For Those About to Rock - Milk & Two Sugars Please.

According to 80's codpiece-attired Gene Simmons and his heavily-pickled band-mates, God gave rock n roll to you. And put it in the soul of everyone. Which is a sweeping statement when talking about a deity that hasn't given the ability to chew food properly to the entire human race.

And for proof that it’s not an ubiquitous human trait: Robbie Williams.

Some of you may think that using Our Robbie as an example is counter-intuitive. After all, a history of drug-dependence and sexual promiscuity is the basic narrative for the rock n roll lifestyle, right? Robbie probably has a bloodstream toxic enough to require a ‘Hazardous Materials’ sign to be permanently tattooed on his arse cheek, and a penis covered in more exotic bacteria than a dog-carcass left on a Caribbean beach.

But I put this to you: Does ‘rock n roll’ simply imply living as a half-cut idiot with raging Chlamydia?

Of course not.

The fact is that getting smashed and having enough scarring on your genitalia for your groin to resemble the moon’s surface is now par-for-course. It has become part of a uniform proudly worn alongside an ASBO and a guitar bought for thirty-quid from Argos.

And it’s the same thing with all subcultures.

I remember skateboarding back in the 90’s, when the extreme sports scene was making its bruised crawl into the mainstream. We were a tight-knit bunch of music-loving, adrenaline-surfing kids with a genuine desire to discover true individuality through the medium of ‘cool’ and a piece of very expensive plywood with wheels nailed to it. Or, rather, that’s what I liked to tell myself.
More likely is that we were a bunch of little bastards who all wore the same baggy clothes, listened to the same music whether we actually liked it or not and subscribed to whatever new fad the skate-shops in Cardiff told us was the ‘next big thing’.

And it hasn’t changed.

The majority of skaters believe they are ‘sticking it to the man’, when what’s closer to the truth is that they only ever have the balls to stick it to each other in the guise of seeing who can swear loudest, or stick it to some old couple who are complaining that if they get knocked over it’ll mean a new hip each and several months in hospital. Which to me isn’t rock n roll in the slightest. It’s just being a mouthy, ignorant git.

And the same goes for the Rap culture, the Goth culture, any one of the zillion music cultures that spring up each time a ‘clever’ marketing-bod decides that the generic band they are promoting needs to be pioneering something. They make up a new genre like ‘crossover-rap-metal-blues-core-with-xylophones-in-it’ and say that this new band is the first to do it. Cue a million kids wearing small xylophones around their neck for a fortnight and arguing in parks about who was listening to this band ‘before they were famous’. And getting wrecked on cheap cider.

My point is that what most people consider to be rock n roll is just another well-marketed lifestyle that usually includes copious amounts of alcohol, mind-ruining chemicals and bad language. The individuality and ground-breaking ideals have been lost in a cloud of buzzwords, expensive t-shirts with ironic slogans emblazoned on the front and living in the neatly defined boundaries of your peer group.

Subcultures are no more rock n roll than the office culture of pencil skirts, cheap suits and having sex with your married boss.

So, rock n roll can only ever come down to the individual. If you believe in yourself, and never sway from that belief no matter what the consequences, then you have the essence of rock n roll ready to pour from you. You also have to be prepared to flick a middle finger to the pressures of mainstream ‘cool’ when they oppose you, and decide not to be an arsehole when culture demands it. Yes, part of being truly rock n roll nowadays actually comes down to being rather decent. Think about it, being a selfish berk is an obvious part of the money-earning, ladder-climbing, tat-consuming society we live in. Buck the trend and do something unexpectedly good for no other reason than you can.

Or next time you are at a club, thirsty, yet in the mood for conversation and good times that don’t involve losing £100 on copious vomiting and regret, do the rock n roll thing.

Go to the bar and ask for a pot of tea.

Dee.

Give a Monkey a Brain and Gas Central Heating... And They'll Probably Have a Panic Attack.

