In the UK, a certain Lady Greenfield, professor of synaptic pharmacology at Lincoln college, Oxford, and director of the Royal Institution said recently that she found it strange we are “enthusiastically embracing” the possible erosion of our identity through social networking sites, since those that use such sites can lose a sense of where they themselves “finish and the outside world begins”.

From my perspective this is a very odd point of view. My online identity and my offline identity are the same. And it didn’t happen gradually. My online identity didn’t mysteriously eat, digest and transform my offline identity. I enthusiastically took my offline identity online, to meet new people and to be more readily available for my existing friends. My conversations on the web are as real as the ones I am having taking a walk with my best friend, or talking with my wife and kids over dinner. Furthermore, if anything I’d like to think of my online life as an identity preserver rather than an identity eraser.

This is my great-grandfather. I have a few pictures of him, but I hardly know anything about him. He was born in 1910 and he died in 1971. I was born in 1971 and I never got a chance to meet him.

He worked as a bicycle repairman. When he was young he was a pretty good boxer and everyone says he was a very decent guy. My great-grandmother died when I was 25, but we never really spoke about him, and whenever I discussed my great-grandfather with my late grandmother, she always basically repeated the same three things: “He worked as a bicycle repairman, when he was young he was a pretty good boxer and everybody thought he was a decent guy.”

My family were never big on words. My grandparents are simple people, very kind, warm and loving, but they didn’t tell stories and they were always a bit uncomfortable when I wanted to know what life was like “in the old days.”

It’s a pity my great-grandfather wasn’t on Twitter. I would have loved to know some of the everyday things about him that are so prevalent on Twitter. I would have loved to know his immediate thoughts when German forces entered Norway in 1940, what kind of music he enjoyed in 1955 or if he enjoyed his work at all.

For me, Twitter is a diary on steroids. Well, sort of. It’s not a very powerful tool to analyze anything in itself and I certainly want to keep some of my thoughts to myself. But over time all these small messages will give people a pretty good impression of who I am — they will reflect my interests, my routines, my dreams and my fears in life.

The steroid part of it is the fact that my thoughts and actions may instantly spark an interesting conversation with another person on the other side of the globe. Is Twitter, as some cantankerous critics say, a tool to remind members of an insecure generation that they exist? Of course it isn’t. For some people it is. For other people it is something else entirely.

For me, Twitter and social media isn’t about self-promotion or exhibitionism at all. Quite to the contrary, I’m a private person who loathes when I’m in the spotlight. I don’t like to talk about myself with other people.

I do, however, like to talk about my ideas with other people. I like to share my thoughts and my interests, and I like to engage in conversations about them. I do it in real life with my friends, my family, and my colleagues, and now I can do it online with people I don’t even know, and I think that my life is all the richer for it.

And I really enjoy the prospect of my blog and my 75-year-old Twitter-stream being available for my great-grandchildren to read in 2082. Really, Twitter should offer an export button. Maybe there’s a certain amount of self-preservational vanity in that notion, but there is also the longing I have always felt to know more about my ancestors. It’s only been a couple of generations, and apart from the pictures, my great-grandfather’s life has been reduced to three things: Bicycle repairman, boxer, decent. Obviously, this is but a fraction of what my great-grandfather was about.

Regardless of the future of Twitter, Robert Scoble claiming it’s broken and all, I love the fact that people, regular people with ordinary lives, have started documenting themselves and their lives for anyone to see — on Twitter, Facebook, Bebo, on blogs and on any other social media platform that exist.

I know more about Stephen Fry than I know about my great-grandfather. Hopefully my great-grandchildren will know more about me than they will know about Britney Spears’ granddaughter.

Yes, yes, I know. Fat chance.

Anyway, if you want to, you can help me lose sense of myself, prove Lady Greenfield right or convince my great-grandchildren I was incredibly popular in 2009 by following me on Twitter. See you around.

Dear God. Here I am, sitting unsuspectingly in my garden enjoying the evening sun when all of a sudden I’m hearing "Animal" booming from a massive soundstage somewhere downtown in this sleepy, little village on the west coast of Norway.

I’m rushing in to grab my computer and find out what the hell is going on. And you’ll never guess who’s coming to town - my town - for a Classic Rock Festival this week: Def Leppard. Manfred Mann’s Earth Band. Thin Lizzy. Roger Hodgson. Slade. Mott the Hoope and Rod Stewart!

Robert! Rod is here! Why didn’t he tell me he was coming? Why didn’t he warn me? I need to go dig up my old toy trains right away.

Anyway, after rubbing my eyes (and ears) and double-checking the calendar (ok, it is still 2008, I’m not going crazy) I really don’t know what to do next. Should I lock up the door, close the windows and stay inside for the next couple of days or pull out my old pub rock outfit from the basement and head on down and join the party?

