it's the jazz baby!

was what roy kept saying for weeks before this past weekend. it's the jazz baby, everything changes.

well, what the biggest build up to a weekend i've experienced since i was eight and watching the 1990 new years countdown on City TV, turned out to be somewhat overrated. i can remember telling my dad how i was SO excited to watch the countdown and how devastated i was to find out that the biggest event on television was nothing more than a series of crappy, lying television ads. he smiled in a way that only a father can, and the only way that a son can recognize years later, he realized that his son was just as observant as he wished and could hope.

this is my blog and i'll be as nostalgic if i want to. as far as i am concerned i am unbiased. in fact, i am the most unbiased, so there.

in effect the jazz was another excuse for the staff to get overly stressed, pissed at each other (which at the time felt not so much like each other as it did me) and, at times, reduced to tears immediately following brad having stacked the empty kegs in such a way that:

it pissed me off - so says steve the manager.

and then as i went back upstairs to the bar with a case of corona he tossed at me he cried and threw kegs around the cellar. at the end of the night he looked at me over his pint of gin and tonic and looked at him over my cup of carlsberg and we stared each other down. i said steve. he said yank. i said are we still friends. he said no no we aren't, i am not friends with yanks.

it was then i knew that we were still friends and that we would always be friends. at least until the next jazz, or until the next time we worked together.

at the end of it all the cork jazz couldn't hold a candle to the Toronto jazz festival. that is a bit too harsh. the jazz fest wasn't what i expected it to be because it wasn't to much a jazz fest as it was an excuse for Guinness to monopolize beer sales and for the population of Cork to expand ten fold for the duration of 72 hrs and for everyone to get so drunk that they get sick everywhere in their new bathroom.

what i mean to say, is that the weekend wasn't really about jazz. sure the bands played jazz, a bit of jazz anyways, but it was more about being out in mass amounts and doing mass amounts of drinking. but it's the jazz baby, and apparently the jazz baby is all about working ridicules hours for little pay and tricking yourself into thinking that it is all worth it.

what i did learn is that this trip is not about work, i'd rather be traveling and the first chance i get i'm getting out of Cork and going to galway for a few days. and maybe to france after that.

how rude

cross cultural conversations can create certain ... circumstantial chaos.

take the term toilets.

(enuf with the alliterations)

at home we say " i have to go to the bathroom/washroom/restroom/pee/poop etc...". with exception to the last two in that list, these are all acceptable ways to communicate to someone what your intentions are without actually telling them what your intentions are. going to that particular room communicates the need to address an issue that can be solved with the amenities that exist with in a room of that name. here people say they have to " go to the toilet". i have had considerable difficulty explaining why this would be rude to say at home. a person simply does not draw attention to the particular bit of the room they intend to use because it is communicated through a mutual understanding and the knowledge that the person you are telling has experienced what you are experiencing at that moment.

i still have trouble saying toilet. i think this has to do with the way i was raised.

as kids, by that i mean when there were four of us ages six and under, we would not say "bathroom" and mom couldn't, for the life of her, get us to say the proper word. in an effort to fix it she wrote on a piece of paper "i have to go the bathroom" and posted it on the fridge. when ever we told her we wanted to go pee she would wordlessly point to the fridge and we'd correct ourselves.

i suppose it worked. but mom didn't expect the peice of paper to affect other people entering the house. on occation we would have visitors and on occation they would come into the kitchen and on these occations they would usually reciet out loud in a sort of question what was written on the paper. mom grew to enjoy this quite a bit and would usher the new arrived guest to the bathroom.

english 101

today marks the day that i no longer reside in a hostle. Sheila's has been a ... nice spot to hang my hat, had i had a hat, but i am happy to be moving to a more permanent spot where my hat, had i had a hat, can be hung with more consistency.

the new house is located right near a pub i was at last night, as well as right near the house of a canadian girl from toronto named sue. sue from toronto is half my height plus a foot, four inches and can make her way away from a bar with the greatest of ease which makes up for the difficulty she has getting to the bar. equilibrium is always maintained.

we were at the pub to see an italian friend play the drums at nine thirty. we arrived promptly at ten to discover that he arrive promptly an hour and a half later to never play. he played wonderfully, had he of played, and was invited back again next time they have a jam night that they need a drummer not to play.

on a return trip from the toilets i overheard a conversation i wasn't listening to. A girl whose name was soon to be forgotten said to a girl whose name was soon to be known as amanda and a boy whose name was soon to be known as devin "i wish i had of brought my coat to cork". This particular comment caught my attention because of two very important notes that should be noted:

