Stimulating the Cochlea

We do most things nowadays via telecommunications. It’s quicker, we become more efficient, and sometimes we forget to spell check. Or even proof read. We’re so used to the QWERTY keyboard and our mobile phones’ keypad that I, for one, often find myself punching the enter button without so much at a glance at what I’ve just typed. We’ve all been made aware of the fact that time is money and therefore we’ve deduced that the speedier we are the more we can get done in the shortest amount of time. It all comes down to productivity. But have you ever done a double take and wondered if what you’ve just said was typed or written in the way that it was meant to be construed? Is the said sent email or IM or SMS actually typed in the positive (or negative, depending) discernable light in which it was intended? We need to be more aware that things such as tone form a huge part of how we as humans actually piece together and understand a statement, question or random muttering uttered from someone else.

Just a recap for those of you who know what the use of tone is meant for and a lesson for those of you (are there any) who don’t, according to Wikipedia: "Tone is the use of pitch in language to distinguish lexical or grammatical meaning—that is, to distinguish or inflect words. All verbal languages use pitch to express emotional and other paralinguistic information, and to convey emphasis, contrast, and other such features in what is called intonation..." 

How do we convey tone, then, through technological language?

Living in this digital age, it is my opinion, and is virtually evident that tone has gone for a ball of shit and all we have at our disposal are a few overused yellow faces for the indication of happiness, anger, boredom and love. (Yes, that stupid little face with the two hearts as eyes) What with all the shortened or abbreviated words (for convenience, and ultimately, productivity, I am aware) such as ‘ur’, acronyms such as ‘lol’, and made up words that have become so widely-used such ‘meh’ – used as a synonym for average – and consequently are listed in American dictionaries (yes, we’re paving the way to a brighter, less articulate future), please tell me how the fuck we are actually meant to understand a received message with all these new-age words in it and know if what we’ve read is how it was meant to be interpreted?

An example of the premature enter punch blunder is ‘the classic drunken text’ – this is when your drunken alter-ego decides to take control of your keyboard or mobile and send potentially embarrassing texts or emails to ex-girlfriends, enemies or friends. No one is exempt from Drunk Ian’s need to let them know exactly what happened that night in great detail. Upon checking those great details the following morning, I’ve experienced it firsthand, you become privy to a screen littered with the funniest shit imaginable – funny to everyone else, except you. Optimistically speaking, your ex might not appreciate the fact you called her out on why she made the relationship fail, but what Drunk Ian texts are the cold hard facts. After all, drunken words are sober thoughts - Or are they?

Another example, which is quite entertaining but entirely pointless, is ‘the classic cyber argument’. This is comprised of – ordered as such – an apology followed by a misconstrued apology-argument. This one’s a cycle which only peters out due to boredom of one party or both, my friends. In my opinion, winning an argument over any digital medium is just like winning a gold medal at the Special Olympics; it doesn’t matter, you’re still ‘special’. Apologies need to be heartfelt or they are just empty words, right? Why are we spending the extra R2 on theoretically misinterpreted texts is we’ve established that the use of tone is what gives words that special (not in the Olympics sense) feel. Make it heartfelt, you thrifty bugger. 

Here’s another example: You have a desire to ask someone out on a date yet lack the ‘cahonies’ to do the face to face thing. So you think, why not send a text? Time = money and you need them dollars, don’t you! Well, if you can’t pluck up the nerve to do it face to face, are you going to sit with your Blackberry under the table and BBM each other the whole time at the plush restaurant you choose to dine at? Now don’t get me wrong - I know that sometimes a well-typed and -timed text message can get you the goods. I’m even sure you get a type of ‘cyber playa’ out there with all the words and skills in a chat room (but when it’s time for aural stimulation, said playa lacks the practice and skill of conversing with anyone other than his granny and is left pissing like a puppy). I say matters of the heart need to be verbalized people. The whole I <3 U thing may work for a while (and seems thoroughly effective regarding your time, I know) but without the tickling of the cochlea, words on a screen are just that - words on a screen.

To put all of this in a neatly wrapped package, it is my opinion that those lines of script that you endlessly type out, day in day out need to be relative. If they’re meant for your chick, they’re meant to be verbalised, not button bashed all over a screen. (This is comparative, of course. If you’re going to see her later and talk with your voice box but just want to say “hi”, then it’s fine) We need to realise that we should value the language, and take the time to talk. It’s one of the greatest gifts we, as humans, have: the ability to speak (true, some people should have that gift taken away). Shout, scream, rage, whisper sweet nothings, and so on. Enjoy the act of talking. Communication between your co-workers, family, friends, and lover is bound to get better if it’s not just texted but spoken, tone interpretation and all.

