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Isn't it ironic?
Hello people... How y'all doing today? I truly hope that everything is coming up roses for you!
- By G* Nice
- Published: 23:54 November 13, 2008
Hello people... How y'all doing today? I truly hope that everything is coming up roses for you!
Do you remember the Alanis Morissette track called "Ironic"? I wasn't a huge fan of that song when it first came out because I perceived Alanis's game as a bit female militant at the time singing about girls' problems, and screeching about men and all of that. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't "threatened" by her politics; I just saw the long hair and the ranting, and just wasn't feeling it. But when I rediscovered it a few years later when she re-recorded all the songs in an acoustic collection, I was blown away. Who said you can't teach old dogs new tracks! "Ironic" always generated much debate among those with far too much time on their hands as many of the examples she gave were not illustrations of irony. Anyway, my point is that recently I have been struck with many ironies that I thought I would share with you.
What made me think of this was that I heard that one of my favourite mixed martial arts fighters, Evan Tanner, who is a totally crazy man and probably harder than a diamond, sadly died in what can only be called bizarre circumstances. Considering how brutal the UFC sport is that he was involved in, he met his end while trekking in the desert in the US supposedly "looking for treasure!" In hindsight, he may have been better searching for water... sad nonetheless. It reminded me of a friend of mine from my London days, a minor celebrity with some notoriety called Lennie McLean. You may have seen him in Guy Ritchie's movie Lock, Stock & 2 Smoking Barrels where he played a mafia hardman, which is not unlike his real-life existence as it happens. Rightly or wrongly, he was for years the bare-knuckle illegal boxing champion of England and literally spent his whole life fighting for money. After all the danger he walked through, he was finally taken down by a cancer of some sort. Just goes to show huh?
Not all of my ironies involve death by the way... did I tell you way back that I went to a hypnotist to try to sort out some stuff I was trying to deal with?
It was the option I undertook rather than any sort of pharmaceutical solution that was offered. I can't say that for me it was particularly useful as I discovered that I couldn't empty my mind, which is itself quite ironic, because there's no evidence of any real thinking going on there. The bigger irony is that the hypnotherapist's name was Ms Coma and I just couldn't succumb to one!
Television schedules worldwide are filled with 'Nation's Got Talent' –type shows with ordinary members of the public ritually humiliating themselves in front of panels of usually washed-up judges who wouldn't know talent if it slapped them in the face. The weird thing is that these shows seem to gain their popularity by showcasing idiocy and those with no skills-for-real, unless you class stomach-rolling, plate-spinning and wack singing as merit for stardom.
I paid my first visit ever to the largest hardware store in town to try to get some stuff to unblock my shower plug ... and despite stocking millions of products, the one I needed was out of stock!
The only bright side was that I saw one of the most stunning girls ever walking around there buying stuff, but sadly I didn't feel best equipped to approach her holding a big sink plunger!
Missed Opportunit-ly Yours.
- G* Nice...is a Dubai-based columnist who writes an exclusive column for Friday. Folks, just in case you want to get back to G*Nice, please do.
- E-mail: friday@gulfnews.com; He will return the favour and then you will get back to him and he will get back to you ... before you know it, you have a friend. (Believe that?!)
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