Old Schtick

I’ve been going over some of my old notebooks today. A lot of notes from when I was trying stand up. Wow. I can’t believe I thought I was funny. In fairness I did have some mildly amusing lines…but actually funny? I’m not so sure. Don’t get me wrong I wasn’t Michael McIntyre bad…but I can see why my career as comedian never really took off.

There is some stuff that I want to keep for posterity and I’m going to spend the next couple of days typing them up. My handwriting has always been atrocious anyway, but some of the notepads look like they are about to erode into the sands of time.

I even had some comedy poetry. I used to write what I called my ‘5 minute poetry’ when I was queuing in the bank for change when I worked in Murphys. It was called 5 minute poetry because that how long it took to write. I wasn’t a big fan of poetry and by producing what I thought were clever little ditties, I was proving how facile poetry was.

If I could come up with this in 5 minutes that what was the big deal. I wasn’t huge fan of poetry. It rarely felt real to me, often incredibly contrived and unnecessarily trite. Although its possible people feel the same way about some of the stuff I write.

I think a lot of it harks back to my adolescent attempts at poetry. I once wrote about how the feathers on the crow in a heavy rain shower reflected my soul. I’m sure you’ll all agree that frankly, that’s a load of mind jism.

Of course there has been some amazing poems written through the years and it says more about my arrogance than anything else, that I felt this way. I’m not sure how valid it is an art form in the modern world.

Anyway I digress. The point is, seeing as I’m typing up this stuff I was thinking I might stick some of it up for people to point and laugh at. I’ll keep them separate from regular postings and I won’t advertise them as such when I send out links….so if you like them and you want to read more you can find them tagged under ‘Old Schtick’

Please remember most of this was all written around 10 or 11 year ago. I wasn’t the fully rounded individual that I am today. And if anyone was ever dragged along to my comedy gigs it will be familiar to you.

Its not supposed to be a masterclass in writing or comedy. I just think its interesting (for me at least) to compare my style and material to what i was doing back then. I might even throw a little commentary as to what the thinking behind it was.

So without further ado. Ladies and Gentlemen, Insert Witty Pop Culture Reference Here is proud to present, My Old Schtick part 1.

NEW WARDROBE

I need a new pair of shoes
My own are battered and worn
I need a new pair of shoes
My own won’t last long

I need a new pair of trousers
My own are out of style
I need a new pair of trousers
At Parties I stick out a mile

I need a nice new shirt
One with the buttons all there
I need a nice new shirt
I also need new underwear

I need a new wardrobe.

This was one of the first of my 5 minute poems.( The second maybe? The first was the first verse of Ode to a Doleite.)I was working in Murphys Newsagents on Baggot St. earning between £3.50 or £4.00 an hour.

Most of my wages at the time was going to the many drinking establishments such as the The Wellington and Searsons. Between them and paying for trivial things, like food and board to my mother, I had no time for extravagancies such as new shoes.

I wrote this the day after walking, in the rain, to one of the local hostelries with some of my colleagues. My current footwear had an enormous hole in the sole and my socks were acting as some kind of sponge taking in all the excess rainfall of Dublin 4.

I commented that I might 'splash out and treat myself' to a new pair of shoes...you know, ones without holes. Colin, having always been incredibly wise, rightly pointed out that such a thing wasn't really a luxury item. More of a necessity in a place with a climate such as Irelands.

It changed my way of thinking I tell you.

It is also worth nothing that while in the poem I do say I need new underwear, at this time I was permanently going commando.

Old Schtick Part 2

I wrote this stuff in an attempt to impress a girl. She was having a hard time at home with her sister who was a born again christian.

Drawing inspiration from the likes of 'The Life of Brian' and Bill Hicks I decided that if I could satirize religion (this is 26 year olds me attempt at satire,)it would be a sure fire way to win her heart. Or at least loosen some buttons.

The last line was misguided attempt to tackle a second sacred cow of Americana...like I said, I was trying to be like Bill Hicks


10 Things you didn't know about God.

1) Contrary to the popular belief he wasn't born in a stable. He was born in a private Maternity Ward in Uptown Bethlehem. His mother Melanie had an epidural.

2)He performed his first miracle at the age of two months when he turned his mothers breast milk to wine

3)He once got a D in Religious Education when he could not explain how he could be 3 persons in one. Judas got an A for his comparison of Jesus to a Shamrock.

