Some two and a half years after seeing the good doctor at EOTR which due to the rammed full big tent and heat I had to leave after two poems and some banter, finally managed to see a full set.
All seated, downstairs of around 500 middle aged patrons, and not the young crowd that JCC refereed to half way through the set. Maybe it was his dark glasses. And a full 75 minutes long.
His usual scatter gun approach to poetry with words coming out of his mouth at a rate of knots. How does he remember them all.
Well sometimes he didn't, other times reading from his own note books which were stacked up beside him on stage.
Some of the banter went on a bit in a ramble, some bordering into northern club comedian territory, or was that irony.
Anyway, a good laugh all round and listening to the various comments overheard as we emerged into the Cowley Road afterwards, much enjoyed by everybody.
Three poems are memourable, evidently Chickentown, Beasley Street and the updated, Beasley Boulevard.
And here they are, and reading them through they are special.
EVIDENTLY CHICKENTOWN
The fucking scene is fucking sad
The fucking cops are fucking keen
To fucking keep it fucking clean
The fucking chief’s a fucking swine
Who fucking draws a fucking line
At fucking fun and fucking games
The fucking kids he fucking blames
Are nowehere to be fucking found
Anywhere in Chickentown
The fucking scene is fucking sad
The fucking news is fucking bad
The fucking weed is fucking turf
The fucking speed is fucking surf
The fucking folks are fucking daft
Don’t make me fucking laugh
It fucking hurts to look around
Everywhere in Chickentown
The fucking train is fucking late
You fucking wait you fucking wait
You’re fucking lost and fucking found
Stuck in fucking Chickentown
The fucking view is fucking vile
For fucking miles and fucking miles
The fucking babies fucking cry
The fucking flowers fucking die
The fucking food is fucking muck
The fucking drains are fucking fucked
The colour scheme is fucking brown
Everywhere in Chickentown
The fucking pubs are fucking dull
The fucking clubs are fucking full
Of fucking girls and fucking guys
With fucking murder in Their eyes
A fucking bloke is fucking stabbed
Waiting for a fucking cab
You fucking stay at fucking home
The fucking neighbors fucking moan
Keep The fucking racket down
This is fucking Chickentown
The fucking train is fucking late
You fucking wait you fucking wait
You’re fucking lost and fucking found
Stuck in fucking Chickentown
The fucking pies are fucking old
The fucking chips are fucking cold
The fucking beer is fucking flat
The fucking flats have fucking rats
The fucking clocks are fucking wrong
The fucking days are fucking long
It fucking gets you fucking down
Evidently Chickentown
BEASLEY STREET
Far from crazy pavements -
The taste of silver spoons
A clinical arrangement
On a dirty afternoon
Where the fecal germs of Mr Freud
Are rendered obsolete
The legal term is null and void
In the case of Beasley Street
In the cheap seats where murder breeds
Somebody is out of breath
Sleep is a luxury they don't need
- a sneak preview of death
Belladonna is your flower
Manslaughter your meat
Spend a year in a couple of hours
On the edge of Beasley Street
Where the action isn't
That's where it is
State your position
Vacancies exist
In an X-certificate exercise
Ex-servicemen excrete
Keith Joseph smiles and a baby dies
In a box on Beasley Street
From the boarding houses and the bedsits
Full of accidents and fleas
Somebody gets it
Where the missing persons freeze
Wearing dead men's overcoats
You can't see their feet
A riff joint shuts - opens up
Right down on Beasley Street
Cars collide, colours clash
Disaster movie stuff
For a man with a Fu Manchu moustache
Revenge is not enough
There's a dead canary on a swivel seat
There's a rainbow in the road
Meanwhile on Beasley Street
Silence is the code
Hot beneath the collar
An inspector calls
Where the perishing stink of squalor
Impregnates the walls
The rats have all got rickets
They spit through broken teeth
The name of the game is not cricket
Caught out on Beasley Street
The hipster and his hired hat
Drive a borrowed car
Yellow socks and a pink cravat
Nothing La-di-dah
OAP, mother to be
Watch the three-piece suite
When shit-stoppered drains
And crocodile skis
Are seen on Beasley Street
The kingdom of the blind
A one-eyed man is king
Beauty problems are redefined
The doorbells do not ring
A lightbulb bursts like a blister
The only form of heat
Here a fellow sells his sister
Down the river on Beasley Street
The boys are on the wagon
The girls are on the shelf
Their common problem is
That they're not someone else
The dirt blows out
The dust blows in
You can't keep it neat
It's a fully furnished dustbin,
Sixteen Beasley Street
Vince the ageing savage
Betrays no kind of life
But the smell of yesterday's cabbage
And the ghost of last year's wife
Through a constant haze
Of deodorant sprays
He says retreat
Alsations dog the dirty days
Down the middle of Beasley Street
People turn to poison
Quick as lager turns to piss
Sweethearts are physically sick
Every time they kiss.
