Thanks for Sharing

There’s a public and very virulent epidemic in the western world. No, it’s not AIDs. It’s not alcoholism. It’s not ADHD. It’s apathy. It is encapsulated by the most abhorrent, pathetic and pitiful phrase you will ever hear in your life: “Things never change, so why bother?” If you ever hear someone confidently spout these despicable words with an ill informed, patronising arrogance, you should… What should you do? Should you turn your back on them and walk away? Should you acquiesce to their deluded and pathetic statement? Should you spit in their eye? No. You should stand tall, equally confident in the provable hope that exists in your rational and logical knowledge. As the speaker and his/her cronies cackle at the pathetic naivety you display in your assertion that everything is changing all the time, you should take a breath and prepare. Don’t be cowed by traditionally accepted platitudes and the clichéd non-thought  of the morass of ignorance in your immediate presence. Straighten your back, which is admittedly against the wall, and calmly begin.

101 years ago, women were disenfranchised. Second class  citizens by virtue of being born with a uterus. An immensely brave  40 year old woman named Emily Davison stepped in front of King George V’s horse Anmer at the Epsom Derby and suffered injuries that lead to her death four days later. Did she do this because things never change? No, she did this because she believed in her cause and was hopeful that her statement would have a positive impact. Now, due to her sacrifice and the brave and hopeful work of the Suffragette movement, women in the western world enjoy rights that their forebears could only dream of. They vote, they work, they own property, they run businesses and lead governments.  There is work yet to be done, but I am brave and hopeful.

59 years ago, black people were second class citizens around the world. They were regularly segregated into “black” theatres and bars. Interracial marriage was seen as unnatural and disgusting, they were forced to drink from “blacks only” water fountains and frequently the subject of gross judicial injustice. Rosa Parks, a seamstress in Montgomery, Alabama, had worked all day and decided to get the bus home. She sat in the “black” section of the bus towards the back, but in the first row directly behind the “white” section. As the bus filled with white people, she was instructed to move. After her refusal she was arrested for violation of the Jim Crow laws. Did she do this because things never change? No, she did this because she believed in her cause and was hopeful that her statement would have a positive impact. Now, due to her bravery and hope and the work of civil rights groups such as the NAACP, black people, and other so called “minorities”, enjoy rights their forebears could only dream of. Interracial marriage is now not seen as disgusting, mixed race children are no longer dismissed as “mongrels”, and there’s even a black man in the White House, a thing that my father thought he would never see in his lifetime. There is work yet to be done, but I am brave and hopeful.

37 years ago, gay people were second class citizens around the world. In many places, the act of homosexual sex, degradingly referred to as sodomy in legislation, was illegal. They were seen as degenerates, perverts and a threat to society. In California, Harvey Milk became the first openly gay person to hold political office in that state. Did he run as an openly gay person because nothing ever changes? No, he did so because he believed in his cause and was hopeful that he could be elected without compromising who he was. In 1978, he and Mayor Mascone of San Francisco were assassinated by Dan White. While this was not directly due to Milk’s homosexuality, it was linked to White being refused reappointment to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors due to his conservative agenda. A more liberal appointment was deemed more desirable in that time of social change. Now, due to Milk’s bravery and hope, and the work of LGBT civil rights groups, in many western countries homosexual sex is no longer illegal, gay people can legally marry  and they can adopt children.  There is work yet to be done, but I am brave and hopeful.

After you have finished sharing your hope based on fact, reason and logic, you can then focus on this adherent to archaic non intellectual and ignorant thought before you and say to them: How dare you teach such nonsense to your children. How dare you spread it among your peers and colleagues. How dare you attempt to diminish my faith in and hope for humanity with your ill informed and cowardly apathy. The world is in constant flux and over time there is progressive and positive change. I will never allow your apathy to infest my faith in and hope for humanity. We are a work in progress and progress is hard and progress is slow. But. Things will never change only if your apathetic, pitiful, and delusional world view takes hold. There is work yet to be done, but I am brave and hopeful and I will never give up.

