I submit that it's not a generation gap as much as it is a clueless twenty-year-old. You can't be seriously arguing that younger people are less comfortable online, can you?
No, I'm saying that it seems like what people do online and the corners of the internet with which they're familiar varies a lot by age. I'm sure this guy is on myspace and facebook, but he doesn't know anything about match.com.
That Unfogged-based knowledge of what other generations are up to, that people were testifying to last Friday, is not always awesome in effect. At a Bar Mitzvah last month, I engaged the father's brother and his new, e-harmony–met fiancee in conversation. I knew so much about e-harmony, from the discussion here and the links to Warren's articles from here as well as having watched the commercials with heightened awareness, that they told my friend they were sure I must have been "looking" lately.
So we're pretty sure that ogged works for a dating site, right? Which one?
I'm sure this guy is on myspace and facebook, but he doesn't know anything about match.com.
Makes perfect sense to me. Match.com is, to use the loathesome lingo, Web 1.0, a digitization of a product (personal ads) that was previously found offline. Facebook is Web 2.0--has no offline equivalent--and corresponds roughly (though not exactly, obviously) to a generational faultline.
Great-granddad had his horseless carriages, granddad had his automobile.
I knew so much about e-harmony, from the discussion here. . . they told my friend they were sure I must have been "looking" lately
Good thing the conversation didn't turn to labioplasty.
High school and college kids don't need dating sites. Heck, they don't need dates. They just go to parties and wake up with each other. "Dating" and "dating sites" only become important when you no longer have the built in social group that comes with school.
Embarrassing generational faux pas: someone on facebook or friendster obviously transferring his 'about me' over from his (it seems always to be males) online dating profile. It just screams 'doesn't get it'.
2: Right, but that doesn't seem like a generation gap any more than owning nice work clothes is a generation gap.
I figure it's more that he's probably recently out of college where 'meet a girl' pretty much mapped onto 'go to class or to a party' rather than any serious generation gap. Give him a couple years of the working world and he'll probably be signing up.
We're not judgmental, just a bit clueless about the whole process.
OT: I just called in my junior associate, gave him a markup of the piece of shit he gave me last week, and told him that he really, really needed to proof and edit things before sending them out. Bleah -- he seemed entirely unfazed, but I found the conversation about as unpleasant as getting chewed out myself.
You didn't smile as you criticised him, did you? Because that sends the wrong message.
he seemed entirely unfazed
You aren't screaming loudly enough.
If the expression on my face matched my emotional state, I looked as though I were passing a kidney stone but being stoic about it. This guy has an incredible stoneface -- I've talked to him about this stuff three or four times now, and haven't gotten a reaction yet.
He's probably a crying-on-the-inside clown.
I'm not convinced that rutting behavior and other traditional methods of attracting mates are any less effective than these newfangled dating sites. Granted, it's been more of a challenge since old-fashioned estrus went out of fashion.
Speaking of generation gap, here's one of those fun-turns-to-tragedy videos you kids find so amusing these days. I'm relying on Ogged to assure us that it's fake.
14: Yeah, I didn't go the "actively try to make him cry" route. That would probably have been the right thing to do -- reasonable, concerned dissections of what's wrong with his work appear to have no impact.
Indeed, Jesus, that does look fake to me, but give me two minutes and I could find you a dozen more grisly ones that are definitely real.
give me two minutes and I could find you a dozen more grisly ones that are definitely real
Like the one described herein.
LB, this guy actually graduated from law school? I'm now rethinking my decision not to follow that career path.
19: I'm so relieved. Clever bit of showmanship, though.
They just go to parties and wake up with each other.
The land of Cockaigne, obvs.
I was hoping the comments would contain the answer to the question in the post. Seriously, how do people date when they aren't in college anymore?
I realize that I don't have to deal with the poor work product of LB's subordinate, so this isn't worth much. But you know, I'm a big believer in erring toward kindness. I think the fact that LB is unwilling to be a screamer or a stereotypical law firm bully speaks quite well of her, and the inscrutable forces of karma will eventually reward her for this aspect of her personality (perhaps already have).
Even as it becomes necessary to be more forthright about correcting him, one can be very kind and very forthright at the same time. The calm and reasonable "look, I'll have to talk to X partner about this eventually, and neither of us wants that", etc.
Of course, I've never worked in a law firm, so what do I know.
23: I think all we can offer are negative examples here.
"I looked as though I were passing a kidney stone"
well, that was your mistake right there.
you should have looked as though you were *failing* the kidney stone.
not grading it on some sort of namby-pamby, 'no bad dogs' curve, for god sake.
Seriously, how do people date when they aren't in college anymore?
Blogs, Di, blogs.
how do people date when they aren't in college anymore?
This is where "urban tribes" come into play.
18, 24: One of the main reasons I find work less stressful than parenting is that at work no one throws a literal temper tantrum. No one falls to the floor, crying and screaming, even at faculty meetings. Kudos to LB for keeping the workplace environment tantrum free.
23: I've found personals work quite well in big cities. Also: make sure all of your friends know you're looking and willing to be set up, accept all party invitations and flirt with all singles.
Set up Unfogged meetups in your town; complain loudly at the table about your single status. That is a good way to become involved with an adult virgin.
at work no one throws a literal temper tantrum.
When I worked at the bookstore a few years ago, my boss would. He'd pick up boxes of books and hurl them across the stockroom in a rage when something went wrong. It would have been scary if the whole spectacle of seeing a 38 year old man throwing a temper tantrum wasn't so hilarious.
31--
yeah unfortunately, depending on your own size, age, sex, and need for a paycheck, that might also go:
"It would have been [hilarious] if the whole spectacle of seeing a 38 year old man throwing a temper tantrum wasn't so [scary]."
at work no one throws a literal temper tantrum.
I have witnessed a few.
I'm surprised Cala is so sanguine about the effects of mere proximity, at least of the class-or-clubs variety, as she has been a participant more than once in those discussions here and there, just this morning given a classic statement as:
...the impermeable "she can't possibly mean me" force field, which is impenetrable by anything short of the Naked Dance with instructions written with Sharpies.
also known as:
"boys are oblivious and girls should ask"
I regret my participation in this age-old non-mating ritual, and "Would that I hadn't done it!"—or had. But pre-assurance, of interest and such qualities as literacy and self-awareness, would seem to be a major contribution online dating could make to any age group
27: So, uh, Ogged, what are you doing this weekend...?
and self-awareness,
As measured by attaching a post-it note to the subject's head, and observing its response on viewing itself in the mirror.
I threw a water bottle out my office door once. My co-worker was walking by; it hit the wall right in front of her. That could have been much worse.
I just announced my departure to vaguely Moira-ish things. A bit odd since I'm going to be around til the end of the year, but necessary since they'll be bringing my replacement in soon. Anyway, there are pleasant e-mailed wailings and gnashings, which is nice for the old eggo.
Set up Unfogged meetups in your town; complain loudly at the table about your single status. That is a good way to become involved with an adult virgin.
marcus, that was unkind.
Maybe I'm just being humorless, but it seemed unnecessarily mean-spirited to me.
vaguely Moira-ish things.
Woohoo! and sounds like fun.
37: You're leaving your job to become a lesbian?
attaching a post-it note to the subject's head, and observing its response on viewing itself in the mirror
Might have worked, or might not have been noticed while I puzzled over the instruction Sharpie-written on your nakedness, and why they were addressed to someone with the same name as me?
34: I didn't deny that online dating couldn't be useful to college-age people. Or that class-or-club dating is easy. Just that's it's all around you in college and most of what online dating does is increase your dating pool. But your dating pool is already pretty big in college.
It's the only time in your life where everyone you are likely to meet is within three years or so of your own age, pretty well sorted by class and ambition, you have free time and few responsibilities, and that the only bar on dating them is whether they want to date you and whether you want to date them.
In other words, there's a large dating pool even if you're still working out how to breaststroke. No need to tread deep waters.
LB -- I think you may have answered this before, but is this a situation where you can't just go to some other young associate/law clerk for research assistance?
LB, why don't you hire me? I promise to spend less time on Unfogged than you do.
I almost posted 40, but then was uncertain whether it would be appropriate. Make of that what you will.
Unrelated, but the political silly season is upon us.
43: The only way I could do that is by going to the partner and saying that Junior's work is consistently unacceptable, can I have someone else please. I don't want to either torpedo his career or look like a prima donna myself, so I'm hoping to talk him into straightening up and flying right. (The phase of the project he was really necessary for is also largely over -- we've got a crude draft of this monstrosity written, and the next two weeks are wordsmithing.)
Congratulations Wrongshore. Good luck with the Moira-ish stuff!
So, uh, Ogged, what are you doing this weekend...?
Wow, desperation hit fast.
Isnt Teo looking for love?
48: Got it. Make the ""look, I'll have to talk to X partner about this eventually, and neither of us wants that", etc." sound like the only real option.
LB, why don't you hire me? I promise to spend less time on Unfogged than you do.
That made me laugh out loud. Cala, you arent a lawyer, are you?
49: Hey, Teo, what are you doing this weekend?
Oh hell, anyone free this weekend?
even if you're still working out how to breaststroke
IYKWIM
48: Have you considered a threat-based timeline? E.g. "If the next assignment doesn't show any improvement, I'm going to ask for you to be transferred. You are welcome to ask for help."
I think this is building to a scene like Jerry Maguire's exit from his talent agency. Junior gets to be Renee Zellwegger, loyal til the end. Then LB finds out he's a single dad.
Best workplace temper tantrum ever: A federal judge was sufficiently angered to order twenty lawyers mostly from the Northeast to appear in his Courtroom in rural South Carolina with two days notice, then screamed at the bunch of us for a half hour. Repeated use of the phrase "New York lawyers" in context provided bonus Anti-semitism.
51: Un/fortunately, not a lawyer. I used to help my friends prep for the LSAT. Does that count?
but then was uncertain whether it would be appropriate
Surely a first, Apo!
49: Hey, Teo, what are you doing this weekend?
Oh hell, anyone free this weekend?
Come Charlottesville this weekend and meet Stanley and me. Of course, I dont know any single guys....
45: Oh god, I have lower standards of decency than Apo!
Best workplace temper tantrum ever: A federal judge was sufficiently angered to order twenty lawyers mostly from the Northeast to appear in his Courtroom in rural South Carolina with two days notice, then screamed at the bunch of us for a half hour. Repeated use of the phrase "New York lawyers" in context provided bonus Anti-semitism.
Yea, but think about how many hours you got to bill!!
When I was a young lawyer, the senior partner liked to send me to continue cases in the Federal District Court in far away places with little to file. I repeated the phrase "I'm a first year associate....please don't dismiss this case on my watch" more times than I care to mention.
Come Charlottesville this weekend and meet Stanley and me. Of course, I dont know any single guys....
