There are two types of scarlet that I study. The bad: “We’re all FUUUUUUUCKED” kind, like realising ‘The Handmaids Tale’ is real and Matt Damon is the best we are gonna get, and the good: “Ah! The HACK of that” kind that is so utterly mortifying and glorious (see Fyre Fest or Brad Pitt’s GQ Interview) that it breathes new mort into you and makes you scarlet-proof.

2017 was a perfect example of these two strains of scarlet infecting us and creating a new type of scarlet called: “JESUS FUCKING CHRIST, D HACK OF D PLACE, WE’RE ALL BLEEDIN’ FUUUUUUUUUUCKED!!!!!!! NEVER MIND, JA RULE JUST DID SOMETHING GAS!”

Here are our top ten scarlet stories & people from 2017.

10: Woke Katy Perry

She’s WIDE AWAKE!

As you have probably gathered by now Katy is the wokest of all the baes. A self-declared saviour of music and maker of “purposeful pop.” Katy is so woke a box of sleeping pills couldn’t knock her out.

“I’ve seen behind the curtain,” she says in an interview with Vanity Fair, “and I can’t go back. I used to be the queen of innuendo, everything done with a wink,” she adds. “Now I want to be the queen of subtext—which is a cousin to innuendo, but it’s got more purpose.”

Chilling stuff. Quick. Someone close those curtains and don’t let Taylor Swift see behind them.

Katy got a one-way ticket to wokeland in the last few years, urging people to vote for little-known candidate Hilary Clinton. She was so busy being chained to the rhythm she forgot to wake her parents up ’cause they only went and voted for Trump. Silly Billies.

Katy continued her woke streak by reminding us all not to dance like zombies in her woke masterpiece, ‘Chained To The Scarlet.’ Bit rich coming from someone who dances like she does, but, she is our scarlet leader, so fair enough.

Never one to be bogged down by privilege, Katy continued her woke streak by wearing this mess designed by Nazi-loving designer, John Galiano, and followed it up by releasing an empowering feminist revenge song against Snow White herself, Taylor Swift.

When Katy stares into the woke abyss, she just sees Kendall Jenner staring back at her with a can of Pepsi.

But, none of this will take away from the fact that Katy gifted us with some truly sublime GIFs this year, including one from this fuckery of a performance on SNL. It looks like it was choreographed by Linda Martin after she laced into a bag of ketamine.

Here she is inventing a new dance move called, “Tweaking.” It’s like twerking. But, with your face and a bag of pills.

Katy proving once and for all that mushroom hallucinations do come true.

When you think all hope is lost for humanity, backpack kid, who is clearly her drug dealer, steps in to save the day as he tries to brush off all the scarlet happening around him. Too late, mate. Just marinate in it.

9: Damonsplaining

Obituary

Matt Damon.

“How Do You Like Them Apples?” – 2017

Father of daughters, friend of Afflecks, and leader of white men, Matt Damon’s career died slowly and painfully from foot in mouth disease in 2017. Matt Damon, also known as MATT D-A-M-O-N, was first diagnosed with foot and mouth disease in 1998 when he broke up with his then-girlfriend, Minnie Driver, live on the Oprah Winfrey Show. He was in remission for several years before contracting the deadly disease again in 2015, when he explained diversity to a black, female director during his show ‘Project Greenlight,’ and in an interview with The Guardian, discouraged gay actors from coming out in Hollywood because, “in terms of actors, I think you’re a better actor the less people know about you, period. And sexuality is a huge part of that.” Before going on to talk about his family and wife in every interview. Ever. Matt’s conditioned worsened in 2017 when his white male privilege pills stopped working and he informed women of the world that they should be talking about all the men who don’t rape: “I think one thing that’s not being talked about is there are a whole shitload of guys – the preponderance of men I’ve worked with – who don’t do this kind of thing and whose lives aren’t going to be affected.”

Now chewing on both of his feet, D-A-M-O-N used his magic apples to look into the future and guarantee all of us thickos that Louis CK probably wouldn’t do these things again because of the high price he had already paid. And, when it comes to Matt’s mates the Afflecks, worry not ’cause, “If it’s a friend of mine, I’m always talking to them. I know the real story if it’s my friend.”

Shortly after, Matt’s career died on its arse at the box office, and was declared dead on twitter on December 18th, 2017.

