Yes, I know, it’s not just people in the suburbs who have to go grocery shopping. But the difference for suburbanites is that going grocery shopping is one of the few times that we get out the house. Ironically, we spend a lot of time pining to leave the house for a change of scenery, but the only time it happens is to do something we hate. Or, as I regularly express it when I’m on the way out the door: "I’m just off to the fucking shop."
That’s a sort of cry from the heart hoping that someone else might take the chore off my hands. But as my daughters are nine and 11, they’re no more likely to volunteer for the task than in future years when they’re 17 and 19 and in possession of drivers’ licences. As for Mrs. Stay-At-Home-Indie-Pop, she’s not home mostly (that’s why, alert readers will have noted, I’ve got the SAHIP gig), and at weekends she sensibly follows her daughters’ lead of ignoring my desperate appeal. If I’m lucky, a response may echo from some distant corner of the house, such as, "Bye, see you later" or "Don’t forget my hibiscus and broccoli tea-bags."
SAHIP. I’m a SAHIP. I’m saaaaaaa hip.
On weekdays, supermarkets are full of horny housewives who ‘accidentally’ bump into you, spill their shopping, and then after you’ve helped them pick it up, thank you by inviting you back to their place for no-holds-barred, no-emotional-strings-attached sex. I’ve lost count of how many times this has happened to me. Probably on average at least never in my eleven years as a SAHIP. Not that I’ve been looking for it, you understand.
It’s different at weekends, when you can see Clueless Saturday Dad wandering around the supermarket aisles with a crumpled list in his hand, accompanied by an irascible kid (usually a boy) trying to kick him in the nuts from his prime vantage seat in the front of the trolley every time Dad turns down his demand for something unhealthy to eat. Saturday Dad’s too pre-occupied working out why he’s now going down the same aisle for the eighth time and still hasn’t found shortening ("What the fuck is shortening?" he’s now finally asking myself) to listen to the increasingly shrill demands for the tropical fruits bubblegum maxi-pack. Eventually he caves in and thrusts the Superbowl-Sized Cheetos Jumbo Bucket into junior’s hand before breaking down in tears when he sees the length of the queue at the deli and realizes he’s going to miss the Tampa Bay Fratheads’ midday kick-off against the Chunkneck College Beefboys.
Anyway, as if going to the shops wasn’t already an unadventurous enough experience, there’s Morton.
I’ve changed Morton’s name in case he’s one of the three people that read this Blog. He’s a cashier at one of my regular local supermarkets. He’s a very big, morose lad in his late 20s, and he never smiles. When I say never, I mean never, as in ‘sex-with-horny-housewives-I’ve-met-in-the-supermarket’ never. It’s his life policy. I’ve been passing through Morton’s till for years, and not once has he hinted at any kind of internal or external happiness.
It’s now got to the point where I’d rather go to a cashier with a longer line than watch Morton dolefully scan my groceries. You may think I’m exaggerating, but the moment I see Morton, I feel profoundly depressed. It’s not empathy. It’s resentment at his failure to escape a job and a life he clearly despises (why can’t he find work as a SAHIP?), and the imposition of his misery every time I go shopping. When you catch a glimpse of Morton it’s like being physically struck around the head by an embodiment of all that’s hopeless in the human condition. Like the dementors in Harry Potter, Morton will suck your soul out, make your shoulders slump, and force you to feel, "Jesus Christ, what is the point of going on for another single fucking minute?"
If there’s no avoiding Morton’s queue – say, for example, there are 16 people in line at the checkout next to him, and he’s completely free – then I’ll always be polite and friendly to him, though I won’t bother trying to waste an attempted joke, which would be like pissing on a Californian forest fire. Not because I want to be nice to the sad fuck, but because the day he comes to work with a plastic carrier bag full of heavy weapons and goes on the rampage, aisle by aisle, he might just notice the bloke who politely answered his drawled and automated query of "howyadoin" with a chirpy, "I’m fine thanks, how are you?" and finish me off cleanly with at least ten bullets to the head rather than letting me bleed slowly to death through a single, careless shot.
It’s the kind of exciting outcome grocery shoppers secretly yearn for.
Great Suburban Traditions: Number 1 – The Piano Recital
Great Suburban Traditions: Number 2 – Neighbourhood Watch
Great Suburban Traditions: Number 3 – Dog Crap
Great Suburban Traditions No. 4 – Asexuality
Great Suburban Traditions No. 5 – Limited Guilt
Monday, October 15, 2007
Friday, September 28, 2007
Everything Connects To Lincolnshire
Last night I was watching the wonderful Watson Twins sing at the Black Cat in DC, with a couple of black German beers taken at the nearby Saloon pub (the friendliest, beeriest watering hole in the city) swishing through my grateful veins, and generally feeling that if I was born to be enlightened in any way, it was during moments like this.
