25 Random Things About Me

I just answered this meme that has been making rounds at Facebook, and for purely narcissistic reasons, I guess, I reprint it also here.

Rules: Once you've been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it's because I want to know more about you.

(To do this, go to “notes” under tabs on your profile page, paste these instructions in the body of the note, type your 25 random things, tag 25 people (in the right hand corner of the app) then click publish.)

Säännöt ovat seuraavat:

Kun sinut on merkitty, sinun olisi tarkoitus kirjoittaa muistiinpano, joka sisältää 25 satunnaista asiaa, faktaa, tapaa tai tavoitettasi. Lopuksi merkitse 25 ystävääsi. Sinun täytyy merkitä henkilö, joka merkitsi sinut. Jos minä merkitsin sinut, se tarkoittaa sitä, että haluan tietää sinusta enemmän.

(Tehdäksesi tämän, mene muistiinpanoihin (notes) profiilisivultasi, liitä nämä ohjeet muistiinpanosi alkuun, kirjoita 25 satunnaista asiaa itsestäsi, merkitse 25 ihmistä (sovelluksen oikeassa yläkulmassa) ja julkaise.)

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1. I was born in Lapua in the Southern Ostrobothnian province in Finland and have lived in Tampere since I was one year old.

2. My birthday is the 26th of July; the same as that of Carl Gustav Jung, Aldous Huxley, Stanley Kubrick and Mick Jagger...

3. I'm supposedly related on father's side to Antti Rannanjärvi, one of the Ostrobothnian "häjys", notorious knife-wielding rogues terrorizing that rural area in the 19th century.

4. On mother's side, Essi Wuorela of Rajaton accapella group is something like a second or third cousin to me.

5. I am lefthanded.

6. The colour of my eyes is something like in between green, brown and gray; probably green being the most dominant.

7. My favourite colour is blue. (Sorry, this sort of trivia is so boring and teen-mag, but I'm having trouble filling in all 25 points.)

6. When I was child, my future dream professions would be, in their respective turns: a policeman, an astronaut or an archeologist. All inspired by TV or popular culture, of course.

7. When I was a child, I was often thinking about ontological questions and wondered if reality, as I perceived it, would only exist for me and no-one else; and if actually the "real" world (which I couldn't see myself) would be that of green and red amoebas, for example. Later on, I found out also other children have had similar ideas. Very Philip K. Dick, I guess.

8. I was also a little bookworm, carrying all the time loads of books from a local library to home, just devouring every piece of information I could.

9. Though I got through the basic school system OK, from primary school to high school (only dropped out after wasting nearly a decade in the cogs of academia), during my childhood and adolescence I learned to grow a certain dislike towards educational systems. Probably on my path of learning there were just too many little tyrants, hysterical people and small-scale psychopaths calling themselves teachers (though naturally also some likeable characters). I preferred self-learning and still do.

10. I used draw comics in my childhood and teens, but probably my enthusiasm waned when I received some flak about them, being in such a tender age. Now I think it was foolish and I have regretted many times afterwards that I stopped honing my skills as an illustrator.

11. I also dreamt of becoming a film director when I was a teenager, but apparently my dreams and reality weren't interchangeable. I went to movies several times a week, was a member of film clubs, subscribed to film magazines and generally read everything about the history and present day of cinema, and so on.

12. I've actually never had a chance to travel any further south than Sweden and Denmark, those being as far abroad I ever was. I guess it has always been the lack of money, suitable travelling companions and so on.

13. Before I became pHinn, I used to work in a local comics shop, some people I still associate with learning to know me from behind its desk.

14. After that experience came to its end, gradually my enthusiasm for comic books and wasting most of my money on them was replaced by that for music and wasting most of my money on records.

15. I started in 1996 the Website that became in time pHinnWeb.org, probably being the reason most of people have heard about me in the first place.

16. My original DJ name was Nemo (after another childhood hero of mine, Captain Nemo of Jules Verne) but after receiving a dismayed mail from a person in Helsinki also calling himself DJ Nemo, I decided to rechristen myself as DJ pHinn, after my Website. I haven't heard about the other DJ Nemo or his activities ever since.

17. As a DJ, I never really became technically proficient in such things as beatmatching, not owning my own set of SL-1200s, but some people seemed to like my selections anyway.

18. After the mid-2000s my career as a DJ seemed to wane gradually, for various reasons, so I thought just concentrating on creating our own music was a better option to spinning that of the others. If provoked hard enough, I might still do a DJ set some time, but don't expect the latest flashing, banging, hippest, trendiest sounds from me then. I lived that life through already and I'm not going back.

19. I am very much into DIY and "Outsider Art". I think being a virtuoso or an expert of your craft doesn't hurt, but when one has an urge to express, one shouldn't be hindered by the formal lack of skills or education. Of course, "dilettantism" is always frowned upon by the gatekeepers of culture worrying about their carefully secured positions, but it's important to keep creating, even if it was only for your own personal entertainment and no-one else's.

20. The City tabloid of Tampere elected in 2001 me as "The Best Underground Man in Town". That was quite exhilarating and funny, when you start to think about it.

21. Both my father and grandfather died in 2007. Kompleksi's first album is dedicated to them.

22. Though never having had any problems with alcohol, I decided to quit drinking altogether after June 2008. I haven't regretted a day. I think I generally feel better, have less negative thoughts to shadow my mind, and I'm a nicer (if more quiet) person when I'm sober, less prone to "clever" remarks and boasting, even though I can't hide behind that shelter of false confidence any more.

23. I don't really know why I answered this query. Perhaps because I'm a sucker.

24. Using any standard economic yardstick and also considering from some social points of view, I might well be called "marginalized", but I've stayed out of the gutter so far and some things seem to be actually advancing in my life, so I guess there's still hope.

25. I think I've got a guardian angel. Or more precisely, along my path there have been many of them.

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And another FB meme where I was tagged recently: "10 questions and answers about music".

Answer honestly and try not to appear cool -- it doesn't work amongst friends. After answering, tag those whose musical taste you wish to know more about.

1. What are you listening to right now?

This week Isaac Hayes, Björk, Nick Cave and some Brazilian compilation. Next week something else.

2. As a teenager, what was a band you were ashamed to admit to liking?

Not a band but a solo artist: Prince. Because my AC/DC-worshipping classmates thought he was gay and kept picking me about my adoration of his music.

3. And today?

Nothing, really. My tastes are pretty eclectic and I can listen to anything, though I have no time for Top 40 myself.

