Blurbs and Public Speaking...

I spoke at the Galway Film Fleadh on Wednesday afternoon, which was good fun. I was on a panel disucussing new media along with some people from RTE, the Northern Ireland Film Board and a Portuguese producer whose company BeActive produces a show called Sofya’s Diary for Portuguese TV.

So anyway, the general rule of thumb with conferences like this is that you supply a little blurb detailing who you are, what you do, and generally state exactly why it is that people should pay to hear you talk. Mine is generally something like, Eamonn Carey is the Director of Development and New Business at Random Thoughts Media, a digital media production company based in Dublin. Founded in 2006, Random Thoughts specialises in the production of series and channel content for Mobile and Broadband TV. Carey is a former producer/presenter with RTE and Newstalk Radio.

That doesn’t do me justice. Not a word of it is a lie, but it’s a bit blando isn’t it? Most other blurbs are fairly similar. I mean, if you’re talking at a major conference in Europe or the States, chances are people have paid anywhere upwards of 1000 euro to attend, so they like to know they’re getting someone who at least has some idea of what they’re talking about rather than (as I have experienced at several conferences in the past) some random punter with no connection to, much less an idea about the topic up for discussion. The blurb got me to thinking what the truth would look like. So I decided to write an honest blurb, that’s slightly longer than the norm.

Failed singer-songwriter, Eamonn Carey was born in 1979. A hairy man, Carey spent much of his childhood playing with lego and watching transfomers cartoons. As a teenager, adolescent Eamonn wheedled away his time drinking and smoking underage while writing terrible songs and working as a guitar salesman.

In a frankly bizarre move, Carey decided to study Irish, Archaeology and Celtic Civilisation in UCD following extremely mediocre results in his Leaving Certificate. Choosing such random subjects led to Carey leaving UCD almost before he registered as a student in that cesspool of humanity. Most of the rest of the year was spent in an alcoholic haze while extended from the front to the back gate of Trinity College Dublin, mainly centred on the Pav, the Phil, Hist and the Buttery.

After chickening out of a move to Australia, Eamonn enrolled in a journalism course rather than actually getting a job. For three years he learned little, drank a lot, and ruined the college radio station for future students. After graduating, Carey took his atrocious haircut into the hardcore world of freelance journalism, where he cut his teeth writing painfully average top ten lists for a magazine mostly remembered (and purchased) for having advertisements for Irish prostitutes in the back few pages.

Following a disastrous failed audition for the Irish language soap, Ros na Run, Eamonn inveigled and obfuscated his way into a job in Newstalk 106 radio in Dublin, a forum for his incredibly limited knowledge of world events and sport. After persevering with low pay and long hours for two years, Carey was sent to the Olympics on a shoestring budget in the hope that he would be killed in a major terrorist extravaganza.

Surviviing on a diet of Souvlakis and cans of free Coca-Cola, Carey spent the three weeks getting absolutely hammered on a constant basis, taking a short break to fall in love with a girl from Westport. His most memorable moment was when gypsies stole his mobile phone and digital camera while he publicly urinated with a female teacher from Donegal outside the main Olympic Stadium.

Almost straight after his triumphant return from Athens, Eamonn travelled to Seoul, South Korea to ‘work’ on several articles and documentaries. His research centred almost exclusively on the Itaewon district, where he researched such important topics as the amount of Korean beer a white man  drink on a regular basis and the effect of travelling on the back of a motorbike driven by a man on crystal meth with no helmet on. He did not succeed in eating dog.

In a totally random move, Carey moved into lecturing following his 13 hour journey home from Korea. An inexperienced buffoon, Eamonn spent most of his time worrying about what to talk about on a week by week basis. His friends supported him by constantly asking him if he had any fit students, and if he would supply email addresses and phone numbers of same to them in order to further their frankly laughable chances of finding a willing partner.

After a stint in RTE where little of note happened, Carey set up a Digital Media company with his former Newstalk colleague, Daire Whelan. Frequently high, Eamonn is often in demand for important conferences organised by himself. These conferences tend to centre on such vital topics as celebrity organ stealing and Stephen Seagal movies.

A fan of hardcore dance music, disco balls and Charlemont style mayhem, Eamonn Carey can mainly be found fucking around on the internet while drinking tea, burning incense and sitting on his couch.

Comments

[Amelia]

Love this - want to redo my own (boring) work profile now to one like this, would increase the number of people who come and see me speak at conferences for sure!!

[thewrittenone]

Classic. I may try this.