09:00
1920 BORN: Charles Bukowski, American poet and author, Time magazines “laureate of the American lowlife”, Love is a Dog from Hell
17:36
Obscenity of amok.
19:38
Out on my balcony on this sunny day catching up on a spot of container gardening. Shorts and teeshirt. Gloves on. I trim a trailer that now throws bloom back onto the masonic Church Hill. Heaven in Dublin Seven and all that. Then, familiar sounds of water tumbling, hissing steam rises. Speaking as politely as possible thus, down hailing: "Excuse me, do you mind not urinating there?"
Back to me, his shoulders stiffen noticeably but he faces forward. Great coat, white hair, trammel cap. Choking his old codger off he finishes and spins around, square jaw set askance at a furious angle. Gifted with a remarkably loud voice for an old geezer, he booms out of the loading bay in no particular direction, his voice flailing like a night of fists. "Wha'? Wha' ta fuck?" Husky and disbelieving, finally he looks up and sees me in my trowel-wielding, begardengloved state. Having forgot to hide, I find I need to pop my head above the rail and rush his counter-attack. He's incensed, rather breathless.
"Fuck you! Fucking wha'?" His voice thunders, he shudders and dives for the deepest insult he can muster. His knees bend, his back straightens and he shakes his fist at me on high ready with his blue bloody murder, saying excruciatingly, "You're only a bleedin’ BLOW IN!"
True for him. That's an argument I'll never win. Not to be deterred from my policy of zero tolerance of generic whizzing beneath my nose, calmly I say down to him in a reasonable tone of voice, 'It's disgusting. Please don't do that there.' He swipes the cloth cap from his head and bunches it tightly, grimacing.
"You f-f-fucking FAIRY! You FAGGOT! Come down here and tell me that. Come DOWN here!"
Politely, or perhaps sarcastically, I decline. It's an age old tactic and I've seen it before. They all say "Come down here and say tha'" whenever one is being reasonable in matters of public hygiene.
"No!" I say, defiantly, cowardly.
He's old and retired, a bit bent and with knarly knotted hands, but wiry from a lifetime of labour I’d say. Looks like he's seventy or what with a vituperative inner city Dublin growl. His anger knows no bounds as he lashes out. "If I could climb up the wall, I'm telling ya, I'd take a bleedin' SHIT on yer balcony!"
Now, at this, I find that he has fouled the air. The invective is gone far enough. It's water off a duck's back as far as I'm concerned personally, but it's polluting the atmosphere no less than the endless excretions foul the pavement. I glance at the watering can by my feet. It's full. I consider that I could be downstairs in ten seconds to confront him. Not a chance. I'm not going to remonstrate with this Dirty Dub. Truth is, I live here. This lifetime of crap and piss dismays me. I'm dismayed for the community I'm blown into. This polluted environment. With its toxic lingua franca.
Excessive politeness is the way to truly irritate the congenitally crude and I hit him hard, saying sniffily, "Please, mind your language."
He cocks his shoulders back. His body jerks sharply as if some unseen hand had just squeezed his testicles. He stands on his toes. "I tell you what," he menaces, looking along the bent barrel of his crooked finger at me, eyes blazing, "I'll remember your face. I'll REMEMBER you!"
My violets are shrinking, not me. Leaning over the balcony rail, I leer and pucker. "You wanna photo?" Full-scale fucking war.
Call it, punk. I'm home. This here is my line in the sand. Check it. I take enough of arrogant bullshit every time I step outside or walk into an office. I soak up my share of collateral damage like every other man, woman and child. But this casual intimidation doesn't stand to me at home. Animals off the street. Just because I don't want the urine, lads. Because I don't need to live in a toilet.
He's got a loud mouth on him. He's gargled on some hateful broth. Thing is, these Dubs always scoobydoo if you say boo to them.
He's not finished. "And me CHILDREN will remember you. And oi will PLAAA-GUE yew, BLOW-IN?! Tellin' me not to piss on me own streeh?"