I'm torn between "Hey, I don't know any single guys either!" and "I'm not that desperate!" for my smart-ass response. I'm going with the former, so as not to sound mean-spirited.
27: So, uh, Ogged, what are you doing this weekend...?
I dunno, renting a movie with you and your ex husband? Do you guys have a line down the middle of the couch? Alas, I don't live in Chicago, or we could sort all that out. And make Will jealous, of course.
55: We didn't know you were another lawyer, did we? Man, we're like rats or something around here.
49: Thanks, will.
Idea, free to good home: "The Curly Shuffle" could use more referencing.
Have you considered a threat-based timeline? E.g. "If the next assignment doesn't show any improvement, I'm going to ask for you to be transferred. You are welcome to ask for help."
A time-table for withdrawal?
Oh god, I have lower standards of decency than Apo!
It's a brave new world.
Yeah, Ogged, I knew you didn't live in Chicago. I mean, that surely would have been a serious offer if you did. Of course. But yeah, if you drift over the masking tape line down the middle of the couch, the ex might try to make out with you. So that is a bit of a complication...
I'm going with the former, so as not to sound mean-spirited.
Di, it's totally possible that I was being humorless.
Maybe I'm just being humorless, but it seemed unnecessarily mean-spirited to me.
At least he didn't say you need to die! die! die!
And make Will jealous, of course.
Why would I be jealous? I've got Stanley.
68: BG - oh, gosh. That wasn't directed at you! Coincidental repetition of the term "mean-spirited." I really was concerned that my latter comment would sound mean, which is a little silly b/c I know Will is not especially thin-skinned. I'm all in favor of calling people out for mean-spiritedness or the appearance thereof.
Why would I be jealous? I've got Stanley.
Dear, sweet Will. You don't have to pretend to be strong.
63: I have mentioned it from time to time, but I'm kind of irregular here. BTW, I'm usually on the angels' plaintiffs' side of the kind of case where you're on the defendants' devils' side. If we ever cross at a deposition or hearing I will mumble "who wants to sex Mutombo" into the record.
Di Kotimy:
Ogged is still trolling in the 20 something waters. One day, he will realize what he is missing out by skipping the divorced 30-something women.
73: I have wondered about the disclosure issues if that should ever be true of me, what with the bitching about the cases and all. I think I've never seen anything improper, though.
"Well, I'm very familiar with counsel for the defendant, in her online pseudonymous persona..."
One day, he will realize what he is missing out by skipping the divorced 30-something women.
Oh, yeah. Emotional baggage, co-parenting schedules, hypercritical wariness of the opposite sex. Ooh, is he missing out...
76: No no, you're horny, still young, and not at all interested in commitment, remember?
You've got to lead with your strong suit.
still trolling in the 20 something waters. One day, he will realize what he is missing out by skipping...
Yes, very close in age, meeting Becks and Cala standards of age-appropriateness, with Chicago roots, respect for piety, and a swimmer. Hm.
Rob Helpy-chalk nails it.
The post, that is.
77: So you're saying 76 was the wrong approach for the Match.com ad? Damn, this is tricky!
I think 76 would be an awesome match.com ad.
Ooh, is he missing out...
He is if he's still interested in the sprats. Narcissism or baggage are the choices, as near as I can tell, and narcissism gets boring fast. The disadvantage of hanging around adults is that they can figure out what you're thinking by listening, a trick that only the years can teach.
73, 75: It would make me so happy if that happened.
So what if I went with: "Emotional baggage, co-parenting schedules, hypercritical wariness of the opposite sex, yet still young and horny."
I'm willing to put up some money for any lawyer who brings an actual transcript in which they have stated "who wants to sex Mutombo" to UnfoggedDC, New Year's Edition.
So what if I went with: "Emotional baggage, co-parenting schedules, hypercritical wariness of the opposite sex, yet still young and horny."
I would be very impressed.
38: Maybe I'm just being humorless, but it seemed unnecessarily mean-spirited to me.
Uh, sorry, really didn't mean anything by it. I actually originally typed "nerd demographic", which would most definitely include me, but then put what I thought was another spin on the same idea. I really didn't think it would hit home for anybody, but now I realize how it could look. Perhaps there were earlier discussions here I hadn't seen. Apologies again.
69: Oh, mcmc, can we kiss and make up? My attempt to express outrage at boomer culture caught individual boomer-aged friends in its flamethrower-like path, much like a rage against the patriarchy will inevitably scorch dear male friends. I am a shitty person, and I was especially pissy yesterday, and I should have apologized then. I am sorry.
60: I've been a first year associate for nearly three weeks now, can you say more about this argument worked in case I need it?
My attempt to express outrage
Was really good reading.
89: Sniff...okay. You do wave a scorching flame-thrower, AWB.
91: Thanks, Will!
[Starts humming, annoyingly.]
89: Also, sorry we're keeping you down! It's all a terrible mistake!
Congrats Washerdreyer. It works fairly well the first time.
91: me too, mcmc! Especially the bird one on the announcement for your show. (Which I'm going to come to!)
awb--
you've got it all wrong. your comments yesterday were, to my (aged boomer) mind completely appropriate, interesting, and apposite. articulate and passionate. the sort of stuff good threads are made of.
if instead you start going all treacly and 'ooh that was so awful of me' then, dammit, you're enabling the patriarchy. worse: the boomerarchy.
99: Second!
I liked the Dylan bit, too.
Hey, yeah, AWB, I was cool with everything you said but the shit about Billy Joel. We do not claim him.
99 gets it right.
A (younger) colleague of mine suggests that currently illegal drugs be legalized for everyone over 50. He thinks it'll open up society for more upward mobility, and also avert the Social Security crisis.
yeah, that's true--no boomer ever listens to billy joel, so that was kind of a screw-up on your part.
but hey:
It's alright, it's alright, sometimes that's what it takes
You're only human, you're allowed to make your share of mistakes
You know, I understood AWB to be saying something completely different about BJ: that his self-absorption was typically boomer. That is, her point was more about BJ the artist, than BJ's audience. Also, I can't but believe that We Didn't Start The Fire got to No. 1 with very significant boomer nostalgia support.
We may not claim him, but she's not wrong to point at him and sputter with rage.
sputtering with rage at billy joel is age-appropriate for all ages.
anyhow, the real point is: this boomer-aged conglomerate did not feel flame-thrown, and awb is not a shitty person, and does not need to apologize for anything she said yesterday.
He thinks it'll open up society for more upward mobility
Because the old people hanging on to the good jobs will all OD on smack?
There might be something to this, if you consider the high correlation between youth and violent crime. When people start getting all anti-drug, the main thing that drives them is fear of drug crazed youth violent crime. They aren't real impressed with the "legalization puts gangs out of business" argument, in part because they still picture marauding drug crazed youth. But lets face it, no one expects a geezer like Emerson or McManus to do much more than harangue people, so why not give them access to the hard stuff?
If we can set the drinking age at 21, clearly we can set the snorting age at, say, 65.
"he snorting age at, say, 65"
harumph!
(oh. not that kind of snorting? i was envisioning statler and waldorf.)
It would explain a certain amount if the Decider, fine Boomer that he is, has decided that laws against meth use are trumped by the commander-in-chief power.
Hey, Teo, what are you doing this weekend?
Going to a football game.
This seems like a good place to bring up an issue I've been concerned about lately. What's the best way to respond to an ad on an online dating site? There seem to be two main approaches: 1) the traditional, somewhat formal invitation to meet and do something IRL, and 2) a shorter, more informal message aimed at starting an online conversation that may eventually (but won't necessarily) lead to meeting IRL.
The first couple of times I contacted people I tried (1), but for the several people I've been contacting in the last few days I've used (2). Neither approach has resulted in any responses so far.
o boomer ever listens to billy joel, so that was kind of a screw-up on your part
"Piano Man" came out when there'd hardly be anyone else to listen to it, and plenty of my cohort did. Listens now? Who's to say?
I listen to Billy Joel, you asshats.
I kind of like that song about New York getting blown up -- what is it, "Miami 2020" or something?
I will say Billy Joel is catchy. I don't deliberately listen to much music, but if I found myself in a karaoke bar there are probably ten Billy Joel songs I know well enough to sing. Not that I think I've ever deliberately loaded a Joel CD into a CD player, but hearing them as elevator music or whatever, they stick in your head in a way better songs don't necessarily.
worse: the boomerarchy
Speaking of which, did anyone see Across the Universe? It made this know-nothing young punk want to scream like the Dude at Donny's funeral.
It's the lead paint, Brock. Get the hell out of that house.
Holy crap, I forgot that both I'm Not There and Across the Universe are coming out this fall. Boomerarchy indeed.
I didn't read the weekend thread, but I really have no idea what you people are talking about. "Better songs", LB? How can anyone not like the paino man? Captain Jack?? Only the good die young???
I'm not getting into a conversation about what music is good or not -- I deny having any affirmative taste in music other than about stuff I kind of like. I do know that Billy Joel has been Generally Recognized As Embarassing for as long as I can remember, but that's not my own judgment, just a verdict I've picked up from listening to other people make judgments.
I admit I've always hated Billy Joel. Don't think I've ever even heard 'We Didn't Start The Fire.' But then, it's not clear to me that I'm part of the baby boom generation in any case.
Good thing I am unembarassable.
Ooo, and I can't spell. Particularly words with double letters in them.
Anyway, I thought I was defending him as at least catchy.
How can anyone not like the paino man? Captain Jack?? Only the good die young???
On my song-o-meter, I give "Piano Man" a 10, "Captain Jack" a 7, and "Only the Good Die Young" a 0.
Billy Joel is awesome, you crackheads (Brock the leadhead excepted). He's totally shlocky, and I don't know why the Iranian has to point out to the "Americans" that shlock is pretty much your national language. You can pretend you don't like Billy Joel, but he's in your bones.
I like Billy Joel too, and I'm not afraid to admit it. Captain Jack will get you high tonight! The man can write a tune, once you hear it, you're hummin' it. I always thought he missed his calling, he should have been around during the great days of musicals.
The self-absorption and self-pity probably helps his 70s stuff, since that is the tone of the times. But he can do socially conscious too. We're living here in Allentown! But they've taken all the coal from the ground!
"It's All Rock and Roll to Me" is a particularly funny song, since it is in no way rock and roll.
Of course, I make no claims for his quality in any abstract sense. Liking while not claiming quality is the essence of a guilty pleasure.
PS: LB, if you are looking for ways to procrastinate from whatever it is you're doing, you could give me your thoughts on dos años a target age difference between kids. I could, um, maybe use the advice.
Just went back and read the other thread. I will follow AWB into battle anywhere.
Argh. Now I'll never get this out of my head.
Sing us a song, you're the piano man!
Sing us a song tonight!
For we're all in the mood for a melody,
And you've got us feeling alright!
Ogged has such a deep understanding of his adopted country.
