Category: Culture from the Perspective of the Uncultured

  • Perchance to Dream

    Every day people get into cars they haven’t finished paying for, drive to jobs they don’t like to earn money to pay for things they don’t necessarily want but that will distract them from the soul-crushing tedium of life.

    You know what these people need? They need a TV show to remind them of the joy of life, a sort-of Sesame Street for adults that says that, yes, you may not like your work, you may have a mortgage to pay, you may not be as young as you once were, but you can still chase your dreams. You can still achieve your dreams. There is nothing, literally nothing stopping you from being the person you want to be, from living your life how you want it to. Those dreams are still attainable.

    Far too many people have let themselves be pulled down by a cynical world. Far too many people I know have given up on their dreams and desires because the world tells them to get a job, get a car, get married, get a mortgage, have some kids, as though this is the only adventure one could possibly hope to experience in one’s brief flicker of a life.

    When we were children, the world seemed impossible and vast, like a place where anything could happen. And we dream that we might grow up to be astronauts, or race car drivers, or Elvis. As we enter our teens our dreams get a little more sophisticated, and we decide we want to be writers, inventors, physicists, actors, musicians.

    Then after school, possibly after college, we get ourselves a 9-to-5 job, and this cynical world begins to have its way with us. We end up working in a Purchasing department, or as Head of Marketing for a company that makes toilet seats, or maybe we get stuck doing data entry for the next ten years. It wears it out of you. It strips you of your energy, drive, ambition, and you begin to believe that maybe this is about a far as you can possibly go. And though you may rise up the corporate ladder and one day become VP of the Sanderson Bobble-Head Company, is it really what you wanted? What dream did you sacrifice for this illusion of stability?

    So that’s what we need. A half-hour show every day that reminds adults that they don’t necessarily have to be so adult about everything. That it’s okay to be a little childish once in a while, to hold on to childish things, and to dream.

  • An open letter to Whoever Winds Up Organising This Year’s “Rage Against The X-Factor” Campaign

    Dear loose confederacy of internet protestors,

    You did good last year. You managed to bring to a stop The X-Factor’s streak of inane UK Christmas Number Ones. I applaud you for that. But next year could you… I don’t know… maybe pick a different song?

    It’s not that I don’t appreciate your effort, and it’s not that I don’t like Rage Against The Machine (I don’t, but that’s besides the point), but it seems to me that you could use this as an opportunity to get an independent artist into the UK chart. Wouldn’t it be fantastic to discover that the Christmas #1 was Jonathan Coulton? Or Dan Bull? In fact “Thistopia” would make a perfect candidate for this year’s campaign. And it’s available to buy on iTunes. Perfect!

    It also amuses me that you were given the opportunity to send an anti-X-Factor message a couple of years ago when Malcolm Middleton released “We’re All Going To Die”, but I guess The X-Factor wasn’t such as nuisance then. For some reason.

    You’ve proven you have some kind of phenomenal cosmic power. That’s great. But maybe you could use it to send a message not just to The X-Factor but to the music industry as a whole. And the best way to do that is to throw your support behind an independent artist.

    Think about it.

    Kind regards,
    Ben Paddon

  • Here’s My Card

    On Monday I took every Christmas and Yule card I was given and put them in the recycling bin. I do this every year, and I can’t help but feel like it’s a waste. I don’t mean to come across as a Scrooge, but I’ve always felt like Christmas and birthday cards were something of a waste. I appreciate the sentiment, certainly, but the card just goes in the trash after the fact and the money people spend on a card could easily have been put to better use.

    My birthday is April 26th. Instead of getting me a card, I’d like to ask that my friends and family instead make a donation to my charity of choice, Child’s Play. Those children’s hospitals could use the money much more than I could use a square bit of card.

  • On A Seven-Day Diary

    This is without a doubt my favourite poem of all time. It’s called “On A Seven-Day Diary” by Alan Dugan.

    Oh I got up and went to work
    and worked and came back home
    and ate and talked and went to sleep.
    Then I got up and went to work
    and worked and came back home
    from work and ate and slept.
    Then I got up and went to work
    and worked and came back home
    and ate and watched a show and slept.
    Then I got up and went to work
    and worked and came back home
    and ate steak and went to sleep.
    Then I got up and went to work
    and worked and came back home
    and ate and fucked and went to sleep.
    Then it was Saturday, Saturday, Saturday!
    Love must be the reason for the week!
    We went shopping! I saw clouds!
    The children explained everything!
    I could talk about the main thing!
    What did I drink on Saturday night
    that lost the first, best half of Sunday?
    The last half wasn’t worth this “word.”
    Then I got up and went to work
    and worked and came back home
    from work and ate and went to sleep,
    refreshed but tired by the weekend.

    This poem epitomizes exactly the sort of life I have sought to avoid. The grind, the chore of merely existing as opposed to the joy of living. It’s one of the reasons I left the UK and came looking for something better in the United States.

    It’s also probably one of the reasons I’m presently unemployed. Bugger.

    As an aside, I wish I could write poetry like this. I which I could make words flow like liquid half as well as Dugan could.