Humor Is My Anti-Drug

This weekend, I decided that I was staying in & taking some me time. Last week, I had a paper to write (which means procrastinating until the wee hours of the morning), Obama got elected (which means i had every excuse to lose my mind, but didnt since there weren't any other Black people around), then went to Northern Ireland for the weekend (which means, I spent too many hours sleeping on buses and in a hostel). I say all of this to illustrate the cloud of mental exhaustion that followed me around all week. Reminds me of a Nas line, "Born alone, die alone, no crew to keep my crown or throne/I'm deep by sound alone, caved inside in a thousand miles from home/I need a new n***a, for this black cloud to follow/Cause while it's over me it's too dark to see tomorrow".

Now my week wasn't that bad, in fact I enjoyed most of it, but still it completely turned me off to doin it big this weekend. Plus, add in the fact that I'd going to Rome to see my lady next weekend (I'm geeked up; go on & hate me now), it wouldn't make sense to overexert myself & have to stumble through another exhausting week. Damn, now I've rambled on for a paragraph & half without getting to my point. Here it is: I was killing time online & came across the season finale of Real Time w/ Bill Maher. It was hilarious as usual, totally cheered me up, and hit some points I was getting ready to post about soon (I will throw my two cents in, just cause). Check out the end of his show, with one of my favorite New Rules sections ever.

Friday Night, Out On The Town (Part 2)

Part 2, here we go...

I've left Brogan's & I'm on my way to meet Bryan & a friend of his from school at a pub called Anseo (which means here in Gaelic). I had been wanting to go to Anseo for awhile because I read good things about it online, so needless to say, I was excited. I get there, meet Bryan, but he lost contact with his friend, so he finally gets through to her & goes to get her. He challenges me to make friends with people in the pub while he gets his friend & we'll meet up soon. After about 10 minutes of being the akward guy watching people, sipping my pint, standing against the wall alone, I spot some American girls (they easily stand out) sitting at the bar & decide to go talk to them. I was quite nervous about this situation for a couple reasons: 1) I have a girlfriend, so in the back of my mind I'm thinking "Farah wouldn't like this. Don't get yourself in trouble." 2) Meeting girls in bars has never been my forte; I refuse to use pick-up lines, but even just saying "Hi, my name is..." is more difficult than need be these days and 3) I have girlfriend who I'm very serious about, so my general interest level in talking to them isn't very high (and I promise you, I'm not trying to suck up or cover my ass by saying that, even though I prolly could use the brownie points, lol).

Needless to say, my male ego kicked in & I started up a conversation with the girls (one Asian, one Blonde). As long as I look at it as me being a good wingman & making pretty friends to eventually funnel to Bryan, we're all good. The convo starts akwardly on my part, complete with a totally weak "excuse me", followed by a couple of handshakes & "hi, my name is kevin. what's your name?" intros. Luckily, they let me keep rambling akwardly until I had something decent to say & we started a conversation. It was the typical who-what-when-where-&-why small talk that you always do. The Blonde, Allie, is a loud-mouthed, slightly trashy looking girl with the unfortunate blonde hair with dark roots hair style. The Asian, Dee, was a cute, petite girl, simple & classy. Let me just say that, in this case, birds of a feather do not flock together. I mention that I'm an acting student studying here in Dublin and they inform me that they're studying in Paris & are here for the weekend. Allie, with a smart ass attitude, then tells me to perform a monologue for her to prove that I'm an actor. Note to anyone who meets an actor: unless you're a booking agent or have legit connections that could get some a job, don't ask an actor to perform for you when he/she is out socially, especially in a crowded bar. That alone is a pet peeve of mine, I'm not a puppet or a trained chimp, I don't perform on command. If you're a business student, I don't tell you to do a spreadsheet for me, so don't ask me do a monologue at the drop of a dime. Anyway, I'm a little thrown off & pissed, but in order to save face & by time for Bryan to get back, I give it a fair shot. Unfortunately, I lost focus & failed on delivering my monologue, so I just took the L & was gonna let it ride.

