^{http://www.escapism.co.uk/}PRAEst76

I just posted this massively off-topic rant on a mailing list I'm on. It's a variation on something I've been banging on about for ages; the deification of celebrity. I doubt it'll be the last time you hear from me on this topic.

I considered since it was a largley off-topic ramble that I should repost it elsewhere as people in the original mailing list will probably just sigh and skip to the next post.

Labels: music biz, rants, repost

Written by PRAEst76 on Wednesday, March 26, 2008

I love how the modern concept of making friends means adding someone to a list on some poxy website.

Last week some stranger was railing at me because I removed him/her from my "friends" list on a popular website. I had confirmed their request to add me a week previously because when they requested my friendship I'd confused them with someone I already knew, whom I assumed had lost access to their account or had to change it because they'd attracted some lame stalker due to adding random people to their profiles as "friends". This person then sat silently on my friends list until I noticed they weren't who I thought they were and removed them. No contact. No "Hi, thanks for adding me." No attempt at trying to actually make "friends". Yet on removal they adopt this offended act.

So this is what passes for "friendship" these days? No wonder the suicide rate has shot up. These people must be incredibly loney, but then aren't we all? Since adding some of my long.term friends to Facebook they have withdrawn all other contact with me. I've since removed a few as they ignored my personal messages despite bombarding me on a daily basis with notifications and application requests. This phenomena is worse, I feel, than those "friends" who used to send you nothing but lame email forwards of unfunny funnies, vomit inducing prayers and "Bill Gates will give $1 to Tiny Tim for every friend you forward this to" voluntary spam.

I realise now that for me the novelty of Facebook ended quite some time ago and I continue to use it as it seems to be the only way to keep in contact with some of my so-called friends.

Should these people really matter? Normally I'd say no. Get some new friends, better friends. However online social networking sites are such a ingrained part of modern society that it's hard to find people who have slid into this mire. Modern life is so full of tacky gimmicks and manipulative devices designed to sedate and homogenise the populace that it's so easy to just let yourself be lead into these pens for the sake of an easy life. Though I'm not sure life gets any easy and it's certainly not very rewarding.

I'm not going to do what I would have done in the past and remove myself from all these offending situations, avoiding and scorning the people I know within and hidng in a self-made cave for a few months feeling sorry for myself and hating the world. I just alienate people who probably don't deserve it, make myself bitter and put on weight from comfort-eating mushrooms. However I'm getting very tired of these places and the shallow commercial relationships built there. I need to talk with people face-to face. Share blood, sweat and tears with people (HIV test results pending), go to the pub for a laugh, go for walks etc etc. Exclusively online friendships are shite. Especially if conducted solely through the medium of the social networking site. It's not right, don't you people see? This is no friendship and calling it such is insulting to the whole concept, not to mention unhealthy.

Phone your friends on those sites, or if you don't like phones then save up and go and visit them. If you can't step up their friendship level with them in this manner then perhaps you need to ask yourself if they are really friends? If you were in dire staits would they lend you a tenner 'til pay day? Would they come see you if you were grieving? Would they send a gift to your wedding? Would they show up to your funeral?

Talk to them, like real people talk. Find out who they really are. What they really like, what scares them. If they aren't up to their level of conversation with you or ignore you... remove them. Having three great friends on your 'friends list' is better than 350 shallow morons you don't even know.

There are guides giving you tips on "How to Double Your Friends List". I've just told you how to halve yours. It's better in the long run.

Friendship is important. Don't turn it into another shallow commercial concept.

Labels: rants, social

Written by PRAEst76 on Wednesday, March 19, 2008

I do believe that a lot of problems in the world today are caused by people, discontent with the world around them, trying to change the world to suit their own ideals rather than trying to change their ideals to suit the world.

A conformist attitude? Only when you think about this in a political mindset.

You don't like the idea of gays. You don't like the idea of them, behind closed doors having passionate man-sex. So what do you do? Do you a) Try to come to terms with it? See the situation from a holistic view and weight it against other things and learn to accept lifestyles you don't fully comprehend? or do you b) Raise your voice in protest against the evils of sodomy and turn a blind eye to gay-bar nailbombers content in the knowledge that the only good pervert is a dead pervert?

