Countdown to Nashville - a sort of diary...

It's December 5th and in less than a month, I'll be flying to the USA for the first time in my life - and I'm 58. This is a special time for me and so I think that I should record it. My blog seems the best place to do it and so here we go.

Where I’m at in my life is probably a good place to start.

I’ve been separated/divorced since 1997. My ex is a lovely woman, we had 26 years together – kids when we married and kids when we had ours too.

Two sons and one daughter, all doing well in their chosen fields. Both sons are married, the older with an 8 year old girl and the other with two sons, 9 and 7 bookending the set.

I live on my own and have a big friendly dog for company. I have been in another relationship – possibly still am, it’s a rocky one and I’m not sure day to day. Quite possibly there’s not enough of me to be in a relationship and pursue my goal which is to earn my pension from songs I write.

It wasn’t until my wife and I split that I began to sing and write. I was 47 and went busking in Galway to overcome some block I had with singing in public. There’s lots of background on my website www.seanoneillsongs.com and so that’s enough of that.

Oh yes, I became an orphan this year too – September, and on Monday, work the last day of my notice as I was made redundant almost a fortnight ago. When I say work, I don’t actually mean work as I was told to work or not for the two weeks, and that I would get my basic pay without commission (I sell) or bonus anyway. I felt that putting some sort of plan in place for the future was a better option.

Nashville is not all yee ha and country music – although losing my mam and my job within a few weeks of each other would put me in a good state of mind to write country songs, and if my dog was to pop her clogs, nay paws, before the new year, I could be truly inspired in that direction. Hopefully my dog will last as long as her father, Shep, who died this year aged about two thousand and something in country dog years. Nashville has been a plan since I began writing. It’s the hub of the music business as LA is for film and TV.

In October 2007 and again in October 2008, I attended a writers retreat on Inis Oirr, the smallest of the Aran Islands. It was organized by Brett Perkins – a fine songwriter himself. Brett hosts these retreats in different countries under the name of ‘Listening Room Retreats’. Last year I stated, at the close of the retreat, that, if at all possible, I’d forgo Inis Oirr this year and go to the one in Northern California – The Sequoia Retreat Centre, Ben Lomand – which is on in January.

There’s an earlier blog about the death of my mother here and after she died, I realized how organized she was. Almost everything she owned had a little sticker with a name written on it. Gift I gave her when I was a kid had mine. A die cast model of a cream Morris Minor Traveler – the one with the wood – that I’d found and bought for her a couple of birthdays ago, still in the box, came right back to me. My Ma did her driving test and got a full sized cream Morris after she had her eighth baby and couldn’t get a big enough pram.

The eight of us are all still around – and, since last week, all in our fifties. For each one, there was a bunch of stuff we’d given her – and an envelope with our name on it containing some cash. Mine had, ‘for Nashville’ written on it too.

to be continued…

Dublin escaped the devastating floods so widespread in the West during the recent rough weather. We did get a lot of rain on Saturday night and Sunday morning - 28-29th Nov.

One thing about living with a large healthy dog is that you have to venture out on the days when you wouldn't otherwise

Bushy Park, on the Dodder is one of my favourite walks - Clara's too. Squirrels to chase and good swimming usually too. Not on this day though. The Dodder was all but bursting it's banks and Clara does have a strong self-preservation instinct. There's an ornamental waterfall close to the duck-pond that normally has a trickle or two, feeding under the path and into the river.

I made a few video clips on my Nokia n95 and, when joined together, had a total running time of about six minutes. The sound of the water is powerful but I felt it needed something more to still be interesting after the initial couple of minutes - or seconds - for the youtube audience.

Enda Reilly ( www.endareilly.com ) is a fine singer/songwriter, friend and collaborator too. The day after I put my clip on youtube, I got an email from Enda who, while I'd been walking the dog on Sunday, had been writing a new song , inspired by the weather no doubt. It's a really beautiful song (perhaps a bit long at over six minutes) and it must have taken me about 24 hours to twig that combining the two, if I could master the technology, would do both a favour.

Enda was game and it's worth checking out and staying with for as long as you're interested.

http://www.youtube.com/user/seanoneillsongs#p/a/u/0/lER414qxoT8

The Boy Who Wanted to Sing - a short story

There once was a boy who wanted to sing. When he was very small, and I mean VERY small, he heard the birds singing and, as he was too small to talk, he thought, "That's lovely - I want to do that" and he gurgled happily.

