Sandy capped

I am a swimmer.  Tumble turns are nailed with grace at the end of every length, bilateral breathing is of utmost importance, anything less than a silicone hat is not worth your while, and good lane etiquette must be observed at all times.

I am a swimmer.  When I finished my degree, I signed on and went swimming in the sea every day for the summer.  The importance of aligning oneself with the current to achieve maximum efficiency taught me a thing or two about the mysteries of the universe and the music of the spheres, and made me wiser in ways that I still don't fully understand.  While the amateurs swam from Blackrock out to the first or second rock, I swam out to the distant buoys with the big boys.

I am a swimmer.  As a teenager, competitive swimming was the only sport I ever took on.  A few mornings a week I would train before school, getting up at ridiculous o'clock for breakfast, walking over a mile to the pool and then spending the day sitting through my classes with chlorine red eyes while residual water gurgled through my ear canals.

I am a swimmer.  Last weekend when I was getting my weekly sea swim at the Dock beach in Kinsale, there was a bit of a hairy moment.  It was then that it occurred to me that maybe it was not the wisest idea to be spending so much time out in the water on my own, as anything could happen.  Just around the corner was Sandycove where I heard there was a dedicated group who would be there every day at high tide.  For my next outing, I would head there and join them.  After all, I AM A SWIMMER.

At least, I thought I was.

Over the last few months, I kept hearing about this bunch of lunatics that swam religiously around this tiny island just around the corner from Kinsale.  Any time this came up in conversation, I felt obliged to faff on about some of the things that were mentioned in the opening paragraphs, that I am something of a swimmer myself, one that relished those stormy mornings at Salthill when the sea was angry as it presented more of a challenge, one that I would always overcome with aplomb.  At certain times, one may have heard me say that "Mother nature is a cruel mistress, but the sea is my bitch" with the pomposity and grandiosity that always precedes a pratfall.

The first eye opener was when I turned around the corner and saw the island for the first time, glistening in the early morning sunlight, and looking a lot bigger than I had originally expected.  It didn't look foreboding, threatening or treacherous, and as far as lumps of rock sitting in the sea go, it looked pretty friendly.  So this is what I would have to swim around?  Right, shouldn't be a problem, after all I am a blah-blah-blah (feel free to fill in the gaps yourself).

After parking up the van, I stripped down and fell in behind a group of four or five who were walking down the slipway.  They were a tight group and had clocked me as an outsider the moment my green hiace came around the corner.  I said it was my first time there and that I would tag along behind them, using a false modesty as I believed my swimming would then speak for itself.  Which it did, as I struggled to keep up with them.  When we got to the first corner of the island, it was explained that the next bit would take about fifteen minutes, that the sea was a bit choppy today, and that if I wanted to swim back to the slipway it was still a respectable swim.   I'll follow on, it's ok, I want to go round the island.  Alright so, just watch out for jellyfish, someone got stung by one earlier.  Just one sting, but it went the full length of his arm and into his mouth.  At which point everyone burst out laughing, while my horrified face failed to muster a grimace.

Once again, I struggled to keep up.  To be more correct, I failed to keep up at all, and two very decent souls lagged back and swam on either side of me to prevent me from swimming into the island or way off out into the Irish sea.  My sighting ability was so poor that it should be spelled with an 'sh'.  The only thing worse than having to eat humble pie is having to wash it down with numerous mouthfuls of seawater.  I managed to finish one lap of the island, but by the time I was toweling off, the rest of the group were halfway around their second lap.  Who knows, if I had hung around, I could have watched them sail around for a third time.

So now I will go on record and withdraw any claims I previously made about being a seasoned sea swimmer, one that knows a thing or two about a thing or two, or how when it comes to the water, Dr. Herringbone Dread ain't nothing to fuck with.  Now that humiliation has helped me achieve some level of humility, I can comfortably put myself on the bottom of the open water food chain, a pair of ragged claws scuttling across the floors of silent seas.  Unfortunately, my ego has not been fully deflated, and I am now determined to make a decent go of this craic.  After all, that was only day one, and there can only be improvements from now on, right?  If I am wrong, the sea won't be long giving me a hearty bitch-slap.

