Wednesday, 30 May 2018

Scorpios suck and other slices of cosmic wisdom



Hi folks 

It’s been a long time between posts. I’ve had to deal with massive amounts of shit in my day job which has taken me out of, er… life, for months. I’ll spare you the nasty details, but what it boils down to is that scorpios suck. I have known a few, and they all seem hell bent on ruining my life. I know that’s a sweeping generalisation based on a pseudo-science, but it’s true – you can tell one of these schmucks a mile away. People who know about astrology will tell you the essential features of each star sign. Librans are vague fence-sitters, cancerians are evasive egotists, taurians are blunt battlers, but let me tell you about scorpios. They are pedantic, unreasonable, hypocritical, dogmatic, righteous and underhanded, and in 99 cases out of 100, WRONG about whatever it is they feel so strongly about. They will tell you what they think about you to your face while pulling strings behind your back to pull away the carpet. They should all stick to working as parking wardens given their attitude, but unfortunately they always aim for the top.

Scorpios suck
You would think that some of the most driven and famous figures in history would be scorpios given their attitude, but guess what – there are none. That’s because people can see their shortcomings and refuse to give them what they want. Fun fact: Hilary Clinton is a scorpio. She thought she should be given the presidency not once but twice because it was her right and lost out both times. The second time she lost to the biggest idiot in world political history, which goes to show just how much people can’t stand a scorpio. That’s a source of endless gall for them, and it just fuels their vindictiveness even further. Now our Hils is reduced to writing bitter after-the-fact books and going on talk shows to try and deflect the blame away from herself onto everyone else.

I’ve been dealing with not one, but two of these creeps and it’s been a massive distraction from what is really important, like my little guys accumulated wisdom and taste in beats.

Even more than a thin slice of astrology, my little guys would like to offer you three pieces of wisdom from the depths of the universe that will help you get by. 

1.            Reject all forms of organised religion.
2.            Technology is not necessarily your friend.
3.            There is much, much more going on than meets the eye.

The Hopkinsville Goblins try to sneak this into their music one way or another without trying to ram it down your throats, but here is our chance to expand on it, so please indulge us for a minute if you will be so kind.

Opiates 4 the peopleReligion is superstition and ignorance gussied up as the truth. It seeks to nullify the pain and fear in life with the promise of ludicrous rewards and over-the-top punishments when your life is over. When combined with politics its pure poison. It gives the ruthless and power hungry the ultimate weapon in control, and the greedy and pious the philosophies they need to crush their fellow man without conscience. My profit’s greater than your profit and my prophet’s greater than your prophet. It makes the righteous more righteous and the gullible more gullible. 

Richard Dawkins is my man when it comes to telling it like it is, but at the same time, backing science as an alternative isn’t 100% foolproof either.

I have been looking at developments in artificial intelligence lately. I know someone that was at a tech conference recently that featured music composed by a living person side by side with a composition put together using A.I. They reckoned they couldn’t tell the difference. Which is what makes A.I. simultaneously exciting and scary. Check out the recent Bladerunner reboot for a pretty believable vision of A.I. in the future. The fact that the hero is an artificial being with an avatar house companion seems pretty normal in this context and its something you might see in your own neighbourhood in the not too distant future. Like I say, fascinating and a little bit unnerving. Unless they insist on inscribing capital A’s on android’s foreheads a la Red Dwarf it could end up being quite a crowded, confusing little world. There was an episode of Dr Who back when John Pertwee was the Doctor in which an evil mind programmes an army of android shop dummies to act as his terrorist army. Scary as hell. Unrealistic? Ter-mi-nat-ors ne-ver stop. Just wait for the first A.I. soldiers to start rolling of the production line and then scoff at my cynicism. I give it two years before the first ones are delivered.

Cherry 2000
On the bright side, lonely men everywhere will no doubt benefit from some Cherry 2000 style action. I’m sure they are working on that right now.

The best use of tech would be to tap into the sources of energy we can’t sense. The more tech dependent we get, the less aware we get, so tech can at least do us a favour and redress the balance. People used to be aware of so much more because they were closer to the natural rhythms of the planet. The further we get from those rhythms the more vulnerable and self-destructive we get. Global warming is a fact folks. So is the plastic island in the Pacific. If you ever visit the pristine white sand beaches of Thailand and Indonesia try not to step on the crust of plastic debris on the high tide mark. When the world gets sick it redresses the balance by putting pressure on what’s causing the problem. In this case that’s us people. Your mother is coming to get you.

This has been another Hopkinsville Goblins public service announcement. Thank you for your kind indulgence. There is a fashion among musicians to thank God for their inspiration. I thank a bunch of little green men. I don’t see the difference.

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