1. people from cork don't wish to bring coats with them because they are already in cork
2. people from cork don't wish to bring coats with them in an american accent.

i asked the girl whose name was soon to be forgotten where they were from and i was told wisconsin. they told me i would spell it wrong and i agreed. i told amanda i would remember her name because i had a sister named leanne who has an older sister named amanda. devin then asked if i played the fiddle (he didn't really, i just needed his character to move the story along for me) and went on to tell me he had a father, or uncle .. i can't remember .. , who toured around ireland for two year collecting irish tunes with his fiddle. he will be visiting this christmas with devin's brother and suggested that i meet them and bring my fiddle.

everything is turning up millhouse at 723 evergreen terrace!

some good news

yes. lets talk about something that involves good news.

- i sucessfully avoided spending €400 on a camera that i really wanted but new i couldn't have. this might be the first time i've avoided a purchase such as this one. i don't know if that means i am growing up, learning what money actually is or simply enjoying the luxury of eating too much.

- one of the glengarry cast, pete, offered me a job in washington dc as a bartender in the event that my travels were to take me there. i never once thought that being a bartender could take me around the world, but now that i know that ...

- i went dancing after work on saturday night with the glengarry crew. they left the following morning, so this was a sort of goodbye party from me to them that i never told them about. i didn't know that the golden compass was set there; that certainly is magical and i am excited to see what's in store there.

- we get our house on friday pending my ability to get to the office and file the paper work. having a bed of my own that i don't have to move out of every few days will mean the world to me. elliott is looking forward to spreading his stuff out all over the room. him and i have decided to bite the bullet and take the single rooms because they'll be cheaper.

- since i've added the clustrmap to the side bar there have been 268 hits to salutmaman from four different countries, with over a hundred of those from southwestern ontario. thanks for tuning in, i only hope i can keep you entertained.

shit happens

yes it does. bad days happen. yes, they do. last night i broke three glasses and tried very hard to break a third, at which point, had i been successful, someone likely would have been severely injured.

today is a good day. i slept until two. put on sweat pants. had grilled cheese. drank a few cups of tea. wrote this post until half three. yesterday was not a good day

somehow, last night, being told that shit happens didn't make me feel better. so i had half a cigarette.

boy, was that ever dumb. this morning i feel as though a porcupine has taken up residence in my throat, two accountants on adding machines are pounding away in my head and all the while Gord Downie is flailing away on stage, kicking over his mic stand doing a classic freak out except instead of a stage it is my stomach. not to mention the memory of the guilt i felt gripping the fag as it burned a hole in my soul the previous night.

but let us start at the beginning. yesterday i worked twelve hours. this was unbeknown'st to me until i calculated it at the end of the night. had i have known that i may have been able to pin point the cause of my angst and work towards a more rational solution. but i didn't and i did what i did because at this point doing anything is entirely impossible.

i broke the first glass taking it off a shelf. i broke the second rounding the inside bar. i nearly broke the third using a wall mounted pourer; the glass fell behind a lower row of pourers and stayed there as i closed my eyes and collected my thoughts and calmed the beast that was about to guide the head of the person who just told me that shit happens through the wall on which was mounted the shot pourer that was at this moment the bane of my existence. having sorted myself out i completed the list of drinks that my american friends had ordered, smiled politely, and died inside.

after last orders the barmen all went outside. it knocked the socks off colin the scot when i asked for one. it is curious how smokers react when someone who doesn't smoke asks for one, like there is pride in getting a new recruit. i had three or four drags over the course of ten minutes and quietly tossed it away. the beast had been neutralized, but not by nicotine. all that was needed was minutes away from demanding stares and week long drink orders.

not to mention i would have enjoyed my break a lot more without listen to my fathers voice in my head telling me how terribly bad this was and how terribly stupid i looked right now.

creatively yours

as of tuesday, today i would have been homeless. i wasn't too worried, matt might have been a bit more worries however he solved the problem by leaving me for kilarney for the weekend ... jerk; but i wasn't worried because i could couch surf courtesy a few of my new found friends.

as of yesterday evening i had a bed again thanks to a new found friend behind the desk. a polish girl, asia pronounced asha, who has been named war lady by two Swedish fellows because she was to be their land lady. having never heard the term land lady they got excited thinking it meant she was a person of power - i thought it was because she seldom smiled. turns out that's just how she roles.

