MU$T TRY HARD3R

Holy shit it's a good feeling...

2010-12-14T18:14:00.000-08:00

It's really odd...

before i get into it, i'll just say that yes, i only write here when i feel really happy, or really sad. I will explain why they are the same thing shortly. Also i only write here when i am in any sort of emotional state and have the need to explain something to myself. It occurs to me how much i actually push emotions down. I am not used to feeling extremes like anger. or sadness. or happiness. I have been happy and sad and angry, but at this moment in time i see that i was never really completely in the tide of those feelings, i was roughly assuming the position and going through the motions. And from here it feels really good to bcak once again.

Anyway...

This mood hits me every so often and i go back over old break ups and old girlfriends and dead people. I listen to certain music and feel certain ways. And i feel what i assumed was sadness. Looking at it now though, at how much i write when i am in this central place where all emotion is within easy reach, i see that in this place i am actually ecstatic.

I have heard from so many people and read in so many books that you should only do what makes you happy, and you should follow your happiness. And in my disregard of what happiness actually is to me i have mistaken this mood for sadness and general moribundity.

In fact, in this place i am at my most eager, my most raging. my most perfect, complete and whole self. I don't loathe myself, i don't feel sadness or depression or anger or anything like that. I feel powerful. I feel as though i am at the centre of it all. That all is within reach and ready to be mined. It is why i was always terrified of leaving this place whenever i was advised to get out of this mood when i told people what i was thinking about; what it was that was going on in my head at these times. For others, this place is a place of regret and fond remembrance, of stillness and standing in one spot. Of getting comfortable and fucking it all off.

It is not so for me, this is where i am at my strongest, most creative and most excited. It is not easy to explain. I often find that when i am at my most creative and eager...that is the time i have the least control over the words. When i want to write whats going on, i have no words to express it, but if you could see me, i would be able to show you with weird hand movements and facial expressions.

So where other people feel sad, i feel ecstatic i suppose is the point of the point i'm making. That and I should stop paying attention to what other people do in any given situation because more often than not that is not what works for me.

2010-08-24T17:34:00.000-07:00

I've been informed that i must write, and so write i must.

I have no logical stepping stone from which to make such an argument, but here it is. Humanity is dead.

That is all I have to say on that subject. There are no modifiers. No explanations. No reasoning. No helping hand outstretched for others to join me on this rapidly sinking titanic.

You want me to explain? OK, i will give a little...shall we say...exfoliation. The word is not exfoliation, but IT is. It's the closest that i may hope to achieve at this hour. At least until that interminable psychic block lifts and allows me access to the word i wish to use.

This is the age of DIY. This is the age of leave me alone. Of don't touch me and i'm fine. My friends, we are living in the age of get out of my face.

And so i must. I live by the law set down by countless sages before me that says "You must not attempt to interfere with those who wish to be left alone"

Everyone seems to be wanting this. It's almost as though no-one requires help. Which is excellent really. Except that they continue to make such schoolboy errors. Agreeing to sleep with people who would take them whether they agreed to it or not. Fighting with anyone who is close to them and happens to be anywhere close to different. Finding faults instead of looking for interesting anomalies.

We are not even close to existing in the age of humans. We are living in the age of people who have forgotten. People who do not realise that they are in fact people. We are living in the age of the dinosaur, surivival of the fittest and all that horseshit.

is it too late to be sad for us? Is it too late to pray for a better attempt? If there was a god, he would be casting curses down upon us and calling us names by now. Such is the way of the masculine.

Instead we are at the mercy of a goddess. And she neither points the finger, nor does she say that we are wrong. She leaves us only with the words..."I'm not annoyed. I'm just disappointed."

Is it just me that feels completely behind? As though I am standing by the correct junction and calling to the others "This way." Apparently so.

Apparently so.

A letter i got sent....

2010-07-30T16:04:00.001-07:00

I thought i should put it up here since I don't know what else to do with it.

"It helps to keep an open mind about things you don't understand or haven't come across yet. So it is very difficult to write with any certainty about anything at the moment. Having epiphanies will do that to you. Hold on, I'm having another one right now.

They're nothing major. Nothing to write home about anyway. Just little realisations about how it's all happening around me. Every word i type brings new revelations, like what it actually means to realise something, what the word revelation can be derived into. Things like that. Nothing serious. Don't worry.

I suppose i should have started put this letter by saying "Dear Petey". But you already know who you are, so i don't need to remind you. And the address on the front had your name at the top, so you know it's for you. And i know who i'm writing these words for,. I suppose i should have put it in just for formality. But i think we're a bit beyond formalities now.

Deja Vu is a weird thing. i'm never sure whether it's that i remember the thing that i'm deja vu-ing about from a dream, or whether it just feels like i'm doing it again because it happened a second ago. It sort of feels like a cross between both and also as though my brain is sneezing. I meant to write seizing there, but sneezing is equally correct.

I lost the point a bit. I can't actually remember what it was that i was writing to tell you. I suppose it will come back at some point if it was worth telling you. If it doesn't i probably won't mail this to you. It would just be a waste of your time. And lord knows i don't need another member of "The Family" telling me that i should probably see someone.

Everyone here is fine. The cat is still just lying in the corner and getting up whenever she needs to piss. It's sad that she feels the need to piss in one spot, but shit wherever she likes. But that's her decision. The books are telling me to say hello.

All this time i've been desperate to say something to you, and now for the life of me i can't remember what it was. The CD is telling me that i'm losing it. Whatever it is that i'm losing i couldn't tell you either.

You might wonder why i'm typing this instead of just handwriting it. Well i'm still not decided on whether to email you it or send it via the post office. Other people will read it whichever way i send it, so it doesn't really matter so much i guess.

I can't see that i'll be coming home anytime soon. Things are quite busy around here and there's not much reason for me to travel so far except to see you. I've no interest in seeing anyone else really. I can't say that i'd be sad to never see them again. I have no real interest in what they're doing or how they have chosen to live their lives. But that's up to them i guess.

I was reading about how during the 60's, lots of families would get letters from their sons and daughters that had moved to california telling them that "Everything is great. I've met some really beautiful people." I suppose that's sort of what this letter is supposed to be. But i couldn't tell you whether there are beautiful people, or whether anything is great. It's all pretty much the same. My new job sucks by the way. But i made the move and took the risk. That says something i suppose.

I'll go now. I hope you're doing well. Lots of times i think i should probably call you, but i never get around to it. Write me back if you want to. It'll be nice to hear from you at least. I'll put my address on a separate bit of paper so you can send me something back.

Lots of Love.

Mal

P.S. Don't tell anyone else my address."

There was no other bit of paper in the envelope. I don't know what to do with it.

Clerks 2 and How I woke up as a stranger.

2010-05-12T15:50:00.001-07:00

Many people who have seen Clerks 2 will read what i'm about to say and disagree. I haven't seen it before (and i'm glad people will now stop making that disappointed face when they find out i haven't watched it yet.) and as i put the disc in, i was expecting...i don't actually know what i was expecting. I'd heard about a Lord of the rings argument. I'd heard that Randall was bringing Porch Monkey back. Aside from that, not much. I was a little disappointed that there weren't more stupid arguments, but on the whole, it was pretty good.

And then 1979 by the smashing pumpkins came on.

Thinking back over the soundtrack, i'm guessing that Smith picked songs he remembered from his years as a teen and twenty something, since the film is essentially focused on growing up, and whether you do whats expected, or do what you want to do, which inevitably leads to a lot of reminiscing and thinking about where you've come from, and what's ahead.

But the thing is, 1979 is a song that for some reason sticks in my head as the ideal of teenage life. (I don't mean my teenage life. I mean my late teens - early twenties life. But it seems that the stuff i was doing at that point was being done by kids 5 or 6 years younger than me at the time.) The partying, the adventures, the seeming weeks of non stop laughing. The first kiss, the first hangover, the first cigarette, the first joint. House parties, bands, stage diving, festivals. Staying out for days, barricading a nuclear weapons facility. The first love, the first heartbreak. (Delete as appropriate) All that stuff that happened during that little window of your life. (It now makes sense that people call these the best years of your life. But mine were just a little bit later that's all. I'm fairly sure that it's an american fallacy. Their kids stay in school until 18. Which was when this stuff was all happening to me.

The film was going very nicely until 1979 came on, and it brought all this stuff back. After that, the rest of the film was tainted with this idea, and it soured the proceedings a little. The ending made me feel a little better, but only about Randall and Dante. I still had all this stuff fizzing away, and needed to get it all out.

The only thing i can think that might account for this is that somewhere along the line i have assumed that those were the best years, and life will never be that way again. Which it won't, obviously. I'm at the age where hangovers only kick in half way through the afternoon and leave you floored until the next morning. I can't possibly have my first drink or my first joint again because i've had them. No-one my age is throwing house parties anymore because they're all settling down in some fashion. Full time jobs, career goals and long term relationships are the death of that sort of lifestyle.

At some point i just figured that my best years have passed. That i hit my peak and now i'm on the slippery slope to death. (Morbid, i know, but fuck off. It's been a while.) Watching that film and hearing that song only served to solidify this idea in my head.

But looking at it written down, I can't see what the problem is. I've never liked the idea of growing up, nor have i ever wanted the full time job, the mortgage and all the picket fence hoopla. (And i refuse to accept "But that's what everyone does" as a valid reason for my doing it. I haven't followed what everyone else does for years now, so why would i start now, just because the people telling me i should be doing it are my age, instead of being 30 or 40 years older than me.) But that is what the film is really about. Living on your own terms, by your own rules and not toeing the line just because it's expected, or accepted by everyone else. It's the more difficult line to follow, but it's a hell of lot less scary than the thought of waking up in 10 years with no idea who i have become.

There is absolutely no reason why it is a sad thing that those years have gone by. At least i had those experiences (which many people would not be able to say they have had) and they've made me who i am today. I've got a lot more stuff to look forward to, and a whole lot more firsts than the ones everyone else has done. But i can understand why people just buckle under and give up with it all, letting the easy life seduce them, instead of finding their own passions and following them for all they are worth. It's a lot scarier than just trying to scrape the money together for the contents insurance every month, but i'd much rather have that life, than one where i do the same old same old, day in, day out, whining about how i never did anything with my life.

...

...

Shit.

(Note: This generic whine contains spoilers. Do not read if you don't want to know about what happens in Clerks 2. What do you mean you haven't seen Clerks 2?)

One O To Manifest

2010-03-08T06:57:00.000-08:00

For those of you who have been keeping up with what I'm doing, you may already be aware of my new musical project entitled "The German Four" For you, here is a small part of the jigsaw that will make up the project as a whole once it is completed. It is, or will be in completia, a story about waking up in an unrecognisible world, and how to go about readjusting it to suit your needs.

THE GERMAN FOUR

1 (i)
For all their worth, our decisions are our own. We choose what we choose because it seems right to us. We do what we do because we can do nothing else. We live the way we want, because we do not think it right to live a lie. We do this not because we can, but because there is no other way.
(ii)
As strange as our lives may seem to you, they are lives of our own creation. We follow no-one else’s agenda or moral code. Those who do not like it are free to find fault. But perhaps concentrating on your own life would be a more prudent course of action?

(iii)
It will pain you to hear it, but once you have seen the world as it is, and understood the universe for all it’s devious wonder, you will never be able to un-see it. Day to day life will never be enough for you again. The spell of the TV and the Gossip rags will be broken, and you will find yourself striving for a more intense existence. Anything less will feel like slow death.
(iv)
At first you will feel the need to make sure that everyone knows what is really going on. But sooner or later you realise that it’s not going to work like that. Friends and family will up and leave, and you will find yourself surrounded by more like minded individuals. These will become your new family. Those who do not fit into your view of the world any longer will simply cease to play any further part in your personal universe. This is just a sign that you are on your way. In your new expanded understanding of the universe, you will only know those who seek that same vital experience, unwilling to settle down and keep quiet.
(v)
At some point or another, you will come up against people who wish to silence you. They are not being in any way malicious. You have asked that your strength and integrity and faith be tested. They are simply doing the job they were put here for.
(vi)
Everyone has a part to play, even those without a clue. They are playing the part of someone with no idea what is happening. All roles are equally integral.
(vii)
Make sure you are fully acquainted with your shadow. You are going to live through enough surprises without having to deal with unknown elements emerging from your own psyche.

For those of you as yet unaware, here are some links you might want to visit.

Track one from the project - One O To Manifest

Interruptor Jones on Youtube

Interruptor Jones on Facebook

Safe Travels To Y'all

I can't be anymore...

2010-02-28T07:48:00.000-08:00

DAMN YOU GRANT MORRISSON! You broke my head. I can't breathe anymore, and i know that it's all your fault.

For those of you who don't know, Grant Morrisson is the writer of a series called The Invisibles, that explains everything. It will turn your mind inside out and make you wish it was you who had been able to explain the whole thing.

I know everything that is going to happen. I know everything that i will ever do or see. I know the history of the universe and the future of humanity. I've always known it. I'm just rememebering that i already knew it all.

I know that i am everything. I realise that there is no difference betwen you or me. That we are all physical manifestations of the same idea. That we are all fingers on the same hand, and that any problems or explosions are just the sounds of one hand clapping against itself.

I know that i am smarter than i have ever been, but nowhere near as smart as i will become. I know that this is the ending of everything that has ever happened to me, and the beginning of the rest of it.

I know that i don't need to find anything, that it is already here. I know that i do not have to search for wisdom, it is searching for a way to explain itself to me. I do not need to wake up, because it's just the same whether i'm awake or asleep.

I know that i have much work to do to try and get this point of understanding into the hearts and minds of others. I know that that is what The Invisibles job is. I know that that is why i have no idea what i'm supposed to do next, because i am waiting for events to fall in place and unfold so that i may affect them.

I know that i am not even close to getting started on this. I know that i am a lot further on than i was yesterday. I know that there is no such thing as death, or eve such a thing as life. I know that belief is everything, mostly. I know that i accept things as they come to me, and adjust them accordingly.

I know that everyone else needs to feel this. I know that i am the only person who can explain it. I know that the robot is calm, but the driver is wild.

I know that image is everything. I know that expression is all that matters. I know that nothing counts, except for the idea that you are here right now to do one thing. And that the only important thing is that you do that one thing. It doesn't matter what you do in 20 years, or 2 years, or 20 minutes. All that stuff can't possibly happen unless you do something right now. All that stuff you have coming to you, will not come until you have moved in the right direction right now. You must take control of everything you do, so that your story is yours, and not someone elses.

I know that i am babbling. I know that once you recieve the spark of understanding that this realisation gives you, it leaves you prone to at least partial glossolalia, or speaking in tongues. I know that this is a symptom of being taken by hand and shown your purpose by the creator. I know that this is what has happened to me, and happens to me every day. I just assumed it would be bigger that's all.

That's the most surprising thing. I was always in contact with THAT whatever you want to call it. I was always hearing messages and understanding truths and realising concepts. Passing on the word of the universal master, and acting according to Hir designs. I just didn't know it. It was so ordinary and unassuming that i thought everyone had this. I didn't realise i was special. I was reaching upwards for something spectacular, and all along i was at the top and all the spectacular stuff was already happening. I just mistook it for something ordinary.

To be honest, i'm lost for words.

Updates and that...

