Back from Californicating

It’s been well over a week now without leaving any ramblings on this here site. Partially, this may be due to the lack of support, empathy or common sense that comes from Google’s services to bloggers relating to the advertising situation. Ok, maybe I didn’t help by posting it to everyone that listened, but come on, cut a student some slack.

But, something else has really been the reason for this absence. I’ve been going through a new-found American TV show called Californication and have become thoroughly addicted. For those of you who are not familiar with this show, it’s about a famous author (Hank Moody), his ex-love (Karen) and their daughter (Becca) – but it’s not your average family comedy-drama. There’s gratuitous drink, drugs and women. It’s rare that I find anything on television these days that instantly grabs me, shakes me and doesn’t put me down, but this was a definite exception. Every character makes you feel something towards them – compassion, distrust, lust, hate and love (cliché, I know) and for that reason, you can’t just stop at one episode.

It also seems to bring something else out in me that I can’t quite put my finger on. Hank is by no means the most admirable of TV characters. More often than not his heart is in the right place, but his head is carelessly removed from the situations he finds himself in. He is however a hell of an icon, and I’m sure most guys would agree. He drinks himself under the table, drives a Porsche, can get almost any woman, and still maintains some degree of functionality through it all. It got me back into reading fiction as well. Something which I have recklessly abandoned for long periods at university – using the excuse of having to read ‘academic’ stuff instead – which I know is bullshit, as even then I hardly read anything. I spend much more time in front of this here screen, melting away into a stupor that will one day inevitably end in me having to get glasses.

Aside from all this, its just purely excellent script writing. It’s often profound in the way it shapes the relationships between the on-screen characters and the viewers, which is something I don’t think any TV show, let alone an American one, has been able to do since the end of Friends.  As you can tell I can’t praise this show enough. It’s got balls – something we don’t tend to witness on screen these days for whatever reason. If you haven’t checked this fine TV series out yet – do it. I don’t really need to say much more.

The Inevitable Amy Winehouse Entry

WARNING: IF YOU ARE AT ALL SYMPATHETIC TO THE CASE OF AMY WINEHOUSE’S DEATH, GET A GRIP.

Obviously, it’s the big news story. Amy Winehouse has died. You can tell it’s a big news story because you hear about it over Facebook or Twitter. I honestly, don’t really care. Well, maybe that’s unfair. I suppose I do. It does at least give prominence to the fact that many music artists can indeed succeed through addictions to dangerous drugs and the like. Oh, what brilliant role models we make as a country! At least there hasn’t been an international tragedy that may be overlooked by the pig ignorant this week though.

Wait a minute. There has. There has been a deep tragedy in Norway. A suspected religious fundamentalist - I will point out that it is a suspected Christian fundamentalist before the torrent of abuse against people of Islamic faith begins – has decided to brutally murder over 90 people near Oslo, the nation’s capital. I fear, however, that because this is a non-English speaking country, many of you won’t care quite so much as the situation of the dead Brit in Zante or anything similar. Obviously, those are still tragic examples of the evil that men do in this horrible word of ours, and I don’t wish to insult the people whom this affects acutely, but the ordeal in Norway is definitely one of the biggest issues we have faced since 9/11. I’m not trying to be melodramatic, but it is. It shows that Islamic Fundamentalism has risen to a point where Christian extremism has had to rear its ugly head in rebuttal. Luckily it appears that these are one man’s lone opinions expressed in the worst possible way, but I foresee a horrible BNP-esque press cover up of the fact that this was so.