To Allie, that was unacceptable, and she tried to give me the business about it & then started to talk down to me about acting not being a real profession. Y'all know me, I'm an argumenative person, especially when it comes to something I love, so we had to go at it at that point. We're debating her ludicrous claims back and forth, which include such gems as "It doesn't take talent to be a great actor/actress at all, it only takes connections. Take Paris Hilton for example", "I could be a great actress right now if I wanted. I know everything about acting because my mother's best friend was an actress", and "Acting isn't a real major. The only real majors are Poli-Sci & Pre-Med". Now, I know you're probably saying to yourself, "Kevin, why would you waste your breath trying to argue with someone who's obviously stupid? You can't debate ridiculousness with rationality." And to that point, all I can say is that a brotha felt disrespected & I wasn't fittin' to back down to someone beneath my intelligence level. Pride is a hella of a drug, lol. While all this going on, her poor friend Dee has just been sitting on the side tuning in & out. When she finally tuned in, she sided with me (of course), and we proceeded to wreck Allie's argument tag team style. That was like her only opportunity to be in the conversation though, cause Allie wouldn't shut the hell up. Mind you, I can't stand this Allie chick but my fatal flaw is that I can't ignore that chance to tell someone they're stupid once I've started, so poor Dee is getting no attention. It so bad that the bartender made friends with her & was giving her free drinks cause she looked lonely. Somehow I gave up my mission to educate Allie & the three of us had a decent, civil conversation for a lil while & then Bryan showed up. He's boo'd up with his random lady friend though, so he offers me no help in how to get out of this conversation. The girls decide that they wanna go to Temple Bar, so I give them directions in an attempt to get them out of my hair (actually it was just because of Allie, she was demon spawn). They asked me to come with them, I thought "Oh hell to the naw", and politely declined using the "I have to stay with my friend" line (apparently it works for guys too). It was too bad though, because Dee was cute & I'm sure Bryan would of liked her, but whatever, he didn't need me to play wingman that night. Him and the lady friend seemed like they were heading in the same direction at the end of the night.

Ok, American girls gone. As soon as they left, a couple friends of ours who go to Trinity College in Dublin walk in. Great timing, people I actually enjoy talking to & haven't seen in weeks, now I'm back in an optimistic mood. The pub closes at like midnight, so we're disappointed & decide to find a late pub. We make it to Doyle's, right across the street from Trinity, and we had a good time. Doyle's is a nice pub, filled with college students & has 3 different floors with bars. We talk downstairs for awhile, then decide to go upstairs where the dance floor is. The dance floor is an interesting space full of people making out or akwardly trying to dance (mostly standing there bouncing in an uncoordinated way, with their feet seemingly glued to the ground). If you can't beat 'em, join 'em, right? I had to make some fun for myself since my buzz was gone & I didn't have a strong urge to pay for any overpriced pint, so I dropped my Blackness for sec & danced like a lil kids just tossing my limbs around. Everyonce in awhile, they'll play something soulful and/funky, so I would catch my Blackness again for about 2 minutes per every 20 minutes. They love to play "Kiss" by Prince here, it may be their favorite Black song ever, so I rocked heavy to that. Also, "Intergalatic" by the Beastie Boys and "D.A.N.C.E." by Justice allowed me to feel slightly included on the dance floor. But they finished up with a killer finale of "I Want You Back" -Jackson 5, "Hit The Road, Jack" -Ray Charles, & "Shout" -Otis Day & The Knights (the Animal House version we all know, even though i just was reminded that it was originally an Isley Brothers song). When I tell you I tore it up, I'm saying I tore. it. up. That was a lot of fun, just losing it to those songs & I was satisfied with my night at that point. It was 2:45 am & I needed to be in bed. We we're scheduled to catch the 9am bus to Belfast that same saturday morning, and I did't get home until 3:45am, so you can imagine the type of morning I had on the way to Belfast.

