Friday, October 29, 2010

the bare-faced cheek.

Example one, of the Hairy fellas nefarious carry-on:

It started with a girl. No, that's not accurate, it started with a urinary tract infection.
Hairy was pissing blood, or bloody wee, for all the difference that makes. It was an ongoing issue over a couple of weeks, we were all kept up to date with the pinkening of the stream on a day to day basis, and I for one felt deeply indebted to Hairy for this touching and utterly needless window onto his inner-life. If the accompanying pantomime seemed extravagant (did I really need to watch a man act out the imagined actions of his own abused kidney?), well fuck it, what else would we listening to of a thursday evening drowning in Dutch Gold?
Hairy lived in digs at the time, I think, or maybe he was sharing a room with somebody, either way he couldn't bring a girl home for the dirty deed.

And there was a girl, more than that, a woman, a married woman. That was pretty exotic in our circles, the only married woman most of us knew were our mothers. I was living an early twenty-something life in Dublin, which consists of interacting almost entirely with other people in the exact same age group and social situation, which is great fun and very liberating, but comes with the cost of a total erosion of the ability to communicate with proper adults (people with responsibilities). Hairy never suffered from this social retardation, and as a result of his ability to talk frankly and openly to anybody at all he frequently made friends and picked up chicks from outside our socio-economic-whatever stratum.
This is not always a good thing, Hairy is the only man I have ever known to actually sleep with his friends mother, a woman that Hairy himself described as looking a lot like Bob Dylan.

So Hairy had a meeting set with this lady, and no place to entertain her.I was working that night, can't remember where, but I was coming home later for some boozing, Hairy only needed the room for a couple of hours anyway, so that was that, all panned out and militarty like. We had a few beers before I left for work, and I distinctly remember haveing one of my rare gemlike comic flashes: " ...And here listen Hairy, don't be leaving any strawberry milkshake on my bed ye durty fecker", laughs all round, hero exits.
Hero re-enters some 8 hours later, much drinking and ribaldry follows.

A couple of days later I met the Hairy Fella in his natural habitat, the Dodgy Few or maybe WheelieBins , and delighted with himself he launches into a story vaguely resembling the set-up I described here, only with a twist ending,.In this new ending I walk into the living room the next morning with a gooey glob of pink stuff hanging from my cheek unbeknownst to myself, and the Hairy fella says "ahar har Kfs, I left ya a wee strawberry milkshake on yer pillow last night." Laughs all round, Hero stands flabbergasted.

Its not the fabrication of filthy lies in pursuit of a good story that gets me, although I was there man, that didn't even happen a little bit you fucking nut.
No, its my line, he stole my fucking line and put it into his own poxy gob, the durty thief.

Saturday, October 9, 2010

thieves and digressions

And the Hariry Fella, come to think of it, is not just an epic liar but a stinking thief too.
Picture this;
Myself and Biffo lived in a weird damp one bedroom basement grotbox, blessed with internationally famous bent railings in the front yard. Internationally famous because they were bent, and the concrete plinth they sprouted from was cracked, split and shifted, by The General's car as he failed spectacularly to turn either left or right at a t-junction. Not bad driving though when you consider that he was in fact dead at the time, having been shot multiple times through the front windscreen  with a .357 magnum revolver. Kevin Spacy went on to make a cheeky-chappie movie based on the hilarious adventures of Martin The General Cahill. Mischevous pranks such as car-bombing and murder were toned down in the movie, replaced with the shatteringly effective symbolism of Mr.Spacy stealing cigarettes from a newsagents in Wicklow.

