Posts you had second thought about and decided not to post - put them here

Impressively lofty words. You should try following through on that.

Because they are black

i'd be af excited for that. not even joking.

imagine angry kitty's dis tracks! oh my, the vitriol! but what a healthy outlet; thank you for not biting me today, friend 【≽ܫ≼】

can't wait til he shows up on the me too thread.

i was inpatient at a psychiatric hospital and met a really kind + fascinating woman who was completely obsessed with that album. she would sing along to all of the songs verbatim, quite passionately (+not bad at harmonizing, either!). i too kind of considered them dudsy corporate rock, but in those moments, i really saw the appeal through her appreciation. idk if i'd go out of my way to hear it now, but i've eased off my more militant ideas about that material.

Me too, at least according to my to-do list

It is a truth universally acknowledged that one is never more than three feet from a post about Rush or Pavement.

― I would prefer not to. (Chinaski), Thursday, 7 March 2024 21:27 (three weeks ago) bookmarkflaglink

I'll add King Crimson, if I may.

“nah. and i don’t take shit for granted because i know all this deep deep shit.”

me: “but still, you are taking it for granted. that is what we monkeys do. it is our way.” lol

you say "changed everything" but what if no matter who left or who arrived this particular band always just sucked beyond redemption

sorry hold on, you gave your xgf twenty thousand human dollars

can i also be your xgf

i mean i'm not usually partic sapphic but 20k is 20k, dang

lol yeah that was a one-time only deal

guess i'll just keep internet loving you for free then, Kate 😘

awwwww, thanks :)

probably for the best that you're not sapphic, when sapphics say things like that i just start keysmashing. that's the kind of lesbian i am, haha.

just throwing it out there but i feel like you're not forced to have an opinion about stuff you don't really care about or relate to

just throwing it out there but i feel like you're not forced to have an opinion about stuff you don't really care about or relate to

― Bitchin Doutai (Noodle Vague)

look i got no stake in this argument one way or another but i gotta say that i VEHEMENTLY disagree in the STRONGEST possible terms with you on this

what on earth

Damn dude, I wish I could go to even a quarter of the number of shows you get tickets to.

just throwing it out there but i feel like you're not forced to have an opinion about stuff you don't really care about or relate to

i'd like to tell you but this isn't a safe place. this isn't a safe place for me to talk about it.

you say "changed everything" but what if no matter who left or who arrived this particular band always just sucked beyond redemption

I like the idea of this, a band where the entire group could be replaced by unrelated musicians playing a totally different style of music and yet the curse attached to it is so strong that they will never not suck

I could probably make a good-sized list

Mostly every successful metal band that's lasted twenty or more years

i don't want to read the whole thread but i would like to know (hope to know) that no one is actually angry with anyone about music

Otm

Who let the dohgz out

molly hatchet just played here and someone informed me that there is no original member of that band left and it made me think about all the decades of steps that it took to get to the point where people who were never originally involved with that band ended up becoming the band. the three-molly problem. my new series coming to Tubi.

They've also become an avant-garde string quartet

My series starts in Mainland China...

don't wanna hijack ivy's "writers you think are bad" thread, however, i do think it's interesting and i do have Thoughts about it

yes why bother writing a good essay when you can write a bad one

― ivy.

this is genuinely interesting to me, because i've been writing bad essays for most of my life

for most of my life i've had this compulsion to write. and while other people can get by by writing my little pony fanfiction - which is, i think, an _excellent_ use of a person's creative talents - for whatever reason i keep writing _critical essays_.

a lot of them are bad

i didn't write them _for_ anyone in particular - just wrote them because i felt like i had to. why both writing a bad essay when i could write a good one?

sometimes i work really hard at writing, work really hard at it and write something that is probably good. i don't feel a sense of _satisfaction_ about having done it. mostly i'm glad to be done with it.

what i can never figure out is what the fuck to _do_ with my writing

the thing that amazes me about oyler is that she actually went to all the work to get her work _published_

lots of different people can write, but like. even getting to the _point_ where one can be reviewed is...

i kind of agree with the idea that "no one should be popular"! i'm not a big fan of the concept of "popularity". particularly writing something where...

the idea of being a "bad thinker" particularly connects with me. the parallel to being a "bad writer", which to me suggests writing as a _craft_

i think i kind of understand what's meant by someone being a "bad thinker" - someone who starts with a premise and reaches a conclusion that's either irrelevant or just plain wrong. it might be that "thinking" in that way is a craft the way writing is a craft.

i guess that's where my attempts at critical essays come from... the way i write is a sort of aid to structuring my thinking. when i try to figure things out in my head it doesn't always go so good. when i write things out on paper it's easier to come up with meaningful conclusions. meaningful to me, at least.

