Empire Thunderdome Diaries – hecklerspray Is Out, Folks!

In which hecklerspray writer Chris Laverty chronicles his ultimately doomed efforts to win the Empire Thunderdome writing competition… 

Month 4: They called me ‘Heckler’!

There was a moment, right before I picked up last month's magazine, where I seriously started to wonder what the judges had said about me. It never occurred before that moment, especially with that previous issue's derogatory example; just getting through remained priority number one.

Anyway, with hopeful optimism I opened the magazine and saw that again, for the second time running, your man at hecklerspray is about as popular as a cool refreshing can of Toilet Duck. It stings, and I now feel annoyed at myself for changing tact. Trying to show my feminine side, what was I thinking? I very quickly discover, thanks to the forum, that the Empire demographic is young adult males with an interest in action movies; not indie-queen Felicity Huffman. A bit like on here then. The website I write for. Our demographic.

I can be such a dumb fuck sometimes.

This time (resting on the assumption that I’ll get through, or I might as well stop writing now) I will keep it heckler. Keep the jokes, balls and truth. Stand up and salute! Go on, raise that flag, boy!

It's just a few days before the task deadline and I’ve sent an email to Empire’s editor requesting that he inform us either, a) when we are safe for the next month or b) if we out of the competition for good. Seems fair. Even in reality-shite TV the contestants get a date/time of their beheading, and this ain’t no reality-shite TV. I’m not expecting a response.

Okay, I’ve just finished two articles for this task (find a film Empire reviewed totally inaccurately from the last three years and explain what they said wrong and how I’d say it better). I don’t know which to submit. One is a bit funnier; the other is a bit deeper. I’m thinking maybe a Fox’s Party Ring might help me decide? No. Shit, is that Top Gear back on? Hammond looks a bit shaky, don’t he?

The task is decided upon and eventually emailed to Mr Big Man at Empire, a whole three days before the deadline (woooo!). He doesn’t respond to this any more than he did my last email, so I send off another one, vainly trying to get some kind of confirmation out of the guy. ‘Yeah, got it’ arrives a few hours later. I unclench my buttocks and relax just a little bit. Actually, that reads like I was on the toilet at the time. I wasn’t. Cord wouldn’t reach.

At this stage of the game the Thunderdome is as much about the online forum as it is about the tasks. It’s mercifully quiet at the moment, but that will change. It always does. It is fun too, don’t get me wrong. It’s just that ensuring you answer a question about comic books/comic book adaptations/Bruce Campbell’s condiment of choice correctly is a very much a task in itself. Like those old Interplanetary Spy books Menzies used to sell: choose your path well and you win; choose poorly and something with four rows of teeth and an Inca headdress eats you.

Bombshell - and we’re not talking about that girl who plays the honey trap on The Real Hustle.

No, about three weeks before the next issue’s publication date, I hear from Empire that they are disqualifying me for skewed voting by whoring myself on hecklerspray every week. You guys voted in your masses and I, we, thank you for that wholeheartedly. You done nothing wrong. Apparently I did by not asking if I could get on my knees and blow you for votes in the first place. Can’t blame the ringmasters either, it’s all just bit of fun and they were only keeping the game fair.

I’m not bitter. It was great fun roughing things up as the hecklerspray boy. I felt gutted for about as long as it took me to realise worrying wouldn’t stop that nagging twinge in my left arm. And now as I’m writing this, just five days before the new issue's due, I’m ready to laugh at myself even more than my friends/family/colleagues/nurses do already.

Thanks again for the support, guys. Look on the bright side, you won’t have to read this drawn out diary/therapy letter anymore and, joy of joys, I won’t have to bloody write it.

hecklerspray has left the Thunderdome. We kicked its arse.