Mongrel Magazine

Published: Mongrel Magazine, December 2003

Elvis… Is it yourself?

Mission: Trick a Psychic into Contacting Someone Who Never Existed
Purpose: My own amusement
Venue: Georges Street Arcade
Time: 13.57, 13/11/2003
Tools: Concealed microphone
Miscellaneous: Peckish, may need a sandwich later. Read the rest of this entry »

“I’m loving these numbers”

New figures published this week show this magazine’s circulation holding steady at 36,898, down slightly on 36,938 last quarter. But when seasonal and other miscellaneous factors are allowed for, that amounts to an impressive 5,924,094 readers per month – an exceptionally strong performance in a country of just over four million people. (The balance is thought to be made up by immigrants and undercover al-Qaida operatives entering this jurisdiction illegally in order to read the trendy magazine.) Read the rest of this entry »

Alex And Liam Do Walmart

My first time in America, in 1998, I visited Walmart and was as flabbergasted as these guys. There was one section where they stocked nothing but piles and piles of awful romance novels. (You know the ones with, like, a topless Fabio lookalike on the cover.) The press quote on one said: “Marks the arrival of a major new talent.”

The store was about the size of Colorado. I almost made it the entire way across before this one nagging thought got the better of me. I stopped in my tracks and turned around. Hold on, what newspaper could possibly have given that review to a trashy romance novel? I turned around and marched the entire way back.

That newspaper? The Romantic Times. God bless Walmart! God bless America!

The House of Dolls

“Weird. Freaky. Scary… Freaky and scary are the two you’d get most often. People tend to either like the dolls or hate them. There’s no in-between.” Read the rest of this article here.

Student hack (belatedly) bites back!

I can’t help noticing that Eoin Butler has billed this piece as some sort of revenge or competition between myself and himself with his title “Student hack bites back”. I am saying from the outset that I have no intention of “biting back.”

Looking back now, I wish I had chosen to interview someone a bit safer than Eoin for this article. The bottom line is that I thought Mongrel was a hilarious magazine and decided it would be cool to interview one of their writers for this assignment I had.

Read the rest of this entry »

Published: Mongrel magazine, August 2007

I Was Glenda Gilson’s Stalker

Mea culpa. It was I, Arthur Vandelay, with an address at Manor Street, Stoneybatter, and an envelope in Ballyhaunis, Co. Mayo, who stalked the model Glenda Gilson. It was I, a humble window cleaner, who knowingly and with malicious intent, bombarded her with nuisance phone calls, nuisance social calls and convenience foods.

Who gatecrashed glitzy film premieres waving stacks of homemade sandwiches, shouting “Wait Glenda, wait! You forgot your sangwiches!” Who heckled her in the Vagina Monologues, claiming she was actually born a man. And I who finally, when confronted by the gardai, turned my interlocutors’ very accusations back upon them, by use of the cunning mantra “I know you are, but what am I?” Read the rest of this entry »

Published: Mongrel magazine, May 2005

The Top 10 Most Annoying People I Work With

10. Lance Armstrong boy
Walks around with his sleeve rolled up and his arm stuck out like he’s carrying it in an invisible sling. W-why? Because he’s got a motherfuckin’ Lance Armstrong bracelet dude. Seriously, if he was second class he’d be an idiot. In an insurance office at 24 years of age he has to be either a mental defective or an interloper from some strange parallel universe in which people in offices are impressed by shitty yellow bracelets. Read the rest of this article here.

Clicking Along The Ledge

#10 Student Hack Bites Back (April 15th)
Funny story this. Student hack writes extremely flattering, but also totally made up, profile of me for student magazine. I publish said profile here, replete with sarcastic comments from myself and various associates. There is much rejoicing. Months later, student hack drops us a line protesting cruel treatment. I offer him right of reply. The rest is… acrimony. Read the rest of this entry »

“I want to be up there with the greatest legends of showbiz: the Judys, the Sinatras, the Oliviers, the Clark Gables…”

He’s a prodigiously talented performer and composer who has battled addictions to drink and drugs. But for now the sun is all that’s frying Rufus Wainwright’s brain… Read the rest of this article here.

Wayne Coyne Battles the Bad Buzz Robots

Electric Picnic 2005. I had only a couple of minutes notice I’d be talking to Wayne Coyne. No time to prepare questions. So I got to thinking, you know, the guy is always so insanely happy. Wouldn’t it be funny if I just tried to depress the shit out of him. So I tried. Did it work? Well… Read the rest of this article here.