My College Meme Wars…

It’s a funny thing, pop culture. It’s the one thing that binds generations but can divide cultures.

The core of any pop culture is the meme. If we’re gonna be all fancy pants about it I’ll tell you that a meme is defined as follows: “a cultural item that is transmitted by repetition in a manneranalogous to the biological transmission of genes.” Riiiiiiight. In other words, a meme is a reference that is spread through society by recurrence and popularity.

When I was but a naive young teen the height of pop culture was ‘Jackass’. Man I loved that show. I loved Bam Margera. Scooter was all the rage too. My friends and I spent many a Friday night youth disco drunk on Bacardi Breezers, throwing some serious shapes on the dancefloor to ‘The Logical Song’. We also listened to a lot of Linkin Park (who I still believe to be awesome), Eminem and The Red Hot Chili Peppers (By The Way had just come out) and we thought Von Dutch trucker caps were the biz!

I was perfectly happy in my simple adolescent world of copying friends’ homework and knowing all the words to ‘It wasn’t Me’ by Shaggy (TUNE!), but, as is always the way, life was to interject. The Leaving Cert loomed and university beckoned. In the space of three months I was launched into a whole new spectrum of pop culture; college memes.

College is a place full of new discoveries for all the young country cubs like me. We come from the land of GAA and letting your dog roam free (coz c’mon, there’s plenty of land and rabbits to be chased and everyone knows he’s your dog so he’ll be alright. He’ll show up when he’s hungry and done exploring). We’re skilled at things like blocking the gaps in the road when the cattle are being moved, knowing what the weather’s going to be like tomorrow by assessing how it is today and getting people to recognise who we are by mentioning our fathers name. We’re not so adept when it comes to adapting to urban life. We come to the Big Smoke from the Serengeti and we have to deal with shit we aint never had to deal with before! Stuff like, how much does it cost to get the 13A bus from O’Connell St to the Ballymun Road?, like remembering not to walk down Talbot St with your valuables in your hand and like all the John Player Blues. No self respecting country native smokes Johnny Blues! They’re not right!

The college meme is a sub-category of this whole new young, metropolitan culture I was thrown into at 17 years old. A meme is also defined as “an idea, behavior or style that spreads from person to person within a culture.” An example of one “college “meme” that I picked up in my first year of college is ‘Family Guy’. I had heard of ‘Family Guy’ before, but not in any major context. I had lived my life in a world where television consisted of seven channels. And now, Comedy Central!? Paramount!? MTV?! (my four guy roommates and I had a dedicated routine of ‘Next’ and ‘Date My Mom’ every evening on MTV. We used to bet on the outcomes. I mean, we skipped lectures for those shows. It was serious.) Of course, ‘Family Guy’ is one of the many things I picked up in my college years that stuck. We all know what it is these days. It couldn’t be more famous. So, I’m not going to focus on the ones we all know. Imma concentrate on the ones that somehow slipped into the peripherals of our knowledge… The ones we used to know so well…

RODRIGO Y GABRIELA

Rodrigo Y Gabriela actually inspired me to write this piece. It’s not really right to refer to them as a meme but sure anyways, we’re here now. Recently, I was asked about concerts I’ve been to. I realised that I went to A LOT of gigs when I was in college. I got to thinking about the good old days. The Dropkick Murphys at The Ambassador (which no longer hosts music), Velvet Revolver at The Point (which is now the O2 Arena), Iron Maiden at the RDS (which is still the good ol’ RDS), Rodrigo Y Gabriela at The Olympia. And then I remembered how awesome Rodrigo Y Gabriela were and realised that I hadn’t heard anything from them in a very long time. So I saw to it that I got them into my itunes pronto.

Rodrigo Y Gabriela, for anyone who is unfamiliar, are a Mexican guitar playing duo and they are AMAZING! They used to have a heavy metal band in Mexico and then they moved to Ireland and started busking to make a living. Their music was this incredible blend of Spanish guitar with rough heavy metal influences, executed with precision and passion and just obvious years of practice behind it.

