Wednesday, 5 July 2023

SHORT: Wooly Bulley (a.k.a. 'Social Media Influenza') [2023]

WOOLY BULLEY
(a.k.a. ‘Social Media Influenza’)

Theres a woman gone missing down by the canal;
I saw it on ITV News.
So I got out my smartphone and went to help out -
and now I’ve got 10 million views.

I’ve love to admit that my motives were pure,
and I want to discover the truth;
But the fact is, I watched some true-crime shit on Netflix
and now I’m an amateur sleuth.

“Do you think the Dad did it? Was it the dog?
The police now are under suspicion…!”
Of course, finding the answer’s the mootest of points;
To raise my own profile’s the mission.

So I pore over the details of Nicola’s life,
like whether she’s had HRT.
But when all’s turned to dust, I’m not really that fussed
’Cos it’s not about her - it’s about me.

“Now sound the alarm, ’cos I went to the barn,
and discovered an old piece of plywood…!”
I don’t care if it’s true – I’ve said it’s a clue;
and now my viewcount has rocketed skyward.

“The cops came and found me. Now I’ve been arrested!
It’s surely proof of conspiracy….!”
MATE. Your moronic pretence is disturbing forensics,
destroying the fucking crime scene…!

“Well, I’m not a professional, much less an expert;
I represent the curious majority.”
That being the case, shut the hole in your face -
there’s a reason you have no authority…!

It shouldn’t need to be mentioned, ’cos it defies comprehension
there are those making hay from her name.
And if your intervention is for ‘Likes’ or attention,
then you should be fucking ashamed.

When you trot theories out to enhance your own clout,
It’s an exercise in nothing but vanity.
Territorial pissing, while a person’s still missing –
and you’ve lost sight of your basic humanity.

Unable to contribute anything of worth,
and no chance that you’ll ever join MENSA…?
Then why not just sign up to Instagram?
You too could be an influencer!

So put on a bib, warm up a plate,
and devour the shit that they’re feeding ya
When idiot people with nothing to say
put it all out on their social media.

“My followers have gone to 6 million from zero,
And now I’m a legend on TikTok!”
I’ll tell you what, pal – that don’t make you a hero;
Just a sadcase, a pox, and a dick.

…Cock.

C.C. 22/2/23

SHORT: Howl [2023]

HOWL

I

I saw the greatest minds of my generation
co-opted to write back-end coding for the likes of Google, Amazon and Facebook.
Starving hysterical naked,
dragging themselves through line upon line of proprietary algorithms
then hauled before Congress and told to explain themselves
Which of course they could not.
Alexa: sell my data to the Russians.

I sometimes wonder if any moment in human history
can ever, or will ever be as great
as that scene in Problem Child 2
when Junior pisses in the lemonade
and his obnoxious adult neighbour drinks it.
Consider the conceptual brilliance in an act of comedy so sublime:
a 10-year-old child urinating into a glass pitcher
and handing it to the adult who has previously insulted him;
while we, the audience, all know that it’s actually a jugful of piss.
He chugs it down merrily,
smacking his lips at the end
and uttering the masterful one-word synopsis:
“Tangy”.
What is the point of even going on
when the greatest artistic endeavour in human history
has already been achieved.
I ask myself this daily while contemplating life here on earth.

I once had a dream
that the lovely Hollywood actress Anne Hathaway was my wife.
In this dream, we would awake each morning
and she would proceed to sit on my face and disco dance.
It was a glorious dream
Vivid and stimulating
So you can only imagine how upset I was
to awake and find
my actual wife lying beside me instead.
Extremely upsetting,
and not at all how I wanted to start my weekend.

I saw a piece of graffiti once
written on the cubicle wall of a public toilet.
It said, in plaintive text without punctuation:
“What is love
Baby don’t hurt me
Don’t hurt me
No more” – Haddaway, 1993.
That struck me as curiously profound
for some reason.

On the subject of love, I sometimes play a fun game
in which I substitute the word ‘love’ in any given song title
for the word ‘muff’.
It brings me endless amusement
giggling at the likes of
How Deep Is Your Muff
Make You Feel My Muff
Muff is a Battlefield
Need Your Muff So Bad
Muff in an Elevator
Can You Feel the Muff Tonight
Bizarre Muff Triangle
and Can’t Get Enough of Your Muff, Babe.
It is a childish game
Infantile, even
But it brings me comfort in this world of pain.
Try it yourself sometime
and you too may know what true spiritual fulfilment feels like.