Running with the Big Dogs

With my 24^th birthday having just rolled by, I find myself sitting here contemplatively, pondering over what it is to be a man in these days. I hardly consider myself a boy anymore, but, looking at our gender in this era, I can’t help but wonder if we’d be considered ‘pansies’ by those men before us. Thinking back to the times of old, in comparison to today’s 21^st century male, most ‘boys’ my age were out of the Defence Force, hardened after ‘af kak’ and P.T and the like. So I put this question out there: What does it take - in the technological age - to become a man? Does it include owning a car, having your own lavish place fitted with the latest in high tech gadgets? Strings of failed relationships? World travels?

It’s evident that nowadays, we are faced with work stresses, social intricacies and relationship dances from a younger age. I'm sure if we’d lived 20 years ago it would all seem ‘alien’ and sort of unnatural. We seem to be far more grown up these days but, dare I say it, far less mature in our decisions and actions.

I admit that I hardly feel older than the day I stepped out into my teens. Sure, I've learnt some things and my vocab has grown and I have to shave every day: but are these things worthy of being characteristics that classify a ‘man’? I can change a plug, fix a car, light a fire and braai meat. Do these things make me a man in the world’s eyes? I still want to go karting at any given moment, play putt-putt and trivial pranks...

Which makes me think that, although these things seem immature to some, that which actually makes the difference is not what we do or how we do it, but comes down to how we conduct ourselves, what our attitudes reflect and effect, what our decisions at crucial times are and the way that we treat people who are deemed ‘inferior’ to us. In my opinion: That is how we measure whether or not we are men. Men of this new digital age.

This saying rings true for me: "If you want to run with the big dogs, then don't piss like a puppy.” If you wish to be a man then my advice is to grow a pair and start acting like one. While watching the Green Mile last night, I saw a perfect example of ‘running with the big dogs’ and one of ‘pissing like a puppy’. The antagonist, Percy, is grabbed by ‘Wild Bill’ and pisses his pants after trying to exert his bought authority.

After asking a few of my friends what their opinions on what it takes in this age to be a man, I found a variety of answers:

• "Taking responsibility for your actions, facing your fears"
• "Respect"
• "Being a real man doesn't mean you fuck 100 girls. Being a real man means you fight for one girl, even when 99 others are chasing you."
• "A man is a person who in every situation thinks of others and does what is needed in a bad situation to pull others through"
• “I think, nowadays, being a man and being a woman are pretty much the same though I guess a few key elements still exist from the pre-feminism days.”
• "Having a penis"
• "Successful in whatever you take on and compassionate and caring in a relationship"
• "Loyalty, honesty, and living with the decisions you make in life. There are not many people you can trust now days."

What better way for a man to know he is a man than to get an opinion from the fairer sex:

"Men are destined to live hard and die young. That is not to say this is how things are done in our modern cultures. All too often humans forget that they are indeed mammals created by and of this planet to exist on this planet. I believe a man is meant to be one who assumes responsibility for his actions and destiny, and if he is in a position of authority, does the same for those who he is responsible for. A man doesn’t point and make excuses, he recognizes and fixes if allowed. A man shows emotion. A man is truthful even though the truth hurts. A man is kind in the face of adversity and doesn’t freak out. He treats all people with respect no matter how hard it may be. To be a man is to have knowledge of one’s desires, the courage to pursue those desires, and the willpower to make real those desires, regardless of obstacles and resistance from others. That, and the ability to piss wherever, and whenever he pleases."

I think Eric Sevareid said it best “Men want power in order to do something. Boys want power in order to be something.” 

Heart String Persuasion

With many new exciting avenues of life ever opening and closing around us, I wonder to myself why we still tend to delay our own happiness. In this piece, I delve into the mystery of the 'modern' human's psyche and that odd-but-strangely-self-empowering denial of our own feelings.  More specifically one of the purest forms of happiness: the big L word...

(Love - not lesbians for you Scott Pilgrim addicts out there) 

I do believe that just as the art of correspondence has died, so has the art of realism; as the 'cyber age' continually revolves and evolves around us - resulting in the disintegration of the truest form of vulnerability: speaking from the heart. It's all digitally-delayed responses and too much time given for analysis and thought - instead of real, honest, have-some-balls truth. The saying "Follow your heart" was not initially denoted to mean "Let me think about it for two weeks as we chat and feel our way over skype, Facebook, BBM and I.M" I see this world of technology, and as much as we rely on it, there's an evil in everything truly phenomenal. No longer forced into  blind leaps of faith for lack of mulling-over time, people are given time to over-ponder the simplest emotions, terrified of what might happen. "I may get hurt", "I may hurt her"... How is that train of thought remotely spontaneous, exciting, honeymoon-ish? How is it that we have adopted such a cowardly outlook on something that is supposed to be the purest form of any drug imaginable: the ultimate, euphoric, endorphin-releasing, hypnotic plunge into love?

