SHY YETI SPEAKS TO THE BEARGRRRIAN GAZETTE...
Hello beasties!
This time I have two things to share with you... The first is the 10th anniversary re-issue of my MUGSHOTS album. It's a little bit early, but then I've had people ask for copies so that they can bring them along to the Halloween show on the 31st of this month. The actually anniversary is probably either right at the very end of December or right at the very start of January; a pretty dreadful time to release anything really... So, I'm releasing it early - and here are the details...
MUGSHOTS, first published in early 2005, was Paul’s seventh self-published collection and his sixth to include completely contemporary compositions. Even back then he was writing his daft yeti verse, but until now MUGSHOTS has only been available alongside its sister volume POETIQUETTE (also re-issued in 2015), so this is the first time it has stood alone. This 10th anniversary edition contains photos and facts about the book and many of these poems Paul still regularly performs today, COME FOR ME, CUB UP A TREE, KEEP ON GETTING IT WRONG, LITTLE BEN, MY CATWALK, THE ONLY YOU THERE IS and SWEPT OFF MY FEET, but many that he doesn’t! At least not yet… So, sit back and enjoy!!
Pbk Edition: http://www.lulu.com/content/paperback-book/mugshots/15200184 £6.99
Hbk Edition: http://www.lulu.com/content/hardcover-book/mugshots/15345120 £12.99
I might release a piece from it on here next time - but for now I'd like to share with you a recent interview that I gave to my old friends at The Growl Gazette in Beargrrria.
I'll say farewell for now and leave you with the interview!
More soon! Yeti hugs, Paul xx
Here is another, recent interview from Beargrrria’s top magazine for chat; THE GROWL GAZETTE. They know me over there due to my dubious connection with a certain Beargrrrian superstar named Charlie Grrr. This is the seventh time that they have interviewed me! They really MUST be short of people to speak to. This time I’m talking mainly about what the next few months hold in store and about my forthcoming collection – A YETI WAY OF THINKING and the 10th anniversary reissues of my collections, MUGSHOTS and POETIQUETTE. So, here’s what they asked and what I said in reply – straight from the yeti’s mouth, as it were!!!
Q. Welcome Mr Yeti!
Hi! It’s extraordinarily good to be back...
Q. What have you been working on recently?
A. I’m focusing on the last two 10th anniversary re-issues, MUGSHOTS and POETIQUETTE – at least the last two of the my first eight collections that I particularly wanted to make available as separate books again, rather than the compilations that they had previously been available as on www.lulu.com. The 6th in the series, LOVESONGS FOR THE BITTER AND TWISTED, came out at the start of the year, whilst collections 7 and 8 are due Winter 2014/2015; although MUGSHOTS will probably be ready for my September 2014 Poetry Café Show and I’ll save POETIQUETTE for New Year 2015. Depending on how I feel I may re-issue my 9th and 10th collections, POEMS TO MAKE BEARS GROWL (2006) and RHYMES BEARS STEAL PIES FOR (2007), which were my first collections released via the Lulu site. Although they don’t need much reworking, I might alter the formatting of the collection, as well as my opinions on the poems ten years later. As for new poems, I’ve pretty much decided that I have enough material for my new A YETI WAY OF THINKING collection – all I need to do it format the pages, write the biogs on the pieces and maybe whittle down the blog posts at the back of the book as they cover an almost 2 year period and take up far too much of the page count; I’ll just include the really important dates during the period that the collection was put together. I’m hoping it will be ready by the end of the year, but wouldn’t be terribly surprised if it slipped into early 2015. A lot of my time has also been spent working on the 2nd, 3rd and 4th seasons of THE BEAST OF FRIENDS – which are now all at different stages of completion… Series 2 is about to be released, Series 3 is about to enter its first proofreading stage, whilst the scripts for Series 4 are complete – but the final essay about the season is not yet complete and I’m only at the very early pre-proofreading stage of formatting for this book. I’m also working on two spin-off shows from THE BEAST OF FRIENDS – but I can tell you more about that later, if you’re interested.
