Monthly Archives: November 2015

Struck in a moment I can’t get out of

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Less Zooropa than Zoolander, was my thought just before being struck by a flying missile. That’s precision karma for you. With an unnerving 15 ft between us, it confirmed Bono’s supernatural powers as limitless. They include orchestrating the perfect collision between hands holding an iPhone aloft, and my fella’s bouncing head to send the device crashing down on top of mine.

Welcome to The Bono School for Cynics that Can’t Enjoy Good and Want To Take Other Unnecessary Swipes Too. Or the last Dublin show of U2’s tour.

For my fella, it’s his third, and final, pilgrimage. A culmination of a month spent curating set-lists and judiciously selecting social media commentary to concur with his quiet fanaticism and hunt for the next live high. All of which are speculated on intensely through rear-view discussions with his mate on the drive down. They casually shed layers on arrival to reveal their respective vintage t-shirts while barely concealing their pride. They compliment one another’s clobber, but it’s really an exercise in cross-checking tracklists from tours emblazoned across their backs. It’s a draw. But I wish one of them would beat his chest.

They are here in their capacity as die-hards, holding out for the ditch and switch of songs; seeking negligible improvements in the tightening musicianship discernible only to a zealot’s ear. Edge’s signature guitar sound seems intact to me, but I’m confident I could take on this one-trick pony in a parallel park-off without much effort. Adam Clayton remains all tall and aloof, but Miriam O’Callaghan would make for a credible enough stand-in. And Larry Mullen Jr. Well, he’s no Animal, but he’ll do.

 

U2 live

Miriam and Bono

(pic: Rolling Stone)

I’m here in my capacity as erstwhile fan/designated driver, shamelessly open to manipulation and nostalgia; fully expecting a few obstructions to both in the shape of Bono’s mawkish sentimentality and political sloganeering.

All are delivered with brash neck and an almighty two-fingered salute to the likes of me and my ilk. You have to hand it to them for having the regard to harness their team’s creative energies into assembling a catwalk that has Bono strutting through the annals of his own LED screened youth. Elaborate visuals that successfully erase such follies as Slade and Yes albums. For that’s what we mainly find peering through our innocent teenage eyes as experienced adults – the shells of extremes. From record sleeved claims to cultural endurance (The Clash, Kraftwerk), to remnants of all over bruising from emotional blows (love, bereavement).

The show is an unapologetic attempt to chronicle the inspirational sources of U2’s oeuvre into neat files marked innocence and experience. From the personal to the political. It works best when addressing the former. Bono’s early musical responses to grief are revived with a pulsating I Will Follow.  Footage of his bridal mother, whose death threatened to derail him at 14, provides the backdrop to his plaintive cries in the more recent Iris with surprisingly touching results.

Less convincing are clunky attempts to tie up political loose ends and draw neat parallels between armed conflict then and now. I’ve lamented the passing of the authentic protest song movement here before, and Sunday Bloody Sunday unleashes its own peculiar red mist compounded by the cheap and exploitative theatrical stunt accompanying it tonight. As with much of U2’s musical stabs at political  protest, it’s an unashamed triumph of style over substance. Crude revisionist simplifications dumb it down further to the depth of its ringtone. Troubled Northern Ireland segues into present day Syria with a swift change of tempo. Chalk it up to wilful innocence, just for tonight. This is what this show is all about.

But, best avoid a speaker landing on my head, so enough churlishness. As the old adage goes, if you can’t beat him up, join him. So I surrender to the heady mix of begrudged good will and hitch a lift on the crowd’s energy with my fading innocence grabbing me by my rickety hips to give my eyes a run for their roll. The rest is predictable anthemic history. They came. We saw. They conquered.

Top marks to my fella for giving Bono top marks for leaving Andrea Corr at home to stick pins into her Imelda May voodoo doll while the latter joined himself and Panti for a karaoke trot through Desire. A conspiracy no less.

