Rudhraigh

So, I’ve been in America for like, almost three months and this blog has in no way reflected that. For that I apologise.

I realise that this move of social opaqueness might seem uncharateristic for a man who spends more time looking at a computer screen than at human beings, but I’m sorry to say that the entire experience has been somewhat distracting. So distracting in fact that I don’t think I’ve actually sat down and really thought about that question until now. So.

How is America?

Or more specifically, how is New York? For those that just want the concentrated version.

Well, let me give you a bit of an update of the last three and a half months and maybe you’ll get an idea.

So, I arrived in New York in January to much internal fanfare. I was finally working in the industry I had studied and surveilled from a distance for over 4 years and I was ready to go. I was ready to walk in, shout my name and DEMAND that someone gave me an interesting creative media question, a puzzle of somehow being the loudest pop and whizzle of the internet and I was ready to effortlessly tell people what was the poppiest and whizziest, and if it just so happened that it was me, so much the better.

I was working for a Digital Production company called “Digital Kitchen”, a legendary hothouse of awesomeness.I managed to source an internship there past their absolutely amazing reputation and after much to-ing and fro-ing, waiting and tentative questioning. I was going to be a “Creative Producer”. To those of you who don’t know what this means, meet me when I started my internship.

I knew it was assumedly something about producing creativity, but that was kind of it, in a practical sense at least. I walked in the door full of something and something, but with both somethings in question being some declaration that I was there and I was a fucking “Creative Producer” so no-one should ask me what it meant.

The office was small, 5 excellent people who were so good at their jobs, you want to put the fact you know them on a card and show it to potential life-mates at bars to proved testament of your genetic viability. I worked with them in a kind of awed blur for a few weeks on some amazing projects, every day practically running in the door so that I could do absolutely anything anyone asked me about anything before the head office rang. I was sitting next door in an edit-suite going through endless awesome footage of Jack White when I found out that the home office in LA had decided to close the NYC office and then, rather suddenly, my job changed.

Suddenly I wasn’t a “Creative Producer”, I was in fact a “Office-Chair Counter”. And thus, my internship entered the two month period of semi-hopeless repetetiveness that surrounds a group of people being told that they had to find a new job, regardless of their circumstances. It’s odd being around people who are really good at their job when everyone’s been let go due to no shortcoming of their own, it’s not a sad time, it’s just a time where people know exactly how much more money they are going to be paid and when their health insurance will run out. Everyone knew that they were still awesome at their job, but also knew that they had reached a point where they had been gifted. They knew they had a few weeks to find a new job at the height of their abilities with a perfect out in terms of explaining why they were looking for a job and that is something that the vast majority of people who lose their jobs don’t have. It was a gift.

My gift was a bit different however, I was never looking for a new job, I was more looking for a time where I had the opportunity to play, so for me this was a moment of impatience. I wanted to get working, to push boundaries, to find the mystical “edge”. I was so ready for something awesome after a largely theoretical Sweden. I needed to be pushed and pulled and asked and mentioned and seen and hidden and told and advised and requested and wanted and prayed for, I needed to become something so I could say “I am xxxx” and feel that I did that.

Or at least so I thought at the time*.

So, I looked around. I tried to get an idea of what I could learn from my time at Digital Kitchen, and I came up with this list:

A) Trust your gut.
B) When you are just starting your career in a given field, don’t go anywhere where you don’t work with the head boss on a daily basis.
C) Minecraft is awesome.

I applied this list to a bigger list. One I had been working off since I quit Google.

A) What do you want to do?
B) What are you good at?
C) What’s the best compromise between A and B?

I think I’m lucky that I’m in a situation where my C is a lot higher on A and B’s individual metrics than for a lot of people. So really, any decision I make is pretty good, but the decision I made to go work at my new agency, Mssng Peces, really makes the whole idea of expression on an individual metric seem trite. So far I’ve enjoyed every single day. We work with awesome clients and I feel that really, whatever else is going I have the potential to really be a part of the cool stuff. I don’t worry about whether I have the right internship anymore, I worry about whether I have enough time to do all of the things in work AND all the things it inspires me to do when I get home.