Q. Tell us more about A YETI WAY OF THINKING. Do you have any favourite pieces from the latest collection?
This collection bears some similarities with my previous book, NOT AS SHY AS I WAS, in that it has been a real labour of love and has taken quite a while to reach this stage; over two years by the time it is published in the case of A YETI WAY OF THINKING… There were a number of reasons for this – some are health related and some are just the fact that I’ve been working on other projects. I certainly believe in letting my writing take me on whatever journey it chooses too – it’s not as if I do it to make a living; I should work on whatever project I’m enjoying most. As far as favourites in this collection – there are a lot and, of course, I’ve been performing some of these pieces for a couple of years now. Some of my favourites are as follows: ARE THEY AWARE I’M A WEREWOLF, A HARMLESS PRANK, I USED TO BE A TEN, JUST ONE DAY (BEING YOU), LOVED FOR WHAT YOU’RE NOT, MYSTERY HEN, PICCADILLY IS A RUBBISH CIRCUS, SOMETIMES A HUG IS ENOUGH, TWO VAMPIRE HUNTING YETI, WE’RE ALL STARS TODAY and YOU’LL DO. They cover quite a wide range of topics as you can see from the titles – from werewolves and vampires to detective hens and childish pranks – right across to living other people’s lives for them, settling for second best and not to forget my commentary on the state of London’s streets – but in a typically surreal Chandleresque manner, of course. I do hope that there is something for everyone!
Q. We’re interested to hear about THE BEAST OF FRIENDS and the spin-off series – is there any poetry involved? Can you tell us anything about the later seasons of BEAST? What are the spin-offs about?
I’ll quickly answer your question about poetry – yes, I’ve made an effort to include one poem per season, as it happens. In the first season it was a piece entitled THE BEAST OF FRIENDS – although it wasn’t anything to do with characters from the series. In series 2 I used A UNICORN AT BREAKFAST as it fitted in with one of the stories, MINI MYTHICAL BEASTS. In series 3 I used SHAVING WEREWOLVES as Colin the werewolf plays such a big part in this season… Finally, in season 4 I used A YETI WAY OF THINKING as Shy Yeti appears in the season and its also the title of my next collection of poems and stories.
As for the other series, I think one of the reasons that I have focussed so much on BEAST this year is that I decided that I would draw the series to a close after the 4th season; the idea for spin-offs came about later, although I have to be a little careful when talking about those series, so as not to give away who survives to the end of BEAST! I just published the second series of BEAST - whilst working on the third and fourth series scripts of the show – which I hope will be published during 2015.
Season 2 is very much in the same style as the first season. Each episode focuses on a different main character and the season is top and tailed by episodes that involve the arc plot that wraps up the season as a whole. There are some coming and goings in the house, a wedding, a trip to Paris (easily done when you’re just writing a script!) – not to mention a zombie taxi driver, a nosey yeti playwright and a escaped box of mini mythical beasts. It’s all go – with a shocking cliffhanger into the third season…
Season 3 is a slight change in style – it was originally conceived to be similar in set up as the previous two seasons – with each episode focusing on a different character. Although we do focus on Colin, Horner and Katrina’s problems as part of the events in the episodes – this season is a lot more one continuing story. The “arc” plays a big part in how all the episodes fit together and the centre of this is a new flat-mate named Christophe who arrived in the last few minutes of the second season. There are separate side-line stories, but this season is almost a reverse of previous ones where the story arc is the main plot and the smaller incidents are perhaps side-lines off from that.
Season 4 is a series of four longer scripts which rounds off the show – it features a number of familiar characters returning, not to mention a number of new ones. Horner goes through Skin-Time and is black-mailed, Katrina finds she can no longer spend time with her friends as it causes her to want to kill them! Meanwhile, Warren has to re-evaluate his relationship with his troublesome mother, Ashley – he also has to decide whether he wants to date a ghost. Love is also in the air for Colin – however just as he is about to meet the girl of his dreams – the ex of his nightmares shows up intent on making him pay for their devastating time together.
