The Freakscene Photography Competition! The ones that didn't make it!

The following are a selection of some of the best of the black&white photographs we took for the Freakscene Band Photography Competition. You can see one of our photos in the Bróg. I love saying that :)

But anyway, thanks a lot to Cormac ó Callanáin who took these photos for us! And thanks to Jamie to for filling in for Steve "The Beat" Galvin, our real drummer! Jamie, you are worthy indeed, but you could never fill the shoes of Steve! Not without some padding in the toe area anyway.

JAZZ HANDS!!!!!!! I wish I could say one of us fell off straight after this, but I can't :( 

I love this one, we're such a band like, it's cool! And again, Mike is trying not to smile! 

Funnily enough, his nose DOES beep when you press it! 

It's funny seeing Mike do his best to. not. smile. 

Not my most flattering photo, I'll admit, but just look at the face on Steed. Such serene artistry in opening my eye WIDER THAN IT SHOULD GO! 

I like the look of determination on Alan's face! That or he's trying to fart on Steed's head! You decide! 

This is definitely my favourite one! And not because it shows the two hottest twins I know, but the composition is so good and just the feel of piece. It's just a REALLY good photo! 

I like this one, though I'm not quite sure why! I think it's just cos of the big tree! 

This one's kind of like the one in the Brog!........Except you can actually SEE ME!

I'm not bitter! I swear.

It's Steed behind us that really makes this picture! Again, it's a pity it wasn't it better focus! 

This is our "oh, we're so cool, we're not even aware of the camera" pose! 

It's a pity this one wasn't in better focus, I love the look on Steed's face! 

This is definitely one of my favourites, we're all just so happy! What you can't see is that Jamie's boner was digging into my back! Rather disconserting, I'm sure you'll agree! 

HAHAHAHAHA! Where is your Todd now eh?

So I had this odd dream last week.

Actually, it was the week before, but I only just managed to get time to write about it now.

Ah, who am I kidding, I’ve just been too damn lazy to write until now.

I had already been woken up by my parents and brother getting ready to head out in the morning and had fallen back asleep again. I can’t actually remember the whole dream, but I remember it was in some kind of Black Baptist Church and there was this woman who was an upstanding member of the community and always helped out in church. You know the type. She was really holier-than-thou. I remember she was up on the alter, preaching about how she leads such a good life, but people started to speak up about how she really wasn’t all THAT upstanding – having had an abortion and affair and stuff.

But that’s not the important part of the dream. The mass ended and I was the first to get up and go outside, not bothering to wait until the priest had left. I remember waiting outside the church – which for some odd reason was in Kerry – waiting for all the others to come spilling out. To pass the time I watched the scenery and the clouds moving across the sky. But no one was coming out. I walked passed the Jeeps and Land Rovers parked outside and back through the door of the church. Everyone was still sitting in the pews. But they had been turned to stone!

Angry, I ran across the pews and the heads of the people and jumped onto the altar, scattering the instruments of religion to the floor. Behind the altar was a small old woman at an electric organ, shuffling her sheet music and putting it away. I shouted at her, asking her what had she done to all the people? Before she could answer, I heard footsteps behind me and, spinning around, I saw the priest walking up the aisle towards me. When he reached the altar he said something to me about being a non-believer and suddenly the congregation was clambering over each other to get at me, zombie-style.

I started shouting at them about how they had all been fooled, taken in by a scam to comfort them from the truth they don’t want to face. I screamed how they were all afraid of death and had created this elaborate lie to reassure themselves of some kind of life after they stopped living. I called them cowards and stupid for being scared of something they don’t know. (And this is where it gets quite odd; I start to spout the philosophy I’ve learned over the year!) I told them angrily, as they scrambled to claw at me, how Socrates said the wise man doesn’t fear death because he doesn’t know what death IS! Why fear something you don’t know or understand? For all we know it could be a good thing.

But they were overwhelming me, pulling me down. By now I think I was at that stage where you’re kind of awake, and your conscious brain has some control over your dreams. So I gave myself psychic powers.

As I do sometimes, it makes the dream more fun and I feel like I’ve some control over things.

So I blew them off me with a type of telekinetic blast…thing. And then I tried to reason with them, telling them not to be afraid of a godless world, not to be scared of not knowing or of not having control! (Which I realise now is rather hypocritical, seeing as I had just given myself powers to gain some control, but this is a dream ok?) And then I distinctly remember pleading with Danny P, who was among the crowd, to reason with them. I remember Danny P being tied between his religion and the philosophy he’d learned during the year.

