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June 05, 2005

JACK L - Singer, Entertainer, Ventriloquist

“You’ll have to sit on my knee like a ventriloquist’s dummy,” is not something you expect someone to say to you. Especially when that person is Jack L. It was a chilly Thursday morning. I was on my way to Dublin to film a video reading of the Athy singer for the Riverbank Reading Series. I really had no option but to catch the 12.05pm Arrow from Newbridge in order to get to Dublin in time to shop, eat and find the bloody club where we were going to be filming. In the station I went up to the counter to get my ticket before getting onto the Arrow. Usually I’d almost always leave ticket buying until on the train but there was a theatrically big Iarnród Éireann poster outside Newbridge Station telling me to “Get a ticket, not a criminal record!” This big scary red poster campaign is supposedly a deterrent in ticket fare evasion. I wonder if it really works though. I mean commuters are some of the biggest chancers you’ll ever meet. Me included. Its part of the commuter mentality. It there’s a hole in the system it’s open for people like us to jump through it, right? It saves us a few euros. Of course then there’s the Prommuter – a commuter whose turned pro in evading fares. Oh they’re shameless in their ways. They’ll pretend they brought yesterdays ticket by accident. They’ll hide in the loo when they see the ticket inspector coming. They’ll even try and use their train ticket as a bus ticket and when the bus driver says, “Your ticket doesn’t include the bus pass,” the brazen prommuter will swear on Aunt Penelope’s arthritic jack Russell that they asked for the bus pass all the way back in Newbridge Station. Which they didn’t, the lying cads! This particular morning I wasn’t in the mood to give an Oscar winning performance so back in Newbridge Station I asked for the 90bus to be included on my ticket. Ahem. The guy behind the counter said that he thought the LUAS was now included on the ticket as well, meaning if you asked for a ticket to the city centre you’d get the train and your choice of either the 90 or the LUAS. Of course he wasn’t exactly sure but I was willing to take my chances so when we arrived in Hueston I got straight onto the LUAS. I could always blame the guy back in Newbridge Station. Ahem.

I’m getting quite used to the LUAS now. It does always seem to be jammers though. There’s never a chance of getting a seat although standing like James Dean against the door is slightly cooler anyway. The one thing about the LUAS though is that whenever you seem a photo of a tram that’s been in an accident, it always seems to look horribly mangled and terribly unsafe, no?

Either way I decided to take my chances. I got off outside the Jervis St. Shopping Centre. Inside it was lavishly decorated with Christmas lights, trees, snowman and three dancing robotic Santas’. Now I’m not going to launch into a rant of how it’s only November and Christmas should be kept locked away in a dark room until December 23rd because it shouldn’t! As far as I’m concerned if you don’t want to hear Wham! or Shakin’ Stevens songs that have bells in them until mid-December then you’re on a par with Scrooge who didn’t even like Wham! or Shakin’ Stevens songs that have bells in them even it even was mid-December. As the song says “I wish it could be Christmas every day.” Although if Christmas were every day Santa would have to work every single night for years and we all know he’s not getting any younger. Emmm…so where was I?

Ah, yes. Dublin city centre. I made for Grafton Street and boy was it busy! I hadn’t been there in quite some time as I Henry St. always seems closer and less crowded with the same shops. Also Grafton St. is always full of weird buskers that scare me. Take for instance the tribal guy banging a piece of wood and chanting. Most people probably thought it was some sort of native song but it looked more like the guy was putting a curse on all who dared not give him a coin or two. I hurried past trying to avoid eye contact. Another good example of nutters on Grafton St. were the countless people wearing gigantic “SAVE BEWLEY’S” stickers on their coats. What’s up with that? There’s no way I can endorse a campaign that’s aim is to save a café. Any Bewley nuts reading will probably be thinking “Ah, he’s too young to understand.” You’re wrong. I understand completely that you people are stark raving mad. I’ve had hot chocolate in Bewley’s – it was no big deal. And I’ve had hot chocolate everywhere from the Muse on O’Connell Street to Starbucks in Washington DC.

Now, so where was I? Ah yes, I had made my through Grafton Street and was then proceeding across St. Stephen’s Green and out onto Leeson St. There I found the Sugar Club where I met up with Jack L to film the video reading. His manager was about to take some PR photos when we discovered there was only once chair on the stage and it is then the singer said, “You’ll have to sit on my knee like a ventriloquist’s dummy.”

Trains, Buses & Automobiles by Liam Geraghty appears every week in the Kildare Nationalist (page 6)

Posted by LiamG at June 5, 2005 10:23 PM