There are only two real reasons that exist to justify writing, two possible excuses for dribbling over your fingers and then wiping the resulting saliva- diluted with Monster Munch crumbs from last night’s binge of consumption that attempted to comfort the desolate loneliness that eats at your soul and also from the tears that such an act inevitably result in- across a keyboard and mashing the porridge of shame into roman numerals and expecting the outside world to be deserving of it.
The first reason is if you’re actually, like, good at writing. If you’re a proper good writer like, I dunno, Dan Brown or David Walliams then your writing might be good enough to one day be turned into a movie, and therefore your ideas could actually effect the wider cultural conscious. I’ll admit that here’s a weird grey area that exists where you write good stuff that isn’t turned into a film- like… erm… Salmon Rushdie?- and this just about qualifies your existence. But who reads books today, honestly? Freaking nerds, that’s who.
I obviously don’t fall into this category: I’m not very good at writing.
I used to be, honest: when I was a teenager I was playing with some real prodigious shit, splurting smelly literature genius all over college English classes like Charles Darwin popping his most bulbous creative tits all over the tits of Virginia Woolf. I would have never, for an example, ever written a sentence as ghastly as that last one. I wrote my first book when I was 18, but it got rejected by the only publisher I sent it to so I gave up on it*. I definitely had a talent that could have been something special if properly encouraged and supported. Unfortunately, I drank and did drugs for the entirety of the following decade.
So, unfortunately, you have this: I write like Rob Zombie makes movies, which is to say I scream as loud as I can for 90 minutes and record the creative juices that leak from the cuts in my head after aggressively headbutting the keyboard. I do honestly believe that ‘subtlety’ is too often an overrated virtue, and can be used to cowardly obscure true intentions so as to ensure mass appreciation. But, yeah, there’s probably a happier medium between subtlety and Rob Zombie/I.
The second justification for writing though is to offer something that isn’t already on the market and/or present a viewpoint that challenges the accepted consensus. This is how I try to sleep at night when the nagging suspicion of my own pathetic insignificance- both artistically and philosophically- disturbs my peace of mind. I honestly think nobody out there writes quite like me, especially when doing album reviews, and that at least presents a tight little hole for me to fill. Whether this is because nobody else in the world is dumb enough to write like me is a moot point** that we don’t really have time for now.
It’s for this reason that I’ve generally shied away from talking much about Donald Trump. The US President has been discussed and dissected so often, so frequently and so comprehensively (by, and you might find this hard to believe much better writers than me) that any further comment on him would be like me writing a 2’000 word article about how the raft at the end of Titanic was big enough for two people.
And, as I hinted at in my Schoolboy Q review, I don’t think he’s that bad.
I believe the widespread acceptance of his horribleness may actually be important in inspiring worldwide self-reflection, has vividly drawn both moral and political lines that will result of a generation of people being far more engaged in politics than at any time in living memory and may motivate an equally revolutionary humane political response. Trump isn’t ‘normalising’ fringe views, because literally no human being ever has thought ‘Hmmmm, Donald Trump is doing that so it must be normal’: Trump doesn’t even normalise being human, he’s the most abnormal president in history. It was the job of past presidents like Reagan to ‘normalise’ and sublimate far right views: Trump is simply too dumb for such nuance.
The fact is that Trump as president will do far less damage in the long term as Hillary would, as she would have been a terrible head of state (admittedly in a far less comprehensive and entertaining way), a hideously unsuitable first female president that would have been seen as females ‘having their go’ at leadership an set equal rights back far further than Trump.
Shamefully, I also find Donald Trump really entertaining, which I believe many right thinking people are (rightfully) too embarrassed to admit. The guy is a riot! If I saw a news story about Donald announcing a trade deal with Finland to export 1.7% more leather insoles in 2018 I’d definitely read it, because The US President is guaranteed to spice up proceedings by poking fun at the ratings of some TV show I’ve never heard of, demanding that all black NFL players ejaculate six white streams of semen across the US flag before every match, and making some confused joke about Greta Garbo, because he is a stupid, stupid, stupid, outrageously entertaining man.