They hastily gained a cult following and got bigger and bigger until everyone was talking about them. I went to see them in 2005 at The Olympia Theatre and it was phenomenal, the real idyll of what an intimate acoustic gig should be. 

Mad props! So why did Rodrigo Y Gabriela fall off my radar? Rediscovering them recently confirmed that I had good reason to appreciate them in the first place. To be fair they do have the skills to pay the bills and genuinely deserve success. I can’t recall the moment where I stopped listening to them. It most likely came around the time my trusty block of a ‘Creative Zen’ mp3 player gave up and I came over all hipster with a shiny new ipod.

Anyway, the point is, upon further inspection, Rodrigo Y Gabriela did not fall off my radar at all. In fact, I fell off theirs. As it happens the pair exceeded this little isle of ours with great success. They got a feature on MTV and did what many have tried and failed to do before them and broke the US of A. They were on Jay Leno. They were on Lopez tonight. They even performed for ‘What’s The Craic’ Barack himself! They did some of the score for ‘Pirates of The Caribbean’ and ‘Puss In Boots’ and they just released their 5^th album ‘Area 52’ in January.

So… Shame on me, I guess. Rodrigo Y Gabriela ya’ll. Word!

BEBO

In 2005 I was talked into joining Bebo by a friend of mine who went to college in Maynooth. She said it was a great way to stay in touch. I thought it was just an NUI thing and thus assumed the username, ‘DCUGirl’ to assert my allegiance to my own side. Pretty soon, the whole country and its dog was on there.

Of course, these days we have Facebook and, in comparison, it’s blatantly obvious how juvenile Bebo really was. The site allowed us to choose our own skin (mine was a Snoopy theme). You could upload photos. You had your friends all there on your profile. You could update your status, write a blog, create a poll, draw a picture or “share the luv”. You could even write a story about how you knew people you were friends with. In fairness, Bebo had a lot to offer the young and impressionable it was aimed at. But somehow, for some reason that I can’t quite put my finger on, Facebook is just better.

I will admit that I wasn’t an easy convert. I didn’t understand Facebook at first. I didn’t know what you were supposed to do on a “wall”. The concept of “poking” someone just baffled me and I kept getting notifications telling my that my cousin was sending me shots and that I should send her some back when, in fact, I never received any kind of tiny beverage. I didn’t like it. But that just was the Cancerian in me. In the end I had no choice. None of us had a choice. If social networking sites were a movie trilogy Facebook would be ‘Jurassic Park’, Bebo would be ‘The Lost World’ and MySpace would be ‘Jurassic Park III’ (you can use the ‘Look Who’s Talking’ trilogy either, if you prefer). They’re all decent enough, but you can’t argue that one is significantly better than others.

Face it. Bebo is dead. Facebook is king. Resistance is futile.

Or maybe we should just get off the internet and go get a real life…. Hahahaha!! Nah, I’m just playin’ ya’ll!

HOME AND AWAY

During my college years, my schedule was a lot busier than it is now. Horse-riding on a Monday, €3 drinks in the Old Bar on a Tuesday, Tae Kwon Do on a Wednesday, €3 drinks in Fibbers on a Thursday, rushing for the 109 back to Cavan after lectures on a Friday. But rarely were any of those things permitted to get in the way of me being in front of a television at 6.30PM every evening for ‘Home and Away’.

Now, I do realise that ‘Home and Away’ is not just a college phenomenon. It’s a nationwide phenomenon. ‘Home and Away’ has been shown on RTE since its inception in 1988. That’s a long time. My whole life, in fact. Kind of mental considering it’s like the Aussie version of ‘Fair City’. Regardless, we lapped that shit right up like shimps on a barbie.

Perhaps that’s the very reason it remained a staple throughout university. It reminded us of home (and away?). It was a constant in our otherwise changing lives. It didn’t matter that it was absolutely and completely ridiculous in its’ storylines or that the characters seemed to come and go at lightening speed. They were beautiful. Summer Bay was beautiful. Just like always. The Bay was there to make us feel at home. Just hearing the intro makes me want to go back and live in that time again.

