Home Truths

'Family life. Normal. Normal life. Family.' Am I the only one to think there's something shrill about this? That it's ideology? That it sticks in the craw when you know that the same individuals retailing it were, a couple of decades back, offering the world 'The Perfumed Garden' and 'Paranoid'? Sure, we all glide towards the slippered anodyne as we get older, but *fuck it*, some of you on this thread are young! Why are you justifying this crap?

'Normal life. Family life. Family life. Normal life. Shopping as patriotism. Social care farmed out to church groups. Shareholder value, advertiser approval. Family normality for the normal family.' Doesn't it make you want to scream?

When you put it THAT way, of course..........

Noone's saying they want to live a predetermined boring life. I don't think anything to do with a family is necessarily that. If you're criticising peoples tendency to paint those who don't go down the "family life" road as odd or not normal, then sure I agree with you. But that's not to say those who do are boring either.

Maybe "Children of the Grave" EARNED 'the Osbournes' the right to promote their model of reproduction etc? (Like "Ha ha Mom, remember those Sab records of mine you burned because you wanted me to follow the straight family path? Well, the people who MADE those records are now a family role model on TV! Ha ha ha, spend the rest of your days babbling about your lost utopia like Maggie T!") Even if that's the case, I doubt their TV show's influence will cork the Sab genie bottle. (There's no way it could, anyway - one problem I find with Momus' analysis is he conflates family hegemony with consumerism, when consumerism = ageism/destruction of all values that stand in the way of consumption/selling rope to hang oneself with etc. which is what's cool about rampant consumerism IMHO - except that the plebs spend their money on such SHIT! etc., which is the Great Unspoken as to why 'writers' waste so much goddamn time writing, trying to figure out why this is and hopelessly trying to change it, and not admitting to it of course)

hmm, everything is an advertisment - uor cothes, even our posts here are ads for a way of life, an ideology, a sexuality, not necessarily blatant ads, but certainly a recognition, even down to our email addresses...so there's no way out of that system, we are what we advertise, I guess...

But there are ways, I mean as a polynontheist, the only thing I have hope/faith for/in are people - they disappoint me a lot, but I'm sure others get pissed off when the gods don't give them what they want...but this is not a discussion about religion,, more about class...

Having been bron into the under-uber-class, moved within the uppers of argentine class, intellectually/artistically cocksucked my way into the middle class and then decided I liked it better where I satrted out, I have to say that at least us working class'ers are honest - we tell you straight up we think things are shit (btw momus - i don't include you in this category, and I actually value a fair bit of yr argument here) even when we move between cultures ie patti smith escpaed new jersey working class life went via rimbaud and then back to suburban motherhood...

I don't think there's anything particularly bad momus with you not seeking out steelworkers...there is something wrong with automatically dismissing them without knowing any of them, and broad generalisations and the such, but if you want to hang out with artists...well ok, cool...

Diversity is interesting, it's at times exciting, but it's also incredibly banal - I live in a multi-cultural block of lfats and all our shit stinks.

can you give an actual reason why your momus-style life is better than a stable middle-class family, considering only the absolute ideals of both? i mean it's such a meaningless cultural stereotype to fight, you're just playing the extreme taste of mountain dew to the boring b&w father knows best family, but even at the basics of that cliche (happy children, loving wife, church on sundays) can you explain why i would rather choose lawsuits for crap novelty songs and syphilis tests instead?

From the Peel webchat again: 'K B: John, do you think Radio 4 listeners have ever been put off by frequent references to your other (fabulous) radio shows?

John Peel: Well, I always hoped there'd be some kind of cross-fertilisation. I'd like people who listen to Radio 4 to listen to Radio 1 and vice versa. I don't think many do to be honest. The thing is, the Radio 1 programmes apparently have the highest number of listeners under 16, which is a source of great pleasure to me. If they start listening to Radio 4, that's good for Radio 4. We've always been told the average Radio 4 listener is about the age of 80.'

So some of those 80 year olds are tuning in to hear the Rechenzentrum session on Peel's Radio 1 show, then, after being drawn in by innocuous human interest stories on Home Truths? I think not. Rechenzentrum's world is full of the 'otherness' that Home Truths avoids like the plague.

Peel seems to be suggesting that, at around the age of 16, people might be interested in that otherness, but later they'll settle back into 'normality', which means reproducing themselves. So, in a life with seven decades in it, you might spend one decade toying with 'the extraordinary' (the world of art, of drugs, of dreams, 'perfumed garden'-style sex, lifestyle experiments) and the other six preoccupied with family matters, with repetition and reproduction and tradition. It's just a dismally conservative view of life.

"When airwaves swing, distant voices sing." Kraftwerk

momus you sound like daria for christ's sake.

No, Ethan, I really can't justify it with ref. to 'absolute principles'. They're my politics and my religion: creativity, art, sex, and experiment. They're what make me feel alive. Ask me again if I ever have kids.

for the sake of humanity i hope you don't!!

