Disney has killed the porn industry.

Hello.

   I was in the square earlier today. "But it's not square, it's a rectangle!" is my younger daughter's observation every time we go. So, I was in the square and the topic turned to porn. The usual "What would be your porno name?" ensued. Basically, one needs to apply the simple rule: first teddy + mother's maiden name. I, having an Italian father, could have been the next Stallone. Or Siffredi. But my mother is Irish.

   My first teddy, having a father from the Alps, was a St. Bernard. I named him Barry. After the most famous of his breed. A dog who saved over 40 lives. A story I found fascinating. And still do. So, the answer to the acting name is 'Barry McGreal'. Who would watch a film starring Barry McGreal? I knew from very early on, with a name like that, I would never be a porn star. But, being a father of two girls, I also realised that in about fifteen years time all 'actresses' will be called Elsa or Anna or Rapunzel or Moana. Because as parents we tend to buy the little rotters the teddies they want. Thanks, Disney! Thanks for killing imagination! On the upside, my eldest daughter called her first teddy 'Space Monkey', so I can't see that name popping up in any future films. Because in the end...

...it's all a load of Bovine Skittles!  

Back to creativity.

Hello.

   Once upon a time I did an MA in Mass Communications. My dissertation was entitled "I will survive!: The Future of the Music Industry in the Information Age". I added a 3-page afterword to my final cut - see below - which led to an offer of a PhD but ultimately led me to study law and follow up with a PGDip in UK, US and EU copyright law at King's College. However, I now believe it is time to return to the initial thought from the afterword, which I summarise as 'Creativity does not exist'. Or does it? Does it even matter? Because in the end...

...it's all a load of Bovine Skittles! (or is it?)

AFTERWORD

Parallel Reflections Made During The Completion Of This Dissertation

   The initial idea of this dissertation – once informed that the dynamics of the music industry was a study worth pursuing – was that of attempting to better understand the influence major record labels have on musical creativity and how copyright laws have limited a musician’s fair use. Little did I realise the difficulty of such an argument until I tried to lay down a definition for ‘musical creativity’. Creativity, as Keith Negus states, “is one of the most important yet unexplored issues in the study of popular music”. Therefore, from a sociological stance, a clear-cut understanding of musical creativity cannot be found as it mixes the “mystical and metaphysical with the material and mundane, the elevated with the profane” (Negus, 2002, pg 180). This difficulty to put a finger on creativity has led one set of scholars – more precisely Steiner – to conclude that only Plato, Dante and Hegel were truly creative, while on the other bank of the academic abyss there are those – namely Joas and Willis – arguing that all everyday actions are potentially creative. For these very reasons it was decided to pursue an argument perhaps slightly more manageable: The Future of the Music Industry in the Information Age. Nonetheless – purely out of personal curiosity – I did not give up on the question of creativity and discovered a glimpse of an answer in the writings of the contemporary philosopher, Robert M. Pirsig. These reflections are added to the dissertation as they were borne from the argument pursued herein, they do not however have any influence on the dissertation itself.

   

   I want to briefly summarize what Pirsig stated so as to then reach my conclusion on creativity – although I believe that his observations need some reflection. Pirsig occupied himself principally with the metaphysics of Quality. He was led to believe that with our dualistic way of thinking (subject-object) we fail to see a certain omnipresent Quality, which is the very element that produces a ‘later awareness’ of subject and object. That is, at the ‘moment of pure Quality’ both subject and object are identical, and it is only from a pre-intellectual awareness of Quality that subject and object are then separated. That is to say that Quality is the source of the subject and object, not vice versa. It is this pre-intellectual sense of Quality that leads us to choose one solution from the infinite solutions that actually exist, usually perceiving the solution that seems most Quality-ful. It must be noted that some people have a stronger awareness of Quality and therefore are better at perceiving this Quality than others, however it is this striving to perceive this Quality that has brought mankind this far. It was only when Pirsig understood that Quality should not be defined that he was then able to prove that it exists and thus arrive to these conclusions.

