The Late Show at the Paradise Club

The Late Show at the Paradise Club (c)

By Michael Casey

Well its 27^th Dec and another star has died, 2016 has thinned out a lot of the stars, so we’ll miss them all. There should be room for new shoots to appear now, but what happens to the stars once they are stars in paradise, assuming you believe in any afterlife.

Just queue here, can you all put your bedroom slippers on we don’t like mud all over Heaven, Saint Peter is very strict about that, Angels’ Wing carpet is very hard to clean. It takes 15 years of humility on Earth to clean the carpet. Didn’t you know the worse things are on Earth the worse things are in Heaven. We are not whiter than white, we are a kind of dull grey most of the time. It takes extraordinary things on earth to brighten up heaven. Like when the Washington 2017 accord was agreed and nuclear weapons were cut by 50% at a stroke, now we were so happy in Heaven it was as if Colgate toothpaste had been used on the floor and walls and everywhere. We just sparkled.

So what happens when you are dead and you are arrive in Heaven, well you are given somebody on earth to watch over and pray for. The prayers you say into the Future will have helped you in the Past. Its complicated but Time is one of God’s biggest jokes. So you have to pray for somebody now you are in Heaven, a kind of extra Guardian Angel if you like, though I could be wrong I’m just telling you what I dreamed the other night, but it could have been as a result of too much soda pop. Or the 17 pints of Stella Artois and a packet of cheese and onion crisps I had with my Christmas dinner.

Singers become bricklayers, and actors make ham sandwiches, though all sandwiches are made from clouds they just taste different, depending on which Faith you had when you were alive. You have to do something totally different as soon as you cross the threshold, this is to teach humility. It's the Future which is important, nobody cares if you were Sinatra , what you were does not matter, its how you are going to spend your time in Heaven that counts.

Sinatra is in actual fact a toilet cleaner in Paradise, he is very good in this role, a Natural if you like. But he does insist on cleaning toilets HIS way, but as he is so good at it none of the angles tell him off. Liberace is here too, he is an electrician all those candles on his piano made it obvious that he'd become an electrician, he has a helper to help put the sparkle back into the stars. John Wayne is his helper as he is so tall Liberace can stand on his shoulders so he can reach for the stars to add more twinkle to them.

George Michael runs the Karaoke bar, no he's not the singer there he washes the bottles, we recycle everything here after all. Winston Churchill is the actual singer, him and Les Dawson the piano player, Mozart just polishes everything, its such a relief for him, not having his brain humming all the time. Charlie Chaplin is the doorman cum bouncer, then the sandwiches are made by that lady from the telly, cheese and onion crisps flavour. Her death has not been announced yet, but Heaven has her already making the sandwiches.

Is it boring in Heaven, Lord knows its not, something happens all the time. We don't have tv or theatre we just have 7,000,000,000 souls we can watch, its riveting, remember its all Free Will, so its better than gambling at Monaco, I can reveal I used to be a gambler, now I just do show arounds of Heaven. But my main job is tuning harps for the angels, I've been doing it for 1000 years and still the angels try and get Hannibal to tune their harps instead of me.

I suppose its good for my Humility, but Hannibal he just pours vinegar on everything and holds it outsides the gates of heaven and lets Hell's fires work its magic, it just cracks everything. Then the angels play even more fervently because they can taste the smoke of Hell on their harps. I don't understand it myself, Freud was not allowed into Heaven, he tried to 2^nd guess God. So he just loiters outside pulling faces.

What more can I say, its Winter here and we are waiting for the souls just saved from Hell, we always have a party for those saved at the last minute, they are really hot souls, and for us they are likeour storage radiators and we gather around to warm our hands around the. Then there is disco dancing and for one hour only can revert to what you are best at. So Sinatra stops cleaning toilets, and George Michael will stop washing bottles and they'll duet together, Charlie Chaplin and Mozart play backing on the pianos. There is more celebration in Heaven for a repentant sinner than your goody two shoes after all. 