It's a sociologist's paradise
Each day repeats
On easy, cheesy, greasy, queasy
Beastly Beasley Street
Eyes dead as vicious fish
Look around for laughs
If I could have just one wish
I would be a photograph
On a permanent Monday morning
Get lost or fall asleep
When the yellow cats are yawning
Around the back of Beasley Street
Low-slung shady basement gaffs
Rooms of empty sound
Strip ribbon casements
With venetians halfway down
The Hocksten fin
With a nervous trim
And a fragrant disregard
It's an urban splash-art ghetto gym
Beasley Boulevard
Slates hung glutted and sated
Hunger has no home
Pampered, preened and patinated
In a multi-cultural tone
Looking good but lose the 'hood
Or lose your loyalty card
Here comes the neighbourhood
Beasley Boulevard
Noodle bars and poodle parlours
Studio bronze and ask
A street art tart in slashed pyjamas
And an Alfred E Neuman mask
Anything could happen
But it hardly ever does
There's a pub but the regulars are barred
Nobody there to harsh your buzz
On Beasley Boulevard
The Mall - the Maul - whatever you call it
Serves those glittering hoardes
Split decision spoilt for choice
And, anyway, ignored
You wanna shop where you don't need a cop
And nobody swipes your card
A fair deal and a bit on top it's
Beasley Boulevard
The fat man's grocer
The fop's outfitter
And the drunkard's licensee
And the guy who's giving everyone the jitters
Who's never been on TV.
'Never been on TV,' you say, 'How very avant garde!'
Black and white is pink and grey
Down Beasley Boulevard
A stringent disinfectant
With a most intrusive scent
Wreaking violence on anyone
Of an olfactorial bent
While health and safety
The bete-din
And the guys at Scotland Yard
Keep the area free from sin
Beasley Boulevard
Ring-a-ding-ding regime change
A long way overdue
But the dogs are gone and it's pale and strange
With a whole new kind of you
It's better than Paradise
If you don't look too hard
Made over nice n nice
A B&B you wouldn't be without
The BBC did a DVD about
BB Keys came to see about
BB King did a song in E about
A Garden of Eden in every yard
A phone box cleared of hookers' cards
They've got to promenade
On teasy wheezy easy-peasy
BEASLEY STREET
Far from crazy pavements -
The taste of silver spoons
A clinical arrangement
On a dirty afternoon
Where the fecal germs of Mr Freud
Are rendered obsolete
The legal term is null and void
In the case of Beasley Street
In the cheap seats where murder breeds
Somebody is out of breath
Sleep is a luxury they don't need
- a sneak preview of death
Belladonna is your flower
Manslaughter your meat
Spend a year in a couple of hours
On the edge of Beasley Street
Where the action isn't
That's where it is
State your position
Vacancies exist
In an X-certificate exercise
Ex-servicemen excrete
Keith Joseph smiles and a baby dies
In a box on Beasley Street
From the boarding houses and the bedsits
Full of accidents and fleas
Somebody gets it
Where the missing persons freeze
Wearing dead men's overcoats
You can't see their feet
A riff joint shuts - opens up
Right down on Beasley Street
Cars collide, colours clash
Disaster movie stuff
For a man with a Fu Manchu moustache
Revenge is not enough
There's a dead canary on a swivel seat
There's a rainbow in the road
Meanwhile on Beasley Street
Silence is the code
Hot beneath the collar
An inspector calls
Where the perishing stink of squalor
