The more perceptive of you will have noticed the absence of this column from last month's issue of HH (Yeah, like anyone gives a shit about an absent zine column) the reason for it (my excuse) being the fact that I was packing up my shit, sorting out my affairs and moving to France, which is where I sit typing this (on a french computer. AAAAARRRGGGHHH!! Have you ever tried typing on a french PC? Could they make life easy and leave the keys in the same places? Could they fuck! The bloody things are all over the shop! Bastards! Its taken me ages just to get this far, Q and A are in the wrong places as is W and all the numbers are on the second function of their keys! AAAARRRGGGHHH! And look - §, what the fuck is that supposed to be?…). Yeah, so sorry to Rick and Sam and the little one for leaving them in the lurch, I'll try and not let it happen again. (Cue Rick and Sam's first stab at modern parenting techniques, " Hey, thats ok Derek, you're you and we're us and a column is just a column, ya know, so like, don't carry it to your grave son, 'cause we forgive you, wanna hug? And while we're at it, we've been meaning to talk to you about this masturbation thing…. ").

OK, what else - oh yeah, Gearhead Nation has officially been laid to rest, it had a good innings but its wicket has fallen and its time has past. Like the parrot it is deceased; there was no service and its ashes were scattered over the toilets in an unamed urine soaked venue, it was what it wanted. We might write one more issue to tie the whole thing up as it was all left rather abruptly and we all know how delicate and obsessive zine readers are, so if there's ever a Gearhead Nation 42 y'all will be the first to know, all depending on whether we can tempt Finbar back out of the local forest and get him to start wearing clothes again…

« Fuck, I'd much rather listen to Throwing Muses than that Texas is the Reason crap.. » (Jane Shag Stamp's column, issue nine of Happy House)

What a line, every time it comes to mind I laugh my arse off. Thank you for that one Ms. Jane. Any time you need help defending yourself from a bunch of crying, gangly, acned chaps - what am I thinking?!- anytime you need someone to hold your coat while you beat the heads of said greasy boys, please, allow me the honour…

So, what have I been up to lately apart from the move (which I'll get to later, so don't eat all of that popcorn just yet), well, catching up on two years worth of reading for a start. Before I left I tried to get through a backlog of zines and comics so that I'd have less to travel with and ended up bringing seven comics (all issues of « From Hell » by Alan Moore and Eddie Cambell, oooh can't wait to get around to reading them - a tip, go out and pick up as many issues of Eddie Cambell's epic « Bachuss », I had two years worth sitting there and read most of 'em in two or three sittings and I can't recommend the series enough, its a new take on the Greek Gods with the star of the show being the God of wine, Bachuss. Absolutely fantastic, I shit you not.), thirty or so zines and mags and then I posted seventy books over the day I was leaving. Between zine stuff, the gig collective and family obligations (and various other assorted mini traumas) I hadn't had the chance to sit and read in big blocks, when I did get the chance I always ended up feeling guilty because there was a pile of letters to be answered and columns for other zines to be written and promises to help other people with projects and essays etc. etc. (What a fucking martyr to the cause) so since christmas I've made a determined effort to read as much as I can, and its been such a source of pleasure falling back into the habit of starting and finishing a book over a couple of days and nights. Since I was a really small kid I've loved reading, I'll read anything I can get my hands on. I've started learning french and I can't wait to be able to read french books, there are quite a few classics that have been mentioned to me again and again that haven't been translated. I haven't been reading as much political stuff as usual (although saying that I did come across a fantastic zine recently called « Stay Free » - PO Box 306, Prince St. Station, New York, NY 10012, USA - which deals with stuff on PR, media, pop culture etc. Its written and laid out very well and worth getting hold of.), instead I've been working through a pile of fiction - plenty of John Irving, a bit of Ian McEwan, some Carver, Will Self, Sartre, Paul Auster, Thomas Hardy, Miller etc.I even got around to reading the second and third parts of the First Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever fourteen years after reading the first part. I still had pt 1 and came across pt 2 a few months ago in an Oxfam shop and eventually found part three in a second hand bookshop in Phibsboro in Dublin, so I threw them in with my hand luggage and brought 'em with me, thinking it would be interesting to re-read pt1 and finally finish the trilogy.

You ever feel that you've wasted part of your life that could have been put to better use, say, by counting and ordering your socks or finding a way to communicate with the dead (try the French police for that one. Its illegal here to be outside your home without carrying official ID and the pigs can stop you any time they want for any reason, and they do. Cunts. I was cycling back from Lyon to the house where I'm staying at the moment and three of the bastards stopped me and hassled me a bit for no fucking reason and there is very much the attitude here that you don't fuck with the cops, I'm still finding it hard to get used to the fact that the cops are armed, some of the bastards have machine guns, I think they're the army police.) Yep, the Donaldson books are that bad - the only reason I finished them was out of habit - I've never started a book and not finished it, no matter how bad (I should really get that seen to…) and the worst of it is that there's a second trilogy that continues the story so thats going to be lurking in the back of my mind for a while. Donaldson, you're only a multi-part-epic-writin' bollox.

On the other end of the scale though, is the Water Method Man by John Irving. I'm really tempted to tell you everything about this book but I'll not say a thing about the story because its one of the funniest books I've ever read. There were a couple of nights in a row where I found myself awake at five o clock in the morning, doubled up with tears of laughter rolling down my cheeks reading this. The last few pages suck but you should really keep an eye out for this in second hand bookshops, its pretty easy to find and is fucking genius.

