Stan Notte

[00:00:00] Stanley Notte: I don’t know of another county that has the same breadth of language. I don’t know of another county that has the same type of humour. I don’t know if there’s another county that are as good as taking the mick out of themselves as we are. I don’t know of another county where the north-south divide in the main city is huge, but it’s huge in such a fun way. Do you know what I mean? So, I mean, yeah, you could replicate it for other places, but there’s something about the way Cork people go at it that is completely unique.

[00:00:30] Stanley Notte: Like, that for me is the trick; you have to make people think differently. Like, I taught at the Life Centre for a number of years and that’s the battle. The battle is to make them think differently, and it’s predominantly to make them think differently about themselves. You know, I was that kid who was 16 or 17 and was completely lost because, you know, there were people who believed in me, but I couldn’t hear it. Do you know what I mean? So, I mean, all that feeds into what I do as well—all that passion and anger and frustration and belief.

[00:01:02] Stanley Notte: “Poetry,” they’d be saying. I’d beat you good-looking, boy, if I had three weeks to spare!

[00:01:09] Geraldine Hennessy: It’s not good for me, Stan. Oh, I have to go back to work after this.

[00:01:14] Stanley Notte: Laughter is always good for you, Geraldine.

[00:01:16] Geraldine Hennessy: Ahh, I’m telling ya!

[00:01:22] Geraldine Hennessy: So, today I chat to creative director Stanley Notte. Stan, you’re very welcome to the Cork Creative programme.

[00:01:28] Stanley Notte: Thank you very much indeed. Delighted to be here.

[00:01:31] Geraldine Hennessy: So, you grew up in London before returning to Cork in the 70s. How did that early transition shape your deep, enduring connection to the city?

[00:01:41] Stanley Notte: What a really interesting question. So, I lived in London from the age of four to 12, and we used to come home here every year for the six weeks of the summer holidays. The schools only closed for six weeks in England. And we obviously loved the freedom. I mean, the difference between here and London was unbelievable. So, we had a connection at that stage already.

[00:02:03] Stanley Notte: The move back was traumatic in ways, and I’ll explain that in a second. But I think—I mean, I’ve never thought about this, actually—but I think the first connection for me was with language. I was always fascinated with language, always. I have a very, very clear memory of being a very young child, like six or seven, at my aunt’s house. And she had two signs on the kitchen wall. And one of them is that classic prayer called “Grant me the Serenity to Accept the Things I Cannot Change,” etc. And the other one was, “I ask the simple questions, the truth I only wish: are all the fishermen liars or the world of liars fish?” And I was fascinated, absolutely fascinated.

[00:02:43] Stanley Notte: And coming back to live here gave you, I suppose, maybe a slightly different opportunity than coming up for six weeks and hearing different people speaking and, you know, the lingo. And the slang always interests me. I remember the first time somebody called me a “dirty little catherer” and I was maybe eight and I’m thinking, “What does that mean?” Do you know what I mean? That would be the first thing.

[00:03:04] Stanley Notte: And the friendships in Cork were amazing. I’m still friends with people from then. I played football with Everton from the age of 12, maybe 13, and I still have loads of friends from that. And we were very fortunate; the people that we were hanging around with in town at that time, I still have friends from that. People that I still see regularly here, like Birmingham, who’s an actor and has appeared in, among other things, *The Young Offenders*—that’s the first one.

[00:03:27] Stanley Notte: Yeah, so I mean, I think maybe at that age, it’s a good age in some ways to come back and get immersed in a new culture, you know, and the freedom. I mean, I can’t describe the difference between the freedom in Cork and the lack of freedom in London. We had like a 500-metre radius around the house that we were allowed to explore in London, and anything beyond that and it was panic stations.

[00:03:48] Stanley Notte: We’d come home here, get out of bed at nine o’clock in the morning, go to the door, and you weren’t back until 10 o’clock at night—or before that only if you were hungry. And like, slogging apples and going collecting blackberries and chopping trees. There are things you just never, ever had. And I don’t even think it was on the radar in London. Do you know what I mean? It’s just a completely different way of life.

[00:04:12] Stanley Notte: I mean, look, I’ve a brother and a sister who went back to London fairly quickly after they left school—my younger brother and sister—and they’ve made their lives there. I had children very young. I was 20 when we had our first girl, Eileen and I. And I always knew I wasn’t going to bring children up in London. I always knew, just from my own experience of the two. You know, so yeah, I suppose the connections… it’s such an interesting question. I’ve never really thought about that. Certainly, friendship is one, language is definitely another, and freedom would be the other one.

[00:04:45] Geraldine Hennessy: So, talking about the creation, like from writing fiction and performing slam poetry to creating visual art, you’re incredibly multi-talented. What first sparked your passion for such diverse creative outlets?

[00:04:59] Stanley Notte: It’s been an interesting journey. So, I have a brother who is—and I’m not exaggerating—a world-famous artist within a certain field; he’s a street artist. I don’t know if you remember the Asian girl that was on the Kino a few years ago, a big long mural? He did that. I curated, but he did it. He’s incredibly talented. He could draw recognisable portraits when he was 10. I was the logical one. I was good at maths and problem-solving.

[00:05:25] Stanley Notte: And, you know, for a very, very long time, I didn’t believe I was creative. But then something happened. I started writing when I was around 40, two years before I was diagnosed with depression. And I don’t know if that was part of the need to express what was going on with me that was causing depression, but also it was a kind of suppressed creativity coming to life. My mother had said—well, she hadn’t said it to me, but after she passed, somebody said to me that my mum often said I drew a lot in my teenage years. I have no recollection.

[00:05:56] Stanley Notte: I do remember doing lots of jigsaw puzzles. And I do remember building a castle out of cardboard when we were in a place called Dade Street in London. But the only reason I remember that is that I left it out and it got saturated. I remember looking out the window at it literally collapsing before my eyes. So, I think it was more of a suppressed thing because Finbarr was so talented, I think we kind of thought there was no point. And then I started writing.

