Rant-Man's Notebook

By Jim "Rant-Man" MacQuarrie

The Return of Rant-Man

I'm back.

Sorry for skipping a week without notice. The real world bit me in the heiny this last week, but now I finally have my new Mac, my TIVO, and my DirectTV, and life is good. Hectic, but good. I FINALLY got my refund from the idiots that I had tried to buy a computer from, and my beautiful new 19" monitor is just spiffy.

What's not so spiffy is that our message boards are down for a while. Turned out the program we were using to run them was an older version, and it had some vulnerabilities. What that means is, it contained a way for hackery types to access parts of the server that they shouldn't, which they could then use for their own nefarious purposes. In this case, those purposes included launching an attack on a server in Brazil, and in the process taking down all the sites and e-mail on our server. Our web-host was obliged to yank our boards out without notice. We're working on a new forum setup that will have a bunch of cool features, but in the meantime, if you have anything to say, you'll have to resort to e-mail. Sigh.

Let's see now, what's new? Well, I have a new project at work. I'm designing the packaging for a new "energy drink" aimed at the "urban market." Basically an ethnic version of Red Bull. So they have me doing it; that's kind of like Pat Boone covering Tupac Shakur, but I'm taking a shot at it anyway. So far they like it. Trouble is, somebody sat on his thumb for a long time, so I only had a week to do it, instead of the two or three months I could have had if everybody else was as swift as me. That was sarcasm. If everybody was as swift as me, you'd be reading this off a scroll by candlelight.

Last Saturday night, I went to see my pal Gerry O'Beirne in concert. As usual, he was playing guitar with Andy M. Stewart, formerly of Silly Wizard fame. As I've mentioned before, I like traditional celtic music (which I refer to as "drunken peasant music"), and I have another site where I peddle CDs from a long-disbanded group, of which Gerry was a member (you can also buy his solo CD there), and I always try to catch the guys when they roll through town.

This was a great show. It was the last night of their tour, and they were both at the top of their game, very funny, performing well and having a great time. Gerry told us that he recently discovered that Mohammed Ali's great-grandfather was actually from his hometown in County Clare. He said it would have been nice to know, back when he was a kid riding his bicycle through the streets of Ennis, wearing his short pants in the sleet and hail as he made his way to school "to have the shit kicked out of me by men in frocks," that Mohammed Ali was eligible to play hurling for Clare. It would have made a difference.

Andy explained the facts about celtic traditional music. They have songs about incredibly beautiful, diaphonous, unattainable women that you're never going to have any kind of a chance with... these are called "love songs." They also have many songs about very strong drink. These are also called "love songs." He gave examples of both. I wish I could just transcribe all his best bits, but you really have to hear them. Check the concert schedule at their sites, and go see them. You'll get to hear some great stuff. About every other song began with an introduction explaining that the song is about "a young man who thinks he's met the perfect woman, and plunges headlong into catastrophe." "Take Her in Your Arms" and "The Errant Apprentice" are two of them. The lyrics to "The Errant Apprentice" are here; just because I like you, I'll go ahead and print the lyrics to "Take Her in your Arms" here, because they're a little hard to find online...

Take Her In Your Arms
Have you seen him on the corner,
His lip would reach the pavement,
He's been hiding from his razor,
Is he not an awful sight?
In love he was the purest,
Now he's frightening the tourists,
If he'd gone and asked his father,
I'm sure he'd set him right.

CHORUS:
Saying,
Take her in your arms
And tell her that you love her.
Take her in your arms
And hold that woman tight.
Won't you take her in your arms
And tell her that you love her.
If you're going to love a woman
Then be sure and do it right.

Well he met her at a disco,
In a dive in San Francisco,
And it all might have been different
Had he seen her in the daylight.
She was painted, she was scented,
And she drove your man demented.
If he'd gone and asked his father,
I'm sure he'd set him right.

Chorus: Saying.....

Here's a pub with fun and laughter,
The landlord's buying bevvy,
There's a session in the corner
And the craic* is grand tonight.
But your man who lost his woman
He's still at home lamenting,
If he'd gone and asked his father
I'm sure he'd set him right.

Chorus

Now depression's not a million laughs,
But suicide's too dangerous.
Don't go leapin' out of buildings,
In the middle of the night.
It's not the fall but landin'
That'll alter social standing,
So go first and ask your father
And I'm sure he'll set you right.

Chorus

Here's a health to all true lovers,
Their sisters and their brothers,
and their uncles and their grannies.
For this thing is black and whole.
If you're keen to start romancing
With it's leapin' and it's dancin',
Then go first and ask your father
And I'm sure he'll set you right.

Chorus

*Craic (pronounced "crack") is the combined sensations of the music, the drink, the conversations, the spirit of the surroundings usually found in a pub or other social gathering.

In other news, I decided to get rid of my thieving cable company and sign up for DirectTV with TIVO. The neat thing there is it lets you watch whatever you want whenever you want. I have it set to collect anything with Tom Conti, Animaniacs, Rocky & Bullwinkle, Freakazoid, and Phantom of the Paradise. No, I don't watch anything normal.

I just got notice that my favorite website of Pop-Culture reviews, Robot Fist has published an essay I wrote on the enduring popularity of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. It's right here, but please check out the rest of Robot Fist while you're there. It's chock-full of goodness.

There, that ought to hold you.

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