Party Manifesto

The year 2008 ends about 16 hours from now. I hate this time of year. The end of the year makes me take stock of everything that has been done in the past 12 months and makes me apprehensive about the upcoming 12. Everyone feels the same at this time of year, I am sure, but I deserve at least twice volume of sympathy as everyone else since my birthday is on January 2nd. As I discussed in my The Desire For Change essay around this time two years ago, I take this double-whammy of socially constructed stock-taking very seriously.

It is so strange to find that I wrote that certain blog almost two years ago – the time has gone by so quickly. Yet when I was searching through old blog entries to find the linked piece, I read a few older entries from around that time which gave me some unexpected food for thought: the blogs I was writing in 2007 and beyond refer to a “Golden Age” of my blog – in other words, at that time I thought my blog was going to come to an end; was on the decline. Yet even now, it is still going – albeit via a different site and written in a different – I would go as far as improved – style.

So, is the desire for change I experience every New Year a catalyst for improvement? I think so – it gives me time to reflect, even though getting to that stage means I have to go through an emotional trough. I do think that I have SAD, which affects me every winter. I usually get to my lowest around February; but there is a marked low at the end of every December.

I think maybe this lull is to do with the effects of weather on one’s social life more than anything else. I get out far less when it is freezing outside than I do when shorts are practical. There is a real distinction between winter and summer in that respect – I associate summer with fun and parties, as well as a serious break from uni work. This year, summer was not all that up to scratch. There was nothing remarkable about it; no holidays and I felt quite separated from friends throughout the hotter months.

Next summer adds a new element – it is prospectively the last summer that I will have during education. I need to get a job – hopefully in journalism, but something full-time, regardless – whenever uni finishes in May. Until then, I need to have as many dirty student parties as possible.

This is especially important because I’ve been thinking about my experience as a student, and it makes me think that I have not taken to the role as strongly as others. My course is very practical, with only 20 students in a year group at one time. Very few lectures actually took place with students in numbers beyond 50, so it felt at times like I was somehow missing out on the experience of my peers. I also meet people who just seem to be into the student experience more than I am – actually giving a shit about the union and “student life” in general – and I just feel like I can’t compete with these “hegemonic students”*.

*I have taken to labelling pretty much everything and everyone I value as Better Than Me with this term, regardless of how completely incorrect it is in these contexts.

I told Regular Reader Angela about this problem, and she told me the opposite – compared to her own student experience, where she had been in lectures like those I felt I had missed out on; on a less practical course, she felt that I had made much deeper friendships with people on my course.

Reading my old blogs from when I was in the seminal years of my undergraduate studies (and was still able to write as if I didn’t have a plum stuck in my proverbial throat), I realise that in fact, I did have a great time as a student and took part as much as anyone else. Things just get distorted in my mind, both at the time and in memory. I seem to worry about every aspect of my life, my image, and especially how I compare to other people. I think how I see myself is especially distorted because I can’t actually judge myself beyond how other people act around me or what they say; so any information garnered is second- or third-hand ideas – with a liberal amount of bias thrown in, one way or another – which is difficult to judge by. In my memories, I am still as flakey and undecided about a given time in my past. Reading over blogs written at a certain time, I am taken back to that time and I see myself as much more well rounded and far less fragmented, so by extension I realise I must be more well rounded than I see myself right now.

At the same time as looking at my old blogs, I was listening to Mystified by Fleetwood Mac, which is a song that takes me back about a year and a half to summer 2007 when Angela, Robert and I would look after the houses of people we knew who were on holiday; like a skewed Babysitters Club. Essentially, this is what I look forward to when summer comes back around – something quirky and fun to make up for the lost summer of 2008.

Overall, my state of being right now is fragmented, due to the suspected SAD and nostalgia trip. My future is very uncertain and I have a lot of work to do, so not only am I trying to take stock of the past, but also of everything I need to do in the the upcoming year.

At some point I need to go back to uni with at least some of my dissertation done. It should come as no surprise that I have hardly done any work over the Christmas break, but I am trying to build up my reading. I go back to uni at the end of January, I believe, and am prepared to get back to hard work. I am also joining a band as piano player, for which I have a lot of pieces to learn. They have also been shelved due to the winter despondancy.

