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We buried my Uncle yesterday. He was 48. Christy, or “Mono” as he was nicknamed, was the youngest among his brothers and sister. He died on Sunday, quite suddenly.

I got the phone call Sunday night from my cousin in England. He thought I had already heard. I hadn’t and I didn’t believe him at first. Mono is 48. You don’t just die suddenly at 48? At least, it could never happen to those close to you? It did and just had.

The family was devastated. I was trying to take it all in and it was difficult to process. I needed to get out of the house so I met a friend in the pub but in my mind I was thinking of when I saw Mono last, the last thing I said to him on the phone recently. I should have done this or that. It all just races by.

I arrived in his hometown for the funeral and I was blown away by the amount of people in the church. Hundreds. He’s from a small town and its strange how you see people you know and then people you don’t. But Mono had touched the lives of everyone there. Some more than others, he had spent over 10 years with the Coast Guard.

The priest did his thing but lets be honest, it’s a fruitless task. He only comments on what he is told, he probably never met Mono. At the end of the ceremony my mother got up to say a few words and she delivered a heartfelt message that reached out to everyone in the church. We left the church to sounds of Mono’s favourite Bob Dylan song.

I hate funerals. We all do. Its the awkwardness at it that makes it near impossible to handle. I always find the burial in the graveyard the most surreal part of it. Unless you are right beside the priest you can’t hear him that well so you’re left with just your thoughts and reminded of the fragility of it all. I stood behind a couple in their 40′s that I had never met before. I watched as the wife did her best to hold back the tears as the ceremony went on, only to see her eventually breakdown.

And then there’s Mono’s daughter. She’s 10. How does a child process the loss of a parent? She’ll never have the experience of telling her father about the first time she falls in love or never be able to ask him for guidance when she goes through the trials of life. Very sad and unfair.

Mono earned the nickname after the character of Manolito Montoya form the Western TV show, High Chaparral. The name stuck as they both shared the same fringe at the time. I have fond memories of Mono from growing up. He was always the hyper Uncle. He would play football with my brother and I for hours, never tiring. He was a top player for the local team and loved the sport. He used to make us tomato and mayonnaise sandwiches. I hated them but my brother still eats them! I’ll always remember the time when as a child, Mono started listening to Christy Moore. One day he had the song Lisdoonvarna stuck in his head and wouldn’t stop singing it. Except everytime he started singing it, he kept ticking my chin. Its funny the things we remember from our childhood.

Sitting in the pub after the ceremony I was able to catch up with friends and family, some I hadn’t seen in a long time. I watched grown men who have probably never hugged another man embrace family and loved ones with tears in their eyes. Many “Mono stories” were swapped and one friend, Neil, told the tale of when he recorded a tape for Mono and wrote on it “Recorded In Stereo For Mono”. Another memory for our early days that sticks in our minds!

I realise that this blog post is indulgent and meaningless to others. Death is a part of life. We are all pushed through the motions of what to do and how to act. From the section in your employment contract telling you how much time you are entitled to when there is a family bereavement, to the etiquette and procedure of the day of the funeral. Its all shite really. Nowhere tells you how to handle how you feel.

So this is my goodbye to Mono. I forgive ya for lashing me out of it with a tennis ball that day! I’ll see ya later horse.

What the hell is Osho Leela? Sounds like a character from a Legend of Zelda video game. Far from it. From their website:

We are a special bunch of people, united by the desire to live communally and linked by the search for spiritual growth and raising personal awareness.

Because we maintain an open door policy in our community, the size of our group is ever-changing. However, we do have a fixed group of around 15 adults and two children. At the time of writing we have six guests, some of whom will be staying for a longer time, while the rest are here temporarily.

Hippies?

Ok maybe not. But more of that later. Why am I talking about Osho?

A friend of No Drama, John Loftus of Choke Improv talked me into attending a Improvisation Comedy Festival in the UK, facilitated by John Cremer and the award winning Maydays. I had only heard good things about John Cremer but had never even seen a picture of the man.

