Life is what happens in between…
Ne’er a truer word spoken.
Life is what happens in between is the tagline from Intermission, a movie I was watching last night on RTÉ. It’s a fine movie, one of my all-time favourites, Irish or otherwise. It started at 21:35, and at 23:00, RTÉ cut in to the broadcast with a pre-planned news break. A 25 minute news break. Pure madness. Who decides that that’s a good decision scheduling-wise? It’s ridiculous. If the scriptwriter wanted a news programme rammed into his narrative he would’ve written it in. This process of interrupting films is disrespectful to filmmakers and shows a real lack of understanding of what audiences want. Surely there’s a better way of scheduling the late news broadcast around the movie without resorting to such measures?
Colin Farrell shows his annoyance at RTE's scheduling decisions
A smile to light up the day…
For those of you feeling S.A.D, I give you…. Miss Audrey Hepburn….
It’s extracted from her screen test for Roman Holiday. Apparently it was this smile at the end, when she thought the camera had cut, that convinced the makers to give her the role. A performance for which she won an Oscar, thus launching her movie career. And what a smile it is. I would’ve given her the role, for sure!
A tactile maelstrom…
Over at The Blog Pound recently there was a post by nvgvup called Things I really like . Funnily enough, it referred to things what people like. I commented on it but, ever since, have been thinking of things I like. Tactile things. Sensual things. Such as…
The beauty of light at golden hour
Clumps of dried Autumn leaves and how they feel when you kick them up in the air
The smell of a turf fire burning on a Winter’s evening
The flicker and romance of candlelight
The character inherent in a good strong handshake
Chilled breath and the crunch of frost underfoot on a Winter’s morning
It dawned on me that most of these are seasonal, traditional, natural. A lot of them relate to childhood memories and the like. They’re all heartening, real; things you can’t necessarily buy. And I guess that makes me happy.
The other day…
I was sitting on a bus heading into town when 3 drug addicts (former or present I’m not sure) got on. Nothing really unusual there. But hey, live and let live. There was a wide eyed young boy of about six with them.
They tried to walk on without paying but the bus driver was having none of it and demanded the fare. They started shouting at him, obviously because they didn’t want to have to pay like the rest of us. It felt like a scene from Adam & Paul. The driver stood his ground and eventually they paid. But not before hurling all sorts of abuse at the guy. He was Eastern European you see. “Shouldn’t be allowed on the buses never mind bleedin drivin them”, kinda sums up their approach. Subtle. Sledgehammer. Thankfully the driver was well able to deal with them. Scumbags. But what bugs me is that they were demanding their “right” to free travel. These fuckers contribute nothing to society. In fact they are a huge drain on the nation’s resources. You’d think they could be polite and even slightly embarassed to be such leeches. But no; they demand and demand and are extremely abusive in the process. This wan’t an isolated incident; I see it every day when I’m in town. Society owes these fuckers nothing. Yet they take take take. It could well be what I hate most about Dublin, the place I’ve always called home.
Their attitude and abusiveness really pissed me off. Their perrenial freeloading even moreso. The bus driver didn’t deserve that kind of hassle while going about his job. But most of all I felt sorry for the six year old boy.
Blahdiblah…
Why am I hearing the word maelstrom so much this week? It seems to be in vogue, as words go. It is, however, a word I like, unlike the term “no-brainer” which I detest greatly.
End of post.
When Umbrellas Attack…
Anyone who braved the mean streets of Dublin today (or any Irish town for that matter) will have seen, or been victim of, a brutal guerrilla like stealth attack. By an umbrella. I myself didn’t even make it to my front gate before my usually trusty companion tried to decapitate me. And now it’s rendered lifeless, vertebrae broken.
Once I made it into town I witnessed all kind of umbrella led carnage. People old and young being dragged kicking and screaming by a gust fed attacker.
I hope you all survive. But hey, let’s be careful out there.
Did anyone see Brian O’Driscoll’s cameo on The Clinic last night?!?
Did it really happen? Am I delusional?!? It all happened so quickly. Blink of an eye stuff.
I really hope he has been getting slated this morning at training! I didn’t see the Wasps game on Saturday but it seems he’s hitting form again. But now he’s injured. Again. His career seems to have gone from a series of match-winning heights to injured lows.
Maybe he has a future in acting? Less chance of getting injured. Mikey Graham, Keith Duffy watch out, the BoD’s about.
More on it here
Blog and let blog…
There has been much introspection, finger wagging and navel gazing of late in the so-called blogosphere (I fucking hate that term!). So some people have kicked the blogobucket. And some people lament the way it used to be; back in the good old days. When a blog was original and well written. That may well be. Before Bebo and that feckin evil Youtube reared their ugly heads. When a Dairy Milk cost 1 and 6 or whatever the fuck.
