Monday, February 16, 2009






Tone Of Discourse: Patriotic to the point of armed rebelion, slightly amnesiac

Definitive Grammar: "My God. I remember this live and the goosebumps came up and I too clapped in my living room..."

What do you think of when you think Ireland? Well stop thinking immediately because the answer is Riverdance. The answer is Riverdance the answer is Riverdance the answer is Riverdance. And why?


Exactly, Conor. EXACTLY. And kudos on what may or may not be a terrible Jewish surname.

You see, pre-1994 was a dark, dusty, dreary, dingy, Dana time when Irish people were nothing more than a hasty arrangement of sackcloth and warts, not fit for the public eye and certainly not fit for flailing our collective limbínís on the European stage.

But all that changed with the glorious advent of that year's Eurovision Song Contest, apparently sponsored by the Great Lord Sauron (circa the first few minutes of Fellowship of the Ring)...

Tell me you don't see it.

...when we rode high on the coat tails of Niamh Kavanagh's rendition of "In Your Eyes" and into the international record books as Noted Foot-Tappers (Wart Free Since '94!). Was there anything worth living for before that moment?

"Anyone got a bit of cock?"

That's a no, then. So it's hardly surprising that the good people that lurk in the deepest corners of the Tube found time in their hectic schedule of inserting numbers into names to cast their watchful eye over a questionable recording of the momentous occassion. I say questionable not because of the poorish quality that renders even the loveliest of dancers an uncomortably belimbed amorphous blob, but rather because it is brought to you by the good people (or, as I suspect, person) at www.eurosong.webbyen.dk.

Now my attempts at describing this site wouldn't really cut the proverbial "hyldestside", so you go off and visit that there site. I can wait.










Still waiting.









See? We're not dealing with the sanest of uploaders here. Block colours, waving flags, scrolling banner pictures, bloated frames that may or may not have been designed by a first-year Multimedia student, the evidence of soiled blankets wrapped around a hunched figure poring over a laptop in a room that may or may not have been recently dipped in tea is hard to ignore. To say nothing of the fact that it only goes up until 2002, implying the owner may have succumbed to Lime Disease (isn't it always?) long before he or she got to see Lordi return the competition to its former glory through the medium of guitar and restrictive-in-exactly-the-wrong-places Nordic leatherwear. Tragic.

But what do the good people of the world have to say about this under-HTML-tutored deceased loner's contribution to the six or seven videos which grace this fantastic YouTube video-torium? Will their contributions pick apart the subtle combination of drumbeat and haunting voice which graces the video's opener? Or the impact the performance may have had in a pre-Good Friday agreement Republic? Or.... aw to hell with it, you know what's coming:

............

"I'm just gonna stand here while you try and read that....... oh look a flower."

And it's not like IrishBayub didn't have a lot of material to work with. We're talking about a show that not only gave us the excessive flaildom of the irrepressible Michael Flatley, the auburn goddess Jean Butler (unrelated to the DC Comics villain The Gene Butler), but on top of them both, this woman who may or may not be the lovechild of Hagrid and... well Hagrid pretty much covers it.

"I've shaved, Harry."

But instead the common thread running through the comments seems to be a kind of blind admiration, equal parts patriotism, erection and mild concussion, endlessly searching for the name of the tune the twinkled-toed leprechauns are bouncing effortlessly across Europe to. The only thing that holds the vaguely thought out meanderings of the posters together appears to be a complete inability to retain any sort of information or scroll / glance to where the name of the song played may be hidden. The question is answered at least four times more than it is asked, and perhaps most disheartening of all is the realisation that the sheer godawful quality of the video itself pretty much guarantees that anybody who stayed long enough to ask certainly isn't coming back to find an answer. Actual responses to comments are few and far between, and mainly amount to something along these lines:


From shammed to sofisticated cluster bombs in five posts. We're through the looking glass here, people. And this is coming from someone who's been staring at this for the past three hours:

"Behold my velvety birthing structure and dare to weave it into the history of your nation!"

That's right, insanity has a new name, and according to recent poster partyfortwoakaflower its name is "Riverdacne". Which frankly might have made for a much more entertaining performance, and the Neutrogena sponsorship opportunies are endless. Where's that bitch Kristin Kreuk when you need her?

"Look at you. You make me sick. I don't even HAVE fuckin' pores. Now get out of my sight 
before I find someone who has arms to beat you up."

Well said, Kristin, well said. And a fitting tribute to the people who've watched Smallville for SEVEN FUCKING YEARS OF MY LIFE YOU STUPID BITCH.

So what life lesson can we take from the good people who've taken the time, energy, blood, sweat, tears, hunch, velvet, hairspray and Neutrogena to invest themselves in this particular comment page?


EUROVISIOLICIOUS!


Strayest Of Stray Observations, Suggestions And Compords:

Anyone remember that goo that killed Tasha Yar in Star Trek? (1:25)

Or the weirdly direction-inducing carpets that they still have in Heatons? (1:45)

Feel the velvet... (1:55)

The Gene Butler encounters an indecisiveness "crossthelinedon'tcrosstheline" moment. (2:15)

Oh, so that's where they got the credits to Tubridy Tonight (2:30)

Dance for the Cadbury's buttons! DANCE! (4:55)

Sauron rears his ugly head once again (5:10)

That amorphous blob in red kind of freaks me out. High-class hooker or Estonian foreign minster? (6:46)


And now, turn the whole thing down while listening to...

Jay-Z's "Brooklyn We Go Hard". Uileann pipes be damned.