What is it that irks me about Hipsterism?

I have just watched Peter York's excellent short documentary about the phenomenon known as Hipster culture. The documentary started out arch, but became deeply fascinating. In a modest 59 minutes that feels shorter, York beautifully captures this movement like a collector fixes a butterfly.

The documentary has allowed me to articulate for the first time what I feel about the rise of Hipsterism in my own city, London. I have watched this culture mushroom here with a skeptical eye. I have never felt welcomed by this culture, nor have I warmed to it. It has always seemed at one step removed from the society that I grew up in, and indeed still inhabit. But what is it that irks me about this movement, these people?

On the surface it would appear I share some common values with Hipsters - the buzz words ethical, local, artisan imply a kind of William Morris approach to work, design and living that is wholesome and beneficial to all; yet I discover that hipster culture is exclusive rather than inclusive, and that it is born out of consumerism rather any kind of socialist or grass roots activism. At its core, it is old school Adam Smith capitalism. In a way, what is wrong with that? And what is wrong with quality in an mass-produced age? Well nothing (so do you actually have a point? Ed.), in fact what is fascinating is that it reveals how underpriced our consumer culture is. Oil, that precious, finite, unbelievably useful commodity that is destroying our planet, is ludicrously cheap. It means that we can have a crazy, unfettered capitalist culture that is, unlike the core ethos of Hipsterism, unsustainable and dangerous. And yet the two cross over in uncomfortable ways. It's like the same insane dilemma that seems to confront us at every turn these days: which way will it tip? 

Hipsterism could be part of an essential movement away from the mass-produced, over-produced, grossly wasteful and grossly waste-producing culture of recent history. An age so voracious that it is threatening to destroy our entire ecosystem. And boy do we need to do that. Or Hipsterism could simply be up-themselves twats rearranging artisanal deckchairs on the Titanic. For entirely subjective reasons, I think it's the latter. Because whenever I encounter one, they always seem grumpy and unfriendly. What have I done to earn your Hipster ire? Yes, it's the unwarranted exclusivity that irks me. Anyway, forget my small-minded objections, what Hipsterism reveals are the massive fractures in our out-of-control culture, the vast and often bewildering gaps between what is local, simple and communal, and what is a gargantuan system run by computers, where humans are simply part of the algorithm. Which way will it go? Or will we in fact fracture into entirely different cultures, splitting even our existential reality into one of separate possibilities? I hope, but I am not  certain, that I will have a choice which path I go on.

I've been thinking about this thing we call 'time'...

I've been thinking about time, how we perceive it and whether 'now' really is 'now'. What do we mean by now? I think what most people mean is that now is the the very latest event to be occurring in a linear history of time. That now is the leading edge of existence, and that there is nothing ahead of now. But what if that wasn't the case at all? What if where we are 'now' is simply a position in time, neither the beginning or end of it, but somewhere unidentifiable within the flow. For some time, I have seen time like a river. The river flows endlessly, and in fact, cyclically, and 'we' flow along within it. Our point of reference, which we call now, is simply a relative point of perception. The 'future', that we believe doesn't exist yet, is actually just further along the same river, and the past is equally just further along the same river, although (perceptually) behind us, not in front of us. The 'river of time' is constantly braiding, currents swirling, things moving at different speeds along it, sometimes colliding, sometimes flowing in unison. We call these things - from our point of perception - events.    If we understand that time is like a river, it's possible to explain prescience, foresight, dreams that come true, visions. Because of course they are insights into events that are simply flowing and actually occurring, or very likely to occur, further downstream from our point of perception. In other words, we are connected to future events, completely and inextricably. What this means is that if we can open up our perception, we can tune in more effectively to our understanding of the flow of events, and our ability, in smaller or larger part, to influence them. We often have an intuition or gut feeling about 'future' events, and this is because we are already part of them, joined to them and in some way, shaping them. Furthermore, quantum physics seems to show that 'time' can actually run backwards, given that (according to a fascinating article in the Daily Mail): Scientists probed the quantum mechanical properties of single particles The particles don't have a fixed state until they are observed by scientist Study found knowing future outcome of particle also changes initial state  They believe particles change their state due to scientist's knowledge This suggests that time could runs both backwards and forwards If this proves true, it could mean that what we're doing now has been influenced by decisions made by a future version of us, the study claims In layman's terms, we are not only able to influence events, but without us, do they even happen? We seem to be either the creators or co-creators of existence.  And 'time' is therefore something 'we' have invented.  As a writer, it is amusing to consider that we invented time in order to experience drama. Because without time, there is no drama; no stories, no struggle, no triumph and no change. And given that we are story-creating entities, surely that explains why time is so essential to our existence? But also, perhaps this explains that time is simply a construct of our minds?

