Reality TV

By Frank Bukowski

Meet England footballer and walking brand David Crimp. Adore his vacuous bimbo of a WAG Lara. Across the table in The Murderers restaurant sit monocled conceptual artist Damon Twain and his young Chinese bride Chu-Chu, the ravishingly beautiful chart-topping classical violinist. Who will win the big eat off on tonight’s show? Which unlucky contestant will get the mystery food-poisoning dish? The fare is served up by host Soup Dogg, the black rapper and media darling with enough Michelin stars to fill a page of Amazon book reviews, fruitier language than a compote with Tourette’s, and more moves than a break dancer on fast-forward. He’s sick, he’s slick, and he’s down with the kids. When these A-listers go head to head on Sty Transatlantic’s flagship Sunday night programme Humili-ATE (think Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares v Weakest Link) it’s about to turn into the reality TV show from hell. Throw in a dash of shock factor to boost the ratings - a guest kitchen crew made up of convicted rapists and murderers - and you pretty much have all the ingredients for a recipe for disaster. Meanwhile surreal things are happening down in West Ham, where avid Humili-ATE fans Gazza and Tanya Mason find their telly taking on a strange reality all of its own. The steaks are high, the curry’s a dog, and there’s something dodgy going down in the restaurant toilets.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Frank Bukowski
• Release date: Nov 28, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310015281

Frank Bukowski

Frank Bukowski is currently on his thirteenth life. Previous incarnations included a welder, building labourer, trainee civil engineer, barman, burger flipper, sperm donor, call centre operative, body double for Oliver Reed, marketing assistant, advertising copywriter, studio head and creative director. Frank studied at the Universities in Brighton, East Anglia, and Queens’ College, Cambridge. Two of those august institutions he tricked into awarding him degrees: a BA in Graphic Design, majoring in illustration, and an MA in Creative Writing, where he was lucky enough to be taught by Malcolm Bradbury and Rose Tremain. Frank now hides out in Norfolk, UK, where it rains 400 days a year. Since marriage, divorce, and the birth of his son landed like a salvo of missiles in the 90’s, Frank has spent the last two decades helping to raise his kid, who recently graduated with his own BA in History, making Frank the proudest dad on the planet. To keep steam on the table and a roof over their heads, Frank has held down a full-time job for more years than he cares to remember at the hated UK loan-shark company UK Cash Cowboys, where he runs their creative studio. Frank looks after a team of copywriters and designers who churn out oceans of junk mail and advertising. Frank loathes the company and its hideous management team of ruthless corporate cyborgs in human form. He describes working there as a slow death of the soul. He once likened it to a ten year prison stretch for a crime he didn’t do. At weekends he gets out on parole, but Mondays come around all too quick. Frank’s escape plan involves making it as a writer. For over a decade he’s been tunnelling away in secret, writing poetry and short stories in the scraps of time left over. These finally coalesced into his magnum opus, the 700pp collection Sex on the Brain, which he e-pubbed in the fall of 2012. Frank writes earthy literary fiction leavened with black humour, aiming for laughter in the dark. His latest book, hot off the virtual press in June 2014, is a dystopian novella called Reality TV. Toying with magic realism, Reality TV parodies our obsessions with fame, celebrity, and trashy reality shows. When he’s not writing or banged up in Cowboys Penitentiary, Frank likes to watch quality television. Mostly stuff about fame, celebrity, and trashy reality shows.

Book preview

Reality TV

By

Frank Bukowski

Reality TV

Frank Bukowski

Copyright © Frank Bukowski, 2014

Smashwords Edition

The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, dead or alive, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each reader. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of the author.

To my son, who is and always will be my sun, moon and stars. To Mum and Dad, wherever you are, I miss you. And to Frank Gray, Mike Tucker, Franz Widerberg and Jimi Hendrix. You all inspired me more than you'll ever know.