1 in 4 adults experience at least one diagnosable mental health problem in any one year, and one in six experiences this at any given time.
- The Office for National Statistics Psychiatric Morbidity report (2001)

For the purpose of this exercise, we shall call him Paleolithic Paul.

A little bit about Paul.
Paul was born in a hedge during, ooh, let's say the summer of 17,965 BC, to a berry-picker mother with headlice and a father who spends a lot of his time whacking the ground with the jawbone of a badger. He's in his 20's, has never shaved and has sired two children with a woman who is also 20,000 years from discovering the triple-blade razor. For the purpose of this exercise, we shall call her Pauline.

He's a technological wizard is our Paul. Only last week he fashioned a spiky-thing out of flint which he used to scrape the last remaining blood and guts from the skin of a hairy elephant. His cave is now decked-out with a posh looking rug. Paul is pleased. His fair-lady will be pleased. Paul is going to get some tonight.

Now, let's visualise Paul sitting there in his cave, looking pleased with himself. Pauline strolls in with the little tykes, a 'bowl' full of berries and the sun glinting attractively off the inch-long hair on her legs. Its a stone-age idyll. Beautiful.

In an evolutionary sense, Paul and Pauline are no different from you and I. They are 'modern humans'. Each has a body and brain that corresponds in physical terms to the body and brain we have now. The only real differences are environmental, cultural and historical influences. Paul's ability to create a scraping-flint and utilise it is not that different from a chap nowadays designing a computer and using it to surf the web. Each has used abstract thinking to view a problem and create a solution. Paul has extremely limited educational sources to create something new, whereas the fellow with the laptop is standing on the shoulders of giants. Mr 2010 has the advantage of magazines, blueprints, universities, readily-constructed materials and a zillion people in close-quarters doing a similar thing.

Anyway, cut back to the cave. Evening sets in and Paul is somewhat troubled. The stresses of Caveman life are weighing on his mind. He's wondering how well he'll wield his hunting stick after he hurt his thumb when finger-painting over a jagged bit of wall. He's also wondering how damp the firewood is after he accidentally urinated on it during the previous night when half-asleep. Pauline will go spare. Hence Paul preemptively sorting out a rug to try and keep her happy amongst the smokey fumes of burning, wee-soaked fuel.

Paul's pressures are not unfamiliar. His worries are based around provision, shelter, warmth and keeping his family happy. And this will have been the same story for countless individuals over the course of history. The human race has evolved with these pressures in mind. Therefore, we can understand how our minds and bodies evolved to manage these pressures. Simple, no?

Well, it would be simple if that were the end of the story.

For the purpose of this exercise, imagine that you are autonomous and all-powerful. You are the Genie in the lamp. You are the manager of Bill Gates' bank account. You can give these prehistoric Waltons whatever you think they need.

So let's start off with installing gas central heating and those little pipes that snake under your floor to keep your feet warm. Now, let's give the cave double-glazed windows, a secure front door with several locks for security, a nice wood-burning stove and a layer of super-fresco wallpaper over a freshly-skimmed plaster surface.

Paul is pleased. Paul now only has to flick a switch to be warm, and can hang the hairy-elephant-thing's skin on the wall for adornment as the floor is much toastier than a flea-ridden mat of pachyderm dreadlocks. He's also safe in the knowledge that sabre-toothed tigers are useless with lock-picks, and that he can slap as much red-ochre on the smooth walls as he fancies. His thumbs safe.

But let's not stop there. Let's follow the example of a modern-day credit-card wielder on a trip up Oxford Street and go bezerk.

Let's continue with sanitised, hot & cold running water. Paul is pleased at no longer having to walk to the river and occasionally get the shits whilst trying to rehydrate. Let's deck the family out in smart new clothes too. Paul is warm and comfortable. Now let's get a washing machine in to clean those clothes. Let's not forget the detergent. Paul is cleaner and more comfortable outside the cave and no longer smells of his own bottom most of the time. Let's build some roads and give the family a car. And let's create the car with a 25,000 mile service interval for the sakes of ease. Let's sort petrol stations and garages too, so that Paul can refuel and get the car fixed if needs be. Let's give them a phone. No, two phones. Okay, one each and a landline for posterity.