[00:06:25] Stanley Notte: My life changed—I don’t know the date, but I was down in Dublin with the Defence Forces. I was involved with the Defence Force Association. And I was leaving the office one day at a quarter to three to get the three o’clock train down, in the old days when the next one wasn’t until half-five. And somebody said, “Oh, I want to have a quick chat.” And 99,999 times out of a hundred thousand, I’d have said, “No, I need to get the train.” But for whatever reason, I said, “Okay.”

[00:06:56] Stanley Notte: And I was in the train station at 25 past three, with two hours to kill. And I’d been going up and down to Dublin for three years at that stage, and I noticed the Eason’s in the train station for the first time ever. And I went in—I’m a big book lover—and I bought a book based on the title. It’s called *The Sound of Paper* by an American woman called Julia Cameron. And I read the bulk of it on the way home, or a good chunk of it. And I finished it by the following Monday, and my life changed with that one book.

[00:07:22] Stanley Notte: It’s a book about—it’s a kind of tangent of her foundational work, which is called *The Artist’s Way*—which is about getting in touch with or reconnecting with your artist, your creative self, and how you can get tasks and things to do with that. It’s a 12-week course. And I bought the book and I did the course on my own. And it just had a huge impact on me. And then when I finished the book, I left the Navy not long after and I spent nine months writing a novel, which never went anywhere in the end, mainly because of my lack of belief.

[00:07:56] Stanley Notte: And then I started to struggle with the creative stuff again. And I went back to do *The Artist’s Way* again, and I was struggling to do it. And I came into the kitchen one day and I said to my wife, “You know, she talks at the back of this book about what she calls ‘Artist’s Way clusters,’ which is people working as a group. Do you know, right now, I feel that would be good for me because I’m really struggling to do it on my own.” And my wife left the house, went onto Bandon Road, and there was a flyer on the wall for *The Artist’s Way*.

[00:08:23] Stanley Notte: You couldn’t make it up. You couldn’t make it up. So, I went and did that with Carston Walsh. She’s still a friend of mine and it was amazing. And as it turns out, she was teaching people how to draw from a book called *Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain*. And I went to that and within six weeks was drawing. Yeah, nuts. Yeah. And then they just all feed in together eventually, you know? The writing, my love of music… I started to write poems using song titles.

[00:08:53] Stanley Notte: And then because I am such a music fan, you know, I spent years looking at record sleeves—and I’m not just looking at them, I’m gazing at them, you know. And then I started developing art for the poems. I look back and they were crap, but I did an exhibition because I thought it was so amazing. And then they eventually just turned into all sorts of things. And then all those things you’ve done as a younger person come back out of you.

[00:09:23] Stanley Notte: So, I now design record sleeves for pieces of poems that I do. And a friend of mine said to me one time—you know, I was being a bit self-deprecating—and he said to me, “Listen, what you’re doing is incredibly sound. And what I think is that all those years of buying and studying and immersing yourself in the music and the art and the fashion… that’s been your college.” And it just—I mean, you know, it is easy for me. Right? It’s not easy to create the stuff because it takes time and effort. But the ideas side of it is easy for me, and doing it is easy because it’s like diving into the deep end of your favourite game. Do you know what I mean?

[00:10:09] Geraldine Hennessy: And I suppose you just opened that door and you just walked through it and it all revealed itself.

[00:10:12] Stanley Notte: Exactly. And the Cork stuff has been exactly the same. I mean, I started doing this for fun. I used to get T-shirts printed for myself with one word on them. So, I remember getting a T-shirt printed with “defenestration” on it just for the sake of it. And then I started doing Cork stuff just because I love the language. And then people say, you know… so I had one at one stage, this red T-shirt, and it just had “How can I exist?” on it. And I remember going into open mics and people would go, “Is that a reference to The Frank and Walters?” And I’d go, “Yeah.”

[00:10:37] Stanley Notte: And so people get it. You know what I mean? And then people started saying, “Oh, I’d love one of them,” or “You should be selling them.” And over quite a period of time, I realised that they were right. They were absolutely right. You put a T-shirt like this in front of people with “Notions” on it or “I will, yeah,” and they’re just like, “Wow.” You know, “I love it. Where did you get the idea of taking a Cork phrase and sticking it on a T-shirt?” I literally can’t believe nobody else ever thought of it.

[00:11:03] Geraldine Hennessy: It’s a simple thing, isn’t it? But it makes—like, if you’re a Cork person, you’re a singer, you’re like, “Oh, yeah!”

[00:11:10] Stanley Notte: Exactly. Yeah. Like, the simple ideas are often the best. And then I suppose the thing with my brain and the way I work is I always think big. That can be a drawback. And for many years it was, because I’d get an idea and then I’m immediately imagining I’m on the *Graham Norton Show* or the *Late Late Show* or whatever. And I realised when I was doing *The Artist’s Way* that that’s a huge barrier because you’re jumping too far ahead and you’re not giving it time to progress.

[00:11:36] Stanley Notte: And for somebody like me with a traumatic background and lack of self-esteem, it becomes a huge barrier. But the magic with the Cork thing is, you know, I’ve done a lot of therapy and I’m in a really good place around myself. And then I can see just endless opportunities. And then I can also find—and again, it’s one of my gifts—I can find ways to create things that are funny and quirky. And that was a drawback for a while; I thought, “Oh, it’s only a niche market.” But actually, when you sit down and think about it, it’s not a niche market. It is Cork, and you can say that’s niche, but there are Cork people all over the world and there are millions of them.

