Festival report: Sonisphere Finland 2010

We went, we saw, we were drenched. Here's the story in brief.

The festival

First of all, "Sonisphere" is the dumbest name for a music festival I've ever heard in my life. Seriously. Secondly, the arrangements are barbaric. At least in the old days, when I went to festivals in Finland, you got yourself a ticket and they gave you a bracelet or something so you could come and go as you liked. Not so at Sonisphere: once you check in for the day, you can't check in again. So you're stuck in the small, cramped festival area, eating "pizzas" the size of CDs for 8e and drinking 6e pints of beer. Of course, bringing drinks of your own is prohibited. And this year too, they ran out of drinks, or at least non-alcoholic ones.

Overall, Sonisphere Finland is a dreary, poorly organized experience. It's a made-up festival; don't go.

The downburst

This year, Sonisphere Finland was hit by a freakishly strong downburst, meaning very strong straight-line winds and intense rain. We were right in the middle of it.

We were in front of the smaller stage, waiting for the Stooges to come on, when a thunderhead rocketed across the sky toward us. It started raining, and we thought what the hell, so we'll get wet. It's not like there's anywhere on the grounds you can really find shelter anyway. The rain got stronger, and a lot stronger, and rather alarmingly, it tilted. One minute the raindrops were falling on your head, the next minute they were hitting your back hard. Then it changed into hail. All I can say is it felt like somebody threw a bucket of ice at my back.

The whole thing lasted for maybe ten minutes, which we spent getting completely soaked and fairly oblivious to things around us. When the rain suddenly stopped, we saw both stages were ruined. Falling debris had totally trashed Alice Cooper's drums, and we later learned that all of Mötley Crüe's and the Stooges' stuff was destroyed in the storm. 40 people were injured, one of whom died later in hospital.

Although we came out of it uninjured, on the whole the downburst wasn't much fun either. If you're offered a chance to be in one, I wouldn't do it.

The bands

At one point, some people sitting next to us on the grass were going on about how great Slayer was. "They played all the songs exactly like they are on the albums!" Yeah. They did. It was mortally boring. And, sadly, so was Alice in Chains. They didn't connect with the audience at all, and the whole show was just indifferent. I'd been looking forward to the "new" Alice in Chains for a long time, and was really disappointed. Very dull, by-the-numbers performance.

As I said, the Stooges' stuff was destroyed by the storm. When Mötley Crüe heard their stuff was gone, they immediately left without playing a single song or even showing their faces. Which is ridiculous. Iggy, on the other hand, came on stage to say that they'll play whatever they can, given that their gear was destroyed and the stage was in ruins. Eventually, the roadies managed to hook up a guitar and a mike for Iggy, so he and their guitarist did a four-song acoustic set for us. They brought out the sax for "I Wanna Be Your Dog", but they didn't have a mike for it, so whenever Iggy finished a verse, he held his mike up to the sax so we could hear it.

It was awesome. I can now report that the Stooges totally kick ass. In a way, that experience alone was worth the price of admission. Of course, it also helped that Alice Cooper announced he's playing his full set no matter what, so as soon as the stage was cleared he did, and kicked ass too. Alice was simply great. Good, old-fashioned rock'n'roll from the man who invented shock rock.

Iron Maiden headlined the festival, and after an endless delay, they too eventually came on stage. I should admit that I don't particularly like the "new" Iron Maiden. Ever since Bruce came back, Maiden have felt like a tribute band to themselves, knocking out identical, massively boring records that just sound like ripoffs of "classic" Maiden. To make things worse, they played new stuff on this tour as well, including at least one track from their upcoming album, which lasted for hours and was terrible.

They were as boring as hell and their new music is frankly shit. On top of that, Bruce Dickinson is apparently so much in love with his voice that he would blather on at the audience for minutes on end. Shit, if I wanted to listen to an overweight airline captain tell bad jokes, I'd take a plane. Preferably somewhere Iron Maiden aren't playing. They're a bloated, boring parody of themselves.

So, to sum up, Maiden, Slayer and Alice in Chains sucked, the Stooges and Alice Cooper kicked ass, and Mötley Crüe are a bunch of faggots.

