While I was in Oz, I grew to love a show called the chaser – a group of comedians who do kinda crazy stunts to make points… probably best known for when they drove a guy dressed as Osama Bin laden into a secure zone at the APEC conference.

Anyway… enjoy their take on scientology…

This is a post I made earlier on dontstayin, it tailored to clubland, but i think it’s very true for culture generally:

DJs – often reduced to glorified ticket agents…

Web Design – I saw someone offering site builds for £50 and a flash “hot box” for £20!

Dancers – I could have a different troop of “dancing” girls every night if I wanted.. for free.. which is actually tempting…

Photographers – any pro-spotters still able to charge more than a few beers n petrol money?

Producers – there’s so many wannabe producers with a whole cracked studio in abox, you can get them for £75 a track now, no wonder beatport is full of clone-a-tracks in the latest electro-tech-hard-mnml-grime-bassline-bouncecore or whatever this weeks cool genre is.

The sad thing is, I haven’t even had to exaggerate to make my point, you can find all these things on DSI without much effort.

Here is my question…

What is worth anything now?

I’m worried everyone is working shite jobs they don’t really like, sitting on facebook and dreaming of being a Dj/dancer/photog/web-designer/cat tamer/reality tv star/singer* (*delete as applicable) when really its only ever going to be a hobby.

Kinda sad, I feel like everyones deluded… or am I talking shit?

/ramble-ends

Problem is, the plan was to work and just enjoy DJing (as above – kinda)… make some tunes and work on the ebook site in evenings… job market = shite still :: agency rang me about a job yesterday, put my CV forward, got a call asking when I was free for interview, I gave dates/times… call back 2 hours later, no longer hiring, MD has made 3 people redundant. 2nd time this has happened – kinda.

Gaaaaah stupid illness, messed Plan A up… now Plan B isn’t working… I kind of have a Plan C forming… pppfffft

Guillermo Habacuc Vargas – the artist who is was reported had starved a street dog to death, as an art exhibition… it’s been the topic of many an email, online petition… facebook group… blog post…

Something like this:

In 2007, the ‘artist’ Guillermo Habacuc Vargas, took a dog from the street, he tied him to a rope in an art gallery, starving him to death.

For several days, the ‘artist’ and the visitors of the exhibition have watched emotionless the shameful ‘masterpiece’ based on the dog’s agony, until eventually he died.

But this is not all … the prestigious Visual Arts Biennial of the Central American decided that the ‘installation’ was actually art, so Guillermo Habacuc Vargas has been invited to repeat his cruel action for the biennial of 2008.

Please join and sign the petition to stop Guillermo Vargas from starving a dog to death at the Bienal Centroamericana Honduras 2008, as he did in 2007.

Except he didn’t.

If you take 2 mins to check the story, which people NEVER do with these kind of things, you’ll find the exhibition owner explained they fed the dog when the museum was closed and then released the dog back to the streets at the end.

Taking aside the potential cruelty of having a dog in a gallery, which is hard to judge having not seen it, the artist made a very clever point about how outrage spreads when its a dog dying for art… but where is the same passion about the street dogs who die everyday?

This is an old story but the amount of emails/facebook messages I’m getting about it seems to be growing, still.

Please people, it’s the internets, don’t believe everything you read without checking it.

All in a pretty random weekend, bit more alcoholic than I’d planned but damn good fun.

Spent the weekend working in Chris’s new studio on a tune… this summers anthem I reckon…

on saturday night we had some drinks and great food with Chris’s cool oz mates and onwards to ministry… tbh, I wasn’t that impressed, all the rooms were very same-y and none really grabbed… still had a wicked time and as with all good weekends, animals featured too… (charlie the cat)

then sunday night, the wedding of Bournemouth legend Mr Jay Rachet to the lovely Debs…. a highlight being when he DJ’d at the end! It was a mini who’s who of Bournemouth legends Bob baker, Mike Artwell, Tony Angus, Storm… and many more… even myself and Chris Bailey too!

Normally I’m not a big fan of over legislating the world we live in, its nice to have laws that stop us reverting to anarchy but often it goes too far… that said, I was really pleased to read an article on BBC news about legislation aimed at fraudulent mediums, spiritualists and other “psychics”.

Hooray for common sense!

These people are ALL fraudsters, in varying degrees.

Lock ‘em all up I say! yes, there’s anecdotal evidence… but test it and every time it fails, if there was a real psychic why has the james Randi one million dollar prize never been claimed?

For nearly 10 years, James Randi has tested “psychics” and not one has even reached the second phase of proof.

Another reason why Derren Brown is my hero, his show messiah (clip below) shows him proving himself as a medium, whilst at the same time stating its made up. Genius.