People seem to automatically give breeders a free pass, like they're heroic just for doing what insects do without thinking about, when in reality, most breeders, while being nice people and all, simply have no foresight, imagination, or will to resist stuff. That's OK, but when thy start to get militant about it that's when elitism becomes not only defensible but mandatory. They've already earned their place in society (unjustified IMHO), so slap 'em around all you want, without mercy. It won't kill them, just restore a bit of balance?

Momus I hear what you're saying; trust me. But a seven-decade life with one decade of toying with the "extrordinary" and the others filled with tradition and family matters may perhaps in one sense be conservative, but dismal? Surely your sense for the dramtic is overselling the point here. In the most broad terms, such a life could be spectacular and fulfilling. It could also be dismal, but it's what you full your life with that matters, not just the vague outline or arc that you're on. Repitition? Please, human life is full of repetition. Wanting to escape the mundane is understandable. But are you swinging too far in the other direction?

On another note (and somewhat playing devil's advocate), I'm sure you're finding Japan to be a country free of concerns such as family matters and tradition.

bach had about 10000 children...

No 'breeders' = no 'exceptions, freaks, visionaries, loonies'

But are you swinging too far in the other direction?

Because my contributions to this thread are so important, I'm asking readers to mentally delete this sentence from my post.

Momus - have you read "Revolutionary Road" by Richard Yates?

Momus YOU are the one who is listening to Radio Four = if you seek out middleclass conformism you will find it. Watch TV you ninny = it is mostly all about carcrashes and volcanoes and supermodels and serial murderers and little kittens dying or going into surgery. All families on all UK soaps are a dysfunctional disaster area hurrah.

Even if constant bashing of breeders was cranked up to a hysterical level (which it's NOWHERE NEAR on this board despite what some people appear to think and despite my best efforts), it doesn't change the fact that in mortgaging their ambitions and talents they're avoiding a collective lonely, squalid death as a pathetic 80-year-old faggot living in a public toilet, having had all the 'experiences' the world had to offer and nobody to listen to them recount them. Breeders are protected by their shrewdness/'cowardice', so all the slings and arrows directed at them are deflected by the mortality-reconciling- invisible-force-field.

dave q is getting broody!!

(also wasn't that the guy who tried to date ronan?)

Excellent point from Mark S. That British TV is now so thoroughly grotesque, crass, self-referential and completely offensive on every level should be paradise for fringe-art aficionados! JG Ballard's "People complain about sex and violence on TV, there's nowhere near enough to make it worth watching" - that was said in the 70s, and hopefully he's happy now - I sure am!

Oh fuck, a wake-up call? My distaste for using prophylactics must be abolished forthwith. Time to stand in front of the microwave on full power with my bollocks hanging out for an hour?

Being a breeder doesn't necessarily imply mortgaging your ambitions and talents,though, does it? And if the invisible force-field of family allows you to escape a miserable squalid death alone in a toilet etc., well that's pretty good, isn't it?

As a gay man, I guess I'm glad I'll live a life that is different than the oft-travelled path of eveyone else... but I also am somewhat envious of the time-tested charms of marriage, family, etc. I think the family is ideally the foundation for you to build on, not a stone around your neck. Of course, the outcome depends on the decisions you make and the attitude you have.

Wait, did I just pay lip service to the "gay lifestyle" there, albeit in passing? Let me collect my wits.

Of couse, being gay means I get to play with other guy's dicks, which I have to admit is pretty cool.

There's NO SUCH THING as normal

Suzy: But surely saying this is saying exactly the same as what I said. If everyone is different, then that is normal, isn't it? (Sorry to be so contrary about this but still...) And yes, I am happy with where I am now, because it has made me content instead of sitting around and being depressed with my lot, and because I believe I have the drive and conviction to do whatever I want with my life whilst operating within within 'average' parameters. If you see what I mean.

Why does the family unit = patriotic duty? Momus sounds like he'd be happier in a Brave New World where the family unit is obsolete, Mother is a dirty world and everyone indulges in elevated promiscuity orgy-porgy and all that. I don't want to hear about Bob's aching back but I don't really care that Bjork living in a tent either. She probably gets a bad back on occassion too. Is anyone going to give a fuck in 50, 100 years? For all the banal, reality-tv people shoved down your throats there is infinitely more crap on celebrities and "exceptionals". The problem is sorting the true exceptionals, a handful at best at any given time, from the hundreds of wannabe exceptionals.

All of this talk about family , where does those who cannot have children, what christ talked about "the eunuchs which have been born thus from [their] mother's womb; and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs of men; and there are eunuchs who have made eunuchs of themselves for the sake of the kingdom of the heavens. He that is able to receive [it], let him receive [it]. Mark 19" So how in your world momus do the eunuchs reject family and mantain he kingdom of the heavens (which i am assuming is crawling with breeders, think in metaphors)

suzy - i do not want to fite w/ you I'm sorry i was not nice to yr friend.

