Uiscebots Blog

First Fortnight, Don't Go There, Three Men, interpersed with a walk in the park.

2012-01-10T16:41:00.000-08:00

Walking the dog along the edge of a pitch dark park tonight with the wind in my face is the closest thing I've felt to being alive in a long time. Getting old is fucking annoying isn't it? Every action becomes one you've done before. It can get a little frightening. But at least the city was there, on the horizon - laughing orange, shining newness, and movement.

Why am I telling you this? Because I'm interspersing my diary like ramblings with news, self promotion and weak segues that's why.

I'm doing a gig tomorrow night in the Workman's Club. I'm really looking forward to it because it's for First Fortnight which aims to challenge Mental Health issues through Creative Arts. A commendable endeavour peeps - and one close to my heart. Clink on this linkypoos - buy a ticket or two and come along...

The horizon of city lights get boring after a while (what doesn't) I found my focus slipping into the darkness in between, where the people are. But you have to be careful staring in to the Dubh linn - the black pool - be careful getting into it because it's getting into you...

Other shit worth sharing/recording is that my first poetry collection will be published in 2012 with Salmon. It'll be called Don't Go There, will have a psycho-geographical feel and hopefully a nice cover. It's great to feel like I've arrived at a certain point with poetry - especially accompanied by fellow, and waay better, Dublin Poet John Murphy who will be launching his book 'The Book of Water' with Salmon at the same time. John is one of my favourite poets and a hero of mine for many reasons not worth mentioning here because...

Segue!

The clouds looked mad - bulbous and glorious, lit up white and bright by the city's lights. And the swirl of them. It's hard to get your head around sometimes. So much beauty and so little point. And the moon up there too. Unreachable. Beaming down like a joke. A neh neh neh neh neh from the cosmos. Well fuck you moon. I'm onto you - metaphorically...

Also, tomorrow I'll be meeting with the other two blokes from Three Men Talking About Things They Kinda Know About to discuss the once off January showcase of our play. We're hoping to tour it in Spring/early Summer, not just the play, but a short slam session and/or Q and A too, so the audience gets more out of the experience. Exciting times. Here's hopng we get a nice run of shows.

Did I say run? Speaking of which, I like to run with the dog. Having a dog is fucking weird. It does things to you. You find yourself saying things like 'ah lookitim - he's happy. Ah let him at it, he's enjoying himself' when really you're talking about yourself. It's like you create this familiar to let yourself off the leash but it doesn't really work.

Anyway I didn't get to run. I kept falling out of my half eaten shoe (thanks dog).

My dog is called Anto by the way - it's supposed to be ironic but it doesn't really work. The name not the dog. The dog is not ironic. An ironic dog would be a cat.

Right - back to the poeming.

Shamone

The Poetry Bus 2 interview

2011-08-26T03:36:00.000-07:00

How do Folkies

Tis mad busy here but I had to drop everything to post this interview with Peadar O Donaghue - the wonderfully passionate creator of the self funded and much loved Poetry Bus. Which will be launching it's second issue in the Glor Sessions on September 12th. Check it out here.

http://thepoetrybus.blogspot.com/

And now to the nitty spitty.

Peadar, please explain what the poetry bus is and how it came about.

The Poetry Bus is the next best poetry magazine in the world. The
first best is The SHOp. But I want the Poetry Bus to be the greatest
poetry magazine in the world which is a totally different kettle of
oysters altogether. The mag evolved form a weekly poetry task I set
on my now defunct blog totalfeckineejit. I , like most people, wasn't
too keen on Monday. So I thought we could brighten it up by getting
people to write and post a poem on that day. It worked, it kind of
took off, and some of the poems were so good I thought they deserved
to be 'properly' published. So the Poetry Bus Magazine was born.

Peadar nobody likes poetry, so why bother bring out a mag, and at
your own expense?

Because I'm a deluded alcoholic moron.

How did the last edition do?

Fucking great.

I took a bunch of poetry buses to Nighthawks to sell, unfortunately
I only sold one (to Dave Lordan). The rest were left there for
collection the next day but went missing. Where would you say they
went?

I have forensic proof that aliens took them to see how earth
people express themselves. Also if you only sold one what better
person to sell it to than Mr Lordan. And what a tight- fisted bunch
the rest were, did they get free tickets to Nighthawks?

I've heard you feed your pet dog whiskey, which is disgraceful,
because Dog's like Gin. What do you use as a mixer?

All joking aside, I would never waste whiskey on a dog. Pedigree
chum makes a good mixer though.

The Arts council refused to give you any money for this project -
did they give you a valid reason?

I have reasons why I didn't bother applying to The Arts Council
this time. But I did apply to the local (Wicklow) Arts office and was
rejected. I'll ask them tomorrow why that was. I'd be almost curious
to know meself!

What are the criteria for getting into/onto the poetry bus?

Write a poem that I like, or draw an illustration that I like, or
send me € 50 in a brown envelope.

Illustrations feature strongly in the Poetry Bus mag. This
increases cost and makes your job harder, why did you think the mag
needed artwork?

I just think they really work well together.And I love art and
illustation, a painting is just a visual poem, a poem perhaps is a
verbal painting.

And I believe that the creative process for both is the same. That
the poet or the artist have a mood, an ache, an itch, a problem, a
question, a dilemma, an anger, a joy, a sensation, an urge that culminates
in a poem or a picture.

The featured artist in PB2 is Adam Neate and he said of painting ' You
start with a number of questions. You battle, you fight, you
persevere. The painting is finished when the questions have been
answered.'

And Dylan Thomas described writing a poem as a process that began with
an image based on the emotions which then bred conflicting images
within an intellectual framework until the contradictions were
resolved in ' that momentary peace which is a poem'

Both these statements struck me as being profoundly true.

Who would you hate to have on the Poetry Bus?

Bertie Ahern, Margaret Thatcher, Stephen Fry, Roger McGough, Ian
Holloway, Frankie Boyle, Freddie Kruger, The Beatles, anybody who
isn't Japanese that writes Haiku or supports Liverpool FC, and above
all, Me.

What's it like being from the country. I heard it's dark for six
months of the year and everything runs on turf.

Sheer hell Colm. It is dark, not only from dawn till dusk, but from
birth till death, we culchie troglodytes are forced into not only
burning turf, but worshiping it and occasionally eating it. We have to
marry our sisters and sacrifice our first born to the Gods of Lotto.
If it wasn't for basking in the reflections of ye bright shiny
Jackeens we wouldn't survive at all.

Are there reviews in this edition of the mag? If yes for by whom? If
not - Do you plan to work some in.

No. But It's something I want to get into. There will be at least
one or two reviews in PB3 (The Christmas Special) and several book
recommendations. ALL DEPENDENT ON US GETTING SUPPORT AT FUNDIT.IE for
PB 2!!

You used to blog as Totalfeckineejit (from whence the Poetry bus was
born) but have stopped. Why? And what was going on with those bleedin' masks you used to wear?

TFE was a figment of my imagination but I don't have a very good
imagination but fortunately it was good enough to imagine that I had a
good imagination capable of imagining TFE. But then I sobered up.

The masks are purely because I is irresistible to women and I don't
want to be tormenting them with my beauty.

Given the lack of funding you've decided to set up a fund-it
campaign. Did it work for you?

A) Fundit.ie is brilliant, I can't recommend it highly enough, it is
the way ahead, it's the alternative for the alternative. We reached our target easily in the end. Which is fantastic
in these tough times.

You're known throughout internetland as a raging alcoholic who posts
mental facebook status updates at three in the morning or from the
depths of your delirium tremens. How does your wife feel about this?

I've just asked her and she says she doesn't mind so long as I
don't wake her when I'm going to bed.

Who'd win in a fight between Howard Stern or Pat Kenny.

I met Pat Kenny once outside St Teresas in Clarendon Street and
despite all my preconceived ideas of him being a plank and stuff he
was really nice, but he had a strong handshake and he would definitely
batter that arsehole Stern.

And that's that. You can buy the poetry bus mag here.

Dave Lordan - Clonakilty Special Branch

2011-03-24T03:11:00.000-07:00

Dave Lordan, one of my favourite poets, is just back from a Mini-tour of Newfoundland. I was very interested in how he got on and invited him to guest blog here about it.

And so Dave very kindly sent me a story about Clonakilty.

Well actually, he told me he was working on the aforementioned story and I said I'd like to post it instead. We might get around to the Canadian shenanigans later.

Dave also performed twice at the DLR poetry Now festival this weekend. I saw him at 'For This: Poems for our Ireland'. Someone jokingly called it 'lets all wring our hands for Ireland' but it was quite good to be fair, Dermot Bolger, Senator Norris, Leanne O Sullivan, Miriam O Callaghan, Kavanagh Award judge Brian Lynch, punk poet ledgebag Jinx Lennon amongst others reflecting on our current circumstances.

And Seamus Heaney was in the audience. I didn't know until afterwards. There I was acting all too cool for school and then yer man Famous Shaymus comes out the door and I was actually a bit star struck. Fame man, it's like a pheromone.

You don't get to be in presence of such a genius everyday so, never being one to miss an opportunity, I duly crossed the room and head-butted him.

Course I did.

Anyways. Here's Dave's story.

Clonakilty Special Branch

Towards the end of February I was scavenging pine cones with my brother from the row of dark, sheltering pine trees that separate the old GAA pitch from Waldashaff Park.

Waldaschaff Park is beside the Model Village on a patch of leftover land in front of the water treatment plant, and on the crest of the hill that marks the start of the Inchadoney Road. You can see, and smell, Inchadoney Bay from there. The smell is not bad now, more salt than shit, due to the treatment plant.

Waldaschaff is the name of a village in Bavaria twinned with Clonakilty since 1989. The town council built the little park to mark the twinning. You might wonder why the town’s wise burghers chose to build the twinning park right beside the sewage facility, a most unlikely place to picnic and take the air. I think it is because they believed that the universal capacity to produce endless amounts of shit is what unites us across national borders. They are right. The unceasing nature of shit is something we all have to deal with.

These days, evidently, no-one looks after Waldaschaff Park. Its stone paths have overgrown, its gates are chainlocked, its melancholy benches are flaking and cracking with years of drizzle and woodrot. To pause and peruse and especially to enter the dilapidated park invites suspicion. Only those with some underhand purpose could have any use for the place.

We hopped over the low slate wall. Joseph made straight for the pine trees that run along the raised border with the remains of the GAA pitch. Much of the GAA pitch is now occupied by the recession halted construction of unoccupied and unsellable ‘luxury’ or even ‘boutique’ apartments. It had been intended, before the bust, to be ‘Clonakilty’s Waterfront.’ In fact, it’s nothing but a hideaway for gluesniffers and rodents.

The rest of the pitch, the part nearer to us, was still grass, being kept down by seven or eight old horses, belonging to local travellers. They were tethered up loosely there, drowsily munching away on the grass they spend their lives transforming into shit, which in turn fertilises the soil to produce copious grass.

Next to the vainglorious fuck-up and waste of ‘The Waterfront’, destined to cave-in or collapse, these rough, shoddy old survivors looked like the truly long-lasting and significant monuments.

There was some manshit hidden in the untended grasses of Waldaschaff Park. I had to avoid stepping in it at the same time as watching where the pine cones were landing in the grass- they were plopping down all over the place at a rate of three or four a minute now.

Nothing disgusts like manshit on your shoe. Give me dog shit anytime. Or horseshit. Horsehit hardly even stinks.

Between the pine cones and the shit there was also a randomly distributed selection of faded liquor cans, empty flagons, and broken green bottles. Weather-bleached chocolate-bar wrappers. A scorched circle that had been a bonfire a long time ago.

I didn’t want to look into the bushes or the tall grass around the edges of Waldashaff Park. You wouldn’t know what would turn up on an irish catholic wasteground. I didn’t fancy a caul or a fucking foetus stuck to the bottom of my shiny new slip-ons.

Pine cones burn and glow like the best of coal, and they last for hours, and they’re free. When Joseph was done climbing and plucking, and I had filled the large shopping bag, the house in Fairfield would have fuel for two or three nights to come.

I had arrived down the previous afternoon from Cork City, where I had done a reading as part of the Cork Spring Literary Festival. It had been grey and damp when I got in, but not raining. It was another small town weekday with nothing much for anyone to do but suppress their urges to do something mental to make the time pass quicker towards the weekend, when going mental is obligatory.

Everybody would be better off around here if they were just like those horses, just ate grass and shat. No need for prozac or alcohol then.

I sat and stretched out on the sofa, flicking between the 400 or so channels my parents have on their TV. It was mostly news I watched. The Libyan revolt was going well at the time. Whole cities were falling to the youth. I love it when the police, those riff-raff and half-wits with their tear gas and batons and worse, and dressed up like beetles from Pluto, are run out of a place. There’s no better sight upon this earth. I could watch police being thrashed and run out of it all day long. If cop-thrashing was on in the cinema I’d never leave the place.

The evening turned out a bit milder and, as the light declined, Joseph and I took a walk around the ring and up to St Mary’s graveyard, on top of a hill on the other, northern side of town. Joseph has an intimate knowledge of the graveyard and he was able to show me the plots that held the remains of many old friends, neighbours and acquaintances, many of them young men who had died by their own design. It slapped me awake to be reminded, one after another, in the particular sequence imposed by our walk and the layout of the graveyard, of all of these departed I had once shared the small territory of Clonakilty with.

I never heard of a policeperson killing him/herself. Why is that?

I am a kind person generally but my imagination is a cruel and mocking old bastard, toying with worst of possibilities all the time. How many towns in the world could Clonakilty twin with based on its suicide rate? Suicide Park, anyone? Of Shit and Suicide- A Local Guide! Perhaps, somewhere down the long tracks of future desperation, the tourism mandarins would have us rebrand ourselves as the shit and suicide capital of the western world, and put such on large glittering neon signs on all the approaches to the town. I saw Joseph then as the chief guide on the grand shit and suicide tour of Clonakilty, loving his work, surviving by it. It’s a science fiction story. A science fiction comedy. Someone should write it down. To think it is enough for me.

Anyway in a half an hour or so we had made our way all along the row of five or six pine trees and were down in the corner now right up against the fence surrounding the sewage plant. The shopping bag was brimming over with pine cones. They’re heavy in bulk. It would take the two of us to carry the bag of them home, a handle each, side by side.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw a tall man approach us through the grass. I didn’t figure it at first. At first I thought it was just some guy out for a stroll or walking his dog, or looking for a good place to take a shit. I wasn’t bothered either that he was staring at us. I thought he was just a nosey old dickhead, of which there are a few around town.

It was then I noticed his two colleagues approaching from a slightly different angle to my rear. Some alert citizen had called the station on us and three Gardai had been sent along to find out, precisely, who we were and what we were up to.

The tall Guard reached us first. Trying to figure out what kind of an outfit we were, he scanned back and forth between us: myself stood upon the earth and Joseph high up in the pine tree, like some kind of angel or demon or woodsprite. Then- without any hint of hostility it must be said- the Guard addressed us:

Conkers lads is it that ye’re after?

Myself and the brother were momentarily frozen somewhere between hilarity and disbelief. Surely the man would know that we were as likely to be picking sapphires and rubies or melting gold watches off a fucking PINE TREE in FEBRUARY as conkers. I was surprised Joseph didn’t fall off the tree in a tsunami of laughter. But he kept his cool admirably:

No Guard, Pine Cones, said Joseph.

Pine Cones, the Guard repeated. Pine Cones. Alright, he said, and walked away, satisfied or stupefied, I don’t know which. I know he didn’t have a clue why we were gathering pine cones and that he didn’t want to ask us about it either.

A few seconds later his female colleague arrived. The third Guard, another mangarda, had decided to hang back, intending to tackle us if we breached the first line of defence I suppose. This female guard had more of the sleuth in her than the last fella and so she asked us our names and addresses, which we gave without hesitation. Whoever called them had probably told them who we were already anyway. I don't know if tree climbing or pine-gathering are on the statute books as crimes. It wouldn’t surprise me if they were. She didn’t seem interested in pursuing the matter any further though and she let us go without any further questions.

After that the three Guards went on into the sewage plant for a snoop, I guess to see if we had been interfering with it. I reckon the last place I will ever be tempted to rob or to vandalise is a sewage plant. Things could badly backfire on you there.

As soon as they had satisfied themselves that myself and the brother had not been tampering with the shit product of Clonakilty, the three Guards made their way slowly and warily out of Waldaschaff Park. They got into their marked car, and drove off intrepidly in search of Blackberry pickers and Apple scrobbers and the like. I am sure that they stopped along the way to pick some conkers off a Pine tree, and some wine gums from a gorse bush while they were at it.

Gerrup! It's the Poetry Bus!

2011-03-16T05:03:00.000-07:00

Yerp!

Tis my turn to captain the Poetry Bus!

I'll keep this quick and to the point.

Creativity should take you new places so,

You have to:

1. Go somewhere new.

2. Experience it.

3. Write about it.

If you like, you can write about an old memory that comes to mind while there (this often happens when somewhere new- if it doesn't, just write about the experience)

And you can link the experience and the memory if you're feeling adventurous.

The poem cannot be more than 40 lines long

The poem shouldn't rhyme. Aim for similar line length, giving a nice shape to the poem.

ie none of this -

I wandered lonely as a cloud
Pissing on flowers was disallowed.

I like this rule because it means I have to avoid rhyming, its one of my filthiest habits.

Seeing as this is just a bit of fun, that's not a hard and fast rule.

But break it and I will find you and kill you.

Also - somewhere new can be anywhere. But try and be imaginative, you're an artist, ya lazy bum.

Some places are off limits.

-Your house.
-Anywhere within a mile of home.
-Offaly.
-The Moon.

Go forth and poetify, my passengers.

See yiz on Monday.

The fistulous Glor sessions.

2011-02-22T01:31:00.000-08:00

Apparently fantabulous isn't a word so blogger's spellchecker gave me some options.

Fistulous sounded the most offensive so I went with that.

I didn't know what it meant so I checked it out, and lo, it means hollow, like a scallion leaf. I like that.

So yeah, I'm saying the Glor is like a tubular green chute.

Work with me here.

Stephen James Smith always performs in a way that says 'I'm the alpha male'. Chest out - a sort of classical pose. One person said to me once he looks less like a poet and more like a rugby player. Tis true. He's a big butch fat headed fucker. But that's no bad thing. The only writers I respect are the ones who can take and throw a dig. People Like Mailer - who'd get wrecked and brawl with you and then bite your ear off if he was losing.

Writers need balls.

But. With great balls comes great responsibility. Thankfully Stephen uses his Kahunas for good.

He's not only a good poet. He is a nice bloke, confident, and a great host. He uses his presence to keep people quiet. He's also very considerate to the performers - always taking the time to plug their upcoming gigs etc. And while I'm at it, to me he is the gateway to this whole burgeoning scene in Dublin. One of those peeps who Malcolm Gladwell spoke about in Tipping Point. A connector...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connector_(social)

He's a mother-fucking lynch-pin so he is.

He also has my other Malcolm Gladwell book and hasn't given it back the bollix.

He makes the Glor what it is though. Knowing so many people and working really hard to find quality acts. A poet flew over from London last night especially for fucks sake!

I fucking love the Glor. You should go. I remember realising once that true love makes you feel lucky.

Last night, with it's almost perfect balance of talent and a respectful eager audience, was like that. I was thinking this is special, a once off.

I'll never forget it.

And I was fucking SOBER! Imagine, an Irishman having fun in a pub sober. Strange times.

These are my three main reasons why last night's Glor was so special.

Marc O Reilly

http://www.marcoreillymusic.com/

A deceptively ordinary looking Irish guy with a beautiful smoky voice that doth plumb the very depths of bluesy Americana. And the things he does to his guitar could well be made illegal. He's playing a gig in town on Saturday. Well worth a look.

Harry Bird and the Rubber Wellies

http://hotdroprecords.com/harrybirdandtherubberwellies/

Harry is a Scot now living in Bilbao, Spain. The band on the night consisted of Harry plus a girl he quite possibly fell in love with while making a salad on the street (She was called Sweeney) plus Christophe, a Fiddle player. They are a folk band. They are brilliant. Not in a hollywood special effects woosh-bang-choke on your popcorn way. In a down home singing straight from the soul way. They had a sorta jokey vibe but some of their tunes had a real protest song bite to them too. They'll be playing at the Brown Bread Mixtape on Wednesday night.

Evan, the fellah down the back.

Evan was an Irish lad just back from Japan who was hoping to read some poems at the end of the night. I never got to see him read (sober and driving), but sitting beside him while the best Glor I'd ever been at unfolded was a great feeling.

He kept touching my leg.

Only messing.

So yeah. Fistulous. Like the scallion leaf in the pic. Only gigantic and welcoming, like a Luminarium tunnel, ablaze with the lithium glow of poetry and music.

And red instead of green.

Maybe that metaphor stinks like onion breath. I don't care, twas the spellcheckers fault not mine and to use the vernacular, was loike totally random. If it doesn't work so what. This is the internet bitches, nobody cares.

Women with Altitude

2011-02-07T05:02:00.000-08:00

Woman With Altitude is a poetry anthology by Bonnie Quinn Cotter and has just been published posthumously by Bradshaw Books. Here, her daughter Dorothy Cotter talks about Bonnie, the book, and growing up as a writer’s daughter.

Writing is a solitary thing, a quiet thing, a silent conversation between you and yourself. Or yourself and your creativity, your brain, your art, whatever you want to call it. Maybe you write out loud, maybe you speak into a dictaphone, maybe you roar your words into the sky. But usually you're by yourself. My mother was a writer, and she balanced the solitude of writing with the social aspects to it. For all the afternoons at the typewriter, there were evenings at poetry readings and book launches surrounded by friends, poets, peers. I have happy childhood memories of playing in our front garden in Cork with the friendly and constant clacking sound of my mother's typewriter streaming out of her open window. It was the norm, it was sunny, it was the Eighties. It was my mother's most active time as a writer. The sound of her typewriter going was often heard in our house and later, when technology evolved and Mum got her first computer, I missed the comforting clunky noise of the old writing machine.

Throughout the 1980's and 1990's my mother's poetry and short stories were published in various journals, newspapers, magazines and anthologies from the Poetry Ireland Review, Cork Literary Review and The Salmon to The Irish Times, Boston Irish, and U Magazine. She taught creative writing to adults for almost twenty years and was an inspiration to so many people. She was also a member of the Cork Women's Poetry Circle (which later became Tigh Filí) and she regularly participated in readings and other events. She founded and was editor of The Cork Yule Book which was an annual Christmas magazine. It included photography, poetry, short stories and interviews and it featured great Irish personalities such as Nell McCafferty, Paul Durcan, Molly Keane, Senator David Norris and many others. The Cork Yule Book ran every year from 1982 until 1989 and it was a big part of our lives, especially as it was produced from our home and we were all involved in the making and distribution of it. I think one of the reasons I love the smell of freshly printed glossy paper as an adult is from hanging around the printers place so much as a kid.

My mother was a born writer, it was in her bones. Throughout her life and the changes in jobs, countries and homes, writing was the throughline. The lifeline even. I imagine it was a very healing thing to do. A lot of her life was dedicated to healing. She was a social worker, a counsellor, a Reiki Master and a mother of four. So through the course of her life she looked after a lot of people. She had a brilliantly mischievous sense of humour and loved a good laugh! She was full of fun and her positivity was like a beacon. Sadly, she was taken from us too soon and after a long illness she passed away in January 2005.

Mum's poetry anthology Woman With Altitude has just been published by Bradshaw Books in Cork. My sister Lucy edited it and collaborated with Máire Bradshaw and Anna Barden over the past year or two. It is finished, it is here and I am thrilled with the result, we all are. The cover image is magical and represents Mum in many ways. The poet Thomas McCarthy wrote a very beautiful and touching foreword, he knew her well and has managed to capture the essence of her in his words. Theo Dorgan, Medbh McGuckian and Tess Gallagher all shared their impressions and insights on the collection which have been printed on the back cover. The book is such a special thing for us to have, a celebration, a legacy, a treasure chest that can be re-opened and re-discovered for many years to come.

And there you go. A real nice lady doing a real nice thing. Here's the link to the book and details on the launch - in Dublin and Cork.

http://www.bradshawbooks.com/womanwithaltitude

Woman With Altitude by Bonnie Quinn Cotter will be launched by Thomas McCarthy on Saturday February 19th at 5.30pm in The Beckett Room at the Metropole Hotel, MacCurtain Street, Cork. Theo Dorgan will launch the book in Dublin at the Irish Writers Centre on Monday 21st February at 7pm.

Reaching Richie's Freedom

2011-02-03T23:49:00.000-08:00

Wassup holmes.

Maybe that's not the way to spell holmes that but I like it - tis victorian like.

Here I haven't got much time. It's 11 minutes to 8 (worktime) and I'm a five day week Wall Street loving mofo!

I'm doing some stuff in the Bankers Pub tonight off Dame Street.

It's a fund-raiser for this play (pic above).

Fiach, myself and others performing for a few quid on the door - not bad. Fiach is really really good.

http://www.thenewtheatre.com/tnt_php/scripts/page/box_office2.php?show_id=33&gi_sn=4d2a3423a6e4a|0

It's written by Dylan Mc Donough. I was lucky enough to see him perform a short monolouge from it at the Brown Bread Mixtape last week. It's great so I'm chuffed to be involved tonight.

Anyways.

Times up.

Toodles.

Check out this lil Ledgebag

Back on the five day week and other depressing news of a recovering fucking economy

2011-01-24T14:57:00.001-08:00

So there I was working away and then the boss said sorry lads but it's a three day week for the foreseeable future and I said thanks be to god for some motherfucking change round here.

And then off I went into the wilderness like Adam getting the boot out of the belly of the Celtic Tiger and holy fuck was it invigorating. To be thrown into the world of who knows what will happen next is an electrifying shock to the systems I tells ya - a much welcomed one.

All hail not knowing what happens next. I fucking hate predicatability. And spelling.

And on that note here's a poem.

FUKC
YUO

See?

Unpredictable for the win.

Now.

What's been happening?

Well.

I have a dog.

Yeah - the best dog in the world. He's like the littlest hobo, only blonder, and not solving crimes etc, and more settled, and needing lots of exercise. Cue loads of walks and talks with strangers (people are really nice out there). And realising that our airspace is no longer our own. You can't look at the stars and wonder anymore because the FASCIST SKY IS FULL OF PIGS!!!! Bleeding police chopper. Can they not make it invisible or something.

I got a skip.

A monster skip - and it's already full. Because being fully paid up members of this capitalism shitheap we have more junk than sense. Penny's you shower of bastards. I now have three full wheelie bins and one full skip. Everything in the current house will be in the skip in ten years including the HDTV and me, you heard it here first.

I mugged a House in Galway.

Oh yeah - Dublin PWNED Galway! Yeah in your face Connaught!!!

Ah here I'm tired even typing that. I have to stop thinking I'm 18.

Galway was amazing though.

Sarah Griff - a damn good young (don't hold that against her) poet doing an MA in Galway, asked me down to chat to her classmates. I gave an hour and a half lecture, sank some pints and woke up next day in a heap with minutes to spare before my train left. Take that Galway.

I went to an Over the Edge reading too. One of the city's longest running and best loved poetry nights. Michael Cody read. The guy's got proper writing stripes. See here.

http://aosdana.artscouncil.ie/Members/Literature/Coady.aspx

Aosdana baby. Where breaking new ground means printing pictures beside poems. Wow. If that's breaking ground what's having cybersex with multiple partners while maintaining a same sex marriage in an MMORPG? Nothing compared to pictures beside poems you fucking philistine.

Coady is brilliant though. A real wordsmith. And what a voice - makes you appreciate the power of a good delivery, but not only that. He had a poem about a photograph of a couple. A photo he saw on a headstone in a graveyard in Paris. It made you panic to live. Real poetry.

Kudos to Kevin Higgins and Susan Miller Du Mars for running a great night down there for so long.

Special mention goes to Sarah Clancy - who had a perfectly timed piece about finishing the heaving hulk that was Cowen the day before he did us all the favour. These cwazy domino times are when the rhymes come true.

Also - there is such a thing as too many hamburgers.

You haven't heard the last of me Galway.

The 'House' was the hotel. I left without paying my bill. Theft I spose. But not really. I just had to run for my train. I'm all paid up now.

I'm doing some shouting this Wednesday.

Yeah. In the stags head. At the first Brown Bread Mixtape of 2011. I always get drunk at this event because they give all the acts free pintage (keep em coming Kalle).

Here's a sample of what happened last time (fresh out of the oven). Loads of Drunk arrogance and shabby intonations but fuckit. Tis a postcard from then.

Have a listen.

I'm now in full time employment again. (I know, I said that already).

Pray for my wretched soul.

Maybe we can have a triple dip.

Only messing.

I heart money.

It might just be a new golden age, Kalle Ryan and how good it is to be alive right now

2011-01-12T15:23:00.000-08:00

As I said in a recent post I fucking hate the Brown Bread Mixtape. It's just too much fun for a man of my age. I also said I was giving up cursing and I fucking am. Anyway the Brown Bread Mixtape is a monthly session of kick-ass music, poetry, comedy and loads of deadliness for free in the Stags head here in spanky manky Dublin. Next one is 26th January so chalk it down as the Horse Pundits always say.

One of it's organisers is fellow poeteer Kalle Ryan. Over the past year or so I'm glad to say he's become a mate because we have so much in common. I'm Irish and he's Swedish (uncanny) he's got a goatee and I've a dog (freaky) and he works for the internet and I like porn.

At first, given our explosive chemistry, I thought we should play golf together and discuss a way of bailing out the country while destroying it, but then, seeing as that's already been done, Kalle came over to my house on his penny farthing and we shot the tumbleweed over a few lime cordials - which is my way of saying we chatted online.

At times we got a bit back patting and pally, 'cause we're mates getting excited about our involvement in Dublin's vibrant art scene so please forgive us that. Among other things we discuss the seminal show 'The Wire', the old performance versus page debate, Kalle's experience of the New York scene, and his recently passed father's creative legacy and continuing inspiration which I think is really good. It's a long one, even thought I cut loads out but hopefully you'll enjoy.

me: first things first welcome to my lair, abode, tiny section of tinternet. Tell me Kalle Ryan. I met you first through the splendiferous ball of niceness, bad hat choices and poetry shenanigans Stephen James Smith, after both of us read at his Glor Sesh. What do you think of him, the Glor and then, what the fuck possessed you to get involved in this mad scene that’s happening around us anyway.

Kalle: Thats right, Stephen James Smith is the gateway to the spoken word scene for so many of us here in Dublin.

me: Yep.

Kalle: Well, first up, Stephen is a true poet, out there working hard at his craft and providing an incredible platform for so many at The Glor Sessions. The first thing that struck me about the night was the really high calibre of talent at it, as it is an open mic night. As for me getting involved - I had been doing bits and pieces in New York, primarily performance poems in conjunction with a cool literary journal over there called Lilies & Cannonballs, at their launch nights, and really enjoyed the experience. I had also done some comedy there and in Utah and was eager to get back into things when I moved back to Ireland.

me: right. Utah - are them Salt Lakers crazy or what?

Kalle: Madsers the lot of them. Great people actually. Anyway...To cut a long story short, I got involved in the live scene when I met my friend Pearse McGloughlin (the singer) and he suggested I try some stuff at Glor and simultaneously my friend Enda Roche and I set up the brownbread mixtape.

me: and the rest is history!

Kalle: And the rest is the stuff of legend!

me: The Glor is one of the strongest poetry open mics I’ve been at. They can be awful. - would you care to tell us about some of your ropier open mic experiences?

Kalle: I have had pretty ropey experiences both at open mics and even at more established gigs.

me: like?

Kalle: it sometimes has nothing to do with you. For example, a few weeks ago I did an opening slot for in the Odessa Club, opening for Elder Roche

me: Right (for those who don’t know of Elder Roche there's a link to one of his tunes at the end). I was thinking more of actual bad events but self effacing anectdotage is fine too.

Kalle: I tried a comedy bit with my iPod that was always a bankable funny routine that worked in the brownbread mixtape.

but it fell flat

noone laughed

silence, tumbleweed

me: not good.

Kalle: I was able to breeze past it ultimately and won them back with the next poem, but sometimes it is better to have those moments. It reminds you that you need to really earn a crowd's attention. And also that not all audiences are the choir you normally preach to!

me: true that. What was your most memorable experience of the New York scene?

Kalle: I have many

me: like, what do you try to carry over into your own nights here.

Kalle: I think the best nights were the little launches for Lilies and Cannonballs that they did in a pub in Queens, that sense of having a pintglass-smashing good time - (as to what I carried over here, it would be to) bring the energy, maintain the energy, that would have been my biggest lesson from those times in the States. You have to be constantly fuelling the fun making sure that everyone is invested in the show and in having fun

me: thats one of the best things about your nights I have to say

Kalle: thanks, it is something I work hard at. It's exhausting but it is amazing when it clicks.

me: how, what do you do to maintain it? Apart from the magical applause sign obviously..

Kalle: Apart from my high-tech applause sign (which is possibly magic). I put a lot of thought into writing and rehearsing the sketches for every month's show, as well as often writing poems or little gags & bits to pepper into the proceedings as the evening zips along.

Then quite a lot of stuff just tumbles from the top of my head at shows, but a fair bit is written in advance and some of it never gets used. The great thing about a show like the Brownbread Mixtape is that it is a brilliant playground to test out ideas, poetic, comedic etc with amazing collaborators (like Sean, Gus and Eva who act in the sketches) as well as musical humour with Enda Roche my co-host.

me: so you think the mc has a big responsibility in that respect then?

Kalle: also I get to read new poems and gauge reactions to them

me: with a receptive audience

Kalle: Yeah I think the MC is pretty crucial in many ways, but I would never like to think that I am more important than all of the incredible acts we have each month. My job is to keep the show flowing and keeping people's energy up and invested in the show.
Our audience, as you say is extremely receptive, so it makes my job a lot easier. I can have real fun and banter with them and they are a huge part of the show as you know

me: you do it well - do you think it would be harder without Enda - he's always quiet but I think thats part of the charm of you too as a couple. Who look beautiful together may I add.

Kalle: Ha! Enda is a brilliant comic foil. He adds a huge element to the show in being so goofy plus he is a gifted musician.

me: very...and so technically competent too.

Kalle: he's like Rain Man with songs, a human jukebox. Just ask him a song and he will have it worked out on the guitar in minutes!

me: deadly!

Kalle: That techie side of the show that you mention is often overlooked, but his technical expertise is crucial. He makes the whole thing sound really good and mixing and recording all of the performances. It’s also cool to be able to give all of the performers top quality soundboard recordings of their show.

me: that's one of the best elements I think for the performers

Kalle: All artists are keen to analyse their work, be it in performance or otherwise , and its a nice way to offer the performers a payment of sorts for offering their time and artistic brilliance to the night. I still feel incredibly lucky to share the stage with them all.

me: yeah - that and that audience man, quite possibly the best in Ireland.

Kalle: yeah, the audience are unreal. But I think we have worked hard to get that audience and we earned every one of them. It feels like a proper word of mouth thing

me: speaking of performers, I was lucky enough to be asked to a special event for you, all the performers were your friends...how many of them were pals before the brownbread came along?

Kalle: yes, thanks again for being there. Funnily enough, only one of them was a friend before brownbread happened - Pearse. Otherwise it is amazing how the whole spoken word/poetry and music scene right now is such a friendly collaborative space and I have made real, seriously cool friendships out of it. Yourself included!

me: likewise.

Kalle: It feels very much like a collective of people working towards the same honest creative goals.

me: long may it continue. Ride the wave!

Kalle: absolutely.

me: the rising tides lifts all boats I said to a friend once, no it doesn't she said. What do you think of that old adage?

Kalle: I think it is absolutely true, and never truer than now.

me: darn tootin

Kalle: Of the many great nights going on in Dublin (and the best are Glor sessions and your own Nighthawks in my opinion) there is an amazing willingness to share ideas, give each other tips, offer gigs - just brilliant, sound, no bullshit stuff. And I don’t know how you measure success, or even what that is, but I am really happy with being a part of this group of creative people right now. So many great writers and performers that I really respect. I almost feel like a chancer who gets to sit in on meetings with the best artists in Ireland!

me: Yeah me too. Listen, is it okay to ask you about your father passing, your son being born, the genesis of the Brown Bread Mixtape and how they’re related? I think it's very pertinent.

Kalle: yeah of course, nothing is off limits

me: Right (takes probing sex life questions out of bin)

Kalle: Ha. Durty.

me: Around the time I met you your father passed away, an artist himself. Around then your son was also born. How do you think mortality, and in addition, fatherhood factor in to your creative life?

Kalle: To me all of those things are totally connected because all of these powerful moments were happening at once and they can never be undone, without wanting to sound ridiculous, it was almost like a wave that propelled me forward. To lose my father and three weeks later, to the day, to become a father was astonishing.

Also, because my own father informed my artistic sensibility so much, and with his passing I now had time to commit more time to my own creative pursuits (we spent many years caring for him as he was long term ill with Multiple System Atrophy) and then - with my son being born, it was like seeing the world anew. As you know, being a father makes you realise so much about yourself and what is important.

me: yep

Kalle: And also, it drove me to want to place the same kind of value on art and creativity in our household as my father had done in mine. So I just shot out there onto the performance poetry space with all metaphorical guns blazing and the critical factor was the incredible support I got from my wife Jessica. As you well know, if you have a supportive partner, you have all that time to pursue something you love. To answer your question more directly - Mortality is at the core of everything. It is who we are, whether we look at it head on or not and strangely enough, it was a huge theme in my fathers paintings.

me: it's hard to avoid for any artist

Kalle: he painted a lot of stuff after my mother passed away, and he even exhibited drawings of her dying, chronicling the final days, hours , minutes of her life- and he wrote something about death in an exhibition catalogue that stuck with me ever since

me: is it for passing on?

Kalle: Absolutely. "I used to think that if I looked long enough and hard enough at any subject matter, including death, that I would understand its nature. This was the attitude I brought to so many of my drawings. I now think that my attitude was ridiculous and arrogant. Death is simply a part of living, it is to be embraced and to be allowed to enrich our living with its own bittersweet quality."

And I took that as a message to use my own experience of caring for him and my mother through illness as the material and fuel that enriches my living. Sounds slightly pretentious, but its true for me. It has brought nothing but amazing experiences for the past year.

me: Sounds like those experiences really resonated with you, driving the wave you mentioned earlier.

Kalle: I have achieved artistic and personal goals I didn't think were possible. And the best part = it feels like things are only starting for me, for you, for all of these brilliant musicians and poets around the country. And yeah, the wave is still moving, we haven't reached the shore yet baby!

me: Regarding your son. Do you think your father will influence how you parent and if so how? In creative terms.

Kalle: I think the answer is yes. He was my only parent for half of my life, so he was hugely influential -- and creatively he was hugely inspiring. He quit his safe job at Irish Distillers at 32 and went to art school. He showed us that art is important. So in the same way I want my son and if we have more kids, to know that creativity is at the heart of everything. To put a value on art, literature, music, film, and also to question. I think that’s the other thing I would like to inspire. Being creative I think means to question authority, norms, ideas, "facts", and to play with those things. At the risk of sounding pretentious, good art is about asking questions of yourself and the audience.

me: so like, as the father, you’re in the position of power, you're the establishment who we can assume your son will one day 'rail' (not sure if that's the correct cliche) against. So....

Kalle: its inevitable that he will rail against me at same point.

me: do you think that it's important to be rigid or fluid, open to challenge, both as a parent and as a writer?

Kalle: you cant be cool to your kids really, even Brad Pitt's kids must think he is an uncool wanker

me: could you not have said Kerouac or something, Jesus we're supposed to be hip and cool like!

Kalle: I think rigidity is useless as a parent, writer, human being...

me: Yeah adaptability is what got us here!

Kalle: Fluidity and adaptability are necessary to write, perform, paint. I think writing is such a fluid thing Think about how many drafts some things go through, and others that just flow, and then others that change when you perform them.

me: impossible to predict too - what things will develop and from where.

Kalle: completely.

me: So as part of a group of gigs and events that have recently sprung up here in Dublin - where do you see the need for adaptability most, or areas that are in danger of being too rigid?

Kalle: I'm not sure I know how to answer that, I think we have to be careful to not become some kind of closed clique. Nothing worse than others looking in and thinking "bunch of wankers" "they are just a bunch mates who only give each other gigs" I think the door has to be continuously open to new ideas, new writers, performers.

me: yeah well I can't see you guys being thought of like that

Kalle: the minute its a closed shop its dead

me: true dat

Kalle: That spirit has to be maintained. Actively

me: the ol wire saying - listen just to divert, what did you think of the wire, great work of art right? But it brings me to a bigger question, whats the fucking point of all this art and comment anyway - should we not just all stay in and watch xfactor and whatever else is on offer from the comfort of our armchair? Like, the Wire, great as it was - simply educated people looking in about something already going on, and at the end of the day, just made a lot of pretty secure people richer and more secure, while the frays off society continued to collapse.

Kalle: absolutely, The Wire is the greatest tv drama I have ever seen. And I think it did more than you say.

me: go on

Kalle: To me it was a document of a place and its people, a really specific document. That became universal, and it had a novelistic structure.

me: True yeah - it had integrity first and foremost.

Kalle: thats why it appealed to me

me: same here

Kalle: it had real integrity, all the main writers had lived that life pretty directly. But to get to your other question

me: Lots of ex cops

Kalle: Why shouldn't we all be sitting in watching X-factor because, live art, live music, live theatre, live poetry. It is immediate and there is a magic about being in a room with a performance in front of you. And for me, live performance poetry or writing & performing sketches is about existing in the present. X-factor and banal tv shows are prescribed bullshit

me: yeah, there most definitely is a magic, and everyone needs to experience that, and realise that art is not only to be consumed but to be engaged with and created.

To change tack slightly - do you favour performing over writing for the page?

Kalle: I think writing, like many art forms, is a really solitary business and a lot of artists say they only do it for themselves, but I believe that all art (writing) in this case is nothing without an audience and I have always been drawn to performing

me: yep

Kalle: And I think that some of the most exciting, accessible and interesting poetry I know is the performance poetry I am witnessing around me in Dublin right now. It makes it easier for me to engage with. On a page, sometimes a poem is easy to dismiss, just like anything. But when it is live it clicks in a different way. I know you and Dave Lordan spoke about the idea of the shaman.

me: yep we did indeed

Kalle: and I really think that when you're up there performing you are some kind of shaman, channeling a voice, a spirit , a feeling and people often connect with the energy as much as the words. I dont think I am a great poet, but I know that I have the ability to perform adequately- so that is how I carry my message, by delivering it as powerfully and emotionally as I can. The same goes for the sketches I write. I love writing comedy sketches and I am not much of an actor, but I am lucky enough to have an incredible group of friends who are brilliant professional actors who can give life to those words and that is electric when it goes well

me: Keep going

Kalle: a live audience buzzing, interacting and connecting with words you wrote, amazing! So, at the end of it all, I just wanted to say that the performance poetry scene that i see growing, exploding and developing around me, is because there is so much wild, powerful energy there and people are finally getting exposed to it

me: and it's fucking great!

Kalle: It sure is! Again, nighthawks, glor and even brownbread are putting on events that expose people to poetry, when they might traditionally only go to a music gig or check out some stand up. By putting all of those art forms on a bill together it makes that circle bigger and brings new ears and eyes to the spoken word which is brilliant. There’s so many incredible performers out there right now

me: i think it also validates poetry - its far too often considered a seperate art from, and all the pretensions, and baggage it has, from school and wanky poets with cravats and pipes are best dismissed by putting it on a platform with more popular forms of entertainment.

Kalle: Agreed. I can quote lines from favourite poems by poets I have seen like you, or Dave Lordan or Stephen James Smith, the same way I can quote song lyrics. I cant relate to that stuffy "I think you'll find this interesting and analytically mesmerising" bullshit. I want to feel something. I love a poem where I am thinking, YES! all along. And to be able to shout and clap at the end and shout "Brilliant!!" or "Me too!" at the end.

me: Or I'm Brian!

Kalle:I'm Spartacus! Thats why I go for a lot of the call and response audience participation stuff with my poems. Because by engaging the audience you make that poem about them and us and there’s no divide. I am not a performer, we're just sharing this thing

me: it always reminds me of mass - lord hear us :)

Kalle: Amen brother! But a great gig is like church

me: hallelulah

Kalle: its spiritual, emotional, otherworldly

me: it is, only less boring.

Kalle: much less boring

me: Yes, ideally, and with less incense. And no money getting put in baskets, unless you're at the Glor!

Kalle: I dunno, for me writing is about creating something that I can share in a live setting. For others it is about crafting it on the page, but I want to engage in a different way. I know you have said that performing has brought different things out in you too. I also feel that a day not spent doing something creative, even something small, is a day wasted.

me: it has definitely but it can become too much about the external. Some things, more secret, complex or delicate things suit the page sometimes. There very different ways to engage with something. Sometimes though, a performance piece is wasted on the page and vice versa.

Kalle: no question. I wouldn't dispute that at all. But I think the performance, the moment, the human connection part is so incredible.

me: it is - at times it's electrifying

Kalle: both have their place. Anyway, that was a long answer to a question you didn't even really ask!

me: No hassle! Any ending words?

Kalle: There is so much exciting , interesting, challenging, artistic work going on in this country right now, organised by people who really care and believe in it. Go out there and immerse yourself in it. It might just be a new golden age and you could be sitting at home missing it because X factor is on. Real life is just down the road and it IS electrifying.

Me: And that's that. Here's some vids. Make sure to check out the next Brown Bread on the 26th - I'll be there and if you are too I'll do a cartwheel.

I can't hotlink the site for some reason so here it is - copy and paste ya lazy bum.

http://brownbreadmixtape.wordpress.com/about/

Here's Kalle's poem The Reformartists - another version on youtube has 350 or so views but this one is my favourite.

