Events of 2006:Saturday 7th January 2006Well, I have discovered where all the white people in California are hiding. We spent some time in Aliso Viejo with my wife's sister, in Orange County, and there are white people here. They're everywhere - driving BMWs, sucking down lattes, and listening to Norah Jones. White people (at least in LA) are so very, very lame. Monday 9th January 2006California Trip (slight return): The pilot said that it was "the worst trans-Atlantic crossing" he's ever been on. I can only agree. We hit some pretty heavy, unrelenting chop around two hours into the flight, and it made me feel bad. It was one degree Celsius when we got back into Shannon, but I comfort myself with the knowledge that it's not much better in Boston, where my luggage is. It should get delivered tomorrow. So they claim. All the comics and DVDs that I bought in America are in there, so I'll be disappointed if I lose them. Also, my missing deodorant has caused a mild panic in my wife, who refuses to be in the same room with me, but with good reason. Saturday 4th February 2006Tonight we went to an exhibition of traditional Japanese drumming by the residents of Sado Island (insert joke here) at the National Concert Hall in Dublin. They are called "Kodo". For $40 a ticket, I was expecting more of a virtuoso performance, but you can't beat a beat. Given that the whole thing was in Japanese, perhaps it was a concession to internationalism that their facial expressions seemed so forced, but sometimes they adopted the sort of grim fatalism with which one would normally associate a Siberian coal mine. And when the rhythms required of them to be happy, it seemed pained, like you might see on the face of a pilot flying into a tanker while screaming "Banzai!" Afterwards, I thought that if you locked any one of these guys in a room with Buddy Rich for half an hour ... well. I have an idea who'd come out alive. Thursday 9th February 2006I found a hole in one of my teeth last week - it was so big I could feel it with my finger. I could probably get a cent into it. It didn't hurt, which was lucky I suppose. I made an appointment for 9:00 a.m. because I think it's better to get it over with as soon as possible. My dentist still talks to me like I'm three years old. I was half-asleep at the time, because I'm not a morning person. But I remember something like this:
He decided after some poking around, to remove the tooth with the gaping maw of decay. He was upbeat about the whole thing.
Sunday 26th February 2006Well strictly speaking it's Monday morning, because around two o'clock I got a telephone call to my house from my alarm monitoring company to tell me that my alarm has gone off. No big deal - usually it's just drunk people falling against my shutter; they don't mean any harm. However, it's better to be sure, so I sped into town and checked it out. As expected, there was nothing awry, and only the front shutter pick-up had been activated. I rang the alarm monitoring company to tell them that everything was OK, and they told me to wait for the police to show up, because they would be called automatically. After about fifteen minutes, I decide that they're not coming (it's happened before) and head home However, as I make my U-turn on O'Connell St, I see a Garda car coming around the corner towards my shop. So, I stop in the middle of the street to see if he stops at my shop, so I would be able to get out and explain that everything was OK. It took me a few moments to realise that, as he was stopping the car, the focus of his interest was the stopped car which had just u-turned, and not my shop. Then I got to thinking that maybe I should just get out and explain the whole thing. Then I thought - no, that would just be making a big deal about what is, in actual fact, a thing of nothing. It would be embarrassing to have to explain this nothing to a policeman at 2:30 in the morning - I'm sure he has more important things to be doing. He wasn't getting out of the car. He was just sitting there looking at my car, where I was just sitting there, looking at him. So I settled on making a run for it. I noticed the police were following me, but I got away because they refused to go the wrong way down a one-way street. The following day a garda came into my shop (for a completely different reason we don't need to get into here) and I asked him if there was any "incident" involving a green Volkswagen the night before. He said he knew nothing. Relieved giggling all round. Wednesday 12th April 2006Today I was driving to my father's house and I saw a man texting on his mobile phone, while driving a motorcycle across a busy junction in the rain. Res ipses loquitur. Monday 1st May 2006I was in a comic shop called Other Realms on Paul Street in Cork today. Amongst their stock is a small soft toy in the shape of a "facehugger" from the Aliens series of movies. In small letters at the bottom of the box it says:
Res ipses loquitur. Saturday 24th June 2006I decided that I should probably go to a live concert of some hue before I die, and that it might as well be a Bob Dylan concert, before he dies. So I got some tickets for his gig today in Nowlan Park in Kilkenny, where he was being supported by a band called The Flaming Lips. First of all, The Flaming Lips are an insane band. Let's get that out of the way. On-stage they had: a small army of green-faced extraterrestrials; a small army of Santa Clauses; roadies dressed as superheroes, such as Spiderman and Captain America; streamer guns; a large plastic ball into which the lead singer stepped and proceeded to walk over the crowd; glitter cannons; huge green balloons which periodically dispersed into the crowd (although exclusively downwind, as you might expect). I remember thinking that if they put half as much effort into the songwriting that they put into the flashing lights and loud noises, they might be onto something. Bob Dylan came on around nine o'clock. I don't know who's been talking to him, but he made no eye contact with me all night. For long periods he was facing the back of the stage, seemingly in an effort to ensure that I did not even drift into his field of vision. He then proceeded to massacre some of his best-loved songs, such as "Maggie's Farm", and "Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again". He seemed tired and disinterested. Then again, I suppose if you've played "Like a Rolling Stone" 180 times a year for 40 years, it's hard to muster any enthusiasm for the project whatsoever. Regardless, I was in the same field as Bob Dylan for about an hour, and that's pretty cool. I'll still buy his new album when it comes out in August. Saturday 24th June 2006Update May 2007: Look back on this I realise now that I seem to have written two entries for this date. Believe it or not, I had completely forgotten about writing the first one, and didn't seem to notice it already sitting there when I uploaded the second one. I'm leaving this here as a monument to my awful memory. Notwithstanding the obvious stupidity, it's interesting to see how some of the same things stay, and other things get moved around in my memory over time. I don't think there are any direct contradictions. We went to a concert in Kilkenny today. I've never been to a concert before, so I decided if I was going to one, it might as well be Bob Dylan, because he might die soon. Firstly, a band called The Flaming Lips came out. I have no idea whether or not they're any good, because their stage show defied any attempt to concentrate on the music. There was a small army of Santas on one side of the stage, a small army of aliens on the other. Roadies were dressed as superheroes. Green balloons, glitter cannons, streamer guns ... and a large plastic ball in which the lead singer walked along the top of the crowd. Maybe they're good. I have no way of working that out. After all the madness went away, Bob Dylan came out. I don't know if it's something I said, or the way I was sitting in my seat, but he refused to make eye contact with me all night. In fact, he didn't make eye contact with anyone, and for much of the set had his back turned. What a pro. I love Bob Dylan, and I think other performers should try turning their back on the audience in the middle of concerts. That would separate the wheat from the chaff pretty damn quickly. Wednesday 5th July 2006So we've made the decision to move to Los Angeles some time next year. This means selling my house and my business, going to war with my whole family, and finding some way to transport a couple of thousand books across the Atlantic. However, I thought I'd have some time to settle into the idea. I discovered today that my couch had been sold. Not just to anyone, but to the man who owns the house across the street. Now I have nowhere to sit when I'm watching Bablyon 5. We have to recline awkwardly on the floor, as we might have in an ancient Persian palace. That's not all! I can see the couch from my television room - it's right across the road, alternately laughing at me and whining, scraping its anti-macassers on the window pane, begging for forgiveness ... I WANT MY COUCH BACK!
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