Lebowskifest '06

A celebration of all things "lebowski", 2006's first Lebowskifest event is being held on Saturday 4th March in Los Angeles.

This movie saw me, and my filmic comrades-in-arms, through the final years of the 1990s. It seemed, at the time, a fun way to end a millenium; on reflection, however, the movie has lingered for a lot longer than any of us anticipated during that first viewing...

Little did I know then, that almost a decade later, I would be standing, on Halloween night, in a South London Tesco's, engaged in my own personal homage to 'The Dude', may he abide in all of us.

I don't know 'bout you, but I take comfort 'n that...

Virtual Unreality

Mike: I had drinks last night with a friend who is currently studying law. His preferred field is media and entertainment law, and he was telling me of a very specific legal issue that, in the last few years, has achieved a prominence

Online Roleplaying games are more popular now than ever before. These virtual creations are magnificent, both in scale and beauty. Every square inch meticulously designed, rendered and uploaded for the pleasure of millions who pay to enter these worlds under various guises. The small, friendless boy in South-East Asia becomes, with just a few clicks, a warrior in some distant land, desperate for a saviour. The boy immerses himself in this world, gradually attaining, for his chosen warrior avatar, virtual wealth, skills and experiences that strengthen his position in this problematic distant land. But, just as in the real world, people get lost in these places, beautiful though they may be.

Virtual wealth, it seems, is not so virtual. When avatars become available to buy on auction sites such as eBay, they fetch huge sums of real-world money. People who have neither the time, nor the inclination, to invest large amounts of their time playing the game, are willing, it seems, to spend large amounts of cash to purchase the sign-in details of another person's character.

And it isn't even the characters that are selling; an island in one virtual world recently sold for $30,000! That kind of money attracts a great deal of attention. "Digital sweatshops" are real-world businesses where Third World laborers play online games 24/7 in order to create virtual goods that can be sold for cash. One such 'business', Blacksnow Interactive, actually sued a virtual world's creator in 2002 for attempting to crack down on the practice. The first of its kind to center on virtual goods, the case was eventually dropped.

When the concept is explored, other legal issues come teeming from the woodwork. Imagine a person (perhaps our small South-East Asian friend) investing time and money (via a monthly subscription) into a virtual world. He's made friends, built a reputation and spent a fair amount of time collecting and creating virtual goods. All of a sudden, his work disappears when the game creator, faced with a losing business, pulls the plug.

"Time to get a life," may be the easy response. But for many, the virtual world is their life. According to Nick Yee, a virtual world anthropologist who has been documenting MMORPG's since 1999, the average player spends 22 hours a week online... So who is responsible when this time, effort and work are lost? The company responsible for hosting the game? The power company whose outage might have been responsible for the loss? Is anyone even legally responsible, assuming that virtual products are, from a legal standpoint, non-existent?

And when in these worlds, existing as people do, eating food, socially interacting with one another, our avatars are as susceptible to corporate dealings as the rest of us, despite their 'warrior' status. Virtual advertising and branding take several forms, from ad campaigns and contextual product placements within themed worlds, to entire worlds created solely to promote a brand or organization. Some residents of virtual worlds even create their own unique brands and ads to promote original virtual products produced and sold to other residents.

Reactions to corporate sponsorships in online environments vary widely. Teenagers are generally more receptive to in-world advertising than adults, often bringing elements of corporate branding into the worlds themselves. In fact, many of the fully branded worlds are targeted to teens and children. As of early 2004, companies experimenting with virtual worlds as sites for advertising include Coca-Cola, McDonald's, Intel, Levi's, Nike, and Daimler Chrysler.

Two stories to close on: In a space-based virtual world, a character spent a great deal of money (upwards of $20,000) to purchase a space station. This, he turned into an exclusive nightclub, hosting fashionable events for the elite avatars within that gaming world. The person even enlisted the help of top real-world DJs to play at the club, drawing in avatars from all over this world and charging them, via PayPal, a fee for entry.

In another game, when a popular player died in the real-world, the avatars with whom he had spent so many hours interacting and, supposedly, fighting side-by-side with, joined together on the morning of his funeral and made the weary pilgrimage to the in-game temple, where they held a brief moment's silence and hosted a remembrance service.

It seems that, when real-life is replicated, in whatever form or format, reality continues to creeps in through the gaps... Life finds a way

Good Night, and Good Luck

My Brother

Mike: My big brother Philip, who I love very much and respect in more ways than he, or anyone, will probably ever know. This is him winning a race at the special Olympics in 2001 – one of the best photographs I have of him. I’ve always been extremely proud of him and his accomplishments in life, despite what he’s had to put up with. In every way, I couldn't have asked for a better - or a cooler - brother!

