Thought Dump

I love rock music. For instance, Hair of the Dog by Nazareth. Can’t deny that’s a powerful song! I think rock has led to a lot of connections, some social change and shaping, cultural shifts, tons of fun and sex and drugs and stuff, but there’s definitely a yin and yang (a lot of seedy money grabbers, druggies, glorifying negativity, commercialization and exploitation of the pop market molding our minds, and so on).

I wrote a really long post about some guys I know who lived the rock & roll life, aging ex-hippies who have played in bands their whole life, had families and raised them all to play music, dudes that did tons of drugs when they were young and have only sort of slowed down later in life. The original post is not worth sharing but the gist of it was this.

These guys do not watch Fox News or listen to right-wing media but they love Trump, think the Democrats have been out to get him "from the day he took office," don't remember how Republicans treated Obama as an illegitimate president, think the media "just make everything up," etc.

I shared this dumb anecdote a year or two ago but one of them voted against the deriminalization of cannabis possession in Cook County because "they're gonna take all the fun out of it!" if it was ever legalized. They're also mega casually racist, regularly just go off on stories where some asshole offended them over some dumb slight (that always turns out to be their fault anyway) and of course it comes out eventually in the story that the other person was black. Maybe I'm too sensitive for this stuff and have gotten in the habit of listening for it in advance, but it's ridiculous how it's just become a regular thing every time I see them.

I guess this post was supposed to be about how rock n' roll was supposed to represent a mindset that stood against authoritarianism, how LSD has the power to open your mind (instilling empathy for others, bringing some of your most unchecked prejudices and beliefs into question, etc.), how cannabis does some of this in a less potent way but should certainly lead your thoughts away from the kind of aggression and anger that leads a person to, like, fucking identify with Donald Trump.  And yet, here we are.

I'm just trying to find anything in this world that can break through the shit that causes people to dwell on feelings of spite and jealousy and resentment, something the right can't co-opt towards their own ends no matter how at odds it ought to be with their entire agenda and worldview. If it's not rock (and music in general), drugs or religion, then what in the world can you offer people?

I also love rock music, will I also turn out to be a fascist supporting POS when I'm 60?

etc.

There was a bigger point I wanted to make here but I don't think I can reach it tonight.

There is a song on the 1999 Britney Spears album called "E-Mail My Heart."

undo wrote:So basically when I hear someone tell a story about how they (or anyone) was reading philosophy in middle school or even high school, I'm quick to distrust them, maybe even resent them, because any truth behind that, whether it's written off as a "phase" they went through or not, definitely discredits my own personal narrative about being a genuinely smart and precocious kid, which really chips away at the foundations of my self-worth.



Suffice to say, there were no kids like this^ around me growing up, and I'm sure the only reasonable response to that would be "well good" but that bothers me because I just feel like I might as well have grown up on Mars for all the shit I did not encounter during my adolescence that maybe could have shaped my worldview in a way that might have helped make everything seem more real and approachable and interactive rather than some abstract concept that might as well not even exist and just "out there" somewhere.

https://rateyourmusic.com/board_message?message_id=7502538



I get it if anyone's like "I was ten when I realized I liked boys/girls" but you've got to be kidding me

I know this is weird AF for me to focus on but now it's like everyone has a story where they figured out life when they were in elementary school and had some transformative encounter with art that they related to on a super-mature level. When I was ten I wasn't even a human being, I had less freedom and agency and self awareness than an animal on a leash, all I cared about was playing NES and dunking on the Nerf hoop hanging on my bedroom door.

Ten is really, really young but I suppose the recognition of some profound social difference in one's self is bound to have a major impact, even if it is highly unlikely that it would have been interpreted in such an adult and mature way. But I honestly wouldn't know.

I am always skeptical of these statements as well and the people who make them are almost always the goddamn worst and are probably just masking the fact that they are now in their mid-30s and still haven't yet formulated an interesting thought on their own.