-

it's the idea of criticism _itself_ that gets me. so i'm writing for myself, but who else? as a critical writer, i'm highly sensitive to the power of criticism. i even surprise myself sometimes with my lack of resilience. i haven't read this oyler person's work. it reminds me of a video essay i watched about... i think it was about the Hobbit video game. i transcribed the part of it that resonates me, that helps me remind myself that writing isn't a bad thing, even if i'm a bad writer, even if i'm a bad thinker. i'm just gonna paste it here... i think it says things better than i could.

I'm not sure a culture where we respond to failure with anger and hatred is such a good thing.

Creating things is hard. Do you know what happens to most things people create? Nothing. Nothing happens, because most people never share their creations with the world.

Creating things is hard, and it can be particularly hard to keep going in spite of that. It can be hard to deal with the constant fear of failure, the prospect of disappointing yourself or other people, and the pain of not making something as good as you want it to be and believe yourself capable of.

I think this kind of fear of failure and self-doubt probably holds many people back in life. I think that's a great shame, because the number one way to make something good is usually to fail a bunch of times. Unless you're very lucky, failure is the best teacher you will ever have. Failure is useful. Failure is necessary. Failure is normal. It is a part of creation, and if we want people to create good things - games or otherwise - failure should probably be allowed.

So maybe we should avoid vilifying it.

-

ok, and i'm still a _critical writer_. that's what i do. it is so _easy_ to vilify. i've seen so much writing that's truly bad. that's without even bringing bad thinking into it. i don't think people do bad things _because_ of bad thinking. i think bad thinking is a manifestation of something else, something that's not fundamentally intellectual in nature. i'm not sure how relevant that is, though? one's _motive_ for bad thoughts, bad actions, doesn't necessarily matter... what matters is the results.

critics, i guess... i feel like part of what i do is make arguments for what those results... _ought_ to be. like, there is a _should_ implicit in all criticism. it promotes the critic's particular set of values. all of this talk... vulnerability, radical acceptance... and yet my work is fundamentally driven by my values. criticism is rooted in a lack of acceptance. while i can appreciate the vulnerability someone displays by saying something wrong... it doesn't alter that wrongness. sometimes it doesn't matter that a person is wrong.

to me a lot of the time it doesn't matter to me that someone is wrong, that someone is a bad thinker. there was that thread on cerebus... dave sim is someone who i would classify without hesitation as a "bad thinker". he reaches conclusions of staggering wrongness. certain sorts of wrongness - either qualitatively or quantitatively - are effectively immune to criticism due to their distance from the would-be critic's worldview.

if i'm gonna criticize, i'd prefer it to be criticism of work like sim's. a sort of inquiry into _otherness_. i'm inclined to think that it's bad criticism to write about something one doesn't understand, but there's _so much_ about this fucking world i don't understand. criticism for me isn't a debate on the merits of a work or lack thereof. it's making sense of the insensible. it's, often, me shaking my head and saying "Why was this published? Who's the audience for this shit?"

"nobody should be popular"... i think what i agree with most about that is that i have this very radical sense of egalitarianism about me. it's not entirely healthy - the fundamental motivation is my belief that nobody should be having a worse time than me. i don't think the belief itself is _wrong_, though. it is, in some sense, unjust when bad writing is exalted. the injustice is, well. the existence of _critics_. people who say "this is good", "this is bad". the problem is that, well... everyone's a critic. in the early days of the internet, these libertarians would say "the answer to bad speech is more speech". patent nonsense. just as nonsensical, i think, is any idea that the answer to criticism is more criticism.

