Shower Of Shit
Depression is back with a whallop today, after a brief remission yesterday. Remission - I mean, that's what it's like, isn't it? It will recede for a while, but it never really goes away, this terrible shadow that hangs over everything like an ominous grey cloud forever on the horizon of even the sunniest day.
You know it's bad, when trying to keep the sort of "gratitude journal" that happiness scientists reccomend to ward off depression, you can't think of a thing to be grateful for. Negativity seeps into every pore, sucks the colour out of the sky.
The cognitive dissonance of my job grows worse every day. How do I recconcile my idea of myself as an idealistic person, as a Feminist, with the fact of working in an industry I believe to be morally wrong. It makes me feel physically ill to think about it, so I try not to think about it - until those times when I find myself having to fix coding and find myself confronted with a list of labiaplasty, mastoplexy and other such torture applied to womens perfectly healthy bodies in the name of pure aesthetics.
And once I grit my teeth and get past that, there's the sheer frustration of my job. I was hired as a Crystal Programmer, I've been here for 6 months and they still haven't even bought a copy of the software. I spend my days fixing Excel queries like a glorified secretary. I should just shut up and take my paycheque - the pay of an MI Analyst for the skills of a secretary - but the truth is I am BORED out of my fucking mind.
So I spend my day bored, distracted, frustrated, surfing aimlessly about the internet and feeling more and more alienated.
The other minor complaints, the tiny things that eat away at the joy of life...
Lost my DJ residency. The venue moved Crafternoons from the upstairs room to the downstairs. No decks downstairs. Lisa says that they'll book a proper night up in Walthamstow soon, but I can't go all the way to Walthamstow and back on a school night. I just can't do it. Didn't realise how much work I put into it, and how rewarding that work was, until it's suddenly gone. Didn't realise how much of my music critic identity had been reshaped (since the death of Plan B) as DJ. Several times in the past week, I've found myself about to d/l some great remix or some rare track, thinking "Ooh, I'll play this in my set..." only to realise I don't have a set to play.
And I haven't talked about the mess with EA, have I? It's just... I don't even know where to start there. I'm sure he's completely forgotten the argument by now, but of course, I haven't. Suddenly looking into the eyes of your idol and seeing a plain, fallible human being. Your Nebuchadnezzar has feet of clay.
Again, the cognitive dissonance, having an argument with your addmitted idol over the single issue most important in your life. I walked away, I didn't even finish the argument - not least because I didn't want to carry on disagreeing with Him, but also because I just didn't want to have this whole process of disillusionment unfold in front of your typical internet rubberneckers.
I can't even say what it was that suddenly snapped. The straw that broke the camel's back was his patronising use of the diminishing "dear" - to use this kind of term while arguing with a feminist is a lesser akin to using the term "boy" when arguing about racism with a Black Panther. The level of disrespect and patronisation is just amplified a hundred fold.
I keep trying to explain what I was trying to say, and then realise that it doesn't matter, and delete the whole thing. Here's this man who went from playing Riot Grrrl anthems to operating in this world of electronic dance music that seems to become *more* gender imbalanced, rather than less, as time goes on. How do you go from championing Peaches and Chicks On Speed to championing Boys Noize (I mean, that name just says it all - music of boys, by boys, for boys - how many females does he have on his record label? Please prove me wrong by showing that number is above 0?). And rather than challenge this hyper-masculine world, just reinforce it with all-male charts on Beatport, all male sets, all males in the DJ booth at his gigs.
"I don't listen to gender," he protests. "I listen to music."
We've had this argument before. If you don't listen to gender, if it "doesn't matter" if it's male or female, then why is it ALWAYS male? How can you come up with an all male ANYTHING (except maybe sperm donating list) and tell me you have no bias - when the world is 50% female?
Clearly he didn't listen to the message and meaning of riot grrrl. Maybe he was just playing that music because it was fashionable at the time. And that's what really infuriated him. Started going on about the Trash "brand" and how it was fenced off from what he did now, and how this man who I thought spent half his life dismantling boundaries between "dance" and "rock" and "pop" is now bricking them back up- but that's when his patronising "dear" slips out.
And that's when I remember. Why I didn't *go* to Trash. (This is the irony, my saying that a Trash set was more diverse, more fun, more... BETTER than his recent sets.) Because of that fenced off attitude of exclusivity. The queue and the clipboard at the door and the "do you know what kind of music we play?" sneering and the refusing to let people in on account of wearing the wrong *fashion*.
