The joys and risks of poker

I had a few of my team-mates from the Division 4 team of St. Declan’s basketball club round for poker last Friday night. As well as the intrinsic joys of gambling, drinking, smoking cigars, and verbally abusing each other, the night was also a fundraiser for the club, with half of the money going to our permanently indebted treasury department.


I used to be involved in a regular poker game a while back, but we used to play 5 card draw. Friday night was No Limit Texas Hold-Em, which is an entirely different animal. It’s a lot more expensive to play each hand as there are more rounds of betting, and you can go ‘All-in’ at any time, pushing all of your chips into the pot. I decided it was a good idea to do this on the second hand of the night, with a full house. So I went ahead and lashed all €40 into the pot. Unfortunately, a certain team-mate who will never be forgiven had four 2s and called my bet in a hot second. So I was the first to crash out after 12 minutes of play.

Luckily there was an option to buy in a second time, so I had the opportunity to stay in the game and squander more money. I managed to outlast two people (out of 7 of us) before I went bust for good. Not much of an achievement, but I’ll get them next time...

I really enjoyed the game and I'm itching for another one. The following night I called over to a friend's gaff, and we called in on a neighbour of his and interrupted a poker session. There were about 8 lads sitting around a purpose built table, with little drink holders and chip holders and a green felt tabletop. It all looked very inviting, I must say.

I've set up an internet account, and I play a little online Hold 'Em every so often. I'd like to play a few more live games though. I have mixed results playing on the internet - I usually buy into a table for around €30, and I have often doubled my money. But my problem is that if I start losing, I compound it by keeping playing (and losing), instead of quitting and living to play another day. On Sunday night I stayed up till all hours, blowing €70 in the process.

I thoroughly enjoy the poker but it remains to be seen whether this little hobby is going to be in my own interest or not. It could so easily go horribly wrong... But fuck the begrudgers. I could become an expert and turn pro - and bid farewell to the Monday to Wednesday* grind...

By the way, a few times (usually with alcohol involved), I played a crazy variant of poker apparently called 'Indian poker'. It's mad stuff altogether. You whip a card quickly from the top of the deck, and hold it facing forwards atop your own forehead. You can see everyone else's card, but not your own. You then make bets on who has the highest card, basing your reaction on the expression on your opponent's face, I suppose. In my experience, it's generally difficult to judge their expression as s/he tends to be convulsed in laughter. It's good craic, but not one for the purists...




* the joys of worksharing... Heh, heh...

The CIA and Shannon airport

My friend Ian has noted that it is disturbing how little media attention is on the current extraordinary rendition case being heard in Italy. Extraordinary rendition is the process whereby the CIA kidnaps people, and detains them extrajudicially. These people are often subject to torture. It really is that stark. The US is having people abducted from the streets of EU constitutional democracies without the knowledge of the domestic governments, and subsequently tortured.

I just want to note an Irish connection in this issue. Last summer, the Council of Europe rapporteur, Dick Marty, included Ireland's Shannon airport in a map of "secret detentions and unlawful inter-state transfers". The Irish government response is basically to say that they trust the Americans and everything will be grand. Irish Foreign Affairs minister Dermot Ahern accepted the assurances of Condoleeza Rice that Shannon was not used as a transit point for the CIA's abductees.

The US Air Force at Shannon

In February of this year, the European Parliament rejected Dermot Ahern's position and called for a Dáil inquiry into Ireland's role in instances of extraordinary rendition. In 2005, Amnesty International reported that 800 secret CIA flights had used European airspace, and noted evidence about specific flights in which Shannon airport was used as a stopover.

College night out

I'm just about to head out on the town with my college colleagues. We're going out for a meal, and I've totally forgotten where the meal is. It's all right though, we're going to the pub first so I'll just follow the crowd.

Haven't seen any of them for a while now, as we've broken up for the summer, and are all supposedly working away on our respective theses (dreaded deadline: September). I'm looking forward to seeing everyone, though meeting up makes me feel like I should have done a lot more work on my thesis over the last while. Oh well... Maybe when I hear how much work everyone else has done I'll be motivated to slave night and day in order to catch up.

This is officially the most useless post ever on this intermittent blog of mine.