Also, Teo, re 110: definitely option #2. First person to contact always leaves the ball in the other person's court. Otherwise you'll scare 'em off.
The song-o-meter gives "Only the Good Die Young" an 8 out of 10 for catchiness, but a -8 for smarminess.
Do I have enough time to slowly get stoned before Heroes comes on?
It ain't no crime to love Billy Joel. It's just human nature, happens all the time.
"Only the Good Die Young" an 8 out of 10 for catchiness, but a -8 for smarminess
If smarminess is a negative reading on your song-o-meter then I think that's your problem right there. (Or are you saying smarminess is a positive value but OTGDY is strongly anti-smarmy? Because that I would dispute.)
110: I like (2) better, for a couple of reasons. I like trying to get a sense about a person before meeting him/her in real life, and I think having a bit of an online chat really helps that along (although, it's happened to me a couple of times where online personas didn't match real-life personas). Plus, I think if s/he isn't absolutely sure about you, s/he's less likely to respond to (1) than to (2).
Billy Joel is easy listening music. It's nice background music, but has anyone actually shrieked with happiness when a Billy Joel song came on?
I should say that it got a -8 on the "lack of smarm" scale. One reason I like songs with incomprehensible lyrics is that the smarm factor is generally minimal.
136, often people shriek with happiness when a song appears that they want to sing along with. Especially drunk college students.
It ain't no crime to love Billy Joel. It's just human nature, happens all the time.
It's a lifestyle choice and an abomination. That's in Leviticus somewhere.
Get that Brock Landers away from my kids.
You can pretend you don't like Billy Joel, but he's in your bones.
Unless you spent the 70s/80s in silence, you know Billy Joel songs.
That said, he doesn't speak for me; it was just weird to hear that. Maybe he spoke for whoever liked him back in the day. Pop music sucked back then. I conclude that I'm not a baby boomer.
127: Worked out great for us (and we hit it to within a week). It's close enough together that you can entertain them doing the same sorts of stuff a lot, and you never get that tantalizing period where kid one is toilet trained so you have a break from diapers before going back to it, but you're not managing two in diapers for long. And the older kid is young enough that the new baby becomes a fact of life very quickly, rather than a longstanding focus of resentment.
(Also, and goodness knows I'm not making any promises, IME the second baby is much easier, because you know what you're doing. Mine were similar in temperament, so Newt wasn't in any objective sense an easier baby, but I stressed about four times as much over Sally as over Newt.)
One reason I like songs with incomprehensible lyrics is that the smarm factor is generally minimal.
Ideal solution: Listen to Brazilian and/or Italian pop music. Gives you the full measure of pop-music goodness, and as long as you can't understand Portugese or Italian, the smarminess will go right over your head.
Plus: chicks dig it.
"There's a man at the bar sitting next to me
"Making love to his tonic and gin
dude, find a bar where people don't masturbate into the glassware, matter of urgency.
Now we know the Welsh lovemaking method.
Mighty brave words from a man with an arousingly woolly back.
142: thanks. That's along the lines of what we're thinking. Although some of the purported advantages ("entertain them doing the same sorts of stuff a lot") are probably most applicable if you go call it quits after two. Whereas my wife, who used to want none or maybe one, is suddenly interested in ramping up production until we hit four or six or something like that. Under which circumstances I wonder if my more aggressively applying the brakes might provide a useful counterbalance. But on the other hand, two years seems like a nice spread.
136: when drunk? Absolutely.
Fair point. Retracted. Billy Joel is awesome, and one of the few forces holding the country together.
130, 135: Thanks. I have a feeling my using (1) in the past contributed to their not responding. On the other hand, now that I'm using (2) they're still not responding, so maybe not.
I had you as the last boomer, Parsimon, telling our story in 2050.
"Only the Good Die Young" was my high school graduating class song. Really. We had a choreographed dance to it at an assembly and everything.
My sister and I are 22 months apart, and it seemed to work out okay for us.
152, you Catholic girls start much too late.
You can pretend you don't like Billy Joel, but he's in your bones.
Ogged is right. Billy Joel is the extruded marrow of white America.
"Only the Good Die Young" was my high school graduating class song.
Ok, this is one of the oddest and funniest things I've ever heard. What could possibly have been the thinking?
My sister is 5 years younger than me and I used to hit her for no reason all the time (slapstick, you know) because she was too small to hurt me. Now she's old enough that I have more life experience than her and can give her advice sometimes, whereas if she was only 2 years younger I wouldn't have much more experience than her.
Billy Joel is a one-hit wonder with more than one hit.
156 - It was chosen for the sex, not the dying. Went over the heads of the administration. I can't remember what the runners up were.
156: I have to imagine it's in the "We're all a bunch of baaaaad people" spirit you find among rebellious teenagers.
I never had a graduating-class song, but my middle-school choir had to sing this song once. ?!?!?
For graduation from elementary school, I and my cohort performed "A Salute to Broadway" finishing with a rousing rendition of "There is Nothing Like A Dame." We were mystified, and scarred.
I'm not sure we had a graduating song, but I seem to recall "Forever Young" was chosen for something or other. So, so sad.
I always thought he missed his calling, he should have been around during the great days of musicals.
I thought he did a musical that was mostly panned. Or was that Paul Simon? Damn short people.
Ours was some terrible Boyz 2 Men song. There was another school in town where the kids picked "Dammit" by Blink 182 only to have the administration veto it (ostensibly because of the title).
165: Simon. Did you see the SNL video of Paul Simon playing one-on-one against Connie Hawkins?
We had "These Are Days", by 10,000 Maniacs. Cheesy, but contemporary and on-topic. Though I remember it being more associated with prom than graduation. It's been a while.
(163: "graduation" from elementary school? That's what's wrong with America these days.......)
Yes, "Moving Out" was the title, I believe.
Paul Simon made The Capeman. People who heard the music liked it, but nobody went to see it on Broadway.
Billy Joel was used for one of the first of those heinous "assemble an artist's songs into a half-assed narrative" musical.
Did you see the SNL video of Paul Simon playing one-on-one against Connie Hawkins?
That was so awesome.
The video preview on the iTunes Music Store for "Still Rock And Roll To Me" is really a thing of genius. It might even be worth paying two dollars for the whole thing.
I had you as the last boomer, Parsimon, telling our story in 2050.
I'm not going to fight with you IDP, no matter what you say.
(Seriously, born in '64, it's arguable. But my dad was in Vietnam; I don't quite think of that generation as my own, despite my hippie leanings.)
It's alright, it's alright, sometimes that's what it takes
You're only human, you're allowed to make your share of mistakes
It's just human nature, happens all the time.
I'm hearing these as sung by the Human League. And I hate you all.
I'm only human Of flesh and blood I'm made Human Born to make mistakes.
Talking to Davey, who's still in the Navy
and probably will be for life. Nah dee dee daw...
I remember noting at the time that being a career serviceman had gone by the mid-seventies from monstrous babykiller to pathetic.
I think there are a few Billy Joel songs that speak to everyone. I've always liked "A Matter of Trust". Partially because it's not obvious what it's about.
I remember noting at the time that being a career serviceman had gone by the mid-seventies from monstrous babykiller to pathetic.
Or gay. What do you suppose he's talking about with the guy who "never had time for a wife"?
And look, to be clear I'm perfectly willing to agree with 118 that Billy Joel has been embarrassing for as long as LB can remember, provided that she doesn't have a very good long-term memory. He's been embarrassing since at least maybe 1990 or so. But the early stuff was pure gold.
I'd even be willing to allow someone to claim the "1990" in 179 should be "1980". But anything beyond that is silliness.
That musical "Moving Out" was really Twyla Tharp's fault. It was fairly well received by the critics, which surprised me, but then everyone turned on Tharp and panned her Bob Dylan musical-dance-extravagansa.
And "Moving Out" wasn't written by Joel, I don't think, just based on his music.
God, now I can't get "Keepin' the Faith" out of my head.
I hate you fuckers.
In my experience, the kids who were the most enthusiastic Billy Joel fans were the same ones who obsessively tracked the performance statistics of Jewish sports stars.
99, 100, 101: I ought to know by now not to take a culture rant personally, and I agree that AWB totally over-apologized and is great and a wonderful writer as well, and I can't wait to see the magazine.
But I'm a little surprised at your confident assumption that when boomers are being hated on an exception is being made for you.
I work in a pretty ageist business, in the opposite way from the academy--advertising and design are very youth-friendly fields. (Weirdly, since it seems like marketing is one of the main forces working against the Advancement of Time.) So I'm kind of sensitized to the inter-generational hostility thing, but in future I will assume an implicit "except you, of course" until notified otherwise.
Am I falling into the "but I'm a nice guy!" role? I suppose.
He lost me with "Uptown Girl"
I've disliked Christy since the first SI Swimsuit issue, which made her famous. She's just about my age, I think, or maybe a bit younger.
One thing my mother loves about being on the older edge of the Boom is that she feels as though, all her life, advertisers have been catering right at her. You'd think the industry would hire in that demographic as well.
I'm not assuming an exception is being made for me. I resemble that remark, as our parents used to joke.
I can't be the only one who finds generation rants bizarre.
Agreed. I've never heard one before in real life, and it doesn't make much sense to me.
I've never heard one before in real life,
Please. Parents just don't understand was an anthem.
185--
i don't think i was assuming some sort of exemption from awb's criticisms. they apply to me as much as to any other boomer (except, perhaps, because i didn't actually *profit* the way most of my cohort did, but there's no way for her to know that).
no, my point was only that her criticisms were well within the range of tolerable and not indicative of some character flaw on her part and not matter for regret on her part.
but as to the allegations, i plead guilty as charged, for the most part.
I used to serve coffee in the Berkeley hills. I know all about generation rants.
oh, and by the way, my earlier claim that
"no boomer ever listens to billy joel"
was intended as a *joke*, witness its being followed
by a two-line quote of his lyrics.
you oughta know by now.
yeah, i've got mixed feelings about him. as lb says, he can write some catchy. i remember lambasting him once to a friend for his shallowness, his mag-pie dabbling with genres he had not invented, his derivative glibness, and so on. and the friend pointed out that these were very nearly the same terms in which i had been praising paul mccartney a few nights earlier.
there's my dilemma. it's not enough to say just, 'yeah, but mccartney was *classy*, dude.'
I made peace with the Billy Joel in my bones six years ago. I lucked into tickets to a mucky muck affair: the non-profit arm of the Grammy's made Billy Joel the MusicCares Man of The Year. The entertainment was Billy Joel celebrity karaoke, with the lyrics projected on the back wall of the room. Rob Thomas from Matchbox 20 did Only The Good Die Young. Stevie Wonder did Just The Way You Are (memorized, natch). Bon Jovi did Say Goodbye to Hollywood. Garth Brooks did Goodnight Saigon. "Garth, man," said Billy Joel, accepting the award, "I don't even do that song anymore."