I'm from New York, I know why people will pay money to stand in a queue and have their fashion sense insulted. They pay for the privilege of being judged worthy to enter.
But this is the problem with this attitude of exclusivity. That being exclusive automatically involves EXCLUDING someone. And I've been that person, excluded for things I couldn't help (my gender, my mental illness, my nationality, my sexuality) far too many time to ever condone that attitude. It goes contrary to everything I've ever believed in.
So where does this leave us? I'm looking at this man and thinking that I've idolised him for all the wrong reasons. And wishing I could just delete the past 6 months of adulation, write it off as a mistake, an illusion, a willing suspension of disbelief. I mean, that's what is so stupid about all this - it's not a case of "I didn't realise..." as "I knew, but chose to ignore." Build 'em up and knock 'em down? Put a man on a pedastal to knock him off?
Doesn't matter. That protecting coccoon of worshipping a god, of being in love with an idea - of holding an ideal - it's just another good thing that's gone.
Of course he dislikes me. Most people dislike me. I'm spikey and abrasive and this endless bad weather moods and depression is so fucking boring and tedious. I wouldn't want to spend time around me if I had a choice. But I don't have a choice, I'm trapped in this awful head. And there's only one way to get out of it.
You know it's bad, when trying to keep the sort of "gratitude journal" that happiness scientists reccomend to ward off depression, you can't think of a thing to be grateful for. Negativity seeps into every pore, sucks the colour out of the sky.
The cognitive dissonance of my job grows worse every day. How do I recconcile my idea of myself as an idealistic person, as a Feminist, with the fact of working in an industry I believe to be morally wrong. It makes me feel physically ill to think about it, so I try not to think about it - until those times when I find myself having to fix coding and find myself confronted with a list of labiaplasty, mastoplexy and other such torture applied to womens perfectly healthy bodies in the name of pure aesthetics.
And once I grit my teeth and get past that, there's the sheer frustration of my job. I was hired as a Crystal Programmer, I've been here for 6 months and they still haven't even bought a copy of the software. I spend my days fixing Excel queries like a glorified secretary. I should just shut up and take my paycheque - the pay of an MI Analyst for the skills of a secretary - but the truth is I am BORED out of my fucking mind.
So I spend my day bored, distracted, frustrated, surfing aimlessly about the internet and feeling more and more alienated.
The other minor complaints, the tiny things that eat away at the joy of life...
Lost my DJ residency. The venue moved Crafternoons from the upstairs room to the downstairs. No decks downstairs. Lisa says that they'll book a proper night up in Walthamstow soon, but I can't go all the way to Walthamstow and back on a school night. I just can't do it. Didn't realise how much work I put into it, and how rewarding that work was, until it's suddenly gone. Didn't realise how much of my music critic identity had been reshaped (since the death of Plan B) as DJ. Several times in the past week, I've found myself about to d/l some great remix or some rare track, thinking "Ooh, I'll play this in my set..." only to realise I don't have a set to play.
And I haven't talked about the mess with EA, have I? It's just... I don't even know where to start there. I'm sure he's completely forgotten the argument by now, but of course, I haven't. Suddenly looking into the eyes of your idol and seeing a plain, fallible human being. Your Nebuchadnezzar has feet of clay.
Again, the cognitive dissonance, having an argument with your addmitted idol over the single issue most important in your life. I walked away, I didn't even finish the argument - not least because I didn't want to carry on disagreeing with Him, but also because I just didn't want to have this whole process of disillusionment unfold in front of your typical internet rubberneckers.
I can't even say what it was that suddenly snapped. The straw that broke the camel's back was his patronising use of the diminishing "dear" - to use this kind of term while arguing with a feminist is a lesser akin to using the term "boy" when arguing about racism with a Black Panther. The level of disrespect and patronisation is just amplified a hundred fold.
I keep trying to explain what I was trying to say, and then realise that it doesn't matter, and delete the whole thing. Here's this man who went from playing Riot Grrrl anthems to operating in this world of electronic dance music that seems to become *more* gender imbalanced, rather than less, as time goes on. How do you go from championing Peaches and Chicks On Speed to championing Boys Noize (I mean, that name just says it all - music of boys, by boys, for boys - how many females does he have on his record label? Please prove me wrong by showing that number is above 0?). And rather than challenge this hyper-masculine world, just reinforce it with all-male charts on Beatport, all male sets, all males in the DJ booth at his gigs.