***Update (or flashback)***
I forgot to tell y'all what happened on the way back from Doyle's. I leave Doyle's with one of the girls that lives down the hall from me. Its about a 30 minute walk back to the apartments, so we're just chatting away, trying to keep our minds off the cold and our fatigue as well. We're walking up Harcourt St & we can see a crowd start to form near this major venue called Tripod. Being the true Americans that we are, we make sure to get close enough to see the train wreck that was occuring. At first, we just saw some beligerent Irish guy & his girl fighting outside the club, almost spilling out into the street. Literally 10 seconds after we joined the crowd, this police van pulls up with its tires screeching & cops hopping out of the doors as if it was an '08 remake of the A-Team. Three of them go to break up the altercation and one grabs the guy & places the guy's hands behind his back while dragging him over to the van. For whatever stupid reason, the guy (who's not handcuffed at this point) decides that it would be great idea to fight the cop! He pulls his hand free and gets one solid haymaker in before the police struck down upon him with the cruel backhand of the law. When I tell you that they whooped this guy's ass, I mean 5 of them threw him to the ground got a couple hits in for good measure, pinned him to the concrete to cuff him, the picked him up (as if he was a corpse, but belly facing down) & threw him into the back of the van on his face. His girl tried to stand up for him, but she knew she didn't stand a chance & they didn't need more than one officer to subdue her attempt. Now, I've done my fair share of poking fun at the cops over here. They call them Guards (because of the Galiec name of the force), they don't have guns, and their batons look more light them 2lbs freeweights than anything daunting. But that night, they proved their hardbodieness. I now feel 2x more safe here & 2.5x more cautious to make sure that I don't end up as the Black Leprechan Rodney King. Now back to your regularly scheduled blog post:

More on the Northern Ireland trip soon though. To sum it all up, I enjoyed the evening because it gave me a little bit of everything I enjoy. A little dancing, a couple of pints, some really good conversations, some humorous akwardness, a reason to argue/debate, reuniting with good people, finding a new place, enjoying the typicall stomping grounds. It was like a month of friday nights rolled into one friday night. Does that ever happen to y'all?

Friday Night, Out On The Town (Part 1)

So...I've got a couple posts written that need to go up, so I'm throwing them up here even though it throws my story progression out of order. I hate to do it, because I have flashes of OCD about things, but I've had so much on my mind that its been impossible to keep things in order. And without further ado...

You ever just have one of those nights where things just keeping happening over and over again? Not necessarily the same thing, but you move from one spot to another & the story of the evening just builds and builds on top of itself? That was how my friday night was last week.

So, I got back from the Wicklow mountains (gorgeous; more on it in an upcoming post) & made general plans with my friend Bryan to try out a new pub that evening. I arrive home not knowing what to expect because my roommate Mattieu has his girlfriend in town for the weekend. Matt is a French student studying at the European Business School, and also a recluse who doesn't speak English very well (even though he's taken it for 10 years he says, go figure). With this picture painted for you, I think you can understand why I had no idea what to expect from his lady. Turns out, of course, that she seems pleasant. She doesn't speak English at all, or at least didn't attempt to, and had this innocent, playful energy to her (even though I never had a clue what her & Matt were talking about). It was really nice to see them together though, cause he doesn't seem to have any friends here (he never goes out, he's on his computer 10 hours a day!), and they seem like a cute, really-in-love couple. Now, Matt is a very perculiar fellow as well. His diet is very simple, consisting of only Hamburgers, White Bread, Chocolate Muffins, Orange Juice, & occasionally Baked Beans. I'm dead serious too, I couldn't make this stuff up. So of course when him & his lady wanna make dinner, what's on the menu? Burgers & OJ! I was in the common area, eating my own dinner at the time (steak & pasta, I gets it in! lol), so this would explain why I know all the business. You gotta keep track of what goes on in your apartment. Getting back to the story, let me add in that Matt doesn't seem to like to use the dishwasher. We've shown him how, he's seen us do it, but he prefers to wash all his dishes by hand (when he gets to them). When he was cleaning up, I put my dishes in the dishwasher & his girlfriend, who was sitting by the counter, made one of those "oh shit" faces. Now, once again I can't decipher what she said, but her inflection and body language was quite universal when she started questioning Matt. Even my ig'nant ass could tell that she was like "You have a dishwasher? Why the hell are you wasting all this time scrubbing them plates?" After we've eaten seperate dinners, I'm watching TV & chillin in the common area & they return to the room. I'm waiting for Bryan to hit me up, so we can see what this new pub is like, so I decide to get dressed & ready. I go to the bathroom & lo-and-behold, here are Matt & girlfriend (I don't remember her name, its hard to remember people you can't have a conversation with) in the bathroom just chillin. Needless to say, this was akward as hell, but they weren't doing anything sexual. It looked like was showing her his razors & shaving gel, but still "WTF, Charles?" Then, about 15 minutes later, I go to the room to pick up my shoes & I happen to walk in on an intimate moment. Once again, nothing scandalous, but this time she was under the covers & I heard a certain giggle as I entered the room. Another universal sign; no matter what the language barrier, I knew Matt was fittin' ta get him sum. At this point, I'm like I gotta leave, I don't want to really get in the way, so I ain't waiting for a phone call no more. Its 8:20 something pm & I'm out the door, in search of a watering hole (pause, no red card).

