You’ve got to have standards

I’ve barely taken my jacket off when she approaches. I know she’s drunk before she even speaks; her sleepy blink and unsteadiness are dead giveaways. She shyly apologises for embarrassing herself at the Saul Williams gig, only glancing at my face a few times while fixing her unfocused gaze somewhere around my chest. For a moment, I have no idea what she was talking about before dimly remembering her telling me – drunk then too – that she always saw me around town. I do now what I did then and shake my head – smiling – and gesture that it’s fine. But she reiterates her apology. Several times. I grow insistent, ensuring her that she didn’t embarrass herself and everything is good. Eventually, she seems satisfied with her apology and my acceptance, but still she stands there. She looks me up and down. Her eyes are a very pretty blue, surrounded by dark eyeliner. Her face is young and delicate but dulled by the alcohol. Her hair is a long shock of black wavy hair, but one part of it – on her left side – is bleached yellow. My friends behind her are sniggering into their drinks as I stand, trapped.

Oh Helium, is there nothing you can’t do?

So I turned 23 on Saturday. This is the last year I can say I’m in my early twenties. This time next year, I’ll be in my mid-twenties, which traditionally then leads into the late twenties. And that is a most a horrifying thought. But I had a good birthday, spent with friends in a pub and a club, before we retired to a house. We had helium balloons and we had a guitar. And it was almost 3am. This video is the result.

I’m on the left, Cian is on the right. We’re singing 57 by Biffy Clyro…with helium. You can hear Aoife in the background singing harmonies.

Actually, I find it very odd to watch how I move. I look like an idiot.

“Hola Hola Hola, Oatmeal and Granola”

Yeah…this is probably not safe for work. And if you’re a woman it’s gonna be rather offensive, but in a reasonably amusing and ironic way – I hope!

Breakfast – Le Le

LeftMyName found this song on a blog the other day and insisted that I listen. When I heard it first, I pictured in my head some misogynistic lecherous rapper, perhaps with a grill on his teeth with the word “Breakfast” made out in diamond studs. I imagined that while he was recording it, he was oiling up some woman’s jiggly ass – because that’s just what he does.

It turns out Le Le are a French/German pop outfit and the rest of their output, judging by their myspace, is your typical synthy europop-rap with some soul influences. ‘Breakfast‘ seems pretty different to most of their rest of their work. It is also comedy gold. To me, the voice sounds like a mix between Chapelle doing Rick James (bitch!) and Jemaine from Flight Of The Conchords. The conscientious part of me is, of course, appalled by the guys blatant objectification of women, the debasement of the subject to little more than food for the man to devour and other such feminist-literary criticisms. But that’s why it’s so good.

There’s also a video. Voila:

“Well…the tourists are gonna get an eye-full!”

(WARNING - This is a rather long post. But it needs to be, so toughen up!)

(That’s me there. No, to the left of her. Bit further. Yeah, there I am!)

Well…that was certainly the most bizarre experience of my life. Though quite which part of the whole experience was the most bizarre is something I haven’t figured out yet. Being naked in a field with 1100 other naked people – everyone bent over double, desperately not wanting to look up for fear of what we might see in front of us – was definitely weird. Seeing it talked about all day today in the media, aware that I am one of those naked people they’re showing on the news bulletins is also very very strange. Seeing Ray D’Arcy naked – a man who played such an important role in my television viewing youth – is also immensely odd.

I arrived at Blarney Castle with my bravest friends – Mike, Jamie and Niamh – at 3am. There were protesters at the gates. But when we got closer, we realised they were a bunch of lads, dressed as priests. Their placards bore the immortal words: “Down with that sort of thing!” and “Careful now!” That’s when it began to dawn on me how crazy this whole thing was going to be.

A Few More Points On Eurovision – Just To Get It Out Of My System

I haven’t written here for over two weeks so I’ve got plenty more I want to write about, but it’s on my mind at the moment, so I have to exorcise these demons now.

1. Referring back to what I said in the previous post about stuff that’s different, I’m loving the French and Spanish entries. The french one is the first entry from France in English, but it’s a great pop song. It’s not a cliched ballad, it’s got this great electro-Beach Boys feel to it and you just gotta dig the facial hair and sunglasses.

Spain on the other hand are going for the quirky thing, allegedly taking inspiration from Dustin. The links to Dustin go further in that they seem to have formed an alliance and Dustin even appeared on the guys show! But it’s catchy, it’s got dance steps and it’s got the word Robocop. What more could you want?

2. Eurovision presenter’s somehow always manage to find new ways to look and particularly SOUND stupid. Two of them ACTUALLY said “See you later, alligator.” Live on air. In front of an entire continent. Not ironically. And to think we’re in a union with some of these people.

3.      ….I had more…but I forgot them! If I remember and they’re worth writing, they’ll be here eventually.

“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.

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.

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

Here