Whenever I’ve played poker, I don’t think I’ve ever been dealt a decent hand. Like a complete moron, I’m the kind of knobsicle that chooses to complain about this, blame the deck for being totally against me, and spending the bare minimum amount of chips to stay in on the off chance that I might win something back even though I know I won’t. Eventually I run out of chips having made no significant impact on the game overall, bowing out as an “also ran”.
In a random (and frankly, rare) act of convenience towards me, this seems to the perfect analogy for my own continuing existence. Transposing this hypothetical every-poker-game-I’ve-ever-been-part-of to everyday life, we can see that each dealt hand denotes the set of circumstances and situations that befall me day to day. The deck is what we’ll call the concept of an all knowing entity that wields almighty power over us all, be it God, several gods, universal balance or giant alien toddler shaking a snowglobe which happens to contain our entire universe all along. Those slowly decreasing chips represent my own will and energy to keep going, even though I’ve nearly run out and haven’t had the decency (or sense) to admit defeat.
All of this ramble of crap serves to remind me that there’s a popular motivational analogy attached to this analogy too, wherein people say that Instead of complaining about the hand you’ve been dealt, you should make the most of the one you’ve got. It makes sense, seeing as one can only have absolute control over a finite number of elements at any one time, and the majority of one’s circumstances will be set without any personal control whatsoever. The trouble, however, is that it’s very difficult to take any kind of control when you’re sat there holding onto a Joker, an upside-down Tarot card depicting The Tower, and that one Community Chest that instructs you to give £50 to each player for no fucking reason.
How does this all end, then? Does it end with me lying in bed for over an hour each morning internally screaming at myself that I have to get up because it’s what people expect? Or perhaps my altered perception of the world where I think everything should be shit because everything inside my head is shit, but the world just merrily carries on as it likes, causing Dom kind of disconnect between “depressed me” and “alright everything else”? Or does it end with a hastily cobbled together musical outro, because at least somewhere along the way I decided to set some order and structure to one of the few things I actually have control over?
Music. Here’s some. This would’ve been exhibited perhaps a month or two ago but other tracks got in the way. I’ve been through a bit of a new music drought recently so at least it’s nice to have a couple of bits to fall back on.
In keeping with the title of this track, I get 80s German-style electronic (so by that I mean “Kraftwerk”) vibes from the Teleman gang here. This makes it worthy in my mind. Bonus points for quiet, indistinct German spoken word in the middle there.
Teleman – Düsseldorf
Jamie Walsh 
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