Completely Conspicuous Episode 128: Stranger in a Strange Land

Part 1 of my conversation with special guest Matt Phillion about his adventures in Ireland.

Topics:

- Matt moved to Ireland in late February

- Followed a girl

- Had never been out of the U.S. before

- Fun with Irish border agents

- Home straightening out his paperwork

- Massive life change

- Culture shock: Lack of water pressure

- Matt's proud to be an American

- Food's fine if you don't eat Irish

- Guinness makes a meal

- Matt ate a lot of lamb, Chinese food

- (Visit from my 6-year-old)

- Saw Hope Sandoval play

- In Ireland, everything requires a conversation

- Picking up different pronunciations

- Tipping differences

- Irish moonshine tastes sweet, smells like turpentine

- Hurling is Matt's new favorite sport: Kill the man with the ball

- Irish follow rugby, soccer, hurling--but not cricket

- Matt confronts Polish bouncer with unintelligible accent

- Never turn down a drink in Ireland

- Bonehead of the Week

Music:

The Hold Steady - Hurricane J

The Roots with Jim James - Dear God, 2.0

Wolf Parade - Ghost Pressure

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The show is sponsored by Budget, the country's premier car rental service with 900 locations. Go to http://www.budget.com/CompCon and save 10% off any reservation or $30 off a weekly rental.

The Hold Steady song is on the album Heaven is Whenever on Vagrant Records. Find out more at http://theholdsteady.net and download the song for free at http://insound.com.

The Roots song is on the forthcoming album How I Got Over on Island Def Jam Records. Find out more download the song for free at http://www.islanddefjam.com/theroots.

The Wolf Parade song is on the band's album Expo 86 on Sub Pop Records. Find out more at http://www.myspace.com/wolfparade and download the song for free at http://soundcloud.com/subpop.

The opening and closing theme of Completely Conspicuous is "Theme to Big F'in Pants" by Jay Breitling. Find out more about Senor Breitling at http://clickyclickymusic.com and http://www.keepingsomedarksecrets.net. Additional music used in the show is by Me and Boris the Bull, which is the brainchild of the mighty Mark Campbell; find out more at http://www.myspace.com/meandboristhebull. Thanks to Bob Durling for the album art; find out more about his photography at http://bobdurling.blogspot.com/.

Completely Conspicuous is a Tan God Production. Word.