Thesis Diary #3: Is that a lot?

Okay, I must be borderline insane for thinking I could complete my thesis in a semester - I just figured 18,000w is a normal workload - how could I possibly fuck it up?

But this (long) weekend, I added about 3,000w to my total bringing it up to a sizable 6,142w as of writing. I proved to myself that it can be done. My first chapter is quickly becoming one long ass definition about rock music, rock subcultures and what constitutes rock journalism and criticism. I am no sociology student, and it shows. (NO, political science is not applied sociology!) I remember I did cultural studies once in my undergrad years and failed the unit because I stopped showing up. I failed that entire semester, if I recall... (Please don't tell Tony I failed that entire semester.)

Luckily for me, there's one really cool dude that is the leading authority on this sort of stuff. I'm an even luckier son of a bitch because he's written about a billion articles and books on the subject. I have about 70 footnoted references and his name appears in about half of them. Enter, Simon Frith.

My research has yielded some surprises insofar that I just never though rock and roll music was taken this seriously by academia - little did I know that there exists entire journals on the subject such as The Journal of Popular Culture and Popular Music and Society. At this stage, I'm just scratching the surface in terms of covering the transition of rock music from just teenage unserious "pop" into scholarly and meritorious "art" (like a book by my boy Frith over there!) that occurred in the 1960s and 1970s. Interestingly enough, if there's entire schools dedicated to popular culture and cinema studies (did you know that Cahiers du Cinema and Rolling Stone started publication in the same year? Of course, only complete wankers like me would give a shit about that.) but almost none dedicated to pop and rock music. I mean, it could be set up! Just think of the tenure! THE TENURE!

But my thesis isn't a huge nostalgia trip back in time to a place where I think Jimi Hendrix lighting his guitar on fire is better than anything my modern day wannabes can come up with (but can it?) - it's to demonstrate that rock journalism in Australia as independent, "rock authentic" journalism is "dead, buried and cremated" (to borrow a trite phrase) and it's mostly the journalists that are carrying the shovels.

I can't say that I have a subscription to NME, Kerrang! or jMag, but I insist that my writing is good enough to be inserted into those publications with a cheque headed my way as compensation. But then again, how would I know?

Of all the working music journalists I personally know (which is including but not limited to those I've only acquainted myself on social networking sites) I've not met one that gets paid enough to live comfortably and I've only met one or two who get paid at all. If your mantra is "I'll never sell out" then you'll never "buy in" either; as my research continues its becoming bleakly apparent this game is owned and won by those who are willing shill for swill.

My plan is to get into uni as much as I can over the next couple of weeks. I plan to hit the half way mark during that time. Wish me luck!

Thesis Diary #2: Social media will ruin your life

It's almost true. Social media has opened my world up to so many wonderful and fortunate things. I'd never be writing for as many great websites and publications if it wasn't for social media. I'd never have met my last two girlfriends (one was an ex-fiance, believe it or not) if it wasn't for social media. I've met a lot of people on social media in person and it's enhanced my life in so many ways.

But it'll absolutely fucking murder you in your sleep. There's nothing that kills productivity quicker than ego-stroking at the lightning pace of 140 characters in under a second. I know about this, because I really am that egotistical. I'm not even ashamed of being egotistical. How egotistical is that? Fuck all the haters - self-indulgence feels good, so I do it! Though for the remainder of my entire life, I'm limiting myself to using it for no more than an hour or so a day.

Last week as I sat down to write, I thought to myself "Fuck it, I'll lurk Twitter for a little bit." I had two fucking screens going - one focused on bullshit the other on nothing in particular. My screen space was being twice as efficient at being as inefficient as possible. So I told my computer to go fuck itself and sat down to read some source material. One book I found quite enlightening if not self-absorbed is The Rebel Sell: How the counter-culture became the consumer culture and it basically pillories hipsters for being completely retarded - soon irony will be for the masses and they'll tear up their Pixies posters in audible, annoying rebellion.

How does this relate to rock journalism? Well, I'll figure that out later. It's what my tutor has suggested for me to do. So I'm doing it.

Thesis Diary #1: Rock n' roll journalism in Australia

It seemed like rock and roll journalism in Australia used to be a hell of a lot of fun once upon a time. Considering our small population, everyone in the "scene" knew one another at least by word of mouth and probably saw and met them at one point. My supervisor, Dr. Tony Moore could write letters to radio DJs and have it read and mocked openly on air - now I couldn't even get my tweet professing an unhealthy obsession with Belinda Carlisle flashed up during a 80s revival night on Channel V. I sincerely doubt I could call up Richard Kingsmill on Triple J and ask "what the fuck is this shit, dude..." although I'd very much like to. I pay his salary, god damn it!

Luckily, I've found that there's a wealth of scholarly material on rock journalism in Australia and rock music in general. Archives are out there to be trawled through and I fear that I'll be spending more time acting rock historian than intrepid thesis writer and lose the plot entirely. "Have you heard of Ram magazine?" Tony asks sincerely, forgetting that he's about 20 years my senior. "You should read that. It was heaps into heavy metal." I'm sure he doesn't know who the Katatonia refers to on my t-shirt. Even so, he was once refered to as the "suede crusader" who flew the flag for rock music when the industry was embracing any band that owned a Fairlight CMI and had crates of hairspray on backorder - so he knows a metalhead when he sees one. Or a punk rocker, indie kid or whatever you choose.

So the past few days have been about asking questions in an academic way and not to draw any conclusions from them. It's encouraging to have a supervisor that's into the subject as much as me ("I wish I did something like this for my honor's thesis," Tony says almost every time we meet) and so far, things are looking up. Today I didn't even feel to get out of bed - now I want to rock out with my theories out.

Poor Forever

I ventured to university yesterday to do some research and collect my essays, dreading the results. When I was finally handed them back, the worst had happened - I was awarded High Distinctions (the highest mark one can get in Australia) for both.

Of course, the mark is something I'm proud of - it adds to my current HD average which pleases me greatly as it is the product of hard work. However, the constant achievement means that Drs Tony Moore and John Arnold of the National Center for Australia Studies have offered me the chance to complete a year long dissertation as my final subject instead of coursework.

My dissertation is called "The Media Ecology of Rock Journalism in Australia" and will explore several issues regarding rock n' roll journalism such as the influence of advertising on independence and the rise of the internet and amateur/citizen journalism on the scene as a whole. Hopefully I'll be able to talk to established bands and writers as well as do some work experience/fieldwork at magazines and labels. I lamented at the time that I'd be poor forever, extending my studies for another semester. But then I figured when would I ever get another chance to research something I truly loved that I could even turn into a PhD some day? The choice won't be as hard as I think.

Taking Back the Flank

"There's no one to take my blame
if they wanted to
There's nothing to keep me sane
and it's all the same to you
There's nowhere to set my aim
so I'm everywhere
Never come near me again
do you really think I need you?"

- Dream Theater - Space-Dye Vest

I remember a great man once said that boredom is a state of suspense. Its that latent craving for action in the midst of nothing happening. It also brings to mind a great scene from the brilliant comedy Spaced, in which Daisy wants to pen an article about whether inactivity breeds lethargy and at the end, she says she can't be bothered. When nothing happening becomes chronic, it becomes almost normal. The motivation to grow and work and promise things just sort of drains away. Applying for jobs, being knocked back time and again is a blow to the ego, but its something that everyone has to endure at some point in their lives. Nothing special there. So what can be done? Like the song says, there's nowhere to set my aim, so I'm everywhere. But what about somewhere specific?

One day, I was looking through postgraduate courses for media and communication, so I applied for as many that might take me. The man who loathed almost every moment of his undergraduate degree wants to go back to Uni to do a masters. But I know what I want now - I have something concrete to aim for, probably for the first time. Well, that's not completely true. But it's a plan; something I'm not usually partial on making but have now committed myself to nonetheless. Here's hoping things look up. I can safely say that there's a light at the tunnel of this, my darkest hour - a fact I was reluctant to even acknowledge only a few short weeks ago.

So it goes.

I can't (read: won't) say much about it, but my new job "cleaning the internet" (not content, just dodgy domains) had an unassailable lead for best job ever...until they blocked the good parts. I do love the mandatory eating of breakfast as the first order of business though.

Uni's back; and so it would seem, my wit.

Shai and Crushtor have a smoko

Me: You see that chick over there? With the beret?
Shai: Which one?
Me: The one that looks like she's an extra in a Godard movie.
Shai: Yeah.
Me: Arts student?
Shai: Absolutely.
Me: Let's test it out. Just casually name drop a critical theorist and see if she looks over at us.
Shai: Lacan.
Me: Foucault.
Shai: Did she look?
Me: She totally glanced up! Let's try it again!

----

Soup and such

Nermal: I can't believe you downloaded 200GB worth of TV shows, Damith.
Damith: Why not, if the Uni doesn't block it, I'll download it.
Me: Why bother Damith, all American TV shows fall into one of two categories: Shows about Lawyers or Doctors doing ordinary stuff; or, shows about ordinary people with some kind of hidden talent, superpower or one of them being placed in an extreme situation.
Shai: My god, you're right.
Me: Think about it. Law and Order, Grey's Anatomy, Boston Legal. Shows about professionals that are just doing their jobs. Reaper, Chuck and Breaking Bad? Shows about guys on minimum wage with special powers and/or put in weird situations.
Damith: What about House?
Me: Well, House is just shit.

I really should write up my Cannibal Corpse interview.

Fuck the System

I passed both my fucking subjects this semester. Even got an H3 in one of them. I can't believe it. The system doesn't work. Thank fucking Christ for that.

This is a complete and utter slap in the face to those who bust a gut and study hard at uni. I'm actually proud of myself for some twisted reason. This is the biggest win I've had in ages. Please, dear readers, allow me some bragging rights just this once.

"Receiving education at 2 elite institutions + 2 lazy to care = high achievement by default? Priceless"

Control Denied

Due to my development of a blatant disregard for any type of formal learning, I told my examiners to define their questions better. I wrote about an entire page on why their question "democracy is more desirable than any other feasible alternative" was too subjective to be thoroughly answered. Sociology and Political Science can go fuck itself - there's nothing falsifiable about conjectures that can't be refuted. I'd much rather call my Political Science degree a Political Theology degree - there's a lot of faith and belief in which rational thought is supposed to belie.

Because thousands of Tibetans march on the street because they hate the Chinese government mean that they desire democracy? We assume they do. We believe that democracy and freedom are hand-in-hand, indissoluble, colloidal. In this democracy of mine, we lock up artists, deny same-sex couples to formalize their relationship and treat our adults like children by depriving them of the chance to fuck up and learn for themselves. If you believe democracy is freedom, remember that when you say something is, it is not!

That exam was almost as stupid as the time one of my old high-school mates gave me shit for putting too many print articles in the school magazine. That isn't relevant. But it was just as retarded.