I’ve already moved on to writing two different spin-off shows from BEAST, but I’m not sure how much I should tell you about the spin-off series, although I’ll happily tell you the premise, but not the characters concerned…
HOT STUFF!! is about a library and the people who work there – the building holds a secret that had been kept for many years by the former librarian and now that she has died a certain person must rescue the secret before it is stolen by villains who want to use it to do evil…
KENSINGTON GORE concerns an area in London containing some very posh flats; these flats are near The Royal Albert Hall and seem to attract some very curious residents. Three familiar faces are employed to observe these residents – although they do not always reveal to their bosses the full story of what is going on…
Q. As already mentioned, you are continuing to release your early books as 10th anniversary editions during 2014. The most recently released collections being LOVESONGS FOR THE BITTER AND TWISTED – with MUGSHOTS soon to follow. Were there any poems that you’ve enjoyed revisiting or which you had practically forgotten?
A. There are a number of poems from both those collections that I regularly still perform, FLAUNT TRADITION, CRASHING BORES, CRASHTESTBOYFRIEND and GRANNY ETHEL KEEPS THEM DECENT among others, from LOVESONGS and KEEP ON GETTING IT WRONG, INGRID BERGMAN’S NOSE and NEVER STEAL ANOTHER MAN’S RHUBARB from MUGSHOTS. As far as one’s that I’d kind of forgotten I definitely found a few with both collections that I enjoyed rediscovering and began to include in my performances. With LOVESONGS it was definitely DEATH ON AN EMPTY STOMACH, JEALOUSY DID HIM NO GOOD, THE SMALL PRINT and WICKED SANTA… As for MUGSHOTS, I definitely rediscovered a number of poems that I had forgotten, such as MY CATWALK, SWEPT OFF MY FEET, THEY ALL HATE ME and THEY WRITE THEMSELVES which I would like to perform in the near future… Of the two books there are far more poems that I regularly perform from LOVESONGS – but then this, MUGSHOTS and POETIQUETTE were written quite quickly one after another, so I guess it was just a random happening in which order that the poems emerged. I’ve done Youtube videos (under my MRSHYYETI profile) on a number of the poems mentioned above should you want to experience them!
Q. Do you still plan to complete work on your backlog of SHY YETI ON LOCATION videos and will you be filming any new episodes in the near future?
A. I’m not planning on filming anything new until I catch up with my backlog from 2012 and 2013. I’d like to find ways of including photos from my trips on my blog and into my collections of stories and poems – but that continues to happen to a certain extent. I’ve been keeping an eye on my ratings and whether the older films are still being watched – and they are, so it would be nice to add some new ones, but I’ve not even recorded footage from the recent Poetry Café shows this year – partly because they have been less well-attended than I hoped. Hopefully I’ll get my editing mojo back at some point – I just don’t know where the time goes at the moment!
Q. Will there be any new Mouse Of Commons books? Will you be returning to poetry and short stories in the future or have you not started thinking about it?
I hope there will be more poetry, certainly – I am still working on the odd unfinished piece whenever I get the chance, usually when commuting into work on the bus or train. As for when there will be another collection of poetry and short stories after A YETI WAY OF THINKING is launched it really depends how quickly these pieces come together – it may take some time, or not. The poems and stories in A YETI WAY OF THINKING cover a two year period, so I’ve been a little less prolific in this area of late – whilst working on other projects, but that could change with any follow-up collection that I end up producing! I never know! It’s possible that early in the New Year I may continue work on one of three unfinished Mouse Of Commons books – two collections of short stories and one novel. We’ll see how time flies!!
Q. How is the performance poetry going?
A.
I’ve just performed my show for September at The Poetry Cafe, which was partly
a prelude to the re-release of my MUGSHOTS collection. I’ve another one coming
up in October and am quite excited about it as it’s on Halloween of all nights
– which I specifically requested so that I could perform some of my scarier
verse. There will be space for open-mike readers too if people would like to
come along. Hopefully, John Smallshaw will be there, as ever! It’s just not the
same without him… As for 2015, I’d like to do two or three shows – four is
maybe too many; although I’d happily guest on other people’s shows should they
need me!
Q. That's good news. Thank you for answering our questions, Mr Yeti.
A. That's okay. Thanks again for inviting me to speak with your readers and for sharing my thoughts.
P.S. So, there you have it! More soon! Yeti hugs, Paul xx
This post and its contents are Copyright Paul Chandler, 2014.
