The Dubliner Bar

There is a reason I don’t go to Irish bars much in Barcelona. It seems to defy the purpose of running away. But every so often you feel the need, and when football is involved, it is a safe bet that the Irish bars will be showing the match.

So with this in mind, I dragged my visiting cousin Donog, and my friend Julie, down to the Dubliner, a home-made bar in Gracia run by the lovely Steve, that may not be particularly fancy, but it is comfortable and full of real atmosphere, and he has decent beer. Julie loved the place straight away; its newspaper covered walls and dodgy auld sofa reminding her of our old haunt the Chileno bar, which is sadly closed. My cousin being starving, went out to track down some food. Barcelona were playing a terrible match and I was distracted by a tall lad stepping in front of me, advising me that he was the tall guy we were looking for. Poor fool, we had been looking for my cousin, who I’d forgotten was out hunting down something edible. In order to try and see the rest of the match I gave Mister Tall-guy my seat so he wouldn’t be in anyone’s way. The match continued to be dreadful, Real Madrid beating Barcelona deservedly, and Ronaldinho diving like a seagull at every chance. Shocking. A player like that shouldn’t have to resort to diving.

By the time my cousin returned, we had accumulated quite the crowd of English speakers. We left them all and headed off to a bar on Placa del Sol, and guess what! There they were again! So we managed to meet Terry, Andy, and Steve from Ireland, Lawson, David and Fraser from Scotland, Rocco (I kid you not), Ian, Joel and Amy from England. Luckily by the time we all decided to head back to Andy’s for a wee party and some tunes, we had lost some of them. Unfortunately we didn’t lose Joel, an earnest sorry soul from London who I had met before I realized. And this time he clung to me again like a leech, despite having heard the equally awkward Rocco ask me out for dinner. Part of me felt sorry for him when he immediately fell asleep with a sad frown on his face, forcing us to sit on the floor. Part of me was delighted cos he was boring us to tears and so drunk that even if it had been an interesting tale, he would have forgotten the words. Some people should not talk politics, especially drunken young Englishmen who obviously are a bit lost in a group of Celts. Everyone is entitled to an opinion, but I honestly think Joel was trying to impress me by talking about something I was obviously interested in but he just didn’t have a clue and couldn’t finish his sentences. Stuff like:
“I used to play in a Republican Flute band.” Oh really, I say politely, how come?
“ I dunno really. Cos, thingy, I think that it is all, you know…” All?
“What is? Well, they were a band. But I really care you know….” About what?
“Thingy. Um. I like, want to you know….” Silence.
“You know. Like Republicans are for the Republic. And um. The United Kingdom.” No, the United Kingdom is a term now that we might find offensive. I said it gently.
“Oh, but the United Kingdom is like, what Ireland is part of. Before. Um, in history like.” No, we were never happy to be part of the United Kingdom. Even Scots and Welsh take exception to that one.
“Oh but like not belonging to. Sort of more, um, you know….” No.
“Well anyway, it’s like Britain. You know. Um, being part of the United Kingdom.” Silence.
“Well everyone loves the United Kingdom, when they know it’s just um, like Britain, and the rest of the Kingdom….no, wait. I mean, the band was like a way of like….my friends sort of did it and um….a part of history. Like being British.”

At this point I just nodded and gave up trying to follow him. I could have helped him but didn’t want to, and although I was polite, I really couldn’t bear to speak to him after that.

Anyway, I think my cousin had a nice weekend even though I had to work most days, and it was probably the most quality time we have ever spent together. He is an elusive character, warm and funny, yet obviously angry at his parents and justifiably so I must admit. They are good people, but they must have been very difficult to have as your own parents. His dad has a new family with 3 kids all under the age of 7, and he was never really there for him even before. His mam desperately wants to mother him and is invasive to the point of being an army sergant in his life. He avoids talking about serious things when it suits him but randomly opens up completely, a fact that surprised me, and led to me making him lead the conversation so that he could decide what made him most comfortable. He is extraordinarily generous and I was surprised we didn’t have any arguments at all, given how difficult I can be.

Next week my old housemate from Dublin will visit. That will be an altogether different experience, but hopefully also very enjoyable.

Cobalt blue

Well I am completely hammered, and as a closet Chelsea fan, I am delighted and embarrassed to report Chelsea WHOOPED Barcelona's ass tonight in football, and I'd a great time, drinking wine with Mable while advising her about work (as in my work is like a family and be careful what you say cos it get's around) and then having beers with the band while talking about what we need to do, and then as usual the lads discussing my sex life (they seem to think I should become a stripogram, which I am partly flattered that they think I could get away with it but let's face it I am hardly the type), followed by a lovely solitary walk around and walk home. The air smells of sycamore and mist, the ground is damp from the rain and the thundestorm still sits at the back of my eyeballs, and if there is one time I love alone, it is this. What I wouldn't give for the green long grass of home beneath my feet, the stretch of empty road before me, the moon and stars my only guide, the empty horse hooves and closed woods of my imagination tracking my path.

What do I want? Only an understanding of this - the sense that we just are, beneath the stars, that we do what we can, that we make small moves;-that if enough of us care, we may move things on and make a change.

My favourite colour now is still cobalt, and I still think of you regardless of the hue the sky takes.

Twenty twenty foresight

And that is not an incomplete stutter about the 24-year old I was eying-up recently. Tomorrow night I have potentially six ladies coming over for an evening of drunkenness and probably a lot of bleeding hearts. And potentially one of them is moving in for 2 weeks cos she is splitting with her boyfriend. Why do they all split with their boyfriends, and why do I always feel I should offer them a place to stay? I am a disaster A DISASTER and impossible to live with. Ye Gods!

Anyone have any advice?

