G R A N T S H A R K E Y . C O M

Mental Health Mentality

2010-01-18T08:28:45+00:00

Guy who tried to kill the Pope John Paul II is released from jail today. Claiming to be Christ Eternal and declaring the end of the world etc. Some people are questioning his mental health. No, shit.

Pat Robertson declares that the Haiti Earthquake was a result of the Haitian's pact with the devil 220 years ago to oust the French. Has his own TV evangelist network, everyone seems to forget that he's one of the furthest people from God that anyone knows.

Catholic church in general silently or blatantly support the Vatican's teaching Africa that condoms actually facilitate the spread of AIDS and shouldn't be worn. Punishment: Gold and a billion strong army of believers.

Danny Glover attributes the Haiti Earthquake to Global Warming.

Girl who attacked the Pope on Christmas Eve - declared mentally ill immediately after the attack.

Christmas Day - a young man tries to blow up his homemade explodorizing underpants on a plane bound to Detroit.

Alistair Campbell gives slick and greasy evidence to Iraq Enquiry.

The CREDIT CRUNCH and the bankers.

If you're feeling the strain...

http://www.mind.org.uk/

Thoughts to the FUTURE! (Hey, Dawkins, gotta minute?)

2010-01-17T15:35:59+00:00

I got thinking last night on my way in to town - it's something I do, even when music is on. I was driving through Millbrook - a part of Southampton, UK not known for it's ballrooms, political debating societies or art-house cinemas looking at a group of guys stood in a bus stop style smoking area. I overheard their conversations to be a garbled mess of talk about car wheels, a girll they'd like to shag, or if they become a footballer, rape; and another conversation about when their mate knocks off from McDonald's that night he might bring them free burgers. And I got to thinking about society, and intellectualism and yadda, yadda...y'know, THE FUTURE!

I was thinking about something I want to do turn my militant atheist friends (I'm not going to call them all intelligent at the moment) away from the easy target of religions (which, in honesty, is getting to look more like a mob of insane zealots attacking a disabled effigy of someone that died 10 years ago - ironically. And irony makes it worse) and on to using their supposed scientific and logical higher ground to maybe talk to (and possibly be listened to - which is not happening in the religion forum, let's face it) the hordes of people out there who don't have a strong belief in anything at all. The chavs, the bellends, the mooshties. The perpetually happy strugglers who accept their circumstances a lot better than anyone with a strong conviction.

If you want to win a war you need numbers on your side. So why aren't the atheist book thumpers walking into schools, and talking to groups of people who are being trained from the age of four to be checkout assistants, call centre clerks and infantry - explaining the universe and the wonder that is achieved by imagination. Postulating that the Serengeti of life is so much better explored from the 4x4, amphibious, lolacopter of intellect, why aren't we helping very normal people to build lolacopters of their own?

I know it has it's parallels with what religions do early on to ensnare their next generation's worth of donations, but hammering Dawkins' books and yelling at someone that doesn't believe the same thing as you is exactly, if not more, pointless than the religious people doing the same thing with their book and yelling at you or me.

There's a depression going on inside my head at the moment that has been built not by anyone with faith, in fact, everyone I know who has faith seems to be as cool as the people who don't believe in anything specific or not at all. It's caused by small talk about the weather, and people flapping their heads with absolutely nothing to say.

This sort of noise makes me more despairing for the world we're sliding ourselves into everyday. I know it's called Ennui, I know it's easily combated with friendship and good conversation. Is it something we can eradicate from the world one day?

Imagine a world where everyone you met was actually interesting?

N.B. I've given up smoking - so expect more of this stuff. As my fingers and teeth slowly fade from brown to yellow to same colour of the skin on my legs, I'm going to have to be writing blog posts and bits of book to keep myself from tearing the heads off of anyone that tells me it's cold out there.

My skin is more useful than anyone that says that - it tells me it's cold without requiring me to say 'yeah...and they say it might get colder!'.

They're the same people who walk up to comedians and say 'that was really funny' - but they don't walk up to pilots in the airport and say 'that was really f*ckin' high!'