Time passed and he grew a bit bigger and, when he was by himself in the garden, he used to join in with the birds and that made him very happy. One day, while he was happily singing to himself and playing in the garden, his big sister passed by and said, "Stop that. That sounds silly."

"But I like to sing," said the boy, "it's what I love to do most."

"Well don't," said his nasty sister. "You're not a singer. Only singers sing and people will only laugh at you."

"But I want to be a singer - that's all I want to be." He said.

"Well you're not and you never will be. I'm bigger than you and so I know better." said the boy's sister, horribly.

The boy was sad.

He went to school and learnt to read and write and learnt to add and subtract and even how to divide and multiply and was very good at them all - actually, his writing was always a bit messy. He had a secret though and that was that he still wanted to be a singer and when he was by himself he would sing and was happy then. Walking home from school, across the golf course, he would sing beautifully - but only when there was no one else there.

At night, when all the family were watching 'Coronation Street', he would sit in the kitchen and listen to songs the radio (it used to be called the wireless - even though it had a wire and a plug but this is not the story so forget about that). Sometimes, if he knew the song on the wireless and if the telly was turned up loud enough so he wouldn't be heard, he'd join in and sing along.

One day, his mother asked him what he wanted to be when grew up and he told her his 'secret'.

His mother was kind and told him that he should really think about doing something else - maybe plumbing - because you'd have to be really, really good at singing to do it for a job. She did ask him to sing though but he got embarrassed and put his head down and said, "Not yet."

One day, at school, the teacher told the class that they were going to start a choir and went round the class, listening to the children singing a scale, one at a time - ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah. "This is my chance to get it right." The boy thought and he wanted to so much, he wanted to too much and, when it was his turn, he tried hard, he tried too hard and, while he didn't actually turn into one, he sounded awfully like a frog.

"No. No good." Said the teacher and the boy was sad and all the way home from school he sang, "ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah." - beautifully - by himself.

He grew up with his secret, listening to songs on the radio. He was very exited when he heard a band that was from near where he lived. He heard them more and more. He read about them in the papers and saw them on the television too and he watched them become world famous. Encouraged, he saved and bought an old guitar and tried to learn how to play it. One day, he was going to be a singer - he knew it.

He grew up, finished school and got a job taking photographs and he was good at it too. He met a beautiful girl, his Princess. They got married and had three children. They were a very happy family and when the, now grown up boy was on his own - in the shower or driving in his car - he would still sing but because being a Daddy is quite a lot of work, he didn't think too much about being a singer any more.

When his children were growing up, he tried to teach them that they could be whatever they wanted to be. He told them that if they believed in themselves, they could do anything they wanted to. The oldest wanted to be an astronaut - his friends said that was silly but he knew his dad said he could be if he believed it. He's an astronaut now by the way. His brother is an artist and the baby, his sister is a famous ballerina - but that's jumping way past the end of the story.

Sometimes, even while they were a happy family, the Daddy would feel a bit sad because he knew that there was something missing. One day, the Mammy asked him what was wrong and he told her that, while he loved taking photographs - it wasn't what he wanted to do - all his life.

"What do you want to do?" she asked him.

He told her his secret. "I want to sing - maybe even make up my own songs and sing them"

"Oh, don't be silly." She said, "You can't sing, you're not very good at the guitar and you don't even write postcards! Why don't you just be happy being a photographer?"

The Daddy got sadder.

More time passed and the children grew up. The Daddy still used to sing - in the bath and in his car and the Mammy remembered her dream was to be an actress and became one and one day the Mammy and the Daddy knew that they couldn't live happily ever after together anymore and so the, much older, boy went to live somewhere else.

He was lonely but his guitar was a good friend and he spent a lot of time playing it and singing by himself.

One day, he was singing so loud that he didn't hear a knock on the door. The man knocking was from Africa and was knocking at the wrong door but he knocked again - a bit louder. When he knocked the third time, the boy (we'll still call him that) heard and answered.

Dembe Sowe was as black as coal and as tall as a tree. His hands were as big as feet and his feet were like skis. He stood at the door in his rainbow coloured coat with a drum on his shoulder and asked, "Dat you makin' dat sound? Is good man."

He was looking for some people who used to live on the street and who'd said, "Come and stay with us if you ever come to Ireland." He came in and had a cup of strong coffee and talked with the boy for hours.