I have four months of uni to go until it is officially over and I have to look for a grown-up job. Thus, I have five months of my life planned. I have a five month plan! Five months! That means I should have started thinking about this AT LEAST a month ago. This is panic stations, people. I am panicking about my future. And yet I am so fragmented. So how can I even come up with a solution!?

I can’t. That’s the solution, I can’t. That has always been the solution. I have always just gone head-first into my life, with uni and with everything else. After five months, I just don’t have the safety net of studenthood to catch me. I am to jump off the educational cliff like a degree-wielding lemming.

Angela and I have spoken about getting a flat together. The problem is that I can’t say yes or no – I do plan to move out as soon as I get a job (my current joe-job makes moving out economically invalid and I like it too much to find something else), but where and when I actually get a job makes things much more difficult.

So, whereas The Desire For Change set out to change my personality or whatever at New Year 2007, the 2009 edition is more to do with changing my mindset, from actually giving a shit about my future to otherwise. There is really nothing I can do right now beyond set my mind to doing as well as possible with my dissertation and trying to find a job in an increasingly tight-budgeted industry when the time comes.

That’s what it comes down to – a Kurt Vonnegut style humanist slogan: worry about it when the time comes.

I am my own Dr. Phil.

Pritt Stick

This blog has been known to include elements of amateur philosophical discussion. Today, I present to you the most amateurish philosophical notion thus far.

Lastnight, I dreamt of Bertrand Russell. That’s right, Russell of the teapot worshipping crowd.

I am not Russell’s biggest fan. Being a philosophical phillistine, I don’t need to be.

Lastnight my ignorance manifest itself in a dream of Russell, brought back to life in the body of what can only be described as decomposing Bette Davis.

Imagine – haunted by my own subconscious.

Even in my dream, I knew there was something wrong; some tacit gender issues afoot. Women aren’t called Bertrand! Thus I am now adding both Russell and Davis to my list of Dreamed About Celebrities.

Surely everyone has one of these? Please let me know – especially if your celebrities inhabit the bodies of other celebrities.

So far, mine include:

David Bowie – twice. Once in a press conference, where he was playing tracks from a new album to a selection of journalists on a black grand piano – pretty much like his appearance in Extras; except that he sang The Jean Genie (at my request) instead of Fat Little Journalist. In my second Bowie dream, I was in the front row of a festival he was headlining. He totally looked at me.

Similarly, I met Alanis Morissette at a rock concert. Thankfully she wasn’t playing, just in the audience. She told me to shut up because I was trying to grab her attention. She just wanted to rock out.

I have never dreamt of Joni Mitchell. Sometimes her music plays in my head while I’m asleep, so she gets a special mention on this list. IMDB include soundtrack contributors, so why shouldn’t I?

I dreamt also of Annabel Goldie, months before even considering interviewing her. I was on a train, and she sat next to me. I had started interviewing – on the sly – when she turned her attention to another guy with Downs Syndrome, and I lost my interview. Obviously speaking to the disabled would look far better for this otherworldly politician than some second rate Fat Little Journalist to any REAL media players who may have been watching.

Since then, I really did interview Annabel; and haven’t been able to look a downie in the face. God I hate them.

You Think This Is Easy Realism?

Here in the Easy Realism office, we are scared because our daddy is coming to visit tomorrow.

That’s right, I’m hiding in bed with the covers over my head; feverishly hunting for any good, Bart Simpson-style pre-emptive excuses to use in the event of questioning.

The best I can come up with is the old “I didn’t do it. No one saw me do it. You can’t prove anything!” – and hopefully it will keep any blow-ups at bay over the next two weeks.

Although my dad will be in the country, I won’t see him often as he is staying with his parents and there is a tacit agreement not to turn up uninvited; but he is a bit of a loose cannon – and a liar – so there is a constant threat of him turning up somewhere without prior consent. 

With most disciplinarian-father/sexual deviant son relationships, there is far less of a distinct period between doing something shocking and being lectured for it. However, because Big Davie and I make eye contact once a year, on average; there is a lag time, and discipline builds up.

If he tries it over the phone, it just fails. I have hung up on him so many times I have lost count.