The trains

We left for the festival on Saturday morning. It turned out that someone had left the bow gate on the locomotive open, and it sank at Järvenpää. After waiting at the station for an hour, we got moving again, but without any air conditioning. The geniuses who've designed VR's current passenger cars haven't left a single window, hatch or aperture that can be opened from inside while the train is moving, so if the aircon isn't working, no air gets in or out. It was uncomfortable.

After another hour's wait at Hämeenlinna, we eventually got to Tampere well over two hours late, and missed our connection to Pori, thereby also missing the Cult.

The return trip wasn't any better. The festival train we were returning on had "Jazz train" signs on it, presumably because it's the same service they run from the Pori jazz festival. Jazz is gay, annoying and takes forever, so they were the right signs.

First, the train was delayed by hours because the festival was delayed, which is fine. However, the storm had knocked over several trees onto the tracks, and we had to wait for an incoming local train to clear the track because we could leave, leading to a delay of well over an hour. Once we finally got moving, we got as far as Tampere before the locomotive broke down and we had to wait for around an hour for a new one. In the meantime, everything was fine except for the vaguely piss-colored water swilling around the floor of the car.

After Tampere, we got a move on southward, and everything went fine until someone jumped in front of the train at Hyvinkää and got run over and killed. His body ended up right under my window, which I only noticed after it was covered up. Naturally, this led to another half-hour wait, and all in all we eventually arrived at Helsinki hours late.

With VR, you'll usually eventually get there, but remember this: The schedule is a lie.

Conclusion

Don't go to Sonisphere. Especially if Iron Maiden are playing.

A guilty confession

Okay. My theory is that pretty much nobody really reads this blog. Frankly, I even doubt the guys posting links to what looks like an Asian dating website (but could be something much more sinister) actually read my posts here. So I think I can post just about anything.

When I was a kid in Finland, our house didn't have cable, so we never had MTV. The first time I really saw any MTV was when we moved to Denmark in the very early nineties. Heck, I remember people like Ray Cokes, who's apparently since turned into a Belgian. The first and only time a cartoon really blew my mind was when I first saw Beavis and Butthead. So MTV has a certain place in my heart, even if it's become rather silly since. Watching "MTV Finland" is usually quite painful. But because I still sort of care about MTV on some silly level, I kind of keep up with what's going on. I've even seen a couple of episodes of The Hills; enough to know that I don't understand why anyone would actually watch that show, let alone marry Spencer.

Having seen the Hills, when the next big reality thing came along, I did my best Jeremy Clarkson voice and asked myself: "How bad could it be?" And so I was watching Jersey Shore.

My initial reaction was that someone at MTV found out that rampant stereotyping of American-Italians sort of ended in the 1920s, and decided that it's high time it came back. Not only has the show pissed off just about every American-Italian advocacy group in the world and the residents of the Jersey Shore, but it has that same sense of astonishing unreality as The Hills. Every episode leaves you wondering: do people really live like this? And even more scarily: do young people watch this, and then get the impression that one is supposed to live like this?

Given that my generation doesn't spend all its time sitting at home and watching music videos in AC/DC shirts, I'm not really too worried. Maybe the most worrying thing I've taken from MTV is that on some level, I really do feel that the best possible summation of the political and human rights situation of Finland is "in my country, we have no bunghole". I can live with that.

Now, all things being equal this would just have been another post with me going on about what's wrong with TV and today's youth and so on, making me look middle-aged. But all things are not equal. At all. In fact, they're so unequal and in such a way that only my deep conviction that no-one will actually read this blog post permits me to actually get to the point of all this.

Ordinarily, I would have watched one or two episodes of Jersey Shore and then dismissed it all from my mind. However, I can't, because I'm in love. Now, when I say love I really mean the kind of strange attraction that a person sometimes feels for someone they see on TV or out on the street or wherever. In teenage terms, a crush. As I watched Jersey Shore for the second time it dawned on me that I'm in love with Jwoww.

I can't explain it, but there it is. I think she's kind of cute, but other than that? She has giant fake tits, a voice like a man and she gets drunk and punches people. Apparently, that's what I like!

I'm being uncharitable, as I could post a far better picture of her:

According to MTV, she's a 23-year-old New Yorker, who's "a party girl with zero self control". That's actually being polite, based on the first season... For whatever crazy reason, I think she looks lovely, and there's something about her that just pushes my buttons.

