New Actions Coming Soon!

The Hanged Man & The Maw Live In NUI Maynooth, May 2010

We are proud to announce that one of our members, Adam O’ Keefe, has recorded some new music and will be releasing it this June.

As The Hanged Man, Adam plays a unique apocalyptic folk, inspired by classical and Celtic music as much as the blues or rock. The four track record, entitled ‘Of A World At The End Of All Days’, details the aftermath of a cataclysm, over four songs that tell abstract stories with vivid imagery and poetic prose.  It will be released this June for free download from Bandcamp, a well as from iTunes, Amazon, Last.FM and most online retailers if you want to support the artist.

It was recorded in various short sessions over a year by Run The Bull member and dEvolution guitarist Tommy Foster, in Maynooth, County Kildare in 2009-2010.

We at Run The Bull are also working on a special limited edition of the album, which will come as a CD packaged in a full hardback novella, written by Adam utilizing the lyrics from the album, and illustration from Irish tattoo artist Sammi Ville. This limited release will also come with a second disc, a CD-R with unique hand drawn artwork, which will include ‘Demonstrations III’,  otherwise only available at live shows, featuring three of the latest songs recorded as The Hanged Man.

Adam will also be playing a set in Dublins Seomra Spraoi during the weekly Vegan Café on the 2nd of June, with his band, The Maw.

Check back soon for news on an upcoming exhibition, which will feature live sets from The Hanged Man & The Maw, the incredible Brian ‘Jethro’ Sewell, alongside paintings from the gifted Eoin Kinsella and Fionntáin McCába, photography, poetry and filmwork.

You can visit the Hanged Man online in these places:

thehangedman.tumblr.com
myspace.com/thehangedmanmusic
reverbnation.com/thehangedmanmusic
thehangedman.bandcamp.com/
soundcloud.com/thehangedmanmusic
youtube.com/theadamokeefe
vimeo.com/adamokeefe

NEW SHORT STORY: SCHIZOPHRENIC

SCHIZOPHRENIC

There are things in mind that he has come to believe which he would be better to forget. These thirteen things beginning with incarceration, moving through infamy towards demon possession are his only conscious thought. In the morning as he howls himself awake the day is set, he remembers his fate, for he believes in such things, and he, with a good deal more imagination than most, holds council with Satan.

His psychiatrist, though eminent in his profession, is threatening death with his poisonous pills in this strange vigilant prison, or so he believes. He has come to forget all other things and wishes his life away. The man prefers not to eat for God only knows what they put in that soup. His sleep is filled with screams and he rates this last upon his list of things he likes not in life, number one being talking to the death dealing doctor or for that matter his so-called parents who quite surely are not his parents but impostors masquerading as his parents, quite plain and obvious as it very well may be, to him that is.

This man’s current state of insanity began at the age of 24 and now at the age of 29 he lives a quiet aged life and rarely speaks a dot and rarer still moves a beat. He does talk amongst his many selves and can be heard the odd Tuesday speaking aloud to himself or Satan or God or the multiplicity of whoever he believes himself to be at that present time.
When night settles in Samson, or so he referred to himself one day, takes just the one cup of tea and a small roll-up cigarette and recites the same words, which have no apparent value to you or me but to this man who often forgets to wash to eat or sleep, these words mean, well who knows, let us refuse to speculate…  My lover handbag caught in a pink wave, he says just the once, then stares at the wall, which stands against his knees and feet.

On Thursdays, after dinner has been served and re-served into the toilet bowl, his old friend Beatrice visits. Each week she comes with reassured hope that her mad love (for she loves him despite his current disposition) will come through this bout of insanity and stand renewed and will compose himself again like she knows he can and will some Thursday quite quite soon if she remains by his most absent mind each week and emits her love.

