Living in a material world.

I was recently reading the blog of a famous musician, no names, but he ain't going to write any blogs for awhile...when I came across a link to his "girlfriend's blog. I thought I'd check it out and I was amazed to read this....

"We now have the following guests booked for Sunday Leeds Festival. EELS, THE FLAMING LIPS and ROSE HILL DRIVE. Its very exciting. Watched some of the footage that Justin has been shooting. It's really good. I've decided that when we have finished the guitar lottery, i am going to go to New Orleans myself and oversee some of the building work. I'm hoping that i might even be able to go there before, perhaps when we are touringthe States. i want to build a school with a large arts and musicdepartment. I'm hoping that we will be able to get sponsorship for the actual building work and labour, so that all the money raised can be used buying equipment for the school. So, onwards and upwards."

Now, I've got no problem with rich muso's playing charitable benefactors, No problems with them telling us what the lives of the rich and famous are like [Well, to be honest I do, especially when they try to preach or try to promote their vacuous opinions on the masses or even worse, their girlfrinds vacuous opinions.] I can just about tolerate it when rock star wants to become an actor, or a soap star wants to be in a boy-band. However, I do take great exception when they seem to think that they can do real jobs in real places dealing with real events.

To highlight my case in point consider the line taken from the above. "I AM going to New Orleans myself to OVERSEE some of the building work."

Excuse my language, but WHO the fuck does this woman think she is. She might be able to play a guitar or a piano, she might be able to satisfy her boyfriend enough to pay for her whims, she might be able to spend vast quantities of cash on clothes [and then resell them on E-bay....including a rabbit skin jacket..but don't tell Chrissie Hynde about that one], but I bet my bottom dollar that she cannot oversee building work.

Not only do I doubt that she has the British qualifications to do it, I am as sure as hell certain she doesn't posess the American ones.

What a pompous and arrogant woman. Her comment undermines the huge amount of hard, and largely unrecognised, work that is undertaken by ordinary people. No doubt when she goes out there, accompanied by a photographer, she'll be wearing a nice pair of Manola Blahnik shoes and a pretty [expensive]Prada outfit to go with her shiny designer hard hat with her name on it, just in case no-one knows who she is [not that would make any difference].

If she really wanted to help and do the people of New Orleans a favour she'd head in the opposite direction, go spend a lifetime on a beach somewhere away from the real world and real people, leave sorting messy stuff out to people who know how to do it. stick with what or more precisely "who" you know.

The reason why I get pissed over such things?

These people really are living in another world. They haven't had to work for their status, they think they can buy into things and then walk away anthinking that the world must pay them respect. Oh, and by the way, I'm a qualified Engineer, and I know what what it takes to do this sort of work. Go out and use your pretty little smile and posh frock to draw attention to the problem if you really have to, but don't think that you could oversee real work of any sort.

Pat K
June 2006. © Pat Kent 2006 – All rights reserved. Pat Kent exercises his right to be identified as the author.

Opening gambit....

Actually, it seems a bit weird doing this, My mate, Nix, and I were chatting about blogging and possibly setting up a weblog to question and challenge a few of the ludicrous things that happen in this world. Add to that the fact that I wanted some vehicle to display my artwork, both my own, adapted, as well as the original work I’ve collected by other artists over the years, and I sort of ended up with my own web site. But even having a diiray page on that didn't really address the blogging issue.

The entries in the website diary, are likely to be pretty varied and may seem more of a stream of unconsciousness rather than consciousness to many. They didn't tackle the stuff Nix and I

talked about over a pint or two in the Hare and Billet in Blackheath. On the website the entries veer off into the wild, wacky and sometimes contentious, but they don't appear challenging enough to me, hence this blog.

The inspiration behind doing this originally was Bono, or more precisely Bono’s hat. Is there anything more ludicrous in this world than a court case about a hat?......Probably......but it seemed more than ludicrous enough over a pint or two in the Hare & Billet to stimulate this. In reality it was my mate, Nix, who sort of threw down the gauntlet of getting the weblog up and running. I hope I can persuade him to put a few thoughts up on these pages as well; Also, I hope to get little Bro, Matt, and his mate Steve R to provide some input as well, I hope they will also see fit to want to post the odd thing as well.

Pat K

June 2006. © Pat Kent 2006 – All rights reserved. Pat Kent exercises his right to be identified as the author.