head with his finger on the button. What if the button’s on the ceiling? What’s he going to do, push it with a broom handle? That’s no way to start a nuclear war, it’s undignified.

I liked that joke, of course it’s a little bad taste but I was booked to be edgy. The way the night was shaping up, though, I couldn’t afford that kind of risk. And imagine if I’d delivered this crazy BAD TASTE joke while introducing the cast of the saccharine Disney hit High School Musical:

In England when we hear that a load of American kids are running around in school corridors, jumping about and screaming, we just assume there’s been another massacre. Then you sent us the film High School Musical – suddenly the massacres don’t seem so bad.

That would have raised a few eyebrows. And ended a few careers. Instead, and many would say luckily, I improvised the links for the rest of the night. By the end I was exhausted, and me and my mates made our way back to the trailer, where the MTV producers said they were thrilled, gave me a gift and said we’d have to do it again some time. I went to the after-party and despite the celebrations something didn’t seem right. I left my friends partying and made my way alone back to the house. Sanctuary. Then I went upstairs to my room and, narcissistic fool that I am, picked up my laptop, typed my own name and stared into the bubbling pool that is Google.

†

Come on, Darling, We’re Leaving

It must’ve been with the best intentions that my bedroom had been filled with helium balloons of purple, silver and black on the night of the VMAs. One of my loving friends or my mother, I’ve never asked, in a display of myopic altruism had sought to inappropriately celebrate my triumphant return too soon after I’d left. How could they have known it would be inappropriate? I didn’t even know yet, but I soon would. My ceiling was obscured and ribbons hung like stalactites in a satin world. With the deft elegance of eight finger-Nijinskis I danced my name across the keypad: R-U-S-S-E-L-L-B-R-A-N-D and the letters fell into the digital self-harming device that is Google and turned the ignition to begin the short journey from my blissful ignorance. Google was in generous form and up gurgled a toxic slick of headlines depicting the night’s events:

MTV host insults George Bush – Republicans outragedMTV host insults Jonas Brothers – Christians outraged (but will forgive him)MTV host insults cast of Twilight – undead remain indifferent

Second by second the grisly gang of headlines grew as I sat submerged and solitary beneath the deflating balloons, slowly descending like Portuguese men o’ war.

In the hours immediately after the VMA Awards the fifth-most Googled thing in the world was “Russell Brand” – people all over the planet were asking, “Who the fucking hell is Russell Brand?” “Well, I am,” I glumly thought. The seventh-most Googled thing was “VMA host” as people queried furiously, “Who was that English jerk?” “Erm, it’s me actually.” Way down at thirty-seventh was “Russell Brown”. I like to think that might have been me as well.

I felt the anonymity draining from my face and I sank into the relief that, with heroin gone, only sleep can give.

After a few twitchy hours I tentatively padded down the stairs that Diana Ross used to glide down like a swan into a terrifyingly bright new day. The omens were bad. Among my friends there was a sepulchral hush. Nik sat quietly thinking in the kitchen, Gabby solemnly polished. Nicola and Sharon surveyed the view like birds of doom, and Jack and Gareth were watching YouTube footage of my beloved friend Noel Gallagher being attacked on stage at an Oasis gig the previous night. It was horrible to see Noel, a proud and brilliant man, felled by a lunatic shove. He is a British hero, a flag-bearer for our people. In the gallows gag we cooked up to soothe us we imagined this travesty had been conducted by Americans enraged by my performance the previous night: “Anti-British hostilities spilled over yesterday when Oasis guitarist Noel Gallagher was shoved from the stage in a reprisal for Russell Brand’s scandalous attacks on American president George Bush and our cherished Jonas Brothers.”

We laughed by way of medicine. Comedy served its most beautiful function of alchemically transforming leaden pain into glistening laughter. The conversation that Jack, Gareth and I had that morning formed the basis of thirty minutes of stand-up. Nik brought in some of the death threats that were being emailed in the hundreds. The confederacy of dunces were waging digital war. Our laughter formed a shield and comedy protected me from fear and death as it had my whole life. Whenever I am most alone, it comes giggling in, sensing the absurdity, the mad stupidity of our hubristic concerns when the guillotine knowingly hovers, waiting to administer the last laugh. “Who sends a death threat?” we chuckled. Death is coming, threat or no threat. If you really want someone to die all you have to do is wait. How too can you be sufficiently moved by words said during an award show on your television set to patiently type out a death threat? The same people that doze through wars, pestilence and famine leap to their feet, ready to spill blood at the chime of a dissonant joke.