The twins were acting as more than adequate support to the rock-n-soul-country-blues fusion (a new coverall category for every CD I own) of the equally magnificent Magnolia Electric Company, the only band I like whose genius lead singer-songwriter looks like the kind of bloke who used to stop me outside English rural pubs in the early 1980s and say, “Be you wantin’ a foight?” Jason Molina in his various guises brings out more records than I’ve got time to listen to, the latest being a five-disc genuine wooden box with a free medallion and MEC wallpaper. I haven’t actually played it yet, just fondled it.
Anyway, after the Watson Twins had played I ambled over to buy a t-shirt, and started talking to the twin with the flashing smile, Chandra. She asked me where I was from, and when I said Lincoln, UK, she said, “Oh, that’s near Grantham.” Alarmed that she should even have to know of Grantham’s existence, I asked her how she’d heard of the place. Turns out the Watson Twins once spent a term there on a study exchange. “I think they sent us there so that we wouldn’t have a chance to go crazy or anything.”
She said some kind things about the Lincolnshire countryside, and that she was aware Grantham was the town that had spawned and raised the most destructive, and most hated, British prime minister of the 20th century. Fortunately, I resisted the impulse to ask her if she’d been to watch Grantham Town FC during their Lincolnshire sojourn, thus avoiding the Instant Idiot label I’ve historically found plastered to my brow when talking to attractive women.
This post needs a conclusion. It’s this: I feel certain The Watson Twins were the best thing that ever happened to Grantham. Lack of comments below will serve as confirmation.
The twins were acting as more than adequate support to the rock-n-soul-country-blues fusion (a new coverall category for every CD I own) of the equally magnificent Magnolia Electric Company, the only band I like whose genius lead singer-songwriter looks like the kind of bloke who used to stop me outside English rural pubs in the early 1980s and say, “Be you wantin’ a foight?” Jason Molina in his various guises brings out more records than I’ve got time to listen to, the latest being a five-disc genuine wooden box with a free medallion and MEC wallpaper. I haven’t actually played it yet, just fondled it.
Anyway, after the Watson Twins had played I ambled over to buy a t-shirt, and started talking to the twin with the flashing smile, Chandra. She asked me where I was from, and when I said Lincoln, UK, she said, “Oh, that’s near Grantham.” Alarmed that she should even have to know of Grantham’s existence, I asked her how she’d heard of the place. Turns out the Watson Twins once spent a term there on a study exchange. “I think they sent us there so that we wouldn’t have a chance to go crazy or anything.”
She said some kind things about the Lincolnshire countryside, and that she was aware Grantham was the town that had spawned and raised the most destructive, and most hated, British prime minister of the 20th century. Fortunately, I resisted the impulse to ask her if she’d been to watch Grantham Town FC during their Lincolnshire sojourn, thus avoiding the Instant Idiot label I’ve historically found plastered to my brow when talking to attractive women.
This post needs a conclusion. It’s this: I feel certain The Watson Twins were the best thing that ever happened to Grantham. Lack of comments below will serve as confirmation.
Saturday, September 22, 2007
"You Haven't Heard of APB? Really?"
I was driving down Democracy Boulevard in Bethesda yesterday, listening to a retro-compilation CD of early 80s Scottish indie-funk boys APB. It was a warm day, so the windows were down. At a red light, a pick-up truck stopped to my right. ‘What Kind Of Girl?’ was blasting out. The bloke in the driver’s seat was staring at me, not in a hostile way, but like he wanted to ask me something.
“What year’s that?” he shouted, pointing vaguely.
“1984, I think,” I shouted back.
He looked baffled, began to mouth something, and pointed again, this time at the car. Then I realised. “Oh, you mean the car?” I said. “Passat, 2003.” He looked relieved, began to talk something auto-technical, I switched off immediately, then the light changed and I sped off (I was running late).
That’s the ridiculous mental world that I live in. I genuinely believe that when someone in a pick-up truck stops next to me, he may have enough knowledge of an obscure early 80s band from Aberdeen to not only recognise one of the songs, but to be genuinely curious about what year their biggest hit came out.
This is the same mentality that has seen me waste much precious life-time making compilation tapes and CDs of music I think other people ought to know better. And that they will come to love that music and thank me for culturally enriching their lives. Occasionally it works, a little, but never as much as I think it’s going to.
If it had been a film, the pick-up truck driver might have been into APB. In scripts, characters are supposed to say things that surprise us and confound our prejudices. In real life, though, it doesn’t happen quite so often. Not that this is something I’ll ever learn.
“What year’s that?” he shouted, pointing vaguely.
“1984, I think,” I shouted back.
He looked baffled, began to mouth something, and pointed again, this time at the car. Then I realised. “Oh, you mean the car?” I said. “Passat, 2003.” He looked relieved, began to talk something auto-technical, I switched off immediately, then the light changed and I sped off (I was running late).
That’s the ridiculous mental world that I live in. I genuinely believe that when someone in a pick-up truck stops next to me, he may have enough knowledge of an obscure early 80s band from Aberdeen to not only recognise one of the songs, but to be genuinely curious about what year their biggest hit came out.
