Travel.. Just Say NO!

My exams have ended and all that's left is to demonstrate my final year project.. I'm working hard at the moment on a speech explaining how Indie a project that doesn't work is. I also haven't been able to post in a while due to the lack of my Spelling and Grammar Corrector... so here we go.

I, as many good Indie folk do own a lovely little bike called Mabel. She came to exist due to my frustration towards Dublin's public transport. Today, considering the oddly hot day that's in it ("big up" to the Americans with the 4x4 for that by the way) I decided to take a recently repaired Mabel out for a cycle to check out some fine indie hangouts. This poses some problems as I discovered during Mabel's "pre-repaired" state: flares and bikes don't get on very well.. In fact, they'll get you killed. While I won't get into the details I will simply say that there was a conspiracy between my flares and pedals that landed me into a street lamp.

I began thinking up helpful hits for indie folk in transit. But as I'm sure people out there already know, compromising your indie integrity for safety generally ends up with you looking like you'd blend in at the front of a Take That concert and to be honest you may as well be dead. SO instead I've got helpful hints in how to survive being indie while getting from point A to point B
while i understand some people don't have to put up with dublin bus and so can get public transport without fear. so there are some tips for the bus... this DOES come with a disclaimer mind you. "be warned if this goes wrong, it will go badly wrong"

BUS:
while on a bus it is important to stand or sit alone, looking pensive out a window (or at your reflection) sounds easy enough but even this simple task has pitfalls
!people sitting beside you!
As we all know having the latest "now thats what i call music" bleeding into your ears from the music zombie beside you is one of the biggest risks when it comes to bus travel. but there is a cunning way to avoid this hellish horror;
while sitting and being as indie as you can, give a watch out for people getting on the bus and eyeing up the seat beside you, when you see one, grab eye contact and give one of those "remember me" smile and nods, followed by a sharp look-away. The kind you would give a guy you met from school but never talked to because they bought Snow Patrols Final Straw album before listening to the first two.
well this will, 99% of the time, result in the person franticly trying to place you, wondering where you had met, what your name is and why you let something so silly spoil your friendship, he will then move onto a different seat to avoid a teeth-pulling conversation.
BUT! there IS that 1% that will sit down and talk about their favourite football team for the rest of the journey: be warned.

BIKE
being indie and on a bike is hard. in fact it's dangerous so your going to need some "tools" to ensure a safe, yet incredibly indie trip. A wire hanger and a pair of pliers can make amazing things, it also solved my Flares-in-gears problem. Simply take the heads off two clotheshangers; bend them into the shape of an outstretched flare; attach with some handy button badges and you've got yourself where you're going while doing it with flares proudly outstretched.i'm going to put up some pictures of the "Wire flare guard.

Hard Work.

if you are a regular reader of my wise words you are probably very worried about now because i haven't posted anything in a while, don't fear, your favourite indie guru isn't dead or isn't as yet to indie to post things online. I'm doing my finals which is arguably more important at the moment. just keep yourself busy, post comments about how much you miss me and i'll be back with a shiny new instalment on Saturday afternoon/night. so just keep your flares on!

Communication $|{i|_|_$

National Identity is very important and having grown up in most beautiful of backwater European nations, i understand that i would not be as indie as i am today if i had to tell people i'm from one of the popular nations like the USA, China or England. This great advantage to my indie persona has until now been taken for granted and i feel, as someone gifted with the accent of a lesser nation that it is up to me to share with the poor indie population of the world weighed down by a cumbersome common passport polluting the inside of an otherwise very stylish velvet jacket.
so after some research I've discovered that it's language that's the key to indie nationality and here are the top indie languages for those of you looking to ditch your common tongue for something a little more acceptable to your indie peers.

|337:
aw.. "nerds". While these gentle, generally nocturnal creatures are a distant relative of the better known "Indie" phylum. They differ only in the most subtle of behaviour. competing and one-up-manship is observed in both, but with the "nerds" it is generally done for self gratification as opposed to the much more worth while task of becoming an enviable indie-lord in the eyes of ones peers. Nerds, in the 80's went to great lengths to create "leet" (|337) in order to encode their conversations. Great disappointment echoed throughout the nerd community when in the 90's it came to light that no one gave 2 shits about what they talk about.

