yes we kant

Yes We Kant

So here it is, the year that not only do we get a visit from her majestic self, but we get to claim the lineage of the most powerful man in the world, and no I’m not talking about Chuck Norris, although with his ginger bread man beard we could nearly half claim him. I am of course talking about Barrack (where’s me auld apostrophe) Obama. Now I must say, Barrack must definitely have some Irish in him, because only one of our own would use an excuse like “I’m returning to find my apostrophe” just to come back and have a pint of Guiness. I was really impressed with the security they got for the man, I mean there were about a hundred lads with sunglasses. It was funny to see how they tried to fit into the crowd and not be to noticeable, it was funnier to see how our own Irish Guards just made a fool of themselves taking pictures on their phones of the “yanks”.

Now the visit of possibly the best known queen in like ever, nope not the good senator we all know and love, but her majesty over in England. She came and had the whole place closed down for her visit, I mean god help us but she must think all the Irish people have left the country, she could hardly have seen to many with all the barracades put up. This week our very own Francie Barret took to the screens and became the very first ever Television presenter from the Travelling community, a feat I can tell you from personal experience within the Tv industry, which is remarkable because mainstream media in this country is still so far removed from reality they could nearly have Zig and Zag read the news and people wouldn’t bat an eyelid. That being said, in the show which uncovered the genetic trails of our blood, I found that some wards come from royalty. Well it was when I found out that some travellers come from royalty I came to the conclusion that this was the sole reason for years the Guards in some towns have encouraged publicans to close down during the traveller’s royal visits.

Now me being me, and my mind being the total sludge bucket it is and easily brought into any strange thought, I came to thinking, what if Barrack Obama and the Queen were to Travellers. Can you imagine the two of them trying to get a place for there wedding reception and getting refused. “no you cant have it that day coz we’re booked out”, and the queen saying to barrack “eh are you just going to stand there” and poor old Barrack having to face the Hotel manager all grim face and almost wheezing with fear as he says “erm, Yes we can”.

The whole yes we can thing wouldn’t really work over here for the normal Joe on the street, although the whole yes we can if we bloody well please worked quite well for the past governments here. So on a final few notes I think I will bring you up to speed a little on a few things. Firstly I have started training with a community radio station situated in Coolock called Near 90.3 fm. Anyone can listen online to the station at www.near.ie. There are great opportunities for anyone wishing to get involved in radio from any background at the station. I am off on a holiday to Spain or maybe somewhere else, to be honest I have not actually booked so I might end up in Tullamore if I am not careful. I will however most definitely have a full report on that excursion away, and as always will let it transpire into an article for the very special readers I have with this column, all three or four of yee.

As always I encourage everyone to send in some ideas on what topic you would like covered in the next article I write. Any suggestions or comments on any part of this column can be forwarded on to myself at martinbeans@hotmail.com or to any of the staff at Voice of the Traveller magazine.

Have a great summer all you factor one million sun lotion crazies.

Beanz

The holiday

The holiday

So the good old summer is here and we’re hitting the pharmacies for sun tan lotion faster than a dog bolting from the garden hose. I myself decided to head off to Brussels for a quick 2 day getaway, getting away from what you say, well Tuam doesn’t have the best facilities for a young man like myself other than going to the local nightclub and getting refused.  So I got up at 4am on Tuesday morning to get my flight to Charleroi airport in Brussels. Arriving on Belgian soil at 10am. Now most people would be all excited about being in a new place and would not care about the fact they didn’t sleep well. Not me. I spent 25 minutes arguing in broken French/goblygook that I should be allowed to check into my room. That being said I had to wait until 2pm before I could even get to see the room. Well I was like a colic child for the hours I was waiting, and made a point of sitting right in front of the reception desk, saying things like, “ridiculous” “my seven curses”  “gammy feen” and other such beautiful words I could manage.