“Thanks for showing me these, Nik, by the way,” I said. Nik has always, ALWAYS had a strict policy of not passing on the many letters offering sex and photographs that women send of their own vaginas pleading with me to enter and offering maps and instructions, lest they should disrupt me. But for these blood-curdling vendettas he’s prepared to buck the trend. We chuckled at how to write a death threat on an Apple laptop: first you’d have to turn it on, perhaps momentarily pausing to enjoy the mellifluous cyber-jingle that accompanies the lid opening. “Ah, what a beautiful sound.” Then immediately set about typing “YOU FUCKING CUNT” – and believe me they did usually write in capitals, I suppose on a computer your own excrement isn’t an option, although I expect they’ll soon have an app for that. These death threats formed the basis of my next stand-up tour, Scandalous, but for that fledgeling show to fly we’d need further controversy. Tick tock, tick tock. For now though we had enough to be getting on with.

I called Noel to see if he was OK after his altercation, and his reaction to the incident was a further affirmation of the manner of man he is. Far from responding with bawdy, macho posturing, he spoke of the hurt and confusion engendered by the attack with tenderness and intelligence. He is, lest we forget, which we could because he often revels in braying like a twerp, one of the great artists of our time and one of the best popular musicians in history.

I was glad Noel had taken it so well because I was traumatised by my experience. Yes, me and my mates were joking about it, but my head was not a nice place to be when the laughter stopped.

This is a selection of some of my favourite death threats received in the immediate aftermath of the VMAs. I should also add that there were some life threats, “Continue to live,” they’d say. “Take your vitamins” – but they’re less fun than the death threats – see for yourself. The first indication that you’re dealing with an imbalanced character often comes in the form of their name. This is from “Yankee”.

From: YankeeTo: Russell BrandYOU PIECE OF SHIT!!!!!! WHO THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?

Presumably the question is rhetorical, though he could be asking me to confirm his assertion that I am a “piece of shit”. That’s the thing with Yankee, you can never be sure.

Who do you think you are? Telling US who to vote for? You ignorant piece of shit!

Here Yankee addresses the matter at the problem’s core. He doesn’t like being told who to vote for, particularly, as he emphatically states, by a “piece of shit”. In this next stanza, though, Yankee delves into metaphysics, and this is where his thesis becomes confused.

Why don’t you drop dead and die?

Well, the reason is that the question is tautologous. You cannot “drop dead” and then “die”. The dropping dead prohibits the subsequent dying. Unless what Yankee is requesting is a Hindu-based double-death in which I drop dead, get reincarnated as a mouse, then die again, but this seems needlessly complicated and if that is what he wants he should make it clearer in his death threat.

“I’ll NEVER vote for Obama, EVER!!”

This is my favourite sentence as I like the capitalisation of NEVER and EVER as it provides rhythm, plus it implies that between Yankee writing NEVER and EVER, someone tried to persuade him to vote for Obama again.

“I’ll NEVER vote for Obama …”

Erm, Yankee, it says here he won’t raise taxes …

“EVER!!!!”

Yankee lets himself down with a rather humdrum ending.

“You better hope I never see you, if I do, I’ll kill you.”

Well there’s a chance encounter I’d like to avoid. What concerns me most is that the death threat has no expiry date. I wonder if it still stands. I wonder if the raging fire still blazes in Yankee’s angry heart? It’s a good death threat but personally I prefer this one from Patrik, AKA Bully Defender. Very kind of him to include an alias, I think.

“Erm, if you don’t know me as Patrik – perhaps you’ll be aware of my work as … Bully Defender?”

“Wow! You’re THE Bully Defender? Sir, it is an honour. How oft I have rehearsed this moment in my dreams …”

He commences …

From: Patrik – AKA: Bully DefenderTo: Russell Brand“SCREW YOU RUSSELL!!”

