Very insightful, the Mowl, thanks for that. I guess I missed all of that.
Once you've had your foot in the door of the Dublin 'upper class' scene, you can't unsee what went down. The Irish rock and pop music game was always associated with the fashion set, they all attended each others parties. One opening I went to at The Kerlin Gallery was showing 'new work' by Guggi, Bono's mate from The Virgin Prunes. Bono and Adam arrived, I watched them come in from their cars: Both picked up the list at the door and without even really taking a look at the canvases, started putting sticky-back red markers under pretty much everything hanging on the walls.
In one moment, everything was for sale: two minutes after the lads walked in 99% was sold.
It's not exactly charity, but it ain't a million miles from it either.
Well, back when I was around sixteen, I had a couple of girlfriends and wider circles of friends who brought me to places like the Pink Elephant, the Butterie Brasserie, Lillie Bordellos.
I was frequently at all of the above joints for private parties, after parties, blah, blah. My ex was one of the top three-rated models who took most of the work. Lisa Cummins, Finglas (down to earth, smart, working class, sharp as a blade) and Marie Staunton (generally considered to to be Elaine's MM's best asset) who lived with Ed Shanaghan. The three girls were close friends, so we all attended the same bashes.
The Pink was where everyone ended up after midnight. Def Leppard ran the corner with the pool table, the fashionista's had the centre table (upstairs) reserved every weekend. Middle aged slappers galore, rock stars, losers, dealers, car salesmen, fashion outlet owners, designers, blah, blah, blah. But that was the scene as it was back then: you were either in or out, there was no hanging around.
My distaste for that scene grew as I looked back on it. At the time, I suppose I was just young and liked drinking in new and exciting places.
Same here - and for a while I was even thinking: 'sweet - I'm in' when I'd stride up to the Pink and they'd pull the rope to let me in past the queues.
Load of bollocks really. Pints for twice the price. Shit food for even crazier money. One night me and the ex dropped in early, around 1900 when the Pink served food from a full kitchen service. Asked for a table and was told to wait at the bar, we'll have one soon. Sometime later we're still at the bar and I spot a table so I tell the waitress we've been waiting, etc. She wouldn't give me the table, so I took herself over and we sat down. Waitress comes back , all flustered, The table is booked, she says. Fuck that, we've been waiting over an hour. Wouldn't leave the table and she whispers in my ear the people the table is reserved for are here. I turned around and there's four people standing over us. I looked a bit closer at one bloke's face and the penny dropped: it was Paul Hill, of The Guildford Four, with his company. He'd only gotten out days before.
Herself excused ourselves and got up and left altogether.
Mortified.
You mentioned Cafe en Seine. That was the same crowd that leveled Bartley Dunnes and put in Break for the Border, in 1990. Maybe I'm just nostalgic, but that was the beginning of the end of the Dublin pub.
They brought in fucking line dancing in there. It looked like hell when I once looked in the door. And Bartleys was gone.
Bartley's was a great bar: poor auld Bartley himself must have been so confused at how his pub went from gay bar to hip and trendy bar where both sets of people all wore make-up and put time into their hair-dos. He was a lovely man, his Mam lived to an almighty age and he put her into a luxury retirement home out near upper Dunlaoire. Classy place, I worked there decorating the social rooms for the Christmas parties for the oldies.
Bartley clearly adored his Mam, he was ancient himself, but the wizened little lady must have been three hundred years old.
But the scene in his pub was raw flesh, everyone was fucking everyone else.
More make-up and hair-spray than a post-Christmas sale at Boots.
I guess there was evolution of two different species. The type you're talking about in your post, whose prior selves I witnessed in places like the Pink Elephant, comprised a certain social species, did they not.
They were the glamour set of the day. Whatever events on the Dublin social calendar were happening, we were all there - every fucking time. Gin and tonics, tapas, shite art, dodgy products, mad shows (like the one Vivienne Westwood put on for some children's charity) descended into romps. Again, everyone checking everyone else out, who's boning who, who's cheating, who's high, who's fake, and who the fuck is that and who let him in?
To a Ballyer head, it was disgusting.
Lots of money, zero class.
Age brought on an increasing divergence in our respective evolutionary paths. (And technology, like plastic surgery).
Anyway from what you say there, yes, I think I remember that crowd. Or at least their forebears.
I'd say most of the older ones are dead by now. Or retired. One party I always loved was Graham Knuttel's annual Christmas bash. He'd invite the people he liked for the night: full bar, all free; no table service but food everywhere and waiters to bring more around the rooms. Graham would give a little speech to welcome everyone, then slip out the back door to a hotel room for the night.
