The Adventures of Boring Tom - Part 5

One day Boring Tom called the cops on his illegally parked neighbour.

The cops came and clamped the car.

Later that night someone broke Boring Tom's windows, and he didn't know why.

Boring Tom Stories by Gerard McKeown and Ryan O'Neill.

Gumtree - Missed Connections, No Connections

One of my late night pursuits is having a wee giggle to myself about the poor lonely folk that write up on Gumtree Missed Connections. I always read the Belfast section, mostly because I'd like to see someone I know mentioned on there sometime but also because I'd maybe like to see some lonely sap looking for me. I would have a good giggle and show it to my girlfriend and we'd laugh and maybe send them a jokey email back telling them I wanted to meet them in a lonely part of town at night and have them lifted by the cops for stalking me.

This is very cruel? Isn't it?

No, it isn't.

Here's why.

You see most people on here are looking for these "stunning" people they see when they're limping all lonely about the city and they're too afraid to talk to them. You see if they went up and said something along the lines of "Hey baby you're so hot, sex me now. I like it wild!" then maybe they'd get a slap in the face, but maybe if they just struck up a conversation with them it might not be so bad. You see good-looking people don't spend their time on Gumtree hoping that someone is looking for them (except for me), they spend their time going out and meeting people. So you've little or no chance that they'll ever read your message, at most you've just gotten something off your chest.

The other problem is this, putting up these gushing messages about how you just have to meet this person makes you sound like a bed wetter.

With this in mind I've put my own sad wee post up (see if you can guess which one it is). And maybe if you're reading this in tears saying "but I'm too shy to speak to people", then consider this; If you do speak to someone and make a dick out of yourself they probably won't remember it for too long but at least you'll have met them (which is more than you'll get posting on Missed Connections).

Plus for cash I'll come along and tell them how muther frickin' fly ass cool you are (even if you're not!) and how at a party when I open a beer, I give one to you and whatever's left is for me (but let's not go overboard I have my own cool to keep).

You gotta have rain to have rainbows! (or Fairy Liquid)

Friday I was stranded out in Ormeau Park. It had drizzled a wee bit and I thought my nice £2.50 Save the Children (I have a social conscience) umbrella was enough to withstand any onslaught the weather might throw at me.

This was proved wrong the first time I opened it. Not by the weather but by the umbrella's eagerness to "BREAK THE MOULD" and fly off like a bad tribute to all the merry chimney sweeps in Dick the Dyke's Mary Poppins.

Then it pissed down, out of pure schadenfreude, and I was left huddling under a tree thinking if that thing I heard at school about not huddling under trees in lightening storms was true (it is - just in case you think I'm a reliable source and I'm disputing it [we were all told a lot of lies at school]) and thinking I should have got in that taxi that my girlfriend offered me a lift in.

Then it stopped and I saw this (see below)



And it reminded me that we see a lot of rain in Northern Ireland but not a lot of rainbows. And I immediately thought about a metaphor for the troubles but didn't write it down for lack of a pen.

I'm sure it lives on in the hearts of the people, and in the wind that smashes into the side of cavehill and carries many a lowly scoutmaster sordid dreams (oo er!) but I forget it, (it was something to do with George W Bush being a total mutherfucker and like totally being a dick, dude I'm like into peace and stuff and if you're not then you can totally go hang with all the racists I'm going to defeat when they hear what I have to say about them the stoopid gang of asswipe mutherfuckers).

Anyways. I remembered that you need a lot of rain to get rainbows but also that you had to have a dick, to have dick in your mouth, and off I walked back towards town hoping that there were still some skaters at custom house square to have a laugh at (only when they fell really badly - other than that they were slam dunkin da funk).

Searching for Prostitutes in Belfast

This is the latest video for Communist Defectors Will Be Shot. This marks a change for the group since it's our last track with Eugene Reilly. Meaning that now Communist Defectors Will Be Shot is just me. This is also the last of our collaborations with Karen Eliot (the other being The Great City of Ballymena).

How you enjoy it.



For anyone who's interested the video was shot entirely on my Samsung phone camera.

The Great City of Ballymena

I've Been Stuck in Ballymena a lot recently because I'm technically homeless. It's been fine in a lot of ways, mostly because I get to see a lot of my folks and at the start of the years I was working nights and the only time I got to see any of them was when my dad went into hospital, and even then I was walking around like a zombie.

Anyways, I thought I'd use that as a great excuse to show you my tribute to my hometown The Great City of Ballymena. It was a video I made for a song I did with my electronica group Communist Defectors Will Be Shot. It's named after the time IPJ called it that on the news. He should know better because he's the MLA for here and Ballymena is a bloody town. Regardless of what it says on that fucking roundabout (WELCOME TO THE CITY OF THE SEVEN TOWERS). It actually doesn't have seven towers either (any more).

Anyway, here's the vid. When I made it I thought the links were tenuous at best, now I'm not so sure there are any at all. Watch it and let me know if you see any.

