"Tonight's Forecast: A Freeeeze is Comin" -or- "Cool Party" -or- "ICE!"

Here’s a true story to kick off with tonight: a guy with a gimpy hand came into my place of work the other night. You know those gimpy little claw hands that you see people going around with sometimes? One of those. Ok, so he makes his order and (by the way, I work in a takeout pizza place, maybe I should’ve mentioned that earlier) so he makes his order right, and when the girl goes to give him his pizzas he asks for a carrier bag. Thing is, the bags we have are that close to being too small to fit pizzas in so if someone asks for a bag I normally tell them to fuck off. It can’t be easy carrying all those boxes with a gimpy claw hand though, so this motherfucker gets special dispensation. Now picture this: he’s struggling to wrestle all of this food into his not-quite-big-enough carrier bag, the girl I work with is looking on with what I can only describe, at the risk of generalising, as typical Eastern European haughtiness and disdain (anyone else noticed that? Just me? Ok…) so I figure I’m gonna have to step in. Here’s what my opening gambit was: “Are you managing there mate, or do you want a wee hand?”

I swear to god, I only realised my blunder at the moment our eyes met, just as the words “a wee hand” passed my lips. “A wee hand,” I said. For serious. And here’s the tragic thing: in real life I would never use the phrase “a wee hand.” That’s just a goofy fucking phrase, man. It sounds like something I might’ve heard a proper person like a plumber or something say at some point, so to keep up the rouse of my completely affected “proper person” status at work it just sort of came out. I honestly didn’t know where to look.

Anyway enough about that. What else? Uh, it’s winter I suppose. I actually had a big sanctimonious rant about how you really ought to wear boots in the winter time and how people that wear trainers are lesser men than I am but I’ve had to sack that idea off, here’s why: I was out walking around in my boots yesterday feeling sanctimonious and everything and I took a fall on account of the ice. What a boob, I thought to myself. Here’s where it gets funny: I only fell over from a fucking standing start didn’t I? No word of a lie, there I was completely stationary at the side of the road waiting to cross and next thing you know, bam - I’m over. Explain that if you can… (By the way, here’s a quick aside: don’t think that that anecdote diminishes the veracity of my “winter-trainer-wearers lesser men” idea, that’s still true. Don’t wear trainers in the fucking winter, ok? Ok. And don’t even let me get started on cunts that wear ugg boots in the snow. Really? Ugg boots? In the snow? I don’t know, man…)

Ok, I don’t think any of this is all that interesting or entertaining so it’s time to fuck off and go and do something else. Go on, fuck off.

"Fuck You I Won't Do What You... Wait, What Do I Have To Buy?"

Ok, Rage Against The Machine are Christmas number one this year. This, reader, is an Important Thing. Yes it is. Yes it is, it made the front page, man. Big news. So anyway if you didn’t hear about it yet, or if you’re just as confused as I am, let me explain:

Some time ago there was a pretty mediocre rock & roll band and they came up with a load of songs that were all about not conforming, and not doing what The Man thinks you should do and all sorts of really cool but actually totally horsecrap teen-angst shit like that. This was really cool. Then, about fifteen years later about 200,000 people all got told to go and buy the same record and then they all went and bought the same record. This was also really cool. All clear? Good.

Ok, am I the only one thinking it’s sort of weird that the fucking refrain from Killing In The Name goes “fuck you I won’t do what you tell me,” and all it takes to get a bunch of jackoffs* to go and buy it is just telling them to? I don’t know, man. Maybe I’m missing the point. This whole thing was supposed to stop the X Factor getting to number one or something? That’s cool I suppose. And Rage Against The Machine are a pretty cool band, cooler than whatever softcock douchebag Simon Cowell managed to drag out of Phones 4 U’s employment pool this year anyway, but would it have made more sense to have a campaign that just went ahead and said “don’t buy the X Factor?” Surely that would have struck a much bigger blow in that, y’know, people wouldn’t have bought it? But that shit plain wouldn't have worked, here’s why: people (and I think I’ve discussed this before) are assholes. I figure it at about 90-95% of people are moronic assholes who won’t do anything unless they’re told exactly what to do and why it’s cool to do it. That’s why Rage Against The Machine’s fucking boner brigade are about a cock-hair’s width away from acting in exactly the same way as every unthinking dullard that went out and bought Retard Joe’s single. And that’s why there is nothing cool about this whole sorry affair.

By the way, if you’ve just finished reading and you’ve entertained this pile of dogshit at all, you’ve missed the point entirely. You see this article is completely academic because I’ve glossed over the fundamental point of the argument: it’s the Christmas number one. If you’re over the age of twelve and have even the slightest interest in Christmas number one you’re definitely some sort of backwards, arrested development retard that deserves to be sterilised or worse.

Merry Christmas Number One Jackoffs!





*P.S. I think I’m gonna bring the word “jackoff” into play. I think it‘s a good word. “jackoff…” Ok? Ok.