   

   To prove it exists one simply must envision a Quality-less world. This world would be completely different as, for example, banging a table and a Beatles’ song would be perceived as the same as we would have no sense of Quality. It is our innate sense of Quality that allows us to distinguish. Therefore Quality exists, but above all it is the basis of craftsmanship in all the technical arts which, however, is lacking in the modern, dualistically-conceived, technologic world. The creators, as in producers, no longer feel any particular sense of identity with their creations, as in productions. With such a well-documentated accumulation of human experience the modern world has practically ceased to see pure Quality, as now when it is the moment to choose which solution is the ‘right’ one we already know (i.e. we assemble a bookshelf by reading the instructions). We have been dualistically trained. (Pirsig, 1974)

  

   Pirsig’s philosophy led me to think of the correlation between his Quality and the meaning of creativity that I had so wanted to try and describe. I believe that creativity, following Pirsig’s line of thought, is the solution, in a ‘moment of pure Quality’, that one perceives without been told which of the infinite solutions to take a priori. Consequently, two persons could perceive the exact same solution, without been told of its existence, unbeknownst to themselves and without having ever interacted and therefore be equally creative. This becomes mind-baffling if we are to follow this train of thought as then it could be stated that nothing is created but rather perceived in a new way – the solution having existed all along only not seen before. This would fall straight into the scientific approach to energy which states that nothing can be created or destroyed and also the theological way of thinking wherein only God can create. At this point, if we do not create it would be a case of deriving from what we see around us and finding new ways of perception. Therefore, how can we claim ownership to a solution that was there all the time? Are copyright laws, following this approach to creativity, simply a legal form of intellectual imperialism: claiming that which is not yours simply because you “saw” it first and commercially benefiting? Mark Twain made a notable comment on the issue, “only one thing is impossible for God: to find any sense in any copyright law on the planet”. 

   

   But Pirsig’s insight on the matter of Quality leads to another important observation. In this ‘post-modern’ (although a Roman was post-modern in respect to a Spartan, as a Spartan was modern at the times of the Spartans), information Age, both producer and consumer feel no sense of Quality in the products they make and use, which includes the music industry, and thus the overall dullness of these is overlaid with ‘style’ so as to make them acceptable. This only makes things worse as now not only are the products – or in the case of the music industry, the artists – dull (lacking in Quality) but also false (stylized so as to be acceptable). So what we get, to use Pirsig’s words, is “ugliness syruped over with romantic phoniness in an effort to produce beauty and profit by people who, though stylish, don’t know where to start because no one has ever told them there’s such a thing as Quality in this world and it’s real, not style.” I believe this best describes the state of the music industry at present. However, this was not the aim of my dissertation.

   

   In this dissertation I was looking at the surge in new business strategies that have evolved since the Napster trial in 2001 in the distribution of music through the Internet: iTunes, Myspace and Radiohead. As for the question of creativity, I will pursue it solely for a personal understanding in the hope of always striving for the all-important, omnipresent Quality.

Reference

Pirisig, R.M. – Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintainance: An Inquiry Into Values – HarperTorch – 1974 – New York   

Love (making) & marriage.

Hello.

   I don't know what is more disquieting:

1. That my attention was brought to a thread on Mumsnet and I clicked on it.
2. That the thread in question was initiated by a bloke.
3. That the bloke in question used the acronym AIBU (no? Me neither, I had to look it up. It's Mumsnetese for Am I Being Unreasonable). It is obviously not the first time PseudoDad has posted. 
4. That he went on Mumsnet - a bottomless swamp filled with stay-at-home mothers, snapping and spewing and squirming with bitterness and loathing as they reminisce of a time before birthing over a midday glass of chardonnay - with the opening line 'AIBU to ask for more sex'. A brave man. Or a fool. His issue being once every six months is somewhat insufficient*. 

   No need to recount what happened next. So far there have been 308 replies. All very delightful. In any case, there are two ways PseudoDad could broach the topic with his wife.

