Monday, December 24, 2012

Thursday, December 20, 2012

I LOVE THE INTERNET

(This one goes out with love to those poetry lovers at Johnsons solicitors)


y
by Bruce Ryder





I love the internet.

Opium to DeQuincey
Sin to Milton
Congo to Conrad
Aran to Synge

I love the internet

Castles to Shakespeare
Deceit to LeCarre
Dublin to Joyce
Marketplace to Chaucer

Did we say
'Daffodils to Wordsworth?'
We couldn't forget that.
Or mounted jihad to Tennyson
Or the weird wild wonder
of the whole god damn show
to Dylan

I love the internet

Wild, lewd, bawdy, bullying, smelling of cats.
Cranks, crank, meth, conspiracy, snipers, knoll.
Fascists made cartoon on ripe digital soil.
Erudite waltzing with trite.
In eternal ballroom
Dedicated skiers on seas of trivial loon.
Self help soma screaming thinnin tv hair repair.
And always the smiles of the filippino brides
And promises of untold nigerian riches.
Flashing wheel spinning ace poker squared
You Have Been Chosen
But
Shhhhhhh
Somewhere down there in the fly fishing section
the first faint whispers
(If ears are right)
of hushed talk
of
bold revolution.

I love the internet
The sheer
dull
scintillating
infantile
anarchy
of
it
all.

Boisterous Brughel medieval market.
Futuristic Middle Ages
Directed
by
Friar Tuck.
And offset, whispers
of
Robin
lurking
in
wood.

I love the internet.
Cos it's ours.

Wednesday, December 19, 2012

VAN GOGH IS SUCH A SNEAKY PAINTER

Terrified
I
Stood
As the loud young American
poked.
Jabbed
Finger
at
Arles tree
"See"
Jab
Sweat
"See"
Relentless.
Museum surreal
No guards
No alarms
NOT YET
Don't mess with art.
In France.
Panic.
"Yes"
I say
"Yes"
I acknowledge
"I do"
"YES"
Phew.
Satisfied.
He turns.
With
Order Has Been Restored
Certainty

But
There will be no confusion.
No ambiguity.
So still gesticulating
at trembling canvas.
He smugly mouths
to Kevin shivering in cultural conflict
High Noon Sun
'Van Gogh is such a sneaky painter.'

'Van Gogh is such a sneaky painter.'
Sneaky.
Indeed.
Yank
in Jeu De Paume
No-one's fool.

Order under attack
So many decadent tropes.
God
damn
that
Dutch
Jihadi
The
duplicity
of this
Old Europe.
Give me
Iwo Jimo
for
Art

The
New American Century
Will not be
Subverted
By
Tricks
by
Spot the hidden faces in the Arles trees

Sneaky sneaky sneaky.
Very VC Charlie
Poor Van Gogh
Sneaky sneaky sneaky.
Very surrender monkey
Poor Van Gogh

Poor poor Vincent
Poor Van Gogh




Catch Van Gogh - in print and audio formats - and all the other dramatic pieces of verbal and visual work in the critically acclaimed collection of digidelic delight 'I Love The Internet' here: http://itsapoeticalworld.com/book-shop/

LAUGHTER

For Jason Roberts with thanks


Laughter.
Give it a blast.
Snort it.
Jack it.
Freebase it.
Up the nose.
Up the bum.
In the groin.
Sell the wedding ring.
Hit the pawn shop.
Lie to those you love.
Laughter.
100% pure hilarity.
You know you want to.
Crack a gateway grin.
Go on
Laughter.
Give it a try.
It's
Soul
Addictive.

So tell us a joke
That isn't me.

Seriously.
Frivolity.

Monday, November 26, 2012

Daddy's Cooking Crystal Meth In The Barna Shed

Daddy is a financial reporter
With a national daily
Did Daddy help expose the bankers that beggared us?
No.
No.
He didn't.
Cos.
Cos Daddy
Is
Cooking
Cystal meth
In
The Barna shed.
Daddy is a copywriter in an ad agency.
Did Daddy devise the scam they call The Gathering?
No.
No.
He didn't.
Cos.
Cos Daddy
Is
Cooking
Crystal meth
In
The Barna shed.
Daddy is an unemployed poet.
Did Daddy write the wrong that ails us?
No.
No.
He didn't.
Cos.
Cos Daddy
Is
Cooking
Crystal meth
In
The Barna shed.
Daddy is a house husband
Did Daddy get kicked out of home?
Yes
Yes
He did.
Cos
Cos Daddy
Is
Cooking
Crystal meth
In
The Barna shed.
Enough
Now
Cos
Cos I
Gotta go.
Go
Cook
Crystal Meth
In
The Barna shed


Tuesday, November 13, 2012

THE RESERVATION

                                             Poetry don’t need no reservation.
                                             Rich seam of adjectives.
                                             Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
                                             But we all know where the buffalo roam.
                                             And it ain’t in no reservation.
                                             Neat.
                                             Defined.
                                             So genteel.
                                             When so much depends.
                                             On the cavalry call.
                                             The bugle.
                                             That tells you.
                                             It’s time.
                                             To go apache.
                                             On the gig.
Master Musicians of Joujouka by Jill Furmonovsky

                                               Burn down Tom’s cabin.
                                               Throw away the trinkets.
                                               We’re looking for scalps.
                                               White man.
                                               Red man.
                                               Black man.
                                               Yellow man.
                                               Someone
                                               Has.
                                               Gotta.
                                               Pay.



See The Reservation and all the other dramatic pieces of verbal and visual art in the critically acclaimed collection of digidelic delight 'I Love The Internet' here: http://itsapoeticalworld.com/book-shop/

Saturday, October 27, 2012

Norodom Sihanouk - A Rock Star King








Bruce Ryder
You read Philip Gourevitch's piece on Cambodia's King Norodom Sihanouk in The New Yorker 

And you just know that Mr Gourevitch doesn't know who he is talking about.

It is obvious he has never met King Sihanouk.

In person.

Cos Gourevitch is a bright person.

And had he met Sihanouk we'd know about it.

Cos Sihanouk tends to make an impression on people.

This is no boasty, braggy, access thing.

It's just because Sihanouk was a pretty unique act.






Just look at all the profiles:

The boy-king, pampered, mercurial, playboy, erratic, Oriental , artistic and all the saffron robed exotica.

Everyone struggling to deal with the fact, to articulate in some way, that Sihanouk was the real deal.

Cos Sihanouk was the real deal.

"The Fantasy of King Sihanouk."

That's what the New Yorker says.

And that is actually what Gourevitch seems totally ignorant of or oblivious to.

Fantasy.

Spectacle.

Art.

Sihanouk had no arms or money.

He didn't rape his people.

He wasn't a kelptocrat.

He worked for his supper.

A scam artist maybe.

But an artist.

He hustled on behalf of Cambodia.

Not always perfectly.

But let's take the worst of what Gourevitch throws at him:

Distorting quite a few facts along the way, the big accusation is that Sihanouk is largely responsible for the Khmer Rouge's genocidal rule.

But had he checked, Gourevitch would have easily seen that history is already robbing him of the potency of that polemic.

Julio Jeldres, Sihanouk's biographer, tells us of Sihanouk's expressing his concerns about the Khmer Rouge to Chou Enlai in 73.*

Sihanouk was seeking support to neuter them.

But Chou Enlai had the Gang of Four to worry about.

And the Yanks were not listening.

The Yanks!

The New Yorker piece is written as if the Americans played no role.

There is no sense that the post Killing Fields Khmer Rouge occupied the UN seat down the road.

And no sense of the pressure that was put on Sihanouk to deal with them.

Pressure.

Sihanouk is a lesson in a man who dealt with pressure.

He had a lot thrown at him.

Even for one born a God-King

A collision of centuries, superpowers and virulent ideologies.

He dealt with them all.

Mao to Mitterand, Tito to Nehru, Ceaucescu to Ho Chi Minh, Nixon to de Gaulle.

All.

With Cambodia's well being as his aim, all Sihanouk had at his diplomatic disposal was spectacle.

The Fantasy of King Sihanouk.

Pure Fantasy.

Think Jagger at Altamont singing Sympathy For The Devil.

Then think amateur hour.

Cos that's what it was compared to this 89 year king's never-ending tour.

And despite being born to absolutism.

And the country's history of it.

And the region's propensity for it.

Sihanouk had a  appreciation of the artifice of what we now call human rights.

Here's a senior Red Cross Official who had dealings with him.

With the Khmer Rouge's Ieng Thirith.

And with Hun Sen.

"The only one who has listened and then delivered in terms of Geneva Conventions and all that jazz, was him," the Red Cross official said, speaking of Sihanouk.

"With him we did at least release all political prisoners that were (known to be...) in jail when the SNC took over," he added, referring to the Supreme National Council, the reconciliation grouping of Cambodia's warring factions pending the outcome of UN brokered elections.

And yet Gourevitch laughs at Sihanouk's belief that history had no place for dishonesty and lies.

"It seems impossible that Sihanouk really believed that, " Gourevitch wrote at the end of his New Yorker piece.

But it's entirely possible.

Cos Sihanouk knows history will be kind to him.

He'll get kudos for the hours telling the peasants what Mao or Tito had just said to him.

Way out there.

Where he was only thing that came from the sky that didn't bring death.

A one man shock and awe band.

Helicopter largesse in a water buffalo world.

Norodom Sihanouk.

Samdech Euv.

Respect.

You were.

Pure.

Rock star.



Catch King Sihanouk and all the other dramatic, mischievous and militant pieces of verbal and visual art in the critically acclaimed collection of digidelic delight 'I Love The Internet' here: http://itsapoeticalworld.com/book-shop/

Thursday, October 18, 2012

TALES OF CJ CHICANERY

* If anyone has any further tales to add, drop them in the comments box. Ta. K

Apart from death threats left on journos windscreens, my favourite piece of CJ slime was the Pat O Connor/Pat O Connor affair.

CJ's election agent is busted double voting early in the day.

It's panic stations...for the Soldiers of Destiny..

So the CJ/FF plumbers are called in.

'Who will rid me of this troublesome fact?'
old syphillitic snake eyes asks*

Paddy Public - those that matterd, those who voted in CJ's constituency - must be kept in the dark.

PJ smirks.

'There's an idea, keep them in the dark. Sure they are only a gully away from a dark hovel,' PJ said,

 "Do you know what's great about my long arms? I can pat myself on the back! Pat...pat...what sort of fucking eejit is he getting caught!" PJ added.

Back in those pre-digital, smog shrouded days, rumours didn't travel like wildfire, they puttered across the city on chubby mopeds driven by two stroke madmen.

The press delivery boys.

And the plumbers tailed them.

As the two strokes dropped the bundles of Herald and Press, the plumbers bought them up en masse.

But RTE?

The TV?

The wireless?

The Blue Shirts and Stickies will  wreak havoc.

'It will be all law and fucking morality,' CJ spat with venom.

So guess what?

What?

The local ESB sub power station meets with an accident.

No news.

Those who had still to vote were kept in the dark.

Then...

And this is the bit that says everything in case you think everything had not been said already.

...around midnight, with CJ victorious, a van pulled up outside the local FG HQ.

The back doors opened.

And bundles of 100s and 100s of papers were kicked out onto the street.

All in a potent gesture of fuck you.

It made me think the most judicious move might be to take a jaunt to the far side of the world.


*if Bob Woodward can do a little historical mind reading and dialogue 'recall' -why can't I?

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

KING SIHANOUK - HELICOPTER LARGESSE IN A WATER BUFFALO WORLD

King Sihanouk with the Khmer Rouge's Khieu Samphan and Ieng Sary. Pic by Roland Neveu




Cambodia's King Norodom Sihanouk, while being many things, was way more exceptional than the dilettante he is so often accused of being.

Only those with a truly spurious view of the world can believe that you can have a political career of that length and breadth by being a mere poseur.

In Sihanouk not alone did centuries collide but ideologies at their most virulent.

Privileged and pampered aside, he survived through sheer brilliant perseverance.

He was there with them all. Mao, Deng, Suharto, Nehru, Nixon, Kissinger, Ho Chi, Daddy Kim.
He was a star of the non aligned movement.
Then there was Maggie and Ronnie and then Mitterand.

He seemed thrilled to share the cavalcade with Mitterand.

Then there was his son who should have won the first election in 93

But Hen Sen had the guns.

