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The Monster Kids.

Outline: My feelings toward some of the kids who used to come to the club I worked at in the early 1990's and I haven't changed my views since. Warning. It's quite long, so get your cup of tea and a sarnie first.
Why: because...
Review: any
THE MONSTER KIDS.



The kids are on the street tonight just acting crazy
not looking for trouble...
Got some bottles, got some cans, got some blow and got some smack
looking for a little bit of heaven here on earth
Getting all hyper...
Home from school
boredom is catching
but freedom is just a taste away.

These pauper princes and these princess whores...
Talking trash while looking to score something to
keep their buzz at a level worth living a little longer.
It doesn't matter...
It just feels good and
tomorrow looks after itself.

The street has a heartbeat and you can tell these kids have pulsed it
mainlining the street's beat...
They are loud, bored and young but they walk these streets feeling proud
for these streets belong to them and they take no shit from the likes
of you or me...
No...
Not from the likes of you and not from the likes of me
for if I were a child again I would feel just like them.

The shops are empty...
this town is closed down
Final clearance
Yet still they feel the heartbeat...
They feel it through the souls of their boots and trainers...
These kids are the future
Don't believe the lies...
They're young and wild but the snake eyed carbon black pinned eyes
look at you through the bullshit that surrounds you and questions
Why ?
You did this...
It's the legacy of lies from your generation.

So they stop and laugh and the cops walk the other way...
there's nothing left for them to police around here
and the cans and bottles go 'round again
another vein gets popped and who cares anyway ?
The heartbeat accellerates and those looking on turn their
faces away
they cannot deal with the reality represented here.
The living and the dead...
But who is to say which is living
Is it right to decay before the eyes of children ?

So I live for them and sometimes I die for them too...
These pauper princes and these princess whores on the streets where
they stand holding by a thread the reality that we all face.
What do they know of life
These monster kids... ?
Balanced on their own edge
reality is behind them
The look of the soulless zombied into WHAT ?

Is this the future...
To ingest chemicals to blot out the thoughts of the next day ?
You better wake up for their day is dawning and the
dead souls have awakened first.
Their weapons are precious to them...
Alcohol ? For sure...
Drugs ? For sure...
Venom in every breath they wield their bodies as weapons of war
Cold...
Heartless...
Cobra death in every look.

Their group alone... Untouched.
The world outside cannot touch them as they march through
the fallout of your and my failures.
The pity I feel for them is matched only by the love I bear them
for they have discovered the secret of life...
Not to care... just to do.
Actions
calculated to turn all our heads until some fool asks why ?
But the question has already been answered...
Why not ?

Outcasts...
Playing in their inheritance...
Wasteland.
Still children at heart but their games are death games and death defying...
The Angel of Mercy is not a part of their lives
it does not exist in the games that they play
should it ever have existed at all
If God lives then he has deserted them
for their Gods are icons they can see or hear or touch...
And heaven ?
Oh yes
Heaven...
Heaven is just another taste away.
Author Explanation: Back in the early 1990's I worked nights at a rock club and when I first started using music as background to some things I was performing I decided to offer the job to the best rhythm guitarist around. Trouble was, she was fifteen and still at school but we persevered. My eldest daughter (same age) decided she wanted to learn how to mix sound so we got her involved too. Thankfully the pair of them survived but some of their friends didn't make it. This was written with the certain knowledge that my generation screwed up. Now, that generation has unleashed their kids upon the world... All you have to do is look around you. The title was stolen from Emz' first band's name. As a footnote to the above, there is an interview with Joni Mitchell in this month's MOJO magazine and what did she say ? 'My generation screwed up'.
carrieann
[Mon Jan 14, 2008 8:17 am]
Quite long, Chris, but not too long at all. Held my attention and you've captured the essence of what goes on in the streets both from the pov of these kids and the onlookers who, very often, do include the police - a powerless force in the main. Move them on, they're back again tomorrow, springs to mind.

It's obvious you're directing this at parents for only they have the power to break the cycle at source. I believe that and believe it IS possible if they begin at the word go when their children are babies. Not ALL teens feel like this or go round in gangs shooting up - far from it. But far too many do. They learn by example. How they bring up their children in the future could make all the difference, but parenting isn't taught in schools - at least not on a compulsary level - so how are they ever going to learn?
_________________
Treat others as you would wish to be treated yourself, but only those who deserve it.
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BrianRobertNeal
[Mon Jan 14, 2008 2:49 pm] Watto Chris
If you want to point a finger at anyone point it at our ruling elite who rather likes the prospect of a lumpen-proletariat that is incapable of political thought or action. Take 1984 and merge it with a "Brave New World" and that's what you get. In this case the elite don't even have to supply the "Soma". Private Enterprise will provide the "Ad-mass pap" to keep them entertained.

So, we all post to be read, reviewed and to make impact, so this has achieved all three objectives.

Brian



The reviewer would appreciate your comments on: One step back, one step forwards.
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Chris Ripple
[Mon Jan 14, 2008 9:24 pm]
Thanx Carrieann n Brian.

I wish I thought it as simple as your crit's imply, but...
I wrote it in 1993. Now, 15 years on what has changed except the drugs of choice ?
I agree with you Carrieann, parents are to blame.
I agree with you Brian, successive governments are to blame.
As are the Police, social services, schools, the tele' (drug of a nation) etc, etc, etc...

I think the key word is 'responsibility'.
Who is actually responsible and who is prepared to take responsibility ?
I am an almost exact contemporary of Tony Blair and I knew in 1993 something was going terribly wrong because I saw it happening in front of me, as did parents, police, teachers, social services ('cos they were actually in an office in the building and were actually in charge of what went on while the building was open),
and all of the above used to come to the gigs depending on who was performing but not a single one of them would actually lift a finger to stop this occurring.
Why ?
Your guess is as good as mine ?

What would you say if I told you that these kids were looked after and nursed back to some semblance of sanity by two sound engineers, three music promotors and five or six members of bands on the local scene and as many of their prospective partners as we could get to help, and we had to break a lot of laws to do so ?
Would you have trusted your precious offspring to a bunch of pot smoking, beer swilling, sexually active degenerates ?

I got my first death threat there. I was on stage with Emz and dedicated a number entitled 'I hope God damns the pusherman' to one of the local dealers who had dosed Emz best friend with L.S.D...
Emz and I were promptly banned from the stage of the building for causing trouble...
She was fifteen for Christ's sake ! One of the kids that certain organisations should have been looking out for... But didn't.

So who is responsible ? We all are. Every member of my generation that looked away then and still does today.
What have our government done ?
They have imported the 'Jim Crow' law from Amerika and instead of it applying to 'Negroes' as Amerika did in 1870, they now apply it to teenagers.
Five or more chatting on a street corner ? Stop and search.
If they argue they've done nothing wrong then they are subject to arrest.
Who is responsible ? You tell me.
The problem is now being exacerbated by the fact that those kids are now having kids of their own and what is being done for them ?
Nothing.

Sorry, bit bleak this one...
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