Ben Francis

(aka The Chubby Wordsmith) has been writing in various
 forms for as long as he can remember and writing spoken word pieces for performance since about 2003. Unfortunately, due to an intense distaste for self-promotion, an inherent laziness and the fact that he leads a secret double life as an international superhero, fighting crime around the globe, he has only recently begun to perform on any kind of regular basis again. And he really likes it.

 He deals with a diverse range of topics, from mass murder to music festivals and of course his constant and unflinching desire to ignite the revolution. Ben often sits on public transport and thinks in rhymes, he describes himself as “A geek, a freak, a thinker, a drinker, an anarchic artist using words as catharsis and maybe, just
 possibly, a God”. But most people have stopped listening by then. 

Should you feel so inclined you can find videos of his work at www.youtube.com/chubbywordsmith or you can join his facebook group (which would please him as he has decided to validate his entire being by the number of people who join) at http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/group.php?gid=104793319557773

JOBS vs MUSIC

 I hate the question "What do you do?"
 I hate its pretension and the things it assumes
 Like the fact that a job can somehow create
 An image of you, but most people hate
 The things that they're forced to do to survive
 The eight hours a day that are sucked from your life
 
 Now, don't get me wrong, not all jobs are scum
 Some are worthwhile and some even fun
 And a few lucky buggers work jobs that they love
 But I detest the idea that its somehow enough
 To judge people just on the job that they do
 When that image is so often so far from the truth
 
 So I've invented a different opening inquiry
 One that renders people passionate and fiery
 A question to explore the very essence of you
 Now I simply ask What do you listen to?
 
 Music! The best guide to who we really are
 The key to the door to the contents of hearts
 It reveals who we are despite what we seem
 Here's a few examples to show what I mean
 Just picture the scene
 And you'll see what I mean
 Just picture this scene
 Just picture this scene
 A busy supermarket on a Sunday afternoon
 A stressed and tired mother herds four kids into the queue
 She mops her brow and holds her purse and waits her turn to pay
 The spotty faced cashier who turned sixteen just yesterday
 He slowly fumbles barcodes with a teenage sense of loss
 Wary of the watchful eye of his worse-than-Hitler boss
 The boss is pacing up and down, purposeful his gait
 Desperately eager to punish any mistakes
 Now if this seems a normal scene at a normal checkout
 Let me use the music to flip this inside out
 
 See that mother, typically stressed in that line
 She's seen Metallica perform more than thirty times
 She's got a Slayer tattoo and she freaking loves Immortal
 That isn't stress, that's just heavy metal withdrawal
 She needs her daily dose of Machine Head and Pantera
 She named her first son Max after Mr. Cavalera
 
 That kid behind the till might seem a teen cliché
 But you should hear him play the drums for his band The Checkout Strays
 He's a demon with the rhythm, he's the percussion king
 He's the supermarket legend of the boom-boom-dush-boom-ting
 
 And now to the boss with the Nazi stare
 The cold exterior, the heart that cant care
 The authoritarian ruler of the shop
 With a deeply secret love of hip hop
 This guys been into it since eighty eight
 He could write the book on NWA
 He's been to Tupac's grave and prayed
 He's got two dogs named Biggie and Dre
 
 You see, the music tells the story the job can never tell
 The passion, the power, the person and, well
 The story of the mother and the cashier and the boss
 Or the metalhead, the drummer and the lover of hip hop
 I don't have to tell you which story I like best
 But wait, I haven't finished my point just yet
 
 There's the teacher whose love of The Clash borders on obsession
 As he tries to work Joe Strummer lyrics into a year nine history lesson
 And the builder whose day is filled with graft and perspiration
 But spends his evenings zoning out to Jazz improvisation
 There's the policeman who likes anything that praises the Third Reich
 Well, they're not all surprising, some stay true to type
 But consider the nun with a passion for new wave
 Or the bank manager counting down to Fridays techno rave
 Think about the fireman who cries when he hears the Smiths
 Or the well presented waiter hooked on Black Sabbath riffs
 
 The punk rock Dad, the orchestral child
 The secret of headphone wearers smiles
 
 So the next time you're tempted to ask the obvious question
 Think for a second of what I've just mentioned
 Asking about jobs is clichéd and corny
 Instead let the music tell you a story.

