Witch Burning in Kilkenny

 

C-Jane is the ‘Go-To-Girl-for-Facts’ and I’ll happily link you to her blog here. I prefer to write about metaphysical experiences and pure speculation. The Wikipedia page on Kilkenny was soooo-boring, except for the weather, which made little sense to me because it was in metrics and Celsius. So, here we go, you’ve been fairly warned.

That picture above is of the Kilkenny Cathedral in the background. We tried to get there, but we were so tired. An uncountable number of hours earlier, we’d walked with our luggage to the train station one mile down the road from our home, we then rode said train to the airport, flew from Portland to Chicago where we waited six hours to get on another plane to Dublin, where we met our awesome travel group and Donny, the bus driver. We didn’t sleep at all. So when we got to Kilkenny, the first stop on our tour, we had very little energy.

Donny proved to be a wealth of information. On the road from Dublin to Kilkenny, Donny tried to teach us some of the ‘old language’ which the natives call ‘Irish.’ English is still the primary language due to the long occupation of the ‘English’ in Ireland. He taught us to say good morning, which was hopelessly lost on me. But he did mention that ‘Kil’ means ‘church,’ so Kilkenny and Kilarny are church towns. Catholicism is the National Religion in Ireland except Belfast, which is still part of the Commonweath and is largely Protestant. (This seems to be a sore topic for some Irish, I recommend not initiating this topic for conversation. The country’s division isn’t a taboo subject, but I advise letting the locals open dialogue. Southern Ireland seems to be a little less hot about the gulf than are the northern Irish.)

We should have eaten there. It felt like destiny, but C-Jane had another agenda. C-Jane’s traveling style is very different to mine, just as her writing style is completely opposite. She does research, then thinks about logistics, and decides in advance whether or not an adventure is feasible. I follow a Hunter S. Thompson style of tourism, “Buy the ticket, take the ride,” but without my spray-can of mace and accompanying bullhorn.

I hate planning trips. I prefer to ask the locals what they are proud of, see whatever I see, purely by finding things accidentally. Finding the Blaa Blaa Blaa Deli was more than an accident, I felt it derived from Divine Providence—by God, we were in ‘Kil’kenny.

C-Jane used her Executive Power to veto my Blaa Blaa Blaa experience. She said “NO!” I cowered, too tired to resist. She then said “I want to drink local brew at a 700-year old inn.”

When you move from a state that is 150 years-old (Texas) to a state that is 100 years-old (Nevada) to yet another state that is 100 years old (Oregon), 700-years is incomprehensible. Here is an example—back when the colonies that would eventually become the United States still comprised of British religious nuts wearing big buckle hats and shoes while eating turkey with doomed, yet unsuspecting natives—the inn pictured below was already 350-years old.

That reality still doesn’t stick to the brain, does it? My dates above are not exact, but they are in the ballpark of reality. Metaphysically, it will do.

See the established date on the sign–1324AD. I’m not making that up. Nearly 700-years old. C-Jane and I enjoyed a pint of Kilkenny Red Ale. I wolfed down a half-order of Banger’s and Mash with a side of Sweet Peas. Yummy, yum—for real, they were good. Below is more history of Kyteler’s Inn. Posting the pic saves me from plagiarizing.

Finally, we hung out at the Kilkenny Castle, but we did not go inside. We wandered the grounds, found an old graveyard, (barely as old as Texas) and took several pictures. Soon after, we got back on the bus, talked with Donny, and eventually went to our hotel (which I’ll cover in a future post.) Here are the best pictures of the castle for your enjoyment.

Nothing says Middle Ages like a tractor and a back-hoe. Here, in case your eyes are as bad as mine…

Yes, the tractor dates back to the Norman Invasion of Ireland. Cromwell’s Knights rode them and terrorized the locals before using them to build this castle. That primal tractor is the last of its kind. Kept here in Kilkenny for anyone to see, free of charge. The castle tour costs 12 Euros, but the grounds are free.

Same castle, different vantage. I think we took this pic from the Green’s Bridge, but I forgot, and we were very tired on that first day.

How to Get to Ireland When You are Poor

C-Jane and I just got back from Ireland. Many people have said, “WTF? We make twenty-times what you make in a year, and we can’t go to Ireland!” That is a true statement, if you’re a fry-cook for a fast-food restaurant, you made twice as much money as I did last year, I promise. It is said that 10% of all professional writers make over $10,000 a year; I am among the 90%.

So, how does a poor bastard like Big-J get to Ireland for a week? Part of it is savings from the evil hospital job that I foolishly/wisely left a couple years ago. But that is only marginal. Here are the major contributors to having a week long international vacation.