This is the same mentality that has seen me waste much precious life-time making compilation tapes and CDs of music I think other people ought to know better. And that they will come to love that music and thank me for culturally enriching their lives. Occasionally it works, a little, but never as much as I think it’s going to.
If it had been a film, the pick-up truck driver might have been into APB. In scripts, characters are supposed to say things that surprise us and confound our prejudices. In real life, though, it doesn’t happen quite so often. Not that this is something I’ll ever learn.
Thursday, September 06, 2007
Standing Still At The National
Concert audiences of my generation stand mostly still. In my teens I would bounce and spit at the front. In my 20s I’d get drunk beforehand, then bounce and ruck somewhere in the middle of a sweaty, heaving mass of leather jacketed indie-boys. In my 30s, I started watching from further back. Now I could just as easily be at the front again, if I politely eased my way forward, because nobody up there at the lip of the stage is moving either. The most mobile people at an indie-concert these days are the bar staff.
Last night at the 9.30 Club in DC, the captivating and richly voiced indie-sextet The National played plenty of mellow songs to sway to gently while contemplating The Great Existential Posers (now there’s a band name, although I tend to contemplate more obscure stuff - last night it was a game of football I played badly in 17 years ago). But there were also more than enough fast and loud numbers to which, at one time in musical history, you might have expected people to shake their heads and wildly move their bodies. And you could tell that some of us still wanted to, as though the mind was willing, but the body wasn’t. Because we’re all in psychological straitjackets.
I can’t speak for all the other inconspicuously leg-jerking but chiefly static pundits, but my own feeling is that it’s unseemly for an Indie-Pop of my age to be throwing himself around at a night club. First, I’d only had one beer because I was driving. Second, if you touch anyone at a concert nowadays, even just brush past them, you feel obliged to apologise. So knocking them over in the thrall of a speedy, thrash-led song is just no longer part of indie-etiquette. People drink, but you never see them drunk. No one caterwauls the lyrics. Instead they sing quietly to themselves.
Although the cheers and applause at the end of every song were loud and spontaneous enough, the crowd behaviour during the songs themselves reminded me of a classical music concert, where the unstinting bourgeois norm has always been to sit rigid and noiseless, internalising any emotion that you might be experiencing at the beauty of the music. A discreet tear at evening’s end may be allowed to modestly display one’s sensibilities.
The live concert used to be an experience you took part in by moving and screaming. Now I feel I might as well buy the requisite technology - massive screen and surround sound technology - and watch the concert DVD at home. With no one there to watch me, I might even dance.
Last night at the 9.30 Club in DC, the captivating and richly voiced indie-sextet The National played plenty of mellow songs to sway to gently while contemplating The Great Existential Posers (now there’s a band name, although I tend to contemplate more obscure stuff - last night it was a game of football I played badly in 17 years ago). But there were also more than enough fast and loud numbers to which, at one time in musical history, you might have expected people to shake their heads and wildly move their bodies. And you could tell that some of us still wanted to, as though the mind was willing, but the body wasn’t. Because we’re all in psychological straitjackets.
I can’t speak for all the other inconspicuously leg-jerking but chiefly static pundits, but my own feeling is that it’s unseemly for an Indie-Pop of my age to be throwing himself around at a night club. First, I’d only had one beer because I was driving. Second, if you touch anyone at a concert nowadays, even just brush past them, you feel obliged to apologise. So knocking them over in the thrall of a speedy, thrash-led song is just no longer part of indie-etiquette. People drink, but you never see them drunk. No one caterwauls the lyrics. Instead they sing quietly to themselves.
Although the cheers and applause at the end of every song were loud and spontaneous enough, the crowd behaviour during the songs themselves reminded me of a classical music concert, where the unstinting bourgeois norm has always been to sit rigid and noiseless, internalising any emotion that you might be experiencing at the beauty of the music. A discreet tear at evening’s end may be allowed to modestly display one’s sensibilities.
The live concert used to be an experience you took part in by moving and screaming. Now I feel I might as well buy the requisite technology - massive screen and surround sound technology - and watch the concert DVD at home. With no one there to watch me, I might even dance.
Monday, August 06, 2007
A Weak Apology For Giving Apple All My Money
My iPod is ancient. It’s almost two years old. It still works perfectly fine, but I can’t help feeling that soon I’m going to buy a new one.
It has a 20 Gigabyte capacity, and a black and white display. They stopped selling them soon after I bought it, and then you could only buy a 30GB device with a color screen. Clearly my model was considered way too limited – you can’t see the album artwork, and you can’t watch videos. All you can do is listen to music, which is all I wanted it for. But still, color’s better than black and white.
My ancient iPod has 4,579 songs on it at the moment, almost full to capacity. That’s more songs than I have time to listen to, but maybe only about one third of my CD collection. I get 30 new downloads a month off eMusic too, and a lot of the time I delete old songs to make way for the new ones. Which I don’t have time to listen to. But still, if I could get 20,000 songs on there instead of nearly 5,000, I would.