work is the only excuse i have. however you will notice that i have back-posted a few stories from this week. i wanted to conserve space, as well as your attention span because reading too much in one post is overwhelming - and i know that every word doesn't get read either. for what ever reason digital text doesn't catch a persons eye as much as hard copy text. most people do it, and i thank you for taking the time to read what followed the bolded text more closely as that was my intention.

in short my week has been largely dominated by work. monday brought some welcome visitors, and those visitors lead to making more friends and new contacts, which lead to a delightful night out and the rekindling of old friendships. i took it upon my self to solve a problem, in fact a couple of problems, and i even rid myself of an unwelcome guest.

that unwelcome guest was Decision and I am happy to report that he has receded almost beyond knowledge of ever having existed. a few times a day he will pop up and remind me, but were enjoying our not so trial separation. there doesn't seem to be a need for therapy.

723 evergreen street

we have a house. five beds, €1500/ mth. we move in next friday.

not a moment too soon. hostel life is exhausting.

the really good news is i have two french roommates. they are cute [yeah] but with partners [boo]. the good news out of that is that they know french and are willing to share that knowledge in exchange four hour noledge ov inglesh. this should be grand.

matt the ozzy is our fifth. his name is matt. matt is an ozzy. he is our fifth roommate.

we think we will rechristen matty as Elliott. he is excited about that because he's called that at home. i made the obvious reference from Berg's E.T and it was the first time anyone had done that ... ever. and that is no joke. that's just how we role.

...

in other news i made a mail bag. i couldn't find one i liked aka didn't want to pay €65 for so i went to a sally anne and paid six euro for an old pair of pants, one euro for an old belt and another 4 euro for some sewing supplies. 15 man hours later and i have my self a mail bag. matty elliott thinks it lacks several things that make it a male bag - namely that everything about it lacks anything male. i said he was spelling it wrong. he said how could that be, we're having a conversation.

i like it and i think i am the most talent me there is. deal with it.

glengarry glen more

the cast came in again. this time i invited myself for pints with them tomorrow night. i have been thinking about the play a great deal and telling everyone who wants to listen about it. it made it easier to understand since don explained it to me.

i like knowing people in the bizz. makes me feel important.

glengarry glen friend

today on my way to work i wished the cast of glengarry glen ross "break a leg". after the show they all came in for a pint, ... and then several more. it is great to know people in the bizz; makes me feel important.

several split shifts coupled with late nights, working behind the bar as well as holding it up on the other side (a few times, i must admit, that the bar was doing more of the holding up), has made for one exhausted bear. i did get a few cultural treats though. monday brought some welcome visitors. Don and Anne Melady, friends of the family, were in the country and came to Cork to visit dear old me.

They carried with them a speacial little package that i hope to get more use out of. My fiddle is now touring with me, and while i am very, very, very rusty with it i do hope to get much, much, much better with it.

Don and Anne were in a mood to walk around but that only lasted for half a block because we walked past a billing for Glengarry Glen Ross, a production put on by an american acting co, a play that he studied at school and had always wanted to see.

the show is difficult to perform. the dialogue is written so as to resemble how people speak in the real world. to understand what i mean pay close attention to your next conversation, particularly to: how often thoughts are actually completed; the number of times you interupt/are interupted; the number of times the converstion jumps between topics. there is a movie as well, which is good apparently, but if you get the chance see the play.

we had pints at my pub afterwards. it was all grand.

that's corny

Blarney Castle Grounds - €6
bus to Blarney - €5.25
apples and juice - €2.41
late night coffee - €2
internet/hr - €1

spending the day as a stupid tourist/mountain goat - €16.66

... and so worth it.

Blarney, apart from being a quiet breakfast spot in Stratford, Ont., is the name of a town north west of Cork City, Ire. It is also the name of a castle. I am not sure why it is named as such mostly because I can't remember all the placards I read this afternoon during my walking tour of the castle grounds.

Kissing the blarney stone wasn't as exciting as i expected it to be. the creepy old man, whom i had heard so much about from several girls along the way, wasn't as creepy as i thought he would be. however that might be because i lacked the proper equipment because the two the Kiwi's, who where visiting from Dublin for the night (partly to visit Matt and I and partly because because their hostel was booked up for the night) where going off about how he, the old man, was with them. Teresa (who's name i spelt wrong previously and i apologize for and celebrated her 20th birthday on friday) was convinced that the old man ... very much enjoyed having helped her lean, very awkwardly, backwards and downwards to reach the stone. Earlier that day I had told Chelsie, who you will remember i described as being bubbly and full of energy, that she was not allowed to kiss the stone.