Books I read in 2005

And now, partly inspired by the fact that Martin Scorsese keeps lists entitled ‘Films I have seen this year’, I present the list of books I read in 2005:

• The Autobiography of Malcolm X
  (this book has been a huge influence on me, and I’ve read it three times now.)
  
• Our Man in Havana – Graham Greene
  
• The Third Man – Graham Greene
  
• The Basement Room (filmed as The Fallen Idol) – Graham Greene
  
• Hell’s Angels – Hunter S Thompson
  (If I was forced to pick, HST is probably my favourite writer.)
  
• All the President’s Men – Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein
  
• The Gambler – Fyodor Dostoevsky
  (I read this in a hostel in Toronto.)
  

• The Last Season – Phil Jackson
  (…and this on the plane on the way home. This is about the LA Lakers 2003-4 season, detailing the many feuds between the team's two talented stars, Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant. It’s written by their coach.)
  
• Introducing Environmental Politics – Stephen Croall & William Rankin
  
• Saints & Spinners – David McWilliams
  (This is a kind of forerunner to The Pope’s Children – it’s different to the more well-known version – this one was written for marketers rather than for a general readership. It wasn’t what I expected but it’s very interesting. There’s a lot of pretty cynical stuff in there. It discusses Ireland’s future demographics, predicts how consumer tastes will change, and offers ways for marketers to get a piece of the action. I really like McWilliams’ analysis of Irish society and his honesty, but I don’t share his benign view of the market. I would have a more critical view of consumerism and put more emphasis on its inadequacies and its damaging effects. This book really shows the extent to which men in suits will put a huge amount of work into pigeonholing the general citizen as a very specific target market.)
  

David McWilliams

• Chronicles, volume 1 – Bob Dylan
  
• An Giall – Brendan Behan
  (Delighted with myself to have read this in the original Irish from cover to cover. Behan was not a native Irish speaker, but while in jail, he learned Irish from his cellmate. This prisoner was from Ballyferriter in the Dingle peninsula. It was in Ballyferriter that I did a week-long civil service Irish course to resurrect the Irish language within me (in 2003, I think it was).)
  
• The Brothers Karamazov – Fyodor Dostoevsky
  

Me at the entrance to Dostoevsky's gaff in St. Petersburg

• Collected Short Stories – Anton Chekhov
  (I love the Russians)
  
• Buddha: His Life and Thought – Karen Armstrong
  (This writer has serious credibility when it comes to religion. She spent seven years as a Catholic nun, has received a Muslim Media Award, and has taught in some school for the study of Judaism. I’ve seen her speak, and she has a great take on religion and how it interacts with politics and society.)
  
• Wilt – Tom Sharpe
  
• Cape Clear Island: Its People and Landscape – Eamon Lankford
  (This is about an Irish language-speaking island in Cork that I have often visited, and is one of my favourite places in the world. I think it’s the most southerly inhabited point in Ireland – the most southerly point of all is the nearby Fastnet lighthouse, which casts its light over the island at regular intervals.)
  
• The Hard Life – Flann O’Brien
  
• The Sandman Companion – Hy Bender
  
• The Prophet – Kahlil Gibran
  

Lebanese writer Kahlil Gibran

• Smoke and Mirrors – Neil Gaiman
  
• Vision and Transformation – Sangharakshita
  (A book about the Buddhist eightfold path.)
  
• Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas – Hunter S Thompson
  (200 pages of drug fuelled insanity – very un-Buddhist.)
  
• The Comedians – Graham Greene
  
• Twelve Bar Blues – Patrick Neate
  
• Justice Seeker: An Anthology in Tribute to Malcolm X – James B Gwynne (ed.)
  
• Pork Pie Hat – Peter Straub
  (an audio book.)
  
• Down and Out in Paris and London – George Orwell
  (one of my favourite books.)
  
• Death of a Salesman – Arthur Miller
  
• The Crucible – Arthur Miller

The great Arthur Miller

So that comes to an average of around two books a month. Obviously, now that I'm a student, reading has become pretty essential. But I’ve always been a big reader. I used to eat books when I was a child, and I never really take any length of a train or bus journey without a book to read. I fell out of the habit a couple of years ago, but got back into it with the help of a book group and have never looked back.

