How Do You Like Your Eggs? Airborne.

So we’re throwing eggs at bankers now. Any day now, Ted and Dougal will be chained up outside my workplace.

The recent fad of throwing stuff began when George Bush showed off his Air Force training – how to dodge flying objects. The man is like a cat; for all he knew the Iraqi journalist could have been Oddjob throwing razor shoes at him. Then of course Peter Mandelson took a cup of green custard to the face. This week, an angry AIB shareholder decided Dermot Gleeson deserved some egg on his face. Eggs are not cool anymore, not without the flour. Especially not in a shareholder meeting.

For comedic effect, throwing messy things at important people is always worth a pop. But as a political statement, frankly it’s little short of utterly lame. Especially in the case of idiot vs. Gleeson. The CEO of AIB has already agreed to step down , wisely choosing to remain in office while a successor is suitably found and groomed. He has admitted that mistakes have been made in running the bank, especially in regards to property exposure. What more do you want from him?

In Old Testament times, to atone for the sins of the people, various animal sacrifices were made. Without going into too much detail, one of these sacrifices was a goat upon which was ceremonially placed all the sins of the people; it was then released into the desert to wander off and die. Our goat was held responsible for the sins of a country (that’s quite a burden for a mere goat), and this is where we obtain our phrase “scapegoat”, or, “Dermot Gleeson”.

The Irish people are pissed off. Our economy is going to fall an estimated 8% this year, and we’re losing 1000 jobs a day. It’s only natural to want to blame someone. I myself, little over a year ago, mused about whom to fault with the credit crunch, taking a broad look at the American economy, bond traders, mortgage brokers etc. But now the crisis has gone global in infamous fashion, the average person is feeling the pain first-hand. Assigning blame is now more than an exercise, it’s catharsis, a psychological outlet, a shared hatred to rally around creating solidarity among the masses.

I’m not saying we shouldn’t apportion blame. Where laws were broken, blame should be lavished (accurately) and punishment distributed. But we must be careful where we place our blame, and why we’re doing it in the first place. My opinion? There’s no crime in investing in a booming market, which is what the banks did in good times. Make hay, right? Some argument can be made that loans were made to property developers based more on the state of the economy than the financial status of the borrower, and there was little thought given to the eventuality of things going wrong. Valid, no doubt; look at Anglo – hardly the model of prudence, and now wholly owned by the government for its sins. AIB and BOI retained some conservativism and remain above water albeit with the help of a life-jacket, in precisely the same situation as every other bank in the world, including the ultra-conservative Germans. The Germans did not take part in the property boom, but are suffering regardless because they relied on their quality, solid exports to bolster their economic growth. Now America Inc. has no money to import German goods, especially with the cost of the Euro, killing the  previously inpenetrable German economy. So seemingly the innocent are suffering too.

If prudence didn’t save the Germans from the global fallout, would it have saved the Irish? A small, open economy, immediately prone to the winds of change in larger economies? The comfortable (or none-too-confortable) position we sit in now is one of hindsight, and it’s easy to see your and others’ mistakes with the gift of seeing through your hind. What do I see looking back? I see those most criticised today being praised: banks offering cheap credit; property developers creating so many jobs Ireland became the promised land for Eastern Europeans, never mind the locals; a government lowering taxes, bringing in huge revenues from abroad, spurring on record growth and minimising the unemployment rate at record lows.

To the “people over profits” folk amongst us, we would do well to bear in mind that it is not necessarily one or the other. In the boom years, profit benefitted people, and in fact, profit still benefits people. We have every right to insist on financial transparency for legal and moral reasons. But we should make sure our intentions are more constructive than finding a hook upon which to hang our frustrations.

Chirpy Chirp

One of my most vivid memories from my childhood is a family holiday, aged 7. I used to lie awake, listening to the crickets chirping in the warm European air. As I listened, they would become louder, creeping slowly closer to the patio doors of our rented Portugese apartment.

Tonight I was way too close to some speakers at a gig, so at 5.30am those crickets are living inside my ears. They don’t sleep.

Down with the Kids

Bass pounding the floor, guitar screaming, 1000 fingers pointed at the rafters, excited voices yelling:

Lost and insecure,
You found me
Lying on the floor,
Surrounded.
Why’d you have to wait?
Where were you?

Only possible at The Fray concert in Dublin.

I\’ll admit that I was surprised at the crowd they drew in. I discovered the Fray months before they released a full record in the US, long before they appeared on Scrubs or reached the shores of Europe, whilst browsing through acoustic artists on MySpace music. I loved the helplessness of How to Save a Life, the tenderness of Look After You. Apparently everyone else discovered them on MTV Cribs.

The crowd was deafening at times. No doubt Isaac Slade & Co. are well used to pumping up the volume for live shows, but it took Slade a full 5 minutes to quieten the crowd sufficiently to have his unplugged guitar heard as he sang Fair Fight, front and centre with no amplification – the high-on-sugary-alcohol masses were less than cooperative. Fair play to the man for keeping them quiet as long as he did!

