Luck of the Irish

Let me just say this up front: I respect the hell out of the Irish. I don't think there's a group in history that can equal the per capita contribution to culture and civilization that the Irish have had.

All-around great guy and expert in lots of things R. Sherman pointed out how Irish monks were instrumental in saving western civilization. It is said that when Charlemagne was expanding his empire, he imported Irish monks to be his scribes due to their high literacy.

But the contributions go beyond this. It seems like all the Irish are painters, authors, poets or musicians -- or a little bit of each.

And while I'd like to be able to associate myself with this heritage -- I do have ancestors who came here from Ireland -- my Black Irish blood has been so diluted over the years by various British, German, and other European nationalities (except for those freaky-deaky Dutch!) that I could hardly be called anything other than American at this point.

Besides, I think I've just had it too good to honestly claim to be Irish. And that's not meant to be an offense to real Irish people. Like I said, I respect the hell out of them. It's just that I think all of the great art that comes out of Ireland is the natural response to the hardships the country has faced throughout its history.

If you subscribe to the view -- as I am beginning to more and more -- that great art comes from pain and suffering, then its no surprise that the Irish are so artistically prolific.

The history of Ireland is tragic and bloody more often that it's not. Viking pillaging, British massacres, religious discrimination and systematic subjugation, poverty, famine -- all of this tragedy seems to have been bred into the very bloodlines of the Irish.

Still, when someone comes up to you, particularly on St. Patrick's Day, and says "Luck o' the Irish to ye!" you're supposed to take that as some kind of pleasantry.

Luck of the Irish to me? What the hell did I do to deserve that?

tagged: Ireland, Irish, art, culture, St. Patrick's Day, Charlemagne, Yeats

YouTube Tuesday: When Irish Eyes are Glazed Over

Hey, it's never too early to celebrate our fake Irish heritage. Afterall, as the Someecards people put it, this is the one holiday where our full-blown alcoholism could possibly go undetected.



tagged: Irish, drinking, song, video, St. Patrick's Day, eejit

Bracketage

Against my better judgment, I am once again posting my NCAA Tourney bracket. Why? I guess because I enjoy being mocked and made fun of.

I've admitted before that I go with my heart and not my head on these kinds of things (and we know how that turns out). Sure, I could follow the pack, pick the top seeds, and probably do much better. But where's the fun in that? Well, yes, I suppose I can see the fun would be in rubbing it in the face of all my friends how awesome I am at picking basketball winners.

But I guess I don't see the point of being a basketball fan if you can be a fan. Anyway, all that is in defense of why I have an all-Wildcat final with K-State beating Kentucky.

Click to embiggen...
tagged: college, basketball, NCAA, Tournament, KSU, sports, K-State

YouTube Tuesday: Keep walking

It's interesting here in the state's, where the 30-second ad spot rules the airwaves, to see long form video advertising.

I mean, it's interesting when it's done well, like with this outstanding Johnie Walker spot featuring actor Robert Carlyle (Trainspotting, The Full Monty).

I dig how this 5-minute spot was all done in a single camera shot. Speaking of shots, pass me the Johnnie Walker.



tagged: YouTube, Tuesday, video, Johnnie Walker, commercial, Robert Carlyle, Scottland

Oscar wild

I'm trying here people. I'm really trying. A weekend of nice weather and sunshine helps. I mean, it helps a lot.

But then the Oscar's happen. And I get that creeping realization that I get whenever I lift my head out of this societal foxhole to take a look around for signs that our culture is, even in the slightest way, recovering.

Alas, Sunday evening's presentation of the Academy Awards was just another example of how narcissistic and fame-obsessed our society has become.

Now let me be clear, I like movies (good ones, anyway). I think there's a lot of good art produced in this format. Of course there's also a lot of dreck. The 80/20 rule applies here as with everything else.

But I've never been able to watched the Academy Awards show. I've watched moments before. Even last night I caught about 5 minutes before I wanted to choke myself. But frankly I consider the Oscar's a kind of masturbation, where insecure attention seeking "celebrities" metaphorically jerk off their peers in an attempt to convince themselves that they are more important than they actually are.

From what I can recall seeing on the DVR's channel directory, Oscar programming for the event started at 6:30 p.m. and lasted until 10:30. Organizers expanded the number of entries for "Best Picture" and increased the celebrity fawning by an order of magnitude (which I didn't think was possible).

The Daily News kind of sees it the same way

Instead of focusing on the awards podium, where individuals are rewarded for achievement, an increased portion of the television evening focused on the literal and figurative red carpet, where everyone is rewarded for being famous.

And why? Why is it so important for Americans to get such a high dose of celebrity worship? Nobel Prizes in physics or medicine are lucky to get a paragraph above the fold in a single news cycle. Where are the accolades for people working to cure cancer, or feed hungry people, or develop clean abundant energy, or create and antiperspirant that works passed noon?

We spend hours celebrating people who spend half a billion dollars on a glorified Smurf cartoon and then get pissed because they didn't win a little gold-plated statue. We stare in amazement at actresses who are so together they they are able to walk along a red carpet without falling over.

Sometimes, during fits of misanthropic paranoia, I wonder if this kind of meaningless, mind draining celebrity worship is just a way to keep the culture dependent -- a mass opiate that keeps us calm and entertained while billionaire bankers and insurance companies decide how politicians are going to divvy up the country.

The best case scenario, as I see it, is that this exponentially increasing celebrity worship is part of the same phenomenon that has made Las Vegas such a big disaster waiting to happen. And you don't have to be a rocket surgeon to realize what the problem is.