4. Have you met an artist you admired? How did it go?

Sure, several of them, some of them in real life, even more only through E-mail, but I think it's better to keep my lips sealed about those encounters. More and more, I try to live by the rule of thumb: "Never meet your idols, they're bound to let you down". If I'm a fan of a certain artist, I don't want to meet him/her, because I'm always afraid s/he will turn out to be an a**hole, and I couldn't listen to his/her music again. Artists with their egos, tantrums and constant insecurities... try not to tread on the tiger's tail. (Well, to make it clear, I don't have as my FB friends any artists who I would really have a problem with - if you think it's YOU I'm talking about here ;) Of course, I've met many nice ones, too. Circle's Jussi Lehtisalo is always my prime example of a Really Nice Person Who Also Happens To Be A Musician.

5. Have you had dreams about bands or artists? What happened?

I once had a dream where I shook hands with Iggy Pop at a gig.

6. What was your first gig?

Can't remember.

7. Which living artist you still haven't seen, but desperately want to?

No-one, really. I don't really want to see my old heros who are still alive and past their prime, and I'm not any more into doing pilgrimages to worship some idol.

8. Who or what band would you like to resurrect and see live?

No-one, but I am just reading "White Bicycles - Making Music in the 1960s", the memoirs of producer Joe Boyd, responsible for the first single of Floyd, and inspired by Boyd's vivid recollections, I thought it would be nice to have a time machine and travel back to check the Syd Barrett-era (1966-67) pre-dinosaur Pink Floyd at UFO club of London.

9. Which riff would you like to learn to play or sing 'just right'?

Johann Sebastian Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 in G major.

10. How many records do you own, or how many songs do you have in your itunes/mp2 player?

Haven't really counted, but my approximation is somewhere in between 1000 and 2000. I've always received flak from certain family members about my hobby of music and wasting money on records, so it's always a guilty pleasure. I don't own any of these fancy iTunes/MP2/whatever players and don't do filesharing or download music. The music department of Metso, Tampere's main library, is enough to fulfil my free music needs.

My Birthday with Aldous, Mick, Carl Gustav and Stanley

Sugarcubes: 'Birthday'

Been having my birthday today and ate cake together with co-celebrants Aldous Huxley, Mick Jagger, C.G. Jung and Stanley Kubrick. After the cake and tea we sampled some soma with Aldous, Mick ran away with a 6'5" supermodel, Carl Gustav gave us a lecture on mandalas, archetypes and about those 2,500 points in the theories of Sigmund F. where Vienna's good Doktor got it all wrong and Stanley filmed the whole proceedings with his emotionally detached and ironic wide-angle lens.

Mourning

Six Feet Under finale (Warning: spoilers)

I was really touched by this final episode of Six Feet Under in late December 2006, but little did I know how prophetic it would turn out to be for my own life in 2007...

I've once vowed not to bother you any more with my pathetic personal stuff and trivial concerns in this blog, so forgive me if I do one exception here. Or maybe someone going or having gone through a similar situation can relate.

Mourning is a strange thing, which easily seems to turn one into a sort of a zombie, who wanders through that period of sadness in some kind of a haze. Many everyday functions apparently happen as if on some "automatic" level. Then there seem to be some difficulties to concentrate properly on any task at hand. Maybe these are all some sort of symptoms of psyche's inherent self-preservation mechanisms. After all, mind now finds itself overloaded with all kinds of information which under a traumatic situation and duress seems to be partly erased. Or is all this somehow even related to what mentally fragile people go through while under psychosis? (I don't know how scientific all this actually is.) On the other hand, maintaining normal everyday routines seems to be important. One's own life goes on, after all; it has to. Of course, messy family situations can add their own burden to the mourning hard enough in itself. There might even be some fears of own's own survival, even though unrooted and irrational, but not any less hard-hitting in their poignancy. Parties, TV shows, celebrities and other games of lifestyle hedonism one's peers usually occupy their time with seem pointedly trivial now. Culture has a strange ambivalence about death: popular culture is filled with flashy murders, which one consumes every night while munching popcorn, but the drudgery of mundane real-life death of old age, heart failure and cancer remains a taboo, usually surrounded by a troubled silence and pushed away, so they won't bother our illusions of living eternal youthful immortality.

Joining Facebook

Do you have Facebook?

Some time ago I received a mail from a friend who wanted to have me as his Facebook friend. As one proof Finland still remains a monoculture, local media also tends to have a sort of monomania as to what they write about and consider newsworthy at a given time. Whenever a new trend arises, Fenno-Ugric media lemmings immediately hop on the bandwagon, and for a month or two one rarely hears about anything else, when every journo worth their salt wants to give their in-depth analysis (or less than that) on what this shiny new and (supposedly) revolutionary whatchamacallit is all about! Of course, this is how media works all over the globe, but the small population of Finland (5 millions) also means the sandbox is somehow far more limited and it's harder to escape if one does not want that sand to one's eyes.

As you have gathered by now, the inescapable trend Finnish wheelers and dealers of media have been obsessing about has been this Facebook thing, one of these "social networks", founded in 2004 by an American college student called Mark Zuckerberg, where one can share with the rest of the world all sorts of important and essential facts such as what one watches on the telly and whether one is a pathetic, miserable loser with no friends, no spouse, no job, no education and no money or a super-social and sexually successful mega-networker with a formidable CV, nice annual income and naturally tons of cool friends (however a "friend" is defined), especially those with a heavy name-dropping value.

Now, I already have registered myself to Yahoo, Blogspot, MySpace, YouTube, Last.FM and Flickr (not to talk about countless mailing lists and forums I may or may not follow actively), so after all this (and having to consider also the fact I still have limited daily hours for my Net activities) I'm wondering how can I have time and energy for all this networking. Not to talk about maintaining and updating the pHinnWeb site, blog and mailing list, and keeping up my daily e-mail correspondence and constantly answering people's inquiries from all over the world about this thing or that. All these newspaper and magazine articles have been prone to emphasize the fact that people have been known to spend (or waste, however you see it) hours and hours daily at Facebook so, really, that's the last thing I need now! And as said, do I really want the rest of the world to know about my humble person anything more than is necessary; always wishing people to rather judge me by my, erm, work (or whatever you can call all this dabbling with music & culcha) than whether my face is pretty or if I have a great ability to whisper sweet nothings to their ears at a cocktail party or not.

So, I kind of had already sworn I wouldn't add any more of these "social networks" to my already considerable burden of obligations (hah!), but what do you know. Though I didn't want to be a nasty asocial curmudgeon (any more) and do a disservice to this mentioned friend of mine, so as a courtesy (and always being a curious cat and a sucker), I registered at Facebook and accepted his request. So, all you pHinn fans (and haters) can now find me there as "Phinn Kompleksi" (this Facebook member system apparently doesn't allow one to spell "pHinn" correctly). On hearing about my registration, one friend suggested I might next like to join Irc-Galleria, too (a popular Finnish social network favoured by teenagers) -- uhh, touché!