The Cosmos Heap

"Brewed & Stewed - inspired by bad weather & Barry's Gold Blend" received mostly positive reviews, with the exception of one person who hated it.  Normally he is a proponent of my work, and I have no qualms with people disliking what I do.  The galling part was the attitude, that somehow he was owed a mix CD that he would enjoy.  My process is always the same, select a bunch of records (about twenty to thirty), hit record and keep going for an hour to an hour and twenty minutes.  Never have I attempted to put together a mix for anyone's enjoyment but my own.  If people like this stuff, that's all good and groovy.  If nobody likes it, then there is not much I can do about that.  Some people do not understand that, and hold me responsible for their happiness, which is quite a hefty job for someone who spends their week wandering around town, handing out free mix CDs.

This time the approach was slightly different: the attempt was to make a painfully self-indulgent mix that hopefully nobody but me would like.  The resulting mix is more morose, headier, and spacier than usual.  If there is an underlying message, it is the feeling of disconnection with humanity and society, but the unmistakeable sense that one is somehow part of the universe as a whole.  Unfortunately since this mix went online yesterday, it has gotten quite a bit of love, which means that this mission was a failure.

01. Nannie Porres & Claes-Goran Fagerstedts Trio - It ain't necessarily so
02. Donald Byrd - Where are we going?
03. Norma White - I want your love
04. Fela Soul - Oohstrumental
05. Janet - Got 'til it's gone (featuring Q-Tip and Joni Mitchell)
06. Visioneers - Ice cream on my kicks
07. Ramp - Daylight
08. El Michels Affair - Hung up on my baby
09. Dionne Warwick - Walk on by
10. Nat Birchall - Peace in Nineveh
11. Bobby Womack - Point of no return
12. Charles Bradley - Victim of love
13. The Vogado Projects - Mas fuerte que el sol
14. Colm K - The attic (featuring Walshy)
15. Massive Attack v Mad Professor - Radiation ruling the nation (Protection)
16. Nostalgia 77 & The Monster - The taxidermist
17. Sun Ra - Moonship journey



Thanks to Sunday Times, Fish Go Deep, Rootical Sound System, Colm K, Cork city and county for the inspiration.

Inspirational

If you're reading this you are probably feeling pretty inspired, right?  You might even be feeling inspired enough to re-post this picture on your blog, facebook or twitter.  I think it is a wonderful sentiment, but I have a few creeping suspicions about it.

As much as I am a proponent of spirituality, meditation and all that jazz, I had the misfortune of being born into an academic household.  Academia is a lot like alcoholism: even if you don't become one yourself, growing up around it will leave scars on the psyche that no amount of counseling, crying or inspirational quotes can heal.  So unfortunately when I see this picture, my first thought is "Could you please show me the research which has allowed you to draw such a conclusion Mr. Lama?"  (My second thought is "What is in the puppy's speech bubble on the girl's shirt?  I bet it's both cute AND funny.")

To arrive to such a conclusion must have taken years of research.  That bit about "within one generation" suggests a longitudinal study of incredible magnitude.  This means teaching a group of 8 year olds to meditate, then observing the violence levels of that person over the course of 20-30 years.  To be properly thorough he would also need a control group of 8 year olds that were not taught to meditate, and, for proper academic rigour, he would have to have a third group who were actively encouraged to be violent.  Now things are getting interesting!

As this is a longitudinal study there would need to be numerous follow ups.  At twelve they could be left on a desert island with nothing but wild pigs and sharpened sticks to see what they'd get up to.  At fifteen they could be administered milk laced with adrenochrome while wearing bowler hats and codpieces, and if the experimental group don't descend into muggings and gang rape, the experiment could be considered a roaring success.

The age thing here is oddly specific.  Did he conduct this experiment with numerous groups aged between 6 and 12, and, for some reason the only one that worked was 8?  Were there wildly disastrous consequences when this was tried with 7 and 9 year olds?  Could this be the reason he was run out of Nepal?

If the statement is true, then the logistics would be a fucking nightmare.  As it is, every 8 year old in the world is not taught how to read, who is going to provide the resources to teach them to meditate?  Will it become the responsibility of the parent or the education system?  Is his Holiness going to launch a franchise of Lama approved facilitation courses to make sure your child gets trained by a certified meditation instructor?  What about screening for (potential) sex offenders?  "Say kids, you know what the first step towards enlightenment is?  Silence.  That's right, keeping your mouth shut and not saying a word to anybody..." 

