Punk Rock Shop

I’ve been somewhat harsh on Thom Yorke over the last few years. I’m someone who likes frontmen like Bon Scott, David Lee Roth, Rob Halford and Freddy Mercury - larger than life characters who come to put on a “show”, and don’t just stand there moaning into the microphone.  And once you’ve made a few million dollars? Cheer the fuck up!  Sing a song about girls, booze or fast cars you morose bastard.  But moving on…

I’m a fan of Alec Baldwin’s radio show “Here’s The Thing”. Turns out he’s an amazing interviewer, and recently he sat down with Yorke.  Frankly, Yorke should do more long-form interviews like this, as he comes across as a lovely, lovely bloke; not a “woe is me” millionaire.

At one point in the conversation, they turned to music becoming “content”.  Our fucked up industry wants to make a lot of things “content”, sucking the soul and purpose out of them.  Turns out I agree with Yorke on this one 1000%.

The wonderful Duncan Trussell who is recovering from testicular cancer, and whose mother is dying of cancer (in other words, the dude has been forced to face mortality and the point of life a LOT lately) describes why people who wallow in despair and darkness are essentially self-indulgent…

This captures perfectly why, as I get older, and possibly since my sister’s death, I can no longer listen to Radiohead, Nirvana and whiney-white-boy-with-guitar music. It’s so self-indulgent. All the money and power and privilege in the world (to quote Eddie Izzard) and all they can do is moan. Give me a black southern baptist “Hallelujah” any day…

Two of my favourite writers and podcasters of the last few years, together on one podcast, making more sense in 6 mins than most make in a lifetime.  Ryan’s analysis of capitalism nails it…

In this audio clip, Joe Rogan and (the amazing) Doug Stanhope are talking about their experiences as comedians working with network executives.
It strikes me as analogous to the relationship between advertising creatives and clients, in that most clients have absolutely no idea how to work with ideas people. None. Zilch. Nada.

(Sadly, too few advertising suits and planners are any good at working with creative people, either… but that’s a topic for a different post.)

The point, however, is not to beat up on clients. Rather, the point is that it’s 1000% incumbent on suits, planners and the client to get the brief right, and then get the fuck out of the way.

And if the creatives can’t nail the brief, they suck. Fire them. Some creatives suck, and they hide behind “The brief is no good” for their lack of creative fire-power.

But as Joe says, you can’t fix suck, but you can’t make unfunny funny, either.

Listen and think my people… listen and think.

We love to make things binary and oppositional: East vs West, Black vs White, Right vs Wrong, Democracy vs Evil-Doers, etc.

It reduces complexity in a world that is well beyond our control. But of course, life is rarely this simple.

One concept derived from artificially pulling things apart in order to reduce complexity is the way we split the mind from the body, like they’re two different things. But it’s a mistake to do so. Your mind is part of your body. End of story.

(About to get all wanky, but indulge me.)
Like Foucault collapsed power and knowledge back together (as power produces “knowledge”), we all need to collapse mind and body back together (as your body produces “mind”).  

And this is why I go on so much about moving and using your body, because it impacts your “mind”.  In fact, exercise is probably the quickest way to impact your mental state, test yourself, and much more.

My man-crush Daniele Bolelli speaks about the ludicrous nature of the mind-body split in the audio link above. The rest of the rambling, stoned conversation between him and Joe Rogan can be found here: http://blog.joerogan.net/archives/5613

Now get out there and do some pull-ups. It’ll do wonders for your “mind”.

Steven Levitt is an economics professor at the University of Chicago, and one half of the (wonderful) Freakonomics team.

This clip from an interview about his experience as a college graduate working for a management consulting firm is interesting for a few reasons.  Firstly, he touches on how data on its own isn’t much good at solving business problems.  Then he talks about how the “solution” is usually known within the organisation, but not by those at the top.  So to find workable solutions, you need to work with (and pick the brains of) those in the middle and the bottom of organisations… and marry what you learn from them with insights derived from data analysis.

Said differently: You can’t derive workable solutions from Big Data alone.

The rest of the podcast is here (and well worth listening to): http://www.freakonomics.com/2012/11/26/i-consult-therefore-i-am-a-new-freakonomics-radio-podcast/

“No one is ever mad or depressed during a marathon. You’re too busy running. Shut up and keep going.”

The privileged Western world in which we live is full of depressed and angry people. We all know them. The constant whingers, for whom everything starts with a sigh or a swear word. They infect relationships and drag cultures down into the mire.

The always wonderful Daniele Bolelli on his most recent Drunken Taoist podcast talks about the world’s most simple cure for anger - sweat - and then goes on to point how negativity is a first-world luxury, which I completely agree with.

Angry? Then shut up and go for a run. Lift some weights. Punch a bag.  But please - please - don’t infect the world around you with your self-indulgent crap.