Thing 176 Graffiti

It's a well established fact that if you ever own a can of spray paint, for the purpose of street art, better known as graffiti, that you're obliged to pose for a photo pretending that it's deodorant. Will Smith said it. And who are you to argue with the Fresh Prince of Bel Air?

Graffiti in Ireland is very, very slowly improving. Most of it is just some giant tool with a marker or a can of spray paint telling the world that he "luvs Jenny 4eva", or that "Liverpool are fags". These little shits fill me with a violent rage, for many many reasons, not the least of which are the many massive spelling mistakes.

But the times, they are a changing. Graffiti art is becoming gradually better. In some spots it's down right good. Skate park in Limerick being a good example of some fine ink work. It does encourage amateurs though - like The Thief...
Have you ever in your life seen someone less suited to graffiti? Banksy better be watching out.

Speaking of which, The Banksy Effect is basically responsible for the massive increase in public support for graffiti as an art form. It's anti-establishment, it's frequently offensive, and it ruins perfectly beige walls. Still relatively little known about the man, except that he's quite cool, and doesn't like Israel. But if you're interested in reading up on the person who's single handedly managed to make graffiti worth money: Click!
The reason I mention him is the stencil bit. Banksy likes to stencil, and so I decided I'd emulate him. It's a sincere form of flattery, except I'm shit at art. Good with scissors and card though. Kind of.

So here's what I came up with. A club, a spade, a diamond and a broken heart. It's post modern, or something. And something else about juxtaposition of images. Also something about all being black because of art reasons that are high-brow.
The point of graffiti is expression. Which basically makes my graffiti a response to playing the Microsoft Hearts game when I'm bored on my laptop. Or else there's no point to it, which makes it a stupid kind of expression. But lots of things on here are stupid. Why change the habit of a lifetime?

Thing 175 Stock the Bar

I used to work in Clohessey's Bar in Limerick. It's down on the banks of the Shannon. I was there for the guts of a year and a half, on and off. Thorny Wire was surprised to hear that in all that time, I somehow managed to avoid the shit out of the stock days. Yep. No sweating and lifting for me. Chubby people don't like sweating when it's not necessary.

I've tapped kegs, I've hauled crates of beer up and down stairs to restock the bar after service, I've emptied fridges and crammed them full of beer all over again. I've never been there to unload a truck of all of its precious cargo and cram it into the cold room.

There's big weekend coming up for the Heineken Cup; Munster versus London Irish. Clash of the titans (by the way, we always get screwed in our Heineken Cup group - we're top seed, it's not supposed to be permanently difficult, year on year), and the opening game of the Group in London. Here at home Clohessey's is going to be its normal self - effectively full of rugby fans, tvs, beers, banter and craic. I'm setting up my stall there for the afternoon. Which means stalls for Token Northy, The Canuck and anyone else who's rugby inclined.

The offshoot of this is that the order for stock was outrageously large. I assume it's outrageously large - I wouldn't know. But there was lots of drink... I'll give you the rundown after a photo of me being inspirational... or something.
600 bud

720 miller

120 bud light

120 bulmers light

720 bulmers long neck

840 pint bottles

48 bitter lemon

144 soda

240 tonic

48 white lemonade

48 ginger ale

240 cranberry juice

480 seven up

240 d/seven up

72 club lemon

480 coke

240 d/coke

240 sprite

1,200 red bull

60 miwadi

30 kegs of heineken and 1 keg of miller.

1 keg of miller? Too right. Who drinks miller? Honestly. And who throws a shoe? 720 bottles of it though... holy crap.

In the time that's elapsed since I stopped be a barman (which was an awesome job) in Claw's, I forgot how the world works. I forgot about the process of keg to tap. It became a magical process. I walk into bar. Here's some money. Thank you Mr Barman. Magical tap at the bar pours Guinness into a pint glass magically. What do you mean you've to tap a keg? Just pull the magic wand and make the Guinness go into the glass like you did last time...

Them there kegs are heavy, and they've to be loaded and then unloaded. They've to be moved and shifted. They've to be hauled, grunting and sweating into a cold room for service.

I want you to appreciate that the next time you've a pint of anything.

If you're in Clohessey's this weekend for the rugby, and you're drinking a pint of Heineken or a bottle of Miller... I'd like you to thank me.

Thing 174 Help and Old Lady Across a Street

Ya, I'm losing track of the number of times I've put some very misleading pictures on the internet which make this Project seem more badass than it is. But this one has to be the Daddy of the lot... How much do you wish you knew this old lady? I'm voting her for the next Die Hard movie. To hell with Bruce Willis...

This Thing is an American-ism. To all the Americans (there's still like twenty people reading in Minnesota apparently), where does the concept of helping old ladies across the road come from? How many old ladies need help crossing roads? Is there some kind of epidemic in American culture which causes old ladies to flood to street crossings, lemmings style, and stroll out into traffic?

It's the American television shows' ultimate expression of a nice guy. If he helps old ladies cross the street, then he's got to be a loving person. It's a sign of his character. It doesn't seem to happen in Ireland all that often, either because we're all assholes, roads are easier to cross, or our old ladies just don't require the help.

