Its a little cheesy.. but strangely enough true!
Monthly Archives: January 2007
I just figure it tends to come across that I have a pretty negative outlook on stuff. So before I run off I figure I’d just talk about briefly the sort of stuff which help me along in life. The amazing things I have on a day to day basis which.. well just stops me going that little bit crazy.
You probably know if you’ve read any of those really long posts I do that I have some issues with my course, but it doesn’t get my goat becuase everyones entitled to their opinion. No matter what anyone says otherwise generally the content of lectures seems to come out as waffle from where I’m sitting.. unless it’s actually showing me how to do something. So perhaps the thing I’m most thankful for is the honesty and sincerity I find in people I interact with on a daily basis. I’ve got some amazing friends who just.. well do a fair bit to counter the waffle and completely blow the stereotypical student, artsy fartsy and academic air completely out of the water when it comes to university. I’ll work on a essay as soon as I get back in from uni but I do so knowing I’ve got friends coming around to play guitar, have a meal or watch a film or something till like..2-3 in the morning sometimes. Also my friends at home who remind me of all the things which went on back in highschool.. which is nice.. the sun always seems to shine back home heh. I can’t slate the course here though, its given alot and I really rate some of the course leaders. I just end up switching off though when they gone about post-modernism and hyper whatevers.. the only break seems to marxist theory which is.. strictly speaking a conspiracy theory and since we have difficulty enough defining post-modernism as it is.. I end up doodling or something.
I mean, who cares man. I’m young, travelled, musicial and have a amazing relationship with God. Before I was pretty much apathetic on the subject.. sorta like that song ‘Teenage Kicks’ by the Buzzcocks.. your hormones tend to usually be the boss of you around then. Even then its really weird.. like.. some people say religion or the church is one of the most oppressive forces? When I got into sociology and politics though I completely found it the opposite.. it wasn’t so much a flash of light or nothing but it’s like James says.. faith without works is dead. Antonio Gramsci, Oscar Romero, Leo Tolstoy there all just… such amazing.. flippin amazing characters which completely changed my life. And besides.. you want to talk about oppressive forces? Try the media.
When I was backpacking it was just stripped away.. I was teaching kids and digging ditches in a community of 150 familys and by the end of it I was accepted just like any other. I taught the oldest kids english and by the end of it they were helping me dig my ditches after class! When I had to go.. well I just had never seen such love come from children who were so thankful and so eager to have been taught and to have new friends. Me and the other volunteers were playing football and going to parties with the villagers.. man it was just nuts and… it was freezing cold at altitude, the work was pretty hard too, I got third degree burns when I first got out on the back of my neck becuase I didn’t cover up and I was living in a potato shed the whole time but.. I wouldn’t rather be anywhere else. You see alot of students backpacking and I was one of the younger ones, the worst bits of the trip came through meeting up with them in the hostel but even then it wasn’t so bad.. but it taught me alot. I remember nights when I didn’t get any sleep becuase the couple in the bed below me were at it like rabbits regardless of the rest of the dorm.. y’know funny thing is its only british people which I ever encountered acting like that, honest. Americans, Isareli’s, Europeans, Cubans, Brazilians and Argentinians.. can’t fault them personnally whatever politicians say (or the BNP). I dunno.. maybe its all margaret thatchers fault for turning us into a bunch of inwards looking inconsiderate meanies. We tend to drink alot more than everyone else too.. As for nation states though.. well I’ll put that away for another time.
This is already another one of those ‘long posts’ but your probably used to it by now. Another thing I’m thankful for are my family, my parents are perhaps some of my best friends as regardless they’ve always stuck with me even when I go nuts occasionally. Blood’s thicker than water and I could travel or live on the other side of the world one day and all my parents would have to do is ask and I would be there for them. My Mum started me playing guitar and my Dad’s family have a history of being pro-old labour. I hate new right politics with a passion and I was blindly stuck in the left when I was first exposed to it.. and it made me have alot of issues with my faith originally with the whole religion ISA type thing going on. But you know.. things always sound better on paper don’t they.. my Dad’s sister is a sociology teacher and rather a communist.. yet she’s one of the most middle class people I know. I don’t know how you change society if you don’t help your neighbour man. I could go further into benefits of something with a christian take on the left but it’s already longer than this needs to be..