Since Bryan hasn't called me yet & I didn't have his number due to a mix up, I decided to go to Brogan's Bar. Brogan's is a favorite of the Gaiety students because its right around the corner from school & they look out for you there. I knew the Gaiety students, plus some of my IES friends, would be there, so I was looking forward to it. There I met up with some people, a mix of my friends plus 1st & 2nd year acting students at Gaiety, grabbed a pint of Guinness and nudged my way into some conversations. I had a great talk with a guy named Mark, talking about the US & Ireland. He had some questions about comedic differences between Whites & Blacks, I had some questions about Irish pride & culture, so all in all I'd like to believe that it was mutually beneficial. After talking for awhile (I couldn't tell ya how long, ya know time flies when you let me gab on, especially about race in America), Mark got up to go smoke a cigarette. While I'm drinking my pint, eavesdropping on the conversation next to me, this guy sitting across from me starts up a conversation. (Side note: one of the things I really like about Ireland is that in the pub, anyone can strike up a conversation with you. You don't see people all akward & lonely too often.) He starts off the conversation asking me about the election (the easiest icebreaker ever for foreign relations; its almost as cliche as "what's your sign?" to me, thats how often i get asked about it), then he switches into saying that I look like Kanye West (haven't heard that one in awhile) and sharing his love for Kanye and his dislike of 50 Cent. He starts telling me how he can relate to rap music & how Kanye is inspirational to him, he loves how Kanye came from nothing (not true actually, but I let him talk) and made himself into somebody, and yada-yada-ya. Its always funny to me to hear people abroad talking about how they relate to Hip-Hop. Its never somebody with a Hip-Hop consciousness who I get in these conversations with, they're all casual voyers of the culture, who probably are more U2 and Oasis fans than Jay-Z fans. I know struggle is universal & that's why Hip-Hop crosses all borders, but hearing someone talk about it without the knowledge of its African-American context makes for a interesting listen.