Paul is... grateful. But starting to get a bit twitchy at the new bills coming through the door. We tell Paul that its ok - the monetary system is yet to be devised, so he can pay us in berries and hunted-meat. If he goes out and whacks mammals for 8 hours a day, we'll accept it in-lieu of cash.

Paul is confused.

In the meantime, we introduce Pauline to cosmetics and handbags, the kids to games consoles and McDonalds food...

...The Internet. Futons. Watches. Microwave meals. Cameras. Loofahs. Mouthwash. Dado rails. Ornamental light fittings. Trainers with 'air' technology. Endowment mortgages. Paracetamol. Insurance services. Backgammon. Delhi counters. Advertising. TV gameshows. Sun Tan Lotion. Cigarettes. Supermarkets. Crockery. Politics...

And in our generosity we forget the fundamental fact that these folk aren't evolved do deal with this kind of thing.

And more poignantly, neither are we.

Paul takes a club to his head rather than deal with the new mass of pointless input. A little while later, so do we. In droves.

Our modern lifestyles are a fight between the emotional and conscious parts of our brain. We are able to - quite brilliantly - use our cognition to control less superficial parts of our personality. And in the process, we lose sight of what is right, what is wrong and what is good for us, things that are widely influenced by our emotional psyche. Each single facet of this western existence involves such mind-bending complexity and pressure that we are unfurling at the mental seams. Regardless of whether or not we know better, we do the things that are socially expected of us, or that fit within the cultural remit of success.

And with the loss of our moral consciousness, we're taking an abrupt turn in our evolutionary journey...

We're becoming less human. More electrical appliance.

Dee.

Living is the main cause of death. Please stop NOW.

Thanks to the Daily Mail and other British media institutions, I fear for my own life on a daily basis. I'm particularly worried about Arab paedophiles causing a banking crisis during a 'big freeze'. Thank God for CCTV, gritting trucks And racist police officers.

I'm increasingly terrified of the unnatural process we call 'death', or even old-age. I totally agree with the gold-shod, shiny-faced, Sven-Goren-Ericsson bound women who'd rather look like tupperware than an old horse. If you can afford it, why not replace your dermis with clingfilm and pump your lips full of fat from your arse? You may look like a stress-ball that's oozing between the fingers of a firm-grip, but at least you don't have to actually go to the effort of using your facial muscles when having to express extreme fear. That should save you a few calories, which is handy when you live off 'fine dining' and consider a meal to be half an anchovy balanced on top of a dried pea.

But to be honest, as a moneyless working-class boy, I doubt I'll ever have the cash or genitalia to enter a cosmetic surgery clutching a picture of Zsa Zsa Gabor for inspiration. Instead, I'm left to fear the reaper whilst smearing my face in puppy-blood - cheaper than Oil-of-Olay and occasionally free if you hang around the dustbins of bull-terrier breeders when they get back from the pub.

So, in a frugal search to perdure my life, I thought I'd use the internet to do a bit of research on the second-biggest reason for human expiration in the UK. Cancer. The Big 'C'.

The results. Enjoy them. And never do anything ever, ever again.

"Death link to too much red meat"
According to research, red meat causes cancer.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7959128.stm

So, I'm thinking 'bugger this, I think i'll stick to white meat instead'. But maybe not...
You see, research shows that white meat causes cancer.
http://www.aliv-e.com/EN/education/articles/nutren1.asp

Oh dear. In that case, lets do veg. No?
No. Lets not.
You see, research links cancer to fruit and vegetables.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2002/feb/17/medicalscience.research

Um... It must be the solids. So... the answer must be the wholly nutritious drinkstuff that is milk.
Nope. Apparently, research shows that milk gives you cancer.
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/41720/title/Scientists_find_a_soup_of_suspects_while_probing_m