8: This Picture

Enda Kenny looking like he got caught rapid on the way to meet d baiz for a bag of cans is fucking masterpiece. Whoever took this picture should be given the rest of their life off. Its levels of mort have yet to be identified but I will make it my life’s work.

Our own fucking Morta Lisa. Get it up in The Louvre, now!

7: Brad Pitt’s Meltdown in GQ

All the shit that happened in 2017 and you’re picking a Brad Pitt interview from 6 months ago? Yes. Yes, I am. Because there is a lot of shit I cannot do. I cannot drive. I cannot run. Physically, my legs don’t know how. I cannot book a flight that doesn’t get delayed and I have no idea how to read a map. But I know scarlet. I have a physical reaction when I see, hear, read or talk to it.

And this, my morts, is a scarlet masterpiece. You will know a scarlet masterpiece by how badly it ages. It should get more horrifyingly scarlet with every viewing/ read. You will discover new levels every time you go back to study it and more than ANYTHING your eyes will roll back so far in your head that you will have a full view of what’s going on behind you.

Brad’s interview in GQ has passed all my scarlet tests and is now being framed and hung in my Scarlet Hall of Fame.

Here is our scarlet lowdown of this masterpiece from May.

‘BRAD PITT IN AMERCA’S NATIONAL PARKS.’

Sorry, that deserved its own line. GQ does NOT fuck around with us. When they gift us with scarlet, they wrap it in a big bow and throw confetti. Or in Brad’s case, they give him a bag of coke and throw him in a park.

In his first interview since his break-up from Octomom Angelina Jolie, the interviewer seemed to catch him right in the midst of a scarlet fever where he divulged that:

“I get up every morning and I make a fire. When I go to bed, I make a fire, just because — it makes me feel life. I just feel life in this house.” – Jesus, the divorce must have left him broke. Poor lad can’t even afford central heating. You should have just gone to Fyre Fest, mate. Nothing would have given you more life than that fyre. 

“I can’t remember a day since I got out of college when I wasn’t boozing or had a spliff, or something. Something. And you realize that a lot of it is, um — cigarettes, you know, pacifiers.”  Ugh, this is the part where Fun Bobby stops drinking.

“I’m making everything. I’m working with clay, plaster, rebar, wood. Just trying to learn the materials. You know, I surprise myself. But it’s a very, very lonely occupation.” –Brad on his lonely ETSY adventures.

“Genuinely, I just felt like Brad was a misnomer, and now I just feel like fucking Brad.” – Finally some clarity, I think we can all agree we have felt like fucking Brad at some stage in our lives.

Brad standing still for The Angelus. Photo Credit: RTE – Angelus, Autumn 2017 Campaign.

“I’ve never heard anyone laugh bigger than an African mother who’s lost nine family members. What is that? I just got R&B for the first time. R&B comes from great pain, but it’s a celebration. To me, it’s embracing what’s left. It’s that African woman being able to laugh much more boisterously than I’ve ever been able to.” I hope he said this as legendary R & B singers Sisqo’s ‘Thong Song’ played in the background. I’d estimate he’s about halfway through the bag of coke at this stage and this is why he’s committed to this truly profound thought.

“I’ve been listening to a lot of Frank Ocean. I find this young man so special. Talk about getting to the raw truth. He’s painfully honest. He’s very, very special. I can’t find a bad one.” – Even though Fun Bobby has stopped drinking, he’s still on the pulse of music. Discovering artists before anyone else has. Here, he brings up little-known singer, Frank Ocean.

Actual photo of Brad falling over after realizing he discovered R & B Music 

“It’s been a more painful week than normal — just certain things have come up — but I see joy out the window, and I can see the silhouette of palms and an expression on one of my kids’ faces, a parting smile, or finding some, you know, moment of bliss with the clay.” – I think that his coke has been laced with something and he’s having hallucinations. Two valiums and throw the fire on hun, you should be grand.

“It was too sad to be here at first, so I went and stayed on a friend’s floor, a little bungalow in Santa Monica.” Brad Pitt staying on a friends floor. In a small bungalow. Jesus wept. Between the no heating and now no bed, you need to have a word with your accountant, mate.  I won’t even go to Electric Picnic unless I’m glamping and I’m fucking B.R.O.K.E!

“Until I was out there one morning, 5:30, and this surveillance van pulls up. They don’t know that I’m up behind a wall, and they pull up — and it’s a long story — but it was something more than TMZ, because they got into my friend’s computer. The stuff they can do these days…” What the fuck are you doing behind a wall at 5:30 in the morning?

