The Widemouth

The clock struck twelve pm and around the main citadel in the city of Exacta sat forty people. Some were clearly malnourished, some mentally worn and a lot in cheap and ragged clothing. What every single person present shared, however was one physical trait, a mouth which was much wider than 'normal.' On a bench that was placed perfectly to absorb the sunlight sat Ainsworth with his dear friend Meadow. They had spent most of their short lives as best friends, and despite all the hardship they had endured during the past year the bond they shared was stronger than ever. "It certainly is a beautiful day today, don't you think Ainsworth?" said Meadows.
To understand how this group of people came to be is a very interesting matter. It has generally been agreed by the worlds most advanced scientists that the sudden appearance of the huge number of these people was nothing other than a 'touch of God.' There was no evolution here, no gradual progression over millions of years, it just so happened that one year a substantial amount of new born babies were had exceedingly wide mouths, wider than ever before. While this was very shocking to the community at first (as a baby with a wide mouth is one of the most peculiar sights to behold) it generally became clear that this was in a sense, an evolutionary process.
The 'widemouths' were on average more artistic and more athletic than the vast majority of normal people. It is probably safe to say they were also more intelligent, although after several years, when schools began to have classes where 20-25% were these obviously superior beings, some subtle marginalisation began. Teachers were told to be much harsher in marking the widemouths as they were a potential threat to the livelihood of all the decent people of Exacta. As the years passed on it became clear that, despite the efforts of the government to influence the educational system, all the aspiring intellectuals and creative forces in society were going to be members of this odd demographic. What had really became scary was the biological power of the widemouth condition. Two regulars now had a 15-20% chance of conceiving a widemouth, a widemouth and a regular had an 80% chance and two widemouths had basically a 100% certainty. This trends became very worrying for more than a few people.
A turn against widemouths began, and it was just as swift as their arrival to the city. Clearly fearing for their positions, the top men and women of the cities largest corporations aswell as many senior members of parliament filed to have "any adult which does posses a mouth with a gape of 6 inches or more, or who's mouth is specially deemed to be unnaturally wide in relation to their face and head, is not to be judged or appreciated at an equal level of a normal citizen." Overnight, widemouth unemployment became rampant and they became no more than second class citizens, subject to verbal and physical abuse with no legal recourse (And this was despite a number of exceptional modern film makers, painters and musicians being classed in this variety) They began to be referred to as "lazys" due to their large unemployment rate and were forced to live in squalor.
The widemouths weren't like normal people or normal groups who lived unemployed or in poverty, though. Their natural instinct was to work or to be creative so, without jobs or roles in society, they could always be seen to be walking the city streets for hours on end each day. The unemployment rate for the regulars was basically 0% due to the large number of positions that had been created due to widemouth departures (and due to a large number being employed in the 'Workers Police Force,' set up by the government to patrol the newly established minority with basically no regulation over its members)
On the day in question, a group of widemouths were sitting around the cities citadel, the home of government and police affairs. Whilst they knew it was not a wise place to be, most widemouths were attracted to how beautifully the sun hit this spot around this time every day, they had a natural sense of where to be and when, something which the regulars resented.
A few minutes after twelve four memebers of the workers police force arrived to sent the widemouths home. "If you haven't got jobs then fucking go home!" One bellowed at the group. Never ones to seek violence, they began to disperse whilst being prodded and geered by the workers dressed in dark blue. Ainsworth and Meadow found themselves at the back of the leaving group as they had been sat in the very middle on their favourite bench. As they were leaving a baton struck meadow in the back of the head with a huge thud. She fell to the floor. "Move it you fucking lazys" A particularly old and ugly member of the police stated. Meadow tried to raise but was again hit, this time right in the mouth. Ainsworth swore he saw a tooth flying. "If you're not going to move it then stay down you freak!" he screamed. The workers began to surround her and pepper her with kicks and blows with their batons. "Why are you doing this?" Asked Ainsworth "We conformed to your orders, we neither caused nor wished you any physical or mental harm, just because we look different does not give you or anybody the right to such brutality," he spoke, loud enough for the guards to hear, but not so for them to care. Most of the group had no turned around to Meadows screams, but the workers did not stop for several minutes.
When they did cease they seemed to care little weather the crowd had gone or not and began to leave, obviously satisfied with their work. Ainsworth knelt down and lifted Meadows head, her face barely recognisable. He used his fingers to try feel the pulse at the back of her neck, it was very slow and weak for the moment he could feel it before it became fully non-existent. She had been beaten to death in the city center in broad daylight, and now Ainsworth felt an anger over take his body that he had never known. Now he was walking towards the police, they had their backs turned and were laughing amongst themselves. Now he was jogging. The oldest, ugly member of the squad turned around and Ainsworth pounced like a lion and tackled him to the ground. With his large mouth Ainsworth wrapped his powerful teeth around the workers nose, his screams giving Ainsworth an immense satisfaction in another humans pain that he had never felt before. As the other workers tried with all their might to pull him off, Ainsworth knew their efforts were only causing their colleague more pain as his teeth sank deeper and deeper into his flesh. He could even begin to feel the murderers nose separate from his face. When they finally did manage to pry him off, a deep red hole took the place of where the twisted old nose once was. One of the mans younger friends hit Ainsworth a savage blow with his baton, but it merely knocked him a few steps back into the large crowd of widemouths that had gathered behind him. If anything, the hit just fueled the rage and the energy for justice that had so quickly consumed every singe inch of Ainsworths being.
The time was around quarter past twelve. In the square around which the main citadel stood there was the corpse of a once beautiful woman and around thirty nine widemouths. Each had a burning anger and passion that would have seemed unimaginable even fifteen minutes ago. Four members of the workers police stood there, more scared than they had ever been in their lives as they knew they had started something previously confined to their worst nightmares. Their lives were surely over.