It's probably the whole bovine thing.. didn't I hear that we haven't evolved to digest dairy? Aha! Soy milk shall be our saviour! Or not as it may seem...
Because research shows that soy milk increases the risk of cancer.
http://www.drweil.com/drw/u/id/QAA44833

I'm getting worried now. Imbibing food is going to lead to my demise. In that case, I'll just eat trace amounts of grub.
But would you Adam and Eve it!? According to research - as clearly stated on page 13 of this document, Malnutrition cases cancer.
http://www.batdc.org/DisciplinedMindch.6.pdf

So. I'm thinking 'Lets avoid food altogether. Vitamin supplements are the gravel path to eternity! How'd you like THAT mortality?'.
This is getting frustrating. No. They are not. Because, according to research, vitamins cause cancer.
http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/vitamin_supplements.html

Right. That's it. Until research can come up with something that I can eat without the prospect of tumors, I'm going to filter the air for nutrition in the same way that whales filter for krill. I'll sit at my computer, noting the progress of my physical state and posting it on Faceboo... *sigh*.
Oh well, it looks like we're going to lose an entire generation of people who take photographs of themselves at a 45-degree angle, because research shows that Facebook causes cancer.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1149207/How-using-Facebook-raise-risk-cancer.html

Oh bugger this then. I'm not doing ANYTHING. At all. Which obviously won't work as I'll suffer from malnutrition, which will give me cancer. And in my boredom, I'll be tempted to update my Facebook status. What do do... what to do? Aah, I know. I'll try a bit of self imposed stasis, see if that helps...
...which of course it won't. As, apparently, according to research, You don't actually need to do anything untoward or risky. Because *drum-roll please* according to research, you can 'catch' cancer....
http://health.asiaone.com/Health/Women%2527s%2BMatters/Cancer%2BCentre/Story/A1Story20090309-127123.html

Next week: How breathing can cause bronchitis, and how using your arms can eventually lead to arthritis.

Dee.

Perspective in a Cleaning Product.

Over tea and biscuits, I'm frequently asked "Dee, what is your view on the western-evolved cultural sensibility, especially in a wider universal sense? And what does your opinion say about detergents?".

My answer rings thus:

Bang. A big bang.

Although, as physics dictates, sound isn't carried in the vacuum of space which means it wasn't even a mild 'phwop'. But I suppose 'Not Even a Mild Phwop' doesn't sound as dramatic as 'Big Bang', and 'Phwop' would be a bastard for Steven Hawking to articulate... but I digress.

Nearly 14 billion years ago, everything started. Ish.
In a single, incomprehensible moment, a soup of madness spilled out from the opened tin of nullity, splashing into the cold saucepan of reality. The universe was born; all violence and bubbling promise. The wild, early universe held nothing of 'solidity', it was a mass of elementary particles and energy, so any simile with croutons doesn't work at this time. Think of it as a simple broth with no garnish.

Bang.

And as the swirling madness of the early universe expanded, elementary particles crashed into each other in the chaotic mêlée. Matter was borne of this searing crush. Think of this as the dance floor at a club at around 2am... and the resulting toilet-based passion. Although in the case of the universe, matter was established in mere seconds. No 9 month wait for 'happy accidents' here.

Bang.

As energy created matter, matter created particles, particles became atoms, atoms came together to form the first molecules and molecules formed the first 'stuff'. Although it only took a few minutes for the universe to grasp the fundamentals of this, it took hundreds of millions of years to sort out making anything that we'd visually interpret as a 'thingy'. Possibly a bit tardy, but worth the wait.
Stars were born. Super-hot, massive orbs of such enormous amounts of 'stuff' that they self-destruct and combust into brilliant bulbs of wonderment, their energies exploding forth as heat, light and radiation throughout the known universe. All because of the crashing, compressive force of gravity. Gravity which compresses matter and makes a teaspoonful of star weigh many, many tons.
Aah, I see that the morbidly obese readers with a gastric bypass just became interested. Unfortunately, a cake shop's entire stock will never reach this level of gravitational influence here on earth. My condolences, fatty.

