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The Second Amendment

2009-03-14T05:03:00Z

I get asked about this a lot, and I find myself continually surprised at the lack of knowledge that the world in general, and specifically; Americans, have in regards to this vital component to the American constitution. There is an almost pathological misunderstanding on both sides of the people who choose to argue over this topic. People tend to forget very quickly that ‘the Bill of Rights’, the first ten amendments to the American Constitution nearly split the country before it even got started. Yet, they were deemed so important that the battle in congress was waged, and they were included with good reason. All ten of them. I consider the second amendment to be the most important of all of them. It allows for the defence of all the others.

Before I go any further, I must remind everyone that I have indeed become a pacifist. I know very well what BRAS means. I don’t ever want to have to do it again. I have no desire to go out and buy a firearm, and I wouldn’t be bothered at all if I never pulled a trigger again. I don’t believe that violence is an effective solution. At its very best, violence is only a stop-gap means to get a situation back under control. Violence, if it is ever used, must be used with surgical precision.

I also believe wholeheartedly in the second amendment, as did the likes of Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson. I believe that the founding fathers of America were intelligent people who thought out, as best they were able, a democratic and fair means of government that truly held in its heart the best interests of the people living under it. I believe that the founding fathers were idealists. There is no doubt that they were revolutionaries. They had just finished a war proving so.

The founding fathers were men who had set out to create an independent nation that gave its people an opportunity for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. They organised a rebellion, created, trained, and equipped an army, and led it into war against what was their government by law. They knew what they were doing was illegal, but they held certain ideals in such high regard that they felt they had no more choice in the matter.

These were highly intelligent men, who studied electricity, and were successful business owners. These were master craftsmen, and officers in the British army. These were men who stood to lose everything they had, and their lives on top of it if they failed. These men did not enter into war lightly. No one of intelligence enters into war lightly, especially a long-standing veteran with combat experience. Ask the next one you meet, and he will tell you why. The simple answer is that there is too much to lose. The complex answer is a test of your soul.

The question is, then, why would people do this? Why enter into a nearly impossible war, and why strike out against what was then the most powerful nation on the planet? The simple answer is, as always, money.

The American colonies had been given the right to print their own currency. The American colonies were rich, and sitting on top of what were limitless resources at the time. The American colonies made Britain rich.

The American colonials were often shipped over from Britain at someone else’s expense, because they couldn’t afford the cost of the voyage themselves. They worked for a number of years, typically five, as virtual slaves in order to repay that debt. They were then given their release from indentured servitude, and allowed to make their way into unclaimed land and hold it for their own. All they had to do was carve it out with their own two hands. All they had to do was have the knowledge and the ability to survive, and they might just prosper. If not, they either died or found a patron in the cities. The frontiersmen were, men and women, people who entered into the world and had nothing to offer it but what they could do with their two hands and their minds. They didn’t contract their homes, they built them. They didn’t buy their groceries and their soap on the frontier. They made them. When they needed supplies that they couldn’t make themselves, they went into the trading posts, towns, and cities, and bought them with banknotes issued from their respective colonies.

When the crown rescinded the right of the colonies to print their own currency, their money became immediately worthless. The Currency Act immediately put the colonies and the colonials deep into debt, with no effective way to solve that dilemma. They had to wait on money that was lent to them by the banks in England.

This in addition to being forced to house soldiers in their private homes.
This in addition to representation in the British parliament being withdrawn, denying them any say in what laws were passed with regards to their ways of life.
This in addition to an ever increasing level of taxation that was draining them of all of the rewards of their life’s labour.

The colonies were immediately put into debt at the stroke of a pen. It had been decided by some bastard in England that they didn’t deserve their money any more, and it had been forcibly taken from them. What do you do when you can’t trust your own government? Who will help you protect what you have earned when the government rules against you?

The founding fathers created a rebellion. They fought with indignation against what constituted crimes against humanity, and led the colonies in a war against a tyrannical and oppressive government. The fought because the powers-that-be had ceased to be just. They started with nothing more than their own rifles. They went into battle armed with pikes. The expression that is often used relating to such situations is: it was like throwing biscuits at bears.

They knew that it would take hard work and determination. They had these traits in ready supply. It took them seven years of constant struggle. They lived through seven years of warfare for an independent nation. They weren’t going to lose that investment again easily.

The founding fathers had deep experiential knowledge of what a tyrannical and oppressive government could do, and what tricks it would use to keep the populace enslaved and impoverished. The founding fathers knew very well what a concentration of power in small hands could and would do. This is why ‘the Bill of Rights’ was so important to them. They also knew how easily people forget.

Ben Franklin was asked what sort of government was proposed by the constitution. His reply was, “A republic, if you can keep it.” There was a very large push for a confederacy of states in the early days of American history. It was realised that this sort of government would prove unwieldy, and the republic was established. The American constitution was written as the mechanics with which to organise and run the government of the new country.

Yet memories were still fresh, and fears still ran deep. No certainties for civil liberty were written into the constitution itself. It was for these civil liberties that the war was fought, and to immediately dismiss them was anathema. Many of these guaranteed liberties, such as the right to free speech are things that we take for granted, and are easily understood in a common manner. The right to bear arms ought to be as readily apparent.

It was Thomas Jefferson who said, “The tree of liberty needs to be watered from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.” His words are easily comprehensible with a moment’s pause, and a knowledge of history. Governments have life spans just like any other living organism. The primary instinct of any living organism is the preservation of the self. That includes government. The easiest manner in which to do this is the accumulation of power. With enough power one can strike out at one’s enemies and thereby ensure further survival. It’s an animalistic reasoning, but people are animals, after all.

The founding fathers had just fought a war against such reasoning. The animalism was blanketed by the coat of greed in the form of destructive economics, but the root cause was the same. Greed was destroying the means of survival for millions. Something needed to be done. The Bill of Rights was their attempt to ensure that such power grabbing greed never occurred again. It was their attempt at ensuring some universal humanitarian values. The second amendment gave people a fighting chance. Who is going to protect you when your government turns against you?

The second amendment is more important now than it has ever been. After 9/11, the CIA went to a Belgian company named SWIFT. Most national banks, such as Bank of England, or Bank of Ireland do not do international banking themselves. Instead, they use intermediaries, companies such as SWIFT. The CIA asked, and SWIFT gave, the histories of all financial transactions that they had handled into and out of the United States to the value of $1,000 or more. That’s not a lot of money. Their argument was it was to stop money laundering and the funding of terrorists. If you have wired that sum into or out of America, the CIA has a file on you. There is nothing you can do to stop it.

Under ‘the Patriot Act’, an American citizen can have his home searched without warrant, can have his property seized, can be detained for an indeterminate length of time, and be tried without access to the evidence being submitted against him. The only benefit that being a citizen gives him is that he must be tried by a court, not a tribunal. That’s very small solace.

It is in defence against these sorts of actions that the founding fathers of America insisted that its citizens had to right to own their own firearms. Who is going to defend you when your own government turns against you? I wish to remind you that I am a pacifist and do not advocate violence. I also wish to retain what meagre rewards I have for my life’s work. Theft is still theft, be it by a junkie looking money for his next fix, or a government body using an external threat as an excuse.

There is the argument proposed by many that if you’re dong nothing wrong, you have nothing to fear. When absolute power is put into the hands of the individual, all that individual has to do is not like you. Then you’re fucked. There’s nothing that you can do. We have all met at least one copper who considers himself part of an untouchable gang. It’s an extreme example. But it is still possible. If it were not, then there would be no need for police ombudsmen, and internal investigations.

It is small solace; but it was placed there by intelligent men who did their best to establish an egalitarian and humanitarian government. I agree with the saying that a government should fear its people, not a people should fear its government. I will always support the second amendment. It’s a small way of ensuring good governance.

It is natural and ideal to pursue peace. Constant conflict does not allow for good growth. While one cannot deny that wars always produce a rapid growth in technology which always finds its way into civilian life, GPS being an ideal example, without peace there can be no time for life and growth.

As for the second amendment, well, I don’t think anyone is going to find fault with the statement that all life has a right to defend itself. It would be nice to not have to, but such is life. We do the best we can.

Sweet As The Day We Were Born

2009-03-02T05:51:00Z

Every one of us girls came to Rose M. Singer in the same way.

It was just wrong place wrong time that brought us here after a long morning/afternoon/evening of hot shots, cold showers, and empty pockets. We had no malice in our souls. We’re all just as sweet as the day we were born.

It’s just in those broken moments,
in those moments,
You realize not just what you are capable of, but what we are all capable of, as individuals, and as this collective human failing. And don’t think you’re any different, not for a moment, cause you’re not. I mean, read a fucking history book. Anyway, I got picked up out by the park, across from Jones Alley. I swear, I know of no other alley in Manhattan with a name, and I always silently wondered if there ever was a Jones, and if he was pissed that he just got an alley.

It was just a dumb loitering charge, the cops were just so hurt cause they couldn’t find any dope on me, so my not actually being a hooker was a moot point. But when they found out id lived in Neptune, New Jersey, and ran my shit there, well… I just chalked this one up to the gods.
And prayed,
ok, ok, OK, just cover me on the next one, I’ll take this, just let this be all they get.

They brought me to the 9th precinct, overcrowding I guess, I don’t know. The put me in a cell with a South African girl/man named Ruthie and an over privileged Stuyvesant student named Shari who got caught shoplifting from Urban Outfitters. Shari’s mantra:

“My mom’s gonna kill me
There goes my scholarship
My mom’s gonna kill me
There goes my scholarship…”

So I bullshitted with Ruthie for a while. She told me she left him when he forgot how to worship her. She told me how the cost stopped being worth the price. She told me how she always kinda liked them better in the gutter anyway, “That’s the only place they really ever pray anyway”. So she stabbed him five times in the belly with a penknife.

“He’ll be fine, ya know? Whadda they call that shit, lovers quarrel? Crime of passion?”

“A penknife?”

“Yeah, you know, just put the fear of Ruthie in em, bleed the gut a little, no real thing-A-yo, shut the fuck up!”

Some dude in the cell next to ours wouldn’t stop crying, “officer, I’m hungry, I’m so huuuungry.”

“So what happened?’

“Some yuppie dick neighbor called the cops”

“No, I mean, why tonight, why stab him with a pen knife tonight?”

“I didn’t like the way he was talking to my dog”

A petite dykie Puerto Rican cop came up to our cell, “you ladies hungry?” Ruthie winked, “yeah mama, haven’t eaten in weeks.” The cop winked back. “Alright baby, just don’t call me mama.”
Ruthie reeked of feminine sex, even with the large cock clearly stuffed into skinny jeans.

“So whadda bout you?”

“Wrong place wrong time, that’s all, ya know, wrong place, wrong time” The cop came back with a box of pizza from Strombolis and made sure to open it right as she walked passed the whiner in other cell. “Here ya go ladies,” She turned and looked at the cell next to ours and said, “Enjoy.”

Me and Ruthie took the trip to bookings together. My public defender said it was just a minor warrant in Jersey, shouldn’t be a problem.

Shouldn’t be a problem.

We slept on the floor that night. We ate bologna and cheese that morning. We flirted with the young cute cop reading the New York Post. We watched while all the girls got their names called to go to court, and we wished them all luck. And we gave our empathy when they came slowly walking back, shoulders slumped, heads down.

Ruthie left the lawyer booth.

“That nigga ain’t pressing no charges. I knew he wouldn’t, he ain’t gonna talk to my baby like that again though, that’s fo’ sure”

Ruthies name got called. She didn’t come back.

Escape from Reality

2009-02-11T06:52:00Z

The book…

You know it’s fake. You know it’s fiction…

But it all seems so real.

So you research places, people, things. All nouns that you know will never amount to anything. You scour all your resources for things that never exist and will never exist…all so you can make your life more interesting.

The book…

You know it’s fake. You know it’s fiction…

But it all seems so real.

You read and read and read. You look for some connection between you, the book, and the real world. You try to escape into an alternate reality were these things are true. Where a fiction book is non-fiction! Where your best friend in the novel is a real and tangible human being.

But alas, it is all for naught. As you drift back to reality as all searches turn to “No items matching your terms”.

You go back to your mundane life…

Your routine…

Waiting for something interesting enough to happen that your life will be made a book that someone out there will research with as much fervor as you did and their search will come up fruitful. You hope that they will be able to make a connection between you, the book, and their life. So that your efforts were not mistaken.

Eventually…you’ll die. And eventually…your life will be forgotten.

As you lie on your death bed, you remember those nights staying up late searching far and wide for some connection between fiction and reality, you realize how silly it was. You realize that in the time you researched these books, you could have written your own story with twists and turns and hints and clues for other people to find and search just as you did.

Lying in that hospital bed, dreaming of the past and what it could have been. Your children will sit by your bedside, and you’ll begin telling them a story. Of truth, of lies, a story of wonder, and a story of dullness. A story that will someday, posthumously, become a book. Your children will remember it. They will be so stricken with emotion after you finish those last words with your last breath…they will go home and write it all down. Fervently remembering the words, arguing over what you actually said.

Years from that time your book will be long forgotten. It will sit on bookshelves. It will rot in attics. But you hope, in the future, another young curious mind will find your story and become just as obsessed with it as you were with all those other tales.

And so is the tale of a life lived and gone. A boring life, but a life nonetheless.

It is a tale one should be wary of. Do not let your life become boring. Do not search high and low for something that isn’t there. Write that book that you’ve always dreamed of writing. Create something with your life. Do not leave it to your children to write that story for you. Do not leave it to your children to publish your works of art, your literary works. Take chances and press on with your creativity.

Do not let doubt hinder your travels.

Writing Is My Meditation

2009-01-15T23:58:00Z

Writing, for me, is about being in my own skin. I don’t have to impress anyone.

No agendas.

No demands.

Observe my own thoughts; accept them.

Here they simply are the truth of a moment.

They exist only in this moment.

Ultimately, on the page, through my pen, I Can Let Those Thoughts Go.

Writing is my Zen.

Writing, for me, is about being in my own skin. I don’t have to impress anyone.

No agendas.

No demands.

Observe my own thoughts; accept them.

Here they simply are the truth of a moment.

They exist only in this moment.

Ultimately, on the page, through my pen, I Can Let Those Thoughts Go.

Writing is my Zen.

I fail at blogging because I try to force content. Other blogs fail me for the same reason. Forced content for the reason of keeping reader numbers up. I don’t believe the author believes their own words. I see a lack of conviction, a lack of passion.

People are searching for something, and, they believe if they can find the answer in other people. That’s why productivity blogs are so popular. If you hang around long enough you might find the answer to all their problems.

They fail to realize the answer isn’t out there. It is within themselves.

People believe they are special. Their blog will draw hundreds, thousands of readers each day. If they only write about the right thing. Only they find they are special, like everyone else. There is no drive to write daily or even weekly. They give up before they find their passion.

There was a commentary I was made of aware of recently Gin, Television and Social Surplus. When I heard it the first time on a podcast, it was like a lightening bolt. Basically the premise is that television allowed us to cope with the mass amounts of free time the developing world suddenly had beginning after World War II. Now with the Internet, simply being passive isn’t enough; we want to be involved, to do something, to create. People have this mental surplus that we’ve been using to watch television for fifty plus years, and now we are tapping into it. But we’ve only just begun.

There are thousands of blogs created and abandoned out there, of people who tried to create something. I want to create something, to Be Something. It’s why we look for our fifteen minutes of fame we want to be Special; failing to realize that we are special to somebody closer. We can be remarkable to friends, family, even as large as community. Instead of being famous for whatever it is that people get famous for.

The other point the article made was that being passive consumers is no longer desirable. Believing in a religion that we do not control is no longer acceptable. Living a life based on fate is no longer conceivable.

Things like the Law of Attraction are so popular because it is a way in which we can control our life. But, still, belief returns, telling us outside influences can make ups happy. Money, houses, cars, green products. Bigger, better, newer. With these tools you can buy yourself happiness, friends (not that I’m saying poverty makes people happy either). Work less hours, work more hours for yourself, be flexible for yourself. Consume more products, but only environmentally friendly ones. Are there just a few more hours in the day?

I don’t have any answers to the things I’ve brought up. I know less than when I started writing.

I end where I begin. Writing is my Zen. I find my peace, my passion, my drive. I must continue for survival and growth.

If I were profound I would challenge you to find “your happy place” and “your passion”. I would never be so petty. I presume you are capable of find your own way if you want to find it.

To All Readers And Contributors

2008-12-24T18:35:00Z

Happy Godzilla Day To All Readers And Contributors of and to

Messages From The Big Rock Candy Mountain.

Hardware failure not righted yet, and a trip to Japan of Oblique Entity has left things pretty dead in the water for the moment. We will be back on our feet by January 7th properly.

For the time being, we have reposted two old holiday related messages from Mountains past. You can find the direct links to these messages in the posted links section of the groups facebook page

We also hope to have a piece by Asrai called “Writing is my meditation” up in the next couple days. You can also expect new work from JohnnyRage.

The new year should be interesting, we have new contributors lined up and some messaes that still need to be recovered from our failed hardware.

We will be organizing to post out stickers and flyers to any contributors and readers wanting to pepper the open and hidden spaces of their city.

We will also be posting information about our very first competition.

Stay well and enjoy the festivities of the Resurrecting Death Lizard

It's Not Rape If They're Coming Right At You

2008-11-28T00:33:00Z

How I Learned To Stop Worrying

And Appreciate The Fact

There Is A War

How I Learned To Stop Worrying

And Appreciate The Fact

There Is A War

In a continuation of my fascination with the fact that even notoriously proud and elitist broadsheets give full-page articles over to Z-List celebrities trashing their lives for our consumption.

“Can I stop? Do they like me yet?”

I’m going to start this message by using Kerry Katona as the anchor to which all parallels are drawn whether stated or not.

I know it works like a sort of soft goat cheesy buffer between the misery that has always been the river of our world. On one page, I can be dragged down about the corruption that has been endemic since Ireland attained its republic. On the page after, I can read about women protesting the potential loss of the medical cards they should rightly get once they reach a certain age. Yet there, nestled like some sort of literary cock for you to suck when it bobs up from between the breasts of seriousness and reality. Is the softener, the KY to their swarfega fist. One big full broadsheet page dedicated to Ms. Katona’s continuing depixalisation as a normal human being.

It’s trying.

But I’m not using it like the others, as the halfway salve before I move to read more misery. There isn’t the fascination of the car wreck, my life moving in slow as I pause to take in the firemen working the Jaws of Life.

“She’s blinking out, one pixel at a time and you’ll be there to see it all until there is only darkness and you’ll have forgotten about her until the eight line obituary forty years from now”

It is more the fascination you have when you see a morbidly obese person walk by you in a supermarket. You know the type, the ones that have some sort of second ass protruding over the area where their genitals should be. But not the type you think. It’s not the staring at an oddity, betwixed pity and awe. It is the sheer disgusted spite they need. A cold sneer of command in the knowing you’re just better than they are and goddamnit they should know it by the way you look at the bloated excuse for a monkey they’ve allowed themselves to become.

We could have used you back in the day. The detritus we outrun so the cave bear is sated.

Don’t look at me like that.

I Know you’ve all thought it.

What stood out about the article is a small line, where one of the spokespeople, when asked why Ms. Katona’s husband didn’t stop her from going on live television when she was clearly a slurred wreck. The answer given was that her husband as an ex-taxi driver, had no experience in show business and would not have had the same clout as Max Clifford or one of his people, in pulling her from the show.

Wait a minute…

Hold that thought.

Now, to set things straight, I don’t believe in marriage, its sanctity or otherwise. I do however believe in a partner’s duty or ability in being able to stand in and say “No, my partner can’t do this/isn’t able to do this/is unwell.”. For whatever reason. I do believe, maybe I’m wrong, but legally, marriage somewhat sanctifies this above and beyond the simple girlfriend and girlfriend status quo.

It is a distinct line though.

This growing universal powerlessness.

Where not even a husband can protect his wife from something voluntary because of his past, because of his lack of experience within the world she has willingly entered.

This is the parallel anchor.

Right here, right now, in Ireland.

We are suffering through the tyranny of watching someone act like a sort of biblically anthropomorphised Famine. Atop their skeletal horse, they wither our health system.

I wouldn’t mind, maybe so much, if the woman in question were not morbidly obese. If the fact that when her mother was dying, she did not lie on a gurney in a corridor waiting, waiting.

“It’s not rape darling…”
“Not if they’re coming right at you.”

I wouldn’t mind if under previous health ministers we had drives to stamp out obesity in Ireland.

Sadly a point of contention – the growing weight gain amongst the populace and its corresponding health problems was once regularly a feature on our television sets. On our news programs, on daytime TV, it filtered through everything.

This all about stopped.

Once our health service got taken over by a morbidly obese woman.

When they try to take it up in Government.

She quivers her lip.

When they mention her mother never waited for attention in hospital. She’ll get the red eye and say that was a low blow. The usual cocksuckers waiting for their chance at the political acid test biker attended gangbang will leap to her defense.

“Someday, I hope the wrong mother dies. Someday, I hope he or she is like an avenging angel skulking through a garden at night. Someday, I hope they watch her bleed out in that slow clawing manner that only a morbidly obese person can. Whining, bawling, “why”…when they know exactly why…someday”

If I brush aside private hospitals built on public land.

If I brush aside the whole medical card shenanigans.

If I brush aside the fact they want withhold the HPV vaccine from Irish girls. Condemning a new generation.

I can look at the fact that we have a morbidly obese woman in a fair and solid position of power within government, over public health.

Yet

She has no reason for such power. Her political party, barely concealed Orwellian monsters, have gone the way of the Nazi. Dissipated into the corners of Government and society. A memory, but not so distant that we can’t acknowledge the fact the wolves are amongst the lambs now and we don’t know just where they’ll end up.

She does not intend to stand for re-election. She is not answerable to anyone of interest. Her party is gone. The current party is happy to watch her hatchet job the health system because they can’t be blamed, except in abstract… “Sure, didn’t you vote her in?”

It’s not rape she’ll tell you.

If you question her, she’ll quiver the lip, faux the upset and the whips will come out. I’m ashamed to be the same nationality. To see my country’s health system represented by someone who according to any number of unnamed witnesses around Dublin, has to be scrambled out of the way of. Just to let her weather system pass.

Not content with the wheezing donkey of a health system she inherited. She decided to superglue in some hubris there and re-craft it in her own image.

That’s right.

What went from a wheezing old donkey, scraping at the stable door with a shoe hanging off a nail. Became a grapefruit trying to stand on toothpick legs.

Yet you’re powerless.

And that, right there, is the growing sensation of this decade. Maybe this century.

I don’t need to speak about the erosion of civil liberties under the ghostly Batman specter of terrorism. There is too many already doing that.

I’m just here to remind you, that you’re being raped.

Parallel anchors and parallel lines.

This isn’t just Irish-o-centric.

Some sort of appeal to a people so beaten down if you tell them sewer was up, they’d be swimming.

It’s just a parallel line running beside you.

In the machine, we know similar is happening to you.

Okay…

Well maybe not the unhealthily heavy health minister.

But you get the idea.

Even if you tried to do something you’d be told you didn’t have the experience or clout.

Which begs the question; at what stage in world history did we accept the fact that a motley collection of solicitors and barristers had the experience to run the various institutions of state.

It appears to be endemic, worldwide.

Get a degree in law.

Run for office.

Profit.

Granted, in some places, religion still rules the roost. Like Africa. I am reminded of an African man paying me to write up essays on theology for him. When I offered to edit it and it became apparent I knew what I was talking about. He would return week in, week out with essays that were less and less finished. While running over an edit, I asked him why he had come to Ireland to study theology.

The answer garnered was quite disgusting.

He wanted it so he could become a pastor. The reason he wanted to become a pastor was because he would be respected. The reason he wanted to be respected, was not to help his people. It was so he could get rich and of course, once he was rich, he would have power.

In the seconds after telling me this. He offered to pay me good money to do his homework for him. All his essays.

He was quite open about it.

There is a part of you that reasons with yourself that just like the little questionnaire they have at American immigration.

“Have you ever been or are you a member of a terrorist organization?”

Something like.

“Do you intend to use the education you’ve come here for to unjustly accumulate wealth and power in your native country without care for your countrymen and women?”

They seem open enough about it.

If they tick that little box, we should just ask them to follow us through that door. We’ll have the pit pre-dug. A simple execution in a doorway that opens to a mass grave.

This slowly rolling wave of powerlessness.

We’ve become the children forced to watch our drunken father whip our mother with his belt. The old tarnished Jack Daniels belt buckle opening neat welts through the cheap blouse she had the gall to buy herself.

When she’s suitably cowed and whimpering.

He’ll rape her, just to make sure.

Maybe it’s the look of slow realization they’re being raped that is the worst part. In Ireland, right now, For love nor money you cannot get an alcoholic drink to consume in the safety of your own home after half ten at night. I tried to explain that one night to an Irish couple standing in my local pub as they tried to get carryout.

Dumbfounded looks.

“When did that come in?”

Months upon months ago. Ask if they’d been away. No. The sudden passing of shock and amazement, then rage.

“That’s just ridiculous!”

Yet try telling them to write letters to their representatives in government. Urge them to do something, to raise their voice.

The rage disappears. The head becomes downcast and the voice a mumble. Nah, we’ll just try get a bottle of wine a petrol station.

Caring is great, isn’t it?

Fás – The Irish employment authority supposed to promote job opportunities and training courses for school leavers, postgraduates and professionals.

Government funded with a mandate to help reintegrate the unemployed back into the work force through retraining and placement.

Around one Billion a year.

A good percentage of which went on first class flights, fancy dinners. I’m not so much appalled at the sheer piracy of the scum who ran Fás. But more the fact they pissed money against the wall in the utterly useless process of paying for Mary Harney to receive beauty treatments on the taxpayer. It’s not even a case of putting lipstick on a pig; it’s something much worse. Perhaps, it is like trying to empty the sea with an eggcup full of holes.

The civil and social services in Ireland are referred to as ‘The Corporation’. Due to the complete hack job our Government has done to the country, it is stumbling day to day, teetering close to bankruptcy. I have a very good comparison of how it’s finances compare with Fás with a little story I garnered recently.

A book-publishing lecturer was visiting and was taken out for lunch by The Corporation. After a modest lunch two gin & tonics were bought. When the bill was presented for reimbursement, The Corporation refused to pay for the gin & tonics and the person in question was forced to pay for the gin & tonics out of their own pocket.

Ask a Corporation worker about first class flights and they’ll laugh and tell you that if Ryanair tickets can be bought they will be.

It is not enough for Rody Molloy to resign. He should be striped of his assets and imprisoned. Though in my opinion, that is too good for him.

Salvage his organs and sell them to wealthy businessmen, reimburse the state with the money made.

Once again though, that might be too good for him. It might just be too much crow to know some portion of the man is still alive somewhere.

If they actually have the gall to give this man the customary golden handshake for quitting his job. If they actually reward this man for grabbing us by the ponytail, wrenching our head back and shoving us over the kitchen table to ravage us.

Then, I’m sorry.

But these people need to be treated like the cancers they are.

Cut from us and incinerated.

After the outright attacks the Government have made against the freedom of the press. I find it completely understandable that we have to attack these people and their corruption through the institutions they funded with our money and allowed to run rampant.

I wonder if the IDA is next. I’m sure there is enough favoritism, corruption and nepotism endemic for there to be a fine feast of crows.

Expose the roots of the sickness then follow them to the source.

Panting…

I am spent. I have nothing else to offer on the subject bar convulsions as I whip about in some strange political St. Vitus dance, frothing at the mouth as I scream things like;

“Those black hearted bastards fucked us, fucked us, fucked us fucked fuck bastards fuck fuck…”

Later, tired and weakened by all this, I’ll become like Judd Crandall in ‘Pet Semetary’. Sitting on my porch, sipping a beer as I explain in a weary voice,

“sometimes dead is better.

The Indians knew that…

They stopped using that government.

when the government went sour.

Sometimes dead is better…”

And just like Louis, you won’t listen. You’ll turn away; return them and we’ll be in for the same horror.

Just keep in mind.

You didn’t panic when you could.

You didn’t avoid the rush.

Don’t bother making apologies for them anymore.

We all know you walked into that door.

It’s okay.

We’ll accept that, if that’s what you want us to accept.

Just don’t try and make us like them.

The glorious revolution doesn’t exist in street protests they’ll violently put down anymore.

It exists in crippling them with class actions, lawsuits and letters.

Sue them.

Sue them all.

Then sue yourself.

Rifle back a round of bureaucracy and fire it back at them.

Rape them back with their own tools.

If only because they won’t notice at first because they’re too busy raping you.

And remember.

It’s not rape if they’re coming right at you.

Updates, Corrections, Apologies

2008-11-26T21:49:00Z

Apologies for the delay in updates, we’ve suffered a hardware failure at the mountain. Luckily, not our server, just the tower that holds all the messages like some sort of silver Apple created akashic record.

Also, one of our primary writers suffered an addiction relapse and as such disappeared. However, we have been assured that the needles have been binned, that no more clowns will be harmed and that we will be seeing new output very soon.

Correction:

Previously on the mountain, we printed a review of Metallica’s ‘Death Magnetic’. In it we stated that ‘TheLastDj’ could be heard on their radio show. We would like to correct this and say that ‘TheLastDj’ can be heard occasionally speaking while his better half spins tunes on her radio show. We apologize for the misinformation, the review in question has been corrected.

It’s okay darlin’

You can put the knife and the orphan down now.

Never Meet Your Idols

2008-10-30T23:42:00Z

They are sure to be disappointing in the flesh. It’s a cliché that ‘artistic types’ – musicians, dancers, actors, painters, and perhaps to a lesser extent, according to the cliché, writers (unless they are Irish, in which case they are appropriately drunk and perhaps violent) – are awful gobshites in person. They are like regular humans but more fallible, more fucked up, more vain, insecure, exhibitionist and so on. In fact, we sort of approve this about them, one of the guarantees of their authenticity as creative is a certain repertoire of dramatic incompetence in conventional interaction. It feeds into the whole Byronic, romantic mystique about The Artist: social dysfunction is proof of genius. Plus we then get to hold them exempt from conventional norms and indulge their peculiarities; we have to take care of them because of their special status. They get away with murder because they give us their Art.

The flipside of this is having to put with interminable bullshit from these people, some of whom are almost autistic savants in their cretinous, gormless stupidity, all the more remarkable when we compare their abnormally disappointing conversational output with their talent. This is why it is better, on the whole, not to have any personal contact with artists (who in this regard are oddly like bureaucrats), and instead to simply enjoy the fruits of their labour at a safe distance, unsullied by the tedium of their actual personalities.

We came across proof of this concept in bumping into Stephen O’Malley from Sunn O))) (and Khanate, and Lotus Eaters, and Burning Witch, and numerous other projects and collaborations) one night in a metal pub. You might not be familiar with Sunn O))) (pronounced sun), but the band is very well respected. Personally, I am not too competent to assess their work (I’ve been too busy listening to brutal death metal, power electronics, gabber and breakcore), but they have done much to push the metal envelope in new directions, incorporating elements of noise and drone, and developing an unmistakably sludgy, doomy, extremely heavy signature sound.

So O’Malley looks like any other American you might have the misfortune of bumping into in metal bars: all in black, long hair, leather jacket. It’s probably not very fair of me to say this, but the upper half of his ‘tache is shaved and I honestly couldn’t figure out why. Perhaps to avoid that perennial problem of the ring pull tweaking the hair when imbibing a beverage from an aluminium receptacle? His face is not so weirdly constructed to have to do this to generate some symmetrical harmony between upper lip and nose or anything. It was distracting at first but I got over it. Upon being introduced to him (I don’t know why, it seemed appropriate, and also I was a bit surprised), I said something like ‘Hey man, fair play, you’re like famous and stuff’, in a vague attempt to demonstrate my respect for creative blah.

Although the conventional mainstream metal fodder being blared through the bar’s speakers at that time was not overwhelmingly loud, O’Malley had me repeat this statement five times, shouting ‘What?’ after each time, and visibly puffing up as I indulged him. It was evident at this juncture that he needs some reassurance and acknowledgement, and any schmuck in a pub who’s heard of him will do. On that evening, I was that schmuck. Nonetheless, I thought perhaps we might glean an insight into influences, creative practices, the struggle of the professional, independent musician, life on the road, whatever. We got an insight all right: an insight into the disappointingly insipid reality of this pretentious walking ego.

A few examples will suffice: there were two clearly quite drunk gentlemen sitting at the bar, inexplicably handing out shots of Mi Wadi (ObliqueEntity, “dilutable concentrate in Ireland – like Kool-Aid”) in a threatening manner to anyone who would take one. I was quite drunk as well of course, but this hardly qualifies as an excuse. So I drank a shot of Mi Wadi, not knowing if it was liquor, spiked, a complicated joke, an act of generosity or what. But one of these guys was wearing a Suffocation t-shirt, and so I said: ‘Suffocation, nice t-shirt’.

This was a cue for O’Malley to wade into an impromptu bit about the classics of 80s metal: specifically the guitarist from Morbid Angel, Trey Azagthoth. Did I know Morbid Angel? I know enough about Morbid Angel to know that I don’t care about them. I said, I remember back in the day there were a couple of guys in my Mechanical Drawing class who were into them, but for me really, I was preoccupied with punk at the time, and these guys just seemed like metal nerds, these guys with Morbid Angel on their schoolbags and their Walkmans I was busy with Crass, anarcho-pacifism, and the revolution/global nuclear war. Are you calling Morbid Angel nerds??? Uh … no … really, what I’m saying is, and I know this is not a very politically correct manoeuvre in certain circles, but I honestly don’t give a fuck about old school death metal anymore. For similar reasons, I don’t listen to Jimi Hendrix, or the Doors, or U2, or Metallica, or any of this watery pabulum really: there are too many amazing unknown musicians around right now for me to continue wading around in this archival muck from the past (O’Malley is actually one of these amazing musicians).

If I’m going to listen to something from more than 20 years ago, it’s probably going to be something horribly obscure; this is what qualifies me as an unremitting music snob. You know, I said, Disgorge are playing in here on November 28th, the legendary and utterly awesome brutal death metal/goregrind band from Mexico. Without Disgorge, there is no Disconformity, no Glossectomy, no Viscera Infest, none of the other amazing contemporary grindcore bands coming out of Japan: pure slamming violent groove. Disgorge tunes only make sense when they’re over; it sounds like a zombie army from the future. Do you know Disgorge? O’Malley probably knows as much about Disgorge as I do about Morbid Angel, but he does say: yeah, you know, those guys are all about Bolt Thrower … agh, Bolt Thrower, here we go again with the Bolt Thrower and the Napalm Death and the Morbid Angel and the Deicide et al.

This is really a classic discursive move among old farts who rated death metal in the olden days but can’t be arsed anymore to keep up with what the young’uns are doing: shut the fuck up, there is no new school without the old guard, and I won’t talk about the new school because (a) I prefer to demonstrate my superior knowledge of this one technical death metal album from 1987, and (b) the old guard did everything (by which is meant, I don’t know anything about the new school because I’m not listening anymore). Well fine, why don’t you go and listen to … Elvis? Muddy Waters? Ma Rainey? When was it exactly that they stopped making music? It was probably just after your 30th birthday.

At just around this juncture there was a particularly cringe-worthy, ‘School of Rock’ moment: AC/DC’s ‘TNT’ came on, and through vigorous head movements, air guitar stylings, rhythmic finger-pointing during the chorus, and the crucial confrontational eye-contact, O’Malley educates me in the ineffable sheer rockdom of AC/DC. I do not need or want this, and I am sorry for him, for myself, and for this stupid world. It is still kind of surprising that this actually happened; a cursory glance at O’Malley’s website indicates an interest in the electronic music pioneer, Eliane Radigue. But hey, maybe we can have Radigue and AC/DC – I mean, probably we should. But I’ll take Disgorge instead of AC/DC, because I have heard enough of the latter and so has everyone else, I’m really not sure what they have to offer anymore. I know that this is music snobbery, but so is knowing who Radigue is, and I kind of want O’Malley to be a snob too, and not just a snob, but a trendy, informed, up-to-date one. Sadly, this is one of the departments in which there is something to be desired. He doesn’t have to know anything about the hordes of anonymous grindcore bands slugging away out there right now, and he can patronise us with his Beavis and Butthead endorsement of AC/DC, because he’s. Sunn O))). Dude. End. Of. And so he does.

Likewise, he tells us about the struggle to make it as a musician. It was hard man, really hard. He had to make a lot of sacrifices. I’m not really sure what this means. Like, satanic sacrifices? He killed his dog? Sold his soul? I guess he means, you know, like, moving away and being broke and stuff. For sure this is a drag. But hey, you know, other people have had to make sacrifices too man. Like, most people don’t get to be musicians, in fact, most musicians have to sacrifice the dream that he is living and become regular plebs like the rest of us. Most of us don’t have his talent or his luck, unfortunately for us. On the other hand, most of us aren’t blessed with his happy ignorance either. Our sacrifices don’t count towards Great Art or grant us special leeway, instead they are precisely what make us the mass: we all, as a matter of routine, lose. Being a loser is easy, Bukowski tells us; everyone does it. And so we do, without bitching particularly about the sacrifices, because no one gives a fuck and we are all in the same boat – quiet desperation and all that.

Later on, he tells us he’s moved to France. Why has he moved to France? Is it because of the cultural sophistication of the French, their appreciation of art and music? I mean, they’re cheese-eating surrender monkeys, why else would an American go there? Well, he’s gone there for three simple reasons: the food, the wine, and the women. French women, O’Malley informs us, will lick your (his) asshole during sex. Alright! That’s what I’m looking for in a relationship! See you in Paris homeboy! I am not qualified to assess the validity of this generalisation about French women, but I guess it kind of figures, the fact that he wants someone to lick his asshole, and that he wants to share this fact with us. Perhaps we can trace the development of his music through his sexual predilections: guitar solos are of course masturbatory and concerned with demonstrating phallic mastery. But the downtuned distortion and low-end rumblings of Sunn O))) – a sort of symbolic sonic diarrhoea – are really kind of anal, not penetrative (that’d be too phallic), but rather concerned with the comforting, but still slightly naughty and thrilling, pleasure of having some French girl lick your asshole. Blowjobs just won’t do anymore; lick my ass baby.

Like they say, enjoy your symptom.

Metallica 'Death Magnetic' (Album Review)

2008-10-24T23:04:00Z

I was in the states on September 10th, in New Jersey planning to head to Philly the next day, and you could not avoid it. It was in every paper, from the free Metro to the best broadsheets and everything between. It had its own website for months previous and one of the biggest marketing campaigns I have ever witnessed. No I’m not referring to the anniversary of the terrorist attacks. I’m talking about my subject, my lifeblood. Music.

More specifically I’m taking about Metallica.

“You rise, you fall, you’re down, then you rise again,

What don’t kill you make you more strong”

More specifically I’m taking about Metallica.

No one can deny the impact this little quartet has had. They took metal to the masses and seventeen million copies of ‘The Black Album’ can’t be wrong, can they? Unfortunately maybe….

Metallica fans are currently split into some distinct groups, those who think they should be shot for crimes against music from that faithful 5th record on and those, whom according to the first group drank the “metala-coolade”. I fall into neither. I just like good music. The first group often annoys me because if not for ‘The Black Album’ few of them would own kill/lighting/masters/justice and the second group annoys me because they are still trying to justify the abortion of a demo that was “St Anger”.

I have opinions. The first FIVE were class; I’m not here to wax about the pros and cons of each but its fair to say they have shaped not just metal but outside perceptions of metal. The next two albums Load/ReLoad are where the division starts. Personally I believe these are two of the best alternative albums released in the ‘90s. To borrow Bob Morgan’s opinion,

“If any band other than Metallica had release these records they would be hailed as musical saviours offering something new and fresh as grunge’s death toll chimed”

(I paraphrased a bit). But the fans didn’t fairly review or listen to these albums. They didn’t even seem to be hung up on the fact that the gods of metal were making Alt.Rock. Message boards forums and the press was filled with the same complaints, threats and bitching.

“They cut their hair” Whoop de-fucking Do!

Then we got S&M and Garage Days. Both great and “Minus Human” & “No Leaf Clover” hinted that the metal was coming back…and how!

Then they release a demo. A really BAD demo. Most of us felt a little sick. It really was some kind of monster. But the return to metal fell flat on its face. So they got themselves “slick” Rick Rubin and retreated to their studios. Stocked up on ivory backscratchers, got a legend to play bass and crab walk from St.Anger into our hearts. They replaced the drum kit with some baked bean tins and started to hype before they started to write.

Then, eventually it arrived.

It is Death Magnetic.

Let’s do the nitty-gritty first…

Is it Metallica’s finest hour? No.

Is it the as bad as the last record? No.

Is it a step forward in the right direction? I don’t think so.

Is it any good? Well yes actually!

These statements are a bit contradictory but I will elaborate. For the first time in nearly a decade I can hear some tracks that are sure to become live favourites. I hear riffs and jams that really make me smile but taking four steps backwards cannot be good for anyone’s career, can it? I strongly have an impression that they tried to hard to be a band they were 20 years ago and once you change I don’t feel you should go back. AC/DC have made the same record for nearly forty years. Nobody expects them to change. Metallica have never repeated themselves before so why record Ride the Lighting 2? Well honestly it might be because that’s apparently what the fans want. So are they happy? Some, actually most, why? Because its not St Anger 2,that’s why.

When the bar is that low, its not hard to raise it.

It opens with ‘That Was Just Your Life’ not the worst opener enticing enough to keep you listening, as is ‘The End Of The Line’. ‘Broken, Beat & Scarred’ is unquestionable the first stand-out. James sounds like he has had some vocal lessons and it was money well spent, as when he pushes his voice he no longer sounds like the squeaky voice teen from ‘The Simpsons’. Then comes the first single. This was a little scary due to the Skids-esque opening riff but its after the singing has been done this track shines. The guitar screams Metallica and one of the best pieces of music they’ve released in quite some time. The rest of the tracks seem to pick up except the dire ‘Cyanide’ which sounds like Metallica doing a Metallica cover and finishes strong with ‘My Apocalypse’ a stonking track that could have been left over from the Kill ‘em All sessions.

Most noticeable is the return to form of Kirk Hammet and his amazing playing, welcome back…. you have been missed. Rob Trujillo should get an award for bringing back one element that has been missing. Bass. I am not nor will not knock Jason’s playing, but special it is not. Robert’s is a little special.

“Love is a four letter word”, so is hope, so is fear, so is hate. Metal fans don’t like “Love” in their music. I can hear you ask if I have a point. Yes I do. Make music for your self and not your fans. Hire a producer who produces, not micro manages.Then record and play something from the heart.

What do I really think of this record? I like it, its not love but it’s a good night out.

On a scale it’s a ‘C’, a seven out of ten.

Why? You ask, when I have not been most flattering?

Because I know next time I catch this band live I’ll be singing along with “The Unforgiven III”, “All Nightmare Long” “Broken, Beat & Scarred” and possibly more, but I will like most be wondering why the production is better on guitar hero than the CD?

Hype is a terrible thing. Let it die out. Then, listen without prejudice.

The Last DJ can be heard talking while its other half spins tracks on her metal radio show

Dragon Hunters (Film Review)

2008-10-22T00:37:00Z

Okay, I’m not going to lie.

I downloaded this little gem illegally.

But..

My downloading it, has led to quite a bit of good.

Okay, I’m not going to lie.

I downloaded this little gem illegally.

But..

My downloading it, has led to quite a bit of good.

Several people will be going to the cinema to see this beautiful piece of work on the big screen (if and when it reaches it) and at least four people will be purchasing the DVD. Two more people will be getting the DVD as a present. These are all people who would not being doing either were it not for my showing them the film. Also, without seeing it the way I did, I would not be able to write this review. Granted, I still feel just a little bit guilty, if only because ‘Dragon Hunters’ just is that good and I really wouldn’t want to damage the potential for more of the same from its studio.

I didn’t know what to expect and if I’m honest, I wasn’t expecting much. I hadn’t even looked at the IMDB entry until about thirty seconds before watching the film. Maybe that is for the best, because in not knowing, it will just blow you away even more.

Originally, ‘Dragon Hunters’ was a cartoon series created by Arthur Qwak with the French company Futurikon. I’ve tried to find information about the man and there is little on the Internet. Which seems a shame, as just from watching the film of ‘Dragon Hunters’, here seems a talent and eye for detail that could rightly give Pixar a run for its money.

Set in a dreamlike world of gently floating landmasses and giant lily pads, to say that ‘Dragon Hunters’ is lush and sumptuous is something of an understatement. There is something old school about ‘Dragon Hunters’, something that reminds me of the older great artists like Moebius or near forgotten works of art like Tezuka’s ‘Space Firebird’.

For a children’s animated film, there is an attention to detail rarely seen, which helps to make the film feel like it is more than just a cartoon. It seems like there is always something going on in the background, just like a real film. If distant small field covered globes aren’t spinning gently on their access, the sheep are doing something, or Hector is picking his nose and wiping it on someone. Okay, well the last one isn’t really in the background, but I had to include that somewhere. It is really refreshing to find directors, writers and animators who haven’t forgotten what children find funny.

Snot, farts, poo and people falling down in new and painful ways. The core building blocks of golden comedy.

The story centers around Gwizdo and Lian-Chu, two ragged would be knights who have forged a career in hunting and slaying dragons for the small townships and villages that litter the hundreds of floating worlds that make up their reality. Raffish, while they succeed in their tasks, they have an air of ‘Steptoe & Son’ as they never seem to make any money. A classic pairing that reminds of Devito and Schwarzenegger, Gwizdo is the fast talking schemer and Lian-Chu is the big-hearted warrior who as a stroke of genius also happens to be an avid knitter. They also have a purple pet rabbit-dog-dragon-thing called Hector who provides most of the comic relief.

The other central character is Zoë, a niece to old world Lord Arnode, an old Dragon Hunter, sat now waiting for the end in his fortress. Zoë is a little girl wrapped up in fairytales about dragon hunters and one day hopes to be one herself. It is Zoë that enlists the help of Gwizdo and Lian-Chu to hunt down and destroy the dreaded ‘World Gobbler’. The biggest dragon in the world that returns every twenty years to wreck destruction on the floating worlds of ‘Dragon Hunters’.

While the detail, scenery and characters alone make this a captivating film. The range of monsters and dragons push it over the edge. Then there’s the comedy, some of which is just perfect genius. In particular, a scene involving a fleeing Knight, which would not be out of place from a Monty Python, Peter Sellers or Peter Cook feature. The soundtrack is also top notch and features an original ‘Cure’ track. I think I’m going to have to buy that as well, it seems to accompany everything – from writing to sitting in an isolation pod forgetting the world.

I hope this is the start of a franchise. I look forward to seeing the differences between the film and TV series when I order from Amazon. It really is good to see the market widening both in choice and talent. Even if you don’t have children, this is still a perfect movie for chilling out to on a lazy Sunday afternoon.

Three Nights Spent in a Rat Cellar – Tom Waits Live (The Rat Cellar, Dublin, 30th, 31st July & 1st August)

2008-10-16T23:48:00Z

Ignoring the gentle insistence of Scotty, my Glaswegian nurse, I checked myself out after suffering an allergic reaction to the painkillers they had given me. There was a plan and it had to be stuck to. Tom Waits was playing and no gods, no storm nor shotgun blasted off leg was going to prevent me from going to see the man.

“I got to run, to keep from hiding,

Bound, to keep on riding,

I’ve got one more, silver dollar,

But I’m not gonna let em catch me no,

Not gonna let em catch

The Midnight Rider

Oh no,

And I don’t own the clothes I’m wearing,

And the road goes on forever

I got, one more silver dollar

But I’m not gonna let em catch me no,

Not gonna let em catch

The Midnight Rider”

- The Allman Brothers ‘Midnight Rider’

I checked into the hospital sometime around eleven am. Where self is the mix of states of consciousness, I was stuck in the old half and half place of being still drunk and wretchedly hungover. Wherein, you find yourself lying to a nice Scottish nurse.

“Well I’ve fasted since about ten.”

If fasting is the one slice of pizza you’ve had in a couple of days.

“What about liquid fasting?”

She’ll ask with a slightly knowing smirk.

“Oh about four am or so.”

Four is a good number to give. Wouldn’t want to admit I drank until I passed out then woke up some forty minutes or so ago.

I’m in for injections to the lower spine. It’s a long story and an even longer explanation. I have a fairly vicious phobia of syringes you see. Not needles, I’ve too many tattoos for that, just syringes.

A part of agreeing to this proceedure is the constant battle against that phobia. The fight with yourself to overcome yourself.

If I was afraid of clowns this would be so much easier, granted, I’d probably be on the run for multiple murder charges.

Pissing sweat and moaning pain, I more dragged myself around a bookshop, back to my flat and in to the pub than actually made myself around. The plan had been laid months before and while not intricate it had to be stuck to. I’m not going to lie though, few things or journeys have pushed me as close to the edge of madness.

“I doubt I’ll ever get to see the man before he dies.”

In between the bookshop and flat, I had just enough time to phone JonnyRage and tell him; he was going to Tom Waits. The man’s words about the event were rumbling about my brain and I’d realized I’d completely forgotten to tell him about the present I’d gotten him a month or two before. Short notice an’all but I was running the numbers on doubting anyone would turn up a chance to see Tom Waits, even with only two hours notice.

“Are you okay? Sure you can do this?”

Was the beginning of my first proper exchange with Jonny since I’d arrived in the pub.

“Why?”

Rage raised an eyebrow at me as if it was obvious, his right hand raising palm up before moving in a short cutting motion that widened slightly, seriously and held; somehow reminded me of his no bullshit past as a man in charge of soldiers.

“Because you look like you’re in shock.”

Shrugging the man off and stubbing my smoke, I returned to write the letter and seal the parcel of books that was all pivotal in the plan.

The plan being – there is a Tom Waits quote I intend on getting tattooed on the side of my head. I happened to mention this to Phil the tattooist who pointed out it would be far cooler to get the man himself to write the qoute. He also promised that if Tom Waits wrote said quote on my head, he’d tattoo it for free. So, armed with a parcel loaded with two books, the explanation and request, we headed for the concert.

I’ve wrestled with the beginning of this review like the drunken version of an ancient Greek frieze of Hercules. In the end, I decided to begin with someone else’s words. Then perhaps ramble on with the pomp and circumstance of the entire venture. It’s hard not to stop, start and sideways step as you the approach the bit where you actualy have to talk about, describe what seeing Tom Waits live is like. I guess it should always feel like slightly inebriated bar talk.

The standard advice I’ve been given by the jaded and cynical is to be wary of going to see your heroes live. There stands, they say, a strong possibility you’ll be bitterly disappointed. I’ve yet to have that happen to me.

Tom Waits was playing three nights, in a specially constructed circus tent called ‘The Rat Cellar’ positioned rather neatly beside ‘Áras an Uachtaráin’, the residence of the president of Ireland.

Twin topped with blue and yellow stripes, ‘The Rat Cellar’ was the centerpiece to an odd little Tom Waits experience village. An odd place where you could buy strawberries and molten chocolate to dip them into, popcorn, gourmet burgers, a bizarre selection of fairground like sweets, Guinness, one type of beer and warm, warm white wine.

I have to say the one and only thing that bugged me about the entire set-up was the fact the bar closed down shortly before the show and did not open again. I’m sure there’s a very valid reason for this past the fact Tom quit drinking. If it was Tom, if it wasn’t, either way, it’s not cool.

Don’t act like a government; don’t enforce curfews and tell us what to do.

Barring that though, I do have to pay special thanks to the Security on the three nights. In the stumbling, hobbling, and largely ticket-less mess that was post spinal injections me. They were straight up with me, never surly and minded as best they could.

Almost transparent pale and sweating like some sort of sub-dermal racehorse. Waving a hospital band and babbling about spines and syringes, I had our taxi drive us straight up to the entrance of the venue by way of the disabled route.

With tickets like gold dust and only one in my possession. I found myself constantly eyeing security, fences, weak jaws and soft spots for certain stories, like some sort of crack MacGyver. One way or another, I was going to see Tom Waits every night he played in Dublin. If children had to die and midgets had to be set on fire as some sort of screaming hand waving decoy, so be it.

I haven’t seen many people talk about the extreme lengths Tom Waits’ people went through to prevent the touting of tickets. Let me tell you though, it was intense. It engendered a level of paranoia that I’ve only heard about. The sort of eye sweating scratching stuff Graham Greene wrote about. Like being a liberal in the black list days of Hollywood or a Jew trying to escape the Holocaust.

Those people with real tickets clutched them close to their chests with some form of identification. Though many had passports, you could tell as they approached the border control to the venue that they were beginning to worry if this was enough; maybe even beginning to doubt their passport was real.

Those people with printed out tickets looked slightly worse for wear. A sheaf of paper in their hands, they also awkwardly clutched both their credit card and some form of photo ID. Beads of worry and impatience clear across brows furrowed by the complexity of the situation.

By far the worst off, were the people who’d been bought one or two tickets by some kindly benefactor who also happened not to be attending the concert. Some clutched the receipt for the tickets, photo ID and a letter from the purchaser. Strained and stressed looking, they bore the damp look of fear sweats and when they addressed security, their eyes darted to the corners and distances for terror that on whim they’d tell them their information was false or not enough.

There was the snagging paranoia you’d left something behind. Or just forgot one small detail. The same sort of sensation you have just a handful of minutes out of a whorehouse when you’re on your way home to the wife. The same sort of feeling that leads to five am freezing cold showers just incase, just to be sure; freezing cold because if you use the hot water the motor for the pump might start running and she’ll wake up and then, then there will be questions asked. And anyway, you can’t remember what you forgot, just that the nagging is there, a slow poke at the back of your eye.

I don’t know, but for some reason, I sort of imagined that if my letter, photo ID and birth certificate didn’t work. That group of silent, menacing cholos on Tom’s payroll would appear. There would probably also be a random mariachi guitarist who wouldn’t play just stare; he was probably below average height, quite possibly in some states, legally a midget. There wouldn’t be much talking, they’d just motion toward a waiting lowrider and you’d rustle up your papers, head downcast, and follow them.

In the end, after all that, they barely checked for ID. It was all some sort of terror tactic, which was probably the same reasoning for closing the bar early.

The package, of books and a letter, was handed to a security guard who promised me he’d see it to the back stage where there would be an un-promised chance of Tom Waits getting his hands on it.

Dangerously sober, lips stinging from three fast smoked cigarettes, we took our seats.

In my mind…

As the child who had waited a hefty chunk of a lifetime for this…

I imagined the soundtrack to this wait,

As something sinister, yet spiritual – as if composed by Ennio Morricone for a western Leone never made.

At the same time as there was the nervous impatient drill of ‘The Ecstasy of Gold’.

There was the ‘The Musical Pocket Watch’, twinkling solitary toward its rise in strings before the down back toward the twinkle.

Somewhere, in-between all of this.

The lights dimmed.

The band took the stage.

Followed with a rolling lope, by Tom Waits.

We roared and we hollered and for three hours we tore our throats out and clapped our hands raw.

They, He, the band, came on to an intermingling medley of ‘Lucinda and Ain’t going down to the well no more’. From this, he, we became ‘Rain Dogs’. A neat little waltz that swam into ‘Russian Dance’, from there, we swayed through a fast shot shoot of ‘Falling Down; On the other side of the world; I’ll shoot the moon; Cemetery Polka; Get behind the mule; Cold cold ground; Singapore; Circus / Tabletop Joe; God’s away on business’;

They came thick, they came fast and they came between Tom Waits spinning the crowd upside down and right side up with stories of insects and Ebay buys. The band, with two of Tom’s sons playing for their supper, were just fantastic, matching the man beat for beat and keeping him wrapped in the blanket of noise he needed.

As the man moved toward the piano, jangled a few notes, responded to a crowd that was trying to call tunes that he may or may not have just twinkled then stopped once they’d named them.

I was spellbound.

I may never know who enjoyed ‘Tom Traubert’s Blues’ more, the crowd or Tom Waits. All I know is sublime used to be a word I used seldom for the weight of whatever it meant in the first place. Maybe it reminded me of the story of a blowjob I once got from a Mexican down the Dublin coast and maybe it reminded me of ‘A Voyage to Arcturus’. Maybe it was a lot of things. But as ‘Blues on the nickel’ sashayed into the mumbling grumbling laughing banter the man had with the crowd before a truly mind shattering rendition of ‘Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis’.

All I knew was three letters and it went something like, wow.

Somewhere.

Somewhere, in between the epileptic girl thrashing about so hard in front of us, her seat managed to rock our line of fixed seats a steady rhythm.

Somewhere, through the snippet of ‘House where nobody lives’ that he stopped as someone from the crowd named it and changed it on into the crowd participation of ‘Innocent When you dream’. Through to ‘Hoist that Rag’ and on.

Tom Waits stopped being human.

Moving like a twisted marionette that may well have been controlled by a much bigger empyreal Tom Waits standing over ‘The Rat Cellar’. He jerked and swung to one song just as he swayed and stamped to another. A mirabilis amazing; he was all things to all songs.

On his voice, unlike some people, I didn’t think he reaching. Some reporter for some Irish paper or something said something along the lines of Tom Waits having the voice of a tired old God trying to do an impression of Satan. Something like that. I’m probably doing that fucking hack more justice than I should. Trying to para-quote something you can’t remember always works. Regardless, I’ll just run with that verbose imagery, that of God wrestling with Satan’s lyrics. The man from modern myth evolved past the now and then, into the sometime and in a few minutes. A rickety, clawing grasping titan of the new, stamping as he undulates in time with the whispering and the thundering, a voice designed to put a senile god down, in a deicidal scene comfortingly reminiscent of ‘Old Yeller’.

If I thought “You Fucker” when he drew out, weaved and swung ‘Make It Rain’ until the crowd was chanting with him. Until the already pouring heavens paused for a moment, as if, straining over your shoulder to hear Tom, remembered exactly what they were and split asunder once more under his commandment of ‘Let It Rain’.

If I thought the closer of ‘Time’ was spiritual. That it felt as if we were witnessing some sort of voodoo southern rain and death cult ceremony of snakes, suspicion and faith.

Then the only thing that was running through my head, as he raised his hands, apocalypse preacher like to the roof of the tent.

Was, childishly, foolishly,

Wow…

And then the more teenage,

Holy fuck…

People around me were crying, shouting, screaming, clapping, stamping and standing.

A part of me wanted to get up roar bellow dance and move, a part of me wanted to do something other than sit awestruck, staring. But, really, all that part of me could do was rush me years back, decades or so. To sitting on my big sister’s lap as she played me Tom Waits. As it all began.

There it was, my six or seven year old self, calling long distance through time, wanting quietly to meet my older self out for coffee so we could talk about it all.

We trundled out, in rain that’d been hoodooed up Tom, a thunderous marching splash that marched us to the end of the park. JonnyRage left me to go home and I retreated back, into the city of my birth, to find my sister and drink.

It was time to pop hefty painkillers and scheme; he was playing two more in Dublin. I didn’t have tickets, but I was going.

Luckily enough and maybe somehow, there was one, just one ticket handed back that night. Seated down front, better than I had been before. The second night brought a set only vaguely similar to the night before. Treated as we were to such gems as ‘Misery is the river of the world’, ‘Chocolate Jesus’ and an almost show stopping recital of ‘9th and Hennepin’.

All this was interspaced with Waits’ banter with the crowd. When he wasn’t thanking us and showering us with praise and surprise for “having never worked together before.” He was regaling us with tall tales about Japanese ships being raised with ping-pong balls, frogs living rent-free in his stomach and a special dog food that will make dog shit glow in the dark.

I haven’t, in my lifetime, seen a man work a crowd like Tom Waits worked the crowd during those three nights in Dublin. They sang when he wanted, hushed when he motioned, laughed at all the genuinely funny bits and when he exhorted them with an ecclesiastical air, to lose control and get down right fervent. They did, hands clapping raw, bodies swaying as if they were sat in the tent of some Southern Death Cult passing out snakes and shotguns.

My jaw dropped as he growled into a surprise drop of ‘Heart Attack and Vine’ that signaled the beginning of the end. We rolled into ‘November’ and finished on a sublime ‘Hold On’

Two nights down, one left – the last and most important.

I arrived with my sister and nephew at the handicapped entrance and let them to take the last two tickets. Pain and fatigue was beginning to take its toil and as I meandered around asking security and the Ticketmaster booth about the likelihood of tickets, I was gradually beginning to give up hope on getting a ticket to the third and final night. Something that wasn’t helped by all the friends of Aiken, who somehow, mysteriously, had fudged their tickets, got the dates wrong and not attended the night they had tickets for. Yet even with all the checks in place by Tom’s people, were just told by the Ticketmaster vendor, no problem, they’d be sorted out.

I’d like to be able to put the following story down to my winning good looks and golden age Hollywood charm. But we all know that’s not true. Security remembered me and were all stand up cool, telling me, that if there was a ticket going, it would be going straight to me. I’m going to place their remembering me down to the fact that I have wildly strange eccentric hair that really can’t be missed. Also the fact that I was wearing pitch black goggle shades and had a sort of hobbling, stiff legged rolling lope commonly associated with Nazi criminal masterminds from post world war movies. Probably made me un-missable. I guess the only thing I was missing was the suspicious burn scars and glass eye.

Still though, whatever it was, my winning smile, my sparkling eyes and deft craft at conversation or my uncannily resembling to a Z-Movie mad Nazi scientist. A very kind Swedish man sold me a spare ticket for face value and in I was, off to see Tom Waits for a third and final time.

Although I find it hard to say which was musically better. The third night may well have it at a pinch and a spit. ‘Jesus Gonna Be here’ was stand out. But I may well have suffered a small sort of stroke or palsy when he played ‘The Heart of Saturday Night’. Left dribbling on myself, I barely had enough composure to soak in ‘Blue Valentines’ before finally hearing ‘God’s Away On Business’ live.

We made it rain before the first encore that began with ‘16 Shells From A Thirty-Ought Six’ and was followed with the somehow childhood affirming darkness of Tom Waits singing Disney’s ‘Heigh-Ho’. “Dirt In The Ground’ brought the first encore to a strangely melancholy end.

It almost seemed to be over – but we screamed, clapped and howled. We raised the roof and stopped the rain, and Tom came back. Almost rummaging into a surprisingly long jiving version of ‘Metropolitan Glide’ from ‘Real Gone’ that seemed to go on for a very good forever.

“The prettiest girl

In all the world

Is in a little Spanish town”

A sort of silence settled on the crowd as Tom thanked his way into the beginning of ‘Lucky Day’. It seemed longer than normal, with a repetition of chorus or something, I don’t know. I was caught up in the slight sadness of the moment, as teary-eyed people around me tugged on my sleeve to say that, this, this was a goodbye, of sorts, in Tom’s own, indomitable way. That he really was going away and that maybe one lucky day he’d be back, but it was more than likely that for Ireland, for a Dublin crowd, this would be the last time we’d see him before he died.

“I got to run, to keep from hiding…”

I didn’t want to think such morbid thoughts or even of a world without Tom Waits within it, so I smiled and nodded my way through the people sharing their experiences and lost myself in the end of the music like some ratty ragtime bathtub gin drunk swaying easy to ‘Viper Mad’.

“I’ve got one more, silver dollar…”

The aftermath is a slow and easy come down, rather like Salvia. There is no melancholy, no withdrawal that you’ve tasted the best and there may be no more peaks to fry. It’s more a sort of personal Zen sense of accomplishment and probably one you won’t talk about unless pushed. Yet in hobbling from the concert three times, in seeing the far away looks of satisfaction on peoples’ faces, talking to them and hearing their conversations, one that that I felt was shared.

“And I don’t own the clothes I’m wearing…”

Of course there was those people who didn’t enjoy the concert. Thought Tom’s voice was shot and that he was butchering his old songs. At the same time as they assured you that they were one of his biggest fans. Funny the way that happens. Those people you meet, who go to a gig, decide it doesn’t live up to their expectations of perfection, hate it, whatever else and feel the need to try and force people to see it their way. Insisting you agree with them, like a Dublin taxi driver trying to get you to agree with them that those blacks and Poles are just job stealing parasite bastards. It’s easy not to feel sorry for these people because in the end, their life view is just disappointing, in the fleeting sense. Like a wistful nod and pat on the head saying, “Aww, you missed the point, you poor, poor, poor bitch.” Which is rather like those other people who don’t like Tom Waits, who will tell you his music is the stuff for listening to in the moments before putting your head in the oven.

“And the road goes on forever…”

It was kind of like the Great Depression, you sort of had to be there to fully appreciate it. But even if you weren’t, you still know you missed something important.

Diskoteket @ Lakritz 12th of April 2008

2008-10-16T23:47:00Z

I promised I’d write this.
I swear.

I promised!

Otherwise, I’d be in bed by now. Comfortable, moist after a quick shower, warmed by the duvets, cradled by the pillows, thinking about relaxing my muscles.
Still, I’m not. I’m peering at the screen in the darkness, sipping my green tea, and listening to the ringing in my ears. And thinking back on that magical time at the pub.

Rewind a few hours, some dancing, bouncing, and several glasses of water, and you find me standing near the stage, watching the live band fumble their way up on the stage, I curse myself for letting them convince me to leave my camera at home.

The keyboardist looks up behind his black-rimmed glasses, his badly fitting t-shirt coasting down over his tight pants, painting the typical picture of a synth head. To the left edge of the stage, you see the guitarist, black dyed hair standing up in a carefully augmented and tended wilderness, with the matching attire of looking cool clothing. Slide your eyes to the back and you would see the drummer, looking like someone had rolled in a geek from high school and put a shirt on him, and strapped a fat plastic-metallic chain around his neck while they were passing a thrift store.

In the middle, the white cutoff t-shirt over dirty black jeans, and the bass in hands in front of the microphone is the musical genius of the band. Front and centre, the highlight of the show, wearing tight pants to show off her curves, a golden shimmering bra and an open shirt hanging loosely down. With a huge crucifix gathered from the same thrift store, shoved with one end down into said shimmering bra and her hair pulled back to avoid it sticking to the carefully plastered face, is the singer herself.

Welcome, to Diskoteket, live on stage.

As the show(?) starts, I look up, and I’m unable to stop myself from grinning like a fool when I hear the two lines that pretend to be the lyric being sung. Sung is not the right word. Tortured from the fragile remains of the plastic replants that replace her vocal chords, may well be the right term. She fails to hit a single tone on the way up, and seems intent of never catching a single one the whole time she stays on stage. The lyrics are simplistic, in fact, three words, in three different combinations, with a couple of “how could you?” stashed in between. Indeed, how can you do anything when it all falls apart, the words lost their meaning from being nonsensically repeated time after time, and fortunately for them, they never had a context to be taken out of.

Now turn your eyes to find the bassist, who is enthusiastically repeating the two, maybe four, chords he knows, without heed or care for what the others are doing, sometimes breaking off a chord to lean in and wail something inaudible in the general direction of the microphone.

Slide your eyes further right, and you catch the keyboardist beating his marvellously fabric-tuned instrument with his index fingers, hands clenched to fists, tongue sticking out at the corner of his mouth.

Move your eyes back behind them to the drummer, and marvel at how much noise he can generate from the poor drum set without managing to keep the same rhythm as himself, nor anyone else in the band, while looking so remarkably bored and confused.

Sliding your eyes to the left, you see the guitarist struggling, his fingers jamming in between the strings, his hair on end, sprayed into a solid gravity defying mass as he attempts to wring tortured chords out of an instrument that clearly doesn’t like him.

At this point, I’m unable to stop my laughter. I’m standing at the front row, laughing like the madman I am, unable to do anything but laugh, look, and attempt to breathe.

Halfway through the song the guitarist blows a string, and ends up standing there, unable to continue to torture his poor instrument. The band takes a brief break as he’s sitting on the stage, attempting to string the poor creature, without any luck. After a few minutes, the audience grumbles, and the brave band decides to continue. Our guitarist fails completely at his work of stringing the maliciously uncooperative instrument, and ends up handing it to a friendly soul in the audience who seems to have at least half a clue on how to get the string to actually stick to the instrument.

For the next two songs, the guitarist sits at the edge of the stage looking cool. And nobody misses him. Well, maybe the keyboardist does, because at some point he grows bored and starts beating his keyboard with a drumstick as well as his index fingers. Then again, maybe not.

After this, our brave hero, the guitarist, gets his instrument back. The new string in place, and completely out of tune with anything where it’s supposed to be. This does not deter our hero, who wails out chord after chord to mix into the horrifying cacophony of the band. At some point our dear singer forgets her shirt somewhere with the lyrics, and ends up repeating her first song lyrics over and over again while she pours water down her now naked arms.

Meanwhile, I’m laughing. Unable to stop myself, unable to bring breath, I curse myself for not having my camera, and continue to laugh. At some point I was considering that maybe in fact they were the genius of energy that they were announced to be, the powerful completion of defining the genre, that in fact their atonality stemmed from them following a pentatonic scale, unfortunately this would never be the case due to the finger-jabbing keyboard stabbing that produces perfectly tuned notes in the diatonic scale.

Towards the end, when the singer was done berating the audience for hiding in the back, when the party of five that I came with had dissipated and fled the horrors they could not appreciate, there was an applause. We were standing, clapping and hollering, because they promised it would be the last song. As the last slam of the drums came to pass, the singer’s wailing voice was drawn to an end by the lack of air in her lungs, we shrugged and moved on, getting something to drink and hoping the DJ would start so this could be banished to a point in history.

Yet, I cannot stop laughing.

This, my friends, is the promised review of the most horrifying display of atonal terror I have yet to see, and I’ve seen third-grade kids doing “we are the world”. So my conclusion of this is, if you ever get the chance, go see them. They will lift all other shows up a step, and wherever you go from here, it can only become better.

Now, I’m going to take a long, hot shower. I need to cleanse myself.

Ode to Lost Ideas

2008-10-03T22:12:00Z

I am annoyed. With myself. I started writing a piece. Discarded it. Came back to the idea, rewrote it. Discarded it. Again.

Sunday morning while cleaning up the kitchen before pancake breakfast, the best description came to me. The exact explanation I’ve been searching for came to mind. If I were profound enough it would have been an epiphany. You must understand there was much excitement in my mind.

I am annoyed. With myself. I started writing a piece. Discarded it. Came back to the idea, rewrote it. Discarded it. Again.

So Why are you reading this ode instead of my amazing idea about labels, stereotypes or something to that effect?

It got lost. I did not write it down.

I was in the middle of cleaning the kitchen. Busy mom and all that. I didn’t have time to jot it down. Besides, I have a Super Brain. I can recall my brilliant ideas without making notes. This reasoning is also why I dropped my daughter off to an 11:30 party at 1:30.

Instead of expanding on my clever idea, I spent the latter half of the day trying to recall the passing thought. I have tried to use different angles, ideas, thoughts to jog my memory to no avail. The only thing I’ve produced is frustration. I mentally stomp around my brain cursing myself, my family and the messy kitchen.

I have other ideas to write. Other prompts, completely off-topic from the missing one. I am stuck on this one. I am convinced it was the most brilliant idea I have ever had. Convinced that if I just search long enough that I will find it again.

As if I can bully my way to remembering.

If I relaxed and let it go, it would be more likely to return. But I will just as likely be too busy and lose it again. (As a side note; as I was rewriting this, I had another brilliant idea to insert, but it too got lost).

It’s not the first idea I’ve lost in this manner. Definitely not the last. I try to prepare for these instances with pen and paper always at hand. Making it a habit of jumping on the tools even if I’m busy. After- about 12 years at least of these incidents, you would assume I would learn.

Especially as a student of productivity or “Getting Things Done”. I should know better. I do know better.

I fail. If I were social networking you’d see a cute looking cat with an even cuter caption about failure. If I were motivational writer there would be one of those motivational posters. Or I were being sardonic I would have a de-motivational poster.

I need to find this idea. It’s an idea that’s been plaguing me since early summer. The right words seem elusive. I have a good message to send out. And I need to exorcise the thoughts by seeing them into completion.

They’ll come again, so long as the ideas hound me. And come Monday morning, and writing this piece on lost pieces, it seems they’ll refuse to disappear.

Thanatopsis

2008-09-26T20:21:00Z

I dunno I reckon we’ll name it Thanatopsis

My horoscope said that I might be tempted to explore life’s darker side today. It also said that wasn’t a good idea.

I dunno I reckon we’ll name it Thanatopsis

My horoscope said that I might be tempted to explore life’s darker side today. It also said that wasn’t a good idea. Then again, I reckon it’s like that chain letter that Niamh sent from Donegal. It said that if I sent it on, someone would come into my life and tell me something that would change it. It even gave me a time. It said at 10:38 the following morning this would happen. Did it? Did it fuck. The only thing that happened at 10:38 the following morning was that a little green man appeared and told me it was safe to cross the road. Give that whatever meaning you will. I’m not one for chain letters. I hate the things, but for nothing more than a few minutes’ thoughts about the happiness and well-being of Niamh, I sent the thing on. She’s worth it, so here goes.

There are some days when I wake up for no other reason than my heart is still beating, and my back is sore from lying in bed and sitting still for too long. I don’t like those days. Today was one of those days. My horoscope also said that today odds were I would meet my soul mate. Did I? Did I fuck. The only people I met today were mo chairde, and a poor woman desperate for the loo. I reckon she was so embarrassed about being caught short, and in need of the loo, that she rushed away straight after. Fuck, we’ve all been there. It’s woeful. Not a chance in fuck am I going to deny a woman doing the silly-silly pee-pee dance the right to the loo. Not a fucking hope. She’s using the loo.

Yeah, we’re still not liking today too much. The horriblescopes lied. Bastards. At least the ones in the Onion are amusing. I woke up today because my heart was still beating. I got out of bed because my back was sore from lying still for too long. I had a shower, remembered the words: nice and easy down the road, and went to work. Not a single one of my appointments showed. I earned nothing today, nor did I lighten my workload. I didn’t even have the energy to say fuck it, and go into town for a pint. Instead, I went home and cleaned up the spatters of sick I left on the rim of the toilet yesterday morning.

Yesterday I woke up alright until I remembered that I was up so early because I had to go to a funeral. Then the recent events caught up with me. It was all just a bit too much.

My uncle is an American farmer. The farm was hit in the flooding, heavy rains and tornados that have struck the American Mid-West. His fields are under water at the moment. The waters still haven’t gone down. His year’s harvest has been ruined. This year is a total loss for the man. All his efforts since January are gone. And he’s an American. Hurricane Katrina speaks more loudly than I ever could about what sort of hope he can expect from the insurance companies and the American government. He’s got nothing but pieces of a past history to put back together and to build from. Sometimes it takes a hurricane to wake you up. In the right light this is so incredibly funny that you can’t believe it’s not made up.

But that morning I remembered the fact that I was going to bury an admirable and exceptional woman that morning. That’s when I blessed the throne. When I got it back together, I remembered that I was now late for getting into town, getting the flowers, and getting to the church. I cleaned the bigger chunks, but had to leave it a bit of a mess. There were more important things.

This woman was a true woman. There was nothing girlish about her. I remember her quick to laugh. I remember her glowing eyes and bright smile. I remember her offhand comments that always contained a pearl of wisdom. I remember the world being better for that evening just on account of her very presence. I remember her living a life of virtue with ease. I remember her as the mother of three children to her 18 yearlong partner. He is one of the best men I have ever met. I have met people, and I have met men, and he is one of the best I have ever met anywhere. Sometimes words need to be smith-ed.

This man, my friend, mo chara, just lost his friend, lover, and mother to his children. Her loss struck me so hard that I got sick. The poor bastard. I had to get it together to get a taxi to get to the funeral. I couldn’t leave him on his own. By god, how un-empathetic would I have to be to do so? I left the sick to lie where it was. I knew I would get back to it later. After all, it’s my house. It’s not going anywhere.

Alright, so just bless the Greeks. Iron Age Greece justifies everything. Many happy days of eternity to all Greeks, simply because the ancient Greeks allowed their soldiers to get sick. So here’s a culture that gave us physics, philosophy, literature, maths, geometry, etc. Yet were still so in touch with it’s physical humanity that it recognised, as that culture, the need for some poor bastard who’d been hacking away at other people all day to have two minutes to get sick at the insanity of it all. When you think about it, it’s small wonder their gods were so fucked up. A divinity truly watching over all of that would go mad. It’d be like throwing biscuits at bears. There’s no physical law in the universe that says that we as people have the right to get physically sick and lose the plot for two minutes when it all gets to be too much. Fucking reconcile that dichotomy.

The Greeks made their gods mad, and gave their soldiers time to get sick. It seems like a fair trade to me. I reckon the Greeks knew about empathy. Yeah, empathy, the ability to be aware of another person’s feelings. Make all the Greek jokes you want. Laugh at the fact that the Greeks didn’t have a word corresponding to love, as we understand it today. Laugh at the fact that they only saw it as pure platonic love, or fucking, and never a mixture of the two. We had to wait for Rome’s hedonism to give us that concept. Be revolted by the fact that a Greek man took a wife of many years his younger for no reason other than to sire children. Remember that this is a culture that produced philosophy and geometry. Remember that this was an enlightened culture that recognised the need for warfare to the point where it was practiced regularly. And remember that their warfare built into itself a mutually recognised need for its practitioners to get sick at the end of the day. Try getting that out of a modern day religion. There isn’t one empathetic enough.

Not even Buddhism, worldly recognised as the most peaceful of all religions. Perhaps I’m just being bitter over the fact that Chögyam Trungpa said I didn’t have what it takes to be one of the cool kids. I don’t have a mentor. I’m lost in the woods; therefore the cool kids don’t want me.

As a quick aside, I would like to point out that the idea of Buddhists up in arms is funny. I would also like to point out that it is funny as fuck to think that you’re damned for finding something funny. Bless the lads that did that motivational poster blasphemy. Fair play lads.

You just can’t get that out of a rigid set of rules. I reckon that’s why the Buddhist monk laughed in the face of the girl receiving her blessing from him when she broke down in tears during the ceremony. I also reckon that Chögyam Trungpa sussed it when he said in another of his books that the greatest gift is the sharing of knowledge. Wish I’d met the man so I could shake his hand and say, nice one. More’s the pity.

This woman had a spine much stronger than any rigid set of rules. Hers knew how to flex. And your modern puritanical rigid-set-of-rules god help you if the recoil of that spine of hers having to flex is coming back at you because you were a cunt. She was an exceptional woman. There was no set of rules that were going to keep me from that funeral. They had 18 years together. They should have had at least another 20. Her loss had me in tears repeatedly. They deserved it. I left the sick where it lay and went to the funeral.

I got it together. I went to the funeral. I did my part as best I was able.

Maddog met me in town when I made it back. Here’s where I get all funny and tell you that he was protecting his investment. He didn’t want to see a column on his growing website to go the way of the Do-do. He met me in town. He took me out to dinner. He bought a rake of drink, and scammed some more for free. He walked me to a taxi, fired me into the thing, pointed his finger at me and admonished me severely. And I hope now the bastard sees why there is sometimes a need for dialogue in rants. And another thing, word counts be fucked, I buried a friend yesterday. Rules are made to be broken, fuck ‘em, it’s allowed.

Maddog got me back home after the funeral. He bared the rubber teeth of Finn, the Maddog of Big Rock Candy Mountain. Finn minded me while I did what I needed to do that day. I don’t even know half of what he did for last week’s guest. Bless him and his writing. He believes in it that strongly that he deserves nothing but success. The man never once thought of getting a thank you. You can’t get that empathy out of a puritanical set of rules. It would be too codified, too exclusive. There would be some custom, some set of holy rules handed down by some elders that was no longer flexible enough to allow that empathy without some sort of expectation of payback.

Let’s re-enter the mad Greek gods. Remember what you know. There is no physical law that allows us time to get sick when it all gets too much. The physical proof that there is homosexual necrophilia in mallard ducks is ridiculous. Maddog minded me while I minded everything that I needed to keep together as best I was able for this funeral. I cared about these people. They were good friends of mine. Just the very knowledge that they were there in the world made it a better place.

A part of that perfect beauty of the omnipotent god’s world is gone. All I can do is consider my self-blessed for having known only my little part of it. More is the loss of the blessing for those who had a larger part of it.

That’s why I’ll take my gods old and mad. I’ll wear with pride a Thor’s Hammer I carved myself by hand from a piece of bog oak that had been gathered by another friend, and initially shaped by. That’s why I’ll take the solstice and stand on top of what is nothing more than a political site, and celebrate what is nothing more than another day of the year with all the rest of the new age hippies and laugh at the madness of it all.

I like my gods to have to fight for their existence. Odin suffered a revolt in Valhalla, and got the boot. I’ll have that. After all, my uncle’s land that is now under water was first plotted by the sons of Vikings. That’ll do. After all, a sub-clause of using common sense is to remember that you may learn something new. That’s why you need to remember to proceed with caution. A bit of empathy helps. It lets you mind your karmic footprint.

See, Buddha’s greatest gift was silence, and that gives us time for a ponderance that all the seven holy virtues require empathy. None of them are empathy itself, but they all require it.

Yeah, I reckon I like Empathy as a god. I should also say that Muse stopped by today at the appropriate time, bearing gifts as usual. We do love our muse and her sneaky bottles, especially because we know that she knows that she is accountable for everything she does. She is a phenomenal soul. It’s hard to believe they make ‘em that good. She walked me home from work today. I went home and cleaned the sick off the toilet. It was a good thing the flatmate was away and I didn’t have to explain myself. We can laugh about it over a pint later. At least I had the night to clean the place up.

Someone needs to sweep the floor after mass. I blessed the throne. The world’s a mad place. I buried a friend. That’s all she was. She was a friend. I cried, got sick, when to the funeral, and cleaned up after. I woke up this morning for no other reason than my heart was still beating. I got out of bed this morning because my back was sore from lying still for too long. How fucking selfish am I? What am I like with my biology keeping me awake?

Yeah, I’ll take my gods mad. Bless the Greeks. They let me stand in the middle of a funeral and tell a good friend of mine, a true man, that all was not lost, as best as I was able. I couldn’t do anything more than be there for him. I know he was hurting. I did it fully as best I was able. How could you not do it for the man? Make all the buggery jokes you want, it doesn’t change the fact that the Greeks proved that they knew about empathy.

Me, I’m lost in the woods. Not even the cool kids will let me in. Which, again, is so unbelievably funny when viewed in the right light that you can’t believe this is not made up. The amount of times I have had to explain silly little things like the eight wrathful deities, and the Taras is unbelievable. And it started because I liked the pictures.

It used to be implicit in the earning of my monthly pay check that I killed people for a living. I’ll take my gods mad, thank you. A friend of mine buried a massive part of his life yesterday. His children are going to have to live the rest of their lives without their mother. They were blessed with her and by her, and she is now gone. They have to live with that.

Say a prayer for them, I beg you. They’ve donkeys in front of them, all without their mother. They deserved more. No one could ever deserve the loss of someone that brilliant. And she was their mother.

Say a prayer for their lives. It’ll only take you a moment, and it’ll last them a lifetime. All it takes is a bit of empathy. And then welcome yourself to life. It’ll get complicated from here. Someone has to sweep the floor after mass.

Say a prayer for them to help pick up the pieces and carry on. They’re children. I beg you please, just be there for them as best you’re able. It’s a mad world, why would you choose to make it any worse?

Horoscopes say the odds are that you’re still going to wake up in the morning because your heart’s still beating. Then you’ll get out of bed because your back’s sore from lying still for too long. After that the odds are there will be the morning ritual shite, and the day will begin.

Say a prayer that the children have many days like that, and then remember to go stand on a hill and celebrate a another day in the year.

Mi Manera (My Way)

2008-09-24T22:19:00Z

Me pase la vida conformandoa esos que no tienen que ver conmigo;
Me pase la vida convenciendome, intentando ser alguien que ni siquiera yo logro entender;

English Translation

I spent my life satisfying those that have nothing to do with me.
I spent my life convincing myself, trying to be someone that even I can’t understand.

Me pase la vida conformandoa esos que no tienen que ver conmigo;
Me pase la vida convenciendome, intentando ser alguien que ni siquiera yo logro entender;
Me pase los dias disfrutando lo que me ofrecian sin buscar lo que queria…y asi fui creyendo en un papa noel que no existe, pidiendo un talle seis siendo yo un ocho, aceptando las sobras de esos que deciden lo que les conviene darme…y asi fui cocinandome en un recipiente inadecuado; Me pase las noches con preguntas incorrectas, con respuestas sacadas de la galera, saliendo a la vida dentro de un concepto erroneo y obtuso; Me pase la vida siendo la protagonista de una novela que no era la mia.

Al mismo tiempo…

Me pase la vida escapando de esos que se me parecen, esos que me enseñan a ver las cosas mas alla de lo habitual…asi fui perdiendo en el camino piezas claves de este rompecabezas, ahora el cual se me hace tan dificil armar;
Me pase la vida mostrando las verdades de mi mentira, ocultandome de los que golpean mi puerta teniendo las llaves del mar que mi alma sedienta buscaba con ansiedad…asi me fui escondiendo en maquillaje que cubria mis razgos, iba tapando la naturalidad de una sonrisa;
Me pase la vida buscandote y cuando te encontre no supe lo que hacer…y asi fuiste descomponiendo todo, confundiendo las estructuras, desnudando los maniquies, el recipiente estallo, las preguntas empezaron a tener sentido y las respuestas garuaban tras reemplazar palabras por miradas, los colores de la pintura se mezclaron para crear uno nuevo, desconocido, irresistible.

Ahora estoy mas perdida que en toda mi vida, pero si hay que retroceder para retomar los verdaderos pasos, quiero pasarme el resto de mi andar alimentandome de “locos” como vos que hasta en plena oscuridad y silencio pueden ver mil colores, dimensiones, mil supuestos, sonidos y canciones.

English Translation

I spent my life satisfying those that have nothing to do with me.
I spent my life convincing myself, trying to be someone that even I can’t understand.
I spent the days enjoying what they had to offer me without looking for what I wanted…and just like that I believed in a Santa Claus that does not exist, requesting a 6 size when I am an 8, accepting the leftovers of those that decide what is convenient for them to give me, and I was cooking myself in the inappropriate container.
I spent the nights with the wrong questions, with answers out of the blue, facing life in a wrong and obtuse concept.
I spent my life being the main character of a novel that was not mine.

At the same time…

I spent my life escaping from those that are similar to me, those that teach me to see things beyond the usual…and it is like that that I lost key pieces of this puzzle, that is now so hard to put together.
I spent my life showing the truths of my lie, hiding from those knocking my door having the keys of the sea that my thirsty soul was anxiously looking for… and like that I was hiding myself in make up that covered my features, I was covering the naturalness of a smile;

I spent my life looking for you and when I found you I didn’t know what to do… and you started to decompose everything, confusing structures, undressing dummies, the container exploded; the questions started to make sense and the answers drizzled replacing words with looks, the colours of the painting mixed to create a new one, an unknown, irresistible.

Now I am lost as I have never been before, but if I have to go back to take the real steps, I want to spend the rest of my walk feeding myself with “crazies” like you that even in the total darkness and silence can see thousand of colours, dimensions, sounds and songs.