Sausages Journalism Culture Blogging.
March 19, 2008
If your in the business of making sausages (or anything practical like that) then here is a great opportunity for you. For a modest fee The Academy will turn you into a journalist. Apart from the increase in salary that this will afford you there are other benefits which you may not be aware of.
For instance , as a journalist you may claim to be a champion of truth . You don’t have to be a good journalist to make this claim nor do you have to have even the vaguest interest in truth. You can also create the illusion that you are intelligent and most people will accept it as fact regardless of how stupid you might be. You can , in short , pass yourself off as a cultured chap with all that that implies. You can even sell your soul and still be applauded for it. Now if you decide not to be a journalist but to remain at the sausage factory then its a different matter altogether. In the latter case you may find yourself being labeled a ‘racist’ or ‘homophobic’ without you even having expressed an opinion on these matters.
Of course you don’t have to take up journalism. You could just as well take a crash course in poetry or film making. Any of these options will transform your situation…
You could of course bypass The Academy , keep the money in your pocket and just learn the ‘lingo’. You could practice in front of the mirror. Just stand in front of a mirror and keep repeating the stock phrases such as ‘multiculturism’ or ‘the right to choose’ or anything else that comes into your head. You don’t have to actually understand anything about these things as no one will notice or even care. But it’s important that you look yourself in the eye without blinking or fidgeting or anything like that. Hence the need to practice in front of the mirror.
Now if your one of those people who find themselves becoming sexually aroused in the company of young people then I definitely recommend becoming a poet……as a sausage maker you’ll only get your head kicked in but if you can string a few words together your on the horses back…
You might even decide to take up the blogging. But you won’t win any points in the Irish Blog Awards as a sausage maker. There are , by the way , no Irish sausage blogs….this in spite of the fact that there is something very appealing about a sausage. A sausage is a sausage. There is something very honest about it. It is , what it says on the label. You can rely on a sausage…And a man who makes sausages is a man deserving of honour.
Cathal O’Searcaigh Mark O’Halloran The Moral Vacuum
March 16, 2008
I have written quite a bit in the last couple of weeks about Cathal O’Searcaigh and the movie , ”Fairytale of Kathmandu“. I have not seen the film and to be honest I have no interest in seeing it. O’Searcaigh is not important to me , nor are the opinions of those who choose to justify him in their various and pathetic ways. So this is my final word on the matter , for what it’s worth….
On Wednesday morning last I got up and had my two cups of coffee , flicked on my laptop and checked my emails. I had my little Sony radio sitting beside the laptop and , as is my habit , I switched it on without any real intention of listening to it…..I like a little ‘background noise’ , I’m one of those people who cannot concentrate without something at least murmuring in the background. The Tubridy Show was on and he , Brian Tubridy was talking to the Irish screen writer Mark O’Halloran but I wasn’t really paying much attention….at least that is , not to begin with.
O’Halloran had been involved in the Irish movie , “ Adam and Paul“, I think he may have acted in it but I have not seen the movie , he may have also written the script , I’m really not sure. The film is about two drug addicts . It’s a ‘day in the life ‘ kind of thing and we are invited to watch as they wander around the streets of Dublin looking for their next fix……It’s a comedy…… Before making the movie O’Halloran had followed drug addicts ( Junkies , as he called them) around the streets and he found it all a great laugh… We know this because he tells us so and he was having a good laugh while recounting the story.
He told a story about two young women , obviously stoned out of their minds , in the middle of O’Connell Street fighting over a choc-ice. He mimicked their voices ……he laughed as he recounted how these women (we can imagine them ) fought in the street like two zombies…..and this was just one of his stories…. He had lots of them , he went to great pains to explain to us how you could have great fun following human derelicts on the streets of Dublin… For , what seemed to me like an eternity , this man laughed and invited us to laugh at the spectacle of those ghost like figures we see wandering the streets of our capital city…..He went on and on ……while still laughing he told us about the young man trying to hold a cigarette in his hand while a needle was hanging from his hand at the same time…..and he laughed and laughed yet again. It was relentless….I sat in my room horrified and sickened hardly believing what I was hearing…..and still it went on …..and on… At one point there was a reference to Beckett and the absurd….but that didn’t diminish the horror of what I was hearing…..
