Emergency Questions #5: Take My Advice

William S. Burroughs & Bill Laswell - Words of Advice for Young People 

Another query I stole from Richard Herring's book Emergency Questions, with the hope of hearing your answers...

What's the best advice you've ever received and ignored?

Sometimes I wonder about this. Chances are though, if you ignore some advice and end up regretting it, you'll probably edit your memories to forget you were ever given that advice in the first place. Well, that's how my memory works, anyway.

Colin Clary - I Only Give You Bad Advice Because I Love You

Tom Cochrane - Friendly Advice

William Pears - Sound Advice

My parents would have loved me to go to university after my A Levels, but I was determined I wanted to go work in radio for no money instead*. My parents never pushed me though... they let me make my own mistakes and find my way back. Possibly this came from my brother who left school to pursue an accountancy course, hated it, quit, got a milk round, saved up, bought himself a digger and went on to become a very successful builder. Maybe they thought I would follow a similar path. 

(*Literally: for the first couple of years, I did not get paid.)

Chicago - Bad Advice

Roy Acuff - Advice To Joe

Jefferson Airplane - Great Society: Free Advice

I didn't, but I did eventually end up going back to university while I was working nights at the radio station, thereby having my cake and eating it. Because as well as wanting to be a DJ, I also wanted to be a writer. Somebody probably should have given me some advice about that as well.

The Silver Jews - Advice To The Graduate

Freeze Frame - Seeking Professional Advice

The Knack - (The Man From The) Marriage Guidance And Advice Bureau (that's a Namesake Knack)

It might have been better had someone advised me to go away to university rather than staying in my hometown... socially, at least, it might have made more well-adjusted human being... but on the other hand, I did finish uni without any student debt, and there's not many people who can say that.

Tears For Fears - Advice For The Young At Heart

Tijuana Panthers - Advice

Robert Smith - Very Good Advice

Did anyone ever advice me not to start writing a blog? God, I bet you wish they had...   

What's the best advice you've ever received and ignored?

Cnut Songs #28: The Youth Of Today

Continuing this week's theme of stealing content from the past (because it's Half Term and I'm lazy), here's something I posted on the book of faces in 2016, when I was teaching at The Bad Place. I guess I didn't post it here because back then , all I pretty much did on this blog was write about music... 

Squire - The Face Of Youth Today

A recent conversation with a student highlights the problem with the yoof of today...

Me: JK Rowling took a lot of her ideas for Harry Potter from Lord of the Rings...

Student: Yeah, but Harry Potter is much better than Lord of the Rings.

Me: Why's that?

Student: Harry Potter has his own theme park.

Me: Oh, so that's how we judge the worth of a story, the "greatness" of literature, is it? If they give them their own theme park?

Student: Yeah - I mean, who else can you name who has their own theme park?

Me: Mickey Mouse... Truly one of the greats of literature. After all, it was William Shakespeare himself who created Mickey Mouse.

Student: Did he???

Young Galaxy - Youth Is Wasted On The Young

Worse still, when relating this story to others in the staff room, a teaching assistant in her early 20s immediately responded: "Did he? I didn't know that."

Amy MacDonald - Youth Of Today

All of which brings me to my theory about what's wrong with the yoof of today. They have no cultural awareness beyond their own lifetime...even beyond the last couple of years in most cases. This is the fault of the internet and 57 channels of TV. When we were kids, we 3/4 channels, we watched whatever was on. Which often was old stuff made long before we were born. And we were happy with that. And it made us aware of cultural history. By the time I was 16 (the age of the above student) I was well-versed in Hitchcock, Bogart, 50s sci fi, Orson Welles, Universal horror films of the 40s, Hammer, Clint Eastwood et al. On top of all the stuff I grew up with (Star Wars, Back to the Future, Ferris Bueller). Nowadays, you can comfortably watch E4 all day and never see anything older than Friends. And why would you ever watch something in black and white? 

River City People - When I Was Young

Which leads me to another conversation I had with another 16 year old recently...

Me: What's your favourite film?

Student: Magic Mike 2.

Me: Really. And why do you like that?

Student: Dunno.

Me: Well, why the sequel? What makes Magic Mike 2 better than the original Magic Mike?

Student: It's newer.

Musical Youth - Pass The Dutchie

It's worth pointing out that when I originally posted this 8 years ago, a couple of people who've known me for a long time and who are similar ages to me suggested that I wasn't typical of the average 80s teen in the way I reached back to old black and white movies, that many of my contemporaries just watched new stuff back then and never looked back at all. I wonder if you'd agree?