[00:12:10] Stanley Notte: And I think one of the amazing things about Cork is like this thing—you could replicate this for every county in the country, I’ve no doubt of that. But I don’t know of another county that has the same breadth of language. I don’t know of another county that has the same type of humour. I don’t know if there’s another county that are as good at taking the mick out of themselves as we are. I don’t know of another county where the north-south divide in the main city is huge, but it’s huge in such a fun way. Do you know what I mean? So, I mean, yeah, you could replicate it for other places, but there’s something about the way Cork people go at it that is completely unique. And I’ve been very fortunate that I’m able to put that into play on things in ways that people get. Do you know what I mean?

[00:12:57] Geraldine Hennessy: And you touched there on your mental health. You’re a prominent advocate for mental health awareness, and that thread runs through a lot of your poetry and your speaking work. How did you first decide to make that part of your creative identity? And was it ever a difficult choice?

[00:13:15] Stanley Notte: It wasn’t a choice at all. It was part of getting well. So, I have a series of books here that I did a couple of years ago. And there are six short stories in the books; five of them are as bleak as anything you will have read. And they were all written when I was writing prior to my diagnosis. I had no idea. And I would have put a lot of money on the fact that they were not autobiographical when I wrote them. And then when I went back and looked at them a few years later, they’re not completely autobiographical, but the themes and the darkness and the fear are completely autobiographical.

[00:13:53] Stanley Notte: And I believe that it was decided by something inside me that said, “I can’t do this anymore. I need to get this out into the world.” So, it was never a decision for me. And then when I was diagnosed with depression, it turns out I’m a freak of nature because I just told everybody. I didn’t actually realise that most people don’t do that.

[00:14:18] Geraldine Hennessy: Yeah, I suppose a lot of people find it difficult. They would prefer almost to just avoid the elephant in the room. But it’s quite a nice feeling then for someone to actually engage with it.

[00:14:34] Stanley Notte: Yeah, 100 per cent. And I’m not being critical of other people; I just don’t understand that because that’s not how I work. It’s just my way. And I suppose, you know, in lots of ways, I just don’t have that fear of things that other people have. Do you know what I mean? And it’s a blessing and it’s a gift from my mum. I mean, my mum had this gift where people would stop on the street—complete strangers—and tell her all their problems. And we’d be with her and we’re like, “What’s going on here?” You know? So, I don’t know, somehow that transferred. Interestingly, my dad is completely different, completely closed in that area. But that’s just the way I’ve always been as far as I can remember.

[00:15:09] Geraldine Hennessy: And has your mental health journey impacted your art? How does your creativity help you navigate those challenges? Is it just that it makes you not give a crap?

[00:15:21] Stanley Notte: Well, it’s helped me to consolidate that position. The creativity helped me get well; that’s the first thing. That was the huge outlet—writing those stories, writing the poems. And there were a huge amount of themes about mental health, and that all helped me. And it helped me before I even knew it. That’s an incredible gift to be given because I’m—I mean, I’m not 100 per cent well. I’m not sure if anybody who has a mental health issue like I do is ever 100 per cent well, but I’m very, very well in comparison to what I used to be.

[00:16:01] Stanley Notte: And what it also did was allow me to start expressing myself even more accurately. And then you find people—you find your tribe and you find your family. You just find all these other creative people. And it was amazing for me to be in rooms of people where we said, “Oh, I think I might put some music to that poem,” and they’d say, “Oh, that’s a great idea.” Whereas, you know, in school, I played an awful lot of football and I love the game, but there are not many people in that environment saying, “Oh, I’m writing songs.” It’s different.

[00:16:32] Stanley Notte: So that’s another thing Cork is incredible for. There are so many creative people who are so open to working with other creative people and so willing to give you a leg up or say to you, “Well, why don’t you do this?” or “I’ll give you a hand with this.” I mean, the only reason I recorded music with my poetry was because I met a guy called Malcolm Urquhart from The Last Gecko. And the first night he played with me, I’d asked him to do an improv thing with it. And that very first night he said to me, “You should do more of that, really.” And then within a month, he said, “You should be recording that stuff in the studio.” And we went down and recorded in the studio and then we started doing gigs together. Before I knew it, I was working with The Last Gecko, which is a three-piece band.

[00:17:11] Stanley Notte: But that’s what Cork people do. You know, I’ve worked with Eileen Healy, who’s an incredible musician. I’ve worked with Megan Alyse Maguire. We have an album coming out shortly and there’s a track with each of them on it. I’ve worked with a group of musicians down in Clonakilty—they’re incredible. And I’ve worked with them; they’ve improvised behind me. It’s almost like they’d be queuing up to work with you. You know what I mean? It’s just… and it’s the same the other way around for me. You know, if I’m at something and there are other poets there… I’m sure that’s replicated in other places, but it’s incredibly strong in Cork.

[00:17:52] Geraldine Hennessy: Transitioning from your career in the Naval Service to the unpredictable world of art and business must have been daunting. What’s the biggest hurdle you faced during that shift?

[00:18:03] Stanley Notte: The biggest hurdle was going from having a regular income to not having a regular income. I mean, I have a small pension from the Defence Forces, which is a help. It makes it a little bit easier to do the kind of things I did. I’m not sure I would be doing what I did if I had to actually really earn a living in a full-time job. But the shift from a regular income to a lack of a regular income was challenging.

[00:18:24] Stanley Notte: And, you know, obviously we’ve had the artist payment scheme and it’s going to be reinvigorated, and the feedback from that has been incredible about the stability it’s given. The fact that they’re creating more because they’re not worried about paying the rent. I mean, I have absolutely massive admiration for anybody who commits to a career in the arts full-time with no backup whatsoever, because it must feel like a yawning chasm underneath you the whole time. Do you know what I mean? And yet they do.

