Pool; the game of kings played by ruffians.

I keep thinking about how good it'll be to see my brother again and work in the Bell table and go cruisin' with my peoples but I still can't seem to make the idea of leaving Haifa forever feel right in my head. I know if I stay I'll just be delaying the inevitable beginning of my life and actually starting what I hope will be a cool career and serving in other capacities, I mean... I want to do all these things but they all come with the price of not being here, in this place and, at least I'd like to believe, at this time. We go play pool here like a million times a week, and on nights when the world and his girlfriend don't show up, we get a decent few hours of stress free pool in, in a nice place and with good people. The folk who run the place freaking love us, and not just because of all the money we tank in that spot, but because we talk to them and because we don't get shitty if something goes wrong. I told the guy who owns the place that I was leaving in February and he invited me up to play a few games with him and to have a drink on the house, I just hope he gets the fact that we don't drink alcohol, because I don't want him to get offended if I turn down a tasty glass of good whiskey, middle eastern folk are very proud of their hospitality and I like the guy a lot, not enough to go back on my beliefs but enough to feel hella bad about not taking what is still a nice gesture either way you look at it. The place is big and bright and has good security on the door in a lovely part of the city, and they make damn good chips to boot. It was a great feeling when me and Clorin went up there one night and I had my huge backpack on and the as I get to the door, I open it so the security dude can check me and he just says (in Hebrew) "No no, you guys are good; Welcome." with a huge grin on his face. How many bouncers in Ireland treat you like that, unless you know them really well, any one who went to Quinn's back in the days knows what I mean. Another long and whingey post but I'm in a whingey place right now and when I think of not hitting the pool hall with Clorin and Kiva and Ryan any more it just makes me kinda... I dunno, sorry I kept to myself for the first few months of my time here. All I can say is look out Mardyke ( fantastic pool hall in Cork) I'm comin to get ya. I'm telling ya John, Lounge music! Its the soundtrack to the revolution.

Sunrise over Nazareth.

OK so I work in Israel, not for much longer as the last post may suggest, and seein as how its Christmas, and I live in the cradle of Christianity but am not a christian (nor is the country) I've been asked how the Christmas feeling is hitting me, well let me say this then and be done with it. I work security in Haifa, which is a city which takes up the whole north face of mount Carmel and I was working night shift from 12 on the 25 the 7 on the same morning and... watching the sun rise over the mountains of Nazareth and bounce off the lakes between Haifa and the other mountains and then bounce off the Golden dome of the shrine of the Bab in the Baha'i Gardens was one of the most "religious" experiences of my life, silent, orange and perfect every one who has done my job has seen it and knows just how amazing this place looks from Yeffe Nov and I hadn't realised it was even Christmas until I saw that spectacle and had to make an effort to not cry and it occured to me that God might have put something extra in, what with the morning thats in it...

Things I miss.....hmmm..you know thats a good question.

I'm getting ready (in a purely emotional sense) to go home after what will end up being pretty much 1 year and 3 hours in another country. 1 year out of my parents house, out of Ireland and lets face it out of places where alcohol and weed have been involved and to be honest I'm not sure how I feel about the prospect of going back to that, not Ireland or my parents house just the vice to be honest. I know my homies wanna drink and get high and I'd like to think I'm OK with that, but I'm starting to realize that I'm really not, I don't wanna see people I love doing things I Hate. I think anyone who has ever done what I'm doing right now knows how I feel, I've seen some of the world out side of Limerick and it rocks, and I've learned about me and my faith and some more languages and..... lots of stuff and kinda think that pubs in little ol' Limerick will never feel the same again, not that its not a great place with a lot of potential. I can't wait to see the homies and roll with my "gangstas" for a bit and maybe play some gigs around the town but this place is so fantastic and I don't want to leave it yet, or maybe I'm afraid I'll forget what happened here if I'm not in it. Kind of an emotional conundrum really, and since that's the kind of stuff I tell people to just move on from I suppose I'll do the same my self, but this blogging thing is more than just a little therapeutic.

Mban...."sniff"...this mblows.

Just a quick one, a small observation if you will. I have come to the conclusion that nothing sucks more than being well enough to feel guilty if you don't go to work, while at the same time being sick enough to have a really shitty time at work. Not the deepest of spiritual truths I know but someone has to say it, and I needed a whinge.

Where have all the Heroes gone?

I miss cartoons!! Where did Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors go? What happened to morals at the end of kids shows and theme tunes the rocked out loud? Since when must all cartoons be "dark" to be good? Don't get me wrong, it's not like I'm taking the greats of today for granted, far from it, I thank the sweet Lord everyday for Samurai jack and Batman of the future to name but two. My point however is that there was a time when good cartoons were the staple of a Saturday morning, and now our young are subjected to rehashed "by comity" stories with no soul and no humour, Jesus even He-Man cracked a smile every now and then. For those of us raised on the likes of M.A.S.K. and Ulysses 31 the cold hard fact is, excluding the work of geniuses like Genndy Tartakovsky, the landscape of toon town is a bleak post-apocalyptic nightmare world of lost innocence and the mangled remains of good ideas treated badly, with roaming packs of feral executives foaming at the mouth and trying to tear any remaining meat off the soft underbelly of the sick and shambolic beast that is all that remains of cartoons. Obviously there was a formula to those cartoons of the old scholl as well, the obvious similarities between Orko of He Man and Oon from Jayce and the wheeled warriors, as well as the mandatory Han Solo knock-off make this apparent, but the shows themselves never felt formulaic, they felt if anything like they were made to a recipe with all the care and attention needed to get the proportions right in the context of the show, never becoming clichéd because their use was tailored to the idea of the show not forced in to attract a demographic. Anyone who know anything knows that most of these shows were created as marketing ploys for various toy lines which were created before the shows themselves, however, for me this does more to highlight the fact that even toy making had a more creative and less commercial feel in this great age of children's programming, as even the merchandise had to have a well crafted story in itself! As I sit ranting over the sickness of one of my favorite artforms, I pray that the sickness does not worsen and turn this post into a eulogy, because for all the flaws of the mainstream toonage these days, there is still the glory of Samurai Jack and Hey Arnold! and Invader Zim along with the few other true gems in the catalogue of western cartoons to keep us smiling through these hard times. But I still miss being told there is "a power that comes from deep inside of me..." and the all around craftsmanship from the opening theme to the end credits which was simply a fact in the world of cartoons, not a rare surprise like a golden Dorito. "The more you know...."

Well here we go.....

It's here! The troll speaks finally, and everyword opens new and exciting vistas so delightful that even the cherubim feel ugly, old and faded. Will our hero groove the world as he so fervently hopes he might? Will he in the end be left umarried and thus unwashed as even his most well-wishing friends belive he will? The answer to all this and more awaits gentle reader, so follow us now under the Bridge of the Thinking Troll.....