- And O’Searcaigh ? …People keep referring to the fact that he did not feel that he was actually doing anything wrong. …How he was , in his own way , rather innocent….even vulnerable. They wonder why he seemed only too willing to hang himself in front of the camera……We all know the story by now.
But the truth of all of this is really quite simple. O’Searcaigh , like O’Halloran is a moral degenerate. These men have no moral compass to guide them. They are not even aware of the sin they commit. They are , in their own way , truly innocent….but in the wrong way….They do not understand , indeed are incapable of understanding that it is wrong , yes wrong to laugh at , or exploit those who are less fortunate than ourselves. And those who feel the need to say we must not judge in this way (they’ll judges us as ‘racist’ or ‘homophobic’ at the drop of a hat themselves) are no less morally compromised. These media hacks , the paid minions of their media bosses attempt to impose a new morality. Far from being independent they are the lumpen proletaritat in the service of the New European Corporate State. Their morality is ‘modern’ and , when necessary , flexible…….and you need a new morality when trying to justify the ‘free movement of labour’ itself the harbinger of the New European Corporate State. These , the paid servants of their press baron bosses warn of the dangers of racism while our most fundamental rights are being negated by the day…..without as much as a whisper from them. The right to strike abolished for all practical purposes as is the right to free speech….the homeless litter the streets , the sick and aged are treated with contempt , Ireland becomes an economy in place of a country and they have nothing to say…….nothing that is apart from the stock phrases , ‘HOMOPHOBIC’ and ‘RACIST’………….and like O’Searcaight and O’Halloran they are well paid…….and they know how to get an Arts Council grant….in the past we had a name for people like this ……They are the New Ireland……and they have the confidence (arrogance) that goes with new wealth……alongside their masters they have their heads in the trough and are feeding with a frenzy…..
As I said many times , O’Searcaigh is not the real issue and never was. The real issue is both simple and complex at the same time and has to do with the society we inhabit. It has to do with our values , our morality if you want to call it that. But it also has a lot to do with power and how it is exercised. It has to do with a new morality for a New Ireland and how to sell that morality……
The moral relativism of O’Searcaigh did not come from nowhere. He , and the many , the very many who stand by him are a product of the society they live in. Our education system educated these people. And none of this is an accident. It hasn’t just happened. There is , as indeed there always is , a very real logic behind all of this……there is an inevitability about it all….
………..’and we have seen it all before. We’ve seen how , in Hitler’s Germany , millions of good decent people voted into power one of the most evil men in history……and we have asked ourselves how these people could not only let it happen but be willing participants in the affair…and even while we ponder the question our poor , sick and vulnerable lie for days in hospital corridors….with every passing minute our society becomes more uncaring….the rich get even richer while the poor are marginalised…..there is a new brutality in the air…..we have become selfish…..We have become both liberal and intolerant at the same time… we are , if we but knew if , the new barbarians…
No , O’Searcaigh is not important….and his poetry even less so. He is the product of a new Ireland but more importantly the product of a new Europe…..Had he been born twenty years earlier he might have been a Christian Brother. O’Halloran will continue with his movie career….no one will condemn him , no one will point to the obscene racism behind his warped sense of humour…..The journalists of Ireland will continue to prostitute themselves in the pursuit of advancement in their trade…..Tubridy will , no doubt , continue with his radio programme……he will I imagine ,warn us of the danger of racism from time to time…..and he’ll be well paid for it too…
…………………and the landlords of Ireland will smile……..
”Sure isn’t it a great little country”.
You can find a podcast of The Tubridy Show HERE. It may take a few minutes to download depending on the speed of you internet connnection.