BBMT's resident Comedy Group The Brown Bread Players

Elder Roche

Pearse McLoughlin

And the word was made flesh - a rehearsed reading

2011-01-10T03:24:00.000-08:00

This will be worth going to if you're interested in theatre or working on a play at the minute. Brian's a pal of mine and a great writer - nice to see him scoring such talented actors. Triple barrel names and everything!

Small Gods in the Trees

2011-01-04T12:23:00.000-08:00

Howdy peeps - long time no interface.

I'm working on a blog post interview with Kalle Ryan of the amazing and phenomenally PACKED OUT EVERY-GODDAMN TIME Brown Bread Mixtape right now.

But having just interviewed Dave Lordan, another performance (not exclusively though) poet, I thought it would be better to stick something in between them rather than have their metaphors touching in the online breeze as it where.

I don't know what that means either.

So, anyway, here's some prose for y'all.

Tis a story I wrote for a collection called 'South of the County' Details below.

http://120socks.blogspot.com/2010/11/south-of-county-new-myths-tales.html

I was trying to merge myth and reality and don't think I really pulled it off as a cohesive story. I had thousands more words at the start and ended up cutting in a way I didn't like. The Ginty character was originally a gatekeeper type character who sort of passed on the quest but i ran out of room and had to amputate the front of the story. The ending is a bum note to me now too becasue things happen too quickly and without any real rhythm. Those of you who recognise the flaws please point out any ways to avoid them again. For me it sent a message loud and clear, it's not like riding a bike, and the only way to achieve real fluidity in plot and temporal flow is to write a lot and to write often. Anyhoo - here's Charlie. Who I really liked. Shame about the plot. I may one day return to her.

I also did a bit of sneaky editing before I posted.

The book is really worth a look by the way. If only for Geraldine Mills' cool tale of bumping into Fionn MacCool - looking all electric picnicked out in a supermarket isle.

Small Gods in the Trees

Dar Green's driveway was filled with cars - slick black and silver things kissed red by summer sunset. Charlie jumped off her bicycle and manoeuvred through to ring the doorbell. A man with those obvious Eastern-European features answered, looking stunned by a teenage girl at the door.

'Is me Ma there?'

She held her breath, expecting the door to be slammed, or to be dragged in by the hair.

Earlier she’d been bouncing on a friend’s trampoline, laughing through her starving belly when kids banged on side door. Your Ma’s been taken, they said. They circled and chased Charlie as she cycled home, like hyenas, barking snips of information. She’s dead, so dead. Dar’s got her. Gone. Lost. Finished.

Charlie heard fists hitting a punch bag. A second man appeared and spoke Polish to the first. They shouted into the house. Someone yelled back. The men ushered her in and headed out to the back. Charlie could see a large shed. Loud R+B was playing. Inside the music was deep masculine laughter, what could be a muffled squeal and then silence.

Charlie was starving. She never had a set time for dinner, just the chance of some Smilie faces thrown into the microwave if she caught her mother at home. But her mother was always going out. Charlie had mostly stopped asking where.

Charlie watched the men in the shed, backs rippling under tight t-shirts. One of them stooped and she spotted her mother. The men called Charlie out.

The shed was built around an immaculate burgundy pool table. In the corner a Wurlitzer blazed neon, winding down the song she'd heard. Sitting beside it was her mother, tugging at her sleeve, kneading the flesh between her right elbow and wrist. She wouldn't make eye contact under the glare of the men. Between her mother and the men was an ashtray full of coiled cigarettes, some still fizzling. A bowl of Chicken wings glistened and steamed on a table. Charlie swallowed.

'Hello', a voice from behind said, so treacly and intimate it brought hairs up on her neck. She turned to see a man with bright and gorgeous eyes. His hair was gelled and pristine, and he gazed at her with a sort of lusty appraisal, as if his whole life was about making young girls swoon. He offered his hand in introduction. When Charlie took it a swirling of déjà-vu came upon her.

'I'm Dar.' he said holding her hand. Charlie didn't answer. The world was woozy. Her eyes settled on the crumpled face of her mother.

'She's alright he said, she's just a bit, ya know, stoned.'

Charlie ignored the barb. Dar's amiable smile wavered.

'Did you not know your Ma was a junkie?'

Charlie knew, deep down. She’d been told. Called names on the street. But she never admitted it. Her denial was strong. She ignored Dar, and his face darkened.

'Ma?' Charlie said, her eyes on her mother, thinking look at me, please look at me.

Dar reached for the food on the table. He bit into a wing and offered one to Charlie. She shook her head, saw the dark in Dar’s eyes, and shivered - that swirling feeling again.

'She’s staying here.' Dar said and then to the mother. 'Aren’t you?’

Everyone looked at Charlie’s mother. She said nothing.

‘She can follow you home later. Maybe. But as for you, you should go.'

'I'm not going without her.' said Charlie.

Her mother looked up, making eye contact once with her daughter, pain leapt from her eyes, and Charlie knew they were hurting her.

'It's a very stupid thing to do, to follow a doomed woman like you have,’ Dar said.

‘What?’

‘Your mother's mine now. See. I take my job seriously, but the smackheads never do. I always end up having to prove myself. Your Ma understood the risks when she started buying from me. What I offer costs. And I have to take my payment whatever way I can.’

His face was a mask of sympathy.

‘Is there any other way?’

‘What's done is done.' said Dar.

‘I'll do anything.’

Dar laughed loudly, the cronies nudged each other.

‘You're a nice looking kid, and the first who's ever been brave enough to come here. Haven't you heard of me. The stories?'

Charlie nodded.

'Interesting. Well look. I'll give you one chance.' He stepped towards the cigarettes and took one up, blowing the ember to make it glow burning red. Charlie's mother kept her eyes hidden, her head bowed.

‘You know the new hospital beside the Deadman’s Inn?’

‘Course.’

‘Well behind that there's a rapeseed field, and beyond that, bulrushes in flower. The seeds have a certain flavour I happen to love.' he said.

There was a jar beside him on the table with a pliars standing up inside. He removed the pliars and replaced the lid before tossing it to Charlie. She heard a loan seed rattle as she caught it.

'If you can fill that jar with seeds and return before sunset, I'll let your mother free. And who knows - if you manage this, I'll find some other use for you too.’

Charlie wasn't sure he was serious. She looked at the men, and then Dar, expecting some sign of a joke. But the goon’s eyes were dead, and Dar's eyes were intent and humourless.

'Will you accept this challenge?' He said.

The three men watched Charlie. She looked out at the reddening sky. She had no idea if Dar was telling the truth or simply distracting her, let alone whether she would actually be able to make it down to the valley and back, but she knew she had no choice.

'Yes.' Charlie said.

'So go. The quickest way is straight through the rapeseed field, cutting through the private hospital. Make sure you avoid the security guard though. He's mental.'

Charlie ran outside and jumped onto her bike.

The journey was quick, through an industrial estate where a cracked drainpipe
spilled water to foster a profusion of dandelions on the broken pavement.

The splashing water brought thoughts exploding in Charlie’s mind. Her mother clean for a week last April, frantic to nurture things into growth. The living room a panic of just bought shrubs. Mother and daughter splashing water on newly planted wallflowers. Blackness rising in her mother’s eyes, Charlie alone in the empty house, ignoring the flowers dying in the May sun.

Charlie reached the main road and crossed though a gap in the evening traffic. The hospital walls were huge. Charlie used the bike to boost herself, heaving it up after her before dropping down the other side.

The hospital was a radiance of steel and tempered glass with a garden spiralling around a central gazebo. By the gates Charlie could see the security hut, an unattended TV flickering in the shadows, and between the hospital and the hut, a tall balding man running towards her.

She jumped onto the bike and pedalled for the far wall, the man changed direction to intercept her. Charlie skidded to her left, losing her balance and falling from the bike before running on, barely escaping the man's grabbing arms.

The back wall which looked higher than the one she'd already climbed. She tried anyway, her legs floundering as she clung to the top, devoid of any secure grip. The guard grabbed her, spun her around, slapped her, slammed her into the wall and shouted in her face, spit hitting her cheeks.

'He sent you didn't he?'

‘What?’

Slam

‘That Greener scumbag!’

Slam

'Well tell Him I've had enough of you little scangers!'

Slam slam slam

Charlie wanted to cradle her head but the guard held her arms, trying to catch his breath. He was missing an eye. He pointed at his scarred empty socket and yelled.

'That filth did this and then thinks he can send scum down here just to wind me up? And now this, a girl! You’ll be so sorry he sent you.' he said. Charlie's t-shirt twisted in his fists, choking her, pushing her into the wall. She saw stars, felt her legs weakening, until she kneed him hard once in the crotch.

He collapsed in a heap as if praying towards the wall. Charlie took a few steps back and vaulted using the guards back and head as a ramp. She scrambled over.

Breeze blew yellow waves across the sashaying rapeseed field. She started running, stalks whipping against her hands, a greeny black wake behind her. A fine yellow dust peppering the air.

She broke into forest and instinct sharpened her hearing, quietened her breath. The ground felt mossy and soft. Bars of moted light brightened trees or cast ominous shadows. Spores tickled her nostrils. She jogged on. White hemlock giving way to glossy ferns as the hillside grew treacherous, ever steeper and damper with the memory of the river in flood.

She patted the jar in her pocket and listened for the guard, hearing chirps and the guttural crescendo of some unknown animal, the lap of the Liffey, the rustle of deciduous leaves and the inimitable creak of tall swaying firs.

A blackbird squawked in alarm. Charlie stopped, listened. Feet crunched leaves nearby. She jumped to the ground. The panic of claustrophobia fluttered inside her, balanced by a fugitive's gratitude for cover. She waited, still, only moving when the guard was long gone.

The night seemed to be seeping in faster now. She crawled along slowly, willing the last light to hold. She reached a cliff edge and slid down over stones descending through a grove of young sycamores before landing with a splat in cracking mud where the river had retreated. Sticking out from the mud like a fossil was a coke can, and beside it a small glimmering rock. She pulled it free of the mud and cleaned it. It was an ancient stone with a symbol etched into it.

She put it in her pocket and looked for a way ahead but her way was blocked by bushes - tumultuous, uncontrollable rhododendrons. Knowing the river was right in front she ventured forward only to have branches wrap quickly around her legs, vines tangle up in her arms. Frustration overcame her, and again the feeling of déjà-vu. The more she fought the harder it became to move, each twist and pull seemed to draw more loops and spirals around her, arms and legs straining in the grip of the bushes, twisting, stretching, scraped, she screamed when a branch snaked around her neck. As she choked her eyes closed, and as she stopped struggling the bush released her and she slipped quietly into water below.

Charlie didn't feel wake in the water. Instead she saw her mother, during a dawn at the very edge of memory, before their slow and agonising drift apart. Her mother standing, glowing in the morning's first sunlight, her face guilty and vibrant before her habit took hold. In her hand she carried Wagon Wheels and a fizzy drink, every bubble a tiny sun. She sat on Charlie's bed and shook her four year old heel. The daughter rolled awake to see her mothers loving smile.

Charlie woke in a clearing. Purple clover closing. Jinny-joes floating in the twilit luminescence, tiny magnificent things as multitudinous as stars, and as the seeds touched her skin a whisper entered her mind.

You're mother is dead.

This truth passed through Charlie like pollen floating through smoke. She fell to her
knees.

For nothing, she thought.

She heard movement, grass crunching, two thumps - the off-tempo rhythm of a man on a crutch. She looked up to see a one legged man wearing a wretched looking duffle coat over an ancient tie-dyed hoodie. The hood was up and underneath the cowl his eyes sparkled. From his rusting crutch a set of bone coloured rosary beads hung, rattling as he moved.

'Story.' He said. ‘I’m Ginty.’

‘Where am I?’

The man paused for a minute before answering with a shrug.

‘The Green belt of the soul, you could say. Take out your jar.’

Charlie took the jar from her pocket and shook it. A single incisor tooth, not a seed, rattled inside.

‘That’s your mother’s.’ said the man. ‘Dar Green did the same to me.’ He tapped a cruddy finger at his toothless lower gum. ‘Many times’

Charlie was distraught. On her knees. Her eyes glazed with tears.

‘He is a bad man. But there’s a chance to change things.’

‘How?’

Ginty sat, dust shook from his shoulders. When he spoke it was with the faintest echo. Charlie felt it in her chest, like her own voice underwater.

'Our city is filled with edges, green overgrown places where those who seek cover can hide secrets and commit foul deeds. This is one such place. There are hundreds, thousands all over the city. Men and women have been left to rot in these places. Men like me. We are depleted souls who cannot cross over, staying behind to become the spring in the earth, the heat in the setting sun, the small gods in the trees.

Charlie rubbed the runestone in her pocket. Ginty tossed three more at her feet.

‘One for each of the first three souls you must take for us.’

‘What?’

‘Dar Green has made this place his own. You’re not the first he sent here, always destined to fail. This place is special to him. You being sent. It's like a christening. He sees a power in this place. He hides things here.

‘Like what?’

‘Drugs. Drugs and the dead. But there’s an older essence here that follows the leylines of the past. It has given us our power, and now is our time. The city is a machine choked with wickedness. A purge is coming. Will you help us?’

Charlie sat motionless. Ginty spoke again.

‘We can give you what you want.’

The one thing Charlie wanted was her mother back. As she thought to put the wish into words Ginty answered.

‘Time is a rippling tapestry; we can shake it out, remove or encourage a fold. But this will only provide the chance for your mother to change her mind at a certain point. That is all. If you join us, you will never know her decision, and you will be bound to places like this, to the shadows that surround civilisation.’

Charlie thought of April again, the evening with the flowers. She thought it and knew Ginty saw what she saw.

‘Do it.’ She said.

Her head was thrown back, her breath was taken.

All the want within her, all the repressed atoms of her love for her mother bloomed and exploded, exciting the forest to sway, as if in approval.

Her memories eroded, like the coast pulled under tides. She felt her self dissipated, but still conscious, joining a singular vibration, a vast organic rhizome of energy that infused every living thing.

The guard, looking down from uphill saw wind swirling through the trees, disturbed birds taking flight on the night. He felt a chill, and sorrow for all the wrongs that he could never see undone.

The waves moved quickly, like ripples emanting from a stone. In the shed, Dar Green and his men woke, déjà-vu in their heads and a stain in their hearts, a screaming guilt and emptiness that they filled with daily binges of drugs and drink until the urge put them in a car that crashed, flipping once before exploding into flames on a Blanchardstown back road.

Charlie was in the smoke, in the fire, in the last spin of the broken back wheels.

She lives on still, the shadow in the corner of bad men’s eyes, the justice in a ricochet, the heart attack in an extra line, the magic in the dark that galvanises the good and is a banshee wail to the guilty.

Interview with Dave Lordan

2010-11-16T05:22:00.000-08:00

I’ve wanted to interview more poets for the blog and Dave Lordan was top of that list for ages. Whether it’s hearing Death or 20p for the first time online, reading and reviewing his new collection Invitation to a Sacrifice, or simply witnessing him explode on stage with his wild, provocative, cool, ear-burstingly loud, performances, I’ve always been impressed by him. He can write, he can perform, but more importantly he is whole-heartedly in pursuit of his art. Ladies and Gentlemen, without further kajagoogoo. I give you Dave Lordan.. well, my interview with him anyway.

Colm: So first off - that ol chestnut, the lazy interviewers favourite. Dave Lordan, tell me a bit about yourself, where you are creatively and how you found and find yourself there.

Dave: I was born and I am going to die. I am mortal. That's the main thing, I think. Everything sort of follows on from that.

Colm: Mortality. You like a bit of the ol death don't you? You seemed preoccupied with it as a theme when reviewing Theo Dorgan’s book, and the abyss is never too far away, tis like you see a hole a hole, a whirling hole, wherever you look. Do you think that for artists Mortality is a starting point?

Dave: in that I have always felt a pressure to do, to act, to achieve, to express, to rack up experiences in particular, never to rest. That can only stem from a deep-rooted awareness/pressure of mortality. The void inspires. I don't know the work of every artist or writer so don't want to generalise. But mortality, decay, the brevity and laughable futility of individual existence- it's no secret these are concerns of many.

Colm: true - it seems sometimes that a lot of problems in life stem from a lack of awareness of mortality. Do you feel the pressure to act in other areas of your life too or has the pressure kind of 'settled' into the realm of creativity.

Dave: lack of awareness of mortality, or defiance of mortality, presents itself in the illusion of invincibility or immortality, which you will get on certain drugs, particularly alcohol, and all religions, including poetry with its obsession with tradition, so called ‘craft’ and, the greatest illusion of all: ‘posterity’. There is a certain sense in which poets who write to tradition are attempting a charm against dissapearance and death, which is a laughably witless endeavour for such normally intelligent people.

On action- I feel a pressure to act many areas. Economically I have to secure the food supply, keep a roof over my head and all that. Which may be a stark way to put but that is the way it is heading. Politically I wish to act, where I can, to stand against inequality, oppression, injustice. That has always been part of my life. In terms of creative pressure, you write the next piece because you aren't happy with, or are bored, or have just forgotten the buzz of writing the last one. The buzz of writing, and the buzz of performing- two things which can only be experienced by a living mortal engaged in a creative act, that’s what I am in it for. I am a writing/performing addict. I do it for the hit. Everything else involved with writing aside from the living buzz of it is bullshit, by-product, side-effect.

Colm: You were politically active in your younger years, I find this very interesting and admirable, would you like to share some of the experiences from back then.

Dave: I have been involved in left wing activism from about 15 on, at varying degrees of intensity. There has always been something to fight for. I have been on countless picket lines, demos, sit-ins and so on. But the biggest and, I suppose, most interesting and inspiring were the anti-capitalist protests in Prague, Genoa and Florence, and of course the mass anti-war protests here in 2003 2004. All of these protest movements, like others before them, fell back from their peak, but not without leaving their mark. I hope we are on the verge of another outbreak of mass protest at the moment. It is the only thing that will save us, it is the only thing that can reverse the trend towards greater and greater social injustice. That is why the ruling class in this country, from IBEC to Joe Duffy are so hysterical about it and why the robopigs are sent out at the first sign of it to crack heads.

Colm: We most definitely seem to be reaching a point where resistance is increasingly necessary. What would you say to someone who wouldn't trust any politician though?

Dave: Get up off your arse and do something about it yourself. Survival of anything resembling a beautiful life in the next century depends upon everyone becoming political, everyone getting more active and representing themselves.

Colm: Like Jello Biafra says (I’m paraphrasing here) ‘Don’t hate the System, be/replace the system’. I doubt you were surprised by the riot police’s reaction to the student occupation of the Dept. of Finance building, were you?

Dave: I don’t believe that humans are collectively incapable of coming up with workable alternatives to the continuous catastrophe called capitalism. That is a council of despair. I think there is no shortage of options for what we can do if we all put our shoulder to the wheel.

Colm: We most definitely need change that's for sure. Well the poor do.

Dave: And no I was not suprised. I think, as Gene Kerrigan and others have said this was a live training excercise, a sort of muscle stretcher for the riot squad, to test out their new gear and all that, and, crucially to warn us all of the consequences of taking a stand.

Colm: yep - and the line about militants seems very convenient, an easy way to minimise the reaction.

Dave: the whole thing was rolled out like everyone already knew the script in advance. Every time the police riot anywhere the people they kick the shit out of get the blame. There was also a serious attempt, as there always is in situations of rising social tension, to dehumanise the militants. In the long run that softens the public up for prison camps and summary execution. It’s saying as long as someone is a socialist or an anarchist or a left republican it’s ok to kill them. But let's remember what a militant is - a militant is someone who believes in people power, and tries to organise people to defend themselves against the attacks of the ruling class, which are constant. Without militants and miltancy we are entirely defenseless and on the way to sheephood and slavery.

Colm: What would you say to a young person who is planning on being a member of say, Fine Gael or Fianna Fail instead of a more liberal political party? It always surprises and amuses me that people so young could rush to be part of the conservative establishment. I’m being a bit unfair there but I hope you know what I mean. There’s probably an attraction based around the understanding that the only surviving systems are self protecting systems.

Dave: I wouldn't know what to say to them to be honest. You are right though, the only surviving entities are those which are capable of standing up for themselves. History is, in part, a map of dead people’s who didn’t resist. Which is why resistance is urgent.

Colm: You posted a poem online recently which explores the same topics we’re discussing. It was called ‘The Moves’. You posted it a few times as you rewrote it. It started as a very terse piece and became more elaborate. Why did you expand it in that way? Did you think that it was missing something before?

Dave: I nearly always expand. Some poets go for brevity. I go for expansion. Also, it was missing vim and invention.

Colm: Interesting, because sometimes, in flatter poems, it seems one can read a lot into them but when you actually pin down the vague concepts that lurk beneath the original lines as you have done with The Moves, you give the reader no room to maneuver in a way – which grabs hold of the reader more, and in certain cases, leaves the reader a little punch drunk.

Note: (we where only taking about the earliest versions here – Dave subsequently edited further, and the version I said I preferred no longer exists. I have however, pasted two versions in below so you can see what we were on about)

Dave: Well when i write I am trying to get the most possible out of a concept or a run of images, or a particular set of sounds, what I call a soundscape. And when I perform I do intend to effect people in a serious way, to stun and knock them out of ordinary living, ordinary perception.

Colm: Why? Why fucking bother like..

Dave: Because I believe that art, and the art of performance in particular, can be a sacred and a transformative experience for performer and audience. It can reveal that we have different powers, different and better levels of existence and perception than the ones we are trapped in by repressive routine and convention. For me a performance or artistic space isn't a place to relax or be entertained, but somewhere to be opened up to the possible, the marvellous. 'Ordinary life does not interest me. I seek only the high moments. I am in accord with the surrealists, searching for the marvelous' - Anais Nin

Colm: I love that. I always think, that in the most inspiring performers, there is something shamanic going on, that we're transcending the ordinary. It's not a thing that can be done on demand either, or is it? Like, we've spoken before of pieces losing their power through repetition.

Where did this understanding originate for you?

Dave: Well I think the best, most ambtitious performance poets, the ones most aware of their own powers and of the possibilities of the genre will try for transcendence no matter what the circumstances. But numerous factors contribute to the show coming together on the night- the venue, the lighting, the sound system, the size and make up and openness of the audience. All that. For me, for example, hearing Abby Oliveira's new work at the All-Ireland slam last week was an incredibly inspiring experience. I think everybody there felt there was something special going on, something beyond the merely comical and, and to quote you, something shamanic. We were being inspired. In the sense that the creative life-affirming energy of another person was flowing over into us and strengthening all of us, awakening our own powers of expression and vision. This is what Blake means when he talks about the road of excess leading to the palace of wisdom (or vision) Excess is a flowing over of the self into the other in the creative act. In our case the act of performance.

On the second matter, pieces obviously lose their potency if they are overused, not least because the performer becomes bored by them and any audience, even your granny, can tell when you are bored of your own work.

When did I become aware of the power of performance? I think when I heard the Sex Pistols on my walk man at the age of 13. I knew had found my path.

Colm. Yeah Abby was brilliant on the day. I remember hearing her down at Electric Picnic. She really stood out then too. Speaking of good poets. Who are your favourites? Living or dead. Performers or otherwise.