They'll start showing the second season soon in the States, so that means I'll be watching MTV Finland again this fall... Here's a gratuitous bikini picture.

So there, I've admitted it. Not only do I watch Jersey Shore, but I've fallen in love with Jwoww. That's the kind of person whose blog you're reading. A Jersey Shore fan's!

Oh, brother!

Catharsis feels good, and so do those pictures. I'll go take a cold shower now. We'll be returning to our regular pseudo-intellectual programming soon, but I'll still be thinking about her.

"Go buy yourself a new phone!"

I was cleaning my home and suddenly my phone starts to demand my SIM-card. Trouble was that I never took my SIM-card out. Oh crap. I need to call someone for help... except I can't. So I went to my service providers vendor.  

So I am there waiting for someone to notice me in the phone shop. This paragon of customer service calls me to come to him if I need any help. I walk over there and start explaining my problem. Luckily this man is mixture of engineer and economist - he has social skills of an engineer and a world view of an economist. Rare breed in customer service field, but not unknown. He decided to try if my SIM-card works in other phone and it did! So he quickly concluded that my phone must be broken and told me to go and buy a new phone. He sounded annoyed that I had bothered him. 

I was somewhat stunned as I walked out of the shop without knowing what to do. Only after I was at home I noticed that he could have say... offered to sell me a new phone - I mean I was there in phone shop after all. Or maybe he could have been somewhat nicer. Not so today - luckily my phone started to work again later that day. 

Note: I wasn't happy with earlier draft so this wasn't actually published on standard time as I couldn't edit the post from my now working phone, but I could edit time this post would be published.

I'm free

The hour of chaos

Today, I'm going to prison for refusing to complete my military service. My reasons are in my previous post. I'll be gone for some four months, so I'll be back in February. In the meantime, my co-bloggers will be looking after this blag.

Anyone who wants to get in touch with me during my jail time will have to use good, old-fashioned snail mail. The address is Jokelan vankila, PL 20, 05401 Jokela. Other information on the Jokela prison web page, such as it is.

See you all in February.

Going to jail in October

After a month of waiting I finally know: I'm going to start serving my prison sentence on October 15, at Jokela prison.

To give you an idea of how long this process takes, I refused my service in February. The court decision came in late June, and I had to wait for three months to find out when I'm going to prison. Ever since June, I've been unable to plan my life ahead for more than a few weeks as I've never known when I'm going away. So yeah, not feeling so good this fall. But at least now I know.

The wheels turn, if ever so slowly

As the next step in the process leading to my eventual imprisonment, I now know when I'll get to know when I'm going to prison. Hooray! Today, I received a letter recommending (fin. kehottaa) that I arrive at the Espoo courthouse on September 1st to find out where I'm going, and when I'm going. So basically, I'll be here until some point in September. That means I'll get to spend the holidays in prison.

I like how they're recommending I show up. As if I have a choice.

Bureaucratic delay

If you've been reading my blog, you'll know I was sentenced to three months and 24 days of imprisonment in the beginning of July, for refusing armed service.

At the moment, I've been waiting for weeks for someone to tell me when I have to go to prison and where. I haven't got a clue. At the moment, my papers are somewhere in the depths of bureaucracy, probably on the desk of someone who's on summer vacation.

The delay is simply infuriating. I haven't got a clue if I'm going to jail next week or next month, or September, or when. Probably more like next month that next week, but still. Not being able to make any kind of plans for the autumn kind of sucks.

So if I haven't exactly been blogging much, it's because I'm a little stressed out by all this.

Some techniques for anxiety relief

I've been suffering from social anxiety disorder for most of my life, as well as general anxiety for a whole bunch of other reasons. So far, I've only found two effective antidotes to serious anxiety:

* Kava (the modern version of the drink)
* Bruce Springsteen (especially The Rising)

There is some research suggesting that kava has actual medicinal effects that reduce anxiety, but I've never heard of any studies on the Boss. What can I say? It works.

Black steel in the hour of chaos

I got a letter from the government the other day
Opened it and read it
It said they were suckers
They wanted me for their army or whatever
Picture me giving a damn, I said never.
Here is a land that never gave a damn
About a brother like myself
Because I never did
I wasn't with it but just that very minute
It occurred to me the suckers had authority.

