And sometimes they would do the thing where they'd be reading the paper or filling their pipe or something and then glance at the camera and be all like, "Oh, hi there. Didn't see you come in. On today's episode..." etc etc, you get my drift. Instead of nowadays where it's all flashing lights and annoying idiots and Sean Micallef trying to be as funny and clever as he was on the ABC, then watching in disappointment as his perfectly delivered wit and soliloquy goes straight over his commercial audience's collective head.
I don't know why I'm saying all this. I guess I'm pretty fed up with TV right now. Which is why I decided to watch a movie last night so started going through my housemate's DVDs and ended up seeing one in particular and thinking,"Requiem For A Dream, hm? I've heard that's pretty good, I should probably watch it." Which then resulted in me wanting to go outside to get some fresh air and perspective, then being given the hairy eyeball by a family of magpies who have colonised my back yard and... long story short, I just wanted to go back to a time where things were simpler and there were friendly looking guys in armchairs with pipes to warn you about what was about to come onto your screen and into your living room.
Which is ironic, because today's interview is about The Future, with Owen from Straight Arrows. You're a pretty up on it, ear-to-the-ground kinda person so I probably don't need to tell you how good Straight Arrows are. But I will anyway. They're really, really good.
This interview took place in a pokies lounge which was kind of weird and distracting, but pretty cool in its own way. Being from Perth, I haven't really gotten used to poker machines being everywhere so it was probably more of a novelty for me than it was for him. But I'll shut up now. Enjoy the interview.
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Can't Sleep: Speaking generally, how do you think the future looks?
Owen: It looks interesting, you know. I'm always happy to hang around and see what will happen. Stuff's changing everyday and I'm sure we're all going to die before a lot of really interesting stuff happens.
CS: So you don't believe in the whole “Live fast, die young” thing? You're optimistic about the future?
O: I'm sure it's pretty cool to die young and beautiful but I kind of want to see what happens.
CS: Do you think “what happens” will be something really bad and destructive, or will we move past all of that to a better world?
O: I don't see there being much of a Utopia, I can see like a... rise of the machines.
CS: What do you think the future of music will be?
O: I think it depends what kind of music. Like, pop music is always going to try and find new elements to include. You know, things will progress but there's always going to be, you know... areas to be explored.
CS: So when you're writing music do you usually look to the future for inspiration?
O: No, I definitely look backwards. I don't know what's happening in the future, but none of my favourite music has come out of the future yet, you know. All my favourite records came from the past, so that's where you get ideas from and draw from your surroundings. There was a time in the 50s and 60s where technology and music were progressing at the same rate but technology has taken over, and it's very difficult to stay aligned any more.
I think the two (technology and creativity) can work hand in hand, (but) technology's progressing so quickly it's difficult for people to use it as a tool. It's updated so quickly.
CS: Do you think we have any ability to predict the future? As a group?
O: No, not really. You can look to the past to get ideas about social situations, and how they'll pan out, but no one's ever really predicted the future very well. The world hasn't been destroyed yet.
CS: Do you think, in terms of politics and the environment, we're sort of on the right track? Or are we just self-destructive by nature?
O: I mean, what's the right track? There are so many different paths, and it's never going to be possible to really go in one particular direction. People seem to be wising up to the destruction that our parent's generation were largely involved with. But, you know, people are becoming more aware of their surroundings... working to sustain their life. Becoming more self-aware.
CS: Do you think we'll ever get the flying cars?
O: It'd be really cool, but I don't see that happening in a functional way in my lifetime. It would be very cool though.
CS: Why do you think we do that? Imagining these crazy futures, none of which make any sense when you actually look at the present?
O: I think it's the role of authors to imagine the future, whether it's idealistic or not, to show any image which they consider as the future. With regard to the internet, there's a lot of science fiction books which predicted that.
CS: What do you think about fortune tellers? Do you think it's immoral, telling somebody's future when we can't really know stuff like that?
O: To be honest, I don't think it's any more immoral than converting people to your religion. It's all just false hope. I know people who have visited fortune tellers, and they all seem to be a lot more level headed than people who are deeply into religion. A fortune teller's basically just a fucking psychologist or something like that.
CS: In what way is it the same as converting someone to your religion?
O: It's the idea of telling someone, “This is the future, this is how you should live”. But in religion, they're a lot more toxic because you're being told, in a lot more round-a-bout way, “This is what you have to do, otherwise you're gonna die or go to a terrible place”.
CS: What about those ads that tell you to send a text to some number and it'll tell you how you'll die or who you'll marry? I mean, people are obviously buying into that, otherwise the ads wouldn't still be coming on. Do you think that's indicative of our desperation to know what's going to happen to us?
O: I think some people do, I think it's sort of the same thing as religion. Some people are very insecure, and yea... no-one's ever going to be able to predict the future. I don't know, it's just fucking weird.
CS: Do you think history's going to repeat itself? You know, we've been here before, with all the 60s idealism, do you think that'll just rise and fall away like last time?
O: I guess, I mean the 60s did change a lot of things. I don't see now having as big an impact as the 60s did. It's always good to have an idea of the past, just so you know how things will pan out in the future.
CS: Do you think Barack Obama will get assassinated like JFK?
O: I think the American government's a lot better at protecting their presidents now. Unless they wanted to kill him themselves.
CS: Do you think long playing albums are going to die off?
O: No, I don't think so. I think there's always something really satisfying about finding an album that, as a whole, is really great. Singles are awesome too, but I don't think that (the death of the album) will happen anytime soon. Sure, as technology becomes more and more involved in our lives, people's attention spans kind of decrease. But I think there will always be a place for albums.
CS: What about education? Do you think people are just going to get stupider and stupider?
O: Well, there's always going to be stupid people and not stupid people. Education's very important but I guess it depends on how much the government wants to put it in a position of importance.
CS: And in language? Do you think the shortened, text-message speech is going to really take off? Because people already do that in conversation, say stuff like “cbf”, “lol”... Do you think that's indicative of how it'll be in the future or is it just a phase?
O: I'm sure shit will change. Hopefully it won't be like that forever... But, you know, the English language has evolved for a long time and it will continue to evolve
CS: Do you think that's a good thing or a bad thing?
O: Change is inevitable. People are always going to need words to express themselves and using acronyms is always going to be, you know, descriptive, so there's always going to be a space for that.
CS: How do you feel about the way mobile phones are developing now? It's starting to feel like, in the future, humans will only exist to carry their phones around to meetings and stuff. They pretty much do everything by themselves now.
O: Oh, I don't know about that. I'm more excited about the time when we'll just be brains in jars, floating around.
