Stop putting a dollar sign on everything

Fuck you. Absolutely fuck you.
Just let us have one thing, just one piece of music, or one film, or one artwork, or something... something that we can call our own and keep for ourselves. Just one fucking piece of expression that does not get enveloped, chewed up, spat out and cheapened by you stupid, unimaginative cunts in your fucking advertising la-la land where only money and demographic spike points mean anything.

You have no souls. You have not one fucking inkling of what it means to have personal attachment to a piece of art, because if you did you wouldn't auction off the work of so many talented people to the highest bidding multinational, faceless fucking company. I am pleading with you, me the lowly serf to your towering example of misplaced societal power, I am pleading with you to leave us the fuck alone. I am pleading with you to leave just one stone unturned - one aspect of our lives that you do not cheapen and ruin in your pathological pursuit of AS MUCH MONEY AS HUMANLY POSSIBLE.

You people are blind drones, wasting your creativity and tainting that of others with this worthless contribution to this world. You're fucking blights on the landscape, ruinous blots that take everything and giving nothing back. One day you will be held accountable for your actions - when the last billboard has been sold, the last song licensed and the last original idea stolen the people of this world will sit back and realise how you have destroyed the heart and soul of a once fertile land.

"What did you do when you were younger, Granddad?"
"Well, Granddaughter, I cheapened the emotional impact of music and art for millions of people so that I could sell them running shoes that they didn't need, and made a fortune off companies that exploited little brown and yellow people in far-away lands."
"Granddad, you're a prick."

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currently listening to: the slow decline of western civilisation

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McGuffin

A mcguffin is a narrative device used by an author to instigate a series of events, motivate characters or advance the story. They are not intrinsic to the plot, as they only exist to serve one purpose, but their importance to character development and storyline is immense. An ambition of the main character, for example, is a mcguffin - it is a character trait that only exists to propel said character into the intended story arc. The briefcase in Pulp Fiction, for example, is a good mcguffin; the contents are never seen but they are important enough to push forward several storylines.

The wikipedia definition of a mcguffin here.

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currently listening to: Behind Two Hills, A Swimming Pool - Mum (with an umlate)

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Hate Rant

You know who I hate at the moment...? Who is particulary irking me at this very moment in time? I'll tell you who; thieves. Chav. Scum. Thieves.

I hate them because we have had a spate of thefts recently and it's beginning to weigh on my mind. Myself and several friends have all been stolen from recently - from the Big Chill to a spate of burglaries in Sheffield, we've all lost money and belongings. It's not so much the loss of the things, or their monotary value, but their importance to us. Good friends of mine had all their laptops stolen from their house - the computers themselves are worth nothing, but the files and work on them are. Our video camera was taken from the same house, it'd be worth almost nothing second hand but the tape in it had footage we really needed. One friend lost 10,000 words of his writing...

It bothers me immensely because the value of the items to anyone else is directly proportional to their worth to us. They have some old and useless equipment, and we're set-back financially - so no gain for anybody there. We're not the sort of people who have nice things, we have ramshackle collections of technology that we bind together to serve our purposes, not expensive toys that can be replaced.

Most likely we are in the same financial situation as the burglars, and by their actions all they've done is continued the cycle of poor that exists where we live. Instead of us standing together against the huge corporate thieves who steal from our society everyday, or the government who taxes every aspect of life so they can make profits on arms sales, we are instead stealing from ourselves and making our own lives more difficult.

They have also made me stop leaving the back door open so the cats can come and go, and to prick up my ears everytime I hear a strange noise. Maybe these are good things, but I really resent the actions of others having an effect on the way I behave in my own home. It's also a largely illogical concern - where I live is secure and hard to get into, and I would certainly hear any intruder, but my heartbeat still increases when there's a strange bump.

It has made me appreciate the value of backing things up, though. Any combination of computer could be lost now and I'll still have the data. That's the most important thing.

Tonight I'm going to wait in the shed with a shotgun and shoot the first thing I see. That'll help matters.

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currently listening to: Bob Dylan - Blowin' in the Wind

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The news

I can't read the news anymore. I just can't. It's too depressing.

I don't find it depressing in a 'state of the world' kind of way, although there is no denying that things seem to be slipping down our own moral blackhole faster than usual. What I find depressing is my relationship with the news... I am now too informed of the mechanics of the news industry and media at large to place any form of trust in them.

Before I was content to buy the Guardian and the Daily Mail, watch Channel 4 and ITV, log onto Fox and MediaLens and summarise that the truth is somewhere inbetween them all. Now I question whether anything really happened at all. It's not like I see conspiracy everywhere I look, but I feel that we have been lied to too many times, had our emotions played with too many times, and seen too many exposes of the 'truth' that our bluff has now been called. The press have become the boy crying wolf, and we are the villagers.

My first thought on the the Heathrow terrorist plot was disbelief. Not fear, or interest, but disbelief. I rolled my eyes and muttered 'whatever.' I don't doubt that this threat was imminent, and I entirely believe that the police and lawmakers did what was neccessary to prevent it going ahead. In fact, I'm thankful that they moved when they did and that the operation was a success, but when it comes to details I am incapable of believing anything I have been told.

