Ingratitude! thou marble-hearted fiend...

“Ingratitude is treason to mankind.” James Thomson


Thursday 11 February 2010

The one with all the cocks.



Lest it seem that I float ignorantly about in cultural amniotic fluid, yes, I have made a pathetic reference to Friends. (And I know I just wrote that, but stick with me because later there is a link to weird porn.) I am totally, freakishly addicted to Friends. It is comic Demerol to me - soothing, pleasing, comforting and moreish. I am a little embarrassed about this. I know it's not cool, not even in an ironic way, and I am slightly defensive about that. (Seamless ensemble comedy acting! Humorous and heady combination of neurosis and optimism! Bringing a uniquely light touch to subjects - alcoholism, masturbation, gay marriage, suicide - previously not considered comic fodder in mid-90s America!) Friends is my happy place.

And to save you the trouble, I know that Seinfeld did a lot of this stuff first, and very well, but the comedy there was in the solipsistic, neurotic fantasies of the characters and their existential isolation. Where Seinfeld seems to document an actual New York experience, Friends is the LA version of a New York experience. Am I overthinking it? Feel free to disagree; all I can think of right now is cookies, so this maybe isn't a very well thought out argument.

So apropos to nothing, have I mentioned that I'm tired? I mean, really freaking tired, like I could lie down at any given moment (including, disturbingly, while I was driving to Uxbridge yesterday) and sleeeeeeep the day away. Though, on a not unrelated note, I'm not sleeping brilliantly well, so perhaps I would just lie there and ponder the hundred or thousand or so things I should be doing instead of trying to sleep.

Therein lies the problem. I can't relax. This has never been a problem before. I could pursue Olympic-medal-level relaxing status based on my previous ability to let everything fall away. Or was it just that I was tamping it all down like a nice, thick emotional mulch, in which to plant the vigorous flowers of depression and anxiety? Okay, that's a metaphor too far. But still. One wonders. By which I mean, I wonder. So could it be that the stuff I used to tamp down now has to be filtered and filed and catalogued and dealt with daily, and this is costing me in relaxingness? Maybe?

So anyway, my most excellent way of emptying my headchamber is to noodle around online and find assorted weird and/or bad-for-you stuff. I think this site is probably both, for lots of reasons, and before you click that link, you should know it is way nsfw and then some (as in chock full of hapless amateur gay porn so don't say I didn't tell you, but it is super intriguing because behind the erections there are candid interiors which are the real stars of the show and hey, who wouldn't want to see this stuff? Oh, amateur pornographers! You make me feel a little sad, and quite soiled, but also you give me the gift of feeling like the sociologist I always wanted to be.

In all seriousness, I regret that this is a sarky piss-take site, because the photos are so deeply intriguing and disturbing, so mutely animal in their blind pursuit of some kind of sexual interaction, no matter how anonymous, sordid or devoid of basic personal contact. It is their boldness that renders them so vulnerable. The everyman vibe is so strong that I realised later, somewhere in the back of my mind I expected to see someone I knew. The commentary is sometimes amusing but ultimately kind of distracting. I would rather see a silent slideshow of these photos. They are enough. They inspire awe, and not of the awesome! high five! variety, but the openmouthed, speechless, thunderclap kind. Maybe you shouldn't look directly at them.

And Friends is only on three times a day, so I have to fill the hours somehow.

2 comments:

  1. I completely understand about your Friends obsession. And your description of the difference between Friends and Seinfeld was spot on accurate. I'd rather watch Friends over Seinfeld anyday.

    We all have our secret pleasures. Mine are middlebrow British comedies. I can't get enough of Keeping Up Appearances. Patricia Routledge is a superstar! It's always basically the same story, but she is a wonderful actress of expression and comic timing, so it's a comfort. I also like for the sappy and sentimental, the "light" comedy As Time Goes By. Judi Dench and Geoffrey Palmer do alot with very little and I like the idea of former lovers meeting again years later. And if I am in really the right mood, I like to watch Are You Being Served? I can't get enough of those Mrs. Slokum pussy jokes, so innocent now, I wonder if it was considered bawdy at the time and yes Mr. Humphries makes me wince, but oh well.

    And now to the porn. I love the Wedgewood room with the guy in the sling. I guess space was at a premium and he didn't have anywhere for a seperate "play" room. And yes no comments would be better.

    There is a never ending number of amateur nude photos on the net. Look at that Guys with Iphones site. It is as if people are continually trying to assert with great desperation that their body exists all the while it is continually being effaced by technology.

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  2. Very interesting comments Kelly - thank you.

    I do love Seinfeld, but for some reason it doesn't give me that intensely soothing, warm blanket feeling.

    Judging by what I've already seen, I don't think I need to look at another amateur nude website any time soon! (Apparently there's also a Guys with Blackberries site, depending on what technology you choose to define yourself.)

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