You know we belong together… (You know the words!) You and I forever and ever! No matter where you are, you’re my guiding star. And from the very first moment I saw you, I never felt such emotion. I’m walking on air! Just to know (Just to know!) You are there! HOLD ME IN YOUR ARMS! DON’T LET ME GO! I WANT TO STAY FOREVER! CLOSER EACH DAY! HOME AND AWAY!!!

 

The good news is that ‘Home and Away’ didn’t go anywhere. It’s still right where it should be; on RTE2 at 6.30PM every weekday evening, after ‘The Simpsons’. 24 years. God bless you Ireland and your awesome, silly ways.

CYANIDE AND HAPPINESS (ET AL)

Cyanide and Happiness is a comic strip. I can’t remember who brought it to my attention. I can’t remember why it was brought to my attention. But I do remember finding it very funny.

Cyanide and Happiness wasn’t like anything else that came before it. It was a very specific humour. One that was created by and for Generation Y. Simplistic in its presentation and dark in nature, it managed to be offensive and massively funny without being blatant. It was certainly the first time I’d ever seen an awkward silence translated into a drawing.

And today it’s still just as popular. A new strip is uploaded daily at http://www.explosm.net

Around the same time that Cyanide and Happiness was popular, another meme crept onto the spectrum: Salad Fingers. Salad Fingers was not funny. Salad Fingers was creepy as fuck. Like the infamous, ‘Two Girls One Cup’, it wasn’t something that you showed someone out of love (Not that I would ever inflict ‘Two Girls One Cup’ on anyone!). No, you showed ‘Salad Fingers’ to people to give them the creeps, just like they were given to you. ‘Salad Fingers’ spread through the student community like wildfire, making the hairs on the back of everyones’ neck stand to attention as he passed, caressing rusty things with his… *shivers*…. salad fingers…

CHUCK NORRIS

Chuck Norris doesn’t need a paragraph justifying his place on this list. The facts started appearing around 2005. They’ve been appearing ever since. Here’s some personal favourites:

• Chuck Norris can slam a revolving door.
• The chief export of Chuck Norris is pain.
• Chuck Norris once won a game of Connect 4 in three moves.
• Chuck Norris can delete the Recycling Bin.
• Ghosts sit around the campfire telling Chuck Norris stories.
• Chuck Norris once punched a man in the soul.
• Chuck Norris does not have hair on his testicles because hair cannot grow on steel.
• Chuck Norris does not flush the toilet. He scares the shit out of it.
• Chuck Norris eats the core of an apple first.
• Chuck Norris can lead a horse to water and make it drink.
• Chuck Norris leaves messages before the beep.
• Chuck Norris counted to infinity… twice.
• The only time Chuck Norris was ever wrong was when he thought he made a mistake.

THE RICKROLL

It’s 8pm. You’re in the library, “working on an assignment” (aka: checking bebo and patrolling the web for… anything, really). It’s quiet. Others are at computers around you silently focusing on their studies. The bad-tempered woman behind the desk is stamping books and peering out over the top of her glasses, looking for anyone she can apprehend. The only sound is that of the printer in the corner, faithfully spitting out notes that will give someone a few hundred extra words on their 2,000 word essay. You see a link to something that catches your interest, I don’t know, “Top 10 Most Badass Grand Theft Auto Moments” or something of the like. “Oooh,” you think. “I am interested in finding out what  the top ten most badass Grand Theft Auto moments are.” You click on the link. 

BAM! You just been Rickroll’d! Daaaaaaamn! Now everyone’s looking at you and you can feel the eyes of the bad-tempered woman glaring at you from behind her desk. The only solution is to turn tomato red, ‘X’ out of the video as fast as possible and pretend it never happened. How could you be so foolish!? You should have known better. Stoopid Rick Astley and his sneaky ways!

 

I’m four years out of college now. My little sister is now in her first year in good ol’ DCU. And from what I can see, some things never change. They just evolve. Trolling is all the rage. ‘Know Your Meme’ refers to trolling as, “any behavior that is meant to intentionally anger or frustrate someone else.”  I can see the humour in that. Angry people are funny. Especially when they’re angry over ridiculous things. Here’s Aziz Ansari demonstrating just how amusing trolling can be: 

 

Inspired by posts on sites like ‘FailBlog’ and ‘I Can Has Cheezburger?’ as well as all those goddamned Facebook groups, the memes we see these days looks something like this: 

 

We had Rodrigo Y Gabriela, a Mexican guitar duo. Now we have The Rubberbandits, an Irish comedy hip-hop duo.