The swag bag contained the expanded greatest hits. I put it on once in a while, but mostly I don't need to; the songs are in my bones.
(And yeah, you bitch now, but wait til Rick Rubin does his acoustic album.)
Teo, we also had some goddamn Boyz 2 Men song, ages before you graduated. Albuquerque is eternal and unchanging!
You'd think the industry would hire in that demographic as well.
You'd think so. They're kind of torn between the need for novelty (and the belief that it belongs to youth (and I do think it comes somewhat more easily to the young)) and the need to appeal to the largest possible chunk of the population.
They also have to take into account that the boomers are going to have less disposable income as retirees, and then die, so clients don't want their brand to become indelibly associated with the old.
As my design from this preface must be sufficiently evident, allow me to ask if the violation of decorum, the want of etiquette, the rusticity of manners in this generation, must not be a source of exquisite regret and mortification to those, who have seen the last? What idea can the unfortunate young people of the present day have of ancient polish and refinement? So extensive is the deterioration of society, so deleterious the consequences of abandoning established systems, that even the well-intentioned know not how to conduct themselves. This degradation does not exist in Europe alone, this country also deplores its extent. What are the manners of the present day? The presence among us thirty-five years ago, of the most accomplished noblemen of the Court of Versailles, in adding a slight polish to the simplicity and frankness of our habits, formed a most pleasing and perfect system of behaviour. Since that period every thing has been new modelled, and our manners left to choke themselves with their own wild growth, without any pruning, till they have shot into the utmost exuberance of rudeness. Once in a while a vestige may be perceived of better times, some well-bred antique that shrinks from "modern degeneracy ;" and when seen in society recals to mind the insulated Corinthian columns, that are still erect amid the desolation of Palmyra, or the deserted environs of the Forum. When one sees an assembly in the present day, straggling groupes of young men with whiskered cheeks, and wild, uncurled, unpowdered, bewildered locks, and the innocent animated imitations of the Medicean Venus, with their thousand cork-screw ringlets and muslin robes roaming among them, it brings to the fancy a flock of merino lambs in a field of scrub oaks.
i'd like to hear stevie wonder do that. though i think that's one of bj's least appealing songs (his best catchy stuff has an infectious *beat*; that one has none).
i'd like to hear stevie wonder do anything.
In the great Roxane Shante/UFO tradition, "Parents Just Don't Understand" was composed as riposte to 200.
There's a clear generational divide between people who can write "bj" without apparent irony, and those who can't even read it without laughing.
I recently discovered that kids these days don't use the term "hummer" like we used to.
203--
oh, i get it--you're thinking about 'barney junior', right?
the lovable dinosaur side-kick on the children's teevee show?
yeah, now that i remember that, it makes me laugh too.
201: It's got really gorgeous changes. I'm fond of the original. But you can hear how it would be perfect with Stevie.
Also good is Dolly Parton's bluegrass cover of Traveling Prayer, the song that opens Piano Man. The original is fine.
There is very little that will bring merino lambs in a field of scrub oaks to my mind.
choke themselves with their own wild growth, without any pruning
Another recent Unfogged thread.
still erect amid the desolation
Title for ogged's autobiography?
All of The Stranger is indelibly imprinted on my consciousness. My dad played that album in the car a lot when I was very, very small, and now I cannot help but like all of those songs. Nothing else, though -- I don't have the foggiest notion whether those songs are any better than the rest of ol' Blow Job's oeuvre or if this is sheerly the effect of early exposure.
Back on the incomprehensible lyrics love, my new favorite song is "Take Me To The Ballroom" by Moonbabies. Well worth the 99c (it's not up on Hype Machine right now). Individual strains are decipherable ("If love means right / she will end this fight") but the whole thing is just out of reach. Recommended!
Ooh, except I hate "Just the Way You Are," which is unbearable, and am attached to "Allentown," not from that album.
Great story, me!
Jesus, people. Billy Joel had a few decent songs early in his career, but has also been responsible for some of the worst musical abortions to ever roll out of a radio. The same goes for Paul McCartney, who has possibly done more than any man alive to shittify popular music.
Title for ogged's autobiography?
Apostropher's, maybe.
I think I need to go listen to some Jawbox now.
I'm not aware of a single good song by Paul McCartney. I am forgetting one?
Band on the run? They're on the run! How fun.
I was just visited by a sudden memory of my exceptionally fantastic-taste-endowed young self, raptly watching a rerun of M*A*S*H and listening to "Allentown" over and over at the same time. Oy.
re: 216
I'm assuming you aren't including Beatles stuff here?
He was in this band called the Beatles when he was younger, Brock.
219: yes, I meant as a solo artist. Although a lot of the Beatles' annoys me.
McCartney:
I went to look up
But if this ever changing world in which we live in
Makes you give in and cry
And found google remembered the search from last time. Probably my scheme for a "period" treatment of "Live and Let Die"
185: I get this, actually, and I think this ageism tends to be highly gendered. My 50-something mom recently lost her (semi-skilled labor) job of twenty years when the owner retired, and we all had a panic attack about what the hell a smart but overweight and middle-aged woman without a college degree was going to get work doing. She's too bright for most entry-level office work (so they were saying), and not pretty/young/fashionable enough for "front office candy" jobs, and not credentialed enough for anything else. It's not a good time to be a boomer lady, especially one who had to drop out of college after four semesters of studio art.
(I am extremely proud to report that, because my mom kicks ass and takes names, she snagged a great job within a week and a half for which she's being paid to get training and credentials she could take anywhere. But most boomer ladies of my mom's sort of background would have been screwed.)
Point is, the boomocracy is a dudely and particularly misogynistic world, which blows.
I see a lot of good songs under his name here.
As for solo material...I like "Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey" and "Mull of Kintyre".
Man, what happened to the Saints' offense between last year and this one?
I always thought he [bj] missed his calling, he should have been around during the great days of musicals an accountant.
Yup. Position of women in the boomocracy? Prone, as Stokely said.
It's bizarre. The whoel league is bizarre this year. I can't figure out what's going on.
Did he write "Mull of Kintyre?" I always assumed it was a folk song.
The NFL has achieved parity beyond its wildest dreams.
Baaand on the run (low note)
Baaand on the run! (high note)
I enjoy the heck out of that song too, Heebie.
Yeah, he wrote it. Just about all of his solo hits have had just amazing melodies but still not been very good.
Albuquerque is eternal and unchanging!
So, so true.
"Only the Good Die Young" was my high school graduating class song.
Ok, this is one of the oddest and funniest things I've ever heard.
Well, try this one..."Yesterday" was my elementary school (6th grade) graduation song. My Mom got mad and buttonholed my earnest semi-hippie teacher and said: "it's a happy occasion! What do little kids have to be nostalgic about?!"
Roxane Shante/UFO tradition
Man, can I tell you how long I've been waiting for a Roxanne Shante reference on unfogged? UFO, too? Oh, fuck yeah.
Also, I like "Jet". You know, I'd probably like most of his songs if they had incomprehensible lyrics like that one does.
I've never heard that one (Mull of Kintyre). Boy, lyrics of lead, aren't they?
230: with the notable exception of the Patriots, it's important to mention.
If he stays healthy, Randy Moss goes to the Hall of Fame's Hall of Fame. He will pass everyone but Jerry Rice.
Worse then Billy Joel: Eagles.
238: oddly enough I was thinking of Uncle Jamm's Army.
Just another tequila sunrise, John?? You liberals really are worse than the terrorists, aren't you. No wonder America hates you.
Worse than the Eagles, (who I sort of like): Don Henley striking out on his own. And singing Boys Of Summer with the seagull noises in the background. (which I also sort of like.)
243 gets it wrong. Don Henley >>>>>> the rest of the Eagles.
All of The Stranger is indelibly imprinted on my consciousness
The Stranger (title track) is a good song. Are you satin or steel? Silk or or leather? Did you ever let Snarkout see the stranger in yourself?
That song effortlessly straddles '70s singer-songwriter, limp adult-contemporary balladry, and snarling '80s pseudo-new wave rock. Billy Joel is kind of his own genre.
Don henley shoots poison darts at the rest of the Eagles?
she's being paid to get training and credentials she could take anywhere.
That's great, AWB! She must have impressed the hell out of somebody to get paid to get training.
Don Henley might think he's all that, but he was no match for my Mom.
re: 249
That's the noise! The 'girls playing at shooting guns' noise. That we all scorned when we were about 6 as 6 year old boys have snottily high standards for impersonating gun noises.
244: Um, no. Joe Walsh is the only salvageable part of the Eagles.
I only just now realize Emerson wasn't talking about the Philadelphia Eagles. I couldn't figure out what in the hell he was talking about.
247: She did what all the Bear girls do to turn boys' heads. She offered to make cookies for the office.
I'm not kidding. We're rotten kitchen whores, all of us. My mom's cookies are fair exchange in military negotiations.
251: next is Benny and the NY Jets, I would assume.
The 'girls playing at shooting guns' noise
If I could type them, or record them, I would have long ago done a post on how kids in various countries do gun noises. Totally different.
250: Yeah, "pkkhw pkkhw pkkhw" is the way to go.
"pew pew pew" is lolcat house style.
254--
yeah, it is a fascinating topic.
as well as: what noise did little kids make in play-fighting, before the advent of guns?
'whoosh whoosh, i shot you with my bow and arrow?'
i'm thinking not.
We're rotten kitchen whores, all of us.
The quickest way to a man's heart is, well, it's to crack his ribs, actually.
as well as: what noise did little kids make in play-fighting, before the advent of guns?
Before guns kids didn't have to play-fight. Slingshots! Fists! These are available to even the lowliest among us!
258: "blah blah blah blah! Hah! Bored you to death!"
Kaw! Kaw! Kaw! You're dead!
Death by grackles!
what noise did little kids make in play-fighting, before the advent of guns?
Smack! Bam! Pow!
Like old-skool batman. Duh.
Smasher must feel so emotionally vulnerable.
Neither of my boys showed any interest in guns. It's all about the swords and light sabers.
Pong! Pong! Pong! Brained you with my Atari, stupid!
Speaking of brains, thanks, football injuries!
Clunk, clunk, clunk! Death by clumsy segue!
the only toy gun I ever had turned me off of guns because it was one of those whose bullets (nerf balls) had to be retrieved and re-loaded for it to work again. "Guns are too much work, I'm sick of spending five seconds shooting and two minutes gathering these things up ", I thought.
My brother and I were into blindfolded boxing.
My brother and I had a red and a green foam baseball bats growing up, and we'd fight over who got to be Luke and who had to be Vader.
And then we'd fight over whether we were playing Empire or Jedi
Yeah, "pkkhw pkkhw pkkhw" is the way to go.
