Moving On

I'm finally settling into my new apartment... though one thing that is sorely missed is internet. How am I going to procrastinate on my homework assignments?!

It has made me think a little bit about the reliance we have, in this digital age, on the internet. I have come to view it more and more as an addiction. It has become an absolutely vital commodity... hell, some people need to be connected all the time because their Jobs depend on it. How crazy would that have seemed 20 years ago? The need to be on call all the time. And the expectation that one has to respond right away to work e-mails and such. And as much as it has become a tool of immensely increased productivity, it has also contributed just as much to the slacker culture... it is not that hard to waste away an entire day just surfing the web.

I've started to take on the opinion that having to be connected all the time for work is not a good idea. I worked for a year between my graduation and my current stint at college. I don't know about everyone else, but I really valued my time away from the office. It was my time to escape from all those pressures and enjoy some downtime. But friends I know who had to be connected were always stressing about their jobs... how their bosses would e-mail them work to complete over their weekend! THE WEEKEND! When we're supposed to stop stressing about the grind of the job and enjoy life! To me, it's not worth it to be constantly fretting about those sorts of troubles. We have settled into the 9 to 5 work week for a reason... we put in the time during the weekdays, then relax and recharge during the weekend. And don't get me started about work intruding on vacations. There should be a special circle in hell for those who infringe upon that most basic right.

What are your thoughts on the internet? Have we, as a culture, gotten ourselves addicted to the internet? Is it more of an addiction to productivity and procrastination? Could we ever go back to the way things used to be before the internet? Would we want to?

Dreams

This morning I had a dream that my family went off to Iraq for a wedding. Except that Baghdad looked a lot more like OCMD, with American warships out on the ocean. Somehow we were supposed to spend a week there, but the wedding ended up happening before we arrived. I mentioned to my Dad that we could now go off and spend a week in London. He said, "Son, we can spend a week in London.... AND a week in Paris." My response, "Dude, I could spend A MONTH in London and Paris, and also Vienna." My dad nodded assent. And then I woke up. This may have been the first time I've ever had a lucid dream because I felt like I was in control the entire time.

I'm really starting to believe that my WhiteNoise app for my iPod is the cause for all the weird fucked up dreams I've had lately. Not that I'm complaining. Anyone else use this app to fall asleep (I use the oscillating fan sound)? Experiencing the same dream effects?

Everything that's old...

Can there ever be such a thing as totally new music anymore? We've had about 55 years of rock and roll music now. We've seen the original rockers like Elvis and Little Richard... the British Invasions and the hippie movement. We've seen AOR, glam rock, suffered through disco. Punk, post-punk, hardcore, new wave, no wave, post-hardcore, emo and the rest of the offshoots of the original 70s punk bands have come and gone. Grunge, alt-rock, shoegaze, Britpop, indie rock...

I could list every single genre of rock music since the Fifties but you get the point. It almost feels like we've run the gamut on rock and the possibility of a band creating wholly original music seems almost nonexistent. Perhaps the one thing someone could argue (I won't say whether I totally agree) is that rock music has always been reliant upon some outside influences... way back even to Elvis. It is, in a way, some great circle of variations on a single theme... the rock and roll dream, as it were.

Could this be the key to rock music staying with us for another 50 years? Punk music fans, one would think, would not advocate this as it seems to subvert the entire principle that punk was founded on... the concept of thinking and doing it in your way. I mean, could true punk fans ever go for, say, a Sex Pistols tribute band? Perhaps not. But maybe they would, the reasoning being that it is entirely subversive to like a tribute band.

Punk, in a way, is a lot like The Game. Once you start thinking consciously about it, you lose. Once you've singularly identified yourself as a punk and begin stylizing yourself as such, you've already subverted the meaning of what it is to be punk.

Perhaps the whole key to this is just not thinking about it. Inspiration will come and if one subconsciously taps into his influences to express his ideas, he could do no wrong (unless he subconsiously lifts the riff to "White Riot" or such). Then it'll be his fans and peers to judge for themselves whether one is being true to the "spirit", or selling out for his own particular advantage. One will be judged on Earth by his peers but true judgment will come at the gates of rock and roll heaven.

Some days, just ain't so easy

Starting a blog sort of gives off an air of narcissism. I mean, some people do this to tell other people what they're doing, or how they feel about things or people, or any other way of basically shouting "ME ME ME" to the world. I guess I'm guilty of this motive, not so much because I really do feel that way (I think anyone who knows me can tell you I'm not all about myself), but I feel it's a product of our times. Yes, kiddies, we live in the age of Twitter, Facebook, reality television. The age of ME. And please get out of the new road if you can't lend your hand, for the times... they are a-changin'.

Anyway. Now I have an outlet for things that frustrate me, people who piss me off, situations that go all FUBAR, music I like and I want you to like... basically, this is my world. All my narcissism goes here. Perhaps this will last a week, maybe a month... maybe for years. I don't know... I tend to start things and not finish them.