“There’s a new one an’ all” Mohammad says, “But damn the word I’ve got to hear for I’ve been that busy with the you-know-who gettin’ up to no end of you-know-what - the fiercest grief I’m gettin’ over the head of it. D’you know what they’re at next? They’ve only just -”

At this, Elijah raises a hand, thank God, and also a compact disc player. “Well now” says he. “It just so happens I have here in these clouds a cd-r of In The Grip Of Official Treason that I burned from off the copy Mary stole off Arthur Miller there Saturday past.”

“You have not!”

“I have boy.”

“Oh but that’s the quare wonderful turn of events! And there I thought I’d never hear a word, what with the -”

“Hush now” says St. Paul. “Hush now for by God the last thing we need is a barrage o’ that class of talk, thank you all the same.”

And so, with much nodding of heads and raising of eyebrows and chortles of “That’s the boy, Biafra, you tell them!”, Mohammad, St. Paul and Elijah sat huddled about the speakers, cocking the ears to hear over the intermittent raging of Jehovah, Himself busy smiting the balls off of some crew of pagans nestled to the west of Cyprus.

“He’s the wild man for the smiting” St Paul says with a skew of the mouth. “Jesus but it’d drive you mad, that bit of smiting he goes on with.”

“Quiet till we hear” says Elijah, crossing the legs. “Good stuff, this…”

II

So much has Jello Biafra to say, and so passionately does he say it, that I’d be truly shocked to the back of my absent vulva to learn he goes through anything less than forty-nine tongues a fortnight.

Throughout his regular spoken word performances, I’d wager he needs a new tongue after every other sentence. Roadies come bounding across the stage, I dare say, decked out in black shirts and trousers so as we can only see the disembodied balding heads hovering eerily about the monitors, soldering the new muscles into place mid-syllable, racing off then into the wings with the spent articles clutched in the paws like jellied eels.

Facts, figures, names dropped and kicked senseless and tossed to the crowd, myths debunked, fresh myths woven…

Like a man possessed he goes, the droll, oft-times incredibly sarcastic delivery masking only slightly the torrent of information each beautifully phrased quip might hold.

Sadly, the audience, most likely, have only got, at most, two ears per head, which is at least eight shy of the ten you’d need to take it all in. Thank God, then, that Alternative Tentacles have long been releasing live albums recorded at these particular performances, and so a fella can pause it a time here and there, can think, muse, take notes, allow himself a bitter laugh without fearing it’ll be at the expense of something altogether astounding coming right after the funny thing.