drunk post

got in, been drinkin’since 12 gotta stomach ache so came home. Page 11(or 12, only read it cos I wanted to prove wasn’t hamm eyed to parentals, and amnt too sure) of weekednt review in irish tiumes.

MEN(for whom I speak) hate orange women. MEN(of whom I am part) love, nay LOVE, intelligent women. Equally, MEN(of who’s nature I suffer) ADORE  beutiful women. MEN(with whom I associate) only watch porn because we lack imagination. Men(of which I’m aware) watch weird porn because they watch to much porn becausse they lack sex and get bored with the idea of normal human intimacy(ask freud, shit get weird when yo wonery).

So fuck off and stop blamin’me for everything. I’m young and relatively open minded. women is the harshest critics of other women.

Bleh

did I mention we crumble, no crumble, in front of beautiful intelligent women.

please send nasty angry comments somewhere else, like rosy’s page, because I’ll be hunover

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Edit

I think I should explain this one. As you can tell from the above rant, I got home drunk and read a review of “Living Dolls” in the Irish Times. Somewhere along the line I got the impression that the author was criticising men for, well, finding attractive women attractive. Suggesting that it was oppressive to do so. Naturally, wether or not this sentiment was actually expressed in the article is a bit of a non-issue. I thought it was there, and I was off.

I’ve also seen some really weird shit lately. And am still trying to find a credible psycological reason as to why anyone would be aroused by foot torture porn(or something equally bizarre). The explanation above is a close as I’ve come.

Right, glad we cleared that up, I’m off to oppress some minorities…

Bird seed

When we first moved into this house, the previous owner made my Da promise to take care of his roses. He had a circle of beautiful red roses in the back garden, and himself was more than happy to protect such a triumph. For a time.

I say for a time because, over the coming months, he couldn’t but notice the still silence of the place. There was no bird song, and no life to speak of, bar a few mangy green flies. He couldn’t understand it. Until one day, when he found a battery of poisons in the shed. The armory of a mad man, who’d eradicate all life just to protect a few roses.

The Da was sickened. He loves the sound of birds and worried about children, us included, getting sick from the presence of so many pesticides. So he let the roses fend for themselves, and laid out birdseed. In a year, the green flies had stripped the roses bare. They were dug out of the ground the year after. And on the third year he covered their bed with grass seed.

But even after three years the birds still didn’t trust us. And the grass seed was allowed grow unhindered, while the bird tray went untouched. But he continued on regardless, laying out seeds every winter. Laying down logs too; to rot, to feed the insects, to feed the birds.

A dozen bird feeders, trays and nests succumbed to rust or misadventure. He was distracted by other, grander, projects. But always, always, returned to the birds in Winter. It was nearly ten years before we saw the first shy black birds, a pair, sneak onto the grass. They stayed, with the magpies, for a season or two before others started to arrive.

He was encouraged, finally starting to make progress, so nothing changed. He kept laying out seed, he built a nesting house and he waited. Sure enough, within a few more seasons, they’d all started to come back.

Which is why, on days like today, the man brims with pride. The snow, the lack of food, has driven every avian resident of the surrounding ten miles into our back garden. Every brown inch of leafy ground is alive with wings and beaks. They jump and dive and peck and twist. They take their fill of seed, or bread, or porridge from his tray and eat on the still fresh snow. All kinds too, I don’t know their names, but I can tell one color from another.

And on days like today, I too, feel something. That it’s time to stop poncing about with blogs and write this fucking thesis!

Lately I’ve been pissed off with:

Bad English.

Especially from the type who’s pretending they’re Gods gift to literature. It’s really annoying, and it’s everywhere.

We got the beatz

Pounding bass pumps and pumps through my chest and brain. The lights seem blue, the bodies thrust and bump around me. So drunk, I’m just standing there. The sounds wash over me, it all feels so slow-distant. I feel my knees bend, my arms raise. And the world comes alive!

I’m all thrust and bump myself now. All arms in the air like you just don’t care. All drop it down low. All fleet feet. All energy. All in.

All gone.

With the sun coming in and Anto bending over me.

He takes off my glasses, I just stare back, helpless. “You’ll hurt yourself with these on”. He puts them on the chair, which it later transpires was the one I fell from, and I close my eyes again.

I wake up an hour, maybe two or three, later. I’m on the floor, stretched out. Antos asleep in the far corner, the three girls are curled up by the door. My head doesn’t hurt, my hands don’t shake. I’m beyond those symptoms, my speech is slurred.