2010-02-10T15:59:00.000-08:00

I'm having a sudden bout of Prolific at the moment. I've got a lot of writing going on, art is going nicely and everything is slotting nicely into place. To that end, here's a bunch of links and things, some of it is stuff i'm doing, some of it is not. Some of it is stuff that's inspiring me right now, some of it is just me being inspired.

Artists and Ascension with guest Mylene Dressler

A wonderful show from Tuesday 10th February. We discuss the role of Art as we move into the future, how to inspire people to be artists for themselves, and why this is more important than ever as we move forward.

My New Blog, UPSTHECUT

A new space for my written experiments and cut up work. The link takes you to the "statement of intent" for the site, what it's for and what will go up there. There will be a lot of updates as i get more and more excited about the whole thing. There's also an introduction, so that you can have a bash at it if you like the idea.

Grant Morrison's Lecture on Magick and his comic "The Invisibles" at Disinfocon

Something that, no matter how hard i try, won't stay out of my mind. Very inspirational for me. There is a smattering (read: fuckload) of bad language, so don't watch it if that sort of thing offends you. A very interesting talk about how to get started in adjusting your reality and making the world you want, tying into to how he used the ideas in his masterpiece "The Invisibles".

Psychic TV - Message from Thee Temple, Temple Message, Amazing Vibrations, The Orchids, Just Like Arcadia

For those of you who don't know, Psychic TV were a multimedia group that started out doing soundtracks to art films, then moving onto their own music and ideas, eventually moving into techno, acid house and early 90's indie. It's the band that Genesis P'Orridge started after Throbbing Gristle broke up the first time. GPO intended it to be a sideline to his magick/psychology group Thee Temple of Psychick Youth. The first two videos are messages that were included on VHS that got sent out to members. THe others are songs from albums, some of which were included on VHS too, some of which were just released on vinyl and tape. There is a certain amount 0of art school wankery going on, but the songs are quite nice. As they go on, there's more of a velvet underground feel to their stuff, the early stuff is sort of experimental noise and spoken word. At least give them a chance. That's all. At least listen to Amazing Vibrations, which is their cover of Good vibrations.

Ah Pook Is Here

A stunning film featuring the voice and words of William Burroughs. I'm not even sure why, but it is just stunning, particularly if you like stop motion.

Culture is NOT your friend.

A very nice point, well made by Terrence Mckenna. His insights into many other areas of life are the sort of thing that seem completely standard these days, but they were years ahead of their time when he was telling people what was happening. I'd also recommend looking for anything else he has said, particularly about TV and cultutre. (NOTE: He does talk about drugs quite a lot, so if you really desperately disagree with drugs, at least give him the benefit of the doubt and hear what he has to say. He is a Professor, after all.)

Hoshi Saga

The best game on the internet right now. Fuck Farmville, this is the good stuff. So very simple and addictive. Make sure you play them in order. they go Hoshi saga, hoshi saga 2, then 3, then ringo. Good old japanese designer.

For now, that should suffice. That's about all that i've been doing recently anyway. Listening to a lot of the space music station on www.DI.fm too. Always nice when your brain is being rearranged.

I feel a though there's a huge leap coming up. As though i'm on the way to something huge. Let's have a look and see. I do know that good times are ahead.

Now i understand...A musing on Art as product.

2010-02-09T02:59:00.000-08:00

When considering the "great" "art" "works" of the last decade or so, the ones that get headlines and fill up galleries with avid eyeballs, there are maybe 4 or 5 that would really strike me as art. The others confuse and befuddle me. Which then leads us onto the argument that "just because you don't think it is, doesn't mean it isn't art". Which is a non argument before it has even begun. Opinions are valid in one persons individual universe, and only in that one universe. They are completely valid nonetheless. There is a strange complex present that inisists that things can be only one way or the other and cannot be both. Something cannot be amazing and terrible at the same time. It must be one or the other. So we are told that Art, decided as such by "experts", "critics" and "professionals" is Art, whatever we say or think about it. That we must appreciate it's value even if we do not like the piece in itself.

The trouble with this approach is that when someone with no official capacity attempts to use the same rulings, they are shouted down by these experts that it is not art simply because they do not consider it as such. So it is not the Art that is important, it is the position of the person who judges it, and in most cases the name of the person who has created it.

As i look and considered, i noticed something. Art has become as much a commodity as music, as gold, oil and coal. They are things for sale. Not pieces of art. It has become the case that art is no longer an exploration of theme, or presentation of an idea, representation of a feeling or an emotion. It is a thing that either looks nice, or attracts attention. Good or bad, positive or negative, all attention or even acknowledgement is an agreement to take part in the piece itself.

Art has to be safe, to be saleable. Even the work that is "edgy" or "controversial" is only considered to be pushing boundaries because they are tackling what i would consider to be fairly safe subjects, in a possibly original way. The art work that is being bought and sold and considered as "Art" is not in the least truly challenging, except to those who have no interest in thinking beyond their own agendas and reading past their newspaper. Real Art, in my opinion, should ask questions, should pose problems, should invite discussion and debate and then, only after all other criteria have been filled, consider looking nice. Look is not an issue, unless it is a part of the message/idea.

No-one is questioning religion, for fear of reprisal and threats, intimidation or in extreme cases attacks. No-one is questioning power and corruption at its source. Art, whatever this new generation of art is called, has reduced the most useful medium we have at our disposal to a hallmark moment, and a wry smile. There is no substance, no explanation of the world or where they are at in their lives, who they are as a person. Art now is completel devoid of emotion or personality, relaced instead with rehashed ideas and "shock value".

I am not suggesting that each and every piece of art should have an agenda, or that it should come with a list of reasons why it is important. But it should at least have some purpose above looking nice. If it does not make you think, then it is just furniture.

Such pieces are fine and perfect in their place. It occurs to me that perhaps their place should not be as a placeholder upon the stage of the world, which will be filled later on with something more worthwhile. Art should be food for the soul. You would not replace a meal with a picture of a meal and expect the same reaction from your guests. And so it should be with Art. It must be vibrant and real and alive and communicative. It must say something important to the viewer, other than "please hold. Your Art will be along shortly"

At least in my universe.

The Perfect Book

2010-02-07T18:56:00.000-08:00

Standing on the back step at my lady's house, blowing smoke up into the reddening sky, i had a strange idea. Every book i have ever read, i have pretty much forgotten what happens. I thought back to when i knew stories from my childhood, old wives tales, ghost stories and the like. Those stories, you never ever forget. Oral (or should that be Aural) History sticks to your brain like bubble gum to a brand new shoe. Why then do books slide off your memory as though slick and slimy?

The only reason i can think of is that, in my case at least, books aren't there for the story. They're a collection of words that your brain comprehends and passes over. The story is not part of the words. The words themselves do not, and could not, carry anything because they are written. They have no weight, or substance. Which led me to think, how can this be overcome?

When you see a play, or watch a performance of some sort that is live; when you see a band play a song that you love and you are in the room with them. These experiences are completely fleeting. As you are, you cannot help but live in the moment. You cannot hold onto what has just happened, you cannot record it (in any physical sense) you cannot play it back later on. The most important thing i learned at college was the word. Ephemeral.

Because it is only here for now, and only right now right this second, there is no doubt that you want to be there. You, and every cell of your body, is focused upon the experience. You are there. The words and movements are filled with meanings that do not come across in any other format. There is a transfer of energy and understanding. Genesis P.Orridge tells a story of a man who told him that you can only learn from someone that you have touched. Someone that you have physical experience of. There must be "a touching of hands" for any true knowledge to be passed. Anything else is words that you figure out for yourself later on.

And so how to overcome this recorded world, and take back some form of power over it. The only answer that came to mind was that books must destroy themselves as they are read. When your eyes pass over a word, the word must leap from the page, literally, and embed itself in your mind. Each interaction with a word must be a life changing experience. You must learn everything you will ever need to know from that word that very time you read it. If you knew that the book would be empty the next time you picked it up, you would read it very differently. You would take great care to pore over every word and phrase, ensuring that you understood perfectly every nuance of every syllable. There would be no book critics, there would be no market for trash novels and bestsellers. Every word would be a sacred gateway, leading to untold knowledge and expansion. Every book you read would change your life. Each page would mark the progression of your understanding, like leaves falling away from a calendar.

I think that words do have lives and minds of their own. They convey certain ideas and emotions, and a great speaker can sway entire populations with well placed words. Sounds have vibrations, and vibrations change reality.

I think it is time we gave words the credit that they are due. But also, because of this, we must effectively destroy our relationship with them.

We throw words around like mashed potato at a childrens party. I have no interest in correct grammar or pronunciation. I am not in the least bit bothered whether people spell with s's or z's or extra u's or fewer f's. In my opinion, the meaning is the important thing. Words just happen to be the best way that we have so far come up with to convey ideas and meanings. It so happens that language has become useful, so useful in fact that we rely upon it, and even "need" it. Need is used here in it's strictest sense. Not just in the common "I need money; she needs a car" form, but in the actual honest to goodness sense of desperate, starving, ravenous NEED. There are those of us who would be at a complete loss in the world if we did not have words to navigate around our environments.

And so I propose, like many before me, that it is not only necessary to lessen our clutching requirement of words, but also to be essentially more selective with our words. Not to just simply blurt out what we think. But to take our time finding our own vocabulary and our own languages. If this language happens to be composed solely of vowels, after careful selection, then so be it. It is essential that as we create the universes we wish to be a part of, that we decorate these evirons with furnishings of our choosing. Whether or not we are completely sure of our surroundings, we should at least be certain of ourselves and how we affect our worlds and ourselves as we inhabit.

This is of course a learning process, there is no point saying that there would be a time or a place when this phase would be complete, since we are not the same individual day to day. And so it would be pointless to place limits on ourselves. But we must at the very least ensure that we are not wasting our time, our space or our lives.

There are many ways and means to work towards this. Perhaps i will go into some ideas in more detail in later days. Who knows...

To sum up. Use your words, don't let your words use you.

A musical epiphany, or musipiphany if you will.

2009-12-20T17:57:00.000-08:00

Pop music is not written by musicians or songwriters.

Now, that being the main gist of the piece, i feel i need to clarify a few points before you go all dissapproving on me.

Pop music or Popular Music to use it's old timey name, was a genre named and created as a catchall term for music that was easy to enjoy. The sort of unassuming, non-threatening, mild mannered material that can be played anywhere at any time and offend only a minority of people. Anything that gets into the top 40 can be classified as pop music. Yes, Limp Bizkit, and now Rage against the Machine are Pop music, as is Eminem, Marilyn Manson, The Offspring. Anyone sufficiently popular to be counted on the Pop chart, becomes pop music.

Pop music is a pigeon holey sort of a term, that can encompass many many different things, whilst being nothing at all in fact. Ask someone to define a pop music record and you will get hundreds of different responses, most of them drawing attention to style, structure and lyrical content. Rap became Pop when people realised you could make money from it. Rap Metal became pop once people realised you could make money from it. Any genre you care to mention, if people have discovered that there is significant money to be made from it, and produces it to fit a certain style, becomes pop. Groups like REM and Maroon 5, though at completely opposite ends of the blandness scale, are essentially the same genre. Inoffensive songs about being in love with someone, the world being difficult, things getting you down, looking at the good things. Pop music.

Musicians and song writers are artists essentially. There is a great deal of difference between a song writer and a singer. A song writer has spent possibly years of their life working on their craft, building and composing music that they will be able to market to people. (Because it is a business once you get to the stage of selling it). Singers however, have (possibly) a good voice, some sort of saleable appearance...and that's it. They go through vocal training and learn to use their voice "correctly" and are brought on board a musical project in the same way a spokesperson is brought on board an advertising campaign. They are essentially the salespeople for the song. The song is the commodity, and they are selling it to you.

When i say that they learn to use their voice correctly i am of course being "sarcastic". It occurs to me that you could turn on any radio station anywhere in the country and hear the same song, the same vocal style, the same musical arrangement, but a completely different artist. The commodification of music has sucked all the soul out of it. Because it has become a business, they have streamlined and commercialised it. So there is no room for experimentation in Pop. No time for long instrumental pieces. They are selling you a product, and the way they can do that most easily is with "singers" preferably these days, singers that ordinary people can relate to. One of the most important rules in sales is that of relating to your customer.

Because they have "streamlined" and "downsized" their business, there is only room for standardised products. There can be no factory seconds, and so any stench of difference is cleansed to within an inch of its life, lest it affect sales. Standardisation is the name of the game now. And with standardisation comes mediocrity, banality, lack of thought or imagination and a deadening of the product, so much so that the industry itself blames its own demise on the consumers for not consuming enough. Never mind the fact that the songs are all sounding vaguely exactly the same now, or that you could swing a cat in a tv studio and hit someone who has released an album or a single. It's obviously the audience that are doing it wrong. The method cannot possibly fail. It's obviously the case that the people who the music is made for are wrong.

They say that the internet is killing the music industry. That people aren't spending enough money on albums. It couldn't possibly be that the music being played on the radio and on the tv is by someone with no discernible talent of their own (save for the fact that they can hold a note or two), and that these ten a penny "singers" are springing up in literal droves on the internet, some even better than those that do make songs that get into the charts. In my opinion the internet is saving music, and reviving the ghost of what was once a great industry, before the big companies came in and removed any trace of creativity or originality. It's just that now the big companies can't hack it in the competitive market, they're crying out that the new way isn't fair. That they hadn't planned for it, and that they didn't know it could go this way. Well tough. You should have thought of that before you ruined music.

As Jello Biafra says in "MTV Get off the air" Could it be that you made one too many lousy records?

Pop music (not music that becomes defined as pop. Music that is written specifically under the heading "pop music") is written by scientists. IF you listen to any pop song on the radio now, you will find that they follow a certain formula. Every sub genre has it's own trademarks and signatures, but by and large you can basically predict how these songs go. Try it out for yourself. Find a pop song you have not heard before and see if you can tell when the chorus is coming up, when the bridge is coming up, when the solo/middle eight section is coming up and when the surging key change is coming up. These are the standard elements of the pop song, and they are ever present.

A writer of pop songs knows exactly what to put where. Popular music is popular because, like anything popular, it is safe and predictable. For some reason people really like predictability. Predictability becomes a hallmark of skill and talent. These people are basically taking the equation for a song, fitting the melody, the tempo, the key around this skeletal structure, finding a singer that suits the style and putting out the songs. They are not creating anything artistic, anymore than i am performing mathematical calculations by writing the numbers one to fifty in ascending order.

Next week i'll tell you how to write your own pop song. With any luck, i'll be raking it in in the new year.

Here is my asking.

2009-12-15T18:05:00.000-08:00

This is my asking,

This is my request. Put me to work, use me as required. Help me to be as close as possible to useful as i can be. If i need to be a channel, then please work through me, if i need to be a vehicle, please take control. I wish to be of as much benefit as possible. I'm moving into a space of love and acceptance and i'm hopeful for the way things are going, and how they will work out. I can see great things ahead, and i wish to be of as much use as possible.

If i stray, please don't give up on me. I have an active imagination and i like to wander around and take in the scenery. I do have a couple of requests that i would ask be taken into account before any deal is struck. I would like to only work with those who will work for my best interest. I will only cooperate with those who have my highest and greatest good in mind. I do not wish to work with any who would cause harm or work in a way which unnecessarily affects anyone in a negative way. I would appreciate it if i could be used as much as possible as a force for good, and not in pursuit of any negative energy.

