The evil within...

His beady, red, hate filled eyes gazed lingeringly at me... Drawing me into a false sense of security, he whistled for my attention. I was bewildered by his attempts of friendship, confused by the innocence of his calls. I came closer. But, as much as I tried to forget my fears in that moment of bewilderment, I remembered the pain that he had inflicted upon my father, and my mother, and all those who had come to trust him in the past.

So many times before had he called for the caresses that were often given to him, and many times rewarded with pain, and blood. Their blood, pouring forth from their limbs as they flailed and cursed his existence.

I would not be so foolish. I would be wiser than they had been. I would admire his sleek elegance, but from afar, or from far enough that he could not maim me in a way that is befitting of his kind.

He danced, he sung, he called me on, desperately longing for the touch, the opportunity to be near enough to feel. He had no desire to feel the joy of touch, but rather the joy of imposing his lack of compassion on those forgetful enough to embrace him.

Not today. Not now. Not ever. I, unlike my trusting parents, would learn from the mistakes of others. I would stay away.

Stay away from Rocco. The scaly-breasted lorikeet.

ARRRHHH! I'm a Pirate!

The other day while cleaning through the bottom of my wardrobe I came across a box full of memories. Memories from my childhood when the only pirates I knew of were from story books, not from Somalia. Where the pirates were in some ways heroic figures led astray, living adventurous lives filled with epic sea battles and bottomless treasure chests, not portrayed as petty criminals sitting behind computer screens in armchairs around the world.

What piracy meant to me has obviously changed quite a bit over the last 20 or so years... But as it turns out, I am a pirate**. Without knowing it, without acknowledging what I was doing, without even understanding that there might be consequences for my actions, my little box of memories contained all the evidence needed to send me straight to gaol.

It contained.... A  collection of... mix tapes (cue dramatic hamster).

I took one of the cassettes from the box and read the track list, and the moments of my childhood spent waiting beside the radio eagerly listening and waiting for that song to come on so I could record it and have the ultimate collection of songs to play on my walkman, or to give to that "special someone" at school. And then in a moment it dawned on me that I had pirated all of these songs from the radio. Never at that point in time, remembering back to my childhood did I consider myself a pirate. With the odd exception of playing make-believe around the pool with my friends. But that is exactly what I was... I was an 8 year old pirate, so innocently and unknowingly committing crime well into the late hours the night (or late for an 8 year old).

Johnny Depp makes pirates look cool. Orlando Bloom on the other hand... (Taken from: here)

As I was thinking about my criminal past I started to ponder the state of piracy in today's world and I'm left in a state of confusion. Because the music industry is acting as though music piracy is a new invention, as though it had never been a problem in the past. I don't think that piracy began with the internet, but the internet just gave industry groups the ability to track how much their music was being pirated. Because back in the day, every person with a cassette deck was ripping songs off the radio and recording and swapping mix-tapes with their friends.

In recent months, a collection of film and music groups have actually tried to sue an internet service provider (ISP) for supplying a service that has the potential to be abused. (Click here for news related to iiNet Vs "the Man".) But as I said, piracy isn't new, and it probably (purely speculative) isn't any more wide spread than it ever was. So if an ISP is to be held accountable for it's users downloading copyrighted material, then should a radio station be held culpable for it's listeners recording tracks off the radio? It all seems a little bit ridiculous!

For over 30 years people have explored the wonders and benefits of piracy through the (then) new mediums of the cassette recorder (and even the VHS/Betamax from the TV), and through the invention of the mix-tape. It was undoubtedly, unequivocally an intrinsic part of early mass music culture. It was embraced by the masses and went unpunished. In fact, new artists used to hand out free demo tapes of their music at concerts in the hope of becoming popular. I actually first heard Ben Lee through a free demo tape handed out at a music festival in the 90s, which then led me to buy his albums. So with this ingrained culture of music sharing being an entrenched part of the modern music scene (late 70s till Metallica killed Napster, 2001) how can the film and music industry be shocked and taken aback by music sharing.

They have tarnished what was once a culture of happy sharing, and passionate concern for the listening habits of our fellow human and labelled it a PIRATE in order to strike fear and dread in the mass community.

It's fairly obvious by the calibre of music released now-a-days that the music industry isn't suffering. The fact that they can pump out so much corporate crap with hidden song writers and industry stylists creating their artists from the ground up, almost as though they were grown in special plantations, that they obviously have money to throw away into short term investments. Rather than supporting and encouraging the growth of young, innovative and original artists and investing in real talented peoples futures. So with this abundance of wealth that these corporations are obviously rolling in, how dare they complain that people are enjoying the music which they are obviously doing a shite job of promoting.

