The Awl http://www.theawl.com/ Be Less Stupid Thu, 07 Jul 2011 13:10:35 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.2 Polar Bears Irish http://www.theawl.com/2011/07/polar-bears-irish http://www.theawl.com/2011/07/polar-bears-irish#comments Thu, 07 Jul 2011 13:10:35 +0000 Alex Balk http://www.theawl.com/2011/07/polar-bears-irish Finally, an explanation for why polar bears are so pale.

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]]> Finally, an explanation for why polar bears are so pale.

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]]> http://www.theawl.com/2011/07/polar-bears-irish/feed 7 Jewish Leprechaun Offends Race Of Alcoholics http://www.theawl.com/2011/02/jewish-leprechaun-offends-race-of-alcoholics http://www.theawl.com/2011/02/jewish-leprechaun-offends-race-of-alcoholics#comments Fri, 11 Feb 2011 09:45:53 +0000 Alex Balk http://www.theawl.com/2011/02/jewish-leprechaun-offends-race-of-alcoholics Both of the tabloids try to get a little action out of Mayor Bloomberg's unfortunate attempt at humor concerning the Irish tendency toward dipsomania. The News goes with "Bloomy's Blarney," while the Post has it as "Irish Stew." (Presumably "Mike's Micks-Up" was deemed too offensive.) But what was the actual joke in question?

The mayor's stand-up act fell flat Wednesday night when he told a crowd at the American Irish Historical Society that he's used to seeing drunks hanging out the windows of its Fifth Avenue headquarters, around the corner from his town house on East 79th Street, the Irish Central Web site reported.

"I live in the neighborhood, right around the corner," the mayor said. "Normally, when I walk by this building, there are a bunch of people that are totally inebriated hanging out the window. I know that's a stereotype about the Irish, but nevertheless, we Jews around the corner think this."

The mayor attempted to clarify his remarks, explaining that he "was talking about a party they have every year on St. Patrick's Day, where it's traditional to hang out the window and yell and scream, and it's all in good fun," and later issued a flat-out apology in which he expressed remorse and noted that he did not intend to offend anyone. Which is probably the sensible thing to do. We all know how sensitive the Irish get when you bring up the fact that their greatest contribution to world culture is Bushmill's Single Malt. They get so angry and upset that the only thing that will calm them down is a nice, stiff drink. Or a drink of any kind, really; they're not picky.

Still, this is one of those occasional moments where we feel for the mayor. Sure, it was a terrible attempt at humor, less hacky than half-formed. It contained none of the eloquence of the three wishes/pint of Guinness bit, or the one about the new pub where they get you laid. But this is Mike Bloomberg we're talking about here. What exactly did anyone expect? I mean, let's not forget, this is a guy who probably got beat up by seven different hockey players named Sully during his youth in Medford, Mass. The fact that he even made mention of the Jews should show that his heart, at least, was in the right place. The lesson to take away from this whole thing is that the only group who can make fun of Irish for being drunks is the Irish themselves, a fact that they happily demonstrate by their own actions every day at pretty much every bar in town with a shillelagh on the wall, the Chieftains on the jukebox and a watered-down bottle of Powers Gold Label near the cash register. God, those people really like their booze.

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]]> Both of the tabloids try to get a little action out of Mayor Bloomberg's unfortunate attempt at humor concerning the Irish tendency toward dipsomania. The News goes with "Bloomy's Blarney," while the Post has it as "Irish Stew." (Presumably "Mike's Micks-Up" was deemed too offensive.) But what was the actual joke in question?

The mayor's stand-up act fell flat Wednesday night when he told a crowd at the American Irish Historical Society that he's used to seeing drunks hanging out the windows of its Fifth Avenue headquarters, around the corner from his town house on East 79th Street, the Irish Central Web site reported.

"I live in the neighborhood, right around the corner," the mayor said. "Normally, when I walk by this building, there are a bunch of people that are totally inebriated hanging out the window. I know that's a stereotype about the Irish, but nevertheless, we Jews around the corner think this."