I feel pathetic.

So, how was New Years?

Well it’s half six the next day and I’m still drunk, so I presume it went well.

Can’t remember a fucking thing.

Christmas Morning

Not dying, as such, probably still stoned. Drag myself out of bed, into a pair of gloves and up the driveway. The Big Man’s sitting in the big car with a smoke hanging out the drivers side. “Story horse?” “not too bad, surprisingly, yourself?” “same, don’t know how but I only registered 0.04 this morning”. I slump in beside him and he explains why he owns his own breathalyser. I explain how I found Antos €50 bag in my pocket this morning. We have a few laughs about it. Christmas Eve always produces the same messy stories.

We pick up the Poet ten minutes later, he’s got his top button open and a rucksack on his back. I get out, the seat comes forward and he gets in. “Jaysus, me fuckin’knees!” “Sorry”. Probably slid the seat back with more vigor than was entirely necessary. The poet explains how he bounced from pub to pub the night before, and how his lifetime ban was rescinded at the door of the final house. Amazing really, it’d only been issued the week before. Then the Big Man explained why he owned a breathalyser, and I mentioned that bag in my pocket.

Then it’s down, down and down again. All the way South to Seangán, the anthill and the graveside. The other two pick up wreaths and flowers outside, I don’t. And they’re kind enough not to mention it. We get back in the car and wait for the fourth man.

We continue to wait for the fourth man.

We call the fourth man. His car’s frozen over.

We wait for the fourth man.

Eventually, his oblivious self is seen posing past. Chin high, puff chest, he’s missed us. We pull him back and head up to the graveyard together.

The chat starts, and the banter follows, as we move amongst the stones. At the end of the line, a question is asked as to why nobody was checking the names. Back to the start, looking sharp this time. Bony arrives, have to say none of us expected to see him, but he’s welcome. And talking to him, we miss it again. “Are you sure its not over there?” “Ye, it’s deffo in this row” “deffo”. It’s not in this row.

We’re shocked, when we find it, by just how distinctive the stone is. How could we have forgotten? A silence descends as each turns to his own thoughts. None of us are choir boys, so the exact length of time a prayer should take is an awkward mystery to us. Weight shifts from foot to foot, the uncertainty in the air is palpable. I eventually take the lead and bless myself, the others do the same, and we discuss where to lay the wreaths and flowers. In this we are lead, diplomatically but definitely, by the Poet.

When all was arranged and presentable, our voices thawed out and we returned to the car park. The sun was coming in low and strong, bouncing crisply off the frosty ground. The road home was quieter, punctuated only by a few idyllic “remember when..”s.

My Mam asks me how I got on over a bowl of soggy corn flakes. I tell her I’m getting into bed. And sleep, until a more familiar Christmas Day.

Ah, Christmas Eve

The day when everything you have, or haven’t, said over the past six months gets thrown up in your face-in order to force you to attend midnight mass.

I’m not being a dickhead, I just don’t want to support a Church that defends people who RAPE LITTLE CHILDREN. Yes, yes, spirit of forgiveness and all that…but, RAPING LITTLE CHILDREN.

I’d simply like to make a statement is all, by withdrawing my support, on the night we celebrate the most celebrated Child of all. I think He would understand, don’t you?

about the incident

I know you’re all sick of hearing about it, I’ll admit that I am over it myself. But it’s taken me this long to do so. I simply couldn’t finish it last week, so enjoy or fuck off

The incident

Despite desperately trying to instill belief in anyone who crossed my path, almost from the moment I left the Cusack Stand on Saturday, circumstances contrived to leave me watching the match alone at home. Yes, alone. My Mam thought we were playing Liverpool, and my Dad cynically had something important and distracting to do in the shed. She didn’t understand, and he’d heard it all before. I hadn’t converted them all, seemingly.

But these things shouldn’t matter to a true believer. My bro was in the same boat, not enough time to make it from work to solidarity. There was a certain symmetry to it, in the first leg we’d been separated by ten rows and both of us convinced that we’d been robbed at the death. First leg, second leg.

It all went to plan. ‘Fuck you’, fire and passion. Magic too, flashes of the old dynamic Duffer. The miracle boy Keane. The unproven; Lawrence, Andrews, Whelan, St. Ledger; proved themselves. They grew into the green. The French attack broke as water on rock, Josh and Zinedine Kilbane not letting anything past on the flanks. While the Honeymonster gobbled up everything that came near the box. Our trump card, Given, wasn’t even needed. I’m not forgetting Doyler, of course, who ran and ran and ran. A sure sign that you’re witnessing history, when you sit down for the boring bits instead of standing for the exciting ones.