Contents

Chapter one: 8.07pm

Chapter two: 8.21pm

Chapter three: 8.25pm

Chapter four: 8.38pm

Chapter five: 8.43pm

Chapter six: 9.05pm

Chapter seven: 9.07pm

Chapter eight: 9.10pm

Chapter nine: 9.17pm

Chapter ten: 9.23pm

Chapter eleven: 9.26pm

Chapter twelve: 9.28pm

Chapter thirteen: 9.33pm

Chapter fourteen: 9.35pm

Chapter fifteen: 9.37pm

Chapter sixteen: 9.39pm

Chapter seventeen: 9.41pm

Chapter eighteen: 9.49pm

Chapter nineteen: 9.55pm

Chapter twenty: 10pm

Chapter twenty one: 10.04pm

Chapter twenty two: 10.11pm

Chapter twenty three: 10.13pm

Chapter twenty four: 10.14pm

Chapter twenty five: 10.16pm

Chapter twenty six: 10.20pm

Chapter twenty seven: 10.23pm

Chapter twenty eight: 10.25pm

Chapter twenty nine: 10.26pm

Chapter thirty: 10.27pm

Chapter thirty one: 10.28pm

Chapter thirty two: 10.30pm

Chapter thirty three: 10.31pm

Chapter thirty four: 10.35pm

Chapter thirty five: 10.36pm

Chapter thirty six: 10.40pm

Chapter thirty seven: 10.46pm

Chapter thirty eight: 10.54pm

Chapter thirty nine: 11.08pm

Chapter forty: 11.15pm

Chapter forty one: 11.35pm

Chapter forty two: 11.36pm

Chapter forty three: 11.40pm

Chapter forty four: 11.41pm

About the author

Other books by Frank Bukowski

8.07pm

Gary’s the name, Gary Mason. Gazza to me mates. Are you a mate? I hope not. If this gets out down The Boleyn I’ll be proper mugged off. The weirdest thing’s happened to me last weekend. We’ve just drove back from Old Trafford where I’ve took Troy to watch the Irons. We’ve tooken the long drag down the tarmac escalator and we’ve not got back til eight, so we’re fairly shagged. And to be fair by the time we’ve sat down I’ve already done three or four Stella. That’s nothin. I’ve done the missus after fourteen. She’s not what she was. So me and Tanya have just had our spag bol and settled down on the settee, as you do. Our Jack Russell, Bingo, is curled up on her lap, one eye open, ear cocked. Troy’s belly flopped on the bean bag, as per, about an inch in front of the telly. He’s got the remote. No shit. You need a bleedin anaesthetic to get a remote off a kid these days. One minute he’s watchin Sty Sports, nanosec later it’s KERCHING! He’s got these thirty channels he bookmarks on Sty:

Moron Zone

Ponce Food Junkies

Football Everywhere

Tornadoes Suck

Wonder Weapons of WW2

Loan ads for poor fat thick bastards – Top Ten Ever

Sty Sports 1, 2 and 3

Sty Sports News

West Ham TV

True Life Ghosts

Shop4Crap

Pissed up chavs caught on film

Pissed up slags caught on film

KERCHING!

Wrestling is Real

Who Wants to be a Hobo?

Poker for Philosophers

Watch Paint Dry

Bag Lady 4 a Day

At the Darts

Scariest Chopper Chases Ever – Uncut and Raw

Makeover Hell

Brain Drain

Chainsaw Heaven

Fat Slag Wife-swap

Lorry Drivers Rock – WTF!

Snatch Cam

Date a Sad Bastard

Gizmos for Fat Gits

Wet Tee-shirt Gardening

I Shagged My Agony Aunt

Semaphore Rap

In case you ain’t guessed, Troy’s a bit of a channel grazer. Olympic standard, I’d say. He flicks between, watchin in ten second bursts. Troy does everythin in ten second bursts. His homework. His dinner. Conversations. The doctors have said it’s inspiration deficit disorder. His mind works too fast. Apparently a lot of ten year olds get it. I had the box upgraded to Sty Plus for him. Don’t ask. Troy reckons it’s helpin his education cos it lets him record Breakin Bad at the same time as he’s watchin South Park.