 Previous to living there I lived in a bedsit in the middle of Ranelagh village. Now that was a reall shithole, all my neighbours were eastern health board lunatics, constantly trying to invite themselves into my place, probably out of loneliness but I couldn't give a flying fuck as they were all creepy and strange. Starey Eyed Ann  managed to talk her way in once, she was this pretty nutjob that hung about Rathmines and Ranelagh. I knew she was nuts because I used to work in a chipper in Rathmines and we had a coffee incident once that involved some very rain man-like rapid repetition of short sentences, the meaning of words slipping further from her with every iteration. And that was before I moved into the bedsit and realised I had just gained her as a neighbour. Anyway once she was in and tea-ed (if someone enters my house they must have tea, its the rule) there was no getting shut of her, as you would expect, I finally had to do the  Well I'm heading out now, so... routine. And then of course I actually had to fucking go out and not comeback for ages, just in case.

 Also there was only one toilet in the building, and that was on the third floor,  I used to load up a spray bottle with bleach and water occasionally and do a drive by bleaching of the carpet and facilities. Pissing into the wind,  the irony.

The one great feature that made this bedsit nearly almost habitable, though not for humans, obviously, was the window. A big Georgian front room window, from knee height to about eight foot off the floor. The house was set back from the road because these big old houses have  proper front gardens, and the Georgian split level style meant that even though I was technically on the first/ground floor I was about two meters above ground level, affording me a kings view of all that passed on my hundred meter stretch of Ranelagh.A kings view is right. I had two armchairs pulled up to the window and myself and either Spinky or Evileye would spend the night drinking cheap beer and smoking big spliffs and watching  the professional lady come and go from the little discrete lane across the road. Not that she operated in the lane itself, there were more old houses snuged away behind the banks and shops of the main street.

Evileye taught me all his techniques for rolling masterful spliffs while we grew into them armchairs, it's a fond memory and it's a shame that I lost the love of smoking because if I hadn't then I could have a little memory to myself with every skin-up.

 But despite the window I was pretty desperate to get out of there after a bit. And I was shocking quick to take my chance when it rolled by.

I was walking home drunk, the best way to walk home, when I met Clougherhead on the road. Now I didn't really know Clougherhead that well, but he worked in the local spar with my mate Sly and we'd been introduced a few times and he seemed like a good guy. So I dragged him back to my place for tea, because tea and a chat and drunkenness go well together. It happened that he had a mate living around the corner that needed a new guy to move in, or something, the details were unclear, but what was clear was the possibility of an escape from dumpsville.

We rocked around the corner to the lads house to see what way the habitation situation was evolving.
The situation was this: One of the two lads, who were brothers, was moving elsewhere, and needed to be replaced for a short time before the other brother also moved on. At the same time there was another, better, flat in the house next door, both houses being conveniently owned by the same landlord, where more of the same gang lived. One of the residents of this second flat were also moving on, though not immediately.

The plan: myself and the remaining brother, Biffo, would move into the good flat.  Myself and one of the other lads, the Saint, would pay rent, Biffo and Kev would sleep on the floor for a while before going wherever they were going.

This was all settled on within a half hour visit to the two brothers, I don't think Kev and the Saint were consulted until after the decisions were made. The meeting was cut short because the boys were on the way to a party and I shuffled off home, all Hanibal headed and loving plans and they way they might come together.

The very next evening I rolled up to the new gaff with a shopping trolley full of my stuff, and met my new flatmates, two of whom I had never met and Biffo, who I didn't have a chance of recognising since I was pretty drunk the night before.

Biffo was wearing a pretty hungover head, a bit squinty like, but fair play to the man he pulled it together pretty quick, remembering bits of details and the grand plan eventually too. It took us about another four or five trolley trips to get the rest of my house moved, I don't have a clue where I found the trolley, but I know it wasn't from fucking spar, as two morons came out from the shop to tell us that it belonged to them . Really? then why does it say Dunnes Stores all over the handle?
If you are going to accuse two people of grand-theft-manual when you find them pushing a trolley full of lamps and books up Ranelagh main street at midnight then you should probably check and see if it is in fact your trolley. You twits.