4) The argument of evolution over God Creation was caused by the early arrival of puberty. The Apes were also made in his likeness, he just couldn't shave very well.

5)His first girlfriend was Elizabeth the Millers Daughter. She dumped him after he told his friends he had seen her boobs.

6)His stigmata were caused by an incident with some javelins and a slippy gym floor.

7)He always ate egg and chips on a Thursday.

8)He was a member of the Bad Dudes before joining rival gang the apostles.

9)The loaves and fishes story was actually a shared McFish Sandwich he and Peter had after a night on the beer.

10) He was gay....So was Elvis.

Exploitation

I don’t normally do film reviews. It’s not something I want to get into. I love writing and I love movies but I have if a feeling if I tried to cross them my enjoyment of one would suffer for the benefit of the other.

When I go the cinema I like to enjoy what I’m seeing. Put myself in the movie and go with it. Whether it’s something that requires a lot of attention or a brain off, popcorn shovelling blockbuster. If I were to do reviews I’d need to take notes, look for flaws, and rate every individual line of script.

Also, sometimes, when my brain is in the right frame of mind I happen to enjoy some truly terrible movies. I know The Mummy was awful, but the 3ft long marshmallow I was eating whilst watching it meant I was having the time of my life. How could I possibly write anything negative about that experience?

That said, I do want to talk about a movie I saw this week. It was a movie that I didn’t really expect much from. I had a couple of hours to kill, I was in town, and my Cineworld pass was burning a hole in my pocket.

So I went in and entered the snaking maze of elasticated barriers they have to control the queuing masses. On this occasion there was no queue so I had to wind my way around the dividers with the three people selling the tickets watching me zig zag my way to their position. I could have just walked around the barriers but surely that would lead to some sort of anarchy. I got to the man with the ponytail behind the counter, gave him my card and said “One for the Karate Kid please”

So with ticket in hand and my contraband bag of store bought popcorn secreted away under my jacket I went and had what can only be described as the most uncomfortable viewing experience I have ever had to endure. I want to try and explain why and I just hope I don’t end up sounding like the Daily Mail.

The film itself is not terrible. Its pretty loyal to the original (despite a change of location and martial art style,) which while hardly a classic has a basis of one of the most enduring stories ever told. Boy adapts from what he knows and learns way to overcome evil. Story telling at its simplest. So if you’ve seen the original there is nothing really in the way of spoilers in this piece.

Jackie Chan as always was very watchable. While he’s no Mr. Miyagi, his character of Mr. Han has a charm and when Chan is on screen you should always keep watching because you can never be sure what surprises he has in store.

The issue I had was with the child actors, especially Jaden Smith in the lead role. I’m not taking about his performance. As child actors go he seems quite capable and has a certain confidence on screen that can only really come from having Will Smith as your father. Smith junior was quite good in the Pursuit of Happyness so he does have some chops.

Its been well documented that it Jaden Smith went to his parents and said he wanted to make a movie like the Karate Kid. Being the mega rich Hollywood power couple (Will Smith is married to actress and producer Jada Pinkett Smith) that they are they indulged their sons whim and production began on the movie.

So we have a twelve year old boy playing a twelve year old character that was originally played by a twenty two year old man playing a 16 year old character. This I think is very important. The Kung Fu shown in this movie is at times quite brutal and to see a child go through that is at times quite unsettling

Jaden plays a boy, Dre, who having moved to China, with his mother for her job, then struggles to settle in and is bullied in school. The rest is then pretty loyal to the original where the ‘Karate Kid’ learns (in this case) Kung Fu and goes on to battle his bullies in a big competition.

My first big problem was with the mother character. She was outright negligent. On his first day in China, she sends Dre off to find the maintenance man. He's has no idea where he is, it has just been established he can't speak the language and yet she is happy for him to go wandering the streets of Beijing whilst she catches 40 winks.

It never seems to be a problem for her that her son spends far too much time with a stranger. She never questions the nature of the relationship. Anything to distract her little boy. She is told that Dre is learning Kung Fu from the man who came to fix the shower and she accepts this as the legitimate explanation .

On one occasion she arrives in Mr. Han's house and finds him drunk and what can only be described as handcuffed and dancing (actually practising Kung Fu, but it looked like dancing) with her only child and she smiles as if it is the cutest thing she ever saw.

