Six friends 'liked' the Rolling Stones?!

I noticed that six friends had 'liked' The Rolling Stones! Time for some defriending on Facebook I (sort of) joked as an update.

One of those 'likes' came from a twenty-two year old fer Christ's sake! She can't ever have known anything but the current embarrassing granddads.

Why do you dislike the Stones? she asked. Is the hatred that profound?

Well, actually in a weird way, I discovered when I thought about it, it actually is. My answer was pretty lame, and fails to explore the surprising depths of my disdain.

So how to explain a dislike for this mediocre pub rock band, when I thought I was merrily indifferent to them. I should have hidden behind a lame, each to their own.

What do Moby and the Stones have in common? I asked back.

Knocking other people's genius and passing it off as your own is absolutely different, imho, to developing on from some creative spark and according the original some respect, development and creativity.

Bad haircuts, she quipped. So I took the rant for a walk.

They were always a shit band, Jagger a vain, talentless tosser, and then they carry on churning out the same empty shit for how many decades? Cock-rock at its worst. I could go on. Compare them to contemporaries like Hendrix or the Beatles or Bowie or The Kinks or even The Doors, who all tried to develop or push the boundaries in some way. Or, if you want rock, try the Stooges or Led Zeplin or The Who. It doesn't help that back in the day Stones' fans were always morons, only one step ahead of Status Quo.

Which also doesn't capture it. I feel I've failed in my anti-Stones duty. Perhaps someone else can explain?

I write like

Apparently, wait for it...

I write like
David Foster Wallace

I Write Like by Mémoires, journal software. Analyze your writing!

So now you and I know. Is that a good thing? I suspect it's because the text I used (the only thing I had to had) is the draft of a non-fiction blog post I have just about finished.

In contrast, I had a quick trawl for something else and found a poem I wrote ages ago. Here's the poem so that you can decide for yourself:

Funeral Fire

I remember black flowers, a low-slung coffin
and priestly incantations. I stared at my boots
as they buried their girl, killed in a car crash.

Sent by school, I stood awkwardly
between the Head and the driver -
neither family, nor converts – three aliens.

I watched the fisted handfuls of dirt and gravel
thud on wood, and could imagine a thin wail rising,
a soul smoke, curling into these believers’ ears,

welcome in their mind’s heaven. Perhaps just
a place for people they can’t yet leave
to the long, the nothing, the end.

*

My spirited gran’s funeral day was godless -
the small cask slid back, curtains closed
on her leaving, engulfed by a secular fire.

I admired their strength. Even in this last ritual
they chose unbelieving, uncomforted pain -
there were no half truths, no small lies, no rot.

His daughters then watched granddad choke
gut-deep sobs, and, soon, too soon, saw cancer
yellow his sharp mind, sapping his quiet force.

His same ritual reduced us, silenced us.
Becoming adults, we children wait
to bury parents, but don’t know how.

Ben Bruges

(Sorry, not the most cheerful of poems, just what I had to hand.)

And this time? What does this automated web-based bot think?

I write like
Chuck Palahniuk

I Write Like by Mémoires, journal software. Analyze your writing!

Hmm. Well I've heard of him, but never read anything. Maybe I should check him out. And maybe you want to explore your reading style for yourself:

I Write Like...