Neil's Link to Samuel Beckett

A friend of Neil's who writes for The Onion has mentioned him in an article on Samuel Beckett in this weeks edition. I'd like to say that, despite being a big fan of The Onion for three years now, I am not remotely jealous because I still have a copy of a customizable storybook I was given for my 5th birthday, that tells the tale of how Eoin Gleeson from Rochestown, Cork City saved Christmas by rescuing Santa from evil anti-Christmas (read Islamic fundamentalists) kidnappers. Santa was understood to be delighted with Eoin Gleeson's crucial intervention and took the opportunity to wish him a happy 5th birthday.

Here is an excerpt from the article in which Neil is mentioned. You can read the full article here.

"Even though the central theme and wicked sense of humour of this piece would lead one to believe that this could concievably be a vintage Beckett play, in reality, it could just as easily have been the product of [Beckett's close friend] Rick Cluchey," biographer Neal Gleason said.

Horrible Continuing Nightmare

I've had a recurring nightmare every night since watching Munster and Leinster win a couple of weeks ago. Although I can't quite tie down the exact meaning of the dream, it seems to be growing more and more vivid with each passing night. Almost as if there is some terrible and ominous resolution to the torment, close on the horizon. Maybe some of you could help me figure it out.

I find myself standing on the bank of a murky canal in the middle of the night. There are no streetlights and everything seems obscured by the spectre of a giant barn or arena close by. I creep towards the waters edge, removing my shoes and pull the fabric of a pair of blue socks up to me knees. There is a terrible chill and the reeds paper-cut my hands as I wade into the stagnant water. I follow the reflection of the moon in the water for half a mile, never sure of what I'm standing on.

The further I stalk through the canal, the water, as in the shallow end of a public swimming pool, gets cruelly warm and pungent. The smell becomes so awful that I don't notice the moon's reflection disappearing in the water. There is complete darkness now and I rail around in the oily murk, terrible with desperation. Something slithers inside my leg, a dog barks and suddenly I'm aware of a small figure, cloaked in red, among the reeds of the bank. A small hand emerges from a red sleeve and pulls a silver cup from the water. A horribly long finger traces the cup's engravings and a crackling lisp spits the word H-E-I-N-E-K-I-N through the darkness.

I reach out to the creature and as hooded head tilts back, I'm overcome with a terror like testicles gripped with icy hands, as I witness the huge eyed and distended mouth of Golum morph into a terrible tinker-likeness of my father. Torn lips slip to one side, finger pointing at my chest and a toothless cavern opens screeching: "LLLLLllllleeeeEEiiiiIIIIInnnnNNNNSssssSSTTTeeeeEERrrRRR!!"

The creature covers its face and cowers in the reeds. I am biting the inside of my cheeks as I reach out to it again. Taking it by the shoulders, I whisper and hush as I attempt to restrain it. The hood slips off and I see the tormented and toothless face of my 6 year old self; slobbering, weak in my hands and with the word TOYOTA etched into my chest. I scream. I try to scream. I bray. Nothing comes out. The skin of my cheeks taught as I will noise out of my mouth. A sound percolating in belly, boils and bursts into the child's face:

"RRROOooooooOOYYyyyyySSSSHHHH!!"

Shaking my head from side to side, I babble and bite at nonsense barking from my mouth. Then it comes. Sense and reason.

"It's loike fine an stuff. It's only a mare. Don't lose the rag, loike. Roysh. Come on, loike you know and stuff and loike stuff you know an like totally totally loike fockin totally totally loike fockin mare fockin mare focking total mare..."

The child's body is rigid with fear and he squirms. I can't stop the noise and it has a terrible momentum:

"Com on loike I won't hurt ya loike and stuff cos loike your totally me when I was loike a nipper and stuff loike...."

He searches my face for a minute but bows limply to the right screaming:"No! NOo! You're Ryle Nugent! Ryle Nugent! Noooooo! Evil Ryle Nugent!"

"I'm like not an stuff and oh my god like you must be totally having a shocker an stuff like. I'm Eoin and I'm you loike when you grow up and become unemployed and loike can't get a job loike because you loike didn't make any effort an stuff.."

"No! NO! You're Leinster, you're a solicitor or an accountant or in Corporate Finance and you don't love God and you borrow too much and you drink foreign beer and you kiss orange faced women and you never sing at matches and you don't love your mammy and you'll never leave home and you'll never be a real man like your country daddy and you're always networking and networking and networking...."

