Frost Nixon, Eat Your Heart Out

Last week, I was asked to do an interview with my local radio station, CRC FM. 

Although I was highly chuffed to be asked, I wouldn’t normally have jumped at it, being increasingly shy of such things. Also, at this time of year, I have nothing theatrical to ‘flog’ so that provided a additional small challenge. So that would be a ‘thank you’ and a pass from me.

Except it was Anne Marie doing it.

Anne Marie Gibbons is a friend and an extraordinary music talent in her own right. It’s always a pleasure to meet up and have a chat and we have also conspired a bit on some theatre stuff at this stage. I had heard Anne Marie interview some of my fellow townspeople and ‘county’ people on her programme and the resulting shows were invariably laid-back, informative and entertaining. So that was a game-changer, I agreed with some enthusiasm and off we went. The format was not unfamiliar, a chat about my life and interests, interspersed with some music of my choice.

I’ve shared the interview around on my socials earlier this week and many of you have been kind enough to listen and be encouraging about it. I think I tend to babble on a bit and I kind of hate the sound of my own voice, but Anne Marie was a thoughtful and adept interviewer and that helped a lot. She seems to know when to let her subject ‘go off on one’ and when to interject, so that things move along with that deceptive ease that takes some natural talent to achieve. Danny, the producer, also contributed hugely by maintaining a high level of interest in our conversation even though he must have heard the like many times before. He even laughed at some of my funnies, which was invaluable to my onward trek.

The purpose of today’s blog is not to 'shanghai' you into listening to this 54-minute interlude. Many of you lovely readers have done so already because you are invariably supportive and kind. But I’m not trying to hijack your day. Mostly, like all the blog posts these days, this is a record for me to keep. I think it’s highly likely that I may never speak in this way again, of family and school and youth and young adulthood and life and writing. So, I’d like to keep it. I may want to listen to it in years to come and see if I agree entirely with what that bloke on the radio had to say for himself.

Here’s a link to it. Link. Mostly for me, as I said, but you can have a listen if you want.

I am a little troubled by the people I failed to mention in my unprepared tumble through the moments of my life.Marja Giejgo and Tim Crook (and Richard Shannon of course) at Independent Radio Drama Productions did more to reawaken me to writing and to keep me a writer in all the decades since we conspired together. Decades later, they remain my friends and continue in their gentle and highly effective encouragement. Mary Carr got me writing on my return to Ireland and, in conjunction with St. Patricks’ Drama Group in Westport, we made radio plays which went on to be theatre plays which still remain pertinent to this day. Great memories. Oisin Herraghty saw the potential in ‘Moon Cut Like a Sickle’ from the moment he first read it and was instrumental in bringing that, and subsequent plays to the stage. Tara Ní Cheallaigh was the unmentioned and indispensable actor who colluded with Eamon Smith and Donna Ruane on so many of the Fringe plays. Castlebar Musical and Dramatic Society, who gave me the opportunity to work with them on three plays last year. All the youth groups around the country, who have taken on the teen plays and made them their own. Those nights out remain unforgettable. And, finally, you, the readers of the blog over the last sixteen years. You all need to get out more.

There are hundreds of others, you know who you are and so do I. Thanks for everything.

(I sound like I’m going somewhere. I’m not. Not willingly anyway).

The fact that I would choose to save the interview here and show it to people is amazing in itself. As I said, I don’t like to draw attention to myself too much and I think I can be hard to listen to. But, in this interview, I got to touch on some things I wanted to remember, say some things I wanted to say, and play some tunes that I felt needed playing.

It was fun. Thanks, Anne Marie! 


APTitude

Some years it doesn’t happen to me at all. But, in quite a lot of years, some particular pop song will accost my senses and turn me into its fool for a period of weeks.

I am in one such period right now.

It’s not like I listen to a lot of pop music. I really don’t. If you want me, you’ll usually find me on the classical music radio channels with maybe a little talk radio thrown in. I really don’t hear a lot of pop. Except when my radio alarm goes off in the morning. The radio alarm is tuned to a pop channel, perhaps to try to give a peppy start to the day (how’s that going, Ken?). In the five or so minutes between the alarm going off and me falling out of the bed, there is usually a pop song or two intruding on my drowsiness and half-sleep.

I think that’s probably where I first heard ROSÉ and Bruno Mars's song APT. In the middle of a lingering doze. Is that why it’s become stuck so firmly in my head? Partially, I think, but only partially. Mostly I think it’s because it’s a complete banger and catchy as hell.

It takes me a while to fall for a song. I’m anything but what you might call ‘easy’. I think my first impression of this one was of it being a rather discordant affair with some person repeatedly declaiming ‘I put up with it, I put up with it’. A fleeting query about what in the hell I was listening to, and then back to another deep 30 second sleep.

First time of hearing – Odd. Second time of hearing – Hmmm… Third time - Sold, Just Completely Sold.

At the moment, in the height of my infatuation with the song, I think it’s one of those great pop songs that come along now and again. In a league with things like ‘Twist and Shout’ or Malcolm Mclaren’s ‘Double Dutch’, and that’s high praise indeed.

