Farmer

My birthday was last week and my lovely girlfriend took me for the weekend to a lovely wee cottage in the Sperrin Mountains.

The Sperrins isn't a place I know too well so while there aside from all the partying and setting trends that we do we went for a cool walk. I had my video camera with me and Kristiina decided to shoot some footage for a video I wanted to make of my poem Farmer.

Farmer is (in my opinion) one of my best poems. It's different from the sort of stuff I'm known for but I wrote it when I was 21 and living in Carlisle, long before I'd ever heard of performance poetry or page poetry (nonesense terms used for sneering and boxing people in). It was also one of the first poems I had published (Fire no.26) and for that reason I'll always be very fond of it.

Here's the video:

Boy Meets My Foot (in his hole).

I remember watching Boy Meets World as a teenager. It was a show that was alright to watch when your mum was eager to see the news. It mostly revolved around Fred Savage's less iconic wee brother trying to get buzy with the yummy Topanga (hubba hubba). It was vaguely enjoyable after a day learning things at school, you could easily just sit and zone out while it went about all quirky and cool and failing miserably. It was tolerable, and maybe even a slight guilty pleasure. What it wasn't, was a show that educated and helped me deal with issues.

That's why out of all the episodes of the show the one that sticks in my mind is the one below:



What happens is that Sean (Corey's dickhead mate) and Corey get drunk at a party. Corey stops because they puked and stuff, Sean however is now reckless and out of control. He shows up pished out of his face to school. No one smells it off him (because it's television). He insults beloved teacher Mr Feeney (Kit from Night Rider) who is imparting knowledge, gets told to get out to fuck.

Corey takes him home where they argue. Sean's 2D brother shows up and they fight about how their dad was a drunk (a-ha! Now we're getting to the root of the issue!) Sean's girlfriend shows up with Toganga (oo la la) and Sean's girlfriend tries to be understanding but Sean violently assaults her (oh! He's a violent drunk!) This is made much worse by the fact that she's the show's token black character so he comes off as a bit of a racist too. His girlfriend handles her abuse with grace and tells him she'll be back with some of her mates and a lead pipe. Sean sees that his nasty drunken ways are going to get him the kicking of his life and so he quickly gets dried out and apologises to everyone. Including Mr Feeney who as the pedagogue figure should have done a little more than the fuck all he did (he's probably tired after seeing how saving Hasselhoff's arse week after week led to fuck all).

Anyways his girlfriend's mates still fuck him up but then they get back together (although he's more subdued).

The problem with this episode is that it tried to be all advisory for its audience, and most of its audience didn't want it's advice. It also gave it in such a cackhanded way that reduced the issues to nothing more than something you take the piss out of with your mates. I'd like to hear the statistics on how many people who watched that show realised they had an alcohol problem like Sean. I'd guess not one. Epic Fail. Boy Meets World? What a fucking waste of my teenage life? I should have skived off school and went to the arcades to play tuppeny nudgers and had fights at the bus station instead of running home to see it.

The Adventures of Boring Tom - Part 4

One day Boring Tom found a penny on the ground

"Hey! I've just found a penny!" he shouted, as he picked it up.
"So what?" said some passers by. "You can't buy anything for a penny."
"I collect pennies and keep them in a jar at home," said Boring Tom.

The kids walked away laughing.
"We'll see who's laughing when I've saved up a pound!" said Boring Tom happily to himself.

Words by Gerard McKeown Art by Ryan O'Neill.

One Tree Hill and Music I Like

The other night I was trying to find the song Here Comes A Regular by The Replacements on youtube so I could show it to my girlfriend. As per usual on youtube I came face to face with craply recorded live versions and assholes (you are fucking assholes) in their bedroom doing shit covers (This is an emotional song and involved a lot of people giving birth/struggling with constipation/emotionally battered but resiliant).

I eventually found the song as it had been used in the TV Show One Tree Hill. One Tree Hill started around the same time as The OC and was temporarily overshadowed by its cool Seth Cohen witicisms and my ex-Rachel Bilson. But as The OC lost it's way and turned pish One Tree Hill kept chugging along like the little engine who could and burned brightly like a mighty log on the fire of television while The OC exploded wildly like a hallowe'en firework that shot up into the air in a beautiful display before crashing back to earth in the next door neighbours garden and setting their shed on fire (it got cancelled after a few seasons).

Anyways I've never really followed One Tree Hill. I know most of the main characters names and roughly what sort of people they are (at least within the context of the show, I don't know what they're like when they're off doing other stuff). I vaguely followed it when the guy shot his brother because he had gotten the first brother's high school sweetheart pregnant and tried to pretend it was a highschool kid on the rampage what did it but then he was found out by his sons (his illegitimate one and official one) and they made sure he rotted in jail for being a no good piece of slime. That aside I really don't have much of a clue about it.