Yeah, unless you are manning the machine gun post or have an AK-47 or M-16, in which case it's a rapid sequence of glottal stops: "Ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah!" Or, more correctly, "ʔʔʔʔʔʔʔʔʔʔ!"
I think the most common wargame we had was GI Joes versus My Little Ponies, but the endless strife would always give way to a secret illicit partnership between one of the Joes and one of the Ponies.
As it turns out, my brother and I were indeed both total queers.
272: now, play hard to get by never communicating with them again.
We're not playing GI Joe vs. My Little Ponies right now, h-g.
I think the most common wargame we had was GI Joes versus My Little Ponies
My daughter plays with Ponies. Usually it's extended dramas about looking for the baby ponies, but sometimes it'll be, "And look! A dragon is here and he fired everyone! The ponies are dead!"
276: I hope you carefully explain that it only seems like your life is over when you get fired.
Not entirely unexpected complication from choosing option (2): finding things to talk about.
Award-winningly OT: Anybody know of a good photographer in the bay area? Email me.
279: obviously you'll want to see if she likes Piña Coladas and getting caught in the rain.
Success! Someone wrote back!
An ear bud so Megan can talk you through is probably too conspicuous; you're going to have to wing it.
a good photographer in the bay area
Wouldn't you know it, Robin has moved back to South Carolina.
No no, start out by asking if she has half a brain. Then move on to making love while surrounded by sand. And for god's sake, learn from the mistakes of others, and ask if she is your estranged wife BEFORE you meet up with her.
Link didn't work, piggy.
NSFWUYA
I was able to bond with my now-34-y.o. son and all his friends by hating the Eagles. I did this in total sincerity. Eventually that had to establish a Shitty Musician's Hall of Fame for the Eagles, Barry Manilow, and a few others in order to take them out of the "most hated musician" game we were playing. Otherwise we would have been agreeing too much.
I don't recall BJ being in the SMHOF.
Did boys actually play with those GI Joe dolls?
My sisters and I had Barbies, but we didn't really 'play
Barbies.' We would maybe do one outfit change (changing the doll's outfits a central component of playing Barbies) and then move on to a macabre little game that we called "Off with her head!" where we would pop the doll's head off, and then perhaps put it back on backwards. Weird stuff.
Our mother deeply resented Barbie and everything that shameless hussy stood for. "Pure crap."
Neither of my boys showed any interest in guns.
My kids weren't interested in toy guns, but the real ones are a whole different story.
I hope you carefully explain that it only seems like your life is over when you get fired.
Well I had put this down to the syntactical vagaries of young children, but now that I think about it maybe she knows that my tenure vote is next week and possibly has been chatting with the dept chair.
279: you can talk how the decrepit old baby boomers are keeping your kick-ass generation down. You'll bond!
288: it wasn't playing. It was a life-or-death struggle against C.O.B.R.A. Get it straight.
Or did you mean the 12" GI Joes that the elderly people enjoyed? Couldn't tell ya about those.
take it easy, Emerson. take it eaaassssy...
We got a GI Joe toy once instead of Legos, and it was awesome because it had like three spring-loaded missiles.
291: No, no, we're the generation that loves the kick-ass baby boomers and all the attention they've showered on us.
Sadly, there doesn't seem to be a rat tail butt plug.
For either kind of rat tail.
My mom is really into stuffed animals, and she assumed my brother and I were too. So we gave various animals different military roles (bears were infantry, cats were armor). We threw them at each other: if you got hit with an animal, you lost the appropriate unit (infantry kill tanks or infantry,artillery kills infantry or artillery, etc...). Pigs were recon: if you got hit with a pig, you had to lift up your cardboard box wall and reveal your setup. Good times. Also, we didn't have money for 7 dollar GI Joes.
294: Don't let the sound of your own wheels drive you crazy.
I never had a GI Joe, but I had a Evel Knievel doll with a crazy stunt-performing motorcycle. What I really wanted (and never got) was a Stretch Armstrong.
Did boys actually play with those GI Joe dolls?
Susan Faludi's unjustly panned book about men, Stiffed, has quite a story about this. Yes, and project quite a bit on to them.
300: oh dude that was the best toy. He would do that flip thing? So rad.
I never had GI Joes because my mom didn't want me to have war toys. Thank god she didn't know about the ROBOT WAR!
I think about it maybe she knows that my tenure vote is next week and possibly has been chatting with the dept chair.
Actually, a few years ago when Rory was first discovering email, she got the idea to start emailing my boss. He had emailed her something funny, thus leaving his email address on the home computer. He pops by my office midday and says, "Rory's got the day off, huh?" I looked puzzled. "We had a nice email chat." I had some serious panic trying to recall if I'd said anything in front of her that it would be career-ending to have repeated. Fortunately, it turns out they just had a lovely exchange about who was sillier.
I think Hotel California was necessary, when it came out. The album, and the song. And the guitar lead-in on the acoustic version of the song is worth it.
I got dragooned into taking my little sister to an Eagles concert, when she was too young to go to concerts unchaperoned. It wasn't as bad as it might have been (ie, I've been dragged to worse*) and I found out when I got there that Roy Orbison was opening. The Oakland Coliseum is not is good place for concerts.
* SFAICR, the nadir was Hall & Oates at Winterland. Hall & Oates. At Winterland.
Hall & Oates ruled the world in the 80's. We should be ashamed.
I have a pretty bitchin' 20 minute orchestral disco cover of "Hotel California," so there's that.
Otherwise? Damn, I hate that band.
I have a pretty bitchin' house remix of "I Can't Go For That," so there's that. Which he can't go for. Apparently.
307 -- At Winterland. I haven't thought about it in years. I thought I'd got it behind me. But I guess you never really recover from a thing like that.
My mom is really into stuffed animals, and she assumed my brother and I were too.
I swear to god, this must have been the story on my parents' part about what toys I might like. I had a ton of Barbies -- why?? I don't remember asking for them -- but yes, many different types of them, and I played with them a lot.
All I can think now is that I was so clueless about my own wants that I just shrugged and accepted what I was given.
Except that on my own time, I rode my bike in the woods a lot.
300: oh dude that was the best toy
Man, I coveted that thing as a 6 or 7 year old. Naturally, one of my neighbors got it, the little fucker.
Between the Eagles and the Steve Miller band, I could send out a pitiless army of earworms that would ruin you all for the evening, but I am merciful.
I was moved by the death of Brad Delp to listen again to Boston's first album, which hasn't aged as well as I had hoped. Still, "More Than a Feeling" is canonic.
Man, the questions on OkCupid really suck. This girl is way more interesting than I would have thought from looking at her profile.
One of the things about music to hate is that the hatee has to have quite a lot of talent. The Eagles and Billy Joel are well over the minimum threshold.
317: partly explaining why it is impossible to hate Kiss.
317: That's why it's hate and not pity.
315, 316, 318: Thanks! There should be no problem, but you never know.
319: Yeah. Why would you be passionate enough about Kiss to actually be hatin' on 'em?
Good luck, gonerill.
There's a sub-genre of 70s songs, wherein the symbols and motifs of a deeply-rooted misogny mix uneasily, and sometimes comically, with cheesey attempts at expressing sympathy for the laydeez.
Alice Cooper's "Only Women Bleed" comes to mind.
I rode my bike continually as a kid, and my brother and I shared it, more or less, and had to adjust the saddle and handlebars differently. I remember running home from school, climbing on and riding around the block, endlessly, for what must have been hours.
My best toy gun, before BB guns, was a replica SMLE Mark III, as had been carried by Canadian soldiers in both World Wars. My brother made himself a replica Sten gun, a submachine gun like the one our uncle Ralph had carried. My SMLE had a working bolt, which I worked religiously between shots.
the hatee has to have quite a lot of talent
Certainly true for Paul McCartney as well. McCartney and Joel's descent into risibility was slow and inexorable, but I think the shark-jumping moment for both was when they decided they were contemporary classical composers, with music no better than the kind of pastiche that most reasonably talented conservatory students are expected to turn out in composition class.
323: my favorite song like that is from the 80s, Egyptian Lover's "The Alezby Inn," where everybody's favorite Jheri-curled lothario tries to come to grips with his conflicting feelings of confusion and admiration when confronted with a motel full of lesbians.
descent into risibility
Love it!
Yeah, I've always hated it when pop musicians slap in four measures of generic strings. It's like they buy it by the bolt and cut off as much as they needed.
Sten guns were the coolest looking WWII automatic rifles because of the side-loading magazine and the barrel also had. The bren gun was another cool one.
I always claimed mine was a Jheri, not a mullet. I actually had a black guy acknowledge my Jheri on the bus once.
My son has clued me into a whole world of Gene Simmons references current with his set. He's 14.
I know the late seventies music encyclopedically, as I delivered and made pizzas for long hours through the night for about three years. This Eagles/Miller/Alice Cooper stuff, Boston, Led Zeppelin...
John you realize, I'm sure, how thoroughly you have just scrambled my mental image of you.
Sten guns seem to be in a class with AK-47s as a minimalist low-maintenance weapon. Unless Wiki is wrong.
Gonerill, are you sure you're a woman?
"Hotel California" is a great song. The Hall and Oates mention is useful, because the Eagles so clearly kick their ass so far as ubiquitous radio-dominating pop presences go. Chalk one up for the 70s!
332: Don't forget Styx. Our junior prom theme song was by Styx. I can't remember what it was, because as it was playing I was trying to maintain my composure while dancing with the prom queen, whose name was Tisha and who was preternaturally voluptuous.
Saw my 20-year-old niece with a Ramones T-shirt the other day. It's very odd how much of Boomer culture - even Boomer culture that wasn't all that popular with Boomers - has leeched into succeeding generations.
335: marcus, I'm guessing that this is an effort on your part to bring together the two themes of this thread: cool weaponry and popular music. I have a feeling that someone here will have some useful advice on how sten guns can be appliced to Eagles fans.
This Eagles/Miller/Alice Cooper stuff, Boston, Led Zeppelin...
Now, Led Zeppelin would be my choice for ridiculously overrated 70s band. Clunkasaurus Rex. The howling and screeching. God.
But I loved Boston's first album. Great guitars. They were the prototype for the soaring power ballad, and the only band that actually did that very tacky genre really well. Very disappointed to find their early stuff popping up in commercials now. But that's a universal disappointment today, it seems.
Hey teo, I added a bunch of awesome song clips to my Facebook page, if you can still remember what my real name is.
"appliced" was supposed to be "applied"
338: I'm terrified that I'm going to be shot down for sexism, probably by a Sten-gun wielding Gonerill.
327: I knew I could count on you, Beefo Meaty.
And let's not forget Rush. The philosophy* of Ayn Rand, as interpreted by a band of woefully earnest would-be guitar gods from Canada. A heady combination, and a head rush indeed.
*Yes, I'm using the term loosely, in a rough vernacular sort of way.