His voice drums indignantly. And he thinks he's got telepathic kids? He's one crazy fucker. How's his children going to remember my face? I laugh dismissively with a clownish sneer and turn to water my flowers. End of conversation. He has to scooter now because I'm going to ignore his ignoramical rant.
I debrief myself. I'm forgetting the first principals of doing nothing and it's costing me. This whole street communication thing is not a good idea, generally speaking. They don't like it. I'm not exactly master of it. I guess I come over all haughty what with my third floor-ness. I have a certain amount of sympathy for them. I've used the old hole in the wall once or twice on the way down from town myself. I'm no better than anybody. There isn't one public toilet in this whole redolent village.
Yet every time I ask a guy not to piss there, I end up with my life threatened. It's my trail and I have to do it. I do it across the board because persistence is the only thing that always works. The strategy is up for review soon. Doing nothing is the new indignant.
He launches further hoary salvoes but I offer no more rejoinders as I wish crazy away. I won't stir the shit any more. He storms away around the corner and up Burgendy Hill. It got pretty tense there but I didn't let him chase me off the Green Zone balcony.
After the marigolds and the water and the wars I go eat noodles. The telly is on and creature features is all forgotten about when the next thing my bat senses hear doorbells buzzing progressively through the block. Strange. The salutation probes its way towards me until finally, my own doorbell buzzes. Above the curry flavouring, I distinctly smell a rat.
Striding out on to the balcony, I peer over the rail and look down. Two young kids wearing soccer shirts are walking away nervously from the front door. They're only about 7 or 8. I have no idea who they are or why they would be ringing my door. They walk back across the road briskly, clinging to each other. I look over. A mob of tiny kids self-assembles on the edge of the footpath. Behind them, grinning dour stands their ringleader - Bollox Face himself.
These are his children? WTF? He has eight eight year-olds? Jesus. I feel a slight tremble of panic. What if they plague me like he threatened? He jabs the air crudely. "Now see this, you FUCKING FAIRY, now these lads will be the ones to … "
This could mean years of trouble, fending them off Jeremiah Johnson-style every time I walk out the door. And they'll get their friends to gang up on me too. And brothers and mothers. They'll grow stronger and obsessive. A decades long struggle awaits to which I will inevitably succumb. Soon the entire native population will persecute me for asking this old codger to quit day-spraying it. How will I find the strength?
Yet something about the picture doesn't fit. Quite clearly, the kids are not animals. They look normal, confused and scared, a band of innocents, some immigrant, some native. They clearly do not have a clue why the old man rounded them up to stage a trivial vendetta on the street outside my house. Quite clearly this reprobate has returned to threaten me with an army of everybody else's kids.
Time to end this thing. This is no place for child soldiers. I am shocked but endeavour to remain dignified and poised. If I start the scurrilous talk before the babes it will feed into their inevitable gurrier-hood later in life. That would just be counter-productive.
A local lady passing tries to shoo some of them on home, addressing them directly. Some of the young lads are looking goo-eyed up at me. I'll have to break this engagement off.
I look the old fart straight in the eye and point down MY finger at him. Inside the burning spreads ulcers in his gut. He's like an old docker or something, beat his whole life, beats in return, thinks the acceptable way to address anybody is in the worst possible way. He has no wife, he has no kids, or if he does they've all left him. I tell him coldly, in my best adult-to-a-manchild voice:
"You need to learn how to behave, old man. I'm not intimidated by you and I never will be. Now go home and learn how to conduct yourself in a proper manner!"
His shoulders droop and he does not reply. Then I exit the Zone. I go inside to my noodles and the old lady prevails on the kids and the scene is over. I expect him to be the first back to piss on his street and threaten me, a normal human being in This Man's Dublin, who dares to speak for civility. I expect him to remember my face. He'll get a shock when he sees that I'm not planning anything at all for him and all his smudgy cohort.
23:15
Thimp thump thimp thump. That's the sound of dirty Dubs.