Impregnates the walls
The rats have all got rickets
They spit through broken teeth
The name of the game is not cricket
Caught out on Beasley Street
The hipster and his hired hat
Drive a borrowed car
Yellow socks and a pink cravat
Nothing La-di-dah
OAP, mother to be
Watch the three-piece suite
When shit-stoppered drains
And crocodile skis
Are seen on Beasley Street
The kingdom of the blind
A one-eyed man is king
Beauty problems are redefined
The doorbells do not ring
A lightbulb bursts like a blister
The only form of heat
Here a fellow sells his sister
Down the river on Beasley Street
The boys are on the wagon
The girls are on the shelf
Their common problem is
That they're not someone else
The dirt blows out
The dust blows in
You can't keep it neat
It's a fully furnished dustbin,
Sixteen Beasley Street
Vince the ageing savage
Betrays no kind of life
But the smell of yesterday's cabbage
And the ghost of last year's wife
Through a constant haze
Of deodorant sprays
He says retreat
Alsations dog the dirty days
Down the middle of Beasley Street
People turn to poison
Quick as lager turns to piss
Sweethearts are physically sick
Every time they kiss.
It's a sociologist's paradise
Each day repeats
On easy, cheesy, greasy, queasy
Beastly Beasley Street
Eyes dead as vicious fish
Look around for laughs
If I could have just one wish
I would be a photograph
On a permanent Monday morning
Get lost or fall asleep
When the yellow cats are yawning
Around the back of Beasley Street
BEASLEY BOULEVARD
Rooms of empty sound
Strip ribbon casements
With venetians halfway down
The Hocksten fin
With a nervous trim
And a fragrant disregard
It's an urban splash-art ghetto gym
Beasley Boulevard
Slates hung glutted and sated
Hunger has no home
Pampered, preened and patinated
In a multi-cultural tone
Looking good but lose the 'hood
Or lose your loyalty card
Here comes the neighbourhood
Beasley Boulevard
Noodle bars and poodle parlours
Studio bronze and ask
A street art tart in slashed pyjamas
And an Alfred E Neuman mask
Anything could happen
But it hardly ever does
There's a pub but the regulars are barred
Nobody there to harsh your buzz
On Beasley Boulevard
The Mall - the Maul - whatever you call it
Serves those glittering hoardes
Split decision spoilt for choice
And, anyway, ignored
You wanna shop where you don't need a cop
And nobody swipes your card
A fair deal and a bit on top it's
Beasley Boulevard
The fat man's grocer
The fop's outfitter
And the drunkard's licensee
And the guy who's giving everyone the jitters
Who's never been on TV.
'Never been on TV,' you say, 'How very avant garde!'
Black and white is pink and grey
Down Beasley Boulevard
A stringent disinfectant
With a most intrusive scent
Wreaking violence on anyone
Of an olfactorial bent
While health and safety
The bete-din
And the guys at Scotland Yard
Keep the area free from sin
Beasley Boulevard
Ring-a-ding-ding regime change
A long way overdue
But the dogs are gone and it's pale and strange
With a whole new kind of you
It's better than Paradise
If you don't look too hard
Made over nice n nice
A B&B you wouldn't be without
The BBC did a DVD about
BB Keys came to see about
BB King did a song in E about
A Garden of Eden in every yard
A phone box cleared of hookers' cards
They've got to promenade
On teasy wheezy easy-peasy
Beasley Boulevard
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