Birthdays without pressure

Being child-free I get invited to precious few kids birthday parties but I know they can be veritable orgies of proto-consumer excess and sugar infused excitement - and I probably haven't experienced anything like the examples of birthday party hell out there. I like to think our friends with kids are better than those examples but I know how easy it can be to sucked into the madness. We've certainly seen some bad examples at "pre-birthday party" baby showers... kids not even born yet with enough clothes for the next three years, and three of everything a new parent could need.

I used to think that feelings about too many gifts at parties were because I'm an old fart, or I'm just jealous that when I was a kid I probably only had one or two parties where anyone other than my immediate family was present. Furthermore I don't recall ever getting more than one major present per birthday and that was always from my mum and dad. When I got older my big brothers managed a few cool gifts but other relatives usually gave money or clothes - my grandma was always good for a hand knitted sweater at Christmas, or a few 50p coins stuck in an envelope. Mind you 50p was serious dough back then - it could by a lot of crisps or bottles of soda!

But I do get this feeling that I'm perhaps not the only one to think there could be a problem, as the Birthdays Without Pressure web site puts it, "children's birthdays are out of control" and that out of control parties contribute to:

• A too much stuff culture
• A me first culture
• A trash and waste culture
• An entitlement culture
• A envy culture
• A more of everything culture

and that is precisely what we don't need when the next generation grows up because it is exactly those things that brought us the baby-boomers who got and kept us in this big global warming over consuming mess in the first place. The last thing we need just when conservation might actually be cool again would be a whole new generation who couldn't give a damn and wont do anything without a gift bag at the end of it (don't you get it? - the gift is life and you get it up front with a whole lifetime to enjoy or squander it as you wish).

Okay, end of rant, this grinch is going home...

Birthday reform

I'll be the first to admit I'm a bit of grinch when it comes to birthdays. A big party once in a while is fine, but every year is over the top. And even "big" birthdays don't warrant big parties in my humble opinion. My big 3-0 was quiet a do, but my big 4-0 had prisely two attendees (not counting three cats), perfect. These days I have so few friends that live anywhere near me I just couldn't bring myself to throw a huge party when so many of the people I'd want to drag out to celebrate wouldn't be around. Yeah I know real friends would travel around the world for a party, but really its just not right to expect people to drop everything, plus a bundle of cash to show up for a few hours of boozing and cake.

So I guess I'm a birthday luddite because if I had kids of my own it seems like I would have a whole different perspective on birthdays. I'd be expected to throw a huge party for every kids birthday, and drag my kids to everyone elses presents in hand. And now even kids attending other parties expect to get presents, WTF? Being child free agent J and I get invited to precious few kids parties but those we've been too (and even the "pre-birthday" baby showers) are usually non-stop consumer good orgies http://www.birthdayswithoutpressure.org/

Graffiti as art

My neighborhood gets graffiti everywhere, and it sucks. I mean not just that it sucks we have graffiti, but the graffiti itself sucks too. These guys are amature scribblers of the worst kind - I've seen three year olds who could paint a better picture and even sign their name more leggibly. Of course most of these people are not trying to be artists - they really only qualify for the label "tagger" and are just trying to claim territory like a dog marking its territory.

Like I said, it sucks... oh that their sidewalk pissant efforts were something more like we find at The Wooster Collective.

That's graffiti as its meant to be, well executed, interesting (often inciteful) and an improvement on what is there already. If I was sure it wouldn't attract wannabe scribblers too I really wouldn't mind seeing more of this around - it would brighten up a lot of our drab and ugly post-modern condo buildings. Compared to some of the official "art" that public art dollars pay for I know which I would choose!