We had ‘Bebo Stunnahs’, a group of young girls, caked in make-up and doing “sexy” poses for the camera. Now we have ‘Facebook Wetsers’, which is pretty much the very same thing except with better grammar.

We had ‘Home and Away’ and we still have ‘Home any Away’ (LIKEABOSS!).

We had ‘Cyanide and Happiness’, a comic depicting dark humour and offensive situations. Now we have ‘Rage Comic’, a comic that depicts normal shit with a sudden mad face thrown in.

We had ‘Chuck Norris Facts’, a meme stating incredible facts about the man. Now we have ‘Fuck Yeah! Ryan Gosling’, a site that depicted things that Ry Goz would say to you if you were his girlfriend, usually beginning with, “Hey Girl,”.

We had RickRolling and sure, poor Rick Astley’s been paying the rent off the back of it since!

The world of pop culture and the societal memes that come with it is fluid. Ever changing. It would be impossible to keep up with them all (and a bit sad, probably). Mark my words that if you remember Rick Rolling, someone three years younger than you likely would not. That’s the way of the ipod generation. It all happens in the blink of an eye. The key to staying down with tha kidz is the same one for keeping on top of the housework; little and often. Get yourself online every now and again, have your little sister show you videos on youtube. You’ll be a’ight.

Chuuuuuuuch!

 

 

 

 

The Best Thing I Watched This Week…

Wull. How’s it goin’?

So this week I have watched a fairly typical array of seemingly randomly selected broadcastings. Some worth my while, some not so much.

Here’s your pointless rundown of all the crap (and anticrap) I’ve been privy to this week, exclusive of such weekly staples as Teen Mom and Jersey Shore (how ridiculous has Jersey Shore gotten now that they’re super famous?!):

 

Louis Theroux

I watched two Louis Theroux documentaries this week. ‘Law and Disorder in Philadelphia’ and ‘Gangsta Rap’.

Louis Theroux is, by far, the whitest guy any of us know. And he’s not white like Eminem is white. You know, like “Yeah, I’m white but you can’t touch the swag! And what!?” Nah, Louis is white in more of a Rick Moranis in ‘Honey, I Shrunk The Kids’ kind of a way. And just to provide an example of his whiteness, here’s a quote from Louis’ wiki page:

“Another of his contemporaries was Liberal Democrat politician, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg with whom he travelled to America.”

Contemporaries?! Liberal Democrat?! Deputy Prime Minister? Whom!? That sentence is so riddled with white I can just barely handle it!

D’ya remember the documentary that Martin Bashir made about Michael Jackson? Course ya do! It was on on a Monday night and EVERYONE watched it and talked about it the whole next day! D’ya also remember how seemingly lame and awkward Martin was throughout? That’s what Louis is like! He puts himself in these outrageous situations next to outrageous people and then he acts like Hugh Grant, with hilarious/mortifying consequences.

In ‘Law and Disorder in Philadelphia’ he was doing the rounds with the Philadelphia police as they took on the entire cast from ‘The Wire’ (or so it seemed). A friend of mine recently described Louis as someone who “stands awkwardly on the outskirts of situations asking really obvious questions”, and that couldn’t be more on the money.

I think that’s part of the reason why his documentaries are so moreish. On one hand you’re intrigued by the situation he’s in, you actually want to know more about the subject. But on the other hand you kind of just want the ground to open up and swallow you because Louis is so embarrassingly square it makes you want to die!

But it’s like watching a good horror film where you take pleasure in the fear. Except with Louis it’s not so much fear as utter, utter mortification.

I can’t wait to squirm through more.

