| NAME | MESSAGE |
| Lars and Maria |
posted 10/24/05 08:43 AM Central Time (US)  contact the author directly
My fiancé Maria surprised me (birthday gift) with tickets to Dublin next weekend to attend "An Evening Remembering Bing" by George O’Reilly. I really look forward to it - we both are. Sounds like a great way to spend an evening. Above that we'll also be able to spend almost two whole days in Dublin. We both love Dublin. Maria has been there several times before on business travels, but it's only our second visit as a couple. It was really great spending a week in Dublin earlier this summer. The people is very nice and there's a lot of great stores for shopping - books, DVD's and music etc... And this time there's "Bing" as a bonus! Hopefully George will show some clips from the TV-show "A little bit of Irish". I'd love to watch Bing visiting places where we've been too. Maria also looks forward to listen to George O'Reilly and his stories about Bing. I'm quite fortunate to have Maria and that she also shares my interest in everything including Bing. Now we will listen to all the Bing's Irish song including the tracks from "A little bit of Irish" so that when we get to Dublin we will know all the lyrics by heart. Lately as I've started working at a new place I've not been able to check out the Bing pages and sites myself.. But Maria has been keeping an eye on everything - that's how she found out about this special evening in Dublin. She's also downloading all the radioprograms that are available here and at other sites. Not bad! |
| Steven Lewis |
posted 10/24/05 10:00 AM Central Time (US)  no email address given
Sounds like you found a great gal, Lars. What are her views on polygamy? |
| Ron Field |
posted 10/24/05 11:45 AM Central Time (US) contact the author directly
Lars and Maria, don't forget to have your ears finely tuned in to George as sometimes he is hard to understand in his Irish brogue. Mind you, the Yanks say that about my Aussie accent claiming they don't always understand me. Enjoy the w/e - Dublin is great. Asking and talking about the uprising (was it 1917) it seems everyone was in the post office, must have held 40,000 people. |
| Lars and Maria |
posted 10/25/05 03:51 AM Central Time (US) no email address given
Ha ha Steven, even if she was for it I'm afraid I'm not. Her younger sister is available though but she is nothing like Maria unfortunately. Ron, I was afraid George might sound like Barry Fitzgerald. But I enjoy Fitzgerald even when I don't understand a word he's mumbling so I'm sure we'll enjoy George too. I believe we'll practice by watch some old Fitzgerald movies to get our ears in the right mood. |
| Lars _ Maria |
posted 10/31/05 03:33 AM Central Time (US) no email address given
Report from the Dublin event "An Evening remembering Bing"; It was almost a full 3 hours with 15 minutes intermission of ancedotes and clips from movies and TV-shows. After a few minutes we got hang of the Dublin accent and we also realized we must have been the youngest people in the auditorium. There were a lot more people than I expected and our guess is at least 800 people. George started of by telling us about how Bing got stars like Nat King Cole and Louis Satchmo Armstrong to visit his recordstore in Dublin and that even before George had even met Bing. And George recited the letters that Bing had written to the stars to convince them to visit his very good friend (whom he had never met) in Dublin and sign records at his store. The first thing both Nat King Cole and Satchmo asked when they arrived at the Dublin Airport was who this George O!Reilly was? It took several years before Bing ever met George. George then continued to show clips like "Pennies from Heaven", "Empty saddles" where George mentioned Bing#s interest in horses and how he once bought a racinghorse over the phone. This horse won the race the following day and Bing conviniently used the winnings to pay for the horse so they sent Bing a check for the balance and that Bing concluded this was a brilliant way to buy racinghorses.... More clips included "Going my way" with Bing#s songs "Too ra loo", "Ave Maria", "Swinging on a star", "Silent Night".... George told the story about a Dublin catholic priest who sailed with Bing on "Queen Mary". When he asked for somebody to help him perform Mass on sundays, he soon got a knock on the door where Bing volounteered so the two worked together for the whole trip. Other clips shown was "Bells of St Mary's", "Road to Morrocco", Moonlight becomes you", "Blue skies", " A couple of song and dance men" (where George mentioned that Astaire on the question who his favorite dancing partner was used to reply Bing, not to make his female partners jelaous at eachother) also all the songs from "Emperor waltz", "Easter parade" and "White Christmas" from "Holiday Inn" followed by the TV/version with Sinatra. From "High Society" was shown "True love", "Now you has jazz", "Well did you evah", a generous amount of clips from "The Timex show" with Frank and Dino as well as from "The Edsel show" with Frank and Rosie. Also Bing singing "In a little spanish town"with Andy Williams from his TV-show. In the middle of everything George was interupted by a phonecall from Kathrine Crosby who wished him well and us all a pleasent evening. George also included the number "Style" from "Robin and the 7 Hoods". We might have forgotten some of the songs but you get the picture... George ended his presentation by talking about the 1966 TV show " A little bit of Irish" showing what must have most of the Bing segments of said show where Bing talked about various sights in Dublin and sang many of his typical Irish songs like "Molly Mallone", "When Irish eyes are smiling", "Galway Bay", "Isles of Innesfree" and "MacNamaras Band". Also shown was a scene where Bing and his wife were playing snooker at Dublin Castle. The clips from this show was the best of all as I~ve never seen it before. When we left the building we received a specialmade CD with some of the songs used in the presentation and then some.... A great looking CD with a formidabel booklet with many pictures of high quality. It was a great evening for the both of us. A quote in the booklet that Maria thought particualry funny was when Bob Hope once at the Paramount set asked Bing who he thaught was the best comedian at Paramount Pictures. And Bing replied something like: " Oh I don't know.... but it must be the guy who hired you!" Apart from last nights event we've had a wonderful time in Dublin with a warm and sunny weather yesterday (a lot of shopping) and we're leaving for Sweden later tonight. That's all from Maria and Lars in Dublin |
| Lars and Maria |
posted 10/31/05 05:29 AM Central Time (US) no email address given
The only downpoint during the presentation yesterday was the technical problems caused by the young students who handled the "projector" and sound. They constantly interupted George before he had a chanse to finish the introductions by cutting off the clips too early or starting too soon. Obviously they were not familar with the material. When Kathy Crosby called they also had to stop the film twice before they could link her to the speakers. She started by promoting her New York show, but we guess that the people present in the auditorium in Dublin yesterday are not likely to fly to New York to see any show, bearing in mind some were hard of hearing, blind and/or used various sticks and walkingaids. We were amazed that so many people, many with obvious difficulties to get there, showed enough interest to attend a presentation held by a guy who used to know a guy (Bing) who's been dead for almost 30 years and still it was just about sold out!!! Quite amazing. And it was an evening we will always remember. |
| Sue Horn |
posted 10/31/05 07:31 AM Central Time (US) contact the author directly
Thanks for the complete report, Lars! I love George dearly, and I'm glad his evening went well. I would have loved to have been there, but this was not the year for trips to Europe. Maybe next year!! Thanks for sharing. When I was there last summer, I saw a bit of a proposed TV Special on George's life called "Bing's Favorite Irishman". George was Bing's favorite Irishman, and he's many other people's too. I think that may be the key to understanding why so many people came out to hear and see George reminisce about Bing. |