The stone, legend has it, gives the gift of gab to everyone who endures the difficult task required to kiss it. I learned a bit more about the lore behind the stone, how it got there and other neat things which to your benefit I am unable to recall, however I will share with you what i learned about the word blarney.

One of the kings or princes or someone who resided in the castle at sometime before it was named Blarney was a bit of a political flip flopper. A queen or duchess or someone involved in the story before the castle was named Blarney said that the king or prince or someone was "all blarney, none of what he says holds true"

A placard later on said: blarney is asking a woman her age so as to know the age at which women most beautiful. Baloney is telling an 81 year old woman she looks 18. In other words:

blarney ... to lay a compliment thin enough so as to be enjoyed.
baloney ... to lay a compliment on so thick it is sickening.

touring the grounds uncovered a vast array of twisted trees and inviting rocks that made me and my out of practice climbing legs where able to let loose for the afternoon. i might make the trip back to the town just to get that work out again. matt has some pictures that i might get to post to my flicker, but he'll have to faceblast them first.

i named my rash

life has been rather quiet the past few days. i have been taking it easy because of an unfortunate run in I had with a rash. i am not sure where i had this run in, but the evidence of this run in is unavoidable. so unavoidable that i've given him a name: Decision. Decision has moved off my face but is holding ground on my neck and chest. and BOY is Decision making his presence known; visually and .. itch-illy (?). fem doc from emerg put me on some meds and cremes, very masculine to be applying this twice daily, and hopes that i'll be on the mend in a few days. the "good news" she had for me was that it wasn't to be worried about; bad news being that she wasn't too sure what it was that i wasn't supposed to be worried about.

hmmm... perhaps try another semester at school and then get back to me on this. as soon as possible would be nice. i'd rather not come back if this treatment isn't working.

my first lunch shift went off quite well today (pause in typing to scratch my chest), allegedly it wasn't as busy as it usually gets and i had it easy today .. which is nice to know since i was running my a** off. for a first day with it i hope i did well.

i met the owner, or as he was introduced to me the man-who-pays-me. i said hello to Phil twice, the second being more enthusiastic because it followed the whopaysme remark. Phil was grand as owners usually are the first time you meet them and before the first time you severely screw something up. i'll let you know if Phil and I still get on in a month or so after i've spoiled a lunch dumped a pint in his lap.

all is well. take care of yourselves.

quartet

it was only an hour into scarface when i began feeling guilty about laying around watching a movie instead of enjoying an irish afternoon. true, i am here for a year but if i keep saying that sept 15th, 2008 will be on my doorstep saying time's up, get out of here, pack up and go home.

so after an hour of scarface i went out for a walk. st Patrick's street hill is just around the corner of the hostel i am staying at. to climb it takes 10 minutes and puts a considerable ache in a persons calves, but it's worth it for the view and sense of accomplishment. looking out from the crest of the hill reminds me of looking out on Huron County from the top of the corn silo. the city scape of cork lies, for the most part, in a valley. this makes Cork City appear to be contained in a bowl. The landscape beyond the city is spotted with developed farmland and hills and trees and houses ... but mostly green. green is what inhabits everything around me.

at the top of st pats hill is a dogless dog park save for the two school girls playing with their dog. i know it is a dog park because dogs have their own way of telling you it is their park when they are not their. after finding a spot that a dog had not claimed, or at least appear to have not claimed in a while, i had a seat and just sort of looked. ahead of me is St. Anne's church, to the left is St. Finbarr's Cathedral and to the right of St. Anne is another Church whose name escapes me mostly because I never knew it. To the right and to the background up on another hill is Christ Church.

to my right is a barbershop quartet who are warming up for their practice. Scarface can't hold a candle to this afternoon, neither can his little friend.

i've nine mintutes

lets see what i can get accomplished.

8 now.

last night at the pub was a great deal more fun than the night previous. i was starting to get my bar legs back again and moving around got easier as i remembered where everything was, had to go as well as what the hell everyone was saying to me. - the Cork accent is a hard one to understand.

i don't know if i've said that already, but it is and bears repeating.

7

we might have a house. it isn't likely though because 25 other people also think they have a house.

6

i finished reading there is a house. it was about a house and a guy that had a drinking problem. he was a writer and couldn't write anthing more than the words there is a house. he was a very entertaining writer.