Much better than TV...

Miles underground

A strange quote from the 1989 autobiography of the great jazz legend Miles Dewey Davis III:

I did some weird shit back in those days, too many weird things to describe. But I’ll tell you a couple. I remember one day when I was really paranoid from snorting [cocaine] and staying up all the time. I was driving my Ferrari up West End Avenue and I passed these police-men sitting in a patrol car. They knew me - all of them knew me in my neighbourhood - so they spoke to me. When I got about two blocks away from them, I became paranoid and thought that there was a conspiracy to get me, bust me for some drugs. I look down in the compartment on the door and see this white powder. I never took coke out of the house with me. It’s winter and snowing and some snow got inside the car. But I didn’t realise that; I thought it was some coke that someone had planted in the car just so I could get busted. I panicked, stopped the car in the middle of the street, ran into a building on West End Avenue, looked for the doorman, but he wasn’t there. I ran to the elevator and got on and went up to the seventh floor and hid in the trash room. I stayed up there for hours with my Ferrari parked in the middle of West End Avenue with the keys in it. After a while I came to my senses. The car was still sitting where I had left it.

I did that another time just like that and a woman was on the elevator. I thought that I was still in my Ferrari, so I told her, “Bitch, what are you doing in my goddamn car!” And then I slapped her and ran out of the building. That’s the kind of weird sick shit that a lot of drugs will make you do. She called the police and they arrested me and put me in the nut ward at Roosevelt Hospital for a few days before letting me out“.

From 1975 until 1980, Davis was a self-confessed hermit, living without any meaningful contact with the outside world. He spent his days drinking Heineken and brandy, and taking heroin, cocaine, or injecting speedballs into his legs. A speedball is the lethal combination of cocaine and heroin that killed John Belushi and River Phoenix. Davis also says he “fucked all the women I could get into my house” (p. 325). And through it all, he never once picked up his horn throughout more than four years.

Another one bites the dust

Another essay falls before the might of my academic endeavours!! Just handed in my first assignment of the semester. The task was based around an imaginary scenario in North Africa. We had to imagine that there were upcoming negotiations on reform of the constitution, and each student had to give advice to one of the various delegations to the conference. I had to write a policy brief advising the nationalist and conservative party of Morocco, Istiqlal. The other participants included the EU, the socialists, the hardcore Islamists, the more moderate Islamists, and last but not least, the top dog and key holder of political power, the defender of the faith, and personal owner of 60% of all the shares on Morocco's stock exchange, ladies and gentlemen, please give it up for his majesty the king, Mohamed VI!!! (known as M6 to his buddies).

King Mohamed VI

It seems to me that the king would only agree to democratisation to the extent that it makes his rule look more legitimate. Although there is an elected parliament in Morocco, most of the power rests outside this system. The government's decision-making powers are constrained by the fact that many other members of parliament are indirectly appointed, and the key ministries are given to confidants of the king who may not even be a member of a political party. Indeed, the current prime minister, Driss Jettou, isn't in any party. So I reckon that M6 would like to throw in some superficial reforms to make it look like he is liberalising, without actually devolving meaningful power outside of the palace.

The increasing popularity of the Islamist movements are putting pressure on the more established political actors in Morocco, so I'm confident that my nationalist/conservative colleagues can do a deal with the king to gain some power and marginalise the Islamists.

Great to get one assignment out of the way. As usual, I was up all night last night putting on the finishing touches. I didn't get to bed till after 0600. And the next deadline is just three days away!! But it's all under control. I've done plenty of groundwork for this next one during the week. Roll on Monday...

Reem Kelani

This is a review of a Reem Kelani gig I saw at a festival last August. Reem Kelani is a Palestinian singer who sings a mix of songs from Palestine and the Palestinian Diaspora. Her father comes from Jenin, and her mother from Nazareth. She has an incredible vocal range, and her vocal style incorporates Arabic chanting and ululations as well as conventional singing. I really enjoyed this music, which was a new kind of sound for me, as it’s not a style of music I’m familiar with. As well as loving the music in its own right, the concert was interesting because Kelani talked quite a bit about the origins and meanings of many of the songs.