The next day was the kicker. I had come to terms with my mistrust, and then I saw the headlines of the tabloids. The shock value of these papers, and their outright manipulation of truth and emotion is nothing new, but I simply refuse to place my confidence in any organisation that reprints pictures of 9/11 in a gratuitous and tittilating way. Particulary an organistaion that focuses on creating fear of what could have happened, rather than analysis of what did happen.

Tabloid hackery is tabloid hackery and, short of a missile attack on the offices of the Daily Mail, will be around a lot longer than it has any right to be. What I truly resent is how this approach to reporting is having a negative effect on all forms of reporting. The commentary pages of UK newspapers are begining to resemble a Fox News broadcast - not in the extremity of their opinions, but rather in an increased polarisation of left and right. You can either be on one side or the other, you can either be pro-Israel or pro-Lebanon, do you support the USA or not, are you a soft liberal who believes in human rights or a hardnosed righwinger who wants to see all detainees hang? We have lost our scope for rational thought, as if even our press have been caught up in lunacy of the argument and objectivity is a thing of the past.

In the Observer today there is a column entitled 'Why Zionists Must Stop Seeing Conspiracy Everywhere' or something to that effect. The column makes some good arguments against liberal paranoia, and some good arguments for it, but the crux of the article - reading between the lines - is that you must be either one or the other. If you support the feeling that Western foreign policy is a prime motivation behind terrorist recruitment, then you must also believe that all terror plots and threats against the country are made up by our government to control us. And vice versa. The voice of the middle ground - of rationality, or logic, or a bigger picture than tomorrows sales - has been lost.

Speaking as someone who could probably be descibed as leftwing, or liberal, or a communist, I resent having my well-thought out arguments and opinions reduced to a descriptive term. I find myself being labelled in a negative fashion alongside anybody who doesn't follow the official Western line... and all these little comments, and comparisons, and articles - they all contribute to a slow socialisation of thought until anybody who offers a rational, non-biased opinion becomes an enemy of state.

According to Front Page Magazine, Noam Chomsky is the most dangerous professor in America. Not the man who set up the website who claims to represent freedom by silencing his opponents, but the respected lecturer who offers a sociological world view and one of the most fecund ontologies in the modern media.

Life is not about black and white, and right and wrong, but about understanding and co-operation. That may be a soft, liberal, hippy, traitorous comment that illustrates how much I hate freedom and love Osama, but I promise we'll survive alot longer than if we just bomb the fuck out of anyone who disagrees.

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currently listening to: religious children

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Recruitment

This is the front cover of a Christian flyer that was handed to my housemate a few months ago.

Remarkable, non? Here's the inside front cover.

I draw your attention to the boxout at the bottom of the page. To make it easier to read I have enlarged the area. My apologies for the blur.

I think in this instance I don't need to say anymore. Any further comments on religion praying on the weakminded would counter my argument.

It's just fucking amazing isn't it? Best. Recruitment. Flyer. Ever.

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currently listening to: A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall - Bob Dylan

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Been a long time (shouldn't have left you)

Hmmm. My erstwhile mutterings have slowed down of late. I'd apologise, but I'm not that sort of guy - sorry.

I have been overly preoccupied with my photo blog recently, which is alot of fun but also an easy way of updating without actually trying. I always liked taking pictures, and I wasn't too bad at it either, but I think I need to try something new... I just checked out the 65daysofstatic blog and they have some new snaps up that kinda put my shots of them to shame.

I just got back from the Big Chill festival - my good friend Andy from Digitonal was playing and very kindly threw a complimentary ticket my way. He also very kindly sorted me out when, on the first night, someone came into my tent while I was sleeping and stole all my money.


At least they left the camera, huh?

The Big Chill is an odd festival... it's like the entire readership of the Guardian having a large picnic together. Families, hippies, media-types, liberals and artists all come together once a year to listen to world music and be polite to each other. Luckily, this is exactly what I like. After years of attending the corporate behemoths that is Reading/Leeds and feeling threatened by the tweenagers getting drunk for the first time, the Big Chill is a really nice alternative.

These days I enjoy sitting in a field drinking my body weight in rum, listening to music and talking to friends. The days of drugs and dancing are way behind me now... and I'm kind of thankful for that. I enjoy buying into the Big Chill spirit for a while, knowing that I'm not the only one; I like that everyone is nice to each other, that we all clean up our rubbish at the end, that you can do what you like without feeling scorn or riddicule. Y'know, all those things that we should do in real life.

After doing Truckfest and Glade in the last few weeks I was quite tired of festivals and slightly reluctant to go - I certainly couldn't be doing with anymore sleepless nights in a tent. The moment I got there though - and it should be pointed out that the Big Chill takes place amongst the most spectacular rolling hills - it all fell back into place, and I was home.

You can see the photos over at the, yup you guessed it, Day of the Dave photo blog.

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currently listening to: Righteous Brothers - Unchained Melody

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