The cover of Brad’s new autobiography “Frank & An Ocean Of Loneliness “

6:Ed Sheeran’s Galway Girl

I fucking hate Ed Sheeran. And, no that’s not too strong a word to use. I do. It’s absolutely debilitating sometimes. I once wrote Ed Sheeran under “Known Allergies” on a medical form. Some of it is not even his fault. It’s through my own pure laziness. Seven years ago when his first album came out, me and some mates were living in a gaff in Dublin. We had one CD player and one CD. Ed Sheeran’s first album. NONE of us had fancy music apps at the time, ’cause it was the dark ages and we were all too lazy to put on Youtube. EVERY SINGLE DAY for a YEAR, we would just listen to that stupid fucking album on repeat. We all literally developed some sort of tinnitus by the end, until one day, someone just put the CD player in the oven and blew it up. Then we realised we had WIFI and put on Beyonce on Youtube and everything was fine again. But the PTEDD (Post Traumatic Ed Disorder) has remained. Every time I see or hear Ed, I get vivid flashbacks of the CD player blowing up. I consciously uncoupled from him for years and on advice from my counselor, I’d leave a room if he was mentioned, to prevent further trauma. Sometimes I’d even pretend I was high when he was on telly and that it was all a hallucination but then he released Galway Girl and lured me back in with his brazen scarlet attack on my second favourite county (after Cork, obvs), and now I cannot hide the fact that, I FUCKING HATE HIM!

Here is my breakdown of all the scarlet in Galway Girl that I wrote in March and nothing has changed, except now I hate him more ’cause he roped Beyonce into making her first ever mistake. Recording a duet with him.

5: Kendall Jenner Ends Racism With A Can Of Pepsi.

Another masterpiece bestowed upon this year by the KKKKKKKKKK Klan. Kendall Jenner, who just graduated from the Katy Perry School of Wokeness, leapt into social activism by solving centuries of oppression and racism with a dodgy denim jacket and a can of Pepsi. Here’s our breakdown of the mort from earlier in the year.

There are going to be numerous side effects from watching this ad. For safety reasons, we will list them here, so at least your death won’t be totally unexpected. It will be a sweet release from the scarleptic fit you will be having.

1.) It will begin with subtle eyeballing at about the 2 second mark when you see the only man who has ever sweated playing the cello, ON A ROOF. The mort for him will soon turn to compassion when you realize he should have just jumped off said roof and saved himself a lifetime of cringe flashbacks.

2.) The eyeball rolling will unexpectedly turn to gasping at 34 seconds when you see the moment our lord and saviour, Kendall Jenner finally got woke.

3.) The first bout of mort will set in shortly after when you realize ol’ Kenny has mistaken this block party for a protest, and you can feel a likely fatal eye twitch coming on when you know she will join it. She rips her wig off ’cause she’s now fully WOKE, and she then hands her manky wig to a black woman, ’cause you know, BLACK LIVES MATTER to Kendall. Kendall then rubs off her white privilege lipstick and changes into her superhero uniform of 90’s denim patchwork and shoves her way through the crowd like the fucking Dr. Martin Luther King that she is.

4.) By this stage, you will be having full body convulsions when you see her rich, white, likely insured arse storm up to the cops with a can of Pepsi, and you get into a panic because you hate anyone having to drink Pepsi willingly… But even more fucked than that revelation, you know what was really happening was the sequel to this:

5.) A full body reddner has now officially overcome you and scarlet fever has taken over your brain, shutting down your organs one micro-mort at a time. You weep for how many lives could have been saved if only people had realized the power of Pepsi.

You slowly start coming back to life when you remember there are 84 other Kardashians and things will be ok after all.  Kylie is on route to Ireland with a bottle of TK Orange to Repeal the 8th, and Kim just rocked up to Taylor Swift’s house with a bottle of Coke and a gun. #AllKardashiansMatter

4: And the winner is LA LA LAND

Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway mistakenly reading out LA LA Land as winner for best picture is a true, “HACK OF THAT” moment and my favourite TV clip of all time. I even recorded it and set it as my alarm clock. You think I’m bullshitting but I’m not. Every morning I wake up to knowing that LA LA Land didn’t actually win and I am reminded daily that everything will be grand.