It’s a little grubby, and a little scratched, but I’m still in awe of all that it holds. I still love to cradle it in my right hand and marvel at the fact that there are almost 5,000 songs in this tiny little device. Though it’s not as tiny as the ones other people wear down the gym. Those slim iPod Nanos, like the ones I bought my daughters for getting good end of year school report cards. And which I didn’t mind buying because I love going to the Apple shop and looking around and writing them a fat check. In this respect, I’m a brand name sucker.
Obviously, I don’t need a new iPod. But I’m thinking, I could leave this one in the kitchen, in the iPod boombox, and then have a brand new, color, 80GB iPod for carrying around. You see, that would save me the huge hassle of ejecting the old one from the boombox, and putting it into the carrying case I have for strapping it to my left arm at the gym. Yes, it seems I really would pay $349 to cut out the bother of such a quick and simple task. Maybe I’ll get a third iPod for the car. And another one for the holiday cottage, even though we don’t have a holiday cottage.
There are no other brands or devices that seduce me this way, except possibly adidas t-shirts and training tops, which I think has something vaguely to do with the 1970s and my first ever football shirt. My iPod infatuation also goes back to my youth, when I dreamed of being rich enough to have a house with its own music room, and a giant jukebox that would play random tracks from my entire record collection, taking me by surprise at every new song.
I didn’t need to become rich. Apple invented something much better. All I’m doing is showing them my gratitude.
It has a 20 Gigabyte capacity, and a black and white display. They stopped selling them soon after I bought it, and then you could only buy a 30GB device with a color screen. Clearly my model was considered way too limited – you can’t see the album artwork, and you can’t watch videos. All you can do is listen to music, which is all I wanted it for. But still, color’s better than black and white.
My ancient iPod has 4,579 songs on it at the moment, almost full to capacity. That’s more songs than I have time to listen to, but maybe only about one third of my CD collection. I get 30 new downloads a month off eMusic too, and a lot of the time I delete old songs to make way for the new ones. Which I don’t have time to listen to. But still, if I could get 20,000 songs on there instead of nearly 5,000, I would.
It’s a little grubby, and a little scratched, but I’m still in awe of all that it holds. I still love to cradle it in my right hand and marvel at the fact that there are almost 5,000 songs in this tiny little device. Though it’s not as tiny as the ones other people wear down the gym. Those slim iPod Nanos, like the ones I bought my daughters for getting good end of year school report cards. And which I didn’t mind buying because I love going to the Apple shop and looking around and writing them a fat check. In this respect, I’m a brand name sucker.
Obviously, I don’t need a new iPod. But I’m thinking, I could leave this one in the kitchen, in the iPod boombox, and then have a brand new, color, 80GB iPod for carrying around. You see, that would save me the huge hassle of ejecting the old one from the boombox, and putting it into the carrying case I have for strapping it to my left arm at the gym. Yes, it seems I really would pay $349 to cut out the bother of such a quick and simple task. Maybe I’ll get a third iPod for the car. And another one for the holiday cottage, even though we don’t have a holiday cottage.
There are no other brands or devices that seduce me this way, except possibly adidas t-shirts and training tops, which I think has something vaguely to do with the 1970s and my first ever football shirt. My iPod infatuation also goes back to my youth, when I dreamed of being rich enough to have a house with its own music room, and a giant jukebox that would play random tracks from my entire record collection, taking me by surprise at every new song.
I didn’t need to become rich. Apple invented something much better. All I’m doing is showing them my gratitude.
Thursday, July 26, 2007
Big Vans And Mad Pilots
I was traveling around the US last week, from DC to Denver to LA and back again. When you’re moving from place to place, your mental state alters as frequently as your location.
On the plane flying in to Denver, we started descending quite steeply through the clouds, which gives you a sudden scary sense of how fast you’re going, unlike on those nice smooth gradual descents. This served quickly to convince me that I was about to die, and all I wanted in the world was to be safely on the ground again.
Safely on the ground again, we parked on the tarmac for half an hour, because our gate was occupied. So I was all impatient. I was hungry because I forgot that airlines don’t serve food any more, and I refuse to pay for it, so all I'd had was a small bag of pretzels. And it was getting late and I needed to pick up my hire car and find my hotel before they closed the restaurant. Twenty minutes earlier, I’d been yearning for this very same secure, solid stretch of Colorado ground. Now, driven by my stomach (a powerful lobbyist), my inner bitching mechanism was in full whine.
So we landed at eight, and I was at the front of the car hire queue by 9.30. “We don’t have the compact car you booked, but you can have a van,” said Bob of Thrifty. Whatever, Bob, I’m hungry. Just give me the keys. I’ll be soccer mom for a couple of days. We did the paperwork (another ten minutes) and I went out back. So, turns out it’s not really a van, more of a truck. The sort of thing eight people would take to the mountains for a long skiing and mountaineering holiday.
