It's who you know
Posted on Fri Aug 31 14:42:00 UTC 2007
As my friend John aptly put it, “the underground” is just people talking. A patchwork blanket of frayed threads sharing some fringe interest. There's no use discussing who is in and who is out, who is real, or a poseur, or on or off the bus. After the laundry's been done and things have finally come out in the wash in the final analysis you can always sell the gravy, but the real meat of the meal remains only for the cooks. Commodification inevitably misses the point. Essentially the essentials of the deal are forever tantalising and elusive, you can't sell participation, anything that can be packaged in plastic simply wasn't worth having in the first place.
The underground, a bunch of disparate social networks primarily routing information, and as a secondary effect hard-to-find goods and grey market services. I want to buy drugs of a particular type, I have a friend A, who knows a bottom tier dealer B, who has a connection with an importer C, abracadabra, alakazam and hey presto! I have my drugs. We build up our trust through shared history. No flying pigs in helicopters, not amongst true friends.
Still, I'm glad they burned the Man down early, it's about damn time. That curdled old milk was far and away well past it's expiry date. Reading all the endless rules and regulations it sounds as if the soul of the party had long since moved on, and left behind a pale calcified husk of a shadow of it's former glory. The soul, the spark of what made it wonderful still exists, is probably floating around Mexico, starting anarchic bonfires on the gleaming lustful sands of some (until recently) uninhabited south pacific atoll, eating forbidden fruit in the lost valleys of the South Americas, breaking down the boarded up windows in a graffiti littered warehouse somewhere in your home town. When you dilute hard liquor to become palatable to the common tongue you know those of us who like to drink our poison strong will quickly find another bar to go to.
That's the actual reason to fear popularity. It's not that it's necessary to feel unique, it's that inevitably with mass appeal the heart of the scene will wander some place else, or, more likely, the people that comprise the heart of the scene will leave for better things. No one worth a damn wants to stick around to buy the t-shirt.
“Being yourself” is a peculiar concept. One one hand, in one sense, we cannot help but be ourselves. Ultimately and unfortunately you cannot escape that, anyone who has ever tried to climb over the fence can tell you: the banal truth is all we have. And if “being yourself” means being someone other than who your already are then the idea becomes immediately much more mysterious. There exists a True Self, the Real You, trapped, somewhere, in here, and you can go digging through your chest to find it. When do you find your True Self, we are told, a miracle occurs, pavement turds will sprout daisies, peppermint candy canes fall from the sky. The Real You is, apparently, always a happy and successful person, having obtained from Colonel Sanders the names and relative measures of the eleven secret herbs and spices, the cocaine and baking soda recipe for unlimited success.
What of those of us whose inner beauty is unattractive and asymmetrical? Perhaps, perhaps your sole purpose in life is to serve as an example to others. Please, sir, madam; do not try and fight fate! You were chosen, picked out by the eye of God -- this is your destiny. As for the rest of us novelty paperweights, there is good and bad, often swapped around, in different places and in differing quantities, depending on the time of day, who's looking and from what angle.
Personally I doubt there's any such thing, it's all spunned around and shaken thoroughly, stirred and mixed, intractably tangled. We cannot extract the gold from the sand. But perhaps this is what it means: there is an image of how we see ourselves, and an image of how others see us, and how closely, or often, do the two coincide? The exchange rate on cognitive dissonance is particularly good for exporters, a little hypocrisy goes a long way.
- - -
In Hamner, out of touch, leave a message at the tone.
The underground, a bunch of disparate social networks primarily routing information, and as a secondary effect hard-to-find goods and grey market services. I want to buy drugs of a particular type, I have a friend A, who knows a bottom tier dealer B, who has a connection with an importer C, abracadabra, alakazam and hey presto! I have my drugs. We build up our trust through shared history. No flying pigs in helicopters, not amongst true friends.
Still, I'm glad they burned the Man down early, it's about damn time. That curdled old milk was far and away well past it's expiry date. Reading all the endless rules and regulations it sounds as if the soul of the party had long since moved on, and left behind a pale calcified husk of a shadow of it's former glory. The soul, the spark of what made it wonderful still exists, is probably floating around Mexico, starting anarchic bonfires on the gleaming lustful sands of some (until recently) uninhabited south pacific atoll, eating forbidden fruit in the lost valleys of the South Americas, breaking down the boarded up windows in a graffiti littered warehouse somewhere in your home town. When you dilute hard liquor to become palatable to the common tongue you know those of us who like to drink our poison strong will quickly find another bar to go to.
That's the actual reason to fear popularity. It's not that it's necessary to feel unique, it's that inevitably with mass appeal the heart of the scene will wander some place else, or, more likely, the people that comprise the heart of the scene will leave for better things. No one worth a damn wants to stick around to buy the t-shirt.
“Being yourself” is a peculiar concept. One one hand, in one sense, we cannot help but be ourselves. Ultimately and unfortunately you cannot escape that, anyone who has ever tried to climb over the fence can tell you: the banal truth is all we have. And if “being yourself” means being someone other than who your already are then the idea becomes immediately much more mysterious. There exists a True Self, the Real You, trapped, somewhere, in here, and you can go digging through your chest to find it. When do you find your True Self, we are told, a miracle occurs, pavement turds will sprout daisies, peppermint candy canes fall from the sky. The Real You is, apparently, always a happy and successful person, having obtained from Colonel Sanders the names and relative measures of the eleven secret herbs and spices, the cocaine and baking soda recipe for unlimited success.
What of those of us whose inner beauty is unattractive and asymmetrical? Perhaps, perhaps your sole purpose in life is to serve as an example to others. Please, sir, madam; do not try and fight fate! You were chosen, picked out by the eye of God -- this is your destiny. As for the rest of us novelty paperweights, there is good and bad, often swapped around, in different places and in differing quantities, depending on the time of day, who's looking and from what angle.
Personally I doubt there's any such thing, it's all spunned around and shaken thoroughly, stirred and mixed, intractably tangled. We cannot extract the gold from the sand. But perhaps this is what it means: there is an image of how we see ourselves, and an image of how others see us, and how closely, or often, do the two coincide? The exchange rate on cognitive dissonance is particularly good for exporters, a little hypocrisy goes a long way.
- - -
In Hamner, out of touch, leave a message at the tone.