It's the last one. I think.

So I decided on this one being added to the list, because I've been americanised. It's when you watch so many episodes of Friends, Two and a Half Men, Simpsons, Futurama, etc etc that you start saying vacation instead of holiday. You say jelly instead of jam. You get where I'm going with this. Effectively you pick up mannerisms that have no place in Irish culture. It's a process also known as Jedwardification. I'm not an advanced case, but I actually thought for a while that this would be a nice thing to do. A gentlemanly thing to do. I never once thought it would be redundant or completely awkward. No. This is an early symptom of Jedwardification.

I'm acting now to stem the tide. But I've digressed... again.

So, top of Threadneedle Road in Galway (it's a real place, it just sounds like I've made it up), and I'm first in the queue in traffic lights. The nice old lady (nothing like the picture - no gun for starters) starts to make her way across the road, but she half drops a bag with some shopping... Now's my chance. I dodge out of my car, and stroll over. Smiling as widely as I can, because I don't want her to think I'm robbing her.

Me: Can I help you with those?

Her: No. I'm okay.

Me: No, please, let me help.

Her: (Awkward, embarrassed) Okay then. Thank you.

I took the bags from her. And walked the ten or so seconds it took to reach the other side of the road.

Now what do I do?

Me: Em... eh... Have you far to go?

Her: No. I live just there (pointing about ten feet down the road).

Me: Okay.

Awkward silence.

Me: Goodbye then.

Her: Bye.

So apparently, old ladies in Ireland just don't need help crossing streets since most of the streets are about ten feet wide, at the most, and we have ample time from the green man to get across. Effectively this makes me look like a well meaning tool.

And the guy in the car behind gave me a blast of his car horn for good measure.

Morto for myself.

Thing 173 Street Fighter

Ya, that picture pretty much gives away how lame this Thing is in comparison to what goes on in the ceann when you read the title. I did not go out to the street, dressed in martial arts gear and hurl fire balls at blonde people. I did however, play a computer game.

The second reason this is lame is that I've never played Street Fighter before. I never owned a Mega Drive. I had a snes, and I limited game time to MarioKart, Mario World and Bomberman. Not bad choices if I do say so myself. The neighbours had Street Fighter, and I remember being little and watching the older kids play it. So close... yet so far. Sometimes I wonder if I even qualify for nerddom if I've never played Street Fighter.

Beat 'em up games were never my thing... until Smackdown on the PS One, which I loved. Dearly and sincerely.

Street Fighter has a cult following. It's massive. There are internet forums and Trekkie like debates over which characters are better than which. Ken versus Ryu... Honda versus Bison... Blanco versus Chun Li, and all of them in aggressive racist, late 80's early 90's stereotypes. Awesome.

They even made a genius movie... I use the term genius lightly.. VERY lightly.

CLICK HERE to see a Belgian man pretending to be American in a fight to the death...

Token Northy arrived home the other day and quietly announced he'd bought the new Street Fighter for the X-Box. Now for some logic... Token Northy lives with me. Token Northy bought Street Fighter for the x-Box. I own an X-Box. Therefor I can play Street Fighter. Cue excitement.

Honestly, I'm that slow that it took me that long to reach that conclusion.

Shortly afterwards, I didn't want to play anymore. It's all very well being excited to try to catch up on a section of childhood you managed to somehow miss, except that Pony Boy and Token Northy have muscle memory extending back about sixteen years and could remember all the good moves. I mashed the controller with my fingers and thumbs and hoped for the best.

It was not enough.

So just like my childhood, I sat there and watched the older boys play. Stupid beat 'em ups. I'll learn them good though. I'm spending all my next days off in front of the XBox. It's on...

P.S. Watching Pony Boy lose the rag when he gets beaten actually nearly makes it worth your while being a spectator. He's hilarious.

Thing 172 Us 2

Back in 2005, The Ray Darcy show asked people to send in photos of themselves, on a given day. Well, photos of anything really. Basically, get a snap shot of the day. A picture tells a thousand words and all that jazz. What a pure genius idea. Everyone bombarded the show with pictures they'd taken. Of anything and everything. What they ended up with was a book called "Us". Get it? Photos of us doing our thing. I like it.
Saturday, the Ray Darcy Show decided, on the fifth anniversary of Us, to go for Us 2. Sequels are normally shit (obvious exceptions include Back to the Future, Terminator to name but two), but I get the feeling the sequel to Us is going to be cracking. I can't wait for it. So I decided to take my fancy camera phone (I resisted the urge to say I-phone. I don't want people thinking I'm one of those people who can't wait to tell you that they own an I-phone. I mean just because I do own an I-phone doesn't mean I have to tell the world. People who do that are douche bags), and I went snapping.
I just took a bunch of photos of things I saw. People. Streets. The Thief. Pints. Whatever. It's a funny old thing. Limerick's got a bad reputation. Which is crap. Because it's an awesome place. On the day Us 2 was taking place there were gigs all over town. I missed most of them, but I did get to see "We Should be Dead" rocking out on Cruise's Street. They're just a cool band. Got a photo. There's plenty of times when Limerick's the perfect place to photograph just how cool a city it is. Milk Market, Munster matches, other events and places beginning with M, and many other letters to boot. I kind of wish I'd spent more time just photographing Limerick. I also kind of hope that someone else did it for me...
I can see why the Frenchman enjoys being a photographer. There's something engaging about snapping people and places just for the fun of it. It's too bad my photos are craptacular.
Still, as an exercise in just getting out and about with a camera, this was a good 'un. Who knows? Maybe one of my photos will make it to the book.

