The Culture Mulcher: So long, thanks for all the mulching
What am I allowed to say in this space?
What am I, as a student journalist, academic student, 22 year-old male and Canadian resident in 2010 allowed to expound in this space?
First of all, no commentary on what I can say can be explored without defining who my audience is. Of course, in a perfect world, my audience shouldn’t matter – my right to free speech, free expression and free thought should be applicable in any situation and in any publication.
Of course, as writers, we tailor our writing in consideration of our audience; that is, if I was writing for a magazine read by the over-eighties, I wouldn’t throw in a reference to Young Jeezy or Kim Kardashian. By that same token, I wouldn’t start banging on about Bobby Darin if I was writing something for some young whippersnappers to ignore.
The Culture Mulcher: Always mulching yet discontent
University life, as I have prevously stated, is full of its own financial, emotional, mental and physical stress. Most of this is entrenched and unavoidable; that is, the deadline will always be in place (unless you plan on not completing your course work), the bills will always pile up (unless you take your spare time selling crack), the winter mornings will always be dark as frig (unless you live near the North Pole where they have perpetual daylight for six months a year, but then you might go insane like Al Pacino in Insomnia).
…to any Mulcher government
Stress can be a killer. Not literally – I don’t think anyone’s been actually murdered by stress. It’s more a turn of phrase than a literal declaration, so why don’t you get off my case about it?
The Culture Mulcher: No, his mulch is not for rent
It may surprise some of you to learn that I am a studious student type at this learning place. I started out as a Major in Gangster Rap Studies, but the department head said that I’m such a bad-arse gangster rudeboy that I was making everyone else look bad, so I stepped aside and took up a degree in History.
The Culture Mulcher: La vie en mulch
I’ve been writing this column for the best part of a year now. They told me it’d stop the voices in my head but it hasn’t, but I keep doing it anyway. In the course of my run as Culturus Mulcherus, to give it its scientific name, there’s definitely a progression (or should that be regression?) of my alter-ego that can be charted. The broad strokes of a human being are there, but, as Bret Easton Ellis said, “I simply am not here.”
The Culture Mulcher: Mulcher radio
Technological advancements cause our cultural and individual foibles and fancies to wax and wane. For instance, when I got a digital radio a good few years back my mother lamented the fact for weeks afterwards – she claimed that she couldn’t separate the memories of her youth from the sound of tuning in to radio stations. To her, the crackle of skipping through the forest and melange of noise and static until you found your station was a noise that evoked memories of her childhood. The advent of digital radios with their noiseless swoop through the airwaves mattered to my mother, however trivial it might seem from a distance.
The Culture Mulcher: Mulch gonna give it to ya
Manchester is a music city. In the same way that the mountains are written into the DNA of my beloved home-away-from-home Vancouver, so is music etched into the very foundation of my home-when-back-at-home Manchester.
I’m not going to bore you with some silly list detailing some of Manchester’s musical luminaries. Actually, yes I am – The Smiths, The Bee Gees, The Stone Roses, Elbow, The Buzzcocks, Oasis, Joy Division, New Order, The Hacienda, Factory Records, Martin Hannett, etc.
