The sun was high in the sky over Los Angeles, casting harsh shadows onto the pavewalk. I looked around, marveling at the little details around me. Each brick was individual in each of it's grooves, like a thumbprint. Yet all bricks were the same. I pushed my way past the people walking aimlessly down the street, got to a crossing and waited. The traffic went by silently. What was there to do in L.A? I had no idea. Feeling a funk coming on I made my way back to my car and started to drive down the middle of the road. I stopped for a while and watched as the shadows slowly tipped before blending into everything else as clouds rolled over. I continued to drive, making my way out of city and onto the highway. There weren't any cars around but I still drove at a steady pace. Off in the distance I could make out distant hills, solid green and standing in stark contrast to the baby blue sky behind them. I drove off road onto the muddy landscape. Back towards L.A. I could make out the glint of windscreen but out here there was nothing. Just a featureless plain that rolled on as far as the eye could see. I'd lost my concentration on my driving and didn't see the hole in the floor ahead of me. My car fell into it silently, my vision below spiralled fractal-like into a whirlpool of infinite dashboards. I looked around and could make out the underside of the city, off in the distance there were even one or two people trapped beneath buildings.
“Some parts aren't finished.”
“I know.” I said, turning away from the screen. “I like those parts best.”
Rich Favelle squinted at the screen around me. It had been custom-built for this project, curving around my entire body like a huge electric pringle. He pressed a few buttons on his tablet and the simulation reset to the starting point.
“What do you think?”
“It's good...quite realistic.” I said.
“Everything you see is taken from hd cameras we mounted on a few assistants. Think google street view, but with people rather than cars.”
“It reminded me a lot of street view.”
“Well, it's sort of based on that whilst being an evolution of that. This is google maps, grand theft auto, facebook, all rolled into one. We're hoping when we finished we have an entire simulation of America that looks and feels like real life. The sun in our game is actually 150 million km from the surface, so the lighting looks real. We import weather data, traffic data, wildlife data, all sorts of data into one colossal engine.”
“What kind of computer runs this?” I ask, turning back to the game. I walk down the street and go into an empty building.
“Well, at the moment it pretty much needs a super computer. But maybe...two playstation 3's? Probably by the time this is ready the playstation 4 will be out anyway, so whatever.”
“What's the point in making something that nobody can use?”
“Listen, this is a next-next-gen experience. What do old people do at the moment? Watch tv. By the time this game comes out, we'll have the first generation that might have played computer games. So I'm making a massively multiplayer online social reality simulator for them. They'll be the ones with the money and the time to get really involved in this virtual digixperience.” he said, running a hand through his soft beard. I turn back to the game, shrugging. Who cares if grandma wants to play on the Atari? This game was very boring. You couldn't interact with any of the people walking around, steal cars or even jump off buildings. What was the point.
“Since you're saying this is a simulation game and only total nerds play simulator's, why do you think people would play this over say...Operation: Flashpoint?”
“The social element. You can upload a character with your face and go out into the world, meeting other people you know or people you don't. It's another platform to interact with people.”
“Why don't people just do that in real life?”
“Danger. Our new sim will allow people to be safe and explore a version of America without risking car accidents, global warming, terrorist attacks and so on. Not only that, but why does anyone use technology to talk to others? This is the ultimate in communications tech, the ultimate in games tech, social media-”
“Yeah, you said. Well, it looks good at least.”
“Thanks. Users can upload-”
“Yeah. Will there be guns in the game?”
“Real life has guns.”
“So if this is such an accurate simulation of real life, why don't I buy a gun and go around shooting people's tweets from out of their hands? Or set fire to myself on a bus?”
“Well, you could, but we think by allowing users only one account in which they have to tie their cell phones to, this would create a pro-social community. Of course there's going to be jerks, but there's also jerks in real life so you know...” says Rich, looking at the floor for the end of his sentence.
“But this is a game, it's not real. So of course people are going to be doing stuff on here that they wouldn't do in reality. That's the point, right?” I demand. He pauses for a moment.
“I don't think you understand the social media aspect of the simulation.” he said.
I turn back to the game and go to the building I arrived at earlier. This is one of the few buildings that has been modeled accurately and I admit, it looks amazing. I make my way through the main lobby, up a lift and along the corridor. I stand outside a doorway and then look behind me at the other side of the door, wondering for a moment if I were to open it would that door also open? It didn't of course. The room is empty and I walk over to the curved screen and try to start the game up. To my surprise I find another version of the game starting up just as it had done when I arrived twenty minutes ago.
“It's a little easter egg we put in there.” said Rich happily.
“You mean putting the game inside the game?”
“It's simple enough. You're still playing the game, just on a minutely smaller scale.”
“But if there is such this...nice version of the game you're hoping for, can't people then use this version of the game to fuck about in?”
“I hadn't thought of that.” he says, laughing. “Maybe we'll take it out.”
“But if it's a perfect copy of America, won't it have the game inside itself?” I said.
“Sounds like a bit like Inception to me.”
“Well it's more like an onion actually.” I said back to him. Who did this guy think he was? God? Maybe. But if he was God then I was a man, and what is a God if nobody acknowledges it's existence. Nobody would buy this piece of shit game. And if they did they probably spent all their spare time locked away in their basements, eating tinned meat and wanking. Who needed a game when there was real life waiting outside the front door? I burst into song.
“Hello little computer man.
Welcome to the real world.
There's no gigabytes or high scores.
Can you handle life?
And all of it's blackness?” I sang as loudly as I could.
When I went outside I felt more alive than I had felt for weeks. By glimpsing the potential nerd future that awaited us all it had ignited a fire in my brain. I craved rare meat. And fun. I sprinted down the road and went to buy a bottle of cheap bourbon. I cracked open the lid as soon as I stood back outside and let the sweet liquid pour in and around my mouth before wiping with a hankie. Stuffing the handkerchief into the lid of the bottle I walked back to the computer lab where the foul game was being worked on and scowled.
“Long live the old flesh!” I cried, setting fire to the top of my molotov cocktail and throwing it at a window. The hankie flopped out in midair and was left smoldering on the ground, whilst the bottle of whiskey smashed through the glass. I heard a shout from inside and ran away. This was what real life was about, the potential risk of failure.
I spent the rest of the afternoon examining L.A. by helicopter. Long Beach rested at it's lower most point, with the beach running in a shape similar to Africa all the way up to Ventura County. Santa Monica, Anaheim, Whittier, Glendale, Bel Air, Sun Valley, Hollywood, Compton. From the air you couldn't tell where places started or ended, the whole city blurring into a general zone of activity. Where were it's edges? If a section of the city was removed and placed elsewhere, how large would it have to be to still be considered Los Angeles? I yelled at the helicopter pilot to swoop down and land outside the Capitol Records Building. The building resembled a stack of dirty dishes and smelt twice as bad. I ran down the road, shouting and shouting. "Is this Los Angeles? Am I a part of Los Angeles?" but nobody replied. Maybe Rich Favelle was right. Maybe all of life should just be like a video game. I began to hop up and down and strafe people as they walked towards me. Yes, that was it. Yes! I laughed as I walked into a bar and ordered a bottle of wine fresh from the Californian vineyards and made a toast.
"Here's to the finest experience be it real, imaginary or otherwise." I cried, slamming the glass into my mouth.
8.9.13
The City Of Angles
A dim bulb lights everything yellow in the small room I am in. A desk, a chair, a bed, a sink. A toilet is down the corridor and buzzes with moths. Through the wall I can hear a radio play. The street is lit with street lights, shop windows, car headlights and pollution, making the time appear not to matter, an endless day in Los Angeles. I'd landed at LAX, ate some breakfast at Denny's, then went to a car rental place. I picked a mid-range engine car that appeared stocky, yet did well with fuel consumption. It was white. I drove down a few streets and onto the highway, a Holiday Inn before settling down with some wine and aspirin. The Earth is turning, revealing the sun to appear towards the rest of America. I was as far as I could go West before Asia, barring Hawaii and parts of South America, maybe Alaska.
Los Angeles is often referred to in dance songs where the names of large cities are shouted out before a funny sound is played. Being one of the biggest cities in the world, Los Angeles is one of America's interesting developments perhaps only opposing New York in wow factor. The thirty thousand square foot urban zone rests on the coast of California and is home to roughly sixty million people, including some of the most valuable celebrities that we know of. Los Angeles is often called Hollywood (or the Sparkle City) in which a good proportion of films have been made over the last century, pretty much anything you can name was released through Hollywood. Steven Spielberg shops at the local Wal-Mart rubbing shoulders with Brad Pitt, Jennifer Lopez, Kanye West and Channing Tatum. Films themselves are shot throughout the city, with large portions cordoned off as they create action set-pieces to be enhanced with computers at a later date. Car bombs, terrorist attacks, serial killers, police brutality, evil gangs and school shootings all take place amidst day-to-day life. Camera crews chase people into restaurants and nightclubs, crime scenes and production studios. Everyone you meet can't help but be in the film industry, sixty million of them constantly wear HD makeup and wear costumes daily, sometimes carrying props to and fro in the hopes that they may stumble upon the chance to be in a film! As well as being known as a city of fun it is also been known to be a city of danger. But politicians and police are working with communities to make Los Angeles a safer place for everyone.
A thick fog rolls in, making everything inky and seem unreal. I decide to walk as morning comes, everything 4:3 at 16:9. I hear cars but the road is quiet. I gratefully get into my own car and stare at the dashboard before pulling out. As I begin to get used to the pedals I am reminded of recurring dreams I have where I drive a car that often separates into several components before being reformed as a skateboard. What did this mean. Was I born to skate? I decided to check out a local skate park to find out. It was shut at first but I managed to get in before beginning to run up and down the ramps as fast as I dared. It was coming up to six and it started to get busy. Before I knew what was happening I was stuck on the freeway, honking my horn constantly. A man driving a bulldozer leaned out of his cab and shouted “Move it, jackass.” I was about to do the same before I saw they were shooting a film ahead. Tom Hanks was stumbling down the road with heavy wound makeup applied all over his body, including a missing arm. I then realised it wasn't a film, but a man who resembled the actor had been in a serious collision. The traffic eventually started moving again and I drove past the injured man, hearing the ambulances behind me. He looked at me as if to say 'Yes, I am a clone of Tom Hanks'.
Later on I sat outside a diner, drinking a coffee. I thought about why I was there. What was I doing. How did I feel and more importantly, who knew about it? I puffed out a tweet into the internet cosmos then began to sulk. Of course, I remembered why I was there. To write a ground breaking expose on Western society in the 21st century interlinked with finding myself whilst on a holiday abroad. I had an e-book planned and everything. I drank the coffee. I had some interviews planned, whacky places to visit and even a day in which I would go into the desert and pose for photographs. It seemed like a good idea. But now I was there, I hated it. I nearly cancelled the photoshoot when I received a phonecall. I answered it and listened to the silence.
“Hello?” I said. On the other end of the line I could hear animals breathing and a low buzzing sound. A door slammed shut. If I listened closely I could just make out some talking, but couldn't discern what any of the words were. The call ended. I held the phone in my hand and watched it intently, wondering if it would ring again, but it didn't. My coffee was cold. I decided to go back to my room and try to get some sleep, driving through the city, lost in it's busyness.
Los Angeles is often referred to in dance songs where the names of large cities are shouted out before a funny sound is played. Being one of the biggest cities in the world, Los Angeles is one of America's interesting developments perhaps only opposing New York in wow factor. The thirty thousand square foot urban zone rests on the coast of California and is home to roughly sixty million people, including some of the most valuable celebrities that we know of. Los Angeles is often called Hollywood (or the Sparkle City) in which a good proportion of films have been made over the last century, pretty much anything you can name was released through Hollywood. Steven Spielberg shops at the local Wal-Mart rubbing shoulders with Brad Pitt, Jennifer Lopez, Kanye West and Channing Tatum. Films themselves are shot throughout the city, with large portions cordoned off as they create action set-pieces to be enhanced with computers at a later date. Car bombs, terrorist attacks, serial killers, police brutality, evil gangs and school shootings all take place amidst day-to-day life. Camera crews chase people into restaurants and nightclubs, crime scenes and production studios. Everyone you meet can't help but be in the film industry, sixty million of them constantly wear HD makeup and wear costumes daily, sometimes carrying props to and fro in the hopes that they may stumble upon the chance to be in a film! As well as being known as a city of fun it is also been known to be a city of danger. But politicians and police are working with communities to make Los Angeles a safer place for everyone.
A thick fog rolls in, making everything inky and seem unreal. I decide to walk as morning comes, everything 4:3 at 16:9. I hear cars but the road is quiet. I gratefully get into my own car and stare at the dashboard before pulling out. As I begin to get used to the pedals I am reminded of recurring dreams I have where I drive a car that often separates into several components before being reformed as a skateboard. What did this mean. Was I born to skate? I decided to check out a local skate park to find out. It was shut at first but I managed to get in before beginning to run up and down the ramps as fast as I dared. It was coming up to six and it started to get busy. Before I knew what was happening I was stuck on the freeway, honking my horn constantly. A man driving a bulldozer leaned out of his cab and shouted “Move it, jackass.” I was about to do the same before I saw they were shooting a film ahead. Tom Hanks was stumbling down the road with heavy wound makeup applied all over his body, including a missing arm. I then realised it wasn't a film, but a man who resembled the actor had been in a serious collision. The traffic eventually started moving again and I drove past the injured man, hearing the ambulances behind me. He looked at me as if to say 'Yes, I am a clone of Tom Hanks'.
Later on I sat outside a diner, drinking a coffee. I thought about why I was there. What was I doing. How did I feel and more importantly, who knew about it? I puffed out a tweet into the internet cosmos then began to sulk. Of course, I remembered why I was there. To write a ground breaking expose on Western society in the 21st century interlinked with finding myself whilst on a holiday abroad. I had an e-book planned and everything. I drank the coffee. I had some interviews planned, whacky places to visit and even a day in which I would go into the desert and pose for photographs. It seemed like a good idea. But now I was there, I hated it. I nearly cancelled the photoshoot when I received a phonecall. I answered it and listened to the silence.
“Hello?” I said. On the other end of the line I could hear animals breathing and a low buzzing sound. A door slammed shut. If I listened closely I could just make out some talking, but couldn't discern what any of the words were. The call ended. I held the phone in my hand and watched it intently, wondering if it would ring again, but it didn't. My coffee was cold. I decided to go back to my room and try to get some sleep, driving through the city, lost in it's busyness.
27.8.13
The Death Aesthetic
Almost 3 years after the suicide of Johnny Gloves whilst undertaking the creation for his last performance ('Statue Of Liberty', 2010) the first graduates from the art school set up in his name have now entered the galleries and public spaces of the art world. The money from his estate goes to fund this small university located just outside of Glasgow, teaching only one programme that specialises in the new Death Aesthetic movement that has been making waves on both sides of the pond (that's slang for the Atlantic Ocean for those readers not hip), with a spate of controversy and horseplay that seems to have infected every concept on the scene. I went to the university to find out more.
"This new Death Aesthetic you keep talking about doesn't exist, what we're doing is a logical extension of post-modernism. There's nothing else besides post-modernism, I'm sick of hearing people go on about the next big idea."
"But for the sake of the argument that post-modernism didn't exist...where would you put the graduates from this university, how would you class them."
"Classifications are for art historians. At the Gloves University we encourage each of our students to follow their individual paths in life." says the head tutor, Brandon Minnegan. I roll my eyes.
"Cut the BS Minnegan. You know as well as I do that your university only selects the most artistic students from around the country. What in god's name are you doing here?"
"Mind your own business!" he snarls, clearing all the papers off his desk in one dramatic sweep of his powerful arm. I nodded. Time to talk to some of the students, looks as if this pencil neck had finally snapped.
The studio spaces are large and dark, comforting almost. There is no work on the walls or in progress, no desks or lockers. Students in this studio are simply contemplating death. I go up to the nearest one and give him a shake.
"Is what you're doing art?" I demand.
"Dude...death is art...art is life. Sex is just escape from death. You ever think of that?"
"Of course I have. You ever think that there's more to life than sitting around in the dark, playing with yourself?"
"You just don't understand."
"You're right. I don't give a shit. But tell me this hot shot, you think it's clever that people buy art when they could donate that money to charity?"
"My work is about the human condition, it transcends the immediate now and goes onto-" he mumbles. I spit on the floor and walk out in disgust. Of course he's right. I was just in a bad mood. I sat outside for a while, admiring distant roads running perpendicular to myself. What was it exactly that drove Charles Saatchi to try and murder his wife in cold blood out in public? Were the deaths of Pollock, Miro, Freud, Giotto and many more the constantly chiming bell of mortality in which to remind us that those brave creative souls were the most at risk of dying? I shook my head slowly.
I bumped into a course tutor as I crept through the halls, catching him unaware as he photographed himself standing next to the window.
"Do you think this Death Aesthetic is somehow related to western guilt over the nuclear bombing of Japan?"
"We're forgetting a whole generation gilded in an atomic fire, with the baby boomers carrying on that self-flagellation through world war two re-enactments which further goes on to the next generation. Contemporary art has finally reached a point where it can say 'Look, I'm okay with it.' I like to think."
"So if Guernica marks the start of this era would you say the work of David Shrigley or Norman McLewan marks the end of it?"
"Precisely." he says. I disappear into the shadows once again to ponder his reponse. Precisely? What was precise about anything? I had to see this Death Aesthetic in the flesh. Or at least in the gallery.
I had to travel almost four hours down to Manchester to see for myself. The work was in situ at the Whitworth Art Gallery, which is to be closed for a year whilst refurbishments take place along it's outerments. The exhibition is to take place inside the shut gallery, only observable by those on a high class invitations only list. The exhibition, titled 'Grave', is a macabre affair. The death stench has been specially imported throughout the gallery with the opened coffins of the deceased from the last one hundred years, each casket containing an individual willing to donate their body to art yet not having the correct platform until now. There are no artists names, explanations or even a little booklet I could take away in my bag and show people later. I walked alone through the gallery observing the various work, letting it enter my pores, etch itself into my brain like a laser. Time lapse videos of funerals, mummified primates, rooms all velvet black and sound proof, an ongoing performance piece where I lay in a bed from a retirement home and stared at a clock, a set of jars each containing organs arranged into the shape where they would lay in the body and attached to each other through glass tubes filled with a murky gas, the cast faces of victims from a gas attack, furniture made from upcycled coffins, an audio recording of several different graveyards at midnight played at once and so on. Death pervades all. There was a room at the end to sit in quiet contemplation of death. Though it appeared to me as though there was such a focus on the after effect of death and not much in the act of dying. Death itself could only be recognized by the living, whilst dying was a private affair. Had the children of Johnny Gloves fudged it? The art world was in uproar when he kicked the bucket, and though there were some tasteful pieces in the gallery I couldn't help but feel there was a certain kind of tasteful Tim Burton minimalist Baroque theme running throughout. What about the anti-goths, dressed in yellow? What about the culture of the death tribes of the old world? What about the exploration of the afterlife as seen in the film 'Flatliners'? Of course, this was but the first in what I imagine to be a series of events focusing on the New Death Aesthetic. It's proponents said it was to celebrate the end, it's critics called it a hodge-podge of teenage angst and necrophobia. Were the artists scared of death? Or did they embrace God as their loving saviour in this life and the next, praise the Lord Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit? I didn't know. As I picked the grave dirt from my hair later I couldn't help but think about my own death, yet I couldn't imagine it. Maybe that was the crux of the problem. I was an invincible human being living in a purgatory of half dreams. I needed to probe the inner palace of my skull shape. I needed to find the edge of civilization and wilderness. I needed to go to America.
