The Ginger Man Gets the Shark Book and Dublin's Calling me to the Pubs

“The GM [Ginger Man], by the way, had real balls, a rare thing in these twisted times. I heard the priests gave you a rough time with the stage version, but to hell with them. The church is on its last legs and if we deal them blow for blow I think we may prevail.”

Hunter S. Thompson in a letter (December 8, 1960) to JP Donleavy from “The Proud Highway”.

Reading the letter excerpted above while in j-school was how I first came to know the name JP Donleavy and what drove me to pick up “The Ginger Man” and continue on through most of the rest of the JP Donleavy catalogue. That Hunter S. Thompson of all people would take the time to write a fan letter to anybody – he was the kind of guy who writes letters to the cable company complaining about the inanity of shows like “Hee Haw” (he asked them how dare they bill him after broadcasting a “waterhead zoo” like that) not fan letters – meant that Donleavy was required reading.

Thompson, Bukowski, Vonnegut, George MacDonald Fraser (who we blogged about here), Mordecai Richler, all of the greats whose unsanitized works at points give you the impression of the writer actually cackling while getting it down, they’re all gone. Donleavy is one of the few still around. So when the notice came up via the authoritative and well maintained (by David Hartzheim) JP Donleavy Compendium (as close a thing as the good man has to an official website) that Mr. Donleavy was going to be the subject of a tribute at the Dublin Writer’s Festival, I could not pass up the opportunity to make my first trip to Erin’s Isle, take in the festival and make acquaintance with a few of that fine city’s pubs and pints in the process.

The Writer’s Festival presentation took the form of an interview of Mr. Donleavy (click here for the full interview) conducted by a Radio Ireland presenter named Vincent Woods interspersed with musical acts. The highlight of those was the singer-songwriter ISE (Pronounced ‘eesha’) who knocked the crowd out with her own note-perfect rendition of Patrick Kavanaugh's "On Raglan Road", a Donleavy favorite (he knew the American woman who inspired the song, "a young beauty"). Kavanaugh was a legendary Irish poet and when I complimented ISE on her performance after the show, she said, “Thanks, but I didn’t write it you know.” And, I thought that was fine because I’ve always admired the work of Van Morrison anyhow.

Donleavy is a fine storyteller and a great interview subject, and he told many stories, the best of them about the Irish legend and "Borstal Boy" author Brendan Behan (He did things, Donleavy recalled, that were "literally unspeakable"), read from the “Unexpurgated Code”, twice and the concluding paragraphs of The Ginger Man (you should listen to at least the final portion of the audio recording of the interview just to hear Donleavy in that unique accent, with its traces of New York and ringing of the old aristocracy, sound out, "And, God's Mercy on the Wild Gin-ger Man". Those looking for a Johnny Depp “Ginger Man” movie will be disappointed though. When asked if he thinks it will be made: “I doubt it. It’s so much more fun talking about it. When will it be made? It will never be made probably.” But, he did say that if it were made, he might want to expand the character based on Brendan Behan if Shane MacGowan played him, calling that a bit of perfect casting. Indeed, MacGowan wrote Streams of Whiskey about Behan and also based the title of his "Fairytale of New York" on an underrated and lyrically stunning novel of the same name by Donleavy. He's been rehearsing for Behan all his life.

Following the presentation, Donleavy signed books and it was then that I gave him a copy of our book The Man Who Scared a Shark to Death and Other True Tales of Drunken Debauchery (see first photo) and thanked him for Dangerfield, Darcy Dancer, Balthazar B. Schultz and the rest. He accepted graciously and we’re hoping it did not warm his tootsies at his estate in the Irish countryside that very evening. It was the highlight of a terrific trip from Dublin to Belfast and a few pubs in between.