If you are willing, please get in touch. I will be awake for the next couple of hours, so don't worry about disturbing me. I am very eager and anxious to get started, so please don't hesitate if you are interested.

Yours in anticipation

Much Love

Anton

Tra La Laa...

2009-11-17T18:16:00.000-08:00

There are many many reasons not to get out of bed on a morning. Number one, it's nice and warm. Number two, there's not really any need to. Number three, you will never be as comfortable during the day as you are at that moment. It occurred to me how much time i actually spend in bed. Not sleeping, not attempting to sleep. Not really doing anything, just staring at the ceiling and thinking. Or staring at the wall and thinking. Mainly just thinking.

And then it occurred to me how much time i spend just thinking about things. Not even important things, just opinions, ideas, theories. How integral thinking is to my life in general. That kind of stuff. Which reminded me of something someone said to me a few months ago.

I asked one of my friends at work (colleagues is probably closer to the truth. Acquaintances even more so) what she thought about religion. She said she never really thought about things like that. I asked, "don't you ever wonder about the big stuff? Like aliens, heaven, life after death? Things like that?"

She said. "No..."

"...i don't like thinking"

Not, "i don't like thinking about that stuff." or "No, i don't like thinking too much." Just that she doesn't like thinking. About anything. At all.

I tried to press the issue with her. Nothing? THere was no topic she was ever curious about, that she just liked to sit and think about?

To which she replied, "Thinking makes my head hurt"

I nearly burst into tears at this point. I had spent quite a few years having to convince myself that people like this were only fictional. Fairy tales, along with 15 year old mothers of four. But here she was, real as you like. My brain just stopped. I didn't have a reply, an answer, even an idea what to say to this. How could someone get by in the world, being happy just working in their mind numbing job, and completely without any interest in whether there might be anything to this crazy old thing we call life. It actually literally broke my head.

Having met this person, i realised that not everyone does have a thought about the meaning of life, or love, or their purpose in life. Maybe i am some kind of intellectual snob for assuming that people actually care about these sorts of things. Maybe i am completely out of touch with anyone and everyone.

Not that it makes any difference, other than now i know that i'm more alone than i thought i was. But not that much more.

Am i wrong? I can't be wrong about this...

I think...

Seasons in the sun...

2009-10-11T07:15:00.001-07:00

I had a moment the other day where i said goodbye to a part of myself. I was lying on the sofa snuggled up warm, watching a cheesy romantic comedy (The Holiday, which is surprisingly not as bad as i was thinking it would be. Jack black is good in it, even without crazy voices and funny eyebrows. Quite understated.) There is a section where one of the women (kate winslett. I don't know what her name was in the film. I wasn't paying that close attention when it was introducing people.) was giving a speech about being alone and feeling miserable. It was the first part where i really got into who the characters were and what was happening, mainly because i recognised myself in them all.)

(too many brackets already)

I had a little moment of sadness myself. A self pitying remembrance of my own, and what i had considered to be my creative heyday. Sadness, depression, heavy drinking, smoking and swearing. And pages and pages of writing with which to back it up. Reams of self deprecation and snide remarks. Sarcasm dripping from every sentence.

There was a point not too long ago where i felt that for me to be happy would be selfish. It was only in my depression and my misery that i was producing anything of value, and so to turn my back on the maudlin me was an affront to my own artistic ambitions. I could either be miserable and prolific, or happy and average and ruined as a writer. There was no middle ground. Being happy would take away all notion of creativity and i would be left smiling, but art-less.

I suppose i had always looked at my writing as therapeutic more than anything . There was no real merit to it. My whining/acoustic guitar phase had passed and writing was all that i had left. The misery was the only way to be creative. Not that i had any reason to be creative, i just knew i had to be creating something. Which seemed as good a reason as any.

So lying on the couch, listening to miss winslett, thinking i'd like to go back to that hole, even just to look around and say hello, i suddenly realised something. I didn't want to go back. The very idea of of it seemed incredibly self indulgent. I wasn't doing it for any artistic reason. I was attempting to force a depression because i would be able to write about sadness and depression and hopeless despair, as though the world wasn't swimming in it already.

And i thought to myself, i don't need that anymore. I am more intelligent than i am depressed, and so i can write using my intelligence. I am more funny than miserable, so i can write with my sense of humour. I am more spiritual than i am suicidal, so i can write about my ideas and beliefs. I am more philosophical than i am deranged and despairing, so i can write about my thoughts and understandings. I don't need to rely on violent moodswings as a crutch for creativity any more. And more to the point, i don't want to.

And i gave my lady a kiss on the back of her head. She asked, "what was that for?". I said "no reason" and silently said goodbye to my angst, my depression, my suicidal tendencies and my self destruction. I'm sure he'll be back to visit every so often, but he doesn't live here anymore.

On being...

2009-09-25T18:56:00.000-07:00

Finally. It's taken so long to get to this point, but i finally feel like i'm here.

I spent a large part of my life being certain that i was in the wrong place at the wrong time. That i had to at least attempt to do what other people expected me to do, because that's how everyone else seemed to be getting through life without jabbing their eyes out with pointy things.

Then a few months ago i thought that maybe i should actually try being myself in day to day life. That maybe it would make more sense to try and live the life i had been given as the person i wanted to be, rather than as the person i was "supposed" to be.

And i have never looked back.

I have been so scared of showing people what goes on in my head, for fear that people will think i'm a nut. I've been so worried about being interested in certain things, or excited about other things, just in case i get excommunicated by people i hardly even speak to anymore. I kept my bizarre political opinions and my outlandish philosophies and outlooks on life close to my chest. If someone else saw my cards they would ask me why i'm using a different deck.

And you know what they do to people who are different.

Now i'm realising that that is exactly what i am here for. I am here to be different. I am here to be my own perfect version of self. I am here to not fit in, to not blindly follow. In fact i am here to buck the trends and fuck with the status quo. I am here to be me.

And i've never looked back.

It makes no sense to wait and see what other people think before i show my cards. I've been writing and performing and coming to realise that i am an artist. That i have something valuable to contribute, and that i can only do that to the best of my ability if i am doing it my own way. The work i have been doing has helped a lot. I have been discovering what i actually think and how i really feel about subjects. There was a time when i wouldn't have even dared posting videos by alex jones to my facebook. There was a time when i didn't even want a facebook for the simple reason that people would look and see and realise what i am. An outsider.

But that's not a bad thing to be. I like knowing whats going on. I like that i'm not satisfied to just sit and stare at the tv and assume that i'm happy. I like that i finally like myself.

I'm in the process of filtering at the moment. Taking the universe in, jumbling it around until it makes perfect sense to me, and then putting it out so that others might learn. Or not.

But it doesn't matter whether they do or not, because i am happier knowing that i am actually just doing what i want to do. I'm not worried about people thinking i'm a kook. Or that i have a tinfoil hat. Or that i believe in divine energy and the power of manifestation. And the more i put it out there and talk about it to people around me, the more sure i am that this is what i'm actually like as a person. I finally, after so many years, feel comfortable in my skin.

And it's about time too.

Hail Eris!

2009-07-27T18:39:00.001-07:00

"Loneliness is such a sad affair
And i can't hardly wait
To be with you again"

Superstar - Sonic Youth
(The carpenters actually wrote it and did it first...but the sonic youth version actually pisses all over it, thereby taking ownership. Like johnny cash did with hurt. Not that the NIN version is bad in any way...just that JC's was better)

I can think of ten thousand ways to start this. Many of them involve me drawing you into a despairing monologue, others include drastically recovered memories of things that may or may not have actually happened. Still others begin like a speech, continue like a poem and end like a eulogy.

The problem is, there's no need for any of those. I'm writing because i feel as though i should. I don't know what i'm going to come out with, but i'd rather write for a potential audience, than just for myself...i'll only delete it if i do that. At least if i put it up here, i can say that it's there for public consumption.

People who know me, or those of you who have read entries from months past, will know that i have cycles of mood. At the moment we're back in the lonely weirdo cycle. I can think of a lot of ways to cure this...but i have tried them all and they all worked for a little while, but ended up being so much more hassle than was absolutely necessary. So what i need to do is analyse. Except that self analysis is boring for all except the person doing the analysing. So what to do...

At least i can say that i've learned lessons. Otherwise i'd have gone running back to previous car crashes to see if i can salvage anything to keep me satisfied and occupied for the next few days. And i know that at least a couple of those car crashes would welcome me back, in that comforting way that only wreckage can.

I'm not exactly sure what it is i feel like i want. The more i try to look at it and understand what my mind is telling me, the more i feel as though i should stop listening, and just wait and see. I could try and chase a steady girlfriend...but chasing is not going to work. I could make a deal with someone so that i just have someone to hang around with, but i would only want to be on my own again after a few days. I could get drunk and go wake people up in the middle of the night just so i have someone to talk to. But that doesn't work. You just end up with less friends that way.

Impatience could be a contributing factor here. Easily. It seems like I would much rather be unhappy, but with more, than i would be content with less. I'm not even sure i want people around half the time. But there are certain ones that i know are exceptions. I'm still shocked to find that i'm still unusually attached to these people, regardless of whether they're currently in my life.

I need to stop drawing the tattoo on my back, to paraphrase matt. I've spent so long making this beautiful blueprint, but one little part doesn't fit. So instead of adjusting that part, or waiting until the idea comes to me of how i can make that section fit correctly, i spend my time drawing and redrawing that point, in all it's hideous imperfection, obsessing over why it's wrong and why it doesn't fit.

I do miss being a miserable pretentious bastard sometimes. And let's be honest. That's why we're all here. You wouldn't be reading this if i just told you how awesome things are and that my life is amazing in every detail. Public self analysis is a process of magnifying the negative, in such a way that you can release it to the world and let it stay there. Talking about it is like opening the cage door and walking away. It's for someone else to deal with now.

By the way...if you don't read XKCD, then you are truly truly missing out.

www.xkcd.com

A quick word from Jesus

2009-07-21T10:47:00.000-07:00

I was having a dream last night...wait...before that there's probably a bit of preamble that will help explain this bit...

I've been watching GOD Tv before bed the last few nights. Partly because i enjoy watching people thinking that they have the right answers, and to be able to propogate these correct answers, you must send your credit card details to jesus. And also because i like to see how incredibly similar their ideas and my ideas actually are. Their "jesus" is my "bigme". Their "god" is my "source energy". If you keep your mind open to it, what they are saying is applicable to any religion that you could cobble together yourself. Until they get to the point of wiping your sins away with the blood of jesus. That's where we part ways and they completely fuck off in the opposite direction.

Anyway, after ruminating on the similarities and the differences for a while, i heard a man speaking about dreams and visions, and how christians invented illumination, and that shamans, gurus and buddhism in general "stole" the idea from jesus. That completely turned me off, and i remembered why i have a problem with christianity, or the other big boy religions. The idea that "we are right, if you are not with us, you are against us". When my experience completely contradicts that. My experience is that all religious experience has more in common than it has in difference. And so why not drop the specialised words, and just get together on it. There is a lot of common ground there, but names and places and details (who was it said that the devil is in the details) are fucking it all up for everyone. If we could get together with it all, instead of letting it divide us, we would all be a lot closer to creating this "utopia" that everyone seems struck on creating, but only finds time to bicker and argue with each other, and blame the other guys that their heaven hasn't materialised.

Surely if we were all chasing the same heaven, it would be a lot quicker in coming...

Anyway...I was sitting in a library in this dream. I looked over and there was a massive stack of books that i was supposed to read. These would ensure that i knew all that i had to know so that i could teach other people how to be happy. I went to pick the top book off the pile, and it was the bible. So i dropped it on the floor, completely disregarding it as something that i wanted no part in. Jesus walked over, picked it up and handed it back to me. He looked me in the eye and said "It's not all bullshit you know" and walked off.

Now...considering that i'm not big on the "christian" version of the story, this was quite a shock. And then it occurred to me. Jesus is no more real or fictional than buddha, mohamed, krishna, vishnu, bigme, source energy or james brown. There is as much of a reason to try and talk to jesus as there is to talk to bigme or a fairy or your mother. (This might put some of you off for a minute...but trust me. Everything is in your head, so you might as well have fun with it and make it up as you go along.)

So yeah...Even jesus doesn't agree with most of the bible. At least that's what he told me.

Over the (h)edge

2009-06-25T05:50:00.000-07:00

Some crazy things happened this week.

We managed to get a shop in pontefract to take some copies of our film, and sell them. We've to go back in a week or two and see how they're doing, and they will give us 100% of the money. I was shocked for about two days afterwards.

The skeleton project found out that they will be appearing at this years Moor Music Festival as roaming performers. We have to perform for a few hour each day. The middle day we're going for a 24 hour performance. Just to see if A) we can do it and B) How funny it gets after being awake about 20 hours and we forget what we're doing and have no idea where we are anymore.

The first edition of my new radio show Artists and Ascension aired on tuesday. I'm co-presenting with a wonderful lady called Nancy. Unfortunately, the internet decided that it would not play. And so i ended up sitting with matt drinking most of the day. Then the internet clicked in halfway through the show, so i stumbled in half cut and really pleased, and i can't help but feel as though i ruined the discussion that they had been having. You can go to

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/Artists--Ascension

and download the first one, and all of them after that. Or, if you're feeling saucy, you can go there tuesday evenings at 8pm GMT and hear it live, get involved in the chat room etc. Hopefully i'll be on time next week.

I spent last night talking to a lady called Jenny, who has given me the kick up the arse that i needed. I realised that i've been sitting and trying to find systems to follow, and get people to help me understand what i'm supposed to be doing and so on. All i have to do is follow Bigme. (I will post something about Bigme at some point. I'm working on it.) I've been trying to do things someone elses way because i have no idea what i'm doing. But that cannot work. How do they know how i should do things?

I've had the most bizarre dreams. And i remember them vividly. It's one of those situations where it makes you think about everything completely differently. And then for the rest of the day you sit and puzzle over one little part. Holiday homes on the coast, and train journeys with people who are there because i imagined them there. You know that episode of Friends where Rachel finds out that Ross likes her, and she's on the balcony with that guy who says,

"And i'm like HEY BUDDY! Get a real car"

And she can see Ross and she's talking to him, but he's not actually there...(or maybe he is, but that's a whole different discussion)

That's what happened. She told me that whatever i'm thinking, i may be right or wrong. But i at least have to try the stuff that i think is right. Otherwise it will be just me sitting around waiting for someone to tell me what i'm doing, and take my hand and lead me there. And that could take a long long time.

I'm excited and nervous and confused. But things at least feel like they're moving again. Like a blockage has been removed, and now the water can shoot through the pipe like it's supposed to.

Exciting times.

What i did to the Goddess when i found her

2009-06-12T08:59:00.000-07:00

A review of the "book" Principia Discordia that i wrote a couple of years ago. It goes on a bit so i thought it would fit in well here. Any of you who haven't read it, look for it online. There are free .pdf versions knocking around all over the place. Or you can order a printed hardback copy. but it's a bit spensive.