Everything Is Finite

Cain Lowe. Most you never met him, the rest of you never will. Cain was a polite and quiet boy. He never complained, never called undue attention to himself and never took more than he was due. He was never rude, never had a bad word to say about anyone and never caused a fuss. He was humble and lacked arrogance. He liked to hang out with his friends and play computer games. Cain was gentle. That’s the thing that will stay with me. He had the most gentle and polite manner. He always said please and thank you and never seemed to think that he was entitled to more than he received. I would have been proud if he had been my son. Cain Lowe died last Thursday night. In October of last year he was diagnosed with inoperable cancer. He had a tumour on his brain stem. It could not be removed as it would have killed him. He received radiotherapy as a measure to extend his life, but it was always only going to be a temporary respite from the inevitable. He was in my form class, 8U. He was twelve years old.

Cain’s untimely passing has forced me think about the finite, of the inevitable and fragile nature of life and death. Our parents will die, our siblings will die and our friends, peers and colleagues will die. What will I be remembered for? What will you be remembered for? What will be your legacy? I don’t know about you but I’d prefer if it was something more than, “He/She was always punctual” or “Always followed instruction to the letter”.

I recently read a book about the American indie music underground in the 1980’s called Our Band Could Be Your Life. It detailed the forming of such seminal indie bands as Dinosaur Jr., The Replacements and Mudhoney alongside the D.I.Y. indie labels like Sub Pop, K Records and SST that sprouted up to support and promote them. These labels and bands originated in places that were considered, at the time, isolated and unlikely to provide anything of musical value like Seattle, Minneapolis and Amherst.  These musicians and music lovers had two options: They could plough the popular furrow and discontentedly slog in their local fishery and construction industries or they could, in spite of being largely ignored by the music industry at large, go their own impossible route regardless. Needless to say, these bands and labels went their own way and this ultimately paved the way for the alternative rock explosion of the 1990’s that changed the face of popular music. As Tommy Lasorda said, “The difference between impossible and the possible lies in a man’s determination.” While one would change his assertion to “a person’s determination”, his claim still rings true.

So, what’s my point? Essentially it’s a cliché. Our time is limited. Our potential is limitless. Don’t be fooled, it is unlikely that one’s meekness and obedience will be rewarded in the next life. What is for sure, is that these qualities won’t be rewarded in this life. If there is something you want to achieve in this life, stop humming and hawing. Stop making excuses for your failure or worse, your failure to even try. Decide what it is that you want to achieve. Figure out a route to achieving your goal. Put the wheels in motion to reaching your destination. There will be setbacks, rejections and disappointment.  Strikes and gutters. With determination, courage and the internet these will only be temporary. Stand on the shoulders of giants, and see exactly how far you can see. No one on their death bed ever says, “I regret trying”.

New Irish Sounds In Britain/Diaspora : Louis Brennan

The name: Louis Brennan.

The deal: A Dubliner born and raised, Louis is a London based singer song writer who released his debut album The Reductive Power Of A Coastal Town (Dublin?) in May 2013 through Full + Bless, a Levels Entertainment imprint. The album was launched with a powerful gig at the Sebright Arms in Bethnal Green that month. He commanded the stage akin to some kind of demented preacher: speaking in tongues and determined to save our souls.  Prior to this, his debut single “The Towpath” (for some reason all I can think of is the Topaz) received support from NME and Drowned in Sound.

The sound: Intense, dirge like, glitchy folktronica.

When you google Louis Brennan, the first result is the Irish-Australian mechanical engineer who invented the first practical guided missile. It took ten years for his invention to reap any dividends. The modern Louis Brennan is an inventor of an entirely different breed. His self described “future folk” is an odd proposition and quite unlike anything you’re likely to stumble across this year. With his music described as “dubstep Leonard Cohen” and “pound shop Bond themes”, Louis’ mine shaft deep baritone snakes through a stripped back electronic back drop with a Nick Cave type malevolence during  “The Quiet Room” as he channels Padraig Pearse and Ian Brown exclaiming, “I’m desperate to die for an audience. I’m desperate to be adored.” Let’s hope it takes less than ten years for Louis’ terse, apocalyptic tunes to reap the dividends they deserve.

