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.

I was young and stupid and had read far, far, far too much Hunter Thompson for my own, or anyone else’s good. But this is the type of thing you do at the end of your teenage years and want to kick down the door of the student paper and freak a few people out. The article was the first time I was threatened with a lawsuit,and they were certainly serious about it, but as I would learn in later years when I had a few more libel threats against me, they all calm down after a few days and the lawyers rarely get bothered. I have some great memories in Cuba* Nightclub in Galway, it was actually the first ‘real’ nightclub I ever went to and for a few years, it was the only one in Galway I wanted to go to, the music was better than all the clubs and the girls were less stuck up. Wednesday nights upstairs they played rock and old blues, the girls didn’t wear fake tan and the Strokes and The White Stripes were just becoming big. While Fifty Cent or whatever Europop shite was clogging up the soundsystems of the other nightclubs, I was taking BZP pills and mushrooms back when they were legal and jumping around to Rage Against the Machine.

The Cellar nightclub is where I saw a lot of my friends play gigs, downstairs in the brilliantly sweaty basement, I drank many a naggin of Jack Daniels hidden under a table and jmped around like a fool and then at the end of the night, we’d put all our change on the table and count it all up, hoping we had enough for a pitcher of white russians and a bag of Taytos.

“Here” my editor said as he gave me free tickets to the Fresher’s Ball a few hours before the event “Bring a photographer. I’m counting on you, I want total coverage.”Not exactly a tough assignment, turn up, take a few pictures of the first years before they get too drunk, get a feel for the atmosphere and get out before it gets messy. And there was no doubt it would turn messy, most of them would not be used to heavy drinking and nothing beats experience when it comes to this type of wild affair. The problem was to find the right accomplice, someone who could keep it together, someone who was reliable and wouldn’t drink too much. But I couldn’t find anybody like that, so I took a friend of mine I met in a lecture earlier that day. The ticket said eight thirty so we figured we’d get there at nine; everyone would be nicely toasted and friendly, with the lights bright enough for decent pictures. A packed centre-city nightclub on a Thursday night isn’t exactly my scene, for the life of me, I can’t figure out whose scene it is, but never the less, I was told to get total coverage and that’s where the story was. We arrived late, but the place was deserted. Perhaps I had underestimated these first years, they knew some tricks after all, like drinking at home and then coming to the club late. My photographer and I headed for the off-licence; we would have to resort to first year tactics. Total coverage means getting inside the mind of your subject, coming at it from their angle and then every other angle in between. It started to rain in biblical proportions as I waited outside the off-licence.”What did you get?” I asked my photographer as he came out of the off-licence.”A bottle of Jack Daniels. I have four joints I got earlier in the head shop too.”I wasn’t worried about anything from the head shop, I had never gotten anything that worked in there, but the amount of alcohol worried me, I needed to maintain my composure, total coverage.We found shelter and sipped the whiskey slowly; it warmed us up and made us forget about the water that crept over our skin and the puddles in our shoes.Later, most of the drink was gone and we had smoked the pungent herbs from the head shop. As we walked up the hill towards the club, the rain eased off and the spices and herbs that I had earlier cursed as useless started to take effect. Our legs wobbled and minds wavered, but we made it to the club eventually, with a few detours. I had stopped drinking an hour ago, but my photographer was still going strong, he gulped down the rest of his whiskey, and the rest of mine.It was eleven o’ clock when we eventually made it up the stairs of the club and checked our coats in. I gave the camera to my photographer and he looked at it with wide, red eyes, like he had never seen one before. I cursed whatever lunatic shaman had grown the herbs, this wasn’t good, he was turning wild, but that would help him blend in with the freshers. I took the camera from him and left him to lean against the wall of the club in a drunken stupor. “I’ll be back in a minute.” I said, pointing to the camera. Total coverage requires you to move and flow unnoticed, be like a cat in the night, only observing, remembering details and uncovering all aspects of any situation. I tried to keep this in mind as I stumbled around the club, randomly snapping pictures.”Hello, I’m with the paper, say cheese.” Some got really excited and would screech and cheer when I asked, others shied away and even more got abusive. The crowd was like an organism, one giant beast, melting and flowing through the darkness of the club. Everybody melded into each other. The throngs of people on the dance floor heaved and swelled together, and even more glided upstairs. I followed them, total coverage at all times. Upstairs, the true ugliness of the beast became clear, broken glass and sugary alcohol formed a sticky, crunchy carpet all over the floor. The noise drew the crowd to one end of the room. The bands were very good, normally I would have loved to stay and watch, but these were strange times, I was here on the first years’ terms. The crowd were savages, like animals in the wilderness. The testosterone and adrenaline were oozing out of their pores, it hung in the air like a cloud and settled on the walls and ceiling in huge puddles before dripping into the bottles of WKD and Red bull and vodkas, refuelling the hungry mob. Strangers mauled each other in the corners, along the walls, in the middle of the floor, among the broken glass, groping and licking each other, fingers probing and searching. I saw one couple having rampant sex in the corner; beside them were a crowd of girls drinking Bacardi breezers, a well dressed guy came up to them and opened a bag of white pills, giving them all one, he smiled and left them alone, staring at the white dot in the middle of their palms, then at each other. One of them took it; the rest of them laughed and threw theirs on the floor, the pills dissolved into the sticky puddle. Later, I went to the bathroom and met my photographer coming out, he seemed better now; he had fallen asleep in a toilet cubicle. The urinals were filled with broken pint glasses and empty naggin bottles, a young guy lay in a puddle on the floor in a stupor, his penis still in his hand, his friend standing over him shouting random insults at him. A young guy burst through the door and announced to everyone he had cocaine. He didn’t offer anybody any; he just thought we should know. The last thing you need while on hallucinogens is confidence, not that I would have taken it, I had enough problems. It was time to leave; the club would be closing soon.We headed for the mecca that is Supermacs in Eyre square, the neon temple that acts as a beacon for every drunken maniac in the city. Inside, throngs of people were lined up twelve rows deep at the counter. Bouncers the size of grizzlies struggled to maintain order. We got caught up in the crowd and I got separated from my photographer, I could see him up ahead. “Remember details!” I shouted after him, “we need total coverage!” He didn’t hear me. I couldn’t hear myself. Total coverage would have to be put on hold for another time, on my own terms, not constrained by the animalistic demands of the first years. Hopefully, they’ll soon be tamed.