I have been faced with the desire to say many things that, when revised in my mind, I had realised would have lead to awkward looks, fumbled excuses of "I didn't mean it like that"/ "I don't know what came over me, that's not what I meant to say at all." I choose to keep my mouth closed and bottle up what I truly want to say. Why? I cannot answer this question myself and neither for you, dear reader, but after having read "Man and Boy" by Tony Parsons (which has been recommended to me countless times by an extremely close friend of mine) has made me question a lot of what I have chosen to withhold.

"Happiness is a butterfly, which when pursued, is always just beyond your grasp, but which, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you" -- Nathaniel Hawthorne

And so, I ponder life - the constant "races" we run: socially, the daily grind, games of love...

How often do we stop for a few seconds and just let realisation come to us? Or love? That's not to say that my advice is to take yourself out of the equation and wait solely for love to do do all the work; a miracle it would be to answer a door to the proverbial 'winds of love'.  I'm not living the script of a Walt Disney production and nor are you. Here we are in the throes of mysterious life and life is what we make of it. As there is but one ticket to this ride, so our existence is short and every moment a chance for improvement of the rest of it.

Utter disregard for something that makes us happy can't be sane, can it? Games of the heart often lead to confusion, the colloquially termed 'mind-fuck' and proverbial head-banging-frustration. We're doing it all wrong. Call me old school, but I'd prefer not to have to look for that prime gazelle at the watering hole (that has over-indulged, or not), get ready to pounce, and hope to high hell she still remembers the spark, let alone me, in the morning. Is this really the 'love' we are all looking for? Have the games of love become this perverted?  I'm imagining a few of you with shaking heads and an expression or thought-pattern that goes something like Love? Pffft not for me.. I'm not the relationship kind of person. So be it, but tell me this doesn't hit home. What has happened to romancing? And the getting to know someone part of 'courting' - that which should but doesn't often any more come before the dirty bedroom antics. It is no wonder divorce rates are climbing and families are falling apart - more so that the good ol' days when divorce was taboo. I look at my family and the fact that my parents have provided for me a truly loving environment with a completely monogamous view on relationships , and I hope for the same for myself when I meet that 'someone' and start a family. 

Flowers. Hand holding. Walks on the beach. (I'm a romantic, I know) What has it been replaced with? Shots of Jagermeister, tequila, and one night stands? Don't get me wrong, I realise romancing in this day and age is no longer even slightly similar to those of Humphrey Bogart and Ilsa Lund. We're not running off together like in the black-and-white movies of old. So I accept that the 'love games' are different, that with time comes change and that with the technological age, so then communication has and will continue to metamorphose. A point to mull over though: has romancing, falling in love and feeling real, honest emotions and then saying them out loud without a second thought evolved to the point where people are terrified to truly love?

So, you caught me. I'm a sucker for romance. And as cliche as this may sound, I'm in it for the love. The old school, open-the-car-door-for-her, let's get know each other better (and not in the filthy sense - well, a little bit of that, too) real, honest, knees-like-jelly love. 

Little bit of life...

Having not posted in a while has left me feeling more than a little rusty. If truth be told, 5 or 6 unfinished posts litter my desktop all with the promise of being pretty damn amazing. Alas, once inspiration strikes, I've learnt that you should harness it as soon as it gets you, before you're sitting in front of your PC screen with two awesome sentences and little else to write about. This brings me to today's post - having felt the kick and all that!

So, my own website is firmly in the pipelines and I'm starting to pick up little pieces of advice and inspiration often nowadays. I think - it's what you do with that input that counts - and having spoken to a good friend a few nights ago, my mind was opened up to they extent that I now see the bigger picture. Looking ahead, something we think we do, and stopping to smell the roses, leads me to the realisation that the bigger picture, little be fathomed by me, is still in need of another 15 steps toward my anxiously abated destination.

Keeping that in mind, I have a theory: A "2 second rule" - before any reaction we try to take "2 seconds" just to think as far ahead as possible and guess how our actions would effect and affect the person or situation being reacted to. I think that if we used this "rule" for any and all situations that arise in daily life: be it in relationships, the work place or with with mates, taking that 2 seconds to realise that 'shit I don't rate this is gonna work out' and changing course, could and would prevent titanic-ing situations and it would be optional to change said situation to suit all involved. 

Don't get me wrong here. Spontaneity is fucking amazing, as it rightly should be... I'm not implying we should hold back on being spontaneous, but, in situations, where ever possible, (I'm life lesson-ing you here) take the time to just have a think and observe what is actually going on. How many times have you thought to yourself  "FUCK that was stupid, should have thought that through a little better" ?? Hmm?