II

Did you ever stop to consider how,
prior to the release of the most recent Rambo movie,
The fifth in the franchise
That this would be, quite literally,
Rambo Number 5.
A little bit of violence, all night long
A little bit of slaughter, in the sun
A little bit of massacre, here I am
A little bit of gore makes me your man.
Aaaaaight.
As it turns out, the series denouement was basically just
a really nasty version of Home Alone set on a ranch,
though I certainly enjoyed myself.
But to think, all this could have been easily avoided
John Rambo’s 40-year orgy of destruction across multiple continents and American states
If they’d just given him what he asked for at the start of First Blood
and served him breakfast when he wandered into town.
All this needless bloodshed, for want of a bacon sandwich.
It truly
beggars belief.

Can you imagine what it would be like if the Go Compare Man was your Dad.
How would that conversation go at school during Show & Tell, I wonder
“And what about you, Timmy?
What does your Daddy do?”
“My father is Gio Comparo
He puts on a silly moustache and acts like a cunt on national television
Nobody likes him, least of all me;
My mother exists in a perpetual state of loathing, embarrassment and shame
No longer able to show her face in polite society for fear of violent recrimination
Now flush my head down the toilet, o willing tormentor
It is no less than I deserve
For being the son of a national disgrace.”

The only thing worse is those fucking meerkats
Aleksandr and Sergei
Twatting about in their oligarch’s mansion
Doing the two-handed hoover to MC Hammer.
What must it be like
to be one of those people
who collects limited edition soft toys of the awful furry bastards
and their insufferable rodent offspring?
Are they proud
to be someone
who goes onto comparethemarket.com
and enters into a commercial dialogue with a price comparison search engine
simply for the purposes of obtaining
a Sleepy Oleg toy.
These people must exist somewhere
There are millions of them out there in the world
And yet I have never met one.
A bit like George Michael fans.

Speaking, though, of MC Hammer
I once bought a doll of him
from a knick-knack shopfront in Singapore
for the princely sum of $10.
That’s £6.10 translated into British currency
at the time of writing, though obviously subject
to future market fluctuations.
I’m sure you think that I am joking, but I can assure I am not -
Look, I have it here in this orange carrier bag.
Behold the wonder of MC Hammer in moulded plastic form
The craftsmanship is quite exquisite
Right down to the sparkling baggy Hammerpants.
Spare a thought for the artist formerly known as Stanley Kirk Burrell
A man who once had everything:
Gold-plated toilet seat
Saturday-morning animated kids’ TV series
and, most importantly:
pumps and a bump.
Jamie Foxx got an Oscar for Ray
But where oh where was Romany Malco’s award
for his scintillating portrayal in the lead role
of the made-for-television biopic Too Legit: The MC Hammer Story.
Again, I’m not making this up, I can assure you -
I own it on DVD.
Look, here it is.
Foxx gets all the plaudits
while Malco goes home empty-handed from pretty much every awards show going.
I ask you,
a bit like Lemar off of Fame Academy in that silly song of his,
where is the justice.

III

Why is it
that every fucking idiot you ever went to High School with
insists on having three children.
Not content with just one, or two,
they must continue their spree of aimless procreation
and shat out a third
just to make sure their appalling gene-pool lives on in the collective consciousness.
As if the world weren’t over-populated and headed for catastrophe enough already
They marry into their own kind
The sort of women who cry at Ed Sheeran and the John Lewis Christmas advert
I am so glad these people find each other
So the rest of us don’t have to.
Three, is the magic number
They give their progeny Playstations 5s
Down another four-pack of Stella with the lads
Then go back to being idiots
And we wonder why
The world is so fucked.

