Severe Jam Damage

@ Whelans the Village.

The email was terse as usual. It was an order, not a request.

‘Mick Harvey @ Whelans tonight.
The Barfly is back!’

It had been a while since I’d seen the oul souse, so I agreed to meet him at the bar. He was propped up in the window leering at the passersby.
‘Get down outta that, or the manager will be over to bar us for scaring off his customers.’
As it happened it didn’t much matter, the place was empty - a building site actually. The gig was moved next door to the Village.
‘Sure we’ve plenty of time, lets have another beer.’

I needed beer, the last time I was in the Village I’d been to see Warren Ellis - another of the Bad Seeds - with the Gurrier and his troops. The venue still held bad memories for me, images of the Gin Lady mixing cocktails, and that thing hidden in the Bastard Kesey’s trousers. I shuddered and kept drinking.

By the time we managed to crawl upstairs it was standing room only.
‘Ya fuck.’

I got more beers in and the Barfly disappeared into the dark shadows. Fucker was always doing that, leaving me standing with two pints. A familiar shape loomed in front of me. Blather and his missus, figured they’d be here. It was exactly the sort of seedy shithole they liked.
Blather was babbling, I couldn’t make out what he was saying. Snatches of sound from his lips ‘Fortean…’ then ‘Apocalypse’ and finally ‘Paddy Casey’. This last with tears in his eyes.
‘What about Paddy Casey?’ I ventured.
‘He gives me a pain in the bollix.’
‘Ahhh, Um.’
I turned away for a bit, waiting for him to leave of his own accord - grown men shouldn’t cry over half-rate singers. On stage there was a girl with a guitar.
‘Christ, not another one.’
But then she started singing and we all fell in love with her a little bit.
‘Fuck me’ said the Barfly who had appeared at my shoulder.
‘No thanks’ I replied.
‘No, I mean her, she’s fucking AMAAAAAZING.’ His eyes were twisting in their sockets, rolling like a galleon on the high seas.
‘What’ve you taken?’
‘Nothing, I’m in loooooooooooove.’
I’d seen him like this before and in the past it had never turned out well. I bought more beer, in an attempt to get him so blind drunk that he’d be unable to storm backstage and accost the poor girl.
‘Want More’ chanted the Barfly.
‘Shuddafuckup, Micks coming on stage.’

Half an hour into his set I was singing and dancing around. The Barfly was in a strop.
‘Want the girl’
‘What have I told you before? You can’t HAVE the girl.’
‘Not fa-eeeeeeeeeh!’ as he stumbled across the floor and fell crashing to the ground. Behind him the Goth stood in an old ratty coat.
‘Answer your goddamn phone!’ he shouted. ‘I’ve been sat next door for the guts of an hour.’
The Barfly grunted, pulled himself up extracted a shard of glass from his hand. He was covered in beer and broken glass.
‘What’s that on your face?’ I asked, trying to quell the impending violence.
‘What?’ said the Goth pulling at his cheeks.
‘That… thing? Is it… fuck me… is that a smile?’
‘Uh yeah. It’s new do you like it?’
‘Eh, I’ve seen better.’

An hour and numerous pints later the band finished up.
‘That was great!’
‘It was very samey, not enough Bad Seeds’ said the Barfly.
I was too drunk to get into a fight with him about it.
‘Going home now.’ I said and stumbled down the stairs.
Behind me the Goth and the Barfly were making plans to sneak backstage and kidnap the girl. I left them to it.

So yes, a few things to clear up. I’m still here, just not here if ya get me.

Besides the normal things like breathing, sleeping, eating and working I’ve been busy with other stuff, some of it net-based, some of it not.

In the ‘real-world’ category I went to London about a month ago for a few days, where I met up with Mr. Birdbath and Miss Rabbit. I’ve also been getting to grips with my new camera (a Nikon D80) and I’ve just bought myself a gorillapod. The weather here has been shite so there have only been a few evenings in beer gardens, but they’ve been bad enough to knock me out for a couple of days afterward.

Online stuff…
I’m still doing the 365 thing on flickr although I’m missing out days here and there more and more often. The Friday flickr fiction which some of you may remember ignoring here on SJD, has now been moved to a dedicated site on ning.com - We are now all over here if you want to continue to read my attempts at flash fiction. I’ve also gotten myself an account at Warren Ellis’ Club of Mars, but I really really don’t know what to put there, so its a bit dead at the moment.

I’m going to post here when I can and when I actually have something to say. Right now I’m up to my uxters completing this project and can’t wait to see the back of it. Only a couple more weeks… hopefully.

So I know I don’t talk to you often, but seriously like…

Where has our summer gone? This weekend was the last summer bank holiday and I spent the time indoors staring out into murk and rain and water. I briefly considered building an ark but then realised a.) there are no animals I would want to save and b.) I don’t particularly want to be stuck on a boat with other people either.

This morning it looks bright and balmy but that’s absolutely NO HELP as I am stuck in a stuffy office.

