Benjamin Franklin Sings the Blues

“May I see you in heaven, 30 minutes before the devil knows you’re dead.”

Kevin (the guy who looks like Benjamin Franklin and sings at our work and is mine and Tara’s favorite local bar patron) is always full of good quotes, poems and songs. I’ve been noticing how much Irish men love any form of ethnic women. If you took a 200lb Japanese woman, with rat teeth, no tits, an inverted ass and scoliosis and they would claim she was the hottest woman on earth, because she’s ethnic. But to most of them, a California woman is ethnic as well.

I’ve changed the name of any sunny days to anarchy days. See sunny days here are like dates for Mike Potter, they barely happen and when they do, they don’t last long. On these days everything that everyone wants to do collides. Everyone wants to use the park or go for a walk. If you want to travel somewhere in a car, plan on massive amounts of traffic and definitely plan on road construction, which due to wether can only take place about 45 days a year. It's just a collosal mess of people trying to cram life into a tiny crack of sunshine. The sun here should come with a countdown clock or a doomsday clock so you know when it's gonna end and god's gone back to pissing on our heads.

If we’re keeping track of my favorite things in Ireland, top of my list is delicious gravy and meat. The second thing on my list is the police, known at the Garda. Police here are basically glorified traffic cops and dui checkpoint Nazis. Ireland has laws which prevent you from firing someone who is a thousand years old. I know the United States has the same laws, but really all U.S. laws have loopholes and ways around them, except stem cell research and paying taxes. The Garda is composed of a good combo of men and women, but the average age of the officers is like 75 years old. It’s no joke, I haven’t seen a single cop I can’t outrun. I’ve also looped this country 1 and a half times and I’ve only seen 3 people get pulled over. There’s barely any police here, they’re all old and they don’t carry guns. It’s a thugs paradise here. They do all wear knife vests, so if you ever have to tangle with the Garda and it’s life or death, aim for the groin area with your weapon.

Tara’s family has been here for several days. It’s been nice having familiar faces. We picked up Cheryl this morning and we headed for the cliffs of Moher.

What’s the Big Deal?

Personally, the idea or thought of wasting my sunny day starring at giant cliffs wasn’t exactly life erection material. Plus being trapped in a car, with Tara, Chrissy, Cheryl and their mom sounded like down right suicide. I thought about slashing the rental car tires on several occasions before we left for the airport to pick up cherly, but then I remembered what’s really important in life. Cheryl had ranch dressing, beef jerky, candy corn and my new water proof shoes in her bag. Damn her.

Cliffs of Moher turned out to be way more than I gave it credit for. You don’t really get a feel for how massive these cliffs are until you look down and see a bird half way down the cliffs and the damn thing is barely visible it’s so far away. They put up walls around the cliffs recently so that way no more people would fall off and die. And just so we’re all clear, in the Pirate of the Caribean movie, when Elizabeth Swan falls of the cliff and Jack jumps in and saves her, neither one of them would’ve survived that fall. There I stood, looking down at this area where you can lay on your belly and look straight down the sides of the cliff. There it was, calling me. The angel on my shoulder said, no Brian no, you’ll scare everyone or you’ll die. Then the devil on my shoulder said, do it man, it’ll make you cool. It’s like the 10 minutes before I masturbated for the first time all over again. Finally a few Spanish tourists walked right up to the wall, hoped over it and darted down the hill for the look out spot. If there’s one motto you should live by, it’s that if the Spanish do it, it’s gotta be ok for you to do it to. I’m not scared of heights, but I am scared of being blown off high places and falling to my death. There is nothing appealing about that prospect unless you did a cool dive and had good form on the way down, someone caught it on camera and it ended up on youtube. The adventure ended when it began to pour rain and I ran for cover. I hate being wet and didn’t want to get my new water proof shoes wet. Yes I paniced. I don’t like sudden flash rain. Unfortunately the stupid assholes who built the tourist entrance, put a hole in the fucking roof and I got soaked.

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