When I finally got to my room, I decided to rest my eyes a little. 8 hours later I woke up and ready to hit the town. And by god did I hit the town. More like I hit the ground about ten times, Belgian beer is deceptively strong. During the course of the night I ended up arriving at o’reillys Irish bar. Fantastic I thought to myself, maybe they have Hennessey’s brandy and an auld Bulmers. I was met with a big thick Manchester accent. Now I’m not racist, but when you go to an Irish bar you half expect to meet someone with a similar brogue to yourself. Turned out I was better off to have met an English lad, it meant that he wouldn’t  have a clue what a traveller was and would not say I had enough after one beer.

Thinking to myself between drunken thoughts, I realised, why the hell would I go and spend my time in an Irish bar while in Brussels, it didn’t feel right. Then again why do so many Irish people feel the need to head straight to an Irish bar when they go abroad, is it some kind of inner patriotism or just our nature of being afraid to venture past our comfort zone.

I was like a big child in a sweet shop when I got to the busy part of the city, the part with all the pubs and clubs. Not knowing what to do next I decided to stand and look around. Within seconds I heard that familiar sound of funk music accustomed to Brazil. I entered the bar and was greeted with a big brown man shouting something in Portuguese and then he ran out into the street jumping around with joy. I was thinking to myself, god, what’s he been drinking, and headed in to see what was being served. Turns out I decided to go here on the night Brazil are playing a football match in the world cup. For the spirit of the game I decided to taste the tipple selling the best. Caiparinia it was called, although the next morning I had some pretty colourful names for it myself. It was extremely strong and sweet, like a female Russian wrestler, both beautiful but packing a punch.

The next day after I got over the initial part of the hangover, I headed back to the centre half thinking about reporting that Caiparina for assault, because it kicked my arse pretty bad the night before. Opting instead to go to the chocolate emporium located in the main square. Well I was only like a diabetic elephant with an overeating disorder, I couldn’t get enough of the chocolate, I’m sure I looked so attractive walking around with big chocolate lips and cheeks on me.

The sad part about this entire story is, I went to Brussels to stage a one man protest, protesting against Zionism and for equality to Palestinians. Thank god the Palestinians are not relying on me, I would have sold them out for a snickers and a can of Bulmers halfway across the Gaza strip.

So for all who are thinking of taking a holiday, best of luck and remember the lotion, at least some of us can get a tan to match up with the arm that hangs out the driver window.

The Horsh whisperer

-“There she is Mick,” my uncle said to a man from the country.
-“16 hands she.”
I took one look at the beast and said to myself
-“Here’s to hands that are going no where near that thing.”
 
Growing up with my serious condition was hard enough but being subjected to the torture of being within kicking distance of it, that is nervous work.
Mick was walking around the poor horse like it was a car he was about to buy. I almost expected him to kick the horse as if he were checking tyres.
 
-“Aye she will do John, a fine horsh’”
A ‘horsh’, what the hell is a ‘horsh’? I’m sure their unique trading dialect was fitting in the art of equine marketing, but to a lad still in school it was something that needed correcting. Of course me being me with my big stupid academic head on me had to correct the two lads on their mistake. Now it wouldn’t have been so bad if I corrected in a nice way but when I turned around and said,
 
 “A horsh, are ya thick or something, what’s a horsh?  It’s a horse, h.o.r.s.e,”
 
The mick turned to my uncle and asked,
 
- “Who’s the scholar?”
-“I don’t know,” said my uncle, “but he would want to be getting out of my S.I.T.E.
 
I then remarked on this mis-spelling, well lets just say it wasn’t the “horsh” that kicked me that day.
 
So Mick loads up his new family member in the back of a “horsh” box and checks his hitch. I’m looking as three snotty nosed kids get out of the back of the van to inspect the animal. These kids looked like they came from a family that could barely afford to keep a dog, yet here was John Wayne paying over a grand for a “horsh” that looked like it was two gallops from the knacker’s yard.
 
