Beyond the Wings, November 2023

What I've been up-to this month...

Since September, I have been in one of the few phases of life when it has been obvious how to fill my days with paid activities, thanks to my new role as a note-taker for university students. This is my favourite state of affairs because I don’t need to be constantly trying to sell myself.

Now the only one of my New Year’s Resolutions not to be completed is to go 365 days without alcohol. That will be done on December 18th, which is a Monday so I will be in no hurry to start boozing.

Activities

After reading ‘Social Media for Rule-Breakers’ by Damien Keyes in the summer, it has taken months to even begin to implement the book’s ideas.

One of my biggest priorities for the next year, alongside developing this Substack, will be simultaneously growing three YouTube channels. These are The Mandarin Club, Kevin McGeary Guitar, and The Kev.

In recent months, my approach has been more “ask not what the internet can do for you, ask what you can do for the internet”. For that reason, I am regularly uploading multiple Chinese lessons, guitar lessons, weekly jokes, and other things that people want.

Output

On November 11th, I played my headline gig at The Bread Shed in Manchester. It went okay. My favourite part of the night was debuting the song ‘You Can’t Say Anything These Days’:

For years I had been searching for the perfect way to open a set, and the new song ‘Talking about the Kev’, which also got its debut that night, seems to be the answer.

This month’s miscellaneous movie cover was ‘Wasn’t Born to Follow’ from Easy Rider (1969).

Wider World

Ireland, which was the world’s first post-colonial country, has seen outbreaks of xenophobic violence. It is one of the few countries in the world that is less populous than it was two-hundred years ago, mostly because of the potato famine, which killed around 1 million people and caused another 1 million to emigrate.

Ireland’s politics has largely been dominated by its relationship to its larger neighbour to the east. And since unlike in Britain, being patriotic does not clash with being liberal or progressive (there is no colonial past to apologise for), almost all of the revered political figures from history are anti-establishment rebels.

These include James Connolly, whose following quote has been doing the rounds in recent weeks: “Let no Irishman throw a stone at the foreigner; he may hit his own clansman. Let no foreigner revile the Irish; he may be vilifying his own stock.”

Europe’s relationship to the rest of the world is still influenced by its colonial behaviour over the centuries, and Ireland is a particularly successful part of the new Europe, and very few people’s idea of an underdog. The only solution to the migrant crisis? Maybe make Ireland so poor again that nobody wants to move there.