Finnish submachine guns don't get the attention they deserve. At least if Wiki is anything to go by.
I'm willing to put up some money for any lawyer who brings an actual transcript in which they have stated "who wants to sex Mutombo" to UnfoggedDC, New Year's Edition.
I am willing to be deposed in order to further this.
It's surprising how much the typical Canadian is like Geddy Lee.
This Eagles/Miller/Alice Cooper stuff, Boston, Led Zeppelin...
I can't quite figure out why I just never listened to this stuff. I went to high school from '78 to '82. I remember things like Rick Springfield, Christopher Cross ("Sailing," oh GOD), Journey. Horrible, sickly-sweet. So I listened instead to the Rolling Stones, Yes, Jesus Christ Superstar, King Crimson. Zeppelin, certainly. AC/DC was alright at the time.
Dunno.
Zep's "Trampled Underfoot" is a neglected classic.
347: There you go again with your WASPy condescension toward the ethnics.
Led Zeppelin would be my choice for ridiculously overrated 70s band. Clunkasaurus Rex.
I saw them in '77, and they played an acoustic set that was very effective. I think it really helped that it was outside, on a nice summer day, and I was, uh, receptive.
Which is something of a miracle, given the opening bands: Judas Priest & Derringer. Can't hate either of them, though, for reasons given by Emerson above.
AC/DC is pure rock and roll. In short pants. So solid. Joan Jett got it all from them.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAg5kTLeMh4
352: can't hate Judas Priest. Why? Can't hate gay metal. Go on, just try. Hate on Billy Squier, sure, try it. Can't be done.
Canucks are often fine people in their native environment, Newfoundland.
Zeppelin is great, are you kidding me? Ditto AC/DC.
I liked Zeppelin fine until somebody pointed out that whatsisface sings every song in the wrong key. Thanks, somebody! Learn to sing, whatsisface!
Everyone has top listen to "Trampled Underfoot". Really. Class by itself.
The parabellum, 9mm pistol ammunition for the Sten, was originally part of huge stocks captured from the Italians in East Africa. Unreliability of ammo caused a lot of the stoppages. The barrel jacket got very hot, and some soldiers improvised front handguards, to hold the barrel down while firing; all blowback guns tend to climb when firing.
I had no idea Indira was killed with a Sten. I do see SMLE Mark III rifles in pictures of the Indian state police in the papers sometimes. The newest of those is about 80 years old.
I know the songs Parsimon mentions in 349, too. Also that Mineshaft favorite, Reminiscing.
Trampled Under Foot. Great song. Cool video.
Billy Squier isn't really metal. More like "gay gayrock".
If only Ted Nugent were here. He would enjoy the mix of topics.
356 -- Emerson, I think Rick Danko hold up the side in this youtube. It's in Canada, natch. Does John Dawson have the head of a man on the body of a 10 year old?
You know, you bastards, I spent like 20 minutes of my life on 346. But nooooo, talk about that band Led Zeppelin that nobody has ever heard of at all, let alone heard every single one of their songs thirty thousand times (possibly in a row). Sure, that's fine. I don't care.
The barrel jacket got very hot,
I remember this from some video game or other I played once. You couldn't fire more than a short burst on the sten before it overheated.
Trampled Under Foot is a great workout song. That's probaby why John likes it so much.
Yeah but he rewrote it all by hand and replaced the original.
You know, you bastards, I spent like 20 minutes of my life on 346.
It took you 20 minutes to decide to link to this very thread? And that might not have even been the right decision.
It...
I...
Son. Of. A. Bitch.
Now I really hate you bastards.
Nice work, Sifu. Treat yourself to a beer.
I doubt Emerson has ever worn a suit with a gold tie. But that's definitely a handsome hominid.
371: doesn't seem all that necessary, does it?
I thought it was some self-reference loop recursion bullshit intended to cause insanity. I was way too smart to suck for it.
You know, there was this one Led Zeppelin song that I always liked a lot, but I never knew what it was called, because I could never understand a damn word Robert Plant was singing. Turns out it's "Trampled Underfoot". It's actually funky.
Now, speaking of funky, one of my very favorite bands of all time is from the 70s: Parliament Funkadelic. They are worth ten Led Zeppelins.
A friend borrowed like ALL of my Zeppelin tapes for a camping trip about a year ago and LOST them.
Hmph.
back when I worked out I really liked Miles Davis's "Jack Johnson". Probably only 10 years ago.
Gonerill, are you sure you're a woman?
I'm pretty sure Gonerill is not a woman, which is too bad because of the sten gun thing.
I remember this from some video game or other I played once. You couldn't fire more than a short burst on the sten before it overheated.
"Return to Castle Wolfenstein"?
The truly Canadian gun topic, to send all discussions off into the night, is the Ross.
Highly articulate lyrics of "Trampled Under Foot
Excellent work, Tweety. I keep clicking 370 and continue to be surprised at how repeatedly funny it is.
Here's a good idea: put some almond extract in your milk.
"Return to Castle Wolfenstein"?
That's the one. Played it on the last PC I owned. Now I play games on the Mac like, uh, Photoshop.
Gonerill is not Lear's daughter.
I had a mix tape with "Trampled Underfoot" and "Dazed and Confused", the Stones "Gimme Shelter", Sly Stone's "Take you Higher", Nilsson's "Dance into the Fire", and half a dozen other equally demented songs once. Mmmmmmm.
383: Wow. It's like the contemporary version of "To His Coy Mistress."
Misery loves company (YT).
Night all.
OT: Video for Teo. I know the guy's weird, but some of his work is seriously great advice. I especially appreciate his suggestion that men, especially shy ones, need to think about what it would be like to be attracted to someone bigger and stronger than themselves, and that it's a situation women find themselves in all the time. You have to find ways to be interesting and physically engaged without being threatening or creepy. It seems like a very hard thing for many otherwise-totally-sweet guys to learn.
Had we but world enough and time
Baby, I could work all night, leave a big pile of tubes
"Return to Castle Wolfenstein"?
That's the one. Played it on the last PC I owned.
The classic first-person shooter. That settles it, Gonerill is not a woman.
Here's a good idea: put some almond extract in your milk.
Another good idea is to put bourbon in your hot milk, but I believe that was discussed on another thread.
391 is not because Teo is creepy when moving in on the ladies (I wouldn't know), but because it's sound advice.
The classic first-person shooter
I'll bet you're thinking of Wolfenstein 3D.
390: Jesus, Charley. Now 306's fn makes me cry. I had forgotten what it meant. I was so little when all that happened.
The classicst first-person shooter
Blackwater 2: Return to New Orleans
Teo, this is all the advice you need on handling yourself with women:
http://www.eugenemirman.com/videos/Sexpert.mov
But he seems like such a douchebag, I couldn't stick around for the advice. Good thing I don't need it. Anymore, I mean.
Where did that e come from?
HTML is seriously betraying me tonight.
I'll bet you're thinking of Wolfenstein 3D.
Which came as a freebie on the "Return to Castle Wolfenstein" CD. Even almost 15 years later, still a great game.
"Mein leben!"
403: Mystery is hard to take, but he's a brother rhetorical theorist. We're in the guild together.
402 is what I thought 391 was going to be.
Which came as a freebie on the "Return to Castle Wolfenstein" CD
Really? I must have my dates and software companies confused. Anyway, comity on the awesomeness of Wolfenstein etc.
I must have my dates and software companies confused.
I don't think so.
It's just me and my id here, so it's entirely possible.
I watched 391 and, if you keep your eyes shut, it makes some sense. Just ignore the douchebaggy exterior.
Seriously, I'm never going home with a guy wearing goggles.
AWB, you really need to check out the link in 402. You'll laugh and laugh!
Pimping my own posts: so rude.
No, you were right, "Wolfenstein 3D" came out in 1992. But when "Return to Castle Wolfenstein" came out, they included "Wolfenstein 3D" on the CD just for kicks.
406: Okay, I trust you, maybe I should try again with my eyes closed.
(I have never uttered the above IRL.)
3D can suck it. The original Castle Wolfenstein was the only good one.
Also, anyone interested in the Mystery phenomenon should definitely read Neil Strauss' The Game . Terrific book, lots of depth there and a real blast to boot. You'll definitely get a different perspective on Mystery.
Seriously, I'm never going home with a guy wearing goggles.
If this thread were a movie, we would now cut to the waking-up-in-the-morning scene.
Becks-pwned.
Seriously, I'm never going home with a guy wearing goggles.
Goggles should mean absolute self-cockblockage. The man defies the laws of nature.
Mystery was a PBS show wasn't it? I think my grandmother used to watch it.
I'm fairly sure I've come extremely close to getting laid while wearing goggles. There were extenuating circumstances, obviously.
Countersignalling!
I also totally need to learn how to do Conan's hair thing.
422 - Were you at a gun range? That might be acceptable.
Let me revise: I'm never going home with a guy wearing goggles as a non-functional accessory.
There were extenuating circumstances, obviously.
I was piloting a Sopwith Camel over Dunkirk at the time...
426: But just as you had the Red Baron in your sights, it turned out you were really sitting on top of a doghouse?
Tom Cruise played the ultimate advice-giver in Magnolia, as the purveyor of a seminar called
And Part II: Seduce & Destroy
When I linked the Mirman sexpert video, it didn't get a very good reception.
And that was two years ago. Maybe the blog really hasn't ever been funny.
Coming late to the thread, but LB -- have you ever considered that you might be doing your junior associate a favor by getting him fired? You've posted about his ridiculously inadequate work product before. It certainly sounds like he lacks the ability or desire, or both, to do the work well, and he would probably be happier in a field where he could excel than in one where he's constantly coming up short of expectations.
431: clearly, I'm going to have to step up my linking game if I want to hang here.
OK, now I'm going to walk home, past midnight, in Washington DC. Wish me luck in surviving.
now I'm going to walk home, past midnight, in Washington DC. Wish me luck in surviving.
When I have to walk home alone in this type of situation, I shove my hands into my pockets, adopt a purposeful, almost-hurried gait, and stare off wide-eyed twenty yards ahead, doing my best to look insane or very angry. I feel sort of ridiculous, but it's my best attempt not to get fucked with. Suerte, marcus.
I've almost been attacked several times, usually while waiting in a blind-alley subway station late at night. I find that tucking my chin, bugging my eyes, puffing out my chest and stomach, and rocking slightly as if internally retching has made them head off. This is probably rapists, though; not muggers, who don't give a shit.
And that might not have even been the right decision.
Reminiscent of my bestest job-interview comment ever, which was passed on to me by a friend of the family who worked there: "The only interesting thing this guy has ever done was drop out of [prestige school], and that probably wasn't a good idea."