[To be continued!]

Meet The Wife

Towering white walls and stainless steel shelves
With brands bearing down and swirling round
Big block letters, special offers
And eerie music attacking the eardrums
A young woman foraged far from home

Her mind wandered and brain fizzled
Checking the guide the motherperson made
To push her on the lonely journey
Into a plastic packed, middle class world

The trolley filled and she lost her grip
And kachinking off course, a box fell out
To be caught by the loveliest figure
Of the most beautiful man she'd ever seen
In deep and dark leather boots

He picked up the fallen and read “Triple Choc!”
Laughing to himself carelessly
Placing it firmly back into her hands
And walking casually on his way

He had gone proudly up the aisle
Never taking her with him

Gigs, Ho!

The next few months we spent doing a lot of writing and an awful lot of polishing, although we didn't actually start properly practicing till halfway through January because of the stupid Mini Ice Age.

I remember 1 Wednesday, the 6th of January, which was meant to be our first post Christmas practice, for all the disappointment it brought, some of the most I'd ever felt in my life. Even though we'd only had 3 practices before Christmas, I had instantly fallen in love with the band and the highlight of my week away from work and college was the 2 hours on a Wednesday night jamming with the lads. I'd done a lot of interesting things but being in a band was the thing I'd always wanted the most and never got the chance to do. From the 3rd week in December though, we couldn't use the rehearsal place... the Christians had something better to do in the festive season apparently?¿ Finally though I got Rob, the guy who opened for us, to come back out, or so I thought. The buses weren't running due to the weather, so I'd got myself all bundled up to walk to Bray in my comfy but ridiculous looking coat and warm baggy jeans. In the big inside pocket was also a large mix of Huzzar and Red Bull to keep me warm for the walk and to get the creative juices flowing, I was buzzing! Just as I put my hand on the handle to open the door to leave I received a text and got a horrible sinking feeling... I'd always known when it was him texting to cancel before, I knew he was doing it again! Sure enough, it was from Rob. In his defence, he had tried to leave his house in Stillorgan to drive out but his car couldn't handle the roads so he opted not to go for safety. Still though, I was crushed. Not only had I found out Santa Claus wasn't real, it was like hearing he had been the one who gave me homework and sent me to bed early. So I text the lads then just sat at home. Then I lived out another highly uneventful week working at Dunnes until we finally got our chance to play again!

Then came all the writing and practicing. We done this in a variety of places, The Christian warehouse, which eventually closed, my bedroom, Applrock Studios and Paul and Alans house! We wrote Talbot Street Blues, Tempos, Stadium Rock Song and The Gait and practiced them all to death. I think that there was a separate point for each song (except maybe The Gait!) in which before we fully finished it we just felt like scrapping it completely. But we didn't scrap any of them, we just worked and worked and looking back its quite amazing we managed to write 5 original songs in that space of time, considering David was the only one of us who really had any experience in that (no disrespect to Tell It Again) Once again I think it was just a feeling of containment, like everyone of us had wanted to properly write music before but never really got the chance, so now that we had we even surprised ourselves at this early stage! There was definitely something between the four of us as well. For a while it seemed like everything we tried went right and the more we played with each other the more we loved it. Seemed like one week we were writing Talbot Street Blues and I felt like we could be New Model Army or Joy Division then the next we were writing Stadium Rock song and I was sitting topless in Applerock feeling like we could be Kings of Leon. Obviously now we are a lot better I am a lot more down to earth, just at this early stage I was ever the optimistic one!

