CONDEMIC

 

When a good idea catches cold

 

Freedom is only achieved by people that need freeing from other people

It doesn’t matter if we all end up as zombies

It’s all grist for the mill

You are a victim of esoteric terrorism

You are not paranoid

they are after you

 

Where is my pen?

There is a pen?

Am I in it?

 

Call the cop out

The fear

The Dredd

The law

Quickly replaced by the love of my new purchase

Mmm

The shiny newness

The click bait virus

What does “BBFC’ stand for now?

‘Bye,Bye, Fucking Censorship’

Tap out for free

            Gossip spreads like wildfire, while the truth you don’t want to hear is trapped like a fart in a jar. We like the smell of our own farts but, as algorithms cycle back everything you want to tell yourself, breathing bum gas under a duvet instead of oxygen is the definition of addiction. Beware of emotional attachments to phones. Make no mistake, they do not feel the same way about you.

            I see the appeal; a little tingly buzz in your favourite pocket, ten times a minute, telling you you are right about everything will make it easy to believe that you are right about everything.

 

Your gift?

Your reward?

It’s the same mistake

Knife to a gun fight

The knife is a feather

The gun is the gardener

 

            Twenty years ago when you were going to meet a friend and they really were you friend you would just meet up at the time you agreed. What if the thing that replaced your friend, that brings you fuzzy gifts and rewards you twenty four hours a day started buzzing you with fists and swords? Are you really too busy to make time for your mother this week? You’re not actually that great a singer.

          It’s bin day for your invaluable device or an invaluable human, turn the tide and ride the wave of internet exponentialism. It’s like, overnight we were all given Ferraris to drive and speed limits didn’t matter any more. Who knew there might be a few accidents. This is all happening too fast for us. How can you be so focused when your priorities are in an out of sorts order. Sorts of what? The race is always on and it’s being rebranded. Our constantly, complexly, evolving species, we are truth yet our truth is not forever. The flashing lights on the little screen that tells you you’ve missed your spot has stopped blinking. How many stops have you missed, how far gone are you now? Will you get home one day?

            Where are you on your timeline? Are you the gardener of your life or are you a weed in someone else’s garden. For sure you have a sell by date. The predication of the production of babies is still going strong, they have to be indoctrinated into something, they have to grow somewhere in the garden. Whether it’s the bible or Bill Gates there will be a tipping point. The nucleus of the human race will survive. Best thing you can do for the environment is decide, depending on your status , your wealth, your superiority of species. Ask yourself; is your child wheat or chaff?

The die has been cast

You are not on the list

The game will reset

It’s only economical

There’s only enough space for the fewest of us

Once we have the robots

What will we need you for

Poor old Finnegan begin again 

One point perspective

Who are the people

It’s us against them until it’s us against someone else

Believing in God is believing in yourself

Eat your own body thank you very much

As a species, we are due a cull

The planet doesn’t need us

The universe doesn’t need us

‘Star Trek’ was only on once a week because from Monday to Friday the starship ‘Enterprise’ is mooching through galaxies full of planets that had already blown the shit out of themselves; a universe of graveyards with Saturday night free for punch-ups with ‘Klingons’. 

None of this will happen in your lifetime, unless it does.

Unless revolution; evolution for the poor

Lrt them eat global cake

The poors don’t know the big words;

 

defenestrate

diːˈfɛnɪstreɪt/

verb

1. 1.

   rare

   throw (someone) out of a window.

   “she had made up her mind that the woman had been defenestrated, although the official verdict had been suicide”

2. 2.

   informal

   remove or dismiss (someone) from a position of power or authority.

   “the overwhelming view is that he should be defenestrated before the next election”

 

What shit have you not seen? Which lamp post are you about to walk into?

Look up!

Look out!

Look!

Look around!

            When drawing a subject, the artist will look at the whole, transfer information between the subject and the canvas with rapid, alternating intermissions, picking points, backwards and forwards, correcting a mistake as quickly as making a mistake, as every mark is wrong until it’s right enough.

            Focussing on one small thing right in front of you is hypnotism. Turn an oil tanker of thinking with electronic eye candy, cinematic, beautiful communal hypnotism. In the 1970’s one television programme caused a small revolution in the United Kingdom; ‘Upstairs Downstairs’ was so popular, this study of class and family, such a clear mirror of it’s audience, the whole of the country found itself enthralled. Families of all demographics could be hypnotised together. So much so that, because of the time it was shown, Sunday evening, churches had to change the time of their evening service.

            T.V. 1 –  the Lord Jesus Christ 0

            When ‘Netflix’ broke the mould of the weekly, drip-feed television, the old, shaggy dog model stuck in the corner of the room for the new trick cat on the move, on the kitchen table, on your lap, in bed even, and as the cat purred our focus narrowed. Now the communal act has been reversed, there is no need for the family to gather round the electronic fireplace.

            The fevered question;

            “Have you seen the latest episode of…(insert your personal poison here,).

            The satiated response;

            “Yes.”

            The fevered retort;

            “Don’t tell me anything about it!”

            So we can’t even talk about the thing we’ve all seen unless we all see it at the same time

             V.R. headsets are right there on the shelves of the shops next to the drones. The images we are being fed are getting closer and closer to our eyeballs. We will not be happy until we have ‘T-101’ contact lenses brought to you by ‘Cyberdyne Systems’.

            Consumption on point of impact.

            Progress will, by definition, not solve all your problems.

            The news is too fast.

 

            “Smokestack Lightning, shining just like gold,

            Why don’t you hear me cry?

Howling Wolf, (1964)            

 

            The practicality of digital information exchange has surpassed and displaced print media to the point that print media has to displace itself. That snake has to eat it’s own tail. Now that trolls, terrorists and the generally terrible have as much of a platform as as the self-appointed good, decency is up for debate.

