Fireside Chat 1: Fuck Forever

[imomus]

Somewhat inspired by the vlogging of Jordan Fish -- and the fact that I've just discovered how to capture video from my built-in iSight camera using Apple's QuickTime Broadcaster -- I'd like to present the first in a series of video "fireside chats". Sitting in front of an electronic fire -- the sad and ironic fate of my television set -- I ramble here on the subject of "Fuck Forever" by Babyshambles.

(Actually, this is just a placeholder video -- it takes forever to load from my own server. I'll embed a Google Video here instead soon.)



The "Fuck Forever" video is provided below as a study resource -- you'll be instructed to pause the fireside chat and watch it half way through. You can find the Shoreditch secret gig referred to in the chat here.

[Error: unknown template video]

I'm not sure why I chose punk rock as the topic for my first fireside chat. Maybe it has something to do with my new Wired News column, Let Robots Sweat the Boring Stuff, in which (aided by our Waiters and Bad Faith discussion last week) I advance the opinion that "British people are spectacularly bad at services -- shining examples of Sartrean sincerity and authenticity, they're unlikely to wish you a great day if they aren't having one themselves. The sooner these grumpy, reluctant, inefficient people are replaced by robots, some might say, the better. (Unemployed, the British can go off and do something usefully authentic and human, like inventing some new kind of punk rock.)"

Comments

[sarmoung.livejournal.com]

That makes a very refereshing change from the textual experience. I only hope that you haven't invoked the wrath of Doherty acolytes who will plague your future gigs with their toasty crackpipe phlegm, rather in the manner of the National Front at Sham 69. The "e...to" was good too!

[chuckdarwin.livejournal.com]

"British people are spectacularly bad at services -- shining examples of Sartrean sincerity and authenticity, they're unlikely to wish you a great day if they aren't having one themselves. The sooner these grumpy, reluctant, inefficient people are replaced by robots, some might say, the better. (Unemployed, the British can go off and do something usefully authentic and human, like inventing some new kind of punk rock.)"

As a recent immigrant to Blighty, I've certainly noticed how catastrophically awful customer service here is. Everything takes twice as long and costs twice as much as it ought to, so when it's served with disdain (at best) or open hostility (at worst) a dirty foreigner like myself can be a littl put off.

I think it's all down to Class. No one here wants to be a servant, and they're really uptight about it. Ex: in a pub setting, if you try and tip a barman he'll give you a funny look but if you offer to buy him a drink he'll gladly take your money. It underscores his status as your equal: you can buy your equal a drink, but not tip him/her, as tipping denotes your superiority.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

I think that's a persuasive description -- except that last week someone was telling me that you can tip Americans because of the class system. But I suppose he meant that you can because of the relative absence in the US of class consciousness; waiter and customer are both likely to call themselves "middle class", whatever income disparities exist between them.

[nicepimmelkarl.livejournal.com]

rhodri!!!! the bill, please.

Pervasive gaming is the new punk rock

[(Anonymous)]

Hi Momus, thank you for your vlog. Of course you're right that young men aping the tropes of punk rock is a desperately worn out action, and that Doherty in particular is the penultimate shudder of the Wagnerian orgasm. Followed by Donny Tourette in Celebrity Big Brother. But is it worth judging Babyshambles aesthetically? They're a human function of an economic necessity - the kids like to jump up and down, and they like to do it in sweaty clubs, and they like to feel like they 'rock harder' than their parents, so they get drunk and feel good. They want to flock together.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHHfynLYW1I
It would be nice if Doherty went Asian, or if Coldplay went Dutch, and challenged the hive mind, but they are trapped in their tropes and lets leave them there, serving a need. Beautiful women are on hand to service their needs and reassure them of their greatness. Telling us to tell them about Bow Wow Wow is no help. You might as well quote Beckett to a trowel.

Why not live in a different English history & present; look at where Joe Strummer ended up - playing folk music & building campfires. This is also an English tradition, far from hooligans and maladies; the midsummer festival & the choir. Or can your puritan soul not accomodate such things? Incidentally, a documentary about Strummer's life will hit cinemas in May - directed by Julien Temple, of Rock&Roll Swindle fame - the elevation of a punk rocker's life, once again, to cinematic art. It's a good film, interestingly.

