| The decline and fall of the heroic Irish drunk by JOHN E WALSH Sunday Independent 17th Feb 2001 The current state of Shane McGowan explodes the myth of the booze-fuelled genius, says JOHN E WALSH TALES are leaking out of Blooms Hotel in Dublin. Somewhere in this temporary home to countless Euro-entrepreneurs and myriad dot.com impresarios Shane McGowan is sitting in a slurred heap. The ex-singer and frontman of The Pogues and later The Popes, a kind of pale-green simulacrum of the former, McGowan has been in the hotel since January 17. He has been unable to leave the premises because he has run up a drinks bill at the bar of something in excess of £2,000 and is unable, or unwilling, to pay it. He clings to the conviction that his publishers, Macmillan & Co, should pay, since they're the ones putting out his book, provocatively titled A Drink With Shane McGowan. The sample chapter that was sent to a dozen lucky literary editors has the words "Come and have a drink" emblazoned across the title page. Now that really was asking for trouble; some people have responded to the publishers' kind offer. They have pitched up in Dublin on the early flight with their slimline briefcases and their state-of-the-art Sanyo voice-activated tape equipment, each convinced that he or she alone will be able to penetrate the carapace of befuddlement and hostility that Mr McGowan carries about with him like a six-foot turtle. So far, they have got precisely nowhere. Reporters from the British dailies and the local papers alike have retreated with (they report in hushed whispers) not one single useable sentence to justify their hour in McGowan's company. Lynn Barber, the doyenne of British interviewers, spent practically a whole day with the great songwriter, during which their only coherent reported interchange was when she agreed to drive a getaway car when Shane next perpetrates a jewel heist (he's a big fan of Reservoir Dogs). The book itself, whose pre-launch festivities are causing such trouble, is a two-hander with McGowan's admirable girlfriend, Victoria Mary Clarke, a Cork beauty who thinks her beloved is "unique and magnificent and besides being a genius, he's the most intelligent man I know and the most interesting". The great man's interestingness is scarcely borne out by the conversations recorded in the book, which tend to deal with such topics as his liking for beetroot and his fascination for wife-beating scenes on celluloid. Like many people, I admire McGowan's songwriting skill to the point of idolatry, and am prepared to argue for his stuff being at least as "unique" and "magnificent" as the lyrics of that bleached, gum-chewing halfwit Eminem. But as an Irish drunk, Shane is a sad disappointment. A promising starter at 18 and 19, regularly getting his head kicked in for winding up stupid Londoners, he graduated to sullen incoherence just too soon. Some people peak too early; he troughed too early. He lost the facility of impromptu performance that spurs on every true Irish drunk to greater excess. Brendan Behan in his cups could never be silent. He might talk rubbish, but at least he would punctuate it with a satirical rant at the Catholic Church. He might vomit copiously in mid-song on the floor of McDaid's, but he'd always finish the song, note-perfect. Patrick Kavanagh was a loud, chip-on-the-shoulder farmboy from Monaghan, determined, when the mood took him, to show the swinish townies how to start an argument (and finish it). Luke Kelly could recite Mr Kavanagh at will, and his voice sounded better the more he drank. These guys set the gold standard of alcohol-fuelled Irish swagger, and plenty of lesser talents followed them into the dubious annals of liver-damaged heroism. Sitting in a hotel room, running up a four-figure tab and having nothing to say to the Recording Angels of History, Mr McGowan has let the side down badly. But he's punctured a few romantic notions about drunken Irish 'geniuses'. More tragic than heroic, really. |