It’s hard to drive around Denver faking an expression that implies you’re on your way to pick up a youth soccer team. In the end I gave up and came to begrudgingly like the monster. We went through some tough times, but we did it together. Like parking in a narrow space in downtown Denver and reversing back out with a 43-point turn. And driving the wrong way down a one way street as three lanes of gesturing drivers headed towards us. How we shrugged, and laughed.
Things couldn’t have been more different in LA, where this time Thrifty had my compact Kia. In fact they gave me a choice of four, which was fantastic, even though they all looked the same, so I couldn’t actually decide. It was like being offered four identical cupcakes. Does that one have slightly more icing?
Anyway, I drove around for two days with the windows down, listening to music, like a dude. There were streets everywhere. It was all very cool until I drove into a Sheriff’s Checkpoint one night. Want to know what that is? It’s a checkpoint set up by a sheriff to randomly check drivers’ licenses. Freedom ain’t free, buddy. But don’t worry, kids, I’m white, and they waved me through.
On the flight back I had a window seat, and so I periodically stared down at America. This country’s clouds are under-rated. The pilot was as mad as a jar of crickets. He delivered a rapid-tongue monologue on how we should live our lives and love with a passion. But he got us home, so he got some applause.
On the plane flying in to Denver, we started descending quite steeply through the clouds, which gives you a sudden scary sense of how fast you’re going, unlike on those nice smooth gradual descents. This served quickly to convince me that I was about to die, and all I wanted in the world was to be safely on the ground again.
Safely on the ground again, we parked on the tarmac for half an hour, because our gate was occupied. So I was all impatient. I was hungry because I forgot that airlines don’t serve food any more, and I refuse to pay for it, so all I'd had was a small bag of pretzels. And it was getting late and I needed to pick up my hire car and find my hotel before they closed the restaurant. Twenty minutes earlier, I’d been yearning for this very same secure, solid stretch of Colorado ground. Now, driven by my stomach (a powerful lobbyist), my inner bitching mechanism was in full whine.
So we landed at eight, and I was at the front of the car hire queue by 9.30. “We don’t have the compact car you booked, but you can have a van,” said Bob of Thrifty. Whatever, Bob, I’m hungry. Just give me the keys. I’ll be soccer mom for a couple of days. We did the paperwork (another ten minutes) and I went out back. So, turns out it’s not really a van, more of a truck. The sort of thing eight people would take to the mountains for a long skiing and mountaineering holiday.
It’s hard to drive around Denver faking an expression that implies you’re on your way to pick up a youth soccer team. In the end I gave up and came to begrudgingly like the monster. We went through some tough times, but we did it together. Like parking in a narrow space in downtown Denver and reversing back out with a 43-point turn. And driving the wrong way down a one way street as three lanes of gesturing drivers headed towards us. How we shrugged, and laughed.
Things couldn’t have been more different in LA, where this time Thrifty had my compact Kia. In fact they gave me a choice of four, which was fantastic, even though they all looked the same, so I couldn’t actually decide. It was like being offered four identical cupcakes. Does that one have slightly more icing?
Anyway, I drove around for two days with the windows down, listening to music, like a dude. There were streets everywhere. It was all very cool until I drove into a Sheriff’s Checkpoint one night. Want to know what that is? It’s a checkpoint set up by a sheriff to randomly check drivers’ licenses. Freedom ain’t free, buddy. But don’t worry, kids, I’m white, and they waved me through.
On the flight back I had a window seat, and so I periodically stared down at America. This country’s clouds are under-rated. The pilot was as mad as a jar of crickets. He delivered a rapid-tongue monologue on how we should live our lives and love with a passion. But he got us home, so he got some applause.
Thursday, June 28, 2007
An Easy Way To Bring About World Peace
Ever since the anti-war rally to the Pentagon car park on a nut-freezing Saturday back in March, I’ve been haunted by two things. First, the looks of unbridled contempt and hatred from the pro-war counter-protesters. Second, by one of their signs, which read, “Fight them over there, not over here.”
I’ve got a better idea. If the legions of thick-necked, peacenik-hating, patriotic, steely-eyed hardmen are gung-ho enough about this war to show up and heckle as traitors those of us who are against it, why not let them just fight it? Over here, in America. What are they scared of?
Here’s how we could bring it on.
The hinterland rednecks have more in common with al Qaeda than they think. They’re both deeply conservative, and they both love killing people they disagree with, usually in the name of a non-existent God they believe will reward them for their combative endeavors. So jet all those jihad-loving enthusiasts professing to want to kill Americans over here (presuming they can resist the impulse to hijack the plane), and let them slug it out with those pro-war Americans so quick to back the “war on terror”, but not so keen they’re actually over in the Middle East to prosecute it.
