Billy Bragg gig, Vicar St. - June 3rd

Earlier this year, on June 3rd, I went to see Mr. Billy Bragg in concert for the first time. I was first introduced to his music by my girlfriend, who has been a Billy Bragg fan for many moons. She bought me one of CDs a couple of years ago, and I was immediately hooked by the first few lines of Sexuality:

I’ve had relations
With girls of many nations
I’ve made passes
At women of all classes
But just because you’re gay
I won’t turn you away
If you stick around
I’m sure that we can find some common ground

The guy is a protest singer really. In the 1980s he was involved in the collective of popular musicians called Red Wedge, which tried to get the young people of Britain to engage with politics in general and the Labour Party in particular. Red Wedge was formally disbanded in 1990, but Bragg stayed political. He has a catalogue of songs about love, life, war, and this kind of stuff - these days he seems to be mostly targeting fascism through his music with the rise of the British National Front, as well as war, racism, sexism, homophobia, etc.


The Diggers song is a good example of the kind of stuff that he sings about, and it’s particularly close to my heart, because it’s about a load of activists in the 1600s who tried to reclaim land for communal ownership. It resonates with me because I’m involved with a network in Dublin City who have set up a couple of community gardens where we grow food and link in to the local community. Here’s some Digger lyrics (the song’s actually called World Turned Upside Down):

'We come in peace' they said
'To dig and sow
We come to work the land in common
And to make the waste land grow
…
The sin of property
We do disdain
No one has any right to buy and sell
The earth for private gain’

…
From the men of property
The orders came
They sent the hired men and troopers
To wipe out the Diggers' claim
Tear down their cottages
Destroy their corn
They were dispersed
But still the vision lingers on

Bragg’s music is guitar driven stuff. I think Bragg sees himself as a punk musician, and there’s certainly some spikiness in the guitar. But it’s pretty melodic - maybe power pop would be appropriate? Anyway, I’m not too hung up on categorisation of music. It’s too easy to get bogged down in that kind of stuff.

Bragg was joined on stage for some of the tracks on keyboards by Ian McLagan, formerly of the Small Faces and the Faces. They even had a Hammond Organ. The highlight of the night might just have been a rendition of the classic Booker T and the MGs track Green Onions. (To digress, two of the MGs were Donald ‘Duck’ Dunn and Steve Cropper, and these guys have serious credibility. They were part of Dan Ackroyd and John Belushi’s touring Blues Brothers band, and can be seen in The Blues Brothers movie. They had previously been session men at Stax Studios - Booker T and the MGs were the house band , and played on some of the classic records that came out of there. Cropper was a co-writer of some incredible songs, including Sitting on the Dock of the Bay with Otis Redding, Sailing with Rod Stewart, and In the Midnight Hour with Wilson Pickett.) Bragg said that Green Onions, though instrumental, was a major political statement, being recorded in a studio in the racially segregated south by a racially integrated band.

Booker T & the MGs - revolutionaries!?

This might have been the most interesting thing he said, but Mr. Bragg talks a lot in concert. In fact, he could fairly be described as an incorrigible spoofer. He was heckled a number of times for talking too much. I don’t think he played two songs in a row throughout the whole show (except in the encore). And he wasn’t even rallying the crowd with any kind of political stuff - he was just yapping about funny stories and this kind of thing. It would have been far better if he had played a few batches of songs and chattered in between these. But he let loose in the encore, and lashed through some of his early hits.

I really enjoyed the show, but I was only familiar with a handful of the tunes. It was one of those gigs which seemed to be full of die-hard fans who knew each and every lyric “like it was written in their soul”, to paraphrase Mr. Zimmerman. Anyway, that’s enough about that.

Poker

Last week, I hosted a poker session in my house. There is a group of us that play poker together every so often. We hadn't played for a while, and I wanted to have a game before going back to college, so I decided to host the evening. It's more suitable during this time of year anyway, when the evenings are darker and the weather's getting worse.

We basically all sit around a table and have a few beers, an occasional cigar, and play some cards. We have a pool of about ten players, but there's always one or two who can't make it, so we usually play with six or seven. On this night there were six of us. One of the missing regulars is my brother Alan, who is travelling at the moment (alanbaynes101.blogspot.com).

We play with chips rather than cash. The thinking is that people can't lose more than the amount of chips they buy in, so it means that everyone can keep track of their liabilities and nobody ends up betting more than they can afford. Basically, everybody buys in €30 of chips, and we play cards. But on this night, there seemed to be lots of people buying in extra chips, so there was a fair bit of money on the table - more than €250. (They aren't huge stakes, but most of us are lowly civil servants...)

