tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-102318212024-03-14T04:02:55.971-04:00Buddha In The BeerglassRandom thoughts of a Deaf-Blind Scotsman in New YorkDavehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02555922328460195279noreply@blogger.comBlogger227125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10231821.post-1021582348472572962013-04-08T12:52:00.000-04:002013-04-15T09:45:35.465-04:00Why Thatcher still matters.A day I've been waiting for since the mid 80's when my teenaged brain started to take an interest in politics is here. She's dead. Finally.<br />
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I was never a great supporter of the IRA (although I would like to see a unified Ireland) but I must admit there were not many tears in my house when they blew up the Tory Conference in Brighton and Norman Tebbit was carried out on a stretcher with his willy hanging out.<br />
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The reason I didn't like the IRA was because they used violence to try and achieve their aim, for some reason however, when they blew up that hotel it felt like they were using violence to fight violent people.<br />
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The IRA have laid down their guns now - more or less but that is a different debate - the violence that Maggie Thatcher and the Conservative Party of the 1980's fostered upon us is still here, and it is not just limited to the UK.<br />
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Margaret Thatcher, even before she was Prime Minister, was known as "Margaret Thatcher the Milk Snatcher" because as Education secretary in the 1970's she had taken away free milk in schools. This alone should have been a warning sign as to the kind of personality you were dealing with; cruel and heartless.<br />
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She was an admirer of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milton_Friedman" target="_blank">Milton Friedman</a>, the economist who promoted the idea of "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monetarism" target="_blank">Monetarism</a>". When Thatcher became Prime Minister she implemented monetarism as the weapon in her battle against
inflation, and reduced it from 10% to 4.6% by 1983.<br />
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This was done by the mass closure of "inefficient" ( really meaning "unionized") factories, shipyards and coal mines, which
resulted in in unemployment doubling from around 1,500,000 people to more than 3,000,000..<br />
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Everything had to be profit driven - people no longer mattered.. Milton Friedman believed that a certain unemployment rate was acceptable in order to maximize profits - Thatcher put his theories into practice and it got us where we are today - austerity, mass unemployment and decimated manufacturing communities throughout the world where governments followed her example. Go to Yorkshire, Merseyside or Central Scotland and you'll see the same thing you see in Troy, New York or Detroit, Michigan.<br />
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The steelworks went first, followed by the coal mines and the print workers. The greedy quest for profit leaves a long trail of human wreckage.<br />
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Not content with destroying communities through mass unemployment, she then went after public sector housing. She forced local councils to sell off housing dirt cheap to tenants and forbade them from putting the profits back into building new stock. This led to a housing shortage and for the first time in many years people went homeless. Not only that, councils lost the income from central government that covered their housing stock and estates became dilapidated and run down.<br />
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Now, there were strict rules covering banks and building societies that
stood in the way of first time buyers. Banks did not do mortgages, and
building societies were not allowed to hold savings accounts or borrow
on the money market. Buyers were required to save a substantial portion
of the cost of their first home, and then might have to wait in a
mortgage queue. The Thatcher government lifted these restrictions,
allowing building societies to convert into banks, and banks to become
mortgage lenders, setting off a boom in house buying which crashed in 1989, and people were introduced to the concept of ‘negative equity’.<br />
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Any of this starting to sound familiar?<br />
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By the way, I have a caveat here. I grew up in a council house that my Mum bought under these regulations. Would I have done the same thing? Probably. The benefit of hindsight to see the destruction the policy wrought is a nice thing but obviously not available at the time.<br />
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Also, I mentioned the print worker union before because the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Wapping" target="_blank">Battle of Wapping</a> was the really the beginning of Fox News. Without the collusion of
the British government and their union busting police force, and
because of his close personal friendship with Thatcher, Rupert Murdoch
might not be half as big as he is today. <br />
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<span class="userContent">Obama said that Thatcher was "one of the great champions of freedom and liberty" and that "she stands as an example to our daughters that there is no glass ceiling that can’t be shattered".</span><br />
<span class="userContent"></span><br />
<span class="userContent">In her 11 years as Prime Minister, she hired exactly ONE other woman to be a Cabinet member and promoted no women above junior minister. The idea of her being a feminist icon is absurd to say the least. She actually said it herself: "‘The feminists hate me, don’t they? And I don’t blame them. For I hate feminism. It is poison.’</span><br />
<span class="userContent"></span><br />
<span class="userContent">Add to this the fact that she froze child benefit and refused to invest in affordable childcare, instead
criticising working mothers for raising a "crèche generation".</span><br />
<span class="userContent"></span><br />
<span class="userContent">Obama's "Champion of Freedom and Liberty" let 10 Irish Hunger Strikers die because they wanted to be treated like the Political Prisoners they were and not common criminals. To see how cold hearted she was you only have to look at what the demands of the hunger strikers were:</span><br />
<span class="userContent"></span><br />
<span class="userContent">1. </span><span class="userContent">the right not to wear a prison uniform;</span><br />
<span class="userContent">2. the right not to do prison work;</span><br />
3. the right of free association with other prisoners, and to organise educational and recreational pursuits;<br />
4. the right to one visit, one letter and one parcel per week;<br />
5. full restoration of remission lost through the protest.<br />
<span class="userContent"></span><br />
<span class="userContent">This is hardly a list unreasonable demands, it is a list that asks that prisoners, all of whom had been detained for troubles related offenses, be treated as the POW's that they were and not as thieves and criminals. This was not unheard of and indeed they had "Special Catagory Status" up until 1972 when it was withdrawn by Willie Whitelaw, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland.</span><br />
<span class="userContent"></span><br />
<span class="userContent">From May through August of 1981, 10 men starved to death and Maggie Thatcher said: "Mr. Sands was a convicted criminal. He chose to take his own life".</span><br />
<span class="userContent"> </span><br />
<br />
Anyway, I could go on and on but I won't (I haven't even mentioned the Falklands War or the Poll Tax - I might add these later).<br />
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I'm glad she's dead. If that makes me heartless then so be it. Yes, she was human but she was also the Angel of Death to many communities in and around where I grew up and she won't be missed.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/xy3-R97wDKs" width="420"></iframe> <br />
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Elvis Costello
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<b>Tramp The Dirt Down</b> 1989
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<i>I saw a newspaper picture from the political campaign
<br />A woman was kissing a child, who was obviously in pain
<br />She spills with compassion, as that young childs
<br />Face in her hands she grips
<br />Can you imagine all that greed and avarice
<br />Coming down on that childs lips
<br />
<br />Well I hope I don't die too soon
<br />I pray the lord my soul to save
<br />Oh I'll be a good boy, Im trying so hard to behave
<br />Because there's one thing I know, I'd like to live
<br />Long enough to savour
<br />That's when they finally put you in the ground
<br />Ill stand on your grave and tramp the dirt down
<br />
<br />When england was the whore of the world
<br />Margeret was her madam
<br />And the future looked as bright and as clear as
<br />The black tarmacadam
<br />Well I hope that she sleeps well at night, isnt
<br />Haunted by every tiny detail
<br />Cos when she held that lovely face in her hands
<br />All she thought of was betrayal
<br />
<br />And now the cynical ones say that it all ends the same in the long run
<br />Try telling that to the desperate father who just squeezed the life from his only son
<br />And how it's only voices in your head and dreams you never dreamt
<br />Try telling him the subtle difference between justice and contempt
<br />Try telling me she isn't angry with this pitiful discontent
<br />When they flaunt it in your face as you line up for punishment
<br />And then expect you to say thank you straighten up, look proud and pleased
<br />Because youve only got the symptoms, you haven't got the whole disease
<br />Just like a schoolboy, whose heads like a tin-can
<br />Filled up with dreams then poured down the drain
<br />Try telling that to the boys on both sides, being blown to bits or beaten and maimed
<br />Who takes all the glory and none of the shame
<br />
<br />Well I hope you live long now, I pray the lord your soul to keep
<br />I think I'll be going before we fold our arms and start to weep
<br />I never thought for a moment that human life could be so cheap
<br />Cos when they finally put you in the ground
<br />They'll stand there laughing and tramp the dirt down
</i><br />
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<br />Davehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02555922328460195279noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10231821.post-19517725968167937422013-04-07T20:59:00.002-04:002013-04-07T20:59:36.367-04:00How to completely ruin your post-vacation buzz in 3 hours or less.I got back into New York City yesterday after a great relaxing week down in the Bayou eating alligators and humming Hank Williams Snr songs. It was our first family vacation in 3 years and a resounding success.<br />
<br />
So today I come back to work. I am working 16 hours but that's okay, it's Sunday (therefore quiet), and I am well rested. I even left half an hour early this morning so I could walk to the PATH train and start my day with some exercise.<br />
<br />
I work an uneventful 8 hours then decide to take a break. I have an ipod that needs a new headphone jack so I'll drop it off at the repair place on 23rd St, a mere 3 subway stops away from where I work. Should be a doozy, in and out in 20 minutes at the most.<br />
<br />
I walk down to the subway stop on Chambers Street. The 1 train. I go down the stairs and enter the underground labyrinth of broken lights and discarded metrocards. I remember that I have no money on my metrocard so I add 20 dollars and then go to the turnstyle.<br />
<br />
I swipe the card. Nothing happens. I notice that the little screen has a message I've never seen before, it says "No Cards".<br />
<br />
"Hmm, okay!".<br />
<br />
I go to the next one.<br />
<br />
"No Cards".<br />
<br />
And the one after that.<br />
<br />
"No Cards".<br />
<br />
They all say "No cards".<br />
<br />
I go towards the attendant who is dealing with 3 other people in front of me. He is telling them there are no trains at this station.<br />
<br />
The guy in front of me say: "Why is the fucking station open then? Why are there no signs up announcing that fact?". The attendant is looking at him like he just asked the stupidest question ever and I decide not to get involved. I am still enjoying my post vacation buzz and the next station is only a couple of blocks away.<br />
<br />
I walk up to the A,C,E train and get on one right away. Roll to 23rd street with no problem, walk 3 blocks to the ipod repair place. Take a ticket and wait.<br />
<br />
I have green ticket number 95. The counter is at green ticket number 90. 5 people in front of me, should be in and out in no time.<br />
<br />
"Green ticket number 91!"<br />
<br />
A minute passes<br />
<br />
"Green ticket number 92!"<br />
<br />
A minute passes<br />
<br />
"Green ticket number 93!"<br />
<br />
A minute passes<br />
<br />
"Green ticket number 94!"<br />
<br />
30 minutes pass.<br />
<br />
"Green ticket number 95!"<br />
<br />
By this point I am frustrated but I am determined not to let my buzz be ruined by New York City on my first day back. I will prevail over the bitch known as fate!<br />
<br />
As soon as my ticket is called I conduct my business and I am out of the store in 5 minutes. I have to get back to work so I get on the nearest subway which is the 1 train again. This is the same train I had problems with at the start but I know the downtown direction is running normally.<br />
<br />
I pay my $2.50 and push through the turnstile. Within a minute the announcer comes on the PA and says "Due to an investigation at Canal Street all 1, 2, 3 trains between 42nd street and Chambers Street (where I am headed) have been suspended".<br />
<br />
Sigh. Fuck.<br />
<br />
I turn and shout back over the turnstile to the attendant. I can't transfer at this station and I don't want to walk 2 blocks and have to pay again.<br />
<br />
He just keeps repeating "No trains! There are no trains Sir!" over and over again without actually listening to what I am saying.<br />
<br />
Just then a train pulls into the station while he is repeating "No trains" like Baghdad Bob standing in front of the advancing American tanks saying "There are no Americans in Baghdad!".<br />
<br />
I think about avoiding the train anyway but the ding dong goes and it gets ready to pull out of the station so I jump on board before the doors close.<br />
<br />
I think I'm on my way but it goes exactly one stop before "We are being held at the station due to a police investigation".<br />
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Fuck this! I am moving. I get off the train, go upstairs onto 18th street and start walking back to the E train. I had intended to walk to 14th street but somehow I became discombobulated and started walking north.<br />
<br />
5 minutes later I am standing outside the ipod repair place wondering how the fuck I got there. It's 2 hours since I left work and I said I'd only be gone 20 minutes.<br />
<br />
I walk along 23rd street listening to cajun music in my head and trying to convince myself I am back in New Orleans. In my head the weather is 80 degrees and my family are chilling with me drinking chichory coffee and eating beignets. Outside my head I am walking towards the uptown subway and not paying attention.<br />
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I walk past the Chelsea Hotel, hang a left, go downstairs into the gates of hell. Ooh look the train is right there. My metrocard works first time and I jump right on. I'm so lucky!<br />
<br />
Next stop 34th Street. The furthest away from my work I have been all day.<br />
<br />
Fuck. Fuck. Fuckity Fuck.<br />
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And that, my friends, is how to ruin your post-vacation buzz in 3 hours or less.<br />