**

I did, in fact, get a letter from the government today. In very archaic and plain weird terms, it said they were suckers, but they did have authority. I've been sentenced to 114 days in prison, effective July 3rd, for refusing to complete my "civilian service". Finnish legalese, by the way, is only slightly confusing, but it is very linguistically strange.

So, now it's official: I'm going to prison, most likely around the end of July. Under the Finnish system, 114 days translates to about four months real time, so basically I'll spend the fall of 2009 behind bars.

**

It's up to you not to heed the call-up
You must not act the way you were brought up
Who give you work and why should you do it?

Goodbye MJ.

Wow. I woke up for breakfast at our summer cabin in the Finnish countryside, only to be told that Michael Jackson is dead. Very weird.

He's been all over the music video channels for the last few days, and I can honestly say I never realized how much a part of my life he really was. I grew up during the high times of his career. I was, after all, born in the year that Thriller was released. His music was all around me through my entire life up to now, and it's only now that he's dead that I realize that.

I can truthfully say I always felt a strong sense of sympathy toward him. Sure, at times he seemed to be crazy, and I never could figure out why he started out black and later became white. Apparently he had vitiligo and lupus, but it's not like any of our media ever wanted to tell us that; they had a field day selling us "Wacko Jacko".

Having read about how he was abused as a child by his father, and realizing that the guy started working at the age of eight, you have to figure there's no way he's going to turn out like the rest of us. Behind it all there was a massive talent for music and dance, and watching it, even on just a music video, was a priviledge.

The high point of Jackson's vilification to the world was the child abuse trials. As he was acquited of all charges, I've never seen any reason to believe that the trials were anything but a massive exercise in cynical exploitation and money-grabbing by the kids' parents.

In so many ways his life was a tragedy, from childhood abuse to being turned into a freak by the world's media. That's what makes it all the more moving to watch his videos and listen to his music, and to understand that after and during all that, his music is filled with a positive message about us people getting along with each other. The fact that he went through what he went through and came out of it believing in mankind is testament to a great man.

**

At some point I had the audacity to come up with an epitaph for him.

He was black. He was white. It didn't matter.

We'll miss him.

Doing something with your life

Not really. If there's one thing summer is good for, it's being useless, especially if you have a four-month stint at Her Excellency's pleasure coming up around August. This is how useless I've been:

Man, that round number looks good!

Going to jail

I'll be taking a break from blogging for a while this year. Later in June, I'll be receiving a four-month prison sentence from the Porvoo district court for refusing to complete my conscript service.

Finland still has conscription, meaning (nearly) all men have to serve in the army for a period of 6-12 months. Those who refuse armed service must complete 12 months of "civilian service". This civilian service has no function related in any way to the defence forces; it is solely a punishment for those who refuse to serve in the armed forces. Refusal to complete civilian service results in a prison sentence equivalent to half of the remaining service time.

I've refused, and will shortly be receiving a four-month prison sentence.

**

Of course, in Finland, not everyone gets drafted. People living in the demilitarized Ahvenanmaa Islands or belonging to the Jehovah's Witnesses religious cult are exempt from service. Similarly, of course, all women are exempt.

Think about that for a moment. If I belonged to a particular religious cult, I wouldn't have to go to prison. Or, indeed, if I had different genitals. This blatant inequality alone is reason enough for me to refuse to participate in the system. It's unbelievable to me that in a 21st century Nordic country, your gender gives you an exemption from service. But this is part of the reality of gender equality in Finland.

**

I'm not refusing service because I'm an antimilitarist as such. I'm a pacifist, yes, and I consider myself an antimilitarist, at least in the sense that I'm strongly opposed to the political ideology of militarism. But I have nothing against the existence of the Finnish army; in fact, I'm positively in favor of it.

I principally oppose conscription because I'm a libertarian. I don't believe the State has any right to force me to serve in the military. Conscription is nothing but forced labor, and that has no place in a free country.

I also oppose conscription because I'm a feminist. I believe firmly in equality in life and especially in equality before the law. However, this summer I'm going to prison because of my gender. If I was a woman and didn't want to serve in the army, I wouldn't have to; because I'm a man and don't want to serve in the army, I'm going to prison.

Also, I'm going to prison because I'm an atheist, more or less. At least in the sense that if I was a Jehovah's Witness, then I wouldn't have to serve. I'm not, so I do.