Yes, I can understand the huge implications of people SELLING stolen and downloaded material. But that isn't what I'm concerned with in this post. This is all about the sharing of media between individuals for no financial gain.

The fact of the matter is that the internet - without any corporate influence - is a far better tool for promotion and propagation of an artists work than a record label is at the moment... And they're hoping that no one else realises. So instead of changing the way they try to sell their product they instead label the end user as a PIRATE and a criminal in the hope that their "performers" don't realise (I say performer because half of them don't write their own songs anymore).

Get your shit together.

It's not new, it's not the internet, and it's not the people doing it. Sharing music is as old as time, the only thing that's changed is the technology... Shame that you didn't change with it.


**I am not an online pirate. But I am a firm believer in the freedom of the internet and that music and all media is created to be shared with all of society. I don't condone illegal conduct and am in no way encouraging people to take part in criminal activities, I am merely fed up with what constitutes criminal activity concerning the sharing of media.

Tell me what to do...

No, really. I need you to tell me what to do. Because I am obviously so pathetic and incompetent that I can't function without order. More precisely, your order. The one you're about to give me.

I've been starting to notice a trend, not necessarily a good trend either, but a trend non the less. Society now-a-days is very market driven, and everyone who has some drive themselves is attempting to forge their own path on the consumer highway. The trend I've noticed is in part, people trying to make a name for themselves by looking for that niche market, the only problem is that niche market that they're attempting to open is to tell everyone how to live their lives.

Now, for centuries there have been schools that taught young girls how to be young ladies, and school that taught boys how to become men. And in these places of education people were taught to lead, or taught to follow. For some reason I saw the time from the 60s through till today as a break away from the lead of follow mentality. I had for some reason seen a trend of independent free thinkers emerge and thought that this time in which I am living will truely be a time for a change of thinking.

Yet, amongst all this, the same old schools of thought are attempting to re-emerge to tell you how to behave, what to think, what to say, and who to say it to.

There are etiquette schools, business relationship schools, classes on inappropriate behaviour but my favourite is the self-help book. A book that tells you how to help yourself. Really. You need some person who doesn't know you, who doesn't care about you, to tell you the ways to fix the issues in your life and then charge you for the privilege? At this rate we'll be waiting with baited breath for the next big self help book on how to wipe your own arse!

HUMBUG!

Frankly, and this is me being nice, the type of existence we are forging for ourselves as a society is one of complete and utter dependence, not independence. The old antiquated, archaic ways of thinking do not belong in my world.

So here's what I'm going to tell you to do.

Me the hypocrite, becoming part of the illegitimate educators who think telling people their way of existing is the right way, however I won't charge a fee for my advice. I won't expect anyone to take heed of my advice as well, because for some reason people today don't see the value in free advice...

Stop following. Stop waiting for someone to take your money to tell you how to live your life better. If you don't know an answer to one of life's confounding issues, don't look to someone else. Don't alleviate yourself of the responsibility of living your own life. Take charge and find your own answers by making your own mistakes.

I'm not talking about discovering if it's possible to drive blindfolded. That's fucking stupid. But take the sensible risks with your life that you know exist and make the mistakes along the way that will teach you and give you the experience every person needs.

Talk to your crush. Realise that the hardest choices are usually the right ones, and don't, please don't let anyone make those decisions for you.

People trying to make money from selling common sense. Ridiculous. It's your life. Live it.

Man VS wild...

About to walk inside tonight after a night out, the veranda light is off, and I'm feeling a little bit tired as it's past my bed time. Anyway, I was just going through the usual routine, walk around the corner while fondling through my pocket, attempting to pull my keys out. Not really paying attention to what I'm doing, because I've done it before, a million times, it's just the same old routine.

But sometimes, there's something that changes the routine, something which at first seems so insignificant that you just play it off as a trick of the light, but was it? Was it the light, or just this once was there something out of the usual, something that might change your routine... So just as I'm about to put my key in the door I notice something that's not meant to be there... Right in my fucking face...

I jumped about 2 meters, startled as all hell, and screamed like a girl, turned the veranda light on in order to confront this vision which I had hoped was just an illusion... And then I see it, the "trick" of the light which is more hairy than tricky. Right there, right in front of my face there's a huge spider sitting bang at head height in the middle of the doorway!! The thing, legs out, was slightly larger than a credit card... I specifically used a credit card as an example because it's legs were sprawled out in front and behind so all up it was rectangular shape! And it wasn't all legs, it had a large, but slender body... They type of spider you see in the park and admire from a distance, but thank god they never come home! Tonight, I wasn't so lucky...