She watches as her soon partakes in violent competition and cheers him on, never once questioning if it is appropriate. Even when the doctor advises that he should not take any further part in the competition she still allows him to proceed.

Then there was what I guess was the romantic subplot. Dre forms a bond with Meiying, a young girl from his school who is studying violin in the hope of going to the Beijing Academy of Music. What should be a harmless friendship had me shifting uncomfortably in my seat.

Both actors are clearly children but the blossoming connection they have is played out in an adult manner from the overly romantic setting of their first kiss to the overtly sexual dancing of Meiying in the arcade and the way in which Dre reacts to it.

I feel Jaden Smith was way too young for such a role. Realistically the role needs an older actor and I don’t feel the material was appropriate for a 12 year old. Even for a 12 year old with better muscle definition than your average WWE wrestler. Twelve year old's should not have six packs. It has to be said the child spent far too much time with his shirt off.

In one of the first scenes between Smith and Chan, Mr. Han ,who having rescued the boy from the gang of bullies, brings the child back to his office and takes the unconscious Dre’s shirt off. He was healing his bruises but I couldn't help but recognise that this is not appropriate behaviour.

Naysayer’s will probably decry this is as paranoid poppycock. Or they might tell me that the movie isn’t aimed at me. It’s aimed at young children and I’m reading too much into an innocent movie. I’d counter that by saying that any remake of an 80’s classic is not just marketed for children but for the people who loved the original.

Maybe my problem is more with the 'sexualisation' and 'exploitation' of young people in the media (I sound like the Daily Mail...god dammit) than with the movie. We have children behaving in an adult manner on screen which we are expecting to buy as normal.

When 12 year old Chloe Moretz played Hit Girl in Kick Ass there was an outrage because of the violence in that movie and the language she used(Let’s see what you cunt’s can do) there was a media furore crying exploitation and child pornography. Kick -ass, however, was a cartoon-esque pastiche (in a good way) with fantastical situations with an over 15‘s certificate. The Karate Kid is a more realistic situation with more realistic characters with realistic violence in a kid’s movie.

It’s a bit of chicken or the egg thing. Do children these days behave overly grown up because they see children on screen doing it? Or are children on screen portrayed as being overly grown up because that’s the way children in real life are. I know which I think came first.

Jingoistic

I used to want to be an actor. Actually maybe that’s not necessarily true. I think I just wanted to show off. Acting was something that let me do that but Stand Up Comedy probably suited me better because I was on stage on my own, not sharing the spotlight with anyone. We’ve discussed my enormous ego before I’m sure.

Anyway, between the times I started school and reached the end of my first (and only) year in college I had taken part in an assortment of amateur productions you would expect from institutes relying on funding from Fianna Fail led governments. Production values aside, it was something that gave me a lot of pleasure and to an extent it was something I was good at.

I have played the biggest roles you could imagine a young Irish boy would ever dare dream of. Over the years I have portrayed, with conviction matched only by the greatest student of The Method, three of the biggest characters you can imagine.

My big break came as the saviour of all our souls. Jesus Christ. Not the nativity, I did the gritty one. The Easter play. I was originally cast as St. Peter but I guess the director saw something in me and moved me up to the big role. I was a bit miffed at first because my dad had made me the sword that Peter uses to chop off the roman soldiers ear and everything. I guess when you are good you are good (or perhaps that should be when you’re good you’re God.) I took the lead role and my thirst for fame and adoration began.

From the King of Kings to the King of Rock n Roll. My portrayal of Elvis Aaron Presley was truly a site to behold. With my chubby face with drawn on sideburns (I couldn’t quite grow them thick enough) to my passable (if intermittent) Memphis accent I embodied all that the man stood for. That I didn’t win Best Actor at the M.A.D. festival was an outrage. Ironically I lost to a man playing Jesus.


The third role of a lifetime, and essentially the reason I’m writing this piece was Padraig Pearse. Non Irish readers will probably not recognise. He is a significant figure in Irish History. A leader in the 1916 rising, he read out the Declaration of Independence for the Irish Republic on the steps of the General Post Office. He was executed for his part in the attempted usurping of British Rule. I had to act out all of this in front of all the Mammies and Daddies when I was 11.