 

Senna

I used to be well into Formula One. Back when I was a sprightly young thing of just 16 and it was dominated by the likes of  Schumacher, Raikkonen, Alonso, Montoya and Barichello. I’d be up at crazy hours of the morning to watch the races live on ITV. Then I sort of fell out of touch and when I attempted to come back I made discoveries like, Kimi Raikkonen had gone to the WRC, Juan Pablo Montoya was a NASCAR driver and some kid called Sebastian Vettel was world champion. It was sheer madness and I just couldn’t get down with it.

Anyways, so I was intrigued to watch this documentary about Ayrton Senna. I went into it with just a basic knowledge of the man. I knew that he’s considered one of the greatest Formula One drivers of all time. And I knew that he was killed during a race. But that was about it.

But, okay, so here’s the issue I had with the film… Is it meant to have subtitles or no? Because if it is then I watched the wrong version and if it’s not then it’s shocking hard to follow.

Ayrton was Brazilian so a lot of it is in Portuguese. Other parts were en Francais. And there was ne’er a subtitle to be found.

The parts that I was able to follow were admittedly captivating though. That is the saving grace. You don’t need to know anything about the sport to enjoy this film.

Underneath the guise of racing, it’s really just a story about a man who lived for his career. He excelled. He was fiery and outspoken. Passionate and cutting. Dedicated and religious. Mysterious and intelligent. ‘Senna’ is an outsider’s insight into a captivating character who met his end in a premature and shockingly tragic way.

We see him engaged in a bitter rivalry with Alain Prost, hurling insults and accusations. We see him speaking out against the politics of the sport. We see him being welcomed home to Brazil as a hero. It’s as though we’re seeing for the first time the many sides of a man who lived his life as a mysterious individual.

This is one of those films where you come out the other side and you feel like you know the person. Or at least you want to know more of them. If Senna had lived he would only be 52 today. Sad right?

 

What’s Love Got To Do With It

Based on the life of one Miss Tina Turner, ‘What’s Love Got To Do With It’ was actually pretty good.

I love a good true story. And although this film is “loosely based” on Tina’s autobiography, ‘I, Tina”, I watched it and just pretended it was all verbatim.

Poor ol’ Tina has had a hard enough wee life, mostly at the hands of Ike (played here by Laurence Fishburne). But the best thing about this movie is, without a shadow of a doubt, Angela Bassett. You know when you see a really good impressionist and it’s so uncanny you almost can’t believe it? Well this pretty much just two hours of the best Tina Turner impression you’ve ever seen. She doesn’t much look like Tina and I’m pretty sure she mimed all the singing bits but still… I believed her.

I knew very little about Tina going into this one. Actually, scratch that. I knew nothing about Tina going into this one. But now, I’d neeeeaaarly put some Tina on my ipod (No I heckin’ wont! Don’t be ridiculous!). But I certainly think more of her having watched this film. Yo go Tina!

 

American Psycho

I know, I know… I should have seen this movie a long ass time ago. It’s my bad. I guess I was too preoccupied with other classics like ‘Mac and Me’ and ‘Howard The Duck’.

But lookit, better late than never. And I enjoyed this one.

But here, do you watch ‘Keeping Up With The Kardashians?’ If you don’t, it’s too much to try and explain. But if you do, two words: SCOTT DISICK! Clearly Scott saw ‘American Psycho’ once upon a time and decided that he was going to base his entire persona on Patrick Bateman. To be fair, he plays the part pretty well but like, cop on, at the same time ‘coz… Who does that?! Nobody over the age of 14 should be trying to base themselves on a movie character less there’s some issues there… Oh wait…

Anyways, yeah, so I thought ‘American Psycho’ was pretty decent. For those of you who are tardier to the party than I was, I’m about to completely spoil the plot here. But usually I’m the person who gets real annoyed when a film ends abruptly without explaining anything. I’ve enjoyed so many movies only to wind up having to hate them for bad endings. I prefer for everything to get neatly tied up, all outstanding questions answered and our heroes to come out on top. That doesn’t happen in ‘American Psycho’. Even after the dramatic climax, nothing gets resolved. Bateman’s confession “has meant nothing.” But, weirdly, I don’t mind. Because I feel like that’s the whole point of it. Did he kill all those people? Was it all in his head? I’ve no idea. Nor do I really care.

