Eugene S Robinson - The Old Blue Last 30/04/09

Eugene is a big fucker. Anyone who's seen him on stage with Oxbow will attest to that. He is a hulking man, and not only that but he enjoys his size. He enjoys the theatrics of it all. He enjoys being imposing, appearing powerful. He doesn't enjoy violence though, he's just interested in it. Well that's his official stance on the subject anyway.

He's promoting a book he's written called 'Fight: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Ass-Kicking but Were Afraid You'd Get Your Ass Kicked For Asking' which is a compendium of stories about his youth, interviews with various fighting types from pro's to bar room brawlers, and illustrated tips on how to beat the shit out of people. Sat downstairs at the Old Blue Last he relays stories of violence over the general noise of the pub. He's a decent enough raconteur and the stories split evenly between him getting beaten up and him doing the beating. They're all pretty nasty. He maintains that his interest lies in investigating the nature of evil and the red mist that takes over when a violent man gets violent. Apparently he talked to Charles Manson about it and he didn't know what Eugene was going on about.

It's entertaining enough, if a little worrying being sat close enough to see how his eyes kind of crazily wander off when he starts talking about kicking people in. I'm not convinced by his motives though. It seems to me he's attached this ponderous human psyche angle to what is essentially a love of violence. It's odd because actually behind all the fighting talk he seems like a really nice guy, and certainly an interesting character, and his stories stand up without this unconvincing justification he's attached to them. But you know, whatever, I'm not gonna argue with the guy, he's a big fucker.