So whats with this french thang? Well I was feeling very burnt out back in Dublin for lots of different reasons and was starting to become one of those know it all, jaded, cynical old fucks, which in itself isn't necessarily a bad thing, but I was starting to lose my sense of humour ( Which is another thing, have you experienced the french sense of humour? If you answered yes to that then you're a lying fuck, because no such thing exists. Jesus what I wouldn't do for a book of good dirty jokes, at least the Germans are honest enough not to pretend to have a sense of humour…) and for me thats the sign that its time to do something, so I did. I went on a short holiday to Paris and met up with a friend and had a grand old time checking out the art galleries and science museums, even went to the Opera Garnier to see some chamber music which was brilliant. Theres a lot of things like that that I don't understand on an immediate level - opera, art, classical music - that seem shrouded in ritual and mystery.
Things that are removed from the public and kept in the realms of the so called elites which is obviously part of a wider system of enforced seperation, « high culture » for the upper echelons kind of thing which in turn has spawned a reverse snobbery, the old « art wank » attitude. In Ireland a lot of events especially opera and classical music are priced out of the range of all but a handful of people and there is a definite status associated with people who regularly attend such events, so one of the things that appeals to me about being here is that there is an attempt made to make these kind of events a bit more accesible with subsidised ticket prices (so in Paris it cost around £5 to go to the opera. The seats were right at the top of the hall with a crap view but we bunked into the more expensive seats lower down and nobody seemed to give a shit, probably because the place was half empty). Anyway the punk rock thing has been wearing thin for me for a while, the dwindling level of political information and the fact that for the most part I can't tell the difference between so the so called alternative scene and the mainstream career driven bands was starting to irritate me and the constant contact with spoilt assholes who seem to think the world owes them something just because they can hold a guitar the right way round or can hold a microphone without dropping it was wearing me down so I decided to step back from it all for a while and give it all a bit of a think and re evaluate my own reasons for being involved with it all. If ever there was a doubt in my mind about getting out of Dublin, and Ireland (which I don't think there ever really was) it would have been laid to rest at one of the last benefit gigs I was involved in putting on with the Hope Collective. The benefit was to raise money towards helping the Zapatistas in Chiapas, Mexico, who have been involved in armed struggle with the Mexican Government since Jan 1st 1994, set up a better communication system between villages using small power transmitters.
Sympathetic groups in different european countries have taken on different goals to make the process of support more efficient. So everything was organised and the Irish Mexico group enthusiastically agreed to come along with an information stall and have someone speak at some point in the evening. As I'm writing this I'm trying to remember accurately who played - I think it was Black Belt Jones, Residence, both from Dublin and the Kabinboy from Belfast. Anyway, it was decided that Kabinboy would play last and as they were getting ready one of the Irish Mexico Group got up on stage to speak, to explain to people the reason behind the gig, to inform them where their money was going and what good it could do and to say thanks. Did the vast majority care? Did they fuck. To most people it seemed that this was an inconvenience, an interruption to their evenings entertainment. A few minutes later at the start of their set, Gary from the Kabinboy (Great fucking band by the by, Sabbath meets the Melvins with some blunt instruments and a set of knives involved in the exchange…) let rip at the crowd for the same reason and made the obvious point that they were affording the band, who don't even have lyrics, plenty of respectful silence while ignoring someone with much to say that was of importance. It was the final nail in the coffin for me. OK, maybe I shouldn't let a bunch of ignorant fools get me down so much but it does, it just adds to a general sense of despair and futility, this attitude that nothing matters outside of you and your friends and your immediate environment seems to be the order of the day and i don't have the stomach for it any more. Couple that with the seeming hopelessness of things in general and it makes for a pretty bleak overall picture which I'm not sure I have the will or stomach to oppose any more. « Happy days are here again, the sun is in the sky again… »

Then again, just a day or two before I left I came across two things of interest (both for very different reasons). One was the March issue of Punk Planet, and another was a copy of the latest « Refused » album, « The Shape of Punk to Come ». Some of the people interviewed in PP and the people that come together to form Refused seem to exemplify opposite ends of the same spectrum. In PP you've got interviews with Boff (a member of the ubiquitous Chumbawamba) and the singer from the now defunct Van Pelt among others, who both seem to have fallen into this trap of assuming that the world owes them something and should indulge and accept any behaviour from them, because they've decided to adopt the « role » of musicians, and as such aren't one of us any more. As far as Refused go, you get an album that points to people who give a shit about the way things are and are still comitted to finding an alternative. Obviously everyone mentioned above is passionate about what they do, its just the Refused bunch seem to have resisted the temptation to allow their ego to overwhelm their actions, then again maybe its just that they've produced a damn fine passionate, intelligent album that will be bought and sold like any other product and has just as much value as the latest Simple Minds comeback (Oh my lord God what were they thinking when they dreamt that revival up? If ever someone deserved a smack…), who knows?
Right so, rather than bore you with any more of the same ol' same ol' I'll finish up with no particular point - I always feel i should finish with a point or something of significance but this time 'round I'll leave it all up in the air, where it seems to belong.
See you next time from wherever,
PS - Finbar is taking on the job of tying up all the loose ends connected with Gearhead Nation so if you're waiting on a reply or zine don't blame me for the delay (anymore), I'm sure toilet paper is pretty scarce in the depths of the forest…