I often wonder about these people that buy horses. Like what do they do with them? Do they ride them? Or just breed them? Like we have all see that film ‘Into the West’. I have this comical image in my head of a couple of Traveller teens riding in to Tesco for the shopping or the drive through at McDonalds for the dinner. There is nothing funnier I have to say than a couple of teenagers trying their hardest to shoe a horse. It’s like a man trying to get a cow with ADHD to sit down.
 
 I make all these jokes about the things I find funny within the Travelling community, but to be fair the biggest laugh to be had is on me. I’m what you might call "certified as petrified of any four legged animal bigger than a dog". To Travellers this is the funniest thing you could imagine. i used to wake up in the middle of the night and check the room for intruders, not the boogie man like most normal children, no, i used to check the room for piebalds. when i was really young i woke up thinking that i as kicked in the chest by a horse, still half asleep shouting to my imaginery room mate to stop and to move over. i told my mother this and all i got back was, "well if you didnt keep your room like a stable they wouldnt come visiting ya" i hope those words are not true because the other day she said it was a pig stye, and the last thing i need is sharing the bed with an epidemic on legs. a few years later i was watching the film "the god father" and guess what, a man ends up in a bed with a horse, well a horses head to be exact, but close enough. it wasnt me that was staring in shock. my father had a very important point, i told him about the dream. he said, if ya think a kick from a horse in your sleep is bad, i get worse from the mare thats in my bed.meaning my mother of course.

 
So hay to the ‘horsh’.

Pavee Wedding

Sept 06

“Voice of the traveller”

Pavee weddings

“ya humpy hound ya where’s me belt?”that’s what woke me.”what’ya talking about ya innocent fool ya?” “my belt,where is it?”

Oh yes,today was my cousin kathleens wedding,but I neglected the fact I hed to get up cos I was actin the fool last night.having a deep and meaningfull conversation with a pillar in the garden ,as ya do when ya have a bellyfull of drink taken.

The belt on the other hand may have at one stage held my pants above me arse,but seemed to have vanished after the pillar insulted me and I decided to take a jog across a bog naked.I didn’t want to destroy the pants.
“Get up ya lazy dog”my mother mumbled into me, while holding three hairpins in her gob between her lips.ya’d swear she was the one getting married.
“leave me alone Garfield”I shouted back to her with her huge amount of fake tan she looked like something that was pulled out of an orange basket in a fruit shop.
Then the brother comes out in his monkey suit smelling of cheap aftershave, hugo boss h20 or watered down in other words, he got it from a cousin in the market.the fool paid for it too.
And like with every wedding my mother says those famous words that are expected to be said out of respect, “I hope everything goes quite”.now this is only said at traveller weddings and it basically means that she hopes uncle Charlie doesn’t pull uncle john across the dinner table over a childhood dispute.

Throughout the years travellers have enjoyed the mild comfort of having a local pavee matchmaker at their service for a mild fee of a day out. the matchmaker would basically negotiate between families. this was successful up until the poor fart was outdone by a new foe, its codename nokia 3200 picture phone .it can be an avenue to a library of potential brides and grooms. this to me makes more sense, because not only do you get to know your potential marital partner, you actually know what they look like before you marry them.

At this stage my mother has finished plastering on her war paint and her wagon shaped earings and is getting paranoid. I know this without asking as she has started backbiting potential guests.she says she has no problem skull dragging her sister tina if she copied her dress detail. And in case any buffers are reading this, skull dragging can only be described as two pavee woman pulling each others hair in a fashion only seen in x rated movies.
We arrive at the chapel, screaming kids and depressed parents and outside looks like a ford reunion with the 40 something transits. “ I now pronounce you man and wife” eejits throwing their life away at 19.
“you may kiss the bride” ya but not to freely,you have to walk past her parents yet.
Now the reception.the publicans in our town have so much respect for traveller weddings they close down their pubs for a week. We reach the hotel and after dinner speaches were ok-ish. Then the music started,no one was on the floor but the couple, but when they were finished out came bridie,winnie and tina who were out to bust some moves to big toms “four roads”.