"This new Death Aesthetic you keep talking about doesn't exist, what we're doing is a logical extension of post-modernism. There's nothing else besides post-modernism, I'm sick of hearing people go on about the next big idea."
"But for the sake of the argument that post-modernism didn't exist...where would you put the graduates from this university, how would you class them."
"Classifications are for art historians. At the Gloves University we encourage each of our students to follow their individual paths in life." says the head tutor, Brandon Minnegan. I roll my eyes.
"Cut the BS Minnegan. You know as well as I do that your university only selects the most artistic students from around the country. What in god's name are you doing here?"
"Mind your own business!" he snarls, clearing all the papers off his desk in one dramatic sweep of his powerful arm. I nodded. Time to talk to some of the students, looks as if this pencil neck had finally snapped.
The studio spaces are large and dark, comforting almost. There is no work on the walls or in progress, no desks or lockers. Students in this studio are simply contemplating death. I go up to the nearest one and give him a shake.
"Is what you're doing art?" I demand.
"Dude...death is art...art is life. Sex is just escape from death. You ever think of that?"
"Of course I have. You ever think that there's more to life than sitting around in the dark, playing with yourself?"
"You just don't understand."
"You're right. I don't give a shit. But tell me this hot shot, you think it's clever that people buy art when they could donate that money to charity?"
"My work is about the human condition, it transcends the immediate now and goes onto-" he mumbles. I spit on the floor and walk out in disgust. Of course he's right. I was just in a bad mood. I sat outside for a while, admiring distant roads running perpendicular to myself. What was it exactly that drove Charles Saatchi to try and murder his wife in cold blood out in public? Were the deaths of Pollock, Miro, Freud, Giotto and many more the constantly chiming bell of mortality in which to remind us that those brave creative souls were the most at risk of dying? I shook my head slowly.
I bumped into a course tutor as I crept through the halls, catching him unaware as he photographed himself standing next to the window.
"Do you think this Death Aesthetic is somehow related to western guilt over the nuclear bombing of Japan?"
"We're forgetting a whole generation gilded in an atomic fire, with the baby boomers carrying on that self-flagellation through world war two re-enactments which further goes on to the next generation. Contemporary art has finally reached a point where it can say 'Look, I'm okay with it.' I like to think."
"So if Guernica marks the start of this era would you say the work of David Shrigley or Norman McLewan marks the end of it?"
"Precisely." he says. I disappear into the shadows once again to ponder his reponse. Precisely? What was precise about anything? I had to see this Death Aesthetic in the flesh. Or at least in the gallery.
I had to travel almost four hours down to Manchester to see for myself. The work was in situ at the Whitworth Art Gallery, which is to be closed for a year whilst refurbishments take place along it's outerments. The exhibition is to take place inside the shut gallery, only observable by those on a high class invitations only list. The exhibition, titled 'Grave', is a macabre affair. The death stench has been specially imported throughout the gallery with the opened coffins of the deceased from the last one hundred years, each casket containing an individual willing to donate their body to art yet not having the correct platform until now. There are no artists names, explanations or even a little booklet I could take away in my bag and show people later. I walked alone through the gallery observing the various work, letting it enter my pores, etch itself into my brain like a laser. Time lapse videos of funerals, mummified primates, rooms all velvet black and sound proof, an ongoing performance piece where I lay in a bed from a retirement home and stared at a clock, a set of jars each containing organs arranged into the shape where they would lay in the body and attached to each other through glass tubes filled with a murky gas, the cast faces of victims from a gas attack, furniture made from upcycled coffins, an audio recording of several different graveyards at midnight played at once and so on. Death pervades all. There was a room at the end to sit in quiet contemplation of death. Though it appeared to me as though there was such a focus on the after effect of death and not much in the act of dying. Death itself could only be recognized by the living, whilst dying was a private affair. Had the children of Johnny Gloves fudged it? The art world was in uproar when he kicked the bucket, and though there were some tasteful pieces in the gallery I couldn't help but feel there was a certain kind of tasteful Tim Burton minimalist Baroque theme running throughout. What about the anti-goths, dressed in yellow? What about the culture of the death tribes of the old world? What about the exploration of the afterlife as seen in the film 'Flatliners'? Of course, this was but the first in what I imagine to be a series of events focusing on the New Death Aesthetic. It's proponents said it was to celebrate the end, it's critics called it a hodge-podge of teenage angst and necrophobia. Were the artists scared of death? Or did they embrace God as their loving saviour in this life and the next, praise the Lord Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit? I didn't know. As I picked the grave dirt from my hair later I couldn't help but think about my own death, yet I couldn't imagine it. Maybe that was the crux of the problem. I was an invincible human being living in a purgatory of half dreams. I needed to probe the inner palace of my skull shape. I needed to find the edge of civilization and wilderness. I needed to go to America.
26.8.13
Legalisation
In front of us were row after row of cannabis plant lit by yellow lights, casting harsh shadows onto the concrete floor. We are underground. Alvin Theodore turns to me and wipes at his brown moustache.
"What do you think?" he says, voice wavering in excitement. I turn back to the 'sea of green' and breathe in.
"Smells like...food."
"That's the trichomes." he utters before leading me through a gap in the field. Alvin Theodore is a business man, I could tell by his cheap suit and the way the skin sat on his face, like an ultra-real mask, all deep-pored and hairy up the nose. He looked like a wax work animated wet. We enter another room, this one contains seedlings on three rows of shelves. Botanists walk through the columns, administering a liquid vitamin solution into the growth matter.
"When they bred dogs for a certain kind of temperament, they noticed some physical features were shared with behaviour, like if a dog was good with people it might have had floppy ears. Or a curled tail. That kind of thing. With these plants we aren't really looking for a psychological behaviour but physical traits. But what if the exterior form is intrinsically linked in some way to the interior?"
"So what you're saying is that plants have a personality, like big leaves means...this plant is good to be around? Like...this plant is fucking sound."
"More or less. It took them about fifty years to breed a little terrier from a true dog, call it forty generations huh? Think how many generations you can have with plants. They reach reproductive maturity much earlier and can have potentially hundreds of children. Not only that, we can clone them. I think this is why we've seen such a significant increase in THC levels over the last fifty years or so. If you look at the buds we have now compared to your grandpa's weed, ours looks a lot more...Lovecraftian." he says, climbing a staircase. We're in his office, decorated in formica and residue. He makes a pot of coffee.
"Tell me about your cannabinols. Would you say what you have been growing was 'kush'? Or more similar to the variety of super skunk flooding the country from Amsterdam." I enquire nonchalantly, accepting the cup from Alvin.
"I'm running a business model that fits the high class stoner, providing the highest quality product on the market. I have a degree in Evolution from Oxford, I've travelled to the states to see how they do it. Recreational cannabis is going to be a huge cash crop, bigger than...wheat."
"Wheat?"
"Celiac's on the increase. Why not replace wheat with weed?" he said. I nodded encouragingly. I always enjoyed meeting a person willing to maximise their concept to it's fullest potential. It wasn't just a product with a single purpose, it was a multi-faceted money spinner that could enter various revenue streams. Food, clothes, medicine, building material, the potential was endless.
"It comes down to the waste product. Think about wood pulp, animal fats, plastic chips. We recycle all of these in pretty much everything, but we're going to have such an excess in marijuana related waste matter we can have weed in everything."
I left the meeting feeling puzzled. Was drugs okay now? I visited a juice bar to find out. Hundreds of these have popped up over the country, not selling alcohol but various juices that simply tasted nice. I ordered a virgin cranberry mojito and sat outside, digging the vibelicious music pouring out of the woofers, waiting to talk to someone. It didn't take long for a woman to ask me for a light. I passed her a box of matches I'd kept for such an occasion and watched her quietly, trying to smell her from across the table. I introduced myself and asked why she was smoking cannabis.
"It feels good, you know? I like it. Do you smoke?" she says, offering me the glass pipe stuffed with a well cornered bowl of Norwegian Haze. I breathe in the thick smoke and shut my eyes. I quoted Descartes: "I think, therefore I am."
We then get into a conversation about the fancy drinks that they had at the bar before I moved onto a more complex conversation.
"Why do you take drugs? Do you have no control over your life?"
"What do you mean?"
"Does your need to escape reality have anything to do with problems you experienced as a child?"
"Well, not really. I mean, I had a good childhood."
"I suppose you're imaginative?"
"Yes."
"Imagination is a defence mechanism for those that struggle with their own ego."
"That's ridiculous." she says, laughing.
"Let me tell you about a man who imagined the whole world was an orange. He tried to peel the whole world until they trapped him in a dungeon. Now was that because he was on drugs or was it all in his imagination?"
"I'm going inside." she says, leaving me alone. I think about the man who had tried to peel the world. What would happen if he had been successful? I look up and down the street, thankful for small favours. I think back on my experiences so far, still undecided if smoking weed was a morally safe decision. I needed to try for myself by visiting the Institute of Scientific Research in Durham.
I am strapped onto a bed, scientists move around me, though I'm unable to see them properly as a bright light shines overhead. There's so many electrodes attached to my scalp it looks like an orange plastic ponytail, my thoughts being played back to me as a wavering sine tone. A doctor administers 100 milligrams of pure cannabis via eye drops.
"Blink please." he says. I can feel the liquid drip down my temples.
"How long will it take for the weed to activate in my system?"
"Approximately four minutes." he says. I can feel hands touching at my arm and the sting of a needle.
"What are you doing?"
"Administering a saline drip in case you lose consciousness. Try to relax." says the doctor. I wait, watching the light. After a few minutes I mention I don't feel anything, so more eye drops are administered to me. There is somebody talking in the background, I think I recognise the voice.
"Who else is in the room?" I ask. There isn't a response for a while and I can't move my head.
"Myself and the nurse." says the doctor eventually.
"I think I am beginning to feel the...eye drops having an effect."
"How do you feel? Speak clearly into the microphone." he says, I can feel the foam top brushing against my lips.
"I am beginning to feel like Bob Marley." I say.
"Do you have the munchies?" he asks.
"Yes...yes, I think I can feel an increase in appetite. And a dry mouth, is that normal?" I ask. The doctor laughs.
"Just try to relax, we are moving onto the next stage of the procedure." he says.
"Okay." I say. The bed begins to tilt so I can see the whole room. In front of me are about fifty snakes inside a glass box.
"What are they there for?" I ask.
"This is an experiment." says the doctor, walking forward and smashing the box with a baseball bat before running out of the room.
"What do you think?" he says, voice wavering in excitement. I turn back to the 'sea of green' and breathe in.
"Smells like...food."
"That's the trichomes." he utters before leading me through a gap in the field. Alvin Theodore is a business man, I could tell by his cheap suit and the way the skin sat on his face, like an ultra-real mask, all deep-pored and hairy up the nose. He looked like a wax work animated wet. We enter another room, this one contains seedlings on three rows of shelves. Botanists walk through the columns, administering a liquid vitamin solution into the growth matter.
"When they bred dogs for a certain kind of temperament, they noticed some physical features were shared with behaviour, like if a dog was good with people it might have had floppy ears. Or a curled tail. That kind of thing. With these plants we aren't really looking for a psychological behaviour but physical traits. But what if the exterior form is intrinsically linked in some way to the interior?"
"So what you're saying is that plants have a personality, like big leaves means...this plant is good to be around? Like...this plant is fucking sound."
"More or less. It took them about fifty years to breed a little terrier from a true dog, call it forty generations huh? Think how many generations you can have with plants. They reach reproductive maturity much earlier and can have potentially hundreds of children. Not only that, we can clone them. I think this is why we've seen such a significant increase in THC levels over the last fifty years or so. If you look at the buds we have now compared to your grandpa's weed, ours looks a lot more...Lovecraftian." he says, climbing a staircase. We're in his office, decorated in formica and residue. He makes a pot of coffee.
"Tell me about your cannabinols. Would you say what you have been growing was 'kush'? Or more similar to the variety of super skunk flooding the country from Amsterdam." I enquire nonchalantly, accepting the cup from Alvin.
"I'm running a business model that fits the high class stoner, providing the highest quality product on the market. I have a degree in Evolution from Oxford, I've travelled to the states to see how they do it. Recreational cannabis is going to be a huge cash crop, bigger than...wheat."
"Wheat?"
"Celiac's on the increase. Why not replace wheat with weed?" he said. I nodded encouragingly. I always enjoyed meeting a person willing to maximise their concept to it's fullest potential. It wasn't just a product with a single purpose, it was a multi-faceted money spinner that could enter various revenue streams. Food, clothes, medicine, building material, the potential was endless.
"It comes down to the waste product. Think about wood pulp, animal fats, plastic chips. We recycle all of these in pretty much everything, but we're going to have such an excess in marijuana related waste matter we can have weed in everything."
I left the meeting feeling puzzled. Was drugs okay now? I visited a juice bar to find out. Hundreds of these have popped up over the country, not selling alcohol but various juices that simply tasted nice. I ordered a virgin cranberry mojito and sat outside, digging the vibelicious music pouring out of the woofers, waiting to talk to someone. It didn't take long for a woman to ask me for a light. I passed her a box of matches I'd kept for such an occasion and watched her quietly, trying to smell her from across the table. I introduced myself and asked why she was smoking cannabis.
"It feels good, you know? I like it. Do you smoke?" she says, offering me the glass pipe stuffed with a well cornered bowl of Norwegian Haze. I breathe in the thick smoke and shut my eyes. I quoted Descartes: "I think, therefore I am."
We then get into a conversation about the fancy drinks that they had at the bar before I moved onto a more complex conversation.
"Why do you take drugs? Do you have no control over your life?"
"What do you mean?"
"Does your need to escape reality have anything to do with problems you experienced as a child?"
"Well, not really. I mean, I had a good childhood."
"I suppose you're imaginative?"
"Yes."
"Imagination is a defence mechanism for those that struggle with their own ego."
"That's ridiculous." she says, laughing.
"Let me tell you about a man who imagined the whole world was an orange. He tried to peel the whole world until they trapped him in a dungeon. Now was that because he was on drugs or was it all in his imagination?"
"I'm going inside." she says, leaving me alone. I think about the man who had tried to peel the world. What would happen if he had been successful? I look up and down the street, thankful for small favours. I think back on my experiences so far, still undecided if smoking weed was a morally safe decision. I needed to try for myself by visiting the Institute of Scientific Research in Durham.
I am strapped onto a bed, scientists move around me, though I'm unable to see them properly as a bright light shines overhead. There's so many electrodes attached to my scalp it looks like an orange plastic ponytail, my thoughts being played back to me as a wavering sine tone. A doctor administers 100 milligrams of pure cannabis via eye drops.
"Blink please." he says. I can feel the liquid drip down my temples.
"How long will it take for the weed to activate in my system?"
"Approximately four minutes." he says. I can feel hands touching at my arm and the sting of a needle.
"What are you doing?"
"Administering a saline drip in case you lose consciousness. Try to relax." says the doctor. I wait, watching the light. After a few minutes I mention I don't feel anything, so more eye drops are administered to me. There is somebody talking in the background, I think I recognise the voice.
"Who else is in the room?" I ask. There isn't a response for a while and I can't move my head.
"Myself and the nurse." says the doctor eventually.
"I think I am beginning to feel the...eye drops having an effect."
"How do you feel? Speak clearly into the microphone." he says, I can feel the foam top brushing against my lips.
"I am beginning to feel like Bob Marley." I say.
"Do you have the munchies?" he asks.
"Yes...yes, I think I can feel an increase in appetite. And a dry mouth, is that normal?" I ask. The doctor laughs.
"Just try to relax, we are moving onto the next stage of the procedure." he says.
"Okay." I say. The bed begins to tilt so I can see the whole room. In front of me are about fifty snakes inside a glass box.
"What are they there for?" I ask.
"This is an experiment." says the doctor, walking forward and smashing the box with a baseball bat before running out of the room.
22.8.13
E-cig review
Like many other smokers I can't help but begin to feel the adverse effects smoking has had to my health. I struggle to run up the stairs, I cough in the morning, I sometimes don't like it and generally wonder what I'm trying to achieve in life. After trying to quit a handful of times with various methods in the style of Wile E. Coyote, I have decided that smoking is going to be a lifelong habit for me. But what if I could smoke a robot? Or maybe look like I was from the future? All of this could be achieved through smoking. But not in the sense of burning plants, but electricity and liquid. Smoking for the new millennium has arrived with the advent of electronic cigarette machines, or e-cigs for short.
The process of smoke delivery is quite simple. A lithium ion battery cylinder is attached to a short cartomiser in which a mixture of Propylene Glycol and flavouring is ignited through a heated lattice, vaporising the e-liquid and delivering a lungful of cloud gently into the body. This vapour is itself made up of hydrogen, oxygen and nicotine, a much more benign substance than the old fashioned cigarette or cigar. It dissipates quickly in the air and remains odourless, allowing e-smokers to puff away happily anywhere in the world. Now that sciencey bit is out of the way I'll get on with the reviews! I have chosen a collection of starter kits from a variety of suppliers and spent the afternoon trying them out.
JACVAPOUR V1P PCC STARTER KIT
This e-cig is a handy little device. It's just a little bigger than your average cigarette and when you puff away it feels like a genuine smoke! The end of mine has a blue LED in it, which is cool. Makes me feel like Harrison Ford in Blade Runner. I often smoke my V1P quite happily at work, at home or relaxing by the sea. The 'juice' or PPG liquid is quite tasty. I got watermelon, bubblegum and mocha flavour. I can mix and match the various liquid in the style of a kind of alchemist. This is more steam-punk than cyber-punk! I have tested this kit to great extent and highly recommend it to the casual e-smoker.
E-LITES E-PRO 4 E-CIGARETTE KIT
What more can I say, this is a fantastic starter kit. It comes with a USB charger, not one but two battery packs, 32MB of disk space and a special black cloth to clean your e-cig. Sadly the flavours I received turned out blank, so taking a hit was like washing my mouth with diluted milk. Still, this e-cig really packs a punch! It can deliver over 23mg of smoke in each puff, making this little thing into seeming like something better than it first appeared! I rate this kit 3/5.
APOLLO SMART LITES 4400 ELECTRO-CIG KIT
The 4400 is the ultimate in vapour tech, infusing each bauble of liquid with a tiny hint of flavour amongst the great lungfuls of black vapour. I tried making a cocaine tincture by dissolving 2g of the white stuff in a VG based liquid over a two day period. This thing was like smoking crack, and quickly ruined the small bauble that came with the kit. Still, I highly rate this experience.