Eh... probably not. Man I'm terrible at being a photographer.

Thing 171 Give Fifty Euro to a Stranger

I know I've been slack with the blogging. Family stuff. I promise I've kept up the new Things, but I've been dreadfully lazy about getting the blogs done. Forgive me? No? Okay. I don't know where to go from here. I'm just going to keep writing.

It only seems appropriate that after being the world's jammiest man in a casino, that today should be give money to a stranger day. It would be appropriate to give away all the winnings, but I spent some of them on pints of Guinness. Victory pints. And I'm not a bit ashamed of it. Tastes better when you've paid for it with "jammy bastard money". So it was just fifty quid.

So here was the debate (I had a debate entirely with myself. Yep. I can debate with my own head. Dose of the crazy much?): Give it to a homeless person or not. I know some homeless people, so they wouldn't be strangers. But a homeless person I don't know? Still strangers, but for some reason it didn't sit well with me.

Don't ask me why - I think it was just that I liked the idea of giving it to some randomer for whom free money is a completely alien concept. I sound like an all out asshole even as I read back over that. I give money to Focus Ireland. I just wanted this not to be a charity Thing. I wanted it to be a totally random, out of the blue windfall for a regular guy having a regular day.

I'm now judging the hell out of myself. Moving swiftly on...

Fifty quid. Complete stranger. Once the idea's in the head, it's all about deciding who. That guy over there? No. He's having a row with his missus. We'll give him a miss. Plus, he looks kind of cranky. That girl over there? No. She's the aforementioned missus. Her boyfriend would get the wrong idea, and I'd have a broken nose again. One of that gang over by the sex-shop... No. Just no. What about that fella staggering up the street... He looks way to drunk to know what's going on.

In retrospect, making this decision at two in the morning after "jammy bastard pints", outside a kebab shop with Pony Boy and Token Northy probably wasn't wise. We're not clever at the best of times, and I've just spent the evening "re-investing" my winnings. Ahem.

Then it hit me. The dude in the kebab shop has had a shitty night. Drunks. Messy people. Me. All in all he's run a bad gauntlet of clowns in his shop. Who better?

Have to make it look smooth though. And I can't give him the opportunity to say no, or get embarrassed. What's that Pony Boy? Pose for a picture with the man. Sure. That's not suspicious or weird at all... ahem.

Remember that episode of Friends where Richard (whose moustache is the most awesome thing ever), tries to teach Chandler and Joey to handshake slide a note into someone's hand? Funny episode. Well I can do that thing. So that thing I did. Just after he handed us our grub. Handshake. Gone.

Pony Boy chanced a look back. I didn't. Like I say, quick getaway. I think he may have been chuffed. I think I may regret this decision when I'm skint next week...

We'll see.

Thing 170 100 On Black

Big thanks due to Evil Dave. He wanted me to do a James Bond on it, very early days, he wanted me to slap one hundred euro on black in a game of roulette. It should be done in a James Bond style, which means... Suit Up Time. I do love to suit up.

Up in Galway, I'd something else in mind for my Thing for the day, I won't say what, it just spoils the surprise. But time was running out, and I happened to be in a suit, and I happened to pass a casino. It's says a lot about me that just passing a casino is a reason to gamble... problem much? I jest. I've got it under control... don't you judge me!!

So, me and Killy head to the casino. Killy says not to do it. I realise I've to pop back to an ATM. Killy says not to do it. We head into the casino and change out the money for the roulette. Killy says not to do it. Maximum bet on the table is twenty-five euro. Killy says: Not to do it.
If the max bet is goign to be twenty five, and I want to do this thing (and I really did at this point, suited and ready to throw away my money), then it's going to have to be four bets on black in a row. If I could do maths, which I can't because I've a peanut and a monkey banging a cymbal instead of a brain, then I'd tell you what the unlikely odds would be. Any mathematicians out there tell me my chances of four blacks in a row on a roulette table?

First roll: Black. Up twenty five euro. Killy says don't do it. Walk away. I say no.

Second roll: Black. Up fifty euro. Drunk on the thrill (and on beer). Killy says not to do it. Take the money. Run. I say no.

Third roll: Black. Up seventy five euro. Now Killy's just calling me names. And people are starting to stare. Nasty names.

Fourth roll: Black. I shit you not. I really would like someone to tell me the chances of getting all four of those. Smug isn't even the word.
I was in a casino once with God Boy, Band Man, Dr O and Blond Boss. I had tactics for gambling. I knew where I wanted my money, and how much. I knew what was what. I lost all the gambling money. Blond Boss fired money left, right and centre at whatever table took her fancy. She bought a bottle of champagne with her winnings and had money left over. Pot luck. I love it.

It won me money.