1) Ireland is hurting for money

Ireland has financially suffered like the U.S. is about to suffer. To help pull themselves out of their mess, they’ve offered awesome vacation packages to stimulate their economy. To get our great deal, we had to buy our package a year ago, but it was such a sweet deal that C-Jane and I couldn’t refuse. $1200 for both of us, covering hotels and breakfasts, transportation via tour bus, and visiting three cities including Dublin for Saint Patrick’s Day.

2) No cable/satellite television

By sacrificing this useless service, we’ve saved over $600 each year for the last two years. Not only did that cover the cost of our tour, but neither of us have been brainwashed, leaving us as free thinking people. We also suffer less from fear and anxiety than most Americans, thanks to the absence of constant media programing.

3) Basic phone plan

We do not have smart phones. We spend $125 less per month than the average American couple for phone service. This covered our air-fare. Verizon gives lots of money to political groups that are tricking us out of our rights. As free-thinking Americans, we want to limit their ability to continue giving our money to political groups that don’t represent the majority of Americans. Once our contract with them is over, we will find a cheaper phone plan and save more money for our next trip AND continue the fight to maintain our rights.

4) No debt

C-Jane has paid off her student loans at a great sacrifice—she worked, and as a result paid them. We own our cars and we rent an affordable apartment. People who watch cable/satellite TV tend to believe the lies about the value of owning a home. Barely 1% of all Americans own a home; it is the banks who own them—as proven by the thousands of loan defaults over the past six years. C-Jane and I cut our credit cards into tiny pieces years ago. We are free.

5) Economy cars

C-Jane has a hybrid Honda, I drive an Elantra. We average 37MPG and we try to go everywhere together making one big circular route to knock out our errands. We pay $60 per month on gasoline.

6) Waste reduction

We waste nothing. The average American throws away tons of stuff every year. We take home un-eaten food from restaurants, we eat out as little as we can, we cook at home, we plan our meals, we wear our clothes until they serve us no longer, we shop at farmers’ markets, and we rent movies through Netflix as opposed to shelling out $22 per movie.

7) No children

Enough said. We all choose how we live. C-Jane and I have chosen to go to Ireland with our limited money, not produce expensive rug-rats. I realize some people actually want children, and I believe that if the above six points were sacrificed as aggressively as we have done, you and your children could go to Ireland for a week. Hell, if you aren’t a writer, you’d have tons of expendable money.

Nothing Good Can Come From This

This post is nonsense, and nothing good can come from this.  It has been a month since I’ve written anything for this blog, and this is crap.

In the way-old days, (late 80′s) way back then, I used to get paranoid when I smoked weed. Now, I’m just paranoid all the time. It is annoying, and I’m not even high. Like I said, I’m just writing this to write something. Nothing means anything anymore. Life is devalued. Does anyone understand what I’m saying?

 

I’m sick of writing. I write fun books that nobody will buy. My new attitude is, “Why should I give away anything for free?” Nothing is free — everything is expensive. Do you want something free to read? Buy yourself a box of pencils and write it yourself. Oh, that isn’t free, the pencils cost something.  Go to a public park and carve your story in a bench with a knife–still not free. You paid for that bench by paying taxes and someone paid for the knife. Steal a roll of toilet paper from Taco Bell and write your lifelong manifesto with the blood from your slit wrists.

That would be art.

 

That chick is dead.

That movie was art.

What a fantastic movie–Alien. Why can’t there ever be a movie that cool again? I’d used this picture on my Facebook page for about 12 hours, but no one like it. My life has been reduced to being defined by ‘likes.’ I got no likes for this picture. Does the crying lady (Lambert) have her hands in her pockets? That is classic defiance — “Fuck you death, I’ve got my hands in my pockets. Smoke your own damn cigarette.” For those of you who don’t know, she (Lambert) gets her face bitten off within the next five seconds.

Continuing on our little stroll of “Nothing good can come from this,” I’ll add one more picture with commentary. I love pictures!!

 

I want new legs too.

Lieutenant Dan, don’t give up on life. It is a gift.

Remember when you were up in the crow’s nest, on that fishin’ boat, yelling at God ’cause you got no legs? Thunder and lightning, hurricane winds, and you’re like “You can’t kill me God!!” Well, Lieutenant Dan, God didn’t have to, he blew off both your legs–you were already dead on the inside.

 

 

 

Happy V-Day

We haven’t chit-chatted in a long time. I’m still free. I’m not in Cuba yet. I wish to stay that way.

What has happened since we last hung out? The unsuper Bowl, Christopher Dorner, Les Miserables, State of the Union blah-blah-blah, and here I have nothing to say about any of it.  Here is a nice Valentine’s Day card for you to look at—

Should we talk about Les Miserables? Did you know that the book is over 1200 pages long? C-Jane read the book, now I don’t have too. There is NO SINGING in the book. There is a lot of chit-chat about how the poor are shit upon by the rich, and abused by the powerful, but nothing about singing. Isn’t it ironic how much it costs to go see the play in New York, and how the musical has less to do with the poor or social injustice, but more about costumes and singing?

I won’t be taken to Cuba for saying that.

What about police drones flying over American neighborhoods with both cameras and infra-red cameras so they can see inside your house, to make sure you are safe, while having sex on Valentine’s Day? I’m kidding, that is just me being funny. Please don’t take me to Cuba, I know privacy is an antiquated idea. Thank you Facebook for making every private thought a public announcement. I’m not being ‘belligerent’ or ‘terrorist,’ even if I am telling the truth. Here is another V-Day card—

I was lucky enough to be in California when all the Christopher Dorner stuff was going down. It is sad about those cops—I mean that, especially the ones who had nothing to do with LAPD. LAPD has an extenuating history of corruption. I wonder what the truth is, no one really cares though. I’m certainly not going to get involved. L.A.’s Sheriff’s Department has a history for high profile assassinations, just ask journalist Rueben Salazar—oh, wait—my bad, they already killed him by shooting him in the face with a teargas canister. Dorner was a lot worse than a journalist, he shot back. $1million isn’t an award—that is bait. FOX covered the story, so we know we got tight journalism and the truth. My mom certainly believed the TV’s coverage as gospel.

So, happy VD from the Shortbus—I hope everybody gets lucky tonight, and if not, I pray you’re fortunate enough to find titillating porn.

Sun Bleached Winter

D. Robert Grixti is an up and coming author from Australia, and this is a review of his debut novella. I’m dropping the normal Shortbus attitude for this review. I’ve posted a nearly identical review on my other site, and decided that some of you here would probably appreciate this book.

Here is an excerpt from Sun Bleached Winter,

–Night has fallen. We’re eating dried biscuits by the light of the campfire. The flames glow weakly, dimly. Dying. Flakes of snow drift down from the sky and threaten to bury everything under a blanket of white. Nothing can live here.–

Atmosphere––Mr. Grixti does it very well. The bleak world inhabited by narrator Lionel and his sister Claire has been crispy fried by nuclear war. A blanket of smoke, dirt, and clouds blot the sun’s light, embracing every day in fallout winter. Lionel and Claire are the central characters in the story, but things spice up with the introduction of Jessica, a gun toting firecracker wearing clean clothes. Lionel is conscripted to do a dirty job with Jessica, and if he survives, he’ll earn entry into New City for himself and Claire.

Expertly done, setting was consistently used to keep the weight of doom and uncertainty lingering with every turn of the page. Here is another tease,

–I stay awake, staring into the blackness, and thinking about what tomorrow may bring. What future is there for us, waiting for us, perhaps mocking us, beyond the void of time? Is it a good one, or a bad one? I find myself struggling to wonder how those terms can still have meaning, in a world where human life is reduced to something abstract, something indefinable and killing can be so easily justified in the name of survival. There can’t be such things as good or bad in a place where everything is grey. People will continue to do what they have to do, and thus the only future that awaits us is one that’s as bleak as the present.–

Irony would be another great descriptor for Sun Bleached Winter. As Lionel and his sister struggle to survive in the wastelands, they also struggle to maintain the humanity that has been burned from the world. Is New City going to be a budding society, or just the shadow of what once was?

Is it medicine that makes a society? Labor? Can it be defined as protection from the marauding hordes of cannibals? Does civilization depend upon which side of the gun you are standing? Beware of the dogs––the marauders sometimes use them to corner their quarry.

–It growls once more, and then unleashes a spine chilling howl, its hind legs tensing behind it, preparing to pounce forward and take its prey. Panicked, I feel through the snow beside me with my left hand, praying that I’ll find the cold, familiar shape of the revolver waiting for me. The dog starts barking furiously and then it charges, running at me with lightning speed. I close my eyes, preparing for the sharp fangs to drill into my face, when I finally feel the grip of the handgun, already starting to sink into the deep snow.–

Action is quite challenging to write. For the most part, I felt D. Robert Grixti’s execution of action was done with great agility as a first time author. As you saw, that last passage offered fantastic visualization. Most of the action in Sun Bleached Winter held tension, but in a few instances it faltered a little. Nothing to fret over, as Mr. Grixti evolves as a writer, those hiccups will pass.

For the most part the editing was solid. There were a few words inserted that weren’t quite right. I found “Illegible” where it should have been “Unintelligible,” there was one or two other not-quite-correct words placed throughout the text.

Although I’d smiled at the end of the last page, fully appreciating this story’s irony, I felt there were enough instances of grief to drive anyone to the one character’s final decisions. I felt the hallucinations seemed a little overkill, but as we’ve seen here on the Shortbus, I’ve been very wrong before, and I promise I’ll be wrong again, maybe even here.

All in all, I enjoyed this story and hope others do to. Sun Bleached Winter is a quick, fresh read, artistically written well enough to start fun dialogue between readers.

For the record—I’d received a PDF copy from this author with the expectation of a balanced review.