The boy told his story and how he couldn't sing when anybody was listening and Dembe thought a while and then said, "You know, in Africa, everybody sings. We don't think, 'am I a good singer? am I a bad singer?' We just sing - all the time"

He explained that in most African languages, you couldn't say, "I am a singer, or I am a builder or a photographer."

"This is because 'I am' means 'I am' and nothing else. We say, 'I make pictures' or 'I build' or 'I sing' and everybody does their best and enjoys it. You want to sing, so sing - I like to hear you sing and other people will too. Bring your guitar onto the street and some people will listen and enjoy and some won't but follow your heart man - follow your dreams and be YOU - that is what is important. When you do that, then you are on the right road for you and you can only do good."

Dembe stayed for a few days and drank an awful lot of coffee - strong and black. He said that he needed it to stay as black as he was.

The boy heard what he said and, a few weeks later, nervously brought his guitar to the city and sang - sang his best and loved it. Nobody told him he was silly and some people even gave him money.

A few weeks later, he wrote a song - about following your heart and then another and another, and in less than a year, he'd made a record and made lots of friend who love music, and even travelled to Africa to thank Dembe Sowe for his advice.

These days, he's a little bit famous and will pass on Dembe's advice to anyone who'll listen. He's pretty happy, most of the time and writing songs and stories. He even wrote this story and maybe he'll live happily ever after, after all.

Autumn Games

Having a dog who needs a daily walk, I've enjoyed this long late autumn and seen on or two leaves leave the mothership.

My dog is a retriever/collie cross and, while she brings things back, she would much prefer to collect them than give them up. Throw a ball and, unless you have another one - maybe even a squeaky one, you won't get the first one back.

'Pinball up a tree' is a game we've jointly come up with. I throw the first ball as high as I can up into a tree - preferably not a Deodar Cedar as they seem to steal balls - Clara will watch and listen while the ball bounces about in the tree and usually catch it in the air, dropping the other one at the last possible second and we start again. All incredibly boring t oread about even if you like dogs.

Last week I thought I'd disturbed a wasps nest as, when the ball was making it's way down, it seemed to be surrounded by about 100 flying things. As these came nearer and I prepared to make a hasty exit, I realized that they were what I called 'helicopters' when I was a kid - and when my kids were small. Maple or sycamore seeds that had been waiting for a ball to hit their branch until now.

Axe Murderers

I recently joined Couch-Surfers. I’d heard about it a couple of years back and thought ‘What a great idea’ but not having a couch to call my own, soon forgot about it. A couple of months ago, my brother suggested it would be an interesting way to spend my one night in San Francisco in January. So I joined.

I’m currently living in a house best described as a ‘work in progress (or process depending on how many forward and backward steps are being taken at any given time). I do have a comfortable couch that morphs into a double bed at the touch of a button – a few kicks help too. Since joining, apart from the usual friends and friends of friends who are just passing through, I’ve had 3 couch-surfing (CS) requests and two actual CS-ers.

Several people I’ve mentioned CS to expressed reservations. While they find it an interesting concept, they wonder if perhaps this is an ideal way for Axe Murderers to find their next victim. This is such a common response, it leads me to wonder is why it’s always ‘Axe Murderers’. Why not the Reverent Green with a lead pipe? Or even that wicked Miss Scarlet with a rope or a nylon stocking. The list of ways to bump off your host – or even vise-versa – is endless so why are Axe Murders getting such bad press?

Alive and well after two CS encounters so far – granted, Maria, (pictured above with my dog) is still here and may yet produce the axe – I’m finding that people I’m meeting through the site are people who think outside the box and travel without needing to know the destination. There is only one final destination for us all and if we live lives focusing too much on that fact, maybe we’re living half-lives.

If you are thinking of CS-ing, check out the site. View some profiles. CS members give information about themselves, their situation – comfortable couch, big friendly dog, smoke cigarettes constantly, couch not available Jan-Mar as will be traveling etc. etc. Other CS-ers can post references on their profile positive and otherwise and, as far as I’m aware, if you are an Axe Murderer, you have to post it on your page

Swine Flu Fever...

Got the sniffles? Swine flu. Got a tickle in your throat? Yup. you got swine flu too. Whether you feel a little bit tired, you've got a headache, or you're just a little bit bored, swine flu is the only possible diagnosis today.

Recession is the mother of opportunity folks. Fortunes can be made by introducing a new name for the same old ailments. New vaccines, new preventative measures and lord knows what else. Swine flu certainly seems to have captured the imagination of the masses. Shit. People can now scare themselves into coming down with it, aided and abetted by the whole machine that is the miracle of modern medicine.

If it had been called 'Slightly Worse than Last Year's Flu flu' and originated in, say, Scunthorpe instead of Mexico, would it have been quite as sexy. I don't think so.

Yesterday, stopping at a filling station to pick up a pack of cigarettes - like vitamin C, a great swine flu deterrent - did you ever meet a pig who smoked? - I was horrified to see the most blatant opportunist practice I've come across in a long time.

Being in a recession, the cost of washing a car has tumbled and, here, it was five euro. All very reasonable but surely 7 euro to wash your hands is taking the piss.

Burlington Bertie...

...if you were a regular visitor to the Olympia Theatre in Dublin in the 1930's, you might have seen my mam perform this song;

Blessed Eileen of Mucklagh...

Fact stranger than fiction.

My mother, who always said that I'd be late for my own funeral is probably laughing at the irony. Her remains have apparently disappeared. This morning, the undertaker was bringing her from Galway mortuary to Birr Funeral Parlour - less than 100 miles - for a 4 pm showing.

Last reports from my brothers and sisters was that she hadn't turned up yet. That was 7.40. I suspect a second Assumption.

She's due in Dublin for 10.00am Mass and I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Me, my mother and Leonard Cohen

Hey That’s No Way To Say Goodbye Ma

At 6.45 this morning there was a loud knock on my door. I woke instantly. ‘Yes’ I called. The door was unlocked and so the nurse outside opened it and asked me if I knew where I was. Of course I did – it was my mother was on the drugs.

I was in room 24 in St. Monica’s ward in Galway hospital and my Mam was just down the corridor. I’d said goodnight to her at about 12.55 the previous evening and told her where I’d be if she needed me.

We’d been listening to Leonard Cohen – Live in London and humming along.

My mother was doing an increasing amount of morphine and hadn’t been saying anything for some days as the tube that entered her nose went down somewhere inside her and she was supposed to excrete through this tube. That’s the sort of thing my mother wouldn’t be caught dead doing and so this tube was only for show.

Contrary to the expectations of the extraordinary nursing staff, she didn’t struggle for life for the last 10 minutes and give me a chance to hold her for her last breath. Instead, she breathed in, breathed out and left it at that. I don’t think she could have been dead for more than 3 minutes when I got to her and suspect that my mother wouldn’t be caught dead dying in front of anybody.

I’ve just arrived back in Dublin and can’t remember being so glad to be going to my own bed and it’s been a long, spinning sort of day. It has been an honour to have spent a big chunk of my mother’s last five days at her side.

Eileen O’Neill Born 10^th November 1920. Died 16^th September 2009

Rest in Peace

a song...

...written with Klaus Caprani on Inis oir. You can see Klaus performing it at the Copenhagen songwriter festival on my facebook page (link at bottom)

Walking on stones

Drone of the ferry

Fading into mist

Remembering the first time we kissed

Church bell sings it’s lonely lament

Wondring where it’s congregation went

Wonder where it’s congregation went

Hear the seagulls laugh

As I’m walking on the stones

Walking on the stones alone

Still hear them laughing

When you waved at the waves

Guess they never thought you wouldn’t stay

Guess I never thought you’d go away

Chorus

And the souls of the fishermen departed

I know they’re taking care of you for me

Walking on stones on a kinder shore

Walking on stones lightly

Warm of the sweater

Every stitch from your hand

Unravels like the maker’s plan

Always with me

Fading with me

Till the day I rest my tired bones

Hand in hand – walking on the stones

Bridge

Used to run from stone to stone

How I never broke a bone

God knows – god knows

Used to run from stone to stone

How I never broke a bone

God knows –God knows

Chorus

Chorus

Drone of the ferry

Disappears into mist

Remembering the first time we kissed

Remembering the last time we kissed

http://www.facebook.com/seanoneillsongs?ref=profile

be careful out there....

Who’da thunk buying a mobile phone battery could be so fraught with pitfalls. When my nokia battery died a few months ago, I went to the shop I’d bought the phone in to buy a new one. ‘We’re out of batteries for that phone’, they told me, and told me where I’d get a new one. It was an awkward place for me to get to – parking etc – and my daughter, the cyclist, said she’d pick one up for me.