I talked Brian Quinn of No Drama into coming along so John L. took care of the arrangements. It was after the arrangements were made, John fillled me in on the logistics of the weekend. Namely the “hippy” bit. A weekend in a caravan with no meat served in the restaurant lay in store. I had no sandals to bring with me.

We were due to fly to Bristol on Friday 24th on an afternoon flight with Ryanair. Things got off to a bad start when our flight was delayed for nearly 6 hours resulting in an arrival in Bristol of approx 1:10am rather than the scheduled 6:20pm. The fun didnt end then, we had a 90 minute drive ahead of us to the secluded countryside location in Gillingham. (No, not the one in Kent. The other one)

Sandals
It was cold. And the caravan was cosy thanks to John L. pre heating our rooms with the portable heaters. (John arrived earlier that day as he was flying from Knock). I always knew John was a mammy at heart.

Fortunately we didn’t miss any workshops with our late arrival. Friday evening was more a meet and greet occasion over dinner. The fun and games was scheduled to kick off at 8:30am with breakfast with workshops from 9:30am. I had a whopping 4 hours sleep to look forward to.

I’m not a morning person, and I never will be. I feel no shame for that. But some people just don’t get those of us who are not morning people. There is nothing wrong with me. I dont need a dose of sunshine stuck up my arse in the morning. I just need, space, time and tea.

So you can imagine my anxiety when at 9:30am we conjugate in the main hall and a DJ starts playing dance music while waiting for John Cremer to kick off the proceedings. I kid you not, lots of people started dancing. Some of the girls formed lines and danced in sync. Even John L. started dancing. It was surreal, at that hour of the morning. Taking in the sight, there was about 40-50 people there, a wide mix of ages and an even 50/50 split gender wise. Oh and we had to take off our shoes. But that was ok. My socks had no holes.

It was at this point I was first introduced to the talent of the Maydays. John Cremer took the stage and kicked things off. His first point was to officially welcome myself and Brian. He asked me to tell the group a bit about the ordeal of the journey we had. So I did. The second the story finished, the keyboard player kicked off and John C. informed the room that it sounded like we had the Aviation Blues.

The Maydays got stuck into 12 bar blues with some musical improv influenced by my story. There was no hesitation on their part, no confusion over who had to sing the next part. It all sounded rehearsed and scripted. It was amazing.

Improv Everywhere
For the duration of the day, there was a choice of between 3 and 4 workshops to chose from. It was a bit like being in college again with the class and room schedule handed to everyone. I decided to spend my morning in two Long Form workshops.

The long form exercises and games were lots of fun. Our improv shows as part of Laughalot focus on short form improv but in our workshops in Dublin, we would perform long form sketches and exercises. But we hadnt performed long form in front of an audience yet.

The long form workshops pulled a crowd. But the standard of improv was high. It was interesting and a challenge to work with competent performers that I had never met before. It didnt feel like a competitive environment. There was great support and encouragement from the tutors. After about 3 hours of long form it was time for lunch.

Organic Noms
The folk running Osho are quite the organic type. The lunch was home made, home grown. There was soup, delicious bread and salad on offer. And tea. Its very important to emphasise that there was an abundance of all sorts of teas and tea breaks throughout the weekend. I loved that about Osho. An appreciation of tea.

Mainland
Some lunchtime conversations ensued. I must point out before I go on, that I’m crap at remembering names. So if I talk about someone from here on and don’t mention his or her name, its because I cant remember it. And I was probably told it. More than once.

A lovely lady from England, joined myself, Brian, John L and John C at a picnic bench in the gardens. She asked us about No Drama and what we did in Dublin. Then this happened:

Nice Lady: “So why don’t you come put on a show on the mainland?”

She was oblivious to what she had said. Now, it didn’t offend anyone and we laughed. But it was amusing as to her bewilderment as to what the issue was. John C. explained what she had said. She still didn’t get it. So we called her a European. We knew she wouldn’t like that!