1. Look to the original definitions of marriage**.
   
   The Bible gives this reciprocal approach:
   The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to her husband. For the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. Likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. (1 Corinthians 7:  3-4)
   
   The fifth 'mutual duty' between husband and wife, according to Islam states:
   To pass the night with one another. Women must tend to their husband’s needs even if they don’t feel that need themselves. The Prophet (peace be upon him) said: “If a man invites his wife to his bed and she refuses, and as a consequence he goes to sleep angry, then the angels curse her until she rises.” [Sahîh al-Bukhârî].
   
   The first duty of a wife, again according to Islam is:
   Obedience. A wife should be as obedient as she can to her husband. This preserves the family and protects it from collapsing. This is part of Islam’s organizing of the family structure. The Prophet (peace be upon him) was asked: ‘Which women are the best?’ he answered: “The one who pleases him when he looks at her, obeys him when he asks something of her, and is not disobedient in herself or her money in what he hates.” [Musnad Ahmad]
   
   The Jews reckon that every wife should be ruled by her husband.
   
   
2. Get the fuck off Mumsnet and talk to your wife, knobhead. Because in the end...

...it's all a load of Bovine Skittles!

*PseudoDad, that is way too little. 

**Please read to the end of my posts before you lose your head, and PseudoDad, please don't take my advice as she will probably slap you in the face!

TV or not TV, that is the question.

Hello.

   There was a time you would buy the newspaper on a Sunday with its forty-seven supplements and it would give you a week's worth of reading. Then private television decided to dedicate channels to news, all day every day. After that came the world wide web, the boom of mobile phones which was followed up by social media. The result? More and more outlets chasing the story and thus the rise of sensationalism. Dog bites man, non-story. Man bites dog, however. Who is going to read a well-written piece of researched journalism when they can see an Egyptian lion trainer being mauled to death on the online version of a national "newspaper" (this story, with the video ripped from LiveLeak, is actually the top story as I type these words). Ah, long gone are the days of the Fleet Street hack. Long live the media consumer who has now been trained to stay up-to-date and, consequently, addicted to news. Bad news. And this can have psychological impacts even on the sanest and most optimist of minds.

   Our obsession with news - or rather being the first to know - is mournfully fascinating. But it is evolving into something more. Since the online papers have allowed us to comment on the piss poor drivel they publish, they have learnt pretty quickly that badly researched articles or non-stories about some person with a sex-tape will rile people up. People will actually click on it, without reading, just to leave an angry comment. The publisher shows click-rates to its advertisers, not time on page data.

   The main culprits for clickity-click shit-stirring are the DailyMail.com and the Independent's i100. Both despise each other but their tactics are exactly the same: politically-leaning, selective, non-researched, bad news in order to breed frustration and madness in the poor souls who happen upon their websites. But the latter has reached a new low today with an 'article' that, at first glance, seems to dispense fact-based advice to failing couples.

   The piece suggests that television is the ruin of marriages. The source? A woman called Dushka Zapata. Her qualifications? No idea. She works in PR and Communications. She writes stuff on Quora like 'How to be ferociously happy' and other opinion pieces. I am all for freedom of speech and personal opinion. But don't pass it off as fact! Because the researched fact of the matter is that shared media (for example, watching TV with your partner) predicts greater relationship quality. That is, having a binge of your favourite show on Netflix with your loved one can create more closeness in a relationship. Whatever goes on in Dushka Zapata's private life, and how much TV she watches, are her prerogative. If getting rid off the TV bettered her relationship, so be it. Good. I hope she is now having lots of chats and sex with her partner. But here is my opinion: stop reading shit-stirring online 'newspapers' because in the end...

...it's all a load of Bovine Skittles!

Sources :
http://nymag.com/scienceofus/2014/08/what-all-this-bad-news-is-doing-to-us.html
https://www.linkedin.com/in/dushka
http://spr.sagepub.com/content/early/2016/07/26/0265407516660388.abstract
http://lifehacker.com/watching-tv-with-your-significant-other-might-improve-y-1784898093
https://www.quora.com/profile/Dushka-Zapata

Jingle balls.

Hello.