I didn't manage a Royal Flush...

I think this probably was due to the fact that we played for half an hour or so with only five players, because one guy was late. With only five players it was difficult to get openers (if you don't know, google it), so the pot kept building and building. This cleaned a few people out quite quickly, as there was some lunatic betting on some huge pots in the early stages. This created quite an imbalance in the chip distribution. For a while, one corner of the table housed the 'superpowers', who had huge piles of chips from winning these big pots, and the other side of the table was populated by the bankrupt 'axis of evil'. (I was briefly one of these superpowers).

In the final analysis, I just about broke even (I finished with €23 in chips). I wasn't getting good hands throughout most of the dealing, so I didn't get much of a chance to bet. But the few good hands I did get I made quite good money out of, so I was happy enough with that. I got a four of a kind at one stage, which was the best
hand of the night. I also had the 'Dead Man's Hand' at one stage - two aces and two eights - which is supposedly the hand that Wild Bill Hickok was holding when he was shot dead. That must have been a bad omen for me, as I lost a few bob on that hand.

Back in the Saddle Again

I’m finally back cycling again.

After a long time without a bike, I bought myself a new one yesterday (this was written on the train over a week ago, on August 5th) in the UCD bike shop. I got very good service and I’d highly recommend the place. Thanks to Cathal for recommending the place to me. I called out there at about 0915 in the morning and picked out a nice looking new bike for €150.00 after taking it for a test drive. Then I went off for some breakfast while Rob the bicycle mechanic fitted a carrier for me.

This bike shop is in a beautiful setting. It has a courtyard bounded with old stone walls which are hung with foliage. Against one hedge are stacked a pile of scrap bikes, which will probably end up being dumped. I know a few people who run bike workshops, where they try to construct decent bikes out of discarded bits of frames and stuff. Rob said they’d be more than welcome to take these parts away if they liked.

I ended up having a good chat with Rob, because when I came back to collect the bike he was still attaching the carrier. He was an interesting guy with a good take on things, I reckon. I often think that it’d be nice to have a job that was quite physical. It’s good to be active, and I think that spending your days sitting in an office is pretty unhealthy and can make you quite lazy. In a funny way, I also think that physical work can be better for your mind – certainly better than a certain type of office work. I remember that Beatles song about the pleasures of fixing a hole to keep your mind from wandering…

I’ve been meaning to buy myself a bike for ages – it’s definitely the most convenient way to get around the city. But the spur that made me finally get around to it is the fact that I’m on my way to Clare for the weekend. My bike and I are currently on the train to Birdhill, and from there I’ll be cycling about 20km to Scariff, where the Irish Seed Savers Association are having an open day tomorrow (Sunday August 6th). Seed Savers is an organisation that tries to maintain Irish biodiversity, by maintaining stocks of plants that might otherwise die out – eg varieties of turnips, garlic, apple trees etc. I’m accompanied by a few fellow Dublin community gardeners, and we should be meeting up with more environmental types down there. Indeed, despite all the accommodation in East Clare (including campsites) being totally booked up due to two festivals going on in the area, we will be camping for free in Scariff’s very own community garden. Such are the joys of being part of an environmental network.

So that’s why I got myself a bike at last. But just half an hour after I bought it, as I was cycling down the canal, one of the pedals fell off!! Turns out the crank (?) hadn’t been tightened properly and the UCD bike shop had let me down… But I still stick by what I said about getting good service there – it didn’t turn out badly – I rang Rob and he told me to call into the nearby Rathmines bike shop, and a fellow he knew in there would fix it for me. And that’s how it happened. It’s a great feeling of freedom to have the bike again. It was as though the whole of Dublin was accessible to me, and felt like cycling off around the place. It’s such a handy way to get around Dublin. It’s also easy on the environment and my wallet. And I have my helmet to prevent severe head injury. What more could I want??

After a long break, I’m back to the blog. Why no posts for so long? Basically, because of a general lack of organisation in my life over the last while, and a lack of satisfactory internet access. I have various excuses I could use, such as moving house and stuff like that, but the bottom line is that I didn’t get it together to blog regularly. The new gaff has broadband (it’s broadband that isn’t working, but at least it can be fixed – I hope), and I’m hereby promising to start posting regularly. Not that anybody reads this bloody thing…

The book group

Three or four years ago, I set up a book group along with a few friends in the office where I worked. The premise was simple - each of us would read the same book over the course of about a month, and then we would get together to discuss this book over a few pints. Most of the sessions took place in O’Neill’s pub on Pearse St. We only read fiction: mostly novels, and one or two short stories. Each month, somebody would suggest a book, on the basis that it was reasonably short to keep things accessible. War and Peace or The Brothers Karamazov would have quickly killed off the idea because of their length.

