metacliché

So the blog is going officially on hiatus, and here’s why: I’ve decided to give stand up comedy a proper crack.

So I’ve signed up for an 8 week course, and I’ve done my first 2 open mics, all of which has been great. However, it takes up what little time I have and I am a lazy, inconsiderate person.

I’ve also started twittering in earnest, mainly under my stage name Linus Lee (follow @_linus_lee) where I have become addicted to #hashtag games.

For those unfamiliar with this phenomenon, people try to get silly ideas into the trending topics for that day, for example, crap names for pubs, credit crunch editions of tv shows, or made up facts about the pope. At only 140 characters, I guess it proves the old saw that small things amuse small minds.

So anyway, no blog for now, let’s tweet sometime.

The biggest cliché of all. Start a blog, lose interest and soon it’s dead — missing in action. Will anyone read this message? Hmm…

I know it’s a few years late to jump aboard the Veronica Mars bandwagon, but I just couldn’t help myself. I will say that it has been a budget-concious way of spending a dreary Easter long weekend. When it was on the telebox a few years back, I can admit I dismissed the show off-hand as too teen-drama-y. But I think I’m sufficiently past my own adolescence now to enjoy it, even as a guilty pleasure.

One suprising thing watching the series now however, is how much it says about class warfare. It’s one of those topics that bubbles beneath the surface for the most part, but with the G20 riots and the general populist outcry over executive bonuses, it’s a lot more forward in people’s minds than it would have been 3-5 years ago when the show was being made.

It’s been the case since the dawn of money, that the poor have always despised the rich for their elitism, sense of self-superiority and sometimes undeserved privilege. On the other hand the rich have always despised the poor for their envy, what they see as a lack of sophistication and sometimes lack of willingness to work as hard as they have to achieve their social and financial standing.

Australia, where I grew up, considers itself a relatively classless (i.e. majority middle-class) society. However, over time it’s heading towards an American model, with a middle class, an underclass and a super-privileged class. England, where I live now, is different; where as class distinctions in Britain used to be much clearer, now they are less so than they used to be, but the social hierarchy is far from disappeared. People project their class ranking particularly through their accent, which reflects where they were brought up and where they went to school. However, people today avoid speaking with certain privileged accents which used to be popular, as to be seen as too fancy or too upper-class is seen as a social faux-pas. The move has been away from “The Queen’s English” (Received Pronunciation) toward Estuary English or even “Mockney”.

In the US (and increasingly in Australia), the rich do not necessarily mark themselves by their accent, but by extravagant, conspicuous consumption. This is what has lead to phenomenons such as the stretch Hummer, Vertu mobile phones, Gulf Stream private jets and $900 designer dog beds. This is the consumption which really stirs up the populist rage, because it says that to the rich, money is frivilous and what is bought with it is of little consequence. Contrast this with the very poor, who have less money than needed to afford the bare neccessities of food and shelter, and it’s easy to see the source of that rage.

This is what Veronica Mars showcases (albiet in a very particular Southern Californian setting), which is very rarely seen on televison. Which, along with the great script writing makes for a compelling show.

Picture at top from the amazing Big Picture blog of the G20 protests.

Don’t get me wrong. I love blogs. I love options. But unfortunately the current ameoba-like state that the blog has as a medium leaves readers with uncertain expectations. There are lots of categories of blogs. Here’s my far-from-definitive category list:

• The personal blog. Read by friends and family, it chronicles the daily tribulations of its author, allows them to rant, and keep friends up to speed with amusing anecdotes. Some can be really well done (usually the ones written by writers, comedians and entertainers), however, most are not. I wish it weren’t the case, but it’s true. I also have to admit to personally falling into the the latter camp more often than not.
• The general demographic / interest blog. Eg. Boingboing. Multiple contributors of the same demographic posting seemingly disparate posts tied together by their common readership. In the case of boingboing: nerds. And steam-punk fetishists.
• The professional / publicity blog. Mainly used to drive traffic to the main site of said professional. Originally the domain of the tech crowd, but now much more diverse, encompassing everything from the sartorial to the comedic.
  • A subcategory of the publicity blog is the infomercial blog. A series of affiliate (commission earning) links, disguised as a blog. These sometimes masquerade as topical blogs and are targeted at a certain product group or demographic. Read like a list of press releases. Some can actually be useful, although many are little more than long-winded spam.
• The topical blog. Perhaps the most useful category. Although there is usually some overlap with the general demographic and professional categories, it usually has greater focus than the former and covers wider sources than the latter. Popular blog topics include politics, food, internet memes and cute animals, but basically there seems to be one for almost every niche.
• Lastly, there’s the re-blog. It’s as simple as you think. Just re-post content from other blogs. They range from the small 1-person re-blog to massive communities. Personally, I used to think these were great for showing only the most popular posts from a wide range of blogs, but now I realise that “most popular” and “best” can be very different depending on personal taste.

