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[Nov. 27th, 2006|04:02 am] |
Hey kids, remember when I posted those unfinished writings? Well HERE I GO AGAIN! Uh-oh; buckle up!
This is a poem I started ages ago; before moving to Sydney. I kept working on it a little bit at a time, but my enthusiasm petered out as, I guess, my hatred of shit music turned into indifference and obliviousness. It'll never be finished, so I might as well let the world see it while anyone's still heard of the bands. Rest assured it was going to end in a triumphant climax, and would have been inspiring and terrifying when read aloud.
*** *** ***
A Prayer
Dear Jesus, thank you for my life.
I like it lots. It isn’t rife
With poverty, dismay or strife.
I don’t have cancer or a cough.
My eyebrows are not falling off.
I have a roof above my head,
My body’s clean, my tummy’s fed,
My friends aren’t mostly sick or dead.
I’m grateful, and it would be rude
To have a different attitude.
And yet, O Lord, there is one thing...
And let me state quite clearly, Lord,
That if you knock me back,
I still will love you dearly, Lord;
I won’t get angry; really, Lord.
You won’t hear muttering from me.
I know you work mysteriously.
And yet, O Lord, there seems to be
One thing that I still lack.
One thing that I, in spite of what
A nearly perfect life I’ve got,
Find that without, things aren’t so hot.
O Lord, I pray, extend your hand,
And round up every indie band,
And have the whining bastards shot.
They cannot play, they cannot sing,
Their lyrics are not interesting.
They cry about the slightest thing.
They haven’t got a thing to show
That wasn’t done first years ago.
But that’s not what makes me the maddest.
It’s that they are a bunch of jocks.
But now, instead of football socks,
It’s cardigans and probably frocks.
(Plus jackets from a three-piece suit,
To look good for the photo shoot.)
Instead of asking, who’s the baddest?
Now they try to seem the saddest.
I’m sure they tease Avril Lavigne,
That young, dumb, fake and posing teen,
For being such a drama queen,
But Interpol are just as bad.
They look like a McDonald’s ad!
Those boring jerks have got the works:
The snappy suits, the knowing smirks.
How long do they spend on their hair
To make it look like they don’t care?
O Lord, let famine rape the land,
And strike down every indie band.
I’d like to push them off a ledge.
They like to think they’re cutting-edge,
With far more cred than Ben or Leo,
But guess who’s got a spread in Cleo:
John Butler and his fucking Trio.
I fucking hate that prick. I’d like
To see his dreadlocks on a spike.
He rants about some hippie shit,
Then plucks his banjo under it.
Abracadabra! Instant hit.
Don’t get me started on The Vines.
Some guy gets on a mic and whines.
Big fucking deal, guy. Get a clue:
I know this might be news to you,
But that’s what politicians do.
Hey, Daniel Johns of Silverchair,
Your music’s trite, you skinny twat.
No string section can alter that.
Get a job and cut your hair,
And change your fucking underwear.
Area 7 are old men
Who want to live their youth again.
They stomp and yell and try to tell
Teenagers how they can rebel.
Area 7, go to Hell.
O God, let pestilence run rife;
Let every man fear for his life;
Let kind old ladies choke and die,
If only, God, you’ll heed my cry:
Find all the indie bands at large,
Tie them to an explosive charge,
And blow them to the fucking sky.
The singer guy from Muse – that runt:
He’s such a weeping, wailing cunt.
They must clamp leads to his nutsack
When he records a vocal track.
Oh, lots of singers caterwaul,
But that guy is the worst of all.
Can anybody hear him sing
Without wanting to break something?
Specifically, his bony back?
(I could have made that entire verse
About Placebo – but they’re worse.)
Take *NSYNC on a bad hair day,
Make up each member like a clown,
Then give them earrings, make them frown,
And water all their lyrics down.
Cast all their fancy threads away
And make their wardrobe dour and dark.
Ladies and gents, it’s Linkin Park!