NU-SMOKE 60/40: THE REVENGE STARTER KIT
Nu-smoke 60/40: The Revenge starter kit is a surprisingly unsatisfying piece of mechanical engineering. American boffins have been tinkering away at this new type of e-cig for the last few years, creating an energy efficient vape that delivers both satisfying hits and versatility. Customisation is key in the 60/40, with different cases coming with the kit as if they were important. It comes with several different mouth pieces, batteries and half a metre of ethernet cable, although I'm unsure why. I smoked this e-cig underwater whilst searching for scrap metal and found it held up, though didn't work after a major car accident. A poor show by the Nu-smoke team, though shows great promise. Might be worth purchasing this one for the ipadness of early adoption.
LIBERTY FLIGHT LITE XP PRO KIT
What more can I say, this is a fantastic starter kit. I took a toke of this sweet smoke and thought I had reached Nirvana. I imagined the great Ganesh covered from head to toe in the finest golden finery, his red skin seeming to glow from within like the underside of a finger covering the sun. With one tusk broken and the other proud, he speaks to me in Hindi.
"I don't understand." I say. The vision dissipates. I am alone.
I give this starter kit 5/5.
The process of smoke delivery is quite simple. A lithium ion battery cylinder is attached to a short cartomiser in which a mixture of Propylene Glycol and flavouring is ignited through a heated lattice, vaporising the e-liquid and delivering a lungful of cloud gently into the body. This vapour is itself made up of hydrogen, oxygen and nicotine, a much more benign substance than the old fashioned cigarette or cigar. It dissipates quickly in the air and remains odourless, allowing e-smokers to puff away happily anywhere in the world. Now that sciencey bit is out of the way I'll get on with the reviews! I have chosen a collection of starter kits from a variety of suppliers and spent the afternoon trying them out.
JACVAPOUR V1P PCC STARTER KIT
This e-cig is a handy little device. It's just a little bigger than your average cigarette and when you puff away it feels like a genuine smoke! The end of mine has a blue LED in it, which is cool. Makes me feel like Harrison Ford in Blade Runner. I often smoke my V1P quite happily at work, at home or relaxing by the sea. The 'juice' or PPG liquid is quite tasty. I got watermelon, bubblegum and mocha flavour. I can mix and match the various liquid in the style of a kind of alchemist. This is more steam-punk than cyber-punk! I have tested this kit to great extent and highly recommend it to the casual e-smoker.
E-LITES E-PRO 4 E-CIGARETTE KIT
What more can I say, this is a fantastic starter kit. It comes with a USB charger, not one but two battery packs, 32MB of disk space and a special black cloth to clean your e-cig. Sadly the flavours I received turned out blank, so taking a hit was like washing my mouth with diluted milk. Still, this e-cig really packs a punch! It can deliver over 23mg of smoke in each puff, making this little thing into seeming like something better than it first appeared! I rate this kit 3/5.
APOLLO SMART LITES 4400 ELECTRO-CIG KIT
The 4400 is the ultimate in vapour tech, infusing each bauble of liquid with a tiny hint of flavour amongst the great lungfuls of black vapour. I tried making a cocaine tincture by dissolving 2g of the white stuff in a VG based liquid over a two day period. This thing was like smoking crack, and quickly ruined the small bauble that came with the kit. Still, I highly rate this experience.
NU-SMOKE 60/40: THE REVENGE STARTER KIT
Nu-smoke 60/40: The Revenge starter kit is a surprisingly unsatisfying piece of mechanical engineering. American boffins have been tinkering away at this new type of e-cig for the last few years, creating an energy efficient vape that delivers both satisfying hits and versatility. Customisation is key in the 60/40, with different cases coming with the kit as if they were important. It comes with several different mouth pieces, batteries and half a metre of ethernet cable, although I'm unsure why. I smoked this e-cig underwater whilst searching for scrap metal and found it held up, though didn't work after a major car accident. A poor show by the Nu-smoke team, though shows great promise. Might be worth purchasing this one for the ipadness of early adoption.
LIBERTY FLIGHT LITE XP PRO KIT
What more can I say, this is a fantastic starter kit. I took a toke of this sweet smoke and thought I had reached Nirvana. I imagined the great Ganesh covered from head to toe in the finest golden finery, his red skin seeming to glow from within like the underside of a finger covering the sun. With one tusk broken and the other proud, he speaks to me in Hindi.
"I don't understand." I say. The vision dissipates. I am alone.
I give this starter kit 5/5.
21.8.13
Classical Music In Public
Women wearing yellow sit beneath the trees, they call out.
"Let me see your heart, show me your heart."
I take off my jacket and unbutton my shirt.
"Let us see it. We need to taste it. We see it."
"It is burning."
I pull at my sternum with my fingers, pulling apart the skin and bubbles of yellow fat.
"Show me your heart."
I unclick the ribs and part the lungs.
"I can see it. Your heart. Your heart."
"It is burning."
I reveal my heart, like the blooded head of an unborn, it moves inside of me, pumping the blood into my brain that is telling it to beat.
"Oh, your heart. Magnified in a lens made from the air, refracted in my mind. It is your heart and I can see it, burning. A burning heart pumping molten blood."
I reach inside my chest and pull out my heart slowly, being careful not to tear it from my body. I am holding it in my hands and I part the ventricles like the petals of a flower.
"This is my heart."
"Show me your heart."
A woman walks over to me and begins to caress is gently with her hands. It flutters like a bird. She bends down and begins to kiss it, licking at the thing which beats. She whispers something to it before handing it me back. I begin to sing in operatic fashion:
"I am but a man, holding out his heart. A clock that ticks. This is my heart.
See my heart.
It is burning."
A host of flies begin to swarm around the greying thing and I bow one knee, offering it up. She accepts and takes a bite.
"Let me see your heart, show me your heart."
I take off my jacket and unbutton my shirt.
"Let us see it. We need to taste it. We see it."
"It is burning."
I pull at my sternum with my fingers, pulling apart the skin and bubbles of yellow fat.
"Show me your heart."
I unclick the ribs and part the lungs.
"I can see it. Your heart. Your heart."
"It is burning."
I reveal my heart, like the blooded head of an unborn, it moves inside of me, pumping the blood into my brain that is telling it to beat.
"Oh, your heart. Magnified in a lens made from the air, refracted in my mind. It is your heart and I can see it, burning. A burning heart pumping molten blood."
I reach inside my chest and pull out my heart slowly, being careful not to tear it from my body. I am holding it in my hands and I part the ventricles like the petals of a flower.
"This is my heart."
"Show me your heart."
A woman walks over to me and begins to caress is gently with her hands. It flutters like a bird. She bends down and begins to kiss it, licking at the thing which beats. She whispers something to it before handing it me back. I begin to sing in operatic fashion:
"I am but a man, holding out his heart. A clock that ticks. This is my heart.
See my heart.
It is burning."
A host of flies begin to swarm around the greying thing and I bow one knee, offering it up. She accepts and takes a bite.
20.8.13
And A Bucket Of Vindaloo
I sat in the cafe by the train station, examining the promotional art materials on the walls, designs including ingredients, the Earth (as planet), smiling faces and differently sized serif fonts for ease of reading. My view was pointed towards the door, the cafe at a one hundred and ten degree angle to my right, a series of mirrored tiles (13*8) at a seventy degree angle to my left. The coffee was beginning to cool, it had painted the back of my mouth bitter, ran the night spit out from beneath my gums. I hadn't brushed my teeth for six days and could taste it. I checked my phone for a moment, played a bit of Candy Crush Saga and felt with my extra sense the person I was about to meet. I looked up and saw the back of the head of the most average man in England. I couldn't see his face but I could guess. An average sized mouth beneath an average looking nose flanked by a pair of average eyes, brown or possibly blue. He turned and I waved at him. After we had introduced ourselves he went to get a coffee whilst I considered him.
Michael Smith is married and has children. He is 5'9" and weighs just a little more than me. His IQ is 100. He earns £26,000 a year, doing averagely at his average job. His political views land him somewhere between the two main partys, he lives a lifestyle that is filled with activities but are also boring. His shelves are filled with best-selling books and the walls covered in prints of famous art or photographs. He has bought a cup of tea with half a sugar in.
"So, you're the most average man in England?" I ask him. He laughs.
"Almost. I have a thirty nine inch chest and lost one of my teeth in an accident, making me have a slight deviation from perfect average, which in itself is remarkable enough to make that person unaverage."
"What is it you do?"
"I am hired by think tanks to give my opinions on things. Politics, fashion, food, philosophy, current events, that kind of thing."
"For what purpose?"
"I am almost the most average man in England, so they think that the way I see the world is how it should be. Or at least a good marker as to how another individual deviates from the quo."
"Some would call you a Zeit Mensch, what do you think about this?"
"It's true. I am a man of the time. I know what happens in an average life, not to mention life expectancy, so my life has no surprises in store. There is a certain comfort in the fact that nothing remarkably bad will happen to me, combined with the grief that nothing exciting will either." he says, looking down at his tea. I am stunned. Even his outlook on life is entirely average. It is as if nature has provided a standard of which everything else can be measured against, like a one kilogram platinum cylinder at the Bureau International des Poids et Mesures.
"Tell me what you think about life in pre-Industrial Japan, with an emphasis on the social ramifications of mechanising the workforce contrasted with that of the history of agriculture and the 2014 World Cup tournament."
"What was that about the World Cup?"
"You tell me." I say. Questions like that were verbal Thematic Apperception Tests, I had invented a series of them though they had yet to be tested.
"Well it's football isn't it? Football. Footy."
"Footy footy footy, kick that ball in the back of the net."
"Rub the man's leg after he fell over."
"Ooh, ah, Cantona, your sister lost her knickers in my car."
"They are clearing out the slums in Rio de Janeiro, pushing all of the criminals into the stadiums, waiting to strike once David Beckham enters the pitch, holding him hostage, chased down by helicopter gunships, and tax fraud, and government corruption."
"Footy, footy, I love footy."
"The gorgeous players for a beautiful game, oh great and powerful sporting event in which gangs from different countries or cities get together and bring people together. Ah, footy."
"Kick it ref!"
"Football crazy, football mad, grab a power pod and stick it in your hand. Three lions."
Michael Smith is married and has children. He is 5'9" and weighs just a little more than me. His IQ is 100. He earns £26,000 a year, doing averagely at his average job. His political views land him somewhere between the two main partys, he lives a lifestyle that is filled with activities but are also boring. His shelves are filled with best-selling books and the walls covered in prints of famous art or photographs. He has bought a cup of tea with half a sugar in.
"So, you're the most average man in England?" I ask him. He laughs.
"Almost. I have a thirty nine inch chest and lost one of my teeth in an accident, making me have a slight deviation from perfect average, which in itself is remarkable enough to make that person unaverage."
"What is it you do?"
"I am hired by think tanks to give my opinions on things. Politics, fashion, food, philosophy, current events, that kind of thing."
"For what purpose?"
"I am almost the most average man in England, so they think that the way I see the world is how it should be. Or at least a good marker as to how another individual deviates from the quo."
"Some would call you a Zeit Mensch, what do you think about this?"
"It's true. I am a man of the time. I know what happens in an average life, not to mention life expectancy, so my life has no surprises in store. There is a certain comfort in the fact that nothing remarkably bad will happen to me, combined with the grief that nothing exciting will either." he says, looking down at his tea. I am stunned. Even his outlook on life is entirely average. It is as if nature has provided a standard of which everything else can be measured against, like a one kilogram platinum cylinder at the Bureau International des Poids et Mesures.
"Tell me what you think about life in pre-Industrial Japan, with an emphasis on the social ramifications of mechanising the workforce contrasted with that of the history of agriculture and the 2014 World Cup tournament."
"What was that about the World Cup?"
"You tell me." I say. Questions like that were verbal Thematic Apperception Tests, I had invented a series of them though they had yet to be tested.
"Well it's football isn't it? Football. Footy."
"Footy footy footy, kick that ball in the back of the net."
"Rub the man's leg after he fell over."
"Ooh, ah, Cantona, your sister lost her knickers in my car."
"They are clearing out the slums in Rio de Janeiro, pushing all of the criminals into the stadiums, waiting to strike once David Beckham enters the pitch, holding him hostage, chased down by helicopter gunships, and tax fraud, and government corruption."
"Footy, footy, I love footy."
"The gorgeous players for a beautiful game, oh great and powerful sporting event in which gangs from different countries or cities get together and bring people together. Ah, footy."
"Kick it ref!"
"Football crazy, football mad, grab a power pod and stick it in your hand. Three lions."
15.8.13
Organ Gorgon
I am riding in the back of a taxi with my assistant, Penny Naknamura. She's wearing a torn One Direction tee, orange zebra print spandex pants with a boot on one foot and a high heel on the other. I point at her feet.
"What's the deal with that then?"
"Asymmetries in babe, didn't you know?"
"I know everything, just not all the time. Doesn't it make you stand funny?"
"It's fash, saw it in New York last week. And New York last week is London next week, comprendez?"
"Yeah sure, looks stupid to me. How we doing for time?"
"We're ten minutes late." she says, taking her ipad out of her bag and looking at some nonsense site. It's what I have an assistant for, to check all the blossoming fat that is growing on the world wide web. I start to get a bit nostalgic for the glory days of the late nineties when my phone goes off. I pick up.
"Where are you?!"
"Relax, almost there."
"You're an hour and ten minutes late?"
"So? We're already late, stop worrying about it. Here, talk to my assistant." I say, handing my phone away. I've lost my train of thought. The taxi stops at some traffic lights and I get out, leaving Penny and the taxi driver shouting at me from the black cab. I pretend to have one of my episodes, though to be honest I feel much happier outside. I step in between the cars and make my way down the road, popping into a cafe, past the counter and kitchen and out into an alley, much to the chagrin of the staff there. The alley seems a lot more quieter though. I walk over to a bin and begin to practise my yoga.
I wake up a few hours later, I must have dozed off after finishing my asanas. I wonder if my assistant made it to the fashion show. Or was it a film premiere. It didn't matter. I had been pretending to be a journalist for GQ for the last few weeks and had found it all quite dull. They hadn't been interested in my stories about the snake infestation at a nearby orphanage or the series of grave robberies taking place in Yorkshire. It had all been style, surface, a thin veneer of lies masquerading as something of worth. I now felt foolish about getting all those tattoos, but still, 'yolo'. I walk out of the alley and back onto the street. This was where the action was, this was where the juice was at. I felt as though I could somehow read minds as I stared at people making their way up and down. Maybe that woman was trying to juggle a career and children whilst going through a rough divorce. Maybe that man was addicted to heroin. Maybe that group of teenagers were planning on murdering me. Variety is the spice of life, but what exactly is being spiced? They keep meat in the ceiling. I walk back around the corner and back into the cafe I had entered earlier, although this time the staff are shouting at me and blocking my way. I go back out onto the street and start to walk again, as if I am lost. I am lost in fact. I'm unsure of which city I'm in. I start shouting for help and for somebody to save me, but everyone walks past as if I smell of piss. I do this for a while then start walking again, but not before rooting through a bin to find a newspaper to stuff down the front of my trousers. I have always been hyper-sensitive to touch and the scratching and folding of the newspaper against my skin causes me a great deal of uncomfort. Somebody shouts my name and I look through the faces. It is my assistant.
"Where've you been?"
"I saw one of my friends I haven't seen for ages, I owed them some money."
"You missed the show. I took some notes for you, but you'll have to write the rest up yourself." she says.
"Thanks Penny. I love you." I say. I wince.
"What?"
"I said I love you by accident, on account of you resembling my departed wife."
"You're a widow?"
"It's widower. And yes. At least, I think so. She went missing a few weeks ago and I'm assuming she has died. Though now I come to think about it...maybe you're her?" I shout, pulling at her wig.
"Get off me!" she screams. It isn't a wig. And she's not my wife. I start to cry and run away again, ashamed of myself. How will I finish this story for GQ now?
It's several hours later and I'm frantically trying to guess what happened earlier. A film premiere? A fashion show? Maybe an art opening. I decide to mix them all together and have written about a film about art with models that are holograms or something. So far I have three thousand words and a few diagrams. I stuff it all in an envelope and post it off, not really giving a shit. I have some other stuff in the pipeline anyway, probably. I scratch at the tattoo of a monkey on my neck, wondering if it has become infected. I probably shouldn't have been climbing in and out of those graves in Yorkshire after all. I go to a petrol station to buy some flowers for Penny as an apology, then post those off as well. With all that done I decide to call it a day and head off towards a nightclub, ready to dance the night away and get powerfully drunk. Maybe I'm not cut out for a career as a journalist, at least in such an upmarket magazine. Better off to follow my own path. Maybe I could be like Hunter S. Thompson or something? I laugh at myself. How ridiculous and pathetic. The sudden urge to stab myself in the neck with my belt overwhelms me and it takes every ounce of willpower not to end my life right there on the pavement.
"Are you coming in mate?" says the bouncer. I look over and nod.
"I am."
"What's the deal with that then?"
"Asymmetries in babe, didn't you know?"
"I know everything, just not all the time. Doesn't it make you stand funny?"
"It's fash, saw it in New York last week. And New York last week is London next week, comprendez?"
"Yeah sure, looks stupid to me. How we doing for time?"
"We're ten minutes late." she says, taking her ipad out of her bag and looking at some nonsense site. It's what I have an assistant for, to check all the blossoming fat that is growing on the world wide web. I start to get a bit nostalgic for the glory days of the late nineties when my phone goes off. I pick up.
"Where are you?!"
"Relax, almost there."
"You're an hour and ten minutes late?"
"So? We're already late, stop worrying about it. Here, talk to my assistant." I say, handing my phone away. I've lost my train of thought. The taxi stops at some traffic lights and I get out, leaving Penny and the taxi driver shouting at me from the black cab. I pretend to have one of my episodes, though to be honest I feel much happier outside. I step in between the cars and make my way down the road, popping into a cafe, past the counter and kitchen and out into an alley, much to the chagrin of the staff there. The alley seems a lot more quieter though. I walk over to a bin and begin to practise my yoga.
