Declan Cashin

Writing: the art of applying the ass to the seat

Yesterday was something like this…http://vimeo.com/5881711

Craziest Pride. Ever.

Promo poster for Mad Men season 4, which starts in the US next month

First look at the poster for the Aaron Sorkin-scripted/David Fincher-directed flick about Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg

My interview with Russell Brand from Day and Night in today’s Independent.

It’s late on a weekend night — bedtime, in fact — and I’m waiting by the phone for Russell Brand to call. Not the first person to say those words, I’d imagine.

He’s stood me up twice in the last three weeks. I’m almost certainly not the first person to say those words either. Eventually, the call comes through. It’s 11pm Irish time, and 3pm in Los Angeles, where Brand is sequestered in the midst of an insanely jam-packed — and ash-cloud-disrupted — promotional schedule for his raucous rocker-behaving-badly comedy Get Him to the Greek.

Continue here.

I’ve been in LA for the past few days to interview this young man for the new Twilight movie, Eclipse. It’ll run in Day and Night in the Irish Independent on July 2.

Nightwatch column from today’s Day and Night in the Irish Independent

The magical time that comes but once a year is soon upon me folks. Yes siree, it’s my birthday in exactly two weeks, and seeing as my original plans to mark the occasion with a lavish, decadent costume ball that would make an Elton John charity benefit look like an Amish funeral were shot down by friends as “unrealistic” (pfft, cry-babies), I’m now back on the market scouting for ideas to celebrate the momentous occasion.

What’s that you say? My age? Dear reader you know that no self-respecting gentleman would ever reveal such details, which I think more than qualifies me to inform you that I will be turning 29 years young. I know, hard to believe from my byline picture isn’t it? [But wasn’t that picture taken during your Transition Year work-placement back in 1997?...Ow, that’s my arm…Declan, you’re hurting me – Ed]

Ahem. Anyoldways, I’ve been trying to decide how best to commemorate making one more trip around the sun. Being just a year short of the big Three-Oh, I now approach birthdays in kind of the same way that brides-to-be do hen nights.

Do I opt for the mature spa-treatments-during-the-day-slash-civilised-sitdown-dinner-at-night type of hooley? Or instead plump for the L-Plate-covering-your-nads-slash-vomit-in-your-own-knickers-while-gyrating-to-All The Single Ladies-in-the-lap-of-a-male-stripper type bash?

Decisions, decisions. Being bereft of any original thought or imagination of my own, I’ve looked to my compadres for inspiration. One friend recently organized a kayaking expedition on the Liffey for his birthday (which I missed by being out of the country).

Somehow, I don’t think this is the option for me, a) because it would require far too much physical activity for a man whose idea of exercise is a brisk stand on an escalator, and b) I’d be afraid of capsizing the boat into the murkily-coloured Liffey and hence risk being transformed into a Teenage Mutant Hero Turtle through exposure to the river’s, erm, mysterious elements.

Then there’s the dinner party route. I know of one colleague who took the day of his birthday off work to cook a three-course meal for a select group of friends that evening. I don’t even know where to begin listing what’s wrong with that suggestion, but suffice to say it wouldn’t work out for me unless my guests would be happy dining on three rounds of Tayto sandwiches.

You know what though? Part of me feels that I owe myself one Last Hurrah to my twenties, a giant blow-out comprising three or four days of solid brain-cell-incinerating, liver-pummeling mayhem.

In that regard, the timing is quite fortuitous, as every year my birthday always falls on the same weekend as Dublin’s gay pride parade.

Now that event is many things – a march of solidarity with those of similar life experiences, a defiant statement that the gays are not afraid to be visible – but it’s also a fantastic, rip-roaring session when just about every person who has ever even spoken to someone of the homosexual persuasion is out in force to party like a mofo.

Such a high turnout quite conveniently takes all the pressure off me as the birthday boy to recruit revellers for the festivities, sparing me the horror of sitting on my todd in a pub function room blowing out the cake candles all by myself. Win-win, wouldn’t you say?

Honestly, I think I’ll just end up taking the Irish Government approach of not planning for anything in advance and haphazardly reacting to events as they occur around me. Besides, when it comes to birthdays it’s probably wise not to have too many high expectations going into it. That way you can never be disappointed. Put it down to my Cancerian traits.

The good news for all of you is that for the month of June I shall be holding several gift-reception parties in the vein of a Liz Hurley-Indian wedding. I don’t expect much (*cough James Franco with an iPad around his neck and tickets to Hawaii tucked away in his thong cough*).

At the very least I will be gratefully accepting pints, shorts, shots and/or buckets of wine in public houses throughout the land. Just scarper before I consume them and the DJ plays All The Single Ladies. Then things just get ugly.