New needs erupt out of the bubbling centre of a culture. Does anyone else feel that 1977 is just around the corner?

Best

Gideon Reeling

well it IS the 30th anniversary...

[electricwitch.livejournal.com]

Does that mean Bolan´s going to die again?????? *weeps*

Re: Pervasive gaming is the new punk rock

[electricwitch.livejournal.com]

PS: As far as I know, Coldplay are already Dutch enough, judging by their popularity in Holland. The middle of the road is the meeting-point for everything.

[vertigoranger.livejournal.com]

I remember hearing a pair of upper-middle class people, a lady and a gentleman, in upper middle age, as i was on the train between Wigan and Preston, extolling the virtues of the American service industries. This in itself wasn't very interesting to me, what was is that the older opined that, "There hasn't been any service ethic in this country since Upstairs, Downstairs finished."

Try as i might i could not find a way to work this anecdote into the essay i finished yesterday.

[alibee.livejournal.com]

I find it interesting that you keep looking at yourself on the screen of your computer (I assume) while you're speaking.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

I think that's called "casting around the room for ideas". My eyes move around a lot, but it's all "inward looking", like a blind person. I sing with my eyes shut, too.

not sure why I chose punk rock

[zzberlin.livejournal.com]

The other night I saw you...
You held a stick with a cucumber taped to the other end
Cross dressing in secret shame
behind a safeway, in the shadow of the dumpsters
you were using the cucumber to penetrate yourself.
flashing blue and red lights, bright spotlight
and somebody started taking poloraids,
Flashing.
lipstick smeared across your face
Your wig greasy, the thrift store dress stained from dumpster diving.
your pantyhose halfway down around your thighs,
holes torn in them.
Your feet bare exposed pasty white through the holes.
Tan line from your socks.
the smell of water based lube, dumpster decay,
feces, and panty hose ball sweat wafting in the air.
Furiously you move, never stopping.
The shame turns you on more.
You're so punk.

impatience

[zzberlin.livejournal.com]

I should have watched the chat before I posted that poem (which I did not write) because the poem isn't really relevant. I'm just too impatient to stop what I'm doing sometime to watch video.

The fireside chat took ~ 35 seconds to download and it was worth every second! Momus, how often will we see these vchats? I love the way you can tell the viewer to pause the chat and go watch another clip and then come back and discuss it. Maybe you can do vnarration for all your Click Opera entries!

Oh and I love the dramatic effect of having half your face off the camera most of the time. um?

[(Anonymous)]

The only good thing about that Babyshambles video is that it has the much-loved Spitalfields City Farm as its backdrop..

More bands should play mental hospitals!

[urban-ospreys.livejournal.com]

[fishwithissues.livejournal.com]

Nick, thx for the inspired shout-out!

Don't think I'm knowledgeable enough in the punk stuff to respond to that (though I can't recommend enough the book Please Kill Me (http://www.akpress.org/2006/items/pleasekillme)), but I think you're totally right about the importance of a "media seat", where the path between the brain (and face) and the internet has as few hurdles as possible. This is no small reason for Apple's recent success. But obviously one loses a lot of control by letting Apple or Livejournal take the reigns. Certainly the problem with the iSight is its fixed position, and inability to shoot much else than the user. I'm trying to play with these constraints though.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Yay for the inspiring fish! High fin five!

Do you use Apple Broadcast too, then?

[alphacomp.livejournal.com]

It seems like a lot of the Postcard records pop tried to find a middle ground between the malady put forth by punk rock and some form of remedy(which, in this case, would be twee post-punk pop?).

Would you regard something like the New Pop of ABC and its Trevor Horn-produced ilk as an escapist remedy or something that simply turned a blind eye to remedy and malady altogether?

Also, the video fire is very WPIX Yule Log (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vf-4lCsLlpg).

[publicenergy.eu (from livejournal.com)]

Thanks for posting that. I enjoyed the content and you have a very relaxed manner which makes it very easy to watch. I hope we see more of these :)

[eustaceplimsoll.livejournal.com]

I tend more towards liking Pete Docherty than not; he sings true and sweet, and there's a certain poetry to his words and melodies: intellectualism isn't the only way. Also, he may be rather bloated due to his unfortunate habits, but he's actually a beautiful man, I think. Most charming and gentle too - watch the Jonathan Ross interview on Youtube.