If you have the cojones, click the link below to bear witness to “Clean Break” from the album launch.

He says: ”If I had all the money I spent on drink I’d spend it on drink!” – from this Altsounds interview.

I say: Abstract and esoteric yet oddly infectious and addictive.

For lovers of: Thom Yorke, Tom Waits, Nick Cave.

In a word: Apocalyptic

What now? Download the album for free here. In other news, Louis is in the process of organising some acoustic gigs. It should be an experience to see how he translates his trippy electronica to a more traditional singer songwriter setting.

Like: Louis Brennan on Facebook.
Follow: @loubrennanmusic on Twitter.
Tagged: Thom Yorke, Tom Waits, Nick Cave.

New British Sounds: Jaws

The name: Jaws.

The deal: Hailing from Digbeth in Birmingham, Connor, Alex, Eddy and Jake have been creating music as Jaws since 2012. One of many extremely promising products of the B-Town indie scene, their peers Peace and Swim Deep have already released their debut albums with Peace’s In Love impressively peaking at number 16 in the English album charts. So far Jaws has released six singles, most of which are collected on the Milkshake EP released in April 2013. The NME gave the EP a positive review, stating that Jaws made “laziness look and sound good”. Jaws are currently on tour throughout the UK and plan to record and release their debut album this year.

The sound: Poppy, dreamy, with a touch of reverb and echo.

Growing up my dad would regularly admonish me for being so laid back I was horizontal. Jaws wrote the soundtrack to that teenage boy’s epic laziness. These boys never muster a pace greater than mid tempo but this is never to their detriment. The music itself is warm and hazy, somewhat like a smiley, happy version of the Madchester scene or if My Bloody Valentine wrote infectious pop tunes. Imagine The Stone Roses by way of a hippy commune. With occasional synth.

Their latest single “Think Too Much, Feel Too Little” ups the ante. It’s a bone fide pop gem. It details the classic tale of unrequited love wherein a young suitor spots the girl he fancies across a crowded room/pub but can’t muster the bravery to actually go and talk to her. Hopefully this track indicates the direction of their debut album.

For your aural and visual pleasure the link for “Think Too Much, Feel Too Little” has been provided below. Enjoy the hand claps.

They say: ”When I write music, though, I tend to think about a certain scene from a film or something in my head and put music to it, if that makes any sense.” – from this A Music Blog, Yeah? interview.

I say: There’s something fresh, innocent and even naive about Jaws. Refreshing, poppy shoegaze.

For lovers of: Slowdive, The Cure (Poppy version), Madchester.

In a word: Playful

What now? Stream their music here, and wait with baited breath until they get off their asses and record an actual album and/or announce an Irish tour!
.
Like: Jaws on Facebook.
Follow: @JAWSJAWSJAWS on Twitter.
Tagged: Jaws, Peace, Swim Deep, Slowdive, The Stone Roses, My Bloody Valentine, The Cure.

Consume Less Create More

A girl once broke up with me because I played too much Football Manager. Man, I played morning, noon and night. I can understand why it seriously rubbed her up the wrong way. In hindsight, the issue was not that I played it so much, although that was a major bone of contention, the issue was the effect playing it had on me when I was not playing the game. In fact, over the last few days I’ve been playing that demon game again and it has had the same effect on me all over again. It makes me lethargic, lazy and apathetic. This over consumption saps my energy, ingenuity and enthusiasm. It becomes an obsession in that the more I consume, the more I think I need to consume. I need more and I need it now! This is an illusion.