About the myriad ways Facebook has enrichened my life so far: already I have been turned into a vampire and been sent all sorts of invitations, e.g. to join some TV trivia quiz or to compare movie tastes, or to clubs in other towns that I can't possibly attend. And now people also can add all my known nicknames to my profile. Though I haven't sent or been sent any "gifts" (obviously a virtual counterpart to that little tinsel you can find from chocolate Easter eggs) or haven't been "poking" anyone, either, to avoid any possible embarrassing misunderstandings and accusations of sexual harassment. How long will it take before the ecstasy of communication will turn to panic? Well, I adopted a policy of not taking anything here too seriously, as long as there's an "Ignore" button available to any of these offerings. It would be interesting to know how much of the "New Communality" of this much-touted Web 2.0" actually consists of just new technology-enabled ways to talk crap with your friends and waste time (and precious working hours) on trivial activities that were not possible before.

Talking of the related issues of privacy and Facebook, Juri sent me the YouTube link above. Well, I guess I have to take the risk, then. Besides, if CIA and all these intelligence [sic] organisations want to gather indiscriminating information on someone, aren't there already a million and one other places where to get the dirt if they really need it? Living in the age of information, we have already lost the game of retaining a total control over the life-long data that's in distribution about us, and potentially accessible to anyone with necessary means who just wants to grab it. Perhaps I see fatalism as a better option than paranoia, but we become vulnerable as soon as we are born, become members of society's networks, both formal and informal, and all sorts of personal files (health, education, work, financial) on us are beginning unavoidably to find their way to the system. Not to talk about our own involvement in all sorts of social activities leaving a record somewhere. And as for spreading personal info about oneself to these networks, I suppose it's always a conscious choice. After all, we are all social animals aware of our own self-worth, being unique and with the urge of being recognised by others (there's both narcissism healthy and unhealthy, and in some cases just a fine line separating both).

Well, gladly there's also now Arsebook as an anti-social alternative!

Two Double-Oh-Seven

Exit 2006

Enter 2007

"I was dreaming when I wrote this, so forgive me if it goes astray..." -Prince

2006 saw many crucial changes taking place: some dictators passing (Milosevic, Saparmurat, Pinochet, Saddam -- good riddance to all of them, though the nationalist fans of those in their respective home countries probably might disagree); more sadly, many musical & lyrical legends were gone too (Barrett, Lee, Brown, Leskinen, Laine). And not to forget the shameful murders of Anna Politkovskaya and Alexander Litvinenko, either. Global warming gave even more alarm signs with the increasingly worrying reports of polar glaciers melting and generally unsteady weather conditions all over the world (for example, here in Tampere we "enjoyed" a snowless Christmas and earlier in August a bitter stench of smoke lingering insistently in the air, caused by some Russian forest fires behind the Finnish border). As usual, trouble continued brewing in the Middle East and the big boys of global power politics kept threatening each other with nuclear missiles. Finland finally won the Eurovision Song Contest with the heavy metal monster Lordi, but very soon everyone except the most jaded media freaks and Markku got bored with the Lordi phenomenon. All in all, these twelve months felt like a much longer period of time, and it is more than probable 2007 will bring many more changes.

As we announce a new era of integrated e(c)lectronics, here’s pHinnWeb’s little survival kit/"manipHesto" for two-double-oh-seven; with a licence to kill, thrill or make ill.

In 2007:

Pop-musically speaking...

We don't need music purists and wanky little fanboys furious over the relative merits of their favourite brands of organized noise (often called also "music(k)") and ignoring the rich world of sounds beyond their style ghettoes.

We don't need sad gothic robots wallowing in their misery: suicide is not a solution and the exaggerated cosmetics-enhanced misery is the best way only to secure some great laughs (a tip for all families, though: goths make great pets, are easy to take care of and maintain since they don't eat much, only need some cheap cider every now and then, and are totally content in their misery as long as you keep them warm and safe in their cage, appropriately covered with a black blanket, goths' eyes being very sensitive to light, let them listen to their Bauhaus CDs and remember to change their black leather pants or miniskirts often enough. The most important thing in a proper goth pet maintenance, though, is to keep any sharp objects away from them, to prevent children from witnessing their favourite cheery pastime, self-mutilation).

We don't need middleclass white B-boys fantasizing of guns and drive-by shootings, but we need to celebrate the fact that we don't live in ghettoes (yet), we still have a (relative) freedom to choose and the (potential) power to change things (our hero, a fifteen-year old Caucasian pimply-faced pimp gangsta lying passed out on the freshly laid minefield of street pizzas, his puffy jacket, mobile phone, wallet and brand new Timbaland shoes stolen, his XXXL-size pants down on his knees and a pool of urine slowly forming under him while he snores the night away blissfully ignorant, as always).

Also forest folkers are freely advised to search a hiding place deeper in their murky woods where they can strum away their acoustic guitars and toy instruments, and improvise to their art school student hearts' content.

Politically & culturally speaking...

We don't need bigoted power-hungry demagogues who tell the ignorant mobs that racial prejudice and chauvinist nationalism are an answer to society's ills, but we don't need to pretend we would be any better, either, but face our own prejudices and fears, and struggle them the best we can.

We don't need politicians choking on their official party line, in the end of the day only meant to secure their own hard-earned turfs. We don't need any wooden-tongued bureaucrats stumbling on red tape and drowning their sacrosanct stiff bodies under their mountains of forms, files and applications.

We may not even need traditional party politics, long ago alienated from ordinary people's lives, but we need to initiate the changes ourselves: in our immediate surroundings where we live and through our "unofficial", non-political networks around the ever-shrinking globe. For this we don't need any leaders who tell us how to get things done: no Presidents, no kings or queens, no "charismatic" reverends or "gurus", no war marshals or generals, no "trendsetters", no pop stars or Idols, no CEOs, bank managers or economy experts, no Führers.

We don't need market researches or trend barometers to tell us how to bring joy to our shallow lives by our "choices" as consumers. We don't need any dogmatist fanatics to think for us.

Yes, this list of "need nots" is so much defining ourselves through negation, so on a more positive note, also some things what we might actually need then for the pursuit of that ever-elusive happiness. We need to transcend the isolation and solitude of our provincial towns and the pecking orders of their petty-minded people with their little cliques. We need to break out of the tunnelvision. We need to stop whining (this very text probably included under this advice, too) and weeping to our pints, and start to seek for improvements and solutions instead.