Dave: I have lots. Like everybody. The book of revelations. Erich Fried. Aharon Shabtai. Rumi. Milton. Shakespeare. Blake. Shelley. Whitman. Plath. GInsberg. Pat Ingoldsby. Kenneth Rexroth. Bukowski. Many others. There's loads of contempoary performers that I like, but most of all I like the fact of the scene, the fellowship of it, the variety of it, the autonomy of it, the experimental open-mindedness of it.

Colm: Yeah, it's a great positive scene, long may it stay like that. Would you ever be interested in starting up a night yourself?

Dave: in the process of getting one started in Greystone's. You will be the first to know.

Colm: That's cool, and a little surprising to me. I was thinking you were going down the 'i don't want to organise nothing’, lone wolf route. I don’t mean that in a bad way. Some people prefer not to compromise their focus on writing which is ok too. Why have you decided to set one up, is this a recent decision or has it been a desire for a while? I've always considered you as one of those incredibly focused poets.

Dave: No, not at all. I am a great admirer of the likes of Kevin Higgins, Gordon Hewitt, Stephen James Smith and Paul O Casey, for example. In fact I think the likes of them should be getting a lot more support from funding bodies then they are getting. The likes of them are the only people keeping up and building an audience for live poetry in this country. Without instigators and organisers nothing happens. I have been involved in running nights and events of all sorts down the years. Now space is opening up in my life to do that again. It's also about giving something back to my primary community. I have been hosted and treated very well over the years by a lot of people on the scene. I am very focused on producing work though yes - but involvement with the scene and organising is also a way of learning and of being inspired as we have already said.

Colm: Cool - It was just an assumption I had made, and you and I haven't really discussed it before now. I’ve a few more questions. Are you working on a new collection or is it just that you're always writing? Can you remember your first poem?

And finally, I said this before, The Boy in the Ring, the particular poem, seems to me sometimes the kernel from which all your other work explodes. It’s an incredible poem. One of my favourite poems of all time. Was that you in the ring?

Dave: I am working on a pamphlet which may turn into a collection, called, provisionally, Pretending to be Taoiseach(and other treasonous failures). Kit Fryatt at Wurm Press is going to put it out in the Spring, all going well. I am not always writing. Sometimes I concentrate on performing and learning off for performance. Sometimes I concentrate on reading or reviewing. I am very rarely mentally idle though, that is true.

That was me in the Ring. I was severely bullied as a young boy. I was surrounded by small and big bullies. Writing for me is a way of resisting, surviving, calling to account, but also hexing, taking revenge and going on the offensive. I think that is out of step with the prim pretentious world where a lot of poetry hides out, and my work can get some strong reactions as a result- in recent reviews I've been labelled 'profane', a 'dadaist' an 'anarchist', even an 'anti-poet'. These are fairly uncommon jibes in poetry reviews as far as I am aware, at least in ANGLOLAND, and I find them complimentary and encouraging despite perhaps pejorative intent.

Colm: Wherever it is that your work originates from, I think it’s coming from the same place from where all the best writing, poetry, prose, whatever, that I’ve ever read originates. From that iconoclastic, empathic place in us all that spots what’s wrong in the world and reacts to it with rage and love. Profane or not I'm looking forward to more. Fuck the critics.

Dave: Thanks Colm. I don't believe there can be any true compassion without anger. Rage, in our days of ever-deepening injustice and of intellectual quietism and convention, is, for me, the highest, perhaps even the only true form that love can take.

And that's that. Dave Lordan will be performing at Nighthawks at the Cobalt Cafe North Great Georges Street this Saturday - doors open 7.45

Dave's new open mic will be in:

Hotspot Cafe in Greystones

MCed by Dave Lordan

featuring Colm Keegan as guest. (woohoo!)

Friday 26th November,

9pm

musicians and all sorts of spoken word artists welcome.

3/5 euro in.

Some links below.....

Dave performing the poem Fearless at the legendary Brown Bread Mix-tape
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MoubIV_c4c

Audio and poems from The boy in the Ring
http://www.salmonpoetry.com/details.php?ID=58&a=58

Video and poems from Invitation to a Sacrifice
http://www.salmonpoetry.com/details.php?ID=203&a=58

The performance poet Dave praised is Abby Oliveira from Derry's Poetry Chics
http://www.myspace.com/poetrychicks

The Moves (Austerity Version)

Dave Lordan

Pawn to the scrap

to the car boot

to earwigs, moonheat

to nearly invisible dot

to narcotic IKEA

to teeth-grind and porntube

to greener shitholes

to mercenary planet

to realpolitik.

to pawnbroker

to hold-up

to chewing the the butt

to grimy shackles

to blackout phase

to Jail

to convenient cliff.

Rook to ruin

Bishop to Rome

Bishop to small boy

Rook to stately home

rook ruin boy rome

bishop small stately ruin

rook small bishop ruin

boy ruin stately rome

Knight to Commission.

Knight to mission.

Knight to command.

Knight to suck oil land

Queen to MTV.

Queen to globe-spanning charity.

Queen to the Chick-lit industry.

Queen to Saatchi

King of cuts, dons, traitors, bondholders, Lears, bouncers, studs, pharma futures, commercial crushers, news of the ghosts, linear graveyards, possessed estates, crowd madness, historical hordes

King of taxes, charges, prices, rates

survey the empty boards

command to form exactly as before.

though a pawn or two may missing or added

the bishop a mata-hari

the rook a commissioner

the knight in a T32 instead of a horse

and now the trumpets blast from very far above

and something dark and massive squatting

fart commands:

Recommence the Sport!

And the billion voiceless voices from the faces with no faces for four zero year, black and white calendar

for borders indivisible and impossible to cross,

for eternal, irrevocable, ridiculous bloody orders.

The Moves (expanded)

Dave Lordan

Pawn to the scrap-heap, dole-queue, health-board, free-cheese-line, FAS, or son-of-FAS.

Pawn to LIDL, ALDI, the 3 for 2 euro-shop, to car-boot and mission sales, to second-hand, to shoplift, to panhandle, to penny-pinch, to grow-your-own, to knit and stitch, to juggle, to haggle, to duck and dive, con, evade, plámás.

Pawn to be heaved from warm electric living into freezing pestridden bedsit, then a tent with moonheat and earwigs, then to watch the stars blink out, galaxies extinguished in the gutter.

Pawn to goof and shake and space all nightday, all daynight upon the Liffey Boardwalk, that narcotic IKEA, world’s numero uno inner-city-oblivion-superstore.

Pawn to insomnia and teeth-grind and night-sweats and so many stiff-backed hours on porntube and the Ryanair website.

Pawn to get the fuck out to whatever greener shithole’s got the least expensive flight.

Pawn to train for any mercenary army in the world, take your bleedin’ pick.

Pawn to know that exploitation’s stage-names are We’re-in-this-together andrealpolitik.

Pawn to cadge off parents, grandparents, uncles, in-laws, old friends, new friends, MABS, moneylenders, pawnbrokers, SVP.

Pawn to plan a hold-up but fuck it up, throw in the towel and get out of his fucking tree.

Pawn to appear as a nearly invisible dot on a maths-paper graph in a financial report.

Pawn to bounce along and break his ribs in a Paddywagon, to get a secret underground legal hammering in the Bridewell, to be led up the ancient grimy steps in shackles to the district court.

Pawn to can’t remember, truly deeply sorry yer honour, not like me atall and can’t afford the bail.

Pawn to crowded cell of moaning junky cannibals in the depths of Mountjoy Jail.

Pawn on desperation's floor, chewing the lino, trying to find the butt of a spliff.

Pawn to nearest convenient cliff.

Rook to ruin

Bishop to Rome

Bishop to small boy

Rook to stately home

rook ruin boy rome

bishop small stately ruin

rook small bishop ruin

boy ruin stately rome

Knight to the Imperial Franco-German Commission.

Knight to all-perversions-paid-for far-eastern trade mission.

Knight to intern at NATO global command.

Knight to suck oil from the sea and blood from the land

Queen to present a late-night shitehawk show for MTV.

Queen to be ambassador for a slick, globe-spanning charity.

Queen to HELLO, VIP, and the Chick-lit industry.

Queen to play for both Abromovitch and Saatchi

King of cutbacks and bail-outs and NAMA’s.

King of democratically elected Mafia’s.

King of traitorous Union bureaucrats.

King of PPPs and Public Contracts.

King of bonds and chains and Public Debt.

King of Lears and of Government Jets.

King of ex-INLA bouncers, ex-GARDA Concert Security.

King of Bookies, Stud-farms, Lap-Dancing Clubs, Casinos, Pornography.

Big Pharma King.

Bad Karma King.

Financial Futures King.

Commercial-Culture King.

Protest-Crusher King.

News-Censor King.

King of the Possessed Homes, the Poltergeist Hotels, the Spectral Holiday Villages, the dead lakes, the rivers swam in by images of leafless trees alone, the mountains full of hunted revolutionary shades, the linear graveyards of our roads, the homes full of drugged and insensible old, the empty Apartment Blocks omenic of total collapse, the crowds of strung out inner city skeletons haunting the inner-city-streets at dawn searching for a you-know-what, the riot cops that are already more than half way to robots, the zombie banks, the Ghost Estates.

King of Taxes, Charges, Fines and Rates.

All The Kings survey the empty boards

command the pieces back to form again

line-up exactly as before.

though a pawn or two may be blinded or missing or added

the bishop a mata-hari

the rook a commissioner

the knight in a T32 instead of a horse

and now the trumpets blast from way above the board

and something dark and massive squatting overhead to fart commands:

Recommence the Sport!

And the billion voiceless voices from the faces with no faces roaring out again for the satisfaction of a total sweep, for a four zero year, for a black and white divide of everything, for tradition, craft and stategy, for neat mathematical boxes of world,

for borders indivisible and impossible to cross,

for eternal, irrevocable, ridiculous bloody orders.

The unruly trinity, The All Ireland Poetry Slam and the Nighthawks Sex Scandal

2010-11-05T08:09:00.001-07:00

The Unruly Trinity

The picture above is something I threw together as part of a cool collaboration I've been involved with recently. I like the pic, especially the Gloc at the front looking like a spaceship, I hadn't enough time to get the thing done properly so ended up throwing everything at it, going for the whole 'Ireland gets a shakedown' vibe. One of me mates says the money looks like biscuits, but fuckit.

The collaboration came about through Nighthawks. We'd had Pony Club perform at the Cobalt a few times and Simon the pianist, who was working on his own pet project asked me if I would be interested in providing some words. He thought we'd work well together after he saw me perform Ireland Is, and the Unruly Trinity was born. It's basically an EP comprising of a musician (Simon), a poet (me) and a songwriter (Mark Cullen) and our take on where Ireland is as we head into 2012.

Anyway the EP, called Ireland Is, will be on itunes for download soon.

Here's a link to the facebook page if you'd like a nosy at some pics of me and the others hobnobbing in the library bar, them two all muso-suave and me in my Burton's best.

http://www.facebook.com/TheUnrulyTrinity

The All Ireland Poetry Slam

I won the All Ireland Poetry Slam there last weekend. It was a great event, a real showcase for the dynamic power of performance poetry and it's range of styles. A major surprise for me was Karl Parkinson not figuring in the later stages. He'd blown me away at the Leinster final the week before. The fucker gave me goosebumps.

One of the judges christened him as the 'Angel of the Flats', I'm more inclined to go with 'That fucking bastard I'd like to throw down the stairs because he's so good'

It was a really, really cool day and as Stephen James Smith, the organiser said, it's not about winning, it's about sharing the artform. So I'm gonna do just that, wrap your eyes and ears around the following vid if you'd like to watch the event. My favourite on the day, who won second place, had to be Fergus Costello. Abby Oliveira was brilliant too. There's a few breaks in the footage but you can skip through em.

Nighthawks accused of being sexist, again, and shock of all horrors, not by Emerging Writer this time.

Kate Dempsey, of the feather boa abusing Poetry Diva's, recently pointed out that we had an all male line-up for our big gig in the Project last week.

(link here http://emergingwriter.blogspot.com/2010/10/nighthawks-for-oxfam.html)

It's the third or so time that she's said it and it sorta bugs me. We've had loads of female acts since we started up, as you can see from the list in my comment on her blog. But in fairness Kate's not the only one who has said it. Someone else mentioned it on the night.

We're most definitely not sexist, but we do put on acts based on what we like. We like female artists, but they have to be good. If you think there's any wimmin out there who'd be intereste in performing with us please let us know.

The nighthawks gig was great craic by the way.

Coppers

And how about them Coppers breaking heads at that student march? You can always rely on the Guards to step in and knock somebody out on the Governments behalf, can't you? The Truncheon waving ledgebags. I wonder if the militant Socialist groups weren't there would it have been so nasty. Like, were they told to go in hard just because the socialists are getting cocky, or is the mandate to crush any grassroots resistance to anything whatsoever, wherever and whenever?

Militants 'hijacking' a pensioners march, now that I'd like to see, imagine the hospital waiting lists for hip replacements then.

Oh, before I go, I'll be interviewing Stephen James Smith here next week so keep a goggle on for that.

And Congrats to Niamh Bagnell who's had a story featured in this seasons's Stinging Fly. Copies on sale at link below. I'm also delighted to see that the issue includes a Graphic Fiction offering from Kevin Barry which looks very, very interesting.

http://www.stingingfly.org/current.html

The best night out in Dublin....The bastards

2010-10-27T05:08:00.000-07:00

1000 things to do before you die

Go to the Brown Bread Mixtape (x 1000)

It is my favourite place to go on the planet. And if you can't make it tonight you can tune in here

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/the-brownbread-mixtape

I fucking love the Brown Bread Mixtape. Here's ten reasons why.

1. They have the most electrically charged room I've ever been in.

You can never get a seat. All the standing room gets gone fast. People try and listen from the stairs and from the toilets and back down the connecting corridor. It gets too warm and the audience gets charged up like water molecules in a microwave, but never in a rowdy way, 'cause it's a lovely vibe, and the raucous energy all gets released then in reason two.

2. They have the alternative National Anthem.

My Blood is Boiling for Ireland. A gorgeous little ditty full of simple words and positivity. So good it won the Irish Times Today FM Alternative Anthem Competition. It's on Youtube but you'd have to experience the sing along version tonight to really appreciate it.

3. It's run by Kalle Ryan and Enda Roche.

Kalle spent years in the States, came back here and said lets just set this shit up. The type of attitude I love. Enda is his minty cool sound technician musician mate. Together they make a great combination. Kalle as bombastic as any slamtastic New York poet and Enda just chilled with a silent no frills approach. Enda also plays the bongos in the most charismatic way imaginable, and yes , such a thing is possible.

4. They get amazing acts (which we sometimes nick).

Nighthawks has both yoinked and passed on acts which have featured here and at Stephen James Smiths Glor Sessions. This is is another reason I like the BBMT. They are benevolent to their acts and generous to similar nights. The rising tide lifts all boats baybeee.

They also have the resident Brown Bread Players, a sketch group who deliver Kalle Ryan's comedy imaginings.

5. They have an applause sign.

The have a coat hanger with some paper sello-taped to it that says APPLAUSE. It's a fucking magical thing that shouldn't work but does because the lads are so sound and the audience want it to.

6. It shouldn't Exist.

Everyone is supposed to be downhearted because we're all falling into the economic abyss. We're all supposed to be at home crying into our microwave meals, wringing out that mornings cornflakes for the Sunday dinner but we're not, not yet anyway. As long as there's a creative spark hope will spring eternal from the raging creative hearts of men and women. Brown Bread Mix-tape proves that with it's very existence.

7. I had my best gig there ever.

It was last March. It was phenomenal. Phenomenal like Facebook, Harry Potter and Michael Jackson's Thriller - ie less to do with the person and more to do with the luck of right time and place, definitely less to do with me and my near drunk performance, more to do with the fact all my peer poet mates were there and everybody said fuck-it, lets give this guy lots of love and the fucking roof was blown off. I'll never forget it.

8. It's not serious.

They get great comedy and have the exact balance of respect for and banter with the acts. It's fun, seriously.

9. It has beer.

Fuck yeah.

10. It's fucking free.

Nuff said.

So there. Do it peeps. Please go. You can thank me tomorrow.

The time for Battle is upon us. The Leinster Poetry Slam

2010-10-21T06:31:00.000-07:00

Ready yerselves. The time for proper puncuation and tidy poems on the page is ended. Time for expert delivery, timing, comic precision and not putting anyone to sleep.

The most monstrous clash since Hulk Hogan wedgied Andre the Giant is upon us.

That's right. It's SLAM TIME bitches.

It's a fiver in - worth it just for the performers, but sure if you pay you may as well throw your hat in the ring too.

All the necessary details here.

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=158764797488867

Beautiful music and the amazing statue that talks to the pigeons

2010-10-19T23:53:00.000-07:00

I had a poem aired on RTE last night. It's a sad poem and they played a piece of beautiful piano music afterwards. Here's the music. See what you think.

There was also a feature on this guy. Pretty cool costume.

Putting a lot of words together in a weird way to garner interest doesn't garner interest

2010-10-15T04:58:00.000-07:00

Got up this morning with a whopper hangover after breaking my own 'no drinking on a weekday' rule because I'm currently rebelling against myself.

I was in RTE radio again last night as part of Nighthawks. It was interesting because I wasn't doing anything. Someone from Mayo told me their cap wearing Da was complaining about 'That Dublin lad who's always on'.

If your poems penetrate some Burren-boned farmer's soul that's amazing, but if you're pissing him off, and him just in from the back fields where he was spitting greeners the size of Rockall while milking his cows for tae, it's time to take a breather.

I'm showing my ignorance with that descriptive vignette. That Da is probably just an office worker like meself but the backward part of this particular Dublin scanger thinks everyone outside the pale still wears wellies.

It's still deadly though isn't it? Through the power of radio I'm annoying people hundreds of miles away.

But not last night, as I was saying, before I interrupted myself. I'm so vain I probably think this blog is about me.

What was I saying? Oh yeah - Being not on meant I got to just attend and I really enjoyed meself.

On previous visits to RTE the studio was all stuffy and serious feeling, but they'd changed the set-up, made it more like a venue with lighting and stuff.

There was a new band called the Riptide Movement, they were fuckin deadly as was Crayonsmith who I first saw at the long since frayed 'Shoestring Collective', as was Sweet Jane, and Damon Blake, Foil Arms and Hog and fuck am I leaving anybody out I didn't want this post to turn into a review....

I just wanted to say Dermot Bolger was deadly.

I think RTE prefer when we bring in younger poets to read but yer man Bolger to me is where it's at. He read Neilstown Matador, one of my favourite poems of all time. He also summed up the Irish team's latest failings in a very funny aside.

You can listen to him and the rest of the show here.

http://www.rte.ie/radio1/arena/

Any plans for the weekend?

I hate Fridays. Not sure why. Everytime I ponder on it I'm reminded of this

you're wearing your snorkel jacket

because it's cold

and you have to go

across the road

the childhood road

you always picture

in the 'quick quick

call John an ambulance joke'

skippy's on

but you're missing it

your ma had her reasons

but you're blaming her

for the fact that she

wouldn't even bother

to walk you over

in the time before phones

you go and wait

in the arranged pick-up zone

the space

the airlock between

the outside world

and the social life

inside the pub

for your Da

who'll never turn up.

Fuck that's depressing isn't it? I hated that. All missed appointments and separation shenanigans to one side my Da is deadly though.

I'm doing nothing this weekend, but there's one thing on my list - changing my t-shirt. I've a manky stain on it which means I've to keep my jacket on in work and the heatings on and I'm fucking roasting.

And I'm watching Chris Morris's latest, Four Lions.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yszKc4m-W9U

It looks great. A friend told me he was laughing so hard he had to get his wife to pause the movie before he died.

Life implosion Blog Explosion

2010-10-14T05:19:00.001-07:00

I knew I kept this blog for something.

Redundancies loom in my job and I don't think it'll be as easy to dodge the bullet this time. So I'm preparing for the worst, which for some reason means I'm returning to blogging.

I'm sorta glad the future has become unknown to be honest. Ten years doing one job is too fucking long and being in one place til you're 65 is incredibly sad.

At least I decided years ago never to let my job become my identity and put the amount of energy I did into a creative life. The dream was always thus:

1. To be on Rattlebag talking about a book.

2. To have my kids reap rewards from mine own artistic inroads.

2 has happened many times over and 1 is impossible since Rattlebag went by the by a while back but maybe Myles Dungan does housecalls these days.

So what's been happening in the world of Uiscebot?

On the writing front nothing much, same old same old, mostly because I think the personal front went completely fucking mental. Lots of terrible things happened to be honest. Lets just say the sparkly dark I was stumbling through stopped being so sparkly. Things went mad a good while back and this year was all about recovering. This year was like a gigantic spiritual and emotional Defrag of the self. Now all is back in order, I don't hate anything anymore and I'm in love with everything - Especially you.

There's loads of amazing things going on by the way in case you haven't noticed becasue I've stopped telling you about them. Here's two.

Last night saw the launch of the fantastic collection of short stories 'Sharp Sticks Driven Nails'. I very nearly made the launch but didn't. It's a stunning collection of the best writers the country has to offer. Here's a link.

http://www.stingingfly.org/offer.html

Also in the most inspiring turn of events ever seen on the internet since 2 girls 1 cup. Blogger Total Feckin Eejit has driven the first Poetry Bus into homes all over the globe. There's poems in it from everybody (my fave offerings came from Aoife Mannix) and illustrations too. Go buy a book to guarantee yourself a place in heaven. It's only a fiver.

http://thepoetrybus.blogspot.com/

Blogging is dead to me now

2010-08-27T07:04:00.000-07:00

Insert tumble weed here.

I might be back sometime. But I'm very busy with other things. Meanwhile, take a look around.

If any of you are genuinely going to miss my random musings, sorry.

Most of all, thanks for reading.

Hope to see some of you at Electric Picnic.

Poem in Southword

2010-08-09T04:50:00.000-07:00

I'm blogging just to get rid of that lonesome cowboy pic from my last post - mainly because I have a new poem up here.

http://www.munsterlit.ie/Southword/Issues/18/poetry/keegan_colm.html

Their site links back here, and an Anime man waving his tackle about is not the best way to welcome a new reader I reckon.

There's some great stuff in the new Southword, including heavyweights like Dave Lordan, that talented bastard. Here's a link to his poem.

http://www.munsterlit.ie/Southword/Issues/18/poetry/lordan_dave.html

I'll be reviewing his book Invitation to a Sacrifice this Friday the thirteenth for RTE radio 1

I was in America for two weeks there, Florida to be precise, just back this Wednesday. It was fucking mad. America as an idea is a far cry from the actual theme park holiday experience. It's like going to Spain on a package holiday, you go, you come home, but you haven't really seen Spain at all

Family holidays are mental though. One minute you want to throw yourself off a rollercoaster rather than put up with more family arguing, next you're in the middle of a once in a lifetime moment with your loved ones, experiencing things so beyond the norm you can feel the memory scorching into the hard drive of your life. Deadly stuff altogether.

