A few days ago, I was invited to a friend's birthday party. Her son is friends with my niece Boo, the Golden One, or at least as much as three year olds have friends. Both Kinder were at the party and much fun was had. Until both, under the influence of refined sugar (teh evols etc), had miniature meltdowns.
At one point, Boo tried to tell her friend, who we shall call Dee - who is sweet and lovely and gives some of the best hugs ever - what to do...
Friday, 18 August 2017
Saturday, 5 August 2017
Love is Not a Good Enough Word
Readers are advised that this was written under the influence of Dean Martin, Howard Keel, Bob Dylan and Edward Elgar playlists...
Love is Not A Good Enough Word...
I'm writing a story about soulmates. In fact, I'm writing a story about what happens if the concept is abused and twisted. It has me thinking about the nature of love: its many forms and the value our society places on each...
Thursday, 29 June 2017
"Music isn't political!" - Glastonbury 2017 and other stories
I was at Glastonbury when Jeremy Corbyn took to the Pyramid Stage. I was even in the gargantuan crowd, somewhat unwillingly as I'd been trying to skirt around the crowd and found myself a part of a very nearly catastrophic crush.
I like to presume those around me hadn't intended to be part of it either, because many – okay, half a dozen – were vocally and decidedly against Jez's presence and loudly called for him to wrap it up as soon as he could.
One chap – he was indeed a chap, all white haired upper-middle-class blustering superiority – near me was heard to loudly declare that Jeremy did not belong at the festival because it "wasn't the place" and anyway, "music isn't political." In the interests of fairness, a young white woman nearby and, I believe unrelated to him, agreed with a fierce shake of her head.
Had I not been crushed by bodies, craning my neck up for air and feet barely even touching the ground, my response would not have been the silent gnashing and gritting of teeth he got. I was not willing to be the start of a mood turning nasty.
Make no mistake: the crowd was so tightly packed that we were one hard push or mood-switch away from a lot of casualties and potential fatalities. That is how busy it was.
But, I cannot remain silent forever. Let me now answer these questions.
"Glastonbury isn't the place!"
Yes, it is. Glastonbury has always been political! It began because some folks in 1970/1 believed other festivals were getting too commercial! Many festival goers have, for some years, objected to the increasing gentrification of the festival as a whole (ticket prices, the price of food and drink once you're in... the fence), and the lack of attention and love given to the Leftfield, Green Fields and hippies, in favour of stalls selling overpriced tat, and small meals that start at £7 a pop.
Glastonbury has always been political. CND has had a presence since 1981, and there's a huge SCRAP TRIDENT sculpture on site. WaterAid, and Greenpeace are prominently supported at, and by, the festival. Perhaps they do not appear to be so because most any decent human being would agree with their aims. Heck, there's even a tower dedicated to that notoriously apolitical fellow Tony Benn.
I saw Benn speak at the Leftfield in 2007. I remember only a few of the finer points of his speech without prompting because it was in other ways a very difficult (horrendous) experience due to mud and rain etc. I do remember how enthused I was, how fiery and thoughtful his speech.
Tony Benn. Scrap Trident. An entire field dedicated to Greenpeace; another dedicated to 'Green Futures'. I learn from someone signing up donors to Greenpeace that Eavis is their largest individual donor. The festival also supports WaterAid because in the year 2017, not all humans have decent access to drinkable water. Dunno about you, but that strikes me as one of the most fundamental political issues of our existence.
If you want "no politics" I might recommend the V Festival. Bye, then.
Okay, now to the main point: "music isn't political."
Yes, it is. The End.
Okay, more. Yes, it is, fuck you. The End.
Seriously: music is, always has been and ever should be a political art. It may not always seem so, but it truly is.
Beethoven dedicated his sublime Third Symphony to Napoleon – is that not political? Traditional folk songs, written by and four and from the point of you of the common person: super political.
The Beatles' success was a profoundly political thing. First off, the very visible successful working class* lads from the darkest, remotest regions, with their Scouse accents and long hair, shook much of the then-establishment. Pop music changed - or perhaps more accurately, helped change - the social fabric of western civilisation in the 1960s. It heralded the end (or the beginning of the end) of the Age of Cap Doffing Deference, certainly here in the UK, and ushered in a more young person-orientated popular culture.
Heck, the Prime Minister Harold Wilson nearly tripped over himself to be seen with, and ergo endorsed by, the boys!
Imelda Marcos did not pitch a fit over her "Beatles Snub" because she wanted a chat; she was weakened by such a "snub" – one which I hope was a little more intentional than conventional history holds.
Even the attitudes towards the Rolling Stones were political in their way: a bunch of untidy, unruly boys playing black music and behaving badly? All those drug raids - and the legal status of drugs is a political issue - that sought to make an example of them, these are political as much as they are anything else.
Bed-in, protest-marching John Lennon. The Clash. Bob Marley. The Specials AKA. The Sex Pistols, in their way. Even Thumbs-Up McCartney did his naive bit with 'Give Ireland Back to the Irish'. This is very much an 'including, not limited to' list.
I think this festival-going chap may have been saying two things:
One. It's a political thing because I disagree.