Two beds in the gaff, and two people paying rent, so you'd think there would be no arguing over who actually gets to sleep in the beds, if you were sane, decent and not from Offaly that is. I got my bed but Biffo somehow convinced the Saint, with an amazing mix of faulty logic and irrelevant red-herring throwing, 
that he (the Saint) owed Biffo from some previous couch crashing, so the Saint got the floor between the two beds. Indefinitely. And paid rent for the privilege, while the freeloader snored away in the smug duvet.
Biffo - and enduring monument to the power of ignorance and manipulation.

I knew this post would decay into a mess of digressions, I'll get on to the hairy fella and why he's a thief and a liar in the next one. Now that the stage is set.

Saturday, October 2, 2010

Liars

I have always had liars for friends, more so when we were all a little younger, but it's not like I jettisoned the distrustful bastards when I passed thirty, so most of them are still hanging about there somewhere. I don't understand it, I can't lie myself and certainly never to my friends, that's the point of having friends, no?

My best friend when I was in the final years of secondary school was a liar through and through, he'd lie about anything, I'd meet him in the one nightclub we could get into and Mod would tell me he was off his face on mushrooms or acid or booze when he was clearly sober as a judge. He told lies about the bands he had gone to see or if he couldn't make it out for something he'd tell fibs about meeting some chick. To this day he'll make shit excuses if he doesn't want to meet up for whatever reason, although I only see him about once every two years so it's not really an issue, but fucks sake all the same.

The truth of it is that the lies were totally unnecessary, Mod was by far the coolest guy in the school, for all his horseshit he really did go to Manchester and see bands, he really did have girlfriends from outside the school, from ouotside the town even. His sense of cool was unmatched, I owe him massively for saving me from my own dorkishness.

Mod took a shine to me for some reason and took me under his wing. I remember in fifth year of school, this was pre-transition year so I must have been about 15, our year did this lame 24hour wakeathon thing in the local community hall to raise money for a charity. Yes, that's right, one hundred odd fifteen year olds stayed awake all night for charity. And not for social dramatics and trouser riding at all.

Anyway, my previous social interaction with Mod consisted of the odd howya and him kneeing me in the nuts for a laugh once while standing outside a classroom waiting to get in. I didn't hold this against him though because I was a pussy and also because even after three years in school I still didn't know exactly who was who in my year and was never sure exactly who it was that had lifted me with that almighty knee of injustice. This inability to remember names or faces or events still troubles me but I have learned to let other people repeatedly fill me in on the finer details like their names and where I met them before. Also I have learned to knock the bollicks out of anyone that attempts violence on my person immediately so as to avoid confusion in the longer run.

I remember meeting Mod in a corridor that night and having an auld chat about bands and stuff. Grunge was just happening and  we were both really digging it, and the shoegazing scene and the Madchester thing also. Mod told me not to be wearing my shirt cuffs all buttoned up, they should be open and sloppy. He was dead right, and we were hanging out pretty solidly from then on.
Mod got me into bands that nobody our age had even the remotest clue about, like the Jam and Tom Jones. We were rockin out to Tom when he was pretty much the uncoolest person on the planet, Mod just had that ear for quality, he didn't have to wait for anybody's fucking period revival or semi-ironic comeback.
We were in a punk band too, Mod being the front man obviously. Looking back now I can't believe I squandered the chance we had to be really good, a front man like Mod was is one in several thousand at best, he could actually sing on top of the swagger, he sang for his leaving cert in music and nobody gave him shit for it because he was somehow above slagging.. But I fucked off to college thinking that nothing would change, because people are amazingly stupid when young.
He's a house DJ now, which makes little sense to me, I mean the stuff he plays is alright but lacks the solid balls and innovation of techno, and I never could get past the innate cheese of house, but sure there you go.

I think I finally tired of not believing anything he said and that probably had a big influence on why we drifted apart, I regret that because I went on to have quite a few liars for mates and learned to not give a shit about insignificant truths and untruths. As the Hairy Fella, a notorious and celebrated liar, has repeatedly declared "Jaysus lad, I wouldn't be the type of man to let the truth get in the way of a good story".
And I do love a good story.