What will the aliens say
when they land on our abandoned planet
centuries after the Climate Emergency has washed us all away.
“Were they kind people?”, they will ask;
“Were they wise people?”
“Behold”, they exclaim as they consult the historical record;
Behold, the Sistine Chapel
The collective works of Swedish pop duo Roxette
And that bit in Marc Cohn’s Walking in Memphis when he sings:
“Tell me, are you a Christian, child?
I said: Ma’am, I am tonight”.
Or will they say:
Behold, Cher Lloyd’s Swagger Jagger
A record so mind-meltingly, staggeringly awful in its sheer obnoxiousness
As to attain a sort of zen perfection.
They were capable of so much
But they spuffed it all on Celebrity Love Island, fast fashion and Business Studies textbooks
How will we explain to them
the enduring popularity of Spandau Ballet
as evidenced in footage of full-time accountants in dreadful hats having it large at a festival
to the risible strains of Gold
on Spandau Ballet’s much-hyped 2010 reunion tour.
Tony Hadley! I am with you
in the pseudo-ironic 1980s Romo revival
Tony Hadley! I am with you
in occasional news reports of your latest solo offering
I am with you
in that god-awful chord which follows the chorus in True
For if this is the sound of your soul
It is truly akin to Donald Duck farting in the bathtub
Hadley be playing on the jukebox;
Worldwide, brute force, and full of money
Worldwide, brute force, and full of money
Tony Hadley, I am with you
For your inevitable appearance in the I’m a Celebrity jungle
alongside coat-hanger-faced 90s songbird Sophie Ellis-Bextor
and no doubt also Keith from Boyzone.
I am with you, you floppy-haired fucking git
I have no choice, since the great British public
simply refuses to let you die
I am with you, Tony Hadley
As your simpering fucking aspirational yuppie yacht-rock
Reverberates in perpetuity at the end of time.
I am with you
in countless landfills full of discarded Funko Pops
I am with you
for the 59-thousandth retrospective documentary about the making of Back to the Future
I am with you
for the announcement of LadBaby’s 537th consecutive Christmas #1
I am with you
as Salt Bae infiltrates NORAD
and brings about the end of the world
by pushing the nuclear button live on Instagram.
The ultimate viral moment:
Don’t forget to Like, Comment and Subscribe
as nuclear fire
rains from the heavens.
For that is how humanity ends:
Not with a bang, but with a TikTok
3000-plus years of human history
selfie’d into oblivion
for 10 seconds of internet fame.

I picture a dystopian future in which literally every fucker has a podcast.
We’re basically already halfway there.

C.C. January 2023

Friday, 9 June 2023

SHORT: Twat With a Flag [2023]

TWAT WITH A FLAG

There’s a twat with a flag who lives down our road;
he raises his flag every day.
It’s an eyesore, a blemish, a flapping carbuncle
that boils the blood as it waves.

It’s tacky, it’s nonsense, it’s vile, it’s guff –
I tell you, there’s nought to redeem here.
A sad piece of cack with the Union Jack -
put simply, it’s Poundland ephemera.

I s’pose that he thinks we all should applaud him
as a patriot, dyed-in-the-wool
But for some of us punters, it’s zeal by numbers:
a red rag in front of a bull.

In terms of aesthetic, it’s fucking pathetic –
an affront to the casual observer.
Does he think when I see it I’ll start to salute,
whipped into a nationalist fervour…?

It’s twee nostalgie, a thing of the past;
outmoded, like Great British Bake-Off.
It’s not even fit now to use as bog-roll
’cos you’d wipe more shit on than you take off…!

I thought about knocking on to try and get it gone -
but to be honest, it ain’t worth the hassle.
He'll say it’s his right to exhibit that shite,
’cos an Englishman’s home is his castle.

Yes, like Gilbert and Sullivan! ’E is an Englishman! So let’s take a few lines to examine:
a man out of place going red in the face now that Larkin’s been purged from the canon…

A
Telegraph reader who thinks that Farage has got some ideas worth hearing.
A man of the past with a stick up his ass, who thinks his way of life’s disappearing.

He longs for the days when the Empire reigned, and England did roar like a lion;
I bet that his name’s probably Douglas, or Clive, or Kenneth, or Gordon, or Brian.

On BBC News, he detects left-wing views, and leaps up from his seat like a salmon
He’s got half a mind to go on Question Time, and huff, sulk and fume like a gammon.

“It’s a form of sophistry - you can’t rewrite history
with all of these things that you’re banning!
Why can I no longer watch Love Thy Neighbour,
or laugh along with Bernard Manning…?!”