I wake up a few hours later, I must have dozed off after finishing my asanas. I wonder if my assistant made it to the fashion show. Or was it a film premiere. It didn't matter. I had been pretending to be a journalist for GQ for the last few weeks and had found it all quite dull. They hadn't been interested in my stories about the snake infestation at a nearby orphanage or the series of grave robberies taking place in Yorkshire. It had all been style, surface, a thin veneer of lies masquerading as something of worth. I now felt foolish about getting all those tattoos, but still, 'yolo'. I walk out of the alley and back onto the street. This was where the action was, this was where the juice was at. I felt as though I could somehow read minds as I stared at people making their way up and down. Maybe that woman was trying to juggle a career and children whilst going through a rough divorce. Maybe that man was addicted to heroin. Maybe that group of teenagers were planning on murdering me. Variety is the spice of life, but what exactly is being spiced? They keep meat in the ceiling. I walk back around the corner and back into the cafe I had entered earlier, although this time the staff are shouting at me and blocking my way. I go back out onto the street and start to walk again, as if I am lost. I am lost in fact. I'm unsure of which city I'm in. I start shouting for help and for somebody to save me, but everyone walks past as if I smell of piss. I do this for a while then start walking again, but not before rooting through a bin to find a newspaper to stuff down the front of my trousers. I have always been hyper-sensitive to touch and the scratching and folding of the newspaper against my skin causes me a great deal of uncomfort. Somebody shouts my name and I look through the faces. It is my assistant.
"Where've you been?"
"I saw one of my friends I haven't seen for ages, I owed them some money."
"You missed the show. I took some notes for you, but you'll have to write the rest up yourself." she says.
"Thanks Penny. I love you." I say. I wince.
"What?"
"I said I love you by accident, on account of you resembling my departed wife."
"You're a widow?"
"It's widower. And yes. At least, I think so. She went missing a few weeks ago and I'm assuming she has died. Though now I come to think about it...maybe you're her?" I shout, pulling at her wig.
"Get off me!" she screams. It isn't a wig. And she's not my wife. I start to cry and run away again, ashamed of myself. How will I finish this story for GQ now?
It's several hours later and I'm frantically trying to guess what happened earlier. A film premiere? A fashion show? Maybe an art opening. I decide to mix them all together and have written about a film about art with models that are holograms or something. So far I have three thousand words and a few diagrams. I stuff it all in an envelope and post it off, not really giving a shit. I have some other stuff in the pipeline anyway, probably. I scratch at the tattoo of a monkey on my neck, wondering if it has become infected. I probably shouldn't have been climbing in and out of those graves in Yorkshire after all. I go to a petrol station to buy some flowers for Penny as an apology, then post those off as well. With all that done I decide to call it a day and head off towards a nightclub, ready to dance the night away and get powerfully drunk. Maybe I'm not cut out for a career as a journalist, at least in such an upmarket magazine. Better off to follow my own path. Maybe I could be like Hunter S. Thompson or something? I laugh at myself. How ridiculous and pathetic. The sudden urge to stab myself in the neck with my belt overwhelms me and it takes every ounce of willpower not to end my life right there on the pavement.
"Are you coming in mate?" says the bouncer. I look over and nod.
"I am."
13.8.13
Awaiting Hesped
I enter a darkened room in which a single comfy chair placed in the centre. I sit in it and look forwards. A few feet above me is a mirror so that I can see myself. Just as I wonder what is going to happen next I hear a quiet thumping begin. And a voice.
"Make yourself comfortable. Feel your knees, your back, your shoulders, against the softness of the chair you're sitting in. Take note of your breathing and then look forwards at your reflection in the dark glass ahead. Are you a person familiar with how they appear? Who do you most resemble physically, your mother or your father? Think of them. Think of your family. Let your breathing slow gradually, each breath longer than the last so that it fills your lungs, pushing your chest out and close your eyes. Think of yourself as a child. The house you grew up in, where you put the christmas tree, the view from your bedroom window. Think about your friends, still keeping your breathing controlled and slow, steady now. The people you know well and those that you don't. Maybe you met them at school or at work? These people like you. They value you and accept you. Think about who you love.
Now I'd like you to think of your home. The room where you sleep, the things that decorate it, the colours. You wake up one morning and start your routine, cleaning your body, putting on clothes, eating breakfast. It is a sunny day outside and you can hear birds. It's a little earlier than the time that you'd usually wake at. It looks so nice outside you decide to go for a walk. You put on your shoes and once you've found your keys you leave. It is quiet outside. Nobody is around. Off in the distance you can hear a car, though you're unsure if it's coming towards you or going away from you. The sun feels warm on your face and you begin to walk, your breathing nice and relaxed as you make your way down the road. But all of a sudden there is a wave of pain in your chest, like a warm caress coming up from inside. It doesn't hurt so much, but you stop and look down as if you could see the cause of this internal feeling. This time it hits you like a blow, directly in the centre of your body. The pain takes you by surprise and you make a noise, clutching at your chest, though you notice that you have pins and needles in your fingers. You try to take a breath inward but find that just increases the pain, it roars inside of you like a furnace. Staggering forward a step, you decide it best to try and sit down instead though before you're sure of what's happening your head is on the ground. You're not used to seeing the surface of the road from this angle. A thought flicks through your mind. 'Am I dying?' you wonder. Of course you're not, you can't die. Not like this. Somebody will come along and save you. There must be another explanation. Your vision begins to blur slightly. You realise that your body feels quiet. Your blood is still. But there was so much you haven't yet done. You didn't even get to say goodbye to anyone. That is, if you're dying at all. You try to think of alternatives as to what's happening, but find you can't. Your brain is shutting down, but not all at once. What is it people think about as they die? You picture in your head those that you love. But their faces are muddled. And you can't remember their names. Or anything else about them. They fade into other thoughts although these to begin to lose detail. You are just aware of your awareness and all that you have lost. Floating in the void, knowing that you once lived before returning to the nothingness before you were born. It is the end. You are dead."
The speech finishes. I open my eyes and look back at the mirror. It is my reflection floating above me. After a moment or so I become aware of my own breathing again and sit up, looking around at the darkness. Suddenly a black cat leaps out at me and I yell.
"Who let a cat in here?"
"Make yourself comfortable. Feel your knees, your back, your shoulders, against the softness of the chair you're sitting in. Take note of your breathing and then look forwards at your reflection in the dark glass ahead. Are you a person familiar with how they appear? Who do you most resemble physically, your mother or your father? Think of them. Think of your family. Let your breathing slow gradually, each breath longer than the last so that it fills your lungs, pushing your chest out and close your eyes. Think of yourself as a child. The house you grew up in, where you put the christmas tree, the view from your bedroom window. Think about your friends, still keeping your breathing controlled and slow, steady now. The people you know well and those that you don't. Maybe you met them at school or at work? These people like you. They value you and accept you. Think about who you love.
Now I'd like you to think of your home. The room where you sleep, the things that decorate it, the colours. You wake up one morning and start your routine, cleaning your body, putting on clothes, eating breakfast. It is a sunny day outside and you can hear birds. It's a little earlier than the time that you'd usually wake at. It looks so nice outside you decide to go for a walk. You put on your shoes and once you've found your keys you leave. It is quiet outside. Nobody is around. Off in the distance you can hear a car, though you're unsure if it's coming towards you or going away from you. The sun feels warm on your face and you begin to walk, your breathing nice and relaxed as you make your way down the road. But all of a sudden there is a wave of pain in your chest, like a warm caress coming up from inside. It doesn't hurt so much, but you stop and look down as if you could see the cause of this internal feeling. This time it hits you like a blow, directly in the centre of your body. The pain takes you by surprise and you make a noise, clutching at your chest, though you notice that you have pins and needles in your fingers. You try to take a breath inward but find that just increases the pain, it roars inside of you like a furnace. Staggering forward a step, you decide it best to try and sit down instead though before you're sure of what's happening your head is on the ground. You're not used to seeing the surface of the road from this angle. A thought flicks through your mind. 'Am I dying?' you wonder. Of course you're not, you can't die. Not like this. Somebody will come along and save you. There must be another explanation. Your vision begins to blur slightly. You realise that your body feels quiet. Your blood is still. But there was so much you haven't yet done. You didn't even get to say goodbye to anyone. That is, if you're dying at all. You try to think of alternatives as to what's happening, but find you can't. Your brain is shutting down, but not all at once. What is it people think about as they die? You picture in your head those that you love. But their faces are muddled. And you can't remember their names. Or anything else about them. They fade into other thoughts although these to begin to lose detail. You are just aware of your awareness and all that you have lost. Floating in the void, knowing that you once lived before returning to the nothingness before you were born. It is the end. You are dead."
The speech finishes. I open my eyes and look back at the mirror. It is my reflection floating above me. After a moment or so I become aware of my own breathing again and sit up, looking around at the darkness. Suddenly a black cat leaps out at me and I yell.
"Who let a cat in here?"
Festival Experience 2013
I was standing in a muddy field, tweeting, dressed from head to toe in leather. It's festival season in England and I have used this opportunity to meet the manager of Daughter, the indie-folk band from London. I had been listening to them before they were famous, but Daughter had played Glastonbury and were selling a personal record number of albums across the country, getting serious air time on all the big radio stations and podcast d'loads. Their manager, Ryan Riley approached me carefully. He looked like a bird or reptile, all dead in the eyes and thin in the face. I introduced myself and he lead me towards the stage that the trio were playing on.
"I'm the one with all the ideas you see. I came up with the name of the band even." he said.
"Really?"
"Yeah, I also did the cover art for their first album, but they ended up going with that photograph of them trees. Still, if you're interested I printed off a few copies with the original artwork on."
"So how did you meet the band?"
"Well I met them at a pub. They all played or sang so I said, you guys should be in a band. I had to help them a fair bit as they didn't know what to do at first, but I reckon they're getting better now."
"Yeah. They're really stupid."
"That's good right?" said Ryan. I nod and remove the leather cap from off my hair. We're backstage, fat men roll cigarettes in the dark. I trip over a crate of bottled water as we make our way to the green room.
"Hold on, can you take my picture? It's that one." he says, pointing at a button. I take his picture next to the door, it has a sheet of paper that says 'Daughter' stuck to it. We wait in the green room as the last few notes are played onstage and Elena Tondra thanks the audience. A few minutes later they appear, slightly ruffled after playing for the last eighty minutes. I introduce myself and rest my bag on the table, snapping it open and taking out a machine.
"What's that for?" says Igor Haefeli, the guitarist. I attach the lump of metal to the side of my head and begin to plug it into the power supply resting at the bottom of my bag.
"I'm experimenting with some new recording equipment." I say before turning the machine on. Magnets descend over my face and begin to hum. I have to grab onto the table quite tightly as the machine begins to vibrate my whole body as if I'm having a fit, though this is part of the process. The hum rises to a high tone before clicking off, the sounds of the fans and inner mechanisms running themselves still once more. The pieces of metal are drawn back into the machine and I set it down back onto the table. The four people sat around now look exactly like me. I have printed my face onto their heads.
"What just happened?" says Ryan Riley. It is odd to see myself speaking with someone else's voice, wearing somebody else's clothes. They look at one another and begin to shout, although they are confused which one is me. I run out of the room and out behind the stage, chased by my facial clones.
"I'm the one with all the ideas you see. I came up with the name of the band even." he said.
"Really?"
"Yeah, I also did the cover art for their first album, but they ended up going with that photograph of them trees. Still, if you're interested I printed off a few copies with the original artwork on."
"So how did you meet the band?"
"Well I met them at a pub. They all played or sang so I said, you guys should be in a band. I had to help them a fair bit as they didn't know what to do at first, but I reckon they're getting better now."
"Yeah. They're really stupid."
"That's good right?" said Ryan. I nod and remove the leather cap from off my hair. We're backstage, fat men roll cigarettes in the dark. I trip over a crate of bottled water as we make our way to the green room.
"Hold on, can you take my picture? It's that one." he says, pointing at a button. I take his picture next to the door, it has a sheet of paper that says 'Daughter' stuck to it. We wait in the green room as the last few notes are played onstage and Elena Tondra thanks the audience. A few minutes later they appear, slightly ruffled after playing for the last eighty minutes. I introduce myself and rest my bag on the table, snapping it open and taking out a machine.
"What's that for?" says Igor Haefeli, the guitarist. I attach the lump of metal to the side of my head and begin to plug it into the power supply resting at the bottom of my bag.
"I'm experimenting with some new recording equipment." I say before turning the machine on. Magnets descend over my face and begin to hum. I have to grab onto the table quite tightly as the machine begins to vibrate my whole body as if I'm having a fit, though this is part of the process. The hum rises to a high tone before clicking off, the sounds of the fans and inner mechanisms running themselves still once more. The pieces of metal are drawn back into the machine and I set it down back onto the table. The four people sat around now look exactly like me. I have printed my face onto their heads.
"What just happened?" says Ryan Riley. It is odd to see myself speaking with someone else's voice, wearing somebody else's clothes. They look at one another and begin to shout, although they are confused which one is me. I run out of the room and out behind the stage, chased by my facial clones.
9.8.13
Who Cares About Zombies Anyway
Have you ever wondered to yourself "What would I do if zombies were real?" or maybe even "I would like to kill hundreds of people with the excuse that they are zombies?"
Well wonder no longer! Ex-special forces soldier and entrepeneur Randy Shepard has combined zombies, paintballing, camping and a high ropes course to provide an action-packed weekend for anyone willing to shell out £200 for the privelidge of ambling through the ten acre estate home to 'Zombie Land', Britain's first zombie themed theme park.
"I had the idea whilst watching Dawn Of The Dead. Got me thinking, what would I do in case zombies attacked? Would I be prepared? What would it feel like? After looking round on the web for a while I found out there were a few other folk with the same idea as me. Hell, some had been thinking about it a lot!" says Randy as we drive in the jeep through Zombie Land. I nod. It has crossed my mind as to what I would do if zombies were real, though I admit on a more conceptual level. Randy Shepard had took the teenage fantasy of killing your friends and neighbours and turned it into a money spinner. We enter a forest and stop. I ask him what exactly people are paying for when they arrive at Zombie Land.
"Well, the two hundred gets you into Zombie Land. You bring your own kit, whatever that may be, and try to 'survive' the weekend. We've hired hundreds of actors to wander around in full costume to be zombies. They follow you round, moan a bit, if they catch you, you turn into a zombie. We have a couple of cabins spread out, even a little shopping mall I'm having built up by that hill over there."
"Isn't it dangerous for the actors?"
"Not at all. They have on some body armour, the guns we give visitors are just paintball guns with a little extra oomph if you know what I mean. More splatter effects."
"But what if any of them get punched, stabbed, have their heads cut off, that sort of thing?" I say, looking at the trees around us.
"We don't allow any blades, that's rule numero uno, okay? We have a full medical crew on site in case anyone gets hit with a bit of wood, but to be honest we encourage visitors to run rather than fight." shrugs Randy. He gets out to urinate against a plastic skeleton and we set off again.
"But surely the whole point of the weekend is that you can attack the zombies?"
"Well let me worry about the zombies, why don't you worry about the visitors?" laughs Randy. We are driving towards one of the cabins Randy has built. A few visitors are there at the moment, surrounded by a horde of zombies. I admit, it looks quite realistic! The zombies makeup has been done by Industrial Light and Magic, the studio responsible for bringing Yoda to life and making Jurassic Park a good memory for many children that currently exist. I walk through the moaning zombies and up towards the door.
"Hey! Get in here man!" says a visitor. His face is covered in muck and his clothes filthy. He reaches a hand out through the door and pulls me in before I have chance to respond.
"What are you doing out there? Damn walkers are going to get ya." he says in an American accent.
"I'm doing a story on Zombie Land, I wondered if I could ask you a few questions?"
"Not right now man, we need all the help we can get!" he shouts. A woman runs in.
"They've breached the windows! We gotta get out of here!"
"Quick, help me pull this bookcase!" says the man, running over to a large bookcase and struggling with it. I shake my head and leave through the door again, closing it behind me. One of the zombies mimes biting me and I nod at him, feeling slightly self-conscious.
"Thanks. Do you mind if I ask you a few questions about working as a zombie?"
"Urghhh." he moans in a Liverpudlian accent. I make my way back to Randy.
"I hope I didn't spoil the scene for them. They seem pretty in character."
"They love it! Get's the blood pumping. You know, every visitor we've had here so far has come back the week after? I'm thinking of building a hotel just outside the site so people can come from all over the world."
"Aren't you worried that this is just a passing fad? There were serial killers in the eighties, mutants in the nineties, zombies and spooky kids last decade. What if this time around it's giant mummy's or shape-shifters?" I ask.
"Zombies are here to stay man. As it's not just zombies you know? People can feel it. The world's coming to an end."
"People have been thinking the world's going to end for centuries though." I say. The jeep is now driving through the forest. Randy lights a cigar and looks at me through his aviator sunglasses.
"That they have. And people like you will be thinking that we're all talking a load of BS when the world actually does end."
"But look at the amount of times in history it appeared as if the world was ending, yet didn't. The amount of films and books in the last forty or so years about apocalypses is just a continuation of the belief system instilled throughout religions since the first people, that being it's a fascination of the end, of death, and how we come to terms with it. And if possible, survive it. Any post-apocalyptic fiction is the post-modern equivalent of an after life. They are but a series of limbos at varying degrees of a world without technology combined with justifiable violence. I imagine that when anyone talks about the world ending that they believe that they will survive somehow."
"But I am not talking about the end of the world in the sense of a post-apocalyptic fantasy, but the steady downfall of humans through environmental change over the next century. This park's existence, or rather, that of the zombie fantasy is a way of coming to terms with death, I agree. I am not suggesting that people will survive the oncoming apocalypse, quite the opposite. Most visitors don't survive this weekend. It allows them to perceive there own death in a much healthier manner than vague dreams of danger in which they themselves invariably survive." says Randy. The jeep has pulled to a stop in the middle of a field.
"My family is buried here. Somewhere, I'm not sure exactly. But in this field. As are the bones of a hundred other animals that I am distantly related to, all the way back to the dinosaurs. You think the dinosaurs worried about the end of the world? And when it came about, did they hope? Or did they breathe in the ashes?"
"Your family is buried here?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Well...in case the end of the world does happen to be zombies, I want to be the first to kill them." says Randy, pulling back his coat to reveal a pistol tucked into his trousers.
"You know what's better than regular zombies? Voodoo zombies. You should do a theme park based around that." I said, nodding at him as I get back into the jeep and drive away. All the talk about zombies and apocalypses has give me the urge to watch 'The Bridges Of Madison County', or perhaps 'Before Sunrise'. I hadn't yet decided, but I knew that I had both on blu-ray.
Well wonder no longer! Ex-special forces soldier and entrepeneur Randy Shepard has combined zombies, paintballing, camping and a high ropes course to provide an action-packed weekend for anyone willing to shell out £200 for the privelidge of ambling through the ten acre estate home to 'Zombie Land', Britain's first zombie themed theme park.
"I had the idea whilst watching Dawn Of The Dead. Got me thinking, what would I do in case zombies attacked? Would I be prepared? What would it feel like? After looking round on the web for a while I found out there were a few other folk with the same idea as me. Hell, some had been thinking about it a lot!" says Randy as we drive in the jeep through Zombie Land. I nod. It has crossed my mind as to what I would do if zombies were real, though I admit on a more conceptual level. Randy Shepard had took the teenage fantasy of killing your friends and neighbours and turned it into a money spinner. We enter a forest and stop. I ask him what exactly people are paying for when they arrive at Zombie Land.