            Multitudes of megaphones

            Clickbait flaunts it’s intentions

            Do you want a worm in your mouth so bad that you are willing to push the hook through your own cheek?

            YES!

            Click here for a list of twenty things you should not give a shit about and are unlikely to be true.

            There is a virus in your hard drive.

            Kill it.

            Cut off it’s supply

            Walk through paradise and get bored

            Find purgatory through the wrong door

            See paradise

            Exhibit experience

            Mow the lawn

            Walk any path for eternity

            Find purgatory

            Six sugars in your tea

            Super size ‘Maccy Dee’

            Find substance moorish

            Don’t drive through

            Drive on

            Man cannot live on fried chicken alone

            Consider a few more flavours

            Cleanse your palette between meals

            In front of you every second

            What will you consume next?

            If all you consume is sugary goo you are destined for a ‘Pythonesque; Wafer thin mint’ moment. This will all feel great until it doesn’t, this is mind diabetes, this is a loudmouth bleating of constant nothing. What happened to truth. If the rot has set in what part of society can I saw off and still live? 

            Think about how hard this is for the ‘one percent’, try being one of them for a minute, think about it from their point of view. Whoever is at the top wanted to be there, had to be there. Howard Hughes was once asked how much money is enough, his reply was, “Just a little bit more than I have now”. It’s not about the money, the reward is a return to an idyllic child hood where every person in your life exists for your benefit and betterment. From those dizzy heights people are pixels, you decide what the big picture is. This is your garden, you tend it how you see fit.

            When asked why Rupert Murdoch wanted Britain out of the EU, he said the quiet part out loud and admitted that when he visited 10 Downing Street, the temporary occupants in residence who acquiesce to his whims, in Brussels he got nothing. In the cold, hard light of of the spreadsheet, if you don’t already have a reservation in the secret city under the mountain you’re probably not in column five. If you were in their position you would understand your value.

            The world is a soup on the boil

            Bubbling over

            No off switch on the gas

            No simmer and stir

            As a species we are inherently disposed to being dissatisfied with our lot. Yet, as with many things our reptile brains have not taken on board yet, we need to make as many babies as possible. Capitalism needs to keep making money babies. Technology needs its innovation babies. We have a supply and demand issue. Within thirty years what jobs that we do now will still be jobs?

            Driving, gone, construction, gone. Accountants? Stock brokers? Doctors? Wouldn’t you rather have a machine from ‘Star Trek’ poke around inside you or someone with complete access to all the drugs on the wrong end of a forty hour shift?

             How soon before hedge-funders are betting against themselves?

            Honestly, what are we going to do all day? What are we going to buy all day to keep the wheels greased?

            In the movie of our lives how far away are we from chucking popcorn all over ourselves?

            Never mind your social bubble.

            Never mind the next economic bubble

            Whether through political or climate change, the world seems like it’s about ready for a massive punch up, man made or otherwise. We’re so comfortable voting for inconsequential television shows and accepting terms and conditions and cookies without reading them, how easy would it be to accidentally vote for ‘voluntary death camps’; “Let’s make suicide great again!”

            “Grandpa, we’ve called this family meeting because we all got together without your knowledge or consent and decided it would be best for all of us if you…”

            So as this wave of humanity crashes on a beach near you, will you be sunbathing? Will you ride the surf or be sucked under? Will your eyes be to fixed to the little screen to see the tsunami. That little buzzing pacifier telling you that everything will be fine, as long as you keep letting it bang on your dopey mean bongos. It must feel great in there. 

 

            A little intrication

            A pint spilled

            Handbags at dawn declared

            A few chests beaten

            A scuffel ensues

            Trouble at the top

            Lords in the ‘House of Lords’ looking other lords up and down, comparing their lord lengths. They don’t know what they’re doing any more than you do, they lick their thumb and stick it in the wind the same way you do. Tectonic plates having a debate about where to draw the line and whose fault it is.

            You can really only ever speak for yourself

            So you’re a kid again.

            You’ve learned to ride a bike

            The stabilisers are off

            You’re in a big beautiful park

            On a sunny summers day

            A top a long straight, bright

            Perfect hill

            This is going to be fun

            You’ve got this

            For the first time ever

            You are going fast

            This is easy

            This is great

            That is a pothole

            What’s a pot…

            Time slows down

            The pavement has your full attention

            You may chip a tooth

            You may cause a holocaust

            But, as long as you’re not dead

            You’re getting back on the bike

            I know

            You didn’t mean to

            I forgive you

            We are remarkable creatures, we have a developed sense of morality with the small drawback of each of us having a different idea of what is moral, so we developed judges and prisons. The idea of a truly equal society goes against our evolutionary programming. The game never stops just because you found a comfy sofa in time and space, survival of the fittest is still a thing and to not play is to surrender.

            Now that we’re all so ‘connected’ we can all, at any moment, be exposed to the viruses of bad ideas like knits around the classroom.

            Don’t worry about the food you eat, designed in laboratories to make you eat more of it.

            Don’t worry about people with ’emoji’ as a first language.

            Evolution right here

            Don’t worry that, no matter the education policy, there are two types of school, the one where children are taught that, no matter what, those children will be working for the children in the other school.

            Don’t worry about the bees

            Don’t worry about the water

            Don’t worry about the air you breathe, simply attach a hose to the nearest exhaust and fill the room

            Don’t worry about being able to tell your children that it was better in your day and, for the first time in living memory, being demonstably correct.

            O.K. I’m going to count back from ten now.

            You just keep on crushing candy

            You just keep feeding that happy little reptile brain

            You just keep rewarding yourself for being you

            You just got the high score on your own personal ‘Milgram’ experiment

            You are absolutely right about everything all the time

            Feels good

            Game over

May 2017