The Men Who Stare At Goats: Randomly Awesome

The Plot: Meet small town reporter Bob Wilton (Ewan McGregor). Bob has problems. An unfulfilling stagnant career, a wife who has left him for a colleague and an impending mid-life crisis, Bob takes off to cover the Iraqi war to prove his worth but ends up in Kuwait unable to get across the border. This is when  Bob meets Lyn Cassady (George Clooney), a wartime entrepreneur who soon reveals himself to be a  “re-activated” Jedi Warrior on a secret mission. Cassady is one of a number of soldiers enlisted in the dubious First Earth Battalion, a military project developed during the Cold War which attempted to create psychic spies (Jedi-Warriors) who could pacify enemies non-violently, turn invisible, walk through solid objects and combat war and hostility through the power of suggestion. Adapted from the strange-but-true nonfiction series of essays and interviews of writer and documentary filmmaker Jon Ronson about the … There’s more

Ennis Trad Festival

The 16th annual Ennis Trad Festival is on for November 5th through the 9th. http://www.ennistradfestival.com/top_level/festival.asp Here are the highlights of the festival by date: Thursday, November 5th 7:30pm at the Templegate Hotel is the Festival launch at the by Áine Hensey, radio broadcaster with RTE & Raidio na Gaeltachta which is to be followed by a free concert by the trad group ’Mother‘. 11:30pm in The Sanctuary at the Queen’s Hotel is a concert (€15) by Angelina Carberry (banjo) Peter Carberry (accordion) and Paul Meehan (guitar). I had the pleasure of playing in a session with Angela, along with Martin Quinn, a few years back at Club Aras na nGael in Galway city. She is lovely banjo player. Here is video of them playing a few tunes.

Two clips that make me miss Gay Byrne on the Late Late Show

I miss Gay Byrne on the Late Late. I do. I miss the randomness, the waving at the mammy, the poems or songs the audience would sit up and perform and then the unintentionally hilarious scenes like John Conneely Irish dancing on the show: Or Andrew Sachs being on the delivery side of a phone-in prank… Legend. Absolute legend.