Ogham:
The Celts really made sure this language was doomed from the beginning. Coupled the fact that to any passer by, Ogham just looks like what a dog would do if it tried to spell it's name, Ogham was generally only written on rocks or trees. Whoever it was that came up with the idea probably forgot about it a couple of hours later, which doesn't matter considering it has a readership of 1 pictured here


Cherokee:
With a speaking population of 22,000 and it's very own unique characters, this surely is a great one to learn, coupled with the fact American government is accidentally doing it's best to get that number right down to 0. In a short few years it could be the official language of the "indie people"



Dhivehi:
Have you ever been to the Republic of Maldives? Have you ever known anyone who has been there? Or perhaps a guy that knows a guy, that knows a guy that's been there?.... no? then you probably didn't know about Dhivehi either. The fact it's spoken by about 300,000 doesn't really matter when you consider that no one knows where the hell they are. Also note that it's the perfect language for the indie guy out there who already speaks Sinhalese!

Taki Taki:
This south American language may have only 120,000 speakers and is referred to by its not so politically correct name "negro-English" but theses come in at distant second to the main reason that this language is a contender for the top spot. this feather weight weighs in at only 340 words when you consider that English has 250,000. it becomes clear who would win over the indie crowd in what would be an uncontested bout... it would also finally make winning a vocabulary completion a real possibility even for those who's memory isn't so agile?



Hopelandic:
Iceland has an estimated population of 300,000. this of course makes it's language one of the more indie in Europe. but that just wasn't good enough some people. Jón Þór "Jónsi" Birgisson, one of the Indie icons of the 20th century, seemed to think that was about 299,999 too many. convincing them all to take up another language proved as big a task as Bjork's mom trying to convince her people that whale meat wasn't that great after all. So He put plan 'B' into operation and developed "Vonlenska"(Hopelandic). to ensure it remained as indie as possible he cleverly avoided using words and instead opting for the sound of dolphins mating as the basis for the language.

Glossolalia:
also known as "Speaking in tongues" this communication technique is one of the few (for good reason) that requires your body to be in spasm. This has hampered it's promulgation by the simple fact that it does not lend itself well to travel, asking a for directions for instance could result in you accidentally driving yourself off a cliff and all before you find out which turn you take after the 1st Presbyterian church. Also if you think someone speaking English loudly at an acoustic gig is bit rude.. then someone speaking Glossolalia could easily drive you to an apparently well deserved murder.

Irish:
When an entire nation is forced to learn a language, you would image that it would catch on pretty quick. WRONG! it appears there is nothing the Irish people hate more than being told what to know. This means that only 300,000 from the 4 million forced to learn it can actually speak it. this language would win hands down as the best indie language if it wasn't for the fact that every Irish person in the country would be simultaneously mobilized to learn the language in an instant if anyone from Europe so much as muttered "maybe you guy shouldn't bother learning Irish"

Indie-an:
Developed by the Dublin City University Head of Indie, The Right Honourable Professor Carrie King, this language is for true Indie folk. Words and letters are formed by the names and release dates of various Indie albums/songs. I.e. (Each one stands for a different character. Hello= ). Thus, one is able to assess the Indie cred of another Indie peer, under the guise of frivolous chit-chat. The more Indie knowledge you possess, the bigger is your Indie-an vocabulary. Thus, this can be related directly back to Noam Chomsky's "Vocabulary Theory". Instead of being a measure of intelligence, it weighs up Indie.

interpretative dance:
probably the only time you can legitimately say "i don't have enough space to answer your question".. assuming you have enough space to say it.

Indie Philosophy.. not 100% implementable

Being one of the main trail-blazers for the incorporation of the indie philosophy into different aspects of life, this has unforeseeable consequences. like many rogues and rebels i often strive into the unknown, armed only with my ideals and my iPod. In many ways the pioneering has paid off, like helping other indie folk to understand and enjoy indie life to it's fullest. but sadly with so much exploration into the unknown there are bound to be one or two wrong turns and of course a fair share of dead ends. So while i greatly promote any readers that are attempting to strive with me into the uncharted abyss that is indie-nirvana* I would like to help you steer away from areas which i have found no avenues of implementation for the indie way.

1) Study:
it doesn't get much more indie than college, this is where we learn how much better we are than other people. Where we discover that being judgemental is not a bad character trait,but a "Spidie Sense" for indie folk. for me it is where my research into the bounds of indie life first hit a speed-bump, this was Exam Time. Exams are defiantly not an area where the Indie Philosophy is compatible. having spend most of my time studying the most obscure parts of the course, i was shocked! when the most obvious topics would be asked. the ignorance of my naive lecturers towards the indie philosophy was about to end my college career prematurely. I couldn't just abandon my entire belief system in order to adhere to what "everyone else" was learning. I had a crisis of faith... but i was save upon realizing that anonymous marking had been implemented at the college. there was almost no way for someone to discover the knowledge i had picked up was as common as Britney Spears. after learning all of this popular knowledge it took almost 3 weeks of indie cleansing to forget the information. so be prepared, have some VERY obscure music** ready for you post exam cleansing.

