Did Your Heart Grow Fonder?

I've been away for a bit, as you may have noticed. First of all I've been as busy as a bartender at an Irish Fest meeting getting ready for our sister festival, the very silly Jiggle Jam going on at Crown Center beginning tomorrow. I hope to see you all there, jiggling and jamming as appropriate.

Then I was out of town driving to New York to fetch my oldest boy back from his institute of higher learning. But I'm back and I missed you all. So hi.

And listen: remember when I told you about that big Mundy show going on next month and Knucklehead's Saloon? Remember how I told you that seats were limited and you better get on it? Well, I was informed this morning that only 9 seats remain. Nine. If you haven't bought yours, I'd advise you to do it today.

Small World

Whenever I try to con one of my gullible illustrator buddies into doing a great piece of art for Irish Fest and not get paid for it, I lie to them and say things like "who knows, maybe it will lead to some actual paid work some time!"

At least I thought I was lying. Yesterday I got an email from the owner of a company in Sweden who has somehow stumbled on Tir na Blog and seen the art done for  us in 2009 by my friend Maja Andersen. They liked what they saw and wanted to know if I could help them get in touch with Maja to hire her for some freelance illustration work.

Crazy small world. The best thing is now I have a great new story to tell future cow artists as I try to convince them to give us something for nothing.

Mundy On A Friday

The great Irish singer, songwriter, guitarist Mundy will be making a stop here in Cowtown next month at what is in my opinion is the best venue in town, Knucklehead's Saloon in the east bottoms.

The show is June 14th, a Friday, which might seem like a long way off.  But here's the thing: this a very limited seating show. Only 60 lucky people will get to see this talented Co. Offaly man for his Kansas City debut. I know that I'll be one of them because I have my ticket right here, hot off the printer.

If you want to join me don't hesitate: get on it today. Now even. This is a rare chance to see one of Ireland's most dynamic up and coming musicians here in the Midwest.

Need some convincing? Done. Get your tickets here.

Winners!

The judges have spoken and we have our two winners in our caption the cartoon contest. They are:

"Do you happen to know the exchange rate for Flainian Pobble Beads?" submitted by Jason Gallagher


and

"Have I got a challenge for the Genealogy group." submitted by Brian McCarthy

The authors of those clever lines will each be receiving a 10th anniversary KCIF CD and 2 tickets to the Frames film this weekend. Congratulations and thanks to all who entered!

More contests coming soon as we count down the last 120 days to Irish Fest!

Clock's Ticking

Just a couple more hours remain in our cartoon caption contest to win a double prize of an Irish Fest 10th Anniversary CD and a pair of tickets to see the Frames documentary at the Middle Of The Map Festival this weekend. At noon today we're done and Laren and I will confer and pick the two funniest, cleverest, wittiest so hurry on up. Enter here or on our Facebook page. Good luck!

Too Funny

Hysterical. I laughed uncontrollably at 2:03. Been there yourself?

Contest! Whoo Hoo!

After the great Dance Out For Jane fund raiser last Friday, we're all full of the spirit of giving, full of generosity, full of affection for our Irish community. We're full of...well, let's just never mind what we're all full of. The point is we want to give you something. So let's have a contest!

Here's the deal. Take a look at the cartoon below. Write a funny caption for it. Sent it to me by clicking here or enter on our Facebook page. The best, funniest, cleverest two entries chosen by our expert judges* win a copy of the Kansas City Irish Fest 10th Anniversary CD and a pair of tickets to the special showing of "The Frames: In The Deep Shade" at the Middle Of The Map festival this weekend. Enter as often as you like. The deadline for entries is Thursday, May 2nd at noon. Our two winners will be announced here and on Facebook. Reminder: the film tickets are for showings this coming Friday and Saturday evenings.

Get funny! Win!

*Expert judges=me and Laren.

Danced Out

What a wonderful event last night. The Kansas City edition of Dance Out For Jane was a huge success thanks to the kind-hearted and generous people who danced, played, baked, clapped, ate, drank and showed up in droves to support the Richard family.

Special thanks to the Kansas City Irish Center for donating the space, Boulevard Brewing Company for donating the beer, KC Screenprint for the t-shirts and buttons, Brancato's Catering, all the bakers who brought bake sale food, the incredible musicians who kept the party going, and the small army of volunteers who made the whole thing run. And especially to the dancers who took to their feet and embraced a member of the family they've never met. It was a truly inspiring event to be part of.