Two. I don't want Music to do anything then gently entertain and divert.
I've been trying to think of music, at least in the popular sense, that somehow escapes politics and I'm struggling. even the most inoffensive, parent-friendly pop is itself political in its very blandness - created to make money and to keep the capitalist status quo (not the band) going.
I have been told that I look into pop culture too deeply. This might be fair but it doesn't therefore follow that one should take everything at face value. By way of example, "Ghost Town" by the Specials skirts the line between overt and subtle.
The mere existence within the music industry of women, people of colour, LGBT+ and anyone who isn't a white dude... the ways in which they are 'allowed' to move/act/be within music is political and has both reflected and influenced the wider world.
I've rarely been happier than the moment I had the opportunity to thank Patti Smith for making it easier for women to exist in music in their own right... I wanted her to know that it was important to me, to so many of us, that she was valued for that.
I haven't even touched on the appropriation of black American culture and music by white people. And I'll be honest with you, I'm not going to do so right now because smarter, more experienced people already have. But white rock cannot exist without black rhythm and blues, and that's a political issue.
Pat fucking Boone and Elvis over Chuck and Little Richard. Eminem over black Detroit musicians. Erykah's hair, Solange's hair, Esperanza's hair - forced to be political (indeed, the forcing itself is political) before even getting to the (sublime) music.
I closed Glastonbury by heading over to meet my friends to see the grime collective Boy Better Know headline at the Other Stage. They were awesome, and for someone seething over the 'music isn't political' snark, it was a nice reminder that actually dude, it is.
Really, I'm trying to find something that is truly outside the notions of politics and there really isn't anything because... our lives and how we choose or are required to live them, is indeed political.
It's not a surprise that music education is often the first thing to get cut when cuts are demanded. This too, is political:
So, music becomes the realm of those who can afford the lessons and the instruments and the time to dedicate to it. It becomes the realm of those who already have connections. And then... it stultifies and sours into the same old same old, all the damned time.
This is before we even touch on the tribal nature of fans: Skinheads, New Romantics and Blitz Kids, 2-Tone, Metalheads, hippies, mods (original), mods (revival), Riot Grrls, straight edge and hardcore punks, Teds and rockers, emos and goths, Rave, hip hop, teenyboppers,... I could actually go on for days. Those groups formed common identities apart from the norm, or the other groups.They marked themselves as 'other' often because they were already outsiders in a society that does not favour or value difference. They have their distinct languages, uniforms, conventions and were all at one time or another feared or detested by the mainstream of their time.
Choosing your group and being proud: a deeply political act. That's why those groups have unnerved The Powers That Be. Heck, the government of the time so deeply feared rave culture that they essentially enacted legislation just to stop it!
How we value the work of composers and musicians: political.
How we value and talk about music aimed at girls compared to music for boys: political.
The price of tickets: political.
Access: political.
How women are treated at gigs: political.
How labels choose who they do and don't sign, who they consider viable: political.
Music is, always was and ever should be, a political art. Why? Because music is part of our own selves. Those who make it put something of themselves and their lived experience into the work. Those who consume the work approach it with their own souls and lived experience. You cannot separate that. No art exists in a vacuum. Music is political.
A Glastonbury security guard I spoke to about an hour after Corbyn's speech expressed surprise: "But it wasn't even about politics. It was about helping people and being kind."
Being a decent human being and choosing to be part of a society that cares about all its members, even and especially the least among us?
This truly is a political act.
I like to presume those around me hadn't intended to be part of it either, because many – okay, half a dozen – were vocally and decidedly against Jez's presence and loudly called for him to wrap it up as soon as he could.
One chap – he was indeed a chap, all white haired upper-middle-class blustering superiority – near me was heard to loudly declare that Jeremy did not belong at the festival because it "wasn't the place" and anyway, "music isn't political." In the interests of fairness, a young white woman nearby and, I believe unrelated to him, agreed with a fierce shake of her head.
Had I not been crushed by bodies, craning my neck up for air and feet barely even touching the ground, my response would not have been the silent gnashing and gritting of teeth he got. I was not willing to be the start of a mood turning nasty.
Make no mistake: the crowd was so tightly packed that we were one hard push or mood-switch away from a lot of casualties and potential fatalities. That is how busy it was.
But, I cannot remain silent forever. Let me now answer these questions.
"Glastonbury isn't the place!"
Yes, it is. Glastonbury has always been political! It began because some folks in 1970/1 believed other festivals were getting too commercial! Many festival goers have, for some years, objected to the increasing gentrification of the festival as a whole (ticket prices, the price of food and drink once you're in... the fence), and the lack of attention and love given to the Leftfield, Green Fields and hippies, in favour of stalls selling overpriced tat, and small meals that start at £7 a pop.
Glastonbury has always been political. CND has had a presence since 1981, and there's a huge SCRAP TRIDENT sculpture on site. WaterAid, and Greenpeace are prominently supported at, and by, the festival. Perhaps they do not appear to be so because most any decent human being would agree with their aims. Heck, there's even a tower dedicated to that notoriously apolitical fellow Tony Benn.
