Rice Boy

I’ve been keeping up with a great comic lately, recommended to me by my friend and co-conspirator, Jamie. It’s actually quite fantastic.

Yay, gigs!

Y’know, considering the name of the blog is Stereotyping, I haven’t really been writing about music much lately.

There are a good couple of gigs coming up in the next few weeks and months that I really want to go to. Not sure if I’m going to make it to all of them but dammit! I’m gonna try!

- Ham Sandwich are supporting Sultans of Ping on Saturday in Cyprus Avenue. I haven’t managed to see the Meteor winners yet and to be honest I’ve heard very little of their music. Unfortunately, I don’t think I could be arsed paying 18.50 to see them seeing as I doubt I’ll stay around for the Sultans afterwards. LUCKILY, they’re playing a solo gig five days later on the 13th for 8euro in Cyprus! Sorted!

- The UCC Live Music Societies Battle of the Bands final is on the 12th, again in Cyprus Avenue (they’re doing well for themselves this month!). I was the head of the LMS last year and I know how stressful the Battle of the Bands can be but I always enjoyed the final – the atmosphere is great, the bands are usually very good and it always seems the bands that make it to the final go on to thrive in the music scene in the city so it’s good to see them starting off.

I iz in ur post-modernz, messn wit ur hed!

Here

Who Shall Take Their Place?

I had read the rumours over a month ago, but experts had summarily dismissed them as simply rumours and so I breathed a sigh of relief. But now I find that it’s true: Mongrel is no more.

In my mind, Mongrel was the best Irish magazine around and certainly the best free one. Managing to be funny without descending into puerility too often. Even when they did, it was with a grace all of its own. Like a Homecoming Queen drunkenly puking – disgusting but in an eminently graceful way. Their music reviews were for the most part straight, to the point and unmercifully vicious. Basically it was my favourite magazine from the way it looked to Eoin Butler’s social diary and from the Cunts List to their random articles about various subcultures and freakshows.

All the other bloggers who’ve been talking about it – Aoife Mc, Jim Carroll, John Cav and David Maybury – have pondered who will arrive to fill the vacuum. They mention State of course (which I await with bated breath) but that’s going to cost 5.50 and while it may indeed be a great magazine, it won’t have the underground they-can’t-shut-us-up cool of Mongrel. Then they talk about the one or two other Dublin free sheets around, like Analogue. This is all well and good – they come from Dublin and Mongrel was primarily a Dublin magazine, but more and more its attention had shifted to encompass much of this crazy country of ours. I learned one day, after witnessing it with mine own eyes, that Eoin Butler himself delivered the magazine down to the Second City. That’s how DIY Mongrel was. So while Dublin may have Analogue and all their other fancy-pants capital ways, what about us down here?

Bro’s Before Ho’s

There is a poem by Wendy Cope, called Bloody Men. It goes a little something like this:

Bloody men are like bloody buses
You wait for about a year
And as soon as one approaches your stop
Two or three others appear.

You look at them flashing their indicators,
Offering you a ride.
You’re trying to read the destinations,
You haven’t much time to decide.

If you make a mistake, there is no turning back.
Jump off, and you’ll stand there and gaze
While the cars and the taxis and lorries go by
And the minutes, the hours, the days.

I found it in one of my books of poetry the other day and it reminded me so much of the state of American politics right now. For years, centuries even, the American people have been run by old white men. President after president, nominee after nominee. All but a few have been white and male. Now suddenly, American Democrats have the choice of either a woman or a black man. I’m not telling you anything new here of course.

But in one way this turn of events is fantastic and inspirational. But the fact that they have to choose between one or the other is, in a way, a tragedy. I would love to see a female president and I’d love to see a black president. Whoever the Democrats pick to go forward, who can tell when another woman or another black man will make it this far? Some will argue this is a turning point, that candidates from now on will be much more diverse. Others might argue that this is a blip, an anomaly and in 4 years or 8 years, everything will go back to ‘normal.’

Is Fearr Gaeilge Briste Ná Béarla Foirfe

No sooner had I finished writing the previous post and went to make some lunch that I heard Dereck Mooney (*shudder*) talking about Glen on d’radio. It seems that in the New York Times, there’s an article today about Glen’s apparently botched attempt to use Irish in his acceptance speech. THIS BE THE LINK

He said ‘Go raibh míle, míle, maith agat’ when he perhaps should have said ‘Go raibh míle, míle, maith agaibh’, being that agat is singular while agaibh is plural.

Purists like this piss me off. There would be no one pointing out the mistake if he had made it in English but because they perceive that he made a slight grammatical mistake in a moment of joy and nervousness, he’s abusing our national language.

A Week Late, But It’s The Sentiment That Counts

So I still haven’t quite gotten back into the blogging swing of things just yet, but sure what can ya do?!

I know it’s been over a week since Glen and Marketa won the Oscar but I’m still really happy for them. It’s not really a national pride thing for me, but a more personal feeling of pride in a man that I’ve seen several times at gigs and festivals and even just walking down the street. It’s a sort of happiness that a guy whom I respect as a songwriter and entertainer and as someone who seems like a genuinely nice person has been rewarded for his years of hard work. I’m not a massive Frames fan; I don’t have all their albums, I don’t know the words to all their songs but I feel an emotional connection to the music. Their gigs and music are interwoven with events and people who’ve formed the person I am today. And so to see him succeed like this and to be so very humble in victory is something I really enjoyed seeing and it gives me a big warm feelin inside.