The past two blogs haven't
exactly been the most cheerful ones. Reading them back, they kind of come
across as a cry for help. The last muted screams of my soul as it thrashes away
in the ocean of despair, slowly being sucked below by a Giant Squid of......errrr........shit?
That one lost itself a bit at the end didn't it? Sorry to subject your eyes to
it, that must have been painful, like the pain a Yak feels squirming to excrete
Jeremy Vine..
Writing these blogs is a way
to ease the volcano that is my self hate. Otherwise it might explode, killing a
small neighbouring village in the process. Thinking of their imaginary houses,
melting into the volcanic rock, nearly brings an imaginary tear to my imaginary
eye. Not that crying would help. I’m always amazed how women feel better after
having a “good cry”. What exactly is a “good cry”? I’m not even talking about
crying when you see something nice or beautiful. I was moved to an emotional
shudder at the end of “The Snowman and the Snowdog” but that was only because I
found the ending so unreasonably happy that tears of happiness started
stampeding to the front of my eye-lids. Crying when your child is born, when
the woman you love agrees to marry you and when Rocky finally beats Ivan Drago
at the end of Rocky IV are all happy tears (Unless you’re Stalin of course).
Crying due to sadness or through stress is never good. It’s good in as so much
as a fart is good, in that is releases pressure from your body thus relieving
certain stress on certain points of said body. But aside from physical and
chemical reasons, it must surely be impossible to have a “good cry”? I've certainly never had one. Every time I've had to cry for negative reasons has
been a thoroughly unpleasant experience that I have always felt like I would
never want to experience again. As much of a social weirdo as I am, and that’s
considerable, I have still yet to cross that bridge into thinking that crying
is “good”. If I ever do, you might as well just stick the fork in me at that
point because I’ll be done.
Back in my younger days, I
used to be a drummer in a band called “The Viaduct” and during that period I
used to write maudlin songs about things that didn’t really matter. That’s
essentially what music is, a bunch of people complaining, praising or bragging
with instruments making noises in the background. Loses some of its romance
when you describe it as that doesn’t it? The songs that I would write were
outlets for my inner disenchantment. I say that like they were some sort of
high artistic endeavor but most of them were about how I wished I had a
girlfriend or how I wish people respected me as an artist. When I read them
back now they come across as the warbling of a deeply deluded fool. I actually managed to get some poetry
published in a student journal during this period as well and that was equally
as self centered and whiny. After studying poetry from my school days all the
way up to university, I think this is a central theme. A poet in his or her
poem is never just trying to write something you would enjoy. A poet is ALWAYS
trying to use their poem to somehow promote themselves in one form or another.
This includes all poets from Rossetti to Shakespeare to Heaney. Hamlet is just
Shakespeare showing off, which is probably why the play drags on for hours.
When Hamlet goes upon one of his many arduous soliloquy's, that is basically
Shakespeare patting himself on the back. You’re supposed to read or listen to
it and think “Wow, isn't Shakespeare talented?”.
Every Shakespeare play is
him showing off with a plot shoe horned in. This is most poetry. Every poet
wants you in some way to marvel at their own skill. So does every musician. So
does every entertainer. They are never just doing what they are doing simply to
entertain or inform. Deep down, they want you to like them. They want you to
think they are talented. I
remember being struck by a Heaney poem in secondary school. It was a deeply
depressing poem about going to a small boys funeral and how profoundly it
effected Heaney and the village in which he lived. All I could think while
reading that poem, even in my younger days, was how tasteless it was that he
was turning this into a poem, into art. Heaney was trying to describe his own
grief at the situation but he was doing it in a way that would make you admire
his penmanship. He was deliberately using particular phrases and language, all
designed to impress upon the reader his own skill. And he is skilled. Let’s
make no mistake here, Seamus Heaney is outrageously talented and a keen word smith.
This is why he’s a poet after all. However, I couldn't help thinking that he
cared more about what you thought about his talents than the story upon which
he was trying to tell. This was a true story as well, the events in question
DID happen. It’s one thing to create a story for a poem or play but to actually
take a real situation and then, for better lack of term, tart it up with
extravagant language, just doesn’t seem right to me. Turning such a tragic and
real event into an excuse to promote yourself in that fashion is why I don’t
think I could ever bring myself to write a poem again.
This blog is very self centered. I use language in this blog constantly to add flavour and spice to
events and stories. Some of these are personal accounts. I haven’t plagiarised
or taken on loan as The Smiths state so eloquently in “Cemetery gates”. That
being said, I write everything, including this actual sentence, because part of
me wants you to think that what I’m writing is of good quality. I may want it
to make you laugh, get angry, feel grossed out and even feel sad. Ultimately
though, I’m doing what I’m doing because I want you to think I am some way
talented and what it is I’m doing. It’s why anyone does anything. However, I
think it’s time that anyone who takes part in any form of artistic endeavours
treads carefully when dealing with a real event. Describe it, make the
readers/viewers/listeners understand why it’s important; let them know why you
care and why so others do. But please, don’t turn it into an excuse to show off
why it is you are so talented in the first place. There will always be some one
somewhere, with a big nose who knows the situation and they may not take kindly
to you using their own personal tragedy to impress people with your mad skillz (the
z makes it cooler!). And here I was trying to do an upbeat post this time!
Seems that no matter what I intend, it’ll always end with a rant and some good
old fashioned self hatred. Way to go Mikey! Way to go!! Another dose of misery
heaped on the masses!
Seems so unfair, I want to cry
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