I need some love.

I'm runnin' here
I'm runnin' there
I'm lookin' for a girl
'Cause there's nothin' I need
There's nothin' I want more
In the whole wide world

Well, I need it quick
And I need it now
Before I start to fade away
That's why I'm searchin'
That's why I'm lookin'
Each and ev'ry day

Oo, I need some love
I said I need some love!
Oo yes, I need some love
This feelin' I can't rise above
Yeah, yeah!

Well I been hustlin' here,
I been hustlin' there
I been searchin' for about a week
And I started feelin'
This strange sensation
My knees are startin' gettin' weak

Well I need what keeps
A young man alive,
I'm sayin' I need it now
I'm gonna get the message
Across to you
Someway, somehow

Oo, I need some love
I said I need some love!
Oo yes, I need some love
This feelin' I can't rise above
Oo, yeah yeah!

"Need some love" by Rush

At the moment, nothing better describes my current state of mind. I've had a very, very tough week; found out some difficult things (I won't go into them on here) about family. My current relationship situation has been sorted, in the sense that I am no longer confused. But that's not necessarily a good thing.
My emotions seem to be all over the place at the moment, I could be happy one minute and horribly down the next. While this may seem serious, I have reason to believe it's nothing more than an elevated sort of teenage angst; possible something to do with the fact that I'm reaching the end of puberty. Nevertheless, my current state of mind is becoming evident, as I have had several people come up to me more than once this week asking me what is wrong.
I've also been greatly disappointed by my peers; due to their adherence to amazingly clichéd stereotypes concerning a friendship between myself and a girl. I am disappointed that in this day and age, people are still supposed to adhere to the principle whereupon if you go out of your way to be nice to someone of the opposite sex, you are driven by sexual desire only. This is not the case, regardless of my feelings towards this female in particular.
Sometimes this world gets me down oh, so terribly. It seems my only escape is through listening to music; the optimistic lyrics remind me that somewhere, at some time, somebody was feeling optimistic enough to write these infectiously happy songs, and in a way it makes me feel somewhat better. Perhaps I'm just clinging to the hope that I can feel that damn happy one day, too.
I have a feeling that somehow things will work out for themselves, I have a sincere feeling of approaching finality. Before people start worrying, I am not, repeat NOT suicidal. Quite on the contrary. I'm simply waiting to get out of school so that I can take a more proactive stance in the direction of my life. I've still got so much life to life and I intend to live it to the fullest. Taking your own life is the easy way out, and I believe it's better to show people that you can make something out of yourself.
So for now I'll just sit in front of my computer, listen to Rush and write crap poetry.

A bientôt.

I'm a cynic, I'm a weirdo.

Well, I signed up for that "bloggers unite" thing the day before it was supposed to happen, then changed my mind at the last second.
For those of you not in the know, this "bloggers unite" was an event that took place on the 15th of May, where bloggers throughout the world blog in support of human rights.
While it all sounds fine and dandy, I ultimately decided against it. Why?
Well, in the words of Shiv; I'm a cynic. And that's not an insult.
First of all, I don't actually believe that blogging has the power to change anything politically. I think that compared to direct action, blogging is an act born out of apathy. Many people would rather blog than get out in the streets and protest; because they're less likely to be arrested, and they seem to have that "I don't want to cause trouble" mentality. But whatever. At the end of the day, people can do whatever they want, I'm not here to tell anyone what they should or shouldn't do politically.
I'm here to simply address the fact that yes; I'm a cynic. I'm proud of this, because it means I can see the world for what it really is: a garbage dump that we're continually adding to.

Ehn. I need a girlfriend.

Give me my women!

Before you jump down my throat telling me that the post title is "misogynistic", this post is meant for entertainment purposes only.
I recently saw this advert on the TV the other day for the new Axe/Lynx body spray '3'.



