For reals?

A young man named Jerry Parr was once inspired to become a Secret Service agent when he saw a 1939 film called “Code of the Secret Service”. He eventually went on to become an agent, and his actions helped save the life of Ronald Reagan when an attempt was made to assassinated him in 1981.

“Code of the Secret Service” starred none other than Ronald Reagan.

Pen Pal

Dear blog, I am so very sorry to have seriously neglected you for the past few months, but I’m back now. Almost a year ago, I wrote of how I wanted to leave Ireland and possibly nver come back. I wrote of the adventures I was looking for in Thailand and the questions I needed answered. Well, I did indeed find adventure, which I will tell you about in future posts, I also found some answers, as well as some new questions. For now, I’ll pass on to you a letter I wrote to a good friend a few months ago while I was over there that I think answers a lot of the questions people have asked me since I’ve been back. The good friend is a doctor, hence the Whitman quote, and we spoke of Hemingway in our previous letters, hence the reference to him at the beginning. As you can see from the stories, I do indeed have a few tales to tell; street hustling in Bangkok, knife fighting in biker bars, joy riding until dawn, Tuk Tuk racing, cock fights, opium dens and lots lots more, and of course trying to teach mathematics to children. More of that anon, for now, I’ll leave you with a glimpse into my private correspondance. I always joke with my email friends that after we’re dead, there’ll be no great anthologies of our letters like there was for Joyce, Thompson, Burroughs etc., let’s try and rectify that. Letter after the jump.

Total Coverage

I just heard that Cuba and The Cellar in Galway are closing down. This makes me far sadder than I thought it would, but I have some great memories and the first article that got me noticed was written there, it was called Total Coverage, you can find it below.

Paddy Garcia Archives

“My friend wants to know if you’ll shift me.”

20,000 more words like this nonsense can be found here, if you’re into that sort of thing:

http://diaryofpaddygarcia.wordpress.com/

“Their horses and dogs would tire sooner than you, their batons would break before you do.”

“There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can’t take part. And you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you’ve got to make it stop! And you’ve got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it — that unless you’re free, the machine will be prevented from working at all.”
Mario Savio‘s words ran through my mind when I first heard about the events in Dublin two weeks ago, when a march by 25,000 students turned violent.

Three tales from the sex industry

These three stories are somewhat racy, at least the last one is, the other two are tame, so if you’re easily offended or don’t like hearing about lady parts, don’t read past here.

The importance of being idle

British Library- WWII

There’s an article pasted below from a 2004 copy of Harper’s about the importance of Idleness and other related topics, read it, cherish it, show it to others. It isn’t easy to find online, so I’ve reproduced it here, it really struck a chord with me.

Headshop update

Since my previous post about headshops got a lot of attention (number 1 google hit at the time of the controversy if you searched ‘headshops closing down’, still top three google search, also my most viewed and linked-to post on here), I figured I’d keep following the story even though I’ve moved away. It appears the banning of headshops may not be having the desired effect… in fact it may have been a shockingly bad idea just as I predicted, as this article from the indo a couple of days ago shows:

Rather than destroying the market for drugs previously sold in the shops — as was hoped for by Health Minister Mary Harney who introduced the ban — the drugs have simply moved on to the black market.
And the danger they pose has increased because members of the public may take the drugs, without realising what they are taking, and can underestimate both the dose they can tolerate, and the effects the drug may have.
The warning that has been issued by doctors within the drugs service is headed ‘Be careful — advice to anyone using street drugs’.
It details how addiction service staff have become aware of serious physical and mental reactions suffered by drug users and that as far as they can determine, substances previously sold in head shops are now being used to cut drugs such as heroin and cocaine.
This has resulted in a number of people being treated in both medical and psychiatric units.
It urges anyone who uses drugs to be “extra cautious at this time” and to report any unusual reactions to addiction workers or their own doctors.
In addition, doctors say the net effect of the banning of drugs sold in head shops has meant that these drugs they have gone underground.
Also, they warned that new drugs that were concocted in China, are being sold in the shops and “even less is known about these substances and their effects”.
The medical staff say the ban has not had the desired effect by a long shot, and they are bracing themselves for even more casualties and health emergencies, resulting from the continued abuse of such substances.

It’d be really infuriating if it weren’t so tragically predictable.

Joaquin Off

"I'm sorry you couldn't be here tonight."

Yesterday, the internet was set alight when the trailer for the ‘documentary’ I’m Still Here was released. It’s supposedly an effort by Casey Affleck to chart the rise and fall of Joaquin Phoenix as an actor, then his rise again as a rap artist.

Many people, including my good self, became worried/interested/aware of Phoenix’s problems when they watched this (piece of TV gold) interview on Latterman:

Now, taking a load of Barbituates or similar drugs and going on a talk show is all well and good, as is the paunch and beard, between movies he likes to let it hang out, fair enough. But for a long time, something never sat well with me, I never bought the idea that it was real. I thought the whole thing was some sort of performance piece, when he fell off the stage and got in a fight during a rap performance I was sure of it. I’m not the first person to figure this out of course, and perhaps Letterman was in on it, or it could indeed be some sort of huge ‘life as art’ performance as a comment on the nature of celebrity. If that’s the case, the documentary really needs to be great to pull it of. We’ll see.

If he actually has gone mad, and Affleck happened to start filming at the right time, then that’d be even better, but unlikely.

Quotes of the day- Al Pacino

Someone needs to take a picture of Pacino holding this picture before he dies.

“I don’t need bodyguards. I’m from the South Bronx.”