Didn’t we recently have a Joe Rogan thread? Read an interesting old article on Vice today about some of the obvious and less obvious dangers of lifting up bigots/bad actors and giving them a voice.

https://www.vice.com/amp/en_us/article/59ade5/inside-youtubes-alt-media-ecosystem

Vice wrote:...the AIN builds a culture in which personal reliability and authenticity legitimize the people in their network, not factual veracity or institutional support. Rather than building trust through fact-gathering and rigorously sourced information, AIN relies on the persona of a down-to earth, countercultural underdog. In other words, AIN feeds on the precise cocktail that forges virtual communities and propels YouTubers to microcelebrity status.

Have an online “friend” who vouches hard for his credibility as a “good guy,” but the above passage says much better than I tried to why this isn’t enough.

undo wrote:

undo wrote:So basically when I hear someone tell a story about how they (or anyone) was reading philosophy in middle school or even high school, I'm quick to distrust them, maybe even resent them, because any truth behind that, whether it's written off as a "phase" they went through or not, definitely discredits my own personal narrative about being a genuinely smart and precocious kid, which really chips away at the foundations of my self-worth.



Suffice to say, there were no kids like this^ around me growing up, and I'm sure the only reasonable response to that would be "well good" but that bothers me because I just feel like I might as well have grown up on Mars for all the shit I did not encounter during my adolescence that maybe could have shaped my worldview in a way that might have helped make everything seem more real and approachable and interactive rather than some abstract concept that might as well not even exist and just "out there" somewhere.

https://rateyourmusic.com/board_message?message_id=7502538



I get it if anyone's like "I was ten when I realized I liked boys/girls" but you've got to be kidding me

I know this is weird AF for me to focus on but now it's like everyone has a story where they figured out life when they were in elementary school and had some transformative encounter with art that they related to on a super-mature level. When I was ten I wasn't even a human being, I had less freedom and agency and self awareness than an animal on a leash, all I cared about was playing NES and dunking on the Nerf hoop hanging on my bedroom door.

Late to the reply here, but I really enjoyed reading this post because of how much I could relate to it. I was not even a remotely self-aware, developed human with a real identity until my late 20s at the very earliest. And even then I still had a ways to go towards becoming a person that I sort of like.

Toxic fascist thugs still sometimes take good care of their kids and dogs.

Rogan is supporting Sanders, which is cool. I guess I don't really know what "veracity" and "institutional support" is supposed to look like. Why should I feel nostalgic for a time in which the State and a handful of favored corporate elites controlled the distribution of information? The people who only know how to talk negatively about our fractured media landscape are the ones who always benefited from the official narrative of the corporate press.

I have been critical of Sanders, his base, and some of his staffing/endorsement decisions, but that's not really why I posted the article. I posted it because I think it does a good job of explaining why the Rogans of the world are not good for the distribution of information (tho not necessarily that "the State and a handful of favored corporate elites" should control this distribution).

A lot of people who hang on Rogan's every word see him as a credible information source, and not the whacked out, transphobic, red pill conspiracy nut he is... and they identify with him because he's a genuinely "nice," "normal," "unbiased" guy just trying to cut through the hate and help everybody come together and embrace this shared quest for information and truth.
This annoys me and, yeah even makes me feel nostalgic for a time (that maybe never existed?) when people would get information from something closer to being factual or at least vetted by knowledgeable professionals.

I guess the folks that are making this about Sanders are pissed that he's lifting up the platform of a backwards thinking dipshit who in turn lifts up the platform of others, some of whom, are downright aggressively destructive with their toxic bigotry. It's a viewpoint I can identify with, but not enough to cry foul of Sanders who others might say is just trying to appeal to the sort of middle ground, uneducated/uninformed, independent streak voter who tunes into the Rogan lifestyle. Maybe even siphon some of these idiots away from Trump. I can identify with that too. I just wish the left didn't have to counter post-truth cult nonsense with post-truth cult nonsense. And I'm sick of transphobia and misogyny in general and people who espouse those sorta views like Rogan can fuck right off.