I got talking to one of the residents of Leela over lunch too. A very happy and joyous man. While he at first might come across a bit odd, I realised while talking to him that he was very much happy in his own skin. He was very happy in life but spoke of wanting to hear negativity in life so that he could bring balance to it. Still, I didnt bother him with my problems. I didn’t want to turn him into a broken man! My last memory of the conversation is him saying,

“I learnt so much from my mistakes, that I think I will make a few more.”

La la lalala la
I was determined to give it shot. It’s something that we know we need to introduce to the Laughalot shows. When done right, its a hilarious part of a show. When done wrong, its embarrassing, boring and yawn enducing….

Musical Improv! I was terrified. I mean, I have had two motorcycles accidents in recent years yet I was more terrified of doing some musical improv. However the tutors were very supportive and encouraging. But lets be honest, there was no denying that I was going to have to sing at some stage. Improvised singing. But I did. I was sweating buckets and in need of an AED by the end of the session but I did it. As did Brian. And the scary part? It was great fun and we wanted more!

After a break, I was in two minds what to do next. Brian went to a character development workshop but I decided that I couldnt let the weekend go by without doing some short form improv. I figured it would be a nice way to wind down the day.

Of course, I had forgotten that short form improv can be intense, laugh-a-minute and extremely draining. So after a fun packed 90 minutes, I was fit for bed!

The day’s workshops were over and the evening’s entertainment was due to begin. Dinner first (a tasty Indian vegetarian curry with naan.) followed by some shows.

Look into my eyes…
First up some stage hypnosis. Make what you will of that. Entertaining but surely you can’t hyponotise people that fast? Well she did, and thankfully didnt resort to hypnotising people into thinking chairs were sexy or anything like that.

Next up was the Osho Leela inhouse Improv troupe. A quick 20 minute set and some good short form improv demonstrated with some challenging games.

And the grand finale, The Maydays performing some long form improv – musical numbers and all! It was easy to see why The Maydays have won awards. It was like watching a scripted, rehearsed show. It was hilarious with a story told from start to finish. The songs had a rehearsed feel to them and really brought the scenes to a new level.

After the Maydays performed the room was converted into a nightclub setting and the bar opened. Myself and a few others had a peak into the “Theatre Costume Room” (how cool is that!) and picked out some appropriate outfits for the occasion.

Much banter and craic was had over the rest of the night. Most importantly, we introduced the words “gee” and “gawl” into the English folk’s vocabulary. While I can’t remember everyone’s name that I bent the ear off, interogated with questions and probed with deliberatly leading sexist enquiries, I will give special mention to Meg, Aine, Sam, “B”, Maureen, Gillis, Jason, Flora, Carrie, Andy (and the other folk whose names escape me!) who were good sport and craic for enduring my ramblings! After all that, it was time for bed!

Uh Oh…
The cold of the night tooks its toll and I was awoke Sunday morning, after a poor night’s rest with a sore throat and flu symptoms. I knew another music workshop wouldnt be a runner today but I did take part in a workshop on “Object and Environment”.

Unfortunately for myself and Brian, that is where our Osho adventure had to end as we had a flight home to catch. We had to sacrifice on another 2 workshops as a result but we still had a fantastic weekend of improv.

I was going to go into detail on some of things we learned and picked up over the weekend but I have decided to keep that under wraps and if you want to find out more, well you will just have to come to one of No Drama’s workshops! (Comedy Improvisation runs every Sunday at 5:30pm and the general workshop runs every Tuesday at 7pm. Both workshops take place in Synge Street Primary school.)

A MASSIVE thanks to John Cremer, The Maydays for putting together an excellent weekend. Also huge thanks to the good people at Leela for looking after us and getting involved in the improv! It was a great weekend with new friends made and awesome improv performed!

For more info on John Cremer and The Maydays see below.

http://www.johncremer.co.uk/

http://www.themaydays.co.uk/

For more info on Osho Leela, check out their website below.

http://www.osholeela.co.uk/

Want to try some improv or theatre with No Drama Theatre? Check out our website for more info:

http://nodramatheatre.com/

If you’re around Dublin next week and would like to meet some Irish based bloggers, twitterers or social media socialites, then get to the BTW event! (Blogger, Twitter, Whatever!) Organised by Jason Roe of http://jasonroe.me these events prove to be very popular.