2)Public Transport:
i could go into great depth about how the marriage of public transport and indie is riddled with more domestic abuse then a marriage between Mike Tyson and Aileen Wuornos, but i wont. Just image yourself waiting with rain soaked flares and faded button badges while you watch as the bus bounding towards you is in fact ANOTHER bloody 46A.

3)Buying a Car:
As it happens not everything from the 1960's is as good as The Small Faces and generally I've found that if it's not vinyl, smelling like a charity shop, goes well with your cord jacket or been owned by a musician it's more hassle than it's worth. best bet just get a car made 2 years ago that nobody in there right mind would want. If you live in Europe this means get an American car, if you live in America it means start hoping that there's a 46A coming your way.
while I'm sure you all agree with everything my research has unveiled you can NEVER admit it to ANYONE.. so if your asked, memorise THESE answers.

1. "So far I've studied every album released from 1961 to 1979.. that sold under 300 records"
2. "Oh i got the 8C into town today"
3. "It may look brand new... but i was in fact hand carved by Nick Drake in 1968"

*this does in NO way make reference to a band that may or may not be called nirvana
**this obscure music could contain Aberfeldy, Duke Special or "these guys"

"God Hopping" and vegetable shopping

"people are scum". unfortunately by definition, perfectly acceptable indie folk like myself are grossly out numbered by people that evolution forgot. while i wish no ill will to these people, i would like to spend as much of my life as possible in places i'm never going to have to see them. libraries, museums and indie record shops are confident hang-outs to someone who wants to avoid the cultural vacuum of these meaningless shells of people. sadly we cannot avoid them forever.

every human irrelevant of there greater or diminished intelligence does have to eat. which is what brought me to the shopping centre today. The scum of humanity seem to gather in large numbers at very particular times and places, such as:

a) A protest; where they might get a chance to throw a stone or shout an obscenity. Generally done when the people actually involved in the protest have returned home to watch the unfolding stupidity on the news.

b) A concert by a popular rapper; it's a well known fact that if a bomb where to go off in the middle of the a 50 cent gig crime would easily be reduced by 40%.. this figure of course does not include the possibility that the rapper himself is murdered. Because for something to be murdered it must at least be sentient.

c) a shopping centre; who knows... maybe hanging out around a book shop for a few hours a day might increase the chance that these people might accidentally read something, for instance a "No Loitering" sign.

It is of course part c in which the everyday indie folk must cross paths with the "majority". For many of us.. this is not easy, indie folk risk various terrible side-effects from these places. With that in mind i have decided to show how anyone can come out unscathed from this culture void.

Step 1)
your going to need music, but this is no time for Iron & Wine or even Belle and Sebastian your going to need something with non-stop melody and loud vocals. Dogs die in hot cars or The Crocketts are my preference. if your a level 5 indie-vegan and so only listen to soft acoustic music. Have no fear your just going to have to plug your ears somehow.

Step 2)
head down, walk fast. doing this will prevent any cigarette vultures pouncing. DON'T MAKE EYE CONTACT. they can use this to move in and perhaps innocently ask for directions!

Step 3)
do your best to stay way from the frozen food section, the easier the food is to prepare the more likely it will have several zombie-esk patrols trying to make sense of the microwave cooking instructions. if it's unavoidable then your best bet is to make strikes into the section from beside the spice rack.

Step 4)
Your almost home free.. but don't spoil it by starting up a conversation with the person at the till. although it could be the case that the till person is that most unfortunate of people. and indie person who must "deal with the public". These people are a lost cause and conversations on indie topics can only give them false hope that perhaps they have not been as corrupted at the first thought by intellect sucking conversations with the masses.

you should have made it home in one piece and are now free for another week from that strange pop-universe.
now eat, be happy and enjoy some music that will make you proud to be a minority

Ireland's General Election

With a general election looming over the people of Ireland and of course a sense of absolute indifference to the election trembling through the world, it is time to discuss what can a simple Indie boy do to promote being Indie in the world of politics.
Considering the strong apathy towards voting in this country it's important to register, and of course cast your vote. Strange as it may seem this act (for the under 30's) has already put you in the glorious realm of minority. As we all know it's only a hop-skip-and-jump from minority to Indie.
What will polarise this tight group of under-aged voters will be their respective choices. For instance, anyone that votes for the 2 main parties have already lost any credibility for any adherence to the previous steps. You only need look at:

1) Green Party (clean politics? would you trust someone who constantly reminds you they're not corrupt?)






