Tag Archives: Cork

Lazing On A Sunny Afternoon

4 Comments

A Clockwork Orange

Sunny Afternoon – The Kinks

Well, it was actually cloudy. Bad start. It was Sunday though, yesterday in fact. And I was lazing. Full on. Pants off. Couch on. Watching The Masters on TV. Adam Scott and Angel Cabrera battling it out for the green jacket. It’s about half three in the afternoon. Tired enough from the night before. Few boozes. Long week. Barren brain. Time to just chill out and do nothing. Golf on. Almost all my family love golf, adore it. The Hayes men, anyway. Watch it. Play it. Breath it. Always feel a bit guilty when I don’t watch a big tournament as a result. Especially when my Dad texts me to see if I might go to one if it’s on near me. One day, Dad, one day!

So I throw on the golf. Start getting into it. Handy that it’s really good as well. Tight at the top. Four way tie. Four horse lead. Courses for horses. All that. Maybe none. But now it’s down to two. Scott. Cabrera. Two holes to go. Ads come on. I’ll check my email quickly. Anything, anybody? Nobody, nothing. Just a Google reminder: Call up to Book Soup. What’s that for agai- Oh balls. That’s right. I must call up to suss out a few things. And. There’s that book club on today as well. What time is it on again – Four. Twenty minutes. Hmm. Fully forgot about it. Should I go? Only a ten minute walk. But the golf is good. I’ve watched it since the start. Can’t just not watch it now really on the last two holes. Shut up, you can, stop being lazy. Call up to Book Soup. Suss out that book club. See if anything happens. OK. Let’s go. Adventure on! Continue Reading »

About these ads

Miami Vice. Very Nice.

2 Comments

South Beach

Boogie Shoes – KC & The Sunshine Band

Winning Streak. Back in the day this was the main TV game show in Ireland. Might still be. Contestants would go on and spin a wheel or guess something and win money. The easy part was winning. The hard part was getting on. I think you had to buy a scratch card and get three star icons. This then meant you could send the scratch card in where it was put in a drum and each week on the show the name of three lucky contestants would be drawn. Lot of hoops. But. If you ever made it on, you were going to win something. A brand new Opel car! Ohhh. Two thousand euro! Wow. A luxurious holiday away for two! Dear Jesus. I think one extra lucky person at the end got a chance to ‘Spin the Wheel’ where the top prize was 500,000 euro. Something like that.

The wheel was basically a vertical roulette table with different sections indicating different prize amounts. A ping pong ball would be dropped in at the bottom and the extra lucky person would spin the wheel. The nation would then watch the ball dart around the wheel, bouncing along until it slowly came to a stop. Wherever the ball landed, that was your prize. Usually it would hop between 250,000 and 2,000 on the wheel, so you’d get the old “Is she going to win the big prize, is she, she is, she just won-” Ball hops one more time – “2,000 euro”. Ohhh, so close. The softly spoken presenter, who might have previously been a priest, would then say “Unlucky Mary but at least you got something. Aren’t you happy?” “I am” Mary would reply as she waves goodbye at the camera, her family in the audience hold up their banners and flags saying ‘GOOD GIRL MARY!’ ‘UP TYRONE!’ ‘COME ON THE PARISH!’

Classic show. Easy to see why Continue Reading »

Comfortably Dumb

6 Comments

Sweatpants

Cause – Rodriguez

So yesterday a couple of lights, bombs, bells and whistles exploded off in my head. It’s a been a while. Epiphany on. I was talking to a guy who asked me a simple enough question:

What have you been doing lately?

Rattled off the usual replies.

This.

That.

The gibber.

Grand. As you duu. Until he asked a follow up: Continue Reading »

Hung Like A Horse!

1 Comment

Thrift Shop – Macklemore & Ryan Lewis

It’s a Sunday night. You’re sick of talking to banterless clowns in dead bars. So you go to a liquor store. And end up down an alley. Trying to have a laugh with some homeless guy. Who’s trying to take a drink from your brown paper bag. Life. Going. Well. Wake up the next day. Look in the mirror. Shake your head. Slap your soul. Say no more. Time to cop on.

Now obviously none of that actually happened. Ahem. However. Ever since that night, I haven’t boozed a drop. Not a sniff. Not a touch. Not a smell. Nothing more. Four weeks and counting. Booze off. Work. On.

Surprisingly, far easier than I anticipated. Thought it might be tough going dealing with clowns while DJing but stick a Red Bull in the system and you’re as dancing as ever. Obviously numerous advantages to this non-boozing too. Such as, the lack of hangovers. Sundays have taken on a whole new meaning, a whole new feeling. Even the lack of mysterious grogginess felt after you’ve only had one or two drinks the night before – Gone. Now refreshed. Clear headed. Raring to go. Thank funk too. No time to be hungover.

Coinciding with a lack of booze, has been an immense amount of work. From an intense trip down the well to get a show bible written, to starting an edit of book three, to planning trips to New York, the Caribbean and London, to setting up meetings in various places, to booking stand up shows here there and everywhere, to meeting producers, to greeting directors, to lining up actors, to gibbering on, to shooting a music video, to traveling all over for DJ jigs, to doing double shifts, to them blurring into quadruple ones, to getting a haircut, to brushing my teeth, to washing my socks, to writing this blogaruu, it has been pretty full on. Look. A hair was cut… Continue Reading »

Weekend at Bernie’s

Leave a comment

Running Up That Hill (Louis La Roche Remix) – Kate Bush

Some things in L.A appear will never change. Not unless I do, anyway. Such as, people calling me by the wrong name over and over. Ever growing list at this stage. The usuals still apply. Merrick. Eric. Omar. Moved on a lot to Merk. Murk. Maaaaarrrk. Sometimes when I say my full name I get mistaken for a Mexican guy named Marquez. And then at one point someone working at Coffee Bean thought my name was America. Combination of being asked a question by two people at the same time: ‘Your name… Merrick?’ ’So a large coffee?’ Eh, Mark – Yeah… ‘Coffee for America!’ Although another time I asked for coffee recently I got the reply: ‘Cathy? I’m not too sure. Let me check – Hey guys, does a Cathy work here? Sorry man, no Cathy.’

So that was fun.

Considering all of the name confusion that has already occurred due to my accent and mumbles (along with everyone in L.A having lazy ears, tut), I was still a bit surprised about my name morphing earlier on today: Continue Reading »

Pre-Paradise Prambles…

6 Comments

Man On Fire – Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros

Not sure where my dose of self-diagnosed claustrophobia came from exactly. Maybe from when I was in fifth class in primary school. And for some reason a group of us were put in class with people in sixth class. The Special Ones, as we called ourselves. Too smart for fifth class! As a result, we were let run free on Continue Reading »