There’s a huge open space at Gettysburg ready for the showdown. Simply arm both sides to the teeth, place them at opposite ends of the battlefield, blow a whistle and let the hand-to-hand killing commence. The alluring sight of fat, leather-clad bikers roaring towards their robe-wearing counterparts-in-hate could be broadcast with commentary from retired generals on the ESPN Xtreme Sports Channel (“Gettysburg 2 – yet again, the war to end them all!”). Sign up sponsors too. “This portion of the slaughter is brought to you by the National Rifle Association,” would make so much sense, not to mention cash.
The battle continues until one side has killed every one of its opponents. There’s no surrender, because that’s peacenik talk. The winners are handed a placard that reads, “Congratulations, you have won the Holy War!” They will be allowed to retire to the Aleutian Islands on a no-exit visa.
Final result: Peace. There will be no more pro-war rednecks, and no more pro-jihad terrorists. No more calls from South Dakota to back a war that’s thousands of miles away, and no more self-destructing scum left to blow themselves up in a crowded market. As all the self-declared warriors of God think they’re off to their respective heavens anyway, they’ll be happy to die as well. Everyone’s a winner.
This prototype combat scenario can be used in all arenas where two parties believe the best way forward is through violence. With reactionary pro-war philosophies nullified, the path for progressive thought is cleared at last, and the human race gets to continue evolving after all.
This Solution for World Peace is brought to you by an unread blog. You’re most welcome.
I’ve got a better idea. If the legions of thick-necked, peacenik-hating, patriotic, steely-eyed hardmen are gung-ho enough about this war to show up and heckle as traitors those of us who are against it, why not let them just fight it? Over here, in America. What are they scared of?
Here’s how we could bring it on.
The hinterland rednecks have more in common with al Qaeda than they think. They’re both deeply conservative, and they both love killing people they disagree with, usually in the name of a non-existent God they believe will reward them for their combative endeavors. So jet all those jihad-loving enthusiasts professing to want to kill Americans over here (presuming they can resist the impulse to hijack the plane), and let them slug it out with those pro-war Americans so quick to back the “war on terror”, but not so keen they’re actually over in the Middle East to prosecute it.
There’s a huge open space at Gettysburg ready for the showdown. Simply arm both sides to the teeth, place them at opposite ends of the battlefield, blow a whistle and let the hand-to-hand killing commence. The alluring sight of fat, leather-clad bikers roaring towards their robe-wearing counterparts-in-hate could be broadcast with commentary from retired generals on the ESPN Xtreme Sports Channel (“Gettysburg 2 – yet again, the war to end them all!”). Sign up sponsors too. “This portion of the slaughter is brought to you by the National Rifle Association,” would make so much sense, not to mention cash.
The battle continues until one side has killed every one of its opponents. There’s no surrender, because that’s peacenik talk. The winners are handed a placard that reads, “Congratulations, you have won the Holy War!” They will be allowed to retire to the Aleutian Islands on a no-exit visa.
Final result: Peace. There will be no more pro-war rednecks, and no more pro-jihad terrorists. No more calls from South Dakota to back a war that’s thousands of miles away, and no more self-destructing scum left to blow themselves up in a crowded market. As all the self-declared warriors of God think they’re off to their respective heavens anyway, they’ll be happy to die as well. Everyone’s a winner.
This prototype combat scenario can be used in all arenas where two parties believe the best way forward is through violence. With reactionary pro-war philosophies nullified, the path for progressive thought is cleared at last, and the human race gets to continue evolving after all.
This Solution for World Peace is brought to you by an unread blog. You’re most welcome.
Wednesday, June 06, 2007
Accidentally Liking Travis
A terrible thing happened to me recently. I accidentally liked a Travis song.
It happened like this. I was listening to the sample CD from my favourite monthly music magazine, Paste. I like to listen to the CD blind a few times before I read the magazine itself, which often features many of the artistes on the disc. You know, so I’m not prejudiced against a band with a stupid name, like Umphrey’s McGee. And that way, if I like any particular song, I can take the time to read about the band. If not, I can skip the interview or featurette and save a few minutes of my precious life.
Track 4 seemed a little familiar. I might have heard it on the radio a few weeks back while driving around England. It was highly derivative, very 80s, post-indie, melodramatically sung, and catchy. I found myself flicking back to track 4 on the car CD player to hear it again. I started to warble along like an abandoned teenager.
Finally, I looked on the disc to see who the mystery artiste was. Travis. Fucking Travis.
This might not seem a serious matter to you. But back in around 2002 I was in London and saw Travis on some kids’ tv programme performing a few songs, and they seemed to represent everything that was wrong with…oh, I don’t know. The modern world? Youth today? Kids’ tv programmes? What was I doing watching kids’ tv programmes anyway? Still, they were feckless and twee, and the only ideas they had were nicked from all the bands I’d liked 15-20 years earlier, and then battered into chart-ready submission. Or so I ranted to a few people at the time, none of whom looked remotely interested or impresssed by my incisive cultural analyses.