2) Sinn Féin (if your registered to vote, they already have your name and address... doesn't that unnerve you somewhat?)





3) Labour (if a bitchy blonde girl fresh out of a convent wants to vote there isn't a better choice than the party voted most likely to request a 44th recount)






4) Socialist Party (hahahahaha....*wipes away tear * ... aw bless)






5) Independent (some may think it's "any ol' nut case" not true. It's "any ol' nut case with MONEY!")








Now it's good to perform simple steps towards weeding out the most likely people to get into power.
step 1)
Find out who got in last time: here is a good place to do it. Rule them out. No point in voting for someone who may have done a good job last time.. The chances may be pretty slim but it's not worth it to fall at this hurdle.

step 2)
This is where things get serious.. there are some things.. i must admit that must transcend to a higher plain of reasoning.. that is to rule out the nut-cases. This can be difficult for a hardcore indie fan. So remember while the socialist party (you would think) are a safe bet to ensure you vote is cast in the most indie way possible, REMEMBER!: one of them actually got elected last time, so it's better just err on the side of caution and avoid them completely.

step 3)
Look for a background in corruption.. this step rarely weeds anyone out.. but if by chance you happen to be in the constituency of someone who you can't find any evidence of corruption on, rule 'em out. That person is either very good at hiding the truth or worse... an honest candidate.

step 4)
This step is where you really weed it right down to the nitty-gritty... if you see ANY campain posters of a candidate rule them out. It's possible SOMEONE out there thought "i like his face" and are off to the polls to cast them one of the common "i like your face" votes.

step 5)
The final step should have you down to only a few candidates, so you can do some positive elimination. If a candidate has persistently attempted to get elected without getting more than a few hundred votes, thats what i like to call a safe indie vote. An example of which is Paul O'Loughlin. There is no chance in hell that suddenly 6,000 people will wake up and throw away their vote like that.
Next look for an independent candidate that no one seems to know and who has no policies. This guy is a time bomb for any voter who actually cares where their vote goes and so another safe bet.

Finally, if this hasn't left you with a single candidate to choose, don't forget spoiling your vote is a perfectly reasonable indie vote. Just remember to write "none of the candidates were indie enough" on the ballot.

Now remember, for the next 5 years if someone says something like "i can't believe the government are doing such a stupid thing" you can say "well, don't look at me i didn't vote for them. If the public did any research they would have seen this coming just as i did". Suddenly, other Indie folk now see you, not only as a god of obscure music but also as their new Lord of Politics.. Use this power wisely and NEVER give away who you voted for.. for fear they might get in next time.

Camera Obscura Gig

well tonight i had the pressure of camera obscura's gig in the village.
great set with all the expected songs to sing along to, like "lets get out of the country" and "Lloyd I'm ready to be heartbroken", but of course the moment of true inspiration was when they played "Let's go bowling" a lovely song from an early ep. so i sang loudly as if to announce, "HA! I'm far more important than you people who only know the words to their "popular" songs". this feeling of superiority was sadly crushed as i tightened my lips during an Amy Winehouse cover, it wouldn't do to have all the hard work being Indie RUINED by singing along to such a well known song.. very clever tracyanne but i was on top of things tonight...
all in all a successfully indie night.

First

great stuff, i started a Blog on the day i plan on seeing camera obscura. this will of course help me to think of something to write about tomorrow morning, while i'm trying to avoid studying for my finals.. speaking of those does anyone know much about the Remote Method Invocation Command (RMIC).. i wonder if there's a band with that name. if not i can use at as a trump card to weed out people that know more about indie music than i do.. i can see how the conversation will go

Guy who knows indie stuff: hey what do you think about Broken Social Scene
Seb Berkovich thinks... shit, he knows bands i like.. start super secrete plan X
Seb Berkovich says: They pretty good but they're just copying the style of RMIC
GWKIS: oh... yeah.. well i never listened to them much.. but i think you've got a point
Berkovich thinks.... game, set, match.
Berkovich Says: yeah.. well they were pretty indie, only the really hardcore indie folk would know them.
GWKIS: yeah.. ok.. well i need to get another drink, talk to you later
Berkovich thinks.... see ya later sucker