I'm tormented and raging and I pin the child in the mud and I push his face into the mud and I drag him through the weeds shouting:

"Thats loike not who I am, I'm like Irish and loike the same as you...I'm loike the same..the focking same loike..."

And gripping the child by his red jersey I hold him under the water and he squirms and kicks and reels and thrashes and then stops. My hands shaking, I stand up to my full height. Everything settles back into the shadows of the great barn and the moon is so white and the water is so black that it feels like a Judgement.

Favourite Things

Elke and Steve suggested naming a few of my favourite things as an idea/meme for a post but I would prefer to just put up a video by one of my favourite bands, Silver Jews, instead. I could tell you that I have eaten a double decker banana and salt'n'vinegar Tayto sandwich every single day since I was 13 (Lorraine and Neil will confirm this) and that of all my personal possessions, my poster for the Russ Meyer film Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill! takes pride of place. But I don't think those pieces of information are particularly valuable to anyone else.

The video is for a song called Punks in the Beerlight, taken from the superb Tanglewood Numbers album, released last year. The footage is swiped from two completely different Planet of the Apes movies, the editing is shoddy in places and the video bares no immediate relation to the story of the song, but it still maintains much of the charm of Silver Jews. A song that starts with: "Where's the paper bag that holds the liquor, just in case I feel the need to puke" and finishes with hammy guitar riffs and Born to Run air-punching ("I always loved you to the MAX!") deserves recognition for its grand sweep; even if that transition isn't very convincing along the way.

You'd have to call Silver Jews: Low Budget Entertainment, but don't take that to mean horribly obscure and self indulgent. They will never quite make it to stadium arena status and some of their album production leaves a lot to be desired, but they are a worthy cause nonetheless. In fact if there is any merit in continuing this blog, other than exercising my need for attention, then it is in spreading the Good News about Silver Jews. Writing a blog, like my galactic job hunt, has been slow and slightly humiliating process. My ambitions have for it have certainly been radically rescaled since the Citizen Cane-like manifesto of my first post. But I enjoy the free offer of scented candels sometimes left in the comments section and it has provided a sanity saving diversion from simulating destructive Economic behaviour with deceptively stubborn software programs. I hope that you will consider purchasing some of the music recommended on this site and perhaps follow up the offer of waxy herbilisers that are left here from time to time.

Munster Rugby

I had a bumper day of rugby on Saturday, watching the Leinster game in Bective with the Munster Supporter's club and trapesing down to Lansdowne Road afterwards for the Munster-Perpignan clash. Munster could only a manage a sodden, dour display in the end but I managed to keep myself on a pretty uneven keel throughout the day with a belly-evil brew of several brands of stout.

The atmosphere at the game was wonderful at the outset. The stadium was completely decked in red and the roar that greeted the team as they stepped out was so wild that it sounded animal. We were standing pitchside-east in the South Terrace so we were perfectly placed to soak up the atmosphere that built up in that corner as Munster bullied Perpignan for the first half hour. They were eventually rewarded with Paul O'Connell's try but the game was well established as an attritional affair at that stage.

Despite the half time lead in Perpignan's favour, the game never felt like it was beyond Munster's grasp and there was an air of inevitability about the outcome. The crowd were pretty subdued by the end and most of the renditions of the Fields of Athenry seemed to fizzle out after one round. I think Sean and I came close to agreeing that the half-time dunk of Murphys and brown-sauce drowned chips was far more appetising than the game itself.

Its pretty disappointing that Munster and Leinster have to meet in the next round. There will probably be a few split loyalties in our house, although I'm pretty sure it'll come down to a 3-2 split in Munster's favour. I would like Munster to win, partly because they deserve it more and partly because I would feel slightly guilty about switching teams after complaining about Leinster's lack of spirit over the last few years. I don't think that Munster have much of a chance though. They look a limited team again without the enterprise of Barry Murphy. Its safe to say that Leinster would stand a much better chance of beating Biarittz in the final and I think that that's most likely outcome. How sick is that going to make Munster fans? Years and years of knocking on the barn door, only for Fockin Rugby, Roysh! Leinster to skip in on the first go.

Also got the wonderful news that my 46 year old aunt's first pregnancy was a successful one and that Hugh managed to arrive 15 minutes before April Fools Day. I'm also glad that my aunt has decided that Hugh will take her surname of O'Neill rather than that of her partner (Hoare). Huge Whore has to rank up there with Bono and Tinsel Kinsella as the most God awful names attached to an Irishman.