Tuesday, December 31, 2002 :::
2002.....That was fun, let's do it again.
Thank you to everyone who visited Nosebleed this past year. It is consistenly the most visited portion of my website. Now, if I could only figure out a way to post to it more often. I will strive for about 5 new posts in January and maybe set a goal for myself of a minimum of 5 posts a month. As I draw closer to the completion of my first novel much of my time and mental enegry is spent second guessing myself and trying to convince myself I am not the worst writer to ever try to tell a story.
I appreaciate everyone's e-mail and support.
::: posted by Mike at 11:38 AM
Wednesday, December 11, 2002 :::
The Hell-life of a Hanger-On
For as long as I can remember there have been hangers-on. We had them in Kindergarten. We had them in elementary school. In fact, we had them in every grade of my publicly funded education. They were props. They had no meaningful input. They were moths on the lights of the action, whatever that action maybe. These people were never a part of the social equation in that they never added or subtracted to the end result. In the final analysis, they were limelight fodder like those idiots who sit behind home plate during the World Series on their cell phones trying to “be seen” by the knucklehead on the other end of the phone. They have no bearing on the pitch type, pitch speed, angle of degradation, odds of the ball getting hit, and the result of the hit or miss. They are simply just in the background.
As I got older I realized that the Hanger-on is as much a part of society as Starbucks and the Religious Right. There is no escaping them. You show me some video footage of something that is barely newsworthy and I’ll show you people milling around in the background that have no substantive input to the scene. It is almost that the Hanger-on is a culture in and of itself.
Case in point: the Rap video. Go ahead and spend a few minutes watching a channel that plays music videos. Doesn’t even have to be Rap, per se, it could be anything termed as either Urban or Hip Hop or Urban Hip Hop. The prevailing characteristic you will notice is the abundance of total random people just standing around trying to be seen by the camera. No matter what the situation (pool parties are popular as are club scenes) there always seems to be a massive population of folks just standing around. Who are these fucking people? Do they have jobs? Did they produce this song or arrange it? Maybe they are part of the team that helps the head rap dude pick out which oversized basketball jersey he is going to wear that day or which yesterday song they are going to totally rip off and rap over? But it seems to me that there is no way that one rap or hip hop act can gainfully employ that many people.
Ok, I am bored talking about this. You get the point. Don’t do Drugs. Stay in School. Hangers-on are destined for a moment in life when they take stock, evaluate what they have contributed to the world, and realize all they have to show for their years on the planet was .58 seconds of half their face appearing on a Snoop Dogg video.
::: posted by Mike at 3:18 PM