Sorry I never responded to this. I have some stuff to say but just haven't had the time. In the meantime, that is a good post and I agree with basically all of it.

No worries. Progressive populism's pros and cons is an idea I'm fascinated by, and I'm considering trying to write an op-ed about it.

Now for something completely different: Chris Farley is to Kurt Cobain as Adam Sandler is to Eddie Vedder is a weird hot take that I just had, and though people may have been more entertained by it in like 1993, I feel like it wouldn't have made as much sense.

https://twitter.com/Adrian4Bernie/status/1220710514814308352
https://twitter.com/MeetMichael_/status/1220760959381393411


I think those tweets and the corresponding video from the Fox News town hall illustrate the counter-point to everything you are saying. Bernie was roundly criticized, including by people within his own base, for going on Fox News. The outcome though was extraordinary. On both instances, he was able to build consensus within the audience for social democratic political policies, especially around education and healthcare, and was able to easily refute and belittle the conservative talking points and scare tactics (which of course members of the Democratic Party are also accustomed to using).

If Sanders was going on Joe Rogan's podcast or Fox News and was contorting his political message so that it was more suitable to their respective listeners, it would be deeply problematic, of course. But otherwise, it would be fucking stupid not to exploit these media opportunities. When you aren't getting any help from the Party itself and you have past members who are openly sniping at you in the press, you are basically obligated to use every available platform to spread your political message and try to broaden your base of support. This the only path to electoral viability!

chrondog wrote:That doesn't even touch on all of the non-consensual/revenge porn material on the site. 

As someone who has almost exclusively consumed amateur (or amateur-styled professional) pornography from PornHub for several years now, I can't tell you how much stuff I've seen that should land some fucking dude in jail.

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/mar/09/worlds-biggest-porn-site-under-fire-over-videos-pornhub

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/mar/09/pornhub-needs-to-change-or-shut-down

‪Every year that goes by without a broadway version of the Troy McClure Planet of the Apes musical theatre show is a year wasted.‬

David Bowie released the album Let’s Dance when he was 36. This is fucking me up right now for some reason. I feel like I’ve made the same post before about Roger Federer, Jim Croce, or any other human who’d already lived 3 or 4 times more lives than me before reaching my current age and I hate that this made up legacy shit weighs so heavily upon me. But I still fear that under even the best of circumstances, my life is nothing. I’ve been drinking again of course. A dumpable thought for sure.

Ned I feel the same way whenever I listen to Astral Weeks. Which I do a lot because it’s a beautiful album but also because I like being reminded what an insignificant piece of shit I am!

I feel like life gets practically better - and potentially worse - when you realize that you're not exceptional or especially different from most people around you. It frees you up to do something fine without the need for that thing to be spectacular. Since realizing that - probably happened to me about 3 mos ago - I've been a mostly better and more productive version of myself.

I don't know if I have come to the same realization as Michael K or not. I probably still have a lot more "maturing" to do or whatever. I don't really aspire to be exceptional or anything. Like anyone else I want to be recognized and acknowledged as important or valued. I get that recognition from my friends and family, who are the people that really matter to me. I don't have professional aspirations and I don't feel like I have anything to prove to anyone.

For those of us who are fortunate enough to live an average human life cycle, we really experience a lot. That is often measured by particular life events (graduations, marriages, grandchildren, etc.) But that is myopic. We are all the center of our own universes but we don't have to live like that every second of every day.