Oh.. and I’m thankful for books.. and the fact I don’t watch TV. TV’s just propaganda regardless.. transfer of values and all that.. and books just open up entire new flipping worlds. I’d be happy to read books on the net, but somehow all this narrative stuff using the little virtual environments and whatever breaks down the imagination.. it my be genre breaking or hyperreal or whatever they decide to dress it up as. To me though I’d rather be left with a imagination and the natural earth to tread on. It feels that as the world becomes a smaller place so do our minds sometimes, and to seek escapism.. especially to blur a virtual reality and reality might suggest the inability to manage what you have already or even worse ignorant of it. I mentioned it in my images project that we sure do have the technology.. but I’m not sure we have the maturity to use it sometimes.. and, well the proofs in the pudding they say. But I’m just so thankful of all the experiances I had.. the life I’ve lead.. and what I’ve been given becuase its just worth nothing if I can’t give that to others too one day. I could say something cliche about wanting to the leave the world a better place but.. well. I’m sure you’ve probably heard it before.
Me and Will spent some more time relaxing last night. He’s ended up leaving his guitar around my place becuase he’s round so much. He want’s to play alot of Underoath, Thursday and Senses Fail type stuff which is cool but yesterday we just ended up picking out songs for Will to play on the acoustic. I dunno if you’d say I could sing.. but I’ve done a fair bit in the past so it was just cool to relax sing songs and play guitar yesterday. But yeah.. here’s another one of my favourites.
The John Butler Trio are Australia’s biggest independant musicians. John Butler is famous for his skill on a 12 string guitar and outspoken political commentary on the environment, human rights and is a general left wing advocate which contrasts with the conservative nature of the place he calls home. John Butler plays in open tunings on his guitar often reflecting styles seen and heard to resemble more traditional celtic or indian tunes. Apart from the fact that all this is absolutely mind blowing in itself John Butler also set up the JB Seed Foundation which is where he gives his own money to individuals wishing to become independant and realise there own ‘dreams’. John Butler started his days as a busker in Perth and still retains that to his day, occasionally still being known to do some spontaneous busking across Australia.
I’ve seen a few interviews and stuff outside his gigs and he sounds one of the most level headed and down to earth people you could ever meet to be honest. He’s opinionated, completely honest about how he feels and generally doesn’t go with the flow but in such a fashion that you can’t help but admire this guy. But yeah.. he also plays a pretty awesome make of guitar and I did end up saving to buy the same make.. and I can tell you one thing.. he must be a good busker to afford guitars like that. That said, if you knew anyone who’s had a go on my guitar at Uni they all agree.. its just flippin’ unreal. I’d love to grasp a similiar playing style given time.
I figured I’d start profiling alot of the musicians who influence me in my day to day bumbling. My friend Will shares alot of the feelings I have on issues and he’s currently studying public relations at the same uni as me. We’ve known each since we were..14? ish but we have very different tastes in music.. he’s into alot of pop-punk and stuff I’m into.. well I guess you’d call this roots.. or contemporary folk.. but I listen to alot of political punk as well. I really don’t go with anything which seems to fail to echo how I feel. Will yesterday was like ‘you’ve got to listen to some fun stuff too’ but to me this music and the musicians are the best thing since sliced bread. Its almost like magic to me, just.. well it resounds deep within me and I can’t help but love this stuff.
So who’s first.. Xavier Rudd. This Australian musician who’s pretty much a one man band, he’s best known for playing a weissenborn lap guitar and digereedoo. He’s a independant roots artist who is perhaps best known for singing out about the effect of the wider world on the envionment, hard times and happiness and the plight of the natives cause.