I think it was around this time that I woke up, and immediately began to tell myself about the dream so I wouldn’t forget it. But yeah, that was definitely one of the oddest and probably profound dreams I’ve had in a while. And I’m still trying to figure out what it all meant. Was it proving that I really am an atheist now, or about how my catholic upbringing (though not altogether STRICT catholic upbringing) is still vying with my new-found atheism or what?

Any suggestions of course would be more than welcome.

How did Darth Vader know what he was getting for Christmas? He felt Luke's presents!

A long time ago, in a galaxy not quite as far away as you’d think… there were three films. To those who worshipped these films, they were some of the greatest ever. They told of far off worlds, powerful sorcerer knights, large unintelligible hairballs, dark overlords, swords of light and gay robots.

And then the shadow of an usurper threatened to spoil the films the people held so dear. This “Phantom Menace” met with fierce opposition. To those most devoted followers, they felt betrayed. The very man that had created the original trilogy had created this usurper. The dialogue was terrible. The acting was just as bad. Jar Jar Binks was a retarded fucker. Looking ahead to a future they that hoped would be brighter, the “fans” as these devotees were known maintained the next film would be better. The dialogue would be sparkling. The acting sublime. Jar Jar Binks would die a slow and painful death by Force Choke or a lightsaber. Or a brain haemorrhage. Anything.

But alas, to these fans, Attack of the Clones rivalled The Phantom Menace in the turgid crap stakes. The dialogue was flat. With the arrival of the young Hayden Christensen, the acting was even worse. And horror of horrors, not only was Jar Jar Binks still alive, he was A FREAKING SENATOR!!!! What the fuck was the Blessed George Lucas doing?
Yet, in the fan’s eternal optimism, again they held that Episode 3 would blow the other two out of the water.

So, with the arrival of Revenge of the Sith, many were proved right. The dialogue was still pretty patchy, the acting a little better, and best of all, almost NO Jar Jar! Sir Lucas had redeemed himself a little, and the fans could put the last troubling few years behind them.

But, I’m not one of those fans. I loved and still do love the original trilogy, but I also love the last trilogy. Perhaps even more so. Why? Because, dear friends, I understand Star Wars, I understand George Lucas. Cosmo Landesman (if that even IS his/her real name!), the film critic of the Culture section of the Sunday Times gave Revenge of the Sith a measly one star, saying "This is a big epic, but go to its heart and you find that it's empty; the lightsabers are on, but there's nobody home." Throughout his two-page review, he complained of the creaky dialogue, the terrible acting and knowing what’s going to happen, because we all know who lives and who dies. This of course, doesn’t surprise. Mr. Landesman and I have never seen eye to eye. He hates almost every film I like and vice-versa. I get the feeling he, and SO many others took their seats expecting Shakespeare and were disappointed when the closest they got was Yoda. It’s why he finds so many films frightfully disappointing, particularly the Hollywood big-budget, big FX ones.

But, what he and all those others fail to remember is one of the most important things about film. And read this carefully, because it will be the most important statement I’m going to make in this piece!
Here it is:

Film, is a V-I-S-U-A-L medium!

Now, I like a good script, nice dialogue and good acting as much as the next guy. But seriously, if you go to the cinema every time expecting shimmering dialogue, you’re in for a big disappointment. You might as well just stay at home and read Shakespeare. Star Wars is a flight of imagination, a world taken from inside Lucas’ head and lovingly recreated by artists for our consumption. The dialogue may be immensely shit in parts, the acting may be worse – not looking at anyone in particular HAYDEN CHRISTENSEN (not so much Anakin as he is mannequin!) But what everyone seems to forget so quickly is that Lucas has made three of the most visually stunning films since…well, since the original trilogy. Just look at the amazing visuals of Coruscant, the Pod Race of Episode 1, the space battle that opened ‘Sith, the sea-world place that Obi Wan visits where they were creating the clone army. I really could go on for ages. The point is, go in looking for Oscar Wilde and you’ll be disappointed. But go in looking for visuals to fire your imagination like napalm and Georgie-boy won’t let you down.