This all sounds like new age philosophy bullshit, but today there are more people on Earth than ever before. That leads to a huge acceleration in how we record and experience human history. More human life will be temporally experienced in the next decade than in the entirety of the nineteenth century (I am making that up but it is almost certainly true). In my own lifetime there have already been massive social transformations in so much of the developing world, especially in Arab and Muslim countries. As we collectively confront our problems, these transformations and evolutions in our social, political, and economic systems are going to continue in totally unpredictable and literally unimaginable ways. And that doesn't just get represented in political conflict, but it is also culturally sublimated by the arts. It is not coincidental that Marvin Gaye's What's Going On came out in 1973, for example.

The role that we have in these massive transformations is minuscule, but the fact that we have any role whatsoever is deeply humbling and incredible to think about. History is not happening to us, we are making it. Probably this is just bullshit hippie talk but these are the kind of thought patterns that give meaning and purpose to my life.

I also think that the pain and suffering that we experience, even from something as seemingly insignificant as break-ups or career disappointments, really matter. I think that outlook has something to do with my Catholic upbringing since there is a kind of existential humanism that undergirds a lot of Catholic thinking and teaching.

I constantly beat myself up for being a super embarrassingly naive kid who was emotionally immature and foolish and made a lot of stupid choices that really the legs out from beneath my future before I had a chance to wise up and figure out what I really wanted.

That's not uncommon, I realize, and for most of people, that takes the shape of Real Problems that I've never had to come close to dealing with. So altogether I really haven't had it that bad at all!

The problem comes with being an extremely online person and constantly living in spaces online that are dominated by young people who are not exactly being honest about their lives but are engaging online in a lifetime-long performance that's not always 100% truthful! And realizing that should be more than enough for me to brush most of this off, but once again, I'm a sponge for soaking up the best of other people and comparing myself to them and that's a recipe for disaster.

It's awful to look back at my life goals from the age of 15-25 and seeing just how naive and ill-informed and utterly cliched 99.9% of them were. Even now, I'm embarrassed as hell to even bring them up even in a safe place like this where I know I won't be judged and where the teasing that does exist is genuinely good-natured and coming from trusted people.

Always bums me out to see people talking about how you really shouldn't want to experience X, Y or Z after age 25 or whatever because it's "too old" and you should really just get over that stuff because everyone else claims that they did, of course, after they got to experience all that stuff in full in a beautiful adolescence and idealistic early 20s or whatnot.

My guitar is in the closet and I know I'm too ADHD and stupid to ever get over the hump of figuring out how to play it outside of my autistic jams that only sound good inside a tiny cluster of brain tissue inside my skull, I have the full version of FL Studio on my computer but I get so discouraged trying to figure it out and make something that's not a derivative garbage version of the EDM that every 19 year old has been making for the past decade (and which I hate listening to but also kind of admire just from a "how did they do that?"-kind of standpoint). It's a vicious cycle!

I have no sticktoitiveness that will ever allow me to "master" anything but no sense of acceptance of this that this is just what life is for pretty much everyone on the planet. I was a Gifted Child! I'm special!

I've made that post every year for the past decade, I'm sure.

This is why I can't accept that someone like Paves would walk away from music.

It just blows my mind when talented people who I perceive at being at the top of their game just... quit for whatever reason. Of course, he has his reason, just like all the other musicians who recorded tons of cool stuff and put out albums, and then just stop because real life gets in the way, but if it was ever important to them in the first place, and I always assume that it was, how could you just cut that part of your life and your very identity right out of yourself and...

Like, I know that people don't stop existing just because they never set foot in a recording studio again or never upload a new piece of music to the Internet. I know this but at the same time, I'm not sure I believe it.

Sorry for hijacking this discussion and making it all about me.

So I guess today's the 40th anniversary of REM and I'm trying really hard not to be a dick about it on the internet.

First mention I've seen of that and I've been online all damn day.

There's nothing surprising about how old bands can (and ostensibly should) fade in popularity and acclaim and name recognition over time but I've never lived through every phase of that quite like I did with this group, hard to think of anyone else who even comes close to it.

It's given me a new perspective on nostalgia and has made me less prone to judge others for indulging in it.

I could really go for a burrito right now