The new battery cost 35euro and came in nokia packaging but within a week, didn’t seem to be holding, or taking, much of a charge. I phoned the shop and asked if it maybe was an inferior battery and was told that they only sold nokia batteries. I pointed out that there was no hologram on it like the original one. ‘All our batteries have holograms’, they said and told me to bring it back – with the receipt. Do you always keep receipts?

Yesterday, I finally bit the bullet and walked to the shop – a city walk for the dog too – to buy a new one. I’ve been living with the phone plugged in for the past few weeks, at home or in the car and two hours, 10 photographs, one minute of video or three phone calls was about the maximum I’d get – unplugged.

Saying nothing about the previous battery, I asked for a new one. ‘Do you want a genuine Nokia one or a fake?’ the guy asked.

‘What’s the difference?’

‘Real one 35euro. Fake one ten’

I said I’d take the real one. When he produced the one in the Nokia pack and slid it out – pack not sealed in any way, I looked at it and asked where the hologram was. This one doesn’t have a hologram, only some of them do. I thought ALL Nokia batteries have. By way of justification, he told me that a lot of the ones with a hologram were fake. Ok, what’s the warranty? No warranty! Unbelievable!

As that didn’t seem like such a fantastic deal, I decided to walk on in to the main shopping area – briefly toying with the 10 euro ‘genuine fake’ one – and try a few phone shops. The general vibe is that phone shops will order batteries in but would prefer to sell you a new cell – I tried about five. The Nokia repair shop didn’t carry stock either and could have one in a week – for about 50 euro.

One of the phone shops had mentioned a Chinese guy who sold phones an batteries and I eventually decided to check out his shop. My phone is a huge part of my everyday. It’s my catcher for song ideas, my always with me camera and video recorder, as well as keeping me in touch with the world. I wanted it back and functioning.

The battery I bought was pretending to be nothing, came in it’s own Chinese brand packaging and came with a warranty and a recommendation from the owner of the shop – and all for 25euro. It’s charged and seems to be holding it’s charge. Will post update.

Be careful what you wish for...

One wish was all that was on offer from the fairy – the recession is having it’s effect in Fairyland too. My friend thought for a while and decided that even with loads of money and a flash car, any woman who’d be interested, would probably be a ‘gold-digger’ and that that would inevitably end in disaster.

‘I’d like to be irresistible to women’ he wished.

Now my friend is walking around……..

…. as a really beautiful pair of Jimmy Choos

Leonard Cohen....

...has to be the coolest man on the planet. After 40 years waiting to see him, last year I did and, while expecting to be disappointed so was totally blown away.

Last week, my son gave me his Live in London (recorded a few days after the Dublin gig) and I've been listening to it constantly since. I didn't see him this time round as I felt that perfection couldn't be topped.

here's something I wrote soon after the gig;

Leonard Cohen. Dublin Friday 13^th June 2008

If John Lennon and George Harrison came back from the dead, teamed up with Paul and Ringo and played a concert in a stadium with Elvis opening for them, it couldn’t, for me have held a candle to the Friday 13^th gig in the grounds of the Royal Hospital in Kilmainam in Dublin.

When I first listened to ‘The Rock Machine Turns You On’ and heard Cohen sing, ‘All the Sisters of Mercy they are not departed or gone…..’, I was hooked. I was sixteen and wanted to sing like that or even just sing. I knew nothing about Cohen – information was much harder to come by when there was no Internet.

A couple of years later I’d bought a couple of his albums, a songbook and could play Suzanne, even the in between verses guitar bits, I could figure out. The chord boxes in the songbook would help me figure out fsharp minor and other chords I needed to add to my usual 3 chord trick songs and – while not actually sounding like Leonard, I was happy enough with my own solitary sound, when playing his songs – more so than when trying to create a reasonable rendition of say, Satisfaction or any of the groups’ song from around that time. I was singing songs I didn’t understand the meaning of but I did know they meant something more than ‘She loves you yeah yeah yeah etc.’

Many years later, I turned to these songs in times of confusion and found a lot of answers in his writing – sometimes to questions I wasn’t even asking. I met him in a dream – sitting in his car waiting for ‘Mrs. Cohen’ to finish the supermarket shop and as we were both killing time, even felt free to ask him the burning question about ‘Famous Blue Raincoat’*

He did play in Ireland, at least once before – it passed me by as a was a full-time student running my business in my spare time to support my three children and pay the rent so concerts were out of the question and I didn’t even want to know what gigs I was missing, never mind getting to go to them.

