“I’m usually much bigger…it’s just…a magician shrivelled it.”

Magicians Steal Congolese Penises

Y’see, I know this really because many of them are so poorly educated that they actually believe it. But I can’t help thinking that a few guys might have jumped on the bandwagon just to explain why their mickeys are so small.

Pushing Daisies

I sometimes think RTE intentionally recruit the most mentally deficient schedulers they can find. Some of the best films RTE show tend to be on well past midnight. Granted, this is often because films I think are good don’t have a mass audience appeal. Fine, I get it. But, having bought Pushing Daisies, why then did RTE decide to put it on after midnight? On a Monday (or Tuesday morning, whatever your preference!).

In case you haven’t heard of it, Pushing Daisies is the latest prime-time American TV import. It aired to great fanfare on ITV a couple of weeks ago; the weekend supplements of the English papers were full of superlative-laden articles about the series. It was on the cover of Radio Times. Time magazine named it in the top 5 best new series of 2007. It’s done very well in America and in Britain. RTE however, decide to bung it into to the late night schedule and don’t even advertise it. Admittedly the first episode had strangulation with a plastic bag in it, but given the style of the show, it could hardly be descriped as graphic or upsetting.

What’s it about?

I Don’t See What The Fuss Is All About

Over a week since the gig, but I’m only catching up on my blogging now, so I turn my attention to Crystal Castles. Obviously, Jim Carroll, Nialler and Una have written about the Dublin gig already and to be honest my experience was pretty similar. But I went to the gig with almost total ignorance. I had listened to their stuff on MySpace and remember thinking it wasn’t too bad but it didn’t stick in my head. I hadn’t even planned on going to the gig until a few hours before when Mechnoid rang me.

Like the Dublin gig, a huge part of the audience at Cyprus Avenue was made up of painfully young, painfully hip, painfully hair-styled teenagers, replete with aggressively asymmetrical fringes and sleeves of glowsticks. Having something of a distaste for large crowds of people (not in a phobic/hyper-ventalating/the-walls-are-closing-in sort of way; more of a you-people-are-annoying-the-fuck-out-of-me/stop-acting-like-idiots kind of way), the crowd of indie-chic teens didn’t bode well.

But I soldiered on.

Life Imitating Art Imitating Life

I know it might be odd that this is the second time I’ve featured Garret Fitzgerald on the blog, but I noticed this last night as I happened to flick over to The Week in Politics and saw footage of him giving a speech to the Joint Houses of Congress. He reminded me of someone, but for ages I couldn’t put my finger on who.

I may not be the first person to point it out, but:

Dr. Strangelove and Dr. Garret Fitzgerald

Think about it. Have you ever seen them in a room together?

Nude – An Absence of Clothes

Rick O’Shea has already mentioned it, but I heard about this on the radio during the week and for some reason, I really want to do it. In fact, I’ve already signed up for it! Don’t know if it’s because there’s some unawakened exhibitionist in me or whether it’s because I want to be part of something big like this. It might be both.

It did cross my mind for a moment that my less than perfect body (only just less though, by a very small margin) would not be something I’d be willing to show off to others, but then I realised that it is a sad fact of life that those who are most willing to get their kit off for this kind of thing are older people. People whose bodies have felt the effects of gravity and whose inhibitions have gone out the door. Compared to them, my young sprightly body will look fantastic, so it could end up being a great ego boost!

Anyway, for those not in the know –

Hotpress: The Bastion of Irish Journalistic Standards

Una and TwentyMajor have already covered this, but I think Twenty is right in saying “this needs as wide an audience as possible.”

Hotpress in their infinite “journalistic” wisdom, decided to dedicate four pages of their… fine publication to this guy, a rapper called Nailerz from the ghettos of Limerick. But his music isn’t even on the Bebo page to which HotPress direct you. You have to do a little looking around to find the link to this page.

If his personal page didn’t warn you as to how much of a knobber this guy is, his band page gives more than a few extra hints. “check out mo tunes i robbed most of um cause thats what i do” he says, which is encouraging.

As I’m sure many of you will be surprised, it turns out that the music is awful. The same old “gangsta” shit with piss poor rhymes and the usual gun-glorification. “all mo tunes that are one hundred percent mine ye will have to buy in the shops and they will make you laugh cry freak you out make you kill people and teach you how to get away with murder.” The Irish record buying public are exploding with impatience, I’m sure.