But, I digress. Fundamentalism and the media is something I will save for my dissertation. What really has pissed me off about this whole issue is the fact that merely a month or two ago she was a laughing stock, devoid of all respect for ridiculous performance in (I believe) Serbia. For those of you who haven’t seen or heard about this gig, she came out and gave the most amateur display of professionalism I have ever seen. It was disgraceful. I have never in my life been so thoroughly unimpressed by a musical performance as when I watched this awful clip, and I’ve seen some pretty poor acts in my time. So, nobody liked or respected her and rightly so. But I can almost guarantee that come tomorrows charts, or at the very least, next weeks’ we will see Amy atop of them. It may be based somewhat on her talents, but I do feel that ‘Rehab’ may be slightly distasteful given it’s lyrics and apparent forewarning, and let’s face it, that was her best (and only good?) song. Funny really, seems death is the best way to get respect…. 

The Highs and Lows of Rediscovering Music

Most audiophiles out there will agree that there is a certain sense of joy in discovering new music. Even if it’s something as awful as Rebecca Black, there’s just something about finding it, being able to talk about it, being able to anonymously spew verbal abuse about her and her music over YouTube that gives us a feeling of inclusion, and most importantly, an ability to exclude certain people from our conversations.

What about rediscovering music though? It’s something I have done a lot of by chance recently. And it can be fun, an enjoyable nostalgia of sorts. I’m currently listening to Jay-Z’s Vol.2 – Hard Knock Life, one of the very first hip-hop albums I ever owned – and this was back when I did buy all my CD’s legally. It’s nice, it’s been at least two years since I last listened to the album in its entirety. But that is just about where the joy of rediscovering this particular personal treasure ends. I’m listening to it, enjoying it, but I know that if I were to click shuffle on iTunes at any point after the album is finished, I could well be confronted with a modern incarnation of this music – a Flo Rida or 50 Cent track which I bought years ago and be so thoroughly disappointed by the way music has gone that I decide to slit my wrists with the broken shards of their CD’s. Yesterday’s music has been completely and utterly bastardised. Some genres have definitely suffered worse than others though.

Hip-hop and rap music was at one point everything to me. Even though I am, and to the best of my awareness, always have been white and Scottish. But it really did move me. There was so much passion. There was real story telling. There was something. Now more than ever it is all about shit I’ve never heard off using London slang which alienates everyone north of Barnet (approximately). The worst thing though is that anything meaningful is pushed further underground than a Chilean miner and almost impossible to come across.

Rock music (as much as I hate that idiotic sounding term) seems to have gotten progressively stronger. With the exception of manufactured pop-punk bands of the You Me At Six vane of course. There really are some great bands out there, and most impressively, it’s some of the ‘classic rock’ bands that are making some great stuff; AC/DC, Iron Maiden, etc. But again, soon after I’ll come across a band which I thought were bloody good only a year or two ago, and wonder why I subjected my ears to such torture.

There is, however, one genre that seems not to age, not to be cheesy, not to be uncool. Acoustic music. There’s something in that particular genre that is timeless. Stuff from Johnny Cash all the way down to exciting new up-and-comers like Ed Sheeran is always refreshing and conveys emotion perfectly. But even that’s in danger. As long as people continue to cover ridiculous pop songs, manufactured by the same band of X-Factor autocrats, that made a right cock up of Many of Horror as lately as last Christmas, we could be in for another slow decade before we get some real music again. Guess I’ll stick to the Biffy for now…

Oh, what to write about...

Ok, it’s been a fair wee while since the last blog of mine and I’m starting to get the itch to write some more for you lovely people.

Unbelievably, this is the first blog I’ve written with a hangover. As such, I feel rather like a scientist, probing ever deeper to find what most students long for more than anything else – a hangover cure. We shall see how well I manage this task come the end of this entry into my ramblings…

But what to write about this time around? I saw, about two entries into blogging, that this could become a common issue to this hobby of mine which I sincerely want to stick to.  To resolve this, I downloaded the Evernote software and decided to note down anything I thought I could make something of in this blog. Looking over it however, I found that I was no longer really passionate about these. I’ve kept them though. There’s a definite chance that I will one day become intoxicated with rage regarding these things and find some use in venting to the unknown who read this page.