As an individual though Rudd’s something else, especially as far as being a famous musician in Australia. In interviews he’s been known to shift tables to sit on the floor, I’ve never seen him wear a pair of shoes, at best sandals. He spent alot of time in the outback and really seems to connect with that in his music. I just used to love the fact he played digereedoo but after going travelling I remember just sitting there and thinking about the stuff he talks about. He puts out a pretty earthy sound and its definately something good for introspection in an everning or something while I work. Or rather as a justification for not working at all
Sooo.. yeah.
This came up in a lecture I had today.. why now? Partly becuase it’s been in my mind since then and my friends have just left so this is my first stint of free time tonight.
Does violence in a computer game.. or in the media in general lead to violent people? One of my sociology modules was on media back when I studied this and the general view in the lecture today was that people prone to violence will be more likely to emulate what they see or witness. If you’ve read anything I’ve previously waffled about you probably know the direction this will take. Unfortunately I didn’t bring my sociology notes with me to uni so I can’t give out the names of the studies or cases I might be alluding to. I’ll remember some.. but probably not enough.
Their have been cases in the past were children have been brought up in unusual fashions, the most obvious being the instances of feral children, two examples I know are of a boy raised by wolves in Russia and a girl by Chickens in spain..but other instances include living a life in a room and all sorts of cases. This raises questions in the ole’ nature/nuture debate (the phrase ‘its our nature to be nurtured’ is opening a can of worms).. so how does this tie into media and violence? Well the typical new right way of thinking.. which pretty much covers every point of reference for the movers and shakers of todays political and social climate would probably support the view that some people.. are just prone to be violent. Or rather its down to the fact they were raised in a single parent house hold and so didn’t recieve the proper ’socialisation’ required for normal people in the first place. Quite frankly its a shame to witness so many generally agree to thinking like this.
My view? The media is quite possibly one of the single greatest agents for violence. Even when I was walking to uni this morning I was thinking of a phrase in the film ‘lord of war’ where a character suggests ‘bullets are a much surer way of securing votes than politics will ever be’ (paraphased.. obviously) and why is that? On one level it might be fear.. fear you’ll be shot or targeted if you stood against the shooters.. on another level its the slight of hand on unseen shores which becomes a tool of politicians.. bullets themselves making valuable commodities in some places. Regardless, its the way in which your told about this.. and media surprise, surprise is the means of communicating.. today not so much information. More opinions nowadays.. but then again we could say thats always been the case.. and despite what everyone says about media in the masses you’d be surprised.. or not to find theres a select minority who still managed to shout the largest.
I have the habit of going off topic.. I personally feel while.. despite the fact that the media is expressing the views of a select minority.. even with all this airy fairy stuff going on with people having there own websites or whatever. We will obviously as individuals be affected by the media content in different ways, however becuase our existence is purely defined by responses to external stimuli.. as social characters. When we exist in a media saturated society the more likely we are to act or appear in a fashion which is influenced by the media, in the Jamie Bulger killings.. exposing children to movies where doll’s torture and kill people (Childs Play & Chuckie).. the fact they later go out and do the same thing to people who cannot defend themselves.. or are otherwise seemingly innocent in the true sense of the word raises some questions to me. Likewise with the Nathan Martinez case and the rampage he went on mirroring Natural Born Killers. Kids in studies, teenagers in studies all support the claim that watching content with violence apparent in it will encourage to some degree violence within those concerned.. right from Tom and Jerry to something like.. Apocalypse now.. or actual footage of war etc.
