Friday, 9 May 2008

its been a while

but you understand I've been up for a few hours and now its 9:22 am:

I don't trust art school kids cuz I can't tell whether they're being genuine or not; my experience of artists are far-away people who either down-dress or go completely zany but always have little goatees. I don't like art that much anyway, most of it doesn't seem to effect me much; guess I just don't see life in that way.
Anyway, me and my mates often go to this bar that's designed for students at the art school (which is kinda beyond me anyway because why you'd want to study something like art in Norwich I'll never know) and they rarely ask but if they do its cool cuz a couple of my mates do study here and they are allowed guests. And I mean, we certainly look the part. I know the borderlines of how young people dress are pretty blurred anyway but we, looks wise anyway, fit in with this lot; tonight I'm wearing my yellow/blue tablecloth check fred perry (£25 at the worlds biggest vintage market; tk maxx!!) and black girls drains; and this is a look you can find pretty easily with this crowd.
We go to do this thing called "the three oranjeboom challenge" which is basically us just buying cans of this cheap Dutch beer of the same name three at a time and giving off the impression that we're really good at drinking or something (also it's the only place that stocks Desperado's, you know that beer and tequila drink?) and we often get comments from people saying this; really though we just think we're funny when we know we're not. I also go because I like the place itself; its set in what used to be one of the many churches in the city before we more or less gave up on religion entirely in yet another apathetic (or worse atheist stance led by the biggest hypocritical cock end of them all Richard Dawkings who take people like my dad in and do exactly the same thing they accuse religion of) move by the people of Norwich; and this makes it large and lofty and spacious. There are chairs and couches everywhere and a stage with a pool table on it (bar rules 1-10 in multi-coloured chalk on a board nearby) and a large paper zepplin presumably made by one or many of these students. There's also a few paintings hanging around but its unclear who actually made them which doesn't help my dilemma or distrust any more and these are OK. On one wall (its actually an alcove to both the entrance and fire exit to the place) there are bottle after bottle of jagermeister (all empty) lined up on the edge (we think they're stuck on because it would be a health hazard otherwise but we can't help but throw things at them to see what happens - nothing yet).
And as for the students, well, I generally don't feel a lot for them (probably linked to their art I geuss) there's a lot of them and they're less annoying than the "average" student and it's constant desire to get in your face and drink a lot and be "wacky", but they're just there, and I guess that's fine. I mean some of the girls are very attractive and stuff and a couple are even a little mysterious (these potentially are the only true artists of the group) but that's about as noteworthy as it gets. So when I don't feel much for the students I can't help feeling much about their "work". It seems to me that there's way too many "artists" around at the moment. A quirky quick-fix which I guess isn't hurting anyone but inflating a lot of egos (not that this bunch will show that, they're sly like that) and I guess that's what modern art was founded on. It's just that there's so many of them claiming to do it I guess. When I used to go this college in the city for people all around the surrounding areas the kids who took art then weren't very artistic or interesting (mind you, barely anyone at that college were particularly artistic or interesting - it's amazing I found any decent people there at all) and now some of them have kept this pseudo dream up by going to Art School and getting full blown diplomas in something that's supposed to be expressive.
I guess this is what all this stems from; back in high school I was all excited and fresh faced about being able to take Music as an actual subject. And some of it was OK; mostly when we were allowed to let rip and just jam in our own little collectives and for that age and time, it was fine. But when they actually started to try and teach us shit about %90 of us didn't want to know. Most of this was out of a dislike for the bumbling teachers and the material they tried to force feed us, but for me personally it turned out to be more of a protest. I got increasingly dissatisfied with the course as it went on because, at the same time, I was going home and finding all these new exciting bands and carried the torch of punk rock that little bit further and basically realised that I didn't learn anything from sheet music or classic composers or even the teacher's pitiful attempts at trying to teach "modern music" (I read in the paper not so long ago that they want to include 'Britpop' as part of the syllabus to appeal to that key 14-16 yr old demo. - which is hilarious is my view because it means suggesting that britpop was indeed ever a relevant or important shift in music and not ripping other stuff off shamelessly) I learnt from life experiences and finding sounds for myself and then expressing them in my playing of an instrument (Bass Guitar, since you asked).
And so basically all I got from those two years (which for any 14 to 16 year old is hardly plain sailing as it is anyway) was the idea that "you can't teach stuff that is supposed to be a personal expression or people's opinions" (this later re-appeared in my life at that aforementioned college when I took on it's awful "Sociology" course). And when I see my peers, people my age walking around an arts school hanging out with each other and not doing much else I generally don't trust them. Because it must mean that they've bought something I consider complete bullshit (of course, one or two of them will be using it to their advantage and therefore winning and I say kudos to them but at this current moment in time it's pretty hard to tell because I have to try and socialise with these people so I don't bother witch-hunting).
So I don't really trust art school students, but then again, who the fuck died and put me in charge?