I Am Tired Of Waiting

Usually I go on a tangent and then talk about the song choice but today I'm doing it the other way around. It's Post 16: "A Song That You Used To Love But Now Hate"

Beep Beep Motherfucker

This is the first Beatles song I was ever really aware of thanks to the "Beep Beep Yeah" being used in a radio jingle. The Beatles are great but this song isn't, I have no real memories good or bad associated with this song it's pretty boring and bland which are really the only things a song shouldn't be. If it wasn't for the album appearing as the default image for the video I wouldn't have remembered what album it was off of or if it was even on an album. All that being said I don't really hate this song, I am just indifferent to it iTunes says I have played it 6 times since January 2010. I also never really loved this song either I just enjoyed it a lot, I ended up choosing it because I don't have any strong negative feelings towards anything I have loved including music. Drive My Car just happens to have the largest gaps between how highly I used to think of it in the past and how ambivalent I am to it now. I also couldn't find any lyrics from this one to use as a title.

I can't think of a decent segue to my next topic and I don't want to beat around the bush so I will just come out and say it. I HAVE A GIRLFRIEND AND IT'S AWESOME!!! 
O.K. I'm glad I got that out of the system, I haven't gone and shouted this from the mountaintops and this is the public place I have put this statement out on so far. I am purposefully keeping this on the down low and on a need to know basis since it has always annoyed the hell out of me when others constantly crow about how awesome their significant other is and how theirs is better than yours and if you don't have one then your really up shit creek. Plus it is always fun to see people's reactions when they find out you have kept this kind of information from them. Still I will admit that it's hard not weave in mentions of the fact I have a girlfriend into every single conversation I have, but for the most part I have managed to avoid it, for now.
For some strange reason I find it easier to type out my thoughts and feelings in a semi-public place than it is to tell them to another human being in private so I apologize in advance for the inevitable posts about first world problems and the mundane aspects of relationships, I am almost certain the next post will address the fallacy that is normality, that being said plans were made to be broken.

You Say You Want A Revolution?

Earlier today I was at work and say a link to a video entitled "Kony 2012" I clicked the link and watched for a minute or two then realized the video was 27 minutes long and there was no feasible way for me to watch it in it's entirety. Feeling that maybe this was going to be important since in the space of 5 minutes I saw it pop up two more times I googled Kony and found out who Joseph Kony is and saw what an awful person he is and learned of the evil things he was doing. I really didn't have time to throw my whole heart and soul into the plight of the child soldiers of Uganda seeing as how I had to do what I paid to do and whatnot. However it seems most of my friends had a lot more free time on their hands.

As of this posting 25 of my friends have posted the video and at least twice as many have made some kind of comment about them. In the last hour I've seen 5 different friends create groups dedicated to the plight of the Ugandans and the eventual downfall of Joseph Kony and have been asked to join two of them. I very promptly declined not because I don't care but because the events/groups were in cities that I did not live in and could not travel to on a regular basis and I would be doing a disservice to the group by joining and not participating. That being said I'm not jumping on the Kony 2012 train.

So hears the thing with these kind of campaigns. They get instanly huge crazy exposure right out of the gate, however due to the way they are delivered and the media they live in they inevitably die out since the collective population of internet has ADD and moves on quickly unless there is instant progress in whatever they are doing or if whatever it is they are working on gains more exposure. Seeing as how Kony just blew up in such a huge way it will reach it's saturation point in 2-3 days at that point some of the early learners who were drawn in but weren't really involved in the cause will get sick of seeing it so often. A day or two after that people who were so moved by what they saw and heard to join the cause after just a minute or two will suddenly find they have Jobs, and families, and things that are closer to home and much more urgent than the far away child soldiers who despite all the coverage will still be soldiers at this time next week.

Grouped in with the people who get distracted by their lives will be the Horror of the week club who will be on to the plight of someone else who is new and happening instead of the yesterday news citizens of Uganda. With those groups gone the people who got involved because their friends were into it will also leave and so the trend will continue until we see that those still fighting for the lives of child soldiers and their freedom will be the same people who were doing it before the videos went big.