   Just a month to go and we are already fed up of Christmas. From shite adverts dropping before we have time to blow out the candles in our pumpkins to today, Black Friday (yes, their lives matter), we have been pickled in Christmas cheer. And still it is a month away. Fake Santas are everywhere, and children have already written their lists, on the assumption that their behaviour in the next four weeks will not influence Santa's final decision on what they will receive - little do they know.

   But maybe the fact if a child is naughty or nice doesn't matter anymore if we are to take the advice of psychologist professor Boyle and his mate, social scientist Dr. McKay. They claim that feeding children the ol' Santa story undermines a child's trust and is morally suspect. Their opinion is that we need to stop pretending that good, old Nicholas brings presents. Santa Claus is a figment of our imagination (based on a 4th century Saint from Asia Minor) and imaginative children will have greater creative tendencies in adulthood and, perhaps more curiously, helps them cope with pain better. But who needs creative people when we can have more bankers and politicians? I think Boyle & McKay are on to something.

   After reading their paper I decided to look for things that we should tell our children about and discovered that some dudes in Australia reckon 8-year-olds need to be "porn literate". So, first they want to take Santa from the kids and, now, they want to take away the joy of seeing porn for the first time, which is the rite of passage for any teenage boy.

   In any case, to really confuse my 8-year-old nephew I will be getting him a DVD this Christmas: Santa Claus is cumming to town. That should fuck him right up and so what, because in the end...

...it's all a load of Bovine Skittles!


Sources
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2016/11/24/parents-urged-stop-pretending-father-christmas-real/
http://mezo.me/news/news/8-year-old-children-should-be-taught-about-porn-melbourne-university-researchers-say?uid=53404
http://www.futurity.org/imagination-helps-kids-cope-with-pain/
http://www.ideastogo.com/the-science-of-imagination

The world is moving too fast, they say.

Hello.

   Dave from Watford sits in an East London café, sipping on coffee-infused herbal tea that came out of a Mongolian ox’s arse. He flicks through his dissertation one last time, gets up, bangs his head off three bare light-bulbs, of various sizes, hanging from the stripped back ceiling and makes his way to the analog till and its attendant. He hands over a Winston to the girl with a tattoo of Audrey Hepburn on her neck and a bandana knotted in her quiff. There will be no change.

   

   He then makes his way to the Department of 21^st Century Literature at the New Hoxton Metropolitan University of Humanistics and Communications. It will be his final time. The reception desk informs him that his tutor is away and that they will make sure that his dissertation is delivered that very day. Some forms are stamped, a copy handed over and Dave leaves. He will go home, on his matt black fixie, and sleep for the rest of the day. The receptionist places Dave’s dissertation – “The Dynamics of Relations between African women and the ISIS LBGTQRS community via mobile phone” – in the ‘out’ pile. Done.

   

   A couple of months pass and Dave, by now, is a civil servant in Hull as work was hard to come by in the mediascape of London. He has received a letter from the university. He opens the envelope. It declares that he has achieved a 2:1 with special mention for his thoroughly researched dissertation. It will be printed in weekly segments in the University magazine over the course of the next five years. Back to work, now, Dave!

   The months pass and Dave is still in Hull. A job is a job after all. One day, whilst on his tea-break, standing outside vaping nettle and avocado through his nose-pipe under the North-Eastern English drizzle, he checks his Twitter feed. He is not a big contributor but he likes to keep a tab on things. And, low and behold, there amongst the top UK trends is #RelationsAfricanWomenAndISISLBGTQRS. He clicks on it and scrolls through the sea of factually based opinions, or tweets.