O'Neill's of Pearse St.

The book group was a great success. There was a hard core of people who read each book, and at one meeting there were about twelve people present. We even held a Kris Kindle of books at Christmas. It soon became apparent at the gatherings that the atmosphere was informal and social. I used to refer to it as ‘going for pints with a theme’, because that was really all we were doing. At each meeting we would go around the table, and each person would give his or her first impressions of the book to be discussed. This then developed into the usual pub discussion, but with a little more focus and energy. Everybody was familiar with the material being discussed, and had given it a little thought before the meeting, which made for a fascinating discussion. It never ceased to amaze me how somebody else’s perspective could open up a whole new way of looking at a book with which I thought I was pretty familiar.

We went through several books over the course of the group’s existence. Of course, as soon as I try to remember all of the books we read, my mind goes blank. But after some thought I have come up with a list of just some of the books we discussed:

H G Wells - The Country of the Blind - USA
Patrick Suskind - Perfume - Germany
Margaret Atwood - Surfacing - Canada
James Joyce - The Dead - Ireland
Evelyn Waugh - Vile Bodies - UK
Paulo Coehlo - The Alchemist - Brazil
Jann Martel - The Life of Pi - author born in Spain but has national links all over the place

As you can see, there was a range of authors of different nationalities, eras and styles. This book group was one of the most stimulating projects I have ever been involved in.

Booker prize-winner The Life of Pi

Around this time, there were also a couple of poetry nights organised by people in the office. At first, this may sound like a totally bizarre, pretentious and unappealing idea. But the concept worked incredibly well. The first poetry night took place in Maguire’s pub on Baggot St. There were a group of about 15 to 20 people in attendence, and we had a large alcove entirely to ourselves. We brought along little books of poetry, and poems printed out from the internet, and then sat drinking for an hour or so before the poetry began. A poet named Emer Davis, who had organised the event, stood up and read a couple of poems of her own, and then she was followed by other members of the crowd. In the end, everybody present had read out at least one poem, however reluctant they had been at the outset. I read a few verses from Edgar Allen Poe’s The Raven. Blake was also in attendance:

To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.

By the end of the night, a guitar had appeared, and the poems had turned into songs. In true democratic fashion, the guitar was passed around the room, and we heard musical poetry from Dylan and others, as well as a few originals. I heard a couple of really impressive Limericks as well (and one or two obscene ones).

There was a young lady from Bright
Who could travel faster than light
She went off one day
In a relative way
And arrived back the previous night.

A second poetry reading was held months later in honour of Anti-Racism week, which included Refugee Blues by W H Auden and a few protest songs by Phil Ochs. It might seem like an unusual idea, but it makes for a great fundraiser as well as a great night out.

A Tale of Two Cities

The reason I’m recalling these heady days of boozy literature appreciation is that the old book group is now in the process of being resurrected. We have yet to have a proper meeting, as it is difficult to drag together a critical mass of people now that the original group have been dispersed to different offices and locations. We met last week to discuss Pulitzer prize-winner Jhumpa Lahiri’s work of genius, The Namesake, but the discussion of this book was postponed due to cancellations and failures of email (long story). We might revisit this book in the future, but at the next gathering of the book group, which will take place in July, Charles Dickens’ classic A Tale of Two Cities has been chosen. All are welcome to join the group, so if you’re interested just drop a comment after this post and I’ll get in touch or put you on the mailing list.

Fattening Frogs? What?

The title Fattening Frogs for Snakes refers to a song by the great blues harmonica player, Sonny Boy Williamson II.

Sonny Boy Williamson II

Sonny Boy Williamson II was one of the key figures in the history of the blues. He was born Rice Miller, but stole the name Sonny Boy Williamson from another harp player of the time ('blues harp' or just plain 'harp'=blues slang term for harmonica). They are now known respectively as Sonny Boy Williamson I and II. It is a reasonably regular moniker, in a musical genre characterised by lots of strange names. Some of my favourite blues names off the top of my head include Pinetop Perkins, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Lightnin’ Slim and Taj Mahal (who I managed to see live with his Phantom Blues Band - brilliant stuff).

Like many other of the great blues icons, there is a certain amount of confusion about when Sonny Boy II was born. I have even heard that he lied about the year of his birth in order to get the drop on Sonny Boy I in his claim to the name. Sonny Boy II was from Mississippi, and was a virtuoso on the harp. It’s rumoured that he could play with no hands, by inserting the entire harmonica into his mouth or holding it between his top lip and his nose.