I saw Benn speak at the Leftfield in 2007. I remember only a few of the finer points of his speech without prompting because it was in other ways a very difficult (horrendous) experience due to mud and rain etc. I do remember how enthused I was, how fiery and thoughtful his speech.
Tony Benn. Scrap Trident. An entire field dedicated to Greenpeace; another dedicated to 'Green Futures'. I learn from someone signing up donors to Greenpeace that Eavis is their largest individual donor. The festival also supports WaterAid because in the year 2017, not all humans have decent access to drinkable water. Dunno about you, but that strikes me as one of the most fundamental political issues of our existence.
If you want "no politics" I might recommend the V Festival. Bye, then.
Okay, now to the main point: "music isn't political."
Yes, it is. The End.
Okay, more. Yes, it is, fuck you. The End.
Seriously: music is, always has been and ever should be a political art. It may not always seem so, but it truly is.
Beethoven dedicated his sublime Third Symphony to Napoleon – is that not political? Traditional folk songs, written by and four and from the point of you of the common person: super political.
The Beatles' success was a profoundly political thing. First off, the very visible successful working class* lads from the darkest, remotest regions, with their Scouse accents and long hair, shook much of the then-establishment. Pop music changed - or perhaps more accurately, helped change - the social fabric of western civilisation in the 1960s. It heralded the end (or the beginning of the end) of the Age of Cap Doffing Deference, certainly here in the UK, and ushered in a more young person-orientated popular culture.
Heck, the Prime Minister Harold Wilson nearly tripped over himself to be seen with, and ergo endorsed by, the boys!
Even the attitudes towards the Rolling Stones were political in their way: a bunch of untidy, unruly boys playing black music and behaving badly? All those drug raids - and the legal status of drugs is a political issue - that sought to make an example of them, these are political as much as they are anything else.
Bed-in, protest-marching John Lennon. The Clash. Bob Marley. The Specials AKA. The Sex Pistols, in their way. Even Thumbs-Up McCartney did his naive bit with 'Give Ireland Back to the Irish'. This is very much an 'including, not limited to' list.
I think this festival-going chap may have been saying two things:
One. It's a political thing because I disagree.
Two. I don't want Music to do anything then gently entertain and divert.
I've been trying to think of music, at least in the popular sense, that somehow escapes politics and I'm struggling. even the most inoffensive, parent-friendly pop is itself political in its very blandness - created to make money and to keep the capitalist status quo (not the band) going.
I have been told that I look into pop culture too deeply. This might be fair but it doesn't therefore follow that one should take everything at face value. By way of example, "Ghost Town" by the Specials skirts the line between overt and subtle.
The mere existence within the music industry of women, people of colour, LGBT+ and anyone who isn't a white dude... the ways in which they are 'allowed' to move/act/be within music is political and has both reflected and influenced the wider world.
I've rarely been happier than the moment I had the opportunity to thank Patti Smith for making it easier for women to exist in music in their own right... I wanted her to know that it was important to me, to so many of us, that she was valued for that.
I haven't even touched on the appropriation of black American culture and music by white people. And I'll be honest with you, I'm not going to do so right now because smarter, more experienced people already have. But white rock cannot exist without black rhythm and blues, and that's a political issue.
Pat fucking Boone and Elvis over Chuck and Little Richard. Eminem over black Detroit musicians. Erykah's hair, Solange's hair, Esperanza's hair - forced to be political (indeed, the forcing itself is political) before even getting to the (sublime) music.
I closed Glastonbury by heading over to meet my friends to see the grime collective Boy Better Know headline at the Other Stage. They were awesome, and for someone seething over the 'music isn't political' snark, it was a nice reminder that actually dude, it is.
Really, I'm trying to find something that is truly outside the notions of politics and there really isn't anything because... our lives and how we choose or are required to live them, is indeed political.
It's not a surprise that music education is often the first thing to get cut when cuts are demanded. This too, is political:
- We care less about our children's creative and critical thinking skills than about teaching them to be automatons who can pass exams.
- We're happy to profit from the outstanding contribution of UK music to the economy, but we won't enable or support it.
- Poor children don't deserve the nice things.
So, music becomes the realm of those who can afford the lessons and the instruments and the time to dedicate to it. It becomes the realm of those who already have connections. And then... it stultifies and sours into the same old same old, all the damned time.
This is before we even touch on the tribal nature of fans: Skinheads, New Romantics and Blitz Kids, 2-Tone, Metalheads, hippies, mods (original), mods (revival), Riot Grrls, straight edge and hardcore punks, Teds and rockers, emos and goths, Rave, hip hop, teenyboppers,... I could actually go on for days. Those groups formed common identities apart from the norm, or the other groups.They marked themselves as 'other' often because they were already outsiders in a society that does not favour or value difference. They have their distinct languages, uniforms, conventions and were all at one time or another feared or detested by the mainstream of their time.
Choosing your group and being proud: a deeply political act. That's why those groups have unnerved The Powers That Be. Heck, the government of the time so deeply feared rave culture that they essentially enacted legislation just to stop it!
How we value the work of composers and musicians: political.
How we value and talk about music aimed at girls compared to music for boys: political.