The blatant inequality of the Finnish conscription system is so abhorrent to me that I can't participate in a system that forces some citizens to serve in the army, but exempts others because of their gender or religion. And for that, I'm going to prison this fall.

**

For additional information, there is a rather poor article on Conscription in Finland on Wikipedia. There's more information at the Union of Conscientious Objectors' website. Note that I'm not a member, nor do I intent to become one.

I'll receive my sentence at the end of June, and will post updates as I know what happens next. Obviously my blog will be on a rather long hiatus this fall because of this. I'll likely be starting my jail term in late June or August, but I don't know that yet.

To be honest, I'm not exactly looking forward to four months in prison. Of course, I'm getting off relatively easily; 70 years ago conscientious objectors in Finland were murdered by the Finnish army. But still, it's not a decision I've made lightly.

However, I firmly believe that conscription is one of the most unjust, tyrannical and simply unacceptable human rights violations taking place in Northern Europe today. I'd like to finish off with a quote from the Anti-Conscription Manifesto of 1926, signed by such renowned communists as Albert Einstein and Bertrand Russell, among others.

(feminists should take especial note of the penultimate sentence)

It is our belief that conscript armies, with their large corps of professional officers, are a grave menace to peace. Conscription involves the degradation of human personality, and the destruction of liberty. Barrack life, military drill, blind obedience to commands, however unjust and foolish they may be, and deliberate training for slaughter undermine respect for the individual, for democracy and human life.

It is debasing human dignity to force men to give up their life, or to inflict death against their will, or without conviction as to the justice of their action. The State which thinks itself entitled to force its citizens to go to war will never pay proper regard to the value and happiness of their lives in peace. Moreover, by conscription the militarist spirit of aggressiveness is implanted in the whole male population at the most impressionable age. By training for war men come to consider war as unavoidable and even desirable.

I will rather go to prison than in any way give my assent to this system.

"Star Trek"

So I saw the new Star Trek movie. I need to review it twice to be fair. First as a movie, then as a Star Trek movie.

As a movie: bleah. If I did stars, I'd say 2/5. I didn't think it was particularly good. There isn't even an original story: the main plot is a total retread of Star Trek: Nemesis, of all movies, with its Romulan villain and his planet-destroying ship, combined with the original "Starfleet Academy" idea for Star Trek 6. Everything else is cobbled together from a mix of tropes stolen from the previous movies, and as Anthony Lane puts it for the New Yorker:

He [Kirk] is played here by Chris Pine, who struggles with a screenplay, written by Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, that could have been downloaded from a software program entitled “Make Your Own Annoying Rebel.”

As near as I can tell, the movie had no theme. The annoying rebels were pointlessly annoying rebels who had no meaningful conflict, and barely even a sensible character arc. The plot is not only a pastiche at best, but any aspect of it falls completely apart under any kind of logical scrutiny. Basically this is a mindless action movie.

On top of that, I truly loathe Abrams's "breathless" directing. The movie is constantly in such a terrible hurry that it rushes from scene to scene like a sprinter on meth. So as a movie, the whole thing is a madcap rush through a nonsensical plot that fails to engage me on any level. The quality of the acting varies tremendously, but most of it is frankly piss-poor.

Overall I'm not impressed.

**

As a Star Trek movie, well, it isn't. I need to give some background here. I saw my first episode of Star Trek: the Original Series when I was something like six years old. In a way, I grew up with Star Trek. My interest in movies, literature and everything has lead me to read up on Star Trek and its antecendents, specifically some of the ones that inspired Gene Roddenberry. In other words, I've done the kind of thing you might expect someone who's going to create a Star Trek re-make to do.

Coming from this background, the first half hour or so of the movie felt like a calculated slap in the face. All of the fundamental ideas and themes of Star Trek have been abandoned. In the first 30 minutes alone, Starfleet has changed into a quasi-miltary organization where officers snap to attention in the corridors when the Captain walks past, during a catastrophic emergency, behavior never seen in Star Trek before. Despite being seemingly more militaristic, the movie has also totally abandoned the original Star Trek's navy background; an unimaginably awful moment comes at the start when Kirk sr. orders his crew to "evacuate ship". After this, we're transported back to Earth where a young Jim Kirk uses a Nokia telephone and listens to the Beastie Boys. This is a terrible scene, but moreover it finally destroys any impression that you might be watching a Star Trek movie.

