The Duke Arrives: Musings Regarding MySpace.com

Hey Kids,

The roster of guest columnists just keeps getting better and better. Over the last week or two I've introduced Mike Valdman aka The Sorest Loser. Look for new political ruminations of the sharpest and sorest sort over the weekend. Meanwhile, our own TSL will make his first appearance on Dumpster Bust Radio: Podcast #5 if things go according to schedule.

Greg Smyth has also joined the house party all the way over from the North of England and will be providing music reviews and commentary via his excellent Swing Batter Batter!

And now... I must introduce He Who Can Not Be Put Into Mere Words: Duke de Mondo. Better yet, you must read his words to get the full flavor. He comes to us via Northern Ireland and Mondo Irlando. He's a real Renaissance Man, the Duke, waxing poetic and prophetic and excellently profane (DB Note: profanity be laying ahead, folks, so put thou children under cover and ear muffery) on such topics as music, film, the bitchery of love, and always always always: Kirsten Dunst, who we must refer to as Her and She.

He's also a damned fine singer-songwriter in his own right and the man behind The Mondo Podcast Thing. It's reason alone to get up on the podcast revolution, my friends.

Without further adieu, I give you The Duke... Enjoy!

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The other day I was flicking through the NME [New Musical Express, UK-based mag], as is my wont of a Thursday afternoon, alternating between being enraged by a remarkably stupid article concerning university education, and being enraged by a review of Ryan Adams that refers to our man as “Dad Rock” etc etc.

If it’s a choice between the monotonous, crushingly dull bollocks spat onto vinyl by your Coldplays or your Athletes, or the whiskey-drenched whoring and drugging and reminiscing of Mr Adams and his “Dad Rock”, then I guess it’s the crack-pipe and slippers for Yours Truly.

Which is all part of the fun of NME, of course. The fuck wants to agree with these sonsa bitches? Unless I throw my copy down in disgust at least four times per page then I’m pissed as a motherfucker hell bent on vengeance, let The Duke state for the vinyl.

On my second EP, there was even almost a song called I Wanna Be On The Cover Of The NME, but then what happened was it fucking sucked.

It might show up on my work-in-progress compilation of Stuff Fit For Nothin.

Anyway, what I stumbled across during this particular trawl through the waters of The New Musical Express, was an article all about this Myspace.com malarkey that everyone’s banging on about. It’s a kind of a cross between Friendster and Friends Reunited, except it’s also got blog tools for a fella to molest, and there’s a fair dose of the old Am I Hot Or Not type shenanigans. Best of all, it’s free, and there are all sortsa things for to keep a fella entertained, like the ability to upload MP3’s and so on for a whole new audience to ignore.

Apparently folks all over the global earth are jumping at the chance for to upload photos of themselves and wax a little about this is what I like / dislike, and maybe even blog now and again. Turns out, though, that it’s not only us normal folks that are doing this kinda shit, but celebrity types too, folks like your Brody Dalle from The Distillers or Andrew W.K or Har Mar Motherfucking Superstar.

So what you do is you set up your own profile thing with your blog and your photos and the like, and then you go about browsing through pages and pages and pages and pages of tiny little photos of other folks, and maybe some of them you invite for to be your “friend”. Before you know it, there’s a whole motherfucking network built up, a whole host of tiny little photos that represent a fellas friends, and so all the more people end up finding your slab of myspace, and ignoring it, or clicking on “Add To Friends” and then never ever communicating with you ever again.

So I signed the fuck up and next thing you know, there’s The Duke, typing names into the “browse” box for to see if anyone I know, or at least know of, is also involved in this whole shebang. I ain’t gonna tell you what name I tried first, but I figure maybe some of you folks who pay close attention to this bullshit maybe figured that one out a couple articles ago.

And yeah, I asked if I could be Her friend.

And no, I ain’t go no reply as of yet.

Thing is, there’s a lot of impostors on there. Yeah, you’ll find the real Brody Dalle and Andrew W.K and Har Mar Superstar, but there’s also a handful of folks all claiming to be Johnny Depp or Sarah Michelle Gellar, for example. Chances are, not one of those motherfuckers is Sarah Michelle Gellar, even though some of them have done their homework, and litter their profiles with apparently obscure asides. In addition, there’s all sorts of pages constructed by P.R folks, like the one for Billy Corgan from out of that band back in the day. Mudhoney or whoever.

Probably the real-life Paris Hilton is on there, though. I don’t know, I didn’t look.

The first thing I gotta tell you, man, is that the whole myspace adventure proved to be an intensely depressing experience. A man just can’t cope with the level of self-obsession and vanity required for to keep things afloat on there. A man needs to act like a rentboy stood on a crowded street attempting to convince some business-type cat that yeah, my arse is the one to go for, I’d wager, if he hopes to survive for a motherfucking second in the cut-throat world of rankings and kudos and what have you.

On one hand, it’s all too personal, and on the other hand, it's disturbingly distant. You clock up all these friend types, some folks have thousands of the fuckers, and yet what does it amount to? A couple comments about wow, that photo is sexy as all bejeesus, what I wanna do is maybe cream on your face on account of the sexiness of it all. A man’s insignificance is thrust into his trembling yap at every turn. You’re a statistic is all you are, another “friend” on a list filled with page upon page of “friends”.

Who would choose you, with your whining and self-deprecating “humour”, when look here, a thousand jock types with muscles and nudity. There’s even at least one fella with a close up photo of his arse-hole, wide as the day is long.

Let me tell you this for nothin’, if I saw My Profile, the last thing I’d do is add me to my friends list. Look at that shit, would you ever. A posing photo (it was for a CD demo I sent off to a few folks a while back), a blurb all “About Me”, filled with horrific waxing and links to songs from off of my EP’s, a thing about what music / books / films I enjoy, what the fuck? It’s just wretched is what it is.

But then the upside.

Take a look at that friends list right there, underneath the waxing and the promoting and “me me me me me”. For sure, there’s only seven of them, but I think I’d be happy with that seven right there, let me state in no uncertain terms. Mind you, I’d be happier if I could say “What about maybe we go grab a coffee or go check out that Amityville remake. For sure, it’ll be no Amityville II – The Possession, but it might be alright.”

Instead, what a fella needs to do is maybe leave a comment or send a tiny email or something along those lines. Fuck the tiny email, I wanna go grab a coffee with you.

Also, that tiny email is competing with thousands of similar emails, and loads of them are gonna be about “My god you are so HOTTT”, and then when they get The Duke’s shrug and “You're really rather fantastic”, they’re gonna think, fuck that. He didn’t even once say he wants to crack one off over my photo, not like these other folks.

But then conversations do on occasion crop up, thanks to the old IM and so on, and it pleases me no end that I’m just as crap when it comes to the virtual conversing as I am when it's the verbal, real-life sort.

After a couple embarrassing attempts at having a yack with folks I never in my life have met, I decided something along the lines of fuck it, and then next thing I know a fine lady by the name of Jennifer catches me unawares and it’s 4.30 in the AM before a fella knows what’s going on.

Jennifer proves to be wonderful, and shares my disdain at the types a sentiments dripping from myspace. Apparently, one fella commented on a lasses photo with the following awe-inspiring come-on;

“Were you born a maggot cause you are FLY”

For fucks sakes.

How can a man compete in this world of maggot talk?

However, the Jennifer Yack convinced me that not everyone on here fits within the stereotype I had constructed within five minutes of hitting “Sign Me Up, Motherfucker” or similar.

In fact, this very eve I had a pleasing discussion with a young Irish lady by the name of Sinead. I’ve had much worse discussions is what I’ll say, coyly. Not many better, mind you, I'll also hint.

So what I find is that all a damn sudden a fella’s addicted to the whole get-up, checking the inbox for to see if maybe some of those folks who don’t live too far away, certainly no further than a three-hour train journey, might wanna go grab a coffee or see Amityville.

Folks like our Sinead, who you may remember from a couple sentences ago. I have no end of praise for Sinead. If maybe you were thinking of setting up an account since look, NME said Har Mar Superstar is on there, you can be content in the knowledge that there are also folks like Sinead, probably 97% better than Har Mar.

She turned out to be great, as a matter of fact, more than great, wonderful, and yet a man still has to jump onboard the “me me me” train for to even consider hitting the old Instant Message box thing.

Turned out to be worthwhile, though. Virtual conversation with Sinead was a world away from the virtual stammering and making jokes and then apologising that went on with reams of folks in the pre-Sinead world. I still did that, but turned out not to be that horrible a thing.

I just get intimidated by the fact that you need to get your entire personality across in a couple typed sentences, and how fucking depressing if you succeed? I prefer to sit and maybe pass awkward glances across a table for a week or two before I even think about speaking. I wanna have innumerable fantasy situations concocted, a whole lifetime spent cavorting with this individual, filthing and singing and discussing Kirsten Dunst and Pasolini. I wanna have twenty-five songs written about them before I can even bring myself to say hello.

It’s all fucked up is what it is.

So what the hell. I think we should grab a coffee and see the new Amityville. It's even got her outta Home And Away doing the Lois Lane bit.

Thanks folks.

DB Note: You can find The Duke lurking at Mondo Irlando. And for all of those anxiously awaiting the weekly installment of Cathode Ray Fray, the weekly dose of TV banter and review, it's coming soon, my sweet minions.