THE CULL

 Overpopulation! The crisis is here
 There’s too many of us and I’m starting to fear
 That the plant cannot support such huge numbers
 Another few billion and we could go under
 
 China tried the one child per family stuff
 But for me that’s not quite harsh enough
 I’m a miserable sod, a grumpy old turd
 And from my point of view it’s time to trim the herd
 
 You can shout “human rights”, I say don’t be so dull
 There’s too many of us and it’s time for a cull
 And the good news is I’ve just been anointed
 As leader of this cull (somewhat self appointed)
 
 Now, who to axe first? I’ve made a big list
 Just like Santa or God except I exist
 A long list of victims, human sacrifices
 A list to get rid of because of their vices.
 
 We’ll start with the obvious, those convicted of murder and rape
 The pretentious, the devious, the malicious, the fake
 Anyone who’s ever voted BNP
 Anyone who’s ever misused an apostrophe
 
 That last one might seem a little bit harsh
 But grammar’s important and I’m in charge
 Now where were we, who was next on my list?
 Oh yeah the vegans but they won’t be missed
 There’s the super wealthy, the judgemental healthy
 The over breeders, the Daily Mail readers
 Those who watch big brother, those who fight with one another
 Those who pay to play the lottery
 No, wait, cos that’s sometimes me
 Advertising executives and political doctors of spin
 And Liverpool fans for their footballing sins
 
 Sarah Palin’s so evil that no one could match her
 Oh no, I was wrong, I forgot Margaret Thatcher
 In fact Thatcher seems to be on here two times
 So we’ll kill her twice to pay for her crimes.
 
 Now I wrote this list but I’ve no idea why

 

THE GIRLS I NEVER MET

 Sometimes I hate being a man
 You live how you do and you do what you can
 But you see it’s the way I’m perceived,
 It’s the stereotype you attribute to me
 It’s the fact, when I walk late at night,
 That I might provide some unwelcome fright
 To a lady just trying to get home
 Who sees me and wonders what threat I might pose
 It’s that intimidatory air
 I don’t want it, but I’m male, so it’s gonna be there
 And I understand why that is
 I understand the history that led us to this
 And I get that my gender ain’t great
 At acting any more evolved than an ape
 
 But what am I supposed to do
 When I sit in this place and my eyes behold you
 And there’s so much I want to say
 But you look at me and my eyes glance away
 Cos I really don’t want to become
 Just some guy in a bar who was chatting you up
 I don’t want to just offer a drink
 I want to throw my cards on the table and tell you I think
 That you strike me as divine
 That your smile lights up the room and it lights up my mind
 With questions of who you might be
 And the ways you might think and the things you might see
 Cos I want to find out who you are
 I want to talk and explore and see if we can’t
 Get along as I suspect we might
 But it’s hard to sum all this up in one line
 Like “Hey, I’m Ben, how are you?”
 As I fake everything, try to play it cool
 And I’m not cool, let’s throw that down now
 I’m not even close, I wouldn’t know how
 So I’m forced into playing this game
 Where the honesty stops after saying our names
 And we’re forced to make small talk it seems
 About the things that we’ve done and the places we’ve been
 Without ever being allowed
 To abandon that script, move away from the crowd
 And say “Hey, this is me, who are you?”
 And unthinkingly start to exchange our truths
 The important things about us
 Like our hopes and our dreams and which side of the bus
 We’d sit on if we had a choice
 And the way that we cringe when we hear our own voice
 
 So I won’t even say hello
 Because you look so nice and unfortunately I know
 That there’s too many alpha males of my sex
 Who live by the grunt, offer no respect
 And you’ve probably had to go through
 Some bizarre and offensive courting ritual
 With bravado and ignorant lines
 Like “Oi, nice tits, fancy coming to mine?”
 So when I bumble over and say
 That your stunning eyes have blown me away
 You might mistake me for one of them
 And that’s really not how I want this night to end
 
 So I suppose what I want to be said
 Is goodbye to all the girls that I never met.