@MrsBeckyBeiber : Here’s a petition in support of all the African women and ISIS members living in Lewisham goo.gl//tWE23uHh #RelationsAfricanWomenAndISISLBGTQRS (14 Comments, 2 Retweets, 17 Likes)

@ILoveHarryStyles : My prayers go out to #RelationsAfricanWomenAndISISLBGTQRS (3 Comments, 5 Retweets, 29 Likes)

@NandosUK : Our peri-peri chicken can better relations. Blacks love chicken and Muslims can’t eat pork. #Cheeky #RelationsAfricanWomenAndISISLBGTQRS (19 Comments, 167 Retweets, 593 Likes)

@TheGeezerLad : I’d watch that, anybody have a link? #RelationsAfricanWomenAndISISLBGTQRS (0 Comments, 0 Retweets, 1 Like)

@Z_ListCeleb : Only together can we make things better, like when I bettered relations between the black woman celeb and the Muslim celeb on ‘Who wants to be a baker on ice get me out of here’ in 2010 #RelationsAfricanWomenAndISISLBGTQRS (8 Comments, 19 Retweets, 71 Likes)

   And the feed goes on and on and on. Dave, with a quick search, discovers that the problem in their relations lies in the fact that the mobile networks between the two communities are inadequate. This is something that he had foreseen happening months before. If there were one subject that Dave knows inside out, it is #RelationsAfricanWomenAndISISLBGTQRS. This is his moment. The moment Twitterlandia will take notice of Dave from Watford. He tweets.

@DaveSmith86 :  My dissertation this year was all about #RelationsAfricanWomenAndISISLBGTQRS. No stone unturned. Here’s the abstract goo.gl//Tgb34iLO

   Let the comments, retweets and likes roll in! But, alas, Dave is not a Twitter comedian (the ones that claim they wrote and own all jokes, ever), nor is he a vlogger using the network to direct 12-year-old girls to a Youtube channel on how to contour your armpits. He is simply @DaveSmith86, civil servant, likes a flutter on the nags, a lifetime Watford FC supporter and all his views are clearly his own. He has 98 followers. His phone bings four times the whole day. His tweet has received a total of 1 comment, 0 retweets and 3 likes. The comment is from Anna, a girl who was on his course at the New Hoxton Metropolitan University of Humanistics and Communications.

@AnnaBanana : Hey @DaveSmith86! Hope all is well. When R U next back in London? B good 2 catch up. Xxxx

   He had always liked Anna, but she never reciprocated. She had friend-zoned him, the poor bastard. It has only been six months, or three new versions of the iPhone, since that terrible date but now it seems like a life-time ago. Her comment lifts his spirits. What good is going viral if tomorrow he still has to go back to his shitty job, in a shitty building, in shitty weather, in a shitty town? It is all but a fleeting sensation. It is not as if you can put it on your CV.

   The following Saturday Dave’s beloved Watford FC are playing away against Hull. Dave obviously is at the game. His team, the surprise of the season, need only 11 points from their last five games to lift the trophy. Dave films the team’s celebration of their second goal on his phone. A funny, choregraphed dance that was obviously practiced at the training ground. Incredible scenes. When all has settled down, Dave tweets the clip of the tiny players – he has a shit seat – dancing around the corner flag like Native Americans. By the final whistle, it has 7 comments, 13 retweets and 24 likes.

@LittleTone87 : Oi oi big dave! What a result! Couldn’t script shit like that! We go again, fam! #HULWAT

@Jimbob563 : Dave, cuz, Hull of a game! 3 points closer and they gave 110%! #HULWAT

@MeatBalls14 : You must b buzzin matey! That was a 6 pointer….get in! #HULWAT

@PhilMeGlass : Me mate put a quid on WFC to win league at 200000/1, looking good with 4 games left. Boom!

@TheLadBible : Can u contact us. We would like to use your clip.

@GazzaBeans : Ludicrous display by the mighty Hornets. Goals win games and winning more games than everyone else gets you the title. I told you. #HULWAT

@BarryTBone : Never easy against a team like Hull. Decent team on paper. What a win! Best league in the world #HULWAT

   On his way home, Dave takes out his phone and responds to only one of the comments.

@DaveSmith86 : @TheLadBible go fuck yourselves in human centipede style.

   That evening, whilst watching Match of the Day with its panel of footballing prophets (one of whom, Larry Ginekar, had tweeted his support for relations between African women and ISIS non-heterosexuals which got 34810 retweets), his phone bings once more. It is an eighth comment on his video-clip.

