atoast2toast.com

I cant take the shit on tv any more. I saw Louis Walsh dancing around with these two Dublin fools over the weekend and I felt some puke come up in my mouth.

You have to watch it on youtube to see Simon Cowell telling them that it is the worst live performace he ever sat through and that they live on another planet.

The only antidote is Cartman singing pokerface – it is from South Park Series 13 Episode 11, Whale Whores. (see video sidebar).

Fintan O’Toole does a good joy in trying to deconstruct the x-factor performance and understand why it is a phenomonom:

It’s no wonder the X Factor twins are so popular: they embody the Celtic Tiger era but do none of the harm, writes FINTAN O’TOOLE

OFTEN, THE most poignant and potent moment of a culture is its dying gasp. Before the end, as a world implodes, there is a last great gathering of its energies. A shaman has a vision in the forest and arrives back with a millennial vision of salvation in which the ancient spirits are revived. A writer emerges to chronicle a way of life with a steely clarity forged from the urgent knowledge that it must be recorded before it dies. A painter evokes its colours and essences with a feverish intensity imbued with the magical hope that, if only it can be captured, it will not fade. A singer sustains a plaintive dying fall on the air and, in that note, a whole world hovers on the edge of extinction.

And so we get the unbearably poignant last gasp of Celtic Tiger culture. The nation turns its lonely eyes to the last recesses of hope. Where is the shaman who can conjure up the spirits of our dying world that they may walk among us one more time? Where are the artists who can evoke the passing era with such divine intensity that we can believe, for a moment, that it will linger forever? Where are the voices that can sustain that last plangent note in which, when we close our eyes, we can imagine that the past will always be with us?

Step forward John and Edward Grimes, aka Jedward, aka the terrible twins of the X Factor TV show who have no discernible talent but who got enough public votes on Sunday night to stay in the competition yet again. Jedward are the pure essence of a culture we have inhabited for 15 years and that is now functionally extinct. As Simon Cowell, one of the talent show judges, puts it: “They are completely deluded and they live in a fantasy world, but they’re lovely.”

Who better to embody the nation we have been?

Lots more on irish times

Possibly worse again is “Karl Spain Wants To Rock!” – a show hosted by an unfunny comedian who has no interest in music it appears. He tours around Ireland in a bus with a lot of hairy guys in their 40s who play in cover bands. One of them gets eliminated every week. I felt shame for even watching it. I cant imagine how anyone who appears in the show feels.

The search for Ireland’s greatest hard-rock tribute band begins…. Karl Spain Wants to Rock! is a brand new 5-part documentary music series highlighting Irelands first ever battle of the tribute bands tour. This high-octane series will bring five rock tribute bands to new heights exploring the double lives they lead. Mentored by iconic legendary figures of the hard rock world including Saxon’s main-man Biff Byford, the well respected Brian Tatler of Diamond Head, and of course the man that helped shape Thin Lizzy, Brian Robertson. The winner will go on to headline Glaston budget in the UK, the mecca of international tribute bands!

There are mixed opinions but in the words of some of the more critical people on metalireland.com

Why is it that every time that fat cunt wants something RTE have to make a poxy tv show about it?
…
Karl Spain = Unfunny Cunt!!
…
Why does my country want me to hate it so much?
…
I think the licence payers’ are being fucked over enough as it is without trying to make them commit suicide altogether