What a marketing ploy, eh people? Buy two deodorants and... wait for it... you'll combine them into ONE FUCKING DEODORANT! Holy fucking shit!
So, I bought the two deodorants and sprayed them on. Confident, I walked out into the street, expecting hordes of attractive women to fling themselves at me like dying fish. Did they?
Did they buggery. Axe, you bastards! I want my sense of commercial innocence back! Now I view all commercials with a cynical eye.
So what did I do? Well, I recently heard about a story involving a woman trying to sue Impulse body spray under grounds of false advertising, upon which they sent her a bouquet of flowers. Nice. So I wrote the following letter to Axe body spray:

Dear Sir/Madam (probably not Madam though),
I recently viewed an advertisement on the television for your new fragrance Axe '3'. The advert entails a young man putting on two bodysprays at once and being inondated by attractive women trying to get off with him.
I subsequently went out to buy my house. Doing this I spent all ten minutes of 'social time' my mother lets me spend out of the house per week, and was dissatisfied when I applied the deodorant in the way displayed in the commercial, only to find that women were not throwing themselves at my feet.
Where are the chicks?

Yours Sincerely,
A concerned customer

I decided not to send it. If Axe did decide to recompensate me, I doubt that it would be in women. Apparently shipping women across the globe for dissatisfied customers is illegal. Either that or they owe me a truckload of mail order brides.


=P

Mr. Morrison, I owe you thanks

Christ, I think I may have found a literary hero. The late, great Jim Morrison. Thanks to him, I've managed to find endless inspiration and for the first time in years I've been able to fully express myself through poetry.

Endless Light

Power is a thing best left unfettered.
I tell you this to save your soul,
Not to sell it.
Talk to me girl,
Tell me of pretty, dreamlike things,
Things best forgotten as we watch the sun set,
Together we rise, estranged we fall.

Some things are best left unsaid,
A rush of blood to the head
Makes me forget those times we shared.
Left open in the blistering sun
So you can rummage in my bowels
Searching, still searching
For that special part of me.

What makes me whole?
You? Him? Her?
Or is it some cosmic balance,
Forever perpetuated, unsubstantiated
By our actions towards eachother.

Let us not leave in bitterness,
But joy in knowing that the endless cycle
Has been completed through words that we said
Thoughts going through my head
Lead me back to you.

New Poems

These are the first poems I've written in French. While they're separated into verses, they should be read spoken word. No translations, if you really want to know what I'm going on about, Google is your friend ;)

Le Terrassé

On a chassé ce terrassé
Sur les bords de la rivière,
jusqu'à la mer puis sous la terre
Par là, par ici, partout.

On a tué les soldats
Qui ont refusé de se battre
Étouffer les chats,
Menteurs, tout vient d'admettre.

Ne pleurait pas, ma fille
Tu as autant de chance de ne pas comprendre
Ce monde cruel, ignoble d'esprit

Le serpent se révèle,
Et les hommes qui sont faibles d'esprit
Pleurent comme des enfants.

Voici la fin, voici notre mort
Voici la voix qui poussera du vide
Il nous appelle, suivons.

On a chassé ce terrassé
Mais sans risque, le jeu n'est pas amusant
Il se retourne, il se parle
Et on disparaît


Immaculée

Connaissez-vous la bonne route ?
La route qui tord,
La route qui se tourne,
Vers votre réveil.

Connaissez-vous l'homme sage d'esprit
Et faible physiquement ?
Ecoutez-le, entendez ses mots.

Connaissez-vous le monde ?
L'avez-vous vu dans son intégralité ?

Parlez-vous les mots des anciens,
Ceux qui ont les moyens longtemps oubliés ?
En tirer les leçons afin que vous pouvez trouver votre propre chemin.

Entendez-vous la voix ?
Celui qui vient de l'ombre,
Qui la pousse à travers l'autre côté
Pour nous rendre immaculée.

Hehn...

Well, what a truly shitty night last night was.
There's kind of a very long history to this that dates back to around September-time at... you guessed it, the start of this school year.
Hun hun, where to begin? Well, it was a friend's birthday on Monday. While she may not know it (or rather, may not realize it), I consider her to be a very close friend, even though I have only known her for a short time. Thursday (today) was a bank holiday, meaning we had no school, so I asked her if she wanted to go to the local pub for a drink or two to celebrate the big 18, and she said yeah, she'd love to come. I went there with another mate and waited for a bit, she eventually showed up with her boyfriend and a friend of hers.
Things were cool for a bit, the beer was horrible though. Anyways, after a while they all went out to smoke a joint. For half a goddamn hour. Leaving me to wonder where the hell everyone was.