There seemed to be a certain formlessness to some of the music, which left a lot of freedom for the different musicians to breathe within the structure of the songs. Kelani on vocals was backed by a bass clarinet, Egyptian violin, drums, and double bass (which was both plucked and played with a bow), but the first number was backed only with syncopated handclaps. This first song was a wedding song from Acre on the Mediterranean, and is about the bride taking the mickey out of her new husband’s family. Her family are saying that they will make their new son-in-law a shepherd or an Arabian king depending on how he treats their daughter. The song is in 6/4 time, which is a very old Palestinian rhythm, apparently.

Next was a song from Gallilee originating from the period of Ottoman rule. It is a slow, sad song, sung by the women when the men are going off to fight in a war. The music is based around a drone in E flat, I think it was – this was the tonic, and Kelani invited the audience to hum the tonic. The singing is in the tradition of the Greek orthodox church, and comes from the influence of Byzantine chanting.

The next song was about a group of women crossing the desert who are refused a lift by a convoy of caravans. They show their resilience by singing to the drivers. The tempo here was a bit faster, with the percussion more in the foreground, with Kelani playing a kind of bodhrán. She clearly still has a love and enthusiasm for this music. It was clear that she was enjoying herself on stage, dancing and communicating with her sidemen.

The next song was the highlight of the concert for me. It was called ‘Baker’s Dozen’ because of the time signature, which is a cycle of thirteen beats. Kelani described it as 12+1 beats, but to me it sounded like 3 measures of 3/4 time followed by a measure of 4/4 time. The song began with a double bass solo and then went into the 13 beat rhythm. This time signature comes from a folk tradition common to Palestine, Syria, Jordan and Lebanon.

In this tradition, even in the middle of a happy song like this one, there is a middle section where people sing of a longing for their homeland. In this way, even a wedding song can become a song of resistance (according to Kelani). This section takes the form of a dialogue between the vocalist and an instrumentalist (in this case, the bass clarinet). The singing is similar to the Spanish ‘deep singing’/canta chondo, apparently – this was an influence that the Arab influence introduced to Spain. (Kelani compared this to a scene in a Bollywood movie, where people can start singing and dancing in the middle of a battle scene, saying that this kind of mix of emotions was part of a similar tradition.)

Kelani was a mine of information, and the music itself was excellent. Very evocative. They finished up with a more conventional Western song, for which they were joined on stage by a guitar-slinging Christian minister dude named Garth Hewitt. He’s a campaigner for Palestinian human rights and so forth. This song, which I think is one of Hewitt’s, was called ‘The Death of Trees’, and is about the removal of a million olive trees since the beginning of the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories in 1967. These trees were sold, destroyed, or replanted in illegal Israeli settlements, and in the song they symbolise the death of a culture. This is all very well, but the music wasn’t a patch on what had gone before. Kelani’s own music really stood out from anything else at the festival, and I bought her debut album, Sprinting Gazelle, on the strength of her performance. Kelani’s vocal range is very impressive, and the instrumentation was great as well. This is great stuff.

Cab Calloway chooses music over the Harlem Globetrotters

This YouTube thing is addictive. Just found a very short clip of the great basketball player Kareem Abdul-Jabbar talking about music legend Cab Calloway. It seems that Calloway was actually a pro basketball player after playing bball in high school. In the 1920s, he was selected to play with the Harlem Globetrotters, but decided instead to tour with his band. He also played baseball against Dizzy Gillespie - the great jazz trumpeter.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar won a national championship in college and then went on to win 6 NBA championships for two teams, and played professionally for 20 YEARS!!!
He also was one of the pilots in the film Airplane, and fought against Bruce Lee in Game of Death. He was born as Lew Alcindor, but changed his name because of his conversion to Islam. Advice from fellow students from Muslim countries led to his avoiding the US Black Muslim movement, the Nation of Islam, whose ranks had once included Malcolm X. In this interview, Abdul-Jabbar talks about what he calls the "totalitarian" version of Islam that underpinned the September the 11th attacks.
20-July-2007: I've just noticed that YouTube have removed this video due to an alleged violation of its terms of use. Not sure what that's about...