And the Khmer Rouge, withering on the vine, were seduced by Hun Sen before they could be reactivated by Hun Sen's co-prime minister and son of Sihanouk, Norodom Ranariddh.

Hun Sen won.

He bought up the Khmer Rouge mainstream.

As the hardline imploded with murderous vengeance.

Here's the inrtrepid Nate Thayer on that tragi-comic end.

http://natethayer.wordpress.com/2012...nt-he-created/



Press cluster fuck on Sihanouk's return to Phnom Penh. Pic by Tim Page 


So the billionaire communists won over the socialist leaning royalists.

And Sihanouk retired to play a PR monarch role as father of the nation.

The country was finally at peace and had the stability of the tyrant.

There was no real room left for Sihanouk to move - and he was getting old.

So he bailed - leaving progress to 'tooled up' neo-liberalism.

 And he went back to making movies.

Pretty crap.

But still, he made movies.

And he played sax.

And sang.

In very many languages.

And wrote endless letters to journalists who had aroused his ire or interest.

Who was sometimes a buffoon.

Who was always engaging.

Who lived a life packed full of more drama and intrigue than any script would deem credible.

Who was a feudal lord - a divine King - in a country where AKs and bicycles were still 40 years after his coronation the only sign of the modern world.

Out in these centuries old villages WW111 was fought by puny proxy.

One thing that came from the sky that didn't bring death.

Sihanouk.

Helicopter largesse in a water-buffalo world.

Wednesday, September 19, 2012

INTERFERENCE

A diary of an illness.
So desperately needed.
My battle with.
Fear, cancer, baldness, bad breath, death.
Whatever you're having yourself.
Oh so brave.
And not even a breast to lose.
But let's fess up.
This one's not for you.
It's for me.
Throwing shapes at fear.
Puckin words in the wind.

The last time round.
Unsuccessful.
Blank.
Dumb.
Mute.
Just visceral howl.
DNA Dylan.
Atonal.
Protest.
Ghostly imprint.

Now the comeback tour.
So here we go.
We're here to go.
Whistling in the wind.
Spitting in the gale.
Down dark boreens.
With desperate 'dia dhuit'
Conas ata tu.
Conas ata tu.
Not very well.
Since you ask.
Been a lot better.
But there you are.
A lesson in?
Whatever.
Interfering?
Interferon.
Here we go.
Here to go.
Conas ata tu?


Wednesday, September 5, 2012

Bryan Adams Ho Chi Minh/Saigon 1993

Hey.
What can I say?
Sometimes you have to make a living.
Bryan Adams.
In Vietnam!
For fuck's sake!
But fate, as it does, threw me a curveball and presented a lady with whom I subsequently fell madly in love.
Can't work out whether she scared me on the night or I thought she was a ditz or I had more pressing matters to deal with.
But we rose to an encore.


“EVERYWHERE YOU go, the kids wanna rock,” sang Canadian Bryan Adams, and his Vietnamese audience endorsed the view – though some of them seemed a little uncertain how to rock.
Adams’ debut in Ho Chi Minh city was the biggest concert in Vietnam since Bob Hope tried in vain to boost the morale of US soldiers fighting a lost cause in the 1970s, the promoters said. But Adams himself chose a different frame of reference, pointing out that he and his four piece band were the first to put on a live rock concert since James Brown bared his risqué soul in Saigon way back when.
The concert came hot on the heels of Ho Chi Minh’s second international marathon, with the same people promoting both shows. As an act to follow Hope, Brown and a marathon, Adams was the perfect choice.
His wholesome, anthemic rock and his high-octane sentimental ballads – like the syrupy tear jerkin’ hit ‘(Everything I Do) I Do It For You’ – provided the perfect kind of fun for guys and gals who’d just run 42 kilometres and needed middle of the road dance-and-romance of the same epic overblown proportions to come down to.
It was no accident that this clean, green, eco-friendly rock star was allowed to be first to bring live rock back, back in the SRV – the Socialist Republic of Vietnam to the un-initiated. His group were on an Aslan tour capitalising on the marathon sales of his latest album So Far So Good. He requested to play Vietnam but first he had to be thoroughly vetted. “The government screened my records, videos, press statements, everything I have done,” Adams told Hot Press after the show.
Adams’ espousal of green issues seemed strangely lost on the Ho Chi Minh crowds, who have recently woken up from their socialist hibernation and embraced capitalism with all the zeal of born-again converts.
“There’s so few cars here, it’s amazing. No cars that’s great, that’s fantastic,” he told the audience who looked more embarrassed than heartened at the observation.
Adams, who has a reputation for putting on powerful, energetic live shows, said afterwards that he’d felt a bit intimidated by being the first kid to rock again in Vietnam and so “held back” on stage, afraid that if he really let it rip, things might get out of hand.
“I didn’t want it to get too wild. I didn’t know how the police would react. You have so much control but why cause panic?” he said, before adding, “The next time, man.”
With tickets selling for up to 35 US dollars, there were few real kids in the 2,500 strong audience, almost half of which comprised westerners.
And, although there were people dancing in the aisles much to the discomfort of the electric-prod waving police, the local crowd needed some prompting on the mores of rock concerts from their foreign counterparts.
When the band walked off stage, a group of Vietnamese girls asked a screaming Canadian fan if Adams would come back. “Yes. But you have to make noise first,” the frustrated fan said. The Canadian fan then jumped on stage to rouse the relatively silent house.
The girls up front, however, knew all the basic moves: everytime Adams came within reach, his legs were fondled by dozens of outstretched hands.
Backstage, the singer said he enjoyed playing Vietnam but he was a bit apprehensive about re-injecting rock and roll into the mainstream of this “innocent” society. “You bring pop culture to a country where the average annual income is 120 US dollars. How do they afford it?” he asked after the show.
The city has a charm and innocence that comes from living in a time warp, he observed. “I’m not sure if what we have done, however, tonight is a good thing. I would hate to see this city turn into Bangkok. That would be a terrible shame,” he said. Despite his observations, however, he admitted that his agents were making “tentative” arrangements for another concert.
Adams refused to be drawn on political issues and replied to a US reporter’s questions about Washington’s ongoing economic embargo by saying: “That’s your problem, man.”
The girls up front were clearly unconcerned about embargoes and had no qualms about live rock and roll staging a come-back. Screams like a chorus of cats in heat erupted when Adams sang: “I don’t want to argue, I don’t want to fight, I don’t want to talk politics all through the night, all I want is you.”
Clutching a plectrum the singer had thrown from the stage like a precious stone, one 19 year old said: “I’m very happy. This is the first time the foreigner singer come to Vietnam so everybody in Vietnam likes to shake hands with the foreigner.”
Adams closed the set with ‘The Summer of ‘69’ featuring what he has described as his “best lyric” to date: “I got my first real six string, bought it at a five and dime, played it till my fingers bled, it was the summer of ‘69.”
If the Vietnamese – who would have faced more serious threats to their well-being than guitar strings – had more gory memories of the summer of ‘69, they weren’t letting them spoil the show. •

BOB IN THE POINT NOV 2005



Here's an old review of one of the very, very few never 
to geuinely let you down.
 