[00:18:59] Stanley Notte: And yet, you know, thousands of people in Ireland do it. And one of my bugbears about Ireland is that we love our artists, but we particularly love them when they’ve been successful, because we’re not particularly fond of giving them money on the way up or support on the way up. That would be a bugbear of mine. It’s a particular bugbear now because we’ve come out of the pandemic and everybody knows that in the pandemic, people appreciated artists more than they ever did. Our lives would have been much more eroded.

[00:19:32] Stanley Notte: And yet we’re still in a place where, you know, most poets do most of their readings for free. But for me, all I can do—and I keep saying this—all I can do is keep doing what I do and do it to the best of my ability, enjoy it, and believe that it will work. And it will work. I know that it will work. But it’s a hugely challenging world we live in at the same time. And I’m so glad that I did *The Artist’s Way* and I’m so glad I’ve done years and years of therapy because I can maintain a positive attitude most of the time throughout this. I mean, turn on the news right now and… yeah, man, it’s the world. It’s a very, very… I haven’t put this on a T-shirt yet, Geraldine, but I’m going to put it on a T-shirt: Jim Morrison was right. People are strange.

[00:20:13] Geraldine Hennessy: That is so true. So true.

[00:20:17] Geraldine Hennessy: Speaking about your everyday products, featuring phrases like “I will, yeah” and what you’re wearing now, “Notions.” How do you decide which things capture the right energy to immortalise?

[00:20:29] Stanley Notte: Well, I think initially a number of them were just classics. “I will, yeah,” “Chalk it down”… they’re just classics. I actually didn’t do “Notions” for a long time until somebody else reminded me that I needed to do it. So, I kind of got on it, but then I’m always open to suggestions. And then, you know, a little bit like creating anything, the final call has to be mine. Somebody might say to you, “You’ve written a story, that part there I think would be improved,” or “I don’t like that part,” but it’s my decision.

[00:20:57] Stanley Notte: Believe it or not, I’ve cut back on the amount of products I have, especially the amount of phrases. At one stage, I had about 25 different phrases on books. I used to write conversations with them: “Daldobahle way,” “Flake on the kettle,” “Barry’s Tea,” “I will, yeah”… some language like an actual conversation. And down the road, I’m certainly going to expand back into all of them. But at the moment, I’m just trying to keep it a little bit more contained.

[00:21:25] Stanley Notte: I mean, I love language because I see things in my head. I remember when I did my first ever Toastmasters speech, I talked about my love of language because the speech was “What brought you here?” And I remember quoting an R.E.M. lyric that says, “At my most beautiful, I count your eyelashes.” And I see that in my head. I don’t see it like a visual close-up, but I see it and I feel it in my head. And that’s what language has always done to me. Always. Whether it’s Cork language or particularly music lyrics, poetry… writers are all the time doing that wordplay thing. I was doing that as a child. Somebody would say something, and you’re thinking of another word straight away. So yeah, that’s the madness.

[00:22:07] Geraldine Hennessy: Madness, that’s it. And your visual art depicts cherished places like Sir Henry’s and Patrick’s Hill. What makes these specific locations so vital to the rebel spirit for you?

[00:22:20] Stanley Notte: Henry’s because it’s so iconic. It was an easy pick. I mean, I was never a Henry’s clubber; I was an indie kid. I was in the front bar and I was going to see bands like the Super Furry Animals. But the vibe of the place… I mean, Henry’s was known all over Europe. People forget that. All over Europe. I remember when people played in Millstreet and Mike Pickering had DJ’d at Henry’s. And he brought the lads—Fish Go Deep and maybe Stevie G—brought a few of them up and actually gave an oration about what Henry’s had done. Like, the place is iconic. And not just from a clubland point of view; all the bands that played there on the way up were incredible.

[00:22:57] Stanley Notte: Nancy Spain’s is the same. I love Nancy’s. I used to go to Nancy’s regularly. I was at loads of gigs upstairs. But that’s what you’re doing; you’re reconnecting people with it. Patrick’s Hill was done just because of the beauty of that stretch of houses. It’s just… I think it’s iconic. And you’d be amazed how many people recognise it immediately. Immediately. And then you have people saying, “Oh, I went to school up there,” and blah, blah, blah. And the little signs on it: “Posh Gaffs,” obviously heading towards the south side, “96 FM”…

[00:23:33] Stanley Notte: You know, for me, I think what I do is the details. You can do a picture of Patrick’s Hill—and I don’t want to say anyone can do that, that’s incorrect, and there are amazing images of that scene out there as well—but what I do is I add this little extra thing, this little like hundreds and thousands, you know what I mean? With the phrases and the signs. And so, yeah, that was done just because it’s so beautiful. Quirkiness, isn’t it? It’s just so beautiful.

[00:23:59] Stanley Notte: And again, there are loads of options. I haven’t done Shandon. You know, I mean, there’s just… you can do Blackrock Castle. I haven’t done that. I’ve used that in other ways, as you know, in the Northside/Southside lower goals. There are loads of options. And I’m not the only one; there’s a whole list of artists out there doing this.

[00:24:15] Geraldine Hennessy: Speaking about the Northside and Southside divide, it’s a legendary part of our culture. How do people react to you playfully navigating and celebrating the rivalry through your own products?

[00:24:27] Stanley Notte: Ninety-nine point nine per cent of them absolutely love it. They come up and they literally say to you, “Oh my God, I love it.” You get the odd one. You’ll get the odd one. Somebody said to me a while back, “I don’t think it’s a bit funny.” And I said, “Well, you know, it’s not for you. It’s not for you.” But ninety-nine point nine per cent not only love it, they will then have the crack.

[00:24:48] Stanley Notte: So, when I started doing the social media and videos, what we do is we shoot it in like half a day. And the first day we went north and we did the Northside stuff. And people still say to me, “I’m from the Southside, I’m sorry about that.” And I’m going, “I’m from Togher, from the Southside myself!” And they say, “I didn’t know that.” But it’s all fun. It’s literally all fun. And a lot of people have said to me they love the fact that I celebrate it because I’m not trying to, in any shape or form, slag people off or make it a big deal. I don’t say I don’t like Northsiders or Northsiders don’t like Southsiders. I celebrate the fact that we can slag each other about it because I think that is such a gift. It is literally such a gift.

