Vlog On!

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Basically, that 1:18 was the most productive thing I probably accomplished all weekend. So, obviously, it has been a great weekend! I know it is a very insignificant thing in global terms. Still though, wuu, first vlog is under my belt, duck is broken. Plough on from here on in. Even if it is in Irish. I think I might do my second one in German. English then for the next 100. There is a reason for it being in Irish as well. I needed a video of me speaking the fine language for a reel, so went with the vlog route Lets not dwell too much on the standard, content, or lack of sense I actually might be making. What am I actually speaking about in it? Who knows. In the other edit I have there is about 6 extra minutes with stand-up footage. As you might guess, that cut is far less enjoyable to sit through than the one I put up here. Editing by numbers on iMovie is actually a good old hoot as well. A lot (1 minute, 18 seconds) can be manipulated from 3 rambling takes.

Besides that nugget of joy above, another good thing occurred last night about DJ’ing in Ireland. The majority of bar/club owners want you to play cheesy/pop music. Safe and sensible kind of thing. However, last night I figured out that, thankfully, some can be slowly changed to your way of thinking. I think I have one place cracked and open to the remixes, after originally been asked for complete cheese. Anyone can play cheese. It is pointless. When a 65 (ish) year old Irish man, and a 20 (ish) year old Brazilian girl both compliment the same remixed song, the balance needed to please most people might have been struck. No more selling of the soul. Completely anyways, a bit has to be expected. Although I personally think any time I can manage to play the likes of the Bee Gees, Wham, Blur, and The Kinks, in the same cluster, it has to be looked on as a good night. Remix on! 

Friday night made me cop on to something else as well. That is, when I am feeling burnt out and my brain is dying for a break, I need to actually chill out completely. Not do what I have been aping around with lately, and taking a break from something like writing X, Y or Z, by then doing another small thing on my to-do list, like working on my visa route, for example. Not that I am trying to say I am the busiest, hardest working fool in the world, or any of that. Just that I do have my brain switched on a bit too much at times, forgetting it too needs a break. Otherwise it might break down. And, surprisingly, even though I ended up in a club that was dead, it was some laugh.

Unfortunately the buddy I went out with has a conundrum from the night. Since then, he has been texting to and fro with a girl. However it was towards the end of the night when he got the girl’s number, so he might have been a tad drunk. Now he has one problem… he cant remember at all what she looks like. Well, besides the very basic outline of size, hair colour and that she was foreign. He thinks she was nice, his type and all that, but then again he thought he was a good dancer when he was drunk too. So, seeing as her and a friend of hers want to meet up with him and a buddy of his, it basically would all just be a big blind date. And, lets be honest, who really wants to go on a full on blind date?

I didn’t really know what to tell him. If you have any words of advice, feel free to let him know. You can tell me, and I’ll pass it on. End of the gibberish, my brain needs a bit more rest to go back to work tomorrow. Vlog on!

Two songs, one new, one old. The first is a crescendo style summer song, and the second is just savage!

Delorean

Seasun - Delorean

The Kinks

You Really Got Me - The Kinks

And seeing as Vimeo might not work for everyone above (cheers again @SteveIsaacs for the info and help… http://steveisaacs.tv) here’s the vlog in Youtube glory as well. I am pimping it out far too much already…

Blissfully Unaware

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On paper, these 3 things sound good. It was hot today. Good laugh out in Dubla last night. The train back to Cork was full of women. 3 positives. You would think. However, combine a factor from each, and it actually turns fairly sour. 3 hours stewing in the potent, combined smell of sweat and fake tan, on a train, while hungover to the gills, is not the greatest way to spend a Saturday afternoon. But, can’t complain. I got an opening paragraph out of it at least. 

Unfortunately, like a text I tried to send earlier, that paragraph took me at least 20 minutes to write. It has been a slow, dumb day. The text was at least 4 times the length of that paragraph as well, one of those horrendously rambling texts I enjoy sending, every now and again. Every 5 minutes or so. In the end, I had to delete it all, due to the complete lack of sense it even came close to making, and just sent “Yes”. Which I have yet to receive a reply back from. No wonder my Dublin jinx, in a certain area, powers on.

Thursday night was looking so promising as well. Well, in the sense that a quite tasty lady, for whatever reason (drink?), was laughing at all my joke. Make that plural actually, if you count the fact I now tell the same one in Arabic. Until, that is, she broke into tears. Sad tears too. Not really the kind of reaction one hopes for. I suppose its a reaction at least. In an effort to make her feel better, and so she would stop thinking it was weird that she started crying in a crowded bar, I started to join in with her. I can now spring tears it appears. At least the acting classes in L.A have paid off in one way, well worth the money I didn’t have to pay. She appreciated the gesture, then probably found it weird. And then went to the bathroom. I didn’t wait around that long for her to come back. 17 minutes flies by on your own. (Tears? Seriously? How did I actually think that might’ve went well?)

Last night was completely different, you’ll be glad to hear. The interesting offers were flying in. Two tempting 3-some offers. Very tempting. Except the fact that neither were the good kind which one dreams of. One was a joke, I think, from a buddy and his lady friend. A joke. Definitely. I think. While the other, was from some random dude I met at the bar , waiting to order a drink. Who asked me would I be up for it, the other people involved being him, and my buddy. The same one who was with his lady friend. She got the chop it seemed. I politely declined his offer, and pretended to accept the drink he bought me. Don’t worry, I made sure to swap it for the one he bought for himself. Weird enough that I saw the 3 of them getting a taxi together afterwards.