The mayor attempted to clarify his remarks, explaining that he "was talking about a party they have every year on St. Patrick's Day, where it's traditional to hang out the window and yell and scream, and it's all in good fun," and later issued a flat-out apology in which he expressed remorse and noted that he did not intend to offend anyone. Which is probably the sensible thing to do. We all know how sensitive the Irish get when you bring up the fact that their greatest contribution to world culture is Bushmill's Single Malt. They get so angry and upset that the only thing that will calm them down is a nice, stiff drink. Or a drink of any kind, really; they're not picky.

Still, this is one of those occasional moments where we feel for the mayor. Sure, it was a terrible attempt at humor, less hacky than half-formed. It contained none of the eloquence of the three wishes/pint of Guinness bit, or the one about the new pub where they get you laid. But this is Mike Bloomberg we're talking about here. What exactly did anyone expect? I mean, let's not forget, this is a guy who probably got beat up by seven different hockey players named Sully during his youth in Medford, Mass. The fact that he even made mention of the Jews should show that his heart, at least, was in the right place. The lesson to take away from this whole thing is that the only group who can make fun of Irish for being drunks is the Irish themselves, a fact that they happily demonstrate by their own actions every day at pretty much every bar in town with a shillelagh on the wall, the Chieftains on the jukebox and a watered-down bottle of Powers Gold Label near the cash register. God, those people really like their booze.

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]]> http://www.theawl.com/2011/02/jewish-leprechaun-offends-race-of-alcoholics/feed 27 The Legacy Of The Irish: Two Views http://www.theawl.com/2010/03/the-legacy-of-the-irish-two-views http://www.theawl.com/2010/03/the-legacy-of-the-irish-two-views#comments Wed, 17 Mar 2010 10:55:50 +0000 Alex Balk http://www.theawl.com/2010/03/the-legacy-of-the-irish-two-views
"The Irish fanned out across Europe, salvaging books wherever they could, making copies, reassembling libraries and teaching the newly settled barbarians of the continent to read and write. But they did more than this: they managed to infuse the emerging medieval world with a playfulness previously unknown. In the margins of the books they copied, the Irish scribes drew little pictures, thickets of plants, flowers, birds and animals. Human faces occasionally peek through the tangle, faces of childlike delight and awe. If you were a scribe copying out some especially ponderous philosophical Greek, the margin in which you could reflect on your own world served as a source of 'refreshment, light and peace,' to quote the ancient Latin liturgy.... We have many reasons to be grateful to St. Patrick and his fierce and playful Irishmen and Irishwomen. So on this St. Patrick's Day, remember them as they would wish to be remembered. Read a book."

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"The Irish fanned out across Europe, salvaging books wherever they could, making copies, reassembling libraries and teaching the newly settled barbarians of the continent to read and write. But they did more than this: they managed to infuse the emerging medieval world with a playfulness previously unknown. In the margins of the books they copied, the Irish scribes drew little pictures, thickets of plants, flowers, birds and animals. Human faces occasionally peek through the tangle, faces of childlike delight and awe. If you were a scribe copying out some especially ponderous philosophical Greek, the margin in which you could reflect on your own world served as a source of 'refreshment, light and peace,' to quote the ancient Latin liturgy.... We have many reasons to be grateful to St. Patrick and his fierce and playful Irishmen and Irishwomen. So on this St. Patrick's Day, remember them as they would wish to be remembered. Read a book."

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]]> http://www.theawl.com/2010/03/the-legacy-of-the-irish-two-views/feed 58 Public Apology: Dear Everlast From House Of Pain http://www.theawl.com/2009/11/public-apology-dear-everlast-from-house-of-pain http://www.theawl.com/2009/11/public-apology-dear-everlast-from-house-of-pain#comments Thu, 19 Nov 2009 16:20:05 +0000 Dave Bry http://www.theawl.com/2009/11/public-apology-dear-everlast-from-house-of-pain apology-iconDear Everlast from House of Pain,

I'm sorry for calling you a "Leprechaun of Rage."

