Ireland Stories #2: A Toast to Me

IRELAND STORIES #2 - A TOAST TO ME

Molly and I went to Ireland for our honeymoon, after persuasive argument on my part.  ("Let's go to Ireland!  Please?  Please?  I love Ireland.  I've always wanted to go!  Please?!?!")  As befits a country devoted to poets and writers, many stories were born out of that trip.  A certain creepy story was one, and here's another:

We had just finished our ordeal with Aer Lingus (a story for later) and had made it into Dublin and the hotel at which we'd be spending our first two nights.  We got a nap, showered, got ourselves all spiffied up, and decided to hit the town.

Which was dead.  Turns out it was a "bank holiday," a phrase I'd never heard in the U.S., but in Ireland, at least, means "all businesses are closed and people stay off the streets like the alien invasion had been announced."  It was actually "October Holiday," in which everyone is given the last Monday of October off because, um, October?

So we wandered the empty streets, waiting for the zombies to wander out of the alleys or something, until we saw a pub.  Oh, yeah, remember when I said all businesses were closed?  That obviously doesn't include pubs, because, come on, Ireland.

Even this place was barely populated, just a scattering of people.  I think every other pub we entered for the rest of the trip was crammed to capacity.  Ireland has a population of 4 million (at the time, at least), which means that the population of Ireland's pubs on a Friday night is 4 million.

There was one man at the bar, and we sat a couple of stools down from him.  Within a few minutes, he started talking to us.  This was a pattern we would find over and over again.  If you want to have a conversation in Ireland, just stop moving for a few minutes - someone will introduce themselves.

Obviously he knew we were American, and I told him we were on our honeymoon.

"So what made you decide to come to Ireland for yer honeymoon?  Are you Irish, then?" he asked me.

"You know," I replied, "I've always loved Ireland since I was a kid.  Every movie, every story, I couldn't get enough of it.  But my family never kept records of where we came from.  We were the typical all-American mutt.  So finally, I decided to check out my family history, and you know what I found?"

I paused for effect.  "I'm not Irish at all," I said.  "I'm everything else.  English, Russian, German, god knows what else.  But no Irish.  I was crushed.  I'm Irish in my soul, I guess, but that's all."

There was a brief moment, and then he picked up his beer, turned and faced the room and smiled.

"I'd like to buy a drink," he said loudly to the house, hoisting his beer, "to the first American I've ever met... who isn't fuckin' Irish!"

DAD STORIES #1: HOW I MET MY DAD

I didn't know my father at all growing up. My parents had split up in Australia when I was very very young, and my mom came back to Oklahoma to raise me with her side of the family, which was the only family I knew. And for the next fifteen years, he was nonexistent in my life. I could have walked by him on the street and never known.

The best thing my mom did for me, though, was that she was completely honest about him. She didn't bad-mouth him, but she didn't whitewash him, either. "Your dad?  Oh, he was a thief and a con man. You couldn't trust him as far as you could throw him.  But he was charming, and a lot of fun. I wasn't an idiot - I knew he wasn't the stay-around type. But I got you out of it, and that made it all worth it." Shucks, mom, you're makin' me blush here! I love you, too.

Then, at 19, I heard that he had become a stand-up comedian, and a pretty successful one at that. A while later, I saw him for the first time - on tv. He was a guest comedian on the Tonight Show. It was an emotion that I'm pretty sure most people haven't had the opportunity to experience - that of seeing your long-lost father for the first time, on national tv, talking about van seats. (I bet there's a word for it in German.  Those guys have a word for everything.)

In retrospect, my response was fairly subdued. As best I can remember, my reaction was, "Huh.  So that's what he looks like. Well, gotta get to class." Yeah, I'm a drama queen.

But even though I was neither ecstatic nor distraught, I was intensely *curious* about this mystery person from my past. It never occurred to me to seek him out, but I spent a lot of time speculating about him. He was, by far, the most interesting person "in" my life - traveling salesman, con man, thief, seducer of women, world traveller, and now he was a comedian on tv? Who the hell did this guy think he was?

He was who I secretly wanted to be myself. My childhood fictional heroes were rogues and scoundrels, from Harold Hill in The Music Man to Robert Heinlein's rebels and explorers on the fringes of society. And all of sudden, the closest thing to those "heroes" I'd ever heard of in real life had turned up, and he was my father? I think that's why my reaction was so muted - it was all just too ridiculous to be taken seriously.

Still, when I saw with surprise my dad's name on the marquee of Joker's Comedy Club in Oklahoma City, announcing he would be headlining in a couple of weeks, I was *damn* well going to go.

I showed up that night with a couple of friends. I was only 20, but I managed to talk the doorman into letting us in, mostly on the strength of a driver's license with the same name as the headliner. He sat us at a table in the front row, just right of center stage. We were all of about 10 feet away from the microphone. Best seats in the house.

