Why I can't rap.

I was just in the shower pondering various things when I suddenly came to realise the reason why I can't rap. I realised that in order to be able to rap you have to be deeply ingrained in a specific culture, to understand it enough to be able to rap about it. Don't get me wrong this isn't me lamenting over my failure to break into a career in rap, on the contrary I think it's one of my best attributes. For example a rapper I heard once rapped 'mr politician on your television..something something.. all those lies' obviously he's from a politically left culture and understands it well enough to put it to words coherently and sincerely. But has he ever met a politician? Is he talking about all politicians? does he really understand the politician? I'd like to believe I'm in a better position to do so and I'm glad about that. but alas I myself have nothing to rap about. You could say I could rap about being a Barista but I don't have a big beard, arms covered in tattoos, I can make good coffee but I'm not culturally ingrained in it. I spread myself culturally thin, take that as you will but I thinks it's a positive thing. Rappers you could say are on the inside reaching out but I like to be on the outside reaching in, giving them all a high five perhaps.

A quick sketch

Here is a quick sketch I did of a corner building on Corn St. It's a preparatory sketch for a larger drawing documenting the drinking culture on Bristol city centre. I think having the pub as a monumental back drop for the figures will make for a strong composition. It was drawn on a Friday night in situ at around 10pm. The kebab man was suspicious.

Remembrance Day Sunday

 A little late but here is a drawing of the Remembrance Day ceremony at the Cenotaph in Bristol. It's an event I think every one should go to. Seeing accounts of the war in films and in museums doesn't quite bring to life the reality of war, but seeing the people who actually fought in WW2 does. It always astounds me how strong the bonds are between them and their comrades and re-affirms my feeling that great suffering creates great love and that one cannot exist without the other.

An interesting thing to note is that a young man in a Hawaiian shirt and bright comedy sunglasses strolled through the crowd on his way back from a party totally unaffected by the weight of the event. Is that what they died for? I hope not.

Musing on morality

I was just pondering a question of morality and thought I'd write it down to see if it makes sense. It stems from an argument I have with my dad on whether morality can change with circumstance or whether it has a finite set of standards that dont change. I believe that there is a core moral standard and that we as a society are always moving towards it. I was thinking that if a person accpets a religion they are in essence accepting a set of moral standards set by an omnopotent being. However as far as I can determin these religious guide lines can become out dated (such as christian views on gay marriage) and this serves as evidence that A: the religion is not governed by omnipotence and B: that the previous moral standard was wrong. The very nature of the religion implies that we are looking for moral guidance and direction and so I would suggest that things like drug abuse, dictators, petty crime, war are humanities ebbs and flows on a meandering river that will eventually lead to an ocean of, umm, neutrality?

The Great Beyond

What is the drive that encourages us to reach beyond our day to day existence in what is an ever increasing atheistic society and how do we attain these sensations of breaking the shackles of everyday life. Why cant we take the world at face value? What is the biological mechanism for this desire?

It's seems to me that Humans thrive in chaos, we yearn for it. We seem to enjoy the fear of things that are bigger than ourselves. Perhaps it is a run off from the days when we lived in the wild, where a predator could be round any corner and our environment will constantly change around us, ever upsetting the balance.

Youth dance group

There's a youth dance group that practises by the big silver ball in millennium square. I like seeing people doing things like that.

It seems like millennium square was slow to blossom but its slowly coming into its own, you can see people practise various pursuits or watching the big tele. I think its a nice vision of society where we don't all have t.vs but instead there is just one big community tv that we can all watch together.

Trains cranes and paranoia

One of the things I like about Bristol is that we have taken efforts to protect and re-engage our heritage. Looking down corn street and the harbour some of the architecture and industrial age machinery are a thing to behold. Its good that we can still ride a steam train down the harbour and go on the old boats.

To stand by the M Shed a stark contrast between the eras emerges. You have the industrial age, a time when people worked or starved often put to work in dangerous environments since childhood. Then the modern era where we have paranoid parents wrapping their children up in bubbles who will grow up largely unprepared for the larger world until university and even then their character is dubious.

Anyway! go Bristol for not selling away our history!