I read something somewhere that went along the lines “you should write about what you have learned so that you know where you stand on the thing you just read, and also because you might be able to explain it in a way that no-one else has been able to”. Now, being one of those round-the-houses sorts of writers, (the kind that takes ages to get to the point, and by the time the point has arrived, it’s a completely different one to the one I originally started trying to explain, making everything I’ve just written a completely useless tangent that does not benbefit anything before or after it) I have absolutely no faith that any of what I am about to say will help anyone in any way whatsoever. But I like writing, and I need to know what I’m talking about for myself. So here come the words.

To the casual glancer-atter-of-books, The Principia Discordia looks like a childish satire on religions in general, and an experiment using mad-libs, gibberish, cut-up techniques and the kind of conversations that only two people who have been inside each others heads many times before can even begin to attempt. Having attempted to create my own fake religion (or fake faith. Or Faikth as it was known) years ago as a satire of Scientology before it had gained the notoriety and boogeyman status that it now enjoys, I know that there has to be a certain amount of personal belief, a sprinkling of generic “love one another”, some myths and fables and a long winded passage about Karma, but changing the letters or the rules slightly so you don’t get sued (no-one likes Buddha lawsuits).

Reading it in seclusion from the notions of a parody of religion however, there is a definite layer of truth and wisdom to it. Which is why, like so many books before it, it strikes a chord by using a surprise sneak attack. (One of the main weapons in the Discordian arsenal. As well as fear, the two primary weapons are fear and surprise. Wait, I can’t help but think that sounds familiar from somewhere.) Just like the Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy, the humour, the down to earth style of the writing and the recognition that these are conversations you’ve almost had with your friends, but held your tongue for fear they’d think you were a crazy (and possibly vice versa), catches you unawares and leaves you feeling as though you have been touched by a great teacher (not that bad kind of touching) that has made you laugh and think at the same. What makes it even greater still is that it is like one of those games where you make up the game as you go. You realise (or at least understand more clearly) that there are in fact no rules in life. There’s nothing stopping you from dancing around with pants on your head, except the fear of looking stupid, but that goes away.

Speaking from a purely personal point of view (since that is the one to which I have easiest access) I have always, for whatever reason, felt as though I CANNOT do certain things. That the sky would fall if I didn’t do my homework. That doing what everyone else was doing was the best course of action. I had always wanted to not just follow, but after numerous beatings and weeks of getting my arse kicked, I just left it to other people to decide what was best for me. I didn't like it, but being skinny and unpopular i didn't see that I had much choice. As lame as it sounds, that was nearly 10 years ago, and it’s only in the last couple of years that I’m starting to feel comfortable in my skin again.

As I got older I started making my own opinions and ideas about life and people. Politics and religion and society as a hole. Fast forward to 2006 and I find that all the things I thought I was alone in believing, all the games I had made up to entertain myself, all the ways I had learned to deal with people were already written down in a book I had found on the internet, written years before I was even born. (Believe it or not a friend of mine and I invented a game very similar to the game Cook Note fibreglass as seen on 23ae.com. Except we also used scrabble and connect 4). It was as though I was reading a book that I would have probably tried to write, had I been born 40 years earlier and known everything I know now.

I always think I’m never going to be able to learn anything else new, not because I think I know everything, but because I can’t understand that there’s anymore room for things. But then a couple of weeks later I scoff at my own lack of belief in myself, and my pompous belief that I know enough. And every week the new things I learn change me as a person and make my brain work in a different way.

I suppose the short version of what I’m trying to say is that reading the Principia is like being shown all the stuff that has been on the tip of my tongue since I was old enough to be thinking for myself, but I’ve never been able to grasp it in a way to explain it to myself or anyone else.

Maybe I’m putting too much stock in crazy people gibberish. Maybe I’m not looking hard enough to see the divine truth in every carefully chosen word and phrase. Either way, like a man dropped into toxic waste, I’m not the same as I was when I went in.

Magnet face is the king

2009-05-30T04:40:00.000-07:00

There is up and down. There is black and white. There is Left and Right. To choose one, means that you choose both. There is no one or the other. There is no exclusion because of one choice.

So ultimately, there is no choice. To choose black, you must understand that it only exists because white is there as it's opposite. Any time you choose to do something, that was the only option. Any time you choose from a list of things to do, it doesn't matter what you choose, because it is the same as choosing against it. When you choose fear, you know that it is the opposite of love and so the fear is only there as a lack of love. To pick a number between one and three, it is understood that the numbers are a sequence. To choose number two means to not pick one or three. But it doesn't negate their existence. Number two is only there because number one comes before and number three comes after it. Otherwise we would just have the numbers one and some.

The only choice there is is to stay where you are, or to say yes to the universe. There is no such thing as no. To deny something is to acknowledge it and let it in. Letting it in is equivalent to saying yes. There is no choice. You can allow. That is all. If you don't, nothing changes. Things stay exactly how they were and you don't move. Movement requires that you choose. There is no backsliding, there is no returning from whence you came, there is no losing. We are all on a path and are learning lessons. We can only move ahead, or stay put.

To spend your time in a state of sadness, for whatever reason, does not mean that you are losing anything. You are not failing. There is no rule that says you must be happy at all times. Obviously we all prefer it when we are happy. But that does not mean that it is the only correct way to do things. All action, all attempts at moving from where you are on your path at the moment, is progress. It is impossible to regress or retread the path. You are not here because of where you have been, nor are you here because of where you are heading. There is only this one moment. This one choice. And the only option is Yes. But if you don't want to choose, there's nothing wrong with kicking back where you are and taking it all in. Whenever you are ready to get back on your feet, the universe will be ready to hear your desicion.

So here we are...

2009-05-27T14:35:00.000-07:00

It's been a strange month since i was last here talking to myself. I'm now a whole different age than i was last time. And as always, the end of the cycle means the whole thing cycles around again. I'm at the "I have no idea what i'm doing" stage at the moment, and as always, it is a pain in my backside.

I've got to that part where i'm looking back at good ideas i had of who i was over the last year, and seeing if there is anything salvagable from the wreckages. Some of you may know that i tend to jump from one thing to the next very quickly. Sometimes without giving what i am doing a proper second thought. And so i have done things that, regardless, i am stuck with. I have made desicions that are now set in stone, and i have made new friends and new enemies.

I'm getting tired of the cycle to be honest. I've had a few new, previously unseen, experiences and bites of wisdom, which have coloured the previous ones. It's all building up slowly like layers of papier mache. Hopefully, i'm not just sculpting a giant cock and balls like so many others around me seem to be doing.

No matter how many times i read, accept, understand, see, know, believe or have faith in something, it is easily forgettable once i find something that slightly better fits my current state of mind. It's almost like seasons. There will be a season for Lucifer, a season for Eris, a season for myself and a season for others. During the different seasons, i sow various artistic fruits, and the next season, when they are ready to harvest i find that i don't even want to reap that mess that i made last month.

But as always, there are things that have been slowly building up over the seasons, towards something great. And each season teaches me something that i can carry on to the next.

It's the old self con. What if things are never going to be as good as they were before? I have found that i can't accept things anymore. I have destroyed all the "controls" and all i have left is to be mr average nobody again. It's just that another year older blues.

2009-04-26T19:40:00.000-07:00

I suppose i should be really happy. I'm on a path and it's taking me to new places. But i can't help but feel that i'm...wait...shit...my life is a play that i wrote.

I've noticed recently, (six times) that people that have appeared in my life, have appeared in such a way as the way that i wrote them into plays. One of my friends has been quoting, verbatim, lines from The Skeleton Project massive's critically acclaimed play ITCH. And she had never seen it. Or read it. Or cared about it. But she was feeding me lines straight from the play, and it was all i could do to not continue with the next one. (six times)

It's getting to a point now where i'm expecting everything to just go PHLUMPH (that is how it's spelt trust me) and, like some life size pop up book, things will just be magically different when i open my eyes in the morning. My whole life has started to feel like a transition between page 65 and page 66. (That's where the excitement kicks in.) And thinking about this, reminded me why i have a blog.

Now, as much as it exists as a reason to bitch to an empty room in an internet full of people, it's also here for me to figure myself out. It's also here as writing practice, for when i become a writer.

(That right there is an example. I am writing. So i am a writer. There is this belief that you're not a writer until you have had a book or a dozen articles published. But that just makes you in print, which is completely different. I am a writer, as much as i am a painter or a musician. The fact that no-one has seen my paintings, and hardly anyone has heard my music is not an issue, because that is not what i want. I want to be a writer and so i write. To no-one in particular. To myself, usually. I play music, and so i am a musician. There should be no requirement involved that my work must be appraised by people or judged by critics. Critics only know what they know and what they know is technicality. Now if you want to read a technically good book then that's fine. But i do not. I will most definitely find it as dull as...well...let's be honest...as dull as i find most things. I am not an easy person to please book wise though. In fact i am very very discerning. But my discernment starts and ends with whether i like the writer based upon assumptions that i have made about him. )

NOW! This feeling that things are transitioning from one thing to the next. I have been warned about this. For some reason, trying to convince myself mentally that it is as i have been informed, (that is that the universe is speeding up as i try to understand it, and my own attempts to stay in the now attract a faster universe, with more rapidly expanding moments, ) the less i can understand what i'm trying to explain and the more frustrated and worried i get. Writing it down somehow fixes this. I can get my thoughts out quite coherently and cogently if i type them up. They fit together nicely and work their way through my head, soothing and calming my knackered synapses. Someone asked me what my most favoured form of expression was, and now i know the answer.

I have been told that things will continue to go this fast until i manage to get to a point where i am in more control of what happens, and then things will slow down slightly. I need to be in a position where i can do what i want, see who i want, be where i want, when i want, and the events around me will shift imperceptibly into a more relaxed and easy to manage form. Writing it down helps greatly. So it doesn't make sense to be neglecting this dealie so much. It's not so much a blog anymore as it is a diary of me working things out. Hopefully at some point someone will read it and be quite happy that it existed, because it will help them to understand certain events that they are also feeling worried about...and they will be able to get a better perspective, seeing how someone else deals with it. And i am a firm believer in the idea that whatever you are looking for will find you when you need to.

Writing does help. It might not help (m)anybody...but it helps me. And so it does help other people. What i learn and understand is accessible by anyone in the world, if they are wanting to find it. Whether in their own mind, or from their computer. My understanding does benefit others.

So i suppose that writing is my favourite.

Response and Responsibility

2009-04-15T21:35:00.000-07:00

(this is sort of a sequel to the previous post. So it won't make that much sense if you're not up to speed with this not exactly speedy brain of mine)

The thing that scares me most is that i have to be responsible for my own thoughts and actions. So many times i am terrifed of outcomes and consequences that i simply don't get involved. So much of the work i have done on myself has been aborted because at one point i was asked to seriously question my own morals and standards. Intellectually it is easy to say "Nothing is true, everything is permitted", but to actually live that...and to allow it in others...that's when the game moves to sudden death. The scoreboard says 0 - 0 and we go into scary time.

Now, the obvious answer is to work through it. And that is my plan. It just seems that this particular phase of my life moving into high gear matters more than any previous. As though this time it's for realz. Like playing pennies against the wall at school, and then the kid you've been beating wants to move up to quids. You could probably still win, but if you don't, it's a much more massive loss.

I guess that this is all a partial attempt to leave something for posterity. I feel like Lisa in that episode of the simpsons where she thinks she's getting dumber because of the simpson gene. But kind of opposite...i want to smoke, drink, waste my time with video games,eat as much shit as i can, fight with as many people as possible, destroy all that is around me because once i move into this next stage, i won't be able to do any of those things anymore. Well i will, but that's not moving into the next stage. Whether i've built it up incorrectly in my mind or not, it seems that someone on a serious path of spirituality and enlightenment shouldn't be involved with those things.

I have a nagging feeling too that, once i am on this path, my writing and music will change. And i like being able to pick apart the human psyche and sort of...piss on the mass consciousness of humanity. It makes me feel good to know that i can write monologues and plays that deconstruct the minds of men. If i do become this greater being through my spiritual work, then there is no more need for me to deconstruct people. The only reason i did it in the first place was to make myself feel better about stupid shit i was thinking, and hopefully assuming that other people felt the same way, even if they didn't speak about it.

Maybe it's just a natural part of the growth of man. That he gets bored with the work he has been doing and strives for something greater. I always assumed that i was already working on the greater work. Maybe this was the kids stuff that i had to get out of the way so that i could become what i am supposed to become.

On one hand i'm looking forward to this new part of my life and the adventure that it will unfold into. But on the other hand i feel as though i'm saying goodbye to a whole universe of things. I'm closing the book on the first quarter of a century of my existence and starting with the next. I almost don't want to part with it, but that is why i am here in the first place.

The first play i wrote, that was performed, was called "Roses for you and me". It was a semi autobiographical tale of lost love and regret. It was based on a series of events that happened in my life. There were three main characters. Me, My ex(es) and my current girlfriend (at the time the play was set. which was a couple of years previous to it's writing and performance)...who by the end of the play was a new ex. My actual real life girlfriend at the time hated the play. She said that she couldn't understand why i would want to write a show about such an obviously awful person. The events that transpired deserved to transpire because the protagonist was basically a bastard. She had no feelings for the characters and hated that i would even think that this was a story that should be told. She didn't realise that it was me. During rehearsals, i constantly told myself and the people in the show, that it was a sort of cathartic revisiting of demons, in the hopes of ridding myself of them. The guy playing me, towards the end of rehearsals suffered a devastating break up himself, that may or may not have been due to the play or it's content. On one hand he gave a much better performance than he could have if he had been in a happy relationship. On the other hand, it was like watching a man with one arm re-enacting his own dismemberment.

The play was not as cathartic as it was meant to be. It only magnified the problems that i had had with myself and my exes. I was always upset about the girl i had just lost, despite being in a relationship at that time. Now, i couldn't really give two shits about the girl the play was about, she completely vanished out of my life once i stopped regretting how things ended.

I suppose the point i am trying to make is that, i can understand why i am doing what i am doing, but i don't know why it matters so much. I'm ramping up the life i have lived the last 5 years because i am worried that it will be gone forever in the next few months. But if it's going to go, then it's because it no longer serves the requirements i have. And so i am stuck in a repeating pattern, just because i know the shape of it. I have drawn the shape, and i can't stop going over the lines. I have written that play, and i'm still tracing over the words over and over again. I have the tattoo on my back (as Matt would say) and i'm determined to have it drawn and redrawn until my back no longer exists.

It's the fear that keeps me from being responsible for myself and my actions. If i can repeat stuff i have done, at least it's safe. It was scary the first time, but it's ok now because i know it's safe.

Safety just gets boring. That is it's only flaw.

Goodbye Anton
Hello Anton

Something to write home about...

2009-04-13T21:15:00.001-07:00

I had a thought today. I've been following this mish mash of spirituality and pop psychology that i have cobbled together for about 5 years now. I'm still constantly tacking bits on and pulling bits off. It's starting to look like a lego house, except i've been using duplo, sticklebricks and pages from the freemans catalogue as well as lego(TM). I've tried to follow Robert Anton Wilson's example as much as possible, simply because he seems like a man who has his head on right. They are very few and far between. (And also, me and him share a name. Well...technically i changed my name a bit to sound cooler. But because of that we share a name. Which counts for something right?)