In Dublin, a recommended spot is the friendly and lively Ivy House on Drumcondra. There you can find a pint of a heavenly stout that goes by the name of Beamish but is not commonly available worldwide. This is because it is so delicious and full bodied that its widespread consumption would likely lead to world peace, something the arms manufacturers would sadly never allow. Beamish is superior even to Guinness. In fact, a Dublin taxi driver told us of how he had been a long-time Guinness drinker at his local suburban pub, but that after tasting the Beamish while on a trip into the city, there was no going back. He petitioned his local barman in the suburbs to get it on tap and eventually he did. Beamish inspires that sort of loyalty in the people who drink it.

Ivy also offers a breakfast that won’t lead to your death in five years, which can’t be said of Fagan's, the local of former Irish PM Bertie "Ahem" Ahern, (he must be quite heartened every time he settles down to business in the stalls as about at eye level in one of them someone has scrawled the message, “I love Bertie.”). He is the youngest PM in Ireland’s history but he may not make it to his golden years if he starts his mornings by setting into one of that pub’s breakfasts which will stick in your gut like a rock until, that is, you find a pint of Beamish to pour onto it. (Said Beamish can be found at this pub which is, despite the overabundance of photos of a blarney-full Bill Clinton, a handsomely decorated and rich-with-character sort of place).

In Belfast, the pub of choice was Bittles, a triangular shaped bar lined with paintings of famous Irish writers -- see the Brendan Behan portrait above and 10 points if you're able to name all of the great Irish scribes in the painting to the left -- and poets (and, oddly, Che Guevera and Fidel Castro). All of them, attached picture of Behan included, were said to have been painted by the same local artist, though this information was presented by an elderly gentleman who seemed to have had a head start on that day’s drinking by several hours, if not days.

The pubs in Belfast were a bit more spread out than they were in Dublin where it seemed like you couldn't walk 100 feet without ending up under a draught beer tap -- it really is that great a city. Hangovers are mild so long as you're not drinking something you shouldn't be, like Budweiser, but nonetheless, going in armed with hangover tip is advisable. Donleavy's strangest book is undoubtedly "De Alfonce Tennis", a game which he invented and which, presumably, only he and his immediate family play. In it he provides some tips on how the super athlete can best combat a hangover (check out our tips on the same here) .

"Although rarely appreciated by the victim, the pain of a hangover can be curative of the spirit, bringing upon the body a temporary physical depression, which teaches you a lesson on many levels and especially not to drink too much again. Let twenty four hours elapse before serious De Alfonce Tennis play recommences."

Also in line with me at the Donleavy event was a gentleman who goes by the name of Ron Mexico (though I didn't meet him and only found his site via Google) and runs an excellent Hunter Thompson site. In Thompson's letter to Donleavy excerpted above, the good doctor closes by inviting Donleavy to stop by if he's ever in Big Sur. While getting his book signed, Herr Mexico asked Donleavy whether he ever took Thompson up on the offer. Click here and check out his post to find out the answer.

Up Dublin!

Noel

Coffee & Health: This week, it's good for you

This next topic is one with which we're intimately familiar, having written each and every post you've seen here under its influence: but we're not going to discuss absinthe or Haldol today. We'll save those twin joys for another morning. Instead, we're going to talk coffee.

In previous posts, we've examined mixing caffeinated beverages (so-called, 'energy drinks') with alcohol. It's coffee though, as anyone who's ever had to battle a crippling hangover to prep for that morning board meeting knows, that is the original energy drink.

[Editor's note: if you're determined to mix caffeinated beverages with alcohol, try a dollop of Sambuca in your morning espresso, Italian-style, rather than ruining perfectly good rum with some Coke---not that we'd endorse this for breakfast---we're speaking in general terms. However, having a Sambuca in your coffee for that aforementioned board meeting is highly recommended]

If you want to make your heart race, palms sweat and lose all faculties of speech, your best option is either falling in love, or, if a vacation to Amsterdam's red light district exceeds your allotted travel budget, downing a cup of $4 dollar Starbucks coffee.