Of course this is not the only type of consumption prevalent in society today. There is also the consumption of goods and services. Recently I read a very intriguing article about the topic of creating and consuming.  It explores how that after the end of the industrial revolution, companies found they had too much supply and not enough demand. As a result advertising was born or should I say spawned. People were and still are told they need to buy more for a variety of reasons such as supporting the economy. We’ve largely bought into this myth over the last one hundred or so years. The article argues that marketers establish a void in our beings through advertising that we are encouraged to fill with more and more goods and services.

I believe that the marketers are taking advantage of a void that already exists in most of us. Some of us fill the void with religion, some with work and/or family and marketers want us to fill the void with shopping and consumption. The problem is, is that one can never fill this void with rampant consumerism no matter how hard you try.  The more you consume and buy the bigger the void becomes and the more you want to buy.  As the article states the void becomes “cavernous”.

The void boils down to the question: “What is my purpose?”. It is essentially a meaning of life question. Again, this purpose can vary greatly. Some feel it is to expand their and the collective knowledge of the world and the people that inhabit it, for others it is to entertain and challenge through art and the arts, while still others have trouble narrowing down and indentifying their purpose. It is here that I feel the marketers pounce. Those that cannot identify their purpose attempt to fill their void with the purchase of goods and services. This is a crisis of identity if you will. It calls to mind a quote from one of my favourite novels, Fight Club: “You are not your job. You are not how much money you have in the bank. You are not the car you drive. You are not the contents of your wallet. You are not your fucking khakis.” Well then. What are you? How do you fill the void?

The void we feel is a creative void. We have become distracted by the distractions of consumerism. People are like magpies. Enamoured by shiny valueless baubles. We must be conscious about how we spend our time. Set time aside to create. Whatever that may be. We might start a blog, a cottage industry, paint, write. It doesn’t matter what the activity is. Do something that adds value to the world and we’ll find value in ourselves.

He’s Back And He’s Fuhrious

Ever wonder what Hitler would be like if he was alive today? You’re not the only one! Timur Vermes wrote a whole novel about just that topic called Look Who’s Back. I wrote a review of it. The RTÉ Guide kindly published my review in this week’s issue. You, the lucky and privileged, can read the review right here.

Boys Will Be Boys?

In my chosen profession, I have ample and unfortunate opportunity to witness the formation and display of hyper masculinity in its rudimentary and developing  form. On a daily, if not hourly, basis I hear boys throw around, with unselfconscious ease,  words like faggot, gay, slut, and whore. They claim they could beat up anyone they want, sometimes that includes me, and that they could have sex with anyone they want, this does not include me.

On one occasion, a student asked me, “Sir, are you gay?” because I told him off and issued him with a detention for calling another student a faggot. I told him that if condemning pejorative, subjugating  and oppressive language was a feature of homosexuality then it sounds like a favourable lifestyle to me. I expanded on that by declaring that homophobia was on a par with racism . Subsequently, he told me that homophobic language was not as bad as racist language. He could not explain why or how he came to this conclusion. A couple of days later he told me he had discussed the incident with his mum and that she had agreed with him that homophobic language was not as bad as racist language. Another student called me a cunt because he took out a can of Coke in my lesson and I confiscated it. He failed to see this language as being pejorative in relation to women. He didn’t get the can back; I drank it after class. On yet another occasion, I became embroiled, as a peacekeeper, in a physical fight between two male students as they threw insults at each other, calling each other’s mums fat and ugly and their dads gay. This was due to an ongoing feud between the families.

In short, in my experience, a large number of male students have absolutely no qualms about using homophobic and/or sexist language and resorting to violence to attempt to solve their petty, childish squabbles. These are some tell tale signs of hyper masculinity and not, as so many continue to define it, instances of boys being boys.

What is Hypermasculinty?

The term hypermasculinity is believed to have been established by Ashis Nandy in his writings on colonialism and gender in the 1980s. The term is widely used in the social sciences and has evolved in meaning, but no standard definition exists. Essentially, hypermasculinity is the adoption of extreme macho traits in males. One of the first studies of hypermasculinity was conducted by Donald L. Mosher and Mark Sirkin in 1984. They utilised Silvan Tomkins’ script theory to divide the overtly macho personality constellation into three separate behavioural dispositions: (1) entitlement to callous sex; (2) violence as manly, and (3) danger as exciting.