He said that you should never completely believe anyone elses Belief System (B.S.) and never believe your own BS too much either. A teaching that i have tried to keep in mind whilst wading through this occasionally swampy land we call Spirituality-On-The-Internet. (Like Hambleton-on-the-Wolds, but more wires and less farms)

I have recently found a place that i am fairly sure would be very useful in heklping me learn more about myself and reach a place in my spiritual path where i can begin to be of use to other people also. And yet i'm nervous about getting fully involved. I want to get it going and fill out all the profiles and send people messages and discuss things on the forums and do the dedicated meditations and everything. But i am fucking terrifed.

At the moment i quite like my life. I like how easy things are. I like writing scripts and making music. I like being able to take an afternoon off and play San Andreas or Geometry Wars if i choose. I like being able to eat what i want whether it's good for me or bad for me. I know i shouldn't want to do these things but i do. I like to have fun, i like to meet up with my friends, i like to live a normal regular life. I also want to live this higher, more "profound", spiritual existence and eat right and keep myself in check and be wise and all knowing.

(Now, i'm not saying that i don't want to contribute anything to life. My music and writing work are my way of being a part of the world, doing something that will affect the universe in which i live. It just happens that writing, acting and making music come very easily for me for some reason, and so they don't feel like work.)

So...say i do do all the spiritual master stuff. what if it's not as fun? What if it's really really boring and i'm wasting my life and my time? What if all this stuff is good for a bit but then useless later on, when my friends and family have given up on trying to get me to come out and spend time with them because i hardly go out anymore. What if XBOX Live shut down my account because i don't use it anymore. (haha doodoo)

I realise that this is probably the last vestiges of an ego, or a self or a personality or whatever struggling to keep hold of me. Removing the need for "fun" and being able to find fun in sitting in the sunshine and listening to birds, is not something that the ego wants. The ego wants to want things. It wants to be popular and covered in stuff. It wants the fancy car, the 20 houses...all that jazz. I can understand why it would get antsy when it looks like the enlightened hordes are hovering over the hill to sympathetically and with great love, kick the fuck out of him.

The eastern religions have always had devotees that run at them like bees to wet haribo. And i think there is a lot of truth in them. But whenever i go to sign my brain over to their way of thinking, Robert Anton Wilson pops into my head and tells me not to swallow it without thinking about it. The meditation is good, the self improvement is fine. But thinking about it lets my ego kick into gear and give me a question that i cannot find a suitable answer for.

The logical answer here is to weigh it up. See what their truths are and weigh them against their lies. (Relatively speaking of course.) But this is where that plan falls over like soggy card. This whole journey of self advancement and pursuit of knowledge started because i thought it was a good idea to not believe in anything. The second you believe in something you lose all faculties to objectively examine whatever it is. If you fall for that theory or philosophy, then you are within...so you only see the bits around you, the good bits that you have surrounded yourself with, and you can't see the big picture of it all anymore.

This is all very disheartening, because the only thing i really believe in truly and unapologetically, is that you should question everything about everything. The second you accept something without question you have failed yourself as a seeker of truth. Truth is what you can prove. (Or to quote Robert Anton Wilson again..."Reality is what you can get away with")Someone telling you that this is so is not proof. I have experienced with my own senses no proof that man landed on the moon, and so to all intents and purposes, at least in my head, he may or may not have done. I'm not going to say that man did or did not land on the moon. Just that i haven't been convinced one way or the other.

There are other things that i believe may or may not be true, and i believe in them sometimes, and don't at other times. Such as the existence of aliens, the inherent incompetence of any sort of ruling "elite"(in status only, in ability and competence not so), the ease with which men can be manipulated and massaged in certain directions. That we live inside the mind of the creator. That we, specifically, were created by inter dimensional beings from outside our spectrum of understanding. You know...stuff like that.

I have built it up in my head that if i know that i am constantly wrong about everything, that i will believe in nothing, and therefore can believe in everything at once. It has only done two things. Made me easy to destroy in arguments, and broken my mind. I can't argue or debate anything. Halfway through i stop caring about whatever it is i'm attacking or defending and realise that ultimately it doesn't really matter, and so i just kind of trail off.

Like this...

Hail the mighty Xaturing, remove this obstacle from your domain...

2009-03-20T19:06:00.000-07:00

Now, call me an old fuddy duddy. Call me a wiggidy weiner if you wish. Even call me a stone age buffoon with no grasp of technology and it's implications on the world and it's people. But i have a question for you all...

What the fuck is twitter?

As far as i can tell, you basically tell the internet what you're doing. And some people will read it maybe. Now correct me if i'm wrong, but i'm fairly sure that no-one gives two fucks what you are doing now, or ever. If they do care, they will want to know when they see you face to face.

I think that it's stupid shit like this that blocks up the internet and stops us from being able to read our emails or check to see if XKCD has updated yet. It is with this in mind that i urge you all to slap any of your friends who use twitter, or who change their facebook status more than once a day. Or who write a blog about every piddly little insignificant thing in their lives.

I expect you on my doorstep at 8am sharp. Please make sure your slapping hand is clean and preferably moisturised.

A short renunciation of all ideas and ideologies pertaining to the typical and the average. (Or - Postcard from a Fucker in Ponte Carlo)

2009-03-16T18:50:00.000-07:00

When you recognise something in your normal, everyday, usual state, you are no longer looking at that object or involving yourself in it's influence. You are remembering and experiencing previous encounters with objects of that sort. A car is not car. It is every car you have ever seen or been a passenger in. A tree is not a tree. It is a documentary about the amazon rainforest and a rope swing you built when you were five years old. A song is not notes played by instruments, it is the feelings you felt when you first heard it and anything you may have previously thought about that musician/artist. Art itself relies on the very idea that you will remember things that are completely unconnected to it. Your mind, in it's unaffected, sleeping state, relies on abstraction and previous experience. That is why someone who lives in the city would have absolutely no idea what to do if a gorilla came charging towards them. Most likely they would freeze up, because they don't have even the first idea what this thing is, how to behave in it's presence, what will happen during this encounter. If you have a collision in a car, this is what the medics will call shock. The lack of previous experience in that particular situation.

Now there is no substitute for experience. However, it is easy to see where being in a fully awakened, lucid state could help any similar situation. Life today has had all the danger removed. We know what's going to happen (probably) what we will do (more than likely) who will be there (quite possibly) and so forth. We have been coddled and protected since the day we were born, and we are told every day hence that we are fine. We will be ok. Everything is just peachy. So, because of this, we can relax. We sit and watch TV. We go to work, we come home. We eat our meals and kiss our families goodnight. Things are pretty much exactly the same, day to day. We want to be safe, calm and relaxed. It leads to longer lives, which we are told is a good thing. We have had all reason to question or think for ourselves removed, and because of that most never even think to question.

Now, i want you to try something. Sit for a moment and think to yourself, i am here right now. Think about how you are sitting, where your arms are, what you are actually thinking about while you are reading this. What can you hear? What can you feel? Say to yourself, I am here. Be actually physically here in the moment, don't let your mind wander to what you might be eating later on, what you're going to do after this, or what you were doing before. Actually, don't think about anything. Be here now. Do you feel different? Awake? More awake than you have been before? If not, never mind, keep trying. If you did get it to work, well done. Felt good didn't it?

Once we awaken that first time, even for a segment of a second, we feel invigorated. It is a whole new experience. Life is so much different once you actually look at it, but once you look, you can't ever unlook. You can only look further and more intently. You can only absorb more and more about what is actually happening, as opposed to what you thought was going on. Some can't take it and need drugs to calm them down. Some can't calm down at all, and must be locked away for their own, and other peoples, safety. Some smile and nod quietly to this reflection of themselves, and spend the rest of their days seeking out a more intense form of life, a more exciting mode of interaction with the world and those who live within it, a more satisfying existence that makes them wake up grinning and screaming inside because maybe they've worked something out that no-one else knew.

I like to think that most, if not all of us, are already, or will in the future, be a part of this third category of people. The wide eyed fanatics who know the secrets beyond the curtain. The crazy men and women who sacrifice their own public image for the sake of possibly awakening even one other person that day. The loons and jesters that understand that there is a grain of truth within the words of every babbling psychopath, and that these people should not be ignored simply because they refuse to toe the line. The students and teachers of the school of the path of most resistance, whose gravel drives are lined with gawkers and rubber neckers eager to be a part of the majority. The school whose motto is "Toe your own line", and each member wears it proudly, emblazoned upon their eyelids, so that when they close their eyes in disgust at the stupidity of it all, they can see what it is that makes them more "human" than the algae and pond scum that grew legs and claimed the title for themselves.

At first you will think it's an error
and then you will know it's a truth
and then you will wonder why no-one else thinks this way
and then you will understand
and then you will wake up to yourself.

Feels good, doesn't it?

for someone...

2009-03-16T08:36:00.000-07:00

Such emtions make me feel unworthy.
They catch me unaware and force me to think again
Fallible feelings combine inside
and ruin any previous progress
making possession impossible
though a highly desirable prize

You make me feel as though my potential has grown. As though i have moved over a hill and seen the vast expanse before me, where before i only saw the side of the hill, and believed it to be the end of my journey. You float down and take my hands, lifting me up to see what lies beyond this solitary slope. There are so many more hills, and so many more people in the same situation. Sitting halfway up their own hills. I look up and smile at you. You look down, the gentle breeze at this height moving your hair from your face, and smile back. You look completely contented as you mouth four short words to me.

I Told You So

I look back down to the landscape below. The faces of the people sitting on their hills seem fairly content with themselves, but with an air of forgotten ambition and neglected dreams. There are people still climbing, some climbing forever and never getting any further, looking less happy, but more intent on realising their ambition. One lone figure sits at the top of his hill watching the others around him and waiting for another to reach their own summit. He sits cross legged, waiting patiently and enjoying the air.

You lower me back to the side of the hill. As we near the ground i can no longer see the landscape behind the hill, nor the people on their own individual ascents, nor the figure sitting and waiting patiently. I look up sadly and ask.

"Why can't you take me to the top with you?"

"Where's the fun in that?" you reply.

You place me back onto the soft earth and hover gently behind me.

"You can just wait for me at the top if you want," I suggest.

"I'm staying here," you whisper softly, placing a gentle kiss upon the crown of my head.

You place one hand on my shoulder and give me a gentle nudge up the hill, filling me with idealism. I place one hand on the grass above me and dig my fingers into the earth, pulling myself up slowly.

And your hand stays on my shoulder. And i continue to climb.

What the shit happened to sonic? (and other stories for adult children)

2009-03-13T17:54:00.000-07:00

Seriously. Do you remember when there was sonic, and robotnik. And robotnik was the only human there. Then tails came in, so your little brother or sister could pretend they were playing too, without ruining your game and killing you (except on that collect the rings in the tunnel bonus level.)

And there was that robot sonic, but he didn't really count. Then there was knuckles. Then for some reason they decided to put in a whole little gang of animals. Useless Amy, and that stupid fucking cat. And then that shadow one. And then a whole shitload of others that they had forgotten about from the comics before. Like that bee. and that alligator.

And then for some reason kids got involved. Human children somehow arrived in sonics world. Or sonic came to earth, i can't remember which. And now he's rescuing human princesses from dragons and shit. And what the fuck happened to sonic?

The beauty of sonic the hedgehog is that you just need to press right and jump occasionally. All this talking to people and hearing "funny" dialogue from weird headed "human" "children" is not sonic.

For that matter where are those magical games of yesteryear. The only thing that comes close these days is metal slug. Oh god i love metal slug. It's like everything that used to kick ass about games all stuck into one beautiful package. Ultra cartoonish violence, big guns, platforming. It has it all. I am not looking forward to the day when they decide to 3d it up and put in all kinds of shitey storyline. That will be the day i take up my assault rifle and act it out for realz. I just need to find me a tank. And a shiteload of kamikaze nazis.

I fully didn't see this coming...

2009-03-07T06:13:00.000-08:00

You might have noticed, i have a slight, shall we say, fondness for the internet. The way that a man might have a certain kind of fondness for his skin, or his testicles. So i am quite au fe with the things that can and will happen during an internet lifetime. You will find some series of animated shorts that you love, and can't help but sit and watch them all in a row, at the end realising that you could have stretched that out to a couple of weeks worth of laughs, instead of an hour and a half (at 4 in the morning). I spend so much time on the internet in fact that i don't really do much else. Save for play the odd game of geometry wars or fallout 3 whilst "voice chatting" with my internet girlfriend, who does live the pre-requisite 3000+ miles away (don't worry nerds. I've got it sorted this time. No more pretending to have a long distance thing with people who live two streets away). Also, anyone who wants to have a pop at me for it, please by all means do. Please leave a comment about me being a sad fuck who can't get a real girlfriend or anything like that really. Trust me, there is nothing you have to say that hasn't been said (and while we're on the subject you can suck my arse. I'm happy and that's all i'm after right now. IF it makes you happy to ridicule someone elses life then great, the comments button is awaiting a hefty message, and i am awaiting a trainload of words mangled together by people with, hopefully, an IQ of slightly more than 7.)

(By the way, i know theres only probably 2 people reading this, so i'm not actually expecting anything.)

So, picture the scene. You're a hip, modern, 20something with a lot of time on your hands and a healthy obsession with vampires. Maybe you have a beard, i don't know. You discover a TV show, directed by the creator of 6 feet under, dealing with the not too distant future scenario of a world where they have created synthetic blood, and so vampires from across the world decide it's ok to open up and admit what they are and try and get accepted into mainstream society. Now imagine that the TV series takes that quite nice little scenario, and pretty much forgets about it. Instead focussing on a telepathic waitress hooking up with a vampire. Almost none of the politics, only a small amount of the xmen style "Fuck you weirdoes you don't belong here" attempt at social commentary. Just this girl and guy, odd couple love story. You're dissappointed, you're thinking "that could have been so much better". You give it a few days, and can't find anything else you feel like giving a try, so you watch it again. And you are hooked. And once you realise you're addicted you have to sit and try to work out what it was that got you hooked in the first place. You can sit and try to justify it to yourself as much as you want. That it was vampires, the amusing side stories, the well performed characters. But it's not. It's the love story. And that hurts. So you try and work out what it is about this particular love story that has you so affected.
And it dawns on you. The reason any love story drags people in, because they can associate with one of the two main characters.

Now, like it or not, you associate well with misfit outcast characters, and your ideal romantic scenario would be for someone to love you, regardless of what you are or aren't. And would maybe let you suck all their blood out once in a while. So it's clear to see from this angle that that is all you've done. You've associated yourself, maybe not on purpose, with a vampire from a love story, and you've seen traits in the broadly drawn female lead that you have seen as attractive in people before. And without even realising it, you're not even watching a story about two fictional characters anymore. You've subconciously made up a tv show about a life you would rather live. And it clicks, this is how it works. This is how people get dragged in. And you curse yourself for being as human and susceptible to trickery as everyone else.

I have never liked romances. I have never, ever enjoyed a romantic comedy, a love story or anything that involves a man and a woman realising their love for each other and kissing over the sounds of a swelling orchestral symphony. (Actually, High Fidelity is a fucking good film. But i don't really count that. I think it's more of a nerd film). So it came as quite a shock to find myself associating with a character involved in a love story. Not just one of them either. Two of them. There is a whole other little side story about this waitress and her boss, who is just so fucking corny, it could easily be me on certain days.

I seriously didn't see it coming. I almost hate myself for it. But at the same time i'm thinking, well...at least i don't like bridget jones.

Consider this a warning...

