First blog in almost four years! Forgive my lateness. I really should've done it sooner! ("didn't you learn anything at University John?"
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The Social Network(s). I kinda have a sort of love/hate relationship with it! I didn't even arrange myself an e-mail address properly until 2007, and that was only because I needed one to register for tickets to see Led Zeppelin at the o2 arena! No I didn't get a ticket, (but I know a man who did!
). Maybe it's me as a person, but ever since being a teenager I always saw people who spend their time in front of computer's as socially retarded (I still hold that belief to an extent actually!). I actually had to be dragged kicking and screaming into cyberspace. By about 2010, purchasing music/DVDs had become more of a challenge. Zavvi, Woolworths & Borders had all gone from the high street inside of a year. HMV was all that's left, and there's only so many time's you can hear "its been deleted" before you feel like bloody swearing at someone. By 2011 I'd progressed to iPhones, and the internet was more accessible to me at home as well. I started buying entertainment online! HOORAY! I could get hold of that live Pearl Jam cd from a gig in Las Vegas in 2000 (or something similar!). CD of the Phoenix festival in Stratford Upon Avon, July 1996, yes please! For a guy who loves his music like I do, it was bloody nirvana (or in my case Pearl Jam!
). Not only could I find great deal's here and abroad, I didn't have to put up with bloody clueless 16 year old spotty faced work experience brat at HMV, who looked like a bloody zombie! All this of course, and looking on music news websites & YouTube (usually always clips of a band I'd seen 15 year's previous!). I'd found my niche in cyberspace! Then something completely different happened. (not a man with three buttocks!). Social networking!....
Newbie nudes! I'd discovered this place coming back from a late Saturday night out sometime in, maybe the first half of 2011? It was late, I was boozed up! I was having a look at some porn online on a Saturday night! (probably a lot of guys on here discovered the site the same way?). I returned to it again several times before I signed up! Looking at amateur porn was more appealing to me then clichéd American silicone shit! I signed up and I've enjoyed it so far! I continued looking at what other social networks there were available to me, and it was where my patience and loyalties and friendships would be tested, and where I'd find out some sad truths about people I thought were good friends in the real world!
Having signed up with another social networking site. I found out, that while cyberspace has managed to bring some people together, it has also sadly dumbed us down as a society. I found it extremely hurtful to have people not just say insulting things about me, but to nonchalantly allow their mates to make offensive and derogatory comments about me! (but I suppose if you're a spoilt middle-class only child, who's parents OWN two houses, and you come from David Cameroon's constituency, you're bound to be a little posh cunt who's crying out for a kick in the head!). Attitudes, prejudices, racism, homophobia, it all suddenly seemed to be jumping out at me on a daily basis! When you've camped out at the Reading festival about 2 decades previous, staying up to about 4.00AM, drinking Kronenbourg & smoking weed with someone who you think is a mate, saying stuff like; "yeah dude, I fucking love you man", then you find out what an asshole they've turned into in the intervening decade, it really bloody hurts it does!
Or you make a flippant comment about how you can't understand all this obsession with boozing, and somebody take's personal offence to it, turn's out to be bloody paranoid and high maintenance, it makes you feel upset! Or that somebody who had to severe ties with is desperately trying to weedle their way back into your life, then you start to question peoples motives for wanting to know you at all!
I've actually had to chop people out of my life in recent years, to keep myself in a sane and safe frame of mind! To not feel like crap! To NOT feel worthless. And it's ALWAYS been people whom I've known for many many year's! NEVER new acquaintances or alliances'! I've had to toughen up! People I thought were mates, display ego's and appear to be, narcissistic to say the least! They'll demand as many "likes" in a status, or a picture of a fluffy cat they've posted! (nothing wrong with cats mind!) I've actually had a few incident's recently where folks I've cut-out of my life (because of how they'll talk about me!), have bumped into me, and I've somehow managed to ignore them! ("they don't like it up 'em!). Seeing AC/DC at Wembley stadium last month, someone in particular brushed past me, I slightly ignored them! A moment later I'm in the men's room at the urinal, I get a text from them (never a moments peace!) saying they cant believe I ignored them! Pft! What do they think I should do? "hey ho, mustn't grumble" I do have feelings and emotions! My biggest fault if anything, is that I do give people too much intelligence and credit, and then they let me down! It somehow seems not as bad on here! We're all here for the same reason. We all like looking at naked bodies.
It's probably the one great common denominator. SEX! (shagging, humping, fucking, screwing, knobing, poking, shafting, whatever you wanna call it!). We all do it. You might be a King, or a little street sweeper, but we all enjoy it! I'm extremely jealous of people who are brave enough to show their face's on here, even today on 21st century Britain, there's still some prudish and frustrated attitudes towards sex. But even on here you can get the timewasters and people who's motives are never clear to began with. In my day to day life, I manage somehow to pack a lot of things onto my plate! I'm a person who appreciates art and culture, I read a lot. I try and immerse myself in other areas such as theatre, films, exhibitions, whatever I can! I'm a total music nerd as well, I make no apologies! It's replaced a lot of thing's in my life which weren't doing my health any good. Basically in recent year's as I've gotten older, I've cut back a fair bit on my alcohol intake, and spend a lot of time perusing small independent record shops, like some character out of the film High Fidelity! (if you haven't seen it, I recommend it). I love going to gig's and music festivals! I'm not married and don't have kids, but I make time for family mind. I also like to make time for friends /mates. If it educates me to an extent, I'm interested!
Only today I was having a quick perusal of record shop's in Soho, suddenly noticing all these doors which I used to venture through 18 or so year's ago when they used to be illegal drinking dens! I don't really miss that part of my life now. Being in some of these when the Police would raid them, being searched and having to give all your personal details! I still manage to let off steam, but nowadays it's a bit more refined and grown-up!
I'm premium on here nowadays. I had a "generous benefactor" who last year gifted me premium for a year because they knew I had gone through a pretty traumatic time shortly before! I opted to renew premium because I had so much freedom on the website. But how do you balance the life in cyberspace, with life and commitments outside? I mean even meeting up with ladies on here from London as well can be hard. Maybe it's because there's ample opportunity to have a one night encounter in a late bar that a person wouldn't want to destroy any fantasy of somebody online? Maybe? Who knows? But as Bob Hoskins said; "it's good to talk". To get to know someone, chat, converse, communicate, and get to know someone in person! We're all human beings. We all bleed. We all have emotions. We're only here on this planet for short while. I can't be the only one who thinks we should grab the bull by the horns.Human beans (sic) are pretty amazing people. A coffee or a film, instead of staying stuck behind the confines of a laptop or iPhone. Life is too short for constant "likes" and "OMG" and any other cyberspace living! Maintaining a balance, how do we do it? Anyone got any thoughts?....