Ralph, as he is known to her and is so only on a Thursday, has known this woman of peculiar strength and morale, belief and endurance and not to forget most importantly love, love, love, since he was 10 and she 14. Even back then he had suffered psychosis, neurosis, anxieties, stresses and all the general foibles of a psychiatric persuasion, for at the age of 13 and 3/4 Ralph so feverently believed for the long and mostly drawn out duration of one entire week that his Springer- spaniel pup, Joebo-Joebo was a dog-bot spy for a 1984 like government that was observing him by any means possible including bot, mirrors and TV. This event culminated in Ralph hurling poor old Joebo-Joebo head-first into a bath and when little Joebo-Joebo didn’t explode or implode or displode or malfunction in any particular kind of way Ralph got his first night’s sleep in that mind altering, psyche morphing week.
This was a short lived episode and for the most part the two, Ralph and Beatrice that is, lived on in relative love and bliss and the odd day or so of sorrow and here and there in passing moments of despair as is normal and to be expected when growing up and on and out. When this first episode struck Beatrice told him not to worry for in the unlikely event of it happening again they could elope and leave that part of his brain behind them. Such was Beatrice’s thinking at the time and such was the reason for Ralph’s love, even though he knew life was not and could never be so.

Ralph had been ‘incarcerated’ for nearly 5 years now and never once had the various medications that had been administered helped him to resist this vanquishing demon that so fully and so wholly possessed him. Olanzapine had only made him fat and doubly paranoid about dying for on this particular drug he ate like a ravenous wolf and believing the food and pills to be poisoned he refused his habitual practice of vomiting even though he did wish to die he even more so wished not to go to hell where he was certain he would be thrown and fed to the various creatures that inhabited his profane imagination. Other drugs tried occupied a never-ending list, which included Seroquel, Hariperidol, Clozapine, Solian and Dolmatil. The list was as long as his right arm and ever increasing. The drugs just made him worse or round or sleepy, they made him drool, gave him ticks and played havoc with his love life not that he had been indulging but it still concerned him and he imagined his member dead and feared it would soon separate and fall to the ground and he spent many minutes and several hours which added up to various days in total, dreaming haphazardly about the funeral it would have, because he would not see it kept in a jar in the drawer, oh no he thought, no, he would bury it and pray over it and bless it with holy water.

And such were his thoughts and his dreams and his aspirations and so he was and remained for 5 long years much to Beatrice’s dismay but not it did break her, for she visited and visited and visited and at times was his only visitor, she brought him gifts each week and told him stories about the two of them, about things in the news, about his beloved Joebo-Joebo, she sang she whispered and she wept, she did and tried whatever she could do to try to move this man one step closer to her and the real world.

When she leaves each Thursday she goes to their home, puts on the lights for it is always late and makes supper for two. This supper is the same each Thursday and is Ralph’s favorite- toasted ham and cheese sandwiches and one glass of cold milk followed by two chocolate biscuits, a cup of tea and one small roll-up cigarette. And in their bed she lies and cries a tear or two or ten and then smiles and each week says to herself, next Thursday, I will meet him, next Thursday, and then she sleeps and then awakes refreshed and full of hope and love not loss and so awaits the coming Thursday.

And one Thursday she awoke and ate and dressed and made her way. That day was winter’s and cold it was but dry that day and all around lay orange leaves from Autumn trees that were bare and black and still quite wet from last night’s passing Christmas storm and still a wind was in the air and blew her hair about her.
The hospital looked grey that day, but full of tone and depth. The light poured from the clear skies upon this place where they would some-what meet again. I will climb these stairs she thought, I will climb these stairs and never go back or forward, the clock will move and I will stand, I must visit more and more and hope more and more and more. And with these thoughts she climbed the old and cold stone staircase and moved her heavy feet as lightly as she could, as up and up she went all the while looking down and further down at the long way out.
When she reached the heavy door that locked Ralph out and separated him from the rest of us, she rang the buzzer and in that minute that she waited for their worlds to meet and the closed door to be unlocked she looked back and for that minute all hope seemed dead and buried. For one moment she even asked God for help and swore that she would give her life so that he could see and walk and live and love beyond that madhouse, but she didn’t believe in God now did she and when that moment passed she knew she was alone again and that Ralph too remained alone and there was nothing she or anyone could do. In that short minute, long did it go on, Beatrice came to believe like Ralph, that her fate was set, that she would visit more but less and less would she see Ralph. All in that brief time her every hope was shattered and her heart lay grieving behind the door. Then it opened and there stood Ralph and Ralph said all he needed to say for her to know that it was Ralph and not Jesus or Samson or Satan or Mother Mary or anyone but Ralph. He said in a long forgotten but well remembered voice, hello…hello, and such was all that needed to be said. Out came his arms and so did hers and after 5 long years of waiting and wishing and finally of smashing hope, this was it.
For Beatrice the emotion fell like Dublin rain, heavy and constant, and soaked her through and through and after a good ten minutes of letting it pour out of her she finally mumbled “I’d given up”, and Ralph, fully back to himself only calmly spoke, “susshhh” and patted her shaking head. Sometimes he came through these episodes like this, this time he felt as though it was not worth dwelling upon and moved and soldiered on quite quickly without trauma or fear or regret, it was possible that the whole ordeal could have damaged him and marked him and disturbed him like it does so many others.

Sometimes in retrospect an incident or happening can be experienced in greater detail than the original upset and the thing that was lived over days or years can be re-experienced in a matter of moments. Said here, like this, on paper, all so matter of fact, so black and white, it may not seem so terrible, so horrific, but such things have driven many good women and men to jump or hang or swallow or slash or do whichever is their preferred method of inviting death.
The Schizophrenic state is entirely present, past and future have no place in the mind of the crazed, to the Schizo, tomorrow, or yesterday for that matter is obsolete, for those like Ralph psychosis is a perpetual state without time, without beginning or end, it has always been and always will be. When one arrives clear of a psychotic episode and can be present but can also juggle both past and future and be aware of the sun rising and falling and of all other phenomena which comprise of  real reality, the afflicted can then begin to process all that has gone on and consider, for the first time, its bearing on the future. It is In this way that the memory itself can  be more vivid and potent, more terrifying and affective than the actual event.

It was unusual for someone to come through something so traumatic without a nick, and Ralph surely knew the meaning of suffering but this time it was different. Sure in the past he had suffered post-depression
depression and post-psychotic depression and post-this and post-that, but this time all he knew was that he had been away for 5 years and he was nothing but glad to be back.

It is as though I’ve been sleeping, dreaming, having the most bizarre nightmares. It doesn’t feel real, but at the same time I know it’s real, it’s more real than real, said Ralph.
You were still Ralph through all of it, though it was like you were only half present, it was still your face and your voice and your heart but the words, the words were different, like something was inside of you, we should have had an exorcism, she said looking slightly bewildered but not shaking anymore.
I tried to escape, he said.

You see Ralph in all his delusions, persecutions and hallucinations was still wanting to run away from this place as he believed and as I have mentioned before, that it was a prison of sorts. Ralph had in his insanity come to believe that some thoughts were being inserted and some removed from his thinking head and if he could just get far enough away from this hellish camp he would be OK.
Late one night after pocketing a lighter he proceeded to set his bed alight, and it burned and flames arose and soon enough the fire alarm went off ringing loud. And when the locked ward was evacuated to the outside grounds Ralph made a run for it. He made his way attired in dressing gown, pyjamas and slippers, to a nearby bus stop, where after 3 hours of waiting, for it was 2am when he put his plans in motion, he was apprehended by the police and returned safely but with utter difficulty (he squirmed and protested) to the hospital.
Ralph was in a disruptive sort of mood the following day and loudly refused to rise or wash or dress or eat or drink or take his pills or speak when the doctor called. He had taken to throwing whatever he could reach against the window in a way of breaking it and so throwing himself out of it and into the wind and down to the earth. In various respects the thing that happened next can seem inhumane and has been reported by witnesses as being a violation of sorts but rest assured, in many cases it is necessary and simply for the patient’s benefit. The psychiatrist ordered Ralph be restrained, only due to his wildness and pure fierceness that morning, and injected with both new medication and sedative. It took five male nurses to keep him down, one on each arm and one on each leg, and one to the head, for Ralph had been imbued with the marvel of Lunatic Strength, a super and unexplained force, usually observed in the psychotic, whereby those have been rumored to lift cars or fight off the hold of ten grown men alone. He roared and he screamed and he cried out for help, disturbing it was but the nurses held their course and then to rest he came soon enough. It was a wonder how they had never tried these meds before, for after only three days and three nights Ralph was back to Ralph. This new medication, administered by injection was called Depixol and was given monthly through one swift jab to the bum. This intramuscular, injectable form of slow-release, liver-bypassing anti-psychotic  medication was only used when a patient refused treatment, as Ralph had only recently admitted to doing, so due to Ralph’s rebellious honesty he was now on the mend.

In hospital Ralph remained for four weeks and then was let roam free. He went back home to live with Beatrice and all was well. Getting back to living life without the strange thoughts, beliefs and contemplations that had dogged him for a good part of his early adulthood was, as far as Ralph could see, a piece of cake. His life from that point moved on and he and she lived on quite happily together. They had just the one child, who they named Saul, who it seemed as he grew and passed through, was fit and fine and full of the normal characteristics of someone less the major diagnosis of ill-health. Ralph’s greatest concern in his later years was that Saul too would be taken away to live madly beneath his good sense.

The mind is a curious thing and in it there breeds both the life and the death of us, which can take on various forms and can see us suspended somewhere between both but not really being either.  We never know each day which way it is going to swing and especially for the Schizophrenic, who never knows if tomorrow or in 5 minutes from now, the cracks will reopen and they will be devoured once again. They live with this threat and it can be a constant reality as many tumble, only to rise, and then tumble once again, never knowing, if the next one, as it happens for some, is the split that will reach past living and will see them buried without their sanity.

After his 5 year stint in a place where both heaven and hell commonly exist, Ralph was well and remained well up to the age of 84, at which he died of a sudden stroke. His loving Beatrice died sleeping some weeks later, whilst dreaming of Ralph.

THE MULTI-VOICE, CHAPTER 1, THE GREAT LOSS.

Lucienne here, this is the first chapter of a book I’m writing called THE MULTI-VOICE. Adam and Cal have both agreed to write a chapter, and I will also be asking other members to do some art work to illustrate the story. I have started on Chapter 2, which will be posted as soon as it’s completed. Well do enjoy…

1

THE GREAT LOSS

“That night they left the house, they went out into the darkness,
seven brothers and sisters walked beside me but none could see”.
Crytonic Verse 11:426358:77

“Mother,
why do my eyes forsake me?,
turning to coldest stone,
seeing twisted brick and bone,
slumber on the highest throne.”

“Seven friends be seven foes,
take your want
be stone be gold,
your father left you, you are alone
breaking back, growing old.”

The Seventh took it upon himself to turn and lead away from Mother, she had done them good past and present but future was to be different. Aideean knew her like father’s time would come, where she would fail to see the difference of the seven and see and treat them as one. The fourth, the fifth, the sixth, they all knew this could never be so, although they themselves sometimes wished it, they knew for sure that all seven must remain, that the conjoining of one and other would mean the loss of one and other.

As they closed that door and moved away, all that existed in the minds of the seven were the words Yes and No:
__________________

First said: Yes
Third said : Yes Yes
Sixth then said: No!
Fifth and Sixth said: Yes… No…
Second and Seventh: NO???
And finally the Fourth quite plainly said: No.
___________________

These words they had all agreed, were all that needed to be said! To the one this may appear like utter madness, and sure enough it maybe well be (as all things may be)… but to the Seven it was plain as blind-man’s-eye, no clutter blocked their vision, they found they could deliberate, delineate, the All the Everything in the form of just yeses and nos. So to you and I it may seem confusing but to the Seven there had been no clearer day.

And so it is that they descended into the Great Loss and it is here that they found their way. It seems if you go far enough and quite further in just one way, you can be quite sure enough, and surer that you’ve found your way.
The Great Loss they had been told of, when father still abided in honor and grace, in the Plains of Fortune, before he too like the many descended and passed on. What none did realize was that it had begun since they themselves had begun, that they in fact marked another beginning of The Great Loss. All knew nothing of what this could be, of what was ment to be for them and so many others of the multi-voice.

8 dimensions, the Seven could see at times the merging of two realities, but mainly just the 4, not the same as you or I would see, and here today we find them moving from the 4 to the 5th the 6th the 7th and the 8th. They were moving in and out of two distinct realities, tossing about no doubt, as though they had lost their sense of gravity and were moving in directions that they themselves could not comprehend. They had lost count of the many times this had happened, but this time like every other appeared like the first. There were many differences of course, as field and faun had grown older and wife and fool had changed their name and habit.
This slip had been happening all along to many good men, many had failed but many had passed through The Great Loss and been renewed. Not that they knew what was to come of course, for the moment all that they could see was that these Plains of the Multitude of Spike and Horn were to be forever their unforgiving home.
…….

Have you ever awoken from night’s slumber at sight of light and mused for moments, dreaming that the dream that the dreamer did make in mind had carried on over to waking’s day? That both were one and same? That is what it was like for our Seven who must be introduced according to height not gender, as the smallest always did and went first, as it seemed the smallest had everything in opposition to that little fact, that being of course, the smallest.

INTRODUCING:

THE FIRST, SECOND, THIRD, FOURTH, FIFTH, SIXTH
AND SEVENTH

OTHERWISE KNOWN AS:

THE MULTI-VOICE

Ordo Ab Chao: 18.09.09

The Run The Bull collective held our first exhibition. Full write up coming soon in the new Events section.

Sandymount Strand

This is where most of the Run The Bullers are in college, in a little know place called Roslyn Park. Nice or what…

The Hanged Man.

Adam here, I updated The Hanged Man page, and in preparation for the launch, built a number of websites, many of which are listed in the post. However, the main three are:

www.thehangedman.bandcamp.com

www.myspace.com/thehangedmanmusic

www.youtube.com/theadamokeefe

Content on the sites is currently not much more than some art I put together, some demo material and a little information, but soon there should be quite a bit more, including the album, ‘Of A World At The End of All Days’, exclusive demo and live content, a video record of the recording sessions, and whatever else I can put together. I am also currently working on the outlay of the official Hanged Man webpage.

Mallorca: July, 2009

Lucienne here, just uploaded some photos from a wedding I went to in Mallorca. I’ve put the photos up here in the photography section and you can also see them massive on my website, SITTING BULL. Later…

Some Things I Am Working On

As well as the first Run The Bull exhibition (to be held in Roslyn Park College, Sandymount in early September, I’ve been working on a few personal projects that I’ll be contributing to the Run The Bull portfolio.

The first is my first solo music release, under the moniker of The Hanged Man. It is to be recorded in Maynooth with brand new Run The Bull member and man of many talents, Thomas J. Foster, Eric Burkes bandmate and producer of the EP, which is to be entitled ‘Of A World At The End of All Days’. It will be made available for free download when the recording is finished, and there will also be a small number of CD-R’s produced with handmade packaging.

I am also nearing the completion of my second set of three stories, entitled ‘Caustics’, ‘The Story and Song of Sad Bear’ and an as yet untitled third comedy piece.

In addition to this, another music release is to be made available. The as yet untitled new EP by dEvolution, as well as their previous EP, ‘Can I Lick Your Possessions?’. dEvolution are a heavy experimental band from Leinster, and are well worth listening to if you like rock or metal music,or just sounds that are a little bit different. I’ll be reviewing both on my own site (albeit in a satirically overzealous fashion) in the coming weeks.

Writing and preliminary ideas for sketch work is also underway. Hopefully over the summer we will have lots of new content to share with you to enjoy.

Thank You,

Adam