David Bowie, Cracked Actor

Revisiting the incredible songs of my cruelly extinguished guiding light, David Bowie, I was reminded how the lyrics to his 'Quicksand' have such resonance with Hamlet's famous 'To be or not to be..' soliloquy. 

"I'm torn between the light and dark
Where others see their targets
Divine symmetry
Should I kiss the viper's fang
Or herald loud
the death of Man
I'm sinking in the quicksand
of my thought
And I ain't got the power anymore..."

..and this led me to realise that I've never watched the 1974 Alan Yentob documentary about Bowie, 'Cracked Actor'. So I've just watched it. It opens with Quicksand. And there are scenes from his Cracked Actor persona with him holding a skull in Hamlet mode. Like Stephen Dedalus in James Joyce's Ulysses, who is also obsessed by Hamlet, in this film Bowie comes across as a deeply conflicted young man, who almost knows too much...

It's a wonderful, wonderful documentary, check it out - vintage, perfect Bowie: 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FsPVrsZcbZU

My own Greek odyssey

When I was 19 I took a Magic Bus from outside St Pancras station and five days later ended up in Athens. From there I boarded a ferry bound for Crete. For the entire three months I spent there, I slept outdoors. Usually on a beach, sometimes under a grove of olive trees, always at peace. I have never been thinner, fitter, or browner!

In order to survive on my meagre budget, I'd pick fruit and vegetables from nearby fields and cook them up in scavenged 5 litre olive oil cans over an open fire. Most nights, I got extremely drunk. I was very happy.

After a few weeks of beach living in what was then the undeveloped village of Malia, I hired a Suzuki 250 and along with a Dutch lad I'd met, set off to explore the island. For me, a motorbike fanatic, a romantic and freedom lover, this was the ultimate trip. Riding without a crash helmet along mountain tracks and dry watercourses, across deserts and rocky plains and sleeping in the open air; for a born and bred West Londoner used to polluted, traffic-snarled streets and crammed cityscapes, it was incredible. I'd never seen so many stars!

Most nights we'd eat at a local cafe in whatever town or village we found along our way. I remember arriving in the ancient port of Rethymnon after a long, hot, dusty ride and then wandering through winding lanes until we reached the Street of the Leathermakers. At the end of the street where the road divided was a workers' cafe. We sat outside in the sultry evening heat and ate the most delicious food I have ever tasted. Greek salad with local herbs and spices, olives and feta, and calamari that had been caught an hour before and fried in golden rings that melted in our mouths, all washed down with rough red wine from a nearby vineyard. The cost, for the two of us, was five pounds.

We travelled here and there, without worrying about time or destination, and ended up in Chania, in the west of the Island, where we stopped and rested up for a few days, swam in the sea and generally revelled in life.  From there we headed back eastwards, ambling over mountains and down gorges, vaguely aiming towards Knossos, the fabled city of Daedalus and Ariadne, the labyrinth and the Minotaur. On our way, following maps that rarely matched the actual routes, we got hopelessly lost. 

Around noon on a searingly hot day we passed through a sleepy village. After a few hundred yards we discovered all the men eating their lunch outside a tiny restaurant. They watched in silence as we rode past and then seconds later, crash, because the road suddenly dropped two feet without warning. I cut my knee open and was grazed all over and Jan was similarly injured. I shook my fist at the watching men and cursed them with every Greek swear word I'd learned, but they simply sat there, utterly impassive and silent.

Leaving the unfriendly village, we limped onwards. The Suzuki's front tyre was punctured in the fall and it was hard going across a trackless waste that seemed to stretch on forever. Jan began to sob, wailing that we were going to die out here, in the middle of nowhere. I was surprised, thinking him to be a hardened traveller, but he too was only 19 and the crash had badly shaken him up. For some reason I felt the complete opposite, excited by what might happen and confident we'd find our way out of this particular pathless labyrinth.

After a few miles I spotted a tractor that soon disappeared over the brow of a hill. I followed in its dusty wake and ten minutes later chanced upon a rough track that eventually led us to a tiny village. As we rode along its one street scores of excited children ran out to greet us. They gestured for us to stop at the little cafe with the ubiquitous Coca Cola sign outside. Inside was an old man sitting at a table, who showed no interest in us at all. But the kids ushered us to a map of the world that was stuck to the wall and asked us to show them where we were from. When I pointed to London they gasped. They had never met someone from so far away and I had never felt so heroic. We drank ice cold cokes and then exited with many smiles to continue on our way. Before we left, Jan took a photo of me outside the cafe, which you can see above. The year was 1980 and in a few months I would be a world away at Liverpool university, marching against Thatcher, learning of John Lennon's death, watching Echo and the Bunnymen and the Human League and wondering what the fuck I was doing with my life. But in this moment, I was very proud and very happy.