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Davehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02555922328460195279noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10231821.post-31761698797718109622013-01-22T21:30:00.001-05:002013-01-22T21:30:36.236-05:00Connecting the dots.On Sunday morning I was lying in bed, awake but not awake if you know what I mean. My brain was buzzing and I was considering getting up but my eyes were closed and I wasn't in a hurry to open them.<br />
<br />
I felt a figure lying next to me, a figure that was not there when I went to sleep and was now sticking a pair of freezing cold feet under my pajama jacket. <br />
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It was my 6-year old daughter and she had climbed into our bed in the middle of the night as she often does. She now lay between me and my wife in her contorted way of sleeping that resembles a body that fell out of the sky from a very great height and splayed limbs in every direction at angles usually only acheivable by ostriches or years of yoga training.<br />
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Very often this means I will end up with feet on my face and my wife will end up with fingers up her nose and a heavy head on her stomach. This time my wife was getting a break and she was right up against me; her feet and knees were up againsts my back and her head was right next to mine. I could feel her breath on my face once I was able to turn around in her direction (a harder task than you think since I was basically clinging to the edge of the bed with my arse-cheeks by this point).<br />
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I lay there with my eyes still closed, feeling happy and protective and warm. My brain is telling me that this could be the good old days. This is one of those moments that when I am an old man and she is grown up, I will be to grasp onto this memory and smile and feel that same warmth and protection no matter what the future holds. It is a feeling I never want to end. I am like this for a while, just savoring the moment. I listen to the rythm of her breating and feel the inhale then the exhale on my face. It is perfect and nothing can spoil it.<br />
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A few minutes later something happens and we switch places. A memory rises from the depths of my sub-conciousness and in this memory I am the child and I am lying right next to my Mum. I can feel HER breath on my face.<br />
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It shocks me because it is so vivid and real and I want to open my eyes but I don't want to lose the moment or the connection to my Mum who has been dead for 8 years. This might sound spooky but it is far from it, I feel the same sense of warmth and protectiveness that I had towards my daughter before except that this time I feel like they are being offered to me. I have an overwhelming sense that everything is going to be alright.<br />
<br />
I now lie there listening to my Mum breathing. I remember this feeling so strongly that I recall I used to time my own breathing to breathe in when she was doing the same. I had this idea in my head that when people breathed out they only breathed out the bad air that your body did not want. Since we were lying so close together I could not breathe in when she was breathing out or I'd only get the bad air.<br />
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As I lie there happier than I've been in months I realise that I've discovered something very primal, something which is always there but rarely acknoledged. A connection between a parent and a child that, no matter what happens in ones life, never goes away, and no matter what I know I am incredibly lucky to have reached this point.<br />
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Long may it last.<br />
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Davehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02555922328460195279noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10231821.post-29091188913468155332013-01-16T21:18:00.000-05:002013-01-22T21:31:50.926-05:00Particles.I come up the stairs from the platform of the 42nd Street subway stop to the bowels of the Port Authority bus station and I am confronted by a highway of humanity moving in two directions at once in front of me. I feel like I am standing completely still in one of those long-exposure photographs where one thing is in focus and everything else is a blur.<br />
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I stand watching for a while, I put my hands on the railing at the top of the stairwell I just emerged from and deposit some skin cells. It occurs to me in that moment that hundreds of millions of people have deposited skin cells in the same place. I start thinking about how many people have shed skin cells in the subway and then in the Port Authority bus station. All of that humanity, all the flakes, all the DNA, melting off you in your effort to get from Point A to Point B.<br />
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I'm overwhelmed by the thought and the possibility as my mind's eye sinks down to an atomic level and the walls seem to swim with matter. I can see every particle and I feel like I could push my hand into it like it was made from jello. It would be egotistical of me to think I am at one with the world but I am not at one with the world, I am just contributing to it, adding my cells to the millions who were here before me.<br />
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Sometimes New York does this to you. Fear loves this place and sometimes you will find it dragging you by your head and there is a startling moment of clarity when you realise that you are one single pea in a giant concrete pod filled with 12 million peas. <br />
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For some people this makes their brain explode, for me I love it.<br />
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<br />Davehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02555922328460195279noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10231821.post-24330102458587662812013-01-01T20:51:00.001-05:002013-01-01T20:51:44.690-05:00I don't know where last year went. I started about 4 or 5 posts but never actually published anything. I'd like to say that they didn't meet some kind of high editorial standard but to be honest all of them were just half formed ideas that never got completed.<br />
<br />
I had a good year, just not a very exciting one and I'm not the kind of person who can write about mundane things even though my definition of a mundane thing might slightly different from yours. I'm not the "A funny thing happened to me on the way to the theater" storyteller, I like the absurd, the surreal and the harmless.<br />
<br />
I turned 40 in March and in April ended up in the emergency room with an asthma attack, my first one in 12 years. This prompted a bit of soul searching as I had not only aged a decade, I was also the heaviest I'd ever been and completely out of shape.<br />
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Because of this I then spent a good deal of the summer walking the NYC Greenway and then after that just kept on walking. By the end of October, and by the reckoning of the little app on my phone that tracks me like a student loan debt collector, I had walked about 370 miles. I ended the year feeling in slightly better shape than I have in a long time. I will endeavor to keep this up throughout 2013.<br />
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On the current affairs front it was an election year, and although I had plenty of bad things to say about Mitt Romney, I did not have many good things to say about Barak Obama so I generally kept my head down hoping Obama would win but only because I was more afraid of the other guy. This is not democracy, it's a 2-party card game with a marked deck.<br />
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The year ended on a rough note with the 2 Sandy's. Hurricane Sandy which had me living at work for 5 days and provided me with a few images that I will never forget, and then the Sandy Hook School shooting which was just too unspeakably horrible. The name Sandy needs to go in the bin with Adolf, no more Sandys please.<br />
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And now I think I am up-to-date. 12 months in 6 paragraphs. Not bad at all.<br />
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Davehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02555922328460195279noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10231821.post-75571260276459924182013-01-01T20:23:00.001-05:002013-01-01T20:23:39.844-05:00New Year Resolution.I have one New Year Resolution. To get over my writer's block and actually write something this year. There. Fucking done!Davehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02555922328460195279noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10231821.post-33178137385748749832011-12-29T20:14:00.006-05:002011-12-29T21:03:43.231-05:00Happy News Year!Well another year draws to a close and what a year it was. Bin Laden dead, Gaddafi dead, Kim Jong-il dead. Maggie Thatcher still alive.<br /><br />It's not fair!<br /><br />"The Devil looks after his own" as my Grandad used to say. Of course he used to say it to my Granny as she went off to Mass and left him to open his first home brew of the day and start his long daily recital of shouting at the telly. He's dead and now it's my turn and I'll do my shouting on here.<br /><br />I'm glad I got this blog up and running again but as you get older it becomes harder to come up with stuff you want to actually share with people. There is nothing worse than the kind of blog that goes on and on about the life of your kids or how you fixed your toilet, I strive to entertain and the banality of everyday life is only entertaining when you see it going horribly wrong on "[Insert country here] 's Funniest Home Videos".<br /><br />"Oh look! Grandad's got his willy stuck in the electrical outlet again!"<br /><br />"That's SHOCKING!".<br /><br />Cue applaud from cross-eyed brain-dead looking audience.<br /><br />I've been reading the usual raft of articles looking back over the big events of the year and it struck me that although this has been a momentous year in current affairs it has been a god awful year in journalism. Everyone has been going on about the Arab Spring, Libya, Obama, Ron Paul, Mitt Romney, Rupert Murdoch (and James), the Occupy movement, economic recession, unemployment, etc. No-one has said anything about the biggest story of the year.<br /><br /><a href="http://communities.washingtontimes.com/neighborhood/movies-toto/2011/dec/29/tarzan-pal-cheetah-dead-80/">Cheetah died.</a><br /><br />And yet Maggie Thatcher still lives!<br /><br />Again. I say NOT FAIR!<br /><br />Here's to a happy and prosperous 2012 to all my friends and enemies. Slainte Mhath!Davehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02555922328460195279noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10231821.post-72687344166267149622011-11-11T18:55:00.009-05:002011-11-11T19:46:33.749-05:00The next evolutionary step.I was sitting on the PATH train when I think I identified the next evolutionary step. I was minding my own business and staring at people the way blind people do when they realize they can stare at people and people don't think they can see anything. Usually I do this to women with big boobs but this time I was absently staring at a Dad and his teenaged son who were sitting opposite me.<br /><br />The teenager was playing with a hand-held games console and was disconnected from the outside world by the headphones in his ears. The Dad was on his phone answering emails and typing away furiously. These two people were together but they weren't really together.<br /><br />It struck me then that I see this everywhere but just don't really pay any attention to it. Actually not only do I see it everywhere, I also DO it everywhere and so does my wife and so does my child. We are also together but not really together as one of us is usually buried into the little screen of some electronic device.<br /><br />There have been a million articles written on how these things are destroying our attention span and how they are overwhelming us with information so I'm not going to regurgitate any of that, I am more interested in the evolutionary aspect of the phenomenon.<br /><br />Everyone thinks "evolution" specifically refers to the <a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_CiE16--Vz7I/RkSZD13sl8I/AAAAAAAAAsk/GLt2C9kp-_g/s320/Evolution.jpg">Ascent of Man</a> and of course it does, but if you'll notice the 4th figure in the Ascent of Man is carrying a spear. Evolution is as much about cultural changes and the tools that cause those cultural changes as it is about the extra vertebra and opposing thumbs.<br /><br />For example: It is said that early man was lactose intolerant until he learned how to farm cattle and therefore developed the gene that allowed him to drink milk without shooting diarrhea halfway up the cave wall. Based on this it is a fairly safe assumption that loin cloths were not known for their absorbent properties and that early cavemen probably smelled like Charlie Sheen after a week long bender, consequently early man's sense of smell was not nearly as sensitive as ours is today.<br /><br />It is with these thoughts in mind that I realized that the tools which will help the human race to our next evolutionary step are these little hand held devices.<br /><br />In 50 generations from now we will communicate via text, email and chatrooms. We will forget how to speak so we will physically evolve in a way where we are born without voice boxes. We will develop languages based around the acronym that would seem alien and gibberish to us if we saw it today.<br /><br />Our eyes will grow large but our eyesight will grow poor from straining at the little screeens. We will look (and probably move like) those <a href="http://nocturnal-animals.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/tarsier_nocturnal_animals.jpg">nocturnal sloths</a> that David Attenborough is always chasing through the jungle at very low speeds.<br /><br />We will go completely deaf due to overuse of headphones and eventually our ears will just seal up and disappear due to lack of use. This will give us an entirely round cranium and we will start to resemble a very large eyed version of Charlie Brown.<br /><br />We will get fat through lack of exercise to the point where our offspring are just born fat, blind and deaf. On the upside our fingers will grow shorter and move at lightning fast speeds as typing is the only way we can communicate.<br /><br />In short we will be huge nocturnal eyed blobs with stubby lightning fast fingers, a big round head and no ears! <br /><br />Personally I can't wait. I'm already halfway there!Davehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02555922328460195279noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10231821.post-53452079821139334832011-11-03T21:50:00.003-04:002011-11-03T21:54:52.994-04:00A Country Song for Bruce Cantley.<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:officedocumentsettings> <o:allowpng/> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:trackmoves/> <w:trackformatting/> <w:punctuationkerning/> <w:validateagainstschemas/> <w:saveifxmlinvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:ignoremixedcontent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:alwaysshowplaceholdertext>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:donotpromoteqf/> <w:lidthemeother>EN-US</w:LidThemeOther> <w:lidthemeasian>X-NONE</w:LidThemeAsian> <w:lidthemecomplexscript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:snaptogridincell/> <w:wraptextwithpunct/> <w:useasianbreakrules/> <w:dontgrowautofit/> 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mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} </style> <![endif]--> <p class="MsoNormal">I spent my last 5 dollars on PBR,</p> <p class="MsoNormal">In a Williamsburg, Brooklyn Hipster Dive bar.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">The fairy lights on the ceiling couldn’t mask how I was feeling</p> <p class="MsoNormal">as I looked at you in your faux-working class glory,</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Drinking crap 5 dollar beer and telling your stories.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">You were talking about Oasis’ split and Noel</p> <p class="MsoNormal">but when you went to the jukebox you played Billy Joel.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">You think it’s ironic to play something shit, Tears for Fears,</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Debbie Gibson or some other 80’s hit. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">You wear pre-ripped skinny jeans which</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"></span>slowly cut off the blood flow </p> <p class="MsoNormal">right to your balls </p> <p class="MsoNormal">and that extra small t-shirt</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"></span>from Williamsburg Music hall.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">Your politics lean just a little to the left</p> <p class="MsoNormal">And you hate that the rich are engaging in theft.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">You’d Occupy Wall Street but not right now</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Because Daddy’s portfolio is still a cash cow.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">You play with your iPad and Droid</p> <p class="MsoNormal">get a corporate electronic erection.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">But with Joe-90 glasses on your face </p> <p class="MsoNormal">that huge beard and that acned complexion.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">The ladies will hardly swoon.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">It’s a safe bet to say</p> <p class="MsoNormal">you won’t be making trust fund babies anytime soon.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">The Caterpillar branded trucker hat that you wear on your head </p> <p class="MsoNormal">was made for you by a kid in China who’s probably now dead.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">But thank god for your shriveled balls and your girlfriend’s cavernous vagina</p> <p class="MsoNormal">You’ll never be able breed and the human race’ll be finer.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">The recession is here and 5 dollars for crap beer</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Is just fucking stupid to me but thanks to you</p><p class="MsoNormal">and your whole yuppie crew</p> <p class="MsoNormal">My drinking days are through</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Because you can’t get drunk</p> <p class="MsoNormal">And you won’t get far,</p> <p class="MsoNormal">When you spend your last 5 dollars on PBR,</p> <p class="MsoNormal">In a Williamsburg, Brooklyn Hipster Dive bar.</p>Davehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02555922328460195279noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10231821.post-76351281775143609382011-10-11T19:56:00.008-04:002011-10-11T22:35:12.608-04:00Let's Occupy Existence.I've been trying to figure out why I am not more engaged with the Occupy Wall Street protests beyond reposting and commenting on stuff online. In my student days I was a member of the Student Union and went to anti-apartheid marches, anti-poll tax rallies and anti-student loan protests. Later I was a member of the Labor Party (campaigning for Tony fucking Blair of all people), and when I worked at the BBC, a member of BECTU (Broadcasting, Entertainment, Cinematograph and Theatre Union).<br /><br />Now I am sitting here clicking on a mouse, sharing information and helping push the message for a movement that I can't quite decide how I feel about. I know they have the right ideas and I admire their tenacity and use of the media but something is bothering me and I can't quite work out what it is.<br /><br />There are various manifestos posted on line, and also various people who say there should be no manifesto at all. This is part of my problem I think. There needs to be some kind of concrete manifesto, even if it is an entirely idealist one that will never be realized. They are after all fighting against a system that is built on an illusion, the illusion of worth. That dollar bill or euro note in your hand is just a piece of paper until it is notarized, then it instantly becomes valuable. Why? Illusions.<br /><br />It sounds silly but when you have major party candidates running for President on a platform of zero taxes or abolishing the federal reserve then you have to start thinking. Illusion.<br /><br />Start getting some concrete ideas and aims. Stop acting like a bunch of directionless hippies. Abbie Hoffman might have been a fun guy but I doubt he really changed anything significant in the cultural zeitgeist so stop trying to be him.<br /><br />At this point I think I should add that I hope my own observations in all of this are completely wrong. I will be very happy if they are and this movement actually does coalesce into some kind of viable revolution.<br /><br />The hippy analogy is one that the press will obviously continue to overuse and I don't wish to add to that particular pile-on so let me make this argument.<br /><br />The real social change in the 60's came about by grassroots community organizing by people like the SDS and the Black Panthers. They went into the schools, they started soup kitchens and built community centers. Almost every activist I have met who is still involved in politics got involved at a grassroots level like that and they are the people, through hard work and patience and tenacity, that have affected real change, not a group of photogenic flower children.<br /><br />It disturbs me that the Occupy Wall Street movement did not start until the destruction of the banks and corporations and other non-democratic organizations spread to the middle class. Those same people have been enslaving and ripping off working class people in every country in the world for decades, why was there no real outrage until the property bubble burst, college fees skyrocketed and unemployment reached 10%?<br /><br />If you've read any Naomi Klien or even more mainstream writers like Paul Krugman then you'll know that the economic destruction reaped on the working classes is not an accident. It has been a very deliberate and slow erosion of human rights in the name of profit. They've been screaming that message from the rooftops for years but no-one seemed to care. Again, it was the loss of the middle class dream that spurred the Occupy Wall Street people into action.<br /><br />I'm Scottish and I'm aware we tend to be over obsessed with class struggle and again I hope I am wrong and I hope this movement serves as a catalyst for the kids involved to go on to much greater things and to stay involved in politics at a grassroots level after the occupation is over. That may be the real revolution.Davehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02555922328460195279noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10231821.post-48080149322455582112011-10-03T19:37:00.020-04:002011-10-06T19:41:27.846-04:00Contradicting the Irish in Me.A couple of weeks ago I found myself standing on 238th Street in the Bronx neighborhood of Riverdale looking up 128 steps. At the top of the steps was <a href="http://www.anbealbochtcafe.com/home.html">An Beal Boct Cafe</a>, a great Irish pub that pours a fantastic pint of Guinness (one of the best in NYC in my opinion), and at the bottom of the stairs was me. In between us lay my total lack of fitness and a little motivation that was only driven by the thought of that creamy pint at the top of the concrete beanstalk.<br /><br />I didn't count the steps but I know it was 128 since at least 3 people that I talked to later in the day took the pains to point out that there are 128 of them and they climb the damn things everyday.<br /><br />"128 feckers I tell you!".<br /><br />After about 40 or 50 steps I was starting to get out of breath. It may have been altitude sickness, after all I rarely go north of 14th street, but more likely it was just a condition known as "Fat Bastarditis". I sat down on the steps for a rest and turned around to enjoy the view of the 2 lithe 20-somethings striding up the steps 2 at a time, and who overtook me with a look like I was a dog log that they couldn't be bothered wiping off their shoe.<br /><br />Slightly offended and therefore freshly motivated, I rose slowly to my feet wheezing like a 90-year old emphysema patient and started mournfully plodding up the stairs again. By this time I was doing a pretty good impersonation of a gasping fish floundering for water and I could see an angelic pint of Guinness beckoning me ever onwards.<br /><br />Reaching the top I expected a guy to be standing there with a tinfoil blanket and a medal that says "Congratulations you came 9000th in the New York Marathon" but alas there was only more hill. A hundred yards up the road I could see the sign for An Beal Boct and instant alcoholic redemption.<br /><br />Dragging my bloated corpse in the door I collapsed down at the bar and instantly remembered why I had put myself through this. An Beal Boct is a great bar and probably the closest thing that New York City has to a genuine craic.<br /><br />Within 10 minutes I was deep in conversation with John the barman and a union carpenter named Tommy who had just finished working a 19 hour day and was having a hard time just focusing on the horizon.<br /><br />The bar itself is one of those places that feels lived-in. It is only 20 or so years old (which is nothing by proper Irish bar standards) but it smells older. The varnish, Guinness, pre-smoking ban nicotine and ammonia mix together with years of discarded skin cells and blood and guts to make that smell. It is a combination that is unique and I love it. It's also rare, especially in America.<br /><br />A good craic is always free flowing and can veer off anytwhere. After a bit of yapping about carpentry, obsessive compulsive disorder and the homeless people who live in the Amtrak tunnels of the Westside of Manhattan I bring up the subject of the stairs.<br /><br />"There's 128 of them" Tommy and John say at the same time.<br /><br />"When I was a kid I used to ride down them on a beer tray in the winter. Beats any sledding hill in the Bronx" John added.<br /><br />The conversation moved from there to the Beatles, then to Irish history and Scottish history and the differences between the two. It was a lovely spontaneous bee-bop like flow and I was sorry I had to end it but I had to head back down the stairs to meet a friend.<br /><br />I said my goodbyes, promising to be back (it's true, despite the stairs I will be back there to see Andy Irvine perform on Oct 13th). My belly now swelled by a quick 5 pints of Guinness, I walked out to the top of the stairs and tried to imagine riding down them on a beer tray but my bum started to hurt at the mere thought so I started my descent on foot.<br /><br />At the bottom of the stairs I stopped in an old man bar called The Punch Bowl. There was nobody in there except one old <a href="http://www.forwardslashnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Jack3.jpg">Father Jack</a> look-alike at the bar and the barman himself who looked like he hadn't seen the sun in several centuries.<br /><br />"Arrghhyeedass" said the old guy at the bar.<br /><br />I'd no idea what he said so I just told him I just came down the stairs from An Beal Boct.<br /><br />"There's 128 of them" the barman said.<br /><br />"Thanks, I know".<br /><br />"Arrrgtyyyrrfuck" said the old man.<br /><br />"Oh really? What makes you say that?" I said, still having no idea what he was talking about.<br /><br />"Fuckarrrrgggeiisss". He then started laughing, either that or he was having some kind of fit. He was drooling big lines of spit down his chin and waggling his tongue from side to side.<br /><br />I made up my mind to quicly finish my beer and hit the road. After An Beal Boct the Guinness in the Punch Bowl was utilitarian at best. At this point I met up with my friend Greg and we headed downtown to a pub called Connolly's in Times Square to see an Irish-American band called <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYnr5MLm1vw&feature=related">Shillelagh Law</a>.<br /><br />Connolly's is a borderline "Plastic Paddy" joint. Plastic Paddy meaning a celebration of all things stereotypically Irish, shamrocks, Guinness, James Joyce quotes on the wall, etc, etc.<br /><br />However, I'd say it's borderline since it's kind of been around long enough to actually have some substance, unlike other bars in the neighborhood with names like "Lansdowne Road" and "Kevin St James". It's also home to the band Black 47 who's lead singer wrote a highly enjoyable book called <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002DML0MK/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp_sr_2?pf_rd_p=486539851&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=1560256443&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=0MV84FA6A6A5MHD9Z472">"Green Suede Shoes"</a> and who were known as an activist band during the days of the struggles.<br /><br />This is where things start to get murky. There are plenty of things I love about Irish culture, and there are actually plenty of things I love about American culture too, but combine the two and it seems to bring out some of the worst people imaginable.<br /><br />The struggles for me were always left leaning. The Father of the struggles, and indeed the person who the bar is named for, James Connolly said: "<span class="maintext"><span class="firstword">The</span> worker is the slave of capitalist society, the female worker is the slave of that slave".<br /><br />Pretty fucking forward thinking for Ireland in 1912 I'd say.</span> <a href="http://www.searchquotes.com/quotation/The_worker_is_the_slave_of_capitalist_society%2C_the_female_worker_is_the_slave_of_that_slave./81378/" title="The worker is the slave of capitalist society, the female worker is the slave of that slave." class="mainquote"><span class="firstword"></span></a><br /><br />So Shillelagh Law come on and they are pretty good, in fact I'd say musically they are excellent. You can tell they are all really great trad players in their own right but at some point The Pogues and East Coast Irish culture invaded their bloodstream to create this new smorgasbord of music.<br /><br />I'm watching a group of kids down the front who may or may not be underage and they are really getting into it, slam dancing and moshing to these old jigs and reels mixed into a punk ethos and it makes me feel all warm and fuzzy to see them appreciating tunes which in some cases are hundreds of years old (albeit with new Yankee lyrics).<br /><br />About halfway through the set the fiddle player dedicates a song to some local trade union and everybody applauds and I'm thinking Connolly again: "<span class="maintext"><span class="firstword">Without</span> the power of the Industrial Union behind it, Democracy can only enter the State as the victim enters the gullet of the Serpent".</span><br /><br />But then after one song which the band dedicated to a fire fighter who died on 9/11, the young kids started chanting "USA, USA, USA!". I was momentarily dumbfounded, then perplexed as I thought this mindless patriotic bullshit only exists on the right and weren't they just applauding a trade union song 10 minutes ago? <br /><br />Patriotism is like an alien life form to me, I see it but I don't understand it. I call myself a 90-minute patriot. When the game is over and Scotland have inevitably lost at football, I take off the jersey and rejoin Planet Earth. My country is just as shitty as your country and vice versa. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. The firefighter didn't give his life because he was an American, he gave his life because he was a firefighter and he cared about human beings regardless of where they were from.<br /><br />It soured my night and I left wondering about those young kids. They have a great chance to appreciate something which is old and progressive at the same time. That music Shillelagh Law were playing couldn't have come directly from Ireland. It needed to be blended with the cultures in Boston and New York and the other Irish enclaves of the East Coast. At the same time, the politics have become regressive and Irish-Americans seem to have lost sight of the persecution their forefathers worked to escape from.<br /><br />I finished my Guinness and we headed home passing the Connolly quote on the wall that reads:<br /><br /><span class="maintext"><span style="font-style: italic;" class="firstword">"Just</span><span style="font-style: italic;"> as it is true that a stream cannot rise above its source, so it is true that a national literature cannot rise above the moral level of the social conditions of the people from whom it derives its inspiration"</span>. - James Connolly.