THE MERCILESS RIFF MACHINE MANIFESTO

THE MERCILESS RIFF MACHINE shall always be written in capitals.

This is because THE MERCILESS RIFF MACHINE plays in CAPITAL LETTERS.

THE MERCILESS RIFF MACHINE is a blend of Stax, Sex Pistols, Bellrays and Beastie Boys.

THE MERCILESS RIFF MACHINE fucks like a beast.

THE MERCILESS RIFF MACHINE flays your skin.

THE MERCILESS RIFF MACHINE looks fucking sharp as fuck.

THE MERCILESS RIFF MACHINE has better lights and sound than God at Glastonbury.

THE MERCILESS RIFF MACHINE shall play some or all of the following songs: I Like to Move It; Ride On Time; Ace of Spades; Beggin’; Cuddly Toy (Roachford); Seven Nation Army; Overload (Sugababes); Not Gonna Get Us (TaTu); Sound of the Underground (Girls Aloud); Fight for your Right (To Party); Feel Good Hit of the Summer; Addicted to Bass; Low Place Like Home; The Final Countdown; Super Freak; Run To The Hills; Hellfudge; Smooth Criminal;

THE MERCILESS RIFF MACHINE will never play any of these fucking songs: Come on Eileen; anything by Fleetwood fucking Mac; anything by Madonna; anything by the Beatles or the Rolling Stones.

Anyone who requests any song from THE MERCILESS RIFF MACHINE shall be ejected from the venue and banned from any future performances without refund and with no exceptions.

Note: This is from about 2013 when I was definitely going to put a shit hot band together to do some shit hot music and make some shit hot money. Obviously, it never happened. As I recall, Duncan Black was 100% in on the idea. I wonder if this might have been an early nod toward what eventually became Rabo de Toro?

The Ballad of Sugarcane Valley High

It was the perfect Valley town, as humble as they come

Sun-blessed, simple, and as pretty as a picture

Teenagers drinking milkshakes as they got their homework done;

then they’d dance to jukebox records in the diner.

--

And here comes Eugene: he’s the starting quarterback

for the Panthers, who ain’t ever lost a game.

Eugene’s fleet of foot, and he’s never missed a pass,

and if he’s tackled – why, he gets right up again.

Six foot two with Olympian build,

and the most piercing baby blues you’ll ever see.

They say they’re lining up to hand him scholarships;

Eugene just says: “Well, what will be, will be.”

But nobody knows that when Eugene is at home

the headaches start to hammer at his skull.

The pain is overwhelming and he has to lie right down

as the panic and the pressure takes its toll.

And Eugene’s drinking whisky from the bottle every night

just to snatch a desolate hour or two of sleep

and he’s starting to feel slower, and he’s starting to black out

on the field, but nobody’s noticed yet.

His sweetheart, Mary-Lou, a vision in a floaty dress.

A brown-eyed redhead classy and petite.

She’s top of all her classes, destined for the highest grades,

and she’s got the future at her tiny feet.

But Mary-Lou’s got secrets that not even Eugene knows;

not least one growing right there in her womb.

It’s too painful still for her to even start to recall how;

that night her uncle came into her room.

She’s been swiping tranx and anaesthesia of late;

her daddy is the Valley’s only dentist.

Mary-Lou’s got a clutch bag full of sweet barbiturates

and something very special for tonight.

Cause Sugarcane Valley High School’s celebrating

with a dance inside the gym, and all are guests.

One last bash, a party for the champions-in waiting -

Those Panthers, man, the wonder-team. The best.

The perfect couple strides into the building, hand in hand,

to cheers and to handshakes: they’re the Valley’s hopes made flesh.

And when nobody’s looking, the girl finds the bowl of punch

and laces it with fentanyl of rhino-stopping strength;

and when he can, Eugene steps out, and turns on the gas taps,

the gym begins to fill with silent death;

he reaches for his best gal, and they slink under the bleachers

and solemnly, and slowly start to fuck;

they watch the townsfolk yawn and droop

glasses smashing on the hardwood floor;

the drugs take hold, the bodies fall,

insensible and breathing shallow now;

Eugene and Mary-Lou lock eyes. It’s time to end this game.

It’s time to really blow this joint – and how!

She opens up her Zippo lighter, coaxes out a flame;

the lovers laugh – the High School gym explodes.

--

It was a perfect Valley town, they say, the ones who did survive;

it’s hard to tell amidst the charcoal wreck;

but here once played a legendary side

unbeaten, with a Greek God at its head;

and here danced the most beautiful girl;

who had the world and stardust at her feet.

