The whispers on an empty night
A touch that lingers on in pain
Eyes down and moving quickly
There is nothing left for either of us here
To try to hurt me now
Is like breaking an empty glass
You know what really grinds my gears? January 28, 2008
I’m tired of having the same debate with people over what it means to be eclectic and to really love music. Many believe that to be truly eclectic means to love every possible genre and in my younger years I believed that this is what it meant as well.
To be truly eclectic doesn’t mean you have to enjoy listening to every single genre and be equally passionate about them all. It means that while you may enjoy listening to some or indeed most genres of music you can still appreciate the ones that you don’t enjoy as much. Like a person who doesn’t like rap acknowledging that there is artistic merit in the lyrics or timing or a person who doesn’t like classical music appreciating the skill it takes to play instruments to such a high standard.
Far too many people say that they’re eclectic but they don’t like this genre or that genre. This is like me saying I have brown hair but I actually have red hair, I just really like the idea of having brown hair. I love most genres of music rap, metal, emo, alt, trad, classical, swing, pop, punk, acoustic, industrial…the list goes on. I’ve even been known to listen to pan pipe recordings, a passion I inherited from my mother.
Two words which are, in my opinion, to blame for this confusion of the word acoustic; Rock and Indie. Nothing annoys me more than someone telling me they are a fan of either of these genres and not elaborating in the slightest. When a record label cannot classify a band they get thrown into either of those two heaps meaning that rock and indie now have so many sub divisions and categories they no longer classify as genres of music on their own.
I like indie…well correction: I like some indie. I like a lot of indie bands and I credit this particular genre for leading me on to discovering other great bands. I listened to it a lot when I was younger and it wasn’t the slutty genre it is now letting aything in and giving itself away for free. There are however some sub divisions of indie I don’t like; the emergence of the stereotypical indie solo female being top of the list.
I’m all for female artists but I feel that within the genre of Indie femininity is exploited to the point where the first thing the record labels try to sell you is the idea “look how pretty this girl is…and isn’t she magnificent she can play the guitar too and…well…she can kinda sing but this is indie and we don’t judge”. Their songs are produced in such a way that their voice solely carries the melody, so in essence you’re not really listening to an indie song, you’re listening to an indie singer the music is now a background noise, an inconvenience that means you can’t hear the pretty girl singing quite as clearly. They also try to sell flaws in their singing voice as idiosyncrasies…they’re not…they’re just flaws.
I’ve always had quite strange taste in music and it’s something I’ve always been very proud of as I come from a musical background. I’ve never felt like I needed to call myself eclectic in order to sound interesting or impressive but the people that do often feel that by looking down on those that don’t they are somehow reinforcing their own ‘eclecticness’. It is for this reason I am offering the world a new word;selectic, a selective eclectic. Someone like me who appreciates music and loves it in all its forms but doesn’t feel they must enjoy it all to really love music.
I appreciate what music it from its simplest form as notes on a page to its place in the world and how it can drive a society. Music has helped me through some of the toughest times in my life and as I’m writing this there’s a nest of birds outside singing their hearts out and there’s few things on this earth more beautiful.
Who said chivalry is dead? January 24, 2008
I did that’s who!
It took me about 20 minutes to get off the 75 earlier because I had to fight my way past literally 30 school kids from Benildus. What is it with teenage lads and their endless pursuit to take up as much space as is physically possible?
In the wild animals in self defence make themselves appear larger in order to warn off predators. I’m assuming the primal teenage mind works in similar ways as it’s usually the loudest, weakest kid who has the biggest sports bag and seems to view other passengers (me) not as people, but as an obstacle past which the bag must be dragged even if it means knocking them over on the way.
Now I’m not saying that just because I’m a girl I demand to be treated differently. What I would like is just a little bit of respect towards their fellow passengers. Out of these 30 kids, one stood by to let me get off the bus, while one of his class mates turned around and yelled to his friend at the back of the bus “Rob you’re a cock”.
