The continuing adventures of Boxcar Dean, mixed in Doubly, in the presence of sober Irishmen.
september 28, 2003, Dublin Ireland.
me with Art Cow on the River Liffie in Dublin
So, it’s day three in Dublin. I was staying at a warehouse, with incredibly cool people (it was the place we showed my film) and a beautiful dog who kept sleeping with me (she had just been fixed, and was kinda cranky and in pain, and I guess she could tell that I was fixed and had been through that pain before.) But the warehouse was incredibly cold, and quite dusty, and had no hot water, so I opted to spend my third night in town with Lisa Marie and Seamus, a cool couple I met at the showing when I said "I need punk rock hotel reservations" during the Q&A. Their flat is warmer and I took my first bath in four days. The water was almost black afterwards. They are hella nice--fed me an incredible veggie dinner and Lisa Marie boiled water because the hot water here isn’t very hot, and brought it to me a couple times while I was bathing. Wow. This tour is full of very nice people.
lisa marie
people at the Showing of DIY or DIE
I’m a block from St. Patrick’s Cathedral. I can hear the bells now. How much more fucking Irish can you get than THE St. Patrick’s Cathedral (there’s a few of them in town, but this is the main one) in Dublin, the biggest city in Ireland. None more Irish. The answer is "none".
The showing of my film in Dublin was great. And they showed a short that they made called "Do It Yourself" that had opening credits on a flyer someone was posting. And it was made before my film. I’ve never seen it before. I guess it’s something in the collective unconsciousness.
Fucking very receptive audience at the warehouse, about 50 people, every chair full and a bunch of punkers hunkered on the floor. I had a great Q&A –I brought up a theme that I like and think I’ll explore more on this tour—basically riffing on a question that I was asked in Sheffield, England. I presented the idea that I WOULD accept a million dollars in a heartbeat to make a movie IF I COULD MAKE IT UNDER MY TERMS. This brings up a cool point that fucks with punkers’ sense of propriety. A lot of them think it’s a punker sin to accept any money for anything and here I am telling them that I’d take it.
Of course the punch line is that no one offers that kind of money without wanting to tell you what to do with it to some extent. And this opens up a cool debate.
(At some of the Q&As I’m sort of taking a question and riffing on it now, talking in a long convoluted answer about whatever I feel like but tying it back together at the end. It really works well, and is better by far than just answering the question in two sentences and moving on, especially if people aren’t asking a lot.)
I’m having a lot of fun with this. I also talked a bit about the fact that my book is not on an independent press—It’s on a mainstream publisher who gets it into every chain store in the country. This is another punker sin. I’ve decided I really like telling them why I don’t buy the PC hard line and that I am redefining it for myself. That I have a message to tell that I believe in and I want to get it to as many people as possible.
I’m on a fucking MISSION. I wake up every morning pretty damn excited these days. More so since the tour started.
Niall McGurik, the very cool promoter who set up my show at the warehouse. (He put together the punk rock recipe book, "Document", by the way. soon to be out in America on Soft Skull. it's already a big hit over here).