Studies looking at the health benefits of coffee are equivocal, to say the least, but as with any study, if you're determined not to change your lifestyle/behavior in light of mounting, glacier-like evidence, it's best to simply ignore all the negative outcomes and instead focus on the positive: for example, decreasing one's risk for Parkinson's by smoking cigarettes (despite increasing your risk for just about every other possible affliction you can think of). Of course, not being named Michael J Fox or Muhammad Ali, not becoming a professional boxer, or not slamming your head repeatedly into drywall is also linked with decreasing one's risk of Parkinson's.

In a Spanish study involving nearly 85,000 participants, long-term health effects of the stuff that makes the prospect of 8:00AM classes and a dull cubicle job less gloomy, were examined.

The people who took part in the research completed questionnaires on how frequently they drank coffee, other diet habits, smoking and medical conditions, and hopefully didn't pose too many questions to researchers about any hypotheses, of the 'you mean you guys suspected that drinking carrot juice every week would kill me quickly and didn't TELL me about it?' variety.

Researchers then studied the mortality risk over the period of the study among people with different coffee-drinking habits, and not the 'cream and sugar' versus just 'just black thanks', variety, but the people (whoever they are) who don't indulge. Women who reported drinking two to three cups of caffeinated coffee per day had a 25 percent lower risk of death from heart disease than women who abstained.

It's possible that coffee drinking is linked to a go-getter attitude, of the type that doesn't involve sleeping until noon, and that people who get up much earlier in the day are more likely to exercise or that it's entirely difficult to be slothful when one is jittery, but that is just speculation.

Literary Agents: Get Reputable Author Representation and Avoid Getting Scammed

Instead of the drunken shenanigans we usually chronicle, we thought we'd offer up a change of pace this morning. Since our book, The Man Who Scared a Shark to Death and Other True Tales of Drunken Debauchery came out, we've dealt with various people asking us about the process of landing an agent. Hence, we thought we'd offer a few insights and share them here.

Finding the right literary agent can be a challenge. Here are several online and print resources to make the hunt less daunting.

Googling 'New York' and 'literary agent', surprisingly, is a good first step because within the Big Apple’s city limits beats the heart of book publishing.

However, even though the majority ply their trade in the Five Boroughs there are good ones everywhere. More important than geography, is that a prospective agent is part of a professional body.

The Association of Authors' Representatives

The Association of Authors' Representatives (AAR) not only insists its members abide by a canon of professional ethics (for example, not charging fees as agents earn a living from a percentage of an author's advance and royalties), but has a strict admittance criterion based on how often agents are able to sell author works to publishers within a given period of time. An author would not be well served by an agent who last sold rights to a book years ago.

AAR and similar groups also have comprehensive listings of agent members, who often have websites where a writer can submit their queries online, great in this electronic age so that one doesn’t have to agonize over self-addressed stamped envelopes and being at the whim of the postal service.

These agent sites detail what material they’re specifically looking for. The business is fiercely competitive, with some agents getting hundreds (!) of queries a month. If a writer specializes in historical non-fiction, they should only query agents open to that, rather than thinking their stuff is so brilliant that it would even entice someone who deals in crime.

If an agent website is found through Google, make sure the agency is a member of AAR or its equivalent across the pond, the Association of Authors' Agents (UK). Unfortunately, there is no comparable Canadian agent oversight body that we know of, perhaps due to the industry’s relatively small size.

If an agent is NOT a member of one of the aforementioned associations, it's due to the following:

1. They charge fees, or are engaged in other unscrupulous and unethical behavior

2. They are too new to have accumulated sufficient rights sales to be considered for accreditation.

3. They are mavericks or ‘lone wolves’ who often declare that they don't need to be part of any association.

Of these, only Number 2 should be worthy of a prospective writer’s attention. It's not uncommon for an agent to work in a big, successful house, and feel the need to branch out and start up their own agency, and have yet to amass any rights sales. Check for credentials and background. At MINIMUM, they should at least adhere to the codes and conduct set out by the AAR and should ideally be in the process of seeking admittance to it. Check out recent rights sales. If none are listed, that should be a red flag.

The Guide to Literary Agents

In addition to online agent sources, the annually updated book The Guide to Literary Agents, is a useful source, however the contact info is occasionally out of date by the time it’s been printed.

