King Cnut could not hold back the tide, and I cannot hold back society's full-throttle descent into dystopia. All I can do is watch helplessly from the sidelines, and nod my head sagely when others hold a mirror up to the madness.
I was reading an interview with the directors Anthony and Joseph Russo, the men responsible for some of the most successful Marvel movies in recent years, including the last two Avengers movies. They were asked why they thought Marvel had taken a bit of a kicking at the box office recently, was it so-called "super-hero fatigue"? Apparently not. Instead, the Russo Brothers put it down to what they call a "generational divide".
There’s a big generational divide about how you consume
media. There’s a generation that’s used to appointment viewing and going to a
theatre on a certain date to see something, but it’s ageing out. Meanwhile the
new generation are ‘I want it now, I want to process it now’, then moving onto
the next thing, which they process whilst doing two other things at the same
time.
I think it's a reflection of the current state of everything. It's difficult right now, it's an interesting time. I think we're in a transitional period and people don't know quite yet how they're going to receive stories moving forward, or what kinds of stories they're going to want.
When I read this, I wanted to cry. (You'll have noticed: I want to cry a lot these days.) But Mr. Russo wasn't quite done...
We have never collectively, globally, processed our
conversation so intimately and quickly as we do now. I think that creates
problems, where we over-process and don't care about context anymore. We
communicate through memes and headlines, with nobody reading past two
sentences, so everything's 100 characters or less – or 10-second videos on
social media you swipe through. I think that the two-hour format, the structure
that goes into making a movie, it’s over a century old now and everything
always transitions. So, there is something happening again and that form is
repetitive. But it's hard to reinvent that form and I think this next
generation is looking for ways to tell their own stories that service their own
sort of collective ADHD.
It almost sounds to me like he's given up. Like he's saying, "I'm an old guy," (well, he's a year older than me) "I'm ready to accept that youngsters are doing things differently these days and the only stories we'll have in the future will be 10 second video chunks or 100-letter tweets. Stick a fork in me, I'm done."
Thankfully, not everyone appears so ready to be put out to pasture. About the only sensible idea I've heard in the run up to Election Day is the proposal that the next government are considering banning smartphones for all under 16s. Of course, it won't happen... and it'd be impossible to police even if it did. And maybe it's too late to shut the barn door, that horse has already bolted. But still... old man shakes his fist at the sky.
Future is uncertain The past is fading away Future is uncertain The past is fading away I remember laughin', I can't remember what I was laughin' about And I remember cryin', I can't forget what I was cryin' about That won't fade away
Are you one of those people who checks their route on Google Earth whenever you have to go somewhere new, following the little Google car down every street, looking for car parks and petrol stations and supermarkets where you might be able to stop for a wee?
If you have to buy something new for your home, do you research it for hours, reading Which? Best Buy reviews and google feedback? Are you obsessed with making certain you’ve found the best possible price out of all the retailers that stock it… and is it definitely in stock? What if you have to return it? Does that retailer have a good track record for customer service?
If you’re going on holiday, do you try to plan a timetable for the whole week? Where you’ll go each day, where you’ll eat, the routes you might take between destinations… and all the stuff I mentioned in the first paragraph?
In her book Don't Feed the Monkey Mind, Jennifer Shannon identifies three basic assumptions shared by all anxious people: Intolerance of Uncertainy, Perfectionism and Over-Responsibility. They relate to specific personality types – some people will have far more of one than the others, but all anxiety sufferers will sample the delights of each assumptive buffet at one time or another.
When people who are intolerant of uncertainty are exposed to a little bit of uncertainty, they also have a strong reaction: they worry, and do everything they can think of to get away from, avoid or eliminate the uncertainty.
If you’re invited to a party, does the very idea fill you with dread? Who will be there? What should you take? (What will other people be taking?) What time should you arrive? Is it better to be fashionably late… or might that be considered rude? Is it better off just to make your excuses and not go in the first place?
I'll have a shower Within the hour I'll smash another cup Please don't start saying that Or I'll start believing you If I start believing you I'll know that this Party Fears Two And then phone my brother up
Life is uncertainty. We don’t know what will happen tomorrow, next week or even in the next five minutes. But our monkey brain (remember the amygdala?) hates uncertainty. How can it keep us safe if it doesn’t know what the threats are or where they might be coming from? And it’s not just threats to our life and wellbeing it’s trying to protect us from, but the threat of exclusion from the tribe… hence the party fears mentioned above.
Difficulty tolerating doubt can lead to compulsive checking behaviours like making sure doors are locked and appliances are turned off. You’ll tend to overplan things; even weekends and vacations have a to-do list. And when the list doesn’t get finished or things don’t go as you planned them, you become upset and have difficulty enjoying the moment.
We’ve got a freezer in our garage. A few years back it was accidentally switched off and we had to throw all the food away. Now, whenever I’m closing the garage door, I complete a ritual in my head where I say, “lid down, green light on” to make sure the freezer is OK. Often, even though I’ve done this, I still have to lift the garage door back up and double check. I have to be certain. “Lid down, green light on” has now become a mantra and I've found myself saying it at other times two. This morning it was when I arrived at work and was checking I had everything I needed before I left the car park.
If you can’t stand uncertainty and do everything you can to get rid of it, you might have noticed a problem: it is IMPOSSIBLE to get rid of all uncertainty in your life.
What this means for you is that all the work that you are doing to get rid of uncertainty is useless, it just doesn’t work. If it did, you would probably not be struggling with anxiety and worry.
So what is the solution?
If you can’t get rid of uncertainty in your life, the only way to manage your intolerance of uncertainty is by learning to be more TOLERANT of uncertainty.