So this guy, Derrick, is talking to me about how he relates to the struggle & then somehow segueways into informing me of this huge drug bust in southern Ireland the day before. About 1 billion euros worth of cocaine was sezied by the Irish Navy, so I'm told, and he informs me that cocaine is the main drug in Ireland. Useful information, I know. I start to tell him with my run in with a cokehead at a pub called the Bleeding Horse (once again, I can't make this stuff up), which was hosting a party for Optometry students, and how I unintentionally befriended the cokehead by mentioning that I was a Kanye West fan (see how it all comes full circle?). He's not too interested in my story though, as he wants to explain the drug trade to me. He breaks it down for me by telling me that you can sell 1.25g of cocaine for 100 euros. Now, I don't know how much 1.25g of coke is; I never done coke, nor seen it in person, only in the movies & TV. Hell, I still don't get the metric system, so this info is really going over my head. Anyway, he's excited & animated while he's telling me this, so I'm playing along like I'm impressed. Then he tells me that extacy (is that how you spell it?) pills are huge also; he says he could get 1,000 pills for 1,000 euros, than sell them for 5 euro a pop. Now this was a lil easier to understand, buy it for 1 & flip it for 5, simple math on that one. Still though, why is this guy giving me a beginners course in the Irish drug trade? He goes on to mention that he sells drugs, which would explain his 2008 Miami Vice look, and that you do what you gotta do to make money. Ahh, the simple rational of a criminal. It is so refreshing to the law-abiding citizens ear. But wait, there's more. Next, he proceed to reflect on how he held up a convience store, Menace II Society style, by sticking the place up with a .38 snub nose....at 14 years old! Gangstas make the world go 'round, y'all. He claimed to ran off with 5,000 Irish pounds (this was obviously before the Euro was created), which was so much money that he couldn't even hide it in his home. He said he was just leaving money all over the place in the house. Coming from the Black tradition, I'm used to hearing tall tales. Shoot, I do my fair share of telling them too. One of the many things that the Black and Irish cultures share is a love for exaggerated storytelling, and when some is giving you the run around by telling a tall tale, they call it slagging. While I'm listening to this ridiculous story, I'm thinking to myself "Aww great, here I am being the naieve American. He's got to be slagging me," so I start laughing and doing the whole "Come on, really? You'se a funny guy" routine. When I say that to him, he looks me dead in eye & tells me that he swears he's telling the truth. He licks his forefinger and draws a cross across his adams apple; this guy has officially creeped me out for the evening. He finishes his story by telling me that he has this tiny little bedroom in his apartment, no bigger than the corner everybody was sitting, but that he was getting so much dough that he bought himself a 52 inch plasma screen TV to put in there (officially a Negro please worthy statement). His mother started asking a lot of questions as to how he was getting all this money (he had told me earlier that he was a stagehand & once worked a Kanye concert, which played into why he was a fan), so he bought her a 42 inch plasma screen for her living room & told her to stop asking questions.

Derrick, after chatting me up for awhile, decides its time for him to take a smoke break. Being the awfully polite drug dealer that he is, he asks if I'd like to smoke as well. Thanks but no thanks, I'll just finish my pint. He steps outside & I decide to make my move to leave. Before I left though, I felt compelled to tell my friend Tara to stay away from him & text me when she left, even though I knew she still was with at least six people who we knew very well & would get her home safely. I noticed earlier, pre-confession, that Derrick was quite fond of her, putting his arm around her & buying her a pint (even though she said she didn't want one & was a lil tipsy after her 1st pint). Seeing how he characterized himself as a real go-getter & one not to get caught up on morality and ethical decision making, I felt slightly bad leaving her in the same vicinity of him, but it ain't like I was leaving her alone at all. I was off to the next pub to see what more fun could be had.

Part 2 coming up next...

Back Again, This Time With Ridiculousness!

Man, its really been over a week since I posted. I definitely knew I had to get back on this joint, but a brotha's been busy with class & visitors in that time span, so please bear with me. But before I get into a recap of what's been happening to your favorite Black boy in The Land of the Leprechauns, let me just hit y'all with some Dublin ridiculousness.

Aiight, so today I was in Aldi (a super cheap supermarket, like shopping at the Wal-Mart supercenter but with less options) & I'm in line for the check-out & I look up at the other line & what do I see? A white dude with Mullet Dreads! Yes, you read that correctly: MULLET DREADS. It was business in the front & rasta in the back! Let me give y'all a pic of Mullet Dreads that I found on Google, just so y'all have a visual to rock with:


I haven't missed my Palm Centro more than in this moment. You know that I woulda took a pic in a heartbeat on my phone, but taking out my digital camera woulda been a lil too obvious to make this work. The funniest part of it (aside from the fact that I find White dudes with dreadlocks hilariously akward) was that dude was with his girl buying a bunch of 6 packs of cheap ass beer, just like you'd imagine a redneck would do. I know stereotyping is wrong in situations like these, but this joint just screams ridiculous!

And then, when I thought the Mullet Dreads were just a bold Irish redneck fashion statement, I saw it again in an even more hilarious incarnation: The Asian Mullet Dreadhead. Come on, man! Come, On! You mean to tell me that Harold decided that he was tired of rockin the bowl cut, so he went to his barber & was like, "Gimme that Jeff Foxworthy/Bob Marley hybrid. That'll be on some next level jumpoff, son!"? What is going on? Do I even need to say Negro Please?

I hope I see more Mullet Dreads while I'm here, the amusement that I get from them is priceless. I'll blog again tomorrow with the story behind my wonderful weekend.

Peace & blessings!