<br /><br /></span>Davehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02555922328460195279noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10231821.post-67165180721900241512011-09-11T06:52:00.012-04:002011-09-11T11:48:34.996-04:00Welcome to the Terrordome<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Z_Fdra-oC2I/TmxGC1lR4tI/AAAAAAAAAEM/8Se_otQq2Fs/s1600/24225_106088962750476_100000481187050_150742_1050519_n.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 401px; height: 375px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Z_Fdra-oC2I/TmxGC1lR4tI/AAAAAAAAAEM/8Se_otQq2Fs/s1600/24225_106088962750476_100000481187050_150742_1050519_n.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br />As I write this it is 10 years to the day that some religious nutters killed 3000 people a few blocks from where I am sitting. I remember the day very clearly (as does anyone who was in New York that day) but I am not going to talk about that, I've done it here before and the time has come to move on.<br /><br />The only thing that makes this year any different from the last 9 is that it falls on a multiple of 5. Oh and the Iraq Body Count now stands at 111,937. That is approximately 37.31 times 9/11. Note, that is only Iraq. I didn't include the dead in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen or anywhere else that has been bombed to smithereens in the last decade. Iraq Body Count also only includes verifiable civilian deaths, the real number is probably a lot higher.<br /><br />A lot of friends have been posting updates on Facebook along the lines of "Never Forget", I personally have no problem with that but lets stop living in the past and take a look at the present and the future.<br /><br />This future is being presented to me right now outside the front door. Cops and men with machine guns behind barricades everywhere. It reminds me of my first visit to Belfast in the late 1980's except that this is no occupying force, this is our very own elected representatives doing it for "our safety".<br /><br />Sure, I don't doubt that there are nutters out there who would like nothing better than to blow something up today but how is that any different from yesterday or next Tuesday. If those fuckers really want to do it they will, you can flood Downtown Manhattan with all the cops and army personnel you want and they'll probably blow something up in Pittsburgh.<br /><br />Once you come to this realization then you understand that the cops and army folk all around you with their big guns are only there to provide the illusion of security. Sometimes it is an illusion that doesn't even make sense, over the course of the last week I have seen army guys with M-16 machine guns standing around inside crowded train stations. What the hell good are those guns in an enclosed and crowded space? They aren't any good, it's just an illusion.<br /><br />I don't want this to come off as an anti-authoritarian post, it's not. I am well aware of the fact that many of the people who lost their lives that day were police and firemen who rushed into the building to try and save others. The cops and the firemen are not the problems here, the politicians are. Hell, the <a href="http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?section=news/local/new_york&id=8312537">first responders aren't even invited</a> to today's ceremony.<br /><br />Bloomberg, Guilliani, Dubya, Obama and all the rest of the politicians just want their photo opportunity and a chance to cry crocodile tears. They need to do this to justify all the wars and people they have killed since that day. I hate to sound so cynical but it really bothers me and after 10 years it has the appearance of nothing but taking advantage of other people's grief.<br /><br />They say the world became a more dangerous place on September 12th 2001, I call bullshit, it's no more dangerous than it was on September 10th 2001. The only thing that changed was our perception, finally our<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2002/sep/16/pinochet.september11"> foreign policies</a> came home to roost and we didn't like it.Davehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02555922328460195279noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10231821.post-20838151653693654242011-09-05T20:26:00.006-04:002011-09-05T21:41:13.264-04:00The Injustices of the Kindergarten Experience.It's the last day of summer and tomorrow my daughter will start kindergarten. It seems like only yesterday that she was still learning to walk so it's a little shocking to my poor time-lapsed brain that 5 years have passed since she was born and I don't even remember changing my underpants let alone the whole "Oh shit, here comes school" thing.<br /><br />Kindergarten aka "Primary 1" to the Scots reading this is really the point where your memory actually starts to kick in and you start retaining stuff. She will see and do stuff this year that she will remember for the rest of her life, at least that was the way it was for me.<br /><br />Primary 1 for me was when I learned that sometimes the world can be very unfair and that justice is definitely subjective to the whims of a probably half-drunk mad catholic teacher.<br /><br />It all started in the playground where my friend Paul Clark started a "pile-on". This is where a kid grabs another kid that they either do not like, or just enjoy bullying, and wrestles them to the ground. At which point a third kid will scream "pile-on" and everybody will jump on top of the two kids on the ground.<br /><br />It's a stupid thing to do really as the bully is quite often just as badly crushed as the original target and the amount of bodies with flailing legs and arms will easily take out some of those already loose baby-teeth.<br /><br />Anyway so Paul starts a pile-on and I'm having nothing to do with it but this girl Patricia Rafferty comes barging into me and I fall into the pile of bodies somewhere in the middle. Some kids are screaming, more kids are laughing and I am just trying to wriggle free as I wanted nothing to do with this.<br /><br />Unfortunately, just as I wriggle free and stand up, Mrs MacDonald the Primary 1 teacher comes running out the classroom screaming blue bloody murder at us. She knows the drill, the bodies towards the bottom of the pile are the perpetrators and the person on the very bottom is the victim.<br /><br />I figure I am going to be alright as I see her wade into the bodies and start pulling people out. She grabs Paul Clark by the ear and pulls him to his feet, then to my horror, she starts making a beeline for me and grabs me by the ear too before dragging us both to the headmasters office.<br /><br />I protest: "Miss, Miss, I didnae have anyhing to dae wae it! Ah was only standing by and I goat knocked intae the pile".<br /><br />"Likely story McGrath. I saw you climbing out from under the pile of bodies" she said.<br /><br />I realized then that if I had just waited it out I would have been in the anonymous group of arms and limbs and I would not have been singled out. Instead I had scampered out and caught her attention.<br /><br />"I wisnae Miss, honest ah wisnae!".<br /><br />She dragged us both by the ear down the long corridor towards the headmasters office and made us sit outside on these two big leather chairs while she went inside and spoke to Mr Budis, the long suffering head master.<br /><br />Directly opposite the headmasters office was the staff room where the teachers took their break and where my Mum, a teacher of the Primary 5 class, was sitting. I prayed to Jesus, the Pope and all the "black babies" I'd ever given money to help me now. If my Mum came out the staff room while I was sitting there I was dead for sure.<br /><br />Paul was sitting alongside me sniffing and crying and saying "Ah dinnae want to go in there, he's goannie belt us" and I was sitting sniffing and crying and saying "Ah wantae git in there before ma mam comes out the staff room and kills me dead right where I'm sitting".<br /><br />In the end we both didn't get our wishes. Just as Mr Budis opened his door and beckoned us in, the staff room door opened and my Mum walked out from a gigantic cloud of cigarette smoke just to see the back of me going into the office.<br /><br />She said "Just a minute" and turned me round to check it was me, then she said "I'll talk to you later" in that tone of voice that really means "You're dead!". At that point I knew anything Mr Budis did was going to be easy to deal with compared to what waited at home.<br /><br />Mr Budis said "Come in boys and stand against the wall".<br /><br />We walked inside and stood where we were told. Mrs MacDonald stood in the back of the room giving us the evil eye. She was obviously enjoying herself.<br /><br />"Put your hands out, one on top of the other" he said, then he reached into the drawer of his desk and pulled out his leather strap.<br /><br />"Waaaaah!" Paul cried and started shaking before anything had even happened. I didn't cry because I was now getting furious. I hadn't had anything to do with the pile-on, nothing at all, I knew this was a serious injustice.<br /><br />"HANDS OUT IN FRONT OF YOU!" Mr Budis shouted. We meekly put our hands out in front. <br /><br />Mr Budis swung the strap at Paul first and Paul's self-preservation instinct made him pull his hands back so the strap missed entirely. "HANDS OUT NOW!" Budis screamed and brought the strap down a second time, this time it made contact with Paul's hand and he screamed in pain.<br /><br />"OKAY, YOUR TURN" he said to me. I stood there fuming but kept my hands out. He brought the strap down and it stung like mad but I was so angry at the injustice I managed to suppress my yelp and only my eyes teared up.<br /><br />This went on 5 more times and almost every time Paul pulled his hand away whilst I just stood there and took it. I managed to get through all "Six of the belt" without crying and I felt good at not having given them the satisfaction.<br /><br />It definitely hurt physically but it hurt much much more mentally. For the first time I learned that justice is not always fair and the good guy does not always win. A pretty depressing thing to find out when you are 5 years old.<br /><br />My anger lasted for the rest of the day and I guess I was still angry when my Mum finished teaching and came to take me home. She asked me what had happened and I told her the whole story, the CORRECT version, and that I'd had nothing to do with the pile-on. There must have been something about my tone of voice because to my amazement she believed me and marched me back into school where she confronted Mrs MacDonald over her version of events. I was left to sit outside the classroom and I could hear them arguing inside, two colleagues arguing not just Mother to Teacher. After 10 minutes Mrs MacDonald came outside and apoligized to me. She said she had talked to Paul Clark and he'd told her I had nothing to do with it. I knew she hadn't, she'd only been talking to my Mum and Mum had straightened her out.<br /><br />I went home in the car that night with mixed emotions. I was completely baffled and annoyed and upset that things do not always work out the same way they do at the end of children's comics with the good guy winning, but at the same time I was very proud of myself for not crying when I was getting belted and even more proud of my Mum for sticking up for me.<br /><br />She was a good lady. Thanks Mum.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">* As a post-script to this, it just came back to me that I was at my Mum's funeral and an old lady came up to me in the Church. She said "You must be David" and I said "Yes" but I had no idea who she was. She said "I'm Mrs MacDonald, I was your Primary 1 teacher".<br /><br />Fucking. hell, the old bat must have making sure Mum was actually dead.</span>Davehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02555922328460195279noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10231821.post-77243990834325520052011-09-01T11:58:00.007-04:002011-09-01T12:54:39.334-04:00In a consumerist paradise, everything is compromised.This morning I had to buy myself a new ipod charger so I took a stroll along Church St past all the little shopfronts that sell knock-off versions of products. Eventually I found one selling the charger I needed for $10. Deal! I took it home, plugged it in and it worked perfectly. A real Apple charger would have cost me twice the price at least.
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<br />After my ipod was charged up I started looking at this thing and I immediately felt bad that I had bought a knocked off version. Who knows who made this thing and what kind of conditions they had to work under. Also, who knows where the money goes? Criminal gangs? Religious nutters? It could only be bad.
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<br />But then I started thinking about <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxconn#Controversies">Foxconn</a>, the Chinese company who manufacture Apple products among other things. This is the REAL product. The one with the logo on the side of it and people are still dying to get it to your big box store shelf.
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<br />Which one is worse? I can't decide. Sure the criminal gangs who are probably running the knock-offs have other horrible things going on, prostitution, human trafficking and general religious fucknuttery. Sounds bad right?
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<br />It does, but when you start looking at these people from a moral standpoint and you realize that they <span style="font-style: italic;">have no morals</span>, then you feel you should contrast it with a company that is <span style="font-style: italic;">supposed to</span> provide decent working conditions, a living wage and working hours that won't make you jump out the fucking window.
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<br />The company is<span style="font-style: italic;"> </span>supposed to<span style="font-style: italic;"> have </span>morals. They have to be held to a different standard than a criminal gang. It's the same way governments and the rule of law are<span style="font-style: italic;"> supposed to be</span> held to a different standard than terrorists - Governments don't kill civilians on purpose, terrorists do.
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<br />Companies unfortunately use the same excuse that governments do when it comes to this sort of stuff. We didn't know, it was our contractor, we'll get them to end the offensive practices immediately, etc, etc. It applies to Foxconn as it applies to Blackwater and the CEO or President doesn't know anything about it.
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<br />It's all rubbish of course.
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<br />So as a consumer how do you live with yourself when you start thinking about this stuff? I do try to consume as little as possible but admittedly I do own branded products and I do like some branded products over others (Apple - insert free Ipad 2 here). I just don't like my products to have blood on them.
<br />Davehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02555922328460195279noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10231821.post-51434384878047773562011-08-31T20:39:00.011-04:002011-08-31T21:50:28.485-04:00Nothing to see here, move along.Well after being on a roll and posting a bunch of stuff in the space of two weeks, I've hit another dry spot. Mostly it is because I've been working 12-hour days for the last three weeks and by the time I get home all I want to do is fall face down on the couch like a giant blubbery invertebrate.
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<br />I'd also probably blame it on the fact that when you work 12-hour days, life tends to get very one-dimensional and boring. You wake up, you go to work, you drink a cup of coffee, you scratch your head and your balls and decide you need a shit and then you go home. You then repeat this formula until you suffer a bald-spot, raw balls and an anal prolapse.
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<br />It was at some point last week, just shortly before I was considering scratching my head and taking a jobby that the earthquake hit. A few days after that, sometime between the morning coffee and a deadening conversation with the bus driver, Michael Bloomberg came on the telly and said we should all prepare to die because there was a really big fucking swirly thing in the sky and the weathermen said it was heading straight for New York City. Hello Hurricane Irene.