"I don't listen to gender," he protests. "I listen to music."
We've had this argument before. If you don't listen to gender, if it "doesn't matter" if it's male or female, then why is it ALWAYS male? How can you come up with an all male ANYTHING (except maybe sperm donating list) and tell me you have no bias - when the world is 50% female?
Clearly he didn't listen to the message and meaning of riot grrrl. Maybe he was just playing that music because it was fashionable at the time. And that's what really infuriated him. Started going on about the Trash "brand" and how it was fenced off from what he did now, and how this man who I thought spent half his life dismantling boundaries between "dance" and "rock" and "pop" is now bricking them back up- but that's when his patronising "dear" slips out.
And that's when I remember. Why I didn't *go* to Trash. (This is the irony, my saying that a Trash set was more diverse, more fun, more... BETTER than his recent sets.) Because of that fenced off attitude of exclusivity. The queue and the clipboard at the door and the "do you know what kind of music we play?" sneering and the refusing to let people in on account of wearing the wrong *fashion*.
I'm from New York, I know why people will pay money to stand in a queue and have their fashion sense insulted. They pay for the privilege of being judged worthy to enter.
But this is the problem with this attitude of exclusivity. That being exclusive automatically involves EXCLUDING someone. And I've been that person, excluded for things I couldn't help (my gender, my mental illness, my nationality, my sexuality) far too many time to ever condone that attitude. It goes contrary to everything I've ever believed in.
So where does this leave us? I'm looking at this man and thinking that I've idolised him for all the wrong reasons. And wishing I could just delete the past 6 months of adulation, write it off as a mistake, an illusion, a willing suspension of disbelief. I mean, that's what is so stupid about all this - it's not a case of "I didn't realise..." as "I knew, but chose to ignore." Build 'em up and knock 'em down? Put a man on a pedastal to knock him off?
Doesn't matter. That protecting coccoon of worshipping a god, of being in love with an idea - of holding an ideal - it's just another good thing that's gone.
Of course he dislikes me. Most people dislike me. I'm spikey and abrasive and this endless bad weather moods and depression is so fucking boring and tedious. I wouldn't want to spend time around me if I had a choice. But I don't have a choice, I'm trapped in this awful head. And there's only one way to get out of it.
posted by Masonic Boom | 2:37 pm
6 Comments:
"That protecting coccoon of worshipping a god, of being in love with an idea - of holding an ideal - it's just another good thing that's gone."
And that's why I can't do it anymore. I certainly used to. I've found that every time I've assumed someone is perfect, I'm setting myself up to be disappointed.
But yeah, hm. I'm not a psychologist but I do know that when your brain tells you you're unpleasant to be around, IT'S LYING.
I never EVER assumed that he was perfect - or indeed, that anyone or anything is capable of being perfect.
I guess I assumed a kind of level of basic agreement that on closer inspection does not appear to be there.
And it's not my brain. It's the steady slow loss of/inability to hold onto friends over the past few years. You can tell when people stop calling/answering yr emails/bothering to invite you out anymore because you're too depressed to go most of the time.
"I don't listen to gender, I listen to music." The postmodern miasma, emptying meaning from the signifier. Like choosing a Rothko to match the furnishings of your apartment. Race, gender, politics, nationality all find expression through music as they do the other arts.
That's actually beautiful, RP. I will say that to him, if we ever have another conversation, which I sincerely doubt at this point.
The exclusion or omission of a swathe of humankind from an artform is, in itself, a political statement.
I would argue its a 'artistic' statement. His output bears creative similarities to the pop art collages-ist of the 1960s. Assimilating, decontextualizing, and reassembling in deliberately non-signifcant ways. But he's wrong to analyse other people's work as if they're following the same creative process.
The thing is, that ultimately, given the music he's curated and the bands he's championed in the past - I do NOT think that Erol Alkan is a sexist person, I don't think he's misogynist - in fact, quite the opposite.
However, the world that he moves in, the artform he's currently working in (Electronic Dance Music or club music or whatever) seems to me to currently be unbelievably sexist and misogynist and unrelentingly socially conservative and reinforcing of double standards. However, you could just as easily say that of the entire music industry, that's it's institutionally sexist in a huge way - which is really odd and old fashioned given the way that market forces seem to be pushing it to be not that way.
It's almost like this weird landgrab on the part of adolescent boys. That pop music and Dance music is inherently so Feminine that they have to erect fences to make it Masculine again.
But this is probably for another blog.
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