[00:25:33] Stanley Notte: You know, so this year we’re going to run a couple of events. I can’t tell you anything about them; they’re top secret. But they’re genuinely top secret, right? Because we’re going to run a couple of events that I think will really spark some interest. And this is the other thing: I mean, it’s great fun, but people are incredibly proud of where they’re from. And I think rightly so. People should be proud of where they’re from. And then you’re tapping into that as well. Do you know what I mean?

[00:26:03] Stanley Notte: Again, I would have to say that my view on being proud of where you’re from is that everyone should be proud. But there’s a way of expressing it as well. And unfortunately, in certain areas, we lose touch with that. But if you’re doing it in the right way, I think you’ll always get some decent feedback and connection with people. And that’s what I’m trying to do. That’s what I’m trying to do.

[00:26:24] Geraldine Hennessy: And speaking about your poetry, how does the visceral energy of a live spoken word audience influence the visual arts you create?

[00:26:35] Stanley Notte: So, I’m like an awful lot of people: I didn’t really like poetry in school. There was an amazing teacher, John O’Shea; he was so passionate, he was involved in the Everyman. I remember him acting out *Macbeth* for us, him on his own. But they tell you what the poem was about, so it was “underline that in red” and “underline that in green” and “double underline that,” blah, blah, blah. And there’s always an element to me that never likes being told what to do anyway, but also with language, it just felt wrong.

[00:27:05] Stanley Notte: So, I remember reading Sylvia Plath’s *The Mirror*—what a piece of writing—and them explaining to us what it represented. And I was thinking, “You didn’t need to explain that to me.” Do you know what I mean? But what they never talked about was, “How does it make you feel?” Now, I wouldn’t have been thinking back then, “You didn’t ask me how it feels,” but when I look back, the language that I interacted with in books and poetry was always about the feeling. Do you know what I mean?

[00:27:33] Stanley Notte: So, it was kind of a sterile way of educating. And like an awful lot of people who are active in the poetry world, they will tell you that they left school in the same place and then would say, “Poetry? Give me a break. Why would I want to be listening to that crap?” And then I started attending—very briefly at first, I went for six weeks and I stopped because I just couldn’t cope with how good they were. The second time I went back, I stuck at it.

[00:27:59] Stanley Notte: And then there were two epiphany moments with spoken word. I saw Julie Goo perform at a kind of cabaret, which was a fundraiser. And I literally thought, “I’ve never seen anything like this in my life.” I mean, she is unbelievably brilliant. She has a piece called *Dear Society*… it’s about coming out and it’s just magic, you know what I mean? And that was a huge moment. And one of the things I was always really good at was… so I remember talking to her and saying, “Oh my God, you blew my mind.” And I’ve always been good at that. It would never bother me going up to anybody and saying, “I thought you were amazing.”

[00:28:38] Stanley Notte: And that was a shift. You know, suddenly I realised, well, there’s all this stuff going on here that I wasn’t aware of. And then I saw a guy called John Cummins from Dublin perform at a Winter Warmer festival. And I mean, yeah, he blew my mind. And I can remember coming away from there thinking, “That’s what I want to do.” And again, he’s rooted—and Julie Goo is the same—she’s rooted in Ireland, rooted in Cork. John is obviously rooted in Dublin. And there’s this way of coming out of it, and this way of talking and expressing what Irishness and Corkness means and what’s happening in the country means to you. Julie’s got this amazing poem about the Magdalene Sisters. Again, it just touches you, you know what I mean?

[00:29:26] Stanley Notte: Yeah, that was a serious moment for me. And then I started performing, which in some ways you can describe as a matter of just taking the poem off the page, because you learn the poem and you recite it. But then they just took on a whole new life and you take away the reading, they come into you. And then it’s like this part of you starts coming up because what you’ve written is, in some shape or form, autobiographical. And those parts of you that felt what you were writing suddenly come to the fore and you find you’re expressing the poem, for me, in a completely different way. And then obviously that feeling translates into your visual art, because it all influences everything.

[00:30:09] Geraldine Hennessy: And speaking about, say, collaborating with various other creatives and musicians, including the experience of supporting Linton Kwesi Johnson, how do you approach integrating your lyrical and artistic perspective with the vision of others?

[00:30:24] Stanley Notte: Well, see, I don’t think about art like that. This is the thing for me: that’s natural. I just do it. That’s literally it; I just do it. So, when we did that… I mean, you know, I remember Cormac Lally rang me and I was like… it’s one of those where you go, “Is this really happening?” Like, do you know what I mean? This guy has been around forever. I was amazed he was still alive! And he was amazing on the night. And there were five of us, I think, that were on support. Actually, Julie Goo couldn’t make it. And it was an incredible experience. I mean, I have a picture somewhere—it might be on my website, actually—that somebody took from the audience and you look at it and go, “Oh my God.”

[00:31:14] Stanley Notte: Yeah. So, the way I work is, if I’m asked to do something, my only thought process is, “Do I want to do it?” And there could be reasons why you don’t want to do it. It might be that they don’t have any money—that wouldn’t have been an issue in the early days. It’s possible for me, because I’m quite strong in my political views… it hasn’t happened, but if I were asked to do something, I might say no on the strength of a political view. And the only thing that happens after I say yes is I start thinking about the setlist and what I’m going to put together. And for me, then it’s really about what story am I telling within those poems, because you can put them together in different ways. But it’s never really about anything else.

