Monday, August 31, 2009

Hi guys.
This isn't Faith. instead, you get the insights of Michael Petty tonight. No, Faith does not have a boyfriend; I'm just a weird ass guy who hangs out with her all the time. So, It seems fitting to introduce myself a bit more. I am also a freshman at Trinity, I'm on the HUMA hall, I enjoy music (all kinds except country), and am planning on a major in either history or political science.

but enough about me. lets talk about some important things.

the backstreet boys are currently playing on Alli's computer - a highly underrated band if ever there was one. their hypnotic beats and homoerotic dance moves know no bounds on my soul. but I wonder if they knew that they would have that effect when they were formed for the explicit purpose of making shit tons of cash for their label? it's a question I often ponder at night - can someone wholeheartedly put their soul into their work if there is not personal drive or need for it? can a halfway decent artist be incentivized by money to produce a masterpiece? the crucial thought here is, and this important, what is the nature of why we do things? that's what I want to know. why do we create needless societal constructs that are flimsily held in place by the groups sheer willpower so that we can classify all sorts of needless things into "needed" and "amoral" and "criminal" and "loving" and so on.

Maybe Decartes was correct, in a way, on his postulate that man exists in his current state only because he thinks he exists in his current state?

kinda just blew your fucking mind, didn't I?

but it's true. people like to have a group, a place to fit in and be accepted by others. that's not in question here; what is in question is: why is that so, and what is the ideal means to accomplish that goal? because currently, society is doing a piss poor job of holding everyone together in any sort of reasonable way. Our civilization is most accurately described, as George Carlin said, as a "competition for shit. we need alot of it. and then we need a big house to put all our shit in, and security to protect it. and we need a job so we can buy more useless shit and get a bigger house with better security to keep our shit even safer. and then we get condescending and give some paper shit to the people with shitty shit so they can get drunk and forget about how shitty life is."

that's probably not a verbatim quote. but whatever. the point is that mankind's constructs are erroneous at best and lethal to thousands who get the short end of the stick daily at worst. probably the latter if you're a liberal and the former and if you're a rational person.

Of course, if you're a republican than God set it all in motion 6000 years ago and hates those people because they didn't maintain faith in his silly rules but it's OK, because you're supposed to help them, but there's no rush because, as most eloquently stated by a pastor I once listened too, "There will always be poor people". and you're a dick.

that's pretty offensive.

sorry, my bad.

just my two cents. like I said at the start, I'm just some weird ass.

-Petty Out.

5 comments:

  1. You do know that Mozart, Bach and MANY classical musicians were paid court musicians brought in and paid to create music for highbrow aristocrats' courts. Would they have created their masterpieces if they had not been paid? Would even some of them have been artists at all, if they had not been identified and nurtured? Now I am by NO means suggesting that the Backstreet Boys are "artists" like the above mentioned , but do they really need to be denigrated on ANY level for simply creating what they DO create-considering it continues to be enjoyed by enough people to pay not only their own bills, but the labels? Just wondering......

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  2. Petty here

    2 things: 1.) yes, those you spoke of were paid court musicians, but there were subtle differences between them and the backstreet boys - the main ones being that they were allowed some freedoms in what they composed, as opposed to having their songs written for them and set to be preformed for the express purpose of making money. also, if you listen to mozart you will notice that many of his lesser compositions sound quite same-y, something not unlike the pop music of today. this is because he made music his job, creating some works for money, and others for musical expression; you can tell the difference when you listen, I guarantee it. perhaps they would not have made such an impact on the musical world if they hadn't been payed. but they were, and this is crucial, MUSICAL GENIUSES. mozart was a virtuoso by adolescence, for Christ's sake! you can't honestly expect to make a serious argument that paying musicians creates music by using a child prodigy as an example, silly!

    b.) the main purpose of this was not the backstreet boys; they were just a segue into the latter half of my post. you have apparently missed the point. judging from your needless respect for people who could care less about your thoughts, you're probably a liberal, but not a bleeding heart one, since your post was about the musical side of it and not the needless societal pretenses that cause harm to a great deal of people who don't fit in with our neat and tidy idea of civilization - and the fact that you were defending the backstreet boys tells me you're a girl.

    so my young lady liberal (I assume you're young, but if not, you're welcome for the flattery), take a moment and pause - while you and I rant about boy bands from the 90's, people in poor nations around the world are literally starving and succumbing to mundane things like dysentery because they don't have clean water, because people all over the world care too much about useless shit to do anything, myself included (yes I'm a hypocrite, deal with it), and because we'd all rather lay the blame than fix the problem.

    -Petty

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  3. Oh jeebus. I was not expecting college-asshole philosophy when you told me about the "offensive" post on here. That's partially my fault, because I misread your message as "Michael Jackson hijacked my blog," so I thought you were joking about the hijacking and you just wrote something ridiculous.
    However, it is quite humorous to see this post next to the pleasant ones about nail polish. :)

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  4. Anonymous - this is actually Faith. I basically agree with Michael's first paragraph, but maybe not in the same offensive way as him.
    Oh, and the other anonymous post is Michael being a retard.
    Candace - Oh, haha. I know, I thought it was funny too. :D

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