Sometimes it's easier for people to try to change the world to suit their mindset that thinking that perhaps their mindset is what needs changed. No-one wants to admit they have a problem. Especially if they feel up against it. Human beings are still animals. Despite our attempts to distance ourselves from it these animal instincts flow out constantly, unchecked and often ignored. In order to understand the animal within you need to accept the animal within.

No-one wants to be a victim, this often makes people defensive. As part of the animal instinct is the instinct to prey on the vulnerable. This doesn't so much emerge physically as socially. Of course drunken hooligans will still have the urge to jump the little guy gleefully but socially the mob will jump on those that reflect and relent. No-one wants to admit their mistakes, to admit they are wrong. Society says we should respect and regard those that admit their mistakes but the animal within means the reality is the mob. So often it's easier to cover mistakes. Stick to outmoded ideals, or to just not even admit to ourselves that there might be anything even remotely wrong with what we think. Doubt leads to hesitation and the mob will pick up on this.

What is the solution? Admit the animal and understand it? Give into the animal? Either are options. As is carrying on denying the animal within. Which will lead to either of the first two options anyway, with less control and less awareness.

Maybe what we need to do is breed a culture where people feel they can safely admit their mistakes and not fear mobs smelling weakness. To breed out the insecurity that causes this. for society to finally decide if we are an all encompassing loving accepting culture or a tribe driven by survival of the fittest. Culture says the former, instinct says the latter. And we can't deal with the instincts until we, as a race, admit we still have them.

Labels: rants, social

Written by PRAEst76 on Friday, July 08, 2005

BBC News: MPs to hear of hate crime

A parliamentary committee is to hear evidence of hate crime in Northern Ireland when it meets in Belfast.

In May, a report by the committee found hate crime was a "rapidly growing problem" in the province.

So, let me get this straight; some government body has spent tax-payers money in discovering that some people in Northern Ireland are hateful bigots?

Perhaps if they spend more tax payers money they may find evidence of other things. Like the fact that some of them are drunk, eat chips, and are called Steve... or Phil... and have ugly children. They may also find evidence that some of them are overweight and can't speak proper. Perhaps if they look even deeper they'll find evidence that some people in the civil service are just parasites creating unnecessary work for extra pay. And that Gerry Adams is a shift beedy-eyed man with a beard and Ian Paisley is a senile old bigot and both have them have indirectly but possibly knowingly caused the deaths of many people over the past 30 years. Or perhaps that kind of investigation would offend too many people who are otherwise quite happy to offend anyone they like because that's their right. Oh I feel my own hate rising here. I must be careful incase I offend someone.

I wonder if the person who wrote this article for the BBC did it with a straight face? I'd find it hard to imagine. If this doesn't show up as a headline on the PDN I'll be very dissapointed.

I think one of them main problems people in Northern Ireland have is with THE BLEEDING OBVIOUS.

Christ. I need to go and lie down, this has been too much.

Labels: rants

Written by PRAEst76 on Monday, September 13, 2004

Press Release Relief

The Officially Unnofficial THROBBING GRISTLE DVD
(recording session paperdoll stick puppet recreation)

Following serious email interest from a couple of people since my post on the grief list on the subject I should elaborate on my TGDVD recording session stick-puppet theatre video offer:

This video will feature the FULL TGDVD session as it appears on the bootleg mp3s I downloaded and the full concert film played out imaginitively by myself using handmade paper-dollies of the band mounted on lolly-pop sticks, augmented by choice FX from some old BBC Radiophonic Workshop LPs. This will be filmed in traditional SVHS handicam format lovingly distorted by bad focus and over-caffinated operation. The video itself will come specially wrapped in black dyed surgical stocking with the TG logo hand-drawn on it in red crayon, this will be contained in an old seventies style ladies shopping bag bought in the local branch of WarOnWant (the style of the individual bags may differ according to supply) along with a certificate of ownership and five glossy printed cards showing screenshots of random websites about riverside wildlife. Each package will be individually numbered from 1 to... whatever number it goes up to.

Each set will be hand-crafted to order and may contain individual quirks that will add unique charm to this special piece of historical importance.