I don't know why he always missed his own bash, but it was what it was.
You know just thinking on it now, I don't think I've ever met a girl with fake tits.
Not that you know of: if the job's been done right, they should look seamless.
Then again, I can hardly tell if a girl is wearing make-up.
Ach, I can spot these things a mile off: the ex-wife was a stylist, beautician, and make-up artist in her day job.
She's highly talented at it, so I got used to being surrounded by all the associated items of high fashion and style.
Their spells always work 100% on me. I never learned to even see through the sleight of the foundation brush, well at least if applied with any degree of sophistication.
Done well, make-up can drive a man to lengths he mightn't have thought he had in him.
Done badly? Slapper - no fucking way.
Waking up next to some wan you nailed the night before and her face is printed on your pillows in all the colours of her outfit?
Yuck.
As to Gerry Ryan and all of that.
I liked some drugs. But not cocaine.
For a while on the touring scene I used to buy beers for whoever had coke and do a line about two minutes before stage.
It changed everything.
When I'd listen back to recordings, we were so fucking tight.
No coke?
Ramshackle.
So I never bothered again after that, and definitely NOT socially - fuck that.
It is the one drug that rots your soul. I hated the idea of it. I hated the falseness of it.
It became so ubiquitous in Ireland. You'd go to a wedding, with family there, and half of the guests would be on it.
It's far worse today than it ever was back then. You could measure the scene and classes within it: hash for knackers, imported weed for others. Mescaline blotters and mushrooms for knackers, designer drugs for others. But meeting relatives on coke is a fucking nightmare. Coke heads can't seem to shut the fuck up and worse: know where the line is, but they'd cross it every time. Personal details about themselves. Kinks. Peccadilloes. Habits. Partners, diseases, nasty things they've done, etc.
Then when it's worn off?
Yuck.
Quite disgusting, disrespectful, selfish, and self-centred.
And you always want more. And more.
I avoided it like the plague, at least I tried my best to.
It destroys a social scene, and idiosyncrasy, in reality.
I agree.
Worst drug out there bar heroin and crack.
And of course alcohol.
Yuck.
I really hate this celebrity worship culture we've imported from America. It's polluted just about every news publication at this stage.
Superficially, Ireland has more in common with the USA than she does with any of her contemporary EU countries.
If Ireland would only take a wee look at Finland and how we do things, then you too might be living the finer quality of life as I do.
It'll never happen though: the Irish model has holes all over it, the Finnish model has oversight and accountability - on every level.
Regarding Tubridy:
All I know of him is that when people start bitching about him, those who knew him as a school kid defend him, they say he was always mad about radio, and about books, and other interests which he always took up with genuine passion. Which sounds like a geek to me. And they say they always knew he was going to go far, and be famous.
That's very much the impression I got: a bookish type who'd rather curl up by the fire with a book or magazine than hang out with the slappers. He simply wouldn't fit in to any scene I can think of. Maybe the 'Shanaghan's On The Green' and 'Hugo's'set who eat around mid-evening and then sit back with cigars and brandies. Were he to walk into some roughneck shop down Temple Bar?
The poor stick insect would be snapped in half by mere glances in his direction.
I remember a few years back I was in town and it being Christmas, my brother's company booked a table at l'Ecrivain for the staff bash. He sent me a photo of his entre: it had one tiny leaf of salad, three carefully placed nuts of some description, and a squirt of some sauce written over the top of it. I couldn't stop laughing. I asked what it cost and he told me menus don't have any prices on them. I laughed even louder.
That pretentious bullshit's exactly what led to the joint flopping and having to shut down, losing a Michelin star or two in the process.
It wasn't food, as such - and maybe you weren't even supposed to eat it. Maybe to study it? Like a piece of abstract art.
Three nuts, no squirrel meat.
I suppose it may be a substitute for the catholic church and the old deities.
It brings to mind this paragraph written by a fellow who once earned the sobriquet, "the most evil man in the world.” It's quite a similar thing:
"... In the mind of a pious person, the inferiority complex which accounts for his piety compels him to interpret this emancipation as union with the gaseous vertebrate whom he has invented and called God. On the cloudy vapour of his fears his imagination has thrown a vast distorted shadow of himself, and he is duly terrified; and the more he cringes before it, the more the spectre seems to stoop to crush him. People with these ideas will never get to anywhere but Lunatic Asylums and Churches..."
... Or leafing through the pages of Hello magasine...
The Irish Catholic set of the day were another fucking cancer on Ireland.