[00:31:53] Stanley Notte: And I think that’s to my benefit. I was actually talking to somebody about this recently. I mean, I get nervous before I go on stage—or I used to. Now I get nervous when I’m on the stage; when I start, something happens. Sometimes I don’t get nervous at all, and sometimes it’s a little bit of nerves. But throughout my life, it’s a bit like that idea of not being overly impressed by being asked to meet the Taoiseach or the President. I played football and we went down to Turners Cross to play finals, because I was lucky enough to go down there as a kid and I went down there as an adult. There were never any nerves. It was just, “I’m here, this is what I do.”

[00:32:32] Stanley Notte: And I would be going on stage… when Cormac Lally asked me to do that gig live in St. Luke’s, he also asked me to be involved in a show that the three of them had written—him, Julie Goo, and another guy—for the Centenary anniversary, which was about writing a poem about Ireland in 1916, 2016, and 3016. And I didn’t want to do it initially. But once I decide, then I’m committed, and then it’s really about what am I bringing. And I tend not to overthink it from that point of view. It’s just this.

[00:33:06] Stanley Notte: Yeah. And again, looking back on it, you know, that was there long before I had any value on what I did. When I was in that place where I thought what I’m doing is a complete waste of time and I don’t think people will get it… even when people come up to me saying, “Oh, I really like that, I love that poem,” and “That one touched me,” it was difficult to hear that stuff. But I think that idea of not overthinking it beforehand served me well, because if I’d started to think about it, I might never have gone and done this, you know what I mean?

[00:33:36] Stanley Notte: It’s hard to explain what a lack of self-esteem does. It’s really hard to explain. And then you know that old idea of “fake it until you make it”? Man, I was on stages, and was I faking it! I mean, literally, as you’re reciting a poem, thinking, “There’s nobody gets this poetry.” Do you know what I mean? Literally, those thoughts go through my head as I’m reciting poems. And those thoughts go through my head as people are coming up to me after and saying, “Oh my God, I thought that was amazing.” You know, it’s a weird thing.

[00:34:14] Geraldine Hennessy: Yeah, but to be fair, like, it’s worked out for you, you know, despite all that negativity that’s going on, you’ve still been able to bring it.

[00:34:23] Stanley Notte: Yeah. And I mean, you know, as I said to you all along, there’s a little bit of a… like, it’s a little bit of a miracle in some ways. And you learn as you go and you just take steps in different directions. And I was always brave. Julie Goo said that to me a long time ago about herself, that she was always brave in the sense she was prepared to try new things and put herself in what could be an uncomfortable situation. Because it’s kind of easy to sit on your laurels, you know what I mean? “I write this type of poem, it’s done quite well,” or whatever it is. “I do this type of art” or “I’m in this type of band.”

[00:34:53] Stanley Notte: But it’s harder to be shifting and shaping for yourself. But then I look at all the artists that I’ve loved over the years through music and they’ve all done that: Bowie, Paul Simon, The Beatles. They’ve all shifted and shaped and gone and done different things. You know, even Suede, who now have a second career which I haven’t really followed… even you look at them, and they get tarnished as sounding the same, but they don’t. If you listen to the first, second, and third albums, they’re all completely different. And I’ve always liked that. I’ve never liked that idea of repetitiveness. Do you know what I mean?

[00:35:23] Stanley Notte: And, you know, look, everyone’s into their own thing. I just think if you’re an artist, if you’re a creator, then everything you digest is looking to be regurgitated in some way. Mainly, I think, certainly from my point of view, like anything that I’m creating—the Cork stuff, the poetry with song titles, the art about the music—they’re all, for me, homages to these things that I’ve loved and have given me so much and continue to give me so much. It’s all about tribute.

[00:35:58] Stanley Notte: Like, for me, it’s all about tribute. I did, for a while, do some of the art for people besides me… like, “Would you do one for, you know, pick a name, Britney Spears?” And I did. And I’d written a Britney Spears poem, actually, almost out of piggery. But nowadays, I tend to just do the things that I want to do and the people that I admire. So, if I’m going to generate art, it’s about artists that I either know really well through the music or I’ve visually been impressed by over a long period of time.

[00:36:26] Stanley Notte: And again, as you get older, you start to realise things: music and words and visuals were always equally important to me. Like, I could listen to a band, but if they weren’t saying something, I had no interest. And I could listen to a band and if they were saying something interesting, but if I didn’t like the way they looked, then I wasn’t listening. So, you know, I look at… and, you know, maybe that’s to my detriment. But like, you know, when you looked at the time when I was a kid and you saw White Snake and all these bands… one look and I’m gone, I’m already like, “That’s not for me.”

[00:36:56] Stanley Notte: But then you look at somebody like OMD, who visually weren’t that impressive, but they weren’t deterring me. So, I’ve only learned quite recently that they decided to look like office workers deliberately as a kickback against all the New Romantic stuff that was going on. But then I would have looked at bands like Spandau Ballet and Duran Duran and would love their early music work, but visually they were just incredible. Now, I didn’t want to go dressed up with all the frills on me, but I just thought, “This is amazing.”

[00:37:22] Stanley Notte: And then you realise as you get older that all that’s influenced by… Steve Strange was a huge influence. He was hugely influenced by David Bowie, and Roxy Music were influenced by Bowie. And then you realise that it’s all just a part of paying homage to people. Do you know what I mean? And then I’m always trying to find a balance in that, in the sense that I don’t want to be like everybody else. So, one of my favourite quotes is Kurt Cobain, where he says, “They laugh at me because I’m different; I laugh at them because they’re all the same.” Now, I don’t laugh at people anymore, but I understand what he’s saying completely.

[00:38:12] Stanley Notte: And so you’re trying to find the balance between… yeah, you know, I love Bowie, I love the Beatles, but I don’t want to necessarily look like them and sound like them, because what they did was unique and they’re encouraging you to be unique. You know, so one of my favourite interviews about that is Marc Almond from Soft Cell saying that when he started Soft Cell, he was an art student—I’m sure you know that they were both art students. And he said, you know, a huge thrust of it was just to be entirely who you are. And they were completely different.