The reason I remembered this is because last week I paid a visit to Kilmainham Gaol. I had some visitors from the U. K. and they wanted to do some touristy stuff. I took them to the Guinness Storehouse, Trinity College, the Museum of Modern Art, St Patrick’s Cathedral and various establishments with a licence to sell alcohol.

I wasn’t really planning on taking them to the Gaol for fear it might be a bit anti-British for them. Three of them were English. They suggested it to me in fact and being the good host off we went. They really enjoyed it. It was an excellent tour even if some of it was (to quote our tour guide Ruairi) “grim stuff folks.”

For me it was a refresher course in all the stuff I knew from history class. A reminder of all the cruelty and violence that had gone on along the streets and footpaths of the city I have spent most of my life. I have never been nationalistic in anyway but this tour made me very aware of my Irishness.

Calm down. I’m not about to take up arms and go and ‘fight for the cause.’ That’s not something I’d ever believe in. I’m a man of words not action, a lover not a fighter, a pacifist, a hippy. I am also aware that, while the world would be a better place if everyone saw things my way, not everyone does.

What I mean by being aware of my Irishness is that it awoke something in me that hadn’t been there for a long time. A sense of pride in where I came from. All these people who were willing to risk and sacrifice their life in order to establish the country I call home. That is something to be grateful for.

And if you are going to be grateful for something you need to think about what it is that you appreciate it. Over the years, for such a small country, Ireland has punched well above its weight internationally. Whether in sport, music, film or most famously literature, for a country with a population of around five million, Ireland has consistently shone.

G.B.Shaw, Samuel Beckett, W.B. Yeats and Seamus Heaney have all won Nobel Prizes for Literature. Synge and O Casey have written some of the most interesting plays of the last 100 years. Oscar Wilde one of the greatest wits of all time, creator of some of the greatest literary pieces and the quickest retorts. James Joyce is universally accepted as one of the greatest and most complex writers of all time.

Bands like U2 and the Corrs aren’t really my cup of tea but there is no doubting their impact on an international stage. Snow Patrol, Bell X1 and Damien Rice have all made inroads in to the U.S. Music scene.

Bands like these and Thin Lizzy led by Crumlin native Phil Lynnott have no doubt encouraged thousands of Irish people to take a chance, pick up a guitar and form a band. Ireland has a successful and thriving live music scene even if it has lost a lot of support from music labels. In a time of myspace and itunes independent music is the way forward for Irish Bands anyway.

And let us not forget that we have won the Eurovision Song contest on a record seven occasions. (Am I the only one proud of that fact?)

Our achievements in sport are not to be scoffed at either. Stephen Roche and Sean Kelly, Barry McGuigan, Sonia O Sullivan, Bernard O’Shea, Eamon Coughlan, Derbhla O’Rourke, our Rugby team and on occasion our soccer team (but always our fans) have been fantastic ambassadors for our country.

I do need to mention something. The one time I felt most proud of an Irish sporting accomplishment was in 1996. The surge of pride I felt as I saw the tricolour raised and ‘Amhran na bhFhiann’ played as an Irish woman accepted the first of her three Olympic Gold medals. That woman was Michelle De Bruin.

The controversy surrounding her amazing performances that summer later tempered my national pride.
I may have been a 20 year old man but I felt like a child who just been told there is no such thing as Santa. De Bruin was later given a 4 year suspension from swimming for providing a tainted urine sample.

There are probably two things I should point out before someone get the wrong idea that i have suddenly become patriotic or jingoistic. I haven't.

Just because of newly discovered national pride that does not mean I will be standing for the national anthem. It is a song. I don’t stand for ‘Saturday Night’ by Whigfield or ‘Billy Don’t Lose My Number’ by Phil Collins either.

The second thing is the political hotbed of Northern Ireland. The six Ulster counties have never been part of my home country in my lifetime. Northern Ireland, United Ireland it makes no difference to me. If the majority of the people that live there ever want to create a united Ireland then great. If not, fine.

There are a lot of reasons to be proud of being Irish. I appreciate the welcome it affords me when I go away. People are always happy to hear you are Irish and are quick to share a joke with you.

I do hate the stereotype of the Guinness and whiskey swilling, cabbage eating, begorrah spouting leprechaun. The portrayal of the thick Irish bog hopper is something that has always gotten on my last nerve and in my desire to see that squashed I have perhaps forgotten all the good things that it is to be Irish.