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<br />The earthquake was definitely an interesting experience since it was my first. Yes, I never even knew I had it but I lost my earthquake virginity.
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<br />I work in the 2nd floor a beautiful <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/60_Hudson_Street">old art deco building</a> built in 1930. Solid stone and definitely not the kind of thing that will fall down easily. It is for that reason that when the building started to shake it was doubly disturbing. If I worked in some new crappy paper-mache construction I could understand the shaking but I work in the Robert Mitchum of buildings; old and hard as fuck.
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<br />The first few seconds felt just like a big truck going past, we all kind of looked at each other and shrugged our shoulders. Then a wave came through, literally a wave, there was a trough and a crest of shaking power and you could feel it. At that point every sphincter in the room collectively tightened, kind of like they do whenever the Pope is around.
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<br />What the fuck....
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<br />Some of the people who were here were in the same room on 9/11 when the World Trade Center came down and as it is only a few blocks away I think that was the first thought in everybody's mind. Another attack....
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<br />We switched on the TV (kind of ironic considering I am a TV broadcast engineer) and immediately every channel was full of earthquake this and earthquake that. There was a palatable sense of relief around the room that it was at least safe to step outside however also a sense of disbelief since those kind of things never happen in New York.
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<br />No-one died, no buildings fell down, some people went nuts but more people went drinking and enjoyed the moment. Then Bloomberg came on the telly, put on his best <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/reslib/200703/r134140_450689.jpg">Cane Toad face</a> and told us all to get the fuck out of New York because death was riding in on a cloud.
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<br />The collective relief of having survived an earthquake quickly dissipated and mass psychosis took over instead. Everybody headed to the supermarket and bought every packet of crisps they could get their hands on. Frozen pizzas flew off the shelves and every chocolate bar in New York City was squirreled away to a safe deposit box under the floorboards as people determined that if they were going to die, then they would die like big fat Americans.
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<br />I walked into the supermarket after work the Thursday before the hurricane was due to hit. I remember thinking "Wow, this isn't so bad, there are a lot of fruit and veg left" but then I passed through the healthy stuff to junk food area and it was completely cleaned out. I saw one guy walk past with 5 frozen pizzas in his basket, I wanted to point out that you can't really cook frozen pizza by candle-light but thought better of it.
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<br />On Friday I cleaned out my backyard of all potential flying objects, even the bowl of salsa that had been sitting outside for 3 weeks since our last party was brought inside much to the disgust of the bugs that had been eating it. The toys had to come in too the last thing I wanted to do was die by being hit on the head by a flying Dora The Explorer chair. That would be embarrassing. Almost as embarrassing as being decapitated by a flying Phil Collins album.
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<br />When the storm came on Saturday, I could be found online examining FEMA floodmaps, all of which helpfully showed that the flood plain ended two houses away from me. Not very reassuring. All I needed was for one junk food bloated American to go for a swim and my basement would be ruined!
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<br />On Saturday afternoon the winds got up and didn't stop for a full 16 hours. I'm sure I've been in windier gusts but I'd never seen anything as sustained as this, it just blew constantly and hard.
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<br />I have a giant maple tree outside the back of my house and that thing started to dance like mad. I looked out my window before going to bed and it was like the tree from Poltergeist, at any moment you felt like one of the branches was going to fly in and grab you. Needless to say we pushed the wardrobe in front of the window and went to sleep.
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<br />Next morning I almost didn't want to open my eyes, I was afraid to go downstairs in case it was flooded. In the end I actually jumped out of bed because we got a phone call from from the power company saying they were about to cut off the electricity due to flooding. I ran downstairs to make a pot of coffee before this happened and thankfully it was dry. We had a wee bit of water in the basement but nothing too serious.
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<br />Unfortunately the same cannot be said for people only<a href="http://articles.cnn.com/2011-08-28/us/irene.new.jersey_1_flood-waters-chris-christie-hurricane-irene?_s=PM:US"> half-an-hour down the road.</a>
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<br />There has been a lot of talk of government over-reacting to this storm but my gut says we were just really fucking lucky it wasn't worse. Cane toad face did the right thing.
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<br />So anyway, as you can see, I've had nothing to write about. Hopefully it stays like this.
<br />Davehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02555922328460195279noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10231821.post-11282534515438761112011-08-15T20:08:00.003-04:002011-08-15T22:31:06.849-04:00My Selective Memories of My Dad.My Father died 30 years ago this week. I was thinking about him today and thought I should really try to sit down and write something in his memory but I wasn't sure I would know where to start.<div>
<br /></div><div>I was 9 years old when he passed. I don't remember that much about him except that he had white hair and his face felt like sandpaper when he hugged you. He also smoked cigars, drank McEwan's Export and wore a flat cap like almost all Scottish-Irish men of his generation.</div><div>
<br /></div><div>He was a radio operator in World War 2 but never saw action, instead he spent the war intercepting German radio transmissions on the Isle of Man. The story goes that he was based out of Glasgow but there was a sergeant he hated so much that he requested a transfer, he expected to be shipped off to North Africa, instead he was shipped off to Douglas. That would be the furthest he would ever travel from Glasgow outside of a silver jubilee trip him and my Mum took to Ireland in the 1970's. He was not a travelling man.</div><div>
<br /></div><div>He had a law degree but became a teacher instead. I'd like to think there was some kind of moral choice involved in this where he thought that being a teacher was more important than being a lawyer but I think it is more likely he just lacked the confidence for law and the fact that there were very few Catholic Lawyers in Scotland at the time. If you didn't know the funny hand-shakes you couldn't join the club.</div><div>
<br /></div><div>He worked his way up from teacher to headmaster then to head of a teacher training college in Glasgow. Along with my Mum, my Aunt, and a good number of my Brothers and Sisters, he formed what my English teacher once called "The McGrath teaching mafia" throughout Catholic schools in the West of Scotland. My English teacher learned how to be a teacher under my Dad.</div><div>
<br /></div><div>When he got sick, they amputated his big toe first. I was told that he had caught his toe under the accelerator in the car. Maybe he did but I remember thinking "Why would he be driving without any shoes on?". I had no reason to doubt him. After that there were a lot of hushed discussions going around the kitchen table but no-one ever really told me what was happening.</div><div>
<br /></div><div>I used to get dressed for school beside the heater hidden behind the clothes horse in the kitchen. I remember being there listening to my parents in shock when they heard on the radio that John Lennon got shot. Little did I know 8 months later my Dad would be dead too.</div><div>
<br /></div><div>They made up a bed in the living room for him, an old pull down sofa that had previously been reserved for visitors. I played around that bad while the cancer ate away at him but he never once told me he was feeling too sick and to leave him in peace. He would fall asleep and I would play in the hallway outside the door.</div><div>
<br /></div><div>Pretty soon he got too ill and was taken to a hospice. I didn't know the difference between a hospice and a hospital so I thought there was a chance he would still get better. He used to sit in a chair facing a big window and I would go and visit him on Sundays. He seemed to be shrinking and aging rapidly but I still didn't know what it meant.</div><div>
<br /></div><div>On the day he passed away I came downstairs and saw my two sisters crying and cradling the telephone receiver between them. When I asked what was wrong they just said Dad had taken a turn for the worst. A few hours later my Mum came home and told me he'd died, I didn't understand it and asked her if it was okay if I could go out and play football.</div><div>
<br /></div><div>I went over to my friend Davy's house, his Mum answered the door and asked "How's your Dad doing?".</div><div>
<br /></div><div>"Oh, he died this morning" I said. She gasped and put her hand over her mouth because she knew him from Church. I just asked if Davy wanted to come out and play football. We played football all day then I went home.</div><div>
<br /></div><div>I remember all of that day very clearly but I don't remember much about the funeral at all. I was at the mass but I never went to the graveside. My Uncle John took care of me and we spent some time in the shopping center where he bought me a radio controlled car that I had my eye on for a while.</div><div>
<br /></div><div>He died right after school had started, I'd been back from summer holidays for a week and then had another week off for the funeral. When I went back to school everyone knew because it was Catholic school and they all went to the same church. Some kids said sorry but others teased me about my Dad being dead. I remember being upset but I don't think any of us knew what it meant.</div><div>
<br /></div><div>Nothing seemed real. Surely he was coming back. I think I asked my Mum when we were going to visit Dad in the hospital again. It was only a few months later when we were on a weekend trip to St Andrews that the enormity of it hit me. I was walking down the street and just suddenly burst into uncontrollable tears. It completely came out of nowhere and it shocked the hell out of me and scared the hell out of my Mum.</div><div>
<br /></div><div>Fast forward 16 years and I am working at the BBC World Service as a technical operator listening to short-wave radio broadcasts from around the world. History is repeating itself.</div><div>
<br /></div><div>I am sitting in my bedsit in Reading, England. It's 3 o'clock in the morning on August 16th and I am totally shitfaced on wine. I have written some drunken gibberish about how much I miss my Dad and how my character might have been completely different if he'd been around to guide me through my teenage years.</div><div>
<br /></div><div>I still have the stuff I wrote that night but I am not going to share it verbatim, I will however say that it is mostly self-pitying drunken crap. One thing that stands out is the idea that somehow life could have been very different. </div><div>
<br /></div><div>I now think this is mostly unlikely, sure my younger years were pretty directionless and full of drink, drugs and unemployment, but having my Dad around would have probably just added to the resentment that is inherent in all kids that age. I'd already lost the Catholic faith by then (or it lost me) and I am sure that his old school Irish ways would have probably annoyed me. </div><div>
<br /></div><div>My Mum did a good job raising me without him and a lot of the stuff I wrote that night undermines the credit she deserves. </div><div>
<br /></div><div>Fast forward again to 2006 and Mum is being buried alongside him in Eastfield Cemetery, 2 months short of 25 years to the day he died. I realize I am looking at his gravestone for only the second time in my life. I saw it once a few years after he died then all the photos of him came down in our house I never saw it again until we buried Mum. </div><div>
<br /></div><div>It says "Harry McGrath B.L" on it.</div><div>
<br /></div><div>I ask my brother what "B.L." means and he says "Bachelor of Laws". Up to that point I had completely forgotten about the law degree and it struck me just how few memories of my Dad I actually have.</div><div>
<br /></div><div>I remember one time when Me and him went out to buy morning rolls in the town of Crail in the East Neuk of Fife. We had this favorite place called "Fife Ness" that was about 3 or 4 miles out of town and we would drive there and comb the beach for stones and bits of pottery whilst we waited for the rest of the family to wake up. </div><div>
<br /></div><div>This time we were out there and it was pissing rain and the car broke down. There was nothing out there except the beach and an old World War 2 airfield. We walked home in the cold wet and I think that might have been the only time I ever heard the old man curse.</div><div>
<br /></div><div>And that's about it. I don't think it was because he was an unfeeling man but I don't really remember anything else. I have seen photos of me and him together and I have vague memories of the photos being taken but my brain does not allow me to remember what I was feeling or thinking at the time. </div><div>
<br /></div><div>It's almost like his death was so traumatic that there were two childhoods, B.D and A.D, "Before Death" and "After Dad". Now I am a Dad myself and I wish I remembered more to try and pass something on to my daughter but I'm content with the idea that he was just a good person who raised a big family that have all done very well and who still get along together (most of the time). That is testament enough in this day and age.</div><div>
<br /></div><div>Thanks Dad.</div><div>
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<br /><span class="Apple-style-span">The good old days when the only thing that stopped you from getting stomped by an elephant was a poxy wee wooden fence.</span>
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<br /></div>Davehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02555922328460195279noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10231821.post-87609443806512034922011-08-12T18:42:00.000-04:002011-08-12T21:27:37.153-04:00Blind frustration.There was a woman on the bus screaming into her cellphone. I fall over her bag which is sticking out in the walkway. On the street a man behind me is walking so close to my heels I can hear his fingers beep beeping away as he writes another dumb text message. The scaffolding is in a slightly different place from the last time I walked past here or maybe I am just 2 feet slightly to the right. Whatever the cause is, I shoulder crash into it and cause cellphone man to throw his phone up in the air in front of him cursing: "why don't you look where you are fucking going!" before he sees the cane and scampers off sheepishly into the distance.<div>