I can describe what it’s like discovering that you like a song by Travis. It’s like eating a succulent, perfectly spiced pot roast and then being told it’s your pet dog. It’s like waking up from an erotic dream involving Isabelle Adjani to find that you’ve been sleepwalking and are naked in the street with your tumescent manhood entrenched in the arse of the rotting raccoon that was knocked over by a truck three days earlier. Possibly worse.
At first I went into denial. I didn’t really like the track at all. Then maybe, I reasoned, they’d made a good song by accident – with all that time and money spent in the studio, a congress of Chacma baboons would have eventually done the same. Then I tried listening to the song so often that I thought I would start to hate it. Tragically, that hasn’t worked.
Bugger me. I’m not hip after all.
It happened like this. I was listening to the sample CD from my favourite monthly music magazine, Paste. I like to listen to the CD blind a few times before I read the magazine itself, which often features many of the artistes on the disc. You know, so I’m not prejudiced against a band with a stupid name, like Umphrey’s McGee. And that way, if I like any particular song, I can take the time to read about the band. If not, I can skip the interview or featurette and save a few minutes of my precious life.
Track 4 seemed a little familiar. I might have heard it on the radio a few weeks back while driving around England. It was highly derivative, very 80s, post-indie, melodramatically sung, and catchy. I found myself flicking back to track 4 on the car CD player to hear it again. I started to warble along like an abandoned teenager.
Finally, I looked on the disc to see who the mystery artiste was. Travis. Fucking Travis.
This might not seem a serious matter to you. But back in around 2002 I was in London and saw Travis on some kids’ tv programme performing a few songs, and they seemed to represent everything that was wrong with…oh, I don’t know. The modern world? Youth today? Kids’ tv programmes? What was I doing watching kids’ tv programmes anyway? Still, they were feckless and twee, and the only ideas they had were nicked from all the bands I’d liked 15-20 years earlier, and then battered into chart-ready submission. Or so I ranted to a few people at the time, none of whom looked remotely interested or impresssed by my incisive cultural analyses.
I can describe what it’s like discovering that you like a song by Travis. It’s like eating a succulent, perfectly spiced pot roast and then being told it’s your pet dog. It’s like waking up from an erotic dream involving Isabelle Adjani to find that you’ve been sleepwalking and are naked in the street with your tumescent manhood entrenched in the arse of the rotting raccoon that was knocked over by a truck three days earlier. Possibly worse.
At first I went into denial. I didn’t really like the track at all. Then maybe, I reasoned, they’d made a good song by accident – with all that time and money spent in the studio, a congress of Chacma baboons would have eventually done the same. Then I tried listening to the song so often that I thought I would start to hate it. Tragically, that hasn’t worked.
Bugger me. I’m not hip after all.
Thursday, May 10, 2007
When You Can't Let Go Of Kristin Hersh
Kristin Hersh brought out her seventh solo album earlier this year, ‘Learn To Sing Like A Star’. I bought it, because I always buy the new Kristin Hersh solo album, just as I always used to buy records by her band The Throwing Muses. But it would it be a lie to say I was excited at the purchase.
The record is pretty much what you’d expect. It’s a good record, but it’s not outstanding. It’s a good Kristin Hersh record, but not an outstanding Kristin Hersh record. I wasn’t surprised by it, but then I didn’t expect to be surprised by it. So why did I buy it? Because I just can’t imagine a new Kristin Hersh record coming out and me not buying it.
Why can’t I move on? When I want to listen to Kristin Hersh, why can’t I listen to one of her six other solo albums instead and save myself twelve bucks? Maybe it’s brand loyalty. I think that when Kristin brings out a new disc, she expects a certain level of sales among her fans. She has four children to feed. It would just feel wrong to leave it on the shelf.
Kristin is the only one of my indie-pop heroines ever to have spoken to me. At a show at the Iota Café in Arlington a couple of years ago, I was watching her from my seat at the bar. As she came off the small stage at the end of her performance I moved my legs so she could get by. “Thank you,” she said courteously.
How could I not buy her new record after that?
The record is pretty much what you’d expect. It’s a good record, but it’s not outstanding. It’s a good Kristin Hersh record, but not an outstanding Kristin Hersh record. I wasn’t surprised by it, but then I didn’t expect to be surprised by it. So why did I buy it? Because I just can’t imagine a new Kristin Hersh record coming out and me not buying it.
Why can’t I move on? When I want to listen to Kristin Hersh, why can’t I listen to one of her six other solo albums instead and save myself twelve bucks? Maybe it’s brand loyalty. I think that when Kristin brings out a new disc, she expects a certain level of sales among her fans. She has four children to feed. It would just feel wrong to leave it on the shelf.
Kristin is the only one of my indie-pop heroines ever to have spoken to me. At a show at the Iota Café in Arlington a couple of years ago, I was watching her from my seat at the bar. As she came off the small stage at the end of her performance I moved my legs so she could get by. “Thank you,” she said courteously.
How could I not buy her new record after that?