It wasn’t the only moment of mort from the oscars though, here’s our recap of the Top Five Scarlet Moments from the 2017 Oscars.

3: Irish Housing Crisis

Have you ever seen the movie Precious? It’s about a girl living in New York who has the worst luck ever. She is being sexually assaulted by her stepfather and has his kids when she’s a teenager. One of the kids is sick. Her Ma is a psycho and she has Mariah Carey as a social worker. Basically, by the end of it your popcorn will be drowning in tears and you will be reading Angela’s Ashes to cheer you up.

Anyway, I always thought Precious would be the grimmest thing I’d ever see. I was wrong. The Irish Housing Crisis is.

I just recently home after five years of living in Canada. Although, I had heard rumours of the housing situation being a bit of a mare, as usual, I underestimated the scarlet. You see, when one is born with scarlet fever, a constant state of mortification becomes normalised. Everything blurs into one and when new levels of scarlet arise it can take one a second to fully comprehend the depths of the mort.

There were 7,941 people homeless in June across Ireland.  This figure includes adults and children with their families. The number of families becoming homeless has increased by over 27% since June 2016. One in three of those in emergency accommodation is now a child. However, this number does not include ‘hidden homelessness’ which refers to people who are living in squats or ‘sofa surfing’ with friends. Furthermore, women and children staying in domestic violence refuges are not included in these homeless emergency accommodation counts. The national figure also does not include people who are sleeping rough. So, the number is MUCH higher than those reported.

I am now one of these people. I cannot afford to rent in Dublin or find somewhere half decent to rent, I am staying with friends. Moving from one place to the next. I am technically homeless. A lavish apartment and well paying job in Canada and I’m back home to high rents and low wages. Where the whiskey’s drowns and the beer chases… my blues away. Oh, I’ve got friends on looooow wages.

Wha? How could it be so bad?

Well, if you want a deep dive. I’d say decades of an inept government. Greed. Money. Not enough. Too much. “Ah, shur it’ll be grand” attitude. Ah, it’s all a bit Irish.

Or, as Roy Keane our lord and saviour would say, “Fail to prepare. Prepare to fail.” Which seems to be the motto our government runs on.

From what I’ve heard down the pub though, we have a plan. It’ll be grand.

Here’s how we fix it.

1. There are not enough houses. According to Dave down the pub about 60 million extra houses a day need to be built to deal with the ever-growing demand and increases in population.
2. Regulations on rent control need to come into place ’cause of “all the prick landlords” according to my mate, Jack. He tells one horror story a day of some house with 400 people living in it and they, “literally don’t have a pot to piss or cook in.”
3. Maeve, after 6 pints, came up with a plan which I’m 100% in favour of. We all have a local referendum on, “I’m A Gowl, Get Me Outta Here,” where everyone in their local area votes on someone they fucking hate. Whoever gets the most votes has to fuck off and move abroad. She’s estimating this would mean about 3.5 million people clearing out a lot of rental properties, thus freeing up space for “sound people to live in peace.”
4. Me every day and after no drink, ” Everything is centralized in Dublin. 40% of the population lives there. They should be building more stuff in Cork and moving Cork people back there. It’s the real capital anyway. We shouldn’t have to live in Dublin.”

But, enough about the banter in the pub, what are the government saying?  The people in charge. Our leaders of democracy.

“Ireland’s homelessness is completely normal” says the Government’s (thankfully outgoing) chairman of housing agency, Conor Skehan.

Welcome to dystopia.

2: Fyre Fest

My obituary  when I die will read:

After catching a terminal bout of scarlet fever reading the tales of Fyre Fest, she never recovered and died screaming Murder Inc! Kaz requests only Ja Rule’s ‘Thug Life’ be played at her funeral and her ashes be scattered on the Fyre Fest site. Please make a donation in her name to the Instagram Millennial Refugee Crisis. 

Fyre Fest is the perfect recipe for absolute fucking mort. Here is how it unfolded:

Fyre Fest was the brainchild of punctual hero, Ja Rule, who pulled off his greatest scam since rapping by promising a load of rich gowls ‘the cultural experience of the decade,’ which patrons later found out was code for ‘PREPARE TO DIE!’ Ja lured them in with the promise of live music, gourmet food, yoga by the beach and Instagram models for breakfast. Instead, he fucked them all into a Coachella where everyone dies, tents go up in flames, luggage is fucked off a random lorry, there’s nowhere to sleep and there’s nothing to comfort you but the not so distant sound of gunshots, and the rustling of feral dogs ready for a little snack. All this for only 250k per tickets.