-

i guess i write criticism because i need to, because it's one of the best ways i can think of to express my values. the thing about criticism is that no matter one's intent, it does, i think, bend towards personal conflict. i'm in favor of conflict, honestly. it's difficult for me to do conflict well. i got a tendency towards the performative. that kind of thing cheapens criticism, in my book. well, at least... it goes against my current values.

i think it's important for bad writers to have the opportunity to become better writers, and bad thinkers to have the opportunity to become better thinkers. that mindset is... difficult for me to cultivate.

I try not to write negative reviews anymore, not because I don't hate things — I hate so many things — but because life is short and I'd rather say "Hey, listen to this."

whereas to me criticism is about saying "let me tell you why i find this interesting"

my buddy John Ch3ds3y once wrote a review of this Christian metal band Ultimatum's album and said the vocalist sounded like a duck and the dude wrote him back and called him an asshole and a whole bunch of other uncouth things he didn't expect to be posted publicly, which my buddy nonetheless did the next day

why a duck

i kinda hear it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLzr0eeTRoA

like he's trying to be Zetro but can't enunciate

Honestly, a metal vocalist who went full spluttering Donald Duck would be pretty amazing. I remember hearing one Immortal song where Abbath sounded exactly like Popeye, right down to the "huck-uck-uck-uck-uck" chuckling sound, and just laughing my ass off. But it was still awesome.

'popeye' was definitely my pejorative statement for a lot of BM vocalists back in the 90s, until I realized most of my favs also sounded like him

why a duck

Because they're Christian metal, and Lord love a duck

Honestly, a metal vocalist who went full spluttering Donald Duck would be pretty amazing.

― Instead of create and send out, it pull back and consume (unperson)

not a metal vocalist, but scott walker on "the escape" does the most terrifying donald duck impression i have ever heard

admittedly i haven't heard any other donald duck impressions i could describe as "terrifying"

as far as ultimatum goes, i do genuinely feel bad for the vocalist - i mean, i got a speech impediment myself.

having said that, first, if someone wrote a review of my christian metal band's album and made fun of me for talking like donald duck, i wouldn't go after the person who said it. i mean if you're reviewing the record and the singer has a speech impediment it seems reasonably fair to point it out. my speech impediment is a large part of the reason i'm not a christian metal band singer. i mean, it's more important to me that i'm not a christian and i'm a pretty bad singer, but the speech impediment is definitely in there.

the best metal version of the popeye theme i've heard is on chunktrade's 2003 demo.

i am a fan of the early 1970s australian band "duck"

just... a weird lineup or contemporary rock covers. "maybe i'm amazed"... sure... "southern man"... ok... "dog breath"?!? "memo from turner"? "the man in me"? shit gets weird.

hitting the ball at an outfielders head so it bounces out for a home run

Usually requires at least one (1) Canseco ranging the outfield, but a good strategy if available.

I don't know about happiness. Most of the assholes I know are mostly "smugly complacent" or "blissfully ignorant". Maybe that's happiness, I don't know. I'm pretty happy and I'm not a duck.
-- Gear! (drink_to_remembe...), May 19th, 2004 12:17 PM. (Gear!) (later)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

not a dick. DICK
-- Gear! (drink_to_remembe...), May 19th, 2004 12:18 PM. (Gear!) (later)

― Ask For Samantha (thatgirl), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 16:19 (nineteen years ago) bookmarkflaglink

From a v.old Excelsior post...

the worlds mildest edgelord

i don't think an apology is necessary but i do think our society might be a little nicer if people were willing to acknowledge when they were wrong about something

I KNOW WHY HE DID IT!!! NUH UH, I DO!!!

i don't think an apology is necessary but i do think our society might be a little nicer if people were willing to acknowledge when they were wrong about something

― na (NA), Thursday, April 11, 2024 3:40 PM bookmarkflaglink

look I'm sorry I said what I said about the Cubs

https://i.postimg.cc/RZ04LcTR/IMG-7468.jpg

How do you all find the time to figure out who these weirdos are? Seems exhausting.

throw that hot dog down the hallway of justice