2009-02-27T16:41:00.000-08:00

An actor is a no-one. A non person. One who has no soul, no personality, no depth, no substance. No...thing. They add masks and costumes, and cover themselves in other peoples ideas and become. It is this becoming that defines who they are. They are constantly on the path to themselves. With no clear idea or understanding of their surroundings or their destination. They are constantly surprised by what they find on the path, what they find as they travel. Surprised by what they seem to be. They pick up bits and pieces of others and apply them like patchwork. They keep no company, and endlessly beg to be understood.

When I say actor. I mean myself.

There is no subtle beat beneath the flesh, no blood through the veins, no breath within the lungs. No heart, no soul, no substance. I apply other people to myself and address myself as "sir" when i could just as easily be madam. I close myself off to those that wish to know me, and hurl myself at those who hold only contempt. I live through other people, and die by others hands. I have no control over my life, no basis for knowledge. No foundation upon which to build, and no blueprints for what i will be when i am complete. I will never be complete i suppose.

I would like it if i was a project. If someone else could decide what i am and mould me as they desire. I want someone to fight for me. I want someone to chase and catch and prey upon me. I want to be thrown across the room. I want to fuck and be fucked. I want someone to believe in me with every fibre of their being and show it to me on a daily basis. I want a crazy woman, who will destroy any who oppose. I want to be the object of someone's undying affection. I want to be someone's downfall. I want to be myself. I want someone to tell me who and what i am, because i sure as fuck don't know. I want to live on a pedestal. I want to be the prize.

I want to be discovered by someone who has given up all hope. I want someone to tell me how much it hurts to love me. I want someone to die for me. I want someone to live for me. I want someone to feel like i have felt so many times before. I don't want to be second to anything. I want to be the master of someone's existence. I want someone to be in actual physical pain when they are away from me. I want all these things because, i am nothing. To feel these things would fill me with something other than contempt and disgust. To know that someone is like me, has been like me. To believe that i can make someone happy. I want passion. I want fire that burns away skin and hair and leaves only charred flesh and exploded eyeballs.

I want to be loved i suppose. I want to believe in love again. I want someone to be as unstable as me. I want someone to give themselves over. I want someone to pin me to the chair and scream how much they love me. How much they want to hurt me. To punish me. To destroy me. I want to be loved by myself 3 years ago. I want to punch myself to the ground and spit into my eyes. I want to have this more than anything. A love that explodes and burns as quickly as a house fire. A love that kills any who dare to venture in. A love that consumes all and leaves nothing. A love that is untraceable, except through memories and still painful scars. A love that leaves blisters and tear stains. A love that cuts and bleeds across my my face. A love that shows no respect for me, only for my heart and my soul. A love that denies all knowledge. A love that fucks my insides so totally that i can never recover. A love that can only be removed by suicide. A love that splatters across walls in the shape of a peacock. A love that is composed of blood and bile and jism and piss and vomit. A love that keeps on giving. A love that takes away everything. A love that leaves me standing on a street corner begging for forgiveness. A love that God himself cannot remove. Pure, absolute, angry, hate filled, beautiful, disgusting, wretched, pitiful. hopeless Love.

Like
One
Venomous
Ending

Love kills.

Promises Promises...

2009-02-25T15:49:00.000-08:00

It never ceases to amaze me how people that you have parted ways with along the line have a way of finding their way back into your life if you even think of them a little bit. And sometimes even not then.

There are certain people that are determined to share your life. Whether you meet them for five minutes once...or you are best friends with them for 20 years. Then there are some that have absolutely no impact on your life whatsoever, no matter how long you spend with them.

Then there are those who for some reason, whether because you have unfinished business, or you really hit it off, but never seemed to be able to stay in contact, somehow find a way back into your life. I believe that there are cetain things that everyone must experience. As a part of the grand scheme of things. The final understanding that arrives just before you croak. You are going to change someones life in a very significant way. Whether it is just that you catch their eye on a bus, or you end up moving to a different country and marrying them on a whim.

There are certain people that you know for a fact will be around for a long time. Some of them don't stay around in the same capacity but they are there nonetheless.

I can't remember where i read it. But i read it somewhere. Someone explained this idea as finding your clan. That there are people that have been in the same gangs throughout history. And life is an effort to devote your life to finding the people who mkake you happy. Finding your clan. Some people find them easily. Some take years. Some never find them in one lifetime. Finding your clan is like the worst designed game of hide and seek. Except no-one was counting. And it's going to possibly cost you a fuckload of money.

I feel confident that i have found a few of my clan. There are some that i am very good friends with, but i would more than likely not stay friends with them if i didn't see them every day. There are some that i could see every day and we just never bother. There are some that i would give anything to be able to see. The clan is divided. And i would like it if we could regroup.

Now you understand that i am not merely talking about past lives or anything like that. There are some people that you just fucking snap with. For no reason. You get on with them like you've known them for years. When it has been maybe only a month. There are some that you have known all your life, but you couldn't for the life of you tell anyone what their middle name is. Life is weird like that. It gives you a start point and lets you off on your own. I guess that's why it gets a bit much sometimes. You just can't understand how much freedom there is in the universe. With the power and ability to do whatever the fuck you like, it's no wonder people lose it and go off the rails. And we have a hard time understand what is wrong with them. WE don't understand them. But their clan would. That's the point i'm trying to make i suppose. Whatever it is that's going right or wrong, your clan will see it exactly the same and you will click so completely with them that you don't even have to explain it.

Addendummed

2009-02-15T19:41:00.000-08:00

Everyone should visit this link.

(b)ITCH trailer

it's a trailer for the upcoming film "(b)ITCH" which goes into production on the 23rd. OOOh 23.
Also, stop by and give Vinny some stars for his editing skills

Amazing things about the internet...an ongoing series...

2009-02-12T17:53:00.000-08:00

I was trying to explain to an american what Jaffa cakes were. Cakey orangey things doesn't cut it as a description, but theres no other way to say it. So i searched for a picture...

and lo and behold. I discovered that someone else has found themselves in this quandary before me.

Jaffa Cakes

I'm not sure which i prefer. The fact that someone else has had this discussion before me, and decided to draw a diagram to explain it. Or that they have put it up on the internet in the vain hope that someone else will be able to make use of it, knowing that this conversation will come up in many peoples lives at many points in time.

Maybe both equally.

Wheelie time...

2009-02-11T10:36:00.001-08:00

It's easy to lose yourself sometimes. Sometimes you would give anything to be able to get a grasp on that which you feel you are. And you can't even get a touch of it. It seems that nothing you do can ever bring back that feeling that you had that one time you can remember. Regardless of whether it was really who you are now.

And sometimes you feel so completely trapped by who you are that you would give anything and everything that you own and are to just shake this off. The feeling of solidity suffocates you and you can't understand what is wrong with you. You can't enjoy the things you loved and you can't hate the things that make you who you are.

And life is aconstant see saw between these two states. Staring at yourself from without makes you feel homesick, and staring out from within makes you feel trapped. And there is no easy middle ground to be found. It all makes the exact opposite of sense. Everything you create feels faked. Everything you look at seems golden and you wish you could create something in that vein...or at least just make up your mind whether you want to be mediocre or great. Or at least that someone else would tell you what you are. You can't decide anything.

This is the gift we are all given. This is the moment we are presented with over and over again. Every second is like a nuclear holocaust wiping out personality after personality. Every attempt at a jail break leaves you more certain that the bars are too close together and the fences are too high. The razor wire too sharp. The goal too distant.

Can't things just expand themselves? Why must i be the one who builds it. It would be fine if i was trapped by someone elses ideas and beliefs and understandings. But i'm not. I'm trapped by things i invented. I built the walls that keep me in. I built the streets that terrify me so much. I designed every method of destruction and every aborted creation. I made this existence of my own choosing, so why is it so hard to replace it? Why do i feel as though i am fighting a losing battle against myself?

And every I is a different person. Every seperate personality is incapable of understanding what the fuck the others are talking about. Some moments i wish i had not set this all in motion. Some i wish i couldn't see how things are. But i know that they are, only because i see them as such. I long for a moment of destruction i can hold on to. I yearn for a seat on the highest spoke of the wheel of life. I long for something eternal and unchanging. If things would just stay still for a second...

Which is why it hits you so hard when the world really does stand still. It's only in those moments where nothing changes at all that you realise how fast things move. How different you are from one second to the next. Any attempt at keeping hold just fucks you up. If you hold on to the wheel, you can feel it taking you up and down. Wheels inside wheels. Inside wheels. Cogs making the whole thing chug along. If you hold on to one tiny moment, all you get is a smack in the face from the teeth on the gears. Just let yourself go. The more you hold on, the more you get battered. Just let it take you.

Just let the universe be itself. And by doing so, you will be yourself more easily. Don't fight, don't struggle, don't attempt, don't force, don't push or pull. Don't try. If you don't try, you can't fail. You can only go along with the eternal divine plan. It's easy to see from this perspective why people are so ready to believe in god. Or the devil. We have no choice of our own. Why not just give up. Take the chances you are given and just be happy you can choose. You can leap from gear to gear, but you can't stop them or slow them down any more than you can push a plane out of the sky. It is the enormity and scale of the whole machine that gives life is grandiose vistas and panoramas of guilt. You are here to be. That is all. Let god decide.

Don't give up on things that you want. In fact, make sure you push for the things you do want. Make sure you change cogs when it's cog changing time. Make sure you are always following your path of happiness to the top. Just don't fool yourself into believing that you are going to be able to stop the machine.

Life is god. Choices are god. Chance and fate and fortune are god. Chaos is god. Love and hate and lies and truth and deceit and honesty and fire and brimstone and sulphur and ashes. All are god. Everything we see and hear and touch and taste is god. All feelings are god, boiled down to simplest purest essence. We are god. But i am not. You are not. He/she is not. WE are god. There is a difference. We are cells making up the mind of the divine inside of all of us. Cancer is the cell's refusal to go along with things as they are. Seperation is cancer. Hate is cancer. Fear is cancer. Love and joy and laughter are the infinite beauty of all life. They are the anti cancer. There is nothing to worry about. There is great love for you here. Love is all. Love UNDER (the guidance of) will. If i love then i am love. If i hate then i am cancer. There is no point in simply existing as love. Love needs to BE! And truly be. Not just a platitude, but a way of self. A rule to live by.

And with this ring i wed thee true.

And looking from without i can see these infinite separate men. This legion of selves. This army of I's and how they change the baton between themselves. How they punch in and out of the office. How they dance and avoid each other in such a way as to overlap so much that i see no difference between the multitudes.

Be.
Accept.
Understand.
Know.
Love.

Love as a verb.
Love as an action.
Love as a feeling.
Love as a theory.
Love as a thought.
Love as a concept.
Love as an ideology.
Love as a political strategy.
Love as a tactic.
Love as a situation.
Love as an individual.
Love as propoganda.
Love as advertising.
Love as fact.
Love as fiction.
Love as design.
Love as blueprint.
Love as flagellation.
Love as divine retribution.
Love as words.
Love as play.
Love as love.
Love as exectution.
Love as prison sentence.
Love as a grand prize.
Love as a prophet.
Love as a message.
Love as a mentor.
Love as a luxury.
Love as a necessity.
Love as a chance.
Love as Chaos.
Love as an encounter with self.
Love as punishment.
Love as reward.
Love as knowledge. Love as ignorance.
Love as achievement.
Love as bribe.
Love as a virus.
Love as an infection.
Love as a flesh eating bacteria.
Love as a cure.
Love as if it were all that is and ever can be.
Love as a person.
Love as a personality.
Love as a leader.
Love as a dictator.
Love as a word.
Love as a taste.
Love as a thought.
Love as a chemical interpretation.
Love as a chemical reaction.
Love as a finale
As a beginning.
As a starting point and a goal.
As a conclusion.
As a reason.
Love as an agenda.
Love as crime.
Love as art.
Love as death.
Love as life.
Love as violence
Love as a completion.
Love as a past.
As a future.
As a choice.
As a final hope.
Love as an escape.
Love as assination.
Love as suicide.
Love as hate.
Hate as love.
Destruction
Ambivalence
Shame
Desire
Lust
Hope
Glory
Greed
Loss
Movement
Freedom
Slow
Suffocation
Silence
Solitude
Spite
Bile
Tears
Bones
Hair
Flesh
Teeth
Nails
Coffins
Hammers
Tongs
Towers
Gold and silver
Ivory skyscrapers
Proclamations
deformities.breakages
breaks
ages.

Love will find a way to prove you wrong.

Moss (or rap to me)

2009-02-09T06:47:00.000-08:00

It's one of those things that i've known for a long time, but only just recognised it's importance in my life. Music exists to convey emotion. That is why music plays such a part in TV, adverts, films. Why everyone has a favourite song. Why every couple has a song, why every night out has a song. Why every potential boyfriend has made a mix cd for his potential beau. It is the reason that life seems so much fucking sweeter when you have your headphones pulled over your head as you walk through a busy city. When a flock of birds fly over your head at the same moment that the vocals rise and the chorus surges. It seems plain that music not only makes the world magical, it makes it worth living.

And so when you find this new song that does that to you, you can't help but tell everyone. You want everyone to know this feeling that you have. It is not only that you enjoy the music and possibly the artist/band. It is a joint experience that you wish to create. You want someone to feel the same way you do, and through that, create a bond with them. You want them to feel the shiver as the key changes and makes you feel as though you have been momentarily brought to life.

Music conveys feeling better than any other medium. Seeing a film or a performance goes some way to getting the feeling across, but to appreciate it fully, you must have already partly, if not completely, experienced the feeling they are trying to explain. Music however requires none of this. If the audience is willing to go wherever they are led, someone feeling sad and lonely can feel as though he has found the love of his life or a reason for living. He can feel triumphant over the forces in his life which he previously felt he had no power over. Whereas art, movies etc require the audience to understand certain things already, and meet the artist halfway, and from there allow themselves to be led to somewhere new. Music leads you regardless.

Now, i am only speaking of music i love. There is a lot of music that i consider to be equivalent to the way short art films became adverts. It seems advertising is the only way the short film can reach a wide enough audience to recieve public acclaim these days. But that's a discussion for another day. Some music, exists solely as a commodity. It has no artistic value whatsoever, for me at least. I am not saying that only the music i like has value, i am merely saying i do not see the artistic merit in "cotton eyed joe" or "don't stop movin' ". They do not speak to me in any way, except to say "Banal garbage" in every syllable.

Now, that is not to say that all music must be of the "trying to create a feeling" category to be appreciated. I have no idea what the song "children of the night" is attempting to get across (apart from that we are the children of the night, and that in being such, we fight for the future of our nation. We should probably get together and unite. And live our lives like rave machines). There is some music that i merely there for fun. Like happy hardcore, techno, trance, pretty much anything to dance to really. It is for dancing. That is it's purpose. I do not see a purpose in making small girls learn dance moves, and singing about "getting dirty". In fact i think it's fucking disgraceful. If i had a child, and they were singing, well, any of the songs in the charts actually. (They all seem to be about getting it on, getting down, getting dirty, getting ones freak on, or you know...fucking.) i would not hesitate in punting my child into a plate glass door, so as to create negative reinforcement. This may create an unnatural fear of glass whenever they think about sex in their later life however. Maybe i should rethink this plan. (For those of you that are worried, please don't be. I don't intend to have children anyway. And if i do, i will make sure i am sufficiently crippled.) And while we're on the subject...little girls should not be wearing vest tops, short skirts, tights, or anything traditionally worn by women on a night out. They are children, not practice dolls you twisted bitch.

