IF I WAS THE LAW

If I was the law I'd make it against the law to not obey the law and then I wouldn't make any other laws except for that law and I'd enjoy the confused and worried looks on all your faces. 'But Judge Fugger', you would plead, 'what is the law we are not supposed to break?' And I would sternly and loudly reply 'The Law!' and say no more. I'd throw the odd person in prison for no reason and watch as everyone tried to figure out what these people could have possibly done to break the law. You'd all be repeatedly going over the recent activities of these entirely random people in the hopes of figuring out what the law is but it would come to nothing.

Then, eventually, I would reveal what the law you are not supposed to break is. I would announce it on a national telly broadcast. I would inform you all that the law that it is against the law to break is the law that it is against the law not to know what the law is. Then you'd all realise that you are all lawbreakers because you didn't know what the law is and so broke the law. Confused? Yeah, well fuck ya! You're going to prison!

I would have everyone arrested (men, women, pensioners, kids, and babies) and thrown in prison for aaaaaaaaages. And then the cops that arrested everyone would have to arrest each other until there is only one left and then he'd arrest himself and go into a cell and then he'd be followed into the cells by the prison guards, the last people to be incarcerated. Then the last prison guard would lock himself away and hand the keys out through the prison bars to me. I would be in possession of the keys to all your cells and I would take them and throw them into a furnace and have them melted down and then I'd fashion their molten form into a crown and put it on my head.

What do you think of that eh? Oh, and one more thing, I'd have the closing minute and twenty seconds of the 1812 Overture playing full blast on a 24-7 repeat cycle over the prison tannoy system and I'd run around the corridors outside your cells crashing cymbals together. You'd never sleep again. Never. You'd be deranged by the time I decided to let you go free. Completely driven mad. That'd fuckin learn yiz. That'd fuckin learn yiz not be breaking the fuckin law, ...whatever the fuckin law is.

More laffs soon lawbreakers!

LOVELY LOVELY INDOCTRINATION

(pictured: Ryan Tubbs, great fella)

 

Jesus but the Late Late was great last week. Did you see it? It was super. Lovely indoctrination to be had. You can't beat a bit of indoctrination in these difficult times. Bill Cullen was on. He's had a shite time of it. He got the sack and loads of his family died and he was mauled by a bear. I think that's what he said. I'm not sure but I think that's what he said. Maybe he didn't. I wasn't really listening. That's the thing with the telly, you don't really have to listen, you just kind of let it seep in. So I'm not sure if Bill said he was mauled by a bear. Maybe I just made up that bit but it doesn't matter. It's all pretend on the telly anyway so you may as well join in. That's being interactive. Everything is interactive these days. It's great.

Anyway, Bill was saying he wasn't going to let the bear incident get him down and then the house band did a medley of songs from the album Stations of the Crass on their Casio keyboards and then this girl came out and she was in business like Bill. She was loaded but she liked giving to the poor. She was on The Secret Millionaire where nice rich people weigh poor people's tears and give them money depending on the heaviness. They should scrap taxes and fund everything that way, that's the message of the show I think. It's great. Bill loves it. Bill remembers when the nuns scrubbed out the hospital jax 24-7 and not a word of complaint but everyone wants wages these days. 'Ah well, so be it', says Bill. 'I'm off to fuckin outer space anyway so yous are welcome to it', he says. Bill is going to outer space in the rocket Richard Branson bought with all the money he's making off kids' hospitals in Britland. I wonder will Richard ever be on The Secret Millionaire. That'd make great telly. Everyone would probably recognise him though. He's very recognisable. Tony Blair with a beard basically. Maybe if they blinded everyone before he goes out and about. Then he could weigh their tears and give them money to get their eyes fixed. Everyone would be a winner. Especially the telly. The telly always wins in the end.

There was a lovely ad on during the break in the Late Late. It had this old lady making her grandson's football team a heap of sandwiches and it said 'AIB, we're all in it together' and then the show came back on and Tubbs was speaking Irish in a Dublin accent for the laugh. It was a pretty good Dublin accent considering he's never met anyone with a Dublin accent. He's probably heard the accent in documentaries or on Fair City or Youtube. It was funny anyway, like when the gang from The Republic of Telly mock skangers from certain areas in Dublin, Cork, and Limerick that they've seen from from the windows of their cars.

Tubbs did a great job with the presenting overall. He's really coming along. I think he's doing his leaving cert this year so fair play to him for being able to remain so focused on the cue cards. I wouldn't say it's easy for him. I'd say he has to study a fair bit. He's a lovely lad but he doesn't seem the brightest, not bright in that way anyway. He's a great fella for keeping the nation happy though. He has telly intelligence. He's in-telly-gent. (Ha! See that? That's funny.) He's great for providing inspirational chats with people like Bill and that rich girl. He had a golfer on too and he had a trophy and Tubbs says to him 'that's some trophy' and the golfer says 'yeah, thanks'. Then Tubbs asked him if anyone he knew died or if he'd been attacked by an animal or anything and the golfer said 'not recently' and Tubbs looked at him as if he was kind of a prick. That was my reading of the look anyway. I reckon Tubbs thought your man wasn't earning his keep. He had no story to tell. He wasn't overcoming anything. He was just practising his golf and winning trophies.

Anyway, Tubbs finished the show by saying 'let's hear it for the Pope' and then Dobbo from the Six One came out and led everyone in a decade of the Rosary. (Dobbo was just back from Rome where he was interviewing the lads about the Pope packing it in. 'Will God in Heaven be happy with the decision?' he asks a cardinal and the cardinal says that God won't mind too much as long as the next fella is as lovely as the last.) Then they had Holy Communion. One for everybody in the audience. And then they phoned a fella and gave him an Opel Corsa.

Oh yeah, it was great telly last week because the Late Late and RTE were getting the nation back on track. I was feeling it, I really was. Did you feel it yourself? It was like electricity. It was like gentle electricity. It was like having the Holy Ghost come into the room and blow, ever so gently, on your balls. It was a lovely feeling. A feeling of delightful expectation. A feeling of good things to come. We've taken our knocks but we still have the national broadcaster to serve out dollops of the old indoctrination to make us feel better.

David Begg is on the Late Late next week. He's going to be playing Peter Sutherland in a game of charity Swingball. The money raised is going to a little fella from Kinnegad who was born with an arse for a head. He's a great lad by all accounts. He was on the Today With Four O'Clock Show or whatever it's called and he farted Amhrán na bhFiann out his mouth/hole. Great stuff. He might be next in line to present the Late Late if they can get him fixed up. Super telly. Lovely indoctrination. Lovely lovely indoctrination altogether.

THE CADAVERS OF THE FUTURE

The cadavers of the future rise from their beds, not yet dead, to face the day ahead. They wash their bodies and slide into their pants and skirts and blouses and shirts and slip on their shoes and eat something. They leave their homes and go out onto the streets of Ambivalence.

Ambivalence is an average sized town that resides on the borderline between the boroughs of Abominable and Abundant. There are a lot of things to like about Ambivalence but there is more than enough to hate. It is a town of contradictions and restrictions and no restrictions. In Ambivalence every good day is a bad day for someone and every bad day is a good day for someone else. It is a rare occasion when everyone is happy at once. So rare an occasion as to be non-existent and you don’t get much rarer than that. What Ambivalence has, it’s one constant, is a status quo. Ambivalence is as good and as bad at it gets and that is about the best the cadavers of the future can expect. 

Those that run Ambivalence are as crooked as crooked can be and those who complain about them are as crooked as they can manage to be without getting caught and going to prison. Not much makes sense and people rarely mean what they say. The cadavers of the future don’t worry too much about the future in which they’ll be cadavers. They leave a lot of messes for future generations to clean up, just as they have been left a lot of messes to clean up by their predecessors. Leaving messes and the required infrastructure to maintain these messes without turning the whole thing into a total mess is the Ambivalent way. That is the status quo. What more can you expect? It’s pretty good when you think about it, unless it seems really bad. It’s up to you really. An optimistic outlook is generally considered preferable but it isn’t compulsory. There is no rulebook here. Well, there is but those that adhere to it won’t be winning the game of Ambivalence. The rules of the game are to work around the rules whilst claiming to be sticking to them. To actually stick to the rules is naïve and naivety is the cardinal weakness in this town. The more naïve a cadaver of the future is the sooner in the future they are likely to become a cadaver.

When the cadavers of the future eventually become cadavers they are buried in a big cemetery on a hill overlooking Ambivalence. Tributes are paid to them and nice things are written on the stones that stand at the heads of their graves. The best of the worst is emphasised. A man who evaded paying his taxes his entire life is remembered as a good father and a man who was a bad father but paid his taxes all his life is remembered as someone who always paid his dues. This is the way it is in Ambivalence; most of the cadavers of the future prefer to look on the bright side and rarely acknowledge the dark. It is considered impolite to consider the dark so the dark goes unconsidered but everyone knows it is there. The cadavers of the future are both the bright and the dark and that is what makes Ambivalence tick. But you aren’t to go mentioning it. You aren’t to go saying as much. To point out that Ambivalence is a town that could only exist with good and bad in equal measure would be to point out that, although things will never get worse, things will never get better. Such an acknowledgement would lead the cadavers of the future to despair. Not many could handle the fact that they may as well change the name of Ambivalence to Limbo and that the only guaranteed progress is the progression toward a place up on the hill. Under a stone with a nice tribute to you written on it.