Bungo, Brawling with Cops and Cormac - at last

Last night I was back in Belfast having been absent for a few days and I was very happy to be hanging out with my good lady friend (see girlfriend). We decided to go down to La Boca where Geoff Gatt runs an open mic accoustic night.

We got there late but just in time to hear a few numbers by Accoustic Dan, and the last act (a guy called Cormac - sorry didn't get his last name). Anyways, Cormac played a good set and I was speaking to Geoff about him. Geoff said he used to play around town years ago but that he'd been in Liverpool for the past few years.

For some strange reason something in my head clicked and I thought of a number I had in my phone stored as 'Liverpool'.

Now the reason I have this number is because of a dare's game I invented for the SPART ACTION GROUP called Bungo.

The rules of Bungo are pretty easy and involve:

1 Dice
some paper and pens
a bag
a lot of balls (metaphorical of course -ladies can play too!)

So to start with everyone writes some dares and puts them in the bag (there's no set rules on numbers but enough so that everyone will end up with a few dares).

Now at this point I'll tell you that it was in the rules that you could refuse to do a dare if it was illegal or risky to your health. (If you refused for any other reason you had to do a forefit). Despite this clause we all nearly got arrested for our daring deeds.

Then we begin, everyone roles the dice (I know it's die but, like, fuck off) and the highest number goes first, it then goes clockwise from them.

Role a 1 - Pick a dare out of the bag
Role a 2 - Put a dare back into the bag (if you've no dares then you just pass)
Role a 3 - Pass a dare on to your left
Role a 4 - Pass a dare on to your right
Role a 5 - Select a player to give a dare to
Role a 6 - Miss a go.

The dice rolling stops when the bag is empty. It is at this point that everyone does their dares, taking it in turn to do them.

Two of the dares in the game involved going to someone else's house.

One (which I got), involved going to a random house and trying to sell them something.

the other (which Ben Craig got), involved knocking someone's dorr and running away.

Ben and I of course had balls of steel, so off we went to do our dares.

I picked a random house in the neighbourhood and tried to sell a wee crappy pink plastic dinosaur to the guy who answered.

Ben decided when it came time to do his dare that he would pick the same house. So off we all went to make sure he didn't welsch.

Ben indeed rapt the door very hard (though not hard enough to cause structural damage) and we ran laughing down the drive. Where upon our way out was blocked by a car in the drive.

At this point a group of angry 40 something year olds got out and grabbed us. I fucked some dude on his head and my mate the grid got bounced off a car and my other mate Paul was kneed in the balls by some half-wit who thought we'd murdered her kids (it was still during the throws of the Madeline McCann news story so every parent in the country was on the lookout for murderous paedophiles).

Anyways it all got very nasty and the cops were called. When the cops showed up they couldn't accept that we'd just been playing a party game. (partly because we wouldn't take them back to the house - because there was a six foot wide pentagram drawn on the hallway carpet in sugar - Yum Yum).

Anyways, at the end of all this we got away scott free (which is nice when you haven't committed a crime).

Now the final twist. One of Ben's dares was also to send a random text from my phone to someone on his friends list. So he did. This person he said didn't live in Belfast but in Liverpool and standing there before me in La Boca last night might possibly have been the mystery number.

I called it, it was. We had a brief but pleasant chat and he took the whole dares game in the jovial mood it had been intended. Then he left. A nicer, happier ending to the single game of Bungo ever played, than the reckless street brawl that had spoiled my memories of what was supposed to be a happy occasion.

Poetry on the Bus

So I was on the bus from Ballymena today and there was this spide that sat down opposite me in the seat. I was writing away in my notepad and he asks me if I want to play him at Xes and Ozes. So I said no (because I didn't). He asks me if he can have a piece of paper anyway. I ripped him out a sheet and gave him a spare pen and he went and played a game with the guy behind him.

He asks me what I'm writing.
"Poetry," I say. Maybe not the wisest thing to say to a bus with a lot of spides on it but let's face it, poetry is cool!
"Can I read it?" he asks.
"No," I answer.

That was the end of that. For about five minutes anyway until he came along and read me a poem he'd written:

"There was a boy on the bus,
he lent me a pen without a fuss,
I challenged him to a game,
but he said no, I will refrain,
but do not worry and do not fret
here's some paper and a pen pet.

Then he starts talking to the couple behind me. He then writes a poem about them. Again it rhymed, but it was a good piece. So then he asked again to read mine. How could I say no after him letting me read his own work? Now a lot of the stuff in my book at the minute is a load of crap about how I'm stressed out with work and finding somewhere new to live and snippets about my girlfriend that aren't good enough (or as good as I'd like them to be), even though no one on this bus knows who I am, I have a reputation to consider so there's going to be no reading of these.

I have a quick hoak and what do I find, none other than The Beautiful Goth! I give it to him and he starts reading it out. He only gets a few lines in before he finds the faux depth and flowerly lines to be too cack to continue. So as he gives up I finish it off to thunderous applause from the back of the bus (well the back few rows anyway). But it was a class poetry time had by all. Why can't it happen more often?

Anyway here's The Beautiful Goth if you're wondering: