shame 2

Whoops...although the previous post might be construed, for its very succinctness, as a commentary on all western behaviour towards discovery in another world or one alien to its own, it was, simply, a mistake. For even this world of cyber technology is alien and untested to the likes of me. No, I felt shame in the past week when I viewed tv programmes about the church's collusion in covering up child abuse by its own members and then about church members defending that collusion. I felt shame when I overheard a customer in the pub I work in try to explain to her father that Hitler could not be blamed for the death camps because his signature never appeared on the death orders so he could not have known what was going on in the death camps. I felt shame when I watched Colin Farrell in a movie called The New World; not for Colin, whose acting, I thought, was exemplary, but because it portrayed the blindness with which the western world savaged those so-called savage lands of the new world, their people and their culture. I felt shame again when I considered how we waste our lives in the relentless pursuit of wealth to satisfy our greed and forget that the word is true then as it was in the beginning; that dust we art and into dust we shall return. You can't bring it with you, brother, sister. You can opnly wear one suit at a time; live in one home at a time and eat one meal at a time, so surely there's enough for us all?
Have we forgotten how to welcome strangers, share our lives and our homes? Have we forgotten the old Irish traditions of hospitality, not unlike, I must point out, those inherent in Muslim traditions when a stranger seeks shelter, it must be given for it is the will of Allah...it is also the will of ordinary decency and a humanity, apparently, forgotten.

shame

rant on a saturday

It was probably, on reflection, an inappropriate time for a first date. Saturday night in Dublin - so far, so good - meet in a city pub and then go for dinner, somewhere intimate, cosy and serving quality food, reasonably priced.
So, eliminating all the overpriced and pretentious, you had to think cheap and cheerful; convivial.
My date had a wheat intolerance issue - not coeliac, just prone to bloating, she explained. Sympathising, I ticked my favourite pizzeria off the list.
And where to meet? Well, the first obstacle was the football. Ireland was playing the first leg of the World Cup qualifier against France in Croke Park. If you weren't at the game, you were almost certainly in a pub, nursing a pint and watching the game with your mates on a big screen.
The first pub I suggested was Neary's of Chatham St, the only pub I knew in the city without a tv. Of course, it's near Pizza Stop, my favourite pizzeria but that was no longer our dining destination.
My date fancied French food, oblivious to the implications of having the customary Gallic shrug replaced by a Gallic gloat, in the event of a score in favour of the visitors.
Although I knew Le Geuleton on Fade St did not entertain bookings, I thought I might have a punt at it anyway. The girl on the line confirmed my suspicions but then suggested I come in at 6.30, put my name on a list and then wait for the summons. Luckily I was sitting down or I would have staggered.
I booked Chez Max instead. It's a tiny place but cosy and reeking of garlic and Gallic charm. One very long table in the centre of the room was occupied by a rather noisy birthday party who, when they weren't whooping and hooting, were telling everyone else to 'shush.' They were Irish.
There was a big screen and yes, it was showing the match but the sound wasn't turned up; the staff were discreet about the solitary French goal and I sat with my back to it anyway which was no bad thing when I heard how boring it turned out to be. So all in all, a splendid night was had apart from the phone call to Le Geuleton, a drafty, overpriced monument with Gallic arrogance.

income cuts? look, no gun...no mask!