 
First came a musical intro that was so over the top iconic - combining
Superman (Zarathustra not Kent) with the Common Man-that it was more goofy
than ironic,then a promo one that epitomises everything he allegedly
hates. And then finally came the man in the long black coat. Looking like
a halfway house between Dustin Hoffman's Ratzo and some confederate
general all dressed up for war but so messed up on hooch that he never
made the battle, he launched into Drifter's Escape, a good ominous Senor,
a rocking God Knows, a messy It's Alright Ma and then the first bit of
musical magic of the night: Love Minus Zero. To get the Point Depot to pin
drop intensity is quite a feat. But we were almost instantly back on the
same reverential terrain for the inspired, if unrecognisable, Boots of
Spanish Leather. Dylan had the big barn in the palm of his hand. And more
so than Saturday night he started visibly enjoying himself as he juggled
his way through one spellbinding number after another without ever letting
the ball drop. Every Grain of Sand was shiver down the spine celestial.
The unexpected rarity of New Morning was as life enhancing as the  song's
subject.  A masterful mood flick came with the mournful "T'il I Fell in
Love with You." And just as you thought things couldn't get any better:
Visions of Johanna. A bemused band and a grinnin' Dylan then took the
emotionally devastated crowd through a stomping elongated version of
Highway 61 that was by far the best revisiting of this stalwart that I've
witnessed. Standing centrestage, flanked by his awesome bank, Dylan then
took the rapturous applause while doing a bizarre shadow-boxing like
shuffle. And then he was back again with Don't Think Twice and a great,
griity Hendrix-like Watchtower. Harmonicas in hand, the chuffed looking
old geezer treated us to another round of his shadow-boxing before making
his exit. The lights stayed low... but then came on. Unlike Saturday,
where he bestowed Forever Young on us, he didn't do the Irish encore .
But, hey, you couldn't complain.

Saturday, September 1, 2012

A WOMAN'S HEART


Curmudgeon encroaching.
Fortune let prevent a picnic.
So instead of alight to Tindersticks.
Or going winter-defying mad.
A Woman's Heart.







No electric.
Only a woman.
Indeed.
Eek.
But listened to Dolores Keane.
Who was pure festival.
And that was enough.
So with 'no-one is callin' me a misogynist' pride.
I walked the Navy/Notre Baghdad steets
Of the Gathering Dublin
Until safe home.

Wednesday, August 29, 2012

CRACK



70,000.

Gone.

In a week.

Crack.

Actually.

A crack.

Was selling the gaffe.

Not quite breaking even.

A big improvement.

On borrowing to bail.

Then last week.

A bidding war.

It's war. Baby.

Suddenly up 70.000.

All dandy.

Hands in air.

Wheeeeeee

Capitalist roller-coaster.

Enter the surveyor.

A crack.

Crack fluency required.

Enter my surveyor.

We're looking at 10,000.

Fine.

But crack 's now a sobering force,

Sobering.

The purveyor of madness and rage?

So into equity's duplicity.

Rode my 70,000

Plus 800.

The cost of.

My lesson in crack.

Tuesday, August 14, 2012

JOUJOUKA - ROCKING THE CASBAH

The little blue hills of Ah Serif stretch out in a breathtaking vista that the dusty Maghreb tumbleweed town of Ksar El Kebir does nothing to prepare you for.
Home to some 600 souls, the village of Joujouka, a couple of hours' drive south of Tangiers, is pretty impoverished.
But what it lacks in modernity, it makes up for in breathtaking beauty.
The hills roll in all directions, lush and way greener than what you'd expect from a country that leads down into the Sahara.

The view from Hamri's grave in Joujouka




Beauty, however, is not the only surprise the tiny village of Joujouka throws at the tired traveller; there's also the music.
And nothing prepares you for the music.
Pipes and flute have put this village on the map and made it a musical mecca, a place of pilgrimage for sonic subversives, thrill seekers, artists and odd balls of all hues.
The guest list here reads like a veritable counter-culture "who's who."
The wild spectral sounds are what first lured the group's manager, Irishman Frank Rynne, up these hot, dusty hills.
Frank and the Masters now host an annual festival every June, an event of pure wonder.

Then an aspiring rock star, Frank Rynne was lured up to the village at the age of 19 by one of the only villagers to achieve fame and notoriety outside of the world of Sufi trance music, the late great Moroccan painter Hamri,  the friend and companion of Beat icons; the artists and writers Brion Gysin and William Burroughs.
"I need to hear this music every day," was Gysin's instant response.
"The world needs more of this diabolical music" was what Burroughs had to say.
Primordial and relentless, the Master Musicians' sound pulsates Africa and shrieks the Maghreb.
Onto the rolling simplicity of primal beat comes the ghiata sound, the wailing of of a psychic souk.
Whining and droning,  the pipes ensare you in loops and ever decreasing circles while bass bewilders and beat hypnotises.
Then suddenly you are there.
At the centre of the souk, in the eye of a storm of madness.


The Master Musicians of Joujouka at their spectral best. Pic Herman Vanaershcot

Here is where western rock n roll takes you for a fleeting finale - the subversive edges of the Velvet Underground's white noise, the nail biting frenzy of Radiohead's symphonic shrieks, the junk like rush of the Jesus and Mary Chain.
But this is no finale.
What is a crescendo for western rock n roll is a mere point of departure for this crew.
The Masters, who range in age from 40 to 80,  are just kicking off.
And when it all gets too much,  when you think you can't take any more, that's precisely what you get.
Then more and more and more.
Until you are lifted up and carried on a wave of screaming nerve-end shredding, strobe flashing ecstasy.