Oh yeah and here's some info on the Literary happenings at the Upcoming Electric Picnic if you're interested.

http://www.electricpicnic.ie/mindfield-rocks-the-art-of-conversation/

Wahoooo

2010-06-04T00:49:00.000-07:00

Wahoo!!

Yeah peeps. Long weekend!!

I'm actually excited, which for a manic depressive downer factory like me is decent news.

I'm off to Flat Lakes Festival tomorrow. Bunch of kids and tent in tow.

Yeah baby.

I got a mad hankering for blogging this morning. I haven't been making irreverent under-thought-out quips for what seems like an age.

So what's been happening?

Well jaysus. Where to start?

Here I s'pose.

http://www.dublinwritersfestival.com/festival-2010/glor-session

I'll be reading some poems out at that tonight. It's free in and probably booked out, but chance a phone call if you wanna get along. It's a great line-up. There's a bunch of poets I know from around here and there in this Shitty, and Fiach and Enda Reilly too. Two folk/pop singers from Dublin West. The new frontier in Dublin Arts if you ask me.

Another thing on on the night. And I have to say I'm pretty excited about this, is Melissa Nolan's solo performance of the short one person Beckett play NOT I.

As the art critic says 'That's some bleeeedin wacky shit roight there'

In other news I'm branching out in my accidental reviewing career on a tangent from local poetry collections to Hollywood movies baybee. Should be fun.

Oh and I might have a poetry collection out next year.

And I lost the rewrite of my novel after it was bulldozed by a cosmic Karmic Laptop apocolypse. Served me right. But I think I have the older version. Could be worse.

Oh and just finished Netherland, what a great book. I'm currently reading The Shipping News, absolute class. Or as I never get to say on RTE, Fuckin deadly.

Speaking of RTE. For those who rang in to complain about me reading a poem containing the word 'cock' last week. Here's the Lonesome Cowboy. Zeitgeist or wha'

It's art - so you're not allowed be offended.

Toodles.

Nighthawks at Flat Lakes Festival

2010-06-02T05:27:00.000-07:00

Howyiz.

I'm never on this thing anymore.

I think i'm bored by blogging now.

Or just getting old and fat.

Anyhoo. Any of the remaining energy I have should be spent come this weekend at Flat Lakes Festival

http://www.theflatlakefestival.com/

We've been invited to host a whole god-damn tent/marquee/stage type thingy - so respected and recognised the Nighthawks Franchise has now become (thanks to the sterling work by Maestro Stephen Kennedy)

We've put together the best possible Line-up we could get so it will be amazing

Here's the press release type dealio from Facebook and a complete line-up with times and all.

I'm particularly excited about two poets I've managed to collar for the event. Neither have ever read at Nighthawks and they are Catherina Behan and Dave Lordan, two very different (and not just under their underwear) but very brilliant poets.

I'm also very excited about getting drunk and seeing this flat lake that they speak of.

Is there any other kind?)

Anyway's here's the beef.

****

Yes peeps, we're gonna take the quintessential Nighthawks experience, with our speakeasy intimacy and cool/unheard of frequency to the hay and the mud of a (hopefully) sunkissed field in Monaghan.

Check out this Amazing once-only line-up.

Magical Music from Elder Roche, Enda Reilly, Eva Queen, Emilie Conway with Robson Rocha, Jade Strings and Helen Hutchinson, The Ambience Affair, The Flaws.

Literature from Colm Liddy

Afro-Brazilian Capoeira Dance

Cutting Edge poetry from Catherina Behan, Dave Lordan, Kalle Ryan, Colm Keegan, Stephen James Smith.

Theatre From Stephen Kennedy 'Lennon Vs McCarthy' with actors Shea Brennan and Gus McDonagh.

Comedy from Kevin McGahern, Shane Brown, Giles Brody, Trevor Brown, Enda Muldoon.

Full line-up with times after this from The Flat Lakes Page...

'Nighthawks is a top quality monthly arts club that takes place at the Cobalt Cafe in Dublin. Their shows present different kinds of music (indie, folk, classical, jazz, traditional Irish), different kinds of comedy (stand-up and sketch), different kinds of literature (poetry and prose), and even short films. Nighthawks is known for its eclectic line-ups that combine well-established acts and emerging artists. And the Nighthawks' organisers must be doing something right, as every show that they have ever put on has completely sold out.'

MONDO RANCHO TIFFIN TENT

HOSTED BY ' NIGHTHAWKS ' - DUBLIN
1.00PM – ENDA REILLY (FOLK MUSIC – WITH A PUNCH)
1.20PM – COLM KEEGAN (POETRY)
1.30PM – LENNON V MCCARTNEY (SHORT PLAY)
1.40PM – TREVOR BROWNE (COMEDY)
1.55PM – ENDA MULDOON (COMEDY)
2.10PM – ELDER ROCHE (SMOKY PIANO SONGS)
2.40PM – COLM LIDDY (PROSE)
2.45PM – DAVID LORDAN (POETRY)
3.00PM – SHANE BROWNE (COMEDY)
3.15PM – KEVIN MCGAHERN AND GILES BRODY (SKETCH COMEDY)
3.30PM – EVA QUEEN (AN ECLECTIC BLEND OF JAZZY BLUESY POP!)
4.00PM – LENNON V MCCARTNEY (SHORT PLAY)
4.10PM – CATHERINA BEHAN (POETRY)
4.25PM – EMILIE CONWAY AND ROBSON ROCHA (BRAZILIAN MUSIC)
5.10PM – BRAZILIAN DANCE PERFORMANCE
5.30PM – COLM LIDDY (PROSE)
5.45PM – KALLE RYAN (POETRY)
6.00PM – ENDA REILLY (FOLK MUSIC – WITH A PUNCH)
6.30PM – STEPHEN JAMES SMITH (POETRY)
6.45PM – KEVIN MCGAHERN AND GILES BRODY (SKETCH COMEDY)
7.00PM – SHANE BROWNE (COMEDY)
7.15PM – COLM KEEGAN (POETRY)
7.30PM – JADES STRINGS AND HELENE HUTCHINSON ( SOPRANO / HARP / CELLO)
8.15PM – ELDER ROCHE (SMOKY PIANO SONGS)
8.45PM – TREVOR BROWNE (COMEDY)
9.00PM – ENDA MULDOON (COMEDY)
9.15PM – THE AMBIENCE AFFAIR (INDIE MUSIC)
10.00PM – THE FLAWS (INDIE MUSIC)

Saint Savage

2010-05-10T05:03:00.001-07:00

Saint Savage.

The vicar shed his
skin and dressed in furs.
For the glorious epic
that was Llanelwedd pageant.
Majestically he lost the collar
became an animal
for the parish wine.
and the vice chairperson
of the parish wives sowing circle.

She ushered him behind the stands
To discuss a possible expansion
of the Garlands competition
and looked into his wine bright, life tired eyes

Strands that never made it
into the baskets in the wicker workshop
blew along the trampled ground of the graveyard
As he breathed hard.
pulled her close
kissed up and down
the quickening pulse of her unholy throat.

(for Scalder/PJ Nolan's poetry bus exercise- cheers for the workout PJ!)
http://pjnolan.blogspot.com/

Nighthawks and the fantabulous EP wonka machine

2010-04-21T08:29:00.000-07:00

Jaysus help me lads I haven't got a minute to meself anymore and to make matters worse my job have adopted a draconian policy of not letting us doss on the internet, which means I have to work for the WHOLE day they pay me for. Imagine. God be with the days when everyone was too busy losing money to care.

Anyways. I'll be doing poetry related cartwheeling and spoonplaying this Saturday if you're interested in coming along. Details below from Stephen's lovely mailshot thingy.

****

Nighthawks have put together an excellent EP in order to raise much needed funds for OXFAM Ireland. The EP contains the following tracks:

1 – ‘The Celtic Tiger Song’ – Shane Browne.
2 – ‘Essential Fashion Item (Gay Best Friend)’ – Totally Wired.
3 – ‘The Road to Termonfeckin’ – Read by Kevin McGahern.
4 – ‘The Break-Up Song’ – Trevor Browne.
5 – ‘The Crackle’ – Written and read by Colm Keegan.

The EP costs 5 euro, and it is now on sale at the OXFAM shop on Parliament Street, near Temple Bar. Telephone - 01 670 7022.

In order to properly celebrate this momentous cultural achievement, Nighthawks are presenting a special one-off stand-up comedy night at the Cobalt Cafe, 16 North Great Georges Street. This show will take place at 8pm this Saturday, April 24th, and every cent raised goes directly to OXFAM Ireland.

Stand-up comics performing on the night will include:

Enda Muldoon
Totally Wired
Trevor Browne
Kevin McGahern
Shane Browne
Jim Elliott
Tomie James

And there will also be a turbo-charged blast of poetry from Colm Keegan.

Tickets for this Saturday's show only cost 10 euro each, and that ticket price includes a FREE copy of the EP.

Tickets can be purchased from the OXFAM shop on Parliament Street. Telephone - 01 670 7022.

So... a night of quality stand-up comedy, and a FREE EP, all for 10 euro. You know it makes sense. And, as usual, please buy your tickets early in order to avoid disappointment.

For more information about OXFAM Ireland, and the great work that they do, please go to www.oxfamireland.org

And while we're here... we'd like to mention two upcoming gigs from brilliant headline acts that we have had at Nighthawks:

Emilie Conway and her amazing band are playing songs from Billie Holiday at the Twisted Pepper, 54 Middle Abbey St, this Sunday at 6pm. Tickets cost a mere €7 (conc. €5); and the show will be followed by a session, so bring your spoons...

And Elder Roche and his amazing band are playing the Odessa Club on May 13th. Doors open at 9pm. Get there early and get one of the comfortable seats near the front.

Nighthawks at the Cobalt April 17th 2010

2010-03-30T00:16:00.000-07:00

As usual it's over to Stephen for the Nighthawks Lowdown....

I'll be back on here soon maybe.

See yiz all Wednesday for the brown Bread Mixtape http://brownbreadmixtape.wordpress.com/

Folks

Here is the line-up for Nighthawks at the Cobalt on Saturday, April 17th. As you can see below, it's going to be one hell of a show. Tickets go on sale in CITY DISCS on Saturday, April 3rd, and we expect this one to sell out fast. Please buy early.

The Nighthawks EP for OXFAM is almost complete now, and it will be launched at 2pm on Saturday, April 17th, at the OXFAM shop on Parliament Street in Dublin city centre. We are also putting together a special one-off Nighthawks stand-up comedy night to promote the EP, but we'll update you on that when we have everything in place.

Also, you can see footage of previous acts at Nighthawks by going to the excellent website www.mixtape.ie

And, finally, on the shameless self-promotion front, Stephen's three short plays are coming up at the New Theatre in Temple Bar next week. The plays are:

1 – Lennon v McCartney
2 – The Wire on O’Connell Street
3 – Keep the Devil Way Down in the Hole

April 5th – April 10th at 8pm. Tickets: €12.50 (€10 Concession)
TEL: 01 670 3361
The show runs for one hour approximately and there is no interval.

Regards

The Nighthawks People

Nighthawks at the Cobalt

Saturday, 17th April, 2010
Cobalt Cafe
16 North Great Georges Street
Dublin 1

THE FLAWS (Paul Finn and Shane Malone)
The Flaws burst on to the Irish rock scene a few years ago with their wonderful debut album Achieving Vagueness. They were nominated for a Choice Music Award in 2008, and it wasn’t long before they found themselves playing Glastonbury and other major music festivals. The Flaws are currently putting the finishing touches to their eagerly awaited second album, due for release this summer, and we’re really delighted to welcome Paul and Shane to the Cobalt for an intimate set on April 17th. If you want to see just how good these guys really are, then check out ‘You and I’ at this link - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfLowwMARyY

FOIL ARMS AND HOG
What can we say about our favourite comedy sketch group that we haven’t already said before? Feck all, I reckon. Foil Arms and Hog are Sean Finegan, Sean Flanagan and Conor Mc Kenna. They have played and conquered every comedy venue in Ireland – including an appearance at Vicar Street last November. In 2009 they brought their debut show to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, and they’re heading back there again in August, 2010, for yet more acclaim. We think they’re brilliant – and you will too!

THE CITIZEN
Ken O’Duffy wrote and recorded three excellent albums with Saville (go out and buy all of them) before moving to England in 2009. He then began playing solo gigs in the UK, under his new name The Citizen, and is now starting to work on a solo album. Nighthawks on April 17th will be The Citizen’s first ever Irish performance – and we honestly can’t wait to hear what Ken has up his sleeve.

ENDA REILLY
Enda Reilly is a singer-songwriter with a powerful folk voice. In 2008 Enda released his debut album, Oxygen 21, and since then he has been mostly writing songs in Irish, and getting a lot of airplay on RTE Raidió na Gaeltachta. Enda has also started performing famous poetry as songs with the one and only Stephen James Smith. Check out - www.endareilly.com

STEPHEN MURRAY
Stephen Murray is a poet, playwright and novelist. He was the 2005 Cuirt Poetry Slam Champion and the 2007 Electric Picnic Slam Champion. This man has even performed on the BBC's Three Men in a Boat go to Ireland. Stephen has published two collections of poetry with Maverick Press, and is currently completing the final draft of his debut novel. He is coming all the way from Galway to be at Nighthawks on April 17th – so please make him feel very welcome.

JAMES MARSH
It’s impossible not to like James Marsh. He’s like a big cuddly teddy bear with a happy head on top. He’s also funny as hell. In fact James is one of the best young stand-ups in Ireland, and he proved that conclusively when he last played Nighthawks in early 2009. James also has an impressive range of comedy medals pinned to his furry chest. For example, James is a previous winner of the Comedy Dublin competition, and in 2008 he was a finalist in the prestigious Bulmer’s Comedy Competition. He has also played all the major comedy venues in Ireland, including the Laughter Lounge, and in 2008 James performed at the Edinburgh Festival. It’s going to be one hell of a show.

Tickets are on sale from CITY DISCS in Temple Bar (beside the Button Factory’s Wall of Fame). Tel. 01 6330066. Price 12.50 Euro. Capacity is limited, so please buy your tickets early in order to avoid disappointment. Doors open at 7.45pm. Strictly no admission after 8.10pm. Show ends at 11pm (approx). Bar available.

Contact us at: nighthawksindublin@gmail.com

Cheek Cheek Chin and Nose

2010-03-08T02:40:00.001-08:00

I'm taking a break from Blogging as you might have noticed. For many reasons, most of them incredibly boring.

But, here I am again, can't stay away when I've news to share.

I had a poem published in the Sunday Tribune yesterday.

You can read it here.

http://www.tribune.ie/article/2010/mar/07/new-irish-poetry-by-colm-keegan/

See yiz all soon.

I'm outta here.

2010-02-18T03:18:00.000-08:00

See yiz all in a month.

Kissy Kissy.

Nighthawks at the Cobalt March 6th 2010

2010-02-16T05:08:00.000-08:00

So the mailshot for the ol Nighthawks Juggernaut is out. As usual over to the Stephen for all the details.

(I'm mostly looking forward to seeing Totally Wired after their brilliant song on the RTE's Arena last week.)

On we go.

Folks

Tickets for the next Nighthawks at the Cobalt go on sale this Saturday (February 20th) at CITY DISCS in Temple Bar. Telephone - 01 6330066.

It's another great line-up for March 6th, and we expect to sell out quite quickly, so please get your tickets early, in order to avoid disappointment. (Tickets still cost a mere €12.50 each.)

By the way, if you've never been to Nighthawks, you can view some footage of the night here:

http://www.mixtape.ie/?cat=60

Also, the Nighthawks' special from RTE Radio One last Thursday (February 11th), can be found on the RTE website under Arena.

Thank you for your support and feedback.

Regards

The Nighthawks People

Nighthawks at the Cobalt

Saturday, 6th March, 2010

Cobalt Cafe
16 North Great Georges Street
Dublin 1

Engine Alley (Canice and Brian Kenealy)
We are frequently stunned by the calibre of artists who agree to play Nighthawks at the Cobalt, and our next show is a perfect example of this. Put simply, Engine Alley are one of the very best Irish bands ever, and God only knows how we persuaded Canice and Brian ‘The Lion’ Kenealy to headline for us on March 6th. So – for those of you under the age of twenty five – here comes the history lesson; and please pay attention, because we’ll be asking questions later on. Engine Alley formed in Kilkenny in the late 1980s when the Kenealy brothers (Canice and Brian) teamed up with Eamonn Byrne and moved to Dublin to take over the world. They quickly built up an impressive reputation for their superb live performances, and U2’s label, Mother Records, signed them up in 1991. Soon after that, Engine Alley released their fantastic debut album, A Sonic Holiday, produced by Steve Lillywhite, and it deservedly won the Hot Press award for Best Irish Album of 1992. The album contained such glorious hits as ‘Mrs. Winder’, ‘Song for Someone’ and ‘Infamy’. The band then toured the UK and the US. Then, in 1995, Engine Alley independently released their second album, entitled Shot in the Light. It had a much darker sound than their glam-pop debut album, and although it didn’t register the same number of hit singles, it was unanimously praised by music critics here and abroad. Engine Alley broke up a year or so after that, but – when the moon is full and the forest is silent – they do still occasionally play ‘secret’ gigs in Kilkenny. Anyway, long story short, Canice and Brian Kenealy are playing the Cobalt on March 6th – and we just have to pinch ourselves when we see a sentence like that.

Totally Wired
You may have heard the recent Nighthawks’ special from Studio 8 in RTE Radio One, and, if so, you’ll certainly remember Totally Wired’s hilarious performance of their song – ‘Essential Fashion Item (Gay Best Friend)’. Well, there’s much more where that came from, and, on March 6th, Emmet and Lorcan will be up at the Cobalt, singing funny songs and throwing funny shapes. Totally Wired will also feature on the forthcoming Nighthawks’ EP that we are putting together to raise money for OXFAM. Furthermore, you can catch Totally Wired every fortnight at Club 27 in Cassidy’s on Westmoreland Street. You know it makes sense.

Eva Queen
Right, folks, Aoife Corcoran is now called Eva Queen. Got that? Same gorgeous voice, same gorgeous songs, just a different name. That’s all. So... Eva Queen is a singer/songwriter with a sound that blends soul, pop, rock, jazz and blues. She has recently signed to Reekus Records, and her debut album is due for release in 2010. Eva’s new webpage iswww.myspace.com/evaqueenmusic - and there will be a single up there for FREE download the week before the Cobalt show. And, just to spoil you even more, Brian Flanagan will be playing guitar with Eva on March 6th. That alone is surely worth the price of admission.

Stephen James Smith
Where should you begin when you want to write a few lines about a man like Stephen James Smith? Well, first off, we reckon you should mention his webpagewww.StephenJamesSmith.com. It’s bloody impressive. And you should also probably mention the fact that Stephen runs an excellent weekly arts night in the International Bar called The Glor Sessions. (Footage of that can be found on the brilliant MIXTAPE.IE site.) What else? Well... we think it’s fair to say that Stephen is one of the very best performance poets in the country, if not the best. After all, he is the current Cúirt International Literary Festival Grand Slam Poetry Champion, and he has represented Ireland in poetry at the Vilenica Literary Festival in Slovenia. And, if all that isn’t enough, Stephen is presently recording an EP of old Irish poetry with the great Enda Reilly. In short, Stephen James Smith is a poet that leaves his mark on every audience – and we don’t mean he carries a knife.

Tommy Nicholson
Don’t be fooled by this man’s wink, Tommy Nicholson is a cute Navan whore, and he’ll charm the milk out of your tea, if you don’t keep a close eye on him. Tommy began working the Irish comedy circuit in the late 1990s, after making an impressive debut on the BBC’s New Comedy Awards. Only a few weeks after that he secured a place in the semi-finals of Channel 4’s So You Think You’re Funny? Since then Tommy has appeared in all the major comedy venues in Ireland, and he has been selected to perform in the Kilkenny Cat Laughs International Comedy Festival for four years running. It’s no wonder that Des Bishop has described Tommy as – “The King of Underground Comedy.”

Jacqueline Martin and Larry Egan
Right – it’s about time that we had a bit more traditional Irish music at Nighthawks, and who better to call upon than Jacqueline Martin. Jacqueline is a very talented fiddle player who runs the Thursday night session in the Cobblestone pub in Smithfield. On March 6th Jacqueline will be accompanied by Larry Egan on accordion. What better way can there be to get warmed up for St. Patrick’s Day!

Aiden O’Reilly
Aiden O’Reilly is a short story writer and a novelist. In the last 15 years he has worked throughout Europe at everything from being a mathematics lecturer to being a building-site worker. He returned to Ireland a few years ago, and since then his work has appeared in The Stinging Fly,3am magazine, The Sunday Tribune and The Dublin Review. In November 2008, Aiden won the prestigious McLaverty Prize, awarded bi-annually for short stories. On March 6th Aiden will be reading from his story ‘Self-Assembly’.

PS – What is the name of Engine Alley’s fantastic debut album? (Hey, we told you we’d be asking questions... No prizes though.)

Tickets are on sale from CITY DISCS in Temple Bar (beside the Button Factory’s Wall of Fame). Tel. 01 6330066. Price 12.50 Euro. Capacity is limited, so please buy your tickets early in order to avoid disappointment. Doors open at 7.45pm. Strictly no admission after 8.10pm. Show ends at 11pm. Bar available.

Muse - my Monday poem

2010-02-15T04:05:00.001-08:00

Here's a short poem for TFE's love bus exercise. Click the link to join in.

http://totalfeckineejit.blogspot.com/2010/02/love-bus.html

Muse

Muse - as true love, but with two or three core elements removed

Sometimes blamed for Blues music

Abstract - oxygen feeding flame.

Metaphor - a dog, ragged, skipping under a swooping gull on a windswept beach

Gull - bird, known to save energy by riding wind currents

Dog - playful predatory carnivore, chases cars, survives by riding anything.

Beach - most favoured place to die in war movies.

Muse. (See also, Maud Gonne, Will o the Wisp and Hentai Tentacle Porn.)

Pissing on the storm in the teacup of Literature

2010-02-12T06:27:00.001-08:00

Fuck literature. That's my motto.

Ah I love it really. It's more like 'fuck literature but stay and make breakfast'.

Over at Julian Gough (a very famous writer that ignorant lil me had never even heard of until yesterday thanks to a google alert) there's a hot debate about the state of Irish Literature.

http://www.juliangough.com/journal/

He's making some interesting points. And thanks to the Guardian noticing his rant the debate has snowballed onto Twitter - which is why nobody seems to be commenting on his blog anymore, maybe.

So, the moral of the story is I need to get an Iphone.

I think what lies at the heart of his argument is that a lot of writers aren't out getting chlamydia or doing cocaine like the rest of the country because they've spent their twentys doing boring masters degrees on writers who were getting Chlamydia and doing cocaine in the 60s - which turns them into bores who know their letters but still can't find the Zeitgeists G-spot.

For the record I have Chlamydia right now.

I'm going to mull on this issue and maybe make a comment when the discussion is gone cold six feet under after the horse has bolted.

In other news Nighthawks was brilliant last night. Thanks for listening and showing your support peeps.