The Final Countdown January 19, 2008
In the middle of my finals at the moment which is just a laugh a minute! I was awake until about 4am last Tuesday the eve of my first exam just lying in a state of tension watching the level of glow-ocity of the sticky stars on my ceiling slowly fading out.
1st Exam Media Research and Cultural Studies went alright though for all my panicking and plans to run away and join a circus…but not the kind with animals because that’s just cruel. Maybe I’ll start my own circus, “Cirque De Lunier” one where people act like animals. Focus Jane FOCUS. Either way it went alright, I’m pretty sure I passed it which I’d be happy with at this stage.
2nd Exam Business Journalism was a different story altogether. It felt like the more I studied for it the less I knew, as if the stress of the subject was actually absorbing knowledge from my brain and keeping it for its own sick use. I spent most of the night before the exam rocking backwards and forwards on my bed cradling my laptop hoping that if I cried and prayed enough I would be blessed with some kind of Divine Inspiration.
The luas ride into college was great. There’s nothing claustrophobic people love more than being surrounded by walls of people and hot confined spaces. I had to get off two stops early and sit down just to get away from the wheeled purple prison.
I was pleasantly surprised with the exam paper though. I think I may have actually managed to pass which I’m telling you would be just fine and dandy for me. I’ll settle for my GPA taking a hit if it means I don’t have to do business studies ever again EVER!
I’ll keep you posted about Monday’s exam, the one where we have to, and honestly this is a past paper question, “reorder these facts gathered by a lazy journalist” as well as rephasing gramatically awkward sentences. I’m not too worried about this one, unless they’ve decided to trick us somehow and we have to do the exam blindfolded, in the dark, listening to Leon Jackson…shudder.
What happened to peace and quiet? January 19, 2008
It’s bad enough having to put up with screeching school kids on a bus when you’re already exhausted but the past few times I’ve had to endure this nightmare they were all oddly enough talking about the same thing; how little they eat. Yes that’s right, they were competing over how they eat less than they should and whose parents were the most worried. Now it’s not as if one of them was genuinely confiding in her friend, this conversation pretty much went like this…
Girl 1: I’m starving I’ve hardly eaten today.
Girl 2: I never eat as much as I’m supposed to (shoves sweets into her mouth)
Girl 3: My parents are always loike going on about me for loike not eating enough saying I’m loike anorexic. I’m not loike anorexic loike. They’re sooo annoying
Now bulimia and anorexia are serious illnesses but like misuse of the term depression this kind of pointless attention seeking really pisses me off (excuse my french). They were sitting atound eating sweets talking about whose parents were the most worried about their eating habbits (?). I don’t know if they were trying to compete with each other or trying to get to their parents but this worrying trend of illnesses being in fashion is a very bad sign about the direction our society is heading.
Bottom line when people don’t eat they die! Something these girls don’t seem to have grasped as being an important concept. Fashion models have in the prime of their lives dropped dead from kidney failure literally starving themselves to death. An insider trick is to eat tissue and cotton wool to stave off hunger pains. What kind of a life is that? A roll of Charmin never exactly struck me as being haute cuisine! I don’t know what it would actually take to drive the message into the vacuous bone balloons these girls seem to have for heads but dying alone and boney with a stomach full of Kleenex isn’t a good thing.
…Oh well if Mischa Barton’s doing it…
Big Bother January 17, 2008
The first series of Big Brother was a novelty, and I’ll admit I watched it if only for the sheer morbid curiosity value. The same one you get when you drive past a car crash, you know you shouldn’t but you still look. The show somewhat lost its appeal over time (about 2 hours) yet like a fat man to a buffet, it just keeps coming back for more. Honestly is there anyone who actually enjoys watching this filth? Or is it that we’re so jaded with our own lives that we have resorted to sitting in our houses watching people…sitting in a house. Surely even a five year old can see how moronic that is. As long as it’s still making money we’re going to be subjected to it year after year. Because if there’s one thing television networks know how to do it’s beat a dead horse, repeatedly…with a very large stick…made out of frozen stupid…which ironically might be more interesting to watch than Big Brother.
