Elvis And Charlie

Charlie Hodges best known as the man who gave Elvis his
scarves and water on stage died of cancer last month. Elvis was
very fond of him and Charlie was probabley the nicest member of the
memphis mafia. In his case it is true to say that he really will be missed.

The last refuge

About a week ago this was one of the
headlines in a Dublin newspaper. To
the best of my knowledge no irony
was intended. But it speaks volumes
about the character of our irish 'patriots'.

Make money fast online

We would all I am sure like to make some money online however it
is not quite as easy as some of the 'experts' would have us belive.
There are of course people out there who do indeed make quite a lot
of money with their blog but it has to be kept in mind that most of
them are not bloggers as such but rather buisness man and women
who just happen to blog. And if like me you have managed to go
through life only to become a failure then it is unlikely that you are
going to get rich at blogging. But, as the man said, there is no harm
in trying.
If you are looking for a site that can help you then one of the best
is http://problogger.net. But if you are going to start crawling all
over the web looking for tips them just remember to be carefull
about what you download otherwise you will find yourself with
some spyware that you really don't need. And of course the one thing
to keep in mind is that any site that tells you there is an easy way
of bringing in a profit is to be approaced with caution.
But most of all, don't let the rush for money get in the way of the
very real pleasure that your blog brings to you.

The Fat Man in History

I was on IOL the other day and I came across this photo
and the first thing that came into my mind was a line or
part of a line in a poem I had read some time ago. It spoke
of someone being.......
......"As lonely as the fatest man in the world"
I don't know why that poem came into my head as whatever else may be said of him he does not look like
a sad or unhappy individual.
He does have the look of a biker about him. And his
nakedness may simply be due to him living in Florida
or some such warm state. I assume he's american.
He looks american.
In fact he looks as if he might be a blogger.
Or a Gerry Garcia fan.
Someone has probably written a book about him...
...."The Fat Man in History".

Kichael Kane

Born in Dublin in 1935, he studied at the National College of Art & Design, and with Patrick Hickey at the Graphic Studio in Dublin. He has worked for extended periods in Britain, Switzerland and Spain, and was involved in the establishment of the Independent Artists' exhibitions and co-founded the Project Arts Centre in Dublin.

Swaddling Songs

I have, in my time been a collector of rare records but
a couple of years ago I sold my collection. I had original
pressings of Mellow Candle's "Swaddling Songs", Red Dirt's
album "Red Dirt" and many others. There were perhaps
a thousand LP's in all and I sold the lot for 800 euros. The
Mellow Candle was a factory test pressing and it would
cost me anything from £1,000 or more just to buy that
one album again.
I got rid of them because I needed the money and they
were taking up too much space in my flat. I used to
pick up quite scarce LP's in my travels around charity shops
and car boot sales but the 'good old days' of the charity
shops has gone or at least here in Ireland they have gone.
I still do the rounds of those shops but more out of habit
than anything else.
The first 'find' I ever had was at a street market. It was
an early morning market which meant going there at
one or two in the morning and rooting around in between
brick-a-brack and general rubbish. The album was "Genesis"
by a group called The Gods. I had never heard of them and
it was so dark I could not even make out the cover beyond
the fact that it was one of the older laminated sort.
I think I paid 50 cents for it. It's a wonderfull record and
worth buying if you are ever offered a copy of it.
But most people now seem to collect them only because the albums
are rare and not because they are in love with the music.
And they never actually play them as that might cause them
to be devalued.

Blogging

I am quite new to bloging and am thrawling the web to
try and find out how to increase my blog traffic.
There is a lot of advise out there, most of it I would
imagine is good if somewhat technical for me but the
one thing that all these experts seem to agree upon is
that content is the single most important thing and if that
is right then the traffic will come.
So that is what I will have to consentrate on. I will tell
my stories here, true stories I might add and just hope
that you good people out there will keep reading them.
Do please let me know what you think of this blog. I would
really wellcome your comments.
As I have said I am new to this blog thing and just getting
a few links and adverts on this site has taken me about
three day....thats three days all day in front of my
computer......I'm slow at learning anything technical.
It's a sunny if cold day here in Dublin.
How is it with you?.

I Remember Billy Fury

I Remember Billy Fury and Blind Joe Death.

Billy Fury and Blind Joe Death.


I remember Billy Fury. I remember a lot of things.
When he came to Dublin in the sixties they wouldn't let him
peform. They literally brought the curtain down on him. That sort of
thing can happen in Dublin.
In the early eighties I had been living in London for about ten years
and made the mistake of returning to Dublin. I was back only an hour
or so and when I decided that I wanted to get out and go back to
London but they wouldn't let me go. Thats the literal truth.