"Well, the two hundred gets you into Zombie Land. You bring your own kit, whatever that may be, and try to 'survive' the weekend. We've hired hundreds of actors to wander around in full costume to be zombies. They follow you round, moan a bit, if they catch you, you turn into a zombie. We have a couple of cabins spread out, even a little shopping mall I'm having built up by that hill over there."
"Isn't it dangerous for the actors?"
"Not at all. They have on some body armour, the guns we give visitors are just paintball guns with a little extra oomph if you know what I mean. More splatter effects."
"But what if any of them get punched, stabbed, have their heads cut off, that sort of thing?" I say, looking at the trees around us.
"We don't allow any blades, that's rule numero uno, okay? We have a full medical crew on site in case anyone gets hit with a bit of wood, but to be honest we encourage visitors to run rather than fight." shrugs Randy. He gets out to urinate against a plastic skeleton and we set off again.
"But surely the whole point of the weekend is that you can attack the zombies?"
"Well let me worry about the zombies, why don't you worry about the visitors?" laughs Randy. We are driving towards one of the cabins Randy has built. A few visitors are there at the moment, surrounded by a horde of zombies. I admit, it looks quite realistic! The zombies makeup has been done by Industrial Light and Magic, the studio responsible for bringing Yoda to life and making Jurassic Park a good memory for many children that currently exist. I walk through the moaning zombies and up towards the door.
"Hey! Get in here man!" says a visitor. His face is covered in muck and his clothes filthy. He reaches a hand out through the door and pulls me in before I have chance to respond.
"What are you doing out there? Damn walkers are going to get ya." he says in an American accent.
"I'm doing a story on Zombie Land, I wondered if I could ask you a few questions?"
"Not right now man, we need all the help we can get!" he shouts. A woman runs in.
"They've breached the windows! We gotta get out of here!"
"Quick, help me pull this bookcase!" says the man, running over to a large bookcase and struggling with it. I shake my head and leave through the door again, closing it behind me. One of the zombies mimes biting me and I nod at him, feeling slightly self-conscious.
"Thanks. Do you mind if I ask you a few questions about working as a zombie?"
"Urghhh." he moans in a Liverpudlian accent. I make my way back to Randy.
"I hope I didn't spoil the scene for them. They seem pretty in character."
"They love it! Get's the blood pumping. You know, every visitor we've had here so far has come back the week after? I'm thinking of building a hotel just outside the site so people can come from all over the world."
"Aren't you worried that this is just a passing fad? There were serial killers in the eighties, mutants in the nineties, zombies and spooky kids last decade. What if this time around it's giant mummy's or shape-shifters?" I ask.
"Zombies are here to stay man. As it's not just zombies you know? People can feel it. The world's coming to an end."
"People have been thinking the world's going to end for centuries though." I say. The jeep is now driving through the forest. Randy lights a cigar and looks at me through his aviator sunglasses.
"That they have. And people like you will be thinking that we're all talking a load of BS when the world actually does end."
"But look at the amount of times in history it appeared as if the world was ending, yet didn't. The amount of films and books in the last forty or so years about apocalypses is just a continuation of the belief system instilled throughout religions since the first people, that being it's a fascination of the end, of death, and how we come to terms with it. And if possible, survive it. Any post-apocalyptic fiction is the post-modern equivalent of an after life. They are but a series of limbos at varying degrees of a world without technology combined with justifiable violence. I imagine that when anyone talks about the world ending that they believe that they will survive somehow."
"But I am not talking about the end of the world in the sense of a post-apocalyptic fantasy, but the steady downfall of humans through environmental change over the next century. This park's existence, or rather, that of the zombie fantasy is a way of coming to terms with death, I agree. I am not suggesting that people will survive the oncoming apocalypse, quite the opposite. Most visitors don't survive this weekend. It allows them to perceive there own death in a much healthier manner than vague dreams of danger in which they themselves invariably survive." says Randy. The jeep has pulled to a stop in the middle of a field.
"My family is buried here. Somewhere, I'm not sure exactly. But in this field. As are the bones of a hundred other animals that I am distantly related to, all the way back to the dinosaurs. You think the dinosaurs worried about the end of the world? And when it came about, did they hope? Or did they breathe in the ashes?"
"Your family is buried here?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Well...in case the end of the world does happen to be zombies, I want to be the first to kill them." says Randy, pulling back his coat to reveal a pistol tucked into his trousers.
"You know what's better than regular zombies? Voodoo zombies. You should do a theme park based around that." I said, nodding at him as I get back into the jeep and drive away. All the talk about zombies and apocalypses has give me the urge to watch 'The Bridges Of Madison County', or perhaps 'Before Sunrise'. I hadn't yet decided, but I knew that I had both on blu-ray.
7.8.13
The Sun Is Angry
With the recent trend in violence leaning towards the bizarre and mostly cruel, the government have launched a new task force in order to best deal with this 'Crime Heatwave'. The P.R.O.T.E.C.T.I.O.N. bureau is ran by Ian Newman, a head honcho with a heart of gold and a sly grin parked onto his face as he speaks in his relaxing West country accent of the strange spate of violence sweeping the countries streets. Dog attacks, funeral bombs, the case of the mad vicar, human arson, dental harm, hospital admission statistics, the missing helicopters and so on.
"On the surface it may look like the so called 'Summer of Death' is an anomaly, a phenomenon. As if all of this started out of nothing. But we at P.R.O.T.E.C.T.I.O.N. have been planning for this for years. We have a highly specialised team of experts willing to take on each case on a week by week basis."
"So it's based on television?" I ask, sweeping my arm across the room at the enormous television set against one wall. Newman shakes his head.
"No, people are beginning to base more and more of their behaviour on television. We are simply adopting a model that fits the socio-cultural background."
"So what you're proposing is that the world is becoming more fictional somehow? It's not as much you're copying the style of detective television shows but that as detectives you can't help but find yourself playing that role which mirrors this semi-fictional reality in some way?"
"I'm not saying that reality is fictional, just that human behaviour and perception is being altered by it's culture constantly. For instance if you hear a certain phrase in a film and repeat it in real life, and somebody hears you and repeats that. What if you come across a man needing insulin then plunged the syringe into his sternum because you saw it on Pulp Fiction? What if you just happen to be a criminal and kill a guy because television told you to?"
"I'm not sure if I follow." I say, glancing through the photos he has handed to me. Some are of celebrities, others are of crime scenes.
"The television is talking to me. It is showing me prophecies, strange visions...that of a perfect, set world. Can you imagine it? That alpha is followed by beta, celta, delta, omega. Maybe a world where we have televisions in our eyes, with all the wires sticking out of the front? How about we have film crews everywhere, filming everything, showing it to everyone, all at once, the cities and landscapes an endless labyrinth of televisions, broadcasting the pure, unending, my own shuddering and secret, most ultimately all encompassing and final, the power of god as he is man living forever, we are trapped amongst the forcefields, to follow the lines in between onwards and through into that of maximum television." he says, frothing at the mouth, ripping at his own face. I rest the ipad onto the desk and quickly make my way out of his office and down the empty corridor. I look over my shoulder, listening to his screaming getting louder. There's the feeling as through somebody has rubbed the back of my neck as I pace faster to the exit.
I drive home, wondering about what Newman was doing at that moment in time. Had he calmed down? I had hoped so. It was bad enough that I couldn't claim my travel expenses for the interview as I had lost my receipts. Now I had witnessed the birth of a maniac, emerging out from his unconscious like a thing without bones being pulled from the sea. My car begins to speed down the motorway, faster and faster. I look into the rear view mirror and notice something.
"On the surface it may look like the so called 'Summer of Death' is an anomaly, a phenomenon. As if all of this started out of nothing. But we at P.R.O.T.E.C.T.I.O.N. have been planning for this for years. We have a highly specialised team of experts willing to take on each case on a week by week basis."
"So it's based on television?" I ask, sweeping my arm across the room at the enormous television set against one wall. Newman shakes his head.
"No, people are beginning to base more and more of their behaviour on television. We are simply adopting a model that fits the socio-cultural background."
"So what you're proposing is that the world is becoming more fictional somehow? It's not as much you're copying the style of detective television shows but that as detectives you can't help but find yourself playing that role which mirrors this semi-fictional reality in some way?"
"I'm not saying that reality is fictional, just that human behaviour and perception is being altered by it's culture constantly. For instance if you hear a certain phrase in a film and repeat it in real life, and somebody hears you and repeats that. What if you come across a man needing insulin then plunged the syringe into his sternum because you saw it on Pulp Fiction? What if you just happen to be a criminal and kill a guy because television told you to?"
"I'm not sure if I follow." I say, glancing through the photos he has handed to me. Some are of celebrities, others are of crime scenes.
"The television is talking to me. It is showing me prophecies, strange visions...that of a perfect, set world. Can you imagine it? That alpha is followed by beta, celta, delta, omega. Maybe a world where we have televisions in our eyes, with all the wires sticking out of the front? How about we have film crews everywhere, filming everything, showing it to everyone, all at once, the cities and landscapes an endless labyrinth of televisions, broadcasting the pure, unending, my own shuddering and secret, most ultimately all encompassing and final, the power of god as he is man living forever, we are trapped amongst the forcefields, to follow the lines in between onwards and through into that of maximum television." he says, frothing at the mouth, ripping at his own face. I rest the ipad onto the desk and quickly make my way out of his office and down the empty corridor. I look over my shoulder, listening to his screaming getting louder. There's the feeling as through somebody has rubbed the back of my neck as I pace faster to the exit.
I drive home, wondering about what Newman was doing at that moment in time. Had he calmed down? I had hoped so. It was bad enough that I couldn't claim my travel expenses for the interview as I had lost my receipts. Now I had witnessed the birth of a maniac, emerging out from his unconscious like a thing without bones being pulled from the sea. My car begins to speed down the motorway, faster and faster. I look into the rear view mirror and notice something.
Hear My Shout
The last town before the sea, grey sand piled wetly around the drains as the beach folk made their ways hither and tother, feet squashing shell shards, complex abstract collages. Iron lattice work and the constant shrieking of gulls, each as big as dogs, overflowing bins with fanta cans as flowers, planners continued to make malleable the lines of the town, transforming it's utter filth into a utopic society through a series of street furniture matrices, special lighting, underground filth pits and an enormous road that would go from one end of the town to the other, fifty feet above street level. The huge teal bridge had been designed using a computer and it was night time.
"Good shout, major good shout." said Hortense, nodding sleepily.
"Look at this picture." said Ernesto. He pulled out a polaroid of himself and showed it to everyone. They all smiled and nodded.
"I was on bubble." said Ernesto nervously.
"Aww, bad shout, bad shout that man." said Hortense. They embraced each other and whispered. For a moment it looked as if they were going to kiss. Fake music off youtube played tinnily in the background, the table set with empty cans, bits of rubbish, ashtrays, a strawberry flavoured condom and a laptop. After a few minutes they had started to argue about which was the best operating systems on mobile phones, carrying on early into the morning. Top Cat played on the seventy five inch HD tv, the yellow cat closing it's eyes and tilting his head back, the sound off, Reginald glanced up through his clubbed fingers, eyeballs going all over the place. A chemical shiver ran through his body that could only be cured by lots of cider. Ernesto had finished arguing and was now asking for photos to be taken of himself.
"Let me have a look at them." said Ernesto.
"They're mad these are. Look at them. I look like some kind of...mad...psycho." he continued, offering the camera to Hortense. He snorted jubilantly.
"Fucking hell. Look at this picture of me and all." he said, passing the camera back.
"Ha ha. You look like...an Italian Russell Crowe."
"Seriously? Let's have another look." said Hortense, reaching for the camera. They kept passing the camera backwards and forwards. Speed garage came on.
"Who wants another line?" said Perceval, leaning forward. He ripped open a baggy onto a mirror then licked the torn plastic before setting to work racking up several chunky, short lines of cheap cocaine onto the ceiling's reflection. Reginald looked up groggily and gently leaned in to snort before sitting back down. His face was locked into a rigid tenseness, the hands turned into white claws as he watched the television.
"Good shout." said Hortense. They all had a go then began to roll a joint. Outside the sun was rising, making the puddle clouds illuminate a dreary grey that stretched on in every direction.
"It's cold man." said Perceval, leaning against the yard wall.
"Tasty spliff this." said Hortense.
"So what was I saying again? Fucking hell...what were we talking about?"
"Can't remember mate."
"Aghhh...what was it?"
"Something about a website?"
"Yeah...yeah that's it. I wanted to make a website, I wondered if you knew how to code or anything?"
"Well yeah, a bit. Why what's up?"
"I need someone to run the website for me and I do the content. I don't know how to program though."
"What would it be about?"
"I want to try and do something that's never been done before...I want to write down my thoughts, you know, write these really kinda edgy things, you know? I wouldn't say they are rants, but more...ramblings I suppose."
"What like?"
"Just write down some dark stuff man, see who vibes it and those who don't, whatever, I don't give a fuck. But if someone likes my shit then chances are they'll like me, so I think I could meet some really interesting people you know?"
"Who knows man, you could end up writing for Vice Magazine."
"Yeah...I was thinking of starting my own zine. Like just put it out there, see who vibes it. But I'd do it all anonymous at first, so nobody knows who I am. And I'd wear a mask and shit in all my photos so everyone would be like, who's this mad cunt? It'd be cool man."
"Have you thought of a numbering system for your zines?"
"Yeah man, like the first issue is going to be like S, H, treble zero one. Then I'm going to do a limited edition colour copy and that's like S, H, treble zero two."
"Like factory records?"
"No, different. My system's better, more clean. People would collect this kind of thing I reckon."
"Yeah, good shout."
"Fucking amazing shout mate." Ernesto and Hortense embraced and shook hands.
"What time is it?"
"Five."
"Fucking hell, I've been drinking for...hang on...eleven...twelve...fucking thirteen hours man."
"I haven't even had owt to eat."
"You should have said, I got a bit of quiche in the fridge."
"You know what? I wouldn't mind a bit of quiche."
"I can't eat."
"Smoke some weed man, here you are."
"Cheers man...fucking hell. Have you seen that video Boscoe showed me?"
"No, what is it?"
"Aww it's fucking mad mate. You've seen it haven't you Perceval?"
"What?"
"That video of that guy doing all them mad juggles in London. Have you not seen it?"
"No."
"Aww, come on. Let's go back inside, I'll show you this video."
They all went back inside. Hortense sat at the laptop and turned the music off whilst he tried to remember what the video was called. Top Cat had finished. The four sat around the table and listened to Hortense talking to himself, white spit gathering at the edges of his dry mouth. The video came on, played for thirty seconds then the internet went off.
"Hold on, let it refresh. It's worth it."
"I think I've heard about this..."
"It's class mate."
They watched most of the video before the internet went off again.
"Fuck it man. Let's watch some telly."
"Okay, we'll try again later."
"Yeah."
"It's a sick video. At the end he's juggling these swords and eggs, fucking well good."
"Yeah?" said Ernesto, laughing.
"Yeah, trust me. Fucking good shout."
"Fair play, good shout."
"Have I told you about my website idea?"
"What website?"
"I want to start writing a website. Well not exactly writing one, just writing articles you know?"
"Yeah?"
"Yeah man, like write down, like, what I think about people. And if they don't like it they can fuck off."
"You gonna write one about...Alan Carr or something?"
"No man, just more about targeting like certain sections of the public and saying these people are shit. Like I might say...chavs are dick heads. And here's why, fuck that they're poor or whatever, you know? All chavs are dickheads man, all chavs are dickheads. I just wanna stay stuff that everyone thinks but nobody says, you know?"
"What we talking about again?"
"My website."
"Oh yeah. That fucking...like magazine or something? Like Vice?"
"Yeah, like Vice in some ways but my ideas new. It's like I'm saying, here's what I think, I don't give a fuck if you don't like it, you know? But if you vibe it then that's a good way to meet new people. You know, I never wrote anything before, but I think this will be something good. I read loads of books that are just...just shit, basically. It's not about me, it doesn't speak to me in any way."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah mate...cus...y'know. I'm there for my mates. Fuck what anyone thinks about them. Like if you ever got in a fight I would jump in straight away no questions asked. I fucking love you mate."
"I love you too mate. Come here." he said, shaking hands whilst leaning into another embrace.
"Heh...heh, have you heard this about David Cameron? That he sold oil to muslims in the middle east, they used it to power tanks, artillery, attacking fucking palestinians."
"Fucking hell."
"David Cameron's a right cunt. I don't like him."
"If David Cameron was here right now I'd smack him." said Perceval, throwing a slow jab in the air.
"Yeah, I'd shove a fucking carrot up his arse and suck his dick."
"What?"
"I meant have him suck my dick."
"What you on about mate?"
"Fucking David Cameron. Blackmail him, yeah, say that we'll give this video to the North Koreans if you don't do what we say. Then have him give us a sick yacht."
"You know what I'd do? I'd just have everyone work ten hours a week. Then everyone can work."
"Good shout mate, they should also fucking get rid of the royal family."
"I fucking hate Prince Charles man. He's a dickhead."
"They should have David Cameron live in a council house for a year and only eat beans. Then he can see what it's like to be poor."
"Yeah, can you imagine? Having prime minister round for dinner and then when he gets there just knock his fucking teeth out."
"Harsh shout man."
"No man, fucking perfect shout." said Ernesto. He high fived Reginald and it sort of turned into a bent elbow arm shake. "Have David Cameron round on come dine with me and everyone just gives him shit sandwiches."
"What, like sandwiches with shit between the bread?"
"Yeah man, fucking wet turds soaking into Milk Roll, dribbling out as eats it." said Reginald, blowing a raspberry whilst miming something falling out of the bottom of a sandwich and splattering onto a plate.
"Grim mate."
"Have we got any weed left?"
"You wanna get some?"
"Yeah just a twenty bag or something, take the edge off."
"Good shout."
"Yeah a couple of spliffs would be sweet. We still need to watch the end of that video of that juggler."
"What?"
"You know, the juggler."
"Ah yeah. Would you mind if I played a song first?"
"No mate."
"It's this Daft Punk cover on acoustic. Pretty good."
"Yeah I like Daft Punk."
"Tremendously good shout that."
"Good shout, major good shout." said Hortense, nodding sleepily.
"Look at this picture." said Ernesto. He pulled out a polaroid of himself and showed it to everyone. They all smiled and nodded.
"I was on bubble." said Ernesto nervously.
"Aww, bad shout, bad shout that man." said Hortense. They embraced each other and whispered. For a moment it looked as if they were going to kiss. Fake music off youtube played tinnily in the background, the table set with empty cans, bits of rubbish, ashtrays, a strawberry flavoured condom and a laptop. After a few minutes they had started to argue about which was the best operating systems on mobile phones, carrying on early into the morning. Top Cat played on the seventy five inch HD tv, the yellow cat closing it's eyes and tilting his head back, the sound off, Reginald glanced up through his clubbed fingers, eyeballs going all over the place. A chemical shiver ran through his body that could only be cured by lots of cider. Ernesto had finished arguing and was now asking for photos to be taken of himself.
"Let me have a look at them." said Ernesto.
"They're mad these are. Look at them. I look like some kind of...mad...psycho." he continued, offering the camera to Hortense. He snorted jubilantly.
"Fucking hell. Look at this picture of me and all." he said, passing the camera back.
"Ha ha. You look like...an Italian Russell Crowe."
"Seriously? Let's have another look." said Hortense, reaching for the camera. They kept passing the camera backwards and forwards. Speed garage came on.
"Who wants another line?" said Perceval, leaning forward. He ripped open a baggy onto a mirror then licked the torn plastic before setting to work racking up several chunky, short lines of cheap cocaine onto the ceiling's reflection. Reginald looked up groggily and gently leaned in to snort before sitting back down. His face was locked into a rigid tenseness, the hands turned into white claws as he watched the television.
"Good shout." said Hortense. They all had a go then began to roll a joint. Outside the sun was rising, making the puddle clouds illuminate a dreary grey that stretched on in every direction.
"It's cold man." said Perceval, leaning against the yard wall.
"Tasty spliff this." said Hortense.
"So what was I saying again? Fucking hell...what were we talking about?"
"Can't remember mate."
"Aghhh...what was it?"
"Something about a website?"
"Yeah...yeah that's it. I wanted to make a website, I wondered if you knew how to code or anything?"
"Well yeah, a bit. Why what's up?"
"I need someone to run the website for me and I do the content. I don't know how to program though."
"What would it be about?"
"I want to try and do something that's never been done before...I want to write down my thoughts, you know, write these really kinda edgy things, you know? I wouldn't say they are rants, but more...ramblings I suppose."
"What like?"
"Just write down some dark stuff man, see who vibes it and those who don't, whatever, I don't give a fuck. But if someone likes my shit then chances are they'll like me, so I think I could meet some really interesting people you know?"
"Who knows man, you could end up writing for Vice Magazine."
"Yeah...I was thinking of starting my own zine. Like just put it out there, see who vibes it. But I'd do it all anonymous at first, so nobody knows who I am. And I'd wear a mask and shit in all my photos so everyone would be like, who's this mad cunt? It'd be cool man."
"Have you thought of a numbering system for your zines?"
"Yeah man, like the first issue is going to be like S, H, treble zero one. Then I'm going to do a limited edition colour copy and that's like S, H, treble zero two."
"Like factory records?"
"No, different. My system's better, more clean. People would collect this kind of thing I reckon."
"Yeah, good shout."
"Fucking amazing shout mate." Ernesto and Hortense embraced and shook hands.
"What time is it?"
"Five."
"Fucking hell, I've been drinking for...hang on...eleven...twelve...fucking thirteen hours man."
"I haven't even had owt to eat."
"You should have said, I got a bit of quiche in the fridge."
"You know what? I wouldn't mind a bit of quiche."
"I can't eat."
"Smoke some weed man, here you are."
"Cheers man...fucking hell. Have you seen that video Boscoe showed me?"
"No, what is it?"
"Aww it's fucking mad mate. You've seen it haven't you Perceval?"
"What?"
"That video of that guy doing all them mad juggles in London. Have you not seen it?"
"No."
"Aww, come on. Let's go back inside, I'll show you this video."
They all went back inside. Hortense sat at the laptop and turned the music off whilst he tried to remember what the video was called. Top Cat had finished. The four sat around the table and listened to Hortense talking to himself, white spit gathering at the edges of his dry mouth. The video came on, played for thirty seconds then the internet went off.
"Hold on, let it refresh. It's worth it."
"I think I've heard about this..."
"It's class mate."
They watched most of the video before the internet went off again.
"Fuck it man. Let's watch some telly."
"Okay, we'll try again later."
"Yeah."
"It's a sick video. At the end he's juggling these swords and eggs, fucking well good."
"Yeah?" said Ernesto, laughing.
"Yeah, trust me. Fucking good shout."
"Fair play, good shout."
"Have I told you about my website idea?"
"What website?"
"I want to start writing a website. Well not exactly writing one, just writing articles you know?"
"Yeah?"
"Yeah man, like write down, like, what I think about people. And if they don't like it they can fuck off."
"You gonna write one about...Alan Carr or something?"
"No man, just more about targeting like certain sections of the public and saying these people are shit. Like I might say...chavs are dick heads. And here's why, fuck that they're poor or whatever, you know? All chavs are dickheads man, all chavs are dickheads. I just wanna stay stuff that everyone thinks but nobody says, you know?"
"What we talking about again?"
"My website."
"Oh yeah. That fucking...like magazine or something? Like Vice?"
"Yeah, like Vice in some ways but my ideas new. It's like I'm saying, here's what I think, I don't give a fuck if you don't like it, you know? But if you vibe it then that's a good way to meet new people. You know, I never wrote anything before, but I think this will be something good. I read loads of books that are just...just shit, basically. It's not about me, it doesn't speak to me in any way."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah mate...cus...y'know. I'm there for my mates. Fuck what anyone thinks about them. Like if you ever got in a fight I would jump in straight away no questions asked. I fucking love you mate."
"I love you too mate. Come here." he said, shaking hands whilst leaning into another embrace.
"Heh...heh, have you heard this about David Cameron? That he sold oil to muslims in the middle east, they used it to power tanks, artillery, attacking fucking palestinians."
"Fucking hell."
"David Cameron's a right cunt. I don't like him."
"If David Cameron was here right now I'd smack him." said Perceval, throwing a slow jab in the air.
"Yeah, I'd shove a fucking carrot up his arse and suck his dick."
"What?"
"I meant have him suck my dick."
"What you on about mate?"
"Fucking David Cameron. Blackmail him, yeah, say that we'll give this video to the North Koreans if you don't do what we say. Then have him give us a sick yacht."
"You know what I'd do? I'd just have everyone work ten hours a week. Then everyone can work."
"Good shout mate, they should also fucking get rid of the royal family."
"I fucking hate Prince Charles man. He's a dickhead."
"They should have David Cameron live in a council house for a year and only eat beans. Then he can see what it's like to be poor."
"Yeah, can you imagine? Having prime minister round for dinner and then when he gets there just knock his fucking teeth out."
"Harsh shout man."
"No man, fucking perfect shout." said Ernesto. He high fived Reginald and it sort of turned into a bent elbow arm shake. "Have David Cameron round on come dine with me and everyone just gives him shit sandwiches."
"What, like sandwiches with shit between the bread?"
"Yeah man, fucking wet turds soaking into Milk Roll, dribbling out as eats it." said Reginald, blowing a raspberry whilst miming something falling out of the bottom of a sandwich and splattering onto a plate.
"Grim mate."
"Have we got any weed left?"
"You wanna get some?"
"Yeah just a twenty bag or something, take the edge off."
"Good shout."
"Yeah a couple of spliffs would be sweet. We still need to watch the end of that video of that juggler."
"What?"
"You know, the juggler."
"Ah yeah. Would you mind if I played a song first?"
"No mate."
"It's this Daft Punk cover on acoustic. Pretty good."
"Yeah I like Daft Punk."
"Tremendously good shout that."
12.4.13
Home-made 3D Microscope
Here is a design for a three dimensional stereoscopic microscope I have just invented. Many people, including scientists, think that bacteria and such only exists in two dimensions when in fact there are at least three. By attaching a microscope at a ninety degree angle and having a cube slide rather than a flat one, viewers can see microscopic objects in three dimensions! Amateur scientists can now see the smiling faces of tape worm as they move in the x, y, z directions we are all accustomed to. To not have a 3D microscope is similar to trying to study sea creatures by looking at them from above. This breakthrough will increase scientific output by a factor of four.
Thatcher's Funeral
After the death of Baroness Lady Margaret Hilda Thatcher on the 8th of April a committee immediately set about planning her funeral, as is the tradition after somebody's death. Thatcher was a controversial figure in British politics, dividing opinion during life and after her passing, though both sides would agree that the late ex-prime minister will be remembered for her actions and fashion sense. Nicknaming herself 'Iron Woman' due to her magnetic personality, Thatcher was an important figure throughout the eighties. She smashed the unions, brought in millions from taxation, saved English territory from Argentinian invasion, allowed people to right to buy their own houses and was an inspiration to a generation of women. She was also an old lady, who had a family, and it isn't fair to speak badly of the dead. Her funeral therefore will try to sum up her life succinctly, referencing the various trials and tribulations she endured in order to make Britain great once again.
The government had ring-fenced 200 million pounds in case of the late lady's passing, suggesting that it would cost more in the long run if they didn't give Maggie a proper burial. I was lucky enough to be invited along to a special preview event that would detail exactly how the two hundred million pounds would be spent in order to make sure that she was treated with the same respect she demanded whilst alive. Liberal Democrat leader Mick Clegg stepped onto the podium at the front of the hall. After the ice-breakers and toasts he began to describe what we could expect next Wednesday.
The funeral will start at 10 a.m in the morning. Thatcher will be contained in a special blue coffin covered in flowers that will be carried through the streets of London in a horse and carriage. Her family will follow behind, each riding a horse, then other various vehicles with important mourners. The prime minister and his friends will ride in a hearse for instance, The Queen will be in a limousine and Boris Johnson will ride a black bicycle. Behind these will be various soldiers and police officers dressed in full combat dress, overhead Prince Harry will hover in a helicopter.
The theme of the funeral will be Margaret Thatcher, as that who is being buried. The first of these special themed segments will begin just a few moments into the parade, with a green grocer holding a baby aloft to represent Thatcher's primordial origins. Milk will be squirted onto the funeral carriage by children picked from local schools who will then take the baby and hand it to Kenneth Branagh, playing Denis Thatcher, her millionaire husband who rescued her from being working class. The baby would then be transformed through a series of short vignettes into the woman who would go on to win the leadership of the country. This position would be played by the famous actress Meryl Streep, who'd act out her life whilst her body continued on it's path.
The first trial of Thatcher is the Falklands War. London Philharmonic Orchestra will provide the soundtrack for this section, in which a boat sculpture sailing away from the procession on the Thames estuary will be fired at and sank. A balloon representing the soldiers will gradually be inflated until it resembles Simon Weston. The veteran himself will then emerge from the crowd and join the procession, playing the saxophone every now and then. Afterwards comes the second trial of Thatcher, the miners' strike. Thick coal dust will be dispersed from the Baroness' carriage, submerging the mourners in a danger smog.
After having emerged through the danger smog, the next step was the way she dealt with the IRA. After a few fireworks being detonated around the horse and carriage an Irishman especially starved for the event will be released and is likely to begin to look for food. Funeral organisers have paid attention to these chaotic characters scattered throughout the parade, hoping that they add an element of excitement for mourners as well as acting as a kind of public arts thing.
At this point the coffin will be removed from the horse and carriage. The horse itself will be lead slightly away from the rest of the festivities and put onto a bus heading for Oldham. Meanwhile in a startling twist the coffin will be opened and Margaret Thatcher's dead body will be hoisted out by leading politicians and walked up the front steps of the cathedral. At the top of the steps will await David Cameron who will accept the body into his arms and give her a final goodbye before she is taken inside for the final stages of the funeral.
Inside the cathedral will await Jeremy Clarkson, Ben Milliband, Tony Blair, Prince Will, Kate Middleton, Jim Davidson, Nelson Mandela, Mikhail Gorbachev, Nancy Reagan, David Beckham, Theopold LeStranz, Walton Goggins, Clint Eastwood, Paul Merton and other famous celebrities. All of them are encouraged to cry as Thatcher is taken through the central aisle. Prayers, songs and quotes will be played for guests as Thatcher is brought closer towards the front of the cathedral where a small crucible will await her. The head of the church will say something before Thatcher is delicately lowered into the pot at her feet. Inside contains ethically sourced molten iron for her body to be dipped into, creating a Thatcher-shaped statue made of rapidly cooling metal surrounding a core of biological matter. It is thought that her tomb will remain safe for the next one thousand years.
The government had ring-fenced 200 million pounds in case of the late lady's passing, suggesting that it would cost more in the long run if they didn't give Maggie a proper burial. I was lucky enough to be invited along to a special preview event that would detail exactly how the two hundred million pounds would be spent in order to make sure that she was treated with the same respect she demanded whilst alive. Liberal Democrat leader Mick Clegg stepped onto the podium at the front of the hall. After the ice-breakers and toasts he began to describe what we could expect next Wednesday.
The funeral will start at 10 a.m in the morning. Thatcher will be contained in a special blue coffin covered in flowers that will be carried through the streets of London in a horse and carriage. Her family will follow behind, each riding a horse, then other various vehicles with important mourners. The prime minister and his friends will ride in a hearse for instance, The Queen will be in a limousine and Boris Johnson will ride a black bicycle. Behind these will be various soldiers and police officers dressed in full combat dress, overhead Prince Harry will hover in a helicopter.
The theme of the funeral will be Margaret Thatcher, as that who is being buried. The first of these special themed segments will begin just a few moments into the parade, with a green grocer holding a baby aloft to represent Thatcher's primordial origins. Milk will be squirted onto the funeral carriage by children picked from local schools who will then take the baby and hand it to Kenneth Branagh, playing Denis Thatcher, her millionaire husband who rescued her from being working class. The baby would then be transformed through a series of short vignettes into the woman who would go on to win the leadership of the country. This position would be played by the famous actress Meryl Streep, who'd act out her life whilst her body continued on it's path.
The first trial of Thatcher is the Falklands War. London Philharmonic Orchestra will provide the soundtrack for this section, in which a boat sculpture sailing away from the procession on the Thames estuary will be fired at and sank. A balloon representing the soldiers will gradually be inflated until it resembles Simon Weston. The veteran himself will then emerge from the crowd and join the procession, playing the saxophone every now and then. Afterwards comes the second trial of Thatcher, the miners' strike. Thick coal dust will be dispersed from the Baroness' carriage, submerging the mourners in a danger smog.
After having emerged through the danger smog, the next step was the way she dealt with the IRA. After a few fireworks being detonated around the horse and carriage an Irishman especially starved for the event will be released and is likely to begin to look for food. Funeral organisers have paid attention to these chaotic characters scattered throughout the parade, hoping that they add an element of excitement for mourners as well as acting as a kind of public arts thing.
At this point the coffin will be removed from the horse and carriage. The horse itself will be lead slightly away from the rest of the festivities and put onto a bus heading for Oldham. Meanwhile in a startling twist the coffin will be opened and Margaret Thatcher's dead body will be hoisted out by leading politicians and walked up the front steps of the cathedral. At the top of the steps will await David Cameron who will accept the body into his arms and give her a final goodbye before she is taken inside for the final stages of the funeral.
Inside the cathedral will await Jeremy Clarkson, Ben Milliband, Tony Blair, Prince Will, Kate Middleton, Jim Davidson, Nelson Mandela, Mikhail Gorbachev, Nancy Reagan, David Beckham, Theopold LeStranz, Walton Goggins, Clint Eastwood, Paul Merton and other famous celebrities. All of them are encouraged to cry as Thatcher is taken through the central aisle. Prayers, songs and quotes will be played for guests as Thatcher is brought closer towards the front of the cathedral where a small crucible will await her. The head of the church will say something before Thatcher is delicately lowered into the pot at her feet. Inside contains ethically sourced molten iron for her body to be dipped into, creating a Thatcher-shaped statue made of rapidly cooling metal surrounding a core of biological matter. It is thought that her tomb will remain safe for the next one thousand years.
11.4.13
The Ministry Of Beige
Recently I attended the Leeds University degree show, the culmination of three years of study from art students from around the globe that had gathered in one building, as it makes it easier to teach. I usually made a point of visiting the various degree shows up and down the country in order to spot the next hot talent I can ear-mark for future reference, able to say in future conversations that I saw their early work and perhaps make a snide comment about it. As I walked those sanctimonious galleries that smelled slightly of emulsion and cheap wine, I examined that year's students suggestions as to what the best piece of work they had ever made was to be. There were abstract paintings, stuffed animals, a couple of rocks, photographs of topless women, bits of string, some sort of rusted bicycle, coloured tape, triangles and a few videos of students staring at the camera whilst things happened to them. Work like this happened up and down the country, though one of the slight differences was that every single piece here had a little red sticker on it, marking it as sold. I grabbed a student by the arm and demanded to know what was going on.
"Someone bought everything. I made a hundred quid on my crypto-vintage screen prints based on the works of Miguel de Cervantes recontextualised as a parody of social media." they uttered. I pushed them to one side as I made my way to the refreshments table, thinking that something was amiss. It was rare for anybody to sell work at these things, let alone for every single student to make a sale. I needed to track down this art enthusiast, although first I needed to make sure I capitalised on the refreshments.
Several refreshments later I was none the wiser. In fact I hadn't moved from the table. But as is the case at these events, sooner or later everyone needs a drink. I noticed him by the stream of whispers he left in his wake. Dressed in a sharp suit and pointy shoes, the figure of Miles Burgeaumont blends in like a black moth against the night sky. Though there is something different about him compared to a moth. He has genuine joy in his eyes. I go forward to apprehend him, to ask him if he is the enthusiast that has bought all the work, though I am intercepted by a proud parent who asks the questions for me.
"You bought my daughter's work!" cried the father.
"Indeed I did! I was surprised at the...suggestions it made. I needed to have it." said Mr. Burgeaumont.
"I'm glad. The thing is, it wasn't for sale. You see, she used several pieces of my late mother's jewellery in her collage and I'd like them back."
"But I paid a fair price. Don't worry, they will be looked after, even displayed in a gallery. In London."
"Oh London! You should have said!" squawked the father. They made idle chit-chat whilst I began to make some notes and did a few drawings. London. The land of the blind. And the one eyed man could be king. But why? Surely the one eyed man would never be able to prove that he could see. I then noticed that the work was being taken off the walls and taken outside.
Everyone was at the front of the university, looking at Mr. Burgeaumont standing by the pile of artwork. He began to speak.
"Ladies and Gentlemen. Thank you for attending the Leeds Art School Degree Show. As you may or may not know, my name is Miles Burgeaumont. I am an art collector and have bought every single piece of work at this event. You may wonder why I have bought all of this work, and I am telling you now that I wish to display it in London at my very own gallery." said Mr. Burgeaumont. Some people began to cheer.
"Before doing so it needs a slight modification. You see, I represent the Ministry of Beige. The ministry represents everything mediocre, bland, sexless, boring. We have identified that certain works of art do not meet a standard of quality that will in anyway increase the culture of society. They are required to be unmade. To be beigeified." said Burgeaumont. Men emerge from the back of a van and begin to pour gallons of beige paint over the work. The thick gloss falls thickly across paintings and sculptures, erasing all detail. Some students laugh, some are shocked, some rush forward to try and rescue their work, though members from the ministry block any attempts to save the work from being covered in litre upon litre of beige.
"I have bought the work. It is mine to do with as I please." said Burgeaumont.
"But your idea itself is bland and boring. Anti-art is nothing new and has been done better a hundred of times before! Some of the work you're destroying is itself anti-art!" shouted a tutor, making their way forward. A bucket of beige paint is thrown over them.