Fuck it, I'm socially inept from having spent five years in the middle of freakin' nowhere back in Italy, where I didn't socialize at all outside of school. Basically this has left me with an incredibly warped sense of reality; I have divided my life into two sections:

• Academic life, a world of do's and dont's where I maintain an artificial façade in order to fit in with the people around me. Anybody on the outside of this would see me as a 'normal' person by their standards. This has also leaked into my social life.
• My personal life. The real me.

The thing is, they're two majorly contrasted personalities. When I am alone in my bedroom, as I am now, I am constantly thinking, imagining, wondering. My thoughts are all jumbled up, and I find it incredibly hard to focus on one specific thing. Think of it as turning a radio dial, where you have a really bad transmission but as you turn the dial you get through garbled dialogue from certain frequencies. Well, that's more or less what's going on in my head twenty four seven, so much so that it's hard to sleep. I've started to develop a few ways to relax and steer myself towards a state of sleep and relaxation; but those are in very early stages at the moment.
One can't help but feel trapped in this button-down world. I don't fit in with anyone; I'm constantly reevaluating myself and trying to find a way to shape and mold myself to fit other people's expectations. I would bend over backwards for some people, and I have a feeling they exploit that (albeit not deliberately) for their own use.
At the moment my current state of mind verges from jubilant to philosophical to horribly depressed. I constantly have small 'epiphanies' of what I should say to people; tell them exactly what I think of them, then wake up in the morning wondering what possessed me to come up with such a ridiculous idea.
From reading this, you probably think that I'm a complete and utter mess at the moment, and to be honest you're not far off. But I can't help think there's some sort of logic hidden behind this, mainly because I like a world where every little fait can be attributed and explained to some form of rigid logic, leaving no room for deviation. Hell, as I'm typing this I'm writing without really thinking of what I'm saying. Some say that makes damn good therapy for a busy mind such as mine, so I'll continue talking because I could really do with letting it out.
Sure, I feel rejected by this girl, but also confused. I sometimes get the feeling that she's flirting with me in some way, shape or form, but since I've become so inept at telling; I can't really decipher what it means. I don't want to give out the wrong impression about her, she's one of the only people I have never had anything negative to say about. But it's all so goddamn confusing. Hell, man is a confusing animal. And that's what we are; animals. We're not special, we're not unique. We fuck, shit and gorge ourselves like all the other animals out there. Even in our perceived superiority, we share it as a common trait with other animals; the constant need to be superior, at the top of the food chain. And when we've beaten all the other species of animal, we fight within our own species. Maybe the world would be better without us.

From Beginning to End: a history of the French Popular Front

The year is 1934, five years before the outbreak of the Second World War and world politics are undergoing a drastic change. The divides between the left and right are becoming all the more apparent, and France is no exception to this great divide.
The French far-right were getting impatient with the apparent lack of progress in the government, and claimed that it was run by the French leftists, mainly the radical party. There was trouble brewing beneath the surface which erupted on the 6th of February in the form of riots instigated by supporters of the far-right. These protesters formed large groups based on the political movements they were part of. There were several main groups of protesters:

• Action Française, the forerunners in the French far-right movement. They were by far the most numerous during the protests and dedicated to restoring monarchy in France.
• La Jeunesse Patriote, strikingly similar to Mussolini and Hitler's youth movements, they boasted to have numerous important political connections.
• Francisme, an organization holding fascist ideologies.
• Le Croix de Feu, an organization composed of war veterans.

The riots came at an opportune time internationally speaking, as both Hitler and Mussolini were now in power and ready to finance the far-right if they were to attempt a coup d'etat.
All of a sudden the streets of Paris were flooded with angry protesters. The police and national guard were called out into the streets and clashed violently with the opposition.
The photo on the left shows the extension of the violence in the city. A young man throws a potato covered in razorblades at a police horse (out of shot). This was but an example of the violence occurring sporadically throughout the center of Paris; and was far from over.