Independent news from African-American Los Angeles

After covering a story down the street, a Hood News reporter shoots footage of the LAPD shooting at a homeless man who was running away from them. The police tried to stop Hood News from filming and argued with the reporter.

I came across this after watching a message from the stars of the NBA to the youth of the urban ghettos of the US. A few black basketball stars who had grown up in the hood had some words for these African-American communities. In this other Hood News video, the crew also try to interview the young star LeBron James and are snubbed. The crew dismiss James as 'Hollywood' when he refuses an interview. The reporter said that James was refusing to address a "community in poverty, and up and coming youth" as LeBron James stood behind him, and then called to James to give a shout out on Hood News, but was totally ignored as James got into his car. The reporter reckoned he was on a "solo mission" and it was "a disappointment to the black culture, and minorities". See also details of LeBron's dance-off defeat, below.

Shaquille O'Neal wins dance-off

I've just signed up to YouTube, and I'm posting a video I came across on my brother's bebo page. It stars 7'1" Shaquille O'Neal, who plays professional basketball for the Miami Heat. At the annual NBA all-star weekend, Shaq took on two other players in a dance-off. It's hilarious...

His first opponent is the talented LeBron James, who came into the league a couple of years ago aged just 19.

Basketball glee

We won a game last night. We were playing at home against a team called Ravens. The final score was close - closer than it should have been. We were ahead and in control, but Ravens narrowed the gap in the last quarter. It got quite scrappy at the end. A few of our players were missing, and so I played for most of the game. I got a couple of baskets and defended well in the first half. I was absolutely exhausted at the finish... It's a good feeling to be winning again though.

We have now won 6 and lost 6. Apart from the top two teams, every team has lost at least 6 games. This gives us an excellent chance of getting into the play offs - the top four teams in the league qualify - for the first time in my four-year basketball career. We've another game on Friday, against a team with only two wins - Trinity. I was in Russia when we beat them before Christmas, so I haven't played against them yet. That's the latest...

The Division 4 league table (I play for St. Declan's)

Previous basketball update

Ireland v England rugby

I'm pretty much a one-sport guy, and that's basketball. I don't often watch other sports on television. Although I watch Irish soccer internationals, I am not a fan of soccer or rugby, and I seldom watch Gaelic football or hurling. But I've just watched Ireland play rugby against England in Croke Park. In England's first game in Croke Park, they lost to Ireland by their biggest margin ever. The final score was 43-13. Ireland played some very skilful rugby, including a GAA-like kick and catch for Ireland's third (I think) try. Ronan O'Gara didn't miss a kick at goal.

Stringer against France a few years ago

Before the game, there was a lot of focus on political issues surrounding Ireland's colonial history. In 1920, the British army killed 14 civilians in the very stadium where the game would be played (as al-Jazeera also reported). For decades, the Irish GAA (Gaelic Athletic Association) have forbidden English sports (known as 'garrison games') from being played at Croke Park. This afternoon, as my friend Kealan noted on his blog, England's team and supporters sang God Save the Queen in Croker before the game, before going on to suffer a decisive defeat.

Croke Park

An interesting mix of sports, culture, and politics this afternoon at Croke Park, which I can actually see from the window of my house...

Randy Newman

One all-time classic piece of music is the 1972 Randy Newman album, Sail Away. Newman is a songwriter who’s had big success with soundtracks to films such as Toy Story, but he started off as a guy with a piano, singing songs he had written. The music was beautiful, and the lyrics were acerbic.

The title track of Sail Away is about a slave trader recruiting in the African jungle, trying to convince the potential slaves how wonderful life would be in America:

Ain’t no lion or tiger, ain’t no mamba snake,
Just a sweet watermelon and a buckwheat cake
Everybody is as happy as a man can be
Climb aboard little wog, sail away with me

He similarly satirises a racist point of view on the song ‘Rednecks’, from his concept album Good Old Boys, by singing a song from the point of view of a white supremacist from the deep South:

We talk real funny down here,
We drink too much, we laugh too loud,
We’re too dumb to make it in no northern town –
We’re keeping the niggers down