Trump and Putin make Peace

Trump and Putin make Peace ©

By Michael Casey

Well its Boxing Day and George Michael died yesterday, Last Christmas is playing on Spotify, my Arthur my athritis is playing up but at least I made the family gathering yesterday. I’ve got up and taken my heart pills, after being up earlier in the night due to pain. As I finished my toast we have a sunny morning in Birmingham, there is a flash and Totoro our cat is on the kitchen windowsill rubbing her bum on the window pane, she wants to come back in, she’s visited the half Japanese child and the Polish brothers now she wants to sleep the morning off.

So I wonder what shall I write about, or rather talk about today, then I thought of Peace and Goodwill to All Men, which brings me to Trump and Putin making Peace. Trump tweets Putin, he sends a Christmas email, if it was good enough for Hillary its good enough for him. There are dancing Elves in bikinis with sashes saying Trump 45 on them, plus a crying Hillary having a tantrum on the floor, its everybody’s fault but mine she screams, as cartoon FBI cuff her and drag her away. Like Simpsons but this is real, or surreal.

Putin sends a carrier pigeon in reply, Trump can eat it after it squawks the reply, Putin has a soft side to him that nobody knows, Snowden is living in Putin’s attic above the Kremlin, in the onion thing you see as a tourist. And now he sends Moscow’s answer to KFC especially to Trump.

Trump wants to meet in some place North and cold, but Putin remembers how Reagan played a blinder before so he wants some place hot, so they agree to meet in the sauna at the old post office in DC, its now a Trump hotel.

They arrive and sit naked facing each other, Trump bring out some chilled water, Trump water, they will be drinking Trump’s water, though not Trump’s water, that would be very much like Ghandi. Putin brings best Russian vodka, but Trump who does not drink himself knows that Polish vodka is better so has is substituted while Putin’s back is turned.

So sat naked opposite each other the talks begin. If you can’t stand the heat you should not be in the kitchen after all. Putin compliments Trump on the size of his hands, Trump blushed before putting, putting not Putin, a baseball cap with 45 on his head. The secret service need to be able to tell Trump and Putin apart in all the steam, and after days of negotiation the baseball cap was allowed by the KGB or is it PSB or PMT or GMT, it was some 3 letters anyways.

Putin realised his vodka had been switched and he just loved it to death, why complain when its to your advantage.Polish vodka is so good because Poland has been invaded so many times it would drive you to drink, so vodka really is a reflection of History, but ask your local drinker and he will give you a very drunken History lesson.

Trump just stares at Putin and drinks his water, he smiles his gleaming smile, the dazzling teeth are like a laser and Putin has to squint, a very drunken squint. Trump uses catchphrase after catchphrase, lock her up is replaced with we will send Sarah Palin to Moscow as our ambassador. Putin downs an entire bottle of Polish vodka, that was sneaky and underhand, he thought Trump was a fool that’s why he hit the ceiling  with the broom handle and told Snowden in the attic to screw the Democrats and help Trump.

Putin’s head swam and who let Trump’s dog, mad dog out, all it did was howl and howl. So Putin threw a bottle of vodka at it, only this mad dog just caught it and drained it before  howling the more. Putin realised Trump was no fool it was just a front, so he drained another bottle of vodka. Trump must have a Costco card, how else could he get that many pallets of Polish Vodka, and it was only a Tuesday.

This much Polish vodka on a Tuesday, he must have pull with the alcohol sales replenishment team, or he must have worked in hotels. Putin’s head throbbed, wasn’t Trump a hotelier, he seemed to remember something from his pre talk briefing, but that was 9 or 17 bottles of Polish vodka ago. Putin cursed and threw 2 more bottles of vodka at Trump’s howling mad dog, who just smiled and drained them.

Lets play hide and seek suggested Putin who ran screaming and naked from the old post office without even a stamp to hide his modesty. Trump just laughed and clicked his fingers, his red, white and blue shell suit was zipped up around him, he didn’t want to show his hands after all.

Putin ran to his sub parked in the river, and soon he was down the hatch. Mad dog laughed like Mutley, the secret service surrounded Trump, all naked with their weapons on show, and yes the  secret service have great big weapons. Trump knocked on the hatch, open up open up or I’ll huff and I’ll puff. Putin refused, Trump improvised, his mad dog peed all over the Russia nuclear submarine. Ok I’ll give you 3 hours head start and then I’m coming to get you, he’d seen the film The Hunt for Red October after all.