The price of tickets: political.
Access: political.
How women are treated at gigs: political.
How labels choose who they do and don't sign, who they consider viable: political.
Music is, always was and ever should be, a political art. Why? Because music is part of our own selves. Those who make it put something of themselves and their lived experience into the work. Those who consume the work approach it with their own souls and lived experience. You cannot separate that. No art exists in a vacuum. Music is political.
A Glastonbury security guard I spoke to about an hour after Corbyn's speech expressed surprise: "But it wasn't even about politics. It was about helping people and being kind."
Being a decent human being and choosing to be part of a society that cares about all its members, even and especially the least among us?
This truly is a political act.
Tuesday, 20 June 2017
In Praise Of Being A Girl Who Loves Music
There are many thoughts and feelings about the bomb at the Ariana Grande show in Manchester. I'm not going to attempt to improve on or dispute them... and I started writing this just after it happened and purposely set it aside for a while.
This is not about terrorism or even about that show specifically. Wiser people have already said a great deal about those things. This is about music.
The attack on the Grande show is an unquestionable tragedy, sharpened by the simple truth that a gig is a special, even sacred space. It is an experience outside the everyday concerns we all have.
For young girls going to one of their first gigs - if not the first - it is beyond exciting, more than just an evening out. It is a glimpse into a world they might only have glimpsed before. One where you get to feel amazing and alive.
Some of my most magical moments are from live music experiences. Like many a rock geek and music dork, I plot the course of my life by them and they take on near mythic status with the passage of time. I share these stories with other fans as currency, credibility and worthiness; a way to connect with others; a way to outdo others.
I have a few stories of musical magnificence that will stay with me for the rest of my life.
All of those gigs happened when I was - nominally, at least - a grown-up. They have their special magic and undeniable rock geek credibility (possibly not the Dubliners but I don't care)...but they are the experiences of someone already used to the rituals and experiences of gig-going.
The rituals that are second-nature now were once strange. mystical traditions. It was not always so.
There are few groups within music who get more mockery, flak and lack of respect than tween and teenage girls. Ever twas thus, despite the fact that they bring in the dough. There's nobody more dedicated than a young girl in the first flush of her first musical love. Maybe it's fickle, but it's real enough. And it's not always fickle. Ask a David Cassidy fan now... for all the eye-rolling, they (anecdotally) still kinda love it.
These girl-fans get flak for being too enthusiastic, for having bad taste, for caring about things beyond the music... and I think there's some fair criticism to be levelled at the people who foist rubbish music on this fan subset, but not to throw it at the fans.
Since when has enthusiasm been a bad thing? Is 12 Year Old Molly less a fan for screaming and buying all the records, or ss she more stupidly obsessed than 40 Year Old Nigel who drones for two hours and bought all the records on at least three formats and who has bloody label numbers memorised? Or 25 Year Old Chet who liked that band before they were popular and was totally at that now-legendary gig blah blah blah...?
Are those girls less fans than I am because they like cheerful, uplifting music instead of the 19 ad a half minute live version of "In Your Town" from the special edition of Rory Gallagher's Irish Tour album. You know the one I mean, right? You must do!
Even if you or I think it's terrible music performed by idiots, well, it isn't for us. Those girls need and want something that they can hang their dreams on, whether it's empowerment or belief or their future lives, or a cute boy they want to fall in love with, to find out what that feels like.
None of those things are actually bad, you know. We're just so used to thinking that Things For Girls are by their very definition, less than Things For Boys or Things For Grown Ups. That being a teenage girl is somehow shorthand for 'so uncool' and 'worthless'. Screw that.
Tell me: is pop music for tweens any better or worse than 1980s hair metal, the most indulgent prog or the very worst punk? Come on, be honest. Are you going to tell me that Jimmy Pursey and Sham 69 are better than the Backstreet Boys? Or the Bay City Rollers are less authentic than Motley Crue?
My first ever gig was Suzi Quatro. I was seven, on holiday with my Granny and staying with Great-Aunt Tishy. My mum bought the tickets half for my benefit and half to troll her mum. I loved it, though Suzi was not in the first flush of fame or youth. Perhaps I liked it because of that. It was, coincidentally or not, a safe way for a seven-year-old devotee of electric guitars, to get inducted into the Great Audience.
And yet... the first time I remember being allowed to attend A Concert without parental chaperonage, I was 14/15 and went with my friend Louise to the Royal Albert Hall to see, of all the possible acts, Ant & Dec. That is an actual thing that occurred. I remember seeing them on a newspaper advert in a list of other bands (I dread to think who else was on the list that I missed out on through ignorance) and suggesting it, probably with the understanding that it was an act my parents would actually let me go and see.
It was a balance of cost, age-appropriate act and audience, venue and that I had a friend who was OK to come with me. That would not have happened for any other group I wanted to see - I did not love pop music by then and my tastes had diverged rather from those of my friends.
Anyway, I don't remember much of the show other than it being pleasantly not-crap and trying to stand on my seat in the back of the stalls, and then buying a crap bootleg poster outside before Louise's dad picked us up and drove us all the way home from the Albert Hall to Hertfordshire, because he is an actual legend.