<br /></div><div>It's one of those days, my mind is running slow and the calculations that I need to make as a blind person are not quite up to speed with my walking. It's being overwhelmed by the incessant chattering and constant movement of people with no levels of self-awareness. I am deaf as well as blind but I keep my ipod turned on because the music helps me concentrate.</div><div>
<br /></div><div>I know I should slow down but I can't and I am asking for trouble. Cars, bicycles, fire hydrants, children, dogs, gyro trucks, bollards and scaffolding had better watch out because I am coming through and immovable objects won't stop me.</div><div>
<br /></div><div>I rub the area around by shoulder where I bumper car'd the scaffolding and know that it will be a nice shade of blue tomorrow. Instinctively I also reach down and rub my left shin where I walked into the open door of the dishwasher a year ago and can still see the discoloration.</div><div>
<br /></div><div>Some days are just tougher than others. It's the little things that really bug me more than anything. The pen that I just put down and then can't find it. The garbage that used to be there and is now over there a mere 2 feet away. A 2 foot difference that will result in me doing a superman impersonation right into it.</div><div>
<br /></div><div>At the end of June I found myself at the Clearwater Festival in Croton-on-Hudson with about 20,000 other people. It was to be a nice day, a bunch of old lefties on stage like Billy Bragg and Pete Seeger and the family alongside me. Something in my head went horribly wrong.</div><div>
<br /></div><div>It was my first time in a big crowd like that in a long time, and my first time ever with an energetic 4-year old in tow. The combination of the two freaked me out no end and caused a mental meltdown.</div><div>
<br /></div><div>I'll try to describe what it feels like to be me and what I can see, but to be honest I can't really do a good job at it. Usher Syndrome is very inconsistent and some days are much harder than others. It's also an evolving situation as I get a little blinder every year, every day if my brain tells me to micro-analyse it.</div><div>
<br /></div><div>My vision is kind of like looking through a keyhole. There is a very defined clear area in the center surrounded by a kind of fuzzy electrical field of light where the retinal cells are dying and confused. On days when I am tired the electrical field can come in towards the center and everything gets blurry. On those days I have to take my time and try to slow down.</div><div>
<br /></div><div>The first thing that happened at the festival was that my daughter kept disappearing. She wasn't really but all she had to do was move outside of the keyhole and I would have a heart attack. This is bad enough when Me and her are at our local playground but in a crowd of 20,000 people it is positively stressful. Add to this the fact it was happening every 3 minutes and my brain starts to hurt.</div><div>
<br /></div><div>The next thing is just navigating through the crowd itself. My wife is a great help, as she always is, but I have to keep pulling my cane in to avoid people falling over it or worse, standing on it and snapping it. This leads to a feeling of great insecurity as the cane is always supposed to be one step ahead of you. When you pull it back the pattern in your brain gets interrupted and you are essentially stepping into the void.</div><div>
<br /></div><div>I chastise myself for being weak willed but then I think about who else has to put up with this shit? Who else has to fucking <i>think</i> about just walking to the end of the path without having an accident? Who else isn't allowed to turn off and is constantly stressed? Sure there are people but I don't know any of them.</div><div>
<br /></div><div>When I get in this mood an incredible selfishness comes over me, I just want to get the fuck out of there and usually end up wondering why I ever thought it was a good idea in the first place. This inevitably makes it hard on others around me.</div><div>
<br /></div><div>I miss the old days when walking was one of the ways I could relax. I would wander aimlessly along the Thames for miles and miles, following dirt tracks or making new ones through the bracken. I loved those days but now they are long gone, the dirt path confuses my cane and I would just fall over the bracken.</div><div>
<br /></div><div>I get angry when I realize I am complaining about stuff over which I have no control, but at the same time I also get angry when I bottle stuff up and don't have a way to release my feelings. None of this stuff is going to get any easier, I just need to get stronger.</div>Davehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02555922328460195279noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10231821.post-51171094567490137032011-08-11T22:47:00.000-04:002011-08-11T22:19:36.651-04:00A blind guy and a deaf guy walk into a bookstore...."My noime iss Brraaaduh" says the voice behind me that is attached to the hand that is tapping me on the shoulder. I turn around and see a graying man of about 70 years old.<div>
<br /></div><div>"I see yhoou haave heeearing aiiids" he says, "Doy yooooo sign?".</div><div>
<br /></div><div>"No I don't" I say then catch myself as I realize I am speaking normally to a profoundly deaf person. "No... I... Don't" I say looking straight at him and trying my best to annunciate my words so he can read my lips.</div><div>
<br /></div><div>"Oimmmm soooooorry Iiiiii didn't catchhhe that" he says. "Wheere are yoooooo from?"</div><div>
<br /></div><div>"ScoTT Lland" I say, trying to form the hard syllables so it makes my mouth more readable. It doesn't work and I realise this is going to be a long conversation.</div><div>
<br /></div><div>Brad volunteers at The <a href="http://www.housingworks.org/social-enterprise/bookstore-cafe/">Used Book Store Cafe</a> on Crosby Street in New York. This place has long been one of my favorite spaces in the city to just chill out and browse the excellent book selection. It is in this quiet place of people reading and working that I realise that I have a choice, I can either start shouting so Brad can (maybe) understand me, or I can grab a note pad out of my bag and start writing stuff down for him. I opt for the latter.</div><div>
<br /></div><div>"I am from Scotland" I write, "but I live here now, in Jersey City".</div><div>
<br /></div><div>He takes the notepad from me and writes "I've been in Scotland, I went to Edinburgh"</div><div>
<br /></div><div>I write "That's good, did you like it?".</div><div>
<br /></div><div>"Yeeeas I llllliiiked it veery mmmmuch" he says. </div><div>
<br /></div><div>I feel slightly embarrassed that he is speaking again and louder than before. Then I catch myself and I remember how much I hate the sympathetic looks that people give me when they see me coming down the street with the cane. </div><div>
<br /></div><div>Those looks that project some kind of vibe that says "Jesus look at that poor guy, I hope that shit never happens to me". Most of the time I feel like screaming "FUCK YOU I AM A FULLY FUNCTIONING HUMAN BEING" albeit not quite but I do okay. Women will often give me a little sympathetic smile, little do they know I am staring at their boobs.</div><div>
<br /></div><div>I am now guilty of giving Brad that same look and I feel like shit for it. Do some disabled people look down on other disabled people and think "Thank fuck that's not me!", hell yeah but it's not right.</div><div>
<br /></div><div>"Haaave yoooouuuu evver been tooo Helen Keller?"</div><div>
<br /></div><div>I say "Yes, I've been to Helen Keller but she's never been to me" but he doesn't understand what I am saying and I doubt he'd get <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nNnk9eDDnw&feature=related">the reference</a>. Musical references tend to be lost on profoundly deaf people and that is going to be a problem for me as I often speak in lines bastardized from songs.</div><div>
<br /></div><div>I write on the pad: "Do you mean the Helen Keller Foundation in Brooklyn? If so, yes, that is where I learned to use my cane. They were very helpful". </div><div><div>
<br /></div><div>"No, I meeeaann heer hhou house on Long Island".</div></div><div>
<br /></div><div>I shake my head and write "Is it easy to get to?".</div><div>
<br /></div><div>He then takes the pad off me and draws me a map. It doesn't make any sense at first then I realize he is drawing me a map of how to get to Penn Station on 34th Street. He writes "Empire State building" and "Madison Square Garden". It's nice that he is giving me landmarks but now I am starting to think that he thinks I can't see a damn thing and have no idea where I am. Obviously you don't get that many blind people in bookshops so he's probably got a point.</div><div>
<br /></div><div>Thankfully his map ends at Penn station and he writes "Take the train to Southold". </div><div>
<br /></div><div>I write "Thank You for the information. I have to go now", hoping to draw a line (literally) under the conversation and get back to blindly browsing through second-hand books. </div><div>
<br /></div><div>I shake hands and head to the other side of the store where the "Religions" section and the "Feminism" section are. Two of my favorite subjects. Obviously. Anything to put a bit of distance between me and him.</div><div>
<br /></div><div>So I'm there browsing through books on Catholicism and Islam when I feel a presence just behind me. I know it's Brad before I even turn around.</div><div>
<br /></div><div>"Helllooooo aggg agga again".</div><div>
<br /></div><div>I'm now thinking fuck he's following me. Again, he either thinks I have no idea where I am or he secretly wants to shag me then murder me (or vice versa). Either way it's not good.</div><div>
<br /></div><div>"Hello again" I say in my normal voice. "I'm going downstairs now, I need to find some new books about... Sarah Palin... or something". I know he can't understand me and I'm being a dick but I just want to be left alone.</div><div>
<br /></div><div>The bookstore has a kind of almost spiral staircase and I aim my cane at the top step. Just as I do this he grabs my arm to try and guide me at the exact moment I step forward and I miss the top step entirely. We both kind of slide down the banister, not quite falling but going too fast to catch up with ourselves until we reach the bottom. We stagger across the floor into one of those library racks on wheels and knock the entire top row of books out of it onto the floor. They are hardbacks and make an almighty crash that causes everyone in the bookstore to look at us.</div><div>
<br /></div><div>I'm obviously embarrassed but I fall downstairs and tumble over stuff all the time so I'm not too shook up. I'm more concerned with Brad who, as well as being deaf, is about 70 years old.</div><div>
<br /></div><div>"Are you okay?" I say slowly to him and he starts laughing very loudly indeed. People around the bookstore are starting to look at us like we are a slapstick double-act. While he is still laughing I pat him on the shoulder and say "goodbye".</div><div>
<br /></div><div>Brad stays in my head for the rest of the day. I feel guilty for thinking bad thoughts about him and when I get home I decide to google the Helen Keller House in Long Island.</div><div>
<br /></div><div>You can read about it <a href="http://linsha.org/places-to-go/helen-keller-house">here</a>. He was obviously sending me there so he could murder me.</div>Davehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02555922328460195279noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10231821.post-31605910659257738922011-08-11T18:00:00.009-04:002011-08-11T18:29:06.343-04:00Some thoughts on the rioting Part 2.One of my friends asked the eternal question everyone asks when kids go bad: "Where are the parents?". As a parent I asked the question myself and here are some more thoughts on the events of the last week.<div>
<br /></div><div><div>I would bet there were plenty of parents who did stop their kids from going out and looting, we just don't hear about those ones. The appeal for peace by the Father whose son was murdered by "looters" is one of the more heart-breaking moments of the whole event.</div><div>
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<br /></div><div>I hope people will remember his compassion and bravery more than anything else.</div><div>
<br /></div><div>With that said, it's not a coincidence that the riots happened in places like Tottenham, then spread to Birmingham, Liverpool and other industrial towns. The one thing these places all have in common is that they were destroyed by the privatization and closure of the steel, coal-mining and ship building industries. All of these places prospered during the industrial revolution and then had the rug pulled out from under them by the blood letting of the Thatcher years. The jobs left and were never replaced.</div></div><div>
<br /></div><div>I remember it well from growing up in Glasgow.</div><div>
<br /></div><div>This means you have had 3 generations (at least) of people who exist on the margins of society. 3 generations of resentment and hopelessness. It's hard for parents to set an example to their kids if the parents themselves are driven into the dirt by their own existence. You can see this in almost any housing estate or Projects in the world, the UK is not unique. </div><div>
<br /></div><div>The condemnation has been predictable and swift. They have been pulling kids as young as 11 into court and some rioters have already been jailed. They are also talking about cracking down on social media. People need to realize that this is all ultimately pointless, the governments and forces of law and order are so behind the curve on how to handle the new media that their condemnation will only lead to more resentment. </div><div>
<br /></div><div>A volcanic eruption may seem like a sudden event but in fact the pressure has to build up underground for years before it explodes. This might just be the first trickle of lava breaking the surface.</div>Davehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02555922328460195279noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10231821.post-73893211829548972892011-08-10T17:48:00.013-04:002011-08-10T21:07:27.757-04:00Some thoughts on the riots.It's been strange watching the riots in the UK from afar. Violence in the streets just seems so un-British but obviously that is more an indicator that I have been away from home for such a long time. My impressions of Britain are stuck in 1998.<div>
<br /></div><div>I've been following the coverage on the news closely but the most interesting thing has been the variety of opinion from friends on Facebook and Twitter. I've seen the whole spectrum from condemnation to empathy to outright encouragement. This has puzzled me as everybody seems to have taken just one viewpoint, human beings are supposed to be more complex than that.</div><div>
<br /></div><div>Firstly, the rioters are mostly wrong. I say "mostly" because there is no doubt that these kids have a rightful grievance. They have been forgotten about and abandoned to the whims of poverty and the establishment that is supposed to set an example has fallen apart completely. </div><div>
<br /></div><div>One hand of the establishment tells the kids that being violent is wrong and the other hand bombs entire villages off the face of the planet. </div><div>
<br /></div><div>One hand tells the kids there is no money for education, no money for community projects. no money for decent housing whilst the other hand uses massive amounts of public money to bail out private industry.</div><div>
<br /></div><div>Add to this the anti-democratic corporate collusion that has been exposed by wikileaks and then the phone-hacking scandal and the idea of functioning government for anyone other than the rich is completely compromised. </div><div>