Personally I get the right hump wiv some of the music channels he watches. I saw one the uvver night, right. Them rap videos where they change the picture every half a second. It’s like lookin at the world through a smashed mirror. Good job I ain’t epileptic. One minute there’s this fit black chick jigglin her arse all over the screen, half a sec later she shows a bit of leg, then a tit. Then just when I’m gettin a bit interested, as it happens, before you know it I’m down in the car park wiv some rap slag spinnin on his bonce, then half way up a fuckin mountain wiv this gold-toothed bruvva who’s got his finger up his nose. I’m goin the long way round the barn here. Anyway, we’ve sat there on the settee, lettin our tea go down, as you do, watchin the lad channel grazing between Sty Sports News and Fat Slag Wifeswap. Only tonight he’s doubled up wiv his Xbox. Multi-taskin, he calls it. It’s an education just watchin him some nights. Take tonight, he’s just tooken the head off this jap officer with a sniper sight, right, then he’s nipped across to Sty Sports to catch a penalty and a red card, then back to At the Darts in time to see Barry ‘the Cowboy’ nine dart Earp check out with a treble twenty, treble seventeen, double eighteen finish. Then he’s flicked over to Semaphore Rap for a bit of finger-jabbin from the bruvvas, back to the Xbox where he’s sprayed some exploding oil drums, run up these steps into a bamboo hut, lobbed in this dirty great fuck-off frag grenade, then zapped across to Watch Paint Dry to see who’s been evicted from the house, when Tan’s turned to me all huffy and said:

‘Wouldn’t it be nice if we just turned off the telly and went for a walk one night.’

Well, Troy’s sat up like a bleedin meerkat. Tanya’s always goin on at him for watchin too much telly. That’s cos she went to college, got an ‘O’ level in pastry-makin, finks she’s a bit posh. Anyone who don’t leave school wiv a GCSE in sociology is a bit fick, according to her. Normally I tell her to stick it, but for a laugh I’ve gone, ‘all right then, I could fancy a walkies.’ Well, Bingo’s ears have come up like bleedin periscopes, and he’s shot off Tanya’s lap.

Now I think about it, that’s when all this has kicked off really, with the telly and shit. BANG! goes one of the wall lights, as if someone’s shot the fucker. ‘Shit, what’s that?’ goes Troy, shaking bits of glass out his barnet. BANG! goes another one. I’m like, what the fuck? You’d have thought the SAS had steamed the bleedin gaff. ‘Dad, stop looking at me like that,’ the boy’s gone, ‘it’s scary.’ And I’m lookin over his shoulder at this thing on the telly screen. It’s like a cross between a robot and a space alien. And it’s blew the smoke from the end of this shooter and give me the right evil eye, like a right tasty geezer.

‘Watcha lookin at motherfucker?’ it’s said.

‘Turn that bleedin thing off now,’ I’ve gone to Troy. ‘I won’t have language in this house.’

Well, the lad’s looked at me like I’m a brick short of a hod. ‘Dad, it’s Call of Duty, there’s no swearing.’

‘I didn’t hear any language, Gaz,’ Tan goes.

‘They cain’t hear me, motherfucker,’ goes the telly, ‘and they cain’t see me.’

That’s when it’s got really fuckin scary, when it’s dawned on me that I’m the only fucker who can see this thing on the screen. ‘Are you alright Gaz?’ Tan goes.

‘Yeah, doll, yeah,’ I’ve gone, thinkin I need to ease up on the old Stella. BANG! goes another bulb. By now Bingo’s goin abso fuckin lutely ballistic, bouncing off the walls, barkin his bollocks off.

‘Jesus, I’m going to my room,’ goes Troy, chuckin down his controller. Is it me, I think, or am I goin bleedin tonto here? By this time Tan has switched off the lights and is sitting