Ideas for 2010 #1

2009-12-27T00:21:14+00:00

Be in charge of your own PR.

Just watching 'The Story of the Motorway' on BBC4 and there was a shot of Hitler helping to unload the first truck-load of dirt for Germany's first Autobahn. This got me thinking about how politicians like to do tasks that are not their jobs to look like their a member of society in front of cameras.

But you never see the normal people of the country doing the opposite. Going to parliament and maybe helping to tidy a desk or sign some of the boring paperwork.

So I'm going to start doing this. I'm going to start taking photographs of myself helping people who do jobs that i DO NOT do and help them to do it for a little while. Maybe an afternoon. I urge you all to do the same. Let's not let the politicians have all the fun.

Hmmm.

The inequality of power.

2009-12-26T10:15:40+00:00

I give Shop Monkey and Kylie handmade necklaces for Christmas:

I get goofy teeth!

Humbug.

SRSLY, are we raging against any sort of machine here?

2009-12-11T02:00:03+00:00

NO.

@solobasssteve (Excellent media man, new daddy round 'ere and solo bass man) posted up a thing on his blog about the silliness that is 'Rage Against The Machine for Xmas Number One'.

I went to the post and read it. Good post.

It struck a chord because I'd had a conversation earlier with my mate Andy about whether i was going to be buying Killing In The Name come Jeebuffday! and I said NO.

He said he was going to do it because he wanted the girls in office to stop going on about X Factor...yup, that's going to happen. On this one, I really hope the X Factor flapping bumhole wins this one. At least the X-fans wear that shit on their sleeves and don't concern themselves with trying to bring other people, who do different things to them down and feel stupid.

Here's my comment on the whole thing:

Any group of people moving in herds without much of a reason are laughable (and dangerous in certain circumstances) to anyone that thinks outside the box.

The difference between the X-Factor lovers and the Rage lovers is the fact the X-Factor song will be bought by people who’ve been entertained over months and have shared some experience with the final result.

The Rage lovers are trying to prove a non-sharpened point that actually stands against a) logic, b) moral sturdiness and c) common sense.

Ask yourself this: what would Zach De La Rocha do? Answer, probably not give a shit about what other people are doing and make sure his point/life/message was just and true.

Don’t buy either song, make a donation to Amnesty International (or buy the new Portishead song, proceeds go to AI), Free Tibet or Burma Campaign UK.

Wanna make a difference? Then fuck ‘em…don’t do what they tell ya.

How to beat the recession and Peter Mandleson...whilst dancing.

2009-12-10T15:50:50+00:00

Peter Mandleson hates you getting things for free on the internet if someone else has made them and haven't necessarily given you the right to have free. Ok. That's stealing to a certain degree. However, things are changing. More and more people are putting out their work for free in return for you eventually giving them some money for something else, or later on. It's a cool new future ahead, and Mandy cannot see it.

He thinks that because you didn't pay instantly, then you are a dirty thief. It's got to the point where Virgin Broadband are beginning tests on systems to help detect whether you are downloading stuff for money or not (I'm not going to say illegally, because that might not be the case).

If they catch you, they want to turn off your internet access. This is against your rights as a family, or group of people cannot be prosecuted for the crime of one person.

But the best way to show that a system doesn't work is to highlight it's flaws. So let's do it.

Download something illegally. Don't care what. That's not my problem.

Then send the artist/producer/studio the amount of money you think it's worth in CASH, via the regular post.

This time of year, throw in some glitzy stuff and maybe a hand written note about yourself and what you're up to, what you downloaded.

With that much cash in their pockets, artists might then go out and buy food and clothes for the winter which in turn will boost the economies of other countries (depending on where you shop).

And Mr Mandleson won't know what's going on because maybe, the flaw is too big for him to monitor from his ivory tower and should instead allow us to make our own choices about how we consume and consider what's fair.

So, I think that's what I'm going to do as much as possible from now on. 'Illegally' download in the cyber world and pay for it in the real world.

Back to where it all began.