1920 BORN: Charles Bukowski, American poet and author, Time magazines “laureate of the American lowlife”, Love is a Dog from Hell
17:36
Obscenity of amok.
19:38
Out on my balcony on this sunny day catching up on a spot of container gardening. Shorts and teeshirt. Gloves on. I trim a trailer that now throws bloom back onto the masonic Church Hill. Heaven in Dublin Seven and all that. Then, familiar sounds of water tumbling, hissing steam rises. Speaking as politely as possible thus, down hailing: "Excuse me, do you mind not urinating there?"
Back to me, his shoulders stiffen noticeably but he faces forward. Great coat, white hair, trammel cap. Choking his old codger off he finishes and spins around, square jaw set askance at a furious angle. Gifted with a remarkably loud voice for an old geezer, he booms out of the loading bay in no particular direction, his voice flailing like a night of fists. "Wha'? Wha' ta fuck?" Husky and disbelieving, finally he looks up and sees me in my trowel-wielding, begardengloved state. Having forgot to hide, I find I need to pop my head above the rail and rush his counter-attack. He's incensed, rather breathless.
"Fuck you! Fucking wha'?" His voice thunders, he shudders and dives for the deepest insult he can muster. His knees bend, his back straightens and he shakes his fist at me on high ready with his blue bloody murder, saying excruciatingly, "You're only a bleedin’ BLOW IN!"
True for him. That's an argument I'll never win. Not to be deterred from my policy of zero tolerance of generic whizzing beneath my nose, calmly I say down to him in a reasonable tone of voice, 'It's disgusting. Please don't do that there.' He swipes the cloth cap from his head and bunches it tightly, grimacing.
"You f-f-fucking FAIRY! You FAGGOT! Come down here and tell me that. Come DOWN here!"
Politely, or perhaps sarcastically, I decline. It's an age old tactic and I've seen it before. They all say "Come down here and say tha'" whenever one is being reasonable in matters of public hygiene.
"No!" I say, defiantly, cowardly.
He's old and retired, a bit bent and with knarly knotted hands, but wiry from a lifetime of labour I’d say. Looks like he's seventy or what with a vituperative inner city Dublin growl. His anger knows no bounds as he lashes out. "If I could climb up the wall, I'm telling ya, I'd take a bleedin' SHIT on yer balcony!"
Now, at this, I find that he has fouled the air. The invective is gone far enough. It's water off a duck's back as far as I'm concerned personally, but it's polluting the atmosphere no less than the endless excretions foul the pavement. I glance at the watering can by my feet. It's full. I consider that I could be downstairs in ten seconds to confront him. Not a chance. I'm not going to remonstrate with this Dirty Dub. Truth is, I live here. This lifetime of crap and piss dismays me. I'm dismayed for the community I'm blown into. This polluted environment. With its toxic lingua franca.
Excessive politeness is the way to truly irritate the congenitally crude and I hit him hard, saying sniffily, "Please, mind your language."
He cocks his shoulders back. His body jerks sharply as if some unseen hand had just squeezed his testicles. He stands on his toes. "I tell you what," he menaces, looking along the bent barrel of his crooked finger at me, eyes blazing, "I'll remember your face. I'll REMEMBER you!"
My violets are shrinking, not me. Leaning over the balcony rail, I leer and pucker. "You wanna photo?" Full-scale fucking war.
Call it, punk. I'm home. This here is my line in the sand. Check it. I take enough of arrogant bullshit every time I step outside or walk into an office. I soak up my share of collateral damage like every other man, woman and child. But this casual intimidation doesn't stand to me at home. Animals off the street. Just because I don't want the urine, lads. Because I don't need to live in a toilet.
He's got a loud mouth on him. He's gargled on some hateful broth. Thing is, these Dubs always scoobydoo if you say boo to them.
He's not finished. "And me CHILDREN will remember you. And oi will PLAAA-GUE yew, BLOW-IN?! Tellin' me not to piss on me own streeh?"