So please God, get your finger out and give us at least ONE nice weekend this summer.

Yours,
a very bedraggled
Eli

What I do has no meaning. I do not produce anything, I do not make the world a better place. No ones life will be saved because of what I do. I will not feed anyone, nor clothe them, nor make them laugh. I do not heal, I do not entertain, I do not build, I do not break. I produce nothing tangible, I help no one. I bring neither joy nor chaos to people’s lives.

It has taken me thirteen years to realise the futility of my career. To realise that THAT is the crux of my problem - or at least a very big part of it.

I stopped this last month because it seemed the best thing to do. An attempt to loose myself of the black dog by agreeing and signing up for anything and everything that I thought would distract me from its wolfish fangs resulted in draining me of all creativity and energy. And I finally just snapped and shut down. I gave up SJD and scriptfrenzy and ficktion and 365 and I stopped talking to friends, stopped replying to emails. Instead I focused all that (lack of) energy on work. On the job. The one that I loathe and despise.

I started getting pains in my stomach, like the onset of ulcers. I had a permanent headache. Monday mornings became a challenge, I found myself leaving the desk and sitting in a toilet stall for 20 minutes crying for no particular reason.

And its taken me until now to figure out that I did it the completely wrong way round. When I decided to cut things out of my life I chose the wrong things. The things that calmed me, that make me think, the things that I actually god damn well enjoyed doing- they were all gone. Excised because I thought it was the right thing to do. The lack of creativity, of spontaneity I had thought was down to the pressure of having to come up with something new on a daily basis was actually down to the pressure that I was feeling from work. It was the total lack of motivation that was a drain on me. With nothing to focus on, nothing to distract me, nothing to enjoy the job became my disease.

Last week I went sick and stayed in bed for three days. I haven’t been right for a few months, but you learn to hide it - the odd outburst every so often - but generally people don’t notice. For three days I ate nothing, I spoke as little as possible and I hid away in the back of my mind. It had been coming for a long time. By the end of the third day I disgusted myself, lying in my own pit of despair I felt pathetic. I got up, remade the bed with fresh sheets, had a shower and sat on the edge of the bed. And it slowly came to me - this thing that was in the back of my mind but that I hadn’t been able to acknowledge till then - that nothing is worth that much grief. Nothing is worth feeling this way. Its not the first time I’ve found myself here - you grow to recognise the symptoms and pray to god that you can drag yourself up before you crash all the way (so very far) down.

So I’m back now. I’m slowly getting back into doing the stuff I enjoy - and I’ve stopped pressuring myself . If I don’t feel like doing a self-portrait for 365 it doesn’t mean that I’m a failure. If I miss out on a weekly ficktion effort it doesn’t make me less of a writer - although perhaps more of a procrastinator. I’m not perfect - none of us is - and I know I have a good few wobbly days ahead of me. But work is now very low on my list of priorities. That’s not say I’m going become a complete slacker, I’m still going to do my job, but I’m not going to do that bit extra. It’s not appreciated, nor even noticed most of the time. I’m still living on a one-day-at-a-time basis, but I’m hoping that soon -not tomorrow or next week, but soon enough- the good days will once again outweigh the bad.

So that’s it, that’s all I wanted to say.

Total drama queen and attention whore.

I thought I could do this, but I can’t.

I may be gone for some time.

E

Four full days in Barcelona should have been enough to see all of the sights. Of course that kind of thing is dependant on the fact that you get up early in the morning to beat the crowds and aren’t out carousing until the early hours of the night before. I’ll leave it up to you to decide which way we holidayed.

Saturday was our first full day in the city and we decided to use it getting orientated. The fourth member of our group wasn’t going to arrive until Sunday morning so we thought it best just to go for a wander and acquaint ourselves with the local hotspots. A wander south down to Port Vell and then we got lost in Barceloneta. One quick turnaround and we were back to the Port and up Via Laietana. At that point we entered the Barri Gotic and damn if we couldn’t escape the Placa del Pi. Not because it was so nice, but because everytime we turned around there we were - back in the square. Eventually we decided to follow the tourists on the Segway C6’s just to get onto a road that didn’t lead back to the Placa del Pi. This took us up past the Orfeo Catala and eventually to the Arc de Triumf where the sun finally broke through.

We did get to see the Sagradia Familia, although as it was Easter Sunday afternoon the place was jammed. They had also closed the stairs, so the only way up was in the lift and there was a two hour wait for that. We decided our time could be better spent so we didn’t go up.

We didn’t get into any museum’s unless you count the Museu de l’Erotic where there were a number of photos taken - although only a few are publishable. And we did pass by the door of the Palau Nacional up on MontJuic. The magic fountain display was due to start at 7 o’clock in the evening, but since the sun was still splitting the sky we thought it would be hard to see the lighting, so we just walked up to the top of the steps, taking pictures along the way.