Top 5…Dire imports from America

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As anti-Black Friday fever sweeps across the nation, threatening to destabilise the parish of Cardinal Joe Duffy, and provoke Matt Cooper into knocking himself out with his own mock incredulity, let’s take a moment to consider some other dodgy American imports to our land. Begorrah.

  1. Ambitious women

I can’t remember when it happened exactly. It possibly coincided with the arrival of cappuccinos and those 20 ft inflatable Santas people erect on their gable walls at Christmas. With a straight face. Until then, Irish women were either teachers or volunteers with Saint Vincent de Paul, depending on their age. Now they’re nobody unless they’re doing both and holding down a job, sorry, a career, that involves trips to a board-room in heels to lean in to (unless they’re expressing) while writing about how empowering it is at precisely the same time. Won’t somebody please think of the dinner? Oh wait, they’ve done that, too.

2. Westboro Baptist Church

I must choose my words carefully here, otherwise WordPress will spinelessly cough up hefty hush money once it’s slapped with a solicitor’s letter threatening legal action over my apparent defaming of president of its Irish wing, Breda O’Brien. Ah fuck it, what do I care. This is the internet after all. Here goes..

ALL PUBLIC OPINION IS SUBJECT TO A GOOD KICKING, BREDA!

P.S. Pray for me.

3. Bono

Coming over here and taking our leafy suburbs working class streets for his inspiration.

4. Racism

I’m not saying we’ve anything against white middle-class singers coming over here and taking our inspiration but…

5. Obesity

Taking our humble spud, chopping it up and sticking it in the fryer, smothering it with taco sauce and placing them next to a double cheese burger and a gallon of coke.  It’s enough to.. *crushed in stampede*

black friday.png

Would you like some self-control with that?

6. Dating

Sobriety. Cutlery. Talking.

Bring back that most reliable of mating klaxons: The National Anthem.

Yeah, I know this is more than 5. I was never any good at math. Which reminds me..

7. Awesome

Grand. Ach alright.

Where exactly on this spectrum should we suppose this fits?

Awesome me star spangled arse.

Silence

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Human beings suffer, they torture one another…

Of the umpteen ways I torture my fella, I’m guessing urging him to have an opinion is way up there among the top five. Somewhere between insisting he demonstrate what my snoring sounds like, and launching a late-night screed on the meaning of life, just as he’s about to fall asleep.

“What do you think?” That most feared refrain guaranteed to have him turn away to (I suspect) chew his fist before  re-arranging his features from Munch’s Scream into a mild-mannered shrug.

As folk with a neurotic disposition towards shrugs can verify, this is enough to send the most stable of us hurtling towards righteous despair in the time it takes the shrugger to add a fake pout to dupe the other into thinking they’re formulating an opinion. Only they’re not. There is nothing at the end of the pout except “what do you want me to say?” And the only thing to follow that with is “have an opinion!” (exclamation mark optional) It’s our very own special torture routine.

Sometimes, when I’m bored, or hungry, I call him up to find out what he’s had for lunch. Just for the predictably forensic detail, right down to the order of item consumption. All delivered without the hint of deviation from a straight face. For some quality dirty talk, I’ll ask him to detail the  contents of his desk-tidy, or to read a paragraph from something he’s working on, pausing to highlight the semi-colons, like he’s reading a telegram. He uses a lot of semi-colons in his work, so I tend to pardon his reluctance for over-thinking things back on Earth. Where over-thinking is a world away from not thinking about things at all, which would require some heavy sedation and a well-insulated cave without electricity.

It’s just he doesn’t feel the need to externalise his thoughts all the time. Torturous though it can be, it’s still one of the top five reasons I fell for him. It frees up more air-time for me, and, in a double whammy way, ensures his scarcity of words command more attention. The fucker. It’s also as valid – and sometimes necessary – a response as any other.

So we sat side-by-side last week watching events unfold in Paris. Four lips clamped shut by shock and an uneasiness from the almost voyeuristic immediacy of real-time events. Modern warfare as we have come to know it.

Eventually one of us stood up. “I’m going to bed”, he sighed without another word.