Love i suppose is like any other little thing we must overcome in life, except love knows no boundaries it doesn’t care if your pavee or other. We should look at love and take some notes for life, well without the honeymoon part .love is love,love is for me and you,love is not racist love is true.

Martin Beanz warde

A Few annoying things i have encountered over the week

FOR STARTERS

I dont get to annoyed lately, and usually let things slide right off my ducks back like a cascade of luke warm tap water. However, there a few things this week that really annoyed me. One was my recent visit to Dublin Airport and the other, a little visit to a well known un-advertised car breaker's, or scrap yard if you will. After a long winded rant at myself in the rear view mirror i have decided to rant a little more, this time with a more forward approach.

MAIN COURSE

Ok so i better start off in a cronological order, otherwise i might get a little lost in my own rant. Yesterday i went for a little drive to a little village type town called Headford, way out of the way in County Galway. My reason for my little wander came from the fear of my car breaking down on my trip to the "Big Shhmoke" , Dublin. I was on the hunt for a bottom pully for the crank shaft of the engine in my lovely carolla. I know right, crank shaft, sounds like a prop on a porn film set. Anyway i wasnt going to order a new one that would cost a few hundred, so taking my father's expert advice, i went travelling, alone, into "the shhticks". Now this place was so well hidden that you would imagine a hills have eyes scenario or something of that nature. Arriving at headford central, i was greeted by the lovely local folk, staring and gawping at my Dublin reg white carolla.

Not being able to find the well hidden and surely up-to-date-with-the-revenue company known as 24/7 car breakers/scrap yard or something like that, cannot actually remember the wording as like with most of their trade, it was word of mouth. Moving on, i eventually reached the well hidden secret oasis of potentially usefull parts. Now, i need some advice on the next bit. I drove down the long, thin "wrong turn"-esque road and reached a house on my left, and beside it was a porto-cabin type building along with numerous broken down cars. The cars that lay around the property did stretch a fair bit down past the house entrance, but as most businesses have the office located at the fore of their premises, i thought i would look for the owner there. I didnt immediately see any such owner, however i did see a well fed dog with an "ill fucking ate ya" look in his lying cute brown eyes. well as i wouldnt be the most agile, and most definately not the best at running, let alone outrunning a dog with an obvious mental illness, i decided to bravely honk my horn, or beep the horn, whichever sounds less sexual. The dog just stood as if smirking knowingly, all the while watching for an open oppurtunity to press his nicely sharpened teeth against a fatty part of my body.
 After about 5 quick beeps, out comes a woman looking like i was about the ask for the dogs hand in marriage or something, i mean the glare i got from her was one that simply said, "WHAT'YA WANT, WITH YOUR BIG CHEAP CAR PART SEEKING HEAD ON YA" , well thats what i thought at the time.I asked her kindly to point me to the owner as i wanted to buy a part for my lovely carolla. She still had that glint in her eye, but now she also had that same smirk the dog tried throwing my direction a few minutes earlier. She pointed in a direction away from the house, and she said, "down there".

 Being the intellect that i am, i worked out she was pointing to the owner. So i reversed my lovely carolla and high tailed it away from that woman, with her smirking ways. I still couldnt manage to locate the owner, so i drove as far as the dirt track called a road would let me. As my luck(or lack there'of) would have it, i managed to reach the end without seeing this hide and seek professional. Turning around to double back in an attempt to search for mr hide and go seek, i was greeted by a young man who had a face like i stole his milk money or something, i mean he was looking at me in a mean way, not a mean way like "look at me im well hard and doing daddy's work minding the yard", i mean he looked at me like i was tresspassing. Knowing full well what happens to Traveller lads that tresspass, i decided to debunk any thoughts he might have that i am up to know good, i looked him in the eye and said in a strong voice " eh, are you the scrap yard people". what abn idiotic question i posed, and what a sarcastic answer i got, when he just did an overtly obvious glance at the broken down cars.