CRAP MAN Vs A FEW GOBILNS!!!

CLICK HEAR TO REED THE THING!!!

RAZORLIGHT

(pictured: Johnny Razorlight overwhelming himself)

Do you remember Razorlight, do you? They were great, weren't they? Do you remember the singer? Johnny Razorlight I think he was called. Do you remember him? And the songs. Do you remember all the songs they had? They had about six or seven of them and they'd do them on telly. Do you remember the one about America? It was kind of ambiguous. It had ambiguity, which is a thing that makes it hard to tell what it means but you know it means something because Johnny Razorlight looks like he really means it. You weren't sure if he loved America or hated America or had even ever been to America but, y'know, America.

Do you remember how Johnny Razorlight took his shirt off? That was great when he took his shirt off. It meant he was ready to get down to business, like when you're putting up a shed in the garden or something and you take off your shirt. Putting up a shed in a sexy way. You'd be watching Razorlight and they'd be doing songs and you'd be thinking this is our generation's Dylan or Clash and the kids would raise their hands and girls would be crying and there'd be songs. Do you remember waving the college scarves around and caring about things? Caring yeah, that was the feeling. That or something like it. It was moving anyway. Do you remember being moved? You'd get the tickets and all pile into the stadium and get the shit moved out of you.

Whatever happened to Razorlight though? They represented a whole era, didn't they? The hippies had Jimi Hendrix and acid, but we had Johnny Razorlight and apps. It was the beginning of something. I'm not sure what it was the beginning of, but it was the beginning of something, wasn't it? Something kind of real. It felt real. It felt like something realish. Razorlight represented our era. Them and Keane and other bands with songs. They all had songs and we listened to them and they were songs. They were our songs. They were certainly songs anyway. I'm certain of that. They'd always turn up in ads for Vodafone, capturing the Zeitgeist. I wonder what happened to Razorlight. They weren't around all that long, were they? The light that burns twice as bright burns half as long type of thing. I wonder will they ever reform. Maybe they never split up or did they die? Maybe they are dead like Pete Doherty from Block Party. Who knows? But we have the memories, right? I'll never forget the songs and them doing them and all that. It was great. Great days! I just want to say thanks to Snow Patrol, I mean Klaxons, I mean Razorlight for the memories.

...or am I thinking about The Killers?

UNDER GOD'S CAR

The invisible confines of your perceived freedom: The body you inhabit. The landmass that restricts your movement unless you have the money and authorisation required for foreign travel. The languages you speak and your inability to speak. Your need for air and nourishment. Your fear of opprobrium. The ideas that come out of the telly, the awful fuckin telly. The ideas that come out of the mouths of your friends. What your parents told you. What your parents failed to tell you. What your teachers taught you. What your teachers failed to teach you. The money you save. The bills you pay. Your responsibilities and your irresponsibility. Those new shoes you have your eye on. The people you have your eye on. The people who have their eye on you, or keep an eye out for you, or the people who might scratch your eyes out. Your eyes. Books and magazines and papers and the words in those books and magazines and papers. Street signage. Streets. Road signs. Roads. Gardens. Buildings. Rooms. Houses. Cars. Car alarms and house alarms. People who are easily alarmed. The alarm on your clock and the clock itself. Especially the clock - the big hand, the little hand, all the numbers they point to and what they mean. The places you should be. The way you get to those places. The time it takes you to get there. The guilt you feel when you don't go. The guilt you feel when you don't go anywhere. The shame of loitering. Your dirty secret life of taking it easy. Your need to contribute. Your unease at accepting contributions. Your tolerance of frequent acts of officially sanctioned theft. The benefits this theft brings you. The things that are stolen from you. The myth of the meritocracy. Your utter mediocrity. Your hypocrisy and your inability to see that you are a hypocrite. The threat of heavy fines or custodial sentences. Guns – even if you never see them, you know that they are there.

But the waft of ineffable liberation is occasionally detectable, in the quieter moments. Fully asleep or half awake. Day dreaming under a dead tree - gazing at stratocumuli drifting above a crooked creaking lattice – floating beyond the bars of a cage. Stuck here but it's not so bad. It's a bit of a laugh. The holidays are coming up. You might win some money. You might 'get lucky'. You could go to the movies. Maybe there's something on the telly, the awful fuckin telly. Did you see the thing that was on last week? It was mad. The Devil put a bomb under God's car.

@SADFCE :'(

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