[00:38:38] Stanley Notte: And he said six months later, “I’m standing in front of thousands of people who look exactly like me,” and he’s thinking, “How did this happen? I’m telling them to be themselves and different, and they’re all turning up dressed like me!” What do you do? What do you do? I mean, the idea that somebody would appear in front of me dressed the same as me would actually horrify me. Now, I’m not saying… you know, I love seeing people wearing the T-shirts and the hats, but you know what I’m saying? There’s always this kind of balancing act going on.

[00:39:23] Geraldine Hennessy: Yeah, I love that. Everyone needs to be themselves. Exactly. So, what’s your favourite piece of Cork slang?

[00:39:28] Stanley Notte: Oh my God. That’s like asking me what one song I’d take to a desert island; I couldn’t cope with that pressure! No. And this is the thing: I mean, for me, they’ve all got this depth to them. And that’s why it’s so hard to pick one. So, “I will, yeah”—the fact that it means “no,” but it’s said in a way that you’re not sure… the fact that “Langer” has developed as a word. Like, when I was a kid, a “Langer” was a major insult. Now, it’s a term of endearment. You know what I mean?

[00:40:01] Stanley Notte: And then it’s the fact that “Langer” becomes “Langer-loads” and “Langer-dan.” And, you know, we used to take language… I don’t know if you remember that, jumping on the back of a row. You know, it’s this depth that goes on in and around it. But if I had to pick one, I’d probably say “Chalk.” I love “Chalk it down.” “Chalk it down, boi! Chalk it down.” I just love it. And, you know, “Dout ya boy” is magic as well.

[00:40:24] Stanley Notte: And the more I do this, the more I’m thinking about how these things are stitched into our culture and our city. Do you know what I mean? And wouldn’t it be fascinating to be able to go back and look at things that were written in Cork language 50 years ago and compare them to where we are now? And in some little way, I think I’m playing a role in it because I think, you know, somewhere down the road, people can pick up an old Christmas card that I’ve written, or an “I love me a mountain” card or whatever. And some of that language will be obsolete, or maybe not as in use as much, or may—like “Langer”—have changed its definition in some shape or form.

[00:41:05] Stanley Notte: You know, for me, if I play any role in that, I’d be absolutely, absolutely chuffed. You know, I’m thinking about people like Frank O’Connor and Colm Creadon and Gerry Murphy who have contributed enormously in that area. And if I had just a little piece of that, and having as much fun doing it as I am, I’d be happy with that.

[00:41:29] Geraldine Hennessy: And you’ve performed in vastly different venues, from major festivals like Body & Soul to Cork Prison. What performance environment has surprised you the most?

[00:41:41] Stanley Notte: Man, I should have read these questions, shouldn’t I? I like to put them on the spot! But funny enough, I prefer that I’m doing the thinking now rather than having thought it through beforehand. Cork Prison was a serious eye-opener. Just entering the prison… you’ve seen it on the telly. And then they were so interesting. Because you think they’re kind of… it felt like being a teacher. You’re doing this thing and they’re sitting there. And teachers must look down at the classrooms every day of the week and think they have absolutely no interest whatsoever. And yet they were taking it in.

[00:42:23] Stanley Notte: And it was an amazing conversation that came out of it, about journaling and them writing to try and understand what their experience is. And one guy was saying he writes letters, but he doesn’t send them to anybody; he just writes them. And it’s his way of getting it out. And then other people talk about their journal as part of a recovery. And it was just… I had no idea what I was expecting, but I definitely was not expecting what we got in there. Definitely not. And they were so welcoming.

[00:42:56] Stanley Notte: I mean, I’m a huge believer in people. And I watch a lot of things about criminal justice, particularly in America, just because they’ve got so much of it available. And I say to people, we have 2,000 years of evidence that the prison system doesn’t work. Why aren’t we changing? And there is loads of evidence out there now in other parts of the world, and America included, where there is a different way to do this. And there are better ways of doing this. And there are ways that stop people reoffending. And they’re cheaper than keeping an inmate.

[00:43:30] Stanley Notte: I mean, I could go on and on and on. Ian Wright, the footballer, has a piece of television that he did years ago where he went into a young boys’—I don’t know what you call it, a borstal or something—and he set up a football academy. And through the football academy, he developed their personalities and improved their confidence. And I’m telling you, life-changing television. But it’s life-changing watching, because you’re watching kids who you realise have gone down that road because of influences or decisions that were influenced by the wrong people, and given an opportunity, most of them grabbed it with two hands.

[00:44:12] Stanley Notte: One of the things I will never forget: he arranged a game, a five-a-side game for his panel against the five-a-side blind football team that represented England. I’d never heard of blind football. The way blind football works is the outfield players are blind and the goalkeeper can see, and they’ve got these like little marbles in the balls that make noises, right? So, he blindfolded his team to play. The interviews with them afterwards… you could literally see the pennies dropping. This little kid, 17 years of age, who had been in trouble since he was 12, came to the camera and he said, “I am never complaining about anything again in my life.”

[00:44:53] Stanley Notte: He said, “It doesn’t matter what my dad did, what my mum didn’t do.” He said, “They have… like, most of them are veterans,” he said, “they’ve been to war, they’ve been blinded,” and he’s like… you can see him thinking, “What am I doing with my life? All these things I’m telling myself are the reasons that I’m in prison… it’s all nonsense.” And that for me is the trick: you have to make people think differently. Like, I taught at the Life Centre for a number of years and that’s the battle. The battle is to make them think differently, and it’s predominantly to make them think differently about themselves. I was that kid who was 16 or 17 and was completely lost because there were people who believed in me, but I couldn’t hear it. Do you know what I mean? So, I mean, all that feeds into what I do as well—all that passion and anger and frustration and belief.