A Modern Way of Talking Shit About People and Things You Know Nothing About

I went to see this band idlewild the other night. You might know them. If you don’t you can probably stop reading ‘cos most of this is going to be about them. It’ll be sort of like a review of their show, except not really because I’m not important/pretentious enough to call it that, I’m not really anyone to judge other peoples’ artistic endeavours and probably nobody’s going to fucking read it anyway. With that out of the way, off we go…

Idlewild have a fucking array of techs; I mean they’ve got a veritable army of them. Ok, maybe not an army but a platoon or something. I don’t know but they have a fucking lot, probably more than any other band of their size/scale that I’ve ever seen. For this reason it was pretty surprising when they burst on the stage, smashed into their first song and one of the guitarists’ amp didn’t work. You’d think with so many paid assholes shuffling around the stage for twenty minutes before the band comes on at least one of them would think to check that the signal from the guitar was actually making it’s way to the amp wouldn’t you? Well you’d be wrong, asshole. So that whole scenario didn’t exactly make for the most dynamic, energetic start to the show and when they pulled out their smash hit song “American English” third I was still about as dry as a nun on Sunday so it didn’t really hit home for me. I’ve got to tell you, though, it seemed to work for the crowd, they went hog-wild for it. Bear in mind though that this is the same crowd who, just minutes previously, had gone hog-wild for the fact that “oh my god somebody brought a whistle and then they whistled the whistle and it made a whistle noise!” so, y’know, make of that what you will… It’s not like they played the song badly or anything, it just seemed, especially with them having technical issues, that it was in the wrong place in the set. This was an issue for me throughout the night. Once Zammo or whatever his name is managed to sort out his guitar they played pretty well, but their set just wasn’t cohesive. I think I’m right in saying there was a break after every single song and at times I felt like I would’ve been better just staying at home with my greatest hits CD which I don’t actually own. When I go to watch a band I expect them to put on a show and for me it felt like idlewild were just playing songs, it was almost as if I’d wandered into their practice studio one day when they were all pretty fed up and not really all that into it. That applies for their performance as well; lacklustre is one of the more polite words I can think of to describe the performance of a singer who repeatedly strolls offstage during the instrumental parts of the songs. It seemed, on the whole that they were spinning their gears… hold on a minute I just thought of something. Ok, bear with me, the very same day I went to see idlewild I happened to watch this tv programme featuring the foo fighters and I thought to myself that I’ve never been really excited by a band that predominantly features long hair and beards. Are you with me? Some long hair beard bands are pretty cool and everything but I can’t remember ever thinking “wow, this band is really really good, I’ve never heard anything quite like this before” in relation to a band with long hair and beards. Is that just me? Can you think of any bunch of long hair beard motherfuckers that don’t just bore the holy shit out of you after a while? No neither can I. Well, guess what sort of an outlook Roddy Woomble was sporting? That’s right, dickweed, and that’s probably why the show was a bit boring and a bit self-indulgent. Anyway that’s just my opinion so don’t shit your pants if you’re an idlewild fan or something.

Alright, I’m going to the doctor’s early tomorrow and get a tetanus shot so I’m finished with this. See you in hell fuckers.

Jan Moir Is A Massive Fucking Cunt

It was nary twelve hours after Steven Gately had shuffled off his mortal coil (by the way, since when did “A Man Has Died” become the news?) and I read somebody’s status on facebook, it read, “Steven Gately’s dead. What a bummer.” I laughed. I laughed and laughed, and let’s be honest blogosphere, so did you. And it’s ok to laugh at that. It’s funny; it’s a pun or play on words and it works and furthermore, it doesn’t make you a homophobe if you laugh at a joke that’s got the word “bummer” in it, not as far as I’m concerned anyway. I don’t know, but for some reason bigotry isn’t bigotry when it’s shrouded in humour; maybe it’s the satirical edge most learned people would imbue bigoted humour with (look at South Park if you’re wondering what the fuck I’m talking aboot) or maybe it’s some way to pull fascism’s metaphorical pants down, to make it look as ridiculous as it inherently is, The Great Dictator style, maybe it’s some sort of psychological coping mechanism, an attempt to make sense of something so incomprehensibly vicious. Whatever, I don’t know, all this is nothing to do with the blog, really. So, on to business…

Jan Moir is a massive fucking cunt. Before today I had no idea who or what Jan Moir is and frankly I still don’t; I know only two pieces of information about her: I know she writes for the Daily Mail and I know that she published an article which suggests, as far as I can tell, that Steven Gately died because he was gay. You can read that again if it tripped you up - in fact, read the article yourself; Jan Moir reckons Steven Gately died because he was gay. And this isn’t one of those crazy, Pastor Fred Phelps brand wrath of god style things, it’s the suggestion that the lifestyle of a gay man is lethal. Now I could spend the rest of this blog pointing out how she’s wrong and why she’s a fucking idiot if she truly believes what she’s written and an exploitative, opportunistic cunt if not but I’m sure that’s been done a hundred times already and any reasonable person can see what a stupid fucking piece it was. So here’s my point:

If you want to call someone out on their morals or beliefs, you’d better be in a completely unassailable moral position yourself and in this case, I believe I am. I know what you’re thinking; “No you’re not Luke. You’ve just finished recounting how you laughed at the word bummer lol.” Here’s the thing: I’m not a homophobe. Now I’m not out to prove that here, and I’m not using that phrase the way it’s usually used, i.e. as an overture to homophobia (“I’m not a homophobe, right, but…”) it’s just that the truth of the matter is that I am not a homophobe and Ms. Moir, on the evidence of her article, is. What this all comes down to is intent. Whoever it was who posted that joke on facebook didn’t intend it as a savage indictment of gay culture and my laughter wasn’t intended to convey my disgust at Steven Gately’s wicked, ungodly ways. Jan Moir’s intention, as far as I can tell, was to capitalise on a man’s death in order to provoke, to exacerbate, the idea that gayness is in some way different or other to society and that anything other is bad and wrong and has got to be stopped. She’s fucking wrong. She is ’cos I fucking said so. And that’s enough about that.

Fake Problems

Hello, my name is Luke and this, you’ve probably guessed, is my blog. I’ll tell you something that happened to me today: I was trying to eat, (a cheese and pickle sandwich and a plate of soup [cream of tomato] if you must know…) should’ve been enjoyable enough, am I right? Well it wasn’t, I’ll tell you why…
I’m trying to eat and right outside my window all I can hear is just my fucking sick-making neighbour using her fucking sick-making voice to call on her fucking sick-making cat that has mange and hangs around my garden all day, presumably to get a little respite from the old lady, who probably makes the cat as sick as she makes me. Anyway, all this going on, and I’m trying to dine. Put me right of, sure it did. Almost made me fucking sick. That, I promise you, is the most interesting thing that happened to me today. Actually come to think of it I heard this band called Fake Problems for the first time, they're very good. But anyway...

Is this what blogging is? ‘cos honest? It’s not grabbing me by the balls just yet. “hi, my name’s Luke and here’s a stupid fucking story about something stupid that happened to my stupid ass today and while we‘re at it here‘s what I had for lunch…” No, I don’t think so either. So forget that, and starting right now, here is my first real blog post…

I read this thing today all about downloading music for free, whether it’s acceptable or not and it got me to thinking, downloading music for free: is it acceptable or not? Well frankly I’m not for getting into that at the moment; it’s an issue of jurisprudence at it’s heart, and I reckon it’s something for another day and a lot more words than I‘ve got the will to lay down here. What I do want to get into is artists getting uppity about the issue, as if their decision to be an artist (and that’s all it is folks, just a decision) somehow puts them on a pedestal above the rest of us.

Andy Falkous of Future of the Left wants “to make the music we love and play it around the world without living in poverty.” Well I wish he could do that as well, really I do, but unfortunately for both of us things just don’t work that way. Art is not a job; you have a choice to make: either you create something you want to create and you’re proud of or you do something that’s guaranteed to make a profit. Needless to say which is the more admirable option; if you only want to make a profit you might as well get a job in a fucking call centre or something. I just don’t understand the argument that FOTL “poured a year of [their] lives” into this thing and that somehow entitles them to make money from it. Those two guys on Dragons’ Den who invented road kill toys probably spent ages, that doesn’t mean they should be entitled to have a ton of money stuffed up their arses. Not that I’m in any way equating FOTL’s record with half the shit on Dragons’ Den, the point is the fact that they’ve made a record they’re proud of should be reward enough. In the field of artistic endeavour profit should be a happy by-product, not a goal to strive for. That’s the way I see it anyway.

So what am I trying to say here? If you make the decision to step outside of what might be called mainstream employment, quit your job and focus yourself on a career in music you are taking a massive risk. That Andy Falkous might not make enough money to justify the year he spent making his record is a terrible shame, but it does not make him any more or less qualified to talk about the rights and wrongs of illegal music downloading than anyone else. I don’t think he’s been severely wronged here: I truly believe that most Future Of The Left fans will buy the album and will support the band in other ways besides (buying the aforementioned concert tickets, merch etc.) So the problem for Falkous, as far as I can see, is that his band doesn’t have enough true fans to be viable. Not because they’re a bad band, far from it. In a vain attempt to sum up an infinitely complex issue that goes straight to the heart of society I will say this: people are morons. Most people would rather just listen to Calvin Harris than bother to find out what music truly is and can be, so the record company makes sure that Calvin Harris is the next big thing with advances and marketing budgets and tour support and so on, and Future Of The Left, who have the principles to stay away from that kind of thing, get left to rot. Like I say, too complex to get into right now but for fuck’s sake, file sharing can’t prevent a band from being successful because in music profitability is not the yardstick of success.

There, that’s my first blog. Now fuck off.