On Monday - our final day - we were in pretty bad shape (although not as bad as we would be on Tuesday morning in the airport.) so we decided that a trip in cable car was in order. We had not counted on the incredibly bad service though. At the ticket office there were five people ahead of us in the line. The ticket seller sold two tickets, then went on a smoke break. When he came back to his booth he fumbled around again and went for another smoke break - having sold NO tickets. After about 25 mintues we got fed up and walked back for a wander round the Barri Gotic again. As it was a late start that day we found the cloister of the Catedral de Seu a lovely quiet space for our aching heads, well except for the honking of the guard geese.

There was a bunch of stuff we didn’t get to see. The Picasso museum, Parc Guell, La Boqueria, Casa Batlo and Casa Mila (although we did drive past this we didn’t go in.) All of which sort of gives me a reason to go back.

Oh dear god, 10 o’clock at night and the taxi driver had brought us to Beirut. We were staying in an area called ‘La Raval’ aka ‘Barri Xino’ aka ‘Chinatown.’
The taxi driver didn’t know where our street was, he kept driving around and around and around the Rambla del Raval making sure we were a target for any of the locals on the hunt for clueless tourists. Eventually he just dropped us on the side of the road while we waited for the lady who had the keys to our apartment to come hobbling out of some side street.
We followed her back down the dingy road and she took us in a doorway to our home for the weekend.

The apartment was grand, all we needed it for was a bed and a shower. It had two bedrooms, one on the ground floor, the second upstairs in a sort of loft.

That night we went out for drinks - sans coats of course sure and aren’t we on holliers in Spain?
The locals were all wearing winter coats and boots, no wonder they were staring. At Las Ramblas we stopped at a restaurant and got screwed by the waiters for the price of a bottle of wine. (20 euros for a bottle of Faustino VII!!) That, for those who are wondering was the LAST TIME we ate or drank anywhere near Las Ramblas.

La Raval wasn’t as bad as we had first thought - it never is really. I’d put it on a par with Smithfield to be honest, one of those places that anyone who hasn’t lived there doesn’t feel comfortable after dark, but perfectly ok for the locals. There were a bunch of half decent restaurants and some groovy laid-back bars on the Rambla del Raval, we were a 10 minute walk from Port Vell to the south (and Las Ramblas and the Barri Gotic if we were heading east) and there was a good selection of restaurants for breakfast and kebab shops still open at the end of the night. Although the only one we managed to stagger into was the Taj Mahal where we met Orlando Bloom - a Scottish guy named Thomas I think - and one of the shop (owners? managers? kebab makers?) was famous for some ad campaign about kebabs. (True story, Clarice took a photo with the poster on the wall behind him.)

We later realised that all those horror stories our ‘friends’ had been telling us about muggings and robberies were happening to the tourists who stayed on Las Ramblas or in L’Eixample. Our neighbourhood may have been where the thieves came back to at night, but we liked to think of it as a ‘Don’t shit on your own doorstep’ scenario.

Anyway by the last night we were comfortable enough in the area to agree that if we came back to Barcelona we’d probably stay around there again. This train of thought may have been helped along by the lovely bar girls in Ambar who were serving us what could almost be classed as triple measures. Ambar by the way was mentioned in my ‘Le Cool’ guide book and was 3 minutes away from our apartment. We didn’t try it until the final night - possibly just as well for, as Lelly said later, “If we’d found that place on the first night I’d be coming home in a body bag.”

More to Follow…

I’m getting worse at this blogging thing aren’t I? Leaving it for days and weeks without anything to say. Sorry about that, I’ll try and do better this week. So, where was I? Ahh, yes, tales from Barcelona.
Well first I should tell you about GETTING there, which was an adventure in itself. Lelly and Clarice were due to pick me up at 2.30, but a rethink had them picking me up at 2 instead.

Good plan.

The clutch on Lelly’s car \ SUV \ monster truck went at the lego-houses in Ringsend. On Good Friday.

Luckily it was in 2nd gear so she managed to drive it up onto the curb. Unluckily we sat there for an hour waiting for the AA man. Clarice rang her boyfriend who drove up from Wicklow to drive us the rest of the way (there was no chance of getting a taxi where we were.)

Actually this story was much more exciting in real life than it is written down, so I’ll just finish it off by saying, we made it to the airport in time to have a drink in the bar and then proceeded to order gins and vodkas on the plane until we forgot all about the car and the clutch and the AA man who wouldn’t be there until 4.30.

More to Follow…

Just back from the weekend in Barcelona. I’m in the process of catching up, sorting through photos and trying to decide which bits to blog about. Rather than put everything into one long entry I’ll probably break it up into bits. I have about another 300 photos to go through from the digital and 7 rolls that I’m dropping into Gunns at lunchtime for processing.
Short version of the weekend is:
1. I need a new liver
2. El Raval is cooler than it appears.
3. I need a new liver
4. Las Ramblas is an expensive hole.
5. You will never escape the Placa del Pi.

More to follow…