Popularity

Like the ridiculous Internet harlot I am I use Facebook to abuse and insult my peers. Some of those very peers invited me to an application that rates your characteristics via a series of questions for them to answer comparing you with other friends of theirs. Like the good sport I am I started comparing my friends too because nothing say mutual friendship like preferring somebody else's suitability in a particular area.

Recently my spam filter started catching e-mails from this application that inform you of either "Your Hottest Friends", your current standing or your change in standing. Now my current standing isn't that important because my top places would include bragging about myself. I love to do this but doesn't make for interesting commentary. My hottest friends are none of your business (also I feel to that it's somewhat inaccurate because some people don't know attractive when they see it). However, my change in standing is far more interesting. Not because it says I'm cooler or prettier than other people but because it says whether I'm more or less cool or pretty than before.

(Disclaimer: I have neither been cool nor pretty in my entire existence, they were examples.)

I read one a few weeks ago and came up with some ridiculous ideas. Later on (read: After I deleted the e-mail) I realised that it would amuse me to put those ideas into prose. The next one came around today and I would like to share my thoughts. I will continue to share these thoughts so long as I feel they're interesting and so long as it isn't the same old story.

So without further ado:

For best dancer I gained 1 place.

It's true in the past month I have been tearing up the rule book on dance. I dominated the dance floor last Friday for example. It must be said this was under the extreme influence of alcohol. It was hilarious, at least the parts I can genuinely remember.

For person with the best taste in music I lost 1 place.

Naturally as time moves on and my interest in Punk, Blues, Jazz, Hip Hop, Trip Hop, Ska, Reggae, Soul, Folk, Grunge, Hardcore, Rock and Swing to name a few general areas where I am most captivated expands I am likely to conflict more and more with people who listen to Radio One as their only means to hear new music. The truth is old music is still new if you never heard it before. My musical taste is impeccable. I'm pretty sure my taste stayed where it was, other's judgement has lost a place.

For best listener I lost 1 place.

These are selfish times and I am no different. I have obviously become less and less interested in what other people have to say if it isn't "Tom you are my love, my light and my world, you are the Awesome King, will you marry me?". At which point I say no. It's just nice to hear.

For craziest I gained 1 place.

I must confess that I've been seeing this one for a while now. Up and up it goes. My mental stability is more and more in question every time these things come in. I was thinking of checking myself and go to a shrink. Except that they're money grabbing cunts and I of course am absolutely bloody bonkers.

For best dinner companion I lost 1 place.

This is natural. As my mental stability decreases I start throwing food around the restaurant the longer and longer it goes on of course the greater chance there is of me simply dropping trou at the table and shitting on the beautifully prepared food.

Dear Jackie Wilson

Dear Jackie Wilson,

Your music has been of great entertainment to myself for a number of years and obviously countless other people for a great amount of time. That is why it pains me to ask you to prevent television from playing 'To Be Loved' from beyond the grave.

As a single young man with incredibly limited success with women the last thing I need to be reminded of at the end of a long day hunched over the sink vomiting is oh what a feeling it is to be loved.

Get your shit together.

Yours Faithfully,
Mr. Southey.

P.S. Reet Petite makes me dance around my homestead as if I weren't actually being watched by the Government. Thank-you for allowing me to provide Special Branch with such first rate entertainment.

Dear Mr. Southey

Dear Mr. Southey,

You and your niminy, piminy little notes are inane. There is so much more you could be doing with your time.

There you are dictating terms to others when you cannot even move your own life forward without severe, alcoholic sprees of self-destruction.

It would be best for all concerned if you just let go and let Benatar hit you with her best shot.

Get your shit together.

Yours Sincerely,
Mr. Southey.

Dear Politics

Dear Politics,
When your leaders, spokesmen, shadow-ministers and ministers can be compared to sci-fi characters either by resemblance or namesake, abandon them.

Incidentally, if you'd be so kind to remove any politician that I can make jokes about because their name is an erogenous zone on the body, I might take all your efforts and bluster more seriously.

Get your shit together.

Yours Faithfully,
Mr. Southey.

Dear Advertising Industry

Dear Advertising Industry,

Hair does not "feel like silk" it feels like fucking hair!

Get your shit together.

Yours Faithfully,
Mr. Southey

Open Letters

Nobody reads this. That's OK. I'm not popular on the internet. Big deal. I'd like to have a few people read this. Even if they hated it. In fact especially if they hated it. Being challenged is good for you.

However, with no readership I do not have to tailor what I write to anybody but myself. This is a good thing. I have decided I'm going to do a series of letters. These letters being openly available to any adult (as I have turned on the adult warning thing due to a child looking at what I wrote on the subject of tea-bagging and apparently I very much care not to have to deal with the dipshit parents who can't monitor their child's behaviour). They are not intended to be long and serious affairs. It certainly won't be David Cross' open letter to Larry the Cable Guy (which has humour, class and intelligence). But hey it's a little series and it keeps me distracted.

Idiots fucking annoy me. Especially after 5am.

I hear a woman talking. She's a self styled Guru. She's telling women that people who only allow themselves to be deserving of love will be loved. This is of course ridiculous advice.

Firstly, what exactly is it that you're allowing? An innate desire, something that is hard-wired into humanity. You can no more allow this than a tidal wave being large and moist.

Secondly, what would you describe as deserving? Well that one is simple:

deserving adj 1 worthy of being given support, a reward, etc. 2 formal (usually deserving of something) worthy of it. deservingly adverb.

http://www.chambersharrap.co.uk/chambers/features/chref/chref.py/main?query=deserving&title=21st

Worth is probably the loosest way of putting it. Allow me to retort to the idea only the worthy are loved. Think of a tyrant. Any tyrant. Chances are they were/are married. Now as indications of love go I find marriage a pretty paltry one but I can't think of a more tangible indicator at this hour in the morning. These people that have held sway with populations to do as they will with them are not worthy of love, respect or admiration. They are worthy only of fear. Despite this they were married and loved.

Being loved is something that happens. The more you risk your self-worth trying to find it the better your chances. Other than that you are on your own. You will not find yourself worthy because worth isn't quantifiable like a thousand other abstract concepts such as cunning, freedom or justice. That reminds me of a Terry Pratchett quote:

...take the universe and grind it down to the finest powder and sieve it through the finest sieve and then show me one atom of justice, one molecule of mercy. And yet you act, like there was some sort of rightness in the universe by which it may be judged

Not only... but also...

I have a friend. Yes it's true. He's called Sam. He does a radio show every Monday with some guy I do not know.

Tequila Radio

Monday's 4 - 6

As a forewarning, you'll probably vomit a little.

I'm like a child and words are my toys

Economics (Echo - Gnomic - s)

The repeating of a sound caused by sound striking a surface and returning in pithy, moralising verses.

Considering the way some people consider economics, that isn't far off. An idea in economics (the sound) is discovered by the person (striking the surface) and is then held as the absolute truth which presents as a pundit spitting out a soundbite on network television (returning in pithy, moralising verses).

Tortured metaphors and messing about with syllabic sounds aside - Go fuck yourself. What are you doing here? There are millions of talented people on the internet. Go and waste their time if you are so intent on wasting yours.