More often than not I'll find myself over analysing situations to the point where I'll be completely put off an idea - to and fro for a while, while my mind fiddles with the math, only to come full circle and end up going along with whichever vibe it is my mates and 'close personals' are into at the present moment and despite all the brain gymnastics, land up having an off the wall time. Then there are the times when I throw caution to the wind, just don't give a shit and just sort of drift/go with whatever is happening and land up thinking I should have stayed home with a flick or a good book. Life - thou art a sadistic game at times.

I'm guessing - if one reaches the perfect balance between overly-cautious and bordering-on-pure-recklessness - life would reach some sort of Buddhist harmonious balance. Where you could just be and things would be. I could be missing the point altogether here (we can't, of course, predict all outcomes) but it feels so good to have written something again.

So it's weekend, I, for one, don't need 2 seconds to know that it's going to be a good one! 

Winds of Change

With the wind of change finally blowing me out of the doldrums, it's time for changes and changes a plenty. First off the bat, I'll be launching a second blog which will be your one stop shop for everything relating to the electronic music scene: party reviews, interviews, promotional work, photos. You get the point.

I’ll be kicking off on a huge high with the second instalment of I LOVE BASS, which is definitely going to be a must read if you can’t attend and a banger if you do (valid excuses needed if missed), followed by a host of interviews with the people who made it all happen - 1st and 2nd instalments inclusive. So, do me the honour of having a look – read, revel; you’ll enjoy it. Almost as much as I'll enjoy presenting my findings to you.

I present to you Auditory Vision :

http://auditoryvision.blogspot.com/

 Please hit me up with anycomments or suggestions for the blog

Soulful Hunger

Whether it’s the crazy stage antics of Daron Malakian of Scars on Broadway and formerly System of a Down, or the pounding bass and psychadelic twists and tweeks of Skazi, music is food for the soul. Dub, punk, rock, trance, blues, jazz - whatever genre you find yourself most attracted to - it will always be the music: a drug that is ingested through the ears, each genre producing a different effect on our psyche.

How often do we find ourselves waking up in the morning with a certain song ricocheting off the walls of our skulls? (That may just be me, though) You’ll find you need that "drug", you have to listen to that track, and when you do and you finally achieve your "high", all is well in your world.

In my office at work my ears are often pleasantly assaulted with the sounds of just about every genre of music known to man: From Jamiroquai to Martha Munizy’s soulful gospel voice (thanks to a co-worker). Sure, I don’t enjoy every sound that is played, but, I find, it really makes a difference in my day, to have some sort of music as my backdrop. Gently - sometimes not to gently - supporting and pushing me through the day.

Berthold Auerbach puts it best when he said: "Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life."

In my opinion, the world would be a sad, sad place if we didn’t have our tunes to get us through the day. Music could serve as your ultimate escape, there could be a specific track that gets you hyped up or even one that soothes your aching heart...

Music: what would we do without it?

I LOVE BASS

Friday saw the arrival of I LOVE BASS at 121 Castle. If you missed it, you missed out! A plush and unspoiled venue with ample parking out front, two particularly well serviced bars, a tapas menu, VIP area and fantastic décor, served as all that was needed to get the party turning into a banger. Add the filthy breaks and dirty bass being thrown down by some heavy talented DJ’s, and we've got a winner. 

First up on the list of exceptionally awesome “thrower-downers-of-tunes” was Callan Maart (on a BREAK records) mixing it up with his own slick production. In my opinion, Callan is a talent and you all should keep him on your radars; He definitely got the night off to a sick start, the ambience so powerful one could assume from the vibes that things were about to get proper messy! 

As the liquid refreshments started to flow, the peeps started making their way to the floor, causing the party to kick up a gear. Next up on the decks was LG Fritz (on a BREAK records, Fukk it) and wow, did he bring the noise in large doses - fuck yes! Fat quantities of noise were the order of business and, believe me, those tunes were legend. The tempo went up and the growing crowd got down.

The stage was set, the crowd was hungry for more and :: more was had :: on steps Mezzanine (MuthaFM, Malignant Music). With his high energy set, Mezzanine had the crowd at his mercy - getting involved with us behind the decks, showing us love, and dropping some exceedingly sick tunes.
Headline Act: Enough Weapons (on a BREAK records) was up next… What a set! All the right ingredients were had for the crowd to get filthy:- along with floor shaking bass, dropping dance floor bangers and each and every hook and twist. People were kept on the bounce. Infectious as it was, I must ask: if you haven’t been a part of the mayhem (caused by Enough Weapons) where the hell have you been? 

To shut things down for the evening, Mr Bong (Two Twiggs Xperiment) jumped behind the decks and, to be honest, surprised even the seasoned “veterans” of the game with a killer set that ended the night on a supreme vibe, leaving people wondering when the next instalment of I LOVE BASS will be happening.

With all said and done, the first instalment went down way better than ‘smooth’, and I personally look forward - with bated breath - to round two.

Stay tuned for exclusive interviews with the guys who made it all happen.