The show disappears further and further down the drain with every series, dragging what little intelligence and respectability the show once had and replacing it with publicity stunts, cruelty and the most idiotic and frankly annoying people on earth. The kind who look as if they’re struggling with the physics of supporting their own heads. Seriously it’s a wonder they even made it this far in life…I thought evolution would have weeded these people out already. But Big Brother execs have taken it upon themselves to find these missing links, put them on tv so we get to watch them scratching, sleeping and shagging each other for thirteen weeks and all with the promise of a big cash prize at the end of it all for the one who manages to not collapse under the weight of their own stupidity or die of boredom. There’s a name for people who behave like this in real life…they’re called prostitutes.
As well as this nonsense there was the creation of “Celebrity” Big Brother which doesn’t even bother to use celebrities in it anymore. It’s not like they’re short of a few Z-listers knocking around outside the channel 4 studios offering to drop their trousers for a few seconds of air time. Former contestants include Chantelle Houghton who was chosen for the show on the grounds that she wasn’t a celebrity and Jade Goody, a woman who is famous for having been on Big Brother…and for her alarming level of illiteracy. Someone please explain the logic of this to me! Series 8 of Celebrity Big Brother now with 70% less celebrity features…drum roll…a guy who owns his own business and two circus performers. Dear God!
Contestants in the show have an annoying habit of not disappearing. Not bad enough that we have to endure them for what seems like the entire summer but even after the show finally ends, the last hangers on and rented friends leave the studio and the support line is closed they’re taking up column inches. They can easily be picked out of a line up in any cheap night club where a real celebrity was spotted about 9 years ago making it a “hot spot”. They’re the orange ones with the €5 miniskirts and no underwear usually following the paparazzi around like they’re hungry dogs and the camera man has meat in his pockets. Except of course for Chanelle Hayes, the one who thinks that she’s Victoria Beckhan and has made a somewhat lucrative career out of it (as if it’s actually some kind of accomplishment). Oh no but she’s different…really she promises…she really really is a real celebrity…because….because….well she once wore a dress that looked like victoria Beckhams…aaand…she has the same hollow lifeless expression in her eyes. So she wants to be taken seriously as a celevrity and has chosen to prove this by following around members of the Beckham family to the point where it’s almost illegal. That spread in Nuts magazine really did a lot to convince us she wasn’t just another mindless Big Brother hack.
Valentine’s Day January 15, 2008
As yet another Valentine’s Day rolls around I can’t help but find myself a little bit torn. On one hand I can finally understand it for what it’s meant to be, a celebration of love in all its glory. On the other hand the past 20 Valentine’s Days spent alone have left the remnants of a bitter after taste about the day. Don’t get me wrong I have nothing against relationships. How could I? I’m head over heels for my boyfriend and I’ve never been happier, it’s just something about Valentine’s Days that I’m having mixed emotions about. I can’t wait to spend the day with Gavin who I plan on moaning to about consumerism before asking for my present. I can’t decide if I’m a cynic, a realist or a hypocrite.
It took me some time to decipher the mixed messages I was sending myself and in the end I reached a fantastically anticlimactic conclusion. I am a hopeless romantic. I love love and everything about it. I love the chocolates, the flowers, the teddies, and the clichés. I even don’t mind that I’ve spent the past two February 14ths working, helping smug couples to find their cinema seats because they were too busy staring at each other. I don’t like how it’s pushed onto people though. Not everyone who is single is unhappy about it. For many it’s a choice and a perfectly valid one at that. It puts huge amounts of pressure onto people by forcing the idea that if they’re not in a relationship there must be something physically, emotionally or mentally wrong with them. It would be like telling everyone to be Catholic at Christmas just so they don’t miss out.
Why isn’t there a day to celebrate the single life?