@PhilMeGlass : That dickhead mate cashed out his bet at Christmas…what a knob!

   Of course he did. Dave watches the Watford highlights, knocks the TV off and goes to bed. For the first time in years he switches off his phone and goes to sleep.

   He awakes, never has he slept so good in years. He makes a brew and sits down at the kitchen table staring at the wall. He takes his phone out of his pocket. It is still off. He pauses. He is going to leave it off. For the day. Fuck it. 

   In this fast moving world, it is time Dave from Watford took a break. 
   In this fast moving world where Big Brother has been on our screens since 2000, X-Factor and Strictly Come Dancing since 2004, it is it is time Dave from Watford took a break. But it is pointless to go abroad as he will find the same programmes on the televisions there just in different languages. 
   In this fast moving world with its monarchy, handful of mainstream media owners, Christmas starting in November – fucking John Lewis advert – and Spice Girls, Take That, Steps and Blue's fifth come-back tours, it is time Dave from Watford took a break. 
   In this fast moving world where social media has become as predictable and obnoxious as the hangover after a stag-do (#MotivationalMonday, #TuesdayTip, #WednesdayWisdom, #ThrowbackThursday, #FridayFeeling, #RIPObscureCeleb, week in week out), it is time Dave from Watford took a break. 
   In this fast moving world where pay-TV builds up a football game - Super Sundays, Warrior Wednesdays, Fighting Fridays - with an army of pundits and experts for three days, rehashing the best moments from games bygone, only for it to be a shit 0-0 draw, it is time Dave from Watford took a break.
   In this fast moving world where a footballer from ten years ago, who scraped a quater-final once in an international tournament, and his ‘designer’ wife still are ‘news’, as is Cheryl WhateverHerSurnameIsThisWeek (ironically she tweeted her support for the African women), it is time Dave from Watford took a break.
   In this fast moving world where the hate, ignorance, brand-plugging, repetition and white-noise of Twitter is a source for lazy journalists who believe fact-checking is but an optional, it is time Dave from Watford took a break. 
   In this fast moving world where the Internet has branded 2016 the apocalypse - they have made their 2016 an apocalypse - it may be we just live in a world with a majority of Daves from Watford wanting a break. A break from the high-pitched buzz of a world obsessed with bad news that most likely wasn’t ready for the third millennium hence its nauseating spews of nostalgia that cut across our politics, media and social networks. Not ready to let go. 

In the end...

...it's all a load of Bovine Skittles!

Post-truth and fake news.

Hello.

Facebook is pissed off. It has been accused of pushing fake news onto the gullible people that use the service. Zark Muckerberg then claimed it was pretty whack - or some other Americanism, I don't know - to think that what 'news' people read on their feeds may form said people's opinion on any given topic. You know, like politics or something. This contradicts research that Facebook itself carried out in 2010. Classic Muckerberg, right there! What is he like, eh?

So, here is a handy list of these fake news sites. For some reason dailymail.co.uk or i100.independent.co.uk do not appear but I am sure you can find them on the list of non-news sites.

Also, the word 'post-truth' - an adjective defined as 'relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief' - is making more and more of an appearance, even winning an award. But hasn't Facebook itself made its users susceptible to this 'post-truth' society since 2004? Discuss.

In any case, no fear my brethren, for when it comes to the truth we need look no further than to advice from Buddha: three things that cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon and the truth. Or to the equally great Eminem who once said, the truth is you don't know what is going to happen tomorrow. Life is a crazy ride, and nothing is guaranteed. Post-truth, or post-non-truth, or non-truth, what does it matter? The truth cannot be long hidden and nothing is guaranteed because in the end...

...it's all a load of Bovine Skittles!


Sources
https://docs.google.com/document/d/10eA5-mCZLSS4MQY5QGb5ewC3VAL6pLkT53V_81ZyitM/preview
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/13/us/politics/social-networks-affect-voter-turnout-study-finds.html
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/word-of-the-year/word-of-the-year-2016
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVjMkMLhkrs