The 100 million view curse.

100 million is a huge number. One couldn't possibly imagine 100 million people. It's more than the population of the UK, and we are packed in pretty tight here. Due to the ever increasing popularity of the internet, I've started seeing this number pop up on hit counters, particularly Youtube with its unfathomably large userbase. I have however noticed one thing in common with all the videos that have smashed the 100 million mark on Youtube - THEY ARE ALL FUCKING ATROCIOUS!. I don't just mean they are middle of the road, predictable, fashionable tat that comes and goes and doesn't really offer anything but cleverly marketed drivvel; I mean they are so nauseatingly, fantastically dire that just thinking about them evokes feelings of cold, empty, alienated depression akin to the feeling of losing a close friend to a terminal illness. If I were better with words, I could spend a lifetime describing the feeling I get when I see twice the population of the UK flock to something like this:

It really just makes me want to cry. Some people cry for the victims of earthquakes and tsunamis. I cry for the people who don't have the brainpower to see what is wrong with this. I cry for the artists, musicians and film makers who spend their lives barely getting noticed and I cry for the creators of this, who clearly have been possessed by the devil of shamelessness, fingered by the troll of desperation and dry fisted by the god of terrible ideas.

Someone has been able to quit their job on the strength of this shitstream of cunting abortion bile. Just consider that, the next time you're at your desk typing invoice numbers into a 15 year old computer, sat on a chair that served you up a fresh cocktail of IBS and piles, cold-calling helpless old ladies that don't even understand what your company sells, knowing that sneering twat of a boss is monitoring your calls so you can't even be honest and tell them it's a fucking scam. Just remember that one afternoon, some absolute twat with the most basic knowledge of animation and music thought they'd put together a video of farting babies singing in a bath, and was able to live comfortably without working. I'm not joking. 1 million hits with an ad can earn you a few grand, so 200 million hits with an ad and iTunes sales is going to set you on a merry journey to coinland. People get angry at Justin Bieber for being richer than they ever will be at 15 or however fucking old he is, well he's probably been doing that since the age of 2, pushed and pushed by a forceful dictator of a parent, and as a result has missed a proper childhood and will end up like Michael Jackson, a dead old weirdo. So forget him.

I've realised that the only other videos that I can find with over 100 million views are Bieber and that stupid Friday song (that was purposely made terrible to get people talking). So this post has petered out. I can't actually decide whether people really do have absolutely no taste and no idea how to spot when something is terrible, or it's just that a new level of terribleness has been invented (like post-terrible or terriblecore) and we're all just curious to find out how bad it could be. And it obviously works: Go Compare, Crazy Frog, Cillit Bang --all purposely marketed in the most horrifically awful way so that people would talk about them. There are laws and restrictions for use of explicit language, nudity and violence because some people get offended, how is this any different?

Edit: Here are some music videos that have smashed that 100 million boundary. Beiber has one at 0.6 BILLION hits, but I shan't post it. He doesn't even exist. Instead here are 3 song that sum up our generation of music buyers.







If anyone at any point in the future dares to look back at today's popular music scene with an appreciative nostalgic eye then I can't bare to imagine what new depths of shite we're heading for. I think we're due a music revolution, one without any money attached to it.

Dr. Firth Lost Blog

The BBC asked me to write some blogs to accompany Jerry Jackson's cartoons a while ago. They didn't really specify what they wanted, so I made up some nonsense in the style of a newspaper style help column. I delivered this last one a little late and they didn't get round to publishing it. So here it is.

QUITTERS, THINGS AND THE QUITTING OF THINGS.

Don't burn your fanny on a candle, it's Dr. Firth with some wise shapes.

Letter from Walter Ribbon:

Last year I quit my life due to a financial misunderstanding and I've been regretting it ever since. Give me second chance Doc!