So yes...music. It is with this intention in mind that i feel i should bring one song to your attention...

Sonny Moore - Moss

There are reasons that i won't go into that i have discovered this song and feel my heart lift along with the chorus...It gets me every time. It is a prime example of how a feeling can be expressed through sound. At least to me.

I suppose that this is my great goal in life. I love trying to figure people out, which is in some way an attempt to feel how they feel. Everything i write, draw, create, is an attempt to stick in someone's head and try to make them feel the way i felt when i wrote/drew/created whatever it was. That is the goal of all art. To make you forget your ego, your personality, your "self" and stand there naked and free of anything else except that one feeling. To feel the same way that someone else felt in that moment of comprehension, and through that understanding, link yourself to the artist, and indeed, everyone. If we have a common ground, then we are not different. We are more the same than ever. And i cannot hate that which is the same as myself.

Open letter to god...

2009-02-04T17:47:00.001-08:00

Dear god, (supreme being, almighty creator, whichever you're happy with)

Give it a rest please? I'm not joking. Something is either not working right in that cosmic noggin of yours, or you actually have one of the most fucked up plans that has ever been thought up. Seriously, maybe i'm just not making these connections because i can't see the big picture...but it just looks as though you're randomly selecting what happens from a hat.

First of all...are you trying to make us all kill each other? What is the deal with this whole Chosen people of Israel malarkey? Will you make your mind up? At least one of these stupid groups must be wrong. If you want the Jewish race to be saved and the rest of us are condemned to fiery torment for all eternity then fine. But don't get our hopes up and tell us that it will probably be fine if we follow a different version.

Are you actually real? Is it like Henotheism? Where there are loads of gods and we just decide which one we want to follow? Or are there loads of gods and so it doesn't matter which one(s) we worship? Do you even want to be worshipped. Notice that i'm asking you, i'm not asking your "appointed messengers" because they all claim to be the one true messenger, and they're all saying completely different things. And for me to choose the right one based on what i believe is kind of missing the point. If you ask me, you should follow gods word if you want to. But chopping and changing and fucking about with it all just makes you as bad as those who make up what god has said and try to pass it off as the truth.

I hope you don't mind swearing. Or smoking. You guys smoke up there right? Or have they put a ban up there too? That would be the worst. You wait your entire life to get into the kingdom of god and as soon as you get to the gates theres a big sign saying "We request that you don't smoke inside the kingdom of heaven" and a load of pissed off guys standing outside the gates in the rain smoking.

Do you have a beard? Or are beards not cool anymore? I'm just asking cos my friend said that as a non physical manifestation of the essential qualities of holiness and divinty, that beards are out. But i'm not sure. I think you probably have a beard like the dude from The Big Lebowski.

Are you the dude out of the big lebowski?

What's the parking like up there?

So yeah anyway, that's about it. Thanks for listening/reading. I'm expecting a response within the next few months, since i don't think that many people have actually thought of trying to write to you. But if i'm wrong i'm sure your secretary or something will send me a notice of receive...ing.

Your friend
Antonx

P.S. sorry about using lower case g. Apparently that's your name so it should be. But i always thought it was just like your rank...

Closing time...

2009-01-29T10:39:00.000-08:00

"It's that time of the night ladies and gentlemen. Last orders, 10 minutes to get one last drink before we kick you the fuck out. If you don't want to be going home on your own, you'd better pull your finger out. You've got nothing mate, face it. Your friend is going home with his new bird. You get nothing. I get the feeling it's not the first time. Face it, dickhead. You're sick and tired of this same old worn out shit. Why put yourself through it every weekend? Why waste a night of your life trying to find someone you love, when you know perfectly well you can't stand 90% of the women you meet?

Internet ladies are all well and good, but they can get into your head quicker than real life girls. You're so caught up wondering about her, that you don't even realise she's sneaked inside your head and is playing around with the circuits. And they're all too smart for you anyway. Any girl who spends as much time on the internet as you is way too smart for you. She's got it all sussed out and you don't even realise when you're being fucked with. It's worse just talking to girls who live across the other side of the world. You let your guard down because she's no threat, but she knows how to get to you. She's already got to you. When you're looking for a kindred spirit in a room full of people who have given up on that dream already...you're begging for trouble really.

The only safe girls are the ones that can't touch you. Who was it that said that? It was you wasn't it? And you were adamant when you said it. And now here you are going back on your word. You know yourself better than anyone here, and yet you're still waiting for someone to come and pick you up and sort out what's going on for you. You want to be looked after, clothed, coddled, fed and watered. You want a nurse more than a girlfriend. You want someone who will look after you, take care of everything, maybe give you a quick once over every so often, and then fuck off when you want to do something else. A woman who is happy to sit and read until you're ready to talk to her and be nice to her. Until you can put down the computer for a second and pay attention to her. You useless sack of shit.

It's not even that they need to be beautiful. Or even have a face. Just so long as they can hold a conversation without asking what words mean every other sentence. Someone who has had some of the same experiences as you, so you can build a sort of middle ground between you. A girl who knows that she is above you, but lets you think it's the other way around, even though you know it isn't. A girl who leads, but pretends to be following.

Little word of advice for you my friend...you've made this woman up in your head. And the odds that you are ever going to meet her are somewhere between zero and not a fucking chance. But you never know. The internet is a strange mistress. So, go on my friend. Get yourself home. Put the kettle on, get online and wait for her. She might turn up tonight. You never know..."

And there it is...

*BING BONG*

One new message...

Never mind, it's the prince of Nairobi again wanting to use your bank account...

Well, there's always tomorrow.

Things, things, things, recognising things.

2009-01-26T02:29:00.000-08:00

It seems very odd to me how different things seem under different circumstances. One of your friends has a breakup, you feel bad for them and then all you can see in the world are arguments and people having a shit time with their significant others. Someone you know has a bad day at work, all jobs you know of or hear about that week are terrible and everyone wants to burn their respective place of business to the ground.

I often wonder what it might be that makes this sort of thing happen. The obvious easy theory would be that because you are exposed to it, it makes it true. So you start subconsciously looking around for things that are true against that which you wish to see. Which makes sense, because if every couple argued at the same time the world would be a cacophony of awful screaming and ro-sham-bo.

So it must be that you put your mind into a state where you only recognise things like that. But that doesn't feel like the whole story. Not to me at least. Like the 23 phenomenon. Because you expect to see it everywhere you look, you do. But then sometimes it cannot simply be a coincidence. Surely not.

So it makes sense that there could be a part in the mind that attempts to sort things based on what sorting system you are using at the moment. If you are feeling bad for your friend about their break up, you obviously will feel bad for them and focus on that. And so you will recognise that symptom in the world. But then what about someone over the other side of the world?

It makes some sense, but that can't be the whole story.

Life and deaf

2009-01-22T18:48:00.000-08:00

I wonder how many, if any, people believe in things that half of them "knows" is garbage, and yet for some reason they can't get past this belief. I read a quote from one of the alice books today. Either wonderland or through the looking glass, i'm not sure. Alice was talking to the queen about beliefs, she said "why would people believe something that is impossible" to which the queen replied "I always try and believe in six impossible things before breakfast".

What would be the point of this? Well, it all depends on what it is you believe and where you are already at, mental and physical wise. If you are a brain in a jar, it might be particularly beautiful to believe for a couple of minutes a day that you have a body and are wandering around somewhere, looking at things, listening to things, smelling and touching everything you can. Because, and i think we all forget this from time to time, brains in jars are people too. Except they have no way to send or recieve signals or information. They're sort of there, thinking, feeling, knowing, understanding. But not there, they can't accumulate new information, and they can't explain things they have figured out.

Children have no trouble at all believing in impossible things. Not because kids are stupid, but because they haven't had it beaten in to their heads what you can and cannot do.

I had a dream the other night, this man said something to me. As soon as he said it i woke up and couldn't sleep again. He said "If children could see their parents fly, they would have no doubt of their own ability to fly."

On reflection, it's sort of gibberish. But at the same time it's that meaningful kind of gibberish that i could sell to people. I don't think i need to explain it. It sort of explains itself. But if you're stuck come and see me after class and i'll go through it with you.

I'm getting to a point now where i'm hearing and reading a lot of stuff that, two weeks ago i would have had trouble keeping down, but now i'm apprehending it gleefully. Some stuff that i don't believe in still seems like crap. But the stuff i'm picking up now, two weeks ago would not have been believable. So is it that i'm getting more discerning? Or less?

It depends how you use your beliefs i suppose. At the moment, i'm enjoying being able to plug in and play with regards to belief. It's like getting dressed for the occasion. You pick out the clothes that are going to either fit the style of the place you're going (work, wedding, funeral etc) or that fit the personality you're trying to put across (out on the lash, meeting your friends, school, college etc). And so why can't it be the same for beliefs. Or moods. Or ideologies? What's the problem with changing yourself to suit the time and place and mood. What's wrong with being a fluid personality? What's wrong with having 20 different versions of yourself that you can pick and choose from as necessity dictates?

As weird/scary as it sounds, it is something that excites me. There is a hidden cord linking all these new ideas i have been learning about. I read Ouspensky a couple of months ago and found it dry and dull. Like reading a computer manual, when i completely agreed with the ideas and the theories. Explaining it to me in a different way makes me appreciate it all the more though. Everyone has better ways of learning. Some learn better by reading, some by listening, some by doing. Some need to be given dense tomes of archaic literature just to make it feel like they're learning something. I don't work that way.

I have been a bit dotty with todays post. It's just been pretty much stuff dropping out of my head, into my hands and out through the keyboard, so the train of thought may not stop at all the right stations. But i can assure you it made sense when i thought of it.

I think that allowing yourself to be fluid, to believe wholeheartedly in communism one day, and the next to be it's number one antagonist is incredibly useful. There are so many people who have believed completely, with every atom of their body in an idea, a person, a way of life. And when that falls apart, they have nothing left. They are dead, spiritually, emotionally, sometimes physically. They would be fine if they were malleable, rather than hard and brittle.

Anyway, tomorrow (today technically) is my kermit the frog impression day.

"Life is made up of meetings and partings. It is the way of things. And we will never forget Tiny Tim, or this first parting we had."

It's from Muppet Christmas Carol for those of you unlucky souls who haven't seen it. It is a day for the fluid personality to shine. So...we shall see.

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2009-01-20T15:40:00.001-08:00

This is a link to a video i made for a song i made a couple of months ago. It's one of many that will be coming, so if you like it, please tell someone you know about it, and subscribe to my channel. I hope you enjoy it.

Please don't judge me harshly because of this.

It's been a day...

2009-01-19T22:26:00.000-08:00

It's definitely been a day.

I remembered a line from that film "Garden State". You know the film i mean. With him out of scrubs in. There's only 3 funny bits. It's like a Kevin Smith film except you hate all the characters. You know the one. Well i remembered a line that goes something like "No-one else is ever going to be standing in this exact moment at this exact time, so you might as well do something worthwhile with the space and the time you have." But she says it better. And it made me smile when i first heard it because it was like someone telling you something that your mind already clicked on to, but couldn't put into words. And from that i went to this...

Life is a constantly moving stream of completions. Everything i have ever done is leading up to this point right now. And this point right now is the beginning of another completion to come. There are no segments of time, no seconds or hours. There is just an end that is also a beginning.

And so, coming from that, i started thinking about what i actually do. What am i working towards? Am i working towards anything at all? I'm writing at least, and putting performances together. And making music, even if it is in my head. But it's almost not enough. I want to feel the completions. As it is i can barely feel the process, the procession. I know the completions are there waiting to be felt, touched and talked about. But i am having a trouble grabbing hold of them and seeing where they take me.

I want to sit next to someone i have never met, and tell them the meaning of life, just so that they will have been through something that no-one else has. I want to give people an experience. I have a hoity toity notion that to affect people, to teach them or entertain them, you must give them art. It is not enough to merely know them or speak to them or eat or drink with them, (although i can grasp that intellectually, it is a whole different matter to believe or understand wholly something like that.)

I suppose that is why i involve myself, or try to at least, within the world of art. Art has always been seen as the refuge of the higher mind, and i suppose it is this higher mind that i want to speak to. I look around and see nought but intellectual dullards who care not for discussions of art as crime, art as religion, art as escape, art as emotional fireproofing, as witness protection, as hopeless attempts to hold the brains of others and twist them to your blueprint. Of art as magic. I know that there do exist these people in the world, but where are they?

...and this is what happens when i listen to spiritual/arty/bohemian lectures for too long. My pretentiousness scale jumps 50 points and i start talking like a fucking post modern intellectual. And i know that i hate those people. But i also know that i only hate them because i want to be them. I don't actually consider the people i know to be intellectual dullards. If i did, i wouldn't speak to them at all. The people i do consider to be dull are not of any interest to me, because why surround yourself with people you dislike for one reason or another?

But depsite the pretentiousness and the complete change in narratorial tone, i do agree with everything i have said. From one day to the next looking back over the last few days worth of writing, i can be formal, informal, crass, extreme, brutal and funny. Sometimes within a couple of sentences. I would like to, as Hakim Bey said "Do something that children will remember for the rest of their lives". Whether it was just because i was talking to someone and smiled at them, or because i was pretending to be a robot in the centre of leeds. I think there must be something within me that needs to be remembered. Whether i know that i am remembered or not, i need to at least do something that will possibly be remembered. I suppose thats what all of everything has been leading up to. Is that what we are all doing?

And all that i have learned so far has led to this understanding. And this understanding leads to tomorrow.

Note to self. I really want to go fuck with the preachers in leeds. Not by anything nasty. Just standing behind them being a mime, or setting up a board next to them and repeating everything they say in sign language. Or setting up an interpretive dance class in front of them, to show the world the beauty of gods words, through the medium of prancing.

something i was thinking about

2009-01-18T21:22:00.000-08:00

Just before today's little rant, i would just like to say recommend that everyone listen to Robert Anton Wilson. You can probably find some bits of shows and interviews up on youtube. In fact, i know that you can.

What do i hate today? What do i hate every single day? Ummm...let's go with advertising. I haven't done advertising yet, and i particularly hate it. That most cancerous of "art forms".

Now, having done a year of a btec media course, before dropping out because my tutor thought i was a racist for bringing up the point that the colour black is synonymous with evil and the colour white is synonymous with good, (I'll just say that at no point in my essay did i make any reference to skin colour, politics or anything remotely to do with race. I was mainly talking about Star Wars for fucks sake, which we all know, unless you've seen chasing amy (which probably isn't many of you) is in now way connected to race issues) i consider myself to be fairly "down" with advertising technique. Having studied basic psychology i understand how useful it is to have people identify with your product, and project desires onto others in their life, or in your commercial. And because this all seems fairly straightforward to me, i still do not understand how people can't see that they are being mentally fucked with for 1/5 of the time they are watching TV. I recently had to stop myself from watching television completely because i got so angry at commercials.

It's not that i don't want mass consumerism taking over the airwaves, that's how TV makes it's money. It's not that i think people are getting tricked into buying things they shouldn't have, i think people are smart enough to say yes or no, and if they aren't, fuck them. They're probably too dumb to cross the road safely. The kind of people you could convince into suicide by asking them if they think the barrel of this shotgun tastes funny.

