The Dubliner Magazine

Cuba Goes Mobile

Havana great time on the dog and bone...

Proving once again that Raul was always a lot hipper than his older fuddy-duddy brother, Fidel, Cubans can now look forward to a lifetime of chattering idiots on public transport, texting thumb and mobile envy.

¡Bienvenidos, mis hermanos!

Attacking the Irish Language

An shean port chéanna go deo go deo

Des Bishop may be trying his darndest to save the teanga dúchais, but other people on the web have either capitulated or actively attacked it.

Not least Bob Byrne, the man whose rants have extended to subjects as diverse as Dublin Bus, The Arts Council and the Polish.

Read his latest vitriol here.

A Tribute to Brian O'Driscoll

The Dubliner invites you to A Tribute to Brian O'Driscoll

On June 18th, The Dubliner magazine will present Brian O'Driscoll with a special award for sporting achievement on behalf of all Dubliners in recognition of his contribution to our city.

Dublin's newest landmark venue, Residence Private Members Club on St Stephen's Green, will mark the occasion by awarding O'Driscoll with the first Honorary Life Membership of the club.

This special event will be presented by NewsTalk's Eamon Keane with contributions from best selling author and sports writer Paul Howard. It will include an exclusive Grey Goose cocktail reception. Readers of The Dubliner can win a pair of tickets by emailing rsvp@thedubliner.ie today.

The Dubliner and Grey Goose will be collaborating on more events this summer. If you want to have the first opportunity to apply for tickets simply join our monthly email newsletter by emailing subscribe@thedubliner.ie

Sam Was The Man

Max McGuinness on Brook directing Beckett

"Beckett was a perfectionist," writes Peter Brook in the programme of the playwright's "Fragments", which he has just directed at the Théatre des Bouffes du Nord in Paris. He could just as well have been writing about himself.

For anyone who has even been mystified by the aura surrounding the exiled Dubliner's work, this production should come as a revelation. Out monotonous, motionless monologues, In clowning, improvisation and jarring transitions from comedy to bleakest tragedy. Every word, every gesture, every sigh has been expertly formulated by Brook and his tremendously talented cast of three.

And lucky youse, the Paris run has just concluded, but Fragments will be appearing at the Dublin Theatre Festival this autumn.

Fun in the Afternoon

Comedy? Before 8pm? They Said it Couldn't Be Done.

For those of you who despair at the choice on offer at the cinema, or enjoy an early night, but still appreciate live comedy, James Goldsbury has started a Saturday afternoon comedy club in the International Bar, on Wicklow Street.

Goldsbury is the guy behind the following video:

Laughternoon

Every Saturday,
Doors open 3.30PM
Admission is €7 

International Bar,
Wicklow Street,
Dublin 2

www.jamesgoldsbury.com

Exclusive: Why does Bono have a black eye?

U2 singer in drunken punch-up with Nobel Laureate? Say it isn't so.

The greatest living Irishman is wandering around the town with a black eye. Diddums! How could our hero have succumbed to such a blow?

The top 10 reasons why Bono has a black eye:

10. Told Paul McGuinness new album to contain "plenty of Jazz fusion."
9. Lost struggle with the lepers in his head.
8. Drunkenly told Guggi: "Enough bowls, already."
7. Informed Seamus Heaney: "Look, 'hope and 'history' don't actually rhyme."
6. Beaten senseless by The Edge in a Killiney version of the Gorse Hill/Kenny land-grab.
5. Ronnie Drew unhappy with Rick Rubin's "re-working" of The Ballad of Ronnie Drew.
4. Asked Dublin 'character' to "kindly direct" him to where the streets have no name.
3. Opened his heart to Larry.
2. Kicked Chernobyl child. In front of Ali.
1. Response by Irish taxpayer on lecture about country's African aid contribution. Hang on...

It's that time of the year again...

Yes! You are cordially invited to an evening of theological fisticuffs!

The Odessa club is the venue for The Dubliner's first debate of the year, at 7pm sharp on Wednesday May 7th. As always, tickets are completely free, and there will be a Tiger Beer reception after the debate.

The motion is: "This house believes that Ireland needs religion now more than ever."

Proposing the motion are Joe Foyle, an economist who has just published an anti-secularist pamphlet, Gerard Casey, former head of the Philosophy Department at UCD, and the columnist John Waters, whose recent book, Lapsed Agnostic, explores his journey from doubt to faith.

Opposing the motion are Senator Ivana Bacik, who is also the Reid Professor of Law at TCD, Emer O'Kelly of the Sunday Independent, and our own Abie Philbin Bowman.

The chair for the evening is publisher and all-round dapper gent John Ryan.

To apply for two free tickets, simply click here.

 

Oh dear! My old softball coach gets arrested.

Katie Hylas comes of age...

Last month I celebrated my 21st birthday here in Dublin. Blowing out the candles on my cake, I wished that the American dollar would appreciate, so I could afford to augment my cereal-only diet with asparagus or apple every once in a while.

That didn't happen.

What I did get is less tangible and, unfortunately, less likely to buy me a meal – a reality check. 

I used to think my hometown, nestled in the tip of New Jersey, was idyllic. I could play outside and ride my bike all over without giving my parents cause for concern. I remember eating orange wedges, chasing ice cream trucks and climbing fences with the girls after games.

Kids' sports gave the adults in town an opportunity to fulfil whatever 1950s ideals the homeowners' association had promised them when they signed their mortgages. For wall street bankers and lawyers, coaching kids' rec. (recreational) teams epitomized these fuzzy ideals. Dads and moms – including my own – loved to do it. 

My rec. softball coach was always at team pizza parties and pool parties. He shouted slightly aggressive encouragements from behind the dugout. Usually, I twirled and picked dandelions in left field, but once when it was my turn on the pitching mound (every girl got one), I had a fantastic play. The batter hit a hard ground ball right at me. Driven by adrenaline and an excited, 'Tag Her!' from the dugout, I snatched it up and tagged the girl out. Mr. Karvellas gave me a great big slap on the back. He was a big guy so it knocked the wind out of me, but it made me proud of myself. That was the best day I ever had on that well-weeded softball field.Generally, Mr Karvellas was fun, loud, typical. He just pleaded guilty to two felony charges of  fraud and evidence tampering regarding commodities trading. 

My softball coach is going to jail for five months. He owes the government $850,000. 

Newsflash: My hometown could be the set of 'Desperate Housewives.' Maybe half of the sprinkler-watered lawns and stucco mansions were financed with stolen-money. I was naive. While I played for Mr. Karvellas' softball team, I got lifts to practice in his dirty-money car and gladly accepted his dirty-money ice cream cones.

Everything seemed so simple.

Adults shield reality from clueless little athletes who haven't learned to ask questions or read the New York Times. Even adult children of suburbia are oblivious. Only now am I beginning to understand what sneaky looks and hushed voices meant while I was younger – affairs, bankruptcies, drug-busts.

My perfect suburban childhood was about as authentic as the Blarney Stone: a gimmick to get people to show up and pay money.

   

Balcony TV: damp, dark and slightly delirious.

Katie Hylas welcomes some excellent news for a small Irish website

A quirky Dublin-based website is up for a Webby award.  The 'Oscars of the Internet' acknowledge the clickiest online phenomenon and are famous for winners' five-word acceptance speeches.   

BalconyTV's goofy team broadcast one performance daily from their closet-sized balcony with a cockeyed view of Dame Street – well, Dame Street and a brick wall. The clips have a grungy Dublin feel. On April 9th, performers wore drab, wet sweaters and hunched in the cold while presenter Tom Millet hopped around on his tiptoes and diligently tried to protect them from the rain with his oversized umbrella. 

Paddy Casey and Eleanor McEvoy have graced the balcony, but most of the time it's undiscovered acts that play – like Sarah Gleeson, a modern, slightly boring, Irish Joni Mitchell.

Balcony TV is like a bastardised TRL [MTV's daily music countdown]; bastardised in a cool, indie and unairbrushed way. Smiling and intermittently shouting unsolicited hoorays, Millet, Stephen O'Regan (son of hotelier Hugh) and Pauline Freeman, the site's producers, genuinely enjoy themselves on stage. Their drippy but happy song choices apparently have the same affect on web-surfers – they claim to have over 100,000 hits a month.

Jean Butler – How Sweet...

The lovely Jean Butler reprises her first solo performance piece, does she take sugar? in the Project this week, as part of Dublin Dance Festival.

This intimate show, in which Butler "poignantly bares her soul" according to the Irish Times, is a juxtaposition of interior and exterior and a challenge to her traditional dancing roots. Sitting alone in the dark, Butler performs through text, film, sound and silence.

Performances on Friday April 25th, Sunday 27th and Monday 28th at 6pm in the Space Upstairs. Tickets €20/€17 can be booked on 881 9613/4 or online at the Project website.