Jesus lord. It’s
A short rant it will have to be then.
The reason I’m here in the first place is because my Grandmother who I haven’t seen for about three years is staying and she took first dibs on my room.
The house looks particularly tidy at the moment. Just previous to this moment, sitting on the toilet, listening to the rather unexpected sound of birdsong, I noticed that all reading materials have been removed from the toilet. That was obviously part of the clean up. My mother, it appears, considers newspapers and books to be inherently untidy, even in a toilet.
But my main meditation, my main motivation for starting this post is Myspace. Myspace killed the blog star. I can spend fucking ridiculous hours trawling through the entire universe that is Myspace. I should spend this time doing something productive. Anything else. Myspace isn’t work. It isn’t productive. It’s a modern (lazy) way to keep in touch with everyone. And about sharing vain images of yourself with the passive gaze (gays) of the world.
What a bizarre phenomenon it is though. Every known member of humanity has got a myspace account. It’s a place to write down your favourite bands and colours and foods. It’s like a permanent forwarded chain email from that annoying girl you used to know from school who still sends you such nuisances.
It is the most revealing piece of technology ever. Forget camera phones or Pornotube. I now know that Thom Yorke is a regular user. I know that, like me, he can’t quite bring himself to spend any real time making his page look respectable but that doesn't stop him checking his account for sycophantic comments every couple of hours.
He actually gets sycophantic messages though because he’s the singer in one of the most highly regarded bands in the world. On his top friends list are ‘normal’ people like young attractive brunettes from
All that mystery that surrounds a rock star, all that time and money spent on marketing, of design concepts for albums, and costumes, and myths and secrecy. All gone. Reduced to the mundane and everyday. It’s really that easy to pop on and say hi.
Can you imagine what history would have to say if Elvis has a myspace? The Beatles? Is it really the end of history? Is Myspace the end? The great leveller of everything that is art and illusion and myth. Though I suppose Heat magazine et al have been trying to achieve an acceptance of celebrities as real people for a while now.
Myspace allows me to see Thom Yorke reduced to a guy who likes to watch films, spend time with his son, and has to describe his occupation as professional singer with a salary above £250,000. Not so interesting when you put it like that. Rock music relies so heavily on myth and suggestion. But of course that is simply childish make believe.
It's like being told Santa doesn't exist. I was never told actually. I figured it out myself one distrustful year when I stayed awake all night and found my father sneaking about in the dark with a bag of presents and the faint smell of a cheeky brandy.
What am I on about anyway? It's not like Myspace is actually a bad thing. Well it is, as you'll know if you've ever tried to use the damn thing. Most sessions involve crashed song streams and technical errors that are allegedly reported to the team.
But ok, myspace is not even worse than genocide or domestic abuse. I'm just angry at myself for being so damn distracted by it. Addicted to it!
I just noticed Smog has a whole plethora of Myspace accounts, each one credited to a different place, and each with a different picture of Bill Callahan and a bunch of his songs randomly there, ready to stream. Now here’s an interesting bit of history perhaps. A man travelling the States, recording albums, with each different location deserving its own Myspace account. One account (myspace.com/doopeiei) has ‘All Your Women Things’ to hear, and the musical genre he’s chosen is AfroBeat.
Right, I’d love to delve further, but I’m gonna have to go to sleep now otherwise I'll have to miss out tomorrow..
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