I've almost been attacked several times
How do you almost get attacked? I've felt like I might get mugged a hundred times, easily, but I've only been mugged thrice. The majority of times I thought I might get mugged were probably nothing, so I wouldn't be comfortable calling them "almost". I don't mean to minimize AWB's close calls; obviously getting mugged is a million times better than getting raped, and my radar is not tuned to the latter at all, but how do you tell the difference between a close call and getting sketched out?
When you're standing by yourself in an empty station, and someone either sneaks around several barriers as quietly as he can to suddenly appear a foot from you, or when you're alone and the guy at the other end of the platform turns his head, meets your eyes, and starts charging toward you, you know you're about to get fucked up.
Plus, when you do the retchy blowfish thing and he stops and mutters, "Not worth it" and moves away, something has been averted. These are not vaguely sketchy dudes coming up to ask the time at an unseasonable hour.
I've only skimmed this thread, but this can't go without comment:
Billy Joel is awesome, you crackheads
Billy Joel is a sad, sad man. Aside from "Allentown," "You May Be Right," possibly "We Didn't Start The Fire," and "Uptown Girl" his career is a blight. Ok, I could, maybe, if pressed, come up with a half dozen more tolerable Joel songs. But that doesn't change the fact that A) Joel was only ever moderately musically talented or that B) he ruined everything he ever wrote/performed with his congenital self-pity. Billy Joel could easily be the worst American pop star of the late 20th century. Worse than Jimmy Buffet, even.
Jesus. In theory, I hate the UK-style surveillance state, but I guess it has its upsides. My close calls were stupid shit like guys aggressively demanding $20 bus fare and committees discussing the merits of my walking through that neighborhood. If I were female I swear I'd carry a big fuck off gun.
I used to live in an actually dangerous neighborhood, so it annoys me that I get shaken up by stuff when it happens. In my old neighborhood, my roommate and I would regularly come home having been followed in cars full of guys yelling shit at us, by ourselves or together.
Most of the time, when I come home really late at night now, I either park it in the diner on the way (if it's past 4am, when it gets really creepy-quiet), or else I just have a line ready in case there's an approach, like, "Not at 2am, no," as soon as they start talking. I'm lucky enough to live on a fairly major street in Brooklyn, but sometimes it's a very long, lonely ten-minute haul in the middle of the night.
444: By "park it," I mean my ass, of course. I don't have a car.
In theory, I hate the UK-style surveillance state, but I guess it has its upsides
442: What? "We Didn't Start the Fire" and "Uptown Girl" would be the very first two examples I would cite if somebody asked me why Billy Joel sucks.
Ogged isn't really alluding to Guys and Dolls with the post title, is he?
It fucking bothers me that women have to put up with extra shit like this. I grew up in Oak/land and, after I moved out of my folks' place, I used to live in a second-tier "bad area." I got shit going to the store and all, but I could handle it, and the rent was cheap. If I had been a woman though, living there would not have been an option. That is what they call "inequity", and it pisses me off. I'd have more trenchant social analysis and prescriptions, but it's late, and all I can come up with is "hand-gun".
446: In fairness to the UK and Big Brother, it should be noted that the number of solved crimes is pretty meaningless as a measure of the usefulness of cameras. Cameras aren't there primarily to solve crimes, they are there to prevent crimes.
I like "Tell Her About It". Great karaoke song, especially if you have someone to do the high-pitched back-up vocals.
"We Didn't Start the Fire" may not be a good dance song, but it does have its uses. Like as a form of torture that doesn't leave any marks.
re: 449
I've lived in some really shitty parts of Glasgow. I'm pretty sure I was more at risk of being attacked than any woman would have been. In fact, one of the worst areas I lived in, I lived in because my ex had bought a flat there. She liked it there, it was me that was at risk.
That's not to dismiss or dis-value women's fear of attack. Just pointing out that in some areas the risk really doesn't run higher for women.
Dating outside of college is much easier. You realize you aren't limited to people you already know, who are hard to hook up with anyway. Its much faster to just talk to girls in the grocery store or bar.
And Mystery is the creepiest guy ever. And his advice is way over complicated.
the thread on police brutality made me think that cameras would be good to prevent thath sort of criminal behavour.
453: Yeah, I see that. Me going through a neighborhood is an assertion where a woman going through might not be. The thing is though, we're comparing apples and oranges: you and I are risking a beating in bad neighborhoods whereas the hypothetical female is risking rape in a deserted area. There are significant differences:
a)I've taken a beating before and am arguably better for it, if only because I'm not afraid to take a beating. You could not sat the same about a rape victim.
b) We risk violence going through particular areas. The hypothetical female risks violence going through any unpopulated area. You and I may remain confident based on geography; the hypothetical female's confidence is based on population.
This is a shitty situation, and should be resolved post haste. I am pessimistic.
)I've taken a beating before and am arguably better for it, if only because I'm not afraid to take a beating.
I've taken beatings too. I can say with categorical certainty that I *am* afraid to take a beating.
Furthermore, any potential future situation in which I'd be likely to take a beating again -- a large group of drunk lads, for example -- is also a situation in which I 'd run a fairly high risk of being killed. I'm quite happy remaining afraid to take a beating.
Almost very night during the last several years of his life Erik Satie walked five miles home drunk through a sketchy area of Paris. He carried a hamer in his pocket just in case.
The Scots are very liberated and beat guys to death instead of raping women. The U.N. has recognized their progress toward sexual equality. Some animal rights groups have questioned their behavior toward sheep, however, but I have heard that they were confusing the Scots with one of the other quaint British minorities.
Almost very night during the last several years of his life Erik Satie walked five miles home drunk through a sketchy area of Paris. He carried a hamer in his pocket just in case.
There's a tremendous literature surrounding the fin de siècle panic about violent youths in Paris: the so-called 'Apache'. Lots of the turn of the century savate-derived self-defense manuals for French gentlemen are all about making use of one's silver topped cane and sturdy boots to fight 'em off.
http://ejmas.com/jmanly/articles/2005/jmanlyart_apaches_0105.htm
http://www.savateaustralia.com/Savate%20Essays/apache.htm
In a similiar situation I actually went and bought a roofing hammer, which has a blade side and also a strap to keep it from flying out of your hand. It was a one-time threat and I almost never carried it, but I believe in equalizers.
Unless you spent the 70s/80s in silence, you know Billy Joel songs.
Wha??? I'm sure I was around then and all I remember was the Clash and the Jam and Siouxsie (and later on Joe Jackson and Costello).
But music for people who don't much like music is a perfectly valid genre, just as the world is full of newspapers for people who couldn't give a shit about the news. It decorates their world a bit. There's no reason why people should have to commute in silence just because they couldn't discuss his playlist with w-lfs-n.
That's why Billy Joel and Paul Macartney are richer than chocolate cake, and why Rupert Murdoch sells more papers than I'm happy about.
462--
joel was primarily a u.s. phenom, no doubt abt. that.
lucky you.
But music for people who don't much like music is a perfectly valid genre
Oh, but lots of actual musicians have terrible taste in music, have you noticed? (This is a striking effect in my own family, where the classically-trained musicians are invariably the ones who like the direst dreck when it comes to pop music.) So I don't think it's just that, exactly.
I liked "We Didn't Start the Fire", but that maybe that's because I a) didn't know "It's the End of the World as We Know It" yet and b) can't stand R.E.M. anyways.
Then again, quite like "Mull of Kintyre" as well, the ultimate "aaargh I can't believe it spent seventeen weeks as number one to drive me mad" song.
Doc Martens or steel capped working boots are good for self defense, especially against canine threats: one good kick and even a pitbull has his jaw hanging off.
(NB. : not speaking out of experience).
464. Interesting point. Actually, I hadn't noticed, because most of the people I know who are classically trained ignore pop altogether, although my dad quite liked the Beatles (don't know if that supports your point or not). But it doesn't surprise me, I guess they'd be looking for all the wrong stuff in pop.
The cellist Julian Lloyd Webber was once asked if he ever played his brother Andrew's music. "Well, I suppose you can call it music", he replied.
"We Didn't Start the Fire" and "Uptown Girl" would be the very first two examples I would cite if somebody asked me why Billy Joel sucks.
Maybe I'd choose different examples in the sober light of morning, but "WDSTF" is sort of a clever novelty song and "Uptown Girl" is so bad it's almost good. Both of the songs are pretty lifeless and I could happily never hear either again, but at least each of them keeps the sad bastard piano man crap to a minimum.
sad bastard piano man
This gets at exactly what I hate about that song (and a lot of the Blow Job/Eagles adjacent ouevre): of all the emotions you could express in a catchy, accessible, radio friendly pop song, you choose introspective melancholy? Can't get much more craven than that kind of cry-into-your-beer nonsense.
To me, the only emotions acceptably catalogued in catchy pop songs are mindless joy, puppy love (puppy loss), or rage. Anything else is bound to get you knee-deep into treacle.
"For The Longest Time" was really romantic at the dances at summer camp. And anything by the Doors was really deep and profound. (Boy did I love summer camp.)
468--
"the only emotions acceptably catalogued in catchy pop songs are mindless joy, puppy love (puppy loss), or rage."
yeah, great list totally agree, couldn't have put it better.
except. sifu?
you forget "horndog lust". like, isn't that kind of central?
favorite catchy pop songs expressing puppy love:
'i love you more today than yesterday' (spiral starecase, no i'm not making that up)
'wedding bell blues', as sung by 5th dimension.
300: What I really wanted (and never got) was a Stretch Armstrong.
You might be able to get one from these people.
471 was directed at apostropher, obviously, but I feel stupid for not including "apo" in the comment somewhere.
Oh no! does that mean they don't make these anymore?
you forget "horndog lust". like, isn't that kind of central?
What was I thinking? Of course horndog lust.
I totally make an exception to all these rules, by the way, for robots. Robots can express anything they want in a pop song and it'll still be 100% treacle free.
robots, sure.
also muskrats. no treacle, there, by golly.
well, it's worth keeping in mind that it may not actually *be* radar love.
they've just got a thing that they *call* radar love.
could be outside that range--maybe microwave, if it's more energetic, or going into shortwave on the slow days.
could be a lot of things--might even just be a primitive form of sonar.
like sending coded messages by knocking on pipes.
I'm not afraid to take a beating
never really understood what this means. If it's in the sense of "I don't spend any of my normal day worrying about the danger of beatings" then I guess I'm not afraid to take a beating. If on the other hand it means "I regularly place myself in situations where I'm in danger of a beating", then well, I don't do that, but it's just because I don't like beatings. Sort of like how I avoid pickled eggs and buggery and take steps to avoid situations where either might figure, but not because I'm afraid of them.
I think I mentioned a while ago that Rylean behaviourism never really got a fair shake.
pickled eggs and buggery
The breakfast of champions.