Our national priorities are seriously out of whack.

tagged: Academy Awards, Oscars, Hollywood, movies, culture, pop culture

No good deed

So I'm waiting from clearance to back out of my parking spot this morning after picking up a Colombian Supremo from the QT.

It's a busy parking lot and lots of cars are going back and forth behind me, coming or going or whatever. The car next to me, a older Honda beater driven by two younger girls who look like they woke up just long enough to drive to QT and get a convenience store breakfast, sees an opening an quickly backs out.

Being the gentleman I am, I grant them the right-of-way out of the goodness of my heart. Keeping an eye on them to make sure they're clear before I back out as well, I notice the passenger rear tire is about 90 percent flat.

So again, being the gentleman I am, I signal to the driver, I point toward her rear passenger tire. She stares back at me like a cold cup of coffee. By now she has backed out and turned, giving me room to back out and turn the opposite direction. This has the affect of lining up our drivers side windows.

So roll down my window and signal again. She lowers her window and I explain about her tire being flat. She glances at the passenger, then back at me. She doesn't say anything, but gives me a look like I told her I just ran over her cat.

No "thanks for the tip." No "at least I'm glad I didn't head out onto i-435 with it."

Instead just a stink-eyed glare full of kill-the-messenger.

tagged: traffic, good deed, do gooders, QuickTrip, Honda, commute, car

It's Spanish for "The Vegas"

Let me just get this out of the way up front. Las Vegas is a horrible, awful city.

I know that's just one blogger's opinion and there are a lot of people who disagree. But from my perspective, what happens in Vegas should stay in Vegas.

I was there over the weekend for some business meetings and the experience reinforced my view that Vegas is the apotheosis of all of the worst qualities of America.

The visitor to Las Vegas is greeted with an eye-bludgeoning array of tasteless architecture and gaudy signage. It's frankly offensive to my sense of aesthetic. I like to think of myself as understated -- even minimalistic. That is something Las Vegas is not.

Each hotel/casino/resort has a more gregarious facade than the last. They encourage you to experience places like New York, Paris, Venice, Como and even Egypt -- all while staying within one wallet-lightening city. After all, why bother visiting the real Statue of Liberty or Rialto Bridge when you can visit a 1/3-scale replica and take a gondola ride in an in-door swimming pool?

Americans are having a real problem with artificiality. We eat artificial food, watch artificial television and go to artificial places. And I suppose it wouldn't be so bad if there just wasn't so damn much of it in Las Vegas.

The place is a monument to waste and excess. For cryin' out loud, it's a metro area of nearly two million people in the middle of a desert. Those residents and the millions of additional tourists each year using up water that used to flow down the Colorado River. Thanks to Vegas and other desert metropolises like Las Angeles and Phoenix, the Colorado River no longer has enough water to flow all the way to the Pacific Ocean.

Hell, the water level in Lake Mead itself is at a historical low. Some scientist worry that it will soon be too low to run the hydroelectric generators in Hoover Dam.

And the natural resources waste is only slightly worse than the waste in fiscal resources Las Vegas represents. The entire city is built upon the proposition of taking money from people who have more cash than good sense.

But the sight of bleary eyed, hungover, newly broke frat boys is comical compared to the poverty that you see if you drive 10 minutes from the Las Vegas strip. There are people living in concrete block hovels (in the desert, mind you) just a mile or two from ostentatious water displays.

There's not really anything to be done about it. Las Vegas is just another example of Americans entertaining ourselves to death. Eventually there won't be enough water in Lake Mead to power the hydroelectric generators that provide electricity to Vegas. By that time our economy will have really crashed and nobody will have the cash to lose to the casinos, let alone pay the airfare and extra baggage fees to get to the middle of the desert in the first place.

But the food there is pretty good.

tagged: Las Vegas, Lake Mead, Hoover Dam, casino, travel, waste, environmentalist

YouTube Tuesday: Terminus

I really dig the way this independent short film combines creepy with quirky to illustrate the psychological baggage that follows us all around and what will happen to us if we don't deal with it properly.

Or maybe I'm just too high on NyQuaFed.



tagged: YouTube, Tuesday, movie, film, short, Terminus, humor

My favorite Martin

So we're pretty deep in to the college basketball season with only a few regular season games left before the conference tournaments and then the biggie NCAA Tourney.

And while good sportsmanship has prevented me thus far from cheering too loudly for the good guys from the Little Apple (another Twager, alas, wasn't in the cards for basketball season), I think now is a good time to raise a toast to the success of Frank Martin and his team for a remarkable season.

The Wildcats, currently ranked #6 in both polls, are having their best season since... ever ... and are considered to be a real contender for a Final Four spot come tourney time.

They have absolutely exceeded my expectations this year (duh). I took a wait and see attitude a few years ago when Bob Huggins pissed in my Post Toasties and the recent success of the team has been a bright spot for college athletics in this state.

So sure, let's raise a glass to Frank Martin for a job well done.

But the question is, a glass of what? Such accomplishments demand something special, something tailored to the occasion, something representative of the achievements to which we are toasting.

So, I submit to you a new cocktail: The Frank Martini

The Frank Martini

3 Part(s) Vodka
1 Splash Chambord Raspberry Liquor
1 Splash Sweet & Sour Mix
1 Drop(s) Lemon Juice
1 Dash(es) Extra Dry Vermouth

Add all ingredients into a martini shaker filled with ice. Shake and strain into 2 well chilled martini glasses.

Be sure to drink it with a glare in your eye...

tagged: sports, basketball, NCAA, Frank Martin, K-State, Wildcats, alcohol, Martini

YouTube Tuesday: Playing the Straightman

Coming to a small screen near you...



tagged: YouTube, Tuesday, catchphrase, academy, movie, parody, humor