We need ice cream castles with gossamer wings, more moustachioed Mona Lisas and ardent eclectronauts plunging fearlessly into the Drexciyan depths. We need more Zen, Dada and Gaga and less Britney Spearses without underpants. Tiny DJ-worshipping beatmatching-anal twerps of Platinum flee in horror as Kommandomix Eclectro crushes their otaku masturbatoriums like an amok-running 500 metres tall horny Decepticon juggernaut robot on a combination of Ayahuasca, mescaline and kerosine. Idols judges escaping the town smeared in tar and feathers, running for their lives. Godzilla's farts ignited by a flamethrower and roasting a certain well-known slimeball promoter from the Fenno-Scandic Arschloch. Did the little kid already suspect the real state of Emperor's new streetwear?

There's a God-shaped hole in your scientific rationalist-atheist worldview through which ufos and angels with their meditation crystals fly in, not to talk about poltergeists oozing stinky ectoplasm, Santa Claus in his sleigh and some other unnamed spirit entities only Danish cartoonists in their foolhardy bravery dare to give a form to. You try to arm yourself against the archaic onslaught of superstition with the collected works of Richard Dawkins, Stephen Jay Gould and Stephen Hawking, but it's too late for all your free-thinking positivism to save you, and your precise, exact clockwork-like universe crumbles like a dry cup-cake and the shadows on the walls of your Platonist cave start to close in on you as The Ontological Juggler plays around with the very foundations of your world -- where you once thought everything was in its place. Yes, rationalist boy: this is the new era. Accept chaos.

OK, kiddoes: writing these very words, the present writer is well aware that this way he makes himself susceptible to derision from certain individuals laughing and snickering behind his back, but knowing these people's penchance to lazy, self-centred and self-absorbed passivity, he feels he's got nothing to be ashamed of in comparison.

For the Earth is burning, the time may be running out for this planet, and even though we might be in the middle of some elaborate cosmic joke, that is on all of us -- the gist of what we may never get -- we've got no other choice than to make the best of this desperate situation. E(c)lectricity runs through our veins in the blessed but not at all holy Western night; we are not saints or supermen, but we are not doomed yet, either.

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2007... THE COUNTDOWN HAS BEGUN.

(With a little help from Reverend Harri Teikka.)

And an optional soundtrack for this entry...


Sia: 'Breathe Me' (the finale from Six Feet Under, 2005)
(Warning for those who intend to watch the series in the future: this one contains spoilers.)

Metablogging

We are working on one major project now (about which I'd rather be talking only when we've got more of it together), so I haven't had time to update this blog much lately, and I don't think it would serve its purpose too much, either, if I only kept linking some favourite video clips of mine from YouTube here.

Judging by comments from certain people it's funny that I might have appeared a somewhat depressed person in the past or perhaps might have talked about it too much here if I've been under the weather myself. So I started to seriously think about it, and decided I don't want to talk about those personal emotions in public, as if computer screen was some sort of confession grill for me. At least not that much that I have before. Because I realise how gratuituous that sort of wallowing in the mud of personal depressions can appear for the people who have to keep witnessing it. It's a vicious circle ultimately leading nowhere unless a person has enough will to do a conscious decision to get out of that rut. (I'm talking mostly about myself, of course, not exactly anyone else's situation.) We live in a therapy culture of self-victimization, and being a victim is one role I don't want be perceived as. As for me, I guess being able to work and create constantly is the exact thing that keeps me happy.

So, it seems I might be running out of topics here if it concerns my own psycho-geography. Perhaps this blog will be less personal and more a "bulletin board" announcing our own projects, and occasionally writing and linking about things that I find myself interesting. As you have noticed, this change has been going on for awhile already, and will probably continue. I don't know when I'm going to talk to you again, so till then: may you keep walking in the light.

Rubber, Latex, PVC, Horror Movie on TV

Whaddaya mean, PVC? Do I look like I'm going to Gay Pride Parade, huh?

Following the tips from Liina and Jani the Sonic Temple Assassin to check out "Jesus thrift stores", I dropped by to a nearby Salvation Army store, just around the corner from where I live, to search for a replacement for my stolen leatherjacket, and hey presto, got this substitute looking enough like the lost one, for 17 euros. OK, it's really only PVC, not real leather, but it will have to do at least until I've got enough energy to delve seriously into other thrift stores (I've never been really into buying clothes; even as a kid I hated shopping for those with my parents). So finally even Jesus freaks proved their usefulness -- Hallelujah!

Happy Fuckin' Birthday To Me

[large image]

It's the 26th of July, my birthday. All the skeletons in the closet have been invited to celebrate. Tonight, encouraged with plentiful of fine drinks, we will dig out all our fears, sadness, petty jealousies, aggressions and the latent insanity for everyone to see. The cake is filled with cyanide and razorblades. This could be the end of a beautiful friendship.

A well-known music business professional and promoter, Mr. Super Manager harasses all the women present and insults everyone. Suddenly the place is full of bleary-eyed but rowdy professional alcoholics, all-round parasites, people you don't even know, always a friend of a friend of a friend, who drink all your booze, empty your fridge and express their gratitude by stealing the silverware before leaving and urinating in your rose bush on their way. So many VIP guests around, what a sight to see. The rats in the cellar must have their feast too. After the guests have passed out, the rats sneak out of the darkness and start to gnaw at the guests' faces, too oblivious in their drunken stupor to notice anything.

The rattle of garbled, undecipherable conversations everywhere. Gravity has betrayed this guy who wavers around dangerously before sweeping all the glassware on the shelves down to the floor. Well, you should understand, always understand. There can be no party without someone fucking it totally up. Everyone is trying to separate these two guys before they kill each other. Your mother's 56-year old friend is feeling all amorous, the sickening sweet perfume mixed with that unmistakable odour of a woman in heat, and tries to make a pass on this 20-year old tall guy. Her bald, potbellied husband lies passed out on sofa, drool dripping all over his face. Girls cry and scream hysterically to their boyfriends, pouring out all their pent-up bitterness and rage that's grown inside for months, their make-up a black, smudged blur all over their faces, while your best friend and your girlfriend have passionate sex in your bedroom.

Someone throws up all over your valuable Persian carpet. There can be no party without that piquant smell of vomit lingering in the air. The sweltering heat and alcohol has softened up everyone's brains, making them collapse hysterically or ready to jump to each others' throats. Everywhere there are drunken confessions, and the relieving of hearts. "I'm so lonely, boo-hoo." "No-one loves me, boo-hoo." Come on, pour all your emotional dirt over me, drench me in it, rub it all over my face, fill me with nausea and fear; because that's exactly what I'm here for.

Someone's face is bleeding badly, stitches are probably needed, but he just rambles on all oblivious. Someone tries to jump out of the window. Blond-haired rastas with weary eyes are rolling joints on livingroom's glass table while grime, dubstep and crunk blare on in stereo. Irie, mon. Lush. You could cut the air with a knife. Someone's popping Temazepams like they were candy. Someone's got their eyes large as plates. Someone shoots up heroin in the bathroom, leaving blood stains all over the towels. Better to put your rubber gloves on before touching any of those. Someone's lying on the floor, turning all blue with no pulse feeling.

Happy birthday to me.
Happy birthday to me.
Happy fuckin' birthday to me.

Goodbye Leatherjacket

My leatherjacket was stolen on Saturday night. This was mostly because of my own carelessness, of course. As usual, I had left it to Yo-Talo's unguarded VIP space for jackets (where you do this on your own responsibility), not to the regular cloakroom, just to save one euro or so. So my own stinginess is partly to blame. I felt safe about this because nothing has happened to my jacket there before, but these things always happen when you are unprepared for them. Bouncers told me that I might report it to police but I doubt this would be much use.

I got this jacket, originating from the 70s, a couple of years ago from my mother's man who had outgrown it. It was really cool then, not an actual trenchcoat (I'm not any goth, for chrissakes) but its length almost to my knees and with a belt, giving it some dark mafia or Gestapo style, nevertheless. The jacket has not been in the best shape in ages, having been ripped open at seams in several places, and I had given it countless repairs myself. Still, it had a lot of personal value to me, so I felt really sad and angry about this. And my birthday will be on Wednesday, so what a great birthday gift this was. I put a curse on the unknown wanker who took it -- whether in a bout of drunken idiocy or as a more premeditated theft -- so I hope there's someone out there dying very slowly and painfully on an internal bleeding before too long. Well, probably now I've got nothing else to do than to start searching to purchase a new leatherjacket (hopefully a used one or at a bargain price since my budget for these things is still somehow limited). Any tips welcome, especially in Tampere area.

Harri Teikka In Holiday Mood

Ei mitään lisättävää

Dream 28-29 June 2006: "The Brick Wall Man"

Last night I had a dream where I saw a peculiar man whose skin was made of red-brown bricks like old factories and their chimneys and smokestacks in my hometown. He looked like a man-shaped wall, eyes hidden behind some sort of dark peeping holes, so it seemed he could see and hear me quite well. I asked him why did he look like this, and he told me his story.

"Once I was just like you, a person of flesh and blood. Maybe it was the traumas of my childhood and youth that caused me to become like this. My family, teachers and other children who kept bullying me all the time made me this. Military service and my abusive employer made me this. My sarcastic professor at university made me this. My pathetic and desperate efforts with girls made me this. Gradually I saw my skin harden, die away and turn into this hard stone-like substance. It was like some metamorphosis in a story by Kafka, except in didn't turn into any cockroach, I turned into a brick wall of a man."

Still amazed by this sight, I kept asking the brick man questions as to why and how and other things like that. How did he eat, since his brick face didn't seem to have any place for a mouth; and what if he had to go to the bathroom?

"Well, that's the really peculiar thing here. I don't eat but I found I've got this powerplug in my armpit, so I can load myself and stay sustained with electric currency. And because I don't drink and eat, therefore I have no need to urinate or defecate either, which makes things considerably easier in my current form. Once I forgot to load myself and found myself getting extremely weak until I couldn't move anywhere. I already thought I was going to die but fortunately some friendly passerbys got a car battery with them through which they were able to resuscitate me. After that incident I've dutifully kept plugging myself in every night for a reload before going to sleep, like I was a mobile phone."

So, he was still able to sleep after all?

"Yes, and that's the weirdest thing here. I have to sleep like an ordinary person, and I do have dreams. Usually I dream about being in my former shape, where I can touch and feel and taste and smell things as a man of flesh and blood, and it's always great to have these dreams, walking there through meadows and forests in summer with their myriads of different odours and feeling the warmth of the sun and gentle breeze on my skin. Then suddenly, I wake up and find myself back in my cold and hard, lifeless stone form."

How did the other people react on seeing him?

"First they're amazed, of course, but quite soon they become used to it like they get used to the bums asking for money, so they know how to stay as far away from me as possible. On the street little children always point their fingers at me until their parents tell them that it's unpolite to stare. Teenagers are the worst, always shouting at me and making rude remarks. Every now and then someone wants to pick up a fight, but they will only get their knuckles hurt trying to hit me. Sometimes they try to kick me but seeing that my heavy stony mass won't let me fall down, they normally get bored soon and leave. Once a gang tried to pour gasoline on me and burn me but it was pretty useless too, since my body is basically like a firewall."

Had he tried to get any medical help to this condition of his?

"Once I went to see a doctor, a dermatologist, but he was totally helpless in front of me. They thought my case held some scientific interest, though, so I was thoroughly photographed by some medical students. Someone has allegedly written a paper about me in Korea, or so I hear. They also tried to get some skin samples (or whatever you can call them) of me, but their equipment only broke down since it was too hard. Obviously I'm impenetrable. The army experts say I probably could be able to take a nuclear attack and stay in one piece. Well, trying to get state pension based on my medical condition proved to be quite useless, too, there being no actual physical fault in me. So, now I live on unemployment benefits and try to get myself a job but I think no one wants to hire a guy who looks like their backyard fence."

Did he have any theory about why this had happened to him?

"Beats me, hell if I knew. Sometimes I think that this skin of bricks is not for my own protection, to keep me safe from the rest of the world, but to keep the others safe from me. Sometimes I'm afraid of my own thoughts, all the amount of hatred that is hidden inside of me. When I think about all the people who have hurt me or tried to... or who laughed at me, ridiculed me, thought I was next to nothing."

Then he told me about his hateful fantasies and dreams, some of which really filled me with disgust and put a fear in me.

"Yes, I think there's somewhere a real monster living inside this brick wall, and it's important that he stays inside and never gets out. Some really horribly things would happen if he ever did. Probably it's this armour of mine that also keeps me together; without it I would probably fall apart, unleash the hell inside of me which would destroy everyone and everything."

Speaking this, he had become very agitated, and suddenly I noticed a crack had appeared on his brick skin. At this moment I woke up.

Beyond

More my little ponderings (or perhaps, more like it: repetitions) about the responsibility of an artist... to take un-granted those things that are usually taken for granted. To question people's perceptions and the ideas they might think are "true" and unchangeable.

It's true a visionary artist might have a perfect hold of his/her Zeitgeist, have "a finger on what's happening now", but I think this is not enough yet. One has to go and see beyond one's own time. Beyond what is deemed fashionable. To challenge people's tendency to hivemind thinking. And act accordingly, with one's best abilities to contain this vision of "what's beyond" in one's work. This is what I have previously described as "people who live on the edge", and what I have also considered potentially extremely dangerous.

