Books, music and Joey

Saturday night. I’m sitting in my room with a beer. And Bob Dylan. Although I have iTunes on shuffle, so I had Bach a minute ago. I should do that thing Myles does and put the next ten on:

Bath Time: Orbital
It Started With A Kiss: Hot Chocolate
Airbag: Radiohead
Bonito Y Sabroso: Beny Moré
Portreath Harbour: Polygon Window
Mexican Wine: Fountains Of Wayne
Who Will Watch The Home Place: Laurie Lewis
Dog New Tricks: Garbage
Wwyhmb: Elliott Brood
Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Russian Roulette: Moving Hearts

Not too bad, I hope. I still haven’t gotten over the Anodyne comment in Franks. (too arcane for most people, not going to explain)

Hot Press journo writes book about being a drunk shock

Anyways, I’m here alone sipping beer and blogging and the Irish contingent in my life are in bed asleep or out drunk somewhere. The Queen Mother called a few minutes ago and told me that Declan whatsisname 'Lynch?' that used to write for Hot Press aeons ago and was a friend of Bazz’ (so he must be exceptional) has written a book about drinking.

You’re all immature, apparently. That’s why you all drink too much. Funny that, I always imagined it was because, like me, you liked the unpredictability of an evening laced with whatever your poison is. Or you needed to destress. Or celebrate. Or have a chat. Or whatever.

I don’t think it’s immaturity, myself. And I don’t think it’s a deep malaise. I think we do it because we get away with it and other people don’t because they don’t and that has nothing to do with maturity and everything to do with the power and culture of the state we live in.

So that’s my tuppence ha’penny on it.

A Father’s Affair, by Karel Van Loon

I just finished this. Great book, written by a Dutch journalist. More twists than a corkscrew as they say. It’s about a man who has a son by a partner who is now dead, who has just found out that he’s infertile and that consequently thirteen year old Bo is not his child.

So he goes nearly crazy trying to figure out who it is. His current partner who wants a baby, hence the fertility tests, was his former partner’s best friend so she tries to help him.

It's a bit D'oh! at the end, but really well written in the vein of a Dutch Nick Hornsby.

There’s a lot of drink involved, it being a Dutch novel and the Dutch being noted as a particularly immature lot.

Anyways, the book was a bestseller in the Netherlands a few years back and is worth a look.

Black Angel, by John Connolly

I always read John’s books even though they give me nightmares, as I went to university the same time as him and studied English with him. This one is another in the Charlie Parker series, although it ranges down as far as Mexico as well as sticking to its usual haunts in New England and the underbelly of New York.

He has a cd in the back, Voices from the Dark: A Soundtrack to the Novels of John Connolly. Compilation © John Connolly.

I shit you not.

I thought it would be wall to wall Korn and Marilyn Manson but of course it’s not because John is a normal bloke (for a bloke who writes novels about a violent PI who fights the devil on and off and who writes about flaying people too knowledgeably for my liking). Well he was when I knew him fourteen years ago.

FOURTEEN YEARS AGO.

Gulp.

Anyways, the track listing is:

Good Morning: Lullaby For The Working Class
Summer Dresses: Red House Painters
Hollow: Hem
Crawlaway: Lambchop
Ne T'en Fuis Pas: Kate Bush
Cattle and Cain: The Go-Betweens
Bordertown: The Walkabouts
Ponce de Leon Blues: Beachwood Sparks
Twist The Knife: Neko Case
Where Are You Now?: The More Shallows
November, 4AM: Pinetop Seven
Blinder By The Hour: The Triffids
Rock of the Lake: Radar Bros
Happiness: The Blue Nile

Good Friday evening with Joey

Speaking of Korn and Marilyn Manson, I never wrote about Easter. As the weather was terrible we spent most of it ensconced in the new room listening to the rain and not thinking about this week, but we did go down to the island on Thursday and spent Good Friday there.

Conversation in the car on the way to the island

Queenie: Is it like Ireland here, will the liquor stores be closed tomorrow?
Himself: No, no, they should be open.
Queenie: immaturely, she now realises… should we buy some booze now anyway, just in case, seeing as we’re passing the liquor store in Digby?
Himself: We’ll miss the ferry if we do.
Queenie: maturely, she now realises… oh, okay then, we’ll get some tomorrow.