Where To Put The Automobile Tonight

Some important news from Renata at the Irish Center. You'll want to make note of this before you head down for Dance Out For Jane this evening:

More generosity! Just confirmed – Mid Con Management, our parking company at Union Station, has just agreed to let us have for free the triangle lot in the southwest corner of Union Station upper level and the north lots on our level (normally these are honor box lots) for our fundraiser attendees. They were not able to release the parking garage, OK street parking, or upper level South Plaza.

So great to see Kansas City coming together for this most worthy cause. Looking forward to seeing you all tonight.

Middle Of The (Irish) Map

At Kansas City's Middle of The Map Festival on May 3rd and 4th, The Frames: In The Deep Shade will be shown and I'm thinking you, Irish music fan, should check it out.

In The Deep Shade is a series of vignettes and interviews with the Irish band The Frames. It explores their status as musicians and artists who have been creating music together for over 20 years. Their relationships are observed as they interact onstage as musicians and off stage as a tight knit family. Their approach to playing music is discussed and inter-cut with live concert footage showing this legendary Irish band close up and personal. Beautifully filmed by photographer Conor Masterson using ultra fast prime lenses ideal for low light, the live performance and fly on the wall documentary footage captures every detail. The film is a poetic and visceral experience of a dynamic live band led by Glen Hansard.
It's only the third US stop for the film, so count your blessings and buy your ticket.

Offspring In The Office

It's Take Your Kids To Work Day if you've been wondering why there are so many undersized new employees hanging around the water cooler. While the practice is widely embraced in offices around the country, here at Irish Fest HQ we discourage staff from bringing their offspring to work. It's not that we're not family-friendly or anything. I mean, what do you think, we sit around drinking all day?* Ha ha!

No, the problem is all the cows. See, contrary to what our idiot cartoonist implied, when our Irish Fest mascot cows retire we don't turn them into the main course at the company picnic. We just let them wander around the office. All nine of them. And here's a fun fact: cows are very difficult if not impossible to housebreak. Now we grown-up-type people have gotten pretty used to stepping around the cow pies that sit slowing soaking into the office carpets. The kids, not so much. So you can see why Take Your Kids To Work Day around here would be more like Keep Your Kids From Stepping In The Shite Day. And that's no fun for anybody, except maybe the cows.

Anyway, if you brought little Sean or Aoife into the cube farm with you today, I hope they have fun and don't steal too many office supplies or corporate secrets. Me, I'm just going to put my wellies on and have a normal day.

* We do.

Friday's Schedule

For those of you who have a favorite Irish dance school or performance group that you don't want to miss, here's the schedule for Friday night:

6:30 - Doors open
7:00 - Driscoll School of Irish Dance
7:45 - O'Riada-McCarty-Manning Academy of Irish Dance
8:30 - Clanna Eireann Celtic Dancers
9:15 - Ceili At The Crossroads

I'm sad to report that the debut performance of my solo interpretive dance entitled "The Cow In The Shebeen" has been cancelled. I wasn't informed why I won't be dancing, but I'm sure it's only because of time concerns.

Spent a whole damn day on the choreography, but you know, whatever.

Dance Out For Jane

Regular readers will know that I tell you about a lot of events here and many times I'll say something like "don't miss this" or "you need to be there." I'll be honest with you, sometimes it's a bit of hyperbole.

Not this time.

Don't miss this. You need to be there.

Friday at the Irish Center Kansas City's Irish Dance community will come together to support "Dance Out For Jane." This is an extension of a benefit in New England to support 7 year old Jane Richard-that's her there on the left-an Irish dancer from Dorcester, Mass. who lost her leg and her 8 year old brother Martin in the horrific Boston bombings. In addition, her mother suffered a severe head injury in the attack.

Doors will open at 6:30 and the dancing begins at 7:00. The event will feature live Irish music and dancing by The O'Riada-Mccarty-Manning Academy of Irish Dance, the Driscoll School Of Irish Dance, Ceili at The Crossroads and Clanna Eireann Celtic Dancers. Food and drink will be available as well as t-shirts and buttons generously provided by our friend Bob O'Brien and his team at KC Screenprint. All proceeds from this event will go to the Richard Family.

Please stop by and join us, and if you would, tell your friends. Click, print and stick this wee poster up next to the water cooler. Thanks, kids.

Earth Day?

Well, I feel stupid. I completely forgot that today is Earth Day, which is embarrassing because I've spent a great deal of time on Earth and have enjoyed it very much, especially the parts with air conditioning and refrigerators. And also because we were just talking at the conference in Michigan this weekend about how we all ought to try to run "green" festivals which means not green in an Irish way, but that instead of taking a bunch of trash and throwing it in a dump you should probably burn it all up so it takes up less space by turning into smoke and floating away from the Earth, thus saving it. I could be wrong on that, so double check.

