A month without alcohol

As of next week I shall be making gourmet sandwiches with my feet on a tightrope upside down above a pit of lions, I know, I thought they were only joking too!

Jaysus…..that was some beating! 4 Leinster titles in 4 years-c’mon Dublin!!

My mate from home sent me a text saying ‘Yo, whats up?’…..I wrote back: “yer ma’s dick!”

I am sooo cool

Being a pussy doesn’t make you liberal, accepting other cultures as they stand even if you disagree with their practices does make you a liberal. I am not a liberal, not by a long shot, but at the very least I’m more open minded than some of the people who claim to be.

 I fundamentally believe that if you’re not prepared to kill a cow you shouldn’t eat beef. The argument that ‘I buy it in the shop so that I don’t have to hurt an animal’ simply does not wash with me. Buy it in the shop and accept that you are eating a mutilated slab of flesh cut from a living being-or else fuck off and become a vegetarian. At the very least you have to be consistant in your convictions, or whatever convictions you claim to have. Now, I know that the world is not set in stone and nor should your opinions be but what I am saying is that if you subscribe to a belief you should follow it fully to ALL its conclusions. You cannot wash your hands of what you eat.

I love meat, in principal, I’d have no problem killing a cow. It wouldn’t be top of the list for Sunday afternoon activities but I’m prepared to do it. Animal cruelty is not killing, animal cruelty is growing chickens en masse in an overcrowded and dark dank barn. Animal cruelty is growing a calf in a box so that its muscles don’t form and its meat stays tender. Animal cruelty is denying the right to a life which is anything other than pain, and heres where we get to the bullfighting argument, animal cruelty is a denial of the creatures nature. To raise an animal in such a way that it dies having never truly lived is the highest form of torture.

Yes, I am an advocate of bullfighting and I would appreciate if you let me explain before the ‘liberal’ shutters go up. If you would listen before reacting with that gag-reflex we all have when someone questions a commonly held belief, or something that is ’so obvious’ that it cannot be disputed*.

I’m not going to change anyones opinions with this piece, and I don’t want to, but this is what I believe.

First off, bullfighting is not a sport-its a tragedy. Everyone knows the Bull is going to die, even the Bull himself, and this is a terribly sad thing because The Bull is the most noble of animals and his death can be nothing but a tragedy. The decision facing the Bull is a simple one; how do I want to go down?

The Bullfight is not about life, its about death, its about how we choose to face death. Its the pinnacle, the last great charge, of a fighting Bulls life. Its all one big nasty metaphore spelt out in blood on hot sand-life is a struggle and then you die. Death is the great equaliser, you cannot outrun it but you have the choice of facing it.

 And what of a fighting Bulls life? In normal agriculture, most Bulls are killed or castrated at birth because they are too expensive and dangerous to maintain. Their only economic value is in their pants, their meat is essentially worthless. They spend their lives alone, satisfied only by the odd shag. They have to be isolated because of the risk they’ll harm other animals. They are kept in the smallest field available that will also keep them healthy-a fishbowl for an animal that is otherwise impossible to tame? Thats no life.

But the Fighting Bull is different, he roams the plains, fighting challenging and training with other bulls until he comes of age. Essentially, fighting bulls are left to their own devices-free to follow their instincts-free to be Bulls. The farmer only feeds them, gives them medical care if needed and takes notes on who’s the strongest. Put two Bulls in a field and they’ll fight, its who they are and only Bulls bred for fighting get this opportunity.

The Bull fight is simply the last act of what had already been quite a violent life. Is it cruel? It can be, in the same way that boxing can be cruel. But by the same token there’s many a passed it prizefighter who’d gladly get back in the ring-even if it seems like cruelty to a spectator-because he knows that this is how it has to be. If you had the choice between being shot in the back of the head in a death camp(industrialised meat production plant, if you will) or going down with a little piece of your killer under your fingernails what would you choose? Both are certain death, but which would you prefer? People who would prefer the former think bullfighting is cruel, I would rather the latter and if you don’t understand that mentality you’ll never understand bullfighting.

Thats it, thats me, comments welcome-but please, no slogans.

