LAHINCH VIBEZ

This new years eve I'll be surfing (ie..trying to surf...ie... paddling for 45 mins til my arms are about to fall off, and i think i might barf in the sea and then actually...eventually catching a wave ..paddling...paddling...paddling...dont stop keep paddling....  aching... aching... ouch ouch... get up get up... and then standing up like Michealangelo's 'David' for around 60 exquisite seconds where you hear  briefly but perfectly Motzart's final concerto ringing in your ears before you hit the shallows) in Lahinch in Co.Clare on the Irish Coast this year.

Conjoined with me on this one are a bunch of reprobates, English men, Irish women, stragglers and blow ins from the four corners of the world seeking refuge in the Irish sea. Seeking to get their heads blow off by the wind, their eyes burned out by the winter sun and the very core of them frozen to an icicle by the hard blow that comes in off the atlantic.

We're talking full wet suit here.... gloves, hoods and socks cos the atlantic is feckin freezoid. I'm hoping for a full survival tally on this one although we may lose one or two to the sea (there are a lot of us) and some fingertips and toes may succumb to frostbite, other than that i think the whiskey will keep us warm and in high spirits for the adventure beyond the surf.

I have a theory that i totally made up and this is it.... when the old year is turing into the new one like a caterpillar transforming into a butterfly, the sea churns magic... like cream into butter and can absolve you from of all your sins...no matter how bad...kinda like a really wet confessional box but the sea is your priest and can free you of it all, no hail mary's or our fathers or anything...she will simply wash all your dirty little sins off like soapy suds. I'm really into this ....i'm going to spread the rumour as soon as we get down there and see how many filthy little sinners i can get in for skinny dipping on new years day.

A LOVE LETTER TO IRELAND BY CLAIREBAN

This poem was written by one my best friends and soul sister Claireban with the red hair like fire, like a caribbean sunset, a beech tree in autumn. She's an active volcano.... a ginger unicorn or a selkie if they exist at all... thats what she is, just in human form.

This poem is what being irish is all about. It's the essence of it that gets you when you're away from home. The can't quite put your finger on it-ness of something that holds you suspended in a memory of a person, place or a time and the eternal association of inanimate things with those we love, have loved and those we have lost.

There is a line in Carol Ann Duffy's poem Mrs Midas when she is talking of her husband who wished for everything he touched to turn to gold and it crushes me like a snail underfoot after the rain whenever i read it...'I think of him in certain lights, dawn, late afternoon and once a bowl of apples stopped me dead.'

My favourite part of Claireban's poem is 'I miss your men, God i miss your men, i miss your tracksuits, your Nike air max, your women, your mackerel'. 

THURSDAY, APRIL 1, 2010

A love letter to Ireland

IRELAND

IRELAND

GOD

I MISS YOU

i miss you

I miss you

I miss you blowing in my hair

whispering in my ear

confusing me

I miss lying in your fields

swimming in your seas

smelling you

smelling of you

i want to inhale your gorse

Kneel in your churches

Perv on your knackers

I miss your men

God i miss your men

I miss your tracksuits

your nike airmax

your women

your mackerel

your humor

you camouflaged me

you illuminated me

you gave me this skin

Ireland your in me

your my name

your my great strong roots

the blaze in my hair

my voice

my accent

my prayers

my curses

my wilderness

my WILDNESS

your my conscience

my family

my freckles

my fire

You Mothered me

Fathered me

Your the most beautiful land I've ever seen

I dream of you

I love you

I love you

I love you

see you soon

Claireban

MAGIC BEANS

'Never be afraid to trade in your cow for a hand-full of magic beans!'
Tom Robbins


As an afterthought.... have the bravery and courage to really believe in your magic beans and never ever trade them back in for the cow.

PURE LOVE

NEW YORK LABRADOR

New York. You are perfect even though it's been pissing rain since i got here and has mostly been dark and hardly light at all....i still love you. I'm your golden labrador always, unconditional big wet brown eyes gazing up at you in an 'oh god i love you so much it hurts' kinda way.

ALWAYS IN MY HEAD AND IN MY HEART

"There are bears and there are small dogs. Be Strong like a bear! If they take out your teeth, sit on the dogs. Bears always forget that they can just sit on the dogs. Sit on the dogs." 

Dave Eggers, 'You shall know our velocity!'

Reading Dave Eggers at the minute and  I am so comforted that he is kinda weird and funny like Salinger.  That's what is so amazing about reading, having a good ol laugh or cry by yourself.  I feel like this on the plane sometimes watching films and its just me and the other 300 passengers or whatever all happily strapped to our chairs like mental patients. Noise cancelling headphones on and i may as well be suspended in some kind of pod floating through the galaxy for as much as i am alone.  I have access to my entire emotional spectrum on a flight.

Also he talks about God which i love, i have a mad empathy and affinity with people who have any concept of god or faith. I grew up with it and i'm not religious but i love faith.... i just love it. I mean you can feel hopeless, at sea with no life ring, no arm bands, no land, no nothing and then faith comes flooding in like a little tsunami, washing all over you with warm ocean and carrying with it a lovely big smooth piece of driftwood for you to cling onto and you know in your heart that, that piece of wood is gunna take you home.

The lovely thing is that miracles can always happen because what you believe in isn't tangible in the first place, so if the existence of something is not proven and it's merely an idea like UFO's and aliens, bigfoot etc... you can't un-prove it, until every single person in the world beyond a shadow of a doubt stops believeing in it and hence it ceases to exist, even as a thought.  It's already too late for that anyway cos everyone loves the Loch Ness Monster and all that other shit. 

So all that stuff like Jesus and heaven and aliens and ghosts, it's kinda just out there and up for debate and to be honest i think it makes life more exciting. So you just keep on keeping on kind of believing in it because in the end it actually doesn't matter, you can go round in circles trying to get your head around it and you never will cos there is no answer. I always think that if something makes people happy and comforts them when stuff gets heavy then it's okay whether it's real or not who cares, anything that gives people faith is so incredibly worthy of existing.

I told my friend Nick this about faith, he has no religion  and he said 'Oh well if thats the case then you may as well have faith in the devil and ask him to give you stuff cos that would be more fun. I laughed pretty hard at that....mostly because he was right. I bet the devil would have given me a porsche by now.

KARLIE AT 14

A really old shoot that I just found with super model Karlie Kloss, shot by Jacob Sutton back in the day. I remember Karlie was 14 years old and incredibly wise and sweet. Gary Card did all of the wonderful illustrations and plasticine animals.  I love how weird this shoot is and it reminds me how we were always doing interesting funny stupid things back then, just finding our way in the old world and being brave and not really giving a shit what anyone else thought. Now when i look at it, it makes me dig those younger versions of us and i love these images.

This is Karlie now in Italian Vogue. WOAHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh someone got all grown up.