What Are The Origins of Hypermasculinity?

There are various theories about the sources of these overly masculinised traits. One such theory, is the hormonal hypothesis. According to this theory, hormones such as testosterone can alter the ways in which neural pathways are constructed and contribute to some of the masculinisation or feminisation of individuals. Overly masculine males, are believed to have been exposed to inordinate levels of prenatal testosterone during foetal development.

In conjunction to the hormonal hypothesis, script theory focuses on the effect the social environment in which one grows up has on your development. The macho or hypermasculine script organises childhood experiences to favour “masculine” traits such as physical strength and stoicism over “feminine” traits such as emotion and nurturing. Additionally, this hypermasculine socialisation is perpetuated by rites of passage in male social networks such as hazing, and enculturation by mass media such as advertisements. The script of the overtly macho man descends from the ideology of the warrior and the stratifications this endorses. The warrior is the victor, master, head of the house, with a woman as his complement, he is the patriarch and owns his children.

How Does Hypermasculinity Manifest Itself?

One does not have to search long and hard to find instances of hypermasculinity. This morning, I visited the Guardian website to see what I would uncover. I found that a 19 year old man had been found guilty of stabbing and killing another man in what is believed to be a gang related brawl in London. I read that a man in Birmingham had been jailed for shaking and killing his partner’s child.  I read a story of the murder of a woman and her two year old daughter at the hands of her ex partner. He murdered them after the woman left him due to the abusive nature of their relationship and she refused to rekindle the romance. She did not attempt to deny him access to their two year old daughter. He tortured her for four hours with implements he had brought with him for such a purpose before shooting both her and their two year old daughter to death.

There is also evidence of hypermasculinity on an international scale. For instance, three men have been sentenced to death in India for the gang rape of a photojournalist in Mumbai last year. They are also among five men sentenced to life last month for raping another woman in a separate incident in the city. Cast your mind back to George W. Bush’s speech in the aftermath of 9/11 when he announced with almost sadistic glee that he would “smoke out” those responsible for the atrocity and bring them to justice “dead or alive”, as if he were a self-righteous gun slinging sheriff in an outdated Hollywood Western.  Witness Kim Jong-Un’s constant warmongering and violence threatening rhetoric he spouts against the United States and South Korea. This list is not exhaustive. Some statistics show the breadth of the issue: 95% of the prison population in the world is male and 75% of suicides are male, usually under the age of 35.

What Can Be Done About Hypermasculinity?

It is at once simple and extraordinarily complicated. Simple in that masculinity must be redefined. Complex in how to achieve this goal. Masculinity in its current form is extremely narrow and more or less redundant in a modern world in which the social roles of men and women have shifted so comprehensively since universal suffrage. Undoubtedly, masculinity needs to be redefined and modernised for the benefit of both men and women worldwide.  What needs to comprise this new masculinity? In his closing speech at the recent inaugural Being a Man festival in London, Grayson Perry outlined his opinion on the matter: ” We men ask ourselves and each other for the following: the right to be vulnerable, to be uncertain, to be wrong, to be intuitive, the right not to know, to be flexible and not to be ashamed.” These seem like valuable goals, that would be beneficial to any person. At the same time, established masculine characteristics should not be wholly discarded. Features such as honour, loyalty and hard-work amongst others should be rightly celebrated and incorporated into this new masculinity.  And how to engender this new masculinity? This section of my blog will explore this very question in the future. It will analyse gender issues and masculinity on a micro-level such as family relationships and a macro-level such as institutions.

Thanks for Sharing

At first I presumed that this was completely tongue in cheek. That is until I witnessed the manic glint in Herring’s eye, his obvious sincerity and his charmingly earnest chest-beating performance.

I watched this with my housemate and he dubbed the front-man, Samuel Herring, “The David Brent of indie music”, but I’m oddly enamoured by this endearingly honest performance in a music world drowned in self conscious irony. Catchy as hell too.