5

i spoke with a girl from ireland just now who lives in france and is back here travelling. (4) she has a friend who lives on the coast who lives in a bus converted to an appartment on wheels. he is a grown up camp councillor (not the therapy kind if that is what i spelled, nor the gov't kind either). she has her undergrad in arecheology (terribly spelt) (3) and wants to do her masters in heritage management.

very cool.

2

time to go, love you all. talk again soon.

1

paragraph four, section 3

the interview would have gone well had i have gone and i would have gone except i didn't want to. the reason i didn't want to is because my BC friend informed me that the job was to be a door to door .. or person to person .. sales associate. which wouldn't have been so bad except for the traveling, unpaid, from city to city and never knowing where you'd be. which would have been so bad except for the product i was pushing and the product i was pushing was make up. my BC friend had a good little laugh as we all speculated on what the response from home would have been had i have taken this particular placement. matty was especially excited to know how dad would have reacted, and the rumors that would have started about how i went over sea's to find myself and eventually come out of the closet.

regardless to say i have not taken the job, but i will be bar tending in a few hours and that should be great. i'll send out a few more CV's and try for something else ... perhaps a coffee shop or internet cafe. i'll keep you posted.

the place i visited today reminded me of grandma connelly's old place except bigger and containing people who mostly spoke a version of english that wasn't as much english as it was french or german. the whole place has carpeting (which puts me in mortal peril considering dust has a personal vendetta for me and causes my asthma to fly off the handle) so i don't know if we'll take it. it's cheaper to stay in the hostle, and the hostel is closer to the city centre ... but it would be nice to learn a little french from the new flat mates. count them .. 4 (+ matt and i). but it's not like we're strangers to a situation like that.

because, you see, matty and i went to school together for four years and for three of them we were roommates. in first year we lived in residence together in an apartment room with 4 other guys, one of whom, dan, went on to live with matty the year after while i was still in residence. the year following that i moved into a house with matt, dan, and three other guys (total of six) and that remained relatively the same for the year after that, save for a complicated moving about of people that is best explained by not explaining it at all.

in fact, if you're still reading i commend you because you have absolutely no reason to have made it this far, and i imagine you would have only been reading every other or every tenth word. i invite you to re-read the above statement because you are likely to laugh rather hard. if this is your second time through please continue on to what is below which shouldn't be much more, but i haven't decided yet.

or rather i've completely forgotten. although i would like to thank dan for pointing out that my first post had matt's birthday wrong, and being a good friend he cleared it up politely. thank you dan. what is important is the members of the house i lived in while at brantford. the team included, in addition to matt, dan and i: josh, steve, tommy, brandon and adam.

i know that equals eight, please refer to paragraph four for a complete explanation.

this is post number two of today. please read post number one by clicking here or reading it below.

leaf tossing championships

last night matty and i had dinner at our BC friends house. her and another girl made us chicken and other vegetable stuff and we polished off two bottles of wine. we then toured out to a pub and found more canadians: a couple from Ottawa who are licensed chiropractors looking for work in that field, and another girl from Toronto who also is a chiropractor but not looking for work in that field. We all shared a pint or four and laughed over the pop culture game that was going on around us. Had we have known what the server had said when she came up to us offering the game for us to play we might have joined in, but as it turned out we hadn't a clue that what she had said was english so we politely declined and proceed to regret that decision soon after. it didn't seem as though the game was about answering the questions but rather who could have the funniest team name. we decided to go back again next week with a name prepared and a proper answer prepared for the server: yeathad be grand. the name we're toying with is "George Bush is our neighbour, not our leader; the kind of neighbour you'd though your leaves over the fence to".

it's a work in progress, and the other names shouldn't be recorded in any kind of blog.

before it got too late i had to get matty back to bed so he'd be up for work this morning. he got up, i didn't.

aka the irish talk a lot

at least this particular irish man i was chatting with last night. the conversation was 44 minutes too long and i was aware that this conversation was going to be too long for me to continue to enjoy it just over a minute into it. needless to say (because you can do the maths*) that it was three quarters of an hour that i would rather have been watching the trad session going on in the pub, mostly because i was more interested in the fiddlers who were moving faster than i had ever seen before which was pretty fast when you take a moment to consider that it was the slowest 45 minutes of my life to date.

don't bother doing the maths because your head will likely explode.

regardless, i have found a pub that will feature trad sessions regularly, which i am excited about, and i have found a pub that wants to give me a shot at pouring pints of guinness, murphy's and beamish for the locals. they are not the same pub, which is nice, because if they were i might be required to get a bolt through my lower lip. and with dad coming to visit eventually i'd rather not have it pulled out upon his arrival.

*maths is how they say math