My thumbs have gone weird....

Isn't it funny how when you sit down in front of a computer with the absolute intention of writing something, anything, that you dry up, much like an actor on stage? And while there might not be 500 people waiting for me to produce words of wonder, it certainly feels as though I am letting people down, pretty badly... My writer's block exists on several levels. It's been about five years since I wrote anything, creatively speaking and I simply can't seem to advance myself. Last year, I arranged to have Wednesdays off from my unutterably dull day job so that I could write. And have I written? Have I hell. The last bit of writing I did was in the stalls of a theatre, scribbled on the back of a piece of paper, when I really should have been paying attention. Every Wednesday, I sit in front of this PC and try to write, but nothing comes. This blog has been through seven drafts already and I'm still not happy with it.

High expectations are the problem, I think. When you immerse yourself in good quality film and TV, your standards for your own writing are raised, even though you don't realise it. I watched Withnail and I the other day. The dialogue is still as perfectly funny as it was 10 years ago, when I first saw it. With Marwood's mini-logue about speed, ringing in my ears, I just sit here, trying to locate the bit of me that could come up with something as poetic and moving. I think that part of me is hibernating at the moment...

Perhaps I am to come to the conclusion that I am indeed, as this blog states, shallow and inconsequential. The grind of working life has taken its toll on my creative instincts and I shall never write anything of note again. I don't mean this to sound so dreafully maudlin, but writers will understand how ghastly it is to be blocked. I shall leave it to my honourable co-blogger to give you all something upbeat and interesting to read later today... Apologies to Bruce Robinson and Paul McGann.

Speed is like a dozen transatlantic flights without ever getting off the plane. Time change. You lose, you gain. Makes no difference so long as you keep taking the pills. But sooner or later you've got to get out because it's crashing, and then all at once the frozen hours melt out through the nervous system and seep out the pores.

The 'Difficult' Second Post

Mike: One post in, and already I'm driving to work in the morning with thoughts of blog topics. I can see how some find this addictive, others merely therapeutic. I am personally aquainted with one newspaper journalist who spends at least 3 hours on his blog first thing in the morning when things are quiet. Read through his archives and it's like strolling round some vast, marble-halled library - book titles jumping off the shelves, random topics screaming for attention... a swirling mist of disassociated memes. It's truly wonderful to walk those halls, seeing, perhaps for the first time, the true breadth and depth of this man's knowledge.

I wish I could tell you his name, but he's also a top-level MI5 agent, and I'd have to kill you afterwards...

It's humbling to have to admit that what we write defines us in some way. When I sit with a blank screen in front of me, willing the words to flow, I have to filter out so much mind-junk before I settle on a topic that I think might be slightly less... inconsequential... than the others. For instance, I could write page after page on the Legend of Zelda, aspect ratios, the West Wing, the Buffy phenomenon... but would anyone actually be interested? Or is that even the point? Perhaps those who find blogging therapeutic have long since learned to disregard the opinions of others and write purely for their own entertainment? Perhaps the true purpose of a blog is to write that which you personally would want to read - an exercise in self-indulgence...

I have come to a decision of sorts, then... actually, I came to this decision when I decided to write this blog: What I find fascinating, others will too - what makes me tick will interest others also. If what I write about isn't generally considered to be edifying or of general artistic significance, I will elevate it, through my writing, to such a lofty position that it will be difficult to ignore. If that sounds a little pretensious and gradiose, so be it. If, as I have said, this blog is really, at heart, for me and for me alone, then what's wrong with a little indulgence now and again..?

Good night, and good luck

Bugbear #1

Mike: Petty grievances - We all have 'em. I just seem to have a great deal more than most. Actually, that's not quite true - I have started my life as a blogger with a filthy lie. I'm actually a reasonably well-rounded individual, with the patience of a saint, the stamina of a thoroughbred and the looks to match...

More lies... DAMN! Let's start again...

When I was at Yale, I...

By Zeus! I can't seem to stop myself! If what I write is nothing but a tissue of lies, then this whole exercise becomes somewhat redundant, doesn't it? OK, so back to the topic at hand. Put down your bags, children, and take out your books. You're going to have to take notes this period. Parker - it's your own time you're wasting. I can stand up here all day, you know.

Here goes... Now where were we? Oh yes! Bugbear #1...

For those that know me well (by which I mean, those people who have shared coffee, and therefore their soul, with me on occasion in the past), this first grievance will not elicit any gasps of astonishment. This is, after all, my first post - there will be no comings out or dark, brooding secrets being revealed... at least not yet. Maybe when I get bored sharing with you the minutiae of my life, noose-makingly dull that it is, I will concoct a rich, eccentric uncle who collects Nazi memorabilia... or a painful childhood kidnapping by Opus Dei cultists... For now, though, you'll have to trawl through the boring, introductory stuff... I mean, we have only just met...