Mad dog had peed an awful lot on top of the USSR Stalin, it was actually a fluorescent marker which would leave a trail, dogs, mad dogs love following trails after all. Trump went and played a round of golf with Barron while Putin had his head start. The secret service did put their clothes back on, they impounded all the Polish vodka first, after switching the labels for Trump water. Their mess room in the White House could always do with a bit of extra water.

Barron beat his dad at golf, again, Trump did not mind at all, in fact it made him proud so proud. Meanwhile Putin wanted to drive the submarine only he pressed the wrong button and the submarine sunk to the bottom of the ocean floor. Mad dog had finished leaving his scent everywhere when he got the message, the USSR Stalin was stuck, tow trucks don’t do that stuck.

So Trump resisted the temptation to say leave him there, and said save the USSR Stalin, mad dog whimpered for a bit, but he liked moustaches, Stalin had one like John Bolton’s the Fox pundit who failed to make the grade for Trump 45, so like a good puppy dog he asked his friends in the Marines to save Putin.

Now this event was played as a signal of future cooperation between two great powers. While Putin was down there in the dark he had his Religious conversion, for it was not just Polish vodka he’d been consuming, Timothy Leary himself was added to the vodka, but the USA had “borrowed”an Olympic anti drugs person from the USSR. So nobody was the wiser, if you want to fool a fool then you use the fool’s own fool.

Putin realised that he didn’t have enough money for an arms race but  he could teach USA about the Ocean floor, his subs had spent decades hiding there, and they could cooperate on Space travel, and it would be so much cheaper, and he could be a hero, without taking his shirt off and riding a horse.

3 days later when Putin was saved he gave Trump his idea, in return for a train load of Polish vodka, marked as Trump water. They say that somebody is so mean they wouldn’t even give you their piss, but Donald was giving his water, which was really Polish vodka, in disguise.  

The Pope praised both, he knew all about water being turned into wine, but not about Trump water turned into Polish vodka. To celebrate Trump took Putin for a game of golf, and Putin slaughtered Trump. Trump laughed, he’d negotiated international peace and a 50% nuke cut, so losing a game of golf did not matter. Putin did reveal how his golf was so good, he had gotten Snowden who lived in his attic to hack Tiger Woods’ computer. So you see Putin had done his homework. Putin did ask when they had stopped laughing and Trump had paid  Putin 100dollars for the loss of the golf game. Where did you get your dog from, no not Barron’s dog but the little mad dog. Oh I got him from the United States Marines Corp, he was a present, replied Trump his chest swelling with pride.   

2016 Year of the Dead

2016 Year of The Dead ©

By Michael Casey

Well George Michael just died and on Christmas Day, so that’ll taint Christmas forever for his family and his fans. Its 2.30am. The pain got me up so I thought I’d write a bit while I wait for the pain to go away and when I’m so exhausted that’ll I’ll fall over then I’ll go back to bed and sleep through the pain.

The pain of a death is overwhelming, I remember when my mother died 20 years ago and when my dad died 5.5 years later, though he nearly died 8 weeks after mum. So 2016 is the year of the dead, Twitter is trending Save David Attenborough as he is a National Treasure and if anything happened to him it would be unbearable. So retweet that to all your friends. I did have a try of Twitter  but its too time consuming and addictive, like going to a speak-easy. I am not on any Social Media I attract mad people like a magnet, so I am only on email and I don’t click any links, you have to write a message or you are deleted and join the year of the dead.

Part of our lives go when a celebrity goes, we were snogging our girl or boyfriend or both to the music of our favourite musician. So when that person dies we remember whether we scored a home run or got to 2^nd base, while listening to Elvis or George Michael or even John Denver. The dead person is forever sat on the back of the settee looking down at the action or lack of it, like Beetlejuice.  

You go for a drive and you are playing your favourite songs as you drive along, you are showing off and you crash the car, even if you don’t kill your girlfriend that moment is forever frozen in time with the music that was playing as you drove dangerously. So when the singer finishes singing his songs forever  you remember back to the day that you had your crash. The night my mother died Celine Dion was singing a song on the radio so that has become our family song, you lifted me up, which was so true of our mum.

