”Sorry Quebs,” you mumble, picking yourself up,
”I don't know what came over me... I think it was, like, the primal urge of... you know... poetry?””That's okay, boet, that's okay. Just, you know, I don't... I don't really think of you like that, more as, like, a collaborator, you know?””I totally think of you like that, Nigel.””Yeah... I understand, I'm totally the same. So shall we go play some music to some oppressed folk?””Yeah man, and let's get you some trousers at the same time, yeah?”
Which is how it happens that some 20 minutes or so later you're standing in the New Street G&N store in town, haggling with a salesperson, trying to get him to sell you a pair of jeans for a ten minute rendition of the folk standard
Free Speech, which he doesn't seem to have heard of, and eventually you're like, damn, man, let me speak to your manager or something, and he's, like, yeah, okay, pretty pleased to have anyway out he can from speaking to this bearded eejit shopping in the middle of town in just his underpants and the girl that just stares at him with this simmering intensity that's quite unsettling, and the manager comes down from somewhere upstairs and you ask him,
”Dude, how come you aren't in the Local Communities, Local Poetries initiative, man? All the shops with soul are doing it, and I'm... I'm disappointed in you, man? You know, everywhere else, all the cool shops you can exchange, like, a five minute ode on the beauty of the golden rings for four pints of milk or something, and here I'm just trying to achieve a basic level of human dignity and clothedness in exchange for a full thirty minute set of traditional soulful cool, you know? I mean, not, actually, like, cool – more like... you know, poetical truth? Don't you even get bartering, dude? It's a basic human right, man.”“I... the... uh...”
”One round of bagpipes, two round of bagpipes, a one, two, a one two three FOUR!”And that's pretty much it: Bagpipes Debbie whips out her kazoo and starts thrumming like an old-fangled Mustang engine, somehow expressing a deep truth of ancient eastern trade caravans – she's like the beating sun on a camel's arse, loaded with spice and gold dust as Harun pitter patters like hooves in the distance: he's sat cross legged on the floor next to you with a beatific look on his face and you wonder briefly if he's still got those tiny tabs in his hand, because his eyes are kind of somewhat distant, and Quebs starts doing, well, continues doing, because she hasn't said a word since you come in here, just mutely staring at all the men's checked shirts – Quebs just carries on staring, but this time staring at the man, the manager, staring at him in a way that gives you goose bumps and gives him a strange flashback to that time his aunt Jennie got sectioned for a fortnight, and you, you snap your fingers.
You close your eyes, you nod your head like you're totally feeling it.
The thrum of the kazoo – an insistent purity – the tap of the cricket bat – like a primeval insect? Nah – like, like an early twentieth century automobile production line, topped by the yeasty sediment of Quebecca's powerful silence.
”DEEP DEEP DEEP IN THE”You start death growling without even opening your eyes, still nodding side to side.
”DEEP DEEP DEEP IN THE”Yeah.
”DEEP DEEP DEEP IN THE SANNNNNNNNNND”It's like, you're trying to get out the deep symbolic truth about the terror of materialism, but you can't quite get out the right words, you know?
Just what the hell are the right words, man?Current band members: Nigel, Competent Death Growlist, Adequate VocalistQuebecca, Competent Silenceist Bagpipes Debbie, Adequate Bagpiper and Adequate KazooistHarun, Competent Cricket Bat Player, Dabbling Tambourinest and Dabbling Rugby PlayerCurrent key influences: the death growl, silence, Scotland, Peruvian Cricket Music, Oppression
Current portfolio:Free Speech – bagpipes, tambourine, death growl and silence.
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Topic: You are Nigel and the Maeshowe Ethics Committee! (Read 10937 times)