I didn't know what to expect when I decided to risk showing this snippet to my girlfriend. I asked my girlfriend to listen to the song rather than watch the moving pictures (some bird in the show dying). I might have exposed myself to a massive ass whoopin (in a metaphorical sense) if it had not been that we were both surprised that after finding Ellie (who?) dead the American girl (Payton, Cocoa Butter or some other essential oil of a name) starts waffling on in French. (She must have liked her and now be traumatised). Though if you are traumatised what better song to listen to than Here Comes A Regular by The Replacements. Enjoy! (The song, not one tree hill).

The Adventures of Boring Tom - Part Three

One day Boring Tom was at the bus stop.

"Does this bus go to Lurgan?" Boring Tom asked.
"No," said the person at the bus stop.

"Good," said Boring Tom. "I don't want to go to Lurgan. Too many "wild boys" there".

Using his fingers hadn't produced the reaction he'd hoped for, but he wouldn't give up hope. Someday someone would get it.

Boring Tom by Gerard McKeown (words) and Ryan O'Neill (art)

Helping out a Tranny Tramp

Me and my sweet honey pie today went with some wee bits and pieces she wanted rid of to a charity shop. Only problem was every one we went to was closed. Not letting that beat us me and my little honey pie went and left the stuff in a wee sheltered bit outside one (not saying which cause we support).

We were very pleased with ourselves and gave each other a hi-5 At this point a tramp came along and asked if he too could give us a hi- 5 How could we refuse that miserable old tramp? We hung ten with the funky tramp. Then we fucked off to do other cool stuff.

When we came back we found that a suitcase full of clothes had been taken but another box was left. We thought it must have been the tramp. It was a nifty suitcase and would have made him look like a classy lad. Of course there were ladies clothes in it so maybe the randy old dude was a tranny as well as a tramp. That's cool we thought. When I used to work in charity shops trannies came in all the time (I've never worked in a charity shop but it's a vaguely amusing [if homophobic] story that makes me sound like I give a shit about muthafuckas).

Anyways we thought also he might have a lady tramp and the clothes will come in handy for presents on special occasions. This was sweet we thought. Our biggest fear was that some chump might have spotted the suitcase and thought it was a bomb (as can happen in this part of the world), and if that was the case we'd have to run from the cops.

MY KICK ASS NEW DIRECTION

I'M A POET OF SOME RENOWN AND I'VE DECIDED IT'S TIME FOR ME TO CHANGE DIRECTION. FOR A LONG TIME I BEEN DOIN DAT COMEDY STUFF AND IT'S BEEN ROCKIN (LIKE THE TIME I WAS STANDING ON A TABLE WITH MY HANDS ON THE CEILING ROCKIN DAT TABLE FROM SIDE TO SIDE AS I SPAT FLY RHYMES). BUT NOW I'VE GOT TO TAKE THINGS TO A HIGHER LEVEL. TEACHING THE YOUNGER GENERATION ABOUT STUFF DEY SHOULD KNOW. I'M LEADING THE WAY. HOLD OUT YOUR TORCHES. I'M SETTIN DEM MUTHAFUCKAS ON FIRE. DIS IS MY NEW RHYME IT'S CALLED DERRY MUTHAFUCKA. AND IF PEEPS BE TALKIN TRASH (BALLS) I BE FUCKIN DEM UP. I FUCK DER ASSHOLES OUT DA FUCKIN WINDOWS ANY DAY OF DA FUCKIN WEEK

DERRY MUTHAFUCKA

DERRY MUTHAFUCKA!!
I'M COMIN FOR YA CROWN MUTHAFUCKA!!
I BE SPITTIN RHYMES OF INTELLIGENCE!!
TALKIN ABOUT BRINGING THINGS TO ANOTHER LEVEL!!
ENGAGE WITH ME MUTHAFUCKAS!!
ENGAGE!!
I BE SHOWIN THA WAY PEOPLE BE DOIN THANGS
AND I BE SAYING BULLSHIT MUTHAFUCKAS
FIND YO SELF!!
DON'T BE ME!!
I'M ME!!
DELETE THIS IF YOU WANT I BE JUST TELLING PEOPLE
HOW TO BE WHO THEY WANT TO BE
AND NOT WHO THEY THINK THEY WANT TO BE!!
I SHOWS PEOPLE HOW TO BE INTELLEGENT [sic]
AND HOW TO SPIT RHYMES AND TELL COPS
TO LIKE YO GET YO FUCKIN' HAND OFF ME MUTHAFUCKA!!
I SPLIT YO SKULL WITH A BIG ROCK!!
DERRY MUTHAFUCKA!!
I OWN YOU NOW!!