The name \”The Fray\” at the very least suggests offering something beyond chart music, before ever listening to their lyrics; a few years ago they themed Dr. Cox as he practically suffered a breakdown on Scrubs. I expected a fanbase totally different from that in attendance. But, instead I witnessed the lines Happiness feels a lot like sorrow and Maybe God can be on both sides of the gun swallowed up in electric riffs, drum beats and rhythmic clapping.

I guess the kids are down with piano rock.

If your child is screaming, the joke is over, bitch.

Sometimes adults just don’t get it.

Walking down Grafton Street today, there were the usual number of talentless hacks displaying their wares, with few to nobody watching. A trio of teenagers with instruments: the drumming looked so bad I didn’t dare take out my headphones for a soundbite. My personal favourite wastes-of-space, the statues, were not present – incidentally, I have challenged myself to provoke one of them into a Once-style chase around Grafton Street.

Today, the street played host to a man dancing his puppet. Not a nice fuzzy puppet like Elmo; not the rosy cheeks of Orville; no, this was a marionette, a cross between Punch and Pinocchio, the kind that give small children nightmares. The puppet’s hat jumped up and down on the strings as he danced grotesquely, head about two feet from the pavement – the perfect height to leer into passing prams.

As I passed, a woman with pram was laughing at the antics of this wooden freak, as the puppet-master performed for an unseen tot in the pram. My iPod blaring, I couldn’t hear the reaction of the child, but walking by I jerked my head around for the verdict – pure terror. How the mother was lapping it up! How hilarious! My one-year-old doesn’t understand it’s only a puppet! Let’s see how long before he shits himself!

Congratulations, your child will be freaked out by puppets for years to come. Hell, I saw bits of Child’s Play as a nipper and dolls still give me the heebie jeebies!

You will notice that my puppet picture is quite friendly looking. I didn’t want anything freaky adorning my blog.

Look.

Admittedly, recent blogging activity has been low; this was due mostly to my severe aversion to narcissists.
You can’t see that you’re just the same
As all the stupid people you hate.
I figure that since I haven’t picked up a Big Brother application form, I’m safe from self-loathing, for now.

Bi-monthly Narcissistic Round-up

So I finally updated my accompanying Films, Books and Music pages, and here is the run-down accordingly:

In Films, I have changed the format to cut down on my comments, and instead give a rating. I’d rather spend my time watching films than writing about them.

In Music, I’ve updated to what’s currently playing on my iPod. Interestingly, 3 of the last 4 episodes of House in the US have had songs from my updated list of albums: A Fine Frenzy’s Whisper, Ray LaMontagne’s I Still Care For You, and Joshua Radin’s Brand New Day. I’m thinking of adding a concert page, since I’ve been going to so many.

In Books, I’ve read the entire Twilight Saga, and it really dragged to be honest. Worth a read if you’re a quick reader; if not, read the first book, it’s great, but the story doesn’t really go anywhere worthwhile after that.
I’m now reading Nietzsche’s The Gay Science, but it’s not an easy read. I’ve spent the last few days merely thinking about his preface, there is so much depth to his thinking that to breeze through it seems callous and oblivious.

Wanted: One Irish Upbringing

Tonight I spent a marvellous evening at a charity fundraising concert, The Swell Season & Friends at Vicar Street. I went to hear Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova, and I came back with some thoughts to chew on:

One, what exactly it is about the Irish culture that is unique. Now I have limited experience of the Irish culture, despite being brought up in Northern Ireland. On the surface, I can’t speak the language, my accent is coarse in comparison to my friends’, and I don’t know anything about Bryan Cowan. Beneath the surface, it’s something much deeper that I won’t ever really understand. I’m discovering small pieces of the Irish identity in the music; the longer I stay here, and more precisely, the more music I hear, the more I understand. It’s impossible to identify the quality, but it’s what you feel when hearing an Irish lament, being lured into the world of faeries by a Seanachaí (story-teller), or raising a glass with friends to an old memory. Something intangible; Glen Hansard called it a spirit (rising out of the ruins of the Celtic Tiger), something I immediately scoffed at, but I think he has a point, certainly from a musician’s (and not a banker’s) insight.

Two, I feel a sense of loss and anger that my experience of Irish culture was stolen from me. I feel like little more than a cross-breed. I am aware of British culture, and I am aware of Irish culture; neither was I brought up into. I am perhaps just as keenly aware of American culture; I have happily disclosed in the past that I feel on edge in a city, a little xenophobic, until I find a Starbucks.

My culture was stolen from me over issues of pride, land, and to a lesser extent, government and economics. I’m not going to air my views on the “Troubles”, but I will accuse them of robbing me. I am only beginning to understand what a unified national spirit looks like, because all I’ve ever known is passive-aggressive conflict. My sense of identity has been warped too, believe it or not, by the church; the Northern Evangelical church has its own culture, unique in some ways and copying other Western cultures in others, and with a tendency to create like-minded people – for what it’s worth, the church doesn’t intend to create fads and fashions, but where large numbers of people gather, perhaps it’s inevitable.