If we could project our regrets, then the majority of life would be dull and quite withdrawn, wouldn't you agree Walter? I once sodomized a knackered bulldog, and I still feel pretty bad about it. He was absolutely helpless and I took advantage, but I don't regret one second of it. I wouldn't do it again, but if I went back in time I wouldn't NOT do it again either. The reason being is that, on my way to the police station, following the supposedly illegal buggery, I found sixty pence and a soggy box of cigarettes that someone must have dropped. They dried out fine, and the money came in useful. I wouldn't have happened upon this fortunate care package of delights if it weren't for my brazen, sinful bestiality. But back to your problem. No, I cannot bring you back to life.

Dean in La Rochelle says: I recently quit smoking, but then quit quitting, which didn't last for long and now I'm thinking of changing my mind again.

Letter from Curly Sue:

I'm a huge success. I'm a big champ and I'm on top of the world. Should I quit while I'm ahead, or should I have quit just before I was ahead? I mean I probably could be further ahead, but feel I may slip down to slightly less ahead, but still considerably ahead if my recent form were to continue. What I mean to say is: "When is the right time to quit?"

Well Curly, there is a time and a place for everything, but also a time and a place for nothing. The remaining times and places are generally for something, but exceptions can be made. Having said all that, if you don't quit before it's too late, you could end up impotent, with the face of a tobacco chewing, weather-beaten fishing enthusiast. It depends what you're after in life.

Mason Critch says: I once said the word "quit" repeatedly until it lost all meaning. I was worried that it would last forever, but it didn't.

Letter from Shaggy:

Is age just a number? I heard that it's also a sound and a smell.

You're an idiot. You really don't qualify to see my response. Stop reading now. Everyone else can continue. The answer is yes. Age is just a number. That is the excuse you're supposed to use in court. "She said she was 17 and I am very gullible". Putting yourself down is good for pity. Age is definitely just a number, but a massively important one for some record holders, myself included. For you see, I was once the youngest person in the world, but my record didn't last long enough for me to cash in. I was beaten 4.2 seconds later by a young chap in Ecuador. He didn't grow up to be a famous doctor though, he actually just died in a war or something along with his ugly brothers.

Thanks for the memories. That's enough work for now.

Leprechaun Toybox

Here's a tiny little Irish man dancing to Locust Toybox:



Credit goes to Morgan Stack

Birdphex Twin

Birds tweet beautiful melodies, but they sing them too fast for us to hear properly. I slowed down some audio of birds tweeting that I accidentally recorded in my back garden to discover a lovely, simple, catchy melody hidden within. I don't know what type of bird it was, but it was singing the same melody over and over again, altering the pattern slightly each time. I slowed it down even further to find a haunting ambient drone. Whilst it is true that you can slow down almost any sound to get a haunting ambient soundscape, there is no denying the melody, that sounds almost too familiar, too coherent to be coming from a bird.

Radio Shit

Hey whore-O. How are you doing? Sometimes I forget you exist. You seem to serve as an outlet for stuff that isn't important. I like to separate my stuff into different outlet streams based on how important they are. In an ideal world I would post everything I do on the front page of fat-pie, I would be honest about exactly what I was up to and therefore be able to update all the time. But I feel this bullshit kind of pressure, like I need to live up to something, like I can't post something that isn't really that impressive.....and so we have Whore-O.

Today's Whore-O is about some radio bits. I have been filling some tiny little slots (15 minutes) on Ant and Jim's DOPPLER EFFECT: a show on Doncaster local radio. The first two shows are just like mixtapes really; a bunch of songs I chose, some strange sounds and a little bit of talking.

#1 - Psychedelic/Lo-fi/Fuzzy
#2 - Punk/New wave/Indie

The shows after this have been as WallerFM's GRAHAM and TERRY, a parody of local radio DJs.

#3 - Graham and Terry "Thanks"
#4 - Graham and Terry "Dry Mouth"
#5 - Graham and Terry "Crisps"

There will be a few more Graham and Terry episodes then it will go back to just me, as Crust is currently exploring the far east. You can listen to these each week live on the SineFM website no matter country you live in. Doppler Effect is on Thursdays at 10pm-midnight. Our bits are usually about 25 minutes in, but you should listen to the whole thing because it's a damn good show.