Good Friday 2002 and a 'scary' story 2004

Loads of stuff coming soon - smoking in pubs - STILL and dropped new guitar - still works.
Here's a piece I wrote which appeared on the 'gigsmart' site in 2002. Also a story I wrote for schools last week which went down well on it's first outing on Monday, in Whitegate national school in Cork.



Good Friday
Or
How I got to Handle Gerri Haliwell's Boots (yes that was BOOTS) and get a piece of Michael Flatley's shirt.


About a year after I began writing and performing my own songs, it occurred to me that there some songs were like shirts and some songs like shoes. Shirt songs and shoe songs -not a bad album title - maybe after Dead Birds and Funny Fish which, I hope, will be in the shops by September.
"Shirt Songs and Shoe Songs". In case it isn't obvious I'll explain. Some songs, you write, you learn, you sing and gradually, you get more and more comfortable with and as you relax with them they get better and better. They're the shoe songs. I reckon Guy Clark has a lot of shoe songs.
Actually the analogy falls down in my own case on the shirt songs, as I like my shirts old and comfortable, like my shoes. But if you like to keep your shirts looking like they've just come from the box after you've worn them and washed them, then you're going to have to put in a fair bit of work with an iron and maybe some starch to keep them that way. A Shirt song, you write, you learn, you sing from the heart and it sounds great. It usually comes from something you feel strongly about when you write it. After you've been singing it for a while, the energy can go out of it and what had been a great song is now merely a good song. With shirt songs you have to get yourself back to where you were at when you wrote it each time you perform it to keep it fresh and "just out of the box"
On Joni Mitchell's album, "Blue", I would think of Big Yellow Taxi as a shoe song and almost everything else as shirts.

Good Friday is right up there with Christmas in the popularity ratings in Ireland and I figured with the pubs being closed and f#ck all else to do, most people would be home and delighted to listen to a song on their doorstep. Wrong. I went to Lucan, got an early start - about twelve - and maybe I don't know something about the pubs in Lucan but there were even less people at home than on a regular day and most of them found lots of stuff to be busy with. Lots of gardening, hoovering, lawns to be maintained and cars to be washed.
I like the Audi TT but find the owners of these to be, in the main, total pratts. Here's the scene; about four o'clock I come around a corner and see a guy, who'd win a Pat Kenny lookalike contest any day, in his garden polishing a black Audi TT. Now the house is your standard newish red brick 3 bed. 2 rec. semi-detached and has a pair of iron gates about 3 feet high with the spiky tops that are sometimes picked out in gold. So nothing unusual here. Not so fast though. The Guy, I'll call him Pat, is engrossed in the polishing - it's a 02 reg. and polishing paintwork this new doesn't do it any favours but what the heck, it's his car. He continues to ignore me as I press the latch on the gate and realise when I push it and it doesn't open that it's an automatic remote control electric job. I could have thrown a leg over and walked over to the guy but as I was only about four yards away I introduced myself from the gate. Pat continued polishing and when I had finished my bit, he declined. OK. That's his prerogative. What did piss me off though was that for the whole time I addressed him, Pat didn't once look up.
Now I can be a bit of a bastard myself and I was delighted when Pat's next door neighbour wasn't at home. This meant that I could stand at the door, waiting for a reply, for AS LONG AS I WANTED. I stood watching Pat polishing and getting redder and redder, and very self conscious for about ten minutes and then told him that he was doing a super job and that I would give him a free CD if he would clean my Toyota Corolla. Pat declined.
If I were a rich man though, I'd probably be a total bastard. Idea one; buy heavy chain and super-strong lock and some night, in the middle of the night lock Pat and the TT securely in and it wouldn't be a Friday or Saturday night either. Idea two; as idea one but recruit a rugby team to lift the car over the gate and leave it outside. On second thoughts, it would be better to leave the car locked in but lifted to face in the opposite direction. All fingerprints to be carefully polished off, of course.
What's this got to do with handling Gerri's boots and Michael's shit er shirt. Not a lot, but I always find that for everyone like Pat there's someone like Shirley.
Earlier the same day, I called to a house where some gardening was being done, but not too seriously. The kids were mucking in and enjoying themselves. When I called one of the older ones went to get his mam and when she came around to the front, she recognised me from the Nationwide programme and said that she'd buy an album anyway, but would I sing a song for her four boys, aged twelve to two. After the song, when she went to get some money, one of the boys went in and returned with a pair of sparkly green, very high platform boots. When I told him that I didn't think they'd suit him, he said that his mam had been given them by Gerri Haliwell for doing her ironing.
When Shirley came out she explained that she worked as a dresser and costumer at the Point Depot and that when the Spice Girls played there, these boots had been hurting Gerri's spice toes and the she'd worn them for about two songs and changed. After the show she'd given them to Shirley.
A couple of hours later I was working across the road and Shirley came over with some blue fabric fluttering in her hands. She said that she wanted me to have it - for luck. She explained that it was an off-cut from a shirt she had made for Michael Flatley - the shirt that had been seen by 600 million people on television, when Riverdance was introduced at the Eurovision Song Contest in the year ????
Thanks Shirley. All in all not a bad Friday










The Terrible Eater From Space c.Sean O'Neill



Tommy wasn't scared of much.