 

Running to stand still

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“Was the realtor here then?” I enquired on detecting the ‘For Sale’ sign in front of the house. I never get to say realtor with a straight face, or in a context appropriate situation, so I wasn’t going to pass up the opportunity. Or pretend to be a grown-up like my fella and utter the words ‘estate agent’ with disturbing maturity. Until now, I’ve managed to navigate life without slipping into the void between immaturity and death otherwise known as mortgage. But having failed to read the small print on the marriage vows, it transpires that what’s his is mine; and what’s ours is now being dealt with by a pre-pubescent with enough positivity to make your average children’s TV presenter sound like Christopher Lee.

Ever since I was persuaded to ink half the deal on a new house, I’ve been experiencing strange new ailments that demand a second opinion from Google. It turns out that worry over “how far back does a credit check go?” and “random but intense curtain envy” are symptoms consistent with stage III conformity. It’s probably terminal and will likely culminate in a B & Q loyalty card. Sadly, many of my friends and family have succumbed to its vicious clutches. I’ve seen the devastating effects of decking.

for sale

One second-hand soul. Only one owner.

In exchange for a reasonable sized mortgage ONO

Having spent the last six years delivering a regular screed on the hazards of living where we do (mental rigor mortis, hardened vowels, phantom bell’s palsy), and jointly hatching escape routes from same, it has become something of a hysterical laugh that we’re condemned to settle a mile out the road. Forever. As cosmic jokes go, it’s one of the best. The more florid the alternatives became (Toronto! Leitrim! Mongolia! ) the more inevitable the end result. On the plus side, we can never go on holiday again so all complaining is not lost.

Determination – reality + wishful thinking x one party’s chronic immaturity. You do the math s.

If you’re going to wear a poppy, wear a white one

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weegingerdug's avatarWee Ginger Dug

Every year the poppy parading gets earlier and earlier like Christmas adverts. The poppy police have been out in force since mid October, complaining that there are people on the telly not bearing the obligatory badge of British militarism. If you don’t wear a poppy you don’t support the troops, and if you don’t support the troops then you’re practically a member of ISIS.

It’s not enough to remember the dead in your own way. It’s not allowed to light a quiet candle in your heart. It’s not permitted to make a donation in private to a charity of your choice. You have to make a show of it. You have to make a public display in an establishment approved manner, a way that doesn’t challenge or question, a way that won’t rock any boats or change anything that the powerful do. Poppies are the regimentation of remembrance. We remember…

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Merry pop-ins

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Our one’s teacher doesn’t walk, she glides. I imagine birds circle her head every morning chirping Taylor Swift songs as she clicks her fingers to summon the perfect hair-bun before fiddling her gossamer wings into a timeless dress that floats behind her like a magic carpet tucked into her knickers. I haven’t had a crush on a teacher since Miss O’Shea when I was 13, yet here I am kneeling next to a three-year old smiling just as inanely up at one without the excuse of an inability to go the toilet unaccompanied, or distinguish between the sleuth talents of our neighbour’s jack russell and Scooby Doo.

Stepping into her enchanted castle  office for the parent/teacher meeting, I was presented with a detailed progress report. After initial thoughts of “what the fuck?”, I concluded it was a good job since I was mesmerised by her green liquid eyeliner. So evenly applied. So compatible with her skin tone. So not more than 28 …Sorry, what was that?.. Oh yes… hand-to-eye coordination. I nodded earnestly, equal parts impressed and alarmed by the A4 breakdown. Impressed they’d obviously paid her considerable attention since arrival; alarmed she’d only been there a matter of weeks but was already firmly lodged in The System. Not to mention disappointed my own mother never got to experience a thumbs-up report on me.

In my day *pipe lip-smacks* reports were strictly the preserve of secondary school; intercepted, of course. At three years of age, there was a good chance I hadn’t yet reached the developmental milestone of helping myself to an extended lunch-break. We’re in the golden age of school reports, I reasoned; an opportune time to register any non-threatening concerns either of us have. Enjoy it while it lasts. Ten years from now I’ll be drowning in thought infested waters struggling to offer a reasonable explanation for why she fired soggy bog-roll up at the gym ceiling.

