Turn The T.V. Off

Free will is a part of human consciousness
But most are unaware that it exists here.
They are content to continue on a fixation
Consuming and ingesting, unthinking and insincere.

When one is confronted, it's easy enough to point
The finger of righteous indignation
At the faceless, emotionless harbingers of news
And blame them for society's destruction.

But the truth is that we all have the ability
To stand back and question what is presented
To us, on a plate, everyday, instigate,
The thought process to provoke dissent.

It doesn't stop to occur to many people
That we actually have a say in the matter
Of what actually filters into our minds.
Authorities decry this mind over matter,

'Cause it's the one thing they strive to control,
But however hard they try, and no matter what they do,
Only you can decide to reject
The intentionally false, hysterical hullabaloo.

It terrifies the authoritarians no end
And their white noise intensifies with fear.
The mechanics of mental control grind ever harder
And batter your mind into submission sincere.

Because they can't stand to think of you making your own choice
And having your own voice, standing up and shouting out,
"I refuse to convene to your rules anymore,
And I won't bow down to your religion devout!"

Lights Out In Port City

Lights out in the port city
I said you'd never make it here,
We never wondered where we would go,
And so we've stumbled down here,

Under the cover of darkness,
Jump from shadow to shadow
The buildings stretch into the sky
The waters sweep away below,

So desperate are we for a hiding place,
To exist without fear,
Away from unlawful eyes,
Silent to sup on beer.

We drift from life to life,
Unsure of its definition
Unknowing of our place
Uncaring of our position

Its only now, in the depth of evernight
In the whistling infinite of you and me
Where eyes cannot sense us
That we are truly free.

I'm silent and I don't exist.
I'm truly free.

Home in the City

Long sunset, long deepset
Short fuse, short temperament.
Small hives, of wasted youth
Not gonna try, to convince you.

Our lady of the angels
Allelulah, fuck off, mass time bells,
Machine gun, fuck-you laughter
Allow it, squealing grind of the capacitator

I decided that i don't hate your boyfriend
Shut up, fuck you, waste gash bellend
An old face, in a brand new life
Any better? I'll let you decide

Tinny radio chatter on a smartphone speaker
An election poster speaks to precisely no-one
Retro is a 30-year old satchel
With faded idols and neons

A glance, why are you looking at me?
Alert like a fox, automatic presumption,
Entire lives exist in false neighbourhoods
Campaigners hunt for fake redemption

They won't find it in these streets
Leaflets of lies avert one's eyes
Pokerfaces defy honesty
And hunt for reasons to sympathise

Desperate hunt for sanctuary
Defacing the names on the memorial
An unrecognisable democracy
Hands us token control

Before snatching it back away
Don't be fooled by the sloganeering
Sneering eyes will haunt you
And laugh as your freedom is dragged away

Broken treeline, gorgeous skyline,
Plunging neckline, sagging waistline
Pointless helpline, dial the hotline
Carry a knife and loose your lifeline

You are being watched for security reasons
The specifics undisclosed
Don't play that music out loud
'cause no-one wants to hear it anyway...

Real Beauty

Strip me down
Strip me bare
Leave me naked
Defenceless to the glare
Of blinding condemnation
And righteous indignation

Leave me pale and baggy
Blinded by the light
Leave me with nothing to hide
Just an awkward sight

Of a body that happens to be imperfect
Sagging, flabby, weary and real
Lived in, sat in, loved and used,
Pushed around, battered, broken and abused.

Touch me,
Touch the skin
It'll never be perfect but it's real.
Consensus tells me to buy good looks
But why would I want what isn't mine?

I'm not defined by the body I have
Which is more than you can say,
Show me the people who think they have right
To define what the criteria is for beauty
And I'll show you people who think they have the power
To eugenesise perfection, dismiss life out of hand

Can you bear to look at me?
Naked, pale flesh?
This is me, this is real.
My blood. My body. My soul.

True Beauty?

The writings in this post are prompted almost exclusively by a post from my great friend Emily, who posted an article pertaining to someone called Heidi Montag. Like Emily, I had never heard of Heidi, probably as she is the main attraction of the TV show 'The Hills', and my reaction when shows of this ilk appear on my screen is the same as my reaction upon witnessing a party political broadcast - scramble for the remote. Therefore, the name was completely unbeknown to me until Emily's great article brought her to my attention.

You can read the whole article here, under the highly appropriate title of 'Fake'.

Whilst I mention that this particular post is inspired by the article I linked to, the ideas here are ones that I've long held with regards to beauty and image - here is an article I wrote a couple of years ago on the subject - and as such I may well be repeated long-held beliefs of mine here. But basically, there are several points that really spring to mind for me here.