So tomorrow dawned and the baby Jesus died on the cross, and after working out Palestinian time in order not to go to the off-license before he died (Canadian time was too late) we drove to the liquor store.

Which. Was. Closed.

It is a measure of my love and affection for Himself, not to mention my recently–acquired maturity, that I didn’t brain him on the spot.

It’s not that I’m an alcoholic, I’m not, it’s just Long Island without alcohol on Good Friday is like Dublin without alcohol on Good Friday.

Boring as hell. And frigging irritating that you have to plan whether or not you want to drink. Where's the spontaneity in that?

So we were forced to forage. We called round that evening to a fishing mate of Himself’s who has just bought a house. His story is another one altogether, which I won’t write about just now, preferring to tell you all about Joey his roomie.

Joey had beer, which he gave me for a packet of smokes, as he preferred whiskey anyways.

And smoke of course.

After working out that I was actually interested in hearing about his story, he told me that he’d just got out of Burnside (secure psychiatric unit in Halifax) after two and a half years for aggravated assault. With an axe, Himself told me the next day. He had been diagnosed with a rare form of schizophrenia while incarcerated and he’s on medication now, he told me.

But I still hear the voices. He smiled widely at me.

Oh yeah? I said.

Yeah, I can even hear them when I’m talking to you.

Right now?

Yup.

Don’t pay any attention to them, pet.

They think you’re nice.

That’s good, pet. Best not to listen to them tonight but.

Okay. Wanna go outside for a smoke?

Sure.

Out he bounded and we sat in the porch and talked.

Joey told me about one time he rambled through the island and found some mushrooms and picked them and ate them for a couple of hours as he wandered around and then realised he was off his head and ran and ran and eventually ended up in the graveyard and fell over. When he came too, he realised he was lying on a grave. WITH HIS OWN NAME ON THE HEADSTONE.

I agreed that that must have been a bit of a mindfuck.

He said he’d gotten addicted to crack and that was what fucked him up.

It’s scary the amount of crack and crystal meth these kids take in rural Nova Scotia, and the health authorities are claiming there’s no problem. Yet. But they know it’s coming. Crystal meth is sweeping the Prairie states at the moment.

He told me about his girlfriend. She’d left because she was scared. He didn’t blame her, but he wanted her back. Then he recited some of the poetry he’d written in Burnside. Which was not bad. A bit tortured, but pretty articulate. Nice metre to it as far as I remember. Eventually, we went back inside.

Himself was sitting watching his mate send rude emoticons to some girl he’s flirting with on MSN. He looked bored. Joey’s dog was sitting in front of him waiting for him to throw a plastic bone for him. Every now and again Himself started tapping his beer bottle with a coin. It drove the dog demented, made him jump up and down all over us.

I don’t know why.

His mate was playing some awful techno shite on his computer, so Joey asked me whether I’d like to see his cd collection.

There was a lot of Korn.

I mean a lot.

We agreed to play some Marilyn Manson instead. His landlord was still playing his techno, so we had about five minutes of noise war, with MM on one side and techno on the other before I yelled at one of them to stop.

Himself and myself looked at each other at that point. Made that universal couple sign for ‘let’s get the hell out of here’. Joey spotted it.

Where are you taking her? Down to the camp by Balancing Rock?

Big leer.

Himself said we’d just go home probably.

That’s where I’d take you. Another big leer.

Lovely pet. Bit old for you though, yeah?

He sort of shrugged, as if to say that didn’t bother him.

Outside we hopped in the car and drove down to the wharf to watch the full moon rise. It was orange and very round and very mystical. It was definitely affecting Joey, I said. Himself told me that Joey was drinking very heavily and that we should probably avoid him for a bit.

The next day someone told me that Joey used to be the best looking boy in the school, a great hockey player and all the girls after him. Now everyone’s wondering when he’ll attack someone again. What kind of a place exists where an obviously very sick boy such as Joey can be thrown out to fend for himself with a bit of medication and a look in every now and again.

That’s Nova Scotia for ya.