This was back in 1996, in a review I wrote for Vibe magazine of the third and last House of Pain album, Truth Crushed To Earth Shall Rise Again.

It was not a very nice thing to say, especially there where I put it, in the opening sentence. "Make way for the Leprechauns of Rage," I said. It was a reference to the Public Enemy song, "Prophets of Rage," of course. You guys being an Irish-American rap group, rather than black, like Public Enemy. Seems less clever to me now than it did at the time. But I guess that's the thing about getting older, huh?

I said lots of other not-so-nice things in the review, too. I did not think the album was very good. By way of comparison, it didn't "bang like shillelaghs," as I said the first two House of Pain albums did. (I'm not sure that could have ever sounded clever. But I did mean it; I really like those albums.) I criticized your lyrics, and the beats you used and went so far as to insinuate that the group's prior success might have been reliant on your former executive producer, Cyprus Hill's DJ Muggs. I think I threw in a couple more Irish jokes in at the end, too.

This was early in my career. I was a fact-checker at Vibe, and I'd just started writing record reviews. People liked pans, I'd noticed, and snide wit. Also, I'd grown up not-Irish in a heavily Irish town, amongst a heavily Irish circle of friends who liked to crack back-and-forth about matters of ethnicity. So when I was assigned to review an album from a rap group that had always been very vocal about its Irishness, and when I didn't like that album, I got my knives out. Overzealously.

Was there something even uglier going on? Did the glee I took in attacking your album have something to do with the fact that I was a white guy at a largely black magazine writing about a bunch of other white guys in hip-hop? Was I using the opportunity to take you down a peg as a way to earn some kind of stripes? I'd like to think not. Not consciously. But might there've been just a little bit of that slipping in there with those jokes, even as I didn't notice it? I wonder.

You read the review when it came out. I shouldn't have found that surprising, but I did-and strangely flattering, the thought of a rap star, someone I'd seen on MTV, sitting there reading what I written. But you didn't appreciate my criticisms, or, apparently, find my jokes very funny. I know all this because both your publicist at the time, and a friend of mine at the magazine who was friends with some of your friends, told me you had spoken about wanting to beat me up.

Coincidentally, your album, and my review of it, came out around the same time as the movie Swingers, with Vince Vaughn and John Favreau. As I'm sure you're aware, there's a scene in that movie where a friend of the protagonists shocks everybody by pulling out a gun during a shouting match with a bunch of white hip-hop heads. "Like fuckin' House of Pain was gonna do anything?" Vaughn says, admonishing him. (I can understand why you might have been extra cranky those days.)

According to reports from the friends of my friend, you were the type of guy who most certainly would have done something. So I'm grateful that your publicist fended off your requests that he bring you to a Vibe party and point me out. Seems likely I would have ended up picking my teeth out of a platter of vegetable spring rolls.

When the album flopped and House of Pain broke up, sometime in the next year, people around the office joked that it was like the famous review John Landau wrote in Rolling Stone that convinced Eric Clapton to disband Cream in 1968. I knew that was probably not the case in this instance, but the feeling I got from even just the idea pushed past flattering into something that made me uncomfortable. Things got worse soon thereafter, when news broke that you had suffered a coronary attack that almost killed you. You were unconscious in the hospital for three days, I learned, while surgeons replaced a valve in your heart. You were 29.

Thankfully, you are a resilient person. Not only did you recover quickly from the surgery, you switched directions musically, and scored a major hit with a jangly acoustic-rock tune, "What It's Like." Your solo album, Whitey Ford Sings The Blues, sold two million copies. A couple years later, you had that song with Santana on that album of his that sold like 25 million-"Put Your Lights On," you won Grammy for that one. I'm sure you're paid for forever. I'd imagine you don't often think about record reviews from 13 years ago.