It’s an engaging opening gambit; succinct – good use of capitals, as if he’s screaming it into his baffled laptop, plus it’s personal – he thinks to address me as “Russell” not just “Piece of shit” like Yankee. That’s what makes Patrik AKA Bully Defender a far superior death threatener. He errs somewhat in his next demand by assuming that all people are of the same mindset as him and that I can be goaded through literary means that he himself finds provocative.

“Stick to figuring out your own pathetic government!”

Patrik AKA Bully Defender somehow arrived at the conclusion that I would be fiercely protective of the British government and that his accusation that they are “pathetic” would rile me. Well, Patrik AKA Bully Defender, I’ve never voted in my life and have no allegiance to any government of any nation. I am an anarcho-Marxist-spiritualist revolutionary, so you’ll have to insult me on the basis of that creed, but before you can do that you’ll have to work out what it means, which is more than I’ve ever been able to do. Back to the death threat:

“Stick to figuring out your own pathetic government and your precious Queen!”

Right. You’ve crossed a line there. Sir, you can say what you will of me, and attack my government if you must. BUT WHEN YOU BESMIRCH THE NAME OF ELIZABETH REGINA, YOU MAKE A POWERFUL ENEMY, Bully Defender! If that’s your real name – which I doubt! What a twit. I don’t care about the Queen either. She’s just a little old lady in a shiny hat – that we bought her.

My favourite death threat, however, comes from the charmingly named “White Boy”, not just because of the racism implicit in his name but also because he was almost alone among the death threateners in that he included a subject heading in his emailed death threat. Plus his use of capitals for EMPHASIS was second to none.

From: White BoyTo: Russell BrandSubject: FUCK RUSSELL BRAND YOU NEED TO GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY COUNTRY, YOURE A FUCKING ASS-HOLE A FUCKING PIECE OF SHIT, I’M GOING TO KILL YOU, GO HOME BITCH BOY!!!!!!

The thrust of the sentiment that follows in the main body of the text has actually been addressed in the subject heading: 1. He doesn’t like me. 2. He’d like me to go home. 3. He’d like to kill me. 4. He considers me to be a “bitch boy”.

He needn’t have written another word, he’d done all he needed to in the “haiku of hate” that is this thorough and articulate headline. But he did and here it is:

YOU LITTLE UGLY FUCKING CUNT.

That is so rude it’s almost erotic. The artist Francis Bacon’s dad used to whip him as a boy in the stables where he grew up – this led Francis to have a lifelong homoerotic attachment to being beaten by burly men. If I’d heard White Boy’s vehement swearing when a child I wouldn’t be able to cum now without it.

YOU NEED TO STAY THE FUCK OUT OF MY COUNTRY!!!

Well that’s becoming clear. It was clearly addressed in the subject heading; in a way the demand for extradition is repetitive. Also I note, he’s sticking with capitals. This whole letter is being bawled into a screen.

PUNK RUSSELL FAG BRAND YOU NEED TO WORRY ABOUT YOUR GOVERNMENT INSTEAD OF MINE.

I quite like the nickname “Punk-Russell-fag-Brand” and am thinking of employing it as a nom de plume. I am more troubled by the idea that as an Englishman I’m not entitled to address any non-domestic political matters. I only said George Bush was a retard – thank God I didn’t go with the “John McCain is a war criminal” routine.

YOU MORE THAN LIKELY SUPPORT MUSLIMS THAT DESTROY THE WORLD

This is my favourite line from the whole death threat. The sentence appears to have been constructed from a multiple-choice quiz in a lifestyle magazine:

Q
Does Russell Brand support Muslims that destroy the world?A. NoB. UnlikelyC. LikelyD. More than likelyE. Definitely

I like that he went for “D. More than likely” as opposed to “E. Definitely”, as this indicates that White Boy doesn’t like to make knee-jerk assumptions about people where there is room for doubt.

‘“Why don’t you go for ‘E. Definitely’”?

“No! I don’t like to be too judgemental.”

Also implicit within this statement is the idea that White Boy has no problem with Muslims who don’t want to destroy the world, and I’m viewing that as hugely positive. Although I’m still not entirely clear about which particular Jonas Brothers joke he regarded as tacitly supportive of the 9/11 attacks.

SO I’M GONNA FUCKING KILL YOU FUCKING FAG BRAND COS YOU’RE SO FUCKIN UGLY REALLY NO SHIT YOU’RE FUGLY