In face of the recent rioting, the left began to fear for the future of the country. The right was rapidly gaining popularity. Something had to be done quickly in order to counter the rise of the right in France. The SFIO (french socialist party) had suggested that the leftist parties joined forces in the upcoming legislative elections in 1936, but the PCF (french communist party) refused to do so. After the rise of Communism in Russia, the French socialists split into two factions, the SFIO, who opposed the Comintern controlling all of the international socialist parties, and the PCF who were loyal to the Soviets. As a consequence of the split, the Comintern forbade the PCF to join forces with the other socialists. Then, a major U-turn occured and the Soviets decided it would be a better idea for the French left to join forces to oppose the far-right. The SFIO and PCF then joined up with the radicals and thus was born the Front Populaire. While they didn't share all of each-other's views on political legislations, they were able to reach a compromise where the two other parties would back whoever appeared to be the strongest, in this case the SFIO. Along came the legislative elections and Léon Blum, head of the SFIO, became the French prime minister with Daladier (a radical) as his executive. The PCF decided to stay out of it all.
This was also notably the first time where three women had participated in the government, even before women had the right to vote. Things seemed good for the left at long last.

The Front Populaire then set about to changing the workings of French society and French economy, notably by inciting workers to strike. The workers striked and took control of the factories, thus making production impossible and immobilizing the economy. The radicals were incredibly unhappy about this, as they themselves did not support the proletariat, but the small enterprises, and urged workers to go back to work.
On the 7th June 1936, the Matignon Accords were put into practice. These accords allowed

• The existence and creation of worker syndicates, most notably the CGT (Comité General du Travail)
• Business owners and the state to have official representatives
• A substantial raise in minimum wage.
• Two legal weeks of paid leave per year
• A reduction of working hours, to 40 hours per week.

The business owners were understandably outraged, as they felt that they were being made to pay their workers more for less work. This proved to be an exceptional opportunity for the far-right to leap in and exploit this feeling of betrayal.
Owners therefore reduced their investments and started to invest their Capital abroad. The reduction in working hours also meant less production and therefore a higher demand, which forced prices to go up. The radicals weren't happy with all of the social unrest, but also were quite annoyed with the government's foreign policy.
In 1936, while Hitler was secretly rebuilding the German army, a situation similar to the French situation unfolded, with the Fruente Popular winning the legislative elections in Spain. Unfortunately, things were about to take a turn for the worst, as the Spanish right reacted with a coup d'etat led by General Franco. This sparked up a civil war between the Nacionales, who were led by Franco and financed by Mussolini and Hitler, and the Republicans who were financed by Russia, and had many young communists from all over the world joining forces with them.
The radicals decided to stay out of it, as did the SFIO. The front populaire officially declared not to intervene, but were secretly shipping arms across the Pyrenees into Spain to fuel the war effort. In charge of this operation was Pierre Cot, who worked with Jean Moulin, the future head of the French resistance and a native of Béziers.
The right wing were starting to exploit the feelings of the French people, putting up posters which played on the fears of Communism in France. One of the most famous strategies employed was in the form of a call published in over three hundred newspapers across the country by the far-right:

French people!
Despite the hard lesson we have been taught over the past four months, you're still ready to believe everything will work itself out.
Nothing can work out while those who want to bring the Soviets into the country are in power.
Blum's reign will finish one of these days either miserably or tragically.
The communist party is waiting for this opportunity to deliver their final desperate gestures, proclaim a general strike and try, in the light of provoked disarray, to institute their dictatorship and their inevitable reign of shame and horror, [...] as in Spain where the elections of the Fruente Popular ended up in a bloody catastrophe.
The same peril exists here.
French people of all opinions:
Have the courage to look the events that are being prepared in the face. This is the only way you will save your house, your land, your fortune large or small, your work, your freedom, your life.

A campaign of anti-semitism was started against Léon Blum, as well as a smear campaign against Roger Salenegro which claimed he had deserted during the first world war. In response to this campaign, Salenegro commited suicide.
The far-right parties also underwent a makeover, donning new names. Le Croix de Feu became the PSF (Parti Sociale français). A terrorist group was even founded, known as the CSAR (Comité Secret D'action Revolutionnaire), the Secret Comity of Revolutionary Action, who were well trained and had hundreds of hidden weapons stashes dotted around Paris. They were about 12000 men strong and backed by Mussolini, Hitler and Franco. Many rich members of the CSAR split off and created their own enterprises, the most famous being cosmetics company Loréal.
In 1938, Léon Blum decommissioned as Prime Minister, thus calling the end of the FP.