"This isn't an artistic statement. I am just pouring beige paint over your work." said Burgeaumont. He continued to answer questions and protests as more and more beige paint was poured, it began to ooze out onto the street, onto the pavement, it was splashed up the trees and smeared along the walls. I am unsure as to what happened next as I went inside to make use of the refreshment table, but by the time I left the university there wasn't anybody around, though beige paint covered every surface like a wet snow. I walked over to the pile of art work that was the nucleus for this rearrangement in colour and knelt down, picking out a painting at random and wiping away some of the beige with my sleeve. It was a portrait of David Cameron with a Hitler moustache. I dropped it back into the pile with disgust and began to walk along the empty roads of Leeds, everything was beige. Everything.
"Someone bought everything. I made a hundred quid on my crypto-vintage screen prints based on the works of Miguel de Cervantes recontextualised as a parody of social media." they uttered. I pushed them to one side as I made my way to the refreshments table, thinking that something was amiss. It was rare for anybody to sell work at these things, let alone for every single student to make a sale. I needed to track down this art enthusiast, although first I needed to make sure I capitalised on the refreshments.
Several refreshments later I was none the wiser. In fact I hadn't moved from the table. But as is the case at these events, sooner or later everyone needs a drink. I noticed him by the stream of whispers he left in his wake. Dressed in a sharp suit and pointy shoes, the figure of Miles Burgeaumont blends in like a black moth against the night sky. Though there is something different about him compared to a moth. He has genuine joy in his eyes. I go forward to apprehend him, to ask him if he is the enthusiast that has bought all the work, though I am intercepted by a proud parent who asks the questions for me.
"You bought my daughter's work!" cried the father.
"Indeed I did! I was surprised at the...suggestions it made. I needed to have it." said Mr. Burgeaumont.
"I'm glad. The thing is, it wasn't for sale. You see, she used several pieces of my late mother's jewellery in her collage and I'd like them back."
"But I paid a fair price. Don't worry, they will be looked after, even displayed in a gallery. In London."
"Oh London! You should have said!" squawked the father. They made idle chit-chat whilst I began to make some notes and did a few drawings. London. The land of the blind. And the one eyed man could be king. But why? Surely the one eyed man would never be able to prove that he could see. I then noticed that the work was being taken off the walls and taken outside.
Everyone was at the front of the university, looking at Mr. Burgeaumont standing by the pile of artwork. He began to speak.
"Ladies and Gentlemen. Thank you for attending the Leeds Art School Degree Show. As you may or may not know, my name is Miles Burgeaumont. I am an art collector and have bought every single piece of work at this event. You may wonder why I have bought all of this work, and I am telling you now that I wish to display it in London at my very own gallery." said Mr. Burgeaumont. Some people began to cheer.
"Before doing so it needs a slight modification. You see, I represent the Ministry of Beige. The ministry represents everything mediocre, bland, sexless, boring. We have identified that certain works of art do not meet a standard of quality that will in anyway increase the culture of society. They are required to be unmade. To be beigeified." said Burgeaumont. Men emerge from the back of a van and begin to pour gallons of beige paint over the work. The thick gloss falls thickly across paintings and sculptures, erasing all detail. Some students laugh, some are shocked, some rush forward to try and rescue their work, though members from the ministry block any attempts to save the work from being covered in litre upon litre of beige.
"I have bought the work. It is mine to do with as I please." said Burgeaumont.
"But your idea itself is bland and boring. Anti-art is nothing new and has been done better a hundred of times before! Some of the work you're destroying is itself anti-art!" shouted a tutor, making their way forward. A bucket of beige paint is thrown over them.
"This isn't an artistic statement. I am just pouring beige paint over your work." said Burgeaumont. He continued to answer questions and protests as more and more beige paint was poured, it began to ooze out onto the street, onto the pavement, it was splashed up the trees and smeared along the walls. I am unsure as to what happened next as I went inside to make use of the refreshment table, but by the time I left the university there wasn't anybody around, though beige paint covered every surface like a wet snow. I walked over to the pile of art work that was the nucleus for this rearrangement in colour and knelt down, picking out a painting at random and wiping away some of the beige with my sleeve. It was a portrait of David Cameron with a Hitler moustache. I dropped it back into the pile with disgust and began to walk along the empty roads of Leeds, everything was beige. Everything.
8.4.13
Turbo Bully And The Infinite Sadness
I am sitting in the back seat of a stolen car, on both sides of me sit teenagers smoking spliffs. The driver, who says his name is Mike, is also smoking a spliff, though I would consider it to be more of a 'blunt' or 'doob'. The air in the car is thick with delicious smelling smoke, my head is becoming heavy with the illegal atmosphere. Hard techno music is thumping the subwoofers behind my seat as the car zips along the M25, I do not know the precise location of our destination though I can hazard a guess that there will be no wi-fi hotspots. The conversation in the car is minimal. I can't help but be reminded of the beach landings on Normandy in 1942, the sense of ritual quiet as each soldier prepares for the coming onslaught. Not that I was there, but I have seen Saving Private Ryan which I was told by film-makers to have been an accurate representation of the event. The lads in the car smoking cannabis could have potentially fought on those lousy beaches themselves had they had the poor luck to be born eighty years earlier. Instead it was the twenty first century and the war being fought was to get out of your head at the weekend. Are these drug taking youths any less brave than the soldiers of world war two? I was about to find out.
The car rolls to a stop in the darkness. Mike and his friends get out, I follow a few steps behind, not used to tracking across the slippery night soil in my Armani shoes. We are heading towards a forest. Up ahead I can hear crazy music and the laughter of young people. I ask Mike how often he comes to these parties.
"All the time, yeah? Even when I'm not here, I'm still here. Just in my imagination, yeah?" He says, offering me the drug spliff. I take a few drags and pass it back, holding the smoke in until we reach the edge of the clearing. In front of us are perhaps a hundred or so teenagers dancing in the darkness whilst a DJ plays white label bootlegs from the back of the van. The only lighting emanates from mobile phones and cigarettes. I ask Mike what happens now.
"We go find the man." He says, leading the way through the throng of people. It isn't long before we find a drug dealer. I stand awkwardly a few feet away, I am at least ten years older than most people here. Mike returns with a smile on his face and small bags of powder in his hand.
"Let's get stupid." He hands me a gram of the new drug that is popular with teenagers nowadays. I lick the back of my hand, gently tap out some powder and proceed to snort it up my nose. I have just taken about a third of a gram of 6-2sb monosulphoboridium diemthlamide. Otherwise known as 'turbo bully', or 'turbs' for short.
Turbo Bully was first synthesized in 1996 by scientists in Botswana in order to try and increase libido for animals in captivity. The drug itself didn't have this affect, though it did make the animals act strangely. It wasn't until Turbo Bully was accidentally taken by humans that scientists knew exactly what it did. The drug first dilates the central nervous system, engorging areas of the brain that lie beneath the neocortex. It quickly increases libido and relaxes the muscles, whilst inhibiting emotion and cognitive functioning. As well as this are feelings of euphoria, dipsomania and mild panic. All of these combined have made Turbo Bully into the ideal drug for partying youths trying to get high on their own supply! The thing that seperates Turbo Bully from cocaine, ecstasy, methadrone and other amphetamines is that it's effects last for four days, making it an extremely cost effective way to get off out of your head for a bank holiday weekend. I can already feel the effects of the drug taking hold as I wade into the crowd.
Bodies, faces, light, music. My own body and mind is rolling along at a frantic pace, as if fat snakes have replaced my skeletal structure so that I writhe like some subterranean thing burning in the sunlight. My awareness is fleeting, sometimes moment of extreme lucidity take over only for my consciousness to return into the drug fuelled nightmare of the night. I find Mike again at some point and ask him how much I was meant to take. He laughs when I say I have took the whole gram, which begins to send me into a kind of panic. By that point I had been trying to dance for a while and failing miserably, barely aware at the disgusted looks of the teenage faces that surrounded me as I rolled in the dead leaves and mud, groaning. I black out. It is morning and I am walking alone down a country road, unable to remember how I got there. The drugs effects are still powerful, my brain feels as if it has a direct connection to the internet, but the internet of the late nineties. Things take on a slight 'geocities' aesthetic, all I can think about are gifs of screaming skulls and wireframe models. I try to rest in a field but find that sleep is impossible. I am more wired out of my mind than I have ever been and only eight hours have passed.
I find myself at a motorway service station, I must have walked it. In my hands I am holding a copy of the radio times. I open it up and see doctor who smiling at me from the glossy page. I tear his face out and stuff it in my pocket. It may be useful later. There is a loud ringing in my ears.
Somehow I have gotten onto a coach. I do not know it's destination and feel too scared to ask anybody. I push myself as close as I can into the chair I am sitting in and look in awe at the traffic speeding past, unsure as to what I was doing. It is too much for me and so I go and sit in the toilet located at the rear of the bus. I look in the plastic mirror and see myself, pale, gurning, pupils dilated, a cut above my eyebrow. The visage of a rave maniac. I decide the best thing for me to do is to try and get home.
I'm unsure of the next sequence of events exactly, but I have tried to piece it together from various notes I had made on both my arms, answer phone messages to my friends and family and my credit card statement. Somehow I had ended up in Glasgow and decided to get a train back home. I must have gotten on the wrong train or forgotten where I had lived as I ended up in Blackpool. From here I travelled down the coast until reaching Wales, where things get strange. Though I do not remember what happened to me in Wales, I have the feeling I may have engaged in some sort of animal combat, perhaps against pigs or cows, though I'm unsure exactly. By the time I got back to England I was dressed in some clothes I had found in a bin bag outside a charity shop doorway. Using a combination of taxis, public transport and a rented motorbike I finally reached my house. After checking the date I had found only two days had passed, I still had another 48 hours left in the narcotic adventure. I cannot properly convey the feeling of dismay I felt at that moment, though it seemed to me that the effects were less strong and at least I was home. I had also gone deaf in one ear. I spent the next two days between my bed and my bath, listening to radio four and drinking herbal tea. There were occasions where I wondered if I had gone insane and that maybe there was no such drug as Turbo Bully, though I dismissed these ideas as ridiculous. Of course it existed. How else could I explain the nose bleeds, the tinnitus, the fidgeting, the jaw clenching, the constant sweating, the hallucinations, the discolouration of my glans? As the fourth day started to end I reflected on the question I had posed earlier, if taking drugs in modern Britain was in any way similar to WW2. And I can safely say after my experiences that not only is taking drugs more challenging, it is also more worthwhile.
The car rolls to a stop in the darkness. Mike and his friends get out, I follow a few steps behind, not used to tracking across the slippery night soil in my Armani shoes. We are heading towards a forest. Up ahead I can hear crazy music and the laughter of young people. I ask Mike how often he comes to these parties.
"All the time, yeah? Even when I'm not here, I'm still here. Just in my imagination, yeah?" He says, offering me the drug spliff. I take a few drags and pass it back, holding the smoke in until we reach the edge of the clearing. In front of us are perhaps a hundred or so teenagers dancing in the darkness whilst a DJ plays white label bootlegs from the back of the van. The only lighting emanates from mobile phones and cigarettes. I ask Mike what happens now.
"We go find the man." He says, leading the way through the throng of people. It isn't long before we find a drug dealer. I stand awkwardly a few feet away, I am at least ten years older than most people here. Mike returns with a smile on his face and small bags of powder in his hand.
"Let's get stupid." He hands me a gram of the new drug that is popular with teenagers nowadays. I lick the back of my hand, gently tap out some powder and proceed to snort it up my nose. I have just taken about a third of a gram of 6-2sb monosulphoboridium diemthlamide. Otherwise known as 'turbo bully', or 'turbs' for short.
Turbo Bully was first synthesized in 1996 by scientists in Botswana in order to try and increase libido for animals in captivity. The drug itself didn't have this affect, though it did make the animals act strangely. It wasn't until Turbo Bully was accidentally taken by humans that scientists knew exactly what it did. The drug first dilates the central nervous system, engorging areas of the brain that lie beneath the neocortex. It quickly increases libido and relaxes the muscles, whilst inhibiting emotion and cognitive functioning. As well as this are feelings of euphoria, dipsomania and mild panic. All of these combined have made Turbo Bully into the ideal drug for partying youths trying to get high on their own supply! The thing that seperates Turbo Bully from cocaine, ecstasy, methadrone and other amphetamines is that it's effects last for four days, making it an extremely cost effective way to get off out of your head for a bank holiday weekend. I can already feel the effects of the drug taking hold as I wade into the crowd.
Bodies, faces, light, music. My own body and mind is rolling along at a frantic pace, as if fat snakes have replaced my skeletal structure so that I writhe like some subterranean thing burning in the sunlight. My awareness is fleeting, sometimes moment of extreme lucidity take over only for my consciousness to return into the drug fuelled nightmare of the night. I find Mike again at some point and ask him how much I was meant to take. He laughs when I say I have took the whole gram, which begins to send me into a kind of panic. By that point I had been trying to dance for a while and failing miserably, barely aware at the disgusted looks of the teenage faces that surrounded me as I rolled in the dead leaves and mud, groaning. I black out. It is morning and I am walking alone down a country road, unable to remember how I got there. The drugs effects are still powerful, my brain feels as if it has a direct connection to the internet, but the internet of the late nineties. Things take on a slight 'geocities' aesthetic, all I can think about are gifs of screaming skulls and wireframe models. I try to rest in a field but find that sleep is impossible. I am more wired out of my mind than I have ever been and only eight hours have passed.
I find myself at a motorway service station, I must have walked it. In my hands I am holding a copy of the radio times. I open it up and see doctor who smiling at me from the glossy page. I tear his face out and stuff it in my pocket. It may be useful later. There is a loud ringing in my ears.
Somehow I have gotten onto a coach. I do not know it's destination and feel too scared to ask anybody. I push myself as close as I can into the chair I am sitting in and look in awe at the traffic speeding past, unsure as to what I was doing. It is too much for me and so I go and sit in the toilet located at the rear of the bus. I look in the plastic mirror and see myself, pale, gurning, pupils dilated, a cut above my eyebrow. The visage of a rave maniac. I decide the best thing for me to do is to try and get home.
I'm unsure of the next sequence of events exactly, but I have tried to piece it together from various notes I had made on both my arms, answer phone messages to my friends and family and my credit card statement. Somehow I had ended up in Glasgow and decided to get a train back home. I must have gotten on the wrong train or forgotten where I had lived as I ended up in Blackpool. From here I travelled down the coast until reaching Wales, where things get strange. Though I do not remember what happened to me in Wales, I have the feeling I may have engaged in some sort of animal combat, perhaps against pigs or cows, though I'm unsure exactly. By the time I got back to England I was dressed in some clothes I had found in a bin bag outside a charity shop doorway. Using a combination of taxis, public transport and a rented motorbike I finally reached my house. After checking the date I had found only two days had passed, I still had another 48 hours left in the narcotic adventure. I cannot properly convey the feeling of dismay I felt at that moment, though it seemed to me that the effects were less strong and at least I was home. I had also gone deaf in one ear. I spent the next two days between my bed and my bath, listening to radio four and drinking herbal tea. There were occasions where I wondered if I had gone insane and that maybe there was no such drug as Turbo Bully, though I dismissed these ideas as ridiculous. Of course it existed. How else could I explain the nose bleeds, the tinnitus, the fidgeting, the jaw clenching, the constant sweating, the hallucinations, the discolouration of my glans? As the fourth day started to end I reflected on the question I had posed earlier, if taking drugs in modern Britain was in any way similar to WW2. And I can safely say after my experiences that not only is taking drugs more challenging, it is also more worthwhile.
Advertising 2.0
You turn on the television. An advert is on. You put the television on mute.
You go on the internet. You see a banner advertising a free ipod if you can shoot three ducks. You ignore it.
You are walking around in a city. You see a perfume advert on the side of a bus. You can't remember what it's for.
Welcome to the modern world. Media has never been so prolific in everything we do. Your fridge can download bread, you can watch films on your trainers and stream music that hasn't been performed directly into your pillow. In theory the advertising revenue from these services should be in the billions, perhaps even the trillions. Yet day by day advertising firms are failing, the men and women who write slogans line the walls of job centres across the country thinking of ways to rebrand themselves. The jingle writers have switched to making dub-rave subtunes. Celebrities offered millions in endorsements quickly falter on their contracts, such as Tiger Woods having sexual intercourse or Brad Pitt having a facelift. The adverts are there but nobody is watching. Some say that advertising as we know it will cease to exist ten years from know. Others have slightly different ideas.
Enter Tukanov Imaging, the brain child of Wanda Bellahyde. Her PR company is just a few years old yet is quickly climbing up as being one of the big hitters in advertising.
"One of our bigger problems came from Mad Men. All of a sudden everyone wanted to be an advertising exec. You'd see all these bright-eyed kids come straight from college willing to do work for free. It fucked up the whole system." she says, drinking from a glass of wine. We are sat in her company headquarters, the London skyline beyond the window is blocked by a slightly larger building. Though at just the right angle you can see through the windows across the road at parts of the cityscape. I ask her what made Tukanov Imaging so successful.
"It's all in the advertising babe. Any five year old can install adblock on his dad's pc, half the people nowadays would rather look at youtube for a funny video than watch a lager advert. It's awful. Well, at least for the other dinosaurs. At Tukanov Imaging we're rebranding branding. We're looking into the future, y'know?" she says, leaning forward slightly. I ask her what that even means.
"Advertising 2.0. Though now I'm saying it out loud I'm wondering why the .0, it's not like there's going to be advertising 2.1 or 2.6 is there? Whatever babe, the point is...well it's people, right? You walk past a restaurant, you see a lot of people inside you think 'Oh, that's a good restaurant.', but it might not be, right? You don't know if the food's good or if the service is nice, you're only going because other people are there. People like conforming. So I'm thinking, what's the biggest window in the world?" she asks me. I think for a minute then say there's probably one in a cathedral somewhere. She shakes her head.
"No. Windows. Y'know, Bill Gates? Those are the biggest windows! And sitting at all those windows are people just like you and me, talking to each other on social media. So what we're offering to users is an interactive advertising opportunity. We pay people to say things for us." she says, leaning back and stretching her arms far apart. I nod in understandment.
"Why spend fifteen million on an advert with Clooney when I can pay one of your friends a dollar to say 'Oh I like this thingy-majig' or 'Hey I just saw the big summer blockbuster it was awesome!'." What she's saying is grounded in hard scientific fact. It has been proven that the number of tweets regarding a film before release is in exact correlation to it's box office success. I ask her if she thinks people would be willing to sell their personalities for such a small price. She laughs loudly.