Evolution. Revolution. Whatever. Some blogs are better than others. Such is life. We all post on, like the moon and the stars and the sun.
And so it goes.
To one. To all. To those who jumped the shark. Or to those who just posted a youtube clip of the shark being jumped. I dedicate this song to you…
Shine on you crazy diamonds.
Raw when new, ripened with age…
There was sex. And lots of it. There were drugs. And there was rock n roll. With some fine electronica thrown in for good measure. All washed down with plenty of booze. There was love, mostly unrequited, lust, fire and rain. And lots of smashing plates.
And so it goes. Raw finished last night. There have been good and great Irish drama series in recent years (Bachelors Walk, Love is the Drug, Pure Mule etc) but I feel Raw has raised the bar. It looked and felt like a proper series. Not perfect I know but no series is (Sopranos, Entourage included!). it’s flaws were what made it human, maybe. It wasn’t strikingly original yet it still felt current and vibrant. Dublin looked fantastic, modern and thriving. Adjectives which could equally be applied to Raw on the whole.
So Mal left his knives behind him, downed a brandy and walked off into the night. Geoff and Pavel finally got it on in public. How romantic. Laura will be delighted! But JoJo and Bobby didn’t. Series 2 anyone?
One criticism is, I feel, JoJo didn’t develop enough as a character, didn’t overcome any obstacles or learn anything about herself. And for that matter Bobby didn’t really either so they’ve a way to go if another series gets the green light.
And Tiny finally spoke. “I told you so”. Great stuff! Give that lad his own series.
I thought the choice of track (Ian Brown’s The World Is Yours) for the culmination of the closing scene was spot on. A great track. Epic but not over the top. Hats off for that choice and for the series’ soundtrack which was generally excellent. Bring slowly to the boil and stir. Indeed.
On the RTÉ microsite, Raw was described as “a warm and exhilarating 6 part ensemble relationship drama set in the most highly charged of environments”. And it did exactly what it said on the tin. It certainly simmered for six episodes. I’m sure it’ll be back. For some it can’t come soon enough.
Watch all episodes here.
Maybe then you’ll know what it’s like…
I had forgotten how much I like this song by Everlast until I stumbled across it again today…
Called “What It’s Like”, it’s a brilliantly written track from his 1998 album “Whitey Ford Sings The Blues”.
Originally the front man in House of Pain, Everlast’s conversion from groundbreaking rapper to long suffering blues journeyman spawned what was billed, at the time, as a “classic rap battle” (or beef!) between himself and a clearly very annoyed Eminem, back when he was interesting and groundbreaking himself.
According to wikipedia their feud erupted in 2000 when…
Eminem felt insulted by “Cock my hammer, spit a Comet like Haley. I’ll buck a 380 on ones who act Shady” from an Everlast verse on a track called “Ear Drums Pop”. Eminem believed it was a reference to his daughter. Eminem then in turn dissed Everlast several times in public and on the song “I Remember (Dedication To Whitey Ford)”, mocking Everlast’s rap/rock crossover. Everlast then recorded the track “Whitey’s Revenge” and released it on his official website. The track contained the lyric “Better run and check your kid for your DNA”, again referring to Eminem’s daughter, Hailie Jade Mathers. Eminem responded with the help of his group D12 on the track “Quitter”, in which he took shots at Everlast and threatened to kill him if he ever mentioned Hailie’s name again. The 2nd half of the track uses the beat to 2Pac’s Hit Em Up, a diss song aimed at The Notorious B.I.G.. Everlast later stated in various interviews that he felt everything had been said and he would now refrain from further responses.
So they squared off and threw their toy guns out of their cots. Despite the childishness of it all the tracks are quite cool, in a strange, expletive filled kinda way. So regardless of the ridiculous threats from both Everlast and Eminem that they would kill each other and such like, each of them really put effort in, both lyrically and musically, to outdo the other. As “classic rap battles” go, the tracks really are well worth a listen!
It’s all explained here in a well-made youtube clip which cuts back and forth between their “diss” tracks…
Track links…
Eminem: I Remember (Dedicated to Whitey Ford)
Everlast: Whitey’s Revenge
Eminem: Quitter
Me No Raw…
I didn’t get to see last night’s episode of Raw due to circumstances beyond my control that are way too boring to go into here!
Was it any good? Were there lots of smash bang wallop moments as predicted by the previous week’s teaser? Fill me in!
Does cream always rise? Does crime always pay?
Waiting for Godot
An article in yesterday’s Independent on Sunday caught my attention and set me thinking. The piece spoke of how London’s famed West End has been bitten by the Hollywood bug, ie, screen-to-stage adaptations are rampant. The crux is that writers fear new plays are being denied an audience as theatre-goers lap up silver screen re-enactments in place of new projects. It is stated that Hollywood has grown to dominate the serious West End theatre. And I guess this has merit but I wonder is this development such a new threat and if so is it such a bad thing?