This is the oldest sound you have ever heard. This is most modern sound you have heard.
This is rock and roll. This is religion. This is political. This is freedom. This is ecstasy.
This is sonic jewelry forged in front of your blinking eyes
Nerve ends alight. Limbs tremble.
It's trance time.
Your mind screams 'stop, stop, enough' and yet some unknown voice inside screams 'more, more, faster, faster'.
This is fucking psychiatric. This is orgasmic.
Karen, bug eyed, the patron of Listons on Camden Street turns to me and says:
"This is madness"




Blessed with sacred powers, the music has actually been touted for centuries as a cure for madness.
Needless to say, there's a whiff of Kif to this whole affair
But there's also a perfect integrity which is very rarely seen in events that head this far north of avant-garde.


Madness indeed.



Welcome to Joujouka.
The tiny village in the Rif mountains that is home to the worlds oldest rock n roll band.

Boujeloud. Half goat, half man. Half Bez, half Pan.


Ramones? Kid stuff
Pick any tempo lifting, air punching DJ sonic ruse from Chicago to the Balearics and you'll find these boys have been beating the out same groove for centuries.
As Jarvis would say "this is hardcore."
Timothy Leary callesd these geezers a 4,000 year old rock n roll band.
Anyhow, one thing is for sure; they well and truly rock the fucking Casbah.


(Nice to see Lonely Planet picking up on the review of the festival that appeared in the Irish Times)

Sunday, August 5, 2012

Musings On Quinn, O Brien And Ireland's Corporate Coup D'etat


Glad to see some real views are being aired behind the scenes.  (See below)
Cos this is the real deal.
This is the last 30 years of adulation mainly of FF cheer led unbridled capitalism coming home to roost.

Perhaps not that suprising when you have a Taoiseach - and source of state contract - taking the absolute piss out of the State and the law of the land.

You buy the media. And if you can't buy off the odd individual you strut like the legal assassin and try and silence people with court intimidation and deep slimey striped pockets.

Ganley with RTE is just the corner boy version of Denis O-ligarch Brien with Browne and Smith.

Sean Quinn has his gombeen goebbels in John Waters and in Michael Harding's eloquent but bog ignorant support.
Not to mention "Rent A Christian" Father Darcy.


This is where sites like this come into their own, it is essential that we say/repeat what the billionaire bullies are trying to prevent being said.

Quinn is just picking up the robber baron's baton where Lowry and O'Brien left off.

If this shit is not fought now, we are well and truly screwed.

This is commercial coup d'etat type Paddy-style..

The others - the pols - at least have the decency to come and lie to us and seek our support every few years.

We can then get rid of them.

A small compensation given the damage they have done.

But could you imagine what the sorry story would be like if the whole show was in the hands of devious corrupt bullying billionaire gangsters.


"In private, meanwhile, Fine Gael TDs were even more scathing about the former GAA president Mr Kelly, who at one stage was being touted by Mr Kenny's inner circle as a possible presidential candidate.

They noted that "Kelly really let the mask slip, those comments were remarkably naive''.

One source claimed: "There is astonishment that anyone who was a member of Fine Gael would express themselves in that fashion, he sounded like a member of Fianna Fail lite.''

They added that "for some time a lot of Fine Gael figures have felt Kelly is a one-trick pony trading on going to GAA matches but this gombeen green gurrier stuff, poor Sean [Quinn] sure he's one of our own''.

http://www.independent.ie/opinion/co...w-3190021.html

Oligarchs are buying media organs to attack state organs, seek immunity and lay down covering fire for their commercial rape and pillage.

If you were to listen to Quinn's PR blitz - which seems to have carefully copied that done by D O-ligarch Brien - you would think employing a village give you moral cover for state pillage.

This is what has Denis O-ligarch Brien threatening Vincent Browne.

Shout it from the fucking roof-tops.

"IT HARDLY matters which of the two oligarchs get control of Independent News and Media, for neither should be allowed to. Not because of any moral turpitude on the part of the oligarchy represented by Denis O’Brien or that represented by the O’Reilly family.

First, Independent News and Media is far too large, and the power it gives to whomever controls it is oppressive. On this island INM owns the Irish Independent, the Sunday Independent, the Sunday World, the Evening Herald, the Irish Daily Star, the Belfast Telegraph and Sunday Life. It owns 13 local newspapers and also one of the largest newspaper and magazine distribution agencies, Newspread, plus several of the largest print works on the island. It has a strong presence on the internet with independent.ie."

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/...314874703.html

Friday, August 3, 2012

John Waters - A Gombeen Goebbels

Back in the simple day there was John Healy.
Penning nostalgie de la bog boue.
Then along came John Waters.
Grabbed a pen and started to lash out shrieked up, dumbed down John.
John Snr though was a worthy foe.
And not devoid of some literary talent.
Although also enthralled by the rural shyster soul,  Healy would never have penned bilge like some of John's gems:
"Katy French was a personification of our fantasies, of our sense of what we were becoming, of how we might unfold ourselves. She was ...perhaps the most spectacular light on the skyline, a meteorite of desire plummeting through the Irish zeitgeist."

John proclaimed that the above was typed through his "tears!"
In the unlikely event of Healy succumbing to such suckerdom, he would have had the
wit to shut the fuck up about it.


But John Junior is a tosser.


                                                                'spelling smug'

Waters is a contradictory, hysterical, attention-seeking personification of all that he noisily derides.
His very existence contradicts all his Barry's Tea Bag conspiracies about the D4 monopoly of the media
He is an elitist.
He is a snob.
Accidents such as place of birth are serious issues to John Boy.
Like most snobs, he is also a boot licker.
An apologist for corruption.
(Provided it comes with the right accent)
He is an idle contrarian - unlike Vincent who is an active and interesting one.
Like most bitter and twisted people he has a big chip on his shoulder.
(Remember one of first big forays into the limelight was his attack on U2. And what was the substance of his attack - who did U2 with Rattle and Hum think they were acting as if they were  global rock stars?
Sure John knew them back in the day; grasshoppers rant knees bitterness etc.

This is from a previous occasion when John's antics came up for discussion.

