Some would and do call me bitter or cynical or more often both - I can deal with that as I am cynical and sometimes bitter. Who isn't?
Since I was a child I've grown up with a certain publication, a weekly magazine, it is like Coronation street, a constant in my very inconsistant life. It provides me with much food for thought, reinforces some of me existing beliefs and has always introduced me to subject matter I wouldn't normally bother with.
Of late, the last few years, I got the magazine on subscription and being a chap who likes his routines I would read the mag, pretty much cover to cover, on a Saturday afternoon and it took most of a afternoon to digest it. I'd then refer back to the magazine over the course of the week, re-reading some articles and using it for reference for that most vital of tasks - working out what to desensitise my mind with on the telly.
Over the years it has introduced me to issues, art and culture of which I would be ignorant of without it.
It simply has for a magazine in my eyes rocked big time.
I remember my very first politics lecture in '85, and the professor asking if there were any political magazines with a obvious bias in this country, I timidly put my hand up and gave this magazines name... I was right and quite possibly grew at least a foot in at that instance.
Over the years its editors have changed, the format has been rejigged many times yet always the content was some of the most intelligent and insightful on offer, outside of very specialist publications.
But something has changed.
The once left leaning bias seems to be swinging to a quite mainstream right wing one. Some of the articles are simply fluff pieces. Its not as crucial in my eyes as it once was.
It is taking less time each week for me to digest and there are often articles I don't even bother with.
I like all good aging members of a population want this puppy back as I remember it... fuck change us old buggers yell!
I still buy and read the thing each and every week and it is still a publication I enjoy and respect more than most. But I fear it may lose the ability it once had to entice me into subject matter I care little for.
Hell I read the sports column each week and really enjoy what for me is a subject I care little for, as a mild understatement.
I hope this is simply a phase the publication is going through - its had dry spells before, yes thats it, its merely a phase... one reflected globally, that slow slide towards the right.
Whatever it is, I am still a little dispondant by my The Listener, I don't want it to change, I like my left wing bias. I don't want to simply skip the in depth articles in favour of the arts reporting and TV guide sections.
I don't want to give it up as I am increasingly doing with other media (NZ Television News, our Newspapers - in a physical format).
*crosses fingers and chants to himself... its just a phase, its just a phase*
On a different note - does one really have to go to country gigs to score chicks?
One hopes not.
All you guys out there going to the metal shows, even seeing the classic rockers, YOU'RE IN THE WRONG PLACE! You've got to go to the country gig, you've got to go see Keith Urban. Felice pegged the ratio at TEN TO ONE!
Short ones, tall ones, big ones, small ones. All in their jeans and cowboy boots, their tits hanging out of their clingy tops. It was a veritable GIRLS GONE WILD! How did they all get the MEMO?
Nary a tattoo, nary a piercing. The attendees were positively wholesome. And at the appointed hour, when the hi-def screen showed a beating heart and Keith Urban emerged on a riser, strumming his electric guitar, you should have heard the SCREAMS! You could COUNT THE ORGASMS!
And you can include me in the tally. There was a shot of adrenaline, an excitement, all too often absent. And all there was was this one guy, smiling, playing his axe, sans dance steps, sans backing tracks. But then the backing band appeared. A drummer, of course, but FOUR MORE GUITARISTS!
Nothing against country, I find as I allow myself to grow musically that this is a genre that has given me so much over the past 10 years... I just don't desire to wear a cowboy hat and yell yeeha... oh fuck it I really would like to do that... its the wholesome call I find disturbing, I prefer people who are, well, freaks I guess. Great review of mr urbans show but....
On that note, the album of my week is the new and longish time coming album from the Dead C "Future Artists", me a big fan of their noisedronerockscapes
And this album is a goodie, a nice change from the electronic fare for which I usually get excited by..... oh yeah!
No comments:
Post a Comment