Hooo-ooooo! [cl-ick]

Good morning, good people. Welcome to the column you never asked for: The Smooth Side - an unforgettable ride through the dubious pleasures of smooth and non-confrontational music in the last 35 years. It may be Mellow Gold, yacht rock or marina rock, it may be soul, jazz-pop or rock (sort of) - it may even be perfectly awful, but it’s always gonna be smooth as silk, I assure you. The song link leads you to a stream on muxtape.com - double-click to listen. Look for a new entry every now and then, but probably not too often.

Prefab Sprout emerged in the UK in the early 1980s in the wake of Steely Dan, soft rock, punk and New Wave. They are often compared to contemporaries such as Simply Red, Aztec Camera and Swingout Sister - in the ghastly dubbed “sophistipop” genre.

Although this comparison is not entirely off base, Prefab Sprout deserves to be judged on their own terms. No one ever sounded quite like them. Front man Paddy McAloon is a brilliant songsmith, a pop perfectionist with grandiose ambitions and the talent to fulfill a lot of them - notably on 1990’s “Jordan: The Comeback”, produced by the equally talented Thomas Dolby.

1997 was the last time Prefab Sprout appeared as a “proper band”, with the album “Andromeda Heights”. 2001’s “The Gunman And Other Stories”, although released as a Sprout album, is often considered as more of a McAloon album. Sadly, he’s been struggling with some health problems in recent years and hasn’t released new material since 2003 apart from a couple of re-recordings for a reissue, I believe.

1997: I’m 25, effortlessly cool, ironic and single. Full-time student playing in a shoe-gazing Britpop-band, reading Pierre Bourdieu, quoting Harold Bloom for kicks and dressing in different shades of grey. The ladies seem to crowd around me, sort of, and it’s a brand new sensation. I’m the king of 1997. But as some mediocre Oasis clone stumble onto the local club scene I secretly hurry on home after class - such an uncool thing to do - hurry - to listen to the first Prefab Sprout album in 7 years. 7 years!

I loved every single thing about it. The lush arrangements, the harmonies, the cheesy synth sounds, the cover art with the star map - and of course the voice and the words.

Paddy McAloon was my hero when I was an awkward teenager in 1986 playing the tuba, sporting a crewcut in the age of the mullet and effectively turning into a deaf-mute every time a girl spoke to me and - much as I’d like to deny it at the time - he still was in 1997, meticulous reinvention of myself notwithstanding.

He still is, and it’s 2008. Some things will never change.

Prefab Sprout - Life’s A Miracle (1997)
(opens in new window, double-click to listen)

“Life’s a Miracle” is totally unapologetic in its embrace of the beauty of life. As far as I can tell, there’s not a hint of sarcasm, and it’s written by a man who’s more than capable of it. It’s corny as hell, but when I’m in the mood, listening to this track can be a truly liberating experience.

Try it - let the purity of the words and the beautiful harmonies wash over your tormented soul and free you from the chains of modern political correctness and the thick layers of ironic distance. Ain’t it wonderful?

…but me and my kids have the best time running around and dancing like maniacs to it all over the house every night. It’s probably our favorite song at the moment. Great fun!

Today I’m buying a new car! I bet you 10 bucks it’s is the only station wagon I’ll ever buy. Three kids in child seats and a stroller in the trunk - I had to give in. But next time we’re definitely buying a sports car (or a minivan, more likely…)

-

I just started reading a new novel, and it opened with this quote from Samuel Johnson, an English writer in the 17th century:

“Were Socrates and Charles the Twelfth of Sweden both present in any company, and Socrates to say, ‘Follow me, and hear a lecture on philosophy;’ and Charles, laying his hand on his sword, to say, ‘Follow me, and dethrone the Czar;’ a man would be ashamed to follow Socrates.”

I knew instantly that I would never so much as look in Charles’ general direction - I’d follow Socrates with no hesitation or shame whatsoever. And then I started thinking: Is that because I’m a coward who will always choose the easy way out? Have I no sense of honor? Am I nothing but a soft pudding of a man, born and bred in an environmentally and economically safe nonviolent middle-class vacuum, I wondered.

And when it comes down to it, I think that may be exactly what I am.

Thank God.

I mean, I do go out on a limb sometimes, but it’s always within the compound of my peaceful, suburban life. And that’s the only kind of life I know, indeed a very different one than that of an Englishman living in 1750. Would I take a bullet for my king and homeland? Probably not - not voluntarily, anyway. Would I take a bullet for my wife and kids? Yes, no doubt. Do I give a shit about honor? What is honor about, anyway? Would I give up my current comfortable existence for the benefit of a fair world? Nah, not entirely anyway. Yet I do try to show some moderation. I don’t spend money excessively, I use public transportation whenever I can, a small percentage of my income goes to charitable causes, I have a modest house, a small and environmentally friendly car. I’m a social worker, helping people out somehow, hopefully…

I’m sorry mr. Johnson, I don’t want to dethrone czars. I want to live The Good Life. The Simple Life. I don’t want to be courageous, I want to be kind and gentle.

I want to know what Socrates has to say. So sue me.

…or not.

Anyways, I’m making a lot of music these days, so here are links for three more songs in mp3 format.

True Love and She Said are upbeat pop-rockers. I sang more or less constantly for 24 hours, and something happened to my voice. I think it’s kind of cool, but I don’t know - too much Bryan Adams? Or Richard Marx??

Left To Cry is a drumless ballad, it’s very simple - only 4 chords repeating themselves, but it kinda works…

The lyrics were assembled - as usual - within 10 minutes and with very little regard to rhyme or reason.

I actually tried to make some money off these tracks just for the fun of it over on amiestreet.com. I got a couple of recommendations and the tracks made a few cents each, but my income stream seems to have dried out by now - I’ve been stuck with a total of $2.84 for weeks - so I think it’s safe to offer them for download here…

And hopefully I’ll come up with something interesting to write about soon… well - I never seem to write about anything interesting - but I’ll be back writing about something, that’s for sure.

My head is about as empty as the void between Ernest Borgnine’s front teeth these days.

System update: My RSS feed has been a little unpredictable since I redirected my blog - some of my old posts suddenly pop up in front of the more recent ones. And I’m hardly getting any hits on the site today, so I’m still experimenting with the settings here to get it right.

It’s not like I had a million readers before, but I do hope to keep the ones I had - so I’ll probably stay up half the night and try to solve these problems.

It’s always like that, isn’t it? Whenever something’s bugging you about your computer? It’s impossible to let it go. Like when you’re fiddling with the system settings and the screen goes all black at 11 p.m. You don’t just turn in for the night, do you? You just have to try this one last thing before you give it up and go to bed? Didn’t work? How about this, then?  Or this….? … 1 a.m. . . 3 a.m. . . .5 a.m.

Suddenly you look at your watch and realize that you’re supposed to be at work…

That’s what happens to me, anyway. It’s always the same - and I’m getting older, so whenever I do something like this these days, I’ll need a week to recover.

Oh my, the trouble I go through for you, my dear five readers…

No, really - I do love solving computer problems - my wife won’t be too happy when I come to bed in the morning, though…

As you can see from my posts, I took a vacation from blogging during the easter. Spent a couple of days up in the mountains, hiking and relaxing with old-fashioned stuff, like books and cards. This is me together with my kids.

If you’re confused about this blog, don’t worry, so am I. It’s about everything and nothing, really - sorry if I’m wasting your time…

I’m so tired of the one-sidedness of everything. Either you’re in favor of something or you’re opposed to it, either you’re liberal or you’re conservative, either you like the Barenaked Ladies or you hate them.

I’m more of a “neither”-kind of person. I don’t hate anything much that I can think of, but I do have some strong opinions. What I have a problem with, though, is society’s desperate need to generalize everything.

If I’m in favor of higher car and gas taxes, I’m automatically a green-minded, socialist nitwit who’s opposed to progress and personal freedom. On the other hand, if I’m in favor of lower taxes on industry investments, I’m suddenly a deep-blue conservative destroying the earth.

But it’s never that easy, is it? I mean, certainly, Charlie Parker was a bop musician. But his music didn’t just pop (bop?) out of nowhere. He grew up with swing, blues… band music for all I know, in the 1920s and 30s. And even if he would distance himself from some of those genres later, they’d still be a part of the fabric that constituted Parker’s musical style - which most definitely is a multi-faceted affair… pretty much like me and you, I guess.

In movies, I love the classic Ivory/Merchant productions from the 1980’s, I’m completely hooked on everything Michelangelo Antonioni and Woody Allen ever did on screen and I enjoy the occasional John Hughes teen-flick.

Equally, I love the scratchy old Robert Johnson recordings as much as I like the tremendous, overwhelming and ultrasmooth productions of David Foster. Not to forget my obsession with Charlie Parker and John Coltrane.

I don’t think any single politician or political party holds the absolute truth. I don’t think of beauty and ugliness as objective terms. For every view I hold, I feel there are a finite or infinite (I don’t know) number of opposing views that drag me in a different direction. And that holds true for all of us, I’m sure.

I know I’d be terrified if I ever met a person and suspected otherwise, anyway.