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Guggi is a Dublin based painter and the former singer of the band, The Virgin Prunes. His work has appeared in the Tony Shafrazi Gallery in New York, the Osborne[…]
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The Dublin painter has had some ‘dreadful’ jobs in the past, but none match the misery of working for his father.

Question: What was your biggest career mistake?

Guggi: Working for my dad.

Question: Why was that a mistake?

Guggi: It was a mistake because he worked us very, very hard for very little money but then when he'd get annoyed with us he wouldn't discipline us the way you would normally discipline an employee. He would actually kick us around the warehouse. Maybe it wasn't all bad and maybe it made me -- I guess, the old saying: if it doesn't kill you, it will make you stronger. Look, I can't say that I have any regrets. I've had some dreadful jobs; I was a vegetable man out at a big suburb of Dublin, Tallaght. Tallaght was being built. I did a lot of things, you know. I don't know. I've had some -- probably the worst jobs. That would be one of them. I've had a lot of really bad jobs selling encyclopedias down in the country in Ireland where you're dropped out of a little country road and the guy meets you at 6:00 that evening ten miles up the road and there is six houses between now and then. That was dreadful. I've had a lot of really bad jobs.

 


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