But still, it was stupid, what I did. Not to criticize the album, but to do it so mean spiritedly. It was the mistake of a young writer feeling himself too much. And maybe not taking his job seriously enough, not understanding what it means to put something in print. So now, seriously, sorry.



Dave Bry is the Awl Associate Editor for Birthday Parties and Cupcakes. And Regrets.

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]]> apology-iconDear Everlast from House of Pain,

I'm sorry for calling you a "Leprechaun of Rage."

This was back in 1996, in a review I wrote for Vibe magazine of the third and last House of Pain album, Truth Crushed To Earth Shall Rise Again.

It was not a very nice thing to say, especially there where I put it, in the opening sentence. "Make way for the Leprechauns of Rage," I said. It was a reference to the Public Enemy song, "Prophets of Rage," of course. You guys being an Irish-American rap group, rather than black, like Public Enemy. Seems less clever to me now than it did at the time. But I guess that's the thing about getting older, huh?

I said lots of other not-so-nice things in the review, too. I did not think the album was very good. By way of comparison, it didn't "bang like shillelaghs," as I said the first two House of Pain albums did. (I'm not sure that could have ever sounded clever. But I did mean it; I really like those albums.) I criticized your lyrics, and the beats you used and went so far as to insinuate that the group's prior success might have been reliant on your former executive producer, Cyprus Hill's DJ Muggs. I think I threw in a couple more Irish jokes in at the end, too.

This was early in my career. I was a fact-checker at Vibe, and I'd just started writing record reviews. People liked pans, I'd noticed, and snide wit. Also, I'd grown up not-Irish in a heavily Irish town, amongst a heavily Irish circle of friends who liked to crack back-and-forth about matters of ethnicity. So when I was assigned to review an album from a rap group that had always been very vocal about its Irishness, and when I didn't like that album, I got my knives out. Overzealously.

Was there something even uglier going on? Did the glee I took in attacking your album have something to do with the fact that I was a white guy at a largely black magazine writing about a bunch of other white guys in hip-hop? Was I using the opportunity to take you down a peg as a way to earn some kind of stripes? I'd like to think not. Not consciously. But might there've been just a little bit of that slipping in there with those jokes, even as I didn't notice it? I wonder.

You read the review when it came out. I shouldn't have found that surprising, but I did-and strangely flattering, the thought of a rap star, someone I'd seen on MTV, sitting there reading what I written. But you didn't appreciate my criticisms, or, apparently, find my jokes very funny. I know all this because both your publicist at the time, and a friend of mine at the magazine who was friends with some of your friends, told me you had spoken about wanting to beat me up.

Coincidentally, your album, and my review of it, came out around the same time as the movie Swingers, with Vince Vaughn and John Favreau. As I'm sure you're aware, there's a scene in that movie where a friend of the protagonists shocks everybody by pulling out a gun during a shouting match with a bunch of white hip-hop heads. "Like fuckin' House of Pain was gonna do anything?" Vaughn says, admonishing him. (I can understand why you might have been extra cranky those days.)

According to reports from the friends of my friend, you were the type of guy who most certainly would have done something. So I'm grateful that your publicist fended off your requests that he bring you to a Vibe party and point me out. Seems likely I would have ended up picking my teeth out of a platter of vegetable spring rolls.

When the album flopped and House of Pain broke up, sometime in the next year, people around the office joked that it was like the famous review John Landau wrote in Rolling Stone that convinced Eric Clapton to disband Cream in 1968. I knew that was probably not the case in this instance, but the feeling I got from even just the idea pushed past flattering into something that made me uncomfortable. Things got worse soon thereafter, when news broke that you had suffered a coronary attack that almost killed you. You were unconscious in the hospital for three days, I learned, while surgeons replaced a valve in your heart. You were 29.

Thankfully, you are a resilient person. Not only did you recover quickly from the surgery, you switched directions musically, and scored a major hit with a jangly acoustic-rock tune, "What It's Like." Your solo album, Whitey Ford Sings The Blues, sold two million copies. A couple years later, you had that song with Santana on that album of his that sold like 25 million-"Put Your Lights On," you won Grammy for that one. I'm sure you're paid for forever. I'd imagine you don't often think about record reviews from 13 years ago.

But still, it was stupid, what I did. Not to criticize the album, but to do it so mean spiritedly. It was the mistake of a young writer feeling himself too much. And maybe not taking his job seriously enough, not understanding what it means to put something in print. So now, seriously, sorry.



Dave Bry is the Awl Associate Editor for Birthday Parties and Cupcakes. And Regrets.

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]]> http://www.theawl.com/2009/11/public-apology-dear-everlast-from-house-of-pain/feed 26 Cambridge Cop Related To Angry Black Man Henry Louis Gates http://www.theawl.com/2009/07/cambridge-cop-related-to-angry-black-man-henry-louis-gates http://www.theawl.com/2009/07/cambridge-cop-related-to-angry-black-man-henry-louis-gates#comments Wed, 29 Jul 2009 10:25:23 +0000 Alex Balk http://www.theawl.com/2009/07/cambridge-cop-related-to-angry-black-man-henry-louis-gates A distant cousin to bothHoly genealogy! It turns out that Skip Gates and the Cambridge cop who nabbed him for being dusky in his own domicile are related! Gates and Sgt. James Crowley are both descendants of fourth century Irish warlord Niall of the Nine Hostages, who was so named because he would niall anything that moved. (Haha, get it?) The article notes that "many famous African-Americans [have] Irish heritage, including President Barack Obama and award-winning author Alice Walker." Also, many unfamous African-Americans have Irish heritage, because back in the slavery era there was a whole lot of raping going on. Anyway, this will surely be a great ice-breaker at the kegger President Obama is hosting tomorrow night. It will also provide further fuel for your racist uncle who has always said that the Irish "are just as bad as the blacks."

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]]> A distant cousin to bothHoly genealogy! It turns out that Skip Gates and the Cambridge cop who nabbed him for being dusky in his own domicile are related! Gates and Sgt. James Crowley are both descendants of fourth century Irish warlord Niall of the Nine Hostages, who was so named because he would niall anything that moved. (Haha, get it?) The article notes that "many famous African-Americans [have] Irish heritage, including President Barack Obama and award-winning author Alice Walker." Also, many unfamous African-Americans have Irish heritage, because back in the slavery era there was a whole lot of raping going on. Anyway, this will surely be a great ice-breaker at the kegger President Obama is hosting tomorrow night. It will also provide further fuel for your racist uncle who has always said that the Irish "are just as bad as the blacks."

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]]> http://www.theawl.com/2009/07/cambridge-cop-related-to-angry-black-man-henry-louis-gates/feed 9 Gay Irish Drive Traffic http://www.theawl.com/2009/04/gay-irish-drive-traffic http://www.theawl.com/2009/04/gay-irish-drive-traffic#comments Thu, 30 Apr 2009 14:33:30 +0000 Alex Balk http://www.theawl.com/2009/04/gay-irish-drive-traffic Gratuitous photogallery of the day: In honor of actress Kelly McGillis's revelation that she digs chicks, website Irish Central has put together a collection of "celebrities [who] have Irish roots, and are openly – or strongly suggested to be – LGBT." I don't want to spoil too much of it for you, but one of them's Oscar Wilde. I know, right?

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]]> Gratuitous photogallery of the day: In honor of actress Kelly McGillis's revelation that she digs chicks, website Irish Central has put together a collection of "celebrities [who] have Irish roots, and are openly – or strongly suggested to be – LGBT." I don't want to spoil too much of it for you, but one of them's Oscar Wilde. I know, right?

