Shooglenifty and the Canadian Snowbirds at the Vancouver Folk Festival (2025)
Shooglenifty are skipping the light Celtastic
On the main stage Saturday night
Jigs and reels
Jigs and reels
The Canadian Snowbirds roar overhead
And the band plays on
Peace, love and jet planes
Contrails in the sky.
Dispatch from La Costa Gringa
A baby’s soother in the sand
plastic nipple blackening
in the Mexican sun.
Tequila on the rocks
Iguanas on the rocks
A girl with a falcon
by the breakfast buffet.
Down here on La Costa Gringa
it’s still Margaritaville
but no one I see is wasting away
and no one, absolutely no one
wants to talk politics.
In the markets though
they’re selling t shirts
saying Canada and Mexico
are not for sale.
A gay couple from San Francisco
get married on the beach.
Why does this seem threatened?
Why does everything seem threatened?
And to the north of us
a president out of an abandoned Vonnegut novel
is making friends with enemies
making enemies out of friends.
Taking part in Open Link over at dverse.
The Second Coming of Donald
The rumors started just after he won the election
strange happenings at his rallies
the blind seeing
the deaf hearing
the lame walking
the mute talking
he began to take credit for the sun coming up.
Then those stories out of Mar A Lago
how at one banquet
he turned bread rolls into fried chicken
and at another
he turned water into Coca Cola
then there was the time
he walked across a pond
to retrieve his golf ball
and fishing..
don’t talk to me about fishing
the people of Florida
are lining up to go fishing with Donald.
Jack Grealish
your boy band hair
your debonair air
the hobbit who left the shire
the lion who left the lair
spitfire
antithesis of dour
man of the hour
Yes, our song “Willie’s Oasis” has been played on the radio, RTE Radio One (Ireland). The show is Country Time, host Brian Lally , and he has some very generous things to say about the song. Here’s the link.
Our song is 3 songs in , but check out the whole programme, some great stuff on there , including some Willie Nelson .
If you like the song, let them know at
countrytime@rte.ie
Jim Feeney
This is one tedious, depressing mess of a movie with a gruesome, ludicrous, arbitrary with a capital A plot twist worthy of the third season of some schlocky Netflix series when the writers have run out of ideas.
It opens with Colin Farrell walking along a windswept cliff in the west of Ireland, in the early 1920’s. He’s dressed like he’s doing a fashion spread for GQ ( “Paddy Chic”). He has a twenty first century haircut, dyed jet black, combed forward, no parting at the side! And his eyebrows are trimmed! He plays one of the main characters, a dimwitted Irish farmer who’s in love with his donkey (the movie was written and directed by an Englishman, Martin McDonagh….I’m just sayin’). Naturally, he’s on his way to the pub even though it’s only 2 in the afternoon. He goes to the pub a lot. The pub is of course populated by the usual stock characters, Sean O’ Garrulity and Sean Mac Stereotype and yes, at one point, Una Ni Mournful sings a maudlin ballad.
As for that plot twist, it involves self mutilation. Why? Shock value? Yes. Lazy writing? Yes. McDonagh does nothing to make us believe that the character is capable of the act.
Colin Farrell and Kerry Condon, and in particular, Barry Keoghan do their best with it and there are some laughs, but rural Irish dysfunction and loneliness have been done a hundred times over and a lot better than this.
Score: Two potatoes out of Five. 🥔🥔
Existential Boogie
I’m sitting in a café
smoking a Gitane
yes, I’m sitting in a café
smoking a Gitane
I’m reading Jean Paul Sartre
and wondering who I am.
Existential boogie
do that existential thing
you can do it in your armchair
summer, autumn, winter, spring.
If you’re looking for an answer
don’t ask Albert Camus
yes, if you’re looking for an answer
don’t ask Albert Camus
that dude’s been dead a long time
he can’t tell you what to do
Existential boogie
do that existential thing
you can do it in your armchair
summer, autumn, winter, spring
And don’t talk to me
about Immanuel Kant
yes, don’t talk to me
about Immanuel Kant
well I know that you want to
but you can’t
Existential boogie
do that existential thing
you can do it in your armchair
summer, autumn, winter, spring
and some people like to quote
Martin Heidegger
yes, some people like to quote
Martin Heidegger
well, all I can say is
go figure
Existential boogie
do that existential thing
you can do it in your armchair
summer, autumn, winter, spring
Rene Descartes said
I think therefore I am
yes, old Rene, he said
I think therefore I am
well, I call that a beginning
I sure don’t call that a plan.
Existential boogie
do that existential thing
you can do it in your armchair
summer,
autumn,
winter,
spring.
Taking part in Open Link Night over at dverse
On Reflection…. Donald Trump
America has given birth
to a giant orange child
a zaftig infant Gulliver
striding the ravaged earth
of his own imagination
trampling whole villages
swallowing villagers whole.
This poem was published previously in Oddball Magazine. Taking Part in Open Link Weekend over at earthweal.
https://earthweal.com/2020/06/26/earthweal-open-link-weekend-26/
Stopdraggingthepanda 