Citizen Bond (or, Erin go bye-bye!)

By Eileen Murphy

Pierce Brosnan seems to have it all: Hollywood superstardom, wealth, a lovely family and a face that could stop traffic, assuming the traffic was made up of swooning female fans. But he’s missing something that’s really important: something small, something blue, something with a really bad photo.

Give up yet? It’s an American passport.

Yes, Brosnan has decided that it’s time to take the plunge and become real live nephew of his Uncle Sam. This means he’ll be able to vote in the elections and complain about getting called for jury duty just like the rest of us (not that we’d ever complain about doing our civic duty, no siree).

Brosnan, who’s expecting his second child with fiancée Keely Shay Smith, said recently: "I would like to be an American. It’s a very, very fine country."

He’s already started the ball rolling, but wishes he’d started the process sooner. He would love to be able to vote in this year’s presidential election.

"There is only one candidate, and that’s Gore," he said. "But jeez, I can’t get too excited about him," he added impishly.

And we know, we know, you’re all wondering whether he and Keely will ever get married at this rate. The couple had planned to marry last summer but postponed the ceremony after Brosnan’s 16-year-old son, Sean, was badly injured in an automobile accident.

"That accident certainly brought me to my knees," admitted the doting father. "But [Sean’s] doing very well now." The wedding has been rescheduled for next year.

"I wanted my boy to be able to dance at my wedding," Brosnan continued.

Rosie, Babs leave’em Gore-d (or is it Bush-whacked?)

God be with the days when singers sang, comedians told jokes and chat show hosts gushed over their guests’ crappy made-for-TV movies. Not that we mind a bit of political activism from the entertainment front (hello, BONO!), but sometimes celebrities get a little too carried away with the sound of their own voices. As in this next piece.

We were less than impressed to read that Rosie O’Donnell threatened to "quit" her daytime television show — by not renewing her contract — if Warner Bros. Didn’t allow her to air a four-minute clip of her idol Barbra Streisand endorsing Al Gore for president. Streisand had tried to stipulate that the clip be run during her interview with Barbara Walters a few days earlier, but Baba Wawa aired only 44 words of the lengthy spiel — and offset it with a balancing clip of Bush.

Streisand turned to her pal Rosie for help. And if you’ve ever watched a tape of one of Rosie’s fawning interviews with Babs — well, let’s just say they’d induce vomiting quicker than a broccoli ice cream sund’. So, of course, Rosie agreed to air the speech.

"Holy partisanship!" (or words to that effect) cried the suits at WB. But they backed down when Rosie, whose contract expires in two months, threatened to walk.

The clip aired on Monday morning, the day before the election. So, presumably, Rosie will have blazed a trail in American political discourse and cemented that whole buddy-buddy thing she’s got going on with Streisand. And Warner Brothers? Well, it sounds like Rosie will immediately re-up when her contract ends. Hey, she probably won’t even have to bother negotiating.

Liam leaves’em laughing

Quick: what happens when you take Oasis omodon Liam Gallagher and out him in a room with an audience and a microphone? Give up? It’s easy: he acts like an idiot.

But you’ve got to give Liam his due: the loutish singer certainly livened up last week’s Q Music Awards in London. With former Oasis member (and current brother) Noel Gallagher cringing in the audience, Liam started heckling some of the other celebrities in the house as he (Liam that is) accepted his Q award.

"Robbie deserves a Q Award for queer!" shouted the ever-gracious Gallagher, much to Robbie Williams’s annoyance. Later, Liam also gave props to Williams’s girlfriend, Australian cutie Kylie Minogue: when she wiggled up to the stage to accept her Q award, Liam shouted that she was "a lesbian."

Later, we hear that Gallagher kept the good times rolling by getting into a fistfight with one of the event’s photographers and mixing it up with some of the reporters, who we can only hope gave him a good hiding before sending him on his way. We’ve been to enough awards shows and trust us, after three hours of stale coffee and vacuous rock star speeches, the average reporter is cranky enough to bite through an iron bar, much less smack around some mono-browed brat.