Still though, we hadn't actually got any gigs at all and this was proving quite difficult. Our first was meant to be in February at the warehouse, but it closed down! Then in March we were set to play I.A.D.T but for some reason the organiser decided against it at the last minute. Besides these there was no prospects since no one had actually herd us but ourselves. One Tuesday night out of desperation I asked my college friend and DJ Niall Darcy if he could help us out in anyway and he amazing got me in contact with Keith Florea who booked us to play Andrews Lane Theatre the same night as Von Shakes and Zombie Nation that Friday. I don't think I ever properly thanked them for that, I really must someday! Then the next day in practice we got booked for another two gigs, one from my uncle Kevin Brennan who wanted us to play his book launch which would eventually be held at The Button Factory and another which was in The Harbour Bar in Bray that night for some guys birthday. While the gig that night turned out to be a bit of a reality check because there was fuck all people there, we were all tired, the sound was shit and poor Alans tongue had randomly swollen to three times it size (which isn't really relevant, I just thought it was worth mentioning) the others would go on to be vital in helping us develop as a band and also probably weren't that awful to witness!

This is an awful place
Shelberino

Early, Early, Early Doors

I've decided to turn my blog into more of blog, and in doing this I'm going to write about what has really became a key theme in my life, being the drummer in the band The Excuses. I'll still write some short stories and abstract stuff from time to time, but for now this just makes more sense.

I'll start off with a very brief history of the band. We formed early in 2010, practiced and wrote a fair bit, began gigging in April and haven't really stopped since, playing venues like The Button Factory, Crawdaddy, Andrews Lane Theatre in Dublin and last but not least, the dearest Harbour Bar in Bray!

The earliest thing I remember about the band is our first practice in our first practice place, a born-again Christian warehouse turned youth club in Little Bray on a very cold, very dark Wednesday in November 2009. Paul and I had talked about jamming for a few months and had put off actually starting for 4 or 5 weeks, so long in fact that the guy who opened the warehouse for us and let us practice probably wouldn't have ever let us start if we postponed it even a week longer, my 5th consecutive cancelling of our Wednesday night slot had clearly irked him. In any case, with our future lead guitarist and husky vocalist David in his sick bed in a terrible state, whinier singer/rhythm guitarist Paul and his bass slapping brother Alan and I went to practice. We instantly weren't a hit with the crowd who frequented the place, with their first impression of Paul ending with him cursing his "shitty old guitar," I should have told him they don't like swearing. As we walked onto the stage in the back room of the warehouse which was occasionally used to throw gigs, Paul asked if we should run through Evil by Interpol just to see where we all stood. I had learned this in the few weeks previous since it was the flagship song of the guys older band, Las Armas.

So the first song we ever played was just the three of us, we produced a very bare and very rough cover of this brilliant song. I'd known Alan from around for years but never had anything close to a relationship with him (oh how that would change!) unlike with Paul as we had always been in the same close group of friends but just never been very close ourselves (change, change, change!). I'll forever remember what Alan said directly after the song though "I didn't know you were actually a good drummer!" How wrong he was! I'm not great now by any stretch of the imagination, but back then I spent weeks struggling to learn Hang Me Up To Dry and Evil because I simply didn't have the ability to play them. I'd been drumming for years but never had any extended practice and was really, really awful!

The rest of the practice went surprisingly well, for a lot of failed tries I'd never actually jammed with what could have been a real band before. This practice is also when we first played Don't Drop Me. The Doran's had written this song acoustically and been playing it for probably a year or so but this was the first time it would have drums to it. The drums were originally a very simplified version of the beat from Where I End And You Begin by Radiohead. I never usually take beats directly from a song but this track is special, I've listened to it thousands and thousands of times, no exaggeration at all. Its easily my favourite song of all time, its alternate title is what this blog is named in honour of and this drumbeat is the one that inspired me to learn the instrument which I love so much now, it was only fitting that the first song I ever crafted drums to was in the mould of the brilliant Phil Selway. All this being said, since the song has evolved over the months the drums have actually become much changed to what they originally were.

We finished the practice and went for a pint down in the old Harbour Bar. If anyone had have herd the music we were playing they would have acknowledged that it was complete shambles, but much like the first practice in The Commitments, it was definitely a start. Plus it was the first time we'd played two of our current mainstays, Hang Me Up To Dry and Don't Drop Me (Here is a live performance of Don't Drop Me and Hang Me Up To Dry @ The Button Factory last month)

The same time the following week we were to have our first practice with David O'Rourke, oh how I didn't realise how much this would change my life as the man who I barely knew at that time is now one of my dearest friends and one of the few people who make me hold on to what little faith I have in humanity! But thats something that I'll write about another day.