 He just looked blankly at me and said, "here, ya need ta go up der to da right and up to da shed". I did as i was told like the good little wimp that i was. Arriving at the shed, i was greeted by the owner, sporting the rare type ginger hair that was all the rage when braveheart mania was rife. I got out of the car and to my own mis-fortune i was greeted with, " dya think this is a race car track or something, the way you were speeding up there, and then beeping the horn outside the house, ya need a bit of manner's so ya do", i explained quickl;y this was my first time out this neck of the woods and i wasnt to know as there was no sign saying where to go. He gave the usual backward answer i often got from my own father "ya will know for again". Mumbling bravely under my rapid breathing "there wont be a next time ya ignorant yoke ya". After that minor altercation i waited as the ginger son took my car part from a rusting engine in front of me. I paid €30 for the pully part, and to be honest i think i would rather pay top dollar in future instead of dealing with the crap dished out to me. And for the record, i didnt speed, it is hard to drive fast when the road looks like a potatoe field. My advice to you all, stay well clear of companies who do not care for customer relations. obviously i cannot tell you to stay away from this company, but i can say i will never return.


Now for my Dublin rant, well there aint none, it was just a horrible and expensive drive. I will say this though, the standard of the new filling/service station on the motorway from Galway to Dublin is quite high, and a lovely spacious venue it is.I would recommend anyone who like me, is on a shoe string budget with college or other, to buy your food there, rather than over spending at the eating places found at dublin airport. I couldnt believe my eyes when i saw that one such place was charging more than €11 for a breakfast. The toilets at Dublin airport are supperb, in that they are actually clean, which is no small feat when you think of the large volumes of people going through it.

JUST DESSERTS

I have decided to offer my assistance to the car parts company, i want to maybe train them in people skills. I also want to get to know that dogs secret, i mean he was able to totally stare me out of it, and i left thining, he was what you call, a top dog. Although another part of me was thinking, a mangey mutt, acting all big when your at home, ill see ya around.

Disclaimer, no animals feelings were hurt in the writing of this material, as dogs cannot read. Also no members of the ginger community were harmed during or after the incident reported, martin beanz warde believes gingers are people too. 

Another comedy article for your reading pleasure..

ST Paddy’s day

With valentines over and with emotions still running high, what else is there for the Irish person to do but turn to the drink? St Patrick’s Day coming up means only one thing to the average Irish person, drink.

I heard somewhere that Saint Patrick himself wasn’t actually Irish at all, but English. Now if that isn’t a dark irony I don’t know what is. The English however don’t seem to have taken the whole thing in like the Irish did, he is ours and you can’t have him type attitude from us inhibits anyone else claiming him. Being donned the patron saint of Ireland is also a humorous thing. St Patrick would more closely be associated with failing livers, the patron saint of sclerosis. I was reading an article printed in an English magazine the other day and the pull quote was “binge drinking in the U.K is atrocious”, some politician said so anyway. Now when they listed the average amount of alcohol consumed I had to laugh, what they called binge drinking, we called a breakfast tipple.

So out with the shamrocks and tri coloured ribbon badges, floats at 2 o’clock in the parade and the football neatly following. Last paddy’s day was great because I spent it sober and in Manchester. It’s odd that the best parades happen in foreign countries. I asked some foreign national friends of mine recently what was the one thing, which sprung to mind when they thought of Ireland;

“Rain, drink, drinking in the rain, and drinking the rain away” that was one response, but he was as foreign as they get, coming from Tipperary.  I asked another English friend of mine what he thought was the most common thing in Ireland, he said “Mary Harney, common as hell”. I totally disagree with him of course; I think she is a classy bird myself.