Seeing as the stand-up was recorded this week, I am aware of how it went. The reaction to me doing stand-up last week was… “Are you serious? You’re joking?” before I went up, and “Well done, good boy, here’s a biscuit, fair play” when I came off stage. This week, the reaction was… “Are you sure? Do you want to do it again?” and then “Well, its done, better than last week.” Ha, progress in my eyes, practice makes perfect, can’t beat awkward silences and bombing. Once again the funniest part of the night, for me, was hunting down the organiser to get paid. I was literally chasing him through the bar, in one door, out the other, down one stairs, up the other, finally catching him, out of breath, in the men’s bathroom. And, catching him out when he claimed he couldn’t pay me more than last week, seeing as he only had €100 notes(?), he had no change. That works for me, the less change you pay me with, the better. My fee is steadily rising! 

Other meetings in Dublin went well. It seems. I think. Then again, who knows. Not one to jump the gun. I am unaware, it seems, when it comes to the big things. Thankfully, for my own sanity, I have found myself becoming more aware of the smaller things. I now work in tandem with my shadow to determine when I might need a haircut. Not a mirror. But my shadow. Isn’t that great work by me?! My priorities are really in order. A slow, dumb, dumb day. Half thinking of going the text route. A “Yes” blogaruu would make far more sense.

Still not sure if I even like this song too much, but, anyways, Yes.

Bloc Party

One More Chance - Bloc Party

Just Plain Rude

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Rapid fire time, just to get them out, feeling funked and have to get up early tomorrow. Proper early too. As in 9 – 5 early. What a disaster. 

We all have people who come up to us when we’re out, and annoy the funk out of you. They think they’re hilarious, or its joint banter, or that you have any clue what they are actually on about. Or, if they are a girl, they seem to think you might like them deep down, so them being a complete ape, won’t really matter. Well, I found a nice subtle way to stop this from occurring. Without being too rude. In the real world at least.

Simple really. Just delete them from your online social networks. It works a treat. I stumbled upon it before with Bobo, and realized it had worked Saturday night too from a deleted Spacebook link. Happy days. The likelihood that someone will come up and ask “Did you delete me?” are very slim. And if they actually were to ask, then maybe they’re not as bad as you thought after all. At least they didn’t shy away and all that. I imagine quite a few people are deleting me right now as we speak. The good news is, that it will work!

One plus lately, is that the blog is serving one of its functions. That is, I do not have to repeat stories or incidents over and over to all of my buddies. Some of them actually read it, good work. If someone might ask me a question, and I reply with a sentence that is basically a summary of a blogaruu, they might cut me off with “Oh yeah, I read that actually.” Which is very handy. Good work by the blog. Obviously, on the other hand, they might have come up with a good way of just cutting off my boring story. One sentence is all they need to hear, before they feel themselves getting lulled in and a bout of boredom approaching, so just pretend to have read it. Good work by them.

In a similar vein, I can now use the blog to cull a potentially boring story, which I might be expected to sit through. If the story is set up for being crap, and deep down I am sure the storyteller knows it is a bad story as well, like a lot of mine are too, obviously, I can simply take out a notebook and pen, and start writing stuff down. This distracts the storyteller… “What are you writing down?” … Oh, I’m just going to do a blog later on how crap this story is, sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt, keep going. So far, this has worked well. It is win-win really, we both get a laugh, no crap story is mentioned, and he can then feel free to use “Good one, put that in your blog” in a sarcastic tone from there on in. 

Have you had ever had a full blown conversation with someone, and have no clue who they were? Happened to me earlier, while walking into a shop. Walking in, some random guy greets me with a knowing nod and “How’s it going man?!” So I greeted him back with a cautious nod, and tried to think of how I might know him. The first few things out of his mouth ticked a few boxes… “U.C.C… soccer… you were gone away a while were you? I didn’t get a chance to talk to you the other day.” Which, made me think, maybe, no this sounds right, I do know you actually, how is it going man?! Yeah, just back, baa, baa… all that jazz. Conversation veered off then a tad, when I was informed that “Joe opened up a new studio upstairs, are you still taking photos yourself?” Eh, you’re losing me a bit, photos? On my disposable camera or which? At this stage, I started thinking I might not know him after all. I was going to the first floor, he was going to the second, as I turned off, he gave me a good luck nod, and “I’ll see you at soccer tomorrow shur, you played well last week!”

“Played well” and “last week” confirmed my suspicions… he is not on about me, someone else entirely. I think the look of realization on my face, might have made him click on too, judging from his facial expression. Anyways, when I came back out of the shop, he was outside as well. Had to tell him… Buddy, I think we were way off with the conversation earlier, I’ve no clue who you are. “Yeah, I realized that as I went up the stairs. You must have the same hair as a friend of mine.” Good work by both of us. Good duck.

Final bit of gibberish, is about how some people are actually just plain rude. Seriously. On the train up to Dublin earlier, no matter how many times I pretended to be on the phone, or put my iPod on, or pretend to be asleep, this guy just insisted on starting up conversations with me. Just rude. Christofa, in future, please cop on.

The whole point of this gibberish. Unfortunately, I did not manage to get a slot in the open mic stand-up this Tuesday in Dublin. I had my 3 minute set almost good to go. However, instead, while coming up on the train, I was offered a 7 minute slot in their main show on Thursday. Oh Jesus. 7 minutes, if you do not know, is a big difference than preparing for a 3 minute one.

What you endured above were a few incidents that occurred over the past few days, that I had to rustle together on the train. Reason being, I now need to double my new material for the show. Unknowingly, Christofa got my brain working, good work by him. Quantity wise at least. Quality wise… dear God, I am funked. It will be a long, uncomfortable 7 minutes for all involved. I cannot wait!

Two songs to appease you after that funbelievable gibberish! (Give the first one a few seconds to kick in, patience people!)

Discovery

I Want You Back - Discovery

Grizzly Bear - Two Weeks

Two Weeks - Grizzly Bear