We were, for an hour or two, a little closer to being grown ups. Had I know how much adulthood sucks, I might not have bothered. But for a few hours in my otherwise pretty horrendo teenage life, I felt like part of a group, I was a little bit more free and I had a dance in my step. What a bright moment that was.
There is nothing - nothing - wrong with being a girl who likes pop music. There's nothing evil about it, not even in the unnerving devotion fans sometimes display.
It's for girls! shouldn't an insult. And can we possibly stop mocking girls for everything and anything they do, think or feel? Like they won't get enough of that 'heads we win, tails you lose' nonsense as grown women?
Not all gigs are life-changingly wonderful. I've seen some bloody terrible music. But, for all that, the worst thing that should happen to anyone at a music event/gig/concert/show is that they get overcharged at the bar.
Love all the people.
This is not about terrorism or even about that show specifically. Wiser people have already said a great deal about those things. This is about music.
The attack on the Grande show is an unquestionable tragedy, sharpened by the simple truth that a gig is a special, even sacred space. It is an experience outside the everyday concerns we all have.
For young girls going to one of their first gigs - if not the first - it is beyond exciting, more than just an evening out. It is a glimpse into a world they might only have glimpsed before. One where you get to feel amazing and alive.
Some of my most magical moments are from live music experiences. Like many a rock geek and music dork, I plot the course of my life by them and they take on near mythic status with the passage of time. I share these stories with other fans as currency, credibility and worthiness; a way to connect with others; a way to outdo others.
I have a few stories of musical magnificence that will stay with me for the rest of my life.
- Robert Plant singing an Arabic-flavoured version of That's The Way at Somerset House as the flaming red sun set behind him.
- Scott Gorham playing Roisin Dubh from about three feet away at the Hammersmith Apollo.
- The Dubliners remembering Ronnie Drew and Luke Kelly in front of a Dublin home crowd.
- Bob Dylan at the Roundhouse in Camden, where I got to be near the front, standing amongst a few thousand rather than the vastness of the O2. The seven hours waiting in line were worth it, man.
- Ray Manzarek ripping into the opening of Light My Fire. Live. Right There. Even if it was the soulless Wembley Arena in 2003 rather than the Whiskey in '67.
- Jack Bruce and Joe Bonamassa tearing it up in the usually refined Royal Festival Hall
- Chas n Dave bringing working class rockney to the serious Royal Albert Hall.
All of those gigs happened when I was - nominally, at least - a grown-up. They have their special magic and undeniable rock geek credibility (possibly not the Dubliners but I don't care)...but they are the experiences of someone already used to the rituals and experiences of gig-going.
The rituals that are second-nature now were once strange. mystical traditions. It was not always so.
These girl-fans get flak for being too enthusiastic, for having bad taste, for caring about things beyond the music... and I think there's some fair criticism to be levelled at the people who foist rubbish music on this fan subset, but not to throw it at the fans.
Since when has enthusiasm been a bad thing? Is 12 Year Old Molly less a fan for screaming and buying all the records, or ss she more stupidly obsessed than 40 Year Old Nigel who drones for two hours and bought all the records on at least three formats and who has bloody label numbers memorised? Or 25 Year Old Chet who liked that band before they were popular and was totally at that now-legendary gig blah blah blah...?
Are those girls less fans than I am because they like cheerful, uplifting music instead of the 19 ad a half minute live version of "In Your Town" from the special edition of Rory Gallagher's Irish Tour album. You know the one I mean, right? You must do!
Even if you or I think it's terrible music performed by idiots, well, it isn't for us. Those girls need and want something that they can hang their dreams on, whether it's empowerment or belief or their future lives, or a cute boy they want to fall in love with, to find out what that feels like.
None of those things are actually bad, you know. We're just so used to thinking that Things For Girls are by their very definition, less than Things For Boys or Things For Grown Ups. That being a teenage girl is somehow shorthand for 'so uncool' and 'worthless'. Screw that.
Tell me: is pop music for tweens any better or worse than 1980s hair metal, the most indulgent prog or the very worst punk? Come on, be honest. Are you going to tell me that Jimmy Pursey and Sham 69 are better than the Backstreet Boys? Or the Bay City Rollers are less authentic than Motley Crue?
And yet... the first time I remember being allowed to attend A Concert without parental chaperonage, I was 14/15 and went with my friend Louise to the Royal Albert Hall to see, of all the possible acts, Ant & Dec. That is an actual thing that occurred. I remember seeing them on a newspaper advert in a list of other bands (I dread to think who else was on the list that I missed out on through ignorance) and suggesting it, probably with the understanding that it was an act my parents would actually let me go and see.
It was a balance of cost, age-appropriate act and audience, venue and that I had a friend who was OK to come with me. That would not have happened for any other group I wanted to see - I did not love pop music by then and my tastes had diverged rather from those of my friends.
Anyway, I don't remember much of the show other than it being pleasantly not-crap and trying to stand on my seat in the back of the stalls, and then buying a crap bootleg poster outside before Louise's dad picked us up and drove us all the way home from the Albert Hall to Hertfordshire, because he is an actual legend.We were, for an hour or two, a little closer to being grown ups. Had I know how much adulthood sucks, I might not have bothered. But for a few hours in my otherwise pretty horrendo teenage life, I felt like part of a group, I was a little bit more free and I had a dance in my step. What a bright moment that was.