Anyhow, I digress, so back to my point. There was much to note at the concert: Marketa Irglova looked a little out of place with all the Irish lads playing, almost jamming, together. She can’t be blamed; although extremely talented, she is only part of the circle as Glen Hansard’s girlfriend, and if the reports are to be believed, she now remains only his business associate. As Hansard and his band (Colm Mac Con Iomaire and Joseph Doyle of the Frames, and Graham Hopkins) joined with Liam O Maonlaí and Mark Dignam to finish the first set with a tribute to Mic Christopher, his own song Heyday (performed here on Grafton Street with Glen Hansard), Irglova remained absent. Absent also, although he played in both sets, was Bell X1’s Paul Noonan, leaving me to speculate that he perhaps isn’t part of the original Dublin boys, and belongs to a slightly different breed of artist.

Hansard’s own niece, Sinead, sang 2 ballads (Snow Patrol and Leona Lewis), and while the songs didn’t exactly fit the mood of the night, man she can sing. Even Hansard’s mother was convinced to perform acapella, singing Patsy Cline’s Crazy, and a twinkly-eyed two year old also made a special appearance, presumably O Maonlaí’s daughter, while he sang Bob Dylan’s Forever Young with her in his lap at the piano – until she scampered off around the stage. The family involvement only increased the intimacy of the event – and the crowd cheered wildly when Hansard shared a story of the Headmaster who told him, at the age of 13, that if he put his mind to his music, maybe one day people would pay to hear him play. That man was sitting in the balcony.

O Maonlaí brought the most raw Irish edge, singing more than one Irish lament, in Gaelic, including the end of a long and sorrowful “love song from Mayo”, played solely by Mac Con Iomaire on violin, looping over himself electronically. (I’ll bet the writers of long ago had difficulty getting the loop just right). Points to both men for having names most Northerners couldn’t pronounce.

I have far from a grasp of what it means to be Irish, but tonight I feel I witnessed, nay, participated in something very vulnerable, very uplifting, and very Irish.

This Post was Brought to You by the Letters J and D

The coolest thing ever has happened.

An episode of Scrubs met… an episode of Sesame Street!!

Part 1

Part 2

Elmo fans can fast forward to Part 2, 3.30 in.

What! She’s your woman??

*EDIT*

Ok, so Youtube banned those videos, try this highlights one!

Highlights

Quite the Cads

On Saturday I went to see the Bodies Exhibition in Dublin. In short, it’s an art-meets-science exhibition of plasticised human bodies, enabling the viewer to take a closer look at the intricacy of the body; the skeletal and muscular systems, circulatory system, digestive system, lymphatic system, nervous system, they’re all there. Including a number of foetuses at various stages.

I caught this article on Primetime tonight (something I would have never intended, had my housemate not alerted me to it while I was reading on the sofa). It turns out that the exhibition has incurred a moral lampooning all over the world (in Pittsburg, for example).

Am I callous for shrugging at all this? Nobody claimed the bodies, they’re being used for medical purposes, what’s the problem? It’s not my plasticised auntie, and nobody will ever discover the identity of the subjects, so it will never be your auntie, or indeed “Kitty from Coleraine”.

Ever Wondered Why Lions Are Yellow?

I can’t decide whether Christians are cowards, or atheists have the hearts of lions.

Maybe neither is true, but looking from my position of skepticism, one or the other is likely to become true for me.

It took this episode of Scrubs to force me to really take a look at what I believe about death. Sure, in all likelihood I have 50-60 more years ahead of me, but the question of life after death is inextricably linked to the question of our existence.

I have major questions about the truth and validity of Christianity right now, and that makes this all the scarier for me. I’ve always been so sure about death, about where I was going, but lately that has all been called into question.

Maybe there is no after-life. Maybe this is all there is, three-score and ten, and I’ll cease to exist, nothing but worm-food, dust and earth.

Maybe Heaven is out there. It could be as the Christians say it is, for those with unwavering faith in God, a continuation of a relationship on earth; God’s friend now, God’s friend forever. Alternatively, it could be more inclusive, but it’s anybody’s guess as to the standard of entry.

Maybe I face hell. For doubting to the point where I don’t care much for Christianity any more, thinking of the tie within me as little more than a psychological dependence.

[On a side note, this is not a matter of "my hopes and fears" negating logic; God, eternity and existentialism are very real and logical concepts unless the laws of physics are to be discarded. So my questions are legitimate.]

I don’t see how this is fair, being forced to make some sort of existential decision based on conjecture, bravery, and / or cowardice. Even if I decided that I don’t believe in all the Jesus stuff, I doubt my ability to pack it all in, for fear of eternal punishment. Yet how can I just believe, when to do so now would feel like cowardice and a betrayal of my own conscience?