Perpetuity – Writing4all

2010-02-10T00:54:00.000-08:00

Congrats to me ol' mucker Brian Kirk who wiped the floor with the competition over at writing for all, winning their Writing Spirit for all 2009 competition. You can read the story here.

Perpetuity – Writing4all

Nighthawks take over RTE, in an hour long coup, of sorts, okay we were asked but we're still rebels

2010-02-10T00:44:00.000-08:00

Yes peoples of the internet. Rejoice, for the age of the Nighthawks is upon us.

Or not. Mostly not. But yeah - an hour long show on RTE thanks to The Arena show. Fair play to them. You'll be able to listen live here.

http://www.rte.ie/radio1/arena/

I'm so very behind with keeping blog readers up to date as Nighthawks have gone mental with the busyness.

We've recorded a charity CD for Oxfam which will be out soon, comedy songs, music and poetry - including my poem 'The Crackle' as the sign off track. We recorded in Westland studios - the studio Thin Lizzy used a lot back in the day. That was mad.

Friday before last we hosted Glen Hansard and Mark Geary at the Cobalt (vid below). It was a fundraiser gig, Glen contacted Stephen looking for something low key as a way to wind down after his Ebay auction thingy where he played in some guys living room. Obviously we jumped at the chance - together we raised over 1000 euros in funds.

Then last weekend we had an astoundingly good Nighthawks where we finished the night with the gigs first ever full band thanks to Elder Roche - piano, double bass, guitar and drums. We thought the place woulda been blasted out with sound but they had such a smooth soft style (the drummer used those brushes etc). It had to have been the best nighthawks finale ever. Hopefully the Mixtape lads will have footage of it soon.

That night was also kicked off by Fiach, a really talented young singer songwriter. We had some quality comedy too from american Jim Elliot who actually wrote gags about the night before he went on - no small thing folks, and George Fox and Rory O Hanlon. David Mohan represented the Poetry posse, and represented well.

It's all fucking go I tells ya. Keep an eye out for a Nighthawks feature in the Irish Times too.

Anyways, here's the vid from the Haiti Gig.

(apologies - but the vid keeps playing no matter what post a visitor is reading, you can get it over on mixtape)

55 word flash game yokey with the dogfish

2010-02-05T03:33:00.000-08:00

He yanked the rod, a dogfish was whipped from the sea.

He stamped on it.

‘Take the hook.’

I tore at its mouth. It tore my finger.

‘Welcome to the top of the food chain.’ He said, and kicked it back into the water.

Sea smells exploded in my five year old brain.

Drown Town

2010-02-05T00:30:00.000-08:00

I've had a few people looking for this story on the The Sunday Tribune's website and not being able to find it because there's a security issue with the site or something. So here it is. For those who give a shit the three people featured in this story are the central characters in the novel I'm working on. Enjoy.

I've never felt more alive.

A big base beat is thumping through the ground and into me from what might be the night's last song. The whole place is kicking, I'm drugged up and flying. My heart is going wild, buzzing off the energy of all the people as I cross the dance-floor. I'm with my mate Darin and he's flying too, sure I can nearly see his wings. Coolness comes off us like a ready-brek glow. It's in our eyes, in my gelled hair, in the ronnie Darin's trying to grow, and in our movement, the way we walk, half-dancing.

Darin points and shouts over the music.

"Let's go over there."

I follow him up into the tiered seating. The air smells of grass. People have flipped down the blue plastic seats to stand on and dance. We get up as well and give it loads; our arms flying, legs not moving, wearing our best ravers' faces and gurning to fuck. The song changes and a piano solo fills the air. I turn my face upwards and let the music pour over me, getting lost in the notes until someone taps me on the shoulder. A dancer on the seats behind waves a spliff in my face. I give a thumbs-up and take a drag off the joint. The smoke tickles my brain. I check out the dance-floor, a lake of bodies washed in laser green. I try to give the joint back but its giver closes his eyes and shakes his head back into the beat. I call to Darin.

"D'ya want this?" I wave the spliff and he takes it, but hands it back with a wink after one quick toke.

"We have to get down there," I say. "Get back into it."

He does an okay sign with his hand and his grin widens. He hasn't got a clue what I'm saying, but it stops mattering. The joint has me gone all ripply.

I close my eyes and rise with the music; I see myself skimming along the Liffey, bridges rushing over me. I spiral up and around Liberty Hall and skip onto the top of the Custom House, seeing orange light streaking through the river like rocket trails from the buildings, or stilts keeping everything afloat.

Darin tugs at my t-shirt.

"You alright?"

"Yeah man, I'm sound." He's all blurry, like he's behind dirty glass.

"We're gonna do it tonight," he says. "Arnotts, right?"

"Yeah, I'd say so, yeah."

He's on about our deal. A promise we made ourselves one night on Henry Street.

"We have to. We will," he's trying to convince himself.

"There's no panic," I say again. "We'll see what happens."

I spot a perfect candidate for the spliff. A girl about my age in a purple lace dress that clings to everything walks by on the dance-floor, the lights pick out glitter on her tights, ultra violet makes her trainers gleam and little freckles stand out on her cheeks. She stops and grabs a hand-rail and totters a bit, she's gorgeous, and she's out of it. I jump down off the chair and trot down to her in time to the beat. But then I can't think of anything to say. I just stand there with the music bashing my ears.

A big thick with his collar popped up comes over and grabs her by the waist, swings her around and tries to kiss her. She's having none of it but she doesn't squirm out of his grip either. I go over and offer him the joint.

"What the fuck is that?" He says, staring at the joint as if I've just flashed him.

"It's a J. Wanna toke?"

"I'm not your bud, prick." A frown tightens his big, spotty, angry head. I'd say in the daylight the hairs on his knuckles cast shadows. I can tell he would like to smash my face in, he's the type that would do it out of boredom. That's why I have a Stanley blade tucked into my sock, not that I'd ever cut anybody, but I bring it just in case. Everyone carries something.

"No bother man," I say. "It's cool, more for me." I take a big pull on the joint.

He moves away and tries to pull her with him into the crowd. She looks my way and stays still, their fingers play for a second, then he's floating alone. He reaches into his top and swigs from a bottle of Vodka before turning away with a grumble. She gives a little trickly wave and laughs.

"Bye-Bye Vodka Boy."

The girl wobbles again so I stamp out the joint and offer help. She drops into my arms, her head falls back, her hair goes across her face in strands but I can still see her eyes, the nicest I've ever seen. The DJ weaves classical music into the sounds.

"Hello there," I say.

"Hello yourself," she says.

Around us everybody is drowning in the swirl of violins, eyes closed, arms up, bodies swaying. I hold the girl's hips from behind and pull her body against mine. My little finger slides up her tights. We lean backwards together, arching our backs to send rushes up our spines. The beat builds up, the crowd moves quicker now. I let my lips get close to her ear, my chin feels the sweat on her neck. The floor starts shaking as the beat kills off the violins. The whole place jumps up and down. A roar swells up from the crowd. We separate and join the motion. I throw out a few two-fingered whistles. My buzz spills out onto my face in a big yoked up smile. Everything is lovely, we're all moving together with the beat and I've never felt more alive.

The song stops. The lights go on. It's all over. I turn to grab her and kiss her but she's gone. I tell myself it's all good but the vibe is changing, something mean snakes through the place, infecting my belly. The magic is lost, it's all skaggy faces and people shouldering for space.

That time on Henry Street, me and Darin were on mushrooms, trippin' to bits, sharing his iPod and painting pictures with the tunes. It was sunny after raining and the streets were all glimmery. Outside Arnotts there was this homeless man warming a strip of cardboard, a smelly drunk fucker, all beardy and piss-stained with only cider cans for company. He waved us over. We just smirked and kept walking, but he got up and grabbed us, started screaming into our faces. Darin couldn't handle it and just broke his shite laughing. I laughed as well. Then the man gave me a full force clatter in the face. I stood holding my cheek, pure silent as my buzz went all bogey. The tramp's gummy, reeking mouth became a black hole sucking me in. Darin saw me slipping, grabbed my shoulders and pointed up at the sky.

"We should dance up there!" He said.

"What?" I looked up, big tripped eyes blinking.

"Up there." He was pointing at the top of Arnotts. "Next week after the rave."

When I realized what he was at I started laughing again, rescued.

"Yeah! That'd be fucking legend man."

We walked off, talking real loud to let the dipso know he hadn't hurt us. He didn't know what was going on. We huddled close together over our new plan. All the way back to the flats we talked ourselves onto the buildings, imagining our arms in the air like the statues on O'Connell Street, but with headphones on, sparkling like the Spire, dancing over the empty streets as they swirled around us.

Some sap slips on the dance-floor and stumbles into me. I push back and we stare at each other. There's a shout from up in the chairs. Bouncers have a hold of the dancer that gave me the spliff. Vodka-boy is there as well, smirking. Darin's in the middle of it, his body language pleading to the listening bouncers. Whatever happened is done with until spliffy loses it and starts swinging digs. I get up to Darin just as he side-steps the scrap, smart enough not to get sucked in. But that Vodka muppet pushes the two of us flying. We lash into a bouncer and then everything takes off.

Vodka's laughing with a big spiteful grin on his face, crooked teeth showing in his half cocked mouth. Darin manages to go for him. Vodka's buddy jumps on Darin, then I'm on the deck from a punch, getting kicked. I crawl clear. The whole tier is in uproar. People are falling off and over the chairs. Vodka's lashing Darin's head off the ground. I reach for the Stanley blade and give Vodka a boot that catches him lovely and then I slice at his face, missing on purpose. He backs off. Darin gets loose. Someone shouts about the knife. Space opens up around me and I'm free until the bouncers are on us again, bending our arms behind our backs and grabbing our hair. The knife disappears.

We're thrown out one of the emergency exits, let loose on the summer night. There must be about 20 of us but I don't know who's with who. Vodka appears in front of me and bashes his naggin into my head. The glass smashing makes me think of cash registers, my tooth chips, but I hardly feel it. Then it's blast off again, we're all punching and kicking, moving in circles. Everybody's night is ruined now, somebody is going to pay.

There's a fence of bouncers blocking people from joining in but some get through. We jostle out of the car park towards the Liffey. I touch my bleeding head and feel only a tiny little cut. We spill out onto the road. Outsiders get swallowed by the madness, trying to help or getting smart and getting attacked for getting too near.

The rave pours out more and more spectators, yelling and whistling, clapping even. I see the girl from the dance-floor with a gang of women high on the drama. Some are baring their teeth, nearly shouting at the sky. She looks gorgeous though.

Darin runs from my side into the middle of the road shouting. He bounces through the mob, lashing at anyone in reach. Everything moves away from him like ripples from a stone. His top is all torn so he rips it off, his body is slick, the tendons stick out on his neck, for a second he's got control as if he owns the whole street. Then someone sees their chance and knocks him flying with a box. Everybody starts running.

A faux-hawked poser jumps at me and I level him with one punch. We zigzag through the traffic lights near the Custom House, the roads throb under our galloping feet, everything's tense. People are roaring and barking – deep round sounds that start in their ribcages. It's like the most you should ever want to do is scream. A car drives past, kicks batter its flanks, something smashes through the windscreen. The hairs prickle up on my neck. I've never felt more alive.

A raver in camo-combats stands on the granite wall of the Liffey, lets out this huge fucking roar as people throng the edge of the swollen river. Whether he falls or jumps or gets pushed in I don't know. But someone else goes after him then another and another. Darin has someone in a headlock and is trying to force him over the wall; he grabs the belt of his enemy's jeans and manages to flip him in only for his neck to get grabbed. So he goes in as well. It's all yells and splashes as people enter the flow.

There's about 50 people threading water now in the river, laughing and calling others to leave the street behind. Fellas acrobat through the air. Girls hand their things to friends and take the plunge in their minis and bras. People line the walls of the river clapping and cheering. I hear a young-one's voice and see my girl leaning over the edge. Now's the time to catch her and kiss her, but she climbs up and waves at me before jumping in with a splash.

Two shit-vans turn up, painting everything blue and making people scatter. I run for the wall. A girl garda grabs for me but I dodge her and dive in head first.

The wind flies through my hair and then there are bubbles in my ears. I swim under the surface. I used to dream of playing in the Liffey when I was small. Football or kiss-chasing under Tara Street bridge. Loads of little eight-year-olds on water like glass. The cold brings my buzz back and it shoots through me in tingles. I stretch and float, wiggling my toes in my runners.

I swim around the edge of the crowd. The river warms, the noise of it tickles my ears, the way it slides off my arms when I raise them from the water. Darin starts singing some song at the top of his voice, all the swimmers join in and so do I. A few of the police start laughing. I see my girl treading water over near the far wall. She waves again. Then I hear movement in the water behind me and it's Vodka with his face all stiff and he sort of hugs me hard and I feel something stick into my side. The pain of it gets me jumping and twisting like a fish on a line.

I manage one big shout and then I feel all dopey. Darin gets over to me and he can't tell what's wrong. My mouth won't work and I know that it's shock, my hands are tight on my side and underwater Darin feels my stomach spilling into the river.

He shouts for help but nobody's listening, everybody's still having fun. Vodka's over at one of the ladders crawling up and out of the water. The Liffey is in my eyes and tears are coming out, everything's gotten nicer because I think I might be dying, all the street lights are blurry and look like orange stars.

My girl comes over to help and I want to kiss her. Because I might sink and never come up if it wasn't for her, if it wasn't for the care in her eyes. I look above at all the people, at nobody giving a fuck and Darin screams so loud it's like his throat is tearing as the sound flies over the river.

The city turns to look at us. I'll never feel more alive.

Ghost Road Ballyfermot

2010-01-31T14:38:00.000-08:00

Over at Dominic Rivron there's an invitation to write something after listening to a piece of music from Simon Fisher Turner called Ghost Road Berlin.

I was going to write a poem but found I was slightly sick of poetry and in the mood for a bit of the ol' prose. And then once I got into it I realised I'd need to spend a lot longer on the piece to finish it to a standard I was happy with. So here's the start.

The music, or soundscape more like, has the sound of passing cars in it. I began to envision a cold soulless urban nighttime vista, but that was too depressing, so I stuck a coupla teens in there to warm things up. Teens are great, dangerous, impulsive, passionate, likable, to me the champions of the city. I will probably use the passing cars to create a sense of time passing and growing pressure or something.

They were leaning against the factory wall looking at the traffic. Him with a cigarette pinched between grazed fingers. Her with her sleeves pulled down to cover her hands, her legs crossed against the cold. Across the road an alarm had gone off in the discount furniture store, they stood with the sound in their ears and no conversation to beat it away. Nobody came to see what had tripped the alarm, and the sound died, but still the blue light on the alarm box was flashing on and off, on and off.

He squeezed the last few drags out of their last smoke and pulled his Nike hoodie down lower, so that the passing late-night traffic saw only a shadow where his eyes should be. He liked the idea of himself looking mean. He flicked the smoke and it was caught by a car heading into Ballyfermot, whoosing up beneath the front then flipping out at the back and spraying small ashes to die on the street. He watched the sparks fade and told himself that he wouldn't wait any longer than five more cars passing. He was wondering whether to count the car that killed his cigarette when she straightened and spoke.

'Will we go back?' She said.

'D'ya want to?' He asked, and decided not to count the last car.

The girl shrugged and yawned. A yawn that warmed her back and made her shiver. She felt her ears pop. When she stretched her arms out she saw him watch the way she still held the sleeves, keeping the cold off her thin forearms. Her nail varnish was a gaudy predictable pink that should have been removed days ago.

They'd walked into the factories from the nearby estate. There'd been six of them standing outside the take-away, huddled in a group under the air conditioning outlet - four girls and two boys, all noise and slagging and shadows. The take-away closed and people started to leave. First his friend and then hers one by one until they were left alone. They talked on Bebo all the time, about everything. It was easy. But in real life they hardly ever spoke.

She'd asked about his hands, the raw scabs on his knuckles. He'd started walking as he told her. By the time he was finished they were beyond the estate and at the furniture shop, then the alarm went off and she was glad. It meant she didn't have to come up with an answer to what he'd said. What he'd done.

A car passed and she saw him whisper to himself.

'One.'

'What.'

'Nothing.'

The Irish Blog Awards

2010-01-29T05:25:00.001-08:00

I wouldn't mind being nominated for the blog awards.

Although I think I'm way below whatever bar they judge things by, I think sometimes I do a good job of this blogging lark.

If you want to nominate me, or any other blog, or yourself for that matter (I personally, haven't stooped that low, I have standards, and would not go any lower than asking you to do it for me) click here.

http://awards.ie/blogawards/nominations/

Fifty Five Flash meets Douglas Adams

2010-01-29T04:29:00.000-08:00

http://g-man-mrknowitall.blogspot.com/

Over at that link (thanks to Susan at this link)

http://www.stonyriver.ie/

There's a 55 word flash fiction thingy going on, based on the picture above. Here's my offering.

Suddenly, the truth about her pimp's afro hit her.

'My god!' She screamed. 'That's not an afro! It's a vacuous hole that plays with all notions of dimension and time!'

Black Hole Head McFlinty knew how to handle a ho going anti-hair.

'Shut up and tickle those bricks!' He yelled.

And all was well.

The Police-do-not-cross-tape and the Moon and the ability to Empathise and Project

2010-01-29T02:07:00.000-08:00

Picture that picture above in colour and drawn by someone who knows what they're doing and you have an idea of what the moon looked like as I walked to work this morning. I saw it through the houses and then it disappeared from vision and when I could see again the gorgeous way it glowed and seemed to suck the cloud above towards it like the tides was a gone thing.

Now thanks to me and my photographic memory, you can bask in all it's MSPAINTed glory.

I think it's amazing the way we can give the moon a personality, the way we can say 'He's' pulling the clouds towards him whether they like it or not, like some paternal sky god would, the way we can imbue the vapours in that same sky with a wayward mentality, a swirling rebellious air. I think that ability to empathise with even the stones, is at the heart of what makes us so fucking deadly. And deadly with a double meaning, we're all hippys and we're all Sun Tzu.

Anyway. I'd stayed up way too late and slept in which meant I had a bit of a walk this morning (I missed my usual bus). Near the spot where I spied that lovely moon there's a phonebox with a smashed in window and a row of terraced houses. One of the houses is owned by the type of people who store pallets in their drive and light the odd fire in their front garden while drinking cans and admiring the Shetland pony.

Outside that house this morning, idling on the road with the it's lights dimmed, was a Garda car. Their magical do not cross forcefield tape had the whole front garden cordoned off. In the house, the lights were on upstairs, pink curtains drawn in the master bedroom (master of pallets), and all was darkness downstairs and in the garden, so I couldn't make out whether the crime occurred in the garden amongst the junk, or in the house.

I've been Googling the news all morning trying to find out what happened. I hope it was something minor, a Pallet law misdemeanor or something.

If you're in town this evening by the way, I'm involved in organising a secret gig from a secret act at a secret location. Details below.

Not. It's a secret remember.

Damian Clark from last Nighthawks via Mixtape

2010-01-28T07:32:00.000-08:00

Yeah so like I was saying last Thursday we'll have regular uploads over at Mixtape.

http://www.mixtape.ie/

This Thursday it's Kickass Comedy Australian Damian Clarke and most of his brilliant set from the Saturday the 9th, which I missed (Grrr).

He's a quality comedian, and we'd been chasing him for a while. If he looks familiar maybe you saw him on RTE's comedy show 'I dare Ya!', or maybe more recently running last years Comedy Tent at Electric Picnic. A link to his cool website is posted below.

Fair play to him for stepping in that very Saturday after other acts couldn't make it due to the big Snow and Thaw and Freeze of erm, 'Ten' (doesn't have the same ring as 'the big snow of eighty-two' does it? Looking ahead, we'll have to agree a solid way of saying that in the future, something like oh-ten or one-zero, my money's on twenty-ten, what the fuck am I on about?!)

Anyway, heeeeeeeere's Damian!

The video keeps playing no matter what post you're reading on the blog so I've had t oremove the embedded version. To see the vid follow this link.

http://www.mixtape.ie/?p=961

http://www.damianclark.com/

The sore neck, the girl in pink with the purposeful walk brings the sunset, and the poems, and the prose

2010-01-27T03:56:00.000-08:00

So there I was waiting at the Bus-stop yesterday feeling mighty pissed off for no real reason. My sore neck annoying me (since Saturday, dont know why) and I'm standing there in that mad post-fog moistness of a murky January evening.

Some bloke pulls up in his van, looking like my misery personified, a Ned flanders lookalike, but with thinner hair and meeker and older and more pathethic. He parks his van and blocks my view of the road so I can't see my bus coming but it's okay, your man is so desperate and lost and charlie chaplin looking I forgive him.

He open's his van - he's a carpet fitter, and takes all this 'paperwork' into his apartment. I'm looking around Inchicore, at the droll traffic, the concrete redbrick gloom and thinking this is desperate, I'd hate to live here, actually while I'm at it isn't life shit all the same, and then this girl in a pink jacket appears, walking down the road like the girl you see in an establishing shot in a hollywood movie, good looking with a purposeful, unconsciously sexy walk that draws the eye in a certain direction.

She passes me by without so much as a blink, but as she walks past the sun cracks the sky and hits the stained glass window in the church across the road and for a split second everything has this lithium glow and boom it's gone but Kaboom, I'm suddenly happy.

You have to love that fucking sunshine.

Me bus came then and I jumped on and said follow that sunset!

No i didn't. But I did make it home before nightfall, and like a dog on a scent I was mad for the sun, outside the moisture in the air, tiny and insignificant as it was, was holding the daylight in this magical golden glow, with a sky of burnt orange fading fast.

I suggested a drive up the mountains to a certain family spot where we've watched the sunset many times before but for too many boring reasons it wasn't a goer. So fuckit I says, I'll go the park just up the road, up on the hill. Just me and Little Hollie.

It definitely looked like that gorgeous red sky wasn't gonna last that long, but we went anyway, and everything in the park, the birds, the trees, the earth itself seemed piqued in the same way I was. The air was humming.

We walked along the trees, spotting buds and what not, and the red sky did fade fast but that was merely the prelude to the real sunset. A gorgeous sky of indigo and yellow revealing itself while the city lit up behind us in the growing dark. Streetlight ambers and golds and traffic lights twinkling, dead leaves beneath us crinkling, and peeping from the grass, Daffodil Shoots.

It's spring baby. You heard it here first.

Then I did this thing where I swing Hollie along as we walk and fucked me neck up even more so now I walk like the Hunchback of Notre Dam.

None of the above by the way, was the reason for this post.

The Brown Bread Mixtape was (see linklist). Their monthly sesh in the Stag's head is taking place tonight. Here's the info.

Opens 9.00pm FREE admission.
Theme is Family

Musicians:
Enda Reilly, The Lonely Schizophrenic, Pearse McGloughlin

Poet:
Niamh Bagnell

Comedian:
Dave Hurley

Bring your friends. Invite the whole family. Spread the word.

If that doesn't tickle your fancy, you boring bastard, there's a more literary event up Irish Writers Centre way. You could arguably make it to both.