There is nothing - nothing - wrong with being a girl who likes pop music. There's nothing evil about it, not even in the unnerving devotion fans sometimes display.
It's for girls! shouldn't an insult. And can we possibly stop mocking girls for everything and anything they do, think or feel? Like they won't get enough of that 'heads we win, tails you lose' nonsense as grown women?
Not all gigs are life-changingly wonderful. I've seen some bloody terrible music. But, for all that, the worst thing that should happen to anyone at a music event/gig/concert/show is that they get overcharged at the bar.
Love all the people.
Wednesday, 28 December 2016
Cancel My Subscription to the Resurrection... maybe?
Carrie Fisher is dead.
For the last twenty-six hours, or thereabouts, I have been repeating this to myself every so often just in case I forget (I won't) and to make it more real.
Other folks have written eloquently about Carrie - nobody moreso than herself - so I'm not going to even try and have a crack.
I've spent a lot of today mucking around on the internet and taking some joy in the never-ending - if occasionally horrifying - creativity of fans. Lots of memes. I mean, LOTS OF THEM.
Spoiler Warning: There are references to features of Rogue One behind the jump.
For the last twenty-six hours, or thereabouts, I have been repeating this to myself every so often just in case I forget (I won't) and to make it more real.
Other folks have written eloquently about Carrie - nobody moreso than herself - so I'm not going to even try and have a crack.
I've spent a lot of today mucking around on the internet and taking some joy in the never-ending - if occasionally horrifying - creativity of fans. Lots of memes. I mean, LOTS OF THEM.
Spoiler Warning: There are references to features of Rogue One behind the jump.
Sunday, 25 December 2016
Black Dogs and Universe Glue
I wrote this post's title a while ago, as I started to try and write a post for the first time in godonlyknowsevenhowlong.
Then, I stopped. I left it lurking while I did other things - anything else, I suppose - and now i know why.
This title was waiting for today. It is entirely relevant.
It is Christmas Day for another ten minutes - might be 26/12/2016 by the time I finish - and I want to scream and shout. I want to go at this room like I'm Kylo Ren with his lightsaber.
Last night, I went with my parental units to their church, a perfectly ordinary Roman Catholic parish church in North London. Carols followed by Midnight Mass.
Church once a year, I can deal with, especially as this is not the parish of my childhood and has no particularly unpleasant associations beyond the general, overall issues I have with Holy Father Church.
There's a great line in Dogma by Serendipity about Catholics: You don't celebrate your faith, you mourn it. That seemed about right yesterday, during the carols-as-dirges and mass that dragged in a succession of stand up-sit down-keneel-stand up again-recite some words like rote.
I'll be the first to admit that the problem is almost certainly me, not the singers and the organist, who at least made an effort. The priest seemed engaged and pleasant (I've definitely encountered worse)... but it all left me feeling sad, and then hollow.
Today, with my parents, who are generally lovely if... eccentric... and my sister L and my dearest, loveliest niece.......... even then the proceedings had a shadow hanging over them, not assisted by the Golden Child's insistence on being a two and a half year old and consequently lobbing tantrums at regular intervals. Her poor, overstimulated, excited little brain that wouldn't her nap, that wouldn't be at peace even when Gene Kelly was on TV.
Turns out, Gene Kelly doesn't hold much sway over small children.
And that was the Black Dog, snuffling at my heels. Like usual. Like almost always. Like he thinks he belongs, like he's entitled. the Morecambe & Wise 1976 Christmas Special was a hilarious band aid for a while, but a Band Aid nonetheless.
This is my life. Even when I'm happy, I don't get to be all-the-way-happy, because that fucking dog is at my heel. So far, I've been able to push it away for short periods of times, even lock in a dungeon for awhile, but this is my reality, I guess.
I once thought to myself that if I could, I'd absorb everyone's pain. No sense in us all feeling this way, after all.
*
It's been a year that I'm fairly sure will have its own special module on History courses in decades and centuries to come. I don't want to be right, but moments in actual history have acquired new resonance lately: Archie Duke, who shot his ostrich; blackshirts and rise of popular fascism in the 1930s; the horrific treatment of black Americans that led to the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s... I could go on, but it's too fucking awful.
not just on the worldwide or national scale, but the amount of utter awful that has befallen the people I love and friends and those folks who share even a little of their worlds with me... My pain has been inward-facing, of my own making. Theirs? Less so.
There is so much pain in the world. Ever t'was thus, I hear some of you say. Perhaps, but it's 2016 so why are we content with accepting this form of status quo? Why is this considered OK just because 'it's always been'?
Smallpox was traditional, once. High infant mortality rates were traditional, once. Gaslamps and bows-and-arrows were traditional, once... we made them obsolete (T&Cs may apply) so why don't we make other traditional hates and pains outdated too?