One thing that’s interesting about old-time blues lyrics is the way it seems to be the men that are persecuted rather than the women. Blues songs are populated by women who walk all over the long suffering bluesmen, going out late and not coming back home, spending all their man's money, and evicting them from their own homes in the freezing cold (see the Sonny Boy Williamson II track ‘Nine Below Zero’). A good example of this is Sonny Boy’s classic song, ‘Help Me’, which has become a harmonica standard, in which he pleads for help with the housework (seriously):

I may have to wash
I may have to sew
I may have to cook
I might mop the floor
But you help me babe
I can’t do it all by myself
You know if you don't help me darling
I'll find myself somebody else

I was in Bruxelles once when the Mary Stokes Band was playing, and I was very proud of myself when they agreed to play a request of ‘Help Me’. They had just rejected another couple of calls for requests, but I obviously fooled them into thinking I was a blues purist. Then they proceeded to blow me away with a great version of the song. They had the last laugh when I bought their CD.

The song title ‘Fattening Frogs for Snakes’ seemingly refers to an old American proverb about putting loads of energy into something and not reaping the benefits. If you spend ages fattening up a frog with lots of delicacies, and then a big snake slips into his cage and eats him, you’ve pretty much wasted loads of your time and effort. If I had a penny for every frog I lost this way...

My research on Google tells me that ‘Fattening Frogs For Snakes’ was used as the title of a book about the old blues musicians by a fellow called John Sinclair. He compares the years of musical craftsmanship of the Delta blues musicians to fattening frogs for snakes. According to his take on things, these (mostly African American) blues men and women spent years honing their craft, and then suddenly all these white musicians swooped in in the 60s and had huge success by appropriating blues music.

So, the fatted frog was eaten by the snake-like new wave of British musicians – people such as Eric Clapton, John Mayall, The Animals and The Rolling Stones. There’s no doubt that these guys are true fans of the blues, but they did make it big by ripping off the blues stylings of pioneers like Muddy Waters, Chuck Berry and Howlin’ Wolf. Lots of these guys died in misery and poverty (although there are plenty more like BB King who got plenty of recognition).

Anyway, that’s the source of my blog title - just in case it seemed a little esoteric…

More graffiti from indymedia

Indymedia is an independent news website, run on the basis of 'open publishing', whereby any reader of the site can comment on any news story, and even publish stories themselves (once they're within the editorial guidelines).

Periodically, a contributor called 'Noise Hacker' posts up a series of photos of graffiti on the site. The pictures are incredibly colourful, and shows that there is some very impressive artistic stuff out there. For my first posts in June, I decided to upload a few of these pictures. I'm not for a second suggesting that I've any links to any graf 'scene' - I just think they're some pretty cool photos.

There's plenty more where these came from: to find them, just search for Noise Hacker on indymedia.ie, like this:
Search

Graffiti from indymedia

Some graffiti images from www.indymedia.ie; hope you find them as groovy as I do:

I particularly like the last one as it's from Dolphin's Barn, where I got involved in a community gardening project.

Semesters 1 & 2 - in the bag

I've just returned from the Guth Gafa documentary film festival in the Donegal Gaeltacht town of Gortahork (or Gort a' Choirce, for those of you who prefer original Irish placenames. It means 'field of corn', but I digress). From Thursday to Monday I was camping, sightseeing, documentary-film watching and generally winding down. It was just the break I needed. Apart from the fact that it is essential to get out of Dublin every so often, I was in dire need of some relaxation after an intensive few weeks in college.

The Donegal Gaeltacht - the view from Mt. Errigal

It is now just under two weeks since I handed in my last two essays, putting an end to Semester #2 of my MA in International Relations. I suppose I haven't really finished until I get my results, so I probably shouldn't count my chickens just yet. But in any case, it's a relief just to have everything handed in. I'm not back in college until September. Now it's time to enjoy my summer.

The final week of college was pretty tough going. I had 5,000 words to write on post-communist democracy in Hungary and Bulgaria for the Thursday, and another 3,000 words to write on neo-liberal economics in Jamaica for the Friday. I took the week off work and totally immersed myself in the material. It was pretty hard work, but I enjoyed it in a funny way. It's fascinating stuff. Even though my head was wrecked and I wasn't getting enough decent food, enough human contact, or enough sleep, I still found it pretty interesting to read and write about these issues.