And not only that, but George Lucas has succeeded in creating arguably the best fantasy universe since Middle Earth. In fact, I think the “far away” galaxy could kick Middle Earth’s hairy hobbit-y old ass from here to Tatooine, but that’s just me. I mean come on, they’ve got lightsabers for fuck’s sake. Easily one of the greatest inventions EVER and every guys techie wet dream. More compact and more destructive than any sword, and not to mention the fwoooooom fwooooom noise! *sigh* Then there’s the sound the Tie-Fighters make, the whole history of the Jedi and Sith, the infinitely different types of droids and aliens, Padmé’s range of almost-liquid silver ships. Star Wars extends FAR beyond the films. There are the comics, the cartoons (Clone Wars kicks PARTI-C-U-L-A-R ass!) the books, the websites, the fan films, the fan spoofs, the costumes, the lightsaber innuendo, the jokes. Star Wars may not exactly be a literary tour de force (heh heh “force”), but it’s almost a whole sub-culture in itself.

I think you know I’m not saying the films are perfect. Far from it, none of them would be in my top 5! At times the shit dialogue and acting can take a bit from the films, but I’ll always love them for the action, for how they look and for the whole iceberg of which the films are merely the tip. And whatever the “fans” say, there’s no way the original trilogy was so perfect that the last three pale in comparison. Dude, we’ve all seen them, they’re not exactly Shakespeare either, so take off that rose tinted Vader helmet and stop thinking everything was better back in the day.

As Chewie (or indeed, I) would say “Urrrrreeeeeeaaaaaaaoooor!!” Or yknow, something to that effect.

City Boy to the bone

It’s good to be back in the city. To breathe in the thick familiar air of people living close together. To walk the paved street valleys between the close buildings. To casually bump into people I know while strolling past the Gingerbread House. To simply amble the streets and watch the people as they pass. To follow the face of some good-looking girl as she moves unawares through a crowd. To share in the unspoken history of over 800 years of people living together.

I just don’t think I could ever live in the countryside. Especially somewhere as remote as Corca Dhuibhne – or the Dingle Peninsula as most of you may know it. Don’t get me wrong, I love the place. It’s the most beautiful part of Ireland. No argument! The mountains that swoop to the sea, or sweep up from it like jutted rocky waves. On a sunny day, the grass is greener than I’ve ever seen and the shadows of calm white clouds lazily flow like liquid across the stony hillsides, and the water in the little coves and beaches is as blue/green as anything you’ll see in a Caribbean holiday brochure. In the summer months, fuchsias crowd the hedges on the winding roadsides, filling them with a riot of pink/purple. It really reminds a city boy like me of the might and fragility of nature. And life moves even slower there than it does in Cork, if that could be possible. Every local has a story in them and about fifty ways to tell it. If I’ve done my job right, it should sound like Utopia to you. So why wouldn’t anyone want to spend the rest of his or her days there?

Part of me would, and maybe when I’m older, should I reach that certain age, I might up and move down there to wile away the rest of my days. But not now, oh no. A week was hard enough. One never considers how dependent one is on modern conveniences until most of them are taken away. As soon as I’d left Dingle and was over the mountains to the western half of the peninsula, Meteor abandoned me to the wilds of West Kerry. If not for Elaine and her Vodafone, I may have lost it completely. Well…ok, that’s perhaps a bit of an exaggeration, I’ll grant you; but I did feel very disconnected for much of the time. I missed just being able to start up random conversations with friends. It’s a comfort to know that most of you are just a text away, and when that comfort is taken away, one can be left feeling quite alone. I wasn’t too alone of course, I did have Elaine to annoy and gently wind up for my amusement. But still, you get my point.

What’s as bad was that the closest thing to proper civilisation – Dingle – was a
n almost 10 minute taxi drive away. Even then, for all its charm and some interesting little shops (check out Café Liteartha), within twenty minutes one can have walked around the whole town. After you’ve explored all the shops worth exploring, there’s little else to do but wander around and pick out the tourists. While one can argue the same about Cork much of the time, I like walking around the city and just watching the people or immersing myself in my thoughts and letting my legs take me where they want to go. And there is always the chance, of course, that you’ll bump into someone, though that can be a bad thing as much as a good one.

The thing about the countryside is that it takes so damn long to get anywhere. In the morning, Elaine and I would have to cycle 2 miles to the hall in which the classes were held and then 2 miles back for lunch. And man, was that cycle back a tough one! I’m not even sure why, it just always was. Always. If something else was happening at the hall during the day, it was another 2 miles there and 2 miles back. There’s just so much open empty space in the countryside, it’s just not natural I tell ya! And what’s with all the animals? The so-called “fresh air” seemed perpetually filled with scent of distinctly un-house broken creatures. Give me the pungent whiff hops from the Beamish and Crawford Brewery any day.