His voice drums indignantly. And he thinks he's got telepathic kids? He's one crazy fucker. How's his children going to remember my face? I laugh dismissively with a clownish sneer and turn to water my flowers. End of conversation. He has to scooter now because I'm going to ignore his ignoramical rant.
I debrief myself. I'm forgetting the first principals of doing nothing and it's costing me. This whole street communication thing is not a good idea, generally speaking. They don't like it. I'm not exactly master of it. I guess I come over all haughty what with my third floor-ness. I have a certain amount of sympathy for them. I've used the old hole in the wall once or twice on the way down from town myself. I'm no better than anybody. There isn't one public toilet in this whole redolent village.
Yet every time I ask a guy not to piss there, I end up with my life threatened. It's my trail and I have to do it. I do it across the board because persistence is the only thing that always works. The strategy is up for review soon. Doing nothing is the new indignant.
He launches further hoary salvoes but I offer no more rejoinders as I wish crazy away. I won't stir the shit any more. He storms away around the corner and up Burgendy Hill. It got pretty tense there but I didn't let him chase me off the Green Zone balcony.
After the marigolds and the water and the wars I go eat noodles. The telly is on and creature features is all forgotten about when the next thing my bat senses hear doorbells buzzing progressively through the block. Strange. The salutation probes its way towards me until finally, my own doorbell buzzes. Above the curry flavouring, I distinctly smell a rat.
Striding out on to the balcony, I peer over the rail and look down. Two young kids wearing soccer shirts are walking away nervously from the front door. They're only about 7 or 8. I have no idea who they are or why they would be ringing my door. They walk back across the road briskly, clinging to each other. I look over. A mob of tiny kids self-assembles on the edge of the footpath. Behind them, grinning dour stands their ringleader - Bollox Face himself.
These are his children? WTF? He has eight eight year-olds? Jesus. I feel a slight tremble of panic. What if they plague me like he threatened? He jabs the air crudely. "Now see this, you FUCKING FAIRY, now these lads will be the ones to … "
This could mean years of trouble, fending them off Jeremiah Johnson-style every time I walk out the door. And they'll get their friends to gang up on me too. And brothers and mothers. They'll grow stronger and obsessive. A decades long struggle awaits to which I will inevitably succumb. Soon the entire native population will persecute me for asking this old codger to quit day-spraying it. How will I find the strength?
Yet something about the picture doesn't fit. Quite clearly, the kids are not animals. They look normal, confused and scared, a band of innocents, some immigrant, some native. They clearly do not have a clue why the old man rounded them up to stage a trivial vendetta on the street outside my house. Quite clearly this reprobate has returned to threaten me with an army of everybody else's kids.
Time to end this thing. This is no place for child soldiers. I am shocked but endeavour to remain dignified and poised. If I start the scurrilous talk before the babes it will feed into their inevitable gurrier-hood later in life. That would just be counter-productive.
A local lady passing tries to shoo some of them on home, addressing them directly. Some of the young lads are looking goo-eyed up at me. I'll have to break this engagement off.
I look the old fart straight in the eye and point down MY finger at him. Inside the burning spreads ulcers in his gut. He's like an old docker or something, beat his whole life, beats in return, thinks the acceptable way to address anybody is in the worst possible way. He has no wife, he has no kids, or if he does they've all left him. I tell him coldly, in my best adult-to-a-manchild voice:
"You need to learn how to behave, old man. I'm not intimidated by you and I never will be. Now go home and learn how to conduct yourself in a proper manner!"
His shoulders droop and he does not reply. Then I exit the Zone. I go inside to my noodles and the old lady prevails on the kids and the scene is over. I expect him to be the first back to piss on his street and threaten me, a normal human being in This Man's Dublin, who dares to speak for civility. I expect him to remember my face. He'll get a shock when he sees that I'm not planning anything at all for him and all his smudgy cohort.
23:15
Thimp thump thimp thump. That's the sound of dirty Dubs.