We live in a selfish time, and it's by design. If we're all busy looking out for ourselves, looking to acquire what we can for ourselves, then we're not helping each other and we're not making the world a better place by holding those in power to account.
Which is why it's by design. Carthago delenda est is now common policy, it seems. Trade unions have not helped themselves over the years (Yeah, I'm looking at you, Scargill) but the discrediting of them has worked enormously well for businesses and not at all for workers.
Most of us are workers, by the way. The lie that we can be part of the elite if we just do as they say and vote as they tell us to is one of the marketing greats of the last half century.
I wasn't even going to talk about that, but you can't talk about common pain without it, I guess. And i haven't even touched on Aleppo or the many varied concerns of the people around the world who go largely ignored by us because they don't look or sound or seem like us. Even though they are also human beings with a baseline of human dignity and respect. Even here, I'm using 'Aleppo' as lazy shorthand for 'brutal human suffering' rather than considering the real humans affected, because I'm part of the problem too.
*
Are we all so fatigued that we don't care, in our selfishness, about things now? A truck got driven into a market in Berlin. Where were the 'Ich Bin Berlin' Facebook filters (Ich bin ein Berliner has been done, of course). Did we rend our digital garments then? No.
Bowie died at the start of the year. Since then, it feels like the Grim Reaper must've had a stretch target to meet. Variations on the theme of 'Turns out Bowie was the glue holding the Universe together' have littered the internet over the year.
I've started to really dread the noise of the BBC News Alert on my phone.
I'm a pop culture person, these things matter to me. I don't expect them to matter to anyone else and I don't ask you to care, but don't expect me not to simply because I didn't know someone. I don't suggest my sadness comes even close to that of the peope who loved and knew *Insert Name Here, Let's Be Bitterly Honest'... but allow me - and other fans - to experience our own feelings in our own way.
As I was beginning to contemplate going to bed this evening, with the black dog nipping at my heels after a day which has been both lovely and taxing, and after seeing pictures of other people experiencing much more straightforward joy (as far as I can tell)... my phone pinged.
George Michael, a fixture in the pop culture around me for my whole life, died. Another one. Another one.
A friend of mine, who is awesome, thoughtful and compassionate, wrote that the 'Fuck you 2016' stuff was getting too much. That we should not turn real people into memes and joke about the year that sucked. She's right of course. I deal with this sort of thing with dark humour (see, yanno, above) but there's also a strain of prurient gossipy nonsense that comes along with it. We almost wallow in it, wishing to be the first to break the news to our group (no, we all get the same alerts...) and wishing to be seen to be the biggest fan by being the saddest. Who can rend their garments quickest? Who can be the first with a bad taste joke about the deceased?
That last point is moot: nobody can do better (worse) than Twitter after Michael Jackson died.
We have our right to our feelings and our grief, but there's responsibility there as well.
*
I remember leaving 2015 behind thinking that 2016 would 'be my year' and while in some very important ways I've made some important progress... I'm still here, Black Dog fur running through my fingers, still not living my vocation...
But I'm writing this blog post, and that's a sort of achievement. There have been moments of great joy this year, for me, for the people I love... but they seem to be so utterly outweighed by awful things.
What could possily counteract the bile and Newspeak of the various elections and referenda this year that have kicked Western Civilisation into the long grass?
This is not a competition and it's definitely not a joke. I would say "gotta laugh else you'd cry' but if 2016 has proved anything: it's that you can do both at the same time.
CW 25/12/2016
Then, I stopped. I left it lurking while I did other things - anything else, I suppose - and now i know why.
This title was waiting for today. It is entirely relevant.
It is Christmas Day for another ten minutes - might be 26/12/2016 by the time I finish - and I want to scream and shout. I want to go at this room like I'm Kylo Ren with his lightsaber.
Last night, I went with my parental units to their church, a perfectly ordinary Roman Catholic parish church in North London. Carols followed by Midnight Mass.
Church once a year, I can deal with, especially as this is not the parish of my childhood and has no particularly unpleasant associations beyond the general, overall issues I have with Holy Father Church.
There's a great line in Dogma by Serendipity about Catholics: You don't celebrate your faith, you mourn it. That seemed about right yesterday, during the carols-as-dirges and mass that dragged in a succession of stand up-sit down-keneel-stand up again-recite some words like rote.
I'll be the first to admit that the problem is almost certainly me, not the singers and the organist, who at least made an effort. The priest seemed engaged and pleasant (I've definitely encountered worse)... but it all left me feeling sad, and then hollow.
Today, with my parents, who are generally lovely if... eccentric... and my sister L and my dearest, loveliest niece.......... even then the proceedings had a shadow hanging over them, not assisted by the Golden Child's insistence on being a two and a half year old and consequently lobbing tantrums at regular intervals. Her poor, overstimulated, excited little brain that wouldn't her nap, that wouldn't be at peace even when Gene Kelly was on TV.
Turns out, Gene Kelly doesn't hold much sway over small children.
And that was the Black Dog, snuffling at my heels. Like usual. Like almost always. Like he thinks he belongs, like he's entitled. the Morecambe & Wise 1976 Christmas Special was a hilarious band aid for a while, but a Band Aid nonetheless.