"You remember that guy in America who had the casino brand tattooed onto his forehead? We organised that. We offered Felix Baumgartner the opportunity to fulfil his lifelong dream of breaking the world sky diving record as long as he would say 'Mmmm, red bull gives me wings.' just before jumping. We brought together Adidas and the United States Army so that every soldier is now required to wear Adidas footwear. Everything is advertising. People are going to be saying it anyway, why shouldn't they get paid for it? And chances are they're going to spend that payment on whatever we're advertising anyway. It's a win-win." she says. I look through the window, then another window and another window, at the London skyline. The sun is setting. I think it a worthy metaphor for something, though I'm not sure for what. I try to speak but for some reason my tongue feels bulbous and disproportioned suddenly. I merely make a sound. She continues anyway.
"We're working on text messaging in the next quarter. After that, who knows, maybe use alternative reality or something. Pay people to say things in real life. Current technology opens up new avenues for potential advertising opportunities as well as new challenges. You speaking my lingo?" I walk over to the window and open it, letting the stale London air enter the room.
"What are you doing?" she remarks incredulously. The wind blows through my hair and at my cheap suit. I turn to her and try to talk again, though all I seem to manage is a strange sort of groaning noise. I run over to her desk and throw her laptop out of the window before running out of the room, clutching at my mouth. I continue groaning as I stand in the lift and walk out through the reception. After walking just a few feet on the pavement I throw back my head and begin to shout.
"I just want to watch a funny advert with a catchphrase that everybody repeats like the one from the compare the market advert or perhaps even the go compare advert. But even those are changing and becoming more ironic, more self aware. Advertising companies know they are just making shit but they think that if they make fun of it it makes it okay! But it is not okay! It is all fucking bullshit and I am sick of it!" I say. By the time I have finished my voice has been reduced to a whisper. I continue walking, thinking about where film posters fit into the advertising landscape. Is a film an advertisement for itself? Are clothes real? Can I rest between the shelves of a supermarket, dreaming of my softs, fearing nothing?
You go on the internet. You see a banner advertising a free ipod if you can shoot three ducks. You ignore it.
You are walking around in a city. You see a perfume advert on the side of a bus. You can't remember what it's for.
Welcome to the modern world. Media has never been so prolific in everything we do. Your fridge can download bread, you can watch films on your trainers and stream music that hasn't been performed directly into your pillow. In theory the advertising revenue from these services should be in the billions, perhaps even the trillions. Yet day by day advertising firms are failing, the men and women who write slogans line the walls of job centres across the country thinking of ways to rebrand themselves. The jingle writers have switched to making dub-rave subtunes. Celebrities offered millions in endorsements quickly falter on their contracts, such as Tiger Woods having sexual intercourse or Brad Pitt having a facelift. The adverts are there but nobody is watching. Some say that advertising as we know it will cease to exist ten years from know. Others have slightly different ideas.
Enter Tukanov Imaging, the brain child of Wanda Bellahyde. Her PR company is just a few years old yet is quickly climbing up as being one of the big hitters in advertising.
"One of our bigger problems came from Mad Men. All of a sudden everyone wanted to be an advertising exec. You'd see all these bright-eyed kids come straight from college willing to do work for free. It fucked up the whole system." she says, drinking from a glass of wine. We are sat in her company headquarters, the London skyline beyond the window is blocked by a slightly larger building. Though at just the right angle you can see through the windows across the road at parts of the cityscape. I ask her what made Tukanov Imaging so successful.
"It's all in the advertising babe. Any five year old can install adblock on his dad's pc, half the people nowadays would rather look at youtube for a funny video than watch a lager advert. It's awful. Well, at least for the other dinosaurs. At Tukanov Imaging we're rebranding branding. We're looking into the future, y'know?" she says, leaning forward slightly. I ask her what that even means.
"Advertising 2.0. Though now I'm saying it out loud I'm wondering why the .0, it's not like there's going to be advertising 2.1 or 2.6 is there? Whatever babe, the point is...well it's people, right? You walk past a restaurant, you see a lot of people inside you think 'Oh, that's a good restaurant.', but it might not be, right? You don't know if the food's good or if the service is nice, you're only going because other people are there. People like conforming. So I'm thinking, what's the biggest window in the world?" she asks me. I think for a minute then say there's probably one in a cathedral somewhere. She shakes her head.
"No. Windows. Y'know, Bill Gates? Those are the biggest windows! And sitting at all those windows are people just like you and me, talking to each other on social media. So what we're offering to users is an interactive advertising opportunity. We pay people to say things for us." she says, leaning back and stretching her arms far apart. I nod in understandment.
"Why spend fifteen million on an advert with Clooney when I can pay one of your friends a dollar to say 'Oh I like this thingy-majig' or 'Hey I just saw the big summer blockbuster it was awesome!'." What she's saying is grounded in hard scientific fact. It has been proven that the number of tweets regarding a film before release is in exact correlation to it's box office success. I ask her if she thinks people would be willing to sell their personalities for such a small price. She laughs loudly.
"You remember that guy in America who had the casino brand tattooed onto his forehead? We organised that. We offered Felix Baumgartner the opportunity to fulfil his lifelong dream of breaking the world sky diving record as long as he would say 'Mmmm, red bull gives me wings.' just before jumping. We brought together Adidas and the United States Army so that every soldier is now required to wear Adidas footwear. Everything is advertising. People are going to be saying it anyway, why shouldn't they get paid for it? And chances are they're going to spend that payment on whatever we're advertising anyway. It's a win-win." she says. I look through the window, then another window and another window, at the London skyline. The sun is setting. I think it a worthy metaphor for something, though I'm not sure for what. I try to speak but for some reason my tongue feels bulbous and disproportioned suddenly. I merely make a sound. She continues anyway.
"We're working on text messaging in the next quarter. After that, who knows, maybe use alternative reality or something. Pay people to say things in real life. Current technology opens up new avenues for potential advertising opportunities as well as new challenges. You speaking my lingo?" I walk over to the window and open it, letting the stale London air enter the room.
"What are you doing?" she remarks incredulously. The wind blows through my hair and at my cheap suit. I turn to her and try to talk again, though all I seem to manage is a strange sort of groaning noise. I run over to her desk and throw her laptop out of the window before running out of the room, clutching at my mouth. I continue groaning as I stand in the lift and walk out through the reception. After walking just a few feet on the pavement I throw back my head and begin to shout.
"I just want to watch a funny advert with a catchphrase that everybody repeats like the one from the compare the market advert or perhaps even the go compare advert. But even those are changing and becoming more ironic, more self aware. Advertising companies know they are just making shit but they think that if they make fun of it it makes it okay! But it is not okay! It is all fucking bullshit and I am sick of it!" I say. By the time I have finished my voice has been reduced to a whisper. I continue walking, thinking about where film posters fit into the advertising landscape. Is a film an advertisement for itself? Are clothes real? Can I rest between the shelves of a supermarket, dreaming of my softs, fearing nothing?
2.4.13
Nothing Has Changed Since 1989
The world wide web has caused a time fracture to occur, causing the last ten years to repeat at varying tempos since 1989. I propose that nothing has changed for the last twenty three years. You may be reading this and thinking 'of course it has', though I ask you to think again. Has it really? I'm not arguing that new events haven't occurred or that time hasn't advanced, rather that nothing has changed in particular.
So let us first consider what change is. You may look at yourself and maybe even provide that as evidence. You may say "I have aged by twenty three years or even have been born in that time.", though I would then suggest that there was somebody your age at any particular time in the eighties. Not only that, but they had as bigger impact on world events as you currently have. Even individuals that have the potential for enormous change, such as the important politicians, remarkable scientists and artists or particular daring revolutionaries exist at all moments. They do not produce something radically different but build upon previous events. If Albert Einstein had been born a hundred years earlier would he have proposed the theory of relativity or perhaps the theory of electricity? If it had been the former he wouldn't have been understood, if it had been the latter he'd have been just as remarkable had he been born at any particular point in history. Of course I am not suggesting a literal reincarnation of Albert Einstein, though rather the concept of Albert Einstein. At any one time there are only a certain number of influential people on the Earth yet the population increases significantly every year. Either way a decent proportion of individuals have little impact on history, and even those that do are remembered more for their actions than how they were as people. If something is due to happen it will.
Which takes us to events. You may argue that the world trade centre attacks significantly changed culture in the west, or the financial crisis of the late zeroes, or various natural disasters over the last two decades, though humanity has been in a consistent state of crisis since the first humans left Africa. Events themselves may have massive impact on your personal life, society or entire ecosystems, though on a personal level a person will still go to sleep at night, work so that they can eat and enjoy the company of others. From the shamans of the Amazon to the American soldier fighting in Iraq, both are human beings that would have done the exact same thing if born to each others mothers. The cultures may differ, either geographically or temporally, but people are people. Wars happen, things are made, the sun goes down and so on, but there is nothing significantly new about any of these things at a fundamental level. Even with specific events that may have changed cultures at a massive level, such as world war two or the civil rights movement, directly involved less than one percent of the entire human population on the planet. And if an individual was involved in these changes, chances are that they would not be conscious of the impact of the event during the event.
So why has time repeated from the eighties exactly? I concede that certain world changing events have occurred in the past as life has significantly differed from Ancient Egypt to Modern Tokyo, though I believe the nineteen eighties to have been the pinnacle of human progress. Is Tokyo in 2013 so much more different from Tokyo in 1989? Perhaps on a cosmetic level, though all it is is cosmetic. If looking at a photograph of Tokyo from the last twenty three years the only real notifier of when it might be would be if the cars were new or if people had mobile phones. The models of the cars are unimportant, people have been using them for the last century to get around in rather than the train or the horse and cart. The mobile phone is the only notable change, though we had those in the eighties anyway. Which brings us to technological change, which I suggest is also inconsequential. In the last twenty years we have had theoretically world changing inventions being made yet none have been implemented fully enough to differ the current time to that of the eighties. Advances in communications, medicine, physics, computing and energy have had little, if any, impact on the way we live. We still put petrol in cars. We still meet our friends face to face. We may be able to live longer and healthier lives, but all this does is allow an individual to survive old age for longer rather than have the abilities and appearance of a younger person. The internet could be argued to have had changed the way we live, but all it is is a faster way to access information. I can find out almost any known fact I want by searching for it on the internet, or I could read a book that would have taught me other facts around the information and perhaps allowed me a deeper knowledge on the subject. I can talk to almost anyone, but I can in real life. And even if I was to make friends with someone on the other side of the world chances are that I would one day want to meet them without the internet to separate us, negating the usefulness of the internet in that sequence of events. Otherwise I can write letters, send faxes or phone people if I want to talk to them instantly. Other uses such as online gaming, social media, downloading files and so on have an analogue counterpart. The internet has replaced this analogue counterpart, as less people may play sports or be part of clubs or rent videos, but that we still undertake these actions is a sign that we haven't changed as a society. A person might be watching films on a television or on their mobile phone, but they are still watching films. Couples might meet at a nightclub or over the internet, but they still will have sex. If a tree falls in the woods and nobody is around to film it then put on youtube for people to comment on does it still make a sound? 'How' people do things isn't as important as 'why' people do things and why we do things hasn't and won't change since the beginning and end of humanity.
The eighties in particular marks the beginning of this loop for a few reasons. Part of the major stagnation has to do with the advanced form of capitalism put into place in the eighties. The economy has always been a significant force in shaping society, though this particular type of economy has made it so that the rich get richer and the poor to feel as though they are through selling them various gadgets to make their lives lazier. Any resistance to this idea has little chance in succeeding as Capitalism has been effective in absorbing counter-culture in previous decades, first by first appearing hostile to an idea before cashing in once enough people are aware, such as the sixties free love movement, gangsta rap, the rave scene and so on. Using this makes it difficult for anything considered dangerous to society to remain so for any length of time whilst allowing those in marketing to appear as if they have a sense of humour or that they support these concepts, even though some of these go entirely against the ethos of the concept they are attempting to sell. A majority of those that are in these subcultures are often young at the time of their conception yet will often grow older and calmer as time increases. Children also became a viable market in the eighties as they began to have their own money as well as changes in parenting. The advent of cartoons such as He-Man and Transformers tied in with toys turned a good profit, and these children have grown up to have their own children who also watch remakes of these cartoons and also buy toys and so on. Advertising often aims to recreate nostalgia in some way in order to revert people back to how they were in the eighties, when things appeared better, though this goes hand in hand with the infantilization of the work place and amount of entertainment technology on the market. If it wasn't for larger televisions, new computers, games and DVDs people would spend their money on other things that would expand the mind differently, such as travelling, hobbies or socializing. The last notable pop culture icons that have remained over the years were from the eighties, like Michael Jackson or Madonna, rather than ones that have come and gone, such as Kurt Cobain, The Spice Girls, Eminem etc.
And what of the future? Will we ever end this ten year loop of celebrities, junk food, international warfare, dance music, political scandal, mobile phones and silly hair? I'm unsure. Technology has the potential to change the world but only if we use it correctly. Ideas are only important if people act on them. The outcome only changes significantly if you significantly alter the variables. Will things like ordering your shopping to your door or wearing a camera on a pair of glasses or having a robot drive your car around change our concepts of society, politics, relationships, gender, race, age, work, leisure, life or death at all? Or will it just be like the eighties forever.
So let us first consider what change is. You may look at yourself and maybe even provide that as evidence. You may say "I have aged by twenty three years or even have been born in that time.", though I would then suggest that there was somebody your age at any particular time in the eighties. Not only that, but they had as bigger impact on world events as you currently have. Even individuals that have the potential for enormous change, such as the important politicians, remarkable scientists and artists or particular daring revolutionaries exist at all moments. They do not produce something radically different but build upon previous events. If Albert Einstein had been born a hundred years earlier would he have proposed the theory of relativity or perhaps the theory of electricity? If it had been the former he wouldn't have been understood, if it had been the latter he'd have been just as remarkable had he been born at any particular point in history. Of course I am not suggesting a literal reincarnation of Albert Einstein, though rather the concept of Albert Einstein. At any one time there are only a certain number of influential people on the Earth yet the population increases significantly every year. Either way a decent proportion of individuals have little impact on history, and even those that do are remembered more for their actions than how they were as people. If something is due to happen it will.
Which takes us to events. You may argue that the world trade centre attacks significantly changed culture in the west, or the financial crisis of the late zeroes, or various natural disasters over the last two decades, though humanity has been in a consistent state of crisis since the first humans left Africa. Events themselves may have massive impact on your personal life, society or entire ecosystems, though on a personal level a person will still go to sleep at night, work so that they can eat and enjoy the company of others. From the shamans of the Amazon to the American soldier fighting in Iraq, both are human beings that would have done the exact same thing if born to each others mothers. The cultures may differ, either geographically or temporally, but people are people. Wars happen, things are made, the sun goes down and so on, but there is nothing significantly new about any of these things at a fundamental level. Even with specific events that may have changed cultures at a massive level, such as world war two or the civil rights movement, directly involved less than one percent of the entire human population on the planet. And if an individual was involved in these changes, chances are that they would not be conscious of the impact of the event during the event.
So why has time repeated from the eighties exactly? I concede that certain world changing events have occurred in the past as life has significantly differed from Ancient Egypt to Modern Tokyo, though I believe the nineteen eighties to have been the pinnacle of human progress. Is Tokyo in 2013 so much more different from Tokyo in 1989? Perhaps on a cosmetic level, though all it is is cosmetic. If looking at a photograph of Tokyo from the last twenty three years the only real notifier of when it might be would be if the cars were new or if people had mobile phones. The models of the cars are unimportant, people have been using them for the last century to get around in rather than the train or the horse and cart. The mobile phone is the only notable change, though we had those in the eighties anyway. Which brings us to technological change, which I suggest is also inconsequential. In the last twenty years we have had theoretically world changing inventions being made yet none have been implemented fully enough to differ the current time to that of the eighties. Advances in communications, medicine, physics, computing and energy have had little, if any, impact on the way we live. We still put petrol in cars. We still meet our friends face to face. We may be able to live longer and healthier lives, but all this does is allow an individual to survive old age for longer rather than have the abilities and appearance of a younger person. The internet could be argued to have had changed the way we live, but all it is is a faster way to access information. I can find out almost any known fact I want by searching for it on the internet, or I could read a book that would have taught me other facts around the information and perhaps allowed me a deeper knowledge on the subject. I can talk to almost anyone, but I can in real life. And even if I was to make friends with someone on the other side of the world chances are that I would one day want to meet them without the internet to separate us, negating the usefulness of the internet in that sequence of events. Otherwise I can write letters, send faxes or phone people if I want to talk to them instantly. Other uses such as online gaming, social media, downloading files and so on have an analogue counterpart. The internet has replaced this analogue counterpart, as less people may play sports or be part of clubs or rent videos, but that we still undertake these actions is a sign that we haven't changed as a society. A person might be watching films on a television or on their mobile phone, but they are still watching films. Couples might meet at a nightclub or over the internet, but they still will have sex. If a tree falls in the woods and nobody is around to film it then put on youtube for people to comment on does it still make a sound? 'How' people do things isn't as important as 'why' people do things and why we do things hasn't and won't change since the beginning and end of humanity.
The eighties in particular marks the beginning of this loop for a few reasons. Part of the major stagnation has to do with the advanced form of capitalism put into place in the eighties. The economy has always been a significant force in shaping society, though this particular type of economy has made it so that the rich get richer and the poor to feel as though they are through selling them various gadgets to make their lives lazier. Any resistance to this idea has little chance in succeeding as Capitalism has been effective in absorbing counter-culture in previous decades, first by first appearing hostile to an idea before cashing in once enough people are aware, such as the sixties free love movement, gangsta rap, the rave scene and so on. Using this makes it difficult for anything considered dangerous to society to remain so for any length of time whilst allowing those in marketing to appear as if they have a sense of humour or that they support these concepts, even though some of these go entirely against the ethos of the concept they are attempting to sell. A majority of those that are in these subcultures are often young at the time of their conception yet will often grow older and calmer as time increases. Children also became a viable market in the eighties as they began to have their own money as well as changes in parenting. The advent of cartoons such as He-Man and Transformers tied in with toys turned a good profit, and these children have grown up to have their own children who also watch remakes of these cartoons and also buy toys and so on. Advertising often aims to recreate nostalgia in some way in order to revert people back to how they were in the eighties, when things appeared better, though this goes hand in hand with the infantilization of the work place and amount of entertainment technology on the market. If it wasn't for larger televisions, new computers, games and DVDs people would spend their money on other things that would expand the mind differently, such as travelling, hobbies or socializing. The last notable pop culture icons that have remained over the years were from the eighties, like Michael Jackson or Madonna, rather than ones that have come and gone, such as Kurt Cobain, The Spice Girls, Eminem etc.
And what of the future? Will we ever end this ten year loop of celebrities, junk food, international warfare, dance music, political scandal, mobile phones and silly hair? I'm unsure. Technology has the potential to change the world but only if we use it correctly. Ideas are only important if people act on them. The outcome only changes significantly if you significantly alter the variables. Will things like ordering your shopping to your door or wearing a camera on a pair of glasses or having a robot drive your car around change our concepts of society, politics, relationships, gender, race, age, work, leisure, life or death at all? Or will it just be like the eighties forever.
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