legitimacy

the real bb

I brought my camera with me to uni last Friday to do a real quick photoshoot (inside a furniture store) with Bacon for the MDIA1002 article that I posted a few days ago, but unfortunately I took it out during a wedge break at the Q-lounge and we thought it'd be sick to take a bunch of happy snaps and I ended up running out of battery. If I end up losing marks for having a balls photo, this is probably the reason why. Ta-da!

PRIME CUTS: LINGUISTICS

Everyone always kids around about how Arts degrees are full of shit and won't get you anywhere. Just in case this already-overplayed joke (half not joke) needs any more perpetuating, here's some stuff I did for linguistics homework the other week - question 8 specifically. For anyone who can't be bothered really trying to figure what this means, what it very simply means is:

'HERE'S A GROUP OF WORDS. STATE WHAT THEY HAVE IN COMMON.

eg. Widow, Mother, Mother, Sister, Aunt, Maid are all FEMALE.'

Wait, but like, Genvin, isn't that literally very close to what Year 1 children do in class? Yes, pretty much. Prospects.

SWAG

How extremely complementary to Vegan Black Metal Chef.

www.stephen.com

In our modern digital era, phrases like 'upcoming, hot new talent' really get thrown around a lot. Every artist and his mum is the hot new upstart, supposedly fast on the rise to widespread recognition. However, a problem lays in the fact that however talented any hot new talent is, much of this is just rhetorical, puffed up hyping. The majority of the artists that were being lauded as the saviours of [x] genre, or [y] scene merely a year ago have since faded back into a sort of obscure, grey status, once again becoming just another local band backed only by their tight, devoted, almost cult following. It is because of this sort of 'overexposing' of supposed innovation and talent that the concept of the magnitude of real talent has since been largely diminished.

It is with this mindset that we welcome innovators such as Stephen Pham.

Responsible for this very blog's own new header [The Angel Fallen From Hell, 2011], Stephen something I don't know, I have uni work to do.

This is a pretty decent representation (loosely) of my web design lecturer, who, incidentally, is also named Stephen. I showed this to my sister and she said it looked terrifying because of his cold serial killer face.

... Stephen can be reached via his tumblr. [click]

fur

Don't know if I ever posted this, so here it is just in case - my major work for Extension 2, which is about a woman who breaks out of her shitty grey office life with the aid of a talking cat. In theory I should love it, but I had a go at reading it again a few months after I finished writing it, and got bored halfway through and didn't bother reading the rest. You probably won't either. Click the image to download.

The Night Shift.

[Here is some subpar shit I wrote about Bacon for my Media Industry Contexts course feat. a very grainy photo of Bacon swagging it out in a furniture store. Unfortunately I got self-conscious after I looked at some of the submissions from other people and their photos were actually real good, and so since I didn't have time to sus a new photoshoot, I took photos of Genny instead and changed up the article to suit. Sorry Jacopo. You can view what I finally submitted here. Here's the article.]

The Night Shift.

Most university students might count themselves lucky if they manage a few decent hours of sleep every night, but they probably haven’t met Jake Bacon. Literally not sleeping at all on most nights, it’s a rare occasion if he even manages a few hours of sleep per week. Ridiculous studyload? Not quite – Jake is an insomniac.

Though seemingly a vastly exhausting condition, Jake insists that it’s not as draining as it seems.

“I do get a little bit tired, but it gets to this stage where you just get used to it,” he explains. “I can sometimes drift off for a few hours if I’ve had a huge day, but when I wake up, I end up feeling more tired than when I don’t sleep at all.”

Typically spending most nights with a bass guitar, laptop and recording microphone, Jake hones and develops extended, complex pieces of music while the rest of the world sleeps. His dark, brooding compositions are reflective of the otherwise silent midnight setting he crafts them in. He has written over two hundred.

“I can’t really make anything too loud, or it’ll wake people up,” he says.

His insomnia, however, is only one part of his wider condition – Jake suffers from Tourette’s Syndrome, a disorder causing frequent involuntary body twitches and spasms, or ‘tics,’ as they are more properly known. It was these tics, he reveals, that originally sparked his passion for creating music.

“A lot of people with Tourette’s turn to music to help them deal with it - the tics don’t come as often when you’re concentrating on something, so I decided to buy a bass guitar one day, and haven’t looked back since.”

His tics, though, have not always been so productively dealt with. Describing them as a source of embarrassment and shame in his younger years, Jake initially battled self esteem issues as he struggled to manage his twitches in social situations.

“It massively affected my confidence for ages… I had trouble looking people in the eye because I thought it would hide my tics,” he remembers. “I had trouble meeting new people and was really introverted.”

A considerable portion of his embarrassment, he explains, stemmed from the social stigma normally associated with the disorder.

“It’s a really negative stereotype. People associate it with swearing and yelling, and something to be ridiculed,” he says, then adds with a tired smile, “Especially if they’ve watched that South Park episode about it.”

Despite this, Jake has gradually grown to embrace his disorder as just another part of his identity, and accordingly, has found a much stronger sense of self confidence. This change, he says, was one that was strongly encouraged by the unwavering support of his close family and friends.

“My family and friends have always been fantastic about it, even though I can be annoying to sit around and watch TV with – I’m always moving around in the corner of everyone’s eyes,” he says. “I even feel comfortable enough to make jokes about it sometimes.”

Jake now finds himself largely grateful for his condition, something most would consider an enormous burden – not only for the important lessons it has taught him about self-acceptance, but for the enormous impact it has had on his passion for creating music.

“I’ve even started to show people some of the songs I’ve written, and they’ve actually really enjoyed them!” he says enthusiastically. “I guess I have my Tourette’s to thank for that, for sparking my love for music and creative expression. I’m actually glad for it.”