My favourite attempt at phone chastisment was when I used the word “hell” in conversation, and he told me off for using a dirty word. I was 19.

Even at that, I have managed to build up distance between us, so he knows nearly nothing about what I am doing with my life unless I tell him. Conversations have become increasingly stage managed.

Every time my dad and I see each other, I have just drastically changed something about myself which I am not used to, and through gritted teeth, he is forced to accept it. Otherwise, I will just cut him out of my life – and he knows it.

This time, the offending change is image-related: I can’t see my dad being overjoyed about my peroxide-ginger haircut. I don’t think he’s too into spikes either.

I’m not even sure if he knows what skinny jeans are, never mind having encountered them before. The poor man will think he has stepped off a plane into some deviant’s commune.

I also worry about having to show off for him – he wasn’t pleased when he found out I won the Isobel Conner journalism award and didn’t bother to tell him, so I am guessing I will have to stand in front of my trophy while he takes pictures and waxes sententiously about what he imagines my career will be like.

I am not looking forward to the emotionally fraught ramblings of a man I hardly know, who hardly knows me, on part of my life that he has had no hand in whatsoever.

I am actually unable to form whole thoughts on this issue right now – just little abstract ones. Seeing dad will either go well, and he will leave without either of us having made much of an impact on each other, or we will have had a big, damaging fight about one of the many, many contentious issues which have led to us not being able to live in the same country for more than a fortnight at a time.

I will probably see him for three hours at most over his duration in Scotland, and it has become increasingly easy for me to see him with every passing visit. It could be that we will just go for a drink and talk about the Blues; but the build up to meeting him, every time, is the most nerve racking part of my entire year.

IT’S BRITNEY, BETSY!

This video is unintentionally hilarious when you consider the dramatic irony of Britney’s entire post-2003 existence.

Sure, her videos back then were somewhat cutesy – the faux-camaraderie with Nickelodeon-friendly Melissa Joan Hart of “(You Drive Me) Crazy” an innocent precedent to her involvement with the Hilton/Lohan set, and the visuals of  a schoolgirl doing high kicks in minimal underwear in hindsight look as sexually repressed as Wednesday Addams; but “From The Bottom Of My Broken Heart” just too obviously appeals to Bible-belt America.

The disturbing imagery of that big pre-second-wave-feminism billboard and that cutesy haircut is all too much for the Easy Realism staff: we see right through your faked virginity.

Even the mother and younger sister are inaccurate – surely the Spears family are too busy blowing their way to success to wave off one of their own; even when she is escaping her (I assume) womanising, 30-year-old “first boyfriend”.

Also, notice that she has no dad in the video. He was probably killed by his own daughter after years of sexual abuse trauma was manifested in a shot to the head. Not even fictional families are perfect.

Rejecting Capitalism

I really want to watch a certain music video. I want to watch Joni Mitchell’s 1985 video for her single Good Friends, which had existed for a number of months on YouTube but has been taken down due to a copyright issue.

I want to watch Joni wandering through her kitchen, surrounded by cats and cacti, smoking a cigarette. Then sitting in a café with Larry Klein, smoking another cigarette. Then in Larry’s car smoking yet another cigarette during a nonchalant argument. Then watch weird, abstract objects like cars and love hearts,  constructed out of what looks like papier mache, fall from the sky in unconvincing motion. I want to watch middle-aged Mitchell’s rather good, artsy, and relevant – if neither slick nor glossy - attempt to capture the minds and papier mache hearts of the MTV generation.

I could easily dig out my Dog Eat Dog vinyl, which features the song; or even stick to the medium of YouTube and listen to the song with a picture of the album cover as the only visual counterpart to the song. However, I specifically want to watch the video: even though I was born three years after this single was released - and don’t really recall a lot of music vividly from before I was about 12 years old – this song and its accompanying video somehow remind me of my life when I was too young to properly engage with life.

I am not downloading illegally – and am not discussing illegal downloading. I am talking about watching a video which has been uploaded to the internet without the consent of the artist’s record company’s consent - not actually illegal; just frowned upon because no money is being made. 

My problem is that I cannot understand why it is frowned upon. Even taking a capitalist point of view, sure, money is not being made by having these video available online; but by having YouTube take an offending video offline, no money is being made either. The specific video I am talking about – Good Friends – is not available on any DVD and is so old and niche that MTV would never play it now anyway; so by taking it off the internet, it is out of public view.

Even more perplexing is that it could be argued that taking these videos offline is actually damaging to the music industry’s capitalist system. Having music videos available online is like PR for the artists – the record companies will spend money on having a video created specifically for television; so having the same videos available online – posted by an independent uploader, acting as a PR agent without requiring a fee – gets the artist out to new markets. Sorry, new viewers. I think record companies are scared of these free PR agents, acting altruistically* for the company’s cause, because altruism is a concept which goes against the capitalist ideals of big business conglomerates. It could be argued that it takes the creative control away from the owners of the video (even though the videos are not manipulated in any way and are uploaded as they are seen on – and have been approved by the record company – for television), but more likely, they are just upset about not being able to control the advertising that surrounds the video when it is watched over an independent YouTube user’s page.

*I experienced severe onomatomania when trying to recall this word.

Just to illustrate how YouTube and now-illegal downloading of music can actually serve record companies in a positive way, I got into Joni Mitchell through a combination of both media. I would not fork out £10+ on an album I did not know I would enjoy – I do not have money to burn - and I am not interested in spending a small fortune buying 99 plays of every new song I come across from iTunes or wherever. I have only a few Joni Mitchell albums on CD – but own most of her back catalogue on second-hand vinyl. I am not sure how much of the money I paid for my second hand albums went to the record companies – hopefully none. The only reason I would hope for money to go to them would be for them to see that Mitchell’s music is still alive and relevant with a new generation, regardless of how the mainstream has ignored her for years. However, since they could hardly be said to be forthcoming with goodies such as Joni’s classy 80s videos, I am more than happy for my money to circulate straight into the pockets of those nice guys at Missing.

That YouTube cannot display certain videos is just a microcosm of the larger, more important problem of illegal downloading on the internet. Again, the same arguments apply: illegal downloading in fact helps sales, regardless of what we are told by record execs via the media. This brilliant – and now infamous – article by Janis Ian, one of Joni Mitchell’s contemporaries who questions the capitalist system of the music industry as much as Joni herself, explains the indiscrepancies of the current illegal downloading situation in explicit detail; written by someone far closer to the heart of this industry than I would ever want to be.

The cyber-pessimists at the head of record companies should be taking note of what Janis Ian and so many others are saying. Music and videos should be free and unpoliced on the internet. The internet is the last medium where music is at least partially free and unconnected to the capitalist hegemony of the music industry. This availability should be allowed to remain as it is – minus the draconian laws surrounding free downloads; and not be ruined by the blinded-by-money heads of business.

Besides, music should be for pleasure, not for capital.

Engaging With Capitalism #2

I am ill right now, so please excuse any typographical errors. Hopefully I won’t have to use the word “somersaults” at any point.

I hate December. I hate Christmas. I hate illness. I hate the fact that everyone gets the cold at this point of the year. I hate sneezing. I hate when my lungs are all fluidy. I hate having to blow my nose. I hate the entire concept of nose blowing. I hate the oversaturation of my nasal mucous membranes. I hate having to steal my mum’s prescription medication because I don’t have any of my own. I hate having to ask if I had dinner or not because I don’t have any recollection either way. I hate not having a sense of taste. I hate idiot people having Christmas nights out that I have to serve. I hate my Joe-job. I hate Christmas songs ringing around my head like tinnitus for four weeks straight*. I hate having to do so much work at uni and get no return because I can’t get anything published. I hate snow. I hate frost. I hate cars. I hate wine. I hate the entire concept of food. I hate Santa Clause. I am the holiday nazi.

*Except for that Slade one. That song rocks on its own merits. And the John and Yoko song. That one’s good too. And Wizzard to an extent. And Joni’s River, because, well, any excuse for Joni. But the rest of them are just fucking ANNOYING.