It was they (the upper/elite/political/propertied/religious) who turned Sunday mass into another sort of Irish fashion show. They reserved the upper pews and the riff-raff stood at the back. Post-mass drinks were of the sherry type in the wealthy houses, but the working classes had to enter the local via the back door due to The Holy Hour rules. In my neighbourhood, most of the harder drinkers were in already by 1000/1100 so when the publican shut the doors, they were already in there supping their day off away.
That's where we got the term 'lock-in' - still in use today.
Knacker terminology too.
Well there is make up and make up.
It's an art form - many ladies don't seem to understand that - they use it like graffiti instead.
I remember some of the girls from that scene had make up absolutely piled on, so that it was literally cracking.
Worse again was when they pulled on their coat and the collar was manky with powder and greasy fake tan.
Fake tan?
Nooo..
I came across one of those girls recently at a funeral. They still had so many layers of make up on that I did not recognise them until I walked past.
Funerals? The modern day type are also fashion shows.
Sure some are highly trained in its application, so that the effect is as desired.
It's meant ot enhance natural features to make you appear naturally beautiful.
But applying it with a shotgun to look like someone else is of the Frankenstein end of the horrors.
But how regularly do you see it put on in the former manner?
Hasn't your partner ever had a trial make-up session at her favourite department store? In Finland, they're usually tied together so that it's a one-stop shop. Have your nails done first, then try some clothes out, take some advice from the stylist, then have an experimental make-up session with a professional who'll give you a brand new look (that you'll NEVER be able to replicate) a quick let-down of the hair, brush it, finish your glass of free champers, and off directly to your table in whatever restaurant.
That's pretty much how the fashionistas up here do it.
Gaggles of girls out on a company do often book an hotel room beforehand. Not to sleep in as such, but to have a party with the crew. You book a room big enough, everyone starts piling in by 1700, clothes are tried, swapped, tried again, then make-up, hair, nails, all the while knocking back the skumpa (look it up) and their favourite music on cue. Lots of fun and it acts as a base when they want to change clothes before hitting the next venue for the night. Everyone chips in a few quid and at the end of the night, those who are too drunk stay overnight, and the rest use the hotel's cab service to get home.
Remarkably cheap for a group of five or six ladies and all very much based on how we celebrate things with Baltic Sea cruises to Stockholm, Tallin, Riga, Vilnius and Copenhagen. Party upstairs at the burlesque, party downstairs with duty free booze and a bucket of ice. Up and down, drinking, eating, changing clothes, trying new perfumes in the DF, and every cabin stuffed with people looking to have a good time.
It's a great scene, especially if you're young enough to not know better. Touring players referred to them as Virgin Liners. Lots of young wans looking to break their cherry, all liquored up and smelling like fresh flowers, all over the dance floor and up in your face with shots before heading down to the cabin and locking the door from the inside. An hour later and she's back to her crew and you're with yours.
No names, no addresses, no phone numbers.
Sadly trying to cover up what they do not like in themselves.
One thing I see a lot of in ladies today is the facial problem of rosacea, a bright red rash caused by an acne type infection that seems to come from beneath the dermis. Girls who have it usually trowel on the foundation on their cheeks like they filling holes in the dry-wall. Kiss her once and your face will be all made up too.
Yuck.
I never got close enough to Lisa to see what camp was she in, whether she hated her own face, or not.
Ladies today are under massive pressure from the moment they begin to awake as young women. Photoshop has a lot to answer for here too. Magazine covers today are all digitally enhanced. Back in the day, if your skin wasn't flawless then forget it. Make-up's not a disguise: it's an enhancement of what's already there and has to be dealt with.
I agree that when you see a a young wan of 20/25 walking around with the eyelashes of an elephant it's hard to see any sophistication. Make-up done badly can make a woman look like a horror show. Slapper. Whore.
Think fat Irish girls in large groups out on the weekend? Flabby thighs, skirt way too short, heels too tall, cleavage bulging out of a cheap push-up bra, wearing whatever the scent of the day is (CK1 in the 90's - remember those heady, hazy days? They slap the make-up on layer by layer until they're unrecognizable. Their own Mam's couldn't pick them out in in a line-up. Stumbling down Crown Alley like skittles getting battered by dozens of massive bowling balls. Screeching with laughter. Passing around a bottle of something blue and sticky, with a purse full of naggins for the club.
They think they're living the life?
Mental.
Absurd.
www.joe.ie
Mowl, he spots the same type in a similar way as Egan, and also goes for them in a similar way).