*Led Zepplin, human rights, America is Evil, Europe is ‘cultured’, hippies never hurt anyone-I’m sorry but they are all open to dispute

Another bizzarre, if not slightly embarrassing, night in Berkley. Story to follow, first I have to see how bad I can fuck things up though

I am currently sitting on my living room couch waiting for a callback about a job handing out fliers(I know, glamorous). The guy called me up in the Mall but(in a fit of unparalleled idiocy) I asked him to call back in an hour because I couldn’t hear him over the anarchy in the background. “oh, you’ve a lovely Irish accent” sounded like “welcome aboard, we just have to fill out a bit of paperwork” as well as bit of a come on. Who knows, if the bastard ever does call me back I might live out the American Dream and fuck my boss up the ass(I’m not gay but I’ll learn, for all the dreamers out there…).

I applied for the job with a certain reservation. The add on craigslists made repeated use of those dirty words ‘clean and sober’ and worst ‘drug test’. Granted, gone are the days when my piss was so intoxicated that’d melt clean through the test cup (whilst sprouting out unicorns and other mythical creatures) but I’d still have a hard time passing. In fact, I’ve spent the last half hour trying to work out whether or not I need to fork out $20 on whatever ’snake-oil miracle drug test passing kit’ they have in Walgreens. I found two timetables of how long it takes for stuff to get out of your system and decided that the most accurate one was the one in which I had the best chance of passing the test.

The guy has a fair point though, people in such important jobs need to be checked up on. I handed out flyer’s with AAF in Dublin, it wasn’t the worst job ever but the people we were working for were assholes. It quickly got to the stage where we were showing up drunk not for fun but out of some warped sense of principal. The worst was handing out Wall Street Journals having gone straight to work from the night before, literally standing up at a session table downing drinks and saying “we goshta gofer worrrrrrr…..k”. Our supervisor was not impressed, I stopped getting phonecalls after that. AAF got the odd one but only because she wanted some of his honey*.

Speaking of which, his girlfriend is coming over which means…… he’s moving out which means…… I get a room all to myself for a full 4 days!! Although, I can see the Coy getting promoted from the floor in the girls room……………nahh! 4 full days!

*not literally, you fucking moron

A job on craigslists insisted on a two sentence cover letter on the subject of a dream job, I obliged:

I hope I’m not the only person who’s being honest here but my dream job would involve an extortionist fee to travel around the world and meet loads of cool and interesting people(essentially what I’m doing now). Needless to say, I’d pick my own hours and my comission would be based on how much fun I was having.

Until that happens though I’m sure I’d be very happy working for you.

Hope to hear from you soon,

Diamond put this in a comment, it deserves to be seen so here you go

………………………………………………………………………………………………….

Man eye of the tiger…
remember

-too quick and youll be too early for the cross missing the ball completely and ending up in the back of the net with the football headed down field with some other bloke whose gonna score instead of you!

-too slow and you’ll watch some tall chap smother the football in his hands right infront of your eyes, before running away and fucking it full force right up the backside!

-but time your run right and keep your eye on the prize and before you know it your making a good connection, while losing your marker who’d otherwise hold you back, good head, fast release, and youve definitely scored!

by the way

because i know your slow…..

the football is an ANALOGY for your wan…

your wan being the girl….

ahhh….fuck it

I just applied for a job as a ‘Girls Volleyball Coach’!! Ha ha, I love craigslists! This is such a Fr. Jack moment

Homeless people in Dublin come in two forms; ‘out of it and aggressive’ or ‘just out of it’. Homeless people in San Fran, on the other hand, only come in one variety: Downright Hillarious!

They have signs like:

‘Need money for prostitutes’

‘Need money for alcohol research’

or my own personal favourite

‘Ninjas stole my family, need money for Kung-Fu lessons’

There’s also the guy who made a robot suit out of cardboard and follows people around making robot noises(as opposed to Girraffe noises, obviously)

Take today for example, I had just lied my way through an interview with Starbucks when this guy walked up to me in the middle of Union Square and said: “hey man, I bet I can tell where you got them shoes”. I wasn’t in the mood so I tried to bat him away with disinterest but he persisted and eventually convinced me to accept a $1 bet. “I’ll tell you where you got’em, you got em on yo feet!”.

Bastard cracked right me up