Writer Beware

The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) operates a site called ‘Writer Beware’, (previously the slyly named, ‘Preditors & Editors). This is a great resource which lists complaints that have been raised about agent conduct. There are no guarantees and on occasion, complaints will even be levied against those who hold AAR membership. As the title implies, there are lots of shady people out there, looking to get 'reading fees' or miscellaneous ‘upfront or administrative fees’ out of often desperate writers. Some lawyers even fancy themselves book agents, as they know how to read and decipher contracts, but do not engage in proper conduct befitting a literary agent.

Be careful, and best of luck.

Shark-Bite Movie Review: Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian -- My Kingdom for a Squirrel

One of the more interesting author friendships was that of Chronicles of Narnia writer C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien (the former’s name stood for Clive Staples and the latter John Ronald Reuel, so it was a sound call made by publishers to initialize the pair of them). Lewis was enthusiastic when Tolkien published his first Rings book, but when Lewis came out with “The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe”, his buddy was nonplussed, saying, “Hey mate, read your book, it was shite, went too heavy on the religious allegory you did.” Or a cleaned up version of that said while smoking a pipe.

Tolkien was himself a deeply religious man; he is said to have been a major influence on C.S. Lewis’s conversion (and judging by his output in later life which consisted of volumes like “God in the Dock” and “The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses” the conversion took). Still though, he found the religious aspects of the Narnia books to be so obvious and pushy that he felt they would alienate the reader. Surely in the first film and book “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe”, we get a dose of Lewis’s religious fervor that couldn’t have been any more obvious even if the creatures of Narnia had started seeing the face of Aslan in their breakfast burritos. The lion was clearly meant to represent Christ with some scenes lifted wholesale out of the bible.

The second film “Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian” does not contain any scenes as blatantly allegorical as the lionine crucifixion in part one, but it’s run through with the same themes. Lewis wrote in a letter that Caspian was a story of “the restoration of the true religion after a corruption" and we are given grim examples throughout the film of what supposedly happens to a country that loses its faith. The only truly happy person in the opening part of the film is Lucy because she is an innocent child and hasn’t lost her faith like everybody else. Losing your faith here means misery, unless you’re a heathen Telmarine and if so, well, now would be a good time to take out a life-insurance policy.

This may be unsettling for someone whose religious observances consist of thanking a deity when a pregnancy test comes back the right way, but can the Narnia series be enjoyed without looking through this Christian lens? The answer is yes and that’s because the best parts of both of these films are also the most universal. Adults who count the Narnia books as among the first they ever read (or remember reading) will not remember the clumsy religious symbolism with Aslan the Lion in the role of Christ, but the spirit of adventure that was invoked by the possibilities of another world existing beyond the hum-drum in which average kids – the Pevensky four of Peter (who looks like Prince William in what was surely an intentional bit of casting by the UK filmmakers), Edmund, Susan and Lucy – become knights, have sword fights, meet magical creatures, and are, well, movers and shakers just like the grown-ups.

The four return to Narnia after a surprisingly short time in the present day, but enough to establish the present day as a place that stinks – Peter and Edmund get in a fight in the stairs of a subway station, Susan must fend off a nerd – and that is enough. Shortly thereafter we go from the mundane to the magical. The Prince of Caspian is an undeniably good looking film, with lush exteriors that rely less on computer-generated effects (though the CG animators earned their pay in the battle scenes and with the Narnian creatures) and more on the natural beauty of the filming locations (among them New Zealand).

The four kids are dropped into a Narnia that is startlingly different from the one they left. The heathen Telmarine – who seem to be Spanish for some odd reason – have taken over the land and the Narnians have long ago been driven underground. Some of the animals have become downright uncivil – a bear tries to maul little Lucy who must have been thinking of all the high teas she used to enjoy with wild creatures in the good old days.