My first Fury record was "Half way to paradise", but my very very
first record was Elvis Presley's "Lets Have a Party". I didn't buy it,
a friend gave it to me. It was a 78rpm record which unfortunatly
I dropped and broke within a few days. This was in the late fifties
or very early sixties, 'cant remember the exact date. I used to play
it on an old pickup that plugged into a valve radio.
Of course music, or rather the context of music was very
different in the late fifties. There was no MTV or for most people
no t.v. at all. In ireland there was really only one state radio station
and if you wanted to hear rock music you had to wait untill after
7;00 pm to tune into Radio Luxenburg.
The good old days?
Well, as far as music goes they were really exciting times.
As for all the rest, Dublin was a grey city run by the Catholic Church.
It still is run by them. They own the schools and if you own them
you own everything.
But there is a new God.
The entire Irish nation worship at the shrine of Bono. Don't get me
wrong, by all accounts he's a nice guy. But he IS worshiped here.
Most Irish people are just one step away from poverty and the
narrow-mindedness that goes with it. It seems that almost everyone owns
their own house which more often than not is paid for by the rent
from the less affluent who have no choice but to rent. And as soon
as its at least part paid for they then get another house. Ireland is a property
owning democracy. Historically, landlordism was the curse of the
land and was regarded as a great social evil. Now in the land of the
celtic tiger its the only morality. A morality devoid of morality.
As I said in a previous blog there are a lot of homeless people
here, you can see them in their droves every day on the streets of
Dublin.

THERE IS NO LEGAL RIGHT TO SHELTER IN IRELAND.
Both Property and God are enshrined in and protected under the
Irish Constitution. Which explains in part why all the drug pushers
invest in property. And Ireland is crawling with pushers and with
the peace process....... well the Patriots have to eat too.


I remember Clarence Frogmout Henry. A great voice. 'A great name.
There was no toilet roll in the 50's. That's one thing they tend not to
mention in the history books. When people went to the Gents/Ladies/little
rooms/crapper or whatever it was called they used newspaper. It was
quite normal for people to disappear for hours and everyone read them.
All joking aside the loo was a great educator.
I used to read The Beano.
Im pretty certain that 'Frogmouth Henry died this year. You allways hurt the
one you love. That was his big hit.
I have reached that stage in life when most of the music I
listed to is sung by Dead People.
Half the Gratefull Dead are dead.

Theresa, that was the name of my first love. I used to go to the
Regal Cinema in Ringsend with her. The Regal was less than regal.
It was what was known as a flea pit. Woden seats and a good
scratch on the way home. The guy on the door wore a dirty
uniform and hated, really hated kids. His name was Louis and he was
unpleasant to all the patrons. Theresa used to go to the regal
with her mother every night. I could never figure out why but
they spent every night there watching the same films.
I was in love with Theresa. I thought she was beautifull. It was all
very innocent.
One day I got out of bed. This was in the late seventies. I got out
of bed and did whatever I did, I can't remember, it was a long
time age, but I do remember that I went into a record store and
in the course of rooting around I came across a record by two
guys called John Fahey and Blind Joe Death. Well I thought it was
two guys. It said so on the sleeve notes. Fahey started making records
in the 50's. They were tiny print runs, perhaps twenty or thirty, I really
cannot remember, small print runs anyhow and he wrote the sleeve
notes himself. They weren't printed they were actually all done by
hand and would vary from record to record. So that the biograhpy
of, say, Joe Death would change depending on which copy you
happened to buy. The first of Fahey's records I bought had
Fahey on one side and Blind Joe on the other and after playing it
I decided that Blind Joe was a lot better than Fahey. And so did
a lot of other people. What we didn't know of course was that
Blind Joe Death was a figment of Fahey's imagination.
He died a few months ago. He was one of the greats.


Life goes on. Time passes. And there is a whole generation growing
up who have never heard of Billy Fury.
Billy died, died young. He was never a healthy boy.

The good ones always die young.

Yesterday I bought myself a little treat, a dvd of Jethro Tull.
.......... "Your too old to Rock and Roll, but your never
too young to die".........

Now for something different...

It's 8pm here in Dublin and I'm sitting in my flat trying to
figure out what to write in this post. This is something of a
problem as I really have no news, indeed I very rarely do
have any news as I don't do much. I don't work, I don't
study and I have no friends. I used to have plenty but not
now.
I am a failure ....at life and most things.
I'm 59 years of age and I have irritable bowel syndrome.
But I'm not complaining as I wouldn't have it any other way.
I don't like this modern thing of people wanting to be
someone or to achive something in life.
As Beckett said, "Nothing to be said".
I'm a Billy Fury fan.
Need I say more?.