Remember Sanga? We stayed in the stands for twenty minutes after he had a go at Richie. He wanted to stay on the ground for as long, after Andrews put him in his box. Maybe halfway through the first half, it made a thump, we’d made an impression. But that wasn’t all, and by no means the first, of the signs.

The first sign was when ten thousand Irish pounded out La Marseilleisse with more vigour and volume than the majority 70,000 population of the stadium. We’ve taken your anthem, and now we’ll take your place in South Africa-message received. Better still, when those same ten thousand Irish drowned out the entire stadium , with the Fields-our own anthem. Their solidarity such that you could make out ‘the free birds fly’. It was beautiful, I was so proud.

A silly elbow and a bust lip later the ref called for half time. They were shaken, shaking and flaking. We had them on the ropes, Trap would be named Pope and the recession was as good as over. Still no equalizer, but we were confident, only a matter of time.

And a matter of time later I was in the back garden, banging on the window of the shed “Da! Da! We’ve done it! Robbies done it!”. He dropped the plank he was lifting and we burst back in through the living room door. He gave in, sat down, and succumbed once more to the impossible dream.

You could feel every tackle, every kick of the ball, from the edge of your seat and the tips of your fast disappearing finger nails. This is football. This is full time.

“Will we go to the pub for extra time?” “Do we have time?” “I’ll drive down and get some beers”. He goes to grab his coat. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. “Feck it, let’s go to the pub” I’m practically doing star jumps beside the locked passenger seat door. Shit, ma! He pops his head in the front room door, she’s watching Fair City or something equally not football, “eh…we have to go, now, to the pub….do you want to come?” Not quite an answer but we don’t have time for such indecision and the pair of us are off.

HOLY SWEET MOTHER OF JESUS!! I’ve never in my life seen my Dad drive so fast! I think we left the ground coming off that roundabout. He glides in by the post office. I bounce out “what ye havin?”. “Guinness”. And sprint ahead.

There’s a middle-aged couple staring at me as I run past. Bewildered, scared? “EXTRA TIME” I gasp reassuringly past them. “oh” chuckles herself. “Oh”? I’m shocked by such indifference.

“Two Guinness!”. Missed kick off. Panting. Picked up where we left off? Bollox. Guinness arrives, I shove a tenner into the barman. Not looking, not caring. Himself arrives. I’m still panting. “Picked up where we left off?” “No” “Bollox”. And the tension sets in.

The seconds drag out, the pressure comes on.

PENO? “No, Jesus no, fuck off ref. FUCK OFF FUCK OFF FUCK OFF!” “Rua!” He taps my shoulder, I’m sorry, but I really am reeling myself in as best I can here. I give him a look that says “I haven’t uttered a single c-word since you came in from the shed, now is not the time”. It’s disallowed anyway, right decision ref, unless there’s a fuckin sniper in the stands.

McShane is visibly struggling, he’s not up to this level. They can smell it, we have to watch it. Torture.

“McGeady you beaut-alentless bollox”

C’mon Ireland! C’mon!

And everything went still.

Goal.

Tick.

Tock.

“OFFSIDE!!” The pub errupts, out of jail, game on, gameball “DISSALLOWED” thank you referee, c’mon the Green! Just as my heart starts beating again, they win another free. Nearly the same spot. I’ve no nails left to bite.

The cross comes in.

The dust rises from the scramble.

The ball ends up in the back of the net.

Goal.

And this one stands.

I find myself watching the replay, even though it hurts.

“Wait a second, wait a FUCKING second, WAIT A FUCKING SECOND! YOU DIRTY FUCKIN’CUNTS, YOU DIRTY PACK OF LYING CHEATING CORRUPT CUNTS. HOW..WH…REFEREEEEEEEEEE! YOU BLIND? FUCK OFF, FUCK RIGHT” “RUA!” “NO, DA, WERE ROBBED! FUCKING ROBBED! I’M FUCKIN’TELLIN YE!”

And it just went on like that.

All of us, sickened.

Disbelieving.

For about four days.

The impossible dream was over.

It pissed rain on the fifth day, Domenich had emerged as the real villain. And I heard the first faint, vengeful and hopeful whispers; of Euro 2012.

The Three Most Manly Things A Manly Man Can Punch

1. Walls

2. Nerds

3. Feelings

 

 

Ye, mo-fucka!