One thing I’m learning about dealing with mental health issues – particularly those relating to the pesky monkey in our amygdala – is that often the best way to fight them is to act as though you don’t have them. Intolerant of uncertainty? Act as though you’re not. Go to the party and deal with whatever might happen, including any smashed cups. Who cares if you got the cheapest price on that essential purchase? You just got an evening back that you would otherwise have wasted on price comparison sites. Remember life before Google Earth? When we found our own way to places, with the occasional help of a map?
Easier said than done in a lot of cases, and there are times (like my garage freezer) when it pays to check. But the more you force yourself to deal with uncertain situations, the more your storytelling brain will write stronger neural pathways that allow you to cope with the unexpected.
That’s the theory, anyway…
And it's the damage that we do and never know
It's the words that we don't say that scare me so
There's so many people to see
So many people you can check up on and add to your collection
But they keep you hanging on, until you're well hung
Only because I missed it out a couple of weeks back.
To be fair, it's not much of a track on its own, just the opener to an album of the same name. But it stopped me having to include Good Morning, Good Morning by The Beatles, which I find rather annoying.
Being an old X-Files junkie (I even have Fox Mulder's "I Want To Believe" poster on the wall in my office), I've always had a fascination with the "secret" air force base in the Nevada desert where strange things happen involving crashed alien spaceships, experimental aircraft using salvaged alien technology and autopsies of alien corpses. [Redacted by the U.S. government.)
Let's start this week with a couple of tunes that escaped from Area 51. Curiously, both are instrumentals. Perhaps their lyrics were redacted too?
Back in the real world, and onto your suggestions, the most obvious of which this week was suggested - not by The Swede - but by Martin...
Highway 51 Blues, by Bob Dylan which, in its guitar motif at least, seems to owe a debt to the Everly Brothers.
Not a Dylan original that, it was written by Curtis Jones. Personally, I always get it mixed up with Highway 61 Revisited... too many numbered highways in the Dylan canon.
Martin also offered the following, helpfully including links to make my life easier...
The atypical I Move On by Cowboy Junkies contains the line "51 years, a child upon the Earth, trying to find the answers without digging in the dirt..."
12:51 by The Strokes sounds exactly how you'd expect (no bad thing).
...and one more...
Koka Kola by The Clash starts with the line "In the gleaming corridors of the 51st floor..."
Lynchie, meanwhile, claims to have been eagerly awaiting number 51 in this countdown so that he could suggest this...
They got a vintage Victrola 1951 Full of my favorite records that I grew up on They got ole Hank and Lefty and there's B24 Set 'em up Joe and play "Walking The Floor" Set 'em up Joe and play "Walking The Floor"
I'll definitely save that for when I do my second volume of jukebox songs.
But it seemed clear we had to deal with Little Britain this week, or the 51st State of the United States as we've often cruelly been dubbed due to the "special relationship" which isn't really that special anymore. A number of songwriters have commented on this, including...
And, of course, these guys, this week's unanimous winners thanks to block-voting, hanging chads and Russian facebook interference from Charity Chic, C (obviously!), Lynchie and others...
Next week: we're halfway there! Numero cinquanta! Your suggestions are welcome as always. No need to be coy, Roy...
Hey There! What Kind of Fool Am I? I almost forgot to post this week's Saturday Snapshots answers. To be fair, it has been a very stressful week. Ofsted never actually stepped into my classroom, but the constant anticipation of them doing so nearly killed me. That was Too Close For Comfort. Still, it's over now.
I think Chris deserves the crown this week for solving the ones nobody else could. Alyson was the Early Bird; it was good to have Lynchie back, CC & C were beaten to the punch.
Time to play The Candyman again and hand out these sweet goodies...
10. Bambi's mum has a special milkman. Spice approaching!
Ernie was the fastest milkman in the West.
Special K.
A female deer is a doe.
Lynchie claimed he only knew one Ernie K. Doe song. Surely you know this one too?
Here's a Top Ten theme I originally came up with about seven years ago (for the old blog) but never got round to posting it. I'm not going to run them consecutively as that'd get boring, but I'll drop one in every now and then over the next few weeks.
The first deadly sin is lust. Turns out there's enough songs with lust in the title that I don't have to cast my net any further. That won't be the case with the rest of the sins...
Wakefield's finest contemporary beat poet stumbles across a girl he fancies in the local pub... then gets beaten up by her boyfriend for his sins.
It's the kind of look that shits you up In so many different ways It's the size of his eyes and he won't give up Transfixed with a piercing gaze I can get the gist This guy's pissed And if I don't move, he'll use his fists See that the violence stops
Dave Gahan sits one out and lets Martin Gore (with his pink mushroom cloud hair) sing this one. Their follow up single was A Question Of Time. The third in the trilogy, a proposed duet with David Coleman, Emlyn Hughes and Bill Beaumont, sadly never made it to the studio*.
For those of you who prefer a colder option, they also recorded a version called If The World Should End In Ice. (Though it's not available on youtube.)
There's a man going around taking names And he decides who to free and who to blame Everybody won't be treated all the same There'll be a golden ladder reaching down When the Man comes around
I can't think of anyone better to narrate the end of the world. If you don't fancy looking out your window today, just listen to this and let Nick describe what's happening out there for you...
1. REM - It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)
Some Number One's are inevitable. Although, knowing Michael Stipe, this probably has absolutely nothing to do with the End Times, it's probably the recipe for a cake he was making that night or something.
That's great it starts with an earthquake
Birds and snakes and aeroplane
And Lenny Bruce is not afraid
Eye of a hurricane, listen to yourself churn
World serves it's own needs, dummy serve your own needs
Then bake for three hours or until golden brown.
So, that's what I'll be listening to as it all goes down. What's the last song on your playlist?
