Visitors and such

Been so, so, busy. Working like mad but finally got myself a holly-jolly holiday. The weather has been amazingly dry and sunny. The fam arrived yesterday and I've been giving them the Dublin grand tour. Today we went to the Powerscourt estate which is a huge and beautiful estate with Italianate and Japanese gardens and a gorgeous old mansion which has been renovated and filled with a lovely cafe and textile stores and galleries. Also took them to Glendalough to see the Wicklow mountains, two clear, clean, glacial lakes and a fourteenth century monastic settlement. From there we headed back to the city and hit up the Italian quarter for some most tasty red wine and crostinis. Am I a kick-ass tour guide or what. Unfortunately, the revolution was not televised as my digital camera shite the bed, so to speak. Damn technology. You will all have to use your imaginations. Tomorrow off to Amsterdam. Talk soon.

EuroVisions

For those of you not familiar with the EuroVision Song contest, let me enlighten you. Every year, Europeans (and Europeans to be) have the opportunity to win the Eurovision title by entering a song which is voted on by all of those europhone and sms text messagers out there in the EU and beyond. The song must not have been commercially released and the performers tend to be the unfamous, wicked-stepsister version of Brittany Spears singing in English or French with an off-key Lithuanian accent. Hit me baby. Yikes. They are notoriously cheesy. No one admits to watching Eurovision at all but I can guarantee that everyone I talk to tomorrow will know who won.

Me. I know who won. Not cuz I saw a single video but because I watched the entire tally of voting which consists of various people wearing too much make-up and too little clothing, reporting from {insert name of country here.} "Hello from the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia..." I switched it on cuz everyone who called me tonight assumed they were interupting me watching said Eurovision and that I would be less than pleased about being disturbed. So, on it went. And here is what I've learned: 1. German men should not dress up as Cowboys and present their votes astride a large plastic horse and 2. Cronyism is alive and well and living in Belarus...okay and everywhere else in the present and future EU... Romania votes for Bulgaria, Estonia votes for Latvia, Sweden votes for Finland, Bosnia Herzogovenia votes for Serbia votes for Croatia votes for the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia... Impartial, objective voting, no doubt. Strangely, Irlanda, land of insider trading if there ever was one votes for.... (drum roll please)... Lithuania?! I knew we had a large Eastern Euro population but who knew...

I know you're all on the edge of your seats now and you just simply must know whose country was graced with the 2006 Eurovision Song of the Year title... I know you wanna know so just admit it. And I know what yer picturing too. Some cute blond thing being backed up by Metro and the Metrosexuelles singing some drippy song about heartbreak with a hip-hop producer keepin' it live in the background... but, no. You would be wrong. The winning country: Finland. Again, you're thinking hot, tall, milk-fed blondies but again, you would be wrong. Think, Ozzy Osborne meets the Phantom of the Opera meets Bzerker from Clerks. Glam-pseudo-pop-metal dudes dressed as monsters singing with a mixture of gravelly basetones mixed with that, "I just grabbed yer balls and squeezed them, " heavy-metal yelp. Go team. Europe does have taste after all... If you happen to like biting the heads off plastic chickens and throwing them into an audience made up entirely of Greek Eurotrash. Now that's entertainment.

Brand Revolutionaries

Hi All,

Sorry for my long blogging absence. I've been ridiculously busy being the all-purpose freelancing bitch of Dublin. Have been booked nearly everday for the last month and I'm finally kind of settling into it instead of walking around in a state of total stress dealing with all sorts of new situations, people and expectations. I'll be a bad-ass businesswoman yet. Maybe I should start renting those 80's wall street movies...you know the ones with American Psycho type business men and woman with heels like daggers and shoulder pads like linebackers... I definitely need a bit of training on the ruthless front as I am owed ridiculous money at the moment and am struggling a bit to collect. Maybe what I really need is a heavy man, built like a brick shithouse, with knuckles dragging on the ground. He can pay a visit to my late / non payers and make them an offer they can't refuse...

I was walking into one of my many placements the other morning and what should pass me but a large truck advertising a marketing company. This was one of those trucks that is absolutely covered on every surface and the campaign gracing the panels of this one was: Richmond Marketing, BRAND REVOLUTIONARIES. If that wasn't bad enough, the truck was covered with red communist stars, various famous revolutionaries, and those iconic Workers of the World Unite characters with fists in the air. Holy good fuck, What balls. Karl Marx would absolutely turn in his grave at that one. This is, after all, a MARKETING company, as in ADVERTISING, as in, we have no souls and worship the almighty dollar (or euro as the case may be) and could sell Hitler brand petroleum products to Jews if we put our filthy, amoral, cute little minds to it.... hhhhmmmm. I'm sorry. Do I sound bitter. Is it because I am slowly being turned into a brand revolutionary myself. The next thing you know, I am actually going to start to care about whether that milk packaging I created really makes you feel like yer mom is giving you a big hug. It is somewhat ironic that I was attracted to design for its artistic and communicative possibilities, for it's independent, self employment options, for guerilla artists and Barbara Krueger type political message making, and here I am, making the benjamins for the big boys. Is there no escaping it? So glad to know that my life's contribution to this world is so meaningful and important... Just send me that fekking check please.