First, because it might be socially awkward and even unacceptable, because it might not exactly be "politically correct", because one might appear behaving as if one has not received a proper house training. And it might even be not too clever, so don't get me wrong here. There is an honest endeavour beyond the limits or constraints of everyday thinking, and then there is honest stupidity. Finnish artist Teemu Mäki probably tried to make a sort of an artistic statement in 1988 when he created a work of video art called Sex and Death where he killed a cat with an axe and masturbated after this act. Consequently, Mäki was punished for this at court and this incident will probably shadow his artistic career to the end of his life. Did Mäki "go beyond" here, in the way I have described; was his act a visionary one, revealing some unseen aspects of society, did it contribute in some constructive way to our general understanding of it and our lives?

I'm not trying to defend any pathological behaviour here, and I have seen enough homegrown Nazis and other psychopath/sociopath characters who try to justify themselves with these sort of romantic ideas I have described above. I'm not telling anyone to throw their moral judgements away, since it might be me who gets his throat cut by these people next. All I'm trying to do, in my clumsy way, is to figure and outline some sort of vague model for the people who "don't fit" because their vision exceed those of so called normal people. Anyway, at its most harmless, one might be considered an eccentric freak, though tolerated by one's environment if one is lucky to live among people who are understanding in their attitudes. It can get gradually worse, though.

Of course, if our edge-dweller is extremely lucky, s/he may find a beneficial response to what s/he is doing, and even make a fortune with what s/he is doing -- the most banal example of this might be Salvador Dalí, a.k.a. Avida Dollars, an immaculate showman who turned his art and eccentricity into a big buck and got expulsed from the circle of Surrealists.

So, the prospects might look pretty grim: life as a struggling outsider artist, village idiot, lunatic, bully, substance abuser, suicide candidate -- or a sell-out.

This is all just some romantic, simpleminded and clichéd babble, isn't it?

Juhannus, Bloody Juhannus

A suggestion on how one should celebrate Midsummer in Finland too? Note a certain well-known music promoter inside the Wicker Man.

Oh well, it's again time for Juhannus, as the Midsummer weekend here in Finland is called, and also my annual jeremiad about the whole bloody thing. Like Vappu, this is another occasion for Finns to get out of their heads, whether it was rain or shine, freezing cold or warm. Heading to their lakeside cottages, camping sites and rock festivals, to get out of their gourds with liberal amounts of beer and Koskenkorva vodka, fighting, knifing each other and getting drowned (usually with their zippers open as the running Finnish joke goes -- a drunkard trying to take a pee standing in a rowing boat, with tragic consequences). Finland being the country of thousands of lakes, drowning at Juhannus is a popular national pastime; newspapers following each year with their headlines of the drowned people statistics. I find the whole Juhannus thing a bloody bore when the cities get deserted for the weekend and you can barely find an open bar where to drink your boredom away. Well, the good side of it that as a city dweller you can enjoy some rare peace and calm when the rowdy yobbos have left the town.

Another Finnish Juhannus tradition is burning bonfires by lakesides, in those white nights when you can barely detect any distinction between dusk and dawn (it's not as fun and exotic as it might sound to you non-Finns since it's damn hard to sleep when there's not any proper darkness). As a fan of Robin Hardy's 1973 film Wicker Man, I'd like to replace this with another ritual of pagan origin: the burning of a Celtic-style giant wicker man. In the film we saw how this ritual was connected with human sacrifice (in this case to restore the fertility of their fields). For example, I can think of certain Finnish politicians and even some music "business" personalities who could well prove their usefulness this way.

Will talk more shit to you after Juhannus: sadly all local Net cafés will be closed, too.

My Ongoing Search For Wild Kicks

My latest addiction has been the Vicks Red Energy drops, consisting of similar ingredients as there are in energy drinks: caffeine, taurine (familiar from Red Bull which was in fact banned in Finland until recent years) and guarana extract. They gave out free samples of those last winter and I was immediately hooked (talk about the gateway theory).

Since I tend to get tired so easily during daytime (I might have inherited it from my mother who had narcolepsy in her youth) and therefore may find myself totally unable to concentrate, I'm a sucker for all sorts of central nervous system stimulants (though so far I've used only those ones that are still legal). I've been a caffeine addict but my stomach can't bear any more those gargantuan amounts of coffee I consumed in the past, and I've also purchased from health stores guarana and ginkgo biloba extracts (those get quite expensive, though). Not to mention those oceans of cola drinks I've consumed during my lifetime.

I was also heavily into Red Bull for a while but as said, my large intestine problems two years ago forced me to reduce considerably those amounts of coffee, cola and energy drinks I had been taking in so far (these days I have those only occasionally), and turned me into a green tea drinker.

So this spring I've been a Red Energy addict, eating those drops like they were candy, but it seems I have to cut down even those now, since they are obviously not good for my heart, giving me a tingling sensation in my limbs, like a mild electric current running through them (never a good sign). Though I'm well aware of being in the risk group (because of my genes and my liking of all sorts of goods greasy, salty & sugary), I'm not quite ready for my first heart attack yet. Also causing similar uptightness, nervousness (and even mild paranoia) as I occasionally experienced during my heavy coffee-drinking days. It seems I need another new kick again (preferably a legal and over-the-counter one)!

The Proust Questionnaire

Inspired by Momus and because I've got nothing better to do now, I decided to fill in my own answers to the Proust questionnaire:

What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?

Lacking decent toilet facilities.

Where would you like to live?

In a peaceful place with enough room for my records, books and other stuff.

What is your idea of earthly happiness?

On a general level: The end of war, greed and the destruction of ecosystem.

On a personal level: To love and to be loved in return. Being able to sustain myself with the things I love to do.

Who are your favourite heroes of fiction?

Captain Nemo of Jules Verne, Emil of Astrid Lindgren.

Who are your favourite characters in history?

Siddhartha Gautama Buddha, Alexander the Great, Urho Kekkonen.

Who are your favourite heroines in real life?

Chicks on Speed -- they showed me the way.

Who are your favourite heroines of fiction?

Barbarella, Pippi Longstocking, Octobriana, Sapphire of Sapphire & Steel, Yoko Tsuno.

Your favourite painter?

Giorgio DeChirico.

Your favourite musician?

Scott Walker.

The quality you most admire in a man?

Loyalty.

The quality you most admire in a woman?

A combination of external & inner beauty and mental balance.

Your favourite virtue?

Being able to help other people without asking anything in return.

Your favourite occupation?

Sleeping, reading, listening to music, watching good movies and other works of art, creating things, daydreaming.

Who would you have liked to be?

A science-fiction astronaut when I was a kid, but these days I have to stay content with being just myself.

Your most marked characteristic?

Perseverance.

What would you like to be?

Someone who can make a living with the things he loves doing.

What is your favourite colour?

Blue.

What is your favourite flower?

Black orchid.

What is your favourite bird?

Eagle.

Who are your favourite prose writers?