A couple of opening acts came and went, and then, finally, my dad comes out. I was pleased to find that my dad is a *very* good comedian.  He was rocking the house, and I was laughing with the rest of them. I forgot about being there to "meet my father," and had become just another laughing audience member.

And then the Universe handed me the greatest straight line anyone has received in the History of Ever...

My dad started talking about his name. "My last name really is Shock," he said. "Everyone thinks it's a stage name. It's not. I didn't make it up, I was born with it. Shock is my real name."

See, it's a lead-in to a joke about all the crap he's gotten for his name, but how he knew a guy with an even worse name in the Army. He was cut off, though, because just then, some guy waaaay in the back of the club yells out, "Yeah!"

When you're on stage, you can't see the crowd. The stage lights blind you and everything beyond the first row of tables is just darkness. My dad stared out into the shadows of the club and asked, "Do we have another Shock in the audience?"

"Yeah!" the voice came back. (You know, after 20+ years, it just occurred to me: who was that guy?)

Remember that straight line I mentioned? Drum roll, please.

My dad says - I shit you not - "I hear I have a son around here somewhere. Maybe you're him."

And from that table just right of center stage, that he can just *barely* see, a voice just loud enough for him to hear says, "No.  No, he's not."

That may be the only time I've gotten the punchline in on my dad. Rimshot. Ba-dum dum.


My dad turned toward my voice and stared past the lights at my table. I just smiled and waved, with a smirk and a raised eyebrow. He took a half-second to process it, and *click*. He turned 180, put his back to the audience. walked to the back wall... and laughed. And laughed and laughed for I don't know how long, in his loud distinctive way, each "Ha!" clearly and sharply articulated.

The audience had no idea what was going on. They had neither heard nor seen our interaction. To their eyes, he had just dead stopped in the middle of the act and gone into hysterics.

It felt like forever, but it was probably only 30 seconds. Just as quickly as he'd started laughing, he stopped. He turned back to the audience, took the microphone, and said, "...but let me tell you about a guy in the Army who had an even worse name." The joke was back in play. He finished out the rest of his set as if nothing had ever happened, not a word of explanation to the audience.

After his act, the audience stood in line to shake his hand, tell him they were big fans, that they'd seen him once in Texas, all the usual things. I waited my turn in line patiently, and eventually there we were, face to face at long last.

He leaned in, stared closely at me, and said slowly, "Hudson?"

I smiled and stuck out my hand, "Hi, Dad.  It's been a long time.  How've you been?"

And with that, my dad decided he liked me. Eventually, I decided I liked him, too, and we've been good friends ever since.

I am a pulp action hero

Yesterday, using the rifle handed down to me through three generations of Shocks, I shot through the string holding a tennis ball at the firing range. I did it on purpose, and called it ahead of time.





I LOVE that rifle.

Ireland Stories #1: A Halloween story

I swear this is a true story. I was in a quiet room above a busy pub in Dublin, when a man told this tale to me in hushed tones.

In 1887, a passenger ship, the SS Devonia, set sail from Ireland on its way to America. The famine was over, but Ireland was still terribly poor, and many sought their fortunes in the New World. One such man was Jack, last name unknown. Jack was a tall, handsome fellow, and as quick witted as all his island's people, but he had a dark look, like moors on a moonless night, that kept people from being too friendly with him.

Jack came aboard with almost no luggage. Just one chest, kept safe with a heavy steel lock, and a key Jack kept around his neck at all times. Now, on those ships, the poor slept 8 to a room, or more, and there wasn't much chance for privacy. And dark, moorish eyes or not, the Irish are a curious people and asked him about his chest. "What is so valuable that you need to keep it behind a lock like that?" they asked.

"A suit," Jack replied. When they stared, bewildered, he explained. It was a suit of the finest worsted wool, perfectly tailored for Jack. It was the kind of suit that none of his fellow passengers had ever owned, nor seen on anyone except rich English gentlemen. "How did you get such a fine suit," they asked. Jack would not say. But what he did tell them was that when he got to America, he was going to put on his suit, find himself a rich woman, and make her his wife. They started to laugh, but there was something about Jack's eyes that told you never to laugh in his face. And besides, who knows? With the suit of a gentleman, the charm of an Irishman, and the possibilities of America, who was to say what was possible and what wasn't?

Now, right off the bat, that passage was cursed. A storm blew in while they were still in the Irish Sea, halfway through St. George's Channel, and they were stuck for days waiting it out on the sea. While the sailors ran about on deck trying to keep them afloat, the passengers had nothing to do except sit in the lamplight and wait and talk. Eventually, the curiosity was too much for one of them, and he said, "Jack, I don't believe any suit could be as fine as to pass you off as a gentleman!" Jack said this was the finest suit they'd ever seen. "Well, *I* haven't seen it," said the man, getting a chuckle from the rest. Jack stood up so quickly it scared them all, and the fell quiet.