Freaky green gloop

So now Alex (the bassist) is off to New York, and I am insanely jealous, I have lots of time to write scarey music. In fact last night I freaked myself out so much that I couldn't sleep the whole night. The music probably wouldn't scare your average folk, although the bass line of grated rhythm might, I can't describe how much it scared me. I got right into it, and suddenly I couldn't see because I was in a dark forest and I was sweating hard and no matter how much I stayed still or ran, I couldn't get out. I normally love trees, but this was beyond claustrophobic. The song is aptly named "I'm coming to get you" and I think I unfortunately got too far inside the head of my protagonist, although the words are hardly lyrical genius.....some day when I get the thumb out I may do that MySpace thing and actually post a few tunes...

I was delighted to discover I can still blush, after years of hating blushing I was dismayed when it stopped. I felt like I had lost the flush of my youth, and while no doubt that is true, I am blushing furiously lately in work now again, mainly with a guy I like to call Hotdog (due to his mistaken belief that the colour mustard suits him). The lovely Hotdog is someone I will NEVER even have to contemplate more than work relations with, and in a deliciously uncomplicated gesture, smiles winningly at me now everytime I blush and stare at the floor. I feel all atwitter.

November seems to mean visitors, with my ex-housemate Mary visiting for the first weekend, my cousin Donog called to say he wants to come over, my best friend from when I was a babby says she is coming over, as does my dad, but these last two are notoriously badly organised, so I'll believe it when I see it. Afterall, my dad was meant to visit last February. Speaking of my dad, I am proud and puffed up to announce that he is FINALLY back painting(not back-painting, I mean painting again, although come to think of it he may be back-painting also), anyway, he sold four, that's FOUR paintings over the last two days, and practically sold his flat too, but that is not cos it was nicely painted. Although I always loved where we lived when I was smaller cos everything had weird paintings and drawings everywhere and we were positively encouraged to draw and paint on the walls. There were huge clouds of blue painted on our walls and we filled in the clouds with under water scenes with sharks in top hats and mermaids, and midair flying scenes and all that. The fridge was a lansdscape painting, the carpet was a Gaff-taped collection of carpet samples cunningly (and cheaply) constructed. The shelves had weird scored patterns of different techniques my dad used to create sponged and woodgrained effects, and the windows were a collection of painted stained glass thingies. Even the chairs were turqouise and green sponged, and we stencilled the bathroom. Shame all the food was green, even though it never tasted that colour, it was always green gloop. Nice green gloop, but scarily radio-active looking.

Right. I am off to read, deliberately not writing music cos it is already nearly 2am and I've to be up at 7 again and I don't wanna freak myself out again, right?

Festival Hosta Francs

We had arranged to meet there at 7 because we thought we might get a sound-check in earlier somehow. But the shell of the stage had only just gone up in front of the church and there was a mass on. So of course we ended up sitting in the local bar drinking beer and rattling our nerves in advance of the earth-changing gig we were about to do. Outside punks with dogs and old ladies dragging each other around firmly by the armpits squinted curiously at us, the bunch of obvious gringos pale and ghostly laughing in unison. We could barely get out of the pub at the rare old closingtime of 8pm. Two poky ladies promised to return for our gig purely out of curiousity. Shame we forgot our formula one costumes.

We found Calle Vilardell number 44 easy enough. There were jaunty plastic streamers burning over lights strung across the street as old men ascended ladders and tied them randomly to poles whilst smashing bulbs. Tired waitresses rearranged chairs and tables in preparation for the floods of people to come. Several of the afore-mentioned old ladies poked at the food that was left out on the tables for the bands to dine at. "Youth Rock Festival," Darren intoned, reading the poster. Crap, that rules us out. Even with my mere 26 whippersnapper years, the average age of the band is 32. We grimaced in a friendly way at the yound lads sat next to us and dived into the food. A fine middle-aged spread.

Well, the first band was just attrocious. God love them, they were young, but even I wasn't that bad at my first gig. The singer giggled and refused point-blank to do a voice test on the microphone, the pianist played arpeggios in her sound-check, and the guitarist couldn't string a fishingpole. My friends all stood with looks of pure horror infused to their faces. Please god they don't stay like that for our performance, I prayed to no-one in particular, not being very religious or anything. I decided it would be more productive to visit the toilet, have a bottle of water, and run around a bit and tune my guitar. When they started, I took advantage of the free toilet paper I had snatched and shoved it deep into my lugs.

On stage, the monitor sound was awful. I could hear the bass, and pretty much nothing else unless I stood in front of them and then I could hear the whole street reverberate with the sound of our hard-hitting kick drum and eerie dirty jesus keyboard. Actually, the sound out front was pretty good. Several people gawked in surprise and stopped leaving, and some photographer started flashing his camera, with my friends having a jolly good bop up the front. An eight foot stage was a god-send, even if I was glued to the double-mic setup for the guitar for some of the songs. But our final song had a great 5 minute instrumental mental bit to which I could hop around like the hippy windmill and I made use of it then. We even got the unexpected encore which we felt stupid to have added to set-list, but I had insisted (hurray for me). An hour later our feet were back on solid ground.

Afterwards was an awesome heavy metal band who played some great covers to which I danced relentlessly with Alex. Gordon and his baby had gone home, Darren was being kept in line by his anti-social and frankly boring girlfriend and Radt was chatting up a workmate (as usual). So we just went mad and laughed and danced away. The lads from work had given us cava in celebration, and celebrate we did. Still full of energy at 2am, we all decided to head to a local 80s club, where we stayed til 6am when dawn and hunger called. Some of the lads went to a rave party but having a high like the one I had, a rave would only bring me down. I was delighted to get home to some basil pesto on toast, fresh orange juice, and a crossword. What a rock-and-roll star I am.