Some of my best friends are black
Something I`ve been enjoying immensely - and I say enjoying immensely, obviously I suffer from anhedonia at best (1) - of late has been seeing that there a general emergent sense amongst arseholes that it`s not OK to be racist, so the riots were definitely down to hip hop and hoodies. I`ve read an extended essay, which very fact is evidence that I could do something better with my lunch hour than read the speak your brains sectiions of broadsheet newspaper websites for instance, in which it`s all the fault of hoodies with a small little history exercise on how hoodies were invented as part of hip hop culture by black people. So it`s all their fault really, even if theres nothing wrong with actually being black per se.
My absolute favourite though was the spill over onto the Guardians music section, in a "my favourite album ever" series in which our more considered than yow correspondent speaking his brains, GENUINELY suggested that Public Enemy had a lot to answer for right now. NOW. If theres one band I`m fairly sure did NOT feature highly on the playlist of rioters it`s Public Enemy. Although to be fair, I can quite happily see Flavor Flav smashing windows and burning cars. But that`s because I`m not sure HE has neccesarily ever listened to Public Enemy when it comes down to it.
See, Hip Hop was pretty much my punk (being consumed in healthy doses alongside Chicago House and Detroit Techno I suppose). It held my hand and turned me from shy, awkward, useless teen to politicised and outgoing awkward twattish adult. ANd yes, to be fair, I did sort of drift away in an OH FOR FUCKS SAKE way once the second NWA album came out, and everyone else seemed to be just fine and dandy with it and that`s what we are doing as the mainstream of the genre now apparently. Thats why you get insufferable cunts like FiddyPee. I don`t blame Hip Hop, insufferable fuckwits like your man Curtis there seem to my mind to owe substantially more to the dog fuck dog world that we all live in thanks to it apparently just being received wisdom that the world is run on Chicago School Neoliberal Ideology because thats just the natural order of things, innit? And I don`t myself reckon Milton Friedman has ever had a game go at doing the running man to KRS-1 myself. And I`m fairly certain the little shit was white as well now I think about it.
Our commentators on hip hop you see - and unfortunately everyone who has ever, for instance, posted on the WGW forum seems to be inclined towards this fundamental Speak Your Brains error - have made some crass simplifications in their worldview, and are effectively suggesting that becaused Skrewdriver exist, every guitar based act since Bob Dylan plugged in his electric for the first time are just idiotic Neonazis. The flaw in my argument is of course that FiddyPee is mainstream and Skrewdriver are thankfully not (although I`m not sure thats neccesarily worse than a world in which FiddyPee *is*, though rationally I prefer the world where rappers turn up on the special bus to tell us how much money they wasted during the journey), so theres a counter argument, in as much as the counter argument consists of confusing commercial bullshit with artistic form and I`m not sure at any point in this counter argument I start to look foolish for pointing at and calling "idiot".
Heres something lovely I enjoyed recently.
I ask you. Do Kid and Play there look like people who are encouraging you to smash up Argos? (and then presumably flick through the catalogues and fill out a form). No.
In other news, I was delighted by a story in the Evening Standard the other night (2) in which it was bemoaned that The Yoot were banned from attending the shooting events at The Olympics. Which for a start hilariously suggests that people who set fire to cars gave the slightest shit in the first place, thus sort of endorsing the view of those who set fire to cars that those in charge of society literally do not exist in the same world as them and theres no reason why their rules should apply. Anyway there was some young potential Olympiad interviewed, 15 or so, offensively young anyway. And she was enraged, pointing out that this was ridiculous and that competetive shooting had certainly made her look at guns in a different and more healthy way and it could only be a good thing if others were allowed the same experience. All of which went on accompanied by a half page very stylised photo of her in what can only be described as a poster for the next Guy Ritchie movie. I ask you.
(1) Although as Mog has pointed out being annoyed and angry is more or less a leisure activity for me.
(2) Mogs point proven essentially.
My absolute favourite though was the spill over onto the Guardians music section, in a "my favourite album ever" series in which our more considered than yow correspondent speaking his brains, GENUINELY suggested that Public Enemy had a lot to answer for right now. NOW. If theres one band I`m fairly sure did NOT feature highly on the playlist of rioters it`s Public Enemy. Although to be fair, I can quite happily see Flavor Flav smashing windows and burning cars. But that`s because I`m not sure HE has neccesarily ever listened to Public Enemy when it comes down to it.
See, Hip Hop was pretty much my punk (being consumed in healthy doses alongside Chicago House and Detroit Techno I suppose). It held my hand and turned me from shy, awkward, useless teen to politicised and outgoing awkward twattish adult. ANd yes, to be fair, I did sort of drift away in an OH FOR FUCKS SAKE way once the second NWA album came out, and everyone else seemed to be just fine and dandy with it and that`s what we are doing as the mainstream of the genre now apparently. Thats why you get insufferable cunts like FiddyPee. I don`t blame Hip Hop, insufferable fuckwits like your man Curtis there seem to my mind to owe substantially more to the dog fuck dog world that we all live in thanks to it apparently just being received wisdom that the world is run on Chicago School Neoliberal Ideology because thats just the natural order of things, innit? And I don`t myself reckon Milton Friedman has ever had a game go at doing the running man to KRS-1 myself. And I`m fairly certain the little shit was white as well now I think about it.
Our commentators on hip hop you see - and unfortunately everyone who has ever, for instance, posted on the WGW forum seems to be inclined towards this fundamental Speak Your Brains error - have made some crass simplifications in their worldview, and are effectively suggesting that becaused Skrewdriver exist, every guitar based act since Bob Dylan plugged in his electric for the first time are just idiotic Neonazis. The flaw in my argument is of course that FiddyPee is mainstream and Skrewdriver are thankfully not (although I`m not sure thats neccesarily worse than a world in which FiddyPee *is*, though rationally I prefer the world where rappers turn up on the special bus to tell us how much money they wasted during the journey), so theres a counter argument, in as much as the counter argument consists of confusing commercial bullshit with artistic form and I`m not sure at any point in this counter argument I start to look foolish for pointing at and calling "idiot".
Heres something lovely I enjoyed recently.
Click to viewI ask you. Do Kid and Play there look like people who are encouraging you to smash up Argos? (and then presumably flick through the catalogues and fill out a form). No.
In other news, I was delighted by a story in the Evening Standard the other night (2) in which it was bemoaned that The Yoot were banned from attending the shooting events at The Olympics. Which for a start hilariously suggests that people who set fire to cars gave the slightest shit in the first place, thus sort of endorsing the view of those who set fire to cars that those in charge of society literally do not exist in the same world as them and theres no reason why their rules should apply. Anyway there was some young potential Olympiad interviewed, 15 or so, offensively young anyway. And she was enraged, pointing out that this was ridiculous and that competetive shooting had certainly made her look at guns in a different and more healthy way and it could only be a good thing if others were allowed the same experience. All of which went on accompanied by a half page very stylised photo of her in what can only be described as a poster for the next Guy Ritchie movie. I ask you.
(1) Although as Mog has pointed out being annoyed and angry is more or less a leisure activity for me.
(2) Mogs point proven essentially.