When I heard he was playing in Dublin this year, I didn’t do anything about booking as somewhere in my mind, the guy meant so much to me that he could only disappoint - something about meeting your heroes. I’d buy some records instead.

In the most unlikely circumstance, I was told, on Thursday that there was a possibility of a spare ticket being available for the Friday concert and was asked if I would go. On Friday it was confirmed and so I did.

Stadium gigs usually leave me feeling a bit unfulfilled – the crowd who want to be there so they can say they were at the gig of the year, can make it almost impossible to enjoy the music. This was different. From the minute Leonard Cohen walked on to the stage, this was a special night. While the stage itself was a speck in the distance, the large screen brought an intimacy I’ve never experienced – compliments to the camera crew on an excellent job. On stage, nothing was rushed or even, music aside, seemed rehearsed. It was as if Leonard Cohen had come to see us. His happiness radiated form every fibre of him. His appreciation of the audience, of his musicians, singers, the beautiful location and even the moon was just about matched by the ‘band’s’ obvious love and respect for this man – a legend but also very much just a man. It was as if everything was awe-inspiring and everyone was beautifully in awe. Respect abounded. Cohen took his hat off – literally – to the individual members of the band and gave the stage to each for their solo contributions and then just came right back in as ‘one of the guys’ when it was his turn.

I realize I’m doing a poor job at saying what I wanted to say and if, as I planned to, I’d written this right after the gig I might have been able to express much better all that I felt but, as usual, life got in the way and so ‘rapture light’ is the best I can do.

When I began songwriting, asked about my influences, the four people I always mentioned were Leonard Cohen, John Prine, John Irving and Guy Clark. As of last Friday I’ve seen them all - live.

*I just had to know if it was about the singer Johnny Ray. I don’t know what part of my sub consciousness that came from but the dream features in track 8 on my ‘Losers & Sinners’ album. I’ll put it on my Myspace page soon.

The Proposal

I was baby-sitting my grand-daughter last night. She's 8 and is very bright. She's looking forward to going to Electric Picnic in September and, as soon as I arrived, quizzed me on which singers I knew/had met. The fact that Lisa Hannigan was in there impressed her no end. She's very clued in and a very busy little lady too.

The picture on the right caught my eye - one of her recent works and painted with oils, she told me. I immediately saw a guy who looked like he was proposing to a girl and asked her what was happening in the picture.

It's a man proposing to a strange girl, I was told. (I think she has a future as a great artist - she's caught it beautifully) but...

I commented that the girl didn't look 'strange' and she patiently explained that she wasn't, that she was beautiful but the man didn't know her so she was a stranger. Obvious!

I asked her why the man was taking such a big step when he didn't even know the girl.

Because she's so beautiful, I was scornfully informed.

Now I'm wondering about her values.

I love my work...

I bought a newspaper yesterday. Not that that’s earth shattering news but I usually only buy a Sunday paper – lots of supplements – just bring the wheelbarrow down to the shop and wheel it home and I’ve enough doom and gloom to do me for the rest of the week plus the latest in films, what’s on and what kind of handbag will go with my shoes.

Times are hard. The country’s a bit more bollixed than most of the rest of the world. Pay cuts, job losses ‘an bord snip’ (Monty Python wouldn’t have come up with a better ministry), offering ‘haircuts’ and hair shirts to all but those who got us here in the first place.

I’ve bitched with the guys I work with about how we have to work harder for less and then the taxman takes more etc., etc.

My job is OK. I probably work less than 30 hours a week. I have time to walk my dog, write the occasional song and even knock off early sometimes to go and play a gig. I get a bit less than I used to and – sometimes have to talk more rubbish to close sales but hey, everything depends on how you look at it.

I’ve been passing through the same set of traffic lights, close to where I live, 3-5 days a week for about 4 months now. I’ve been vaguely aware of a guy walking from the stop light down past the waiting cars and selling the Evening Herald. More recently I’ve taken a bit more notice. This guy has a quiet dignity about him, is not at all pushy and just walks up and down as the lights change and will approach a car only if the driver beckons.

A couple of days ago, I paid a bit more attention. There was a bit more traffic than usual and I only moved a little at every light change. I didn’t see anybody buy a paper and when the guy was passing my car, I asked him if he actually sold many. I then realized he was eastern European – probably Polish and he had a bit of difficultly understanding me. When he realized what I was asking, he told me maybe 60, maybe 70 some days. He told me that he got 30c out of every sale.

