on stuff (a rubbish post)

that i am definitely losing, and perhaps have already lost, all patience with my home town is no secret

it has been some time since i've felt at ease here, felt any sense of attachment to the place, felt any inclination to defend it

except when feeling argumentative

potential career(s) aside, this is why i'm leaving

actually, take that further... if i had no good reason to leave, i still would

and that's a sad thing to say, at 23, with family and friends soon to be at some remove, separated by a small but significant body of water and several hundreds of miles of flat, boring landscape that calls itself middle-england

but i'm just so sick of this place

sick of how small it feels

sick to death of it

truth be told, i'm sick, too, of every damn street having its ghost, of every bar, cafe and restaurant, of every park, cinema and gallery always and forever being haunted by some fuck up or other, some memory i just don't want to visit or be visited by every day

coming in to town the other night i rode the same bus along the same route and listened to the same barely verbal morons i've listened to for 23 years

i felt the same sense of frustration i always feel, had the same thoughts on the feasibility of introducing a strictly licence-regulated right to procreate, wished the same vain wish that the lungs of the socially worthless be removed so that a greener world of artists and intellectuals wouldn't need to process their carbon dioxide

i became deeply and horribly depressed, despite the journey only taking 30 minutes or so and its purpose being to meet for dinner and drinks

funny, what breathing swamp gas for even the shortest time can do

crossing from kevin street towards the green to pick up an easter egg, i tried to put my finger on what exactly my problem with all this was, and failed

strangely, the evening threw some light on it

dinner in La Gondola, a small italian just left of the ha'penny bridge if you cross north to south

i hadn't been there for years, what with the ghosts and all, and it wasn't nearly as good as i remembered

cramped conditions, mediocre food and the worst restaurant music i've ever heard don't really add up to a romantic experience

(i didn't think whitney houston singing "i will always love you" could get any worse, until i heard the dance remix... the trance-like build to the climactic chorus triggers strange and terrible memories of a david morales gig somewhere north of sibinek)

the staff weren't italian, not a problem in itself, but their dour manner pissed me off some

as a dining experience, it didn't feel authentic

later on, we found ourselves in zagloba, a polish bar on parnell street, on your right past the welcome inn as you head towards summer hill

the staff, polish, the customers, mainly polish, the beer, polish, the vodka, definitely polish, the decor, even more polish, the music, polish, the posters, polish, the match commentary on charlton-v-middlesbrough, surprisingly polish, sunday afternoon karaoke, worryingly polish, the overall atmosphere, i was informed, distinctly polish

i'm not sure what i expected from zagloba, or even exactly what i got, but whatever it was it was real and damn refreshing

smoking outside, i felt a tap on my arm, followed by "cigarette?"

sorry dude, they're inside, oh shit, no, wait, here they are

ah, irish?

yes

polish, (pointing at himself and smiling)

right

(i got the impression that maybe we'd reached the full extent of our common communicative skills)

how long have you been here?

my english, bad

how long, here?, (pointing at the ground, a gesture that in retrospect makes little sense)

12, (counted out on fingers), days

you like?

no job, no money, no sleep

(oh christ)

friends?

yes, tonight, one night, sleep with friend

i gave him money for a drink and asked him inside, kinda hoping that maybe if he hung about at the bar he could make a few contacts, get things rolling

the dude seemed so heart-breakingly fucking appreciative

i lit another cigarette and stayed outside a while, thinking, and sorta wanting to leave him to make his own way in

male pride is a weird animal, best left alone

standing there, a few things came to mind...

...that compared to the folks inside in that bar, a large chunk of irish people are lazy, arrogant fucks...

...that as a nation we've forgotten what it is to struggle, to leave your country behind, to try finding work and a new life somewhere else...

...that we don't give these immigrants the respect they're due, and that the blatant and widespread racism shown towards them is a fucking disgrace...

i work part-time in an electrical store, and a lot of our customers are of eastern-european and african origin

believe me, we're a racist nation

on a weekly basis i watch as the absolute dregs of a cruel genetic joke effect a sneering swagger towards folks that are probably working two or three jobs to pay these shitheads their commission

that anyone who smells of burger king and doesn't generate enough brain power to talk about something other than, well, nothing actually, feels in a position of superiority... well jeez, aren't we a healthy ol' educated society?

granted, there are assholes everywhere, but in a town this small they're just too easy to find

london is gonna have its assholes, and idiots talking shit on the buses, and boredom and violence and racism and everything else i hate about dublin - on a much larger scale

but it'll also have the things that, despite all, i still love about dublin, and these too will be on a larger scale

what this boils down to is people

a bigger city means a bigger potential circle of like-minded people

a greater chance of finding the life you want, of establishing an artistic enclave with your brothers, despite the darkness all around you...

where'd he come from?

this city is too small, and home to too many small minds

it's too small to deal with change, difference, anything that challenges the status quo

i'm generalising of course, but i think with justification

i'm reminded of a recent conversation, in an office looking out over the city, and a comment made there to the effect that dublin, compared to london, is just too small to develop properly, that it needs to grow physically before it can grow culturally

i don't have time to wait for this to happen

i've given dublin many chances and it keeps letting me down, as do her people

and as london might, but if a girl is fucking with you, you don't stay with her for fear the next one will too

at some point, you have to call time

i'm aware of sounding like someone completely divorced from reality, but if you really think that, why are you still reading?

where are you going with this? london, maybe another failure waiting to happen, but who knows? there's always new york, and dublin is over, anyway. that night in zagloba, you met a group of people who'd taken the chance and moved to a new country to make a better life. hide behind criticisms of others all you like, and they might well be true, but part of why you're so riled up is because you're still here, dead in the water, at risk of going stale. you're angry at yourself, you haven't taken that chance and left, yet. but you will, you have to. it's time.

(you finds it easier to sum up than i does, it seems... this post has misfired badly, there's a point in there somewhere and you might need to come back to it, pick through the rubble and explain yourself on this whole leaving issue once and for all... kudos to anyone that got this far... hmmm... you're missing that third wall already...)