He wasn't scared of the dark - he knew he could switch a light on.

He wasn't scared of being on his own - he liked himself.

He wasn't scared of animals - he knew if he was nice to them that they'd be nice to him.

He wasn't even scared of bullies - he knew that they'd meet bigger bullies one day.

He wasn't scared of getting lost - he had a good sense of direction.

He wasn't scared of people who had different coloured skin or different beliefs and ways - he knew that people are people and kind of all the same.

He wasn't scared of school - he knew he had a lot to learn.

He wasn't scared of his mammy and daddy - he knew they loved him.

He was scared of................

The Terrible Eater From Space.

He was scared that the terrible eater from space lived under his bed - in his room.
He had never seen the terrible eater from space - but he knew it was there and getting hungry.

He knew he was safe when he was in his bed - it couldn't get him there. It could only get him when he was in the space between the door and the bed. It couldn't come out from under the bed - it would disintegrate. But....if he wasn't careful, it could pull him under the bed and that would be the end of him.

He knew that the terrible eater from space was getting hungrier and hungrier every day - except Sundays and bank holidays, when it just bided it's time and lurked.

Unfortunately, the other thing that scared him was telling his mammy and daddy about the terrible eater from space - they always said what a brave boy he was so he couldn't tell them he was scared. So every night, Tommy would run from the bedroom door to his bed and jump onto it - just as the terrible eater from space was about to grab his ankle and pull him under the bed. Phew!!

One day Tommy's mammy told him that his little brother, Steven, was big enough to have his cot moved from her room into Tommy's.
"No, no, no," Tommy said, "he can't come into my room."
"What?" said his mammy. "You love your baby brother. I thought you'd love to have him share."

Tommy did love his baby brother but knew that Steven was too small to jump out of reach of the terrible eater from space and that the terrible eater from space was so hungry now that Steven would be gone in one big bite.

Tommy ran to his room and closed the door. He even put a chair against it and would talk no more.
His daddy came home from the office at the usual time but Tommy didn't run out to meet him as usual.

"He doesn't want Steven to share his room," said his mammy, "and now he won't come out of his room."

"Knock knock." went his daddy.
"Who's there?" said Tommy.
"Lettuce."
"Lettuce who?" said Tommy.
"Lettuce in, I want to talk with you." laughed the daddy and Tommy let him in.

Eventually, Tommy told his dad about the terrible eater from space and his daddy told him not to worry - that he'd sort it out.

The next day was Saturday and Tommy's daddy didn't have to go to the office. He took Tommy with him to a big place where they sold wood and tools, and they bought loads of stuff including a sign that said, "DANGER - KEEP OUT".

When they got home, Daddy explained to Tommy that he had some dangerous work to do and told him that he was to look after Mammy and baby Steven for a while. Then he brought all the wood and tools AND the vacuum cleaner into Tommy's room and hung the danger keep out sign on the door.

Much later, he came down for dinner and said that he'd finished. He'd hovered out the terrible eater from space - who'd then disintegrated in the hoover, and so would not be back.

After dinner, daddy took Tommy and mammy and Steven upstairs to look. The sign was gone and so were the tools and wood and sawdust. All clean and tidy.

Tommy hardly recognized his room. where his bed used to be, there was a sort of climbing frame, with a seat and a desk at the bottom and a bed up on top - really high. Tommy wasn't scared of heights. He could see the floor underneath and no terrible eater from space. By the window was Steven's cot and Tommy could see the floor underneath that, and no terrible eater from space there either.

He gave his daddy a big smile and a big hug and his mammy gave his daddy a big smile and a big hug and Steven gave Tommy a big smile and a big hug and......bit him on the nose. Ouch.

Now Steven sleeps in Tommy's room and Tommy sleeps soundly, knowing that the terrible eater from space is gone - and is scared of nothing - well almost nothing. Sometimes when he wakes and sees the way Steven is looking at him - well he knows that Steven, with lots of new teeth, is just waiting for a chance to use them on him again.