Go and have a listen to it, on YouTube or something. You may detect a little of ‘Oh Mickey, You’re So Fine’ by Toni Basil and you would not be wrong. The song is apparently based on a Korean drinking game where the word (ap-a-teu) is repeated over and over. (Tautology alert but never mind). Here’s a link to help you find it. Link  It may take a couple of listens, but I reckon you’ll be lost then, just like I am.

Or maybe not.

These little temporary musical obsessions, that I get, tend to pass fairly quickly so, by the time you get there, I may well be already on to something else. Plus, I am, as ever, late to this particular party. I think this single came out back in October of last year and it has apparently clocked billions of streams and views to date. So, it’s not like I’m showing you anything new.

But music is personal, isn’t it? One of the most personal things there is. A worldwide phenomenon can pass you by completely and then hit you in your own little head at your own little time. Isn’t it great?

So, yes, Rose and Brunos’ APT (pronounced ap-a-teu) will probably leave my head quite soon, I imagine, and I will start to wonder a little what all my fuss was about. But, if history is anything to go by, the song will never entirely go away. It will join ‘I Think I’d Better Leave Right Now’ by Will Young and ‘Price Tag’ by Jessie J, and numerous others, as one of those songs that make me smile whenever I randomly come upon them.

You can think me a lightweight fool for raving on about this pop song. Increasingly, I don’t mind. In fact, you have my blessing. To misquote a particularly wise sailorman, we are what we are, and the more we embrace that the happier we can be.

Meantime, why not meet me at the Ap-a-teu, Ap-a-teu, Ap-a-teu, Ap-a-teu...

Uh huh… uh-huh, uh huh.

Bleach Bum

Occasionally, something can happen in the briefest moment that changes things forever. We all know this, but I think we like to keep it in the back of our minds as much as possible. It’s a lot to carry around.

And, occasionally, these things that happen don’t even have an immediate effect. Sometimes, for a brief time afterward, everything seems exactly the same. Exactly the same. Except you’ve seen it happen, and you know it is impossible to undo, and it is only a matter of time before the unalterable effects are felt.

Have I lost you?

Imagine a really sharp knife and you’re slicing tomatoes with it and suddenly you slice your finger instead. You feel the keen blade ease through your flesh and you know you’ve been cut and there’s nothing you can do to undo that. The consequences must be lived with, that’s all. You stand and stare at your finger and you feel around inside of your head for signs of this minor catastrophe. But there’s nothing to see on your finger, nothing to feel along your nerve endings. It’s just too soon and the blade was just too sharp. Soon there will be some pain and there will be some blood. But for now, only these three things apply 1) The deed is done. 2) There is no way it can now be undone and 3) There is no earthly sign yet of the damage that has been caused.

The cut finger thing is not a particularly good example of what I’m talking about, for one obvious reason. The cut finger will heal in a little bit of time. The effect will be dulled and forgotten. The things I’m thinking about will meet all three of the criteria above, but the effects will also last forever.

I had one of these these on Friday.

And you’re going to think I’m a right eejit now because what happened to me was miniscule and irrelevant and silly and completely unimportant. All of that, yes. But it also ticked the four boxes I mentioned above.

So, what happened Ken?

Well (thanks for asking) I spilled some bleach on my jeans.

I was in the men’s facilities in my office, and I decided I’d give the place a little spruce up. This was a mistake from the start because I am famously careless with bottles of bleach. Quite a lot of my clothes sport those tiny giveaway marks that one inherits from reckless bleach play.

This time was worse than a spot though. Two things were portentous. I had a large new bottle of lemon-flavoured bleach (I know ‘flavoured’ is wrong) and I was wearing my nice black Levi 501’s. Not a good start. I commenced to chucking the bleach around the place, knowing that I was living a bit dangerously. But I became altogether too cavalier with my actions. While withdrawing the slightly upended bottle from an errant toilet bowl, a vast gob of lemony goodness left the bottle and landed on my right leg, just below the knee.

The moment this happened, items 1), 2) and 3) from my little checklist came simultaneously into play. I grabbed a wad of tissue from a nearby roll and swiped the errant blob from my trouser leg. But it was too late, wasn’t it? In a thrice, the deed was done and, although there was no sign yet of the damage that had been done, it was now written in history and completely unalterable.

I dabbed and dabbed with my toilet roll but slowly, inexorably, the fallout manifested itself. The inevitable terracotta-coloured swipe of the bleach, punctuated by several dots above and below the main (enormous) stain.

As I said, this is triviality, a nothingness in the vast scheme of things. But, on Friday morning, it was nearly the proverbial straw that broke the proverbial camel’s proverbial back. I rallied. I gave myself a good solid talking-to and berated myself as the fool and the gobshite I assuredly am. So now all I am left with are these slightly sombre thoughts about the more awful things that can unalterably alter our lives at the drop of a hat.

That, and one ruined pair of jeans.