I'm offering this video free of charge to all of those who wanted to see TG over the past year but couldn't because they wanted to wait to see if anyone else they knew was going or for their tax rebate to come through. There will be a modest administration/handling charge of £400 payable in used notes in a brown paper bag left in the back-seat of an abandoned Ford Fiesta beside the line coming into Norwich train station. Please remember to leave your address and phone number along with the names of your children and what school they go to.

This is a once in a lifetime offer (unless it comes up again later).

Look out for my forthcoming Genesis P-Orridge paperdoll. Recreate Genesis P-Orridge in the comfort of your own home (or somebody elses). The first in my Put Some Bloody Clothes On! series of paperdolls for shameless exhibitionists with poor taste.

This notice is intended for satirical purposes only and is not to be taken anyway other than lightly.

Labels: music biz, rants, satire

Written by PRAEst76 on Friday, September 10, 2004

I've said this before and I'll say it again, no matter how many people think it's a right-wing statement; people don't deserve freedom. They bang on about their rights to do this, and their rights to do that. They demand it on a daily basis, and when it's delivered they demand more.

And what do they do when they get it? They abuse it. They abuse it to the limit of it's endurance and when it breaks they demand it fixed. Email is a case in point. Email is a wonderful thing. It's one of the greatest gifts to the human ability to communicate. And what did people do? They fucked it up to the point where it's virtually useless. Why? For their own personla greed. As they have also fucked up virtually every other gift given to them.

Every single freedom granted to mankind has been taken and ruined by mankind. No, not everyone is guilty of this, but enough. And everyone else stands by and lets it happen because they don't want to take away anyones 'freedom'. Over the years this has become worse. Stepping on anyones toes, restricting anyones freedom of expression or their freedom to do whatever the hell they feel like is seen as an abuse of human rights... when the same people who rabbit on about their 'rights' and 'freedom' routinely abuse and restrict the rights of others on regular basis.

My own personal belief is this: That people should earn rights, that in order to have rights granted to you you have to prove that you are capable of respecting those rights and respecting the rights of others. Right now we have a system where your rights are expected to be adhered to without you having to give a flying fuck about anyone elses. Other people can die, they can starve, they can live in misery, they can be driven to poverty and despair, can even be bombed off the face of the earth and you don't have to give a shit so long as you get your slice of pie, the slice YOU are due, and if you can get two slices because someone else was too slow finding a plate then so be it.

At some point if we want to evolve and stop the slide of devolution we will have to start taking some responsibility for the wider world we live in. Responsibility for the parts of it we touch. The people we effect. For people to get beyond this fucking need to make money and power at all costs. To get to a point where they feel that doing something to make quick cash or a thrill that will hurt someone else might not be worth it. Even if you don't know them. Even if you don't have to see them suffer or cry. To realise that sending that pile of bulk emails is going to stress a load of people out and perhaps there might be a better and more honest way to make a living...

Make a living. What a misused phrase. It used to imply what people did to get though live. To put the food on the table. To clothes the kids. To pay for the home. And to maybe pay for some nice things. These days it's all about making as much money as possible, regardless of where it comes from or who has to lose out. At some point making enough money to live comfortably stopped being enough and now people just want ot make as much money as they can. Because they can. There is talk of the Disney takeover. Which may go ahead, because the shareholders think they can get more money, despite the fact it might lead to Disney becoming more of hidously manipulative cash cow than it already is. It doesn't NEED to make anymore money. But it's the way of business; enough is never enough. More, and more, and if there is some way of making even more then so be it.

Greed. No-one wants to hear about it. It's passe. Nothing wrong with wanting the best. Life is hard. Survival of the fittest. If so then I wish people would be honest about it. Then we can get rid of those wasteful facilities for looking after the runts of the litter. The welfare state, the free health services, the money spent on looking after the old, the crippled, the infirm. think of all the money that could be saved and put into more important things if we didn't have to support the weak.

Which way is the true way forward for the human race? Learning compassion? Or losing it? Because at the moment we are just living in hypocrisy.

Labels: rants

Written by PRAEst76 on Sunday, February 15, 2004