Quotable

"For us, becoming famous, we realized you have to have the money because you couldn’t protect yourself from fans. It’s a strange thing. For example, you have to travel business class because Bono wouldn’t get a minute’s peace otherwise. You do have to protect your privacy — and that takes cash."

– Ali Hewson in an interview with the Irish Times Magazine

Gabriel’s ‘Album’

Irish actor/hunk/author Gabriel Byrne is not content just being a movie/stage/television star. The darkly handsome actor also enjoys putting pen to paper.

A few years ago, he authored a critically-acclaimed memoir, "Pictures in My Head." Now he’s written a follow-up book, with an interesting twist. "The Album," says Byrne, is "an ironic riff on albums and songwriting.

"It’s basically the idea that had I been a songwriter, these are the songs I would have written."

Now that he’s made his mark as an actor and author, Byrne is also checking out the lay of the land behind the cameras.

"The only real ambition I have is to [direct] and I’m determined to do that," he told the Irish Times Magazine. "I’ve used all the times I’ve been on sets with great directors to watch how they work and I’ve learned an awful lot."

Gabriel’s also pretty sanguine about hitting the half-century mark.

"To tell you the gospel truth, I don’t feel anything about it," he told ITM. "Listen, there are people who are younger than me who are dead; there are people a little bit older than me who are dying."

Well, personally, we’re not following the logic, but mommy told us never to interrupt a big star, so we’ll just let him continue.

"Fifty? Really, I feel better now than I have in a long time," he said. And yer lookin’ good, too, ya fine thing!

The Nualas ensure that Irish eyes are smilin’

They’ve been described as the agricultural Spice Girls on acid, but that doesn’t even begin to capture the lunacy of Ireland’s distaff comedy trio, The Nualas. In our ongoing effort to keep you guys up on what’s hot in Ireland, we thought we’d tell you about Ireland’s answer to . . . well, we’re not sure of the question, but they’re the answer, anyway.

The madcap troupe, who are distinguished by their ever-present spectacles and their habit of finishing one another’s mad, rambling stories, have hit the big time in the Big Shamrock. Sony Records has just released a video of their show, "Big Shiny Dress" (probably available through Irish record and tape outlets), which ran for eons in Dublin and London.

Reminiscing about a past show, Nuala (they’re all called Nuala) said, "There was the one time we did a week of shows in a Trappist monastery." [This joke will get tasteless in a few lines, so if you’re easily offended, please skip to the wholesome Pierce Brosnan piece.]

"The same monks every night. They started bickering.

[Isn’t that a nice picture of Ali Hewson over there on the other page?]

Another Nuala continued, "Over bread. It was all about who was going to have the biggest chunk of bread at the intermission."

[How about that Liam Gallagher, huh?]

"The thing was, they had a vow of silence and so they weren’t allowed to clap at the gig."

[Last chance to stop reading!]

"Which was very weird," the third Nuala continued. "They just farted their appreciation."

[You were warned.]

B*Witched: bothered, bewildered and bounced?

The Irish girl group B*Witched, who are positively grizzled veterans in the here-today-gone-in-five-minutes world of international teen pop, are pooh-poohing rumors that they’ve been dropped by their label, Epic Records.

"It’s definitely not true, but it keeps our name out there, I suppose," sniffed Edele Lynch (sister of former Boyzoner Shane).

The group have spent the last few months touring the U.S., performing to sold-out houses.

"It was hard work, but it was nice being on stage every night," she told Hot Press. As for the band’s relatively lackluster record sales in the UK, she said, "I don’t think we’ve lost momentum as such."

Admitting that the group have kept a low profile of late, she said, "We haven’t been on the TV, and the last single didn’t do as well as we would have liked, but it’s good to take a break."

And why is it good?

"We want to get our music more right the next time round," explained Edele.

Well, we hate to carp, but do the B*Witches think that doing a cover version of Toni Basil’s novelty song "Mickey" could be considered getting the music "more right"? Come on, everybody: "Oh Mickey what a pity you don’t understand/You take me by the heart when you take me by the . . ." Yuck!