One such topic that I do find quite interesting was actually a statistic in the ‘i’ newspaper, brought to you by the reliable sources at The Independent for only 20p. It was a list of things that Brits miss most on holiday. Although I have now thrown out the paper I can roughly remember that quite high up on the list was ‘missing pets’. Fair enough. I kept reading. Lower down the list (about number 9) was missing family and friends. I must admit, I’m not an animal lover. But I’m not really a people lover at times either. Still, how heartless must we be as a nation to be so attached to an animal, that humans, perhaps those who raised you, or formed you as a person, can be so low on the list? I suppose it goes to show the lack of compassion we have, something I feel that, although at times I may also be guilty of, is a much overlooked value which we lost sometime around the age of television.

But, no, I don’t want to blame television. Too often it becomes the go-to scapegoat of choice. It is instead the people, who watch, and produce, the inane shows that do numb our minds to what’s going on in the real world. Death itself is no longer cared about unless it is a mass tragedy, or has occurred in a sick and brutal way. Thank you very much news channels. Talent is no longer sought after. It has become far too easy to achieve the goal of fame merely by being chosen by producers to be observed for 24 hours of ‘entertainment’. Thank you very much reality TV. No longer do we observe innocence or the greater good. We are now far too concerned with the inner workings of companies which have progressed us as a race, big companies without whom we would not be able to afford the things we desire. It is instead more important to us to know how and why they do it, and find the evil inside them - just to make the small businesses feel more important, and less like it’s their fault that they haven’t succeeded. Thank you very much self-righteous documentary makers.

Obviously television does have its uses. Politics for example would be much less accessible to the younger generation.  Sport wouldn’t be the multi-national concept that it is now, with money being fed into small communities to uphold quality sportsmen and women for the next generation. There are countless examples of the benefits of television, but the type of low quality programmes we have forcibly become content with are increasingly overrunning them. It needs to be reversed but I’m afraid it may be too difficult to change the minds of the mindless that enjoy these shows.

Ok, I got that off my chest. Turns out small ideas can evolve. I didn’t really plan to focus on that but there we go. And I feel better for it. Again, I hope I’ve made you think, even just a little.

Please, leave comments or feedback. I would love to hear what you think... possibly. 

Never Mind Brought Up, Have You Even Been Dragged Up?

Let me start by saying that I have found it refreshing to see that more people I know have started blogging – or at least potentially doing so more regularly. I will be the first to admit that I thought it would be a non-starter for me but has definitely started to slightly take over my life! Better this than nothing I suppose. However, that is merely a warm introduction to what I’m sure some who read this will find to be quite a cold blog towards certain people.

It was when talking recently with a very good friend of mine that we realised that although many of the people we had grown up with, and some whom we were exceptionally close to, seem to have done absolutely none of the maturing which, at least I, had revelled in. I consider myself an adult now and tend to do all functions as such. I have even endeavoured to wipe my own arse, which I am sure some of the aforementioned children (and I call them this as they clearly still have such a mind-set) have neglected in favour of being overwhelmingly reliant on the people around them. But this got me wondering further. I mean, whoever is idiotic and tolerant enough to be manipulated by these mugs can surely not have done any maturing themselves. It may be a mother or father clinging on to the good ol’ breastfeeding days, a sibling taking an (over) protective interest in their wee brother or sister, or a partner who has so willingly clambered underneath the thumb of said mug, but all of these options, and others, have allowed this to happen! Shame on you! Oh, and take that PERSONALLY, I truly mean it.

In truth, I have less animosity towards those who haven’t done the growing up than the ones who have accommodated such ridiculous behaviour. What’s worrying though is the abundance of these people at universities. And I’m not just talking Chester here, as I have seen them on my travels when visiting friends at other universities. I just don’t understand how the world’s future ‘academics’ (ironic as it may be) can not keep a hold of their house keys, book a hair appointment, or go a week without calling home for those oh so precious comforting words from home. It’s time to grow and let grow. I’m confident that if any of them did this they would feel great emancipation both in themselves and the people they have entrapped.  Once this has been allowed, we may see some true intellectualism develop and whatever the true potential of some of these people may be realised.