This is my life. Even when I'm happy, I don't get to be all-the-way-happy, because that fucking dog is at my heel. So far, I've been able to push it away for short periods of times, even lock in a dungeon for awhile, but this is my reality, I guess.
I once thought to myself that if I could, I'd absorb everyone's pain. No sense in us all feeling this way, after all.
*
It's been a year that I'm fairly sure will have its own special module on History courses in decades and centuries to come. I don't want to be right, but moments in actual history have acquired new resonance lately: Archie Duke, who shot his ostrich; blackshirts and rise of popular fascism in the 1930s; the horrific treatment of black Americans that led to the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s... I could go on, but it's too fucking awful.
not just on the worldwide or national scale, but the amount of utter awful that has befallen the people I love and friends and those folks who share even a little of their worlds with me... My pain has been inward-facing, of my own making. Theirs? Less so.
There is so much pain in the world. Ever t'was thus, I hear some of you say. Perhaps, but it's 2016 so why are we content with accepting this form of status quo? Why is this considered OK just because 'it's always been'?
Smallpox was traditional, once. High infant mortality rates were traditional, once. Gaslamps and bows-and-arrows were traditional, once... we made them obsolete (T&Cs may apply) so why don't we make other traditional hates and pains outdated too?
We live in a selfish time, and it's by design. If we're all busy looking out for ourselves, looking to acquire what we can for ourselves, then we're not helping each other and we're not making the world a better place by holding those in power to account.
Which is why it's by design. Carthago delenda est is now common policy, it seems. Trade unions have not helped themselves over the years (Yeah, I'm looking at you, Scargill) but the discrediting of them has worked enormously well for businesses and not at all for workers.
Most of us are workers, by the way. The lie that we can be part of the elite if we just do as they say and vote as they tell us to is one of the marketing greats of the last half century.
I wasn't even going to talk about that, but you can't talk about common pain without it, I guess. And i haven't even touched on Aleppo or the many varied concerns of the people around the world who go largely ignored by us because they don't look or sound or seem like us. Even though they are also human beings with a baseline of human dignity and respect. Even here, I'm using 'Aleppo' as lazy shorthand for 'brutal human suffering' rather than considering the real humans affected, because I'm part of the problem too.
*
Are we all so fatigued that we don't care, in our selfishness, about things now? A truck got driven into a market in Berlin. Where were the 'Ich Bin Berlin' Facebook filters (Ich bin ein Berliner has been done, of course). Did we rend our digital garments then? No.
Bowie died at the start of the year. Since then, it feels like the Grim Reaper must've had a stretch target to meet. Variations on the theme of 'Turns out Bowie was the glue holding the Universe together' have littered the internet over the year.
I've started to really dread the noise of the BBC News Alert on my phone.
I'm a pop culture person, these things matter to me. I don't expect them to matter to anyone else and I don't ask you to care, but don't expect me not to simply because I didn't know someone. I don't suggest my sadness comes even close to that of the peope who loved and knew *Insert Name Here, Let's Be Bitterly Honest'... but allow me - and other fans - to experience our own feelings in our own way.
As I was beginning to contemplate going to bed this evening, with the black dog nipping at my heels after a day which has been both lovely and taxing, and after seeing pictures of other people experiencing much more straightforward joy (as far as I can tell)... my phone pinged.
George Michael, a fixture in the pop culture around me for my whole life, died. Another one. Another one.
A friend of mine, who is awesome, thoughtful and compassionate, wrote that the 'Fuck you 2016' stuff was getting too much. That we should not turn real people into memes and joke about the year that sucked. She's right of course. I deal with this sort of thing with dark humour (see, yanno, above) but there's also a strain of prurient gossipy nonsense that comes along with it. We almost wallow in it, wishing to be the first to break the news to our group (no, we all get the same alerts...) and wishing to be seen to be the biggest fan by being the saddest. Who can rend their garments quickest? Who can be the first with a bad taste joke about the deceased?
That last point is moot: nobody can do better (worse) than Twitter after Michael Jackson died.
We have our right to our feelings and our grief, but there's responsibility there as well.
*
I remember leaving 2015 behind thinking that 2016 would 'be my year' and while in some very important ways I've made some important progress... I'm still here, Black Dog fur running through my fingers, still not living my vocation...
But I'm writing this blog post, and that's a sort of achievement. There have been moments of great joy this year, for me, for the people I love... but they seem to be so utterly outweighed by awful things.
What could possily counteract the bile and Newspeak of the various elections and referenda this year that have kicked Western Civilisation into the long grass?
This is not a competition and it's definitely not a joke. I would say "gotta laugh else you'd cry' but if 2016 has proved anything: it's that you can do both at the same time.
CW 25/12/2016
Wednesday, 21 December 2016
The Storyteller - From the Vault 2008
Another piece from the Old Blog of Long Ago... although 2008 is not all that long ago, surely?
As ever, I've made a few tweaks here and there but nothing particularly substantial except an Ernie Wise-ism in the opening line that I couldn't resist.
As ever, I've made a few tweaks here and there but nothing particularly substantial except an Ernie Wise-ism in the opening line that I couldn't resist.
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