Bang.

The planets formed. Earth. Terra. Our little, mottled blue ball, wobbling its merry way around our decidedly average sun (by sun standards). But its early years were turbulent, violent times, understood best by the parents of toddlers who have pretentions to be stunt performers. Before the earth had settled into anything resembling its current form, disaster came in the guise of a cataclysmic collision with another baby planet of similar size, when both went running across the living-room to see who would be first to pick up the squeaky rabbit. Oh, hang on. I'm mixing up my analogies here. Strike that. Reverse a bit. You know what I'm getting at.
And the earth gained a moon. Planet #2 lost the wrestle and settled in an orbit around the heavier Earth; a subservient lunar Manuel to our earthly Basil Fawlty.

Bang.

Bang. Bang. Thump. Wallop. Whap. Clump. Bosh. P'twang!
Exhaustive onomatopoeia, perfectly illustrating the meteors and asteroids that hit the early earth. And with this pock-marked invasion came the seeds of life; science pointing more and more to the possibility that the amino-acids needed to kickstart mortal-essence came piggybacking on one of these cosmic missiles. You, yes you, are most probably the evolution of an alien sludge that first appeared about 3.5 billion years ago. For more evidence of this, visit Milton Keynes, or just look out of the window at a bus-stop come dusk in an urban area.

Bang.

Life evolved into complex and wonderful things, each new epoch partially decimated by a whopping great collision that threatened the existence of all life on earth. At least four mass-extinction events have occurred in earth's history - in fact, statistically, we are well overdue for another - each of them at least as grave as the event that wiped out the dinosaurs. But life struggled on like an old lady on her way to a jumble sale during snowy weather. Life always found a way to move onwards, regardless of its inappropriate attire or the loss of rubber bungs from the bottom of its zimmer frame.

Bang.

Then, 6 million years ago, a mere blink in the timeline, the earliest known ancestor of man decided it was sick of getting blisters on its palms and defined the limbs at the back as it’s only legs. An incredibly canny decision, as nearly 5.95 million years later, stone-age hominids were almost wiped out by a gigantic volcanic explosion which reduced the population to 10,000 individuals. Possibly the 10,000 that were bright enough to hold their nose with their well-established opposable-thumbs and forefingers, thus preventing choking on their own spew from the incredibly eggy smell from the concentrated sulfur dioxide that now saturated the earth’s atmosphere.

Bang.

40,000 years ago. Not even an eyelash rubbed from a tired eye that has fallen onto a margin in the pages of history. The Cro-Magnon appear. Modern Man sits at the wheel.
The Earth takes its eye off the road for a millisecond and groans at the sight of the impending car crash.

Bang.

Fast-forward another 35,000 years. Some bright-spark shouts ‘party!?’ and civilisation begins. Construction on a huge scale starts. Bang. Technology and territory promote strategised warfare. Bang. New fiscal systems conceive modern industry. Bang. The genius of our species splits the atom; the potential of this new and wonderful energy source providing mankind with the option of no longer having to pillage the natural world for rare and polluting resources. Bang. Some berk decides to make world-decimating bombs instead. Bang...

And we reach our Zenith. All of history comes together through trial, tribulation, fire and brimstone. Through hard graft, life, death, experience and wisdom to reach the needle- point of ‘now’. We’ve made it – against the slim odds that such a chaotic universe has given to life, we’ve made it. It’s beautiful. It’s astonishing. It’s completely beyond comprehension.
But we can stand tall and manage the weight of history on our shoulders; we can raise our chin and proclaim to the universe ‘We are worthy’ through our endeavours. We have nothing to be ashamed of in our progression towards perfection. We are as enlightened as our intelligence and experience allows...

...

Pahahahahaha!

Cillit Bang.

Think about it.

Dee.