If you like the Celebrity Death magnifies our own emotions, what was happening to us is  reinforced because somebody was singing this or that. Its Music above all else which has such power to overwhelm us and to remind us of this and that, as they say Music really is the soundtrack of our lives. So when George Michael dies it can be an overwhelming situation for us, we have stolen and borrowed the Love from George’s family and used it as the glue that holds our own family together, that is why they’ll be tears in the morning when everybody gets up from their Christmas Day night slumbers.But George is too young to die we’ll all say and we’ll put Spotify on and listen to the tracks of our tears and remember our younger years, while George Michael sings.

So what more can I add now that the countdown to 2017 has begun, say your prayers  because one day you will not wake up, you will have joined a list and become just a memory. Use your time to make sure you are a happy memory one which is loved and mourned and not scorned.  

Christmas was cold a silly piece for Xmas

Christmas Was Cold

Christmas Was Cold ©

By Michael Casey

Christmas was cold, and Kevin did not like it, he didn’t like it one bit. The agency had said they had a job for him , it was a temp job and it involved a lot of travel, and it paid well, very well.

So Kevin took it like a shot, he’d been unemployed for a while and he wanted to bring some money in so he could go on holiday to someplace anyplace warm. They had said he’d get a free holiday as part of the package IF he took the job.

He arrived at the port and went into a warehouse, he’d be interviewed in there said the agency. He looked all around and he could see nobody, nobody at all. Then he heard the sound of boots echoing behind him, he spun around to see and elf approaching. He laughed, the man in the costume looked so silly.

Only it wasn’t a man in a costume, it was a real elf, only Kevin was too stupid to realise it. He’d never seen a real elf in his life. The elf looked Kevin up and down, he half smiled. Kevin was fat, very fat, the kind of fat where his belly was bursting his belt, it wasn’t overhanging his belt, that would have been disgusting. No Kevin was fat, perfect fat, for the perfect job.

The elf asked him did he know why he was here, and did he have his passport with him, the usual stuff when you apply for a job nowadays. The elf walked away with Kevin’s documentation in his hand.  Kevin looked around the warehouse it was empty, full of nothing.

Full of nothing as far as stupid people could see, if Kevin could use his eyes then he’d see that the warehouse was brimming with people and every kind of thing. This was Christmas warehouse. The elf returned holding a Santa suit in his hand, Kevin laughed, so that was the job, Santa at a store. Well he needed the money so he put the suit on.

Kevin felt dizzy, he had to lean on the elf for support, he had stars in his eyes, he was seeing things. The elf took a glass of water out of his pocket and Kevin drunk it willingly. Noise and fireworks appeared in the empty warehouse. Kevin fainted.

Kevin awoke in another world, in Santa’s world, now he could see that he was in Santa’s workshop, there were elves everywhere. He must have been drugged, he rubbed his eyes and felt his face. He had a beard, a long white beard. He’d been drugged and transformed into Santa, suit and all.

The elf explained, that only a man with a perfect belly could stand in for Santa at Christmas. Kevin was the chosen one, he was the man, he was Santa. The real Santa had broken his leg while skiing in Birmingham, so Kevin was the standin.

The elf went through the Health and Safety rules, HO HO HO, always 3 HO HO HOs, other than that there were no Health and Safety rules. The reindeer would explain everything. Kevin looked around he could see no reindeer, the elf led him outside to the dock.

A submarine surfaced and the sleigh and the reindeer emerged, reindeer can hold their breath for such a long time.  They are waterproof or seaproof too, the sleigh has water repellent paint on it too, made in the paint factory in Birmingham, you know the one just down the road from the reindeers friends in Ladywood Fire Station.

Kevin was impressed this was more like James Bond, he high fived the reindeer, they licked his new beard, that’s what reindeer always do to Santa. The elf smiled he was sure they’d get on well. The elf answered the unasked question, why the submarine?

The submarine was to get into countries where Santa was not welcome, North Korea was one of them. A sleigh would be spotted on radar, so Santa would sneak in and shower love and happiness and hope amongst the people.

Kevin shed a tear, he was Santa now, so his heart felt the things Santa felt. The submarine levitated and turned/merged into a bigger sleigh, a very large sleigh. Eat your heart out James Bond, Santa has much better toys, literally.