This could be solved by having parents and guardians supervise what's going on, but then we'd have the bigger and more annoying problem of the Meditation Mom phenomenon.   Soccer moms might be bad, but at least with soccer ability is quantifiable.  How well does the little one run up and down the pitch, does he get picked for games, and does he score goals or defend well consistently?  The thought of a group of middle-aged suburban housewives sitting around gabbing on about how their Caoileann has accumulated more good karma than next door's Kevin is enough to make my kidneys shudder.

Anyways, I am going to end it here; the last thing I want to do is piss off the Buddhists, mainly because they're such a blissful, forgiving bunch and it would take waaay too much work on my part to evoke any sort of outrage in them.  Here are some inspirational quotes that I came up with, feel free to look up little girl meditating on google images and add your own!

Separating the feat from the faff

Well if it isn't the first posting of 2012! Can I get a great big whoop de doo from all the money makers in the house and the peoples up back? Whoop de doo is one of the lesser known call and response shout outs in the hip hop world so I guess you should feel very privileged that I shared that with you. It would be nice to be able to say that the reason I haven't posted in a while is because I've been so fantastically busy, but now I'm going to sit down for a whileen and fill you in on all my adventures from the last few months. Sadly the truth is a lot more dismal and all that has gone down is a fuck load of faffing about.

Arsin' alone around Barcelona
Some of that faffing is noteworthy, as I turned thirty the first week in February and faffed around Barcelona for a week. The trickiest bit was swallowing the condoms filled with teabags before boarding the plane (strawberry flavoured were used for the occasion, and taste every bit as strawberryish as Mr. Freeze) and the second trickiest bit was trying to order Big Catalan Sausage without creasing myself laughing. As I don't keep a journal I can't give a blow by blow account of what went down over there, but it was along the lines of walked around, gawped at nice buildings, ate lots of nice pastry and meaty things, repeat to fade.

Bowl of Coiffusion (that's what the world is today)
Other faffery involves getting my hair cut, which happens less often than blog updates. I'm nearly up to two a year, and who knows some day I'll be one of those chaps who frequents a barber to get it tidied up every few weeks. Currently I let it grow and grow and grow until I can't see beyond a wall of hair. Then after a few weeks of that I decide that it might be time to get it chopped. Most of my teenage years were spent under the cover of unfortunate bowlcuts that even Shaun Ryder would have derided, either that or I'd try to get a normal haircut which the hairdresser would inevitably hear as "I would like a fringe akin to that of a mental patient, could you sort that out for me?" As a result I have an understandable fear of the barber. When they ask what would I like done, my ideal response would be "Does it really matter? Just do what you're gonna do and get it over with. I can always hide under a hoody for the foreseeable future." It was fairly painless this time, snip snip snip how's that? Could you take a bit more off please? Snip snip snip how's that? Could you stick a bit more on please?

Nu micks

It's been a while since I put together a mix, quite a while. For several yonks I was bringing my laptop out to every gig, hitting record, and then the best hour or so would become a mix cd. Sadly (well it was more unfortunate than sad), a few months ago I was getting up off the couch (something that I never do unless it's very necessary, usually only to make more tea or have a pee) without realising that the power cord of my laptop was wrapped around my foot. As a result my aged powerbook hit the floor at the exact angle required to break one of the hinges. There are many things I like about apple products, but the main dislike is that when things go wrong, they go wrong in a big and or tedious way. The replacement part will cost about fifty quid, and it will only be slightly less complicated than advanced neuroscience to stick it in. In summary, to replace this one bit (which is also the most breakable part), I will have to take out everything else. This is not an exaggeration, a quick google search of "g4 powerbook titanium replace broken hinge crying blood nightmare" will give you an idea of the ordeal involved. Granted, it would probably take a full day to do it and be done, but I haven't worked up the nerve yet (either that or I really couldn't be arsed, take your pick).

So there's my tediously drawn out excuse as to why it's been a while since I've put out a mix cd. I suppose a tracklist wouldn't go astray?