<br /></div><div>Also add to this pyre the religious organisations that hide pedophiles, a "free" press that supports illegal wars and austerity plans imposed on people by unelected bureaucrats and the pillars of society look like they are all conspiring against you.</div><div>
<br /></div><div>Except when they want to sell you something.</div><div>
<br /></div><div>A lot has been made of these kids breaking into stores and stealing clothing and electronics, etc etc. These kids are bombarded with the temptations of consumer addiction all day long, what did you think they would do?</div><div>
<br /></div><div>Advertising is everywhere. It's not just two commercial channels on TV like it was when I was growing up, now it is in video games, music, movies, magazines, radio, the clothes they wear. Even previously public funded projects are "Brought to you by Barclays Bank" or "Funded by the McDonald's Corporation".</div><div>
<br /></div><div>I personally find it overwhelming, I can only imagine what it is like for someone who has never known anything else. <i>Buy buy buy. You have to keep up with the kid next door. The economy depends on you. Oh by the way, it doesn't matter if you can't afford it we'll keep trying to sell it to you anyway....</i></div><div><i>
<br /></i></div><div>The song "Talkin about a Revolution" by Tracy Chapman came on my ipod when I was on my way into work today. There is a line in the song that goes <i>"Poor people gonna rise up and take what's theirs. Poor people gonna rise up and get their share"</i>. I'm sure Tracy didn't intend it this way but my first thought was that poor people are gonna rise up and take what they are told should be theirs. Maybe some new trainers or a nice new flat-screen TV or an Xbox. Revolution is probably just the name of a deodorant now.</div><div><i>
<br /></i></div><div>But anyway, I am getting off topic here. Kind of.</div><div>
<br /></div><div>These kids need direction from somewhere. A few pool tables in a community center certainly won't do that by itself but perhaps just the very idea that they can be fully functioning members of society should be fostered and promoted. Instead of politicians harping on about the evil "hoodies" they should be talking about "untapped potential". <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glasgow%27s_miles_better">Just a very simple change of message can sometimes make the world of difference.</a></div><div>
<br /></div><div>And as for the kids themselves, burning down homes and stores only drives people further into poverty. People need places to live and jobs to go to. The establishment will crack down harder and this will lead to more abuse.</div><div>
<br /></div><div>The kids are all wrong. Just because you are angry doesn't mean you are right.</div>Davehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02555922328460195279noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10231821.post-89893127035031276612011-07-28T18:53:00.017-04:002011-08-01T22:31:29.187-04:00Feeling small.<span class="Apple-style-span">The age of the planet you live on is apparently 4.54 billion years. If you are lucky then you might live for 80 of those years. Some of you will live more than that and some of you will live less than that.</span><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span">I could work out the percentage of time that you have on this planet but to be honest I would rather express it this way: if 4.54 billion years could be squeezed into the 24 hours of one day, you would exist for less than the time it takes a fart to leave your bum. In fact you are not even a fraction of a fart. You are a future fart that somebody is thinking about that hasn't happened yet and will happen without anybody even noticing. The farter will not even notice.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span">Feeling small? I know I do.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span">You will live through wars, recessions, depressions, times of peace, times of prosperity, times of austerity, cultural changes, moral crusades, and endless episodes of Spongebob Squarepants.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span">It's very difficult to exist sometimes. Life is big and scary and you are very small and fragile. The prayer of the Breton fishermen summed this up as "O God, thy sea is so great, and my boat is so small". I'm not a religious person so I prefer to just say that on some days I can't see the forest for all the trees.<br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></div><div>I am a news junkie, I always watched the news incessantly, now I not only watch the news but I read it on my phone and on my ipod. I can't stop and sometimes it is very hard to remember that these seemingly huge events going on around the world are actually a tiny, almost insignificant part of our existence. Do you think anyone will remember Osama Bin Laden 200 years from now? Just ask yourself how many people (other than historians) remember <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felice_Orsini">Felice Orsini</a> or <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergey_Nechayev">Sergey Nechayev</a>. See? I'd never heard of them either.</div><div><br /></div><div>Things that appear to be huge events can sometimes turn out to be just a blip on the radar of time. It's helpful to remember this as you watch the news and it feels like the whole world is turning to shit.</div><div><br /></div><div>The stuff you see on the news is generally stuff you have no control over. The only thing that you have any control over at the end of the day is the stuff that is going on inside your own cranium. It's a cliche now (thanks a lot John Lennon!) but the revolution really does start in your own head.</div><div><br /></div><div>When I used the phrase "I can't see the forest for all the trees" a few paragraphs ago I meant to try and see the big picture or to try and discern an overall pattern from a mass of detail. The big picture is actually very simple and it consists only of all the people you know, your family, your friends and members of your community. </div><div><br /></div><div>These are the trees in your forest. Like any tree living alongside another tree, you have a minimal amount of influence over the way they grow. Your branches get intertwined but how they interact is all up to you and the other person. Again it's very helpful to remember this as you watch the news and it feels like the whole world is turning to shit.</div><div><br /></div><div>At the risk of sounding more and more like an auld hippy, time to end this post here. Just turn off the news, go outside and say hello to your neighbors. Try and use what little influence you have positively and enjoy the domino effect. Life gets easier that way and you'll stop feeling so small.</div><div><br /></div><div>Slainte.</div>Davehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02555922328460195279noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10231821.post-71547518547968611062011-07-26T20:34:00.023-04:002011-07-26T23:13:24.723-04:00The Bergen Avenue Racist (Extended Edition).I was walking down Bergen Avenue with my daughter when a voice behind me shouted: "Oi! Glasgow Celtic!". I looked down at my belly and sure enough I was wearing the shirt with the green and white hoops.<div><br /></div><div>"Fuck" was the first thing that went through my head, "I hope he's not a Rangers supporter". It would be ironic to move 3000 miles away from Glasgow (where I never ever wore the shirt) and end up getting into a fight in Jersey City.</div><div><br /></div><div>"Oi! Celtic" the man said again and started walking towards me. I knew the game was up immediately and being blind and shackled to a four year old that I couldn't very well leave on her own, I had nowhere to run. The ghost of sectarianism past was closing in.</div><div><br /></div><div>The apparition materialized in front of me in a dark green track suit that was obviously recently purchased at the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/content/images/2007/09/13/rabcnesbitt4_396x222.jpg">Rab C. Nesbitt</a> boutique clothing store. It contained a pink humanoid of variable age, possibly a little older than myself. The pink humanoid was in turn shackled to a dog that could only be described as four legs and some teeth (it was a pitbull).</div><div><br /></div><div>"Fuck me" I thought, "someone just graduated from the Glasgow School of Performance Art. <a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_3Q7O02hci-4/TTwGVf28GbI/AAAAAAAAADU/fMaWYhPdImI/s320/neds.jpg">Majoring in Stereotypes</a>".</div><div><br /></div><div>That's what I thought, but in reality I just opened my mouth and said: "Hello! Where are you from?".</div><div><br /></div><div>"Ah'm frae Glasgow of course! I saw yer shirt! Celtic! The Bhoys!"</div><div><br /></div><div>"Yeah to be honest I forgot I was wearing it", knowing now that since he'd called them the Bhoys and not the FENIAN CUNTS that I was at least on friendly ground. There was no immediate danger of being chibbed with a <a href="http://www.hsinmawh.com.tw/img_pro/s147.jpg">wooden chip fork</a>.</div><div><br /></div><div>"Whit ye doing here?" the apparition asked.</div><div><br /></div><div>"Been here 12 years, what about yourself?".</div><div><br /></div><div>"Ah'm just up the road, visitin a bhoy! Brang wan o' them Celtic shirts for his wee yin too. This is his dug! Is that yer daughter?" he asks having just spotted the little girl hiding behind my leg.</div><div><br /></div><div>I wanted to say "No, it's just some kid that keeps clinging to my leg and I'm getting it surgically removed next week" but that seemed disrespectful to her so I just said "yeah".</div><div><br /></div><div>He takes a $5 bill out of his pocket and tries to hand it to her, "How ye daein hen? Ye want some sweeties?".</div><div><br /></div><div>Now she's on my leg like a sucker fish. And this is where I have to interrupt this story for a second and go back in time....</div><div><br /></div><div>It was probably 1977 or thereabouts and I was on the bus on the way home from shopping in Glasgow with my Mum. It was one of those old <a href="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5295/5387993771_320424d674.jpg">Bluebird single-decker</a> buses and it was a cold Saturday night. The bus was packed and filled with people and cigarette smoke (this is the good old days after all). </div><div><br /></div><div>The bus was passing through the town of Steps, about half-way home, where the old <a href="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3139/2618494463_d70da3902a.jpg">Black and White whisky</a> distillery was and a drunk guy got on. Since the bus was packed, my Mum made me sit on her knee so the drunk guy could sit down.</div><div><br /></div><div>He'd just got off work from the distillery and proceeded, in a happy way, to regale my Mum with his tales of sampling the merchandise, a lot of which he had clearly sampled that very afternoon. I can still remember his face quite clearly and I can definitely still remember the smell of his breath that cut through the cigarette smoke like an exploding citrus. </div><div><br /></div><div>When he found out that my favorite teddy bear was actually a Scottie Dog, he gave me his badge from work which was a little mini Black & White logo. Or at least he tried to give me the badge, I didn't want to take it and hid my face. My Mum took it for me and when I got home it became my new favorite toy.</div><div><br /></div><div>And now back to present day....</div><div><br /></div><div>That memory flashes across my mind as I feel my daughter clinging to the back of my leg. "How long are you in town for?" I ask, hoping he is going to say "Ah'm away hame tomora" but instead he says: "Forever!".</div><div><br /></div><div>"And you're living in my neighborhood?" I think to myself, I'm about to say "This town isn't big enough for the two of us" then it occurs to me that he might be on the run from the police and I decide not to pursue this line of inquiry.</div><div><br /></div><div>"Really?" I say, trying not to sound too crest-fallen. "Well have you tried any of the pubs yet?"</div><div><br /></div><div>"Aye, ah was in that one last night! Jerry bought me ma dinner! <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerramiah_Healy">Dae ye know Jerry?</a> The mayor?". He points to the Astor Bar, the mayor of Jersey City's favorite watering hole.</div><div><br /></div><div>"Yeah I've met Jerry. Never bought me dinner though".</div><div><br /></div><div>"Ah he was nice, he was nice. By the way, can you help me out? Ah'm trying to find a place to get ma troosers pressed. Ah was just up at thon dry cleaners over there and the boy behind they counter didnae know whit I was saying".</div><div><br /></div><div>"Oh right..."</div><div><br /></div><div>"Aye, it's them <i>chinkies</i> like. They just dinnae know how tae do it. Dae ye know whur I can find a white-owned dry cleaners?"</div><div><br /></div><div>10 seconds later... when I was done picking my jaw up off the floor, I muttered "Ehmm I don't know but I very much doubt you'll find a white-owned dry cleaners around here, or anywhere else in Jersey City for that matter. They just don't exist". </div><div><br /></div><div>My half-Asian daughter is still clinging to the back of my leg.</div><div><br /></div><div>"Oh right?", he seemed mystified by this concept and I could see his brain trying to formulate some kind of emotional response. Any moment I expect the steam will start coming out of his ears.</div><div><br /></div><div>Instead he again just tries to give the $5 to my daughter. I remember my Mum and the Scotty Dog badge and take the money for her. </div><div><br /></div><div>"There is a dry cleaners down by my house, I doubt it is owned by white people though" I tell him and then instantly regret it as it means he'll be walking the same way as us. I try to throw a save by following it up with "But we're not going that way right now, we're off to the candy store over there to get some candy, right Sweetie?". My daughter looks unconvinced but the mention of candy has gotten her bravura up. She nods meekly and I thank the God I don't believe in.</div><div><br /></div><div>We walk off in one direction and he walks off in the other with his wrinkly trousers and his hound of hell. </div><div><br /></div><div>Across the street is <a href="http://www.leesimschocolates.com/aboutus.asp">Lee Sim's candy store</a>, an old school joint that we love to stop in on the way home from school. We step inside and the smell of chocolate hits us immediately and opens the door to a million memories, not least the one we are in the middle of creating. </div><div><br /></div><div>The only downside to Lee Sims is that it is quite expensive, however since we now have $5 this is not a problem and I tell my daughter to get whatever she wants.</div><div><br /></div><div>She makes a beeline for the candy that I've always said "no" to before and comes back with a bag of chocolate coins that cost $3.99. Priced it perfectly. Unfortunately as I take out his $5 bill the anger sets in.</div><div><br /></div><div>How dare he talk like that in front of my kid. How dare he use <i>that</i> racist epithet in particular in front of her. She's only 4, she doesn't need to hear that shit yet, she'll experience plenty of it later in life. </div><div><br /></div><div>I now look at the $5 bill and it feels like blood money. It feels like by accepting it that I've also accepted his bullshit language and his disrespect. I am getting very annoyed but I have to pay for the chocolate coins.</div><div><br /></div><div>I reach into my wallet and find another $5 bill. It is absolutely identical to the one I am holding in my hand but without the invisible blood. I use this clean bill to pay for the candy. The other bill goes into my wallet and I use it later to buy myself a beer. An Asian beer.</div>Davehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02555922328460195279noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10231821.post-45979301032892460822010-02-06T10:40:00.016-05:002010-02-06T12:55:09.924-05:00The 1970's redux and a 3ft tall Jesus.