Flipping the channel, he's teeming with rage
and quickly becoming quite stroppy;
There’s a disabled reporter on Channel 4 News,
and Krishnan’s not wearing a poppy…!

There’s kids of all ages renouncing slave traders -
he's claiming now everything’s wrong!
To compound his rut, ‘Rule Britannia’ gets cut
from the very last night of the Proms…

“I’m not being racist, I’m just stating facts –
this diversity drive’s gone too far.”
Sir, why are you like this?! And please stop pipping cyclists
whenever you’re out in your car…!

Then he's off on a bender ‘bout gays and ‘bout gender,
and how all young men have gone soft
Omitting one thing: there’s a shrine to the King
that he wanks over up in his loft.

“All these ‘woke footballers’ aren’t real men,
like Tom Finney and Sir Stanley Matthews.
We need to get back on a well-beaten track,
and reclaim some good old-fashioned values…!”

Zulu, Dam Busters, then afternoon tea,
Then Bake Off - you really can’t beat it.”
But just like those Tories stuck in 1940,
it’s time to have your cake and eat it.

See, why is it - that when you raise a flag in salute to the nation,
it feels suspiciously like a rank provocation?
An act of aggression and intimidation
masquerading as innocent, blithe celebration.

Because quite aside from being a local embarrassment,
it feels to so many like just plain harassment.
An icon which props up a legacy of violence
that finds current form when they demonise migrants…

’Cos it’s an unspoken code with a built-in payload
when you display Jubilee bunting
It says they’ve got your vote if they “stop the small boats”
and show their support for fox-hunting…

It says, “Don’t come round here if you’re black, brown or queer -
Britain’s not meant for people like you.”
A dog-whistle, to reactionary trolls in pubs with golly dolls
who claim whites are now last in the queue.

Complicit in history, ignoring its feats, we return to the scene of the crime
’Cos contained in the hues of that red, white and blue are a tale that’s older than time.

Jackboots on the street as a steady drumbeat sounds out like a dull metronome
The right-wing’s Greatest Hits: it’s “Britain for Brits”
- and if you don’t like it, go home.

A flag should be a monument, an effigy, a totem
So why does it feel like you’re whipping out your scrotum…?
Flaunting your values by waving your cock: the ultimate true virtue-signal.
Oh, Johnny Big-Bollocks, we’re all so impressed – in fact, no, no, no, no, it’s just dismal.

So while your flag’s up there, I think it’s only fair
that we finally establish some ground-rules.
Principally this - you’re taking the piss;
patriotism’s the refuge of scoundrels.

I’ll go one further, son: when all’s said and done,
I submit that it makes you a coward.
As you grovel, belittled, you fucking lickspittle,
let’s consider the few it empowers.

I don’t think it disloyal when I see a “Royal”,
to enter a state of thrombosis.
So let me stand unopposed while I now diagnose
our sad fucking national psychosis.

See, under the banner of country and crown,
their misdeeds are all merely “alleged”:
like Andrew’s been fucking 14-year-old girls
while William was out getting pegged…!

(You won’t read about that in the papers;
to mention it would be ill-mannered.
The tabloids, alas, give him a free pass
as a “sorry” for killing Diana.)

We’re told “they work for us”, and are “here to serve” -
well I should fucking hope so, at those rates;
‘Cos they’ve taken far more than their reasonable share,
like Alan Partridge with his massive plate…!

If these freeloading fucks were all
my employees, then they wouldn’t be getting a reference.
File all Royals next to landlords and bosses as those who we grant undue deference.

They’ll tell you they’re “good for the tourists”,
and that we always must respect tradition.
But to accept that these ghouls are destined to rule
is a doctrine that is nowhere written.

But that’s the system we use here to quantify worth:
inherited privilege from an accident of birth.
And I submit that it should never be thought sedition
to question, critique or tear down tradition.

See, “tradition” is man-made – and thus, can be changed:
it’s a conclusion that’s never foregone.
Like archaic law, we can show it the door -
and we should, when its tenets are wrong.

You wouldn’t hand Darth Vader a second lightsabre
when he’s got you under attack
So kindly stop showing support for the Royals
’cos that’s how the Empire strikes back…!

As for our sick-hearted country – your “pride” and your “joy”
I tell you, there’s something obscene
When we can’t find the money to feed starving kids
but we’ll stand in a line for the Queen.

