If You Only Knew

It struck me today how very odd communication by telephone actually is. I was sitting on the toilet doing what men do when they sit on toilets when my mobile rang. Now some would say that it was foolish in the extreme to even answer the phone whilst doing what I was doing but, in a rather mindless manner I pulled my phone out and answered. I then had a very normal conversation about life and work (notice those two things are separate) before hanging up and finishing up.

What I think is extremely odd about this is the enormous discrepancy between what the person on the end of the phone thought I was doing and what I was actually doing. I’m not suggesting that the person actively thought about what I might be doing (although that slight echoing sound was a dead giveaway) just that they probably imagined me in my house, or in the my car or out for coffee, non of which were even close. It then gets stranger to think that I have no idea what they are doing. My friend could have been on top of Kirsten Dunst and I wouldn’t have had a clue. The question is: how much more interesting would the world be if we could some how see exactly what someone else was doing while on the phone to us? Of course the pragmatic and/or cynical among us will say that it wouldn’t be very much more interesting at all because most of the time they would be doing very boring things or that when video phones are more widely used we shall see exactly what they are doing. However the kind of watching I’m referring to here is the purely voyeuristic kind where the watcher remains entirely unseen and un known.

What I imagine we would see is people in their natural state, for once, wholly unaffected: as your boss tells you that the poster really has to be done tomorrow he is squeezing some enormous zit on his forehead, or perhaps as your girl friend informs you that you should really get a hair cut she is prancing around in her underwear to the softly playing ‘Dirty Dancing’ sound track or even as your mother tells you that she is doing well since Granddad died she is brushing back a tear that just won’t go away. Sometimes it’s even more extreme: I heard a story of a journalist who was in a war zone being fired upon and was fearful for his life. He quickly called his family on a satellite phone and got his youngest daughter who gravely informed him for several minutes about the kid who was picking on her at school.

I’m not suggesting for a minute that we are missing out on something special or that telecommunications is robbing us of precious time spent together because, obviously if it weren’t for cell phones we couldn’t have half the conversations we do have. However, what I am saying is that if you find you self on a boring call to someone imagine what he or she could be doing. It will add a whole new dimension to your phone calls. Put aside those conservative thoughts and imagine them lying naked in a pit of jelly while seventeen virgins dance naked to the beat of a Tibetan yak drum. The thing is, they actually could be and you’d never know (apart from the tell tale rhythmic drumming).

Better still, engage in some truly adventurous phone calls. Indulge your self by realising that you could actually do anything you like and no-one will ever find out. When else can you talk to your boss all the while plucking your reoccurring back-hair? If you know someone is going to ring, make the most of it: take all your clothes off, put pegs on your nipples and get in a bath tub full of baked beans - you know you want to.

The Human Condition

I find it unimaginable that anybody would go to the effort to invite you, Tim, to an evening of supposed joie de vivre and then not even bother. Unless of course maybe you arrived after the focus of the gathering had been reached, and the general populace had moved into more of a recovery and away from a paticipatory mode, possibly having having partaken too much of the table and bottle, merely passing time in a stupor in no fit state to fully appreciate your good self.

This is a common enough complaint and one which seems to be not only confined to social gatherings. All through society people seem to just switch off and merely existing, unthinking and dead. It is ironic that the social structures that enable them to live in this way rely on an active participation and when this is lacking they also die and become open for corruption. How often is it that our better angels are shouted down by the demons that also fill the void of our soul? While I agree that our species does have enormous capacity for goodness and love these seem but abberations when the sum of our actions is considered. The rest a mixture self interest and indifference.

By opting out people deprive the system they are told they love, democracy of its most required feature, that of an informed public. We have created a world for ourselves where we are no longer needed to participate or even be human, just functionaries. How can it be that less than two centuries after fighting so vigorously for the right to be acknowledged as worthy of recognition the masses no longer seem to want it? Is is that they have seen that it is of no value to them, are they bored, or is it one of those intangibles that it is simply enough to be recognised in the first place and then it no longer matters?

As I was sitting in a cafe today reading about upcoming elections I wondered whether it was that the world is just too big. When democracy was born there was a directness about it that people could grab hold of. For example in Florence at the start of the Renaissance the Signori held office for two months and at the end of this period those who were fortunate enough to be a part of the process gathered together and elected their next leader. Nowadays who could say that they actually affected anything. In the US they talk about whole states as swing states, what about the others are they a foregone conclusion and if so what is the point of turning up at the polling booth. I wonder if we are not interested because we didn't have to fight for it, much like how dynasties falter once the founders pass on, the passion has been lost and the privilege taken for granted.