But to be honest Ireland is only famous for the Guinness and the craic. That seems to be the international selling tag for the green isle. Now I think it’s funny how Guinness and the craic come in the same sentence, because anytime I have seen Guinness drank in the vast quantities on paddy’s day there is no real craic, just fighting and grown men getting sick into a super mac’s bag. So as I move on into my spiel about this great day I think about all the people of the country mobilizing to their local, or in the case of us travellers, to the pub that would serve us. But thinking about it logically, when people are at a point of drunkenness that even Shane McGowan’s voice sounds credible, they are just about the same amount if hassle to the bar man. Having worked in a bar myself I can tell you that some of the settled community act worse than any traveller. Then again thinking of it like a logical person should, the publicans should be damn lucky anyone turns out to spend a cent in this economic climate.

I remember from when I was a child and going to the town to see the parade. Thinking back it was a typically Irish effort, tractors disguised as monster trucks. And the winners of the parade were the same each year because they funded it. The only decent thing about the parade was when they threw out the free lollipops to the crowds.

So if Saint Patrick isn’t ruining your liver then don’t worry, diabetes from sweets is very much a possibility. And as for his efforts at driving the snakes out of the country, it was all a lie, there’s still a few slithering around Leinster house, come on paddy, get with the programme.

beanz

As well as debating all things topical, i will also post some humour based articles based on my life.

The college boy

“Watch the college boy”, “look at the school boys head on him”, “our little scholar”                                                         “and sure he is only 25”

Those were some of the more memorable comments I have salvaged from brief discussions with the auld fella regarding the ole college situation. Having a father who knew nothing of colleges except that his bosses went to one, meant that me and my school boys head on me had an uphill battle to convince him I’m not a waster. On one hand my father would tell me how travellers would be better off if they got a better education. Then again he would have a seizure if he saw me writing down onto a copy book while I could be out doing some HORSH WORK in the garden.  I remember when I told him that I’m starting college and I am hoping to follow it through until I get a bachelors degree in four years. The look on his face and the way he clenched his chest should have told me he didn’t get exactly what I said. “A bachelor in four years, sure jaysus Christ it’s bad enough your one now, but you have to go and learn how to be one”. I’m sure one day the auld fella will look back and think how I made a good decision to go back to college.

Moving out of the house and away from the parents, sure isn’t that every lads dream. That would be true; however, if you have a fine set of parents like mine, you soon learn that no matter where you’re living, they will know more about what goes on at your house parties than half the people that were actually there. This being my first year in college I have a few things to get used to, one being, having beans for all three of my meals in the day. The way the government has gone lately sure I’d be lucky to find a tin of beans in the supermarket, what with every student in Galway making pre bookings. I never knew how having a loyalty key for every low cost supermarket makes you feel like a v.i.p member. This year especially for students it’s hard. The grant has been reduced, and in my case abolished, destroyed, taken and absolutely tore from my very fragile hands. Saying that, the good old government have told me that their not all that bad towards people in my case. They tell me that I can work part time on the back to education allowance and not have my payment affected. That’s awfully nice of them, sure it can’t be that hard to find a part time job for 20 hours a week during a recession, can it? Politics! Poly- meaning many, and tics- meaning blood sucking parasites. Of course I’m joking here; sure we all know how politics are great.

College for me should mean, getting qualified, and helping other travellers in my situation in the future realise their potential. Nice sentiment, however, it’s hard to tell travellers to get into college when nearly every student in the country is finding it hard to get by. Now, saying that, if I had a choice, I would certainly choose to get better qualified, and learn as much as I can, because one day I hope to see a traveller within the walls of Leinster house, someone who is not there under the careful gaze of security.

Coming to college I knew that there would be some drastic changes in my life. One of the things I didn’t know I would have to change is my taste in music. Apparently, my taste of music isn’t cool enough for the academic heads in college. So I decided I would try to listen to some of what they consider cool, well by Jesus Christ, it sounded like a crow getting attacked by a drunken cat. I think I will stick to my Philomena Begley. So I have a few years left, I’ll be finished my degree course by the time I’m 30 years of age.  The oldest school boy in the family, the little scholar, the college boy, or just the educated one, the one ready to become equally employable.

Education is like a headache, hard to cope with and difficult to overcome, but makes the after effect so much better.  Or something like that......