The reason i hate commercials is because it seems that there are no regulations anymore. They allow any advert on TV. If it gets a complaint, they pull it. But only when it gets complaints. Now most adverts are fairly banal. Washing powder, creme eggs, toilet duck etc. Things that would be more effectively advertised with a catchy song, a picture of the product and the title underneath. Cheap, quick, a lot less fucking irritating. (I don't want to hear that kid telling his mum he's going to have a poo at his friends house. I don't want to hear anyone telling anyone where they prefer to use the facilities. I would much rather the advert consist of "Glade something or other, smells good. Get one if you want your house to smell like this." That's all you need to know.) The only reason there are characters in the first place is because you'll identify with these people "She's young, she wears red shirts, she walks on both her legs. She must be exactly the same as me" Which is why you'll never see disabled people in car adverts. Unless someones ripping the piss out of them.

The adverts we seem to see more and more nowadays are multi million pound, special effects epics. You can't advertise a tin of fucking beans these days unless the bean has been computer animated to sing and dance and climb into your mouth of it's own volition. So i go to the shop, i buy the beans, i open the tin and lo and behold. No singing, no dancing, no kamikaze beans. I have to actually use my own arm to eat these beans. Well fuck you beans.

People will say "Well, if you think that's going to happen, you're too stupid to watch TV" and i will say "No i'm not". I'm operating under the assumption that these companies are telling me the truth. If i see an advert where a tin of beans is opened, the beans climb out singing a song about how great it is to taste of baked beans, and walk the plank single file into an open and waiting mouth, i want to be able to do all that stuff it said on the advert.

People will say "But they're just mascots. That's not what actually happens" And i will say "SO they are lying to me then" And i, out of the goodness of my heart trusted and believed in that company. And how did they repay me? With lies and falsehoods. And then i will follow that up with "And they aren't actually mascots" A mascot is a leader. Something with which you can identify the product, and associate that personality, with that product. For example, Ronald Mcdonald. Clown. Happy, jolly, good times had by all. That is exactly the sort of thing Mcdonalds want people thinking when they go to one of their restaurants. Samuel L Jackson. Action star, cool, hip, down with the kids, trustworthy (but only because you've seen him in films you love). Virgin TV will be quite happy to make people think their TV service is cool, hip, cutting edge. Now, correct me if i'm wrong. A singing bean is not a good mascot. It's a bean, so therefore i'm going to wanting to be eating it. It's got eyes and mouth, that's not right to start with. It's singing and dancing. I don't want to be feeling it dancing all the way down my gullet. It sounds suspiciously like that guy from the four tops, so already i'm hoping that he hasn't actually been reincarnated as a bean, cos that would fuck up my whole theory of the universe. They've offended me on all angles.

So...here are a list of things that advertisers should do if they don't want to piss me off. Cos you know that i am THE demographic.

1.Cease all use of CGI, save for labels/logos/information etc.

A car that turns into a lion is a lie. It is flat out false advertising. Before the technology we have today existed, the best that adverts could do was be creative. The angles were all weird, the sound was experimental. They were actually pushing some fucking boundaries. Many film directors started off doing adverts, many film directors go back to do adverts during their career. (And i will never forgive David Lynch for that.) Film directors just start in music videos now, which is a whole different kettle of bile.

2.Stop advertising cancer/homelessness/familial violence/third world poverty.

The money that these groups spend on TV asking us for £3 a month could easily, easily go towards whatever it is that the group is "fighting". I refuse to pay for adverts, and so unfortunately you won't be receiving any money from me. If i meet a homeless guy, i'll buy him a coffee, i'll give him a pound, i'll help him out however i can. But the thing about charities, they're run by someone. When a charity says they are "Non profit" that doesn't mean that all the money they make goes straight through them to whoever needs it. That means that they spend all the profit they make on the people who need it. They still have running costs, advertising costs, board of directors salaries, monthly magazines, pamphlets, internet sites, planes and hotels shipping celebrities out to stand next to crying people. If i can see them taking my money straight round to someones house, i will give them the money. Until they start operating that scheme, i will not.

3.Don't try and be funny.

More often than not, adverts come across with either a joke that you thought of years ago, and it was shit when you thought of it then too, or a joke that only a creepy neighbour or a friendless relative would tell you. It's just embarrasing most of the time. And when it's not embarrassing, it makes you wish the world would explode in a violent fireball just so this piece of shit didn't exist.

4.THINK ABOUT WHAT YOU'RE DOING!

A number of times i've witnessed an advert for lager, an advert for a supermarket selling cheap lager, and then an advert telling me i shouldn't be drinking and driving. Or drinking at all. Ten years ago food was only good if it was coated in lard. Now if the product even contains the letters F, A or T it will not sell. Giving mixed signals leads to anger and rioting. It's like being teased, and we don't like it. Well, i don't like it, some people do. Weirdoes...

There, i think that's completely out of my system now.

"Oh by the way, If you're in advertising or marketing. Kil yourself. Just a friendly suggestion. Kill yourself. I'm just throwing it out there, planting seeds. Seriously. Kill yourself." - Bill Hicks

Bits of everything, most of nothing...

2009-01-16T12:49:00.000-08:00

Someone asked me if i was religious the other day. And my first instinct was to say "Yes, but not in a traditional sense", but halfway through that sentence i stopped and changed my mind. Partly because that sounded a bit wanky, but also because it wasn't technically true. And i couldn't think of a better way to explain it. So i just said "I'm sort of a witch, but not really. Bits of everything sort of thing." To which the questioner gave me an odd sideways look as if to say "You could have just said yes, i wasn't really that interested"

It made me think, am i actually religious? I've been "studying" various forms of Magic(k) and witchcraft for 3 or 4 years now and i've never been happy enough to settle on one specific type. I started off, like most who dabble in the "occult" religions, reading up on Wicca and "the old religion". Supposedly carried on by word of mouth from the times when witches were kindly old ladies who lived in cottages and made lotions and potions from the various flowers and plants around them. They were basically herbologists, but someone came along and chucked a couple of love spells in there, added a dash of frigging about with newts eyeballs and suchlike, and created the typical halloween witch, pointy hat, warty nose and little black cat sold seperately.

From there i picked up an interest in Tarot, Numerology (which led to Aleister Crowley and the hermetic kaballah (not the bullshit £20-for-a-bottle-of-water, might-as-well-be-scientology version that madonna is invlved with) and gematria), and from there to satanism (both kinds(there is a satanism where satan is seen as merely an archetype, a role model as it were and a satanism where satan is actually lucifer, the fallen angel, and he is the bringer of light and the true god of earth and all kinds of other stuff which requires you to believe in christianity and then deny it all)). From there to "nocturnal" magic, which is basically wicca for goths. Then to general occult study, and then to Chaos Magick. And then discordianism after that, which isn't technically anything. It's like Chaos Magick except that you're not allowed to take any of it seriously.

Now, Chaos Magick was invented in Leeds. Which made me like it even without knowing anything about it. It basically consists of keeping your eyes and ears open for *ANYTHING* that you can use in a magickal context. For example, tarot cards can be used to divine the future, but so can dice. Or tv adverts. Or mickey mouse drinking games. Anything, and more specifically, everything. And seeing as how i only became aware of the whole idea after i had taken the scenic route all around the houses of the occult world, it made sense that that was the reason why i hadn't settled on anything. So that i could take all the stuff i had learned and use it within this context.

The point of it all is supposed to be that belief can be manufactured depending on circumstance. For example, if i really want to cause something bad to happen to someone (not that i would ever do that. I'm a good boy) i could use a hex, i could make a voodoo doll, i could create a thoughform entity, i could send out a curse, i could use any variety of anything, so long as i believed in it at that moment, it would work.

So i have in fact tailored myself a religion. Somehow. If i need to make myself some more time to work on a project, i can call upon the god of time to slow things down for me. If i want a bus to come, i can create a being that will remove traffic from the roads to make sure the bus reaches me quickly. If i need money, i can become a cash magnet. As long as i believe it, it's true (for the moment at least).

Are you surprised? I'm really surprised. Are you really surprised? I'm full on surprised...

2009-01-15T19:26:00.000-08:00

I for one am deeply deeply shocked to discover that anyone from the British royal family could be potentially racist. I never thought i would see the day when the direct family of our reigning monarch could use such disgusting language, even in the context of a joke, or as a nickname.< /sarcasm >

Seriously...has anyone been paying attention to prince philip the last how ever many fucking years? He can't even go abroad without calling someone a slitty eyed gook or whatever the hip racial slur is this week. And people are surprised when charlie has an affectionate nickname for his (possibly only) indian friend. This is a man who grew up in a generation when it was ok to black up and dance on national tv. When childrens tv shows still included the included that old stereotypical farm hand negro (like in Of Mice and Men) denim dungarees and all. This is a man whose family OWNED (used here in it's actual sense. not as in PWNED) slaves and land in india until fairly recently (i am of course speaking of recently in the non specific. Recently in comparison with the beginning of time.) I'm not saying it's ok because he's from a different time. I'm saying i don't think he actually knows what he's doing at the best of times. I've never had much faith in the royals, they all seem a little...whats the polite phrase...dense. And you can't tell me that if the QUEEN didn't want something to get out, she couldn't stop it. It all seems a little stagey for me...but then i'm a delusional paranoid schizophrenic.

If (or should i say when) you are going to encounter "institutionalised" racism anywhere, it will be in the armed forces. Have we forgotten the hilarious pictures from Guantanamo bay? They're out there 26 hours a day shooting and killing dirty foreigners, so we can enjoy our sky sports and lenient licensing hours. How else are they supposed to feel no remorse for killing someone that is a different colour? Call them names, make fun of their accents and above all, make sure you feel superior to them.

Now, I am not defending either the royals or racism in general. I am just saying how the fuck did you not notice before this? To suddenly stand up and say "Good lord, i never knew the royal family could possibly be racist" is, lets be honest, a bit slack. They've been keeping Phil tucked away for so long people must have just forgotten. And to go on the news and say that it is disgusting that people in the army should be using such language is, again let's be honest, just a little naive. They kill people for a living. I don't think they'll be giving two shits whether they're allowed to call someone a "paki" or not. They've got to find some way to kill time, and in between wanking on biscuits climbing up ropes and raping each other in the showers, a bit of good old fashioned light hearted racism is all they have left.

Oh and also, little piece of advice for you. If you're going to try and defend racism for whatever reason then great, i would love to have a chat with you and try and understand what makes you tick. But prefacing every racist comment with "I'm not racist but.." just speedily convinces people that you are in fact a racist, that you are scared of being who you naturally are, and that you are a gigantic prick. If you're going to be a racist, own up to it at least. Half arsing it just makes you a fanny. That's right i'm bringing fanny back as an insult. And yes i am nine years old.

(All racial slurs used above are copyright "The Sun" 2009)

Reasons to be fearful...

2009-01-14T16:04:00.000-08:00

You're a hard rockin', clean living, member of the larger internet community, that is, people who use the internet. You know what you like, and more importantly what you don't like. You have refined your particular online tastes over months and years to a point where you know where the dirty alleys are, and where the sunshine and meadows lie.

You have at least one story about something that you cannot unremember, and delight in competing with your other internet savvy friends (for those of you who do have friends that you actually meet up with, rather than speaking over some messenger service or other) over who's awful memory is worst.

You have recieved countless emails from ugandan princes and men who want to share their johnson enhancement solutions. You may have even found love once or twice, being that you spend a fair (read disproportionate) amount of time upon the "web", and though you realise it was never going to work, you still count it as a real relationship.

You have developed certain habits and hobbies, signed up for numerous free gaming sites, only to find that they have one good game and the vast majority of them suck to the point that you don't even like that one game you loved the first time. You might even have a neopet, or a pet dragon, or a fuzzy little moron that requires passing users to click on it for no reason at all so that it will "evolve" You might, might, might even have a house upon the plains of Barton Town, and secretly tell people that you only go there for the jigsaws, when in fact you have the house, the car, the fishtank, the shop, the forum, the rings and the clothes that you have spent painstaking hours saving up for.

And once, just once, you notice that without the slightest hint of cynicism or sarcasm, you say it.

LOL.

And you mean it.

LOL

Truly mean it.

And now every time your fingers hover over the keyboard you feel a wave of revulsion for yourself.

LOL

And it hurts like nothing else. And you suddenly feel nothing but regret for this life, this virtual self that you have spent the last 7 years coaxing together from shreds of this and scraps of that. This version of you that is only words (because you don't want people to see your face, Dog forbid that people should ever find out what your weird face looks like.)

And you realise in that one instant how much thought you should have been putting into those words, because that's all people know of you. It's not like the outside place, where once words are out they are out, there's no backspace and no 'Edit Comment'. Whereas here in our little secret shared universe you can form the sentences correctly and accurately and take your time to make sure you come across the way you intend.

So it is that you realise that every single word is a signifier. Every bit of you is included in each word you type. And you just made people think about eighty times less of you for the sake of speed. Three letters that can't be taken back now.

L
O
L

And it's even worse when you say it to someone's face in public. That will put them right off.

Fat Jesus Sucks at Magic

2009-01-13T15:55:00.001-08:00

Now, like some of you, i am not fond of Justin Lee Collins. I don't like his work, his face, his accent, his "presenting" style, the way he shouts at everything. But i have found something of his that i do enjoy. Channels 4's new JLC vehicle, "Convention Crashers". Unfortunately for Mr L.C. it's not him that i like.

The basic premise goes as follows. JLeeC goes to conventions. That's essentially it. About four weeks before the convention arrives he decides that he is going to learn some of the skills for the convention and take part in a competion at said gathering, and see if it is possible to learn these skills in four weeks. The first episode was based around a Magic Convention, and the bearded one whingeing like a tiny girl that he didn't want to do "beginners magic tricks" (like card tricks, basic sleight of hand stuff, and anything without pyrotechnics it seems). He was determined to a)do big illusions and b)piss off most of the magic community by assuming that anyone can do escapology, with as little practice and effort as possible.

I like magic. It entertains me as much as it is possible to be entertained by being professionally lied to. JLC, somehow, has not understood that magic is about being lied to. He doesn't understand somehow, that escaping from a box, will involve being inside a box, and that being claustrophobic, inside boxes is one of the places he doesn't want to be. And so watching the show, i am not enjoying seeing him learn tricks, nor am i enjoying seeing him practicing being good at magic. It is that he hates it. Seeing him actually hating everything that is happening around him makes me feel better about my lack of magic skills.

The thing i dislike most, is that someone, probably JLC himself, said "Do you remember that program 'Faking It'. What if we do that for 6 weeks, but it's me every week." And someone, possibly the head of "Let's make people stop watching channel 4" said yes to him.

The thing that galled me most about it, was that he actually won 3rd place in a competition of mixed Professional/Amateur magicians. And he will never use these skills again. It's not that i'm particuarly fearful that magic and all it's practitioners will stop bothering now that a complete beginner has beaten them at an open competition. It's the fact that he seems as though the only reason he has gone there is to belittle magic in general and assume that because it looks easy, it must be easy. (He refused to try a number of small close up tricks because they weren't performed by The Pendragons or so he implied it.

Next week is clowns. So maybe for once, i will actually crack a smile at Mr Lee C. If only because someone has thrown custard pies at him.