Now, I have a completely irrational fear of spiders. Not to say that you shouldn't be afraid of spiders, because there are many that can make you quite ill, especially here in Australia... But my fear is in no way proportional to the level of danger that most spiders pose, as in, if I see a spider I freeze up, anxious, clammy, panicked, and am too riddled with fear to act - which is quite absurd to think about retrospectively. Especially considering the size difference (relatively speaking, I'm quite large compared to a spider!), and then even more so, because it's actually the spiders you DON'T see that are the ones to bite you... Not the ones you DO see.

So after screaming like a little bitch, and my girlfriend in the car about to head home after dropping me off asking if she needed to get out of the car to kill it for me, I manned up the courage and squished that little (relatively speaking) bastard!! I slammed my thong (jandal/sandal/flip flop for the foreigners) on the bastard so hard, and with such a rage that I could hear it's plump abdomen bursting!

But this is the thing with the larger spiders...Because he was so big, it didn't actually squish completely - and a confrontation like this calls for no less than the complete obliteration of this arachnid from the face of the earth!! So I had to sandwich the bastard in between both thongs and rub them together... Rubbing them together, laughing mannicly in order to distract myself from the anxiety attack I so narrowly avoided, listening to the crunching and squishing sounds emanating from my thongs to validate myself and my emancipation from the spider that wouldn't let my into my house...

I wiped it's soggy remains on the brick wall, clearing my thongs of the filth and cleansing myself of the experience, and walked into my home, victorious, although slightly more cautious than before.

Tonight... I conquered my fear, and became slightly more of a man... but only slightly as I still squealed like a bitch.

I can't be arsed (aka. I'm not that deep)...

I can't be arsed.

A great piece Australian slang which means I can't be bothered. Now, it's an interesting phrase, but like many great slogans, the etymology of this one alludes me.

What I can't be bothered with is blogging. Every time I sit down, open up the page and begin typing, by the time I'm a couple of lines in I start to doubt the validity of my opinion, and feel that I must do research to actually have some basis for my arguments, and to me this sounds too much like work.

I suppose this is the result of many years at university, tirelessly slaving away in the library looking for that one author who has said everything I had before me so that my argument might have some academic foundation (because in academia originality is discouraged...). But the thing with blogging is, that if someone else has said it before me, why the hell should I go about spending all my time retyping and paraphrasing it for you.

At one stage I thought that I might try to actually make some money from my opinion, and that the advertisements which Google put on my blog would end up being some kind of long term investment. But like a corrupt politician I enlisted my friends to click on the adds at least 5 times a day in order to turn my blog into a job. Unfortunately, Google didn't get rich by paying morons like me to abuse their systems... So that dream for the blog died rather quickly.

I had hoped from the very beginning, that this blog would in some ways be a call to arms to the wider populace of the internet, calling for a new age of enlightenment, of civil and moral awareness. But what I realised shortly after was that people don't read blogs that force you to think, or more importantly force you to act.

The blog is the text based soap opera, and perhaps the problem is I don't watch enough soaps to be able to write in such a way that would appeal to the average internet user. And the people who read my blog (all five of you dedicated subscribers - whom I adore) aren't the ones I need to reach, because you are all like me and probably feel the same injustices I feel, and are aware of the same social issues that I'm aware of.

So, why should I bother writing, hell, why am I even bothering to write a blog about how little I care for blogging. It seems a little self serving to say the least. Well, I suppose that's the root of it. I began the blog because I wasn't happy with the world and wanted to do something about it, in order for it to fit my idea of how it should operate. Which is very selfish and completely unrealistic, regardless of how right I was. But isn't that what everyone does to some extent? Isn't that what makes man different from animals, in that we make the world to suit us rather than change to suit the world. Could it be that my selfishness is really just a manifestation of human evolution now affecting my psyche?

So I suppose, that although I may have had all these profound statements over the last year of blogging (or very few for that matter) I'm not actually that deep, or not as deep as I thought I was...

I can't be arsed with blogging, but I'll probably continue to be as infrequent a blogger as I ever have in the past... I guess at least going forward I wont be clouded with misguided ideas that my posts will actually have some form of dramatic impact on those who read them.

There is no moral today, there is no deep and meaningful message to take away from this entry. Just the tired rant of a pathetically hopeless blogger.