All in all I deem ‘American Psycho’ to be an elegantly constructed, perfectly executed, emotionally void tale of a man on the brink. Somehow it manages to be horrifying, violent and detached while also being hilariously satirical and clever at the same time.

I haven’t read the book. And I probably wont. It’d only spoil the movie.

 

The Rum Diary

When I heard the words, “Johnny Depp” and “Hunter S. Thompson”, my mind immediately came up with its own expectations for this film. Those expectations bore eerily similar to ‘Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas’. If you haven’t seen this film and you want to because, like me, you loved ‘Fear And Loathing’, just stop right there. There’s absolutely no likeness.

‘The Rum Diary’ was meh at best. It’s based on a novel, first of all, and not Hunter himself as was the case with the former (better) film. It’s about this journalist, Paul Kemp (not Ross unfortunately) who goes to Puerto Rico to work for a newspaper. I think we’re meant to think that he’s a wild alcoholic but, to be honest, he only seems to get mildly drunk every now and again, which is very disappointing and not what one would expect going in.

Truth is, very little happens in this film. It has a few funny moments, like when they drive the shitty little car after it gets vandalised. But it’s otherwise fairly vapid. The character of Morbeg (played by Phoebe’s brother) is rage-inducingly overacted and unbelievable and IMHO should have been left on the cutting room floor/ played by someone who would have done it differently.

I read two things about the director:

1)    This was his first film in almost twenty years and,

2)    He was six years sober and took up drinking again to write this film.

Yeah, ya can tell.

Truth be told, ‘The Rum Diary’ is essentially, about nothing. But not in an awesome way like the way ‘Napoleon Dynamite’ is about nothing. It’s about nothing in a way that means I’ve forgotten most of it and have no intention of ever watching it again.

 

The Descendants

I find George Clooney creepy as shit! There I said it. I think it stems from the scene in ‘Burn After Reading’ where he shoots Brad Pitt in the face (a scene that has haunted me since seeing it, for some reason). I don’t know. I just don’t like George Clooney. You’re 50 years old. Stop dating models. Settle down and have children. You know what I mean? So, I guess I went into this one biased against him. Which is not really fair, but here we are.

‘The Descendants’ has garnered a lot of hype. It won two Golden Globes and has a few Oscar nominations. I’m trying to figure out if I’m missing something or if there’s just a lack of decent films on the go this year.

So, this one is about a man who lives in Hawaii and his wife has an accident and winds up in a coma. He finds out that she was cheating on him with Stuart from ‘Scream’ and goes about finding him. There’s a subplot about how his family inherited a load of pristine land (hence the title of the film I guess) and they want to sell but then they have to think about the impact of selling on the island and ah, it’s all a tad unfuckingnecessary really.

Like, it was okay. It’s like a film that you’d see on TV3 at 4pm on a Sunday afternoon. Ya know the kind. The type of movie that you can switch on when it’s already an hour in and still follow. Not the type that gets five Oscar nods. Weird.

 

The Bridge

Probably not a film for everyone. ‘The Bridge’ is a documentary filmed at San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge in 2004. The director, Eric Steel, filmed the bridge for most of the year and thus ended up capturing 23 suicides.

Apparently more people die by suicide at the Golden Gate Bridge than anywhere else in the world.

Suicide is one of life’s last big taboos. And so of course, you’ll have those who’ll denounce a documentary about it as being tasteless or insensitive. But…This film doesn’t glorify suicide. It doesn’t condemn suicide. It simply shows us a reality that most of us generally refuse to acknowledge. This shit happens. And there’s something compelling about this movie.

We see interviews with friends and families of the “jumpers”. We hear their stories. We almost feel like we know these people. In a lot of cases I think we all know people like these people.

We’re shown footage of these lost souls standing on the bridge. We’re shown their fall, their final moments, before a splash into the water below.

It’s compelling, I think, because for most of us, the thought of suicide is so incomprehensible. How tortured must one be to face and end like that? How desperate? How brave? Or how cowardly? We’re looking at this eerie footage of people atop one of the worlds most astounding structures. It’s beautiful. It’s epic. But this film shows us that for, on average, one person every two weeks, it’s tragic.