My dad is coming to Scotland for whatever reason in a week’s time (I can’t remember the exact date because my brain is covered in mucous and general malaise), and I am not looking forward to seeing him. I still have this ridiculous peroxide ginger hair dye that he will not be happy about. It’s probably the peroxide’s fault that I am ill. I should have paid attention when the colouring instructions said: “do not snort powder”.

Anyway, engaging with capitalism. In real life, I play the role of the Christmas cynic seen in the vast majority of American television programmes, used as a foil to all the other still-enchanted and unquestioning characters: the clichéd Lisa Simpson holiday-pessimist to xmas-optimists Bart, Homer and Marge.

I think there is a real pressure to be individual. This overused character is made to look like an outsider to the rest of the group; yet because there is an onslaught of characters playing this cookie-cutter role in so many different series, it becomes in itself a cliché. The more I think of it, I have been playing the role of a stroppy teenage girl: beyond Lisa, the obvious examples are Darlene from Roseanne and Daria.

I make my feelings known to everyone who will and will not listen: Christmas is all about spending money and disgusting advertising. About buying crap to show face, to keep up with the Joneses, without actually caring about what you’re buying as long as it costs enough. To engage in the most awkward minefield of social graces that has carried over from the last century.

Not that I disagree with the modern, capitalist ideals of Christmas completely: I do like buying presents for friends, and put a lot of effort – if not a lot of money – into finding things they will really like. I am genuinely looking forward to giving presents to my friends from work and disparate other areas of life via two separate Secret Santa draws.

I think the USP of my version of Christmas-pessimism compared to that of my fictional counterparts is that I do not follow the hardline Nancy Hayton from Hollyoaks model. There are benefits to buying presents for people, of course, but I think there is too much unnecessary pressure to buy the right thing, from the right place, at the right price, at the right time. I am traditionally a December 24th buyer, but I do it well. I don’t panic. I don’t let pressure get to me. And I never spend more than a fiver.

I won’t even proselytise because my entire opinion has been given before in more eloquent/ humourous/ aggravating/ insipid /insightful /childlike /realistic* terms by the many, many televised Christmas-pessimists who have gone before, from Hey Arnold to Zebedee. Probably.

*Delete as appropriate

This idea of Christmas cynicism and the aversion to capitalist ideals has got me thinking more clearly about why students are likely to have left-wing tendancies than those further up the hegemonic food chain. Students – like myself - are likely to have part time jobs – like myself - while being bombarded by the education system with theories and models of capitalist society. Being used to do ”dirty work” for someone with money is far more transparent as a student in a Joe-job; whereas higher up, a worker will feel less expendable since they are doing something meaningful, instead of mixing pre-mixed drinks.

There is also the distinction between doing this mindless part-time job which requires no mental or creative input for very small return; and writing pieces of work which are far more relevant to one’s future but getting no return on them whatsoever.

I see a lot of millionaires at work – the capitalist dream in action – who spend a lot of money to be served by nonchalant waiters and barmen such as myself, yet they are deeply unhappy at this peak of society. Surely there must be something more to find real contentment. Let’s add “I hate money” to that list above.

I realise as well that as soon as I get somewhere with my career, I will perhaps buy into this capitalist ideal, succumb to greed and number crunching; but hopefully have been able to achieve some semblance of satisfaction with my life. I always think life will be easier when I have a decent job, but I am beginning to question how much of this is true, and how much is simply an uphill struggle towards an invisible, impossible ideal.

Engaging With Capitalism #1

I spent Monday in France with Regular Readers Max and Chris and their respective other halves, Kate and Emma. I am sure I have mentioned this in a previous blog, because there is no way I would pass up the opportunity to  gloat about £2 return flights to another country.

Sure, the flights were with Ryanair – which meant getting a taxi to  Prestwick from Glasgow (£45, shared between three of us), a return bus to Paris from Beauvais airport (€26 – which, with the terrible exchange rate, essentially cost £26), then a taxi back to my house from Prestwick (£60, again shared between three of us) – but I think getting to Paris for under £70 is really good value! 

I also had to buy a passport for this trip – since I don’t usually go anywhere and had let my port-passing privileges slip – but that was not a big problem, and it arrived sharpish. Chris, on the other hand, had left his passport with a friend in Edinburgh and recieved it three hours before we left. He had also checked himself in under the name Chris – as opposed to Christopher on his passport – which confused the French boarding-pass-and-whatever-collecting lady.