I have heard very few momus songs. I have only very recently heard of the guy. I was at the point where i was curious to see what he was about, so i downloaded TWO SONGS from YR OWN FUCKING WEBSITE for fucks sake. Also Anthony sent me one he wanted me to hear while this discussion was happening. I grew angry at the attitudes that were being presented and decided that I dont want to be supportive of someone who is blindly dismissive of people that are my friends and whom I love. Forgive me for having an emotional reaction. surely if you can dismiss the 95% as being useless, i can dismiss one little 'artist'

also I think that by removing themselves from contact with the general population and cultivating animosity, the intellectuals and artists are making the situation much worse. you have ended up preaching to the converted and give the stupidity gene which you fear much more evolutionary sway.

please nobody harp on the 95% comment, i do not offer it as a quote, it has just turned up a few times on this thread

Momus is a dork. Isn't that basically what this whole thread is about?

As mentioned above by Momus himself and Mark S, at least Momus has a view and is prepared to argue it out. (And in fact start a huge discussion on the topic which is always a good thing. Isn't it?)

i acknowledge and appreciate his willingness to stick around and talk directly to his detractors. May he also find the courage to deal face to face with the rest of humanity instead of hiding in the intelligentsia clubhouse playing with his glow-in-the-dark cultural decoder ring

taking sides: "glow-in-the-dark cultural decoder ring" vs "other men's dicks"

I didn't say that 95 per cent of people were useless. They are immensely useful in terms of generating tax revenue, supplying cannon fodder worldwide, eating their fill of shite food, adapting to arbitrary routines set for them by others, working for less money than they're worth, creating the mainstream, and pretty much accepting life as it is because they genuinely believe that's the way things are and they can do nothing to change it, or believe they have reached an acceptable level of mastery in the great master/slave hoedown that is global capitalism.

And every 25 years they do it all over again (20 in Appalachia and Rotherham).

the only thing really confusing about this thread is that momus and suzy actually seem disgustingly made for each other. (in a play-doh fun factory sort of way.)

I didn't say that 95 per cent of people were useless. They are immensely useful in terms of generating tax revenue, supplying cannon fodder worldwide, eating their fill of shite food, adapting to arbitrary routines set for them by others, working for less money than they're worth, creating the mainstream, and pretty much accepting life as it is because they genuinely believe that's the way things are and they can do nothing to change it, or believe they have reached an acceptable level of mastery in the great master/slave hoedown that is global capitalism.

'Cept buy copies of your novel. Which they apparently did not do...! Christ, this thread smells like ass.

Nor buy copies of Momus' albums. Which after getting a copy of Ping Pong in a Paris flea market, I can understand. Mass public = taste.

Momus, do you want to know why you are not famous? Read this thread again - you only connect with Hoxton types.

This thread is seriously bothering me. I have one question for Hitler's Youth (Momus and Susie) do you both honestly think that you are interesting or are you both just immensely self absorbed that it has become a psychiatric injury that neither of you notice any more?

I'm believing the later.

Assholes.

Momus - do you like Michel Houellebecq?

Momus - do you like Hitler?

[this thread gets better and better]

David, calling people assholes or Hitler Youth on, ooh, your third post to ILE is not only bad manners, it's intellectually very, very poor.

Last I checked, I hadn't published a novel for you to call a failure, or provided a surname here for your busy little fingers to google.

Did you learn to criticise Hoxton types from reading the NME or something? Are you nuanced enough to figure out that what I was saying about the vast majority of people was: unlike the people who run virtually everything they consume or take in, I don't hate their fucking guts? I just wonder why they don't demand better treatment generally and then take some decisive action to make it happen.

Hate to break it to you babe, but you and Momus are part of the 95 per cent. Cause Balzac or Edith Piaf either of you ain't.

And me?

I'm proud to be part of the 95% of the people that do the loving, the fucking, the working and the living in my town.

I want to start timing the gaps between the large fights on ILX, I think there's an exact science there somewhere.

Have we reached Godwin's Law yet?

David, hate to break it to you, but Nick and I are both better at loving, fucking, working and living than you will ever, ever be.

Mind, to make that claim isn't saying much.

Right. And you and Momus and so passionate that it took infinite patience to read the meinkepf manifesto above.

Momus? I'll give you twenty of my ordinary dollars for you to write a jungle jingle for the birth of my son next week. Come on. Twenty whole normal ordinary dollars or would you prefer to be paid in majick beans and Can albums?

if there is going to be a Top Fuckers throwdown we the judges are going to DETAILS!! And PICTURES!!¡¡!!

And Suzy Q, babe, the thought of you and Momus having sex and referencing your passion with Henry Miller quotes makes it seem...how shall we say? There is a market for everything and everyone. Fortunately I do not fall into that niche.

ENOUGH. Said the King to the Jester. NOW WE DANCE!