As a warning of what may become of these people we only need to look at the mentality of someone like Boris Johnson who appears to be 99% intelligence and 1% common sense. Such evidence shows that we need a minimum of 49% common sense to survive unscathed in this world.

Student Jobs Or Lack Thereof...

Time for another gripe of mine. No surprises there. This time I target the whole idea of finding a job as a student. Now, I'm not talking about finding work after one has graduated of which we are assured by government after government that there will be plenty made for us. Praise Buddha for Tesco and McDonalds! Rather, I'm talking about the extremely thin chance of finding something to support yourself on over the summer so that you have money to piss up the wall come freshers week. Literally.

I  laboriously typed up a new and improved CV over a couple of hours as a brief respite of doing absolutely nothing with my life and decided to go on a quest to find work. Little did I know that epic journeys such as those of Odysseus would pale in comparison to trying to find a job at a bar or as a sales assistant. I understand that the managers of such grand institutions have got quotas and the like to fulfil in terms of how many employees they can have because of budgets, but what really pisses me off is the fact that, more often than not, I go into these places as a customer and the staff who they have so carefully employed are in fact complete and utter idiots. They barely know their arse from their elbow. Not to sound too snobbish, but I'm midway through a degree - I'm pretty damn confident that I can do better than those half-wits. And would probably do so for a lower hourly rate!

But then, I feel no real distaste towards the planks that work in these shops or bars, it's the requirements instead which really get to me. This is definitely more so in relation to waiting and bar staff, of which it is almost unanimously expected that you have 'previous experience in this type of environment'. Give me a fucking break. How am I meant to gain such experience when no company will employ me because of a 'lack of experience'. It really is just a cycle of despair. In my view, experience as a customer would be just as beneficial. I know what customers would want. It is hardly surprising that I regularly do dine out and that I more regularly frequent bars. I know what is good service most importantly. And surely this would help a company more than someone given experience by an elderly, senile distant relative who gave them a job cleaning toilets in a similar establishment out of unashamed sympathy for the knowledge-less prat that they inadvertently spawned. 

But then there are the cheap and quick methods of making small amounts of money on the side that come forward all to irregularly. I am currently on a list for medical testing, writing freelance religious articles (as this is my area of expertise), mystery-shopping and countless other ways of gaining a bit of pocket money. But this is hardly the way I want to spend my days at uni. I would much rather get out there and do some hard graft serving pretentious pricks or the like. Who knows why though? I struggle interacting tolerably with normal people as it is. Maybe the money would pull me through that cavern of darkness…

Female 'Comedians'

Well, I did it. I've converted over to the Apple way of life. The MacBook Pro arrived yesterday and I have to admit it's fucking excellent. Unbelievably fast and powerful. No complaints thus far, but let's face it, it's only been a day.

However, I do have a gripe that arose yesterday which I feel I must tell you about - female comedians. They're shit. And I don't know why. My friend Pete and I ventured to The Laugh Inn here in Chester for the first time and for, about the first 45 minutes or so, were thoroughly entertained by the compere (Andrew Ryan) and the first act (Mike Wilkinson). By no means were they anything special, and I wouldn't expect to see them on McIntyre's Road Show any time soon, but they were a couple of entertaining blokes. However, after the intermission we welcomed on a young comedienne by the name of; well to be honest, she was that good I couldn't even remember her name five minutes later. Through some research (Facebook) I managed to find out her name was Katie Mulgrew. Admittedly, I am not particularly fond of female comedians, even the chosen few who have made it 'big'. Again, I don't know why this is, it just doesn't seem to work as well as the material which their male counterparts tend to come up with. Anyway, she went through her act and there was some stifled/forced laughter coming from some parts of the audience, much of it from a group of pissed women celebrating a 30th birthday (why they were doing this on a Thursday when the birthday was on the Monday I have no idea!), but even there it did not seem natural and I certainly didn't get the impression that the laughs were the authentic belly-laughs which we had heard from the table during the previous two acts. I will be the first to admit that some of the material was genuinely (or at least potentially) good, funny observational comedy. It just didn't seem to work.