Hmm, I'm going on like some kind of psychotic fan; I'm not - I only know 'Up the Bracket' (a fantastic song) and 'Fuck Forever'.

When he waves the Union Jack, what's to say he's not referencing Blake's Albion? (And how many artists do more than merely reference?) Surely that's medicine as powerful as any you'd find in Tokyo or New York (in point of fact, if I hear one more Brooklyn hipster bang on about William Blake I'll scream). Englishness isn't simply 'bling', sirens and philistinism; why do you go on as if it is?

In (something like) the words of the great Billy Childish:

In this town full of hate
The shopping centre's open late
But in the wood upon the hill
Jerusalem is standing still

Albion, I pledge my love to thee...

And why shouldn't one?

[eustaceplimsoll.livejournal.com]

There's no flies on Billy.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Some people think things have whatever longterm value they do by being rooted, precisely, in their epoch. I tend to cluster the idea of "transcendental" with ideas like disembodiment, or the idea that what's ultimately real is elsewhere, or that freedom lies outside of society, or that individuals should somehow step outside of their social context to realize themselves most fully, or the idea that there are universal human rights. What all these ideas have in common is some notion that things have more value the more they're detached from the specifics of their creation and their context, detached from society. And I believe the opposite.

Infidoll

[(Anonymous)]

Grumpy Reluctant Punk Rock has been appropriated by Inefficient Hijabi here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1LwarJ2FmYI

Infidoll & The Great Satan

[(Anonymous)]

I mean here:

[phuongphan.livejournal.com]

I feel at this point that I would rather have genuine rude service than fake good service. It's nice to see that people won't grovel for money if it is that.

[lord-whimsy.livejournal.com]

http://imomus.livejournal.com/121980.html

False dichotomy. We should all try to give and receive genuine good service.

[obelia.livejournal.com]

BUNNY!!!
:)
does your rabbit have saucer like eyeballs or are its eyes rimmed with white fur?

[imomus.livejournal.com]

The latter, obelia.

Thanks for your photo dumplings!

[(Anonymous)]

This is not really an Englishness that actually exists any more, it's almost as distant as the empire.

Babyshambles are so slight they're hardly worth the fireside chat.

Silence as music is pretty much throwing the civilization out with the bathwater.

[(Anonymous)]

And there's no such thingas "situationism" either.

You're really hopeless.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

there's no such thingas "situationism"

Would you like to expand upon that outrageous statement?

[bonsai-human.livejournal.com]

I can certainly see, as an outsider living in Britain, your point about the British tendency to "favour the malady over the remedy".

Perhaps it is different in Scotland or Wales, but certainly in England the emphasis is on how shit everything is - the country is shit, the health service is shit, the trains are shit, nothing works. All this can easily be agreed with (and is, by everyone, with the camaraderie of the beaten), but the missing aspect is the will or even the desire to actually do anything about it.

There is a purposeful dreariness - because Britain's achievements are bound up with everything being shit. Indeed, in the art world, if you take away the shit, you take away the art. Examples are everywhere: Gilbert and George, Tracey Emin et al, punk rock, '80s indie and goth, '90s Brit poppers, Little Britain, George Orwell, Harold Pinter. Outside the art world (see: "Blitz spirit", having a nice cup of tea, "mustn't grumble" - all shit-reliant) things aren't much better.

No wonder there is a lack of desire to fix things up.

[(Anonymous)]

Can I ask, with personal interest, what you regard the opposite of 'shit' to be, in art? What is aspirational for you? I've long thought that 'beauty' might be hijacked by advertising, but I'm sure there is something beyond that..

[afoxdrinksblood.livejournal.com]

maybe you know this already, but your isight can even record direct to youtube, eliminating yet another step. Then again I don't think there's a way to retain a copy for yourself that way, so...

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Good lord, modern technology!

[green-paint.livejournal.com]

the Kansas band "tilly and the wall" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LUCC4HSb-c) seems to do a good job reflecting the remedy more than the malady (American). This music video is pretty goofy/corny, but fun.