Quote:
Waters was always an idiot, a Khmer Rouge like culchie who dismissed the supposed pretensions of Dublin 4 and the moral flaws of media land while lauding the duplicity and guile of the peasant as some form of native charm.
In his dumb divisive vision, he was blind to the fact that the victims of those he praised for "pulling one over" were ourselves.
His 80s In Dublin attack on U2 first revealed his limited inner begrudger.

His Dancing at the Crossroads was John Healy for slow learners.

Waters made a total fool of himself with his tear stained eulogy to Kathy French as if she was a present day Oscar Wilde.
See the current debate here on John as our national "bean caoineadh"



Back in the day Waters was the monkey to Sean Doherty's organ grinder.

Today he's dancing to Quinn's plaintive tune.

Quinn is not to blame.  He's a visionary and yet he's a dupe.

A victim of vulture finance.  A world where no-one actually makes anything. 

And sure the Quinns were mere small "small fry"
Easily gobbled up by Anglo.

Big bad Anglo. Little boy Quinn.

Sound likes a PR trope.

But we all partied.

Yet the Quinns are the best of the best.

The Kennedys of Cavan.

Sean may have gambled billions. But he only played cards with a tenner.

Great employer too.

And this despite the fact that it is now perfectly clear that Sean ran his sound insurance business, reaping the same potential of Ponzi that Walters takes issue with elsewhere.

Logic? An unnecessary Dublin 4 trifle. A media amuse bouche.

Could you imagine the dung smeared crap we would be subject to if Fitzpatrick wielded a hurl instead of a club and Drumm banged on in thick Corkonian not finest Malahide.

Tea-Baggery is the only system that allows you present arguments riddled with so many holes

Here's Johny with his Barry's Tea Bag Thought.

No logic, no consistency,  no sense.

Just the incoherent cries of culchie court jester seeking attention.

Waters is a Class A fool.

Like that tool Lowry, he is a constant source of national embarrassment.

At least Myers laces his pieces with erudition.

The best John can rise to is "cute out."

A Gombeen Goebbels.

A blight on the intellectual landscape.

A Bungalow Ditz.

Go on John!

You show em up in Dublin.

Celebrity Banisteoir.

Go dance on their ice.

Oh.

One last thing.

All this twirling on ice rinks.

All this Eurovision fawning.

Jesus.

Better be a big big phobe.

Or the boys might call you homo.

Long haired faggot.

'Mammy'

Imagine the horror of that.


Thursday, July 19, 2012

SKYPE WITH A TOTAL STRANGER


You're sitting there trying to deal with the onslaught of a recession.
Do you take the bid on the house? 
120,000 less than you paid.
20.000 less than you owe.
Suddenly a big cosmic goldfish globule!
Silence has been Skyped.
Loneliness breached.
It's the GOLDFISH again.
And you don't even feed the fucker.
You don't get these SFX in Beckett silence.
But this ain't a story of analogue ennui.
This is one of digital despair.
Tinged with dishonest possibility.
Ones and zeros.
Cyber-sex.
Beauty or beast.
Come on baby.
Skype me.
We have contact.
We have picture.
Static.
No web-cam on me.
Can I web-cam on you.
On your grandmother's teengage breasts.
Over to you
It's Vanessa Odoru
[19/07/2012 18:06:39] Vanessa Odoru: Hello
Hello indeed. What could Vanessa Odoru possibly want?
[19/07/2012 18:06:43] Vanessa Odoru: Can you add me to be come honest friends
Honestly.
Time to introduce Vanessa: She is female. She is pretty. She is a girl from Potchefstroom city. That's South Africa. Or so we're told. 
Vanessa is on the prowl. 
She's looking for an honest, single man to share the "rean of my life with and stay with forever."
A tall order? Well with Skype you can walk the whole wide world.
Just to find me.
Me here, hungover in a warm, grey, Dublin evening.
She found me! Found me. Found me.
Lotto winning yippee!
[19/07/2012 18:07:19] Kevin Barrington: Why me? Why you?
[19/07/2012 18:08:34] Vanessa Odoru: Oh Dear anthing but if you don't like is ok
Why me?
[19/07/2012 18:14:03] Kevin Barrington: But you don't know me. Why are you sending me a message. Perhaps I boil babies for breakfast, peck at toddlers for lunch, pig out on grannies at night. Maybe you should run along down the highway
[19/07/2012 18:16:48] Vanessa Odoru: Okay My Dear
And with that Vanessa Odoru had come.
And gone.
From my life.
How was it for you?
Vanessa.
Odoru.

Tuesday, July 17, 2012

BLUES GENES - Boubacar Traoré @ The Unitarian Church


It's said that if you head off looking for the blues' genes you end up somewhere south of Timbucktu. Well the Malian embryo and the Missisippi evolution came together in divine celebration last Saturday in Dublin's Unitarian Church. Mali was represented by Boubacar Traoré who grooves in a similar musical and emotional niche as that of his northern Malian friend and other renowned desert bluesman the late great Ali Farka Toure
Providing soulful heart beats on calabash was Losseni Kone. (In parts of Africa large calabashes are hollowed, dried and used as percussion instruments) The blues was represented by Vincent Bucher who managed to blow the sound of a vast orchestra out of a sole harmonica.
Dublin was granted a glimpse of this African guitar legend ahead of his headlining appearance at the 30th anniversary at WOMAD festival in the UK. A few have trodden a similar Delta to Desert path before with perhaps the best known being Ry Cooder and Ali Farka Toure. The two joined to create desert blues soundscapes of the most exquisite joyful gloom. In more recent years more people have become hip to similar sounds as Tuareg group Tinariwen have toured these shores and Damon Albarn's enthusiasm has highlighted the Timbuktu’s Desert Festival run by promoter, journalist and former Tinariwen manager Andy Morgan. The festival is now threatened by Islam's dour puritanical forces Al Qaeda in the Maghreb who frown on music and poetry and have recently have been destroying Sufi shrines in the area. Various regional players may have a hand in promoting this Al Qaeda branded instability. For a good analysis on the situation, see Andy Morgan's fine in-depth piece here: http://thinkafricapress.com/mali/cau...rn-mali-tuareg But back to Stephen's Green. Instead of rolling desert dunes, Traoré took to the stage/altar against a shimmering stain glass backdrop and carved stone slogans of true Christianity. The Unitarian Church provides the perfect home for such spiritual sounds, as it is hosts one of the few branches of Christianity not to have betrayed its sacred clothes to camouflage rape and pillage. Promoter Gerry Godley and his Improvised Music Company also deserve a mention here for the decidedly un-Tiger timbre to the whole gig. Tickets for the gig, which sold out instantly, were a nigh on mendicant friendly 12 Euro. The church soon filled static reverence and sounds of such grace as to lure the deities out to dance. If one was addicted to complaint, you might posit the idea the audience was almost paralyzed in its reverence - with barely the sound of a foot tap. But then your complaint would have to deal with the applause at the end. A wall of applause that would have made Phil Spector jealous.
I haven't seen such ferocious clapping since it was thrown at Joe Strummer in his first post Clash appearance with the Mescaleros at the Olympia. Wild appreciation laced with a touch punk challenge defied 15 minutes of blaring house lights and led Joe to retake the stage and repeat a number as they had run out of rehearsed songs. But tonight, what the Unitarian Church lacked in punk chaos, it made up in religious communion. And as the crowd spilled out into the still bright night, there was a touch of the mad evangelical to the eye. All in all spellbinding. The sort of event that cleanses the soul of all the despair inflicted by this ill-choreographed Riverdance country of ours. __________________

Wednesday, July 11, 2012

Politics.ie - The Men In The Moral Mini Skirts

There's a post below entitled Kept Catholics - 50 Years of the Chieftains.

I posted it on Ireland's two biggest online political discussion forums a few days ago.

http://www.politicalworld.org/showthread.php?t=12261
and
http://www.politics.ie/

You can read the thread on the first link.

I have no idea whether you still can on the second link.

Because after some 500 views, I was informed of the following:

You have been banned for the following reason:
This account has been suspended. 

Contact <info@politics.ie> for more information.
Date the ban will be lifted: Never

So I was granted a lifelong ban for the above rather eloquent reason that I hope is is as comprehensible to you as it is to me.

So I can't see if the post is still there. Nor do I know what the problem with it was.

Given some of the extremist rants that appear on politics.ie, one would be forgiven for thinking that one had fucked with something really important.

But what?

Who knows?

But when one sees what all the idiots have to say on the thread "Dublinistan" on the site run by David Cochrane, a man with dubious morals best known for the abject services he provided to that shyster Delcan Ganley, it's a case of  who the fuck cares.

On arriving on the Irish political scene, Ganley -without the deep pockets that shysters of his ilk such as Rpuert Murdoch and Denis O Brien had - needed cheap adulation.

So to whom did he turn?

Cochrane of course.

Not that David told us this.

No. no.

He kept it silent.

Shame or a condition of payment?

Kiss and can't tell?

Who knows.



But , in the end, I thought it only polite to express my feelings about the gift this enlightened site had bequeathed me.

So here's the letter I wrote:





View Post
To the man with the ban.

We all know you are free to do with your (competing) site as you wish.
As you are free to sell your services to the highest bidder should you so choose.
There is nothing new about this.
Or your having done so.
You merely join in a long list of those who have debased journalism by using it to provide camouflage for public relations.
Prostitution,and its media equivalent, is a pretty straightforward affair.
It only becomes problematic when the issue of payment is not clearly outlined in advance.
And when there is ambiguity over the actual range of services on offer.
There is little point in me reiterating all the controversies aroused by your servicing of the needs of your once paymaster, Declan Ganley.
If memory serves it was only when caught in flagrante delicto, that public was told the money on your bed side table was indeed Ganley's.
(Correct me if I am wrong here)
Bar adding further to the corrosion of the perception of both media and politics, the only real problem I had with your site's your moral frivolity was on the odd occasion when your political street walking directly crossed the path of my beliefs.
And when your servicing of your client's needs created what many deemed an unsightly vista.
It is curious, though, how your own ethos seems to embody the moral degeneration that many of the posters on your site attribute - with all the certainty of the hysterical - to immigrants.
"Dublinistan" indeed.

But I digress.

The real purpose of my call is to get you to pass on my thanks to your man Sync.
The ire of fools and the strictures of the blinkered have always provided one of the finest promotional tools around.
Where a moral mini skirt serves your needs, the outrage of the idiot and the bullying of the buffoon serves mine.
And for this I wish to say thanks.
A lifetime ban for a concert review.
That's the sort of accolade most reviewers dream of.
So I just want to avail of the freedom of this civilised space, which curiously had not problem at all with the same words, to say thanks to you, your site and, above all, to Sync's limitations.

Hopefully I can find a way to sneak around your ban so I can avail of your kind services in the future.

Tuesday, July 3, 2012

Kept Catholics - 50 Years of the Chieftains.

(Thanks Garth)



Just a little caveat here before we go.
I had never seen the Chieftains before.
So I am speaking from a position of total informed ignorance
An ignorance I was relatively happy with until a haphazard offer of a ticket.
So why not?
The Chieftains have been around. And you don't get to stay around for 50 years unless you got something.
They have to have something.

And they do.
But it's bizarre.
And irritating.
Wonderful.
Rousing.
Suspect.
Depressing.

At least I got to to the Grand Canal Theatre.
Cool, deconstructivist, Lost in Translation elegance.
One of those few occasions where chi chi manages to put a bit of effective spin on emptiness.



 Capitalism may have launched the Grand Canal Theatre.
But it has taken socialism to guide it safely back to earth.
And for socialism, just read you.
Tax-payer take a bow.
The Chieftains suggested you give a round of applause to Harry Crosbie.
I suggest you give yourself a clap.
You got a little back.
I know it's a minor compensation.
But the stunning surrounds almost make it feel worth it.
Can't quite say the same about the music.
There's something about the group's sound that seems to endorse and celebrate the very deviant sentimentality which wreaked havoc across the country, slaying prospects and murdering hope but just happened to drop this jewel in the neo-liberal safari park they call the docklands.
Other such kool aid constructs and paeans to hubris like the U2 tower never got to the good side of hallucination.

But back to Paddy Maloney.



Just when you are starting to see what all the fuss is about. 
It's back to fucking Paddy Moloney.
As an artefact of delicate sonic beauty starts to shimmer in front of you, along comes Paddy Moloney.
Hal Roche. Vegas leprechaun. Duffy ringmaster.
Paddy.
Presented with the possibility of beauty, Paddy Maloney opts for buffoonery.

