OK, this is getting ridiculous!

OK, have I really only produced three posts in three years??? Good grief as Charlie Brown might say, this is getting ridiculous! Perhaps it's not the quantity or even quality of postings that matters but whether you get noticed. After all, any blogger, like any artist must want attention right? Like but how many of us get any? Um.....attention that is.....you know what I'm saying!

Or it could be that a blog is simply a creative space for people. The traditional publishing industies, be it books, comics, music etc are notoriously hard to break into. With a blog you can just create something you think is worth preserving. Whether anyone looks at it is not your concern. Again, like the classic conception of an artist you create because you need to create, you put it out there because it needs to come out.

Both jazz and comics are like that now. Critical acclaim has come to both art forms, comics have taken a lot longer than jazz but there you go. Yet most comics and jazz creators aren't going to be famous and aren't going to be rich. Most of us would give up now. 'You mean no one will know who I am and I won't make any money?!!! That's too much like my real life day job!!'

Yet comics creators, jazz musicians and bloggers (like me!) keep going, not out of some pig-headed desire but simply because we need to express ourselves. It's part of who we are, our identity. If someone notices, if someone appreciates, great but if they don't, well we're not doing it for them. We just have to do it. We have to create some meaning beyond the day-to-day, the 9-5 job (or if you're in New Zealand the 8-6 job...+ weekends). We want to find a new energy. Otherwise why would we keep coming back?

See you next year...

NZ TV soap LOL: slut! (whoops!)

Yow! Shortland Street (long-running New Zealand tv soap) is actually interesting again or at least watchable. The addition of a character with Terretts syndrome was actually bloody funny! He's a student at the local high school and can't help but spout out all kinds of acceptable 'profanity' (hey this is a 7pm show on free-to-air tv). So he comes into class and right next to the teacher says 'Whore! Bitch!' much to the amusment of his classmates and this 40 something viewer. Next he's talking to his classmate and he blurts out 'Big tits!' which is both funny and accurate since the girl he's talking to does indeed have large knockers.

If only he could comment on his fellow characters and yell out 'oh shut up you busty baby' (to the preening, whining, 'lipstick lesbian' Maia who has the biggest breasts on the show) or 'harden up you namby pampy!' (to the washed-out, finger down the throat nice guy Mark who is in love with cry-baby Maia but married to her cute heterosexual sister). Oh the words I could put in his mouth - 'show us your acting ability you overpaid mediocrities!' Oops....that's going too far...

Create, enjoy, let it be

Everybody in this world is good at something. When you're a kid you dream of all sorts of things, you're encouraged to be creative, at school you write stories, draw pictures, good teachers give you opportunities to see the world in different ways. Later in your school life you get taught the analytical skill-set, you pull apart creative works and discover how things are done and why some things are done better than others.

Out in the workforce you discover it's analytical skills that are the most commonly sought-after. If you want to earn some money, buy a house, get a car, you invest time and energy in the rational, the technical. Doing this enables you to consume at a level which you feel you deserve as you look at your peers and what they have. Gradually your life becomes more about what you can have rather than what you can make.

The point of this blog for me is to see what I can make. To devote some time and energy to creating my own stuff rather than chasing things created by others. I'll post new creative content whenever I can and I'll also post creative highlights from the past: my columns from New Zealand magazines; my film reviews from my local paper; my 'Yeah Right' Tui suggestions that for some inexplicable reason never made it to a billboard...(Tui is my fave New Zealand beer and it's famous-in-New-Zealand for its 'Yeah Right' advertising campaign)

I'm gonna have fun. I hope you do too reading what I write (I know, I know, I'm assuming an actual audience here - hey, why else would I venture into cyberspace??)

Create, enjoy, let it be

Michael

Pic of me

Welcome

Welcome to my blog!

Michael Mead