The inaugural The Lonely Voice: Short Story Introductions will take place on Wednesday 27th January at 7pm. The four featured readers are:

Niamh Bagnell
Mary O'Shea
Aideen Henry
Annemarie Neary

The event is free for all to attend.

For more details on The Lonely Voice: Short Story Introductions clicky the linky

http://www.writerscentre.ie/html/events/thelonelyvoice.html

Hennessy awards

2010-01-27T01:55:00.001-08:00

The Hennessy XO literary awards are due up soon enough - April or so usually. I'm not too sure who's in there but I know 'Emerging Writer' Kate Dempsey (see linklist) is, so best of Luck to her.

One annoying thing about the Hennessey's was that even though it's one of the most prestigious and well known comps around you could never find complete competition details online until last year. And now for your convenience, here they are, freshly yoinked from the Sunday Tribune's website.

Rules for Hennessy X.O Literary Awards
* New Irish Writing, edited by Ciaran Carty, is published on the first Sunday of every month and is open to new and emerging writers who are Irish or normally resident in Ireland, and whose work has yet to appear in book form under an established publishing imprint. All stories and poems published are eligible for the annual Hennessy X.O Literary Awards.

* Stories should not exceed 2,200 words. Up to six poems may be submitted. Entries (with a stamped addressed envelope) should be submitted to: New Irish Writing, The Sunday Tribune, 27-32 Talbot Street, Dublin 1, along with name, phone number and email address (where available).

* The New Irish Writing Page was established in 1968 in The Irish Press by David Marcus and has been published in The Sunday Tribune since 1988. It has become internationally renowned for picking out future literary stars, and launched the careers of Patrick McCabe, Neil Jordan, Dermot Healy, Deirdre Madden, Eilis Ni Duibhne, Frank McGuinness, Sebastian Barry, Dermot Bolger, Joseph O’Connor, Colum McCann, Mary O’Donnell, Mary O’Malley, Vona Groarke, John Boyne, Anne Enright, Hugo Hamilton, Philip O Ceallaigh and many other leading Irish writers.

* The Hennessy X.O Literary Awards, co-sponsored by The Four Seasons and The Sunday Tribune, were launched in 1971 and are unique in Ireland and the UK for their support of new writing talent. Awards are made in three categories, First Fiction (for writers publishing their first story), Emerging Fiction and Emerging Poetry. Each winner receives a Hennessy trophy and 1,500 euro. A New Irish Writer of the Year is chosen from the three category winners and receives an additional 2,500 euro and trophy.

* The awards are adjudicated each year by different judges, chaired by Ciaran Carty.

NIghthawks at the Cobalt February 6th

2010-01-25T14:42:00.000-08:00

Yiz all know the drill peeps. Over to Mr Stephen Kennedy for his usual intro and info on the acts. I'm looking forward to Elder Roche most of all. As for Fiach you can sample his musical splendiforousness in my previous post.

'Folks

First off, a big ‘Thank You’ to everyone (audience and performers) who made our show on January 9th. It was fantastic to see a full house at the Cobalt in the middle of the snow blizzards. And an especially big ‘Thank You’ to Colm Mac Con Iomaire who drove all the way from Wexford on the ice to play his headline set. (Colm, you are the best. If we had any money we would build a statue of gold to you up in the Cobalt. Thank you!)

Here is some fantastic footage of Colm’s set at the Cobalt. Now go out and buy his brilliant album – The Hare’s Corner.

http://www.mixtape.ie/?p=888

By the way, the good people of MIX TAPE will be putting new footage of Nighthawks up on their website EVERY Thursday. Make sure to check them out regularly. They have plenty of good stuff to show you.
Also, regarding the January show, well done to Damo Clarke, John Hegarty and Trevor Browne for stepping in at the last minute to fill in the line-up. All three were great. And, yes, we are currently re-scheduling dates for the performers who could not make the show in January because of the bad weather. We’ll have more details on that in the coming weeks.

Oh, and don’t forget that Damo Clarke runs a wonderful comedy club in the Woolshed every Monday night at 9pm. It’s only 5 euro in and the line-ups are always good. Actually, to be honest, Damo’s MC-ing alone is worth the entrance fee.

Right – that’s enough yap about January’s show. Let us now present you with what we have planned for February 6th. It’s going to be another good one, so please buy your tickets early. They are currently on sale in CITY DISCS for a recession-kicking price of €12.50 each.

Regards

The Nighthawks People

Nighthawks at the Cobalt

Saturday, 6th February, 2010
Cobalt Cafe
16 North Great Georges Street
Dublin 1

Elder Roche
One night, a few months ago, we went along to the Button Factory to see Elder Roche launch his debut album, Nobody Knows, and we were completely blown away by what we heard. We immediately kidnapped his family, and some of his pets, and only released them when Elder agreed to play Nighthawks. Well, ladies and gentleman, the time has now come for Mr. Roche to keep his side of that bargain, and, on February 6th, Elder and his amazing band will be making a very beautiful sound up in the Cobalt. The Irish Times recently awarded Nobody Knows a glowing review, and concluded – “Lazy comparisons with Tom Waits do him no more than a disservice. Elder’s voice and wit have a creative spirit all his own.” We second that.

Colm Liddy
On February 6th Colm will be reading from his recent collection of short stories, published by Penguin, and entitled I LOVE YOU BUT… (40 Fights Between Husbands and Wives). And who better to write such a book? After all, Colm is a father of five, who openly admits that he ‘irritates his wife in a variety of ways, including, but not limited to… forgetting her birthday, driving too fast, reading the newspaper when he should be mowing the lawn, playing with the children in a reckless fashion, always wanting more sex, never bothering to wash the grill, doing what his mother tells him, and refusing to even discuss a vasectomy.’ Yes, his wife is a very patient woman.

Rory O’Hanlon
Not content with being the winner of the prestigious Friends of Ted Comedy Competition, in the summer of 2009, Rory wrote and performed his first Edinburgh Fringe show. The show in question, Ginger Nuts, received very good reviews, and it wasn’t long before it started packing out venues. Now Rory is back in Dublin, and he’s on his way to the Cobalt. So you all best get ready for Ginger Power! It starts here – and you have been warned.

Fiach
You’re going to be hearing a lot about Fiach in 2010. This man has a very sweet sound and a way with melody that would make even Crowded House jealous. Fiach released a single last November, entitled 'Dear You', and his album, So I, is scheduled for release in February. He also does a mean cover of 'Alone Again' by Gilbert O'Sullivan. No, seriously, he really does. Shout for it.

David Mohan
We’re fed up entering poetry competitions. There’s no point anymore. David Mohan has won every major dance-off on the block in the last twelve months, so we’ve packed up our lino and headed home for tea. David is a poet. And David is the real deal. One day your children will be studying this guy on the Leaving Cert – but don’t hold that against him. David has had poems featured in the 2008 and 2009 Oxfam calendars. David has won the 2009 Over The Edge New Writer of The Year Award. Also in 2009, David won the Hennessy XO/Sunday Tribune Poetry Award, as well as the overall New Irish Writing Award. Heck, we’re half-expecting this man to sneak up on the Nobel Prize this year! (Oh, and by the way, David is a member of Lucan Writers, a brilliant writing group co-founded by our very own Colm Keegan.)

George Fox
George was hoping to get along to Nighthawks on January 9th, but those dastardly snow blizzards got in the way. However, there was no way we were letting him off the hook that easily, so now he’s down for February 6th. (By the way, a very big ‘Thank You’ to Trevor Browne who stood in for George in January. What a set that was! And – yes – we’ll be seeing him again.) Anyway, back to the truly fantastic Mr. Fox. Allow us to repeat our warning from last month – please do not be fooled by this man’s hair. He may look like the gentle love-child of A Flock of Seagulls, but his sharp wit can skin a cat at twenty paces. In short – George is funny AND intelligent AND dangerous (well… sort of). We only hope he doesn’t get a haircut before February 6th.

Jim Elliott
Jim is an American stand-up who has been living in Dublin for the last few years. He is smooth and he is very funny. He has quickly established himself on the Irish ‘comedy circuit’ – and we’re delighted to finally get him up to Nighthawks. Jim is also one of the nicest guys you could meet. Seriously – this man makes Bill O’Herlihy look like Attila the Hun with a toothache. If you can’t catch Jim at Nighthawks on February 6th, then make sure you catch him at Dublin’s Laughter Lounge the weekend after that. He’s worth the effort.

Tickets are on sale from CITY DISCS in Temple Bar (beside the Button Factory’s Wall of Fame). Tel. 01 6330066. Price 12.50 Euro. Capacity is limited, so please buy your tickets early in order to avoid disappointment. Doors open at 7.45pm. Strictly no admission after 8.10pm. Show ends at 11pm. Bar available.

Contact us at: nighthawksindublin@gmail.com'

It's gonna be a good one. And there'll be a special announcement made on the night too, maybe.

Fiach at the Meteor Music Awards

2010-01-22T00:35:00.000-08:00

Talented singer songwriter, TG4 regular and upcoming Nighthawks guest Fiach has been nominated in the Meteor Music Awards' Most Promising New Artist category.

I like his stuff. Give him an oul listen below and then go to the meteor site and play kingmaker.

http://meteormusicawards.meteor.ie/competitions/voting/5239/

Fiach - Letting Go on MUZU

Colm Mac Con Iomaire live at Nighthawks

2010-01-21T04:20:00.000-08:00

Nighthawks have entered this cool new partnership with online video guru's Mixtape.ie which means that those of you who've never attended will get to sample the Cobalt cafe's special speakeasy-intimate atmosphere, and see how good the acts we showcase actually are in that setting.

We'll be featured on the Mixtape site every Thursday (see linklist). They'll spend this month putting up the acts from January's gig, then February's etc and onwards, hopefully forevermore.

I'm really pleased with this vid. And what an act to start with too - the haunting timeless yet technologically astute violin of Colm Mac Con Iomaire.

The Mixtape lads have done a beautiful, professional job that compliments the evening perfectly, from the intro graphic's right down to the great editing. Thanks to John Marshall, Paul Murphy, Andy Doyle and Abban Dunne. Artists in their own right.

Jaysus. I'm all glowy with gratitude here. Check out the vid below. What a gorgeous song.

Note: I've had to move the vid becasue it keeps playing - you can find it here

http://www.mixtape.ie/?p=888

The Girl in The Wardrobe by Jennifer Farrell (Hennessey Winner 2005)

2010-01-20T00:32:00.000-08:00

I first met Jennifer Farrell back in 2006 at the Hennessy Awards. We've kept in touch since, swapping stories etc, and she has recently been in touch to tell me that her memoir, (which won the inaugural Memoir prize at Listowel Writers’ Week in 2007 - Judged by Nuala O' Faolain) has been published.

I remember finding her decision to write a straight memoir as opposed to fiction interesting. Especially as her fiction writing is so strong. Jennifer's allowed me to post the forward from the book, which show's how the memoir came about.

It all started in a café in Dungarvan. I started to write what I thought was a short story. Something sparked the memory of the boiled sausages and the dreaded coddle, a dish I’d always hated. I was gathering stories; the year before I’d won the Hennessy Writer of the Year award, with my short story Beached that was published in the Sunday Tribune. I wanted to make a collection and maybe have them published.

In the café, over a huge pot of tea, the story of the sausages unravelled and the memories of that day came flooding in. I was right back there, in the dark scullery of our old corporation flat, with Ma beside me gripping the sweeping brush handle, and the girl in the café tipped me on the shoulder and said they were closing. The story continued, one scene following another, down long tunnels of memory, leading me back to where it all began. The smells and the sounds , the faces and the voices. The living and the dead. All the time I could see Ma’s pale face, and it struck me how full of expression that face was and how she might’ve been a good actress in another life. I wasn’t sure.

Something was telling me it was too long for a short story, but I kept writing and the dead came back to life. The Granda’s and Grannies, the Aunties and Uncles. The babbies. Da. It was like they all wanted to tell their story. Then the Listowel Writers’ Week brochure arrived through my letterbox and I knew what it was I was writing. A new competition, the Inaugural Memoir award was listed to be judged by Nuala O’Faolain.

I sent in an extract and forget about it. The white envelope when it arrived looked suspicious. I’d had a test done at the hospital and I suspected bad news. On the label it said: Winner: Original Writing Memoir Competition, but it didn’t make sense somehow. I tore it open. It said: I am delighted to inform you that your entry entitled “The Girl in the Wardrobe” has won first prize. As I read the first line, my knees buckled and I slumped into the armchair. It was like winning the lottery.

Meeting Nuala at Listowel was the highlight. It was the first and last time I saw her in the flesh. I will always remember her, lit from behind by a pool of sunlight in the foyer of the Listowel Arms Hotel. She looked radiant in a white cotton dress. Clutching a large handbag full of notes in one hand and a mobile phone in the other.

She’d just finished a workshop on the memoir and was rushing across the road to a reading. She greeted me with a warm smile. Touched my arm gently, like she knew me all her life. She loved the story, it gave her hours of pleasure, she said.

“Can you work this?” she said when the mobile phone rang? It was a new phone and she hadn’t got used to it yet. We fumbled with the buttons and the phone stopped ringing and we kept talking and then she had to run to the reading.

I never did get to send her the letter I wrote her after she announced she had a terminal illness. I finished it the night she died, sat up late into the night, intending to post it the next morning. I listened to her last broadcast with Marian Finucane on a pod cast in front of my computer screen and promised myself I would finish the book.

It took longer than expected. Ma got diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and things started to fall apart in the family. There were times I was finding it hard to write about her when she was young. Some of the memories were so painful. Back then the women were burdened down with large families and terrible living conditions. In many cases, the men were heavy drinkers.

One of my first memories is that tenement I call The Drunken House. It wasn’t fit for human habitation and that’s why it was classified a condemned building and demolished. Back then if you lived in a condemned building your chances of being re housed in a corporation flat were improved. It was a rat-infested hellhole and we had to use a bucket or else go to the pub on the corner to use the toilet. Sometimes I was staying with my granny, but I came and went between the three flats north and south of the Liffey.

Ma looks back at those times with mixed feelings. She doesn’t deny tenement life was hard. Sometimes she refers to her own childhood in the tenements before her mother got the corporation flat in Cooke Street and it seems similar to what I experienced in the Drunken House. Her long-term memory is still very good and she’s defying the medics in the nursing home where she’s now a resident. She has good memories and bad.

Her best years were probably in her fifties and sixties, when she was at last freed of the burden of child bearing. She broke out and did her own thing, going to bingo and the local pubs for a glass of Guinness with her friends. I know if there’s a Heaven, that’s what it would be for her. A nice pint of Guinness in a nice little snug, maybe a fire going and a bit of a singsong. She’s never had a holiday and I don’t think she missed it. Maybe it’s true that what you never had you don’t miss, but she likes to hear of the places we’ve travelled to. She’s proud of our travels and tells people we travel all over the world even if we only go to the Canaries on holiday.

From the safe distance of half a century the memory can be selective. I’ve written this story the way it came, from the pictures and flash backs of memory about the time and place where I grew up. It was a different century, the swinging sixties they called it, but there wasn’t much that was swinging about it. Yet there was laughter and song and music, the ghost stories and the jokes. A complication of hard times and funny times and interesting times all mashed up.

The book is available here.

http://originalwriting.ie/bookshop/non-fiction/memoirs/the-girl-in-the-wardrobe/

Jo Bangles by Dave Lordan

2010-01-18T06:01:00.000-08:00

I've become a fan of Dave Lordan over the past year. He's one of the most original and ballsy poets out there I think, with a voice that's at home both on the page and at the podium. He's branching out too it seems. Check out the following info about his new play, starring your woman from them Daz ads.

'Mary McEvoy stars as Jo Bangles an abandoned woman in middle-age who decorates herself from head to toe with cheap jewels - the only kind she can afford. Taunted by the local kids every time she passes, shunned and mocked by her neighbours and the authorities from whom she seeks assistance, she now has to deal with a teenage daughter who, due to some undiscovered trauma has lost the ability to speak. But Jo Bangles is irrepressible. One morning before sunrise she decides to set forth on a journey that will change her life, and that of her daughter, forever. Join her on her quest for fulfillment and love. This new play by David Lordan is directed by Caroline FitzGerald.'

It's on out in the Mill Theatre Dundrum from Feb 1st to 6th. If it's anyway near as good as his poetry it will be well worth a look. I know I'll be going.

For Nana

2010-01-14T04:22:00.000-08:00

I used to think it was great living near my Nana. It was alot better than having the long walk from my Ma’s house up to hers. The first time I walked up to her on my own I was about 14. I took a short cut through the fields. It was lashing rain and I was already soaked by the time I fell into a ditch full of water. I was like a drowned rat when I arrived at Nana’s. She took me in and made me wrap my legs in newspapers so I wouldn’t get arthtritis. When I got home later on I had headlines all over me.

When I lived nearby I used to knock into her whenerver I could. Sometimes when I knocked she’d be asleep. I can still remember looking through the window to see her snuggled up on the sofa. Cuddled up under a colourful blanket, her feet up with them little woolie slippers on. Other times when I knocked she’d be awake and in great form. Laughing and cracking jokes. She had such a lovely jolly laugh, a face that was always smiling, and full of optimistic sparkle.

During one visit I suggested that I bring the guitar over and maybe record her singing a song she liked. I’m terrrible on guitar so it’s just as well i didn’t. But we discussed what songs she’d like to do and she mentioned an Elvis song ‘I love you, Because’. Then she sang the whole thing from start to finish right there while I sat and listened.

She had a gorgeous, confident singing voice. When my daughter Erica was getting Christened (in Church Street Church funny enough, the church where my nan came close to being a nun when she was younger) - we were all so young, green, and uncomfortable with the ceremony, and I remember being so proud to hear her singing, leading the way and showing us all how it’s done.

She loved her food too I remember. But she complained a bit about the quality of food these days, saying the chops were all water. Not like the meat years ago she’d say, so tasty that you’d get up in the middle of the night for a sausage. She hardly ever let me leave without giving me some food to take home. She’d stick everything and anything into my hand. Once I left with a half eaten packet of penguins and a tomato for some reason. She was always giving me apples for the kids too.

Once I asked her for her happiest memories and she shared two with me. One was of her communion, she said she’d loved being all dressed up and feeling so special. But the second was my favourite. She told me she used to live by he canal, ‘You should drop in sometime,’ she joked. She remembered being very small, only a toddler , and a woman, a neighbour that she loved, had given her a cooked potato soaked in butter. She said she’d felt so happy that day, that it was heaven, sitting at the top of the stairs and munching away.

She shared that wonderful moment with me and the amazing thing is that each one of us grandkids can say that at some stage in our early lives, she made us all feel just as good as she did that day too.

Rest in Peace Nana. We’ll miss you and are forever grateful for the love you gave us all.

Dealer's buying Decking

2010-01-13T03:21:00.000-08:00

This poem is doing my head in becasue of the double use of the word Back, any suggestions welcome.

Dealer's Buying Decking.

Dealer’s buying decking

He’s putting it out his back

Where the smackheads lie

Ten bodies deep

With needles in their backs

He’s going to put a pond in

And piss in it when it’s done

He’s planning a gazebo

From the bones of

Someone's son

He wants to fuck your daughters

He wants to break you down

He’s bought up all the bouncers

And he almost owns the town.

His acts are snowflake

Razor blades and

Buzzsaws on your streets

His car has tinted windows

So you cannot see his teeth

He wants to take your butterfly

And crush it in his hand

And make you eat the broken wings

Until you understand

That his blanket

Is your darkened streets

His hero is your snake

His cock his only compass

What he cannot have

He’ll break

His head is filled

With blood and war

It rages in his head

TV has stabbed his eyes out

And his brain is turned to led

His heart’s a greedy vacuum

And he’s only twenty four

His car is out there idling

He’s staring at your door.

I think I might actually hate decking more than I hate dealers.

Southword 2009/2010 and radio stuff and Nighthawks

2010-01-05T00:32:00.000-08:00

Southword 2099/2010 is up online now. Like I've said here before, it's a brilliant magazine of .....

......Ah I don't know what it is man but lately I hate blogging. I'm a hair's whisker's eyelash away from stopping it altogether.

I've about 5 unfinished posts where I just couldn't be arsed drawing them to a conclusion.

Maybe it's the after-effects of concussing me frontal lobes to the point where I was chatting up the polish cleaning lady in the hospital like an erudite victorian who's had one to many vermouths (seriously sometimes it hurts to think, what's new says you), or maybe it's my Facebook addiction, or maybe it's those reviewery type comments that I feel obliged to make - you know, like 'Southword is a brilliant magazine, an ecstatic smorgasbord of orgasmic words that explode at the back of the mind like a elephant tripping in a far away zoo.'

Or rather, the effort of doing that properly.

Anyway I'll make the effort, sort of. And I'll make the effort because only a special type of dickhead would start to talk about a nice little magazine like Southword and then stop, leaving the stories and poems it contains a little poorer for readers. And those potential readers a little poorer for not reading stories that start as tantalisingly as this...

'The father said the boy had fallen. That the train had jerked forward all of a sudden and the boy, not paying attention, had lurched and blown out his cheekbone on the metal struts of the seat in front. That’s what happened, the father said, popping the cap on a Pabst and putting it to his already moistened lips. '

That's from the SOF winning story by Connecticut based Londoner and Washington Post writer Alexa Beattie.

Look at that font used for the stories though, it's probably called robotica or heartless sans serif or something - Jesus it's crap.

So Issue 17 includes the winning story and all the runners up of the 2009 Sean O Faolain Short Story Competition. Including a story by pal o' mine and brilliant Poet David Mohan, who came second in this comp last year, as well as winning the 2009 Hennessy's and Galway's Over the Edge contest too.

David's story is written in a sort of Southern States of the USA vernacular which I really enjoyed , and it's a cool story too. If i could be arsed doing a one to watch list he'd definitely be on it for this year.

So yeah. Southword. Go do the do dee do here.

http://www.munsterlit.ie/Southword/Issues/17/contents.html

In other news my 'Christmas Wish' poem sounded okay on RTE I think. In a nice turn of events it ended up finding it's way from Arena onto Playback, a 'highlights of the week' type thing, and one of RTE's most listened to shows.

You can grab a listen here, about 13 minutes into the show, but the whole thing is worth a listen.

http://www.rte.ie/radio1/playback/

Just click on latest show on over on the right somewhere, or if you find yourself here a few months hence, click on the Jan 1st show (I think, either that or Dec 26th)

In other news I had a nice Christmas. I got a great Indiana Jones mindless but fun caper of a game for the PS3 called uncharted (that's what the pic is from).

And what about that Snow on new years eve, how fucking gorgeous was that. Kids on the road throwing snowballs at two in the morning.

And in other news Nighthawks is on this weekend. Details here.

http://theblogsthejob.blogspot.com/2009/12/hot-press-scoop-my-prestigious-blog.html

And in other news I finally got me new runners. Yeah baby.

And in other news Fuck off.

Christmas!!!

2009-12-21T00:30:00.000-08:00

Christmas!

Yay!

Where's the toys?

In the bedroom!

No way!

A whole!

Bleedin'

Action man!

Yeah!

A Space Ranger!

With a space-ship!

With a real rubber suit!