It's no specific persons fault and I'm not going to belittle those who do get caught up in the whirlwind for however short a time since it is a good cause and for the most part their hearts are in the right place. The same thing goes for any similar campaign. A certain part of me wants to say don't do it unless you plan do it for the long haul but that would be wrong since you can't ask people to commit to something they don't know the second the try it. I'm sure a portion of the people posting the Kony 2012 videos will still be working for the cause next year it's just that the majority won't.

One of the main problems with these kinds of "events" is that there is no real direction just an end result. Every single group and video poster has said something about raising awareness, mission accomplished I'm aware now what? This has been a problem for the unofficial movements for ages from the post a colour and a country for cancer crowd to look at what your government is doing to your rights and freedoms groups. The few successful groups have managed to turn awareness into momentum by striking when the irons hot, but in today's instant access no wait times environment the iron will be cold in 48 hours.

If you are passionate about Kony or anything similar good for you, I hope you stick with it and accomplish all the goals involved with your movement and that you manage to stick through with it until the end. If you don't that's O.K. your not alone and if your movement dies from underneath you don't get discouraged just take what happened and learn how to ride the next wave of publicity to your goals.

UPDATE


Finally found time to watch the video, My feelings are still the same however I am glad to see it has a part two to it's plan that being said there are still some other flaws. I'm also pretty sure I'm being more sceptical towards this project than I should be but I just don't trust film-makers. I feel I may make a second post about this in roughly a weeks time.

You Say You Got A Real Solution Well You Know, We'd All lLove To See The Plan

For some reason I thought my next post was supposed to be a band I hate. I spent a few days thinking about which artist I absolutely despise and came up with a definitive answer only to discover this post is actually Day 11 "A Song From Your Favorite Band". This is a much more enjoyable post to write since I can think about nice things not wretched things. To make this easier for myself I am interpreting the title as bands only not artists so that I can come to a decision much faster. At this point in time there are two bands that are more or less tied for being my favorite and only one of them has been featured so far so it's time to say hello to John, Paul, George, and of course Ringo.

If I remember correctly this is the third song I sang in front of an audience. Not by myself of course that would be horribly awkward there was an actual rock band involved.

 O.K. so I'm going to have ask you to bear with me for a second because I'm about to say something that will sound incredibly odd/wrong but don't worry it will all make sense in a few minutes.


We are wasting all our compliments on dead people. Think about it dead people apparently told the best jokes, were the best at (insert activity), did the craziest things, and in general were just the best people ever. I am not going argue whether all these statements are true but how much to you want to bet that when they were alive people said they told bad jokes, wasted all their time doing (insert activity here), did the most idiotic things, and were in general a giant pain in the butt. If you ever have the misfortune of going to a funeral you will hear everyone praise the recently deceased and remark and how much they will be missed. How often do you think the deceased's friends and family gave them these compliments when they were alive? Probably not nearly as often as they should have. 


A few years ago I read Tuesdays With Morrie, by Mitch Albom. It's actually quite a good book and I would suggest it if you're looking for a nice light read. Anyways in Tuesdays With Morrie I first heard about "living funerals" The whole idea behind a living funeral is that funerals are wasted on the dead since they can't hear the nice things being said about them and being a corpse and all it's quite difficult for them to converse with all the friends who have traveled to pay their respects so why not have the funeral shortly before you break on through to the other side? Of course this only works if you know your going to die shortly and in a perfect world there would be no need for a living funeral since everyone would tell you how much they appreciate you and how important you really are to them on a regular basis so that should the unfortunate happen both you and they will have no regrets in that regard. 


Just to clarify nobody I know has died recently this is just on of those things my ADHD filled brain decided to stop on a few days ago and for no reason whatsoever it incubated into a full fledged post/thought. So in conclusion if there is anyone who is important to you be it parents, friends, or partners etc. tell them how great they are I'm sure they would appreciate it and it might just make their day