Later on we begin to meet the cast. At best, they behave like caricatures of the Original Series crew. Karl Urban delivers a fair impression of Deforest Kelley's Dr. McCoy, but it's an impression, not an acting performance. Zachary Quinto's Spock is occasionally almost good; every time you start warming to him, however, he starts talking like Conan O'Brien's caricature nerd. Chekov is on board in defiance of original chronology, but apparently it was thought necessary to have someone with an accent they can make fun of.

By the way, Spock speaks bad English several times in the movie. His line about "performing admirably" is hideously clunky, but unforgivably, he at one point wonders if he can "ask a query". I do major in English, and if you give me a Vulcan who speaks bad English, I can't take you seriously. Of course, this is a minor gripe given that "alternate Spock" is a raging psychopath who physically assaults people who insult him and maroons subordinates on dangerous planets.

On the topic of characters, it's worth remembering that the original series was politically and socially extremely progressive, even revolutionary. The series that boasted the first interracial kiss on network television, even if the actors didn't actually quite kiss (because the show wouldn't have aired in Klan country if they did), also added a Russian character in the second season. This was a powerful message at the height of the Cold War, telling viewers that in the end, Russians and Americans are both people, and can work together as equals. Contrast this with the movie's Chekov, who is only present to be mocked for his funny accent.

Most insultingly, the movie fails to be a Star Trek movie in the one way that counts the most. Previous Star Trek movies had intelligent content. They had themes. They had something to say. One of the dictums of the original series was that you should be able to watch the show as a kid and enjoy the action, and you should be able to come back to it as an adult and realize that there's a real issue being discussed in a meaningful way. This is one of the essential characteristics of science fiction proper. Another is at least some kind of respect or even lip service to actual science, of which the Original Series is a shining example. Its list of technical consultants is probably the most impressive of any TV show in history.

Abrams's Star Trek, however, is totally brainless. The movie has no discernible theme, and has nothing to say about any issue bigger than itself. As I said, the plot makes absolutely no sense, so the first moment you stop to ask the movie a question, it falls apart. What's more, the physics and science of the movie are, even for latter-day "technobabble" Star Trek, downright insulting. There are thousands of grade school students in the world who understand more about our universe than the screenwriters. Anyone with the slightest idea of astronomy will be stunned to hear Spock recite probaly the most inept "astro-babble" in Trek history.

In other words, Abrams has made a Star Trek movie that can be fun as long as you don't think about it. That's not science fiction; that's definitely not Star Trek.

**

I could go on for ages. In fact, I may yet, as taking apart everything that's wrong with this movie would take a lot of writing. My overall impression is that I'm far more disappointed by this movie than I thought was possible. Not only have Abrams and co. made a remake that abandoned all the core ideas of Star Trek, they've made it ineptly. They didn't bother to write their own plot; instead they created a mishmash of "Starfleet Academy" and ST: Nemesis. Their script is totally brainless. Their characters are at best caricatures, at worst one-dimensional cutouts. The mindless action movie they're calling "Star Trek" isn't even good.

Overall this was the most disappointing movie I've seen in years. It was just awful. I'm unspeakably disgusted by the reviews that say Abrams's team has respected the show's legacy. Given that they've abandoned all the core ideas of Star Trek, from what I know of Gene Roddenberry, he would have hated this. His show, which had a theme and a message, and his characters have been reduced to a one-dimensional parody of themselves to flog a bad action movie. This movie is an insult to his legacy.

**

Seeing this movie was actually one of the most depressing single experiences I've had this year. I'm not exaggerating when I say that it leaves me feeling disappointed, depressed and alienated. I was planning to do this anyway, but J.J. Abrams made my decision for me: I'm retreating to the Finnish countryside to recuperate. Things will be pretty quiet on this blog for most of the summer, but I'll make the occasional post, and be back for good latest in August.

Have a nice summer, everyone!

Märklin

I'm a bit late on this one, but I missed it completely: German model train maker Märklin filed for bankruptcy last month.

This is something of a personal tragedy for me as a second-generation Märklin enthusiast. Luckily, the company hopes to stay afloat under German bankruptcy laws, and man, I hope they do. I was just starting my epic Z-scale collection...