The meet up is taking place at 7pm on Thursday 29th July in The Church Bar. More details can be found on by clicking on Jason’s site here.

An internet sensation apparantely shot to limelight courtesy of @glinner and Sean Moncrief on Newstalk from Midleton in Cork. You know all this already of course.

Don’t know what Crystal Swing is? Then you are either dead or not from Ireland.

So just watch and enjoy…

There are no words I can add to this post. It is already… perfect.

We all know how awesome Ben Dunne is here in Ireland. Everything the man touches turns to gold. A very successful business man having been head of Dunne Stores before handing the reigns over, he also owns a chain of gyms and I’m sure he has plenty of other very successful ventures. Watching him on The Apprentice would have been far more entertaining and worthwhile than Bill Cullen in my opinion. Anyway, more recently, it would be impossible not to have heard Mr. Dunne’s dulcet tones promoting his latest venture, bendunne.com, over the airwaves. In short its a site similar to buyandsell.ie for all our buying and selling needs. The cost of advertising on bendunne.com is very cheap.

Which probably explains why there have been many bizarre and funny ads on bendunne.com. Some clever clogs took note of this and set up beendunne.com which gives you the highlights of the best ones!

Enjoy! www.beendunne.com

Stumbled across these 2 videos sponsored by the American Tinnitus Association. Unfortunately, nothing of the sort in Ireland.

So last week a gang of about 15 bikers took to the roads from Dublin and headed to Cork. What an overnight trip! The weather was good, the buzz was awesome and the anticipation for Cork poured beer was high! I drive a Honda Deauville myself which is a 650cc tourer. Its a big bike but was actually the smallest bike for the day, with most other riders on BMW’s or tuned road bikes.

We left Dublin via the N7 at 9:30. Unofficially marshalled by those good folks at Bike 2 Bike Training, we plotted a route over the back roads that took us from Dublin to Blessington via the Sally Gap, on over to Kilkenny city for lunch, then towards Tipperary, Clare, over the V to Waterford before finally arriving in Cork.

We didnt arrive in Cork in 6:30pm which goes to show how much of a challenge the route was. Many roads were windy, gravelly, badly marked but that didnt deter from the fun and the sights. We took a somewhat leisurely pace and safety was as always paramount. Taking the back roads reminds you of how beautiful the country really is and we dont often get to see it when bombing down the motorway in rush hour traffic!

The arrival to Cork was celebrated with lots of beer, a trip to the local pubs and then more beer to wash it the first lot down.

Myself and one of the other bikers, John Fair, tweeted the day’s exploits on Twitter with the tag #wobblybiker

Needless to say the trip home the next day in the rain was not as pleasant…

I’m excited about this weekend. Myself and a buddy, John Fair, both share a love for all things 2 wheeled with engines. (Thats a complicated way of saying we like our motorbikes) John and I are taking to the road early Saturday morning with 12 others on a long trip to Cork. By long trip, I mean Dublin to Cork via Wicklow, Wexford, Waterford, Lismore and Cork. Hopefully the weather keeps up.

We plan on taking lots of photos, and um, maybe washing down a beer or 2. You can follow our goings on in real time on twitter as we will be tweeting updates and photos with the hashtag search #wobblybiker

Will report back on the day’s antics next week!

Ok this is just for a bit of fun. Everyone knows what a lolcat is. It has inspired many a good photo but mostly crap ones to plague internet forum. However lolcat for a brief moment spurned ninja cat on youtube. Check it out:

But as with everything on the internet. There are imitators. But this one is even better than the original for all the wrong reasons! Check out the girly man scream at the end!

Some CLinks to keep you entertained, or not, depending on what you are in to!

What an odd site. The new lolcat? Check out the adventures of Gynolamp here!

Irish Blogger Jason Row caused a bit of a stir for Ryanair this week with this blog post here.

Jack Black takes the console wars a bit too far here.

And while on the gaming theme, Whitest Kids You Know show us what its really like to playing online games below.