These aren’t mutually exclusive categories. Most blogs tend to have a major category they fit in, as well as having the odd post which wanders into other territory. Now that I’ve started blogging again, I’m asking myself a difficult question: is it worth my time? Is anyone reading or interested?

Not that there’s anything wrong with a public journal. But I’ve done that before. I got a lot out of it. It’s a record of a time in my life with commentary from my friends, and it’s something I can look back on and enjoy now and into the future.

But I’d like to try doing something a little more focused, and for an audience beyond just friends and family. So I have a couple of ideas at the moment:

1. Some kind of satirical take on the recession. Since I spend so much time trying to see the funny side of it anyway, and it would give me a focused outlet for when I start this new comedy course. You might have noticed the irresponsible recession tips in the top banner of this site. It would be kind of like that but better, I hope.
2. A nerdier option would be a media review site, focused on digital stuff like web shows and podcasts, of which I consider myself a self-styled connoisseur [read: big dork].
3. A more personal blog about my journey away from religion. I found when I was going through this phase I could find very few people’s actual stories on this. Lots of general religious and atheistic sites out there, but few on this particular topic. Closest thing I found was Julia Sweeney’s excellent Letting Go of God, but that’s a comedic monologue, not a blog.

So, my few but cherished readers, let me know what you think. Or let me know if you have any alternative suggestions!

*Comic at top by Asher Sarlin.

With layoffs rife, less money to spend on clothes and a general sombre mood, here are some predictions for how fashion may play out the next 1-3 years:

• Crumpled clothing will make a comeback. Who’s rich enough to iron clothes any more?
• Ill fitting, dishevelled  business suits will be the new hot item. In mocking or solidarity with laid off office workers — who no longer fit their former work outfits due to starvation, or weight gain from a newly invigorated alcoholism — this will become a look seen on catwalks and by trendsetting hipsters.
• Recession beards. To combat this, razor manufacturers will have to start reducing the number of blades in their razors, just to bring the price down. Why are razor cartridges more expensive by weight than gold anyway?
• Think horrible greasy hair was over? Think again.
• Geek pie.
• Derelicte.

How do you think the CEC “Current Economic Crisis” will effect us where it really mattes — in fashion?

Pictured at top: Zach Galiafankis, comedian and future male model. I am mesmerised by his music video for Kanye West’s “Can’t tell me nothin”. Watch and you’ll understand.

Went for Beers and BBQ from Bodeans with my Buddy from Brisbane.

Did you know that they do the “pig out for a tenner” offer every day now? Brill!

An interesting programme I’ve been watching recently, aside from the Daily Show, is Lie To Me.

The main character, Dr. Cal Lightman detects deception by observing body language and microexpressions through the Facial Action Coding System, using this talent to assist clients (such as law enforcement). The character is based on Paul Ekman, notable psychologist and expert on body language and facial expressions.

For those of you unfamiliar with micro-expressions, they’re basically brief, involuntary facial expressions shown when trying to conceal an emotion.

It’s actually very interesting stuff, and after re-watching the interview between Jon Stewart and Jim Cramer, I picked up some interesting details:

This image is snapped after the following quote from Cramer discussing some unsavory practices from his hedge fund days:

I would encourage anyone in a hedge fund to do it. Because it’s legal. And it’s a very quick way to make money — and very satisfying. By the way no one else in the world would ever admit that but I don’t care. I’m not gonna say it on TV.

Compare with this of Jon Stewart, in the middle of this quote:

I understand you want to make finance entertaining. But it’s not a fucking game and I — when I watch that, I get, I can’t tell you how angry that makes me. Because what it says to me is that you all know. You all know what’s going on.

I grabbed the basic expression diagrams from a FOX promo site for the show. Now, unlike the cases in Lie To Me, I don’t think Stewart or Cramer were trying to lie. What they were saying was very clearly in line with their expressions. However, both were saying these things in the emotionally detached convention of television interviews. But it’s interesting to see how the emotions behind their words still come to the surface, if only fleetingly.

The New Yorker’s cocktail recipes for the recession are deliciously ironic.