Of course, having said all that, my self-imposed (though not entirely intentional) severing from the rest of civilisation did get the creative juices flowing a little. If I’d had a computer and internet access (yet more things I sorely missed), this blog would certainly have MANY more entries in it by now. Unfortunately (for me anyway, maybe not for you, I don’t know) I’ve forgotten much of what I wanted to write about while down there, so I’m pretty much just working from memory now and the few pages I jotted down one particularly wet day.

So maybe those hermits of old had it right, in that a certain amount of escape from the modern world is good for the soul. I will of course return down there again, this year even, because I do love the place dearly. But don’t ask me to live there!

The Revolution Shall Be Televised

He stood on the bustling city pavement, amidst a foul flow of busy passers-by; all wrapped up in their turgid insignificant commercial little lives. He was going to shake their worlds, shatter their very foundations. His lips slowly curved into a subtle malevolent smirk as he stared up at the towering glass skyscraper across the street; a huge gleaming symbol of everything these nobodies held dear in their lives, reflecting the endless blue skies of their perceived possibilities. He would smash it.

It unfolded before his mind’s eye, as it had many times before. The explosion would billow outwards as a giant black and red fiery cloud, rising up through the structure as the secondary explosives were triggered. The repugnant rats below would scramble and swarm to escape the beautiful shower of shimmering shards that would rain down upon them, cutting and shredding their grey skin. The old, weak and crippled would be forgotten and trampled underfoot. Cars would crash as their drivers stared in amazement and fear at their bright blue sky fragmenting and falling down around them.

The pandemonium would be deafening; the screaming of the frightened, the screeching of the injured, the crying of the dying (why should they cry? He would be relieving them of their disgusting banality!). The blaring of the car horns, as their drivers lay dead and sprawled over their steering wheels, bleeding over dashboards and seats. The wail of the siren as the agents of authority rushed through the mayhem to save all the drones they could.

It was then that the foundations would give way and the tower would collapse with an earth shattering rumble, drowning the beautiful bedlam below in a suffocating blanket of dust, ash and rubble. Those not shredded by the rain of glass would be bludgeoned by the debris of concrete and steel, or choked by the filth. For those still alive, it would be as night, the fog of wreckage smothering their sun and blue sky.

At this time the vultures would descend, the masters of manipulation, the monstrosity of the media. How he detested those vermin - the strongest arm of those that controlled. Using, shaping and misusing the misery of people for the consumption of the mindless masses, keeping them subdued and docile to serve the needs of the greater few. They twisted the minds of these peons into filling their lives with the wares the Powers sold, handing over their hard earned capital to lose their soul. But today, yes today, they would serve his purpose, for they would carry the blast around the world, into the houses and minds of every slave, every serf, and every dutiful downtrodden follower of the almighty green. They would be shaken, to see the symbol of their material dreams crumble before their glazed eyes, their wide-open sky horrifyingly scarred by a cloud of smoke and destruction. Their stomachs would turn at the sight of their fellow zombies, blood-spattered and skin-torn by the collapse of their collective dreams. And they would weep ten times over for every life lost.

They would be suddenly lost, disillusioned and disenchanted in their existence. With their beacon of materialism and wealth in a smouldering heap, burying their brothers and sisters and children, their eyes would clear. They would perceive the hypocrisy, the lies, the propaganda, the Big Brother and Ministry of Truth, the convoluted structures and twisting hallways of bureaucracy hiding the true nature of all power. They would see through their so-called ‘leaders’ for the monkey-puppets they are, and follow their strings back to the puppet masters and know the truth of the world. They would realise the oppression of their "middle-class" existence. And they would be angry.

They would throw off the shackles of their proledom, rise up against their oppression and manipulation for the sake of the high living of the blue blood. They would gather in their hundreds of thousands to scream their discontent and dissatisfaction so loud as to rattle the corridors of Real Power in the remaining dream-towers of glass and steel. They would tear down the gleaming grinning faces of advertising; reject the ideals they had once placed so much faith in. The Powers, so smug in their security would become scared, as the rioting rabble drew closer, ripping up the world around them to reveal the hidden truths. There would be nowhere left to hide; they would be hunted like vermin and dragged through the streets they had paved with fool’s gold. The people would burn and behead these fallen gods in the squares they had built in reverence of them and pile high the charred black bodies.