It's the Devil in Me (part 2)

I was reading the paper just yesterday and read a summary of that hostage stake out in a Russian kindergarten. What I read filled me with a profound sense of despair; for all my bold posturings about Television being the 'sickness that is ripping apart the western world' it seems there is a far greater sickness that lurks in the human psyche. These soldiers had taken hostage children and parents and then proceeded to blow them all up when their impossible demands weren't met. It stuns me that the same species that brought forth Monet and Rembrandt could also bring forth such insatiable evil. It's the same species that brought forth you and me.

I think why it really got me was that I just expected it to turn out okay. But it really didn't; it turned out about as badly as it possibly could have. The irony of course is that despite that fact that the 'world is shrinking' and we're 'all part of the global village' there was absolutely nothing any one of us could do about it.

Are we all capable of doing such horrific things? Is it just a part of our nature along with soccer and sculpture, Pokemon and poetry? Everything in me cries out that this surly can't be the case, that we are innately good and it is only in some twisted, mutated back-water of our gene pool that such disastrous tendencies exist. I find however that history does not support my view; the bloody butchering of innocents has been the human race's almost constant companion over the centuries and I would be hard pressed, when reading the almanacs of human tragedy and triumph to assert that the beauty has outweighed the pain.

The only hope I fear lies in the minutiae of individual existence, the smile on a small child’s face at a foolish game, old couples still holding hands after decades together, people at airports, a teenagers first painful crush or the comfort that only old friends can give. Perhaps there is even hope in my silly heart bleeding for those poor mums and dads in Russia. However, even here I find corruption in the stupid lies I've told out of insecurity or the people trodden on to get ahead, and I'm left with the feeling that we are constantly on a knife edge, poised between the good we could do and the bad we are so capable of. Surely the only question that remains is which one I will choose today? The problem is I sense another rather more cynical one: how long will this passion last? How long until it is just a little too hard and a little too costly to keep doing the good? Hear at last, I may have found ‘the devil in me’.

It's the Devil in Me....

Tom what you wrote has struck a cord with me; my very being is resonating with an unwholesome, and disgustingly self-righteous desire to tell you that you have succumbed to the ultimate evil. As I read your last post I became increasingly aware of a feeling of complete and utter repulsion. I honestly would rather you had written about some sort of porn addition or come clean about a dastardly crime you had committed than hear you talking in such blasé fashion about the sickness that is ripping apart the very fabric of western civilisation. I refer, of course, to Television.

As a brief illustration let me recount for you a situation that I have found myself in time and time again of late. It was a Tuesday night about a week ago when I received a phone call from a friend, who for the purposes of this example shall be called Bob, inviting me round to his house. I was informed there would be several others around there whom I would know and I wrongly assumed I was in for a pleasant evening. Upon arriving at the address I entered the lounge and realised, to my horror, that I had been lured into a trap.
Let me recount the scene for you: my first thought was that everyone must have been eagerly awaiting my arrival, for they were all sitting in a semicircle, eyes wide with anticipation looking in my direction (not an unusual response when I’m entering a room). I, head swelling with importance, made some pleasant greeting which was met, to my surprise, with grunts and vague nods in my direction. It was at this point I realised something was horribly wrong. These people were not looking at me at all; they were of course glued to the television which sat in the corner happily soaking up the attention that was rightfully mine. I sat down disconsolately and began to watch the garbage that spewed forth from the black box all the while thinking, ‘I could just as very well stayed at home, saved myself the petrol and actually done something worth while with my evening’. Such thoughts were occasionally punctuated with, ‘I’m going to bloody kill that bloody Bob.’ Eventually the programs of ‘interest’ were over and the TV was finally turned off. Instead of bursting forth into fantastic and scintillating conversation we just sat there stunned, mumbling pathetic excuses for why we suddenly all felt so awkward. Then muttering things like ‘oh I’m so tired’ and ‘is that really the time’, people began to leave.

I wanted to shout at everyone: Is that it? Is that what this little group of friends is all about? Is this the sum total of our relationships these days? Did we just meet up to watch tele together? When I go around somewhere I want to talk to my friends, find out how they actually are, hear about how Bob’s mother just got diagnosed with cancer, how Kathy’s cat just had kittens or about the most beautiful girl that Jim ever saw at the dairy. I don’t bloody care about some fictional family in America, or some overweight bachelor in London; what I care about are my friends, joi de vivre – the joy of living, the very stuff of life! Television is robbing us of some of the most precious times of our lives, times when we could be creating memories that will stay with us until we die. No one is ever going to say in 10 years time, ‘hey remember the time we sat round at Bob’s and watched the 13th episode of the 2nd series of Malcolm in the Middle?’. Television is robbing us of our goodness and love, it’s sucking the very soul out of great friendships, it’s making us so lazy that we forget how to talk to each other, it soaks up hours and hours of our time and all the while it’s filling us with materialism, lust, greed and any other form of vice I could care to mention.

As I got back in to the cold vinyl seats of my car I could just imagine the little black boxes in homes the world over, all smiling smugly, congratulating themselves on a job well done.