Unsurprisingly, I learned she waits until she’s home to externalise her thoughts on all of life’s injustices. Her Dad will be proud she isn’t bringing shame on the family, I scoffed. Following in his footsteps, she looked bewildered as her Granny later commended her on the report. Oh no, here comes the merits-of-a-career-in-medicine talk. I jest. That’s not for another year.

I maintained a steady ambivalence about it all, interrupted by an irrational rant on the dangers of making pat assessments so early on in a child’s life. Then I bumped into Ashleen, who supervises the breakfast club. We get to call her by her first name so already we’re on the level, and I don’t smile like I’m on something, like sleep deprivation, or Skype. Without a desk between us, she reminisced about the quiet girl that turned up in the first week compared to the one full of chat now, who gets the jokes and is not afraid to a crack a few of her own. Sounded to me like she had her down pat.

Suggestions for teachers unsure what to do with children opting out of sacramental preparation

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  1. Have them listen to an entire Mumford & Sons album and ask them to re-assess their view on the possible existence of The Devil
  2. Original sins: Get them to think up and agree a new one, thereby developing their capacity for moral reasoning and consensus
  3. Role play: The Silent Majority. Get them to just sit still and say absolutely nothing (Confirmation class age only)
  4. Host a Q & A session with Jim Corr. Facilitate them to decide which one of them will be Jim Corr (Communion class age only)
  5. Play Spot the Difference:

enyachris de burgh

Chris de Burgh                        Enya

Top 5… soundtracks of our lives Part One

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walk across the rooftops

A Walk Across The Rooftops – The Blue Nile

The title track came hurtling through an old fashioned one-piece earphone attached to my Da’s wee transistor radio I used to sneak to bed for Mark Cagney’s Nightrain. Showing me vintage there. The radio was later confiscated by my Irish teacher when she discovered I was using it as a life-support machine in her class. Was just stepping into my teens and devouring all the music I could get me ears on. Cut to our school tour months later…Golden Discs on Middle Abbey St. (RIP). A Cure album in one paw, The Blue Nile in the other, just enough dabs for one. Plonked the former back on the shelf and a lifetime’s soundtrack was born. Paul Buchanan was designed by nervous angels with a caffeine habit and a fondness for getting their harps out in the dead of night.

Hatful of Hollow – The Smiths

1985. Electricity has recently arrived. Wow. Motor cars, battery powered sheep, and now electric carving knives men can buy as presents for their wives at Christmas. People are euphoric, wild with excitement. Meanwhile, in my brother’s bedroom I delicately place a two-pence coin on the record player needle to help its journey over that scratch in the middle of the first line after Johnny Marr’s clinker of a lead-in. “Punc…tured-punc…tured-punc…tured”. Rarely works. Always needs slight pressure from the index finger to get it past check-in. Too much pressure and it’s fucked. “Punc-tured (holds breath).. bicycle on a hillside desolate”. And we’re off (checks naff hairdo in mirror)

The Lion & the Cobra – Sinead O’Connor

I remember it, Dublin in a rainstorm. Sitting in the long grass in summer, thinking we were cool freezing our balls off. We were so young then I thought that everything we could possibly do was right. I know different now.

Closing Time – Tom Waits

London by night. A room in a house in a street in a city where the neons stay lit longer than the dreams of most dreamers washed up there. The re-grouping is complete; time to return and find the one willing to waltz around to Little Trip to Heaven. Any old kitchen’ll do.

Boxer – The National

I think you’ll like this, she says, handing over a copy to him, correct ink pen used to delicately write the track-list. One misfit chaperoned two others home through an album of sonic anxiety played out through four speakers crisscrossing the country in opposite directions. Was it the second meeting or third? The album sounds like 1:30am behind the wheel on the open road, getting blinded by the headlights of your on-coming thoughts and the realisation of what might be. They share a tiny kitchen with enough space for bad dancing.