Great God!
Shelbs

Untitled

There's a gap between the trains
There's a way to the woods
Where they're sorry for a lot
Because the end is beautiful

Son you make me so proud
When I'm high as the clouds
You make me so proud
But I wish I could come down

And I'm sorry for your birth
The aliens rule the earth
The sky is dark and green
And beautiful

To escape my mind
To escape my mind
To escape mankind
To escape my mind

Please pardon all this day
As we feel our souls decay
Pardon all this day
It hurts forever to try

There should have been a place
The father taught his ways
And he loved always
Not in his sleep

To escape my mind
To escape my mind
To escape mankind
To escape my mind

I'll escape my mind
I'll escape my mind
You'll escape mankind
I'll escape my mind

Shameless Plugging of Band on Blog

Not that this is something I want to get in to a habit of, but I'm so proud of my band The Excuses and the live set we played at The Button Factory for the launch of my uncles book Gurriers that I felt I had to share it on this.

Live at The Button Factory by The Excuses

As The Bullet Flies

Oh, as I sit in this lobby in the House of Commons, the heart and mind of my beloved England, I wonder what will be the consequence of this seemingly normal day, the eleventh in this month of May, in this year of 1812. I stroke the gun which sits in the specially tailored pocket on the inside left of my overcoat as I watch these filthy dogs go about their daily bidding. I pay special attention to the great doors opposite the bench I sit on, my weeks spent lingering in here in the spare hours of my day have thought me that it is these doors that the man I want will walk through, for today England shall lose its head of state. Alas, his fate has been sealed since I spent those four years of hell in that Russian prison to have him simply turn his back on me, to have his servants tell me I should take whatever liberty I felt proper for they would not compensate the ruining of my myself and my family! Well, well! That liberty shall be the termination of Mr Spencer Percevals life by me, the perfectly reasonable and sensible John Bellingham.
The reason I wonder, or worry even, is that I fear my individual act of vengeance may inspire a chain of similar deeds from countrymen who feel they were wronged or hold some shallow motive taking the final option of the life of the head of state. As sure I am these politicians will preach that was my motive, I am that I do not want this to become of our green and pleasant land! That is the status quo of those revolutionary fools in France or America and should never be here. I hope on all that is good that this will not happen, I fear that my family simply could not live with the horror of that along with unbearable shame I shall undeniably bestow upon them. My wife has already conveyed her idea that I am losing touch with my mind and the reality we live in and has frequently pleaded with me to simply live life and try and simply let lie my heavy history. Unthinkable.
The clock strikes ten minutes past five. The doors open, but none of the figures who walk through are Mr Perceval. They are either too tall or their noses too small to be that doomed man. With this thought comes rising doubt, I have a sudden urge not to complete my task. Although he is just 49, Spencer bears the face of a man who has lived much more years. As Prime Ministers go, he has not been a bad one to say the least, although he is not the most intelligent of men it cannot be denied he is a hard worker who loves his country. But it is not even this which is defeating my urge to kill him, it is his pathetic appearance that I have noted these last weeks. Surely the world, the country, the jury will look so harshly on me for killing such a man of such pitiful physical appearance, such a meek man, for despite my years of malnutrition I stand so tall and so powerful over the majority of those who walk these corridors and the majority of those who walk the common streets.
The clock now stands at a quarter past five and now there is no time to dwell on these thoughts as the door opens and Mr Perceval walks through. I stand up, hand firmly on my gun. I walk in his direction. He takes no notice of me as he is conversing with a fellow M.P. While drawing my gun I speak with a venom which is surprising even to myself.
"Your position can't save you now!" I take aim at his heart and pull the trigger. Every single politician turn their filthy necks as the booming sound of the gunshot rings out throughout these corridors, like the sound that would have ran through the Palace of Westminster had Guy Fawkes succeeded with his gunpowder plot. But he didn't, and I did.
"Murder!" shouts that sorry soul as he falls backwards into the arms of one of his ministers. As I calmly walk back to take my seat I am overcome with two very different things. One is the politicians restraining me (I can even hear Isaac Gascoyne shout "Bellingham, that bastard is Bellingham!") but what seems infinitely more real is the fact that I am the first man to take the life of an English head of state, and with that there is a very bizarre sense of pride in myself, my actions but most of all my country.



One week later, John Bellingham was hanged in public for the assassination of Spencer Perceval. This murder was the only successful attempt on the life of a British Prime Minister.

Further Reading/Listening!

A brilliant summary of John Bellingham's life on Wikipedia.

An ever more brilliant song and music video inspired by the murder, also this is what inspired me to write the story. Spencer Perceval by iLiKETRAiNS.