Happy St. Patrick's Day

Greetings everyone!

I know I've been rare a lot. It's called life, school and a few back issues. The back issues are getting better thank goodness. At one point, I couldn't stand to sit at the computer which is why nobody heard from me during winter break. Just as my back got better, I got busy with school. Good news though, I am right now on spring break (which means I can make a posting on here).

So let's get down to some Irish business...

First of all, I love this message/greeting.



While I'm at it with the vintage u2 clips, here is Bono singing "Wild Irish Rose." I wish I could find this on a cd or something. It's really cool sounding.



Now onto other "Irish" things...

I spent the past weekend watching a few "Irish" movies. Saturday night, I saw Once and thought it was a pretty sweet film. The music is probably the best part of the whole movie. As for the story line, it's very basic and it totally relies on the music, which isn't a bad thing though. Usually musicals are rather painful to watch, but this was very subtle and extremely enjoyable. Fun fact, neither the female or male lead characters in the movie have names!

The next Irish film I watched was The Commitments yesterday afternoon. I couldn't resist from getting it on netflix. It just so happened that Glen Hansard, who played the lead guy in Once, also plays the guitarist Outspan in the movie. Not sure what genre the movie belongs under. It's kinda like a musical, but it's a comedy too. What I do know is that there's some great soul songs and fantastic performances. Every year on my radio show I play their version of "Mustang Sally" because it totally rocks. Apparently, based from the film, there is an actual Irish soul band that tours. I just hope that their lead singer is a lot nicer than the guy in the film.

The last film I watched to get into the Irish spirit was In the Name of the Father. I grew up on this film sort of. First time I saw it was when I was 10 or 11 years old. My older (half) sister was babysitting me and she was like "I want you to watch this." At that age, I just found the whole movie to be totally shocking. I understood part of it, but didn't get it fully until much later in life. My older sister educated me on the culture and social issues of Ireland. Not to mention, she gave me a love for Daniel Day-Lewis. I went many years without seeing the film but really though, it's not the kind of movie to watch on a regular basis. About two summers ago, I saw it on TV, which might I add wasn't the same (censorship sucks), but it made me remember why I love that film so damn much. Not to mention, seeing it after growing up a bit, the film made a lot more sense.

As for last night, I watched it for like maybe the 4th time ever and this time I watched with a good friend who has never seen it. My friend is all into Irish history and politics. I figure it's because part of his family is from Ireland. In the past when we talked about this stuff, it seemed like he didn't believe me that I had a real interest in those things. What I mean by this is that he thought I was trying to impress him or something whenever I claimed to be interested in Irish culture, politics and history. Not that I didn't care what he thought, but I felt like the movie would at least make him realize that I wasn't faking it. It's funny too because my father (who also watched with us) said right as we were starting the film "I remember when you and your older sister used to be obsessive about Northern Ireland and this movie."

As for the film, after all these years it still takes my breath away. I will admit, however, last night was the first time I got the chills and rather emotional while watching the scene when Giuseppe Conlon's death was announced. I think it's because my father has breathing issues and well, Giuseppe died from issues that were very similar. As for my friend, it was interesting to see his shock about the abuse and injustices that happened. I think he found the film to be really intense and very enlightening. One thing we both definitely agreed on was that the film is very good proof as to why nobody should ever mess with Daniel Day-Lewis. While I am really glad he just won the Oscar for There Will Be Blood (I still need to see that one actually), it's a damn shame that he didn't win when he was nominated for his role in this movie. Sure he did lose to Tom Hanks (The award was for his role in Philadelphia), but really there should have been a tie. Day-Lewis has played so many incredible characters, but I have found this one to be probably the most compelling. Not just because of the subject matter, but because of the humanity that is displayed. By the end of the film, it's hard not to cheer for Gerry Conlon.

Third item: What's your plans for St. Patrick's Day?

As you can tell, I spent the weekend getting in the mood for today. For tonight, I am hoping to do the whole traditional dinner thing with my family. Granted that's if I can figure out the spices for the corned beef. But later, I might go out to this pub in my neighborhood called Dante's and have an Irish Cider (I don't like beer much...sorry Chris lol). Knowing it, I'll probably listen to The Pogues, Stiff Little Fingers and The Undertones while at the pub. A friend of mine who loves those bands might bring his album collection to Dante's this evening. Hopefully, he'll do that. So yeah, I'll be the girl at the bar wearing both Green and Orange (green because I'm traditional and orange because well I'd be an Irish protestant if I lived in Ireland).

Hopefully, I will post again by the end of this week before I head back to College Park. Also, don't forget to do your brackets. Actually, there's a cool feature/application on facebook where you and your friends can do a NCAA bracket pool. My bracket will be ready soon. (The deadline to do the bracket on facebook is Thursday morning I do believe.) If anyone from the blog joins facebook to do this, let me know! I'll start a pool and we can see who's the best at bracketology. Ah, March Madness is in the air.

Cheers,
Megan

ps- If you do join facebook or are on there, feel free to bug me.

Oh and one more thing, that photo at the beginning of the entry is me at my first real, official dj gig at a bar. I played all sorts of good music and it was with a local friend of mine. The gig happened March 1st at Dante's.