That’s not a lot and it’s quite a lot of work I said. ‘Yes.’, he said, ‘but – is work’

I like my job.

sudoku solutions...

I was on a train last week and the guy beside me opened up a newspaper, went straight to the puzzles page and began to do the Sudoku. I don’t know about you but if nothing much is making sense in a day, solving a couple of sudoku squares, for me at least, seems to restore an equilibrium. I didn’t have a paper. I watched.

Interestingly he quickly filled in the numbers across the top line of the ‘easy’, then moved to the top line of the ‘medium’ and then straight to the top line of the ‘difficult’. He filled them in from left to right and then moved down to the second line, filled in every number in turn and so on to the third, until he’d finished the three puzzles and then he began the crossword.

I could see that all the lines and small squares on the grid contained the numbers 1-9 and everything looked correct to me. It took him less than five minutes. It took him less than that to do the crossword and that was a cryptic one.

Do you talk to strangers on the train? I did. I told him that I’d never seen anyone that fast at sudoku before and that I rarely ever finish a cryptic crossword. He said it was easy and then, sheepishly told me that he cheated. How? He made me promise not to tell anyone – he didn’t make me promise not to blog it though – and I agreed.

Everyday, he told me, he’d buy a paper at the station and while waiting for the train, pretend to be reading it. As the train arrived he’d put it in his bag and when he was sitting down take it out to do the puzzles. I still didn’t get it and must have looked confused because he then tapped his pen on the top margin of the paper and I saw that it was in fact, the previous day’s.

So you buy the paper and memorize the solutions while you’re waiting for the train? He nodded. ‘You’re Bonkers!’ I said.

He nodded and sang, ‘If I could be anyone I wanted…..’

It would have been churlish not to join in.

first ever cover version...

I have been told that children in Bahrain and Canada are leaning and singing this song. Here's a video I was given this weekend. I love it.

.

curiouser and curiouser....

... I saw James Taylor last night at the new Dublin O2 arena. He was superb but some of the audience left a lot to be desired. Buying a ticket does not entitle you to demand your favourite song - while the artist is introducing the one he's about to play. Buy a jukebox.

When James introduced Carol King's 'You've Got a Friend', It got me wondering about their days of hanging out. How old is James Taylor? How old is Carol King? I wasn't very old when 'It might as well rain until September' was being played on the radio, and that seemed like a lot of years before - a fairly young James emerged.

Not that any of this really matters. I remember Carol King re-emerging in about '71 with her wonderful 'Tapestry' album.

How old is Neil Sedaka? His 'Oh Carol' was reportedly about his Highschool sweetheart, Carol King. Does this then mean that he and James Taylor are about the same age? They seem a generation or two apart.

I had to google it.

It's hard to believe there's only about nine years between them.

Emerging Writer: The Shoestring Collective

Heard about this last night at The International songwriter/poetry night and will look into it soon Emerging Writer: The Shoestring Collective

it's good to have a dog...

...a dog gets you out and going to places you might pass by every day and miss out on. Thanks Clara.

Ps. Seth Godin says 'don't blog about your dog if you want traffic' - no traffic jams here then

Good Idea?...

...Condolences to any Michael Jackson fans who believe he’s dead.  Personally, I suspect he’s probably hanging out with Elvis and hoping to get a job at the chip-shop.

 

Good idea?  Filled up at a petrol (gas) station this morning – yes it’s payday – and noticed a bargain offer.  Bargain offers seem like a good idea at the time but usually spend their lives gathering dust in the drawer you’re always meaning to clean out.

 

This offer? It was a wind up flashlight that also was an emergency  phone charger , complete with adapters for just about every type of phone and all this for 10.99.  I don’t know where I found  the strength of will to resist but I did.

 

Some years ago when Trevor Bayliss invented the wind up radio, it was a real breakthrough.  No batteries required.  People in remote villages in Africa could now be in touch with local and world news – not to mention being able to discover Michael Jackson and lots more.  It wasn’t cheap but relief organizations would get sponsorship and get enough of them out there to fill a gap.

 

Coming back to the wind-up flashlight/emergency  charger;  as a flashlight you’d need a fairly large pocket to accommodate it and so as likely as not, it’d spend most of it’s time at home.