Why Did You Choose Your Career?

In July 1961, Stanley Milgram, a psychologist at Yale University, began his famous experiments regarding obedience in psychology. Milgram’s focus was to explore how far a person would go to follow an instruction if they believed the instruction resulted in the harm of another person. The idea grew out of former Nazi soldiers assertions that their compliance in atrocities during the Holocaust was due to the fact that they had been merely following orders. Milgram was intrigued by the notion that one could absolve themselves of responsibility for an act, that they knew to be wrong,  if they had been instructed to commit this act by an authority figure.

Milgram recruited 40 males between the ages of 20 and 50. The experiment was held at Yale University, to increase the perceived legitimacy, and the participants were told they were involved in a study regarding the relationship between punishment and learning. Milgram then setup a “teacher” (true participant), a “learner” (associate of Milgram), and an experimenter, who was played by an actor and wore a white lab coat, again to augment the legitimacy. The subjects drew lots to determine who would be the teacher or learner, but the drawing was rigged so the true participant was always the teacher. The teacher and learner were then taken to another room, where the teacher observed the learner being strapped down to an “electric chair” connected to the large shock generator in the adjacent room. The learner was taken to an adjacent room with the very intimidating shock generator. The generator had 30 switches labelled with voltage levels, ranging from 15 to 450 volts.

The learning task involved the learner memorizing various word pairs, where the teacher would read the list of pairs and then test the learner on his memory of them. The learner gave mostly wrong answers deliberately and for each wrong answer the teacher gave him an electric shock. During times of hesitation by the teacher, the experimenter had standardised responses, called prods.

Prod 1: Please continue.

Prod 2: The experiment requires that you continue.

Prod 3: It is absolutely essential that you continue.

Prod 4: You have no other choice, you must go on.

There were four prods, in which the second could not be used before the first and so on. However, if the subject refused to obey the experimenter after the four prods, the experiment ended. 65% of participants continued to the potentially fatal level of 450 volts.

The experiments concluded that the majority of people are likely to obey orders given by a figure of authority even if the orders results in the death of an innocent human being. In essence, we are socialised to defer to authority through the manner in which we are brought up. We are inclined to follow the orders of parents, teachers and generally anyone in authority.

At this point, you are probably thinking what does this have to do with people stagnating in jobs that they despise and know are wrong for them. Let me extrapolate my theory. Throughout our lives, we are continuously instructed that if we do certain things and pursue certain goals then this will invariably result in life success. For instance, if one studies in school, does well in university and subsequently procures a job within their chosen discipline, they will be happy and content. We have been told this constantly throughout our lives by figures of authority, people in white lab coats if you will, such as parents, teachers etc. As Goebbels famously once didn’t say, “If you repeat a lie long enough, it becomes the truth.” As a result, not taking, altering or abandoning this route becomes inherently terrifying for an individual akin to stepping out from the crowd, peering over the parapet during a siege or stepping into the rain from under the protective canopy of an umbrella.  In fact, just to question this route, that has been written in our cultural script, is, at times, a completely unfathomable thing to do.

On the contrary, at this juncture the most important thing to do is to question this status quo. As with most things, it is extremely dangerous and detrimental to adopt an idea, concept or mode of thinking on faith alone. Instead of blindly following the routes that authorities have set before you, it is far more helpful and productive to ask yourself a number of questions. What are you passionate about? What tasks do with ease? What do other people say you do well? Where do you want to live? How much money do you really need? How much control do you need over your own time? Undoubtedly, these are fundamentally complex questions to answer. However, if you succeed in answering these questions, you will be one step closer to career satisfaction.

The Proud Tree

 

The proud tree

Stoops, it moans.

 

Leaves wither and drift,

Abandoned nests.

 

Mire of itches and creaks,

It’s toothless smile.

 

It’s head bowed.

It’s roots deep.

 

The proud tree droops. But

It’s saplings reach

To the sun.

 

Where once it was alone,

A forest grows.