Going back to Sail Away, there’s some great songs on there. The music is very melodic – sometimes it’s Randy and his piano, sometimes there’s a band, and sometimes there’s an orchestra in the background. Newman has been covered a lot, and included here is ‘You Can Leave Your Hat On’ (covered by Tom Jones) and ‘Simon Smith and his Amazing Dancing Bear’ (covered by the Muppets). As an atheist, one song I particularly like is the slow, mournful ‘God’s Song (That’s Why I Love Mankind)’, in which some of His distraught subjects appeal to God for answers. God replies:

I recoil in horror at the foulness of thee –
From the squalor and the filth and the misery,
How we laugh up here in heaven at the prayers you offer me,
That’s why I love mankind
…
I burn down your cities – how blind you must be,
I take from you your children and you say ‘how blessed are we’,
You all must be crazy to put your faith in me,
That’s why I love mankind

Basketball woes

Three posts this year! I'm on a roll. Lightning blogging here...

We lost another basketball game tonight. That's four in a row since Christmas. Before Christmas we were having a great season - we won five and lost two. Similarly to the past few years, most of the teams in the league are around the same standard. Most teams are capable of beating any of the others. The strongest team is probably Rathmines, who have an extremely tall player who is high-scoring. At the end of the year, there are play-offs between the top four teams in the league. We still have a chance to make it that far in the season. Here's the league table.


I play Division 4 basketball with St. Declan's in Cabra. Tonight we were beaten by Ranelagh Fire. The game was quite close in the last quarter. Unfortunately, at that stage I was sitting on the bench. I scored one free throw in the first half. We were down a lot of points at half-time, but we made a comeback, and halfway through the last quarter, we were only losing by eight. By the end of the quarter, we had cut the lead to four points. But in the end, we just weren't able to catch them, as we ran out of time.

Alan's photos

My brother Alan is in Australia at the moment - he'll be there until December. He's been travelling since last summer with his girlfriend Sheena, her sister, and her fella. They spent six months travelling around Asia up until the end of 2006, visiting Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Singapore, India, Thailand... you can read all about this on his own blog. Now they're going to be in different parts of Australia for the rest of 2007.

Alan likes his photography, and he was armed with some suitably impressive camera gear as he trekked around Asia. Below are some of the photos he took last year.

Angor, Cambodia

The view from Thavisouk guesthouse, Laos

Nahargarh Fort, Jaipur, India

Tonle Sap Lake, Cambodia

Miles Davis

I've just been listening to the first great Miles Davis Quintet. In the 1950s they recorded some classic jazz albums including the quartet Workin', Steamin', Relaxin', and Cookin'. On saxaphone was none other than John Coltrane, and the rhythm section was Miles' close friend 'Philly' Joe Jones on drums, Paul Chambers on bass, and on piano, the great touch of Red Garland.















Here is an excellent online biography of Miles Davis.

Remember, folks - always do the right thing

If there’s one film I know inside out, back to front, and upside down, it is Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing. It’s a film I’ve watched many times. Spike Lee directed, wrote, produced, and starred in the film. It’s a film about a day in the life of a neighbourhood called Beford-Stuyvesant (known as Bed-Stuy) in Brooklyn, New York city. It’s a black neighbourhood, and race is a central theme of the film. The action is a montage of scenes in the life of the neighbourhood, all of which take place on an extremely hot summer’s day. With the oppressive heat as a backdrop, tension builds up within the community as the day unfolds, and the pressure leads to an explosion of action at the end of the film.

The film opens with footage of Rosie Perez doing some provocative, assertive dancing to the beat of Public Enemy’s Fight the Power, from their album Fear of a Black Planet. I used to love Public Enemy when I was a youngster – still do, I suppose. I’m a big fan of Spike Lee as well. I actually wrote my undergraduate dissertation on Spike Lee’s films. It wasn’t much of a dissertation to be honest – my supervisor called me an ‘underachiever’, which was pretty accurate.

A lot of the action in Do the Right Thing centres on an Italian-American business in the heart of the black community. Spike Lee’s himself plays the protagonist, Mookie, who delivers pizza’s for ‘Sal’s Famous Pizzeria’. Sal has a ‘Wall of Fame’ in the pizzeria made up of photographs of prominent Italian-Americans such as Al Pacino. One of the locals (called ‘Buggin’ Out’) takes exception to this, and demands some photos of African-Americans be put up on the wall. This leads to a series of confrontations that drive the action.