Now I hear.. ‘I played violent video games.. i watch/watched horror movies.. why arn’t I like that?’ you can’t deny the experiance hasn’t changed you in some way. I call it differential association, well its something I learnt but yeah. The more were involved in a environment which we’re ‘different’ to in terms of values (so the normative value system.. verses a ghetto) we’re more likely to associate with the immediate environment and so our values shift emulating successful rolemodels.. no one wants to be a looser and if good guys finish last who wants to be the good guy? Especially when your growing up. So as media consumers and the media itself finds us targets the media finds itself creeping out of the TV set invading not only the living room but the fabric of our lives. We see it communicate trends, symbols in media promote meaning.. likewise.. so does violence. You may not use it, but you will be used to it.. to a greater degree accepting of it.. and perhaps even get to the point where you find some cases of violence funny or as entertainment. I’ve got a friend at Oxford who liked to crucify pidgeons and hurt cats purely becuase he could.. I came to the conclusion though that to a lesser degree he was acting out instances seen in the Jamie Bulger case. Now it might of been in his nature to hate pidgeons with the same passion the pharisee’s hated christ. But given the fact he was brought up stuck in front of a TV.. we all were, given his life experiances and his place in the spectrum of human character as a child how did media affect him.. or us.. we social beings. The most direct example is web chatrooms.. your told someones a little kid, and kid A might go meet them but kid B turns out to be a peadophile.. kid A wasn’t born naturally prone to meeting up with peadophiles but becuase of media affecting his value and this medium exploited in an unethic or unmoral way kid A has become a victim to the system. Some people would be suspicious about meeting characters online.. some don’t but your values are affected by the message the media tells you as an individual.. we’re not consumers.. we’re apparently all individuals and the media makes it its job to apparently personalise itself to the consumer to the greatest extent possible. I guess in short a serpent amidst the roses, threatening us with a transfer of values. Values which somehow add meaning or relavency to us with what we see in the media. If your locked in a room with a tape playing over and over.. all you will know in the end is the tape. Its like talking, shouting, whispering.. without the words.
Waffle, waffle.. I dunno.. I hope someone reads this.
Well this is the start of my second term. Christmas wasn’t what I was expecting it to be, neither was new years to be honest. We had my grandparents round over christmas and my grandads had a knee joint operation.. but becuase of a hereditry heart weakness he needed a pacemaker fitted due to complications in the operation.. and since then he went into hospital again to find out a valve in his heart is playing up and the tendons have gone. Yesterday I found out he contracted Mrsa.. and I hadn’t even mentioned the effect it had on my Nan who since set up shop in my bedroom while my grandads in hospital. I don’t begrudge it, I worry for her and my grandad.. but… well it was the longest time I’ve been home since my stint in Peru. I felt a little lost amidst it all. Ironically I was bursting to finish 6th form and leave home before I went away from it all.
To be honest though I still wonder if the course I’m doing at Uni is the right one for me. I enjoy the content and all but it seems pale to the desire to travel or.. I dunno theres so many issues which need to be brought to people and the Media in society at the moment is so full of crap I can’t believe it.. I’ve forsaken conventional media and the net is really the only resource I use for information on the outside world. I seriously question the theoretical viewpoints expressed in some of my lectures aswell. I guess its learning how to apply in terms of production but.. ah I could go on forever about something like that. Its useful.. the skills no doubt about it, but I find it hard.. for me to integrate properly into the course. My faith and the fact I dont.. well if you met me you’d know I’m probably not the sort of person to appear at the Old Firestation (the Student Uni nightclub), I don’t even drink.
Though I guess loads of stuff change and it’s hard not to progress if your pushed beyond your comfort zone. Truth be told for me three years don’t seem the longest time. I just wonder occasionally where I’ll be at the end of it. I just sit in my room at uni sometimes and daydream of places I might be.. people I could meet. That sounds bad.. I’ve met loads of people at uni but.. however I feel a little removed becuase I don’t share the concensus views. 4-5 months ago I was travelling through deserts..mountains.. rainforests.. the old firestation and a monday morning lecture seems a little pale in comparison.
Still, its be rather sad to say I’m not looking to draw the best from the situation at hand.. take what I’m given and use these three years to change opinions and integrate this into a means of making my daydreams a reality.. eventually.