Like the film ‘The Falling Man’ in the wake of 9/11, ‘The Bridge’ is a haunting insight into something that most of us just don’t understand.  I came out the other side with no better understanding, but certainly a different perspective on San Francisco’s most iconic attraction.

I can’t say that ‘The Bridge’ is brilliant or awful. I can’t summarise it. There’s nothing fancy about it. It just is. And no matter your stance or personal opinion on the content, it is affecting.

You should watch it.

 

The Artist

Honestly? I turned it off after ten minutes.

The entire thing is in black and white.

There’s no dialogue.

It’s probably perfect for the type of person who wears vintage clothes, rides a bicycle (with a basket and bell), goes to Prague for a holiday, reads old novels and drinks port.

I’m the type of person that wears River Island clothes, drives a Toyota (with an engine and ipod connect), goes to Vegas on holidays (or… wants to, at least), reads autobiographies and drinks vodka.

This is 2012. I realise that trends tend to loop. But we live in an era of million dollar budgets and 3D effects. I’m sure the argument for this film is old-school romanticism but like, no dialogue? Really?!

Maybe I’ll give it another chance in the future but not today.

Thanks.

 

I’ve watched some other apparently insignificant stuff this week also. I guess none of it was must-see viewing.

But, the Oscars are coming up later this month. There’s a few nominees that I want to see before the big day. You know, stick my oar in and have an opinion. I’ve seen a few of the films that are up.

‘The Help’ looks like it might be good. I also might be interested in ‘The War Horse’, just coz it’s about a horse who has the very same name as my very own pony (Shout out to Joey right now!). I saw ‘Midnight In Paris’ a good while ago, it’s dung, don’t bother. Uhhhh, what else? I feel like there’s no way ‘The Iron Lady’ could be bad with Meryl Streep in the title role (Love Meryl Streep). I’ve no interest in ‘Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy’. Also saw ‘Warrior’ a few weeks back. It was alright aswell, if a smidge unbelievable. ‘The Ides of March’ was decent (even though George Clooney’s in it. Gosling carried the whole thing). I saw ‘Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory’ which was just okay. Certainly not worthy of an Oscar nomination but I’ll go with it. But I want to see ‘Hell And Back Again’ for the military valya.

So… Yeah! It’s all ahead of us. Yay for movies! See ya’ll bitches next time! PEACE!

Whaddya mean you’re not going to Australia?!

Here in Ireland there are certain traditions, rites of passage, if you will, that one must go through in order to be considered a proper person. Making your first holy communion is one. Drinking in secret before a youth disco is another. You have to go to the Gaeltacht for the summer before your Leaving Cert. You have to have the pockets ripped off your shirt on the last day of school. You have to go to Oxegen. You have to run from the feds at least once. And you have to go to Australia for a year.

I was late for my first holy communion (perpetual lateness runs in my family). I drank in secret down the road from my friends’ house before many a youth disco. I went to the French version of the Gaeltacht the summer before my Leaving Cert. I FELLTHEFUCKOUT with the guy who ripped the pockets off my shirt on the last day of school. I did the Oxegen thing thrice (never again). I ran from (and consequently was caught by) the feds in a Dublin park. But I have never been to Australia, nor do I have any interest. This is a revelation that is usually greeted with this face:

I don't know this dude but he wants to know why the fuck I'm not in Australia!

Allow me to explain…

#1. The Heat

Some people tan in the sun. Some people burn in the sun. Me? I just get gifted (plagued) with a whole array of new freckles. When I was little and hated my freckles my mam used to tell me that they’d fade as I got older. They never did. Just another lie to throw in the jar along with Santa Claus and that whole thing about carrots helping you see in the dark. I’d love to be a sun goddess like Megan Fox or Heidi Montag (but like, the old Heidi Montag. Not the new Jocelyn Wildenstein-esque Heidi Montag). Alas, I’m Irish and thus when I go in the sun, I’m more like Monica Gellar in that episode of Friends where they went to Barbados and she got into the intense table tennis match with Paul Rudd. My hair frizzes up, my mood turns sour and I sweat in weeeeeird places (behind the knees, anyone? No?… TMI?… Sorry). I mean, I hate the cold. I HATE the cold. But the heat hates me. And who am I to argue with nature?

#2. The Bugs

Listen right, I’m no wuss. I’m not afraid of the dark. I’m not afraid of heights. I’m not afraid of snakes. I’m not afraid of rats. But I am most definitely afraid of bugs. There’s this spider that shows up in these parts around late August/early September. He’s called the Harvest Spider. He’s fucking massive and I hate his stinking guts! I always make sure to have an Argos catalogue close to hand so that whenever the Harvest Spider breaks into my home I can launch it from a safe, elevated distance and promptly end its rotten little eight-legged life .

My friend was in Australia and said that, once, she left a chocolate bar out on the counter and during the night, the roaches invaded. Also, my brother lives there and told me that when he was working on a site, he was instructed to kick bricks over with his foot before touching them just in case there was a black widow lurking underneath… FUCK. THAT!!

I just wouldn’t be able to sleep at night if I lived in Australia. No harm, but how could anyone be comfortable in a country where you have to get used to lizards in your house because they eat the spiders. Nah, you’re alright thanks. I’ll take the devil I know. 

#3. The Sheer Vastness

I’ve got family in Perth. I’ve got friends in Sydney. They know each other. They see each other NEVER! Here in Eire, you can have friends in Cork family in Donegal and yiz can all hook up for pints after work on a muthafuckin’ Tuesday if ya want! It’d be a late one, but ya can do it.

But not so when you’re DIN UNDA (that’s my Aussie accent). Perth is like 3000 miles from Melbourne. Melbourne is like 1000 miles from Sydney. And Darwin is like 10,000,000 miles from anywhere. I just can’t even comprehend the vastness of Australia. I mean, I feel isolated when I’m in Galway so there’s just no way I could cope.

#4. The Irish

There are more Irish people in Australia than there are in Ireland. Probably a slight exaggeration but not fucking really either. I guess that’s because it’s an Irish rite of passage to go to Australia. But why go so far away to surround yourself with people just like the ones you’re trying to get away from?! You know how so many Irish people give out about foreigners coming over here? I wonder if that’s how the Aussies feel about us. Probably.

Wayhey! Pints on the beach! Classy as fuck lads!

#5. Nothing To Declare

D’ya ever watch that show? It’s heckin’ brilliant. I watch it on a regular basis. But it makes me not want to go to Australia. Mostly because it seems like they’re a bit egocentric. Like they want Paddy to show them just how much he reeeeeaaalllllly wants into their country. And maybe they’ll think about it for a while before maybe making a decision and maybe give Paddy a visa but then again, maybe not. First he has to go into a private office and tell them a super awesome story about how he has a job secured over the phone and that’s why he only has AUD$1000 with him.Then they go off to make a decision while we at home get shown bits like customs taking fruit of an old Chinese lady or them using what seems like some kind of primitive home HP testing kit to see if “this passenger on a German flight” has any traces of drugs in their luggage. Then we come back to see how Paddy got on and find out that they’re not be obliged to grant him entry at this time. And I’m at home shouting at the telly, “Ah for God’s sake, just let the lad go! Sure he doesn’t mean any harm! Poor Paddy just wants to do the Gold Coast with the boys!” And then sure enough, he gets turned right around just like the conveniently stereotypical poor sod, Damien, in the video below, god love him.

 

Now. Next time someone pulls that face at me and gasps, “Really?! Why wouldn’t ya want to go to Australia?!”, I’ll just give them a link to this here blog and they can get their answer in five bulleted points in a nice font.

Mind you, I wouldn’t mind taking one of those crocodile tours up in Darwin… Or seeing if the aborigines really are wild alcoholics… Or visiting the real Summer Bay… Hmmm…

PS: I googled “reasons not to go to Australia” and was led to yahoo answers. Props to Munchie 17 for the awesomo list of reasons. I particularly like number 2. Oh heck, I particularly like them all!

Hey! Don't hate on Skippy Munchie 17! Skippy was aaaaalright!