"Fine," he said softly. He pulled the key from around his neck, and put it in the lock. With a squeal the lock opened, and with a creeeeeek, the chest opened. Everybody leaned forward. In the chest was...

... a chewed up tangle of thread and scraps of fabric. And one big rat-hole chewed through the back corner of the chest. And in the bulkhead behind the chest, a mousehole.

Jack was furious. A cold, still fury came over him, and everybody stepped back. Jack opened his only other possession, his knapsack, and from a velvet lined box, took out his straight razor. A work of art it was. It gleamed like quicksilver, and you could tell just by looking at it that it could cut a hair lengthwise. He opened it, almost lovingly, and set it down in front of the bulkhead. And then Jack began to sing.

For you see, back in the day, there was a kind of man you would call if you had problems with rats. A rhymer. He would chant and sing in the old language, and the rats would come to him, and he could lead them away... or he could make them die. Shakespeare himself mentions it in "As You Like It," when Rosalind says, "I was never so berhymed, that I was an Irish rat." And the poet Ben Jonson said, "Rhyme them to death, as they do Irish rats, in drumming tunes."

Jack was an Irish Rhymer.

As Jack began to sing and chant, the storm outside grew quiet. The ship stilled. Everyone in the room backed up as far as they could, but couldn't get themselves to leave. As Jack rhymed, a rat emerged from the hole. It perched up, looked at Jack, and then bowed, placing it's nose against Jack's razor, as if in homage. And then it scurried off. Jack continued his song. A few minutes later, another rat emerged. It sat up, looked at Jack, and bowed till its nose touched the razor, and then scurried off.

On and on it went. Rat after rat emerged from the hole and bowed to Jack and his razor before scurrying away. Other passengers were drawn into the room to see what the weird chanting was. Then the crew began to come in, until it seemed every soul on the ship was crowded into that room, and spilling into the hallway, watching the rats bow to Jack and his razor.

Finally, the captain pushed his way through the crowds. But even he fell under the spell of Jack's song and watched the parade of rats.

And finally the rats stopped coming. But Jack continued to sing. Long minutes he chanted and sang and rhymed in the old language. Until finally, out from the hole, came a gray, old, fat and huge rat. The biggest rat anyone had ever seen, with the most evil, most intelligent eyes. And everyone knew right then, that this was the rat that had eaten Jack's fine suit.

Jack continued to sing, and the rat glared at him, black hatred in those eyes. And then the rat sat up, leaned forward and placed its neck upon Jack's razor. And slowly, oh so slowly, drew its neck across the blade, until its blood ran from its veins over the blade, and then its head fell from its body.

Jack stopped his rhyming.

Everyone was silent for a long minute. Finally, the captain said, "I don't know who you are. But at the next port, I want you off my ship." Jack said nothing.

Two days later, the Devonia pulled into London, and Jack got off the ship, taking his straight razor and his empty chest with him.

No one ever heard from Jack the Rhymer after that. Although, it was the very next year that another Jack - and his razor - began making news in Whitechapel. But I'm sure that's another story.

workin' out

So, Buck and I have started the "100 pushups" program at www.hundredpushups.com. It's a 6 week program designed to build you up to being able to do... drum roll... 100 pushups!

The people who put it together also have created www.twentypullups.com, www.twohundredsitups.com and www.twohundredsquats.com, each of them a 6-week program. I, being the insanely overconfident narcissist that I am, am of course going to do them all. Below are some artists renditions of how I'll look by the time the holidays roll around.

I think my improved condition will help me with little chores around the house, like killing spiders for Molly.






























Speaking of the holidays, I hope someone gets me that zeppelin I've been asking for... hint, hint.






























I'll use it do some travelling to some vacation spots, like Monster Island.

































Or I'll just take up a hobby, like posing dramatically.















This reminds me; I really need to buy some new shirts.

Well, now I pretty much have to support health care reform, don't I?

Eye Exam

So, I got an email from my half-sister a while ago saying that she'd had an attack of "narrow angles glaucoma." It's very serious condition, and an attack can leave a person blind. She got to a doctor quickly, thank goodness, and is fine. But her doctor said she should probably alert her siblings, as its a hereditary condition.

Well, it turns out my angles are as wide as the great outdoors, thank you very much. But when the doctor was checking me out with his giant magnifying lens, he said, "Did you know you have a chunk of metal in your eye?"

"Um... no." I suavely replied.

"Really, you can't feel that?" he asked as he, I don't know, pushed it around or something.

"No," I said again. And after a moment of thought, "Should I?"

"Eh, I guess you're fine. It's out now."

While this may not sound like all that much, I've put together a dramatization:



So, yeah, that's pretty much how it went.