 

One day perhaps you’ll find yourself in a situation where  you need to urgently need to make a phone call, and shoot, you’ve got a flat battery.  You forgot to charge it.  You also forgot to take your car charger out of the other car.  No problem.  Take out your wind-up emergency charger, the correct adapter and 10 minutes winding – ignoring the searing pain in the broken arm (the emergency in this case) and, if you have reception, help will soon be on the way.

 

Then the awful reality hits you – you’ve left the emergency charger  in the drawer you’d been promising yourself you’d tidy out.

 

Tip!!!  Scientists have discovered that singing ‘Happy to Be’ for between 2 and 5 minutes will charge your phone enough to make that call.

 

‘Hello, this is an SOS.  Can you root around in that drawer and find the emergency charger and bring it to……’

 

Now what can I do with 10.99?  Suggestions please

Happy to Be

 

 

Prosody...

...

when Clara met Beyonce...

...she hardly batted an eyelid.

Clara - a.k.a Stoned Dog features in too many of my videos. Here's one;

my channel is;

http://www.youtube.com/user/seanoneillsongs

songwriting...

...last Saturday I took part in a mutual 'listen and discuss' session with about fourteen other songwriters.  It was and interesting exercise in which a song was played either live or from a recording and critiqued in a formulated way - 'what I really liked about this song is....', followed by, 'If it were my song, I might have another look at....'

I played one live song and one from a CD.  The live one, 'The Sum of the Parts', was brand new and one I'm totally fired up on, having spent a couple of months refining it.  The recorded song, 'I Can't Hear You', is about 10 years old and just about wrote itself over a cup of coffee.  Everybody had suggestions as to what I might do with the new song to make it a better song - in their view and just about everybody told me to leave the older song as it was.  

I also listened to about 25 or so songs and loved a lot of what I heard and, hopefully learned something from suggestions on where they might be improved.

What I didn't learn though was how to change my mind when I feel that something is just right.  Maybe that's why I still need a day job.

Here's some sound advice from Arlo Guthrie;

Poppy...

 ...beside the shore at Tsilivi, and enough camomile to make tea for a small country

even a Suzuki Jimny can look cool on a hot day

Not to be confused with Kerry, Ireland - which is also quite stunning, though wetter - this is Keri, Zakynthos (Zante).

We rented a car for a day - very cheap and informal (do remember to bring your driving license - I didn't and so was a passenger).

My see-saw partner drove down to here from Tsilivi, via Lagonas and this is a view from the top of the cliffs.

Lagonas is the largest resort on Zante and if partying is your thing, it's the place to go.  Tsilivi is quieter.  

From Lagonas though, if you want somewhere really quiet, you can take a boat trip - leave your shoes behind - to the island of Marathonisi where loggerhead turtles come to lay their eggs.  There seems to be a balance between protecting the turtles and showing them off.  while there are glass-bottomed boats to take people out to the island, the licensing is very strict and there are a limited number of operators allowed to do this.  You can buy an ice cream there from the guy who must have one of the best jobs in the world. 

Ironically, there's a girl in a pink bikini in this video who seems to be at loggerheads with her boyfriend.  I don't know what was going down between them but the whole trip seemed to bore them both to such an extent that they worked hard at ignoring each other and improving their sun-tans all the way home.

Marathonisi

it's good to get away...

...sometimes.  Last October, my nephew asked me if  I would come to his wedding in May.  'Love to', I told him and when he told me it was in Greece - well, a week away in Greece seemed like a pretty good idea.

Greece is a place I had never before been to - or aspired to go to.  Maybe my sub-conscious was associating it with grease - but hey, a week of sunshine interrupted by a wedding mid-way was definitely worth shooting for. 

Last October, I had a life/work balance as good as I had ever achieved and most weeks, I had enough to get by - and some.  Fast forward to May and the picture was totally different.  The knock on effects of our global recession had resulted in me working longer hours for slightly more than half what I had been earning previous year - and NO, I'm not a banker, financial consultant or real estate agent.  The stress - and I try not to do stress - of all this also had me working less effectively and so, on a downward spiral, the trip had become just another hassle - that bloody wedding.

Stuff like realizing my passport was due for renewal - another 85 euro, the dog needed a vet visit - write your own cheque please, not to mention a present for the lovely couple.  Arrrghr!

I'm back from the beautiful island of Zakynthos and - while still struggling - have the energy to keep climbing the hill.  The dog's well and the passport is good for 10 years and, when I figure the technology, I'll put up some holiday snaps and hope not to bore you.