01. Kumasi Walk - Ikebe Shakedown
02. Sneakin' In The Back - Tom Scott
03. Mr. Brown - African Music Machine
04. Four Play (Promo Edit) - Fred Wesley & The Horny Horns
05. La Valla - Bronx River Parkway
06. An Announcement To Answer - Quantic
07. Ease Jimi - Nightmares On Wax
08. Freedom Road - The Pharoahs
09. Eli's Pork Chop - Little Sonny
10. Gasoline Alley - Dave Grusin
11. Droge CX9 - Manfred Hubler & Siegfried Schwab
12. Dance - George Benson
13. Feed Me Good - Har You Percussion Group

Can be downloaded here, if you would like a copy on cd, leave a comment and I'll hook you up.




Wishing you a merry Christmas, and a happy new beard!
Over the last few months I've been feeling a beardy sort of broodiness. I'd see men with impressive facial hair and find myself sighing wistfully. Movember was the cruellest month, so I made a decision to hang up my razor once it was over. It's been well over a year since I undreaded my head and gave my face a jolly good shaving, and there has been a constant stream of questions relating to when I would regrow them, or could I at least bring the beard back? It's bizarre, but I imagine that if I were to retire from DJing, there would be less of a demand to get me back behind the decks, than there has been for me to regrow the beard.

For the inexperienced, it's worth noting that there is more to growing a beard than just not shaving. Getting through the itchies is a test of endurance that few men can tough out. It kicks in after a week and then lasts for about a week and this is when most so-called men tap out. If you know someone who usually looks unkempt and unshaven but has never had a proper beard this is why.

The other major stumbling block for me is what most Irish men are cursed with: The Ginger Beard. I understand that the G-word is no longer considered politically correct, but there's no point calling a spade a spud. Even though having dark hair, brown eyes and eyebrows means I'm not a true blue ginger, when my face furniture is in full effect I experience the slings and arrows of outrageous anti-gingerism.

And yet here I am, face itching likes it caught an std and growing ever more ginger by the hour. It will be all worth it in the end, won't yet? (Yeah, keep tellin' yourself that Señor Gingernuts)

The sinister suspicions of an Invigeridoo.

Oh dearie dearie,

The last two weeks involved some gainful employment on my part, doing a spot of invigilating at the NUI Galway Christmas exams. Though I didn't catch anyone cheating, I did get to be a hardass and confisticated* several calculator covers, two mobile phones and also made inappropriate advances towards the males I escorted to the toilets. All of that said, it's a flipping boring job, where the only challenge is to try and keep your head someway level. The only way I retained some degree of sanity was to walk up and down the aisles slowly and purposefully pretending that I was Darth Vader (or at other times the Parish priest in a 1950's Irish village, it didn't matter which so long as I could pretend that I was wearing a fearsome black cape "Ah, Father Vader, is it yourself that's in it")

One thing that did strike home was that lefthandeders catch your eye and appear more suspicious than the righteous folk. I found myself invigilating up and down the venue and thoughts would wander across my mind like "Hah, I've got my eye on you lefty, not on my watch you won't", or "Looks like we got ourselves a lefty here boys, y'know what we do with lefties round these parts?" My mistrust of their kind has grown to the point where I started developing conspiracy theories that maybe some of those wily lefties are purposefully using their right-hands so as not to draw unwanted attention to themselves and get away with cheating. To check this theory, I would get a seating plan and mark them on it so I could see numbers and distribution. As 7-10% of the population are lefthanded, if only 5 or 6% of a particular group of students were lefties then I knew something was up.

The next course of action would be to go around checking for uncomfortably gripped pens and especially poor handwriting amongst the righteous folk, as they might well be lefties in disguise, and if they'll stoop to pretending to be right handed, lord only knows what else they're up to. Unfortunately, I didn't manage to find a single one, which means of course that I'm not a crazy, suspicious, paranoid nutjob, but that those sneaky lefties are always two steps ahead.


*confistication is way more severe than mere confiscation, ask anyone who's had something of theirs confisticated and they'll tell you



Durty Grooves of the Poorest Quality
I recorded a follow up Durty Grooves mix, but as my styli are knackered, the grooves sound more durty than is humane. It's recordings like this that give vinyl a bad name. If you do download this, it's best listened to on big bassy speakers, where the bass will muffle over the excessive crackle and scraping. Fortunately I'll be in New York in ten days time, where they have an impressive needle exchange programme so I should be able to trade in these stantons of yesteryear for a new set of ortofons.