Giancarlo Esposito

Buggin’ Out is played by one of my own favourite actors, Giancarlo Esposito. He’s one of those guys who you’d recognise but probably couldn’t have identified if I hadn’t put a photo of him into this post. Off the top of my head, he’s also played Muhammed Ali’s dad in Ali (with Will Smith), and a cop in The Usual Suspects, but he’s been in loads of other stuff, usually playing character roles. He’s also been in a number of Spike Lee films. For my money, he’s one of the most versatile actors around these days. He’s played some hugely diverse roles in his career.

For me, the strength of Do the Right Thing is in its willingness to tackle identity politics head-on. I reckon it gives a very convincing picture of the complexity and diversity of racial issues, but I’m not going to try and capture that at the moment – to do justice to the film and the subject, I’d have to put a bit more time into it than I’ve got just now…

I will just say that the film partly represents a conflict between the philosophies of Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X, two prominent African-American leaders who were assassinated during the 1960s. Whereas Dr. King advocated non-violence, Malcolm X asserted the right of African-Americans in the US to rely on self-help to defend themselves against brutality. The film ends with a quote from each man, outlining his own take on whether the use of force is ever justified. Dr. King’s take on things was that violence is “immoral and impractical” as a solution, as it breeds hatred, and ensures that the cycle of violence will continue. The Malcolm X quote refers to who had the power in US society, bringing us back to the Public Enemy song that features so prominently in the film. Malcolm X believed that the problem of racism was so urgent and so systematic in the US that the black community should employ any means that were necessary to bring it to an end. Spike Lee juxtaposes these competing understandings, and challenges the viewer to reconcile them with the practical realities of Do the Right Thing.

I know exactly what side I’m on. I’ve read Malcolm X’s Autobiography three times and I find his take on things pretty compelling. I think this film is actually what brought me into contact with Malcolm X’s life and thought. I’m no pacifist, and I agree with Malcolm X that for black Americans, when the US government consistently failed to do enough to protect them, self-defence should not be described as ‘violence’ but as ‘intelligence’. Malcolm X spoke in the context of a US where white supremacist attacks on African-Americans went unpunished. This was a culture of impunity for the death of 4 black girls in the bombing of a Birmingham church, and for the assassination of Medgar Evers, an official of the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People). Evers was immortalised in Bob Dylan’s Only a Pawn in their Game, and his assassin was only convicted in 1994 because he boasted of the murder at a KKK rally.

Do the Right Thing also stars Ossie Davis, the man who gave the eulogy at Malcolm X’s funeral, and one thing he said strikes me as quite important at this stage. He draws attention to the fact that Malcolm X had never been personally involved in any violence or disturbance. It was only a case of articulating a policy of self-reliance for a community who were the constant victim of savage attack. It seems reasonable in this context that they would take action to protect themselves and their communities.

Anyway, I got a DVD copy of Do the Right Thing at Christmas, and I’ve just watched the first 40 minutes or so of it. I’ve interrupted my viewing because I promised myself I’d try and improve my blogging frequency in 2007. Anyway, it’s a beautifully shot film, which is given a reflective edge by a lot of long takes and a pleasant jazz score by Spike’s dad, Bill Lee. In other places it becomes much more confrontational, such as in a famous scene (reprised somewhat in Lee’s The 25th Hour). A number of characters take turns addressing the camera with a string of targeted racial abuse. In turn, Puerto Rican, Italian, black, Korean and other characters vent a string of racial invectives against different groups such as Jews or Asians, such as John Turtorro’s rant against blacks which begins: “You gold-teeth, gold-chain wearing, fried chicken and biscuit-eating, monkey-ape-baboon” etc.

It’s an ensemble piece, with a lot of small roles by actors who have since become pretty well known, such as Jon Savage, Samuel L Jackson and Martin Lawrence. A lot of people reckon that all of Spike Lee’s films are about race, which is refuted by films like Summer of Sam and recently, Inside Man. He's a gifted filmmaker and shouldn't be reduced to nothing but an idealogue. But Do the Right Thing certainly has race up front and centre, and gets my vote as one of the best cinematic reflections on racial politics ever made.

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??