“This is not possible!”

“Aye it is.”

We all slept on the bus to Paris, considering none of us had had more than three hours’ sleep before our 5.30am flights. I woke up just as we were entering the city, listening to Herbie Hancock and reading all the graffiti which covers every tunnel and bridge. I had visited Paris a few years previously and that was one thing I remember from driving into the city, so it was a nice familiar welcome. The whole city itself felt oddly familiar, from the sites I had seem before either in my previous trip to the city or from pictures - at times I couldn’t decide which recollection was true – as well as the language, which I was becoming fluent in by about 4th year of high school, but stopped caring about soon after when I was going through a low period and grades were no longer important to me. I really regret only knowing how to ask for a gin and tonic and to demand someone else to light my cigarette.

Those phrases should have got us through the whole day - the original plan was to get very drunk and smoke A LOT. That never really panned out. Instead we spent most of the day wandering the city, ogling shops and tourist sites.

When we arrived in Paris, we decided to use the Metro system – which I had never used before, and was very impressed compared to Glasgow’s Clockwork Orange. We visited the Champs Elysee first – again, not sure of whether I had seen it with my own two eyes, or if pictures of Hitler’s troops marching the length of the road had affected my memory.

The Place Charles de Gaulle featured more than the Arc d’Triomphe – there, we witnessed the most laid back car crash I have ever seen. A van plowed into a car – not surprising considering the four-lane road has no markings, and French drivers appear to have a huge, collective death wish – and both drivers got out and chatted away as if it was nothing. Every second car had, on its bumper or hood, a dent that would send any English speaking driver into a mad frenzy. Maybe that’s another side-effect of the French Paradox.

Next we went to the Eiffel Tower. The lack of sleep and views of graffiti’d bridges on entering the city must have got to me, because – by my hand – written in ballpoint pen on the second floor of the tower, facing the Sacre Coeur, reads:

Hayley Cook fucked the Eiffel Tower and it didn’t touch the sides

Needless to say, she wasn’t impressed when she found out.

The last tourist site we visited was the Notre Dame Cathedral which is intensely beautiful, yet corrupted by capitalism. Something seems wrong to me about having so much money generated in a holy place – didn’t Jesus say something against that very notion? I won’t get into religious discussion, since I had to ask whether the cathedral was Roman Catholic or otherwise. Apparently, Protestants don’t do cathedrals. It was interesting to note that the cathedral was once dedicated to the Cult of Rationalism at one point in its history. I donated a couple of euros and lit a candle for various issues – an umbrella prayer, essentially.

The streets of Paris were just beautiful and we visited a couple of patisseries to buy tiny, tiny, beautiful cakes; as well as bastardise the French language, expressing thoughts and orders though a series of points, grunts and abstract English phrases. Higher language qualifications evidently mean nothing.  

We managed to scramble our way into getting a table in a nice restaurant. The waiter was subjected to the five second rule after we had a look at the extortionate wine list – keep in mind the exchange rate - so we ran out, unannounced, into the restaurant across the road. While everyone else ate beautifully bloodied steak, I had a milanese chicken. One does not expect much from chicken dishes, but I had obviously forgotten that the French virtually invented the idea of having standards when it comes to food. I swear to God, it was the best chicken I have ever witnessed.

Our exit from the restaurant was akin to Top Gear – we had 40 minutes to get to the bus before it left us stranded. That would essentially mean paying £140 for a taxi to the airport. Again, consider the exchange rate!!

Max had inexplicably memorised the entire Paris Metro system after staring at the map for all of three minutes – including, even more inexplicably, which tunnels we had to run through to change trains. That last detail was not even included on the map. The running scene which ensued must looked like an episode of Scooby Doo to the Parisiennes – or, at the very least, a group of fucking idiot tourists.

The only downside to the whole trip was the taxi back through Glasgow, which is an intensely ugly city by comparison. By extension, this makes me an ugly person with an ugly soul. Hopefully that candle I lit in Notre Dame will bring me the cosmetic surgery and gastric band I prayed for so deeply. Or, at the very least, more of that chicken.