Paul Auster, J.G. Ballard, Jorge Luis Borges, Raymond Chandler, Philip K. Dick, James Ellroy, Hermann Hesse, Franz Kafka, Leena Krohn, Thomas Mann, Edgar Allan Poe, Hunter S. Thompson.

Who are your favourite poets?

Charles Baudelaire, William Blake, Jean Cocteau, T.S. Eliot, Allen Ginsberg, Arthur Rimbaud (not too original, I'm afraid).

Who are your favourite composers?

J.S. Bach, Beethoven (see the previous question).

Who are your heroes in real life?

My grandfather Aarne Rautio: a gentle, almost saint-like man.

Who are your favourite heroines of history?

Catherine the Great, Emma Goldman, Tarja Halonen.

What are your favourite names?

Everything that start with "X".

What is it you most dislike?

The current political and economical mindset of greed and social Darwinism.

My own worst qualities

Self-centredness (well, you see, I'm a Leo), delusions of grandeur (ditto), laziness, moodiness, angry temper, fear of people.

What historical figures do you most despise?

All Big Brother-type (as in Orwell, not as in a fucking reality-TV show) dictators and most right-wing politicians.

What event in military history do you most admire?

My brief stint in Finnish army (obligatory in this country, unfortunately; either that or a punishment-like "civilian service" at some hospital etc. -- or going to prison) made me a life-long pacifist, so I can't really answer this. I prefer peacetime.

What reform do you most admire?

All revolutions, though not necessarily their aftermath.

What natural gift would you most like to possess?

Perfect pitch.

How would you like to die?

In the arms of a lovely woman after I've given all I can give in this life -- not before.

What is your present state of mind?

Anxious, impatient, wary.

What is your motto?

Nothing is impossible unless it is made impossible.

Would You Love A Monsterman?

1

My mother sounded better when I just called her to the hospital, so we can assume the worst is over by now. Obviously the blood clot was caused by the hormone treatment she had been having. She should be home in a week if there will be no surprises.

2

I talked with Tuomo of I Was A Teenage Satan Worshipper at Yo-Talo. I was embarrassed on hearing that the Tigerbombs guys had been checking this blog and noticed my remark on their vocalist's looks at the Tampere POP entry. Aargh, me and my big mouth again. My flippant comment was out of line -- my apologies. I don't want to appear as any cyber-bully or anything, since bullies are people whose target I also was when I was younger. Besides, I tried to emphasize the fact that I've actually learned to like the music of the Tigerbombs more as I've seen more gigs from them.

I guess I'm always surprised by the amount of people actually reading this blog, since I rarely receive any feedback from them. I think keeping that distance is largely intentional on my part since I can live without any wise-ass remarks from snotty-nosed 15-year olds; therefore I've never set up a guestbook for pHinnWeb, for example.

3

I was truly flabbergasted by Lordi, Finland's candidate winning the Eurovision Song Contest and found it hard to believe when I heard about it from some people last night. Well, what a laugh: another proof that Finland is the village idiot of Europe. Which is not such a bad thing.

[More]

Consumer Feedback

"remove yourself at once from the goggle [sic] images of Our Lady of Tears...you are an emotional and mental cripple and spiritually bancrupt [sic]! please go back to the hole you crawled out of and STAY THERE!"
- someone obviously on a spiritually heightened level, via e-mail, 2 Jan '06

As you see, this "consumer feedback" on my 2003 triptych Our Ladies of Pleasure, Pain and Tears was already sent me soon after last New Year, but I didn't think then it would be worth mention. It's interesting that someone actually bothers to comment my silly little works of "outsider art" (for the lack of a better word), if even in such a harebrained way. Amazing -- I didn't really believe that someone would actually care. Obviously there are people who live in a very different world to us Scandinavians in our cosy little and totally secularized laissez faire society. Now I wonder what would have happened if instead of the iconography of Christianity I'd have used those of Islam here...? Probably I would now live in a secret location safehouse under a 24-hour police security.

If someone asks my own position as to religion, I always just answer them I'm an agnostic. My own argument remains that us human beings with our limited sensory skills and ultimately lacking resources of observation can't really prove the existence of God, neither the non-existence of God. Either answer would really be intellectually unsatisfying, because in either case there would always be too much room for doubt. All attempts in either direction would be totally futile, and since I'm not that inclined to any deeper philosophical thinking in such a way that I would love to struggle for hours on metaphysical questions like this, I just bypass this question. Lazy? Perhaps, but at least more pragmatic. You can't fool me into argumentation about this. I consider people's religious (or non-/anti-religious) views personal and private, as their sex lives, and likewise really no-one else's business -- until they themselves want to be exhibitionist about them.

And as a definition of any sort, I find "agnosticism" ultimately not satisfying either. Perhaps a sort of "Zen-pantheism" would be closer there to describe my own worldview. Go figure that out.

Anyway, you don't find any great love for any sort of bigots and fanatics from me. I don't mind anyone calling me an "emotional cripple" (or a mental one at that, heh heh), but if a person making those sort of claims implies thus being somehow superior and in comparison on an advanced "spiritual" level, you don't really know whether to laugh or cry.

I can't claim to be any great expert in the matters of religion but I think all monotheistic religions deriving from the Middle East area -- Judaism, Christianity, Islam -- are all more or less against idolatry, the worshipping of images; the basic reasoning being that the Divine, God, Jahve, Allah, whatever name you want to use, is something far beyond and greater than any man-made imagery can convey. Therefore I can't understand how an image of a naked woman on a cross (or Serrano's figurine of Christ in a tank filled with urine) could really be blasphemous, since they are only making use of temporal man-made iconography; which is only a finger pointing to the Moon, not the Moon itself. Jesus was not afraid of the darker and seedier side of life, mingling with prostitutes, criminals and other people considered pariahs in his time. Sex, lust, violence, death, drugs, diseases, madness and the general ugliness of life were all there as a backdrop. His quest was to find a way to the "other side" (call it "salvation" if you want) despite all these things, to go beyond all this. I hate having to interpret my own works, but perhaps this was something I tried to come across with when I created my "triptych". Therefore I can't find myself guilty of blasphemy or feel that I owe apologies to anyone (only for the crummy artistic style of mine, perhaps).

MyDeathSpace

One section of Momus' MySpacecide article deserves further attention:

"Imagine dying for real, dying physically, but lingering on as a digital ghost, a presence on a MySpace page collecting obituaries and tributes. It's already happened to quite a few MySpace users. A website called MyDeathSpace, for instance, collects dead MySpace users' pages. It has over a hundred, and adds more each day."