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Great Suburban Traditions No. 5 - Limited Guilt
Much of our time in suburbia is spent dealing with solicitations for money, either by post, telephone, or a personal knock on the door. It’s part of the tradition that the last two only call when you’re either dropping off for an afternoon nap (the interesting thing to do post-lunch in the 'burbs), or about to sit down to dinner, which may be irritating, but at least gives you an excuse to hang up or slam the door in their tired, hope-drained faces. I’ve never done it, but I bet that going door to door to raise cash or sell something is the quickest way to lose faith in the human race, aside from watching wrestling fans watch wrestling.
It’s logical that, in a country that mostly shuns the idea of the welfare state, the suburbs are targeted as a perceived area of surplus cash. And the great thing is, there are enough good causes to go around and make everyone feel that little bit less guilty about living in a privileged, if lifeless, neighbourhood.
The snag is, however, that once you’ve written a cheque to three worthy environmental causes, your name gets put on the Worthy Environmental Cause Suckers’ List. So rather than making you feel that you’ve done your bit, you just get more and more letters from organizations that desperately need your money NOW to stop a melting polar ice cap from flooding your front yard (at least it would wash away the dog crap – see Great Suburban Traditions No. 3). You give to a good cause, but end up feeling even guiltier because of all the other good causes you haven’t given to.
Even worse, once you’ve joined the Sierra Club, to quote a very worthy but particularly annoying cause, they sniff your cheque, sense there has to be more where that’s come from, and then bombard you with more money requests. Wait a minute, you planet-saving scum, I just sent you my annual membership, and now you want more already? Get off my case until next year and leave me alone. Don’t send me e-mails, and don’t send me the magazine - you’re wasting trees and I never read it anyway. It just makes me feel guilty about stuff like not turning off my computer at the wall every night and failing to cycle 3000 miles to my holiday destination.
Ultimately, though, your suburban sense of innate self-entitlement gets the better of you. There’s only so much room for guilt out here when there are lawns to be mowed and flat screen TVs to be installed. You decide that the best way of getting green is to grow your own vegetables, theoretically saving you a future trip to the supermarket. You also decide, “Screw them, I’m not going to give them anything if they keep asking me for more cash every second week anyway.” The Chesapeake Bay Foundation’s fifth successive urgent appeal goes straight into the recycling bin, and I don’t even bother to open the envelope and take the free address labels out any more, though that’s mainly because I already have 600 Chesapeake Bay Foundation address labels, and I only ever post about three letters a year.
Paradoxically, the less you give, the fewer solicitations you receive. And as you hear no more appeals for help, you convince yourself that all must be right with the world, provided you don’t read the paper, turn on the news, pick up the phone, or answer the door. Not that anyone comes to the door since I dug that bear-pit in the front garden to catch the Girl Scout cookie sellers.
It’s logical that, in a country that mostly shuns the idea of the welfare state, the suburbs are targeted as a perceived area of surplus cash. And the great thing is, there are enough good causes to go around and make everyone feel that little bit less guilty about living in a privileged, if lifeless, neighbourhood.
The snag is, however, that once you’ve written a cheque to three worthy environmental causes, your name gets put on the Worthy Environmental Cause Suckers’ List. So rather than making you feel that you’ve done your bit, you just get more and more letters from organizations that desperately need your money NOW to stop a melting polar ice cap from flooding your front yard (at least it would wash away the dog crap – see Great Suburban Traditions No. 3). You give to a good cause, but end up feeling even guiltier because of all the other good causes you haven’t given to.
Even worse, once you’ve joined the Sierra Club, to quote a very worthy but particularly annoying cause, they sniff your cheque, sense there has to be more where that’s come from, and then bombard you with more money requests. Wait a minute, you planet-saving scum, I just sent you my annual membership, and now you want more already? Get off my case until next year and leave me alone. Don’t send me e-mails, and don’t send me the magazine - you’re wasting trees and I never read it anyway. It just makes me feel guilty about stuff like not turning off my computer at the wall every night and failing to cycle 3000 miles to my holiday destination.
Ultimately, though, your suburban sense of innate self-entitlement gets the better of you. There’s only so much room for guilt out here when there are lawns to be mowed and flat screen TVs to be installed. You decide that the best way of getting green is to grow your own vegetables, theoretically saving you a future trip to the supermarket. You also decide, “Screw them, I’m not going to give them anything if they keep asking me for more cash every second week anyway.” The Chesapeake Bay Foundation’s fifth successive urgent appeal goes straight into the recycling bin, and I don’t even bother to open the envelope and take the free address labels out any more, though that’s mainly because I already have 600 Chesapeake Bay Foundation address labels, and I only ever post about three letters a year.
Paradoxically, the less you give, the fewer solicitations you receive. And as you hear no more appeals for help, you convince yourself that all must be right with the world, provided you don’t read the paper, turn on the news, pick up the phone, or answer the door. Not that anyone comes to the door since I dug that bear-pit in the front garden to catch the Girl Scout cookie sellers.
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