It’s solid. I know for absolute sure you’re gonna see some of our work real soon.

So, the answer to your question, America is exactly what I wanted. Challenging, interesting, stimulating, worrying. New York is wrapping me up in it’s blankety grimy grasp and filling me full of hope and dreams and creativity. And Burritos.

Otherwise, I’m still livin’ in Williamsberg in Brooklyn. I’m still pretty much the same fast-talking neurotic mess of awesome, the only real difference is, I’m happy.

I mean, I realise that I’m leaving 90% of what’s going on out of this but frankly, I don’t have 7 arms and I should know as I tried to get into a party last night where they wouldn’t let me in unless I had them. Bastards.

*And probably still think.

New York, theoretically, is full of stuff to do.

There is “a lot going on”.

A veritable “feast of delights”.

The party “never stops”.

Cause it’s the city that “never sleeps”.

Well, at least that’s pretty much what you think about when you’re sitting alone in bed in your apartment for the third night in a row, mechanically smearing an entire tub of bacon filled cheese onto an entire pack of bacon and cheese filled crackers and shoving them into your gaping maw, wondering what the hell is going on in NYC.

To be fair, there are four major limitations on the whole “doing stuff” process in New York, and they’re pretty standard really.

1) Going out is expensive. I literally cannot go outside my front door in NYC without spending at least $40. It makes it kind of difficult to legitimise spending $40 on tickets to something when you know they $40 is just the tip of the iceberg.

2) Going out takes research and planning. I mean, a LOT of research and planning. You can check the blogs or agree to go to things with friends, but it takes a serious amount of forethought and a constant state of awareness of what day of the month it is and where you’re gonna be on any given day.

3) Going out requires compatriots. Doing anything solo in NYC, a city of 14 million people, seems a bit hard to legitimise. Especially in the face of people’s constant interest in not being alone.

4) Going out takes a lot of effort, at least compared to the alternative of self-aimed porcine cheese insertion. The strange thing about New York is that it’s simultaneously totally energising while at the same time being fucking tiring. It’s incredibly easy to live a life of minimal effort in New York, because you’re constantly feeling pushed and pulled into doing things that you may or may not be into. It’s stressful, and as a result, it’s easy to resolutely opt out, stamping your feet like an overtired three year old. DEMANDING that you be left alone to your cheesy hole of snuggly warm self hatred.

So, occasionally you miss out. Well, that’s not true, you CONSTANTLY miss out, but sometimes it’s actually self-inflicted. And I have to say, I’m glad that last week, I didn’t miss out on seeing the live version of “The Moth”, because it’s exactly the kind of thing I came to New York to see.

Basically, it’s a very simple idea. Interesting people telling an interesting story in 10 minutes or less. There are famous people, regular people who went through one of their open-mic qualification rounds and people you’ve never heard of that were invited due to their insane story. The key element is that they have no notes, they have to tell their story using their own ability to speak, their own ability to connect with the audience. It’s literally them, a microphone, a thousand people and a voice. And weirdly, it’s one of the most insanely intimate things I’ve ever experienced on a stage.* You really feel that the person is trying to be honest, and trying to connect with every person in the room, to tell a story. And it’s supremely cathartic, cause the majority of issues become non-issues when they become common issues.

It’s basically group therapy on a massive level.

From a story about a gay West Village hairdresser who grew up having to go deer hunting with his father in the South to a story about SNL comedienne Rachel Dratch’s mission to find a non-insane, non-alcoholic boyfriend in New York City, you get real moments of humanity and it’s so incredibly compelling as to be kind of addictive. It’s exactly the kind of sedate yet intellectually provocative and emotionally stimulating evening I hoped I would have in New York. I’m glad I left the Cheese at home.