Kevin shook the reins and away they went into the night sky, Kevin ho ho hoed his way around the world. His fat belly was too big to get down a lot of the chimneys, but that’s where the reindeer came in, they formed a team, a tug of war team and pulled him up and down the chimneys.

The reindeer could of course get down all the chimneys, they held their breath and wriggled their bums, it was easy for them they had been doing it for centuries. That’s why your Christmas trees get nibbled in the night, it’s the reindeer, its hungry work flying around the world with Christmas presents.

Kevin, or should I say Santa realised why he needed the beard, it kept him warm, it got cold, very cold flying high in the sky. They did stop on the River Po, just to say hello to Don Camillo, he was a priest but sometimes he was on the naughty list, and sometimes he came off the naughty list, depending on what he and the mayor had been doing.

The sleigh/submarine had a never-ending supply of presents, Kevin, I mean Santa got into the swing of things, the reindeer sung carols, 1000s of them in lots of different languages, they were a carol jukebox. Some brought tears to Santa’s eyes.

Dive, dive, dive they had to sneak into a country to bring Hope and Love, no presents just a loaf of bread. The reindeer didn’t nibble on any trees, as Christmas trees and Christmas itself were banned. The reindeer cried, but there was always Hope.

High and Low, Up and Down the sleigh went over the face of the earth, Santa HO HO Hoed, tonight Christ was born, a new light had entered the world.

The work was done, the world had been crissed and crossed, the reindeer headed back to the warehouse. As the sleigh landed Kevin’s beard dissolved, he was Santa no more. He looked around the warehouse, the elves were dissolving into nothingness, the reindeer trotted away still singing Rejoice Rejoice Emanuel.

Had he been drugged, was this all an hallucination, it couldn’t be he felt Love in his heart, he had been Santa for a night. As he walked out of the warehouse his footsteps echoed into sky, Kevin looked up and could see Santa in his sleight, his crutches besides him, and the reindeer still sung Rejoice Rejoice Emanuel.    

the photos are silly too, so please laugh with me and buy all the books, then I can move house.

https://www.amazon.com/Michael-Casey/e/B00571G0YC 

Pretentious Poets Strike Again

Pretentious Poets Strike Again ©

By Michael Casey

Now how exactly shall we describe Pain, is it just a myth advanced by Pharmacists aided and abetted by slick adverts on tv with wonderful graphics of throbbing this and that. Does it exist at all? Is it just a bad joke on Creation’s part? Shall I compare thee to a Scream on a Winter’s night echoing through The Dark of the Night of he Soul.

Now where did we put the Dictionary, next to our copy of the Perfect Word by Lenny Bruce, the well know American dictionary compiler, the coarse, the very coarse version. Or did we leave it next to our cook book, the American guide to Hamburgers a la Macdonalds, the 1999 version. Though who uses dictionaries, they are for the mentally weak, those with no moral fibre, we poets don’t need them, we just make up new words made up of sounds.

If it sounds good we use it, not forgetting a dose of alliteration on the side, and if we get the words wrong there is always the doctor or the priest to absolve us from our word choice. Priests are so forgiving of our words, especially Fr. Percy, he used to be a nudist till he saw the light and became a poet and then finally a priest, in the church of the Church of the Totally Gullible the church of Film Stars and Pop Stars.

But I digress, which word shall I pick and choose, where is my Muse, it’s hard to keep your muse, it should be chained to your bed, or was that a bad idea I saw on Blacklist, I really must stop watching late night tv, or was it the Brussel sprouts I consumed. We poets don’t eat we consume, and are consumed by ideas and emotions, because we are so sensitive, as we are Artists who teach the whole world what is Nature in the atmosphere and deep deep deep down inside us.  

I found the dictionary in the bathroom, its such consuming reading while one is at repose, or just sat on the toilet. Sadly a few pages are missing, I ran out of tissue paper, the letter Z has all but disappeared. But Z is so boring so it shall not be missed by this Poet, nor the world of words, how many zebras have you heard of in contemporary poetry. Not even Leonard Cohen used Z, so it won’t be mourned, he will be mourned, but Z will not.