Islamic State, the gift that keeps on giving

George Monbiot is spot on in his latest blog post: Beware of politicians making themselves look big by inflating security threats. But he could have taken the analysis further. If we look at what has happened in the Middle East over the last 60 years, we can see that the constant meddling of the Western powers, manipulating events, continually creating more trouble and strife, deliberately fomenting unrest.

In 1953 the UK and US governments sponsored a coup to overthrow the democratically elected government of Iran, because that government was about to nationalise the British owned Anglo-Iranian oil company (now called BP), and thereby return control and profits of Iranian oil to the people of Iran. With the full backing of the CIA, a military coup ensued, overthrowing the government and installing instead, the Shah of Iran as dictator. This was a progressive, socialist government, and Iran was fast becoming a modern, quasi-secular country. The Western intervention turned the clock back and led directly to the rise of fundamentalist Islam, the inevitable overthrow of the Shah, and the rise of the Caliphate, with the rights of women and democratic process drastically curbed.

This story is repeated across the Middle East. Western intervention has continually undermined social progress, even though the propaganda claims the opposite.

The West, particularly the US, created Saddam - they funded him, they backed him and then they toppled him when it suited them. After the two Iraq wars, the country was reduced to turmoil and rubble, and in the ensuing power vacuum, Islamic fundamentalism has once again, predictably, risen to the fore. The same happened in Afghanistan The same in Libya. Always a bogeyman is toppled, the West intervenes, chaos ensues.

And then in Syria, they West attempted to do the same. Dislikable as the Assad regime is/was, it was democratically elected and there was relative peace amongst its population as well as secular, modern values. Certainly far, far more so than in Western ally countries like Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Cue the Western/Saudi/Qatari backed attempted overthrow of Assad, and the same pattern is repeated. Disintegration of society, massive loss of life, hoards of refugees and the rise of Islamic fundamentalism.

Directly out of Western involvement in the Middle East, comes the rise of ISIS. These are once disparate rebels/freedom fighters/insurgents/terrorists (depending on how the West chooses to label them when it suits), who have been funded, trained AND armed by the Western allies. The creation of ISIS is no coincidence and one can only conclude it is deliberate. Why? Because the Western corporate/military complex loves nothing more than war and chaos. It always reaps from the whirlwind. It is about profit, and nothing else. And now David Cameron and the other Western allies have the perfect bogeymen, yet again, to justify even more war, military intervention, and ultimately, more profits for the major corporations who have always promoted war. And furthermore, this never-ending crusade gives governments the perfect excuse to crack down ever harder on their own citizens, to take away more basic rights of privacy and protest, to extend the power and control ever deeper.

For those who would manipulate us, the banking and oil cartels, the corporations and their puppet politicians, Islamic State is the gift that keeps on giving.

God bless Joni Mitchell

I came to Joni late, on my own, finally checking out an urge on YouTube that had lain dormant for 30 years or more. Cos I'm a guy. I never listened to Joni when I was young. I mean, you just didn't, right? Sure, I was aware of Big Yellow Taxi and subliminally grokked its environmental message, but Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin had my attention and then it was punk and New Wave and... well, the occasional woman would pierce my fatherless self-crafted manly carapace - Kate Bush certainly had my attention and my heart's wounds were touched by The Hounds of Love and I listened to Patti Smith and Chrissie Hynde of course, but she was proper rock'n'roll..

...but a few years back I was sat alone in my front room, late one night, savouring a cold beer and maybe I'd smoked some spliff, I can't remember, but I thought, hmm, Joni Mitchell... what was the fuss all about? All those girls with her albums way back in the day. Was it some kind of female secret initiation rite? The album I chanced upon on YouTube was inevitably Blue. And I listened. And I was enthralled. River pierced me like no other song, brought tears to my eyes, but more, it spoke of a soul-deep sadness that perhaps all of us share, and now, as a fully fledged adult male and mature enough to have finally contacted my own heart-wound, I I was able to allow myself to open out and let Joni in. Blue, River, Big Yellow Taxi, Woodstock, with it's prophetic lyrics that are mirrored perhaps in the sentiments of Jame's Cameron's movie Avatar (which is really a rip from Ursula Le Guin's The Word For World Is Forest), and again, a message that spoke to my soul. And now I discover that she is seriously ill and I've only just got to know her. God bless you Joni Mitchell.

The current reality we inhabit is a duality

In duality, you get duels. Understanding this is where the jewels are.