Damien Mulley

The really awful video of David Hasselhoff being drunk and filmed by his daughter has been viewed at least 1.7 Million times already. It’s been aired on many TV networks too. I really despair at American news when instead of serious news, all outlets including CNN devote more and more time to Anna-Nicole, Britney, Paris, Prince William and now the Hoff.

This is the video:

But the interesting thing for me are all the parodies that are on YouTube such as this one:

So far there have also been about 200 video responses to the video.

The dozens of Irish piss-take videos around during the election show too that parody is alive and well in Ireland. Parody and satire seem to be a handy way of forking out into deeper more original creativity. The whole “imitation is the sincerest form of flattery” comes to mind. First comes the derivatives of other work and then comes totally original pieces. Hell, Billy Shakespeare’s work got a lot of inspiration from other older stories. PoliticalThicko is getting a lot of attention for his videos but he is far from alone on that front. Bertie Ahern on Dragon’s Den was superb too.

I wish Labour and the other parties would release the raw footage they use to make their videos. It’d be great too to see RTE also release a lot of their own content online for free and to be reused. Neil Grogan has written to RTE asking them to release the political debates (if they bloody happen).

I am writing this email to ask you follow America’s CNN in releasing Irish Election broadcasts under a permissive license, like Creative Commons. This would allow people to reproduce the content freely, and give RTE the credit it deserves. Like Democracy, Culture wants to be free and open to the people. This could serve as a trial to Creative Commons licensing other RTE produced programs.

A great idea. I support it and it’d be great for all other political websites and organisations to ask the same of RTE. As Neil said, they can class this as a trial and maybe consider moving more original content online after that. Not in the god awful realvideo format either. RTE, like the Beeb, should get themselves a YouTube channel as well as a raw footage archive. Fergus Cassidy has also highlighted the CNN endeavour.

Roll on the parodies and roll on original art.

As introduced by the Creighton:

Via the Green Party Flickr account. (Kudos for having one lads and ladies.)

We already know Vincent is a badass but where does Irish politics’ baddest badass go when he’s hungry? (And also Politician of the year) Same place that Chuck Norris goes to when he’s in Dublin – The Badass Cafe. Badasses do in fact dine there. (They have a special box that goes on top of Norris’ chair so he can reach the table.) Oh and that’s milk they’re drinking. Enough of your Marc Almond jibes. In case you need to know Ciaran Cuffe dines in Govindas while Eamonn Ryan dines on tuna friendly baby dolphins in chez Jacques.

FYI, Chuck Norris, son of David, is pictured on the right below. Don’t let his Koala-like cuddliness fool you. Like a real Koala, he can take you:

Or Batt O’Keeffe for that matter: