Mount Fuji in Clear Weather from the series 36 Views of Mount Fuji, by Hokusai (Japan, 1827).Below you will find three of the more common urban tribes that I find in my new home. Chavs, emos and indie boys. If you don't know them you can read their descriptions in urbandictionary.com. It's a funny website where the people write the urban definitions (in the style of wikipedia).
That's an emo. Sometimes they are very similar to the Gothics. When I go to work, not matter how early or late, I see lots of them queueing to get into concerts. I wonder if these kids (they are usually teenagers) don't have anything to do in life but to go to concerts at 2 in the afternoon. Obviously I'm still getting to know London.
They are three chavs (or scallys or pikeies, well in fact there are hundreds of names to call them). And you know them, no matter what country you are from, because they are amazingly similar in every country. In Spain we call them "johnies", "bacalas" or "calorros". In France "racaille", "banlieusards" or "zonards".
And to end, the tribe which populates my area in London. This guy in the picture is an indie boy. The neighborhood close to mine, Shoreditch, is like the epicentre of all them. Altogether with the "new rave kids". But it's worth a single post to explain what are they like.
Imagine a long, long road, though not very wide. A road that is full of grocery’s, hairdresser's, and florist's through all its length, and which extends for 5 kilometers before getting closer to the city centre. There is where I live. Sincerely, aside from a big city, my area could seem anything. In fact is like living in a small town which is embedded in something greater than itself.
In the morning, when I go to one of those grocery's to get some bread and milk, I can see, far away, a skyscraper called the "gherkin". He stands tiny in the horizon of my road, and it reminds me that, after all, I'm living in one of the four alpha global cities. Then, I ask myself: is it really necessary to have one florist's every 20 meters?
In this picture you can see the "gherkin", though already bigger than from my house.
This moment is called by geologists "peak oil" and, although it is very difficult to date exactly, it is totally sure that it will arrive in some years.
I've found an interesting website which explains the question in an easy way. It's called "Woolf at the door". It tells that the real problem with oil will start much before of its end: the day in which the demand will be higher than the production. Then an economic earthquake which will change everything will start.
We are so much into the consumer society that we cannot really imagine it might finish one day. Each year the computers are faster and store more for the same price. Buying clothes in the chains like H&M, Zara or GAP allows everybody to become some sort of Paris Hilton, changing our wardrobe at the speed of light. And we really find that is cool to fly to
The limits of the oil extraction means that we should say goodbye to all that when the peak arrives. Maybe you don't care, cause you are really fed up with the whole capitalistic thing, but the "peak oil" seems to be also the moment in which a Third World War will be likely to start. The solution? It looks difficult anyway, thought lots of fantastic brains and resources devoted to the question could help. Nevertheless, perhaps it is a better idea to continue worrying all the time about the global warming and the Islamic terrorism which, everybody knows, are the two main menaces that our society faces.
i've already done a part of the journey and i arrive wounded; don't play with me now. not now please. i feel i may break.
i need you. what you have inside. what there is behind those layers of clothes and the sticks in your hands.
don't hit me with your sticks. i've got pain over my complexes and wounds. i'm an injured queer.
heal me a little bit, don't hit me; heal me somehow, heal me a little...