So where were we, yes we were describing Pain, rather like a Rolling Stones concert where there is a 400 years queue for the toilet, now that is pain as one hops from leg to leg crossed leg to crossed leg, like a frog in a kilt, and no I’m not talking about that French Fashion person, whose name evades me right now, though he does make rather good perfume in the torso bottle. I’m almost inspired to write a ditty about queueing to have a sh sh well  you know what I mean, so long as its clean.

  

Now I was going to talk about how clever my choice of words is, but that would be boastful, but I am a pretentious poet, so I DO need to Educate you, there are more letters in the alphabet other than Z after all. In the Fall the leaves fall  and gather on the ground for walkers to walk in and squash and squish, rather like pages stolen from a dictionary never to be used again, its all such desolation, how can poets survive with no cheap alliteration to be found in the leaves, Nature itself thieves them from our life from our very being.

So Pretentiousness must end the pain killers have worked and its 5.30am now so I need to go back to bed to finish my repose, this stink of words must have gone up your nose or fallen down and left a mess on your pjs or dressing gown, amongst the tooth paste stains and hot chocolate stains. So goodnight to one and all, as the good Earth spins I have finished blowing my own Trumpet, another night owl is reading my words, its 3am somewhere and I hope he enjoys my prose brought on by lack of repose. And if He wants to give everybody a great Christmas Present, how about lowering the cost of pills, then he would be a saviour for all our ills.

Imagination is Always Better than Knowledge, Really

Imagination is Always Better than Knowledge, Really? ©

By Michael Casey

I wrote something and when I read back the finished piece I wondered how I’d managed to write it. This happens frequently, I read back my latest piece and I’m not just pleased but slightly amazed where the words came from. Everything is in the soup as I’ve said before and I just ladle out the words, like a dinner lady. Or perhaps like a painter with a blindfold on, who only sees the final result when the blindfold is removed, that would explain a lot about Picasso’s work.

So I wondered was there a fancy word for it, a kind of word serendipity, I did a quick google and the best I could find was the idea that Imagination is better than Knowledge. So you would imagine that knowing stuff trumped everything else, I’m seeing the verbs I’m using just as you are and I’m seeing the potential for comedy straight away. Trump will always be a comedy word now, well at least for 4 years or until Trump gets bored and leaves the job via a Tweet.

So if you have Knowledge then you should always be smarter than the next guy because you know all there is to know, whatever you are doing, see the verb “doing” can be used and misused in a variety of ways. It just depends on your Imagination, if you have ever read my Lenny Bruce piece then you will know what I’m on about, and if you haven’t then you’ll just have to make an obscene photo call to Dustin Hoffman and if you can put on a Tootsie voice HE may explain it to you. But don’t ask him why a guy so short can be so full of, so full of such big performances, be careful how you pronounce performances or he’ll scream back in his Lenny Bruce voice, and tell you to go Blah a Blah, which is a disgusting thing to say to anybody at Christmas.

Knowledge informs your choices and by using knowledge you’ll find the solution to anything. A doctor or a car mechanic follows a path, a yes or a no path until they either fix your car or work out what ails you. Though never get your mechanic or doctor mixed up as you wouldn’t want a mechanic giving you an “oil change”, in place of your Proctologist, I’ll leave it to your imagination. It does prove the point though about Knowledge being important, especially so when the right person is in the right job.

But what of Imagination? If you present all the information to specialist you’ll get a reasonable answer because they have Knowledge, but the guy with imagination he produce a work of art or an escape route. If you are trapped in a room how do you get out?You pile all the books together and use them to create steps so you can escape. Or you all take you clothes off to make a rope that’ll help you escape, this one is worth remembering if somebody is in a lake drowning or has fallen through ice, a human chain or a rope made from clothes can and will and has saved lives. Though it might just be a prank to put on UTube, or a way to see you all near naked.

I think this revelation about Imagination trumping Knowledge should be passed to our kids immediately, tonight when you put your kids to bed or when they come home drunk from the office Christmas Party, whatever age they are, tell them you love them, as you wipe the sick away and hold their clothes at arms length as you put them in washing machine. It will give them hope for the future and besides from the really clever people I’ve met they may have knowledge but they lack common sense, or imagination, clever but dull.