Christmas!

Glow in the Dark!

Quick!

The lights

Hmm Green Goo glow

Is satisfactory.

Rubber suit and

space-ship needs testing

Obviously

In water!

Christmas!

At the end of your bed Damo!

A whole Go-Kart. No way!

What time is it.

Five?

Woh.

Lets not wake Ma just yet

I'm gonna fill the bath.

Christmas!

Neearrown!

Die Space aliens die!

Kersplosh.

Waters goin' cold.

Hmmm.

Right then Damo

Lets see how

this Go-kart

handles them stairs.

Woh!

Look at it go!

Glad we didn't sit in it.

Fuck!

Here comes Ma!

We'll get away with it though.

Christmas!

Written for that Total Feckin EEjit and his poetry go-kart.

http://totalfeckineejit.blogspot.com/2009/12/santas-poetry-go-kart.html

Arena again

2009-12-18T06:21:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas Folks!!

That pic's from a Christmas Story, one of my fave movies from Childhood. If you haven't seen it root it out.

I wanted to post a huge bumper blog about my year but it's not finished.

I'm a lazy lazy blogger.

Just in case you want to know, I'm on Arena with Mary O' Donnell reviewing collections from Sinead Morrisey and Frank Ormsby tonight. It was kinda frustrating, because we only had 10 minutes, but hopefully we did a good job.

http://www.rte.ie/radio1/arena/

Live long and posterior.

Spare a thought for the poor little til monkeys

2009-12-18T01:57:00.000-08:00

Hot Press Scoop my Prestigious Blog

2009-12-09T14:03:00.000-08:00

Ah not really, but they did get the Nighthawks lowdown uploaded before I did.

I like that, lowdown uploaded, nice ring to it.

They've released the Nighthawks January line-up, let it loose upon the cyber plains. I'm not miffed about not getting the scoop really, sure doesn't it save me the effort of writing anything - it's never been my strongpoint.

Here's the Hot Press info, hot off the press, as it were. Another kickass lineup. See below and all that.

Niamh Bagnell is a pal of mine (lucky her). She's a great writer and performer, as I thought her everything she knows. She's also a big fan of me and Nighthawks and therefore has impeccable taste.

Only messing - she's brilliant. I just feel the need to poke fun at smart and witty women because I find them threatening. Especially when they're as tall as me. If she was only one or two of the three I'd cope, It's the lethal combination I can't handle.

She's a genuinely fresh and humorous poetic voice in fairness, and I love that, cause I'm terrible at being funny, as you can see from that last paragraph.

I can never say in fairness without hearing Ronan Keating. Sad.

It's a night of seasoned Nighthawks regulars, and new blood. Aoife Corcoran, of the sultry smokey voice and the gorgeous lovelorn lyrics will be performing too, ( i just finished a gig with her out Dun Laoighaire way as it happens - more in the next post) as will Conor Mac Con Iomaire

Copy and past already Colm for fucks sake.

Here it is ....

An evening of music will take place at the Cobalt Cafe in Dublin on January 9.

Tickets are priced €12.50 and are on sale from City Discs in Temple Bar (beside the Button Factory’s Wall of Fame). Capacity is limited, so buy your tickets early to guarantee entry to the event.

Doors open at 7.45pm and strictly no admission after 8.10pm.

Performing live will be Colm Mac Con Iomaire (The Frames and The Swell Season), Paul Tylac, Aoife Corcoran, Niamh Bagnell, Brian Conaghan, George Fox and Steven Elliott.

Colm Mac Con Iomaire is a fiddle player who is probably best known for his work with The Frames over the last two decades. He was also a founding member of Kila in 1987, and he has also toured the world in recent years with The Swell Season. In 2008, Colm released his first solo album, The Hare’s Corner.

Paul Tylac is a stand-up comedian who has appeared on award-winning comedy sketch shows as Stew on RTE and The O Show on BBC. Paul has also completed a twelve episode comedy travel series with Joe Rooney for TV3.

Aoife Corcoran is a singer/songwriter with a sound that blends soul, pop, rock, jazz and blues. She has recently signed to Reekus Records, and her debut album is due for release in 2010. Aoife played Nighthawks last March, and this time Brian Flanagan will be accompanying her on guitar.

Niamh Bagnell has been a regular performance poet on the Dublin scene for almost a year now. She has also appeared at Electric Picnic and Castlepalooza, and she hosts a weekly writer based radio show every Sunday on Liffey Sound.

Brian Conaghan has written three novels, a book of short stories, and a graphic novel which will be published next May. He is also an accomplished poet and has written extensively for theatre. On January 9, Brian will be reading from a new collection of stories entitled Starstruck.

Comedian George Fox was named 'Capital Comedy Club’s Best Newcomer 2006' and 'AmusedMoose LaughOff 2008 Irish Heats Winner'. Comedian Stephen Elliot was a recent finalist in the Bulmer's Comedy Competition, and is known for his spot-on Jack Nicholson impression.

Christmas needs you!

2009-12-09T01:48:00.000-08:00

This is a post about wanting to write a special christmas poem.

Im a sucker for Christmas. It's such a beautiful lie. Smack bang in the darkest most depressing arsehole of winter we all work as hard as possible to cheer ourselves up. I love it.

We decorated our house last night. Putting a tree up with four females who all know how to do things there way only is no picnic lemme tell ya.

It was like one of those 'we're going down!' scenes in a movie. The angel for the top of the tree, probably the most religiously significant thing in our house, was dropped and smashed and everything, at some stage everybody managed to piss off everybody else.

We went on like this til 11.00, with the five year old long gone by the wayside and tucked into bed. To make matters worse I had woken at two o clock the night before and hadn't slept since, I'm a bear of a thing when I'm tired but somehow I kept it together, sure being a war weary veteran of many a Christmas Campaign, I'd seen it all before.

And Sweet Fat Santa's Shoelace when them lights came on I was in heaven. We all were. We was mulled to the merry maximum.

Anyways, a poem. I'm currently writing something that might go out on RTE radio on Xmas eve. Now having deemed myself the spirit of Christmas since long before the Snowman ever sniffed celluloid, I'm dizzy with the potential of that.

I'd love to do something universal, that touched everybody.

So I was thinking, Dermot Bolger wrote a poem where he collected the memories of the old Ballymun from residents and built them into his huge poem called Ballymun Incantations which I thought was brilliant.

I'd like to do something similar but for Christmas (depending on the level of response obviously).

So if you'd like to drop me a special line that sums up christmas for you then please do, and if I can, I'll include it in this lil project.

With the internet at our disposal it's all so mindblowingly easy too.

I've other stuff I'm working on as well to be read out. But if this idea takes off it will be the main thing.

Come on peeps. It'll be magical.

Free at last

2009-12-03T06:49:00.001-08:00

I'm working with all the frantic energy of a ten year old trying to shake a rabid otter off his sleeve here. I've ten million things to get done by yesterday, and I probably won't get them done either. But at least I've done one good thing, I'v managed to raze my fucking farm to the ground.

I'm outta Farmville thank God, just deleted it there a few minutes ago. Every wasted minute on it will forever mark my soul.

And to finish - here's a poem.

Nighthawks at the Cobalt November - an actually unbiased review!

2009-12-01T05:47:00.000-08:00

So yeah, like I said earlier. Loads to say and do but first things first here's Nighthawks as seen from the eyes of a discerning first time punter by the name of Evelyn Walsh.

'A collaborative effort by up and coming young film makers, writers, comedians musicians and poets has resulted in the eclectic electric ‘NightHawks’ at the Cobalt Café. An evening of music, mayhem and the spoken word in the drawing room of a Georgian house in Nth Great Georges St.

Last night’s line up included writer Claire Kilroy reading from her latest sparkling novel ‘All Names Have Been Changed’

Colm Keegan - a scarily intense young poet who writes some of the most beautiful urban/suburban poetry I have ever had the privilege to read or hear

Jinx Lennon (surely Ireland’s modern Christy Moore) - whose manic mix of techno, political and social comment delivered at breakneck speed and in every style from sean-nos to rap brought the house down

A trio of young stand-up comics whose offerings included a scripted ‘play’ with the help of an innocent female audience member and an amazing, hilarious short spoof docu/drama/part –animated film -‘Badly Drawn Roy’ by film-maker Alan Shannon (and starring half his family!).

Whew! I’m knackered just writing about it.

A bar, good lighting, an intimate performance space and a general ambience of good humour did much to lift this reviewer’s spirits. Keep your eye on this lot folks- get on their mailing list and catch them while you can. They cannot but go on to bigger and better things.

A different way to spend a Saturday night in Dublin, a city surely vibrantly alive with the vitality that comes from new experiment and opportunity.'

Not a bad review. Evelyn blogs over here.

http://ev-allthisandheaventoo.blogspot.com/2009/11/abuse-and-mince-pies.html

So there, can't say fairer than that really. Evelyn's right about Jinx Lennon. When we crawl out of our Tiger Hangover he'll be the uncompromising voice that will be remembered,. He's fucking brilliant. I had the good fortune to have an old friend along for the night who would have been a bit of a cultural uncle, pointing the way into the world of punk and ska and the underground scene in england when I was younger. He'd never heard of Jinx before but instantly loved him. Jinx tells it like it is whether we like it or not.

By the way. The comedians we had there on the night were Kevin McGahern, Shane Brown and Mark Hanratty.

We did this new thing where we put all the comedy together in the middle section, it wasn't supposed to be like that, but it kinda worked.

I was gonna comment on my set but I won't. My head was wonky that's all I remember.

Main thing to remember is this. Jinx Lennon is fucking brilliant, and so are Nighthawks for having him on.

I hate blogging

2009-12-01T03:39:00.000-08:00

I can't even write a decent story these days, but yet here I am on this fucking blog.

I fucking hate blogging.

Ah I don't really.

But I do.

It's like some mad starving cuckoo in my brain, an evil tamagochi that takes over your cerebral living room and makes you watch Jeremy Kyle repeats.

Or is it.

I haven't got a clue what I'm doing. My brain is fucking mush I swear to god.

I'm sitting here in my coat. My job is fucking freezing. But it's kinda nice, there's so little work that I'm actually getting paid to freeze my ass off.

I haven't posted about Novembers Nighthawks so I guess I should.

Should - that's the problem with blogging, the delusion of needing to keep your readers.

Readers - To date I have like 25000 hits, or visits or who gives a shit, on this blog which works out at about 50 or so a day.

You could nearly get encouraged by that until you realise that most of the hits are to a picture of a washing machine I used ages ago. So, here I am writing a literary (my eye) blog and most of the world are out there googling washing machines, there's an inimitable truth in there somewhere. Here's a less inimitable truth - i don't know what inimitable means.

I Googled it just there and just closed the tab cause I'm mad like that. Ignorance is strength.

Anyway - for real inimitable truth see here. (it's loud at the start).

http://www.salmonpoetry.com/audio-and-video-details.php?ID=53&bookcat=0

That's from Dave Lordan. We asked him to do Nighthawks but he's living in Italy.

While on the topic of poetry.

I've been called a poet a lot lately. To my face.

I'm uncomfortable with that because the word 'Poet' makes me think of teachers in tweed coats with leather patches on the elbows and this fellah.

http://embedded.eecs.berkeley.edu/Alumni/mehrotra/images/cacofonix.jpg

But I do believe in the magic of words, and I do try to make use of that magic so if that is what a Poet is then that is what I am. And one day the Gauls will respect me.

I could go on but I wont. I think that's why I haven't blogged in ages, there's too much to say and I don't like thinking in straight lines. I'll write about Nighthawks in a separate post just to keep things tidy. See yiz in a minute.

Busy busy busy brown bread RTE tizzy

2009-11-25T04:51:00.000-08:00

I'll be on RTE's Arena again Tonight reviewing a poetry CD called words for you.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Words-You-Various-Artists/dp/B002RKXXLO

Tune in between 7.45 and 8.30 to hear my thoughts. I'll be joined by Poet Mary O' Donnell.

After that I'm heading to the brown bread mixtape - a new cool night of music and poetry in the Stags Head run by Kalle Ryan and Enda Roche.

After that I'll be going home to my long suffering wife/partner person to beg for forgiveness.

See The BBmixtape's facebook spiel below. I've heard great things about Singer Eleventyfour and Poet Dylan McDonagh.

the brownbread mixtape is a FREE monthly gig. each gig has a theme. we invite poets, musicians, playwrights and performers. they do a performance related to the theme. we all have loads of fun. simple as that.

the brownbread mixtape #4 is this Wednesday, Nov 25th at 9pm, upstairs in one of Dublin's oldest and most iconic pubs: The Stag's Head. the theme for this brownbread mixtape is “sex, drugs and rock & roll”

We have an incredible line up of great performers, who you would normally have to pay large wedges of Euros to see, but for one nightonly, they come together and perform for art's sake. for free. for you.

MUSIC:

EleventyFour
EleventyFour is quirky, cool and a super songwriter who performed at the very first brownbread mixtape. Back then she knocked us out with her inimitable charm and we have been trying to get her back onstage with us ever since. Finally she is back in the brownbread mix! EleventyFour has a real lyrical gift and her stage banter is warmer than a yuletide fire.

''...cute as a button Kimya Dawson-like songs..." - Jim Carroll, The Irish Times

Sarah Williams
Fresh from the ‘Love Music, Hate Racism’ gig with Joyce and the Sonic Gypsies, sultry-voiced Miss Sarah Williams is back by popular demand with her funky songs and killer smile. Already a beloved veteran of two brownbread mixtapes, she intends to mix up the medicine on the night with some cracking tunes backed by friends of various musical shapes and sizes. Prepare to have your heart melted and your ears opened.

Captain Bringdown
The captain is a man with a musical attack plan. Armed usually with an upside down guitar or a ukulele he takes aim and shoots down sacred cows and beloved institutions with his clever brand of anthemic songsmithery. A great act with a keen sense of fun.

POETRY:

Colm Keegan
Colm is a gifted writer. His work has real honesty and lyricism. He has been short-listed for the Sunday Tribune’s Hennessy X.O Literary Awards on three separate occasions and also runs the hugely popular Nighthawks gig at the Cobalt Café. Having unfortunately missed the last mixtape at the last minute, we are thrilled he will join us this time round. Prepare to be floored by his poetry.

Dylan McDonough
Dylan is a a gifted playwright, excellent actor and a dedicated poet brimming with ideas, overflowing with images and he is ready to unleash some of his lyrical constructions at you. Bring your willing ears.

SPOKEN WORD PERFORMANCE:

Gus McDonagh and Eva Bartley
Live radio commercials as read aloud by our in-house brownbread players. Professional actors will bring alive the mediocrity of products you never heard of or wanted. Very sexy and very rock & roll!

Also on the night, expect more entertaining madness , including surprise guests and audience tales of sex, drugs and rock n’ roll. So, join us upstairs at The Stag’s Head on Nov 25th. Doors at 9pm. Show at 9.30pm SHARP. We would love your support and thirst (for art and gargle). Enjoy yizzerselves!

Also if you're in town early enough you could catch Nuala Ni Choncuir's Dublin launch of her short story collection 'Nude' in Grants Gallery Temble Bar at 6. There's free booze! And an accompanying art exhibition. Sounds swanky.

Magical Cartwheeling stair acrobats - also known as drunks. The glor Sessions

2009-11-24T02:00:00.000-08:00

I'm all ready brek glowy here thinking about the Glor Sessions last Night.

It was so nice and christmassy and intimate and deadly. They had their decorations up. Them little blue twinkly lights nestled in fir green. I'm a dope for things like that. And then the International itself is painted red inside, and there's candles everywhere, creating this like, fucking yuletide glow and on top of that you had the the low energised chatter of all these sound people just getting along.

RTE were there early, organiser and host of the night Stephen James Smith gave a nice rundown of his poetical agenda and then Kalle Ryan lashed into a nice topical poem about the stupid way the country's gone nuts about Henry's handball. (get a fucking grip you spas!).

You can listen to it here for today only.

http://www.rte.ie/radio1/player_av.html?0,null,200,http://dynamic.rte.ie/quickaxs/209-rte-arena.smil

We all gave a nice screamy cheer when he finished and then RTE put away their gear and the night cracked on.

It was a night of excellence. I'm not joking. Really it was. Jinx Lennon was there doing Poetry for fucks sake.

I had Stephen Kennedy and all me Nighthawks buds there with me. And Brian Conaghan, who was the poetry brains behind the Shoestring Collective too and that was nice cause I hadn't seen him in ages.

There was a drunk fellah falling around the place and messing with the ambiance a bit. But he was grabbed in a headlock by the night's second most annoying drunk and thrown out - but not before first drunk had managed to go out for a smoke and fall down the stairs in true how the fuck did he not break anything style.

When he was being ejected he Shouted BALLISTIC.COM! (in the tone of 'You'll never take me alive!') for no apparent reason or for every obvious reason, and for that he got a round of applause.

The night started with the aforementioned Kalle Ryan, mad half-swede half-irish half-cyborg poetical rantmeister. He's funny and topical and completely bald.

I'll be doing stuff with him on Wednesday night actually, at the Brown Bread Mix Tape in the stags head if y'all wanna tag along.

Or maybe it started with Stephen James Smith himself.

Note: My memory is wonky since my own fall last week. I concussed meself after cutting meself and fainting in a very manly fashion.

People losing the use of their legs will be a recurring theme in this post.

Stephen had some new stuff anyway, I was delighted to hear. And he was backed by Enda Reilly for a real cool version of Yeats 1913, which I've mentioned before.

Enda then continued on with a few of his own songs. I love this guy.

Then there was guitarist Aidan Murphy. He runs the famous bamboo sessions.

And Fiach, from Ballyfermot. A brilliant musician with an amazing voice.

And jinx using a pint glass as a Megaphone. I'm not saying much about this guy becasue I wanna talk about him more in a later post.

And Marty Mulligan, Mullingar poet extroardinaire who had a few words for the legal system on behalf of single fathers. He has this mad frenetic style, and he gets all bluesy and shit. I saw him before and was glad to see him do my favourite poem of his 'IRE'land.

Then, Mr drunk ejector guy knocked one of those ambient candles over me mate Stephen, and Stephen wanted to burst him, and the drunk was all aggrieved and threw a beermat at Stephen when he thought I wasn't looking. So I had to tell your man to cop the fuck on, and given the twinkly light and everything it all diffused.

Then it was my turn to do my stuff, and I did a poem about Drug Dealers, and it went down a storm, so I did another and it was so good the drunk man fainted in ecstacy.

Or from the twenty Shots he had.

Thankfully Jinx Lennon is not only an amazing musician but he also does a mean 'Step outta the way I know the recovery position!' move.

The fainting drunk dude was ambulanced out and I did more stuff and that was me.

After that was Garry O Brien. I was well impressed with the spiritual musings of this young Ballymunner. He'll be supporting Damien Dempsey in the Axis Theatre soon and rightly so.

Brian Conaghan was up next (or maybe before - i've had a head injury remember). He had this brilliant poem about infidelity that packed a real dig in the head for any would be players out there.

Elder Roche followed him and played some gorgeous songs. We'll be having him at Nighthawks in 2010.

I think i've got the order all mixed up there. But main thing I want to convey is that it was tres tres tres enjoyable peeps.

It was deadly. Poets, musicians, radio technicians, and drunk men as unpredictable as wild animals. Just fucking deadly.

I'm off now to microwave me noodles.

That's not a euphemism.

Glor sessions tonight

2009-11-23T05:59:00.000-08:00

No time to talk, playing catch up with my step loafing brain here. Hopefully that sentence will make sense as you read on. Basically, I tripped last week and nearly cut me own wrist, bled all over the place and then fainted like a big pussy and concussed meself of a wooden step. I hit the step so hard if it was concrete or steel I reckon I'd be dead. Mad buzz. Long story short I'm five stitches richer and have a gargantuan lump on me head.

But thankfully I was well enough to do the ol Nighthawks thingy. It went brilliantly. Jinx Lennon was rapid. I'll fill yiz in later. I'm just here to plug me ol Mucker Stephen James Smiths big news.

See below from his facefook page.

The Glór Sessions will be part of the RTÉ Radio 1 Arts Show ARENA this week! see the link for info:http://www.rte.ie/radio1/arena/

We will be broadcasting live from The International for some of the show so please get there early, for 7! I know I know, it is early but that is the time the show goes out at, and I want to give them some of the great atmosphere we create crackling out over the airwaves! so please get your ass down and support and be heard on air, the line up is well worth it alone!

Poets:
Kalle Ryan
Colm Keegan
Brian Conaghan
Marty Mulligan

Musicians:
Fiach
Enda Reilly
Aidan Murphy
Gary O'Brien
Elder Roche
Owensie

See you all there you poetry loving bums. I'm getting a numb feeling in my head. Hopefully it's just new world order mind control and not a hemorrhage.

Here's me on Arena from a while back. Listen to how nervous I sound.

http://www.rte.ie/arts/2009/1023/arena_av.html?2640704,null,209

Three things. The last being the most important.

2009-11-18T04:27:00.001-08:00

Those of you who give a care or two will have noticed I haven't been on in a while there are three reasons for that.

One is this - I was asked to review some poetry for RTE. Mary O' Donnell's latest poetry Collection The Ark Builders, and I've spent a lot of time reading it. She's a good poet, a true artist, with a great respect for her craft. With her reputation and all, I didn't really want to like her, but now I do.

A great plus from reading her work is that I felt inspired to write myself. I love that.

Anyways, she's definitely worth a look, at times she was too complex for me, but when you put the time into her work, you are definitely rewarded. You can listen to my thoughts on air here.

http://www.rte.ie/radio1/player_av.html?0,null,200,http://dynamic.rte.ie/quickaxs/209-rte-arena.smil

I give the haiku a bit of stick on the show - any haiku lovers who take umbrage with my opinion can email me at kiss_my_arse.com

That link only points to the show for one day. It's replaced daily by the show from the night before.

The second reason is, as I said, writing new stuff myself.

Partly because of the stirring up caused by reading Mary's book, and partly because Stephen K has set fire to the laurels I was resting on, scorching my arse into action with his declaration (in the latest nighthawks mailshot) that I'll have 'new poems' this Saturday. I might use the new stuff, I might not. I have loads of older untested bits anyway so we'll see. I like what I'm writing now though.

The third reason, is that a good friend of mine Joan O Flynn passed away last Thursday. Joan was a writer from Lucan writers. She was only 68 but wasn't well for a long time. My feelings about her are still swirling around inside me, i keep hearing her laugh and her always wise sometimes wickedly funny words and I think i'll be missing her for a long long time.

Glad to have known you Joan - here's some Frank Sinatra in your honour.

Artsparkers Challenge

2009-11-11T08:01:00.000-08:00

Something about his fifth strange hallucination told him he was hungry.

Did this for the latest artspark challenge. join in here

http://artsparktheatre.blogspot.com/

Tom

2009-11-11T01:10:00.000-08:00

Tom peeped

From the trenches

And was no more

'Cause all he saw

Was his blown off jaw

Done talking

Done walking

His life left him there

In the cold of a trench

In the far away air

Where strangers plow fields now

There's bones in their blades

And life in their grass

That my great uncle made.