Park Life

By the time you read this, we will know if the GAA has struck a blow for glasnost or kept the Berlin Wall intact around Croke Park.

The analogy is partly inspired by my old mate, the much-missed Bill Graham, who once remarked that the Soviet Union was like an entire continent run by the GAA, what with all those committees and sub-committees and the generally Byzantine manoeuvrings of a small but powerful group of very old men.
Well, yes, and here we go again. Not surprisingly, many people have approached yours truly over the past few weeks and said, "A penny for your thoughts, Mr Snort. You are the wisest of the wise – which way should the GAA jump?"
To which I reply: "Fuck off with your penny: for 1k plus expenses I'll crank out a hydra-headed screed on the meaning of everything. Nothing more, nothing less. And if you can't make the nut, bugger off and phone Des Cahill like all the other poor people."

Dubious Anthems

Fortunately, hotpress recognises a professional wizard when it sees one, which is why you are now fortunate enough to be reading the definitive answer to the question: should the gates of Croker finally be thrown open?
I have given this one much thought, weighing up the various points of view, pondering the historical and social implications, putting a wide range of theories to a selection of focus groups and, in the final analysis, removing a five cent coin from my pocket and tossing it in the air.
The answer – please write it down because I won't be repeating this – is: fuck no.
My reasoning is simple: if U2 want to play a couple of gigs in Dublin they should build their own stadium rather than sullying the holy ground with dubious anthems about Bloody Sunday and Martin Luther King, a decent man, perhaps, but on a scale of greatness, not fit to inhabit the same dressing room as a titan and humanitarian like Ringy. (All bow).
U2 have the money, for a start, and they could also rent out the property for other festivals which have been dogged by planning problems and the like. Vital to the success of the project, of course, would be an on-site hotel with views of the arena, the whole thing designed to facilitate visiting A&R people and rock journalists, who should never have the hassle of leaving the mini-bar and the comforts of the Fuck 'Em & Suck 'Em Escort Agency, to actually attend a gig by some putrid, pimply power trio.
Build the stadium on the Hill Of Tara (for the craic), call it the Bonobowl and then let's vote to keep traditional music out – all Ireland's problems sorted in one Snortian swoop.

Right Tit

As for soccer or rugby at Croker, who really gives a flying fuck? Certainly not Sam Snort, although he has some sympathy for the Rebel County hurling purist he once met who declared: "Soccer? Rugby? I wouldn't even allow Gaelic football at Croke Park."
When it comes to sport, Sam is a proud advocate of the kind of spectacle which my old mucker Dave Lee Roth once called 'Surround 'em and pound 'em'. That is to say that men chasing a ball around the place is a mean substitute for the extreme action to be enjoyed in something like American Football, where the whole point of the exercise is to bash the bollocks out of your opponent and then clear the field pronto so that Janet Jackson can take over and make a right tit of herself in front of billions of people with vast, heaving stomachs and Bud on tap.
Now that's what I call great sport.
Or you could check out someone like John Daly, the so-called 'Wild Thing' of golf. As far as I can see, the hard livin' super-sized Daly, the man who pioneered the grip it 'n' rip it approach to the game, doesn't actually bother to play golf these days – which is, of course, the only sane response to that truly dismal pastime – but I did read somewhere recently that he has recorded a rock song called 'All My Exes Wear Rolexes'.
For that, Big John deserves the yellow jersey, the gold medal and the green blazer all rolled into one. Which, when you think about it, is pretty much how most golfers dress anyway.
The only other good thing to be said about sport is that it seems to be where all the drugs are these days. Things have gotten so wild on the powder and pills front that I'm surprised I haven't seen Keef choogling along in the London Marathon or attempting to circumnavigate the globe in a canoe.
Still, when you've already journeyed to the outer reaches of the universe while lying on your Hilton Hotel water bed, I suppose being world champ at anything would seem like a bit of a comedown.
That said, where there's dope there's hope, so perhaps sport has not entirely lost its way yet.
After all, as my old mucker Prince predicted all those years ago, now they're doing horse.