But ask no questions - move on quickly, traveller -

the answers may be ones that haunt your dreams.

Not the first, or the last

I’m not the first person to suffer a loss. I’m not even the first person in my family to experience it. And so this feeling of self-indulgence recurs; there’s a sense that I’m somehow milking it. That by now I ought to have, in some way, gotten over it. And that’s me, telling myself these things.

That every time I write something new it seems to be the same introspective guff with themes of being de-anchored, of not knowing where things fit anymore, or saying how very changed I am. Well, there’s another feeling and another thought that’s starting to counter that, too.

That is: so what?

And, yes, even that very un-useful internal dialogue, expressed outward, seems to be a call for sympathy, for head pats and for soothing noises. Like a stricken animal. These are my puppydog eyes, literally writ.

There’s a third feeling, thought, notion: it is somehow important to me, for me, to look at me. To write these things down. Typing out some form of – what? Therapy? Self-care? I suppose all these words are jigsaw pieces to a puzzle of which I don’t yet know the picture. Perhaps, also, I never will.

So it is, in many ways, a fool’s errand to obsess about trying to capture the moments in which I feel I can at a distance sketch out something of those parts of myself which need attention. Mostly they need me to cuddle or coddle or curdle them; the output is nearly always something that I share. I don’t know why that urge exists, but I know that it is a demanding one that won’t leave me alone unless I capitulate.

As objective as I can be about it, I am beginning to believe that these pieces are the ripples, the aftershocks from a sudden bereavement. But it is also true, I think, to say that these emotions and shards of language were also always possible. Their own form wasn’t yet made. They were, too, pieces seeking a puzzle’s picture. And to stretch that metaphor: there is no neat box to put them in and to shut the lid. If there ever was, it was only a matter of time before something came along to rip that packaging apart. Torn, unrecognisable forever.

I’m not the first person or the last to be living with death; it is a feature, or a bug, of being born in the first place. What I do know, and I know it with more certainty than probably anything else I’ve ever been sure of, is that each individual – scared, confused, lonely, angry, bereft – is the first person to experience death in their own self. Very different.

So what?

So that.

And so this:

be kind.

Be kind to yourself. I will try and be kind to myself, even if it seems like I’m wallowing awhile, and even at those times when what comes out is a desperate blubbering blast of helplessness. I don’t think it’s self-indulgence, as such. On the contrary, it’s impossible to even think about trudging forward without self-acknowledgement; self-care requires complete self-honesty. I am sorry for myself sometimes. And seeing that I am is very important indeed. Couching it in language shows me parts of myself that would otherwise remain tangled up. Things that would trip me up. That. I don’t need. And on we go.

Carapace

Don’t talk about how I have ever come back;

I did not want this new destination.

You don’t recover, you don’t return

because everything has changed.

It’s not correct to look at preparation

for something so quickened and strange.

And if a deity is close to hand

then grasp at them with gasping grip.

Whatever comforts, in its turn

reveals itself or sidles off.

And what is left is left unfixed

surveying the broken stuff.

The locus reasserts itself

and bundles you forward again

through forests petrified and burned

and senses all deranged;

you build a carapace once more

that reassures. A cage.

Trapped here to always nod and smile,

receiving heartfelt love.

A blurred and desperate attempt

to reconstruct yourself.

An hour, a day, a week, a month

go by in a curdling spell.

All movement is outside; the dullness within

won’t sharpen and burnish away.

No whetstone to re-keen,

no steel to spike sparks.

Spluttering and swept ever further awry

from an anchor cast loose in the dark.

Another Fucking Election

 Listen:

Whichever grasping Ferengi pissant ends up leering at me in victory:

Don't wait til it's sunny to fix the fucking roof.

Just fix it.

Not Yet, But Let's Get Real

I don’t like pain. It hurts.

That’s why I don’t run marathons.

Hangovers an irritation.

I’m kind of fascinated;

Eager, somewhat, to see the credits roll.

Obviously, not any time soon

(or ever, but let’s get real.)

I thought at one time I’d do the same

as Aldous Huxley. Go out tripping

my tits off.

Ludicrousness wonder clarity.

But, no. I’ll cop it,

not cop out.

That said, if I’m

in paroxysms and incoherent -

turn the morphine the fuck up to full

and let me dream into distance,

into delusion, into comfort;

I do dissolve.

Squinting a fading

idea of sighing mind -

fade beyond feel -

a welcome home

from gigglers gone.

Ocean

I reckoned life was a boat

on the endless universe’s ocean.

But perhaps life is the ocean

and the boat is understanding.