"Do not attempt to change the past, but instead seek to change the future."

Merry Christmas one and all! It has been two days since Christmas Day has passed! The New Years is in sight! 2011 is closely approaching! This blog post isn't really gonna be that much of a personal post as I don't really wanna bore you with the details on Christmas Day and also I wanna save all the personal posts at least for the New Year. So instead view this post as a more philosophical post in light of the coming New Year.

The quote in the title is the main topic I want to discuss in this post. It's a pretty straightforward quote. What the author was trying to say is that instead of looking at the past and trying to change it, focus on your future and try to make sure that it doesn't become similar to your past. It brings about a few good questions; If someone changed their past, is it a good thing? Can focusing on the future impede someone's ability to stay in the present? Could someone's influences in the past affect the outcome of their future? All these questions would be hard to answer as there are hundreds, if not thousands of possible answers to each one. And on top of that everyone's experiences in the past are completely different; no single event can be exactly the same. With New Years looming, my thoughts have turned to the year that has been 2010, and subsequently the quote brought about in the title. Has is been a good or bad year for myself? Have I gained or lost anything this year? Have I gained anything from experiences that have occurred to me this year? Can I learn from any mistakes this year or will they happen again in 2011? (These questions being the key reason why this blog is quite philosophical and wordy). I can't properly answer these questions as we would probably both be here for a while (you, who's reading the post, and me, who's writing the bastard thing), however I will try to summarise my 2010 for you now. It has had its ups and downs. I gained someone this year who I cared about very much. Then as quickly as they came into my life, they left never to return back into my life. I didn't do as well in my exams as I would have hoped, but I got into university. I've lost many friends who meant a lot to me, but in the process I made many great new ones (both at home and at university). And most significantly in my life, my emotions got the better of me to the point that they hindered my life. I can safely say that I have gained most of my control over these emotions back and I am (partially) back to my old self. I can't really think of anything else without sounding more personal or by writing too much more. So I shall end this section by saying: 2010 has taught me a lot of things:

• How important to me family and friends are.
• How to keep myself in control of my emotions.
• More about myself as a person. And most importantly: the errors that bring pain and sadness to my life.

Its with these things that I go into 2011 hoping to attempt to try and better myself and become a better person than I have been this previous year. So as the quote states, I will start to "seek to change the future".

I hope that whole thing made some sense to someone out there. I kinda kept writing and didn't stop to check or anything. So there may be mistakes and sentences that don't make sense but hey, just go with the flow.

I'm gonna finish this bog post not with a recommendation as I normally do. But rather I will leave you with two bands that have shaped me into the person I am now. Those two bands being Nirvana and The Doors. This year saw me grow to love this bands who shaped their respective genres of rock and the generation that experienced them. Nirvana I have grown to love not only because of their great music but also because how I have come to see Kurt Cobain as one of my heroes. As he experienced things similar to me in his childhood, I feel I can relate somewhat to Cobain. As quoted in one of my previous posts, Cobain said "Thank you for the tragedy. I need it for my art." This for me sums up Cobain. He used the tragedies and experiences of his past childhood and used them to write some of the great songs that Nirvana performed. The Doors has been a very recent love of mine. I didn't start listening to The Doors properly till I got to university and as soon I listened I realised their brilliance as a band. The Doors fused different types of genres such as soul, funk, jazz, blues, country and western, rock, psychedelic rock and in some cases swing, to create a truly unique sound for their time. With Jim Morrison's smooth yet savage voice leading the way, The Doors (alongside Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Deep Purple and Cream) shaped rock history forever and became one of the great classical rock bands of the 60s.

That's it for the blog post this week. Next one will be next week and in the New Year. So I'll leave you with the brilliant Touch Me by The Doors and the incredibly beautiful Come As You Are (Unplugged) by Nirvana. Enjoy.

Touch Me:


Come As You Are (Unplugged):


So till next Monday and next year. Hope you all have a top week. Stay safe. And I'll see you all in a week.
Much love and have a Happy New Year!
E.
x

"Think from outside the box, collapse the box and take a fucking knife to it."

Fuck me! It's been a long time since I've written one of these! Well as you can very well see, it is one of my blogs. It's coming up to almost over 3 months since I wrote my last blog. It seems like a lifetime ago now. I will make an effort to try and carry on writing these...promise :)
The reason for the sudden end to my blogs. Honest answer: I've been a very busy person. Between going into Uni, doing essays, going out on the toon, lazing about the flat and sleep, I haven't ever really enough time to sit down and write one of these blogs, well I say I haven't but I just can't think of: A. a reasonable excuse, and B. a believable one. But I have recently been rereading previous blog posts and I'd thought I'd give the whole thing another shot.