[00:45:46] Geraldine Hennessy: Looking at everything you do, from your pop-up shops and your visual arts to your poetry and fiction, what exciting project is next? You mentioned about a little secret event that you can’t talk about, but is there anything else you can talk to us about?

[00:45:58] Stanley Notte: Yeah, so I mean, look, they’re really exciting and I have to say that I’m really excited about where the business is going. I have a vision in my head of it being a—what I call a proper business—with a premises. And I see the premises as having everything I do in it. I see a premises with a section for the Cork stuff, a section for the art that I do, a section for the poetry… I do all those things. And I think, you know, the amount of work I do myself in the development has really allowed me to go into business and to really start exploring those creative things.

[00:46:35] Stanley Notte: And now it’s kind of gone slightly full circle in the sense that all the creative stuff is feeding where I want to go with the business. So, you know, I’ve plans to get my music out into the world much more. You know, I might do another exhibition; I’ve done one before. You know, I produced a poetry book four years ago and I did a GoFundMe at the time—during the pandemic, actually—and the GoFundMe was about the rewards. One of the rewards was a copy of the album when it was completed. And it hasn’t been completed, but I’m going to get that done this year. And in fact, pretty soon, and I’m going to be putting it on vinyl.

[00:47:15] Stanley Notte: That’s really exciting because it’s music. Like, I have an album now by a girl called Megan Alyse Maguire-she’s a global musician, I think she’s amazing—and I’ll keep this as short as I can. I’m on one of the tracks and she asked me to do the spoken word piece on it. And I tell you, when I got the copy of that record and I saw my name on the sleeve in tiny little writing… you know what I mean? What a buzz! So, it’s just, you know, it’s all those things that when you were growing up you were looking at. To have the poetry collection out was amazing.

[00:47:54] Stanley Notte: I had a kids’ book that I really want to get back to. Ten years—and I’m not exaggerating—ten years at it, maybe longer. Jesus. It’s a novel; it’s a whole world. And I’ve gone at it in whole loads of different ways, you know, trying to create it as an online game… all these were just distractions, I don’t know. So, I’d love to get back to that and I’d love to get that out there. And I want to perform more this year. I spoke to Owen Jordan yesterday about trying to get together this week and having a chat, going out and doing some more shows.

[00:48:31] Geraldine Hennessy: We’re going to chalk them all down! We’re going to keep an eye out for it.

[00:48:33] Stanley Notte: Well, you know, I wouldn’t want to be getting notions now, like. I mean, the next thing you know, I’d be getting notions about going to live in Douglas. The smell of notions in Douglas is unreal, boy. People think it’s the smell of the ocean, but it’s not; it’s the smell of notions. You go down Rochestown Road… oh my God, you’re knocked out! The smell of notions is only pure, pure lethal down there, boy. Brutal it is!

[00:48:46] Geraldine Hennessy: Now, I’ve got to ask you for a bit of advice now, drawing from your own experience, which is a wealth of experience to be fair. What advice would you give to a young creative looking to find their own authentic voice in Cork?

[00:49:01] Stanley Notte: Well, I’d say two things to them. One is, I’d say, just do what you want to do. That’s the first thing. Don’t worry about what anybody else is thinking in regards to… oh, you know, maybe he’s decided he’s going to… I don’t know, I’m trying to think of something… maybe he’s going to produce a hip-hop album with only a harp player behind him. I don’t know. I say that now because Hazel O’Connor was on tour a couple of years ago with just a harp player. Whatever it is you want to do, then, you know, just go and do it.

[00:49:35] Stanley Notte: And if you want some help to go and do it, to stay on that path, read *The Artist’s Way*. A life-changing book. If you commit to it, it is literally a life-changing book. You know, your art is your art, and your art is part of you, and your art will help you stay well. If you’re not doing it, you will be really unwell. And if you’re not doing it in a way that you want to do it, you’re still going to be unwell. Do you know what I mean?

[00:50:02] Stanley Notte: There’s no… I mean, look, you know, you want to try and make a living out of it, and you can make a living in lots of different ways. And you can certainly make a living by reproducing the same thing over and over again. That, without doubt, is a recipe for success for lots of people. But for most creative people, you need to be moving. So, you just need to do what you need to do. And whatever that is, there’s somebody out there that will help you with it, without absolute doubt.

[00:50:35] Stanley Notte: So, what I’m telling them is what I didn’t believe myself when I was that age: just believe in yourself and just do it. And if you really, really want to do it, then you will do it. There’s no doubt about it. And don’t get notions! Well, yeah, you wouldn’t want to end up now like me, you know what I mean? Sitting in front of a camera talking shite, as if you knew for a split second what you were doing with your life! Like, I mean, come on now, boy. I barely passed me Leaving Cert; I never saw the inside of a college. Well, I did, but I dropped out, like. Do you know what I mean?

[00:51:00] Stanley Notte: You know, I’m from Togher, boy. Togher! Jeez, if I went over there—it’s only round the corner now, I’m only five minutes away—if I went over there now to Togher, they’d beat the head off me! “Poetry,” they’d be saying. I’d beat you good-looking, boy, if I had three weeks to spare!

[00:51:14] Geraldine Hennessy: It’s not good for me, Stan. Oh, I have to go back to work after this.

[00:51:20] Stanley Notte: Laughter’s always good for you, Geraldine.

[00:51:21] Geraldine Hennessy: I’m telling ya. That’s it. Thanks so much, Stan, for chatting to me and making me laugh on the Cork Creative podcast. If you want to find more about Stan and his work, you can find links to his various socials and website at corkcreative.ie.

[00:51:35] Stanley Notte: Thank you so much. Really, really enjoyed it.