<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small; line-height: 16px; ">Back in the 70's (that's the 1970's not the 1870's) in the wee dark land of heather, whiskey, haggis and mutton dingling that I sprang forth from, there used to be a company called "Alpine Soft Drinks" that delivered soda to your house in converted milk carts. Every Thursday he'd leave bottles of whatever you ordered on your doorstep and you'd have a nice bit glass of cola with your fry up. It's no wonder the Scots lead the world in tooth decay, heart attacks and self-depreciating humor.<br /><br />I also remember that you got 1 pence back from the delivery guy for every bottle you returned. You could then take this 1 pence down to your local corner store and buy a bazooka joe gum from a Pakistani guy. The gum had a little comic in it and if you collected enough wrappers you could send away for stuff like X-ray specs that would allow you to look through the bras of the laydeez. Sadly, Alpine soft drinks is long gone, the x-ray specs never worked and the Pakistani guy probably wants to kill us all now.</span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small; line-height: 16px; "><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small; line-height: 16px; ">I've been obsessing about the 1970's lately as we seem to be entering this period of economic recession and political turmoil. People are running around freaking out and crying that the world is coming to an end but I know it isn't. We are just collectively travelling back in time to the 1970's.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small; line-height: 16px; "><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small; line-height: 16px; ">Everyone is bankrupt, the poor are financially bankrupt and the rich are morally bankrupt. Al Queda is the bogeyman now, in the 1970's the PLO was the bogeyman. The only difference in this case is that the PLO had a political agenda and not a nutty religious one. Religious nutters are much worse. We have a progressive (by American standards) President, it was Carter then, it's Obama now. See, we are basically living in 1977, it's just that the religious loonies are more prevalent and the music is way way worse. Carter could dance to the Clash, Obama has to dance to Creed.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small; line-height: 16px; "><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small; line-height: 16px; ">The 80's was the decade that brought us Thatcher and Reagan and the mass embracing of free market economics. When the pendulum swings it swings hard and that is my fear. If we have President Palin in 2012 then we are fucked, someone needs to check the Mayan history archives for mentions of a woman in glasses who brings about Armageddon.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small; line-height: 16px; "><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small; line-height: 16px; ">"And lo the holy roller bitch did smite the earth with fire".</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small; line-height: 16px; "><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small; line-height: 16px; ">The 70's were a time of innocence and childhood (hence my allusion to Alpine soda in the first paragraph) that I remember fondly, certainly a lot more fondly than the 1980's, when in August 1981, my childhood ended with my Dad's death.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">Oh great now I just ruined my warm fuzzy nostalgia vibe. </span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">How the fuck did I get from delivery soda to Sarah Palin to dead Dad? My mind appears to have become a mass of random thoughts and fears that are all coming to the forefront at once and screaming for attention.</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">Psychologists apparently believe that humans spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about sex, food and death. The reasoning being that sex is what brings us into the world, food is what keeps us here and death is what takes us out of here. Basically it is someone with a university education explaining the phrase "cradle to the grave". I wish my mind would stick to sex, food and death because all this other shite is getting me down.</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">Another random thought struck me recently when I read that the<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: normal; font-size: 13px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); ">average human height apparently grows about 1.5 inches every 100 years.</span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: normal; font-size: 13px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); "><br /></span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: normal; font-size: 13px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); "> Does this mean that Julius Caesar was a midget leading legions of midgets? Does it mean that if you met Genghis Khan you might just trip over him? Does it mean Jesus was probably the same height as Hervé Villechaize?</span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: normal; font-size: 13px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); "><br /></span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: normal; font-size: 13px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); ">My friend conjured up this great image of Herve on the cross on Fantasy Island shouting "It's a plane, it's a plane!".</span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: normal; font-size: 13px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); "><br /></span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: normal; font-size: 13px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); ">Does it also mean that all those little crosses that Christians wear around their necks are almost life sized?</span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: normal; font-size: 13px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); "><br /></span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: normal; font-size: 13px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); ">It's hard being a thinker. Nothing makes sense.</span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small; line-height: 16px; "><br /></span></div>Davehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02555922328460195279noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10231821.post-47489618222733182022010-01-02T10:20:00.009-05:002010-01-30T11:02:10.877-05:00Facebook stole all my best jokes.The week that past is usually bookended by 2 serious drinking sessions plus days of soul searching in between. The soul searching days are when we sit down and we gather all our guilt about eating too much and drinking too much and say to ourselves: "I'm gonna join the gym right after New Years" or "I promise to not get so drunk next time" or "I think I'll give up wanking for a week".<div><br /></div><div>The next year rolls round and we rinse and repeat ad nuaseum.</div><div><br /></div><div>I wrote that on Jan 4th, it is now January 30th and I haven't had a single unit of alkyhol since January 2nd.</div><div><br /></div><div>Don't worry, I am not joining the temperance society of Jersey City, I just needed a break and I feel good for it. My mid-winter blues descended in the first week following the new year like the Hindenburg landing at Lakehurt, NJ. (Sneak a peak at the cover of "Led Zepplin 1" if you don't get that reference).</div><div><br /></div><div>I realized I had to backpedal pretty fast and work out how the hell to climb out of the deep dark funk I got thrown into, stopping the drink was a no-brainer. I started a vitamin D regimen and stayed the hell out of the pubs for a month.</div><div><br /></div><div>Now I feel much better, almost good enough to start writing again, hence this nonsense.</div><div><br /></div><div>It's been such a long time since I wrote anything in here that I was afraid the whole blog would have just disappeared into the digital ether by the time I came back around to it. Depression has definitely been a big factor in this lack of material, but to be honest, I used all my best jokes on facebook.</div><div><br /></div><div>Facebook eats your up life. It grabs all your best one-liners and shares them with a very select group of people, people who are not too disgusted with your references to face fucking teddy bears and bestiality, that call themselves "friends".</div><div><br /></div><div>It's such a weird world we live in now. The six degrees of separation has been whittled down to 2 or 3 degrees. Everybody is wired and everybody has an instant ego that they want to share with you. There is no escaping and you either embrace it or sail away to a distant shore like The Kinks "Apeman".</div><div><br /></div><div>Of course, this blog has been 3 years of ego-dumpage and [affects David Koresh voice] YOU ARE ALL MY SUBJECTS.</div><div><br /></div><div>Apologies for the rambling nature of this note but I have not had to string more than a sound-bite together in the last year so consistency is gonna take a while to return.</div><div><br /></div><div>Here's to a written 2010.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Davehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02555922328460195279noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10231821.post-90171065734193517472009-08-08T11:57:00.003-04:002009-08-08T12:06:14.940-04:00Murray Street Tommy"What's that?" asks the barman.<br /><br />"It's my stick" I say, "I am legally blind".<br /><br />"Oh sorry, I thought it was some kind of engineering thing!".<br /><br />"Well... it kind of is. I mean... I engineer my way down the street with it".<br /><br />And the next thing I hear is a cackling from beside me. The kind of cackling that only 30 years of smoking unfiltered cigarettes can reduce your voice to. I turn and set eyes on Tommy for the first time and he ain't pretty.<br /><br />His teeth look like piano keys and the middle-C is missing. He proffers a hand and says "I like you, you are funny fucker. What is the stick for really?"<br /><br />I tell him I wasn't joking, I really am legally blind.<br /><br />"What? Can you see me right now?"<br /><br />"Yeah I can see about 10% of what everyone else sees. I can see your face and your horrible teeth".<br /><br />"Har har... hack... cough... splutter... har har... oh fuck me!" is his reply to that one. "Jesus Christ, you can't talk to me like that, I am 67 years old!"<br /><br />And I think to myself he doesn't look a day over 81 but I say "But you don't look a day over 21!"<br /><br />"Oh cut the crap boy!"<br /><br />This is where it starts to get disjointed. As with any good old school jakey he starts to talk in non-sequiters but at the same time always returning to the subject that made him latch on to you in the first place.<br /><br />"I love my country, I love my fucking country but I fear my government!".<br /><br />"Have you always felt that way" I asked him, already suspecting that I knew the answer.<br /><br />"Socialists. they are all fucking socialists!".<br /><br />"Don't believe everything you hear on the TV" I tell him.<br /><br />"What do you do for a living boy?"<br /><br />"I work in TV".<br /><br />"har...har....har... hack.... hack....hack".<br /><br />In the old days you used to be able to tell what a man did for a living by looking at his hands. I looked at his and apart from the well developed pint-shaped curvature of his fingers I could discern nothing so I asked.<br /><br />"What do you do for a living Tommy?"<br /><br />"Ah fuck, I'm 67 years old you know. I could have retired already... but... I mean... what would be the point of that? I am the chief executive of the mail room in..."<br /><br />I don't catch the name of the building but I dwell on the way he spat the words <span style="font-style: italic;">chief executive</span> like someone had paid him a great insult. Nothing like giving a shitty job a grand title to further belittle the people doing it. Especially if that person is a real straight shooter like Tommy.<br /><br />I take a sip of my Guinness and I can feel his eyes burning a hole in my cheek.<br /><br />"Are you REALLY blind?"<br /><br />"Yes, yes, I fucking am, alright?"<br /><br />"Alright, no need to get your panties in a bunch. I was just wonderin".<br /><br />He rolls up his shirt sleeve and flexes his muscles saying "Can you see this?"<br /><br />"Yes I can..."<br /><br />"Ha! There is nothing fucking there! har...har...har...hack.... howaah.......hoowah. I am 67 years old. See that over there? That's a beer pong table. I fucking lost it last night. Those fucking yuppie brats are so fucking loud. Last night I just fucking lost it. Slapped the fucking little yuppie brat. Sent the little bastard home crying".<br /><br />I laugh at this and ask the barman if this is true. Apparently it is.<br /><br />"How come they didn't throw you out Tommy?"<br /><br />"Ah those little shits on the bar are all scared of me... har...har...har... Are you REALLY blind? I mean is there nothing they can do?".<br /><br />"Nope, right now I am fucked I am afraid. Maybe in the future with stem cell research and all that"<br /><br />"I am 67 years old and I can still see...."<br /><br />"Well good for you" I laugh.<br /><br />"There must be something... you gotta do research. Research the shit out of everything. Don't give up! Don't give up! I am gonna write down some websites for you..."<br /><br />He pulls a bit of paper from his pocket and an OTB pen and writes down the websites earthclinic.com and vitacost.com. While he is doing this I notice he is a lefty and has a really hard time holding the little OTB pen. He sees me looking.<br /><br />"I don't write well. I can hardly write at all. I was in a helicopter that took a hard landing in Vietnam. Fucked up my hands".<br /><br />I realized now that this was where the "pint-shaped curvature" of his fingers had come from. They had all been broken and reset badly.<br /><br />"Where you from Dave?", he asks, "SCOTLAND? Well let me ask you a question. Scotland, you are independent right? I mean you are not part of what do you call it..."<br /><br />"The United Kingdom?" I offer...<br /><br />"Yes, yes, the United Kingdom. What do they mean when they say that?"<br /><br />I tell him 3 times that the United Kingdom comprises of Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland but he keeps insisting that Scotland MUST be an independent country.<br /><br />"Look Tommy, I grew up there. I am telling you it is not independent. Might be again one day but right now it is not".<br /><br />And with that said I proceed to give him a short history lesson on Red Clydeside then the miners strike and poll tax the general rape of Scotland by Maggie Thatcher.<br /><br />"Margaret Thatcher? If I was Scottish I would have told Maggie Thatcher to go fuck herself".<br /><br />"Believe me Tommy we tried. She wasn't having it".<br /><br />"Are you REALLY blind?"<br /><br />"Jesus Christ Tommy. What do I have to do to convince you? Fall down the fucking beer cellar?"<br /><br />"Har.. har... har.... hack." etc etc.<br /><br />"You CAN'T give up. Research the shit out of it. You CAN'T give up".<br /><br />"I know Tommy..."<br /><br />"I was a Marine... a fucking marine... I am 67 years old... YOU MUST NEVER GIVE UP. Research research research..."<br /><br />"I got a good eye doctor..."<br /><br />He waves his mangled hands in front of his face.<br /><br /> "Ah doctors... fucking doctors... what do they know? Why are you looking at me like that? I am being serious!"<br /><br />"I am not looking at you like anything Tommy, I'm blind remember?"<br /><br />"Har..har.....hoowah....howah....hack"<br /><br />"I AM SERIOUS. YOU MUST NEVER GIVE UP".Davehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02555922328460195279noreply@blogger.com1