LCD Soundsystem made me cry

People talk a lot about the reverse culture shock we supposedly get when returning from "the developing world". I think I'm supposed to feel offended by the affluence, horrified by the decadence of western lifestyles. I'm supposed to be pining for the real people, the simple people of the majority world. But you know, I've been living in a big ol run down city where frankly the decadence and affluence are much more conspicuous, for their juxtaposition with grinding poverty, and where they've visible in a surreal out-of-context way: runaway consumption without development. Maybe that's Ireland too a little. But not as much.

What does throw me though? Little things. Taxi fares being non-negotiable, that's a tricky one. I miss dramatic passenger door negotiations, the argument between ascending petrol prices and blatant exploitation of the foreigner. The slightly outrageous luxury of flushing toilet paper. The bewildering array of options - shops, restaraunts, pubs, people I know, gigs, events, things to do. Newspapers!
No, these aren't the things that throw me - they're the things I love, and in ways the reasons I came home. But being away does give you a fresh perspective on your reality. I notice people begging a lot more now. In ways, that sort of indigence is much more disturbing in Ireland, mostly because it's almost invariably linked with substance abuse. And it's genuinely shocking to see the zombie junkies careen across busy roads and through the indifferent shoppers. I feel less threatened by poor Honduran people than by poor Irish people. Is that why we get into this whole game? The cuddly face of poverty?
The filth of Dublin shocks me too. After a year of lecturing Hondurans about learning to manage their waste, I realise that we're as bad. Perhaps you don't regularly see chicken bones and coke cans flung out the back of a CIE bus as it whizzes through Kinnegad; but there's a lot more shattered glass here - and I never once saw a pool of vomit on the streets of Tegucigalpa. I went along to a Green Party meeting about waste management a week ago; but it was such a mess of uninformed opinions fired at a perfectly well informed John Gormley that I left early, bored. I'm allowed do this when my organisation isn't paying for the meeting.

Last night, I went to see LCD Soundsystem in Tripod, the new venue where the Red Box used to be. The gig was spectacular. The crowd were a shower of coked-up arrogant pricks. At the end, during a lovely encore of New York I Love You, I felt my usual overwhelming sense of communion with my fellow gig goers (I'm easily moved to ecstasy-like levels of fellow feeling), and bless us all, I started to cry. I'm not sure why this was. It could be a) the sentimentality of the song; b) the fact that this was exactly the moment I'd been longing for over the last year; or c) the horrible superficiality of it all, the knowledge that all these rapt people waving their hands and calling out can be engaged by drugs and flashing lights but never by politics or beliefs.
Nah. Not superficiality. I loved every single second of it.

It took 30 minutes to get my coat from the cloakroom and simp was nearly beaten up in the process. But it was worth it.