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]]> http://www.theawl.com/2009/04/gay-irish-drive-traffic/feed 12 Brain-damaged Man Thinks He's Irish http://www.theawl.com/2009/04/brain-damaged-man-thinks-hes-irish http://www.theawl.com/2009/04/brain-damaged-man-thinks-hes-irish#comments Tue, 28 Apr 2009 14:44:31 +0000 Alex Balk http://www.theawl.com/2009/04/brain-damaged-man-thinks-hes-irish The Irish have a saying: "Get the feck out of me pub, ya cheap dago bastard! Yer barred!" Oops, actually that was just one Irishman who owns a bar I used to frequent until he took exception to my tipping policy. Long story. But while we're on the subject of Irish people, let's take a look at the tale of Chris Gregory, who temporarily thought he was one.

Gregory, a native of Sheffield, England, was hospitalized and underwent emergency brain surgery, from which he emerged with an Irish brogue, even though he had no connection to the Auld Sod. Fiancée Mary recounts the event:

I couldn't believe it when I walked on to the ward and heard someone singing Danny Boy really loud. It sounded like a drunken Irishman and all the racket seemed to be coming from the direction of Chris's bed.

I thought to myself: 'It can't possibly be him...' but when I pulled back the curtains Chris was sitting up in bed belting out the tune with all the right words and a thick Irish accent like he'd grown up in Dublin and lived there all his life....

At one point he looked at me adoringly and said: 'You're da fabbest gal oi know!' with a perfect Irish lilt in his voice. It sounded crazy, but I didn't care. It was just great to have him back in one piece after such a traumatic time.

Undoubtedly. Doctors suggest that Gregory was suffering from "Foreign Accent Syndrome," a rare neurological misfire. But if you read the story closely, it seems more like the patient was undergoing "Comical Stereotype Disorder." I mean, really, "Danny Boy"? "Da fabbest gal oi know"? It's shocking that he didn't tell her to keep away from his lucky charms. And she's no better, with her "drunken Irishman" remark. I think this couple-he's fully recovered and they're now married-actually hate the Irish. Which is a perfectly sensible position to take, considering they'll kick you out of their goddamn bars even when you're dropping a dollar a drink in gratuity. Bastards.

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]]> The Irish have a saying: "Get the feck out of me pub, ya cheap dago bastard! Yer barred!" Oops, actually that was just one Irishman who owns a bar I used to frequent until he took exception to my tipping policy. Long story. But while we're on the subject of Irish people, let's take a look at the tale of Chris Gregory, who temporarily thought he was one.

Gregory, a native of Sheffield, England, was hospitalized and underwent emergency brain surgery, from which he emerged with an Irish brogue, even though he had no connection to the Auld Sod. Fiancée Mary recounts the event:

I couldn't believe it when I walked on to the ward and heard someone singing Danny Boy really loud. It sounded like a drunken Irishman and all the racket seemed to be coming from the direction of Chris's bed.

I thought to myself: 'It can't possibly be him...' but when I pulled back the curtains Chris was sitting up in bed belting out the tune with all the right words and a thick Irish accent like he'd grown up in Dublin and lived there all his life....

At one point he looked at me adoringly and said: 'You're da fabbest gal oi know!' with a perfect Irish lilt in his voice. It sounded crazy, but I didn't care. It was just great to have him back in one piece after such a traumatic time.

Undoubtedly. Doctors suggest that Gregory was suffering from "Foreign Accent Syndrome," a rare neurological misfire. But if you read the story closely, it seems more like the patient was undergoing "Comical Stereotype Disorder." I mean, really, "Danny Boy"? "Da fabbest gal oi know"? It's shocking that he didn't tell her to keep away from his lucky charms. And she's no better, with her "drunken Irishman" remark. I think this couple-he's fully recovered and they're now married-actually hate the Irish. Which is a perfectly sensible position to take, considering they'll kick you out of their goddamn bars even when you're dropping a dollar a drink in gratuity. Bastards.

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