Another copy-paste of schoolwork: 'Cynical Youth'

I sit silently in my bedroom, the television quietly chatting to itself in the background; the ticking of a long-lost clock is the only other sound in this world of mine. After another dull, slightly irritable day at school (which itself is one bar short of a penitentiary) it feels good to be home and away from the world. Composing myself, I can now think back to a time slightly less pessimistic… a time not quite as distrustful; a time of happiness, albeit naïve happiness.

The time in question was just into the twenty-first century, and after the ordeal of a possible digital apocalypse was behind him, man was looking towards his future with wide eyes and a cautious smile on his face. I myself was almost completely unaware of how close the world as I then knew it had come to changing completely. For me, the proverbial light that illuminated the path into the future shone just as bright as I could remember and showed no sign of changing. This light, however, was still not as bright as it used to be.

As a child roughly the age of eight, I was a fan of laughing and playing as much as the next, but still liked to keep to myself, as the whispers referring to me as “that quiet boy” from teachers and parents of friends could confirm.

The place I remember is really nothing special in retrospect, just a room above the office of a friend’s mother, an estate agent, but I remember it as an escape from the world below: the inner sanctum of Tommy’s. It was a room with contents comparable to that of the bedroom of a child worse-off than I: barren, save for a few pieces of furniture, in this case, a few tables and a beat-up monochrome television from a time unknown to me.

Once the overwhelming joy of school (I speak sarcastically, here) was behind us for another day, my then best and only friend (another quiet one) and I would travel across the plains that are Johnsonville, in a quest for our secluded sanctuary above yet another boring office cubicle.

Here, we would laugh and play like any other children of the time, a more simplistic time where rolling a small ball across a series of long, worn, wooden tables was enjoyable enough to occupy several hours of our day. Post-ball-rolling, we would fiddle with the various knobs, switches and flashing lights on the old television until we could find a channel we recognised, and, lying on the now multi-purpose tables, we would escape, even from our escape, and become zombies, hypnotised by the flashing screen.

Once we had broken free of our stupor we would depart from our secret space, never to speak of it to anyone.

What I am told were ‘the best years of your life’ were whittled away in that isolated room, and to some, it may seem like those years were wasted as a social outcast, but what do those people know? Thinking back now to my childhood, sitting in this claustrophobic bedroom, the television still blabbing away just as it would in our hiding spot so many years ago, I realise that my life has just begun. In the immortal words of a famous man, the best is yet to come.

A digression from the usual formula: personal pronouns included.

Today in English, my teacher decided to go off on a tangeant about conformity to society's view of people, and that got me thinking.
She raised an obvious but still important question:
Why care about anyone else's perception of you?

She then answered her own question:
We fear not being accepted.

But that raises a slue of further questions, such as, why should we care if we aren't accepted? People may redicule us, yes, but in the end, it doesn't really matter. If we all spend our time here worrying about changing ourselves for each other, then how can we truly be happy? If everyone is trying to please everyone else, how can we be individuals? Is anyone happy with this?

We need to stop being sheep.
If you don't express yourself in a way that comes naturally, can you really die in content?
I don't think so.

I'm going to try and become more of an individual. More myself. Why don't you?

An amateur blogger talks about a band that no one he knows likes.

The Paper Chase. If you've heard anything of them, you're probably now thinking one of two things. "Oh god, that crap" or "Fuck. Yes."
Never has a band I like created such a polarising opinion.

For those who haven't heard of them at all, let me back up a bit. The Paper Chase are an Alternative Rock band from Dallas, Texas. Led by frontman John Congleton, they've been described as "a jagged structure of avant-garde jazz, noise, indie, and punk".

The premise of the band is a simple, but unique one:
The Paper Chase create scary music. Not ironically scary, not scary as in an ambient horror film soundtrack; music that creates a legitimate feeling of fear.
This, I can speculate, came from the reason Congleton started the band: to vent strange, grotesque emotions and desires locked up somewhere in his subconcious. I swear, if he didn't make a Paper Chase album every few years, he'd have killed someone by now.

The music consists of a combination of what I might describe as some conventional melodies coupled with some intensely overpowering noise rock and Congleton's strained vocals. This creates an extreme feeling of disorientation: a simple melody will be introduced, played out a little and then altered, warped and, for lack of a better phrase, fucked up. Every other instrument hereby kicks in, full of sharp notes and jagged composition.

The Paper Chase are a band that create albums. None of this 'iTunes on shuffle' crap. If you listen to a Paper Chase song out of the context of its album, it loses its soul. Because of this, while they are recognised in the underground and alternative scene, they can never ever be a top 40 band. But that's a good thing.

If you're reading this and haven't heard any of The Paper Chase's music, I urge you to give at least one album a listen, and based on that I'd recommend God Bless Your Black Heart, currently my favourite of their records.

Now this is a perfect time to mention their song and album titles. "Young Bodies Heal Quickly, You Know", "The House Is Alive And The House Is Hungry", "We Know Where You Sleep".. The Paper Chase's titles reflect their music perfectly: they're damn frightening when you stop and think about it.

Ala American History X, I feel if someone's already said it better, I should just quote them. So, as Calvin of Starship Amazing said on this very same subject, "The Paper Chase is the kind of band that makes what I try to do here difficult. They are dark, but not in a cliche or fake way. They are terrifying, but in a way that is entirely human. They make you uncomfortable, but they make you beg for more."

In short, John Congleton is a fucking genius.