Cinema and theatre are no stranger to one another. Transporting plays from stage to screen has long been a guaranteed formula for box office success. Now Britain’s beleaguered theatres are reversing the process – turning to adaptations of well-known films to bring audiences into the theatre. Examples given are Glengarry Glen Ross, 12 Angry Men, The Crucible, The Graduate etc etc. All fine narratives indeed. But if these re-drafted scripts weren’t picked by theatre producers would it mean new material would play at big theatres instead? I wonder. Theatre bosses want full theatres, and re-running classic plays is more of a banker than experimenting with new material. Shakespeare lives on as does Andrew Lloyd Webber. But just look at the Gate Theatre in Dublin. The Weir and Waiting for Godot are regularly re-visited. No harm in that but newer material by untested local writers rarely gets a look-in. That is why events such as the Fringe festival here are crucial to fostering new writing and theatrical talent. I firmly believe that grassroots, localised theatre needn’t fear these developments in the West End. Money talks there. Passion moreso at the lower levels.
On another note, there’s much skill and technique needed to bring a screenplay to the stage. Technical crafts are essential along with the standard arts of directing, (re-)writing, and acting so theatre is not necessarily dying at the hands of Hollywood. And what works on screen will very often not work on stage so it’s not as easy as it seems to just re-enact a tried and tested Hollywood narrative.
Maybe writers fear that what has happened to indigenous cinema will affect them. Just one look at the bill of fare at your local multi-plex is a very good place to start. Here in Ireland at present there is only one Irish-made feature showing on Irish screens (the very fine documentary Saviours). It’s becoming increasingly harder to get distribution for low budget, Irish-made movies. The situation in the UK is sklightly better but not hugely. Cinema owners want bums on seats with popcorn in hands. So for every Saviours there are a hundred Tropic Thunders. And maybe that similar fear is what is guiding theatre bosses and producers.
Another analogy that springs to mind is football related. With the influx of “foreign” investment into the Premier League, clubs have been outlaying massive amounts of cash on non-English, star players. In fact, this has been happening for years but when England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland all failed to qualify for Euro 2008 every hack and half-bit analyst wheeled out the cliché that the influx of Johnny Foreigner had damaged the game beyond repair. Blame apportioned but is it rightfully so? I doubt it. I firmly believe cream rises. Talent will out. Theo Walcott is an example of that. If the talent doesn’t exist it won’t. Spain, whose La Liga also experienced a similar influx as England, don’t seem to be having any trouble with home-grown talent. So much so that they won that very tournament for which “the home nations” failed to qualify.
So the same thing is now being touted about theatre. I’m surprised there aren’t the usual mis-placed, xenophobic complaints about American plays coming to the West End “taking our jobs and our girls” etc. But I firmly believe that if the writing is good enough it will rise to the top. May take a hell of an effort from the originators to get it there but everything worthy is, of course, worth the effort.
Sure to Inspire (II)…
More stylistic goodness from the design guru that is wellmedicated.com . This time it’s vintage advertising. Particularly American advertising from the 50’s and 60’s. All very Mad Men era.
The colour and layout are fantastic, as are the semantics. It’s all really a semiotics analysts wet dream! Ad men sure knew their market back then (men = cars, women – typewriters etc) and really drew on stereotypes and eye-catching visuals. Modern print ads just seem so sterile in comparison!
Anyway, here are some of my favourites…
A loada bolli*…
The button between z and c on my laptop has ceased to be.
This is not a welcome development as I do love certain words with it in. Such as e*cellent and e*crement. I can’t now enter into life-changing, earth shattering discussions about se*. No angular posts about that great electronic act Add N to *. And I can’t say either bolli* or bollo*. Both words are essential in my day to day life.
What’s a man to do?
For those of the Raw variety…
Saw this on rte.ie just now…
‘Raw’ stars Charlene McKenna and Liam Garrigan will be joining Aidan Power on ‘The Café’ later today.
The pair will be chatting about their roles as Jojo and Bobby in the fiery new restaurant-based drama on RTÉ Two.
Olympic boxing medallist Kenny Egan will also be dropping in for a chat with Aidan, as will the drum-playing Cadbury’s Gorilla.
This episode of ‘The Café’ will be screened on RTÉ Two at 7pm this evening.
Shame they’re not bringing Tiny with them.
The Café microsite is here. They usually post the show there a day or so later, just in case you missed the live broadcast and are interested in checking it out.
Kenny Egan versus the Cadbury’s Gorilla. Now that I’d pay to see. My money’s on Egan. But I reckon the gorilla fights dirty. He’s a Phil Collins fan after all. Drumstick to the eye.