Sweet Childlike Memories

I know that we are supposed to be getting all existential here and generally dribbling on in a metaphysical, wanky manner, but that seems far too hard when your mind has shut down due to OSD (Olympic Sleep Disorder). This is a common enough complaint around this time of the 4 year sports cycle, especially when you live in the wrong hemisphere. For example, if you took the number of hours sleep snuck over the past couple of nights, twirled it round a bit then flipped it, pushed it over a numerator and sat it back down next to the number of hours a flatmate of mine averages in sleep on a Sunday morning it would somewhat resemble one of those little gymnast girls perching next to a Russian shotputter. All in all a John Kerry like pronouncement that I haven't had much sleep lately. And for what?

I have no problems saying that I unreservedly enjoy the Olympic games!!! I even go out looking to get caught up in "ring fever." It's the magic of top level sports on television for over half a day for two weeks. This is something that is so rare that it must be savoured. I think for me the Olympics is a collection of good sporting memories from the past 20 years all packaged together and wrapped in the human spirit. The first games that I remember were in Seoul and I spent the afternoon of the opening ceremony knocking on our neighbours door every five minutes to see whether it had started yet (I should explain that until the day the 1995 Rugby World Cup started my parents had never shirked their responsibilities as nannies by subbing out for TV).

One of the best things about the Olympics is to brush up on your knowledge of obscure sports. Greco-Roman wrestling for instance - take one large, preferable hairy bloke wearing lycra and tell him to get on his hands and knees then smile coyly while waiting for the other like individual to mount him. After which they will roll around a bit and grunt. You can win a gold medal for this all you non-traditional males out there. You get to watch track and field with all the best athletes in the world - with a few drug scandals thrown in for extra excitement though that is where weightlifting truly steps up to the mark. But even watching worryingly masculine eastern European women lifting things above thier heads is great drama, especially at three in the morning. After many years of complaining about gymnastics now I can truly appreciate it, apart from that rythmic nonsense which is just an excuse to ponce around a bit and pretend it's both arty and clever (a bit like this blog really, you always hate what most closely resembles yourself). Pretty much just ballet dancers who were a bit fat is what I've deduced.

One thing I am sick of is the constant pandering to the "youth market" whatever that is. Technically I am part of that demographic but to put it simply it just bores me. In the Olympics this is typified most in beach volleyball. What a complete waste of time, almost as bad as basketball. If you want women wearing little just bring up another browser while you read this. Compared to the original game this version is retarded, take away two thirds of the participants, and two thirds of their clothing and make them do the same thing on a surface where it's hard to move. Like trampolining I don't want to watch a sport that is basically recreation. If we're going to go down that track we should have beach cricket, touch, that one where you dig for bits of paper that correspond to prizes (just bury the medals and make them fight for them with driftwood), and the ultimate - storm the heights.

What's most frustrating about this whole fun in the sun malarky is that normal volleyball is such a great game to watch. (Disclaimer: I have never played a game of either form of volleyball in my life.) And as for sex appeal I don't think it get's much better than Italy v Brasil, basically two teams of models banging a ball around. Much better than the lesbian biker chicks the Australians sent for the beach version.

Anyway I think the highlights have just started.

BTW RSVP ASAP

Just so that right from the start people who may or may not read this get a fair representation of the motivations for embarking on this (sure to be) mythical adventure I will use this, my first ever blog post, to outline my hopes and dreams for this precocial child.

While my companion in this adventure is prancing forth into cyberpace trying to catch up with the overflow of his creative heart and mop up some of that goodness, I am a little more timid remembering the last time that I entered the public arena I ended up with about 100 litres of gunge down my neck. Even bearing that in mind; the excitement now, with endless blank pages to be imprinted with genius, brings to mind a lover stretched out before one waiting in anticipation.

Of course one has to wonder if the cave man had spent all his time recording his environment for posterity then there wouldn't have been much time for hunting and subsistence evolutionising. And so inspired I end.

An Invitation

Somewhere deep in my overcrowded psyche is a very distinct urge to create something. It is this urge that drives me (and most likely everyone else) to prance somewhat pathetically into the public arena and, without any further ado, pour out my overflowing, imperfect heart. Perhaps it was this same urge that caused Leonardo daVinci or Claude Monet to first place their stuttering stokes on canvas, or caused Plato to take whatever it was he took to that huge stone tablet and begin work on his Republic. Perhaps it is the same urge that caused the Mesolithic Man to paint on the walls of his cave crying out in the darkness of his ancient world that he should not die unremembered.

Whatever it may be, here at last is the cave wall I’ve been seeking, the tight white canvas stretching off to the horizon, the virgin stone tablet awaiting my manly chisel. So I invite you, let us cast off these mortal chains and give in to that thrilling baying in our blood; that desire to leave our mark and sleep the peaceful sleep of one who has, at last, created.