Give it a go:

The Moth

*And that includes the time my Drama teacher tried to introduce me to the concept of a truly “Platonic” relationship.

When I was 15 or so, I had never been to an aquarium.* It’s one of the odder aspects of being Irish, for some reason we don’t have much affinity for the sea. I mean, don’t get me wrong, we have a serious fishing fleet and everyone loves fish fingers, but oddly we’ve never been a strictly seafaring people. At least not under our own flag. And then, it wasn’t really by choice. Other than the Irish pirates, of which there were many.

But I digress.

This meant that when I was 15 and I went to the Berlin Aquarium, I was unaware of what I was getting myself in for. I had never experienced the awe and wonder of a huge old building entirely dedicated to the quiet study and enjoyment of marine life. It was filled with a kind of liquid majesty and not the kind that makes one-eyed bastards who later in life try to usurp the throne. I loved that day, I spent hours staring at the seemingly endless procession of fish and marine mammals. It’s truly one of the great memories I have jammed into my brainhole and I treasure it like underwater Pirate treasure, except with less gold or chalices and more turtles and screaming kids.

So, today Sam, my new flatmate and I, went to Coney Island to see the New Yawk fishies and to me, it was a bit of a gamble. It was a bit of a risk. I mean, if the last couple of years have taught me anything it’s that you can’t go home again. That things that were good in the past are by no means assured to still be that way if you go for a revisit.

For example, when I watched the Neverending Story a few months back, all I could think was “Did Falcor ALWAYS look that fake?”.

Or when I played System Shock again last month I couldn’t help but OBSESS over the way the Genemutants were flat and 2D and I’d never noticed.

And the less said about George Lucas’s last 4 films the better.

So, we went and we paid our thirteen bucks and the first thing I saw was a sign saying that three different parts of the aquarium were “Closed for Renovations”. This immediately flicked my “cynicism” switch on. I KNEW that this meant all the good parts of the experience were going to be hidden behind blacked out windows and the entire day would be marred by the fact that we only saw one large grouper fish that we could have seen by just going to the fish counter at Tescos.

Luckily however, I was wrong. And mostly because Sam and I were a pair of stupidly silly kids the whole day. Although the place was surprisingly small and actually pretty dilapidated, it was still great, really reminding me of why I love places like that. The highpoints were:

1) The sea air. It was weird experiencing a genuinely fresh scent after the urinehappy funtimes of the subway.
2) The Walrus. HE HAD WHISKERS AND LOOKED LIKE A GENTLEMAN
3) The Spotted Seal. He just wanted to play. SO HE DID.
4) Getting forced to buy a stuffed Shark toy and then totally bonding with him. He’s called Albert Finney and swims entirely in Scotch.
5) The crazy dude on the subway on the way back. Eddie his name was. I knew it cause he kept shouting “HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELLLLLLLLLLLLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! MY NAME IS EDDIE WHAT’S YOURS? HAAAAAAPPPPYY NEWW YEAR!!”

I think that was a small hint.

I might write in more detail about this, but it’s late and I have work tomorrow for the first time in over a year, so here’s the day:

New York Aquarium from Rudhraigh McGrath on Vimeo.

*Other than those two times that I went to Sea World, but that’s not an aquarium. It’s a rollercoaster with fish.

I worry.

I worry that New York is maybe a little too big for a little old boy from little old Wicklow to really experience.

That I will curl up like a plant scared of being touched.

Like a woodlice being flicked.

Like a possum being scared.

Like a Lion being threatened.*

That fear or laziness or habit will put limits on the fact that I am living in a city where truly unbelievably awesome stuff is happening EVERY SINGLE SECOND.

That I will become localised. Or reduced to a definition or a group. That I won’t see any sights or have any adventures. That the days will blur into each other.

That is not going to happen.

I am going to plant my flag in this city.

I am going to make it my own.

New Rork City.

*Lions are cowards. Watch the Wizard of Oz.