The title character, Prince Caspian is involved in a “getting back the throne that is rightfully mine” cookie-cutter plot, and his uncle, though played with a devilish glee is a stereotypical character found in countless films along these lines. He does though provides a possible love interest for Susan, whose romantic prospects have improved immeasurably since she was back in London and had a nerd hitting on her at the newsstand. But Prince Caspian himself is not that interesting – it’s as if Inigo Montoya, Mandy Patinkin’s character in the Princess Bride, fathered a really dull son.

For the most part the supporting characters, like a chivalrous and deadly squirrel, pass us by unnoticed. A key exception here is Peter Dinklage who plays Trumkin the dwarf who helps out the lead characters, but whose skills as an actor – watch his face as he’s in a boat staring down his Telmarine captors – shine. He was excellent in his star-making turn in “The Station Agent”, and he might just become the first dwarf actor regularly cast into roles that do not necessarily call for a dwarf because of his skill.

Caspian is not on the level of the first Narnia movie. The awe of a first-time discovery – finding the magical wardrobe – cannot, of course, be repeated. But it’s a faithful adaptation of Lewis’s classic tale, a fun swashbuckler and an escape from the tedium, which is when the Narnia tales, when they were at their best, were all about.

Noel, Bangkok

"I just joined AA. I still drink -- I just use a different name."

Controlled drinking may seem like an oxymoron not to mention a highly theoretical construct to us Shark Guys, however it’s beginning to hold more sway with folks who didn't use Psych 101 as a place to sleep off that Sunday hangover. The concept of controlled drinking, or what we sometimes engage in at lunch, has apparently emerged as a welcome and acceptable treatment alternative to the buzz kill offered by the folks at Alcoholics Anonymous—total abstinence.

Not abstaining at all, a concept we’ve kept an adamantine grasp on like that frayed rope your sadistic gym teacher had you climb in elementary school, might just be the best method of success. And this isn't us flapping our parched lips, but that's according to Dr. Michael Levy, author of "Take Control of Your Drinking...And You May Not Need to Quit", a tome that will be a welcome gift to sling under the tree of a loved one, while chapters are read aloud with a belt of eggnog.

While the more attainable objective of being able to continue to drink once you've been dubbed a "problem drinker" may seem well within a pint’s reach of the average tippler (and just the occasion to uncork that bubbly you’ve been saving for that time you tell your boss into which orifice you'll be sticking your penny loafer), don’t march gallantly into that nearest liquor store just yet. While you might be confident they won’t break your fall from that flying leap off the wagon, drinking in moderation goes against AA's core belief that alcoholics are in denial about being in control of their drinking.

Lest your instinct is to believe this is pure preachy hogwash (which is exactly how we reacted to it), there is some evidence to suggest heavy imbibers have actually damaged the part of the brain that can help control a drinking habit, which puts the pursuit of moderation beyond the realm of mere will. Unrelated research that we've conducted on our own also suggests that heavy and continued drinking can also result in inappropriate uses of the French language in parentheses (pourquoi?).

Now, Alcoholics Anonymous is often cited as having terrific success rates, far superior to say, a nicotine patch for smoking (a method of quitting that is hampered by having to try to find a piece of surface area to slap one on yourself as if you were the side of a FedEx package). However, with various sources pegging AA’s success rate at only between 20 and 40% depending on who you ask, and whether they themselves have been drinking, it’s no wonder a large portion of the population are willing to dance with the devil and steer clear of the God two-step cited in six of the twelve famous steps and toast this wonderful Dr Levy instead. Indeed, with a success rate like AA's -- which is similar to that of the worst performing team in any given sport in any given year, only worse -- it's no wonder that the organization has come under fire and demands have been made for its federal funding to be pulled out from under it quicker than a closing-time bartender can put up the closed sign and pour out the remainder of your drink.

Those responding to advocates of abstinence claim that abstinence and moderation are equally effective, citing a 2001-2002 National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions. What remains controversial are the definitions of alcohol dependency (alcoholism) and abuse. AA covers their arses by stating that anyone who can recover by drinking moderately was never an alcoholic in the first place. Well if that isn't an invitation to bring a case of PBR to the next meeting we hear about and test the mettle of the participants, we just don't know what is.