Saturday, April 21, 2018

WORK IN PROGRESS - I GOT BEATEN UP IN THE TOILET OF A WEST END THEATRE BY TWO HELLS ANGELS AT A JOHN COOPER CLARKE GIG A LONG TIME AGO BACK IN JCC'S NICO DAYS

Excuse, this is like my notebook.
And by sticking it up - not that anyone is realistically going to read it - it just ups the ante on me to go and continue to work on it.
It's a perfect subject for a poem.
And it's twice now the wonderful John Cummins has said I should be poeming this story and he's right.
So here's the raw byproduct of a couple of hours work.
Gonna have to do some cutting.
Get all the gear to the correct strength.
Get the dates right.
And remember the murky detail of that civil war in England.
Where the miners were sacrificed for the chavs.
And the neo-liberal fascist fucks could not even get the trains to run on time.
And the IRA - the self appointed leaders, the bullying scum and the flip side to the Maggie coin - only had to get lucky once.
Thanks motherfuckers you really added to the experience.







 Down in the Picadilly Theatre At Midnight
(Getting beaten up by Hell's Angels at a John Cooper Clarke Concert)


I went to a John Cooper Clarke gig
In fact I went to John Cooper Clarke gigs
So many that I am writing this in a Salford accent
Not that you know cos I am writing
Not talking
Which is probably just as well
Cos my Salford accent is pretty crap.
I can do the speed though.
Was doing speed that night.
Smoking dope 
Drinking
And laughing
Lots of laughing
For fuck's sake it was a John Cooper Clarke gig.
Though the laughter wasn't pristine
It wasn't pure Burmese border laughter.
Nah it was cut.
Feuding Afghani jihadis
Pakistani secret service
And CIA fucking over DEA 
Cut.
Cut.
You get my drift.
John Cooper Clarke was a young whipper snapper at the time.
Hanging out with Nico.
Shooting flies
With that Teutonic Chanteuse
Missing the Andies
Oh we all miss Andy
Ask John and Lou
Oh those halycon days
Shooting flies
With blood filled syringes.
Fuck you were sharp
John Cooper Clarke
But not razer
sharp
Cos you were cut
Animated by youth
but you were cut
You know it
I know it.
We know what it's like to be cut.
Cut the tall poppies.
Machete genocide
Hand to hand
Too chicken to get out of town
The fucking train is fucking late
You fucking wait
You fucking wait
First thing you learn is always
gonna be
Cold Turkey
Has the run.
Enter the fucking dragon
Exist Johnny Cooper Clarke.
One two three
Out of goof and into action
Just like that
Just like Tommy Cooper
And those clubs you played
Taking punk way north
Way up there
In mother in law land
Where civil war
Was slaughtering
Northern Soul
Then there was ride on
Down Brighton
With the mods 
And the rockers
Moped bennies
And the mods
All very dandy
All very British
All very rail
God Bless
The
N
H
and
S
Tick tock
Tick tock
Humpty Tory Dumpty
That Provo shock
Rattling the whole cabinet
Do you remember that John Cooper Clarke
Or were you hiding in heroin and light bulb jokes.
Whatever about the light bulb jokes
A man needed heroin.
(In which we used to smuggle our contraceptives. Or so you said. 
I'm showing my age 
John Cooper Clarke
But you went and hid
Needle thin
As you kneedled them
But the overtime
the overtime
making fist over barrel
cracking northern head on you
Run JCC run
Here those fucking coppers come.
"Seen the Belgrano?
Coming this way or that."
And now the fucking Sweeney are kicking down your flat.
There's no such thing as society
I am an anti Christ 
I am an anarchist.
You John 
You were pulling it off on pro-auto pilot
When I got the helicopters
The Saigon spins
Midnight at the circus
Picadilly.
West end theatre too.
Who the fuck were we fooling?
I was going in
Going down
May day may day
Going in hard.
Crash landed in tiled bathroom cool.
Rotors slow slow slowed
Picking up the pieces.
We open the door.
It's a god damn Jam song.
I'm down in the theatre at midnight.
At a John Cooper Clarke gig.
Help me John help me
There's fucking guys with fucking murder in their eyes.
You know the type
Get stabbed waiting for a kebab.
And the IRA are trying to take out the government
And the police are at war
with the poor fuckers up North.
And I'm being kicked to pieces.
By biker dudes
In their 40s
Mellowing with age.
What were these cunts like when they were 20.
And with impecable timing the Shah had fallen.
The fucking Brits and the fuckings yanks could not leave Mossdeq alone.
And there comes the payback
S M A C K.
Smack
Kick
Kick

Unconscious in the jacks.
And you John?
Brilliant
Yet
Barely
Conscious
Right
On
Right
On
Right
On
The
Stage.