I do know this though: at the Kansas City Irish Fest, we give loads of our trash to our crack Recycling Team, which is headed by my friend Natalie Smith. When Irish Fest is over she takes it somewhere where they "recycle" it, which as you know means they turn it into bicycles which are also good for Earth. That's the circle of life right there, buddy.

That recycling team, like Natalie her own self, is made up 100% volunteers, and you can be one of them. Volunteer registration opens in just a few weeks, so get ready.

Happy Earth Day! If you're on Earth later, maybe I'll run into you.

Band Announcement

Saturday night after we'd finished the day's business in Muskegon and stopped at the hospitality suite for a beverage or two, we crossed the street for dinner and the second of our musical showcases. The first act of the night took the stage and we settled in.

I was sitting with fellow KCIF attendees Craig Duke, Davey Colgan and Steve Dilks during most of the performance of that first musician. Entertainment committee chair Dave Shaughnessy was somewhere else in the big room but we wanted to make sure he was hearing what we were. I texted him:

"Four big thumbs up from Davey, Craig, Steve and me."

He responded immediately:

"Yes. He's gonna get signed tonight."

I'm happy to tell you that the conversation we began with that singer after his set that night has born fruit and you'll get to see what we saw. I bet you'll like it as much as we did.  Joining at Irish Fest this year, Ian Gould.

The Belfast-born Gould is a guitar virtuoso, a singer of songs both traditional and original and an engaging stage presence. We're excited that we'll be able to bring him here this year. Irish Fest opens in 130 days!

Post Michigan Conference Post

The KC contingent has returned from the Irish festivals conference in beautiful Muskegon, Michigan with our heads full of ideas, out hearts full of joy from time spend catching up with old friends and our livers full of holes.

Before I do anything else, I want to send a HUGE THANK YOU to all our great friends in Muskegon who rolled out the red carpet as only they can and put on an incredibly great conference. Words can't express what a great weekend we had. The speakers, the round table discussions, the music, the networking, the craic were all first rate. Especially great was seeing so many first-time attendees from Los Angeles and the Pacific Northwest across the continent to the Maritime Provinces of Canada and everywhere in between.  As for you, Kansas City Irish Fest fan, I promise you'll see the fruits of our Michigan weekend on Labor Day weekend, on our stages and around the grounds.

I could type for hours giving you details of the weekend, but I won't. A lot of it falls into the "you had to be there" category I'm afraid. Some of it falls into the "you wouldn't believe me if I told you" category. But I will mention a few highlights.

The Cowtown Crew did us proud as president Davey Colgan gave an informative and interesting presentation on the value of smart phone apps for festivals (capped by a picture of me with a howler monkey sitting on my shoulder. Tell you about that in the pub sometime) and VP Craig Duke expounded on the value of establishing whiskey tastings. KCIF ED Keli Wenzel discussed relations with Irish and Scottish government and arts authorities and how better to leverage them, and the next conference in Scotland in 2014. There were great speakers on topics as varied as leadership succession planning, economic impact info gathering, and working with local, regional and national tourism entities. Reps from our friends in Milwaukee, Ohio, Michigan, New York, Wisconsin and elsewhere shared their vast knowledge in presentations and round table discussions. Saturday morning were treated to a Bloody Mary breakfast bar on the Muskegon festival ground complete with a fly-over by a pair of WW2 vintage aircraft, followed by a great trolley tour of that beautiful area. Friday and Saturday nights were capped by music showcases and they were amazing. I'm not in a position to offer details just yet, but with any luck you'll be seeing some of the acts we saw here in KC as early as this year.

But truly, the best part of these events is the networking, the after-hours chat, the sharing of ideas, stories and laughs over pints. This is a great bunch of folks and I'm so proud and grateful to call them friends. As you plan your summer's recreation, please consider visiting some of them at their events.

Lastly...seriously, Chris? A feckin' fly-over??

Honors For O'Neill

Tonight at the annual Kansas City Irish Center gala, Irish Fest co-founder Pat O'Neill will be the very deserving recipient of the John J Sullivan Foundation Humanitarian Of The Year Award, the second fest founder to receive the honor, which makes me think I must be next.

Pat, in his day job, is the creative force behind O'Neill Event Management and author of From The Bottom Up, the definitive story of the Irish in Kansas City. He's also a great friend, a great guy and patriarch of one of Kansas City's great Irish clans. All of us at KCIF are so happy for him and proud of him. We knew he'd make good one of these days.

The event is sold out I believe, but if you've a mind to you could ring Nancy or Renata at the Center and see if they can fit you in.