As you probably already know this saga is the gift that will NEVER stop giving.

Here is what festival goers were promised:

Here’s the millennial wasteland they walked into.

 

 

This is a reddit thread from people at Fyre Fest. I read it twice a day. In different accents.

1: Predators

Ah, it couldn’t have been anything else at number one, could it? Harvey and the lads had this one sewn up.

It Never. Fucking. ENDS. And it probably won’t. Centuries of oppression don’t end when one Hollywood big shot is named, or 10. It ends when women in all sectors, from all walks of life, can speak up and be truly heard.  It ends when women of all colours are listened to. It ends when women don’t have to keep telling their stories. It ends when there ARE NO STORIES TO TELL. It ends when men listen. It ends when men change. Some fucking GOWL I used to work with, an Irish director, who is himself an absolute creep, put something up about how not all woman are innocent. Ok, MR FUCKING ALL LIVES MATTER DAMONSPLAINER. First of all, newsflash to all lads out there: WE FUCKING KNOW THAT WOMEN AREN’T PERFECT. WE KNOW THAT IT’S NOT ALL MEN. But it is ALL WOMEN. There is no woman alive who hasn’t experienced sexual harassment or worse. So, like, do something about it. Instead of critiquing our oppression. DO SOMETHING TO CHANGE IT.

Here is a thing I wrote about a while back about it because I cannot be arsed writing anything else about it.

Lads, start writing to each other about ways to change it. I’m putting the kettle on.

Louis CK

Christ, draining the swamp is exhausting, isn’t it? Either men are denying they even live in the swamp, or admitting that they only visit the swamp because everyone that lives there admires them so much. Be rude not to go there and show everyone your dick.

Insert Louis CK, your boyfriend’s favourite comedian. Harvey, Spacey, Roy Moore, they have all been brutal. Abhorrent. Predators. Off with their heads. It seems to be easier for men to rationalise with these crimes. These are clearer cut. The guys are MONSTERS!

Louis CK though, his shit has huuuuuuuuurt. From his behaviour, to his statement that was NOT an apology, to the reaction from A LOT of people men, it has been the clearest example to me of how a lot of lads still do NOT FUCKING GET IT. If there was a movie made about how the subtle, everyday patriarchy works to silence women and uplift men, it would be Louis CK’s story.

It goes like this:

Act 1

Utilise the most important tools of patriarchy that are at your disposal. Your penis and your power.

Use one hand to hold a mic to remind people that you are a man and your word is golden. Become known as a “feminist comedian.” Use this to create some of your most well-known work including this piece on how men are the biggest threat to women.

Act 2

Use your other hand to take your penis out in front of female comedians, your colleagues, and remind them who has the real power here. Make them watch your admirable power while you offload your shame on them, to carry around.

While you, a 6ft tall guy, who weighs around 250 lbs are there, why not remind these women that although they might “admire you,” that YOU are the person we have been told to watch out for. It’s not the guy down the alley, the stranger on a street, the MONSTER guy, etc. Nope. In fact, a lot of the time, it’s you! The nice guy. Tell them as you masturbate in front of them how good of a dad you are to your daughters. How men are the worst. How you get it!

Act 3

When asked about said abuse, use your most powerful tool, the one that is the easiest. Silence. Shush them away. Ignore it. Deny it. Keep reminding people that YOU GET IT. Keep telling your “truth” while denying others theirs. Then, when your tools break, when they have been taken away, use your backup plan. White, male redemption. Write a statement aimed solely at men. Admit to it, but don’t apologise. Remind them who still has the power. Name all the ways you are powerful. All the ways you have been admired.

And wait for your redemption.

If you don’t believe me, Louis himself even wrote a movie about it.

Because he gets it. He has ALWAYS gotten it.

Other scarlet moments that just missed my top ten were, your Ma, your Da, Brexit, Leo Varadkar flip flopping on everything, Ronan Mullen, Rose of Tralee, Every episode of Fair City, everything about Donald Trump, Justin Bieber starting his own Scientology, Piers Morgan still getting air time, people having all the feels, Bono, Rita Ora’s career, Lena Dunham being a thicko and Kate Winslet wrecking my head. 

Writer: Kaz Twomey