There is a band I’m sure you know:
If only they were called ‘Esk Joe’:
They might not altogether blow
If they got rid of the emo.
But blow they do – blow like smokestacks!
Who else deserves to get the axe?
The White Stripes – what a pair of hacks.
They play worse than they fucking dress!
They don’t have any sex appeal,
So how’d they get a record deal?
Did Jack blackmail some label stooge?
Did Meg White swallow down his spooge?
That would explain their deuced success:
The boy, he is a vulture,
And the girl, she is a harlot.
What happened to goth culture,
That it turned into Good Charlotte?
And what the hell did punk rock do
That it’s now Blink one-eighty-two?
Next time you see a flick
Whose deeper meanings equal dick
And whose takings are the makings of a Hollywood bank vault,
Wait until the closing credits,
And the music? You can bet it’s
Yet another punk rock shithead preaching riot and revolt.
Jesus, God and Holy Mother,
What’s two world wars? Let’s have another!
Let’s blow ourselves to smithereens!
I’m satisfied it’s worth the cost
Of six billion human lives lost
If absolute extinction means
The nuclear explosion cleans
All indie bands, absent of worth,
Right off the surface of the earth.
To expedite the world’s End Times,
Let’s make a list of all their crimes:
*** *** ***
Apologies to anyone who likes those bands. Ha ha, I'm kidding of course -- you're all very stupid.
This next thing is apparently from about this time last year. I remember dashing it off in about three seconds to prove to someone -- I think Shawni? -- that writing is easy, if quality's not a concern.
*** *** ***
He stared at the tatami mats. He leaned in close and scratched his eyeballs against them. His name was Wibble. He was a taxi driver. But not tonight.
Not tonight.
He wondered if tatami mats were named after someone; someone called Bob Tatami, or something like that. He would find out. He would call Bob Tatami.
Three months later, he had built a papier-mache model fort from the pages of the phonebook. But the elusive Bob Tatami remained... elusive. He squinted, and peered into the fort, wondering if Bob Tatami was hiding in there. He couldn’t see very well. His eyes still itched from the tatami. He scratched them against the tatami for sweet relief. Eventually, he would learn to masturbate. But not tonight.
Not tonight.
He decided to eat beans. God, how he wanted to eat beans. He could imagine them sliding down his throat, one by one, singing little songs as they splashed in their bean-sauce:
“Beans, beans, beans are we;
“We look like poo and taste like pee;
“With a ho ho ho and a hee hee hee,
“We bean all night and dayyy!”
That is how they would go. Oh yes. He opened a bean tin and poured the contents down the back of his shirt. He couldn’t remember when, but somewhere along the way, Wibble had forgotten where his mouth was. He went to say “dammit”, but he’d forgotten how to do that, too. He danced a jig instead. Dear god, how he danced that jig. He would never know, but it was the exact same jig that God himself danced each morning to make the sun shine. And the clouds were God’s semen, sprayed across the sky, to rain and make the land fertile and wet. Refreshed. Exhausted. Naked. Covered in snails.
Wibble opened another can and the phone rang. Astonished, he picked up the receiver and placed it back down. Gingerly, he found another can and opened it. The phone rang again. He ripped it from the wall and threw it out the window. He opened another can.
The television started ringing.
He unzipped his trousers and filled his underpants with beans. The television was still ringing. Why wasn’t the spell working; why, why? The old woman had lied to him. Lied! Oh god! Oh god! Everything was broken! Everything was broken! In three days, the world would end. Three days. Exactly. Wibble checked his watch.
It was midnight. Plus three hours and four minutes. The television was still ringing. He turned it on. There was a man on it, staring at him. Staring at Wibble, right in his itchy eyes. Itchy, itchy, itchy. The man was bald.
He spoke. “I need a taxi.”
“What name, please?” asked Wibble.
“Tatami,” said Bob Tatami. “Bob Tatami.”
*** *** ***
I seem to have a thing with people dancing jigs in moments of crisis, or when at a loose end.
Well, that's all. I hope you are mildly entertained! |
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