But more than once, I asked myself why I was bothering. What was I thinking, signing up for this kind of effort? The weather was beautiful that week (it probably looked far nicer from inside the library, of course), and I could have been sitting in a beer garden somewhere. So why do we put ourselves through this ordeal?

College - why bother?

A lot of people ask me about that too. Usually the questions are about what I can do with my qualification at the end of the day – what kind of job I’ll get, and whether I’ll follow up on my course. Sometimes there seems to be a presumption that the point of doing the course is to improve your own prospects. I’d be lying if I said that I had never considered that side of things, but there has to be more to it than that.

I am reminded of a friend of mine who spent some time studying in a college in Colombia, in South America. I was struck by something he once said to me. He told me that out of all of the Colombian students that he knew, every one of them wanted to use what they learned in college to improve their country. Their goal was to find some way to contribute to their society by applying their academic knowledge. This is pretty different to the situation in Ireland, where people generally seem to have a less altruistic approach to the university experience.

One problem I can see with the modern Ireland is a very individualistic culture. People seem to be less involved in community organisations and voluntary activities. It’s all tied up with consumerism – people’s aspirations are tied up with wealth, and property and car ownership, rather than taking an interest in their own society. I think that television compounds this problem by sucking up a lot of people’s time.

Ireland’s Celtic Tiger economy has meant a huge societal change, and Ireland is being held up as an example of successful development in the modern era. But not everybody agrees that it’s all good in 21st century Ireland. At the moment I’m reading a
critique of the Celtic Tiger by one of my lecturers in DCU, Peadar Kirby. He identifies some of the negative aspects to the new society.

Homelessness in Dublin

Of course, if I ever get carried away with criticising the negative side of modern Ireland, there are plenty of people who will bring me back down to earth. Of course we shouldn't forget the huge problems of the 1980s – long-term unemployment, emigration etc. – which were improved by the economic growth of the 1990s. But it is important not to take everything for granted, and to keep a critical eye on the nature of Irish development.

Anyway, this is a very long-winded way of saying that in my studies, I hope to try and look towards the wider problems of society. Andrew Linklater, who is one of the major International Relations theorists, has identified the three main themes of the discipline as Power, Order, and Emancipation. In my studies so far my definite focus has been, and will be, on the third of these. As far as I can see, the world is a pretty unfair place. In doing this Masters, my hope is to try to start understanding how and why it is so unfair, and if possible, to try to identify some ways to try and address the imbalance. A tall order?? Nah… No bother…

Tá an chéad post as Gaeilge... (why not!?)

Tar éis a lán smaoineamh, tá socair agam tús a chur ar weblog. Bhí plean agam chun é a dhéanamh, ach táim an-gnóthach go minic, agus bhí mé i gconaí ag cur an smaoin ar an méar fada, mar a deirtear. Rud amháin eile atá i gceist ná an ‘embarrasment factor’ – is dócha nuair a tá tú ag déanamh aon rud poiblí, bíonn tú saghas faiteach faoi (is é ‘faiteach’ focal eile do ‘neirbhíseach’ – is focal nua é domsa: tá an foclóir in aice liom mar nílim i mo cainteoir dúchasach. (Ná bí ina dhiaidh orm maidir le aon botún, le do thoil!!). Bhí mé ag iarraidh an litriú ceart ar neirbhíseach, ach b’fhearr liom an focail faiteach.). Ar aon nós, bhí mé ag smaoineamh nach mbéadh mé chomh cotúil as Gaeilge, mar is iad a lán de mo chairde dall is aineolach don teanga féin… Heh, heh… Amadáin…!! Táim ach ag magadh… Sin an fáth atá mo chéad post as Gaeilge.

Ach freisin, ba mhaith liom postanna a cur suas as Gaeilge anois is arís. Déanaim iarracht caint as Gaeilge chomh minic agus is féidir liom. Mar a tharlaíonn, tá mé ag dul go dtí an Gaeltacht i Gort a’ Choirce, i dTír Chonall i gceann cúpla uair. Tá an Féile Scannáin Faisnéise ar siúl ann, darbh ainm Guth Gafa, so beidh mé ag campáil i nDún na nGall i rith an deireadh seachtaine.

www.guthgafa.com

So, déanaim mo dhícheall do mo theanga féin, mar bhí sé i dtrioblóid mór i rith n blianta. Sa lá atá inniú ann, b’fhéidir go bhfuil níos mó suim ann, le na Gaeilscoileanna is mar sin de, ach deireann daoine fós go bhfuil sé ag fáil báis. Is trua é nach bhfuil sé níos láidir coitianta. Sin an méid don céad post ar mo bhlog ar aon nós…