A virtual graveyard, what a great idea! I have to confess I always check through death announcements from daily papers. It always interests me to see how old people were when they left their mortal coils behind. If a person was very young, it always makes me wonder what was the reason behind his/her demise. Was it a suicide, fatal disease, traffic accident, drug overdose or even a violent death by someone else's hand? You rarely can detect the reason of death from those announcements, and if the person died by his/her own hand, you always have to try to read it between the lines, from the adjoining poems and so on.

I have to admit that when I was younger, I contemplated suicide a lot (a long story why, but let's say it was a typical case of teenage depression of a young person feeling totally misplaced and without worth and meaning, and blaah blaah.), but obviously never got to commit it (about which some people probably feel honestly sorry for now, heh heh). (Seriously, if you ever feel that way, seek help as soon as you can, and think seriously about the amount of pain and guilt you leave to your close ones: you don't want to do that to them.) I don't feel that way any more, obviously (fuck happiness, sometimes you just want to live for the hell of it), and I can be sure that my body will take care of it for me one day, any way. Of course, I'm curious to know how it will eventually happen, and my own guess is that my heart will fail, in one way and other (judging by the amount of heart diseases in our family). Of course it might be cancer (after all I lived in an area which received its share of radiation from Chernobyl nuclear disaster in April 1986), or will involve some sort of vehicle like car, bus, airplane, or spaceship. Or I may be shot down like John Lennon by a deranged "fan", when I'll be rich and famous. There are so many delicious possibilities to exhaust, but I can't really bother about it now; only try to eat (relatively) healthy and do my exercises, despite my chronic lazyitis. At the moment of writing this, I'm not really afraid of dying, I might say; I only worry that all those things that I've planned would never come into fruition if I had to die young.

I always find it curious that death is such a taboo in our culture, something that people want to sweep aside and put out of their view. It's as if the whole culture is based on the illusion that we will all be eternally young and live forever. I remember when my grandma died in December 2001, it was relief that I felt more than sorrow; that the woman, virtually the matriarch of our family, who had been so determined and strong in her heyday was gradually becoming demented and losing her memory, and that she got away before she would be totally unaware of this world and even family members' presence. And when my uncle suddenly died in September 1999 of heart failure at the age of 53 (post-mortem showed that his heart had been so badly deteriorated that he would have have not more than two months to live in any case), what I was feeling was more shocked surprise than sorrow. I hate funerals myself and do my best to avoid them if I can. I can't stand that sight of weeping people, their faces distorted and red of crying, talking platitudes and (outright lies) about the beloved deceased, priests with all their holier-than-thou righteousness and so on. Despite that I've got a (morbid?) curiosity about the subject, which I have often wondered. Anyway, I might die tomorrow hit by a car or live to be over a hundred years old. That's how life is. Anyway and undoubtedly, I'll see you one day on the graveyard. Till then, ta ta!

My death is like
a swinging door
a patient girl who knows the score
whistle for her
and the passing time

My death waits like
a bible truth
at the funeral of my youth
weep loud for that
and the passing time

My death waits like
a witch at night
and surely as our love is bright
let's laugh for us
and the passing time

But whatever is behind the door
there is nothing much to do
angel or devil I don't care
for in front of that door
there is you

My death waits like
a beggar blind
who sees the world with an unlit mind
throw him a dime
for the passing time

My death waits
to allow my friends
a few good times before it ends
let's drink to that
and the passing time

My death waits in
your arms, your thighs
your cool fingers will close my eyes
let's not talk about
the passing time

But whatever is behind the door
there is nothing much to do
angel or devil I don't care
for in front of that door
there is you

My death waits
among the falling leaves
in magicians, mysterious sleeves
rabbits, dogs
and the passing times

My death waits
among the flowers
where the blackish shadow cowers
let's pick lilacs
for the passing time

My death waits in
a double bed
sails of oblivion at my head
pull up the sheets
against the passing time

But whatever is behind the door
there is nothing much to do
angel or devil I don't care
for in front of that door
there is you

- Scott Walker: 'My Death'

(originally by Jacques Brel, English words: Mort Shuman and Eric Blau)

And on a brighter note to conclude this:

Yesterday has come and gone
you've got to try to carry on

- Jim Pembroke: 'Semi-Circle Solitude'

Momus Bashing MySpace

The problems of political correctness:
"To join MySpace or not to join MySpace...?"

You can read Momus bashing MySpace here. Gee, I guess now I'm supposed to feel guilty about having our own presentation there. Mike Not's and my friend Sakke called MySpace "social ring porn". I suppose it's another fad like iPods now and hula hoops in the 50s.

I don't know about this, then. Face it, the sad fact is that the whole world is these days owned by megacorps and greedy oligarchs like Rupert Murdoch. It has an effect on everything: what you read on papers, see on TV and movies, what you eat and drink, how you spend your leisure time. And so on. Everything bears a corporate stamp in these glowing halcyon days of neoliberalism and market economy. Politicians keep flapping their gums about the virtues of entrepreneurialism and free enterprise, which is a big joke when corporations do their best to swallow the small fry (that is, private entrepreneurs with their own small businesses) in the end, and we are eventually heading for one McDi$neySoft megacorp ruling it all. You can do your best to put your filters on, but mostly there seems to be no running away from that.

Then, could we also see a positive side too here? Sociologists keep talking about New Communalism (as opposed to old-fashioned Communism), which has its various incarnations everywhere where people put their collective efforts together to create something benefitting all, and -- this is important -- not necessarily gaining personal profit out of it: Linux operating system and Wikipedia as some of the most obvious examples. Could it be understood that even corporate-owned communities like MySpace could potentially create similar links to empower people: for example, in MySpace's case connecting private citizens, musicians, artists, fans and so on, in putting them into direct contact with each other, and letting also those voices to be heard that might otherwise be shunned, making people aware of those? Browsing MySpace I've noticed it's far from any homogenous community: everyone seems to have their own little slots there in the sweet spirit of anarchism -- alongside music and arts people already mentioned the whole political and religious spectrum and all possible mainstream and fringe and hobby groups represented from American gung-ho Republicans and Jesus freaks to Greenpeace, gays and Satanists. There are also loads of spoof pages doing nasty parody of people like Murdoch, Bush and their ilk. There's no way to put a lid on or control all that motley crew.

Well, before you get me wrong, I don't want appear as any MySpace apologist (or a Murdoch fan, vade retro!), just trying to weigh both the positive and negative sides here. OK, I know I'm naive. And us with our little Kompleksi duo, we do have our own selfish and opportunistic reasons involved here at the end of the day: to promote our music, which happens by creating contacts and also possible fanbase. Damned if we try, damned if we don't?

Comments:

DJ Orion (in Finnish)

PCL Link Dump

Oh well (blows a raspberry). Why do I get a feeling that people are taking these things far too seriously? We can live with MySpace, we can live without it. For us it's just the icing, it's not the cake.