Little explanation about the quote. It's a quote by Banksy, the elusive and brilliant street artist, whose artwork for the past couple of months has fascinated me. Quote basically sums how I feel about my thought processes and the such. And I thought I'd pass it on to anyone who was interested. Don't have a clue what I'm on about? Well to be honest neither do I but I'll try and explain what I think I'm on about...if that makes sense. Basically when we think about things whether it be the past, present, future, work, friends, family, etc. we shouldn't have to think about it in a linear way, i.e. I did this mistake in the past and this then horrible thing happened. In this analogy your thoughts are the box, and so you must do as Banksy says: "Think from outside the box, collapse the box and take a fucking knife to it." In other words, all those linear thoughts, and I'm mainly aiming at the negative ones, take that knife and stick it to them. What I'm trying to say is: think more positively, don't let the negative linear thoughts take control of you and pull you down. Instead get rid of them and start to think much more positively.


Dunno if any of that actually made a whole lot of sense. It probably didn't. I'm pretty sure it did. Do you? Anyone?


So how have I been since the last blog? In a nutshell, pretty awesome. Uni's going great; going out plenty of nights, getting plenty of sleep, going to gigs every so often (saw Alexisonfire back in November, fucking outstanding performance and such a great night), getting work done (makes a change), met some more fucking awesome people who I'm glad I'm friends with, sorted out who I'm living with next year just need to start viewing houses now and I'm generally having a fucking awesome time. I'm currently back at home for Christmas. It's both nice and weird at the same time. Been living pretty much next door to city centre for the past 3 months, now I'm a good 40 minute drive to town. Feels proper weird. On top of that I'm not used to the house, feels like I haven't lived here for years. Couldn't remember where half the stuff I've needed today was kept. There are many things, however that I am looking forward to. Seeing all my friends being jointly at the top. Can't wait to just spend time with them all. Catch up on everything I've missed for the past couple of months and generally just have a great time with them all. The other thing jointly at the top is spending time with my family. As we all know Christmas is fast approaching and I don't know about all of you but my favourite part is the whole family sitting down for Christmas dinner. I always love it, every year. The whole of my close family, together, once every year. It's truly a wonderful moment. Other things that I'm looking forward to are catching up on most of my sleep, sorting out my room and just generally being back at home. It's the first time I've been home in such a long time. To simply put it: It's good to be home.


For the recommendations this time around I'm gonna recommend the songs Straight Up & Down by The Brian Jonestown Massacre from the album Take It From the Man and the brilliant Someday by The Strokes from the fantastic album Is This It. I'm also gonna be recommending the brilliant TV series Robot Chicken.


I first heard Straight Up & Down on the opening for a TV series called Boardwalk Empire (which I will most likely review in a future blog). My first thoughts were that the song was brilliant. And it truly is a brilliant song. The song is a wonderful reminder of all the brilliant bands and their songs of the 60s and 70s, the pinnacle of Rock, but it still manages to keep itself firmly based in the 90s scene. I've picked two versions: the first being the normal version of the song. The second version is the extended version of the song and the reason why I have included that is because not only is such a brilliant song but it is also a homage to the great bands of the 60s and the 70s such as The Rolling Stones and The Beatles; at some points the lead singer sounds almost like Mick Jagger and on top of that they include the famous "ooo ooo"'s from the Sympathy of the Devil  and the infamous "nananana"s from Hey Jude into the very end of the song. It really really is such an absolutely brilliant song and I hope you all love it as much as I do. I've picked Someday by The Strokes because recently I've been listening to them so much. They truly are one of the great bands in recent times and this song for me is my favourite and, I think, possibly one of their best. It's off their first album Is This It which is just a masterpiece. Don't really have much else to say about it other than: listen to it and enjoy. The TV series that I want to recommend to you is Robot Chicken. I can't really describe it other than it is a series of 11 minutes sketches and that it is fucking hilarious. I can't really do it any justice so I'll leave you with two clips.


Well that's it for the blog this week. Next blog post will probably be next Monday. Thinking of keeping it as a strictly once a week kinda thing, makes it easier for me to actually get one o these done. So I'll leave you with the videos for Straight Up & Down (Normal & Extended versions) by The Brian Jonestown Massacre, Someday by The Strokes, and Little Hitler and E.T. The Retard from Robot Chicken. Enjoy.


Straight Up & Down (Normal):



Straight Up & Down (Extended):



Someday:



Robot Chicken - Little Hitler:



Robot Chicken - E.T. The Retard:



So till next Monday. I hope you all have a great week. Stay safe. And I'll be back in a week's time.
Much love and have Merry Christmas.
E.
x


P.S. Sorry for the essay. It really has been some time.