I was musing with fellow Joup associates Chester Whelks and Kitty in Manchester UK about six weeks ago wondering about the streets of Withington about 2 miles south of city center. They told me about the burrow and its charm and pitfalls. We ate and drank at a couple of different pubs. We talked about life…and music…and art…and hopes…and aspirations. We also discussed about how I’ve lost the will to write. I told them of how it seemed there were so many people writing on the internet now, recording podcasts or producing video content that it was just overkill and disheartening. Then they, as good mates do, advised me. Kitty offered that I should just start writing and not worry what comes out. Just do it as an exercise and continue to see what happens; you could find a very strong passion again.
Chester also advised me in the form of a quote from Nick Cave which is quite long so I’ll break it down into 3 parts.
‘The Wandering Jew and You’ David Berman Interview. June 16th, 2011.
I once had this dream in which I was the Broomfield/Theroux figure in a Documentary of the aforementioned title, accompanying David Berman as he walked into intimidating wilderness, a terrain which while barren, still – as he made pains to point out to me,“…has the odd barn casting a shadow the color of dried-up blood”.
A squashed can of compressed veal. A soggy copy of Playboy, singed around the centerfold’s midriff.
“Why would anyone want to set fire to the image of a naked cowgirl?” I asked rhetorically.
Chasing him through parking lots,
Into parallels,
2017…Meh: Looking Ahead to 2018
So, 2017 huh? Look, I’ll be honest with you, I’ve really been struggling to come up with some kind of year-end list of pop culture phenomena and detritus that were special to me or that made the year great or whatever, and I just don’t think I can do it. I’ll always have “Twin Peaks,” and this new cinematic Stephen King Renaissance has been pretty cool to watch take off, as well as all the other films I enjoyed (which you can read about here) this year. And sure, I’ve got my albums and songs that I dug on a whole bunch just as I do every year (which you can also read about here, here, and here respectively), but I just can’t summon the power or the energy to write a recap that won’t sound like I’m repeating myself…or that will make up for the general, overwhelming hopelessness and despair that 2017 has been wrought with.
5 Things that Made 2016 a Little Less Shitty
Bettman/CORBIS
Let’s just go ahead and get this out of the way: 2016 really fucking sucked. A bunch of really cool people died. A surly, orange clown somehow managed to con his way into the most powerful position on Earth. Rampant nationalism seems to be sweeping the globe. And we may be looking down the barrel of so many loaded guns (climate change, Supreme Court nominations, the gutting of health care, diplomatic relations with China, Turkey, Russia, The Philippines, etc.), that it’s enough to induce an all encompassing panic attack…the kind that last’s a lifetime.
People are scared. I’m scared. And we should be.
It’s Come to This: An Op-Ed Political Essay
getty images
I’m just one more voice screaming into the abyss.
Some days, I’ll be scanning through my Facebook or Twitter feeds, and as the constant and seemingly endless stream of status updates and selfies and shared articles and political rhetoric, the likes and dislikes and misinformation and click bait stack up like garbage piles infinitum on my eyes and brain, I’ll come to the gradual realization that I hate everybody I know. Or, more to the point, I abhor their online presence. I tire of all the “Look at me!” posts and the “Can you believe?” links, the mundane and asinine as glorified by characters and pixels. But I particularly loathe all of the political screeds and the trash spam articles masquerading as news. And I hate all of the condescension and contempt that harbors within me towards these people I normally have love and respect for in the non-digital world…the real world? And goddamnit, it always gets so much worse during an election year.
The Joup Friday Album: Gorillaz – ‘Demon Days’
More and more frequently I find myself wondering whether the world has always been this despicable or if I’m just becoming more conscious of it. Concurrent with this feeling is a realisation that our generation is being increasingly more spoilt with a Pop Culture smorgasbord: the Heroes of our youth dominate the Box Office, favourite bands of the past reform and tour, the best TV show of all time revived after a 25 year hiatus, Comic-Con has gone supernova. One of the few gifts of being a dentally challenged, pallid skinned Brit is an ever healthy cynicism possibly attributable to being of an island nation still living on a pension from a highly questionable Imperial legacy, which during the best of times enables many of us to take a dim view of anything that on the surface seems too good to be true. Back in my teens when I thought ‘The X Files’ was giving me a window into the clandestine machinations of the world’s superpowers my dad calmly and succinctly cut through my teenage distrust of his adulthood by putting it to me ‘hypothetically’ that THEY would love it if we were ‘watching the skies’ rather than paying attention to what was going on in front of our noses.
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