So all the hens have come home to roost and there's nowhere to set themselves. Not that all the income real estate has been taken over by foreign workers either. They're going home, slowly and for many, reluctantly. Ireland provided a good living and they worked hard for it. Indeed, as this country grew fatter, its workers grew lazy so all the marginal, workforce entry level, service and shit shoveling jobs were snapped up by immigrant workers. When you grow fat it's harder to lose it than it was to gain it. Young Irish workers need to learn to work hard.
They don't need to work for less money though. This really gets my goat. First, income levies and now the spectre of income cuts. First, they'll freeze public service pay for twelve months and extract levies to the bone while they're doing it. It's only a matter of time before the private sector gets it. In the current economic climate, we can't afford to pay people this much...that's what you'll hear.
My work hasn't changed. I'll work an hour or two more. I'll use every skill available to me to get business for my employer, improve our turnover, increase our profits and keep me in a job. I have no problem with that. I grew up working and I've seen recessions come and go. That this one has been different there is no doubt. We (they told us) rose higher than we ever imagined we could go before. But, to paraphrase the immortal words of Jimmy Cliff, the harder they come, the harder they fall. And 'we' apparently, had a long way to fall.
Never mind that I can't remember ever being up there, riding the 'Tiger's back, so to speak. No, you could leave that to the high fliers in Anglo-Irish, Bank of Ireland and AIB; the builders and developers, the speculators, the land grabbers and the out and out chancers who bought fancy suits, took flying lessons, bought flash motors with V8 engines and holiday homes in Marbella.
In the meantime, I've been doing what a lot of other people have been doing; living my life, muddling through, paying for what I need, using what I've got and borrowing nothing. More than ten years since I cleared my last debt, I'm paying other people's debts; the debts of those same speculators, bankers, chancers and Bengal Lancers. Those who purport to govern this situation took their eyes off the ball while their greedy mincers were stuck on how they got their share. Share of what? the air in a balloon? No, taxpayers' money when they could fiddle expenses; developers' money when there was an opportunity.
When will we wise up and see we are ruled, not governed. Find me a politician who can spell 'democracy' and I'll show you a naiive fool.

Cabaret, craparet!

Whoever let that appalling production of Cabaret onto a Dublin stage has a lot to answer for. I caught this tacky parody on its last night in the Gaeity and if it wasn't for the songs, I would have legged it from the theatre in disgust.
This production, featuring Wayne Sleep as the M.C., was tacky like the carpet of a suburban pub lounge in the smoking days. None of the original film's underlying themes were evident in any substance; the latent homosexuality and sexual confusion, the racism, the rise of the Nazis, the latent violence, the cutting commentary and parody.
Instead, there was an obsession with whether Wayne Sleep could dance anymore, given his age and then, when he did manage a few faltering steps, the expected gushing applause. It was enough to make me puke.
There was a famous stripper in the United States back in the '70s. Her name was Chesty Morgan and her unsiliconed 70 inch chest was a frightening sight to behold. Chesty became a minor celebrity and made a couple of films as a secret agent who smothered counter agents to death by enveloping them with her massive mammaries. In her latter years, she made guest appearances in tacky nightclubs; her act? she sat in a chair, wriggled about and tried, often failing, to teeter upright and standing. I'd rather watch her than Wayne Sleep.

Moonlight Mile

I love music and I can never hear enough of it. I like it played with passion, not aggression although sometimes both are present and necessary. I've never bothered too much about the vinyl vs cd debate but in this day and age of flacs, mp3s and mp4s, you can't help but notice there's something going down. I download. Just about everyone does these days. I buy cds too because often the quality of downloadable mp3 is noticeably inferior to the hard product. That's why I've gone back to my vinyl collection.
It all began when I bought one of those decks with a USB connection. I thought if I could download all my vinyl, convert the music to mp3, that I could store it all away for peerpetuity. It was easier said than done. Some of the vinyl was too messed up to survive the transition. Some that did carry the hiss, spit and crackle of scratched vinyl, like party graffiti from the old days. Having vinyl put you closer in touch with what you were handling. You could get all anal and trainspotterish about it. Buy valve amps and talk about your equipment, ad nauseum.
But vinyl did give you more control over what you were listening to; the better the amp and speakers, the better the sound. And a good cartridge and stylus were essential.
I dug my old stereo system out of storage two years ago. Yesterday I spent €80 on a new cartridge and stylus. Today I've been listening to Black's Wonderful Life album and it sounds magnificent. But best of all was Moonlight Mile, that haunting blues track that closes The Rolling Stones' Sticky Fingers album.
And there's another thing...y'see, back then, an album was an album. It was something you picked up and studied. You studied the cover, the art work, the attributions, the credits, the lyrics. Then you listened to it from start to finish, A side and B side. There was no cherry picking songs, no random play facility, no playlists. You bought the album in good faith, believing the artist could deliver what they promised. If they didn't, you never played it again and you badmouthed the artist in the playground. I think I'm gonna listen to some J.J.Cale...