What is this fixation with bowing and scraping
built into our national character?
I am begging you, please – get up off your knees
’cos the whole sad charade’s an embarrassment.

It’s a mystery to confound Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe -
with a soundtrack that’s provided by Gary fucking Barlow.

And so to our friend who lives just up the roady.
A lackey, a suck-up, a fawner, a toady
Who’ll stand and applaud when two Royals marry;
though not for the offspring of Megan and Harry…

’Cos a flag is an emblem that wears many faces;
to my mind, it serves only to embolden racists.

There aren’t words to convey why that rag you display
is considered now such an affront
But I’ve got some that’ll do, so here’s just a few:
you fuckwit, you braggart, you cunt

You’re a small man, sir - among the tiniest, in fact;
your subservience is a national disgrace.
Do not lick the heel of the boot
that stands upon your face. 

C.C. 8/5/23


Tuesday, 6 June 2023

LYRICS: THIS IS NOT AN EXIT. [2022]

 THIS IS NOT AN EXIT.

Voices, dark voices, loud noises
They’re screaming in my ears

Abstractions so flawless, remorseless
I simply am not here

Outward appearances frozen
I have no clear emotion
There’s no barrier left, only carnal aggression
No-one to hear my confession

Godless among us, this bloodlust
It flows into my days

Disgust and revulsion, compulsions
All lie behind my gaze

And there will be no quarter
Be no reprieve at the altar
We’re all lambs astray in a world of disease
And they all will be set free
Who’s going to set them free…?

’Cos even after all this, there is no catharsis
Even after all this, the pain has a sharpness
Even after all this, there is no catharsis
Even after all this, no relief from the darkness
MY CONFESSION MEANS NOTHING

No wider truth I’m dispelling
No lesson learned in the telling
There is an ideal, but no real me
Only a veil of greed
Something illusory
Something illusory…

C.C. November 2022

LYRICS: Narcoleptic [2018]

 NARCOLEPTIC

Sleep awake
Adrift for days

The firmament’s dying on lone frontiers
A hundred-step mile away from here

She’s seen this place
A dream repaid

And then her eyes reveal the endless lure of sinking sands
They’re shifting tides, and I no longer try to understand

I’m tired of you not wanting me
I’m tired of no guarantees
I’m tired of what life could be

And we will cry no more in sorrow now for what might have been
I’ll relinquish all our promises and float out to sea
I watch the light fade at your window where the angels sleep…

C.C. Nov 2018

LYRICS: The Illusion [2018]

 THE ILLUSION

A man stands alone onstage with a box
He invites the audience up to engage
The curious onlookers examine the box
The fastenings, the locks, the walls and the base

Eyes on the box
Eyes on the stage
Eyes on the box
For what will be erased…

The assistant steps forward and opens the box
The man helps her inside, and wraps her in chains
The audience smiles as he closes the box
Looking for the trapdoor hidden under the stage

Eyes on the box
Eyes on the stage
Eyes on the box
He’s hiding his face

Eyes on the box
Eyes on the stage
The light hits the box
And she’s gone without trace…

But she was never in the box
And she was not beneath the stage
While every known witness was buying the lie
No-one was watching the lake…

Drag every inch of the lake
Drag every inch of the lake
Drag every inch of the lake

If there’s no body, then there’s no crime
No body, then there’s no crime
No body, then there’s no crime
No body - nobody…

Drag through the lake and you’ll find
No body, so there’s no crime
No body, so there’s no crime
No body - nobody…

C.C. Nov 2018

LYRICS: Sam the Lion [2018]

 SAM THE LION

Things haven’t been the same since Sam the Lion died
For now we see our world through sad eyes
She turns the other way so that I won’t see her cry
And though our time is done, she’s saying: “Never you mind;
Never you mind…”

As Wagon Master’s playing through the flickering light
This ageing bag of bones is dog-tired
We finally got us a team now here at Anarene High
An elegy of days when we were still young and wild

Oceans in your eyes
All our wasted lives
Oceans in your eyes
Fireworks split the sky
4th of July

The leaves blow long against a monochrome sky
As the gap between what we want
and who we are
grows ever wide…

C.C. Nov 2018