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February 02, 2004
You won't let those robots eat me
I’ve been drafting and redrafting all kinds of entries in here in the last few days, mostly about exhaustion, and tiredness, and how much I wish I didn’t hurt people. Also, I occasionally accused myself of living in a Dawson’s Creek episode. And thought about living in the hamlet of Regretsville, where there’s only me and a shifty shopkeeper to keep an eye on the traffic that passes through.
I went for a long walk in the sun the other day, with Grandaddy in the ears. It was meant to make me feel better. Instead I just felt horrid, and angry at the man singing beautiful melancholy exhaustion at me. I was going to throw the lyrics to “I’m on Standby” up here, and probably still will - they crinkled my lip at the corner, anyway.
But yesterday was the Big Day Out, and nothing shakes the cotton wool out of one’s head quite like the Flaming Lips. I’d say words fail me, but the fact that I’m going to keep writing proves that a lie. I simply have not seen a gig as amazing, marvellous and fucking fantastic as that since Radiohead at Glastonbury 97. That was 80,000 people standing in a field witnessing the end of britpop, the birth of something new, the night sky not big enough to hold the weight of the performance. It was the sound of a new Britain, and the roar of pre-millennial tension. It was OK Computer, as it was meant to be. It was music as I’d never seen or heard it. This, on the other hand, was dancing people in animal costumes, giant blow-up bouncy balloons, clips from 90210 and a singing nun hand puppet. And singalongs to “She Don’t Use Jelly”. And it was just as beautiful. The Lips’ show is about how much damn fun life can be, how tragedy is all part of the comedy, futility can be uplifting, and although humanity is a great weight to bear, it’s still one we should delight in bearing. Either that or Wayne Coyne’s just an acid-addled genius who loves hurling flamesticks and glitter around. It’s a fucking show, and sometimes that’s what the music is about (something somebody should have pointed out to The Strokes). I actually waved my hands in the air during “Yoshimi” - I ain’t done that since I was 16. But then, I’ve never had a performer wearing novelty giant fist gloves encouraging me to do so. Wipe this smile off my face. Go on, I dare you.
Randomness I’ve meant to post but haven’t. Awesome film geek concept: Movieoke. Although I’m sure most people hop up and do their best De Niro and Brando impersonations, and I read in the paper about a particularly ‘interesting’ Dirty Dancing performance, I can’t help but think how great it would be for somebody to have a shot at Christopher Walken’s speech from Pulp Fiction. Or for a real laugh, Olivier in Henry V: once more to the bar, dear friends, once more.
I also think it’s about time we started getting angry at Monsanto again. And although this isn’t the worst or most despicably evil thing our genetically modified multinational (with added resistance to nasty PR spin) has done, it’s a timely reminder of just how absurd the gene patent regime is. The patenting by private corporations of the genetic makeup of a wheat created over hundreds of years by resourceful farmers could not possibly be considered good science, even if we were to set the ethics aside for a minute. Which we’re not to do — I mean, come on, theoretically they could charge royalties on every chapati bread sold in the world. But, as the article says, a Texan company has held a patent on basmati rice since 1997, and “the number of patents relating to rice issued every year in the US has risen from less than 100 in the mid-1990s to more than 600 in 2000.” I guess they were trying to get into the rice market before the Year of Rice, when grains were “in” and stocks would go through the roof. I best stop talking about it before I get angry, though — not in the mood for eloquent ranting and informed research, so naive posturing and lazy linking it is for this evening.
Posted by patrick at February 2, 2004 09:50 PM