Stay Cool in the Pool

I'm sure it says something about a sunnier temperament or maybe it's just the weather, but I checked my list of most played songs on McIpod this morning for the first time in 6 months and the top 30 songs were exclusively Ice Cream on your Chin, Lollypop Lickin Electro. No Nina Simone. No stomach churning Al Green. No cold hand of Death Roy Orbison. Not even Tom, Nick or Bob. It's like all the Christmas figurines have been taken out of the manger and replaced with The Power Rangers.

In celebration of this turn of events, I've put together a mixtape of splishy-splashy Electro-pop. These songs are from the very top of my most played list and should appeal to Electro and Anti-Electro fans alike. There are no floor fillers here. Just the kind of stuff you would appreciate on a day to the seaside. In order to download this lovely list: Go to cybersist, Type in the username (clickerconspiracy) and password (mixtape) with your hands and then go to the Files Section where all the music files are. It is worth listening to the songs in this order:

1. Cool in the Pool ~ Can
2. Schrapnell ~ Isolée
3. Crayon ~ Manitoba
4. Corporeal ~ Broadcast
5. Alles Sehen ~ Ellen Allien
6. Like a Pen ~ The Knife
7. Repair Machines ~ Vitalic
8. The Sky Was Pink ~ Nathan Fake
9. I Was a Boy From School ~ Hot Chip
10. Cutup Piano + Xylophone ~ Fridge
11. Animal Chin ~ Jaga Jazzist
12. La Ritournelle ~ Superpitcher
13. An Ending (Ascent) ~ Brian Eno

David Sedaris

Tart Syndrome

When I first started posting on this blog, I made an effort to be honest about my motives for the whole business. Top of that list of motives was recognition of my compulsive Vanity (not vanity). I suppose stating this was a cheap attempt on my part to pose as self deprecating at the outset and I hoped that I could endear myself to those checking out the site by shooting myself in the foot before I started. Of course, someone who continues to blog after a year of posting (most blogs are dropped after a few months) has no real problem with vanity. At that stage, if you are still going, you are either a gathered technophile with homely agendas (Stelke), a novelty rapper turned God-Fearin Lovelyman (Hammertime!) or you are the Lawnmower man (Ring-Ring).

Unfortuneatly, I don't qualify for any of these ascriptions. In my case, the blog has been sustained on the basis of a rare physiological condition known as Tart Syndrome. Little is known about my condition and there is controversy in the medical profession about the consistency of symptoms; but I feel sure that there is enough evidence in blogland to warrant a well funded research agenda.

I have, over the last couple of months, sought to reach an understanding with this faceless adversary. In the initial stages of my condition I had hoped that my father, just as Nick Nolte in the film Lorenzo's Oil, would be spurred into all-night Physiology quests in the National Library. Alas, tis the fate of every individual who suffers from Tart Syndrome to battle the terrible insecurities that derive from self diagnosis.

In the course of my studies, I have made a number of minor breakthroughs in determining the nature of the condition. Those who suffer from Tart Syndrome display acute deficiences in self control, dignity and in aesthetics for good taste. Reading the memoirs of Augusten Burroughs and David Sedaris recently has lead me to the conclusion that early symptoms of the condition are recognisable from childhood. Tarts (those who suffer from Tart Syndrome) are born with a rediculously indecent sense of entitlement and a constant need for validation. The condition is trigged when that sense of entitlement is royally beaten out of the child by infuriated parents, classmates, priests, Young Scientist judges and Birthday clowns.

Furthermore, a number of recent field studies (two weddings) has lead me to the conclusion that the condition is genetic in nature. The first wedding, of my cousin Orla to Fellow Pharmacist Fearghal, was ruined when a Tart suffering cousin envolved me in a very public (and sobering) 5 minute Dance Off. Ultimately I was completely out-tarted by said cousin's execution of a Baltic, outstretched hand kicking leap and by the ability to repeat this same feat 6 times in 10 seconds. Comments on the display ranged from "Legendary" (an over-friendly German randomer) to "Desperately Inappropriate" (my parents). At the second wedding, of Elke to Stephen to Stelke, I was thoroughly out-tarted again by my own brother. Alas in this instance I did not have the option of such a furiously professional Karaoke partner as Mr Brian Twormey. The availability of such a partner was certainly critical to the execution of a tandom Eagle wing-dance during Bette Midler's Wind Beneath My Wings.

I don't know if continuing to post is cathartic in the case of Tart Syndrome - more a case of behaving consistently with the condition. I hope to gain recognition for the plight of Tart sufferers and perhaps sit as an independant in forthcoming elections in my constituency. Vote for the Tart Party - we promise to be vocal about our problems.