Of course, I realise this more laissez faire view is chiefly (entirely?) down to my physical detachment from his nonsense. As you’ll have no doubt ascertained from my exploratory manners and distinguished vocabulary I am an English person, currently living in England. Donald Trump is the president of the United States of America, the country within which he wreaks the vast majority of his nonsense. The USA is- and pay attention to this, because it might come up again later- a different country. Like, really different, and, like, miles away,
Because of this, I’ve always viewed Donald Trump as an*** hilariously exaggerated fictional antagonist, a little too broadly drawn to rival the truly great villians of literature such as Bill Sykes, Miss Trunchbull or M Bison, but great fun to watch if you ever wanted to give your brain a rest and enjoy some easy, disposable living satire on America’s overloaded Id.
Donald Trump broke the fourth wall recently though (see? Like the title of this post, yeah?) when he retweeted some vile, hateful, fucking nonsensically bigoted gutter level shite from Britain First. Suddenly, the entertaining boogey man whom I’d spent the last year and a bit being entertained by as he ran around the TV screen chasing Jennifer Love Hewitt**** had not just jumped through my TV screen but scrawled hate speech across my wall in his own excrement and blamed it on my next door neighbour, whom he believes is Middle Eastern but is actually of Italian descent******.
Britain First is all too real to me. I ‘work’ for charities that support refugees- because, as I may have said before, I am a Godlike figure of celestial benevolence and absolutely the man of your dreams- and it is because of the unashamed malice and lies of groups like Britain fucking First that all our funding has near disappeared in recent years. Groups like Britain First– and other equally boneheaded and sexually jaundiced groups such as National Action, Britannica, Britain for British Brits and The Britainy Spears– make it their sole purpose not only to discredit the work that MRSN, GMIAU and Refugee Action do, but to claim that the work is somehow ‘unpatriotic’ and actually helping the ‘enemy’. The enemy being, of course, people whose skin tone is often a slight shade darker than them.
It’s tiring and frustrating, and now these useless wastes of faecal drippings will believe that the president’s retweet formally justifies their views, and it offers them a depressing endorsement that will convince them their abhorrent knitting circle of hatred is worth continuing for another few years.
I know this is unforgivable on my part, to only really be angered by something patently wrong when it starts to affect me directly, but to see the Leader of the Freaking Free World allign himself with the immoral section of my own country was a real slap in the face. Like when Sheamus and Cesaro came out wearing Liverpool shirts: real evil has been exposed.
Jeez, I’m sorry, this post has mostly been so far out of my wheelhouse that you’d assume the wheels have taken out a stringent restraining order on me. I know real world issues are not what I do best, so I’ll quickly go back to the day job: Tunnel Vision by Rina Sawayama and Shamir is absolutely lovely
OK, now a quiz:
I told you it would come back…
*There’s a ‘funny’ story about the person who owns the only surviving copy of that book which I really don’t have time for. Like, seriously, I haven’t even got onto the point of this article yet. As Gucci Mane might say, I’m the T-A-N-G-E-N-T-G-O-D.
** Thanks to Dr Chris Lisett for telling me the correct meaning of ‘moot point’, ruining the world for me as I now can see that it’s used incorrectly almost every time it’s said
*** Is it ‘an’ or ‘a’ in that instance? See, a proper writer would know that…
**** Although, let’s be honest, he’s more likely to go after Brandy and Mekhi Phifer*****
***** What kind of a fucking name is ‘Phifer’??
****** He was actually born in Tintwhistle and has never even been to Italy. He’s also a massive tool, and I hate his fucking guts, but that has nothing to with his ethnicity, and I assume some Italians are good people. Hey, George, how about returning that hedge trimmer you ‘borrowed’ off me in 2016?! Prick…
Wow, I went asterick nuts, didn’t I? What would Oblelix say?
God, that’s… that’s a terrible line…
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