Then sound and fury. And on comes a Marching Pipe band.
All Celtic Kipling.  Stomp and pomp.
We've taken the wild out of these colonial boys.
This is stiff upper lip stuff.
The band, all shorn and sideburned, look like they just came from back a "good crack at the Boer" rather than off a bus from Limerick.
Apparently we are hearing the tales of Paddies out fighting in the Mexican civil war.
This is strange.
It's rousing.
Definitely militaristic.
Might even be a touch of the fascistic.

But then comes the flute.
A feminine counterattack.
No more stomping.
This is the stuff of lightfooted beguile.
All charm and enrapture.
And then the complexity of the fiddle...

And then .....then it's back to Fucking Hal Roach.

Centre stage Maloney starts looking at his watch.
"Don't be losing the run of yourself there boyo!"
For grubby laughs,  Paddy gesticulates at his watch while raising his eyes to heaven.
That's witty Paddy!
Sure why would you want spectral magic when you can have cheap laughs.
And he pulls the same stunt again and again.
But this time it's even more orchestrated, an act of premeditated charlatanism.
An act of articide.
The Chieftain's court jester, a wild Nova Scotian goes "tinker mad" on a violin solo.
And in the middle of the maelstrom, the fiddler's mobile phone rings.
It's Paddy Maloney pretending to make a call.
Jesus. Isn't that great gas!

Why celebrate what you do when you can denigrate it?
But that seems to be the thing with The Chieftains.
There does not seem to be any real reverence for the music.
At the same time there is something faux about their casualness.
They try and pretend that the brilliance slips out by accident.
It's like no one wants to step up and embrace that brilliance.
No-one wants to be a star.
So we are fed upfront distraction.
Young ones leaping.
Click-clacking Peig Astaires.
All with a strong smell of Flatley.

I don't know.
But it all struck me as very "Kept Catholic."


(The above kicked off a little bit of a fuss - you can check it out here)

Sunday, May 6, 2012

Meanwhile on the radio...

Here's a few radio ads that I still like.
I enjoy doing them.
The medium suits my attention span.
There is something about the zone they exist in, somewhere between the downright trivial and the truly poetic, that amuses me.
Then there's the challenge of trying to get people to listen to that which, in theory, they have no interest in listening to
At 30/40 seconds, you are not asking that much from people but you still have to give something in return.

Here's one for Denny Sausages to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Bloomsday.
One of those rare jobs where you have licence to do something interesting.

Donal O'Kelly does a great job with the voiceover here.

Denny - Bloomsday Rev


One for Bord Na Mona coming up to Halloween featuring Donal O'Kelly again.

Bord na Mona Fiddle on the Wind


And a couple for Fyffes bananas featuring Joe Taylor at his best.

Fyffes-Planning wmusic

Fyffes-Port Tunnel wmusic

Friday, April 27, 2012

DIVORCE

(The Fiscal Compact Treaty)

Once upon a time back in the dour day.
Wannabes called cops on
contraceptive machines.
And failed marriages sought vodka.
A queer got beaten up
Banged too.
Gay was semiotics.
And Kenny cutting edge.
U2 were out of control.
Priests wild with abandon.
Where a million took to the Pope's park.
And the 'cool kids' took to Galway.
Where milk bottles rained fire.
And funerals fed slaughter.

When even Hollyhead was intoxicating,
EU shimmered erotic liberation.
Borders.
We'll slip through them.
Fuck them all.
And booze ballads too.
Give me French.
Sex in a mini skirt.
'Liberte'
More even more
'Fraternite'
The days.
Phew.
Then more of them.
Until
They got long.
As they do.
The skirts too.
Then all a suddenly
French was German.
The exotic... accountancy.
And flesh that caressed Mediterranean breeze
Now pinched pennies
with frozen Nordic frowns.
And somewhere along the lawyered road.
Into the spelling of 'Equality"
(Without asking me.
What about you?)
someone
slipped
'Austere'


Get Divorce and all the other dramatic pieces of verbal and visual art in the critically acclaimed collection of digidelic delight 'I Love The Internet' here: http://itsapoeticalworld.com/book-shop/

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

WHAT’S THE STORY?






What’s the story?

What’s the story? What is the story? What is a story?

Beginning middle and end. End. There’s a start. We all get to the end.

Indeed. In deed. In fact. And in act. In the beginning was? Was what? Was the word.

Jaysus what was the word? The beginning? Of what? Of the middle?  Of the end?

Everything is the beginning of the end. The middle, though, there’s a tricky one.

You can’t solve the middle. Ask the East. The riddle of the middle: To get it you need

the beginning and the end. And how can you have the end? Cos the end has you. In

the end. Finis. C’est la vie. No two ways about it. No one way. A dead end. The end.

So just get your end away. Ah yeah. Run to bed. Run run run. River run. Burst the

banks. Break the dam. Escape. Release. The ejector seat. Yahoo you’ve beaten the

odds. A hero. Just for one … well whatever. Die in her arms. But for a second there!

Ah but you’ll be back again. Sure as there is shit in a goose. Sure as the word. As sure

as the story.

But what is the story? The story? How many stories?

Stories high. Stories low.

High brow. Lowbrow.

Lowbrow:  Here’s the cops. There’s the Indians.  Now the ads.

Ads? The admin of stories.

Ah ha. Here we are. Home turf. Mr. Bloom.

Mr. Adman.

Adman. Admen. Admin.

Creative. Creator? Ah la la Akbar. There’s only one God.


But comma here! What?

There’s only one story. Period.

Shove your clashes. And your civilisations.

One? One!

There’s only one story.

The story of our sacred word.

Must be High Brow now.

The writer wrote having no alternative. But sssssh! There is

an alternative – silence. Silence -  The Final Solution. Graveyard spooky.

Auschwitz spooky.

I can’t go on. I will go on, Sam says.  Roll the rock up and down the hill, like Jack

and Jill on endless replay. Play and replay. Play games.

What’s a game? Beginning, middle and end. But not necessarily in that order.

Storygames, made to make the grim grin.

In the beginning was the word.

In the end there’s the end.

And in between, who knows?

The end.

Silence.