What's that? The dot-dot-dot? I know, and I'm sorry... There it is again. It's a condition - a medical one - similar to the guy that starts every other sentence with the word "actually". I loath myself for doing it, but cannot for the life of me think of another way to write that little pause that comes in between a comma and a colon. You'll have to forgive me this petty foible, or switch to another blog... I'm not gonna change for you, for goodness sake! You're a complete and utter stranger...

So, onwards and upwards... We're entering the main body of the piece now. The introductory stuff has almost been dispensed with. Now comes true wit, insight and substance. Hold on to your hats, folks, and prepare to be enlightened...!

Filter coffee is as pure a thing as any other substance on God's most wonderful earth. The blackness at it's heart, the silver tendrils of steam, the rich crema floating atop it's majesty like a supernova drifting in endless space... Before you even drink a sip, the thing itself, the mug, the handle the smell, the small drip snaking it's way down the side, astounds the senses.

I know people for whom a morning mug of black coffee has become ritual. They clasp their hands together around their cup, as if at prayer, eyes closed in silent contemplation of the sacrament. A friend at university used to drink coffee like it was going rapidly out of style. If, for some reason, he found there was no time for a morning drink before leaving the flat for lectures, he would mix a teaspoonful of instant with a tiny drop of cold water, forming a brown, sludgy, coffee-smelling paste that he would gulp down in one, eyes watering.

I’m not that bad, but I am a purist. I understand, unlike many London coffee-makers, that a proper filter coffee is made, not with espresso and hot water, but with pure boiling water filtered directly through the ground beans. I cannot tell you the number of times I have been served an Americano having asked specifically for a filter coffee.

“Do you have any filter coffee?”

“Why yes! Would you like some?” (enthusiasm has been artificially added at this point)

“Yes please. Are you sure it’s filter coffee?”

“Why of course, you dear dear man…! Your suspicion is both endearing and saddening”

“You’re sure it’s not just an espresso with hot water added?”

“Well, yes… That’s exactly what it is. A filter coffee, my friend! Just what you requested!”

“No. [voice trembling here – even breaking with rage] That’s an Americano. I want a filter coffee.”

“Why do you hurt me so? You have cut me to the quick… I see now what it is to die of a broken heart. [clasps my hand in theirs] I must away, dear friend. The look in thine eye makes a cadaver of me…”



OK, OK… so the melodrama and Shakespearian sentiment slightly overdo my point… but the point remains. When you ask for one thing and receive another, you are justified in any action, should that involve severe physically violence against an unarmed barista… well, violence is so very subjective, don’t you think?

Now, I must go and clean my tools…

Good Night, and Good Luck

How bored was I at work today?

ALEX: Sorry to start on a downer, but it's the plain and simple truth. You know when your eyes glaze over and everything you look at resembles a corrupted document? THAT'S how bored I was at work today. I was slightly uplifted at around 10am by the news that David Irving is in court, but then I got yelled at by the lady in the post room for not packing my parcel properly. She actually said "Are you taking the mick or something?"

When you work for a charity, your life is a haze of oxymorons and contrariness. Part of you thinks, "Ya boo, I can sleep at night because my working day was dedicated to helping people, what did YOU do today?" But the other part of you, the part that wanted to write the great British novel and sing with Jon Bon Jovi and hike up the bits of New Zealand you see in Lord of the Rings, that part thinks, "What am I doing with my life?"

Anyway, the good news is that it's Monday today, I'm off to see "Goodnight and good luck" tonight, it's Tuesday tomorrow, which means that it's Wednesday the day after (bear with me on this), which is my day off, then it's Thursday, which means it's almost Friday! And that can only be a good thing!

Oh, and I just started my first ever blog. It's very exciting... reminiscent of my first ever ebay purchase. The title of this blog refers to my (and my co-blogger's) shared love of all things pop culture-y. TV, films, pop music, short term plans for extravagent trips and shopping sprees, all the things that everyone secretly loves but prefers not to mention, instead pulling out an authentically dog eared copy of Ionesco's plays on the train home and mouthing the lines silently, just like Marwood does in "Withnail and I", with "Journey's End". Of course, Marwood isn't shallow or inconsequential, but the man sitting next to me on the train most certainly was. Can't make me feel uncultured by reading groundbreaking playwrights while I listen to Sheryl Crow on my iPod. Nick Cave, Beth Orton and Bach are on my iPod, I'll have you know...