This got me pondering what it was about female comedians that left them as seemingly unfunny as they are. And I don't think it's only me that has this opinion, based on previous experience of live stand-up gigs and the lack of joviality when the female comedian walks on stage. Although I have very little regard for Bernard Manning, I believe he had a good point in an interview when he said that the base material of female comedy being periods, pregnancy and men being pricks - essentially, overly feminist. Rather ironic coming from a chauvinist prick such as Mr Manning but I do feel that there is some truth to that. However, this was not the sort of material that Katie employed last night. It was much more intelligent than that for the most part. So does it perhaps come from a lack of stage presence or confidence in a very male dominated art form? I don't believe it does. Katie appeared very confident on the stage and used body language very well, and when we look at some of the most successful female comedians (Jo Brand, Sarah Millican, Joan Collins, etc.) this is definitely not true. Now these comedians I have just mentioned all have some decent material that I will openly laugh at (Millican excluded), but so they bloody should. They've been at it for years and wouldn't deserve the success if they didn't. 

I think when it comes down to it, it's merely the fact that comedy is a very fickle form of entertainment, and women just tend not to fit the bill for your average audience, whether it is a subconscious stereotype kicking in or poor material or whatever you want to decide it is. By no means should they stop trying, on the contrary they should try even harder, and I don't mean to become more similar to their male counterparts, but rather to find that niche and fill it with excellent material and stage presence. They could be great. But for now I think the Big Yin can sleep safe as the King of Comedy.

More ramblings....

As expected there has been a sharp decline in the expectations of my usage of such a blog. However, it is mainly due to the fact that I'm a lazy git and have been waiting for a rather opportune moment. Such as this one.

Again I'm sat in the library. This time though, I have no work to do. What the fuck am I doing with my life I wonder. Well, I came in with the intention of trying out the Macs available in the library to help me make a decision on whether or not to splurge out on one with my nice, new overdraft. However, it appears that you can only log into them if you are an art-fag. Fucking typical. As always, the marvellous University of Chester seems to cater for every need other than that of an average student. Guess I shouldn’t have expected it to be easy then.

But other than that it’s been a great period of just under a month since I last (and first) blogged. My uncle has come back from Iraq for an extended period due to Deep Vein Thrombosis, which he is almost entirely cured of now, and there has been a great revelation of peace within the realm of 82 Cambrian View. Amazing how things can turn out I suppose. Other than that, I’ve also managed to create more space in my bedroom, which in turn means it will likely only get more cluttered in a larger areas. Fuck. Really seems like I’m going to have to keep on top of that. Maybe I could buy an immigrant….

Intro

Right, I'm sat in the library about to do some critical reflection. 'Oh, how fun' you must be thinking. Yeah, it's just as fun as it sounds. Utter shite. I don't really understand why a five week placement can count for 10% - surely they will get more information about your work skills from the people observing you day in, day out than from trying to grasp some concept of you through 3,600 words of crap that you have made up just to meet the deadline. Uni life baffles me sometimes.

Anyway, as this is meant to be an intro, I may as well just let you know that I'm a 20 year old student/cynic/old fuck studying religion at university. No, I don't believe in any gods or supernatural shit, it just intrigues me that people can and do live their life around it. I live in a house of 8, there are about 3 or 4 of them who I generally tolerate and thankfully one of them has left to raise a family (in the loosest sense of the word). But who the fuck's really interested in what I have to say. Will probably quit this shit soon. Motivation isn't really my greatest quality.