Firstly, the fact that she is such a prominent reality TV star - and let's face it, much as many people like to mock such shows, there are an annoyingly high amount of people who actually do watch such shows and pay attention to them - means that, by doing this and going through with such huge levels of image modification, she is adding to the already asphyxiating weight of media and cultural pressure on young people - and particularly women, though men are by no means immune - to look perfect, and beautiful. This is something I decry straight away, as the question needs to be asked straight away - who is the judge of beauty? Who in their right mind can stand up, bold as brass, and say "I can determine whether someone is beautiful or not"? The answer is, you can't. Everybody is entitled to an opinion, and everybody has different tastes, which means it is natural human instinct for us to make an opinion on whether someone is beautiful to us personally or not. But this is completely different from saying "you are not beautiful. You are ugly." This implies a flat line, a definitive fact. Which is complete stupidity.

I fear I might be muddling my point a little, so let me give you a simple example. From November 2008 to the end of January 2009 I dated a girl whom, to my mind, was gorgeous. And yet, to several people I knew, I may as well have been dating an ogre - in fact, one person who shall remain nameless went as far as saying I had discovered the real-life version of Shrek. These are personal opinions, in the same way that I have disagreed with people on so many other things - political standpoints, music, literature, ways of life, beliefs, token things like TV shows, cars, gadgets...anything and everything. My personal opinion was that I was dating a beautiful young woman. People disagreed with that, and that's fine.

However, a situation we have far too often are people taking it upon themselves to decide what is beautiful and what isn't, and that is fundamentally flawed for the reason I gave above - we all have different tastes and opinions. Let's take Heidi for example. Pull up the picture featured in Emily's blog post, and look at the before and after shots. For me personally, she is mildly attractive to start with, pretty, with a nice body and lovely flowing hair. But afterwards...she may as well be a life-size Barbie doll. There is something unnatural, something manufactured about her, which sits very awkwardly with me. All because she has taken such drastic measures to conform to someone else's idea of beauty.

This leads me on to my next point, which is this. It used to completely gobsmack me that people I knew would consider themselves unattractive, or too fat, or too short, etc, but I've since come to realise that this is a natural human instinct, caused by the fact that, no matter how hard anybody tries, they will never be perfect. A good example is Emily herself, and I hope she doesn't mind me using her as an example here. As she mentioned in the article she wrote, she reckons she could do with loosing a little weight. Now, I strenuously disagree with this - I personally think she is gorgeous, and have said so before. But, it would be incredibly hypocritical of me to say she is silly for thinking such things, because I have exactly the same thoughts about my own body and image. In fact, there was a time a few years ago where I couldn't stand to be in the very body I am sat in right now, typing away at my desk. I was, and still am, overtly flabby, not quite tall enough, too hairy, far too prone to perspiration, and to cap it all off, I have been blessed with hair that would not be out of place on a small child's Playmobil figure. I'm fully expecting to be able to wake up any day now and have the ability to unclip it from my head at will. To my mind, my body defines the term 'average'. I am certain that everybody has these thoughts, and has parts of their body that they would change given the chance.

So why haven't I opted for plastic surgery? Surely I can just modify my body to my personal tastes with a little trip under the knife? I can happily say with confidence that, even if I were to take possession of a huge lump sum of money tomorrow and have more than enough cash to visit a plastic surgery clinic with a shopping list of bits that need changing, I would not do it, simply because, as the pictures of Heidi show, plastic surgery does not actually directly improve your look. Pure perfection is unattainable, and instead, what one is left with with plastic surgery is a distinct feeling of unrealism. Look at Heidi's new face - there is something unnatural about it, something...plastic. It is very obvious that some artificial modification has gone on. It is as if some of her human elements have been stripped away, and replaced with a more emotionless facade. As I said above, like a Barbie figure; unnatural, plastic, and one-dimensional.

I could go on to more everyday examples. I've lost count of the amount of times I've witnessed girls (usually in Bluewater shopping centre, as it goes) walking around with literally tonnes of makeup, skin foundation, hair colour and stylings and other such tools plastered all over them, and all it achieves is the same effect - of making someone look a little fake, a little unnatural, a little less rounded. All of this in the vain pursuit of a perfection which someone else has judged to be the standard.

The message then, is clear: do whatever the hell you want with your body, but never EVER feel like you are under pressure from someone else to live up to their standards. Take pride in who you are, accept who you are, and make the absolute most of it. But one should never feel under such drastic pressure to conform to a certain idea of beauty or image that they have to resort to selling themselves out, essentially, in exchange for new body parts which aren't their own.

What would you like more to meet - an imperfect human being or a waxwork?