2009-12-10T08:32:12+00:00

On Sunday, Im off to the little studio of Alex McDougall to lay down some bass for a project he's working on at the moment. I've got the song going, it's lovely. I can't remember the girl's name right now who wrote it (pre-coffee, early morning) but it's going to be fun playing around and underneath everything she's created so far.

Alex was instrumental in making Toupe mental in the first place. Dirty trance crescendos all over the original demo I wrote with Aaron were all his doing, we had loads of fun sitting around there laughing our faces off, creating as we went along.

This is going to be exciting...and a lot of giggling I suspect.

He's just sent me this video, it takes a while to buffer, but it's well worth it! http://www.tackfilm.se/?id=1260422316047RA90

Once I know more details about the track, artist and final versions, I'll post them up.

Pre-Budget Report

2009-12-09T14:19:36+00:00

I haven't read the whole details but the BBC site ran the headline a while ago saying, 'DARLING: "RECESSION WORSE THAN WE'D THOUGHT"' - this is a prefect example of why WHEN OTHER PEOPLES LIVES ARE IN YOUR HANDS, you PLAN FOR THE WORST AND HOPE FOR THE BEST.

Since when was the Government optimistic when it came to this country facing terrible things?

"Oh, but look on the bright side, at least Saddam can't fire his weapons at you in 44 minutes."

Copenhagen/In a Nutshell (the climate debate sorted out once and for all) - a story.

2009-12-06T13:08:44+00:00

ONCE UPON A TIME there was a man called Man who had been living in the same house for 250,000 years, though the house was much older. He was still young and active. He loved doing things around the house and making it better to live in for him. He was a proper DIY nut.

About 150 years ago however, he radically changed his diet from the plants and animals that grew around the house, and started to eat the house itself. He'd rip bits off the walls and shove them in his mouth. He dug under the carpets and ate the floor boards.

It was good. He felt he could do a lot more and make things more convenient for himself by doing this.

He grew big and fat from all of the house he was eating. So much so that his trousers didn't fit anymore. The button popped off one day and pinged across his bedroom.

Discarding his pants and shoes and socks, he continued to eat his abode with abandon - it was delicious. It was easier than waiting for things to grow. It was easier than thinking up alternatives. Then, inevitably, something terrible happened.

He began to poo.

He pooed everywhere. With no trousers to catch the poo, it fell on the floor and smeared all around the walls. It gushed out of him and clung to the door frames and flung up from his barefeet on to the ceiling. Everything was covered in poo and, understandably, people stopped visiting.

With poop everywhere the plants and animals that lived in the house began to die, because they only liked a certain amount of poo and not the tons of it that Man was ejecting from his raw, uncontrollable bumhole. (which should be a band name, he thought to himself)

Man began to get worried about what was going on. His belly hurt and his legs were in a terrible state. He lay on what was left of the floorboards and realised a time had arrived to make a choice.

He either had to control the amount of pooing he did or he had to accept that if he continued to defecate he had to accept that the house was no good for living in anymore.

He realised it was the diet consisting of nothing but his house that was causing the upset and for his property value to begin plummeting.

So he stopped eating his house.

The problem took a while to work out of his body but will power and a large measure of self assurance got him through the addiction he had to his tasty habitat. Soon he was well enough to get back on with making the house better again. He hammered and nurtured what was left and then visitors started to want to come back again.

Maybe one day he'll leave the house if he can work out how, but he knows now that when does he can at least leave something he was proud of. he'll meet new people and tell them about a time when he was a little crazy but got over it thanks to a bit of self confidence and a bumload of bravery...he might even start a band.

@grantsharkey 6/december/2009

2009-11-22T23:12:32+00:00

The lovely Xan Phillips (@xanphillips) came down the shop to deliver some of his newly published book, Holywood Star (every musician should read it, it's a hilarious true account of @eamonnancarrow's real life quest to be huge in music and all the mishaps along the way).

Xan also does a radio show on www.amazingradio.co.uk called Xan Down South. He did an interview with me in the shop about all the different sorts things I do.

Here's the audio - big file (51mb). Have fun with it.

Download XAN DOWN SOUTH with Grant Sharkey