The new morning would rise brighter and better than ever before and every lungful of air would taste of relief and release. The sun would ascend into a new sky, full of new dreams and new futures. The world would be different. The world would be superior. They would have split apart civilization in the hopes of something better and found the pearl of truth. The cities would empty as the citizens returned to the land, casting aside the supposed luxuries of their suburbanality and embracing a simpler life; a life without the complexities of what car to buy and which channel to watch. No longer would people pass each other in the street and not acknowledge one-another’s existence. No longer would they be wrapped up in their own petty greed-driven lives. No longer would they drive to their nine-to-five jobs, each alone in their own moving metal prison. They would hunt deer together across the planes. They would farm the land and reap the rewards; making clothes from the wool of sheep and the hides of cattle. They would tear down the dream-towers piece by piece to build their own dreams. They would be happy. They would be free. They -

He felt a strong hand on his shoulder and turned to see the golden badge of authority, the ruling star, pinned to the chest of a man standing before him. “You ok sir?” asked the star. He shook off the hand and merged with the crowd, feeling the eyes of authority, burning into his back as he walked away. They were scared of him. They always had been, always would be. They were everywhere. On every corner in every town; in every house on every street. In the sky and below his feet. But someday that would change; he would be free and they would watch him no more. He would no longer just be Timothy. Someday he would move out of his mother’s basement and change the world.

Someday.

A Picture's worth exactly 1002.324 words! It's true!

Just figured out how to put pictures up on the blog so there should be more pictures on here from time to time. Just as an experiment I put this picture up of me and my dear dear old friend Hector who I met on St. Patricks Day about two years ago! God, I look SO weird with short hair! *shudder*

Me and Hector on St.Patricks Day! Some man for one man! And Hectors cool too! 

ProcrastinatOR! Master of Procrastination. Saviour of procrastinators everywhere....eventually....sometime...

I'm sitting here with fellow students in the Student Centre trying to avoid study. Well....not trying. Succeeding. And doing it quite well too. I think it's something I can be quite proud of.

"Master-Procrastinator" That's me!

Don't get me wrong, I do intend to study! Y'know...eventually. I did go into the library earlier, but I couldn't find any places. Every chair had an ass in it and every desk had some books on it. Then I went outside and found just as many, if not more people, hanging around and doing fuck all. And looking around me now, hardly anyone is working on these computers. The guy over there is doing a crossword for fuck sake. So I'm comfortable in my procrastination. I figure this college has 15,000 students (or there abouts) and most people pass their exams, despite this mass-procrastination. Therefore, some procrastination is acceptable and you can still pass your exams. Right?
Right?

I figure I'll get started on reading my philosopy...reader (hmmm...too much "read" in that sentence!!!) tonight. Sometime before hanging out with Fiona, going for a swim (hopefully) and watching West Wing! Yes...PLENTY of time.....

Don't look at me in that tone of voice! I'm guilty enough as it is, thanks to the little voice in my head nagging at me for not studying. Just when I thought I'd seen the last of that little bastard after the LC. *sigh*

I figured I'd start writing in this a bit more often cos Shivers keeps nagging at me (kinda like the Voice) to update my blog. So instead of trying to craft beautiful works of literature for you all, I'm just going to write this drivel from time to time and expose my brain rot to the rest of you. Yes...I like the sound of that.

COME HITHER AND GATHER ROUND YOU WORHLESS VOYEURS! WITNESS MY BRAIN AND THE THINGS THAT SPILL FORTH AS IT ROTS INTO OBLIVION THROUGH OVEREXPOSURE TO TV, PORN AND TOO MANY LATE NIGHTS! (thank fuck I don't drink or smoke, god knows this would probably be FAR worse if I did!)

Ah fantastic! This fucking computer now appears to be freaking out on me a little, pages aren't loading up properly. If this thing doesn't upload onto the blog I am gonna be SOOOO pissed off. I'll have wasted a good 20 minutes or so when I could have spent it doing something equally as useless, purile and futile just to procrastinate. But at least this is one of the most creative ways to do it.

(Oh oh, a bit of a dream I had last night just flashed into my head. Something to do with...CD's...hmmmm..... Nope, gone now, ah well, that was a stupid diversion.)

I'm sure you, the one person reading this (probably Shivers) are probably getting pretty bored of this, I know I am, so now it's time to test to see if this thing will upload! Oh it better....