The funny thing about Piano Man is that it's really about how awesome Billy Joel is.
the only emotions acceptably catalogued in catchy pop songs are mindless joy, puppy love (puppy loss), or rage
Good pop songs can accommodate wistful melancholy--I'm thinking stuff by old bands like The Left Banke, or the Zombies, or Strawberry Alarm Clock; or later stuff like (one of my favorites) "Pink Frost" by The Chills--but it's hard to make good pop songs out of privileged self-satisfied enwhitelment.
471: As I approach 40, I've found my burning desire for a Stretch Armstrong has abated.
478--
i parsed it in a third way, namely "if i found myself at the beginning of a beating, e.g. surrounded by yobs who had just knocked me down, then i would not be overly fearful of the consequences, since i already saw the start of this story once before, and it didn't end too badly."
and this is what struck me about the earlier claim as fucking nuts, because there is no way you can extrapolate from the bloodthirstiness of one group to the bloodthirstiness of another. maybe the first group got bored easy, and this one won't.
or from the efficiency of one group to the efficiency of another. maybe the first group wasn't very good at kicking people to death, but this group has had more practice.
or from the unluckiness of one group's kicks, to the conclusion that another group won't get in a lucky kick on your temple or cervical vertebrae.
i mean, if you find yourself down in the middle of a mob, then you make the best of it, and maybe fear helps or maybe it doesn't. but thinking that you learned anything reassuring from having survived the last episode is too much like russell's chicken.
the dances at summer camp
What I remember most from summer camp dances is Loverboy (The kid! Is hot tonight!), Def Leppard (Untag, glieben, glauten, globen), and that Sting would be watching me.
As I approach 40, I've found my burning desire for a Stretch Armstrong has abated.
Shhhhh. You are going to scare the kids into thinking that we dont have burning desires anymore.
don't forget the turtles: awesome pop.
eleanor, gee, i think you're swell
and you really do me well,
you're my pride and joy etcetera.
no, the etcetera is not an editorial addition: that's the lyric.
awesome.
Or, more likely, the girl I was dancing with. Stupid predatory Sting.
Oh god, Loverboy. Excuse me while I wax nostalgic. I wore the hell out of the "Lovin' Every Minute Of It" tape. My favorite song was called The Denim Brigade and they'd clearly written it in a fit of SE Hinton hysteria.
The denim brigade is gonna have their day
The denim brigade is gonna get their way
The denim brigade is gonna have their say
Steal the thunder! Dragging me under!
Heebie is a liar. She isnt old enough to have a tape.
I went to enough summer camp for the both of us, Will.
Did you go away for the entire summer every summer?
Heebie is a liar. She isnt old enough to have a tape.
Isn't old enough? I was just talking about last week, when I wore the hell out of a Loverboy tape.
I went to summer camp every summer from 6th grade to 12th. I had lots of sex at camp, which was rather more difficult to come by back home. That will certainly keep a teenaged boy coming back.
Did you go away for the entire summer every summer?
Kind of, yeah. I'd go to two or three camps every summer. My mom wanted me occupied. Usually 1-2 sleep-away camps and the others local day camps.
483 is pretty much my feeling.
I don't spend my days walking about fearing violence. I'm also generally not likely to be a victim of violence based on i) where I live and ii) who I am.
But, I sure as shit would want to avoid getting beaten up, and when people are in groups and intent on violence there's just no way to predict what's going to happen.
So much to respond to, but I don't get this at all.
Eagles ... ouevre ... introspective melancholy
??? The Eagles defining feature was nice harmonies.
I don't bother to hate musical figures. I only hate sports figures. I assume this is because I pay attention to what other people say about sports, and follow successes and failures, and I don't for music.
453: I've lived in some really shitty parts of Glasgow. I'm pretty sure I was more at risk of being attacked than any woman would have been. In fact, one of the worst areas I lived in, I lived in because my ex had bought a flat there. She liked it there, it was me that was at risk.
That sounds really unlikely in the US. I'm working off vague impressions here, rather than stats, but my impression is that violent crime is much more likely to be concretely motivated: property crime or sexual assault, but in any case something that would make a presumably physically weaker person more of a target. (Admittedly, statistics here do show men as being more likely to be victims of violent crime than women, but I again have an impression that that's explained by the fact that men are more likely to be participating actively in violent situations; that is, drug dealers and their associates get shot.) There are some exceptions -- gay bashing, racially motivated violence -- but mostly a guy who looks like an unattractive target for mugging (not looking wildly affluent, nor particularly physically weak) who isn't starting anything is going to be reasonably safe in most neighborhoods.
You sound like you're talking about men beating up other men on on the street purely for the fun of it, and not bothering women because they aren't a challenge or something -- I don't think things work that way over here.
but it's hard to make good pop songs out of privileged self-satisfied enwhitelment.
I would have thought that good pop--which, as a musical Neanderthal, is the only music I'm able to love--was largely dependent on a background context of privileged self-satisfied enwhitlement. Who, after all, can forget Debbie Gibson's "Only in My Dreams"?
Camps have become very popular here since more families have both parents working.
Also, I second dsquared's views on Rylean behaviourism. *
* and a whole lot of other unfashionable mid-20th century philosophy.
the fact that men are more likely to be participating actively in violent situations; that is, drug dealers and their associates get shot.
I think that's wrong, because I think the majority of violence doesn't occur in the course of otherwise criminal activities. If you get drunk and belligerent at a bar, you're not going to pop the woman who is irritating you, but you might pop the guy (quite likely me) who is. OTOH, usually this requires some set of actions by the guy who gets popped, so there's some active participation by the hit that seems less likely to be necessary for violence against women.
499: Ex recto, but I've heard GcM's theory about U.S. streets before, too. I think the difference is between random street crime (muggings, beating up drunks) and non-random crime (domestic assault, rape), and that your average young man is more likely to be a target than your average young woman because he's more likely to be walking alone, walking home drunk (which might make up for the size difference.)
499--
i have the impression that you are more likely in the uk than in *most* of the u.s. to find a large group of seriously drunk young losers wandering the streets with a general desire to stomp the shit out of someone who looks at them the wrong way.
i could be wrong about this; i've got no stats to back it up. but consider the issues of 'football hooligans' in the u.k. or traveling to the continent, vs. football fans riots in the us. it's not like sports fans in the us never misbehave. but soccer-related violence in the uk seems, from reporting at any rate, to be a much larger phenomenon.
503: Yeah, I'd count being drunk and irritating at a bar as 'starting something', and I'd agree that it's higher risk for a man than a woman, but that doesn't seem to be what ttaM was talking about -- he sounded as if there were neighborhoods in Glasgow where he was in more danger just walking around minding his own business than his girlfriend was.
504: your average young man is more likely to be a target than your average young woman because he's more likely to be walking alone
Yeah, I'd buy that women are systematically enough more cautious than men (that is, they're less likely to be on a street-corner at 2am) that more random stranger crime happens to men who aren't starting anything because there are very many more men in dangerous locations, but I still wouldn't buy that the comparative risk for a man and a woman in the same situation slants in the woman's favor.
You sound like you're talking about men beating up other men on on the street purely for the fun of it ... I don't think things work that way over here.
Well, it sort of does work that way here. Or at least it can. I saw quite a lot of violence in my late teens and early 20s, and a lot of it was fairly arbitrary. As in 'looking in the wrong way at the wrong person', or being in the wrong area, or wearing the wrong sort of clothes, or supporting the wrong football team, or being from the wrong religious background.
I've also been in a fair number of situations where it's only been the fact that I've chosen to act in a fairly cowardly way that's stopped me being a victim of violence.
I can remember, to take one example, commuting home from work (in Glasgow). Sitting down on the bus and a kid coming and sitting behind me to ask me the time. And when I told him, he hit me on the back of the head. This was something very funny to him and his large group of mates. Now, on his own, I'd have fucked him up without drawing breath, but when there's five or six people, and one of them is visibly displaying his 'blade', you get the fuck off the bus and walk away.
mostly a guy who looks like an unattractive target for mugging (not looking wildly affluent, nor particularly physically weak) who isn't starting anything is going to be reasonably safe in most neighborhoods.
That's generally true where I live now [which is a nice middle class area anyway]. And it's also true that as you get older and out of the key 'violence' demographic, your chances of being involved in violence drop.
there were neighborhoods in Glasgow where he was in more danger just walking around minding his own business than his girlfriend was.
Sure, I'd still maintain that's true.
Yeah, I may simply be naive about dangerous parts of the US (not being a man and all) but I think that sort of thing isn't likely at all most places over here.
506,507: I wonder if part of it isn't some leftover bit of... I dunno, chivalry? Sexism? You don't hit girls, you don't hit old people, and a girl or an old person isn't likely to look at you funny in the violence-escalating sort of way.
re: 509
Yeah, but as has been discussed before, Scotland is (allegedly) the most violent country in the developed world but it's not a whole order of magnitude more violent or anything.
Also, re: 509
Also, most women genuinely don't have a clue. In much the same way that men are mostly entirely ignorant of the level of, say, low-level sexual harassment or discrimination that women experience in their daily lives, most women have less than zero clue about male-on-male violence.
509--
i *am* naive about dangerous parts of the u.s. but i'll speculate anyhow.
my impression is that you can get beat up in u.s. cities for being the wrong color, or wrong ethnicity, or being thought to be gay. and there is certainly gang stuff.
what's striking about the uk (and i did live in london for five years, so this is not entirely ungrounded speculation) is that the kind of gang-based predation ttaM is describing is not based on race or ethnicity or any other evident index.
it's a bit like: imagine high school bullying in the worst high school you went to. now imagine that those guys were still at it ten years later, still running in a pack, only in the intervening ten years they had got a lot stronger, stupider, and better at beating people up.
the real mystery is why people in the u.s. tend to grow out of it, i suppose.
Agree with Cala in 510. I don't know that it's chivalry, but you don't much demonstrate strength or manhood by hitting women in public. Her mention of "old person" reminds me of the minor abuse Pedro took for flipping a charging Don Zimmer.
US guys? Any input on the likelihood of getting beat up in a US city just for the hell of it, or because you looked at someone funny, rather than as part of a property crime?
You're much less likely to get randomly beaten up in America than the UK because we've kept soccer in its proper place.
515--
and because, speaking from personal experience, whenever i feel like having a good weekend stomping heads, i fly over to the the uk.
it's a bit like sex-tourism, only you bring your doc martens.
oh. you do that for sex-tourism, too?
515 So why do baseball fans not form violent tribal alliegances?
Hmm. Speculatin': In those areas of the US where there are groups of guys who might beat you up for fun, there are usually gang affiliations and people who aren't in gangs seem to have something of a pass, and people who aren't from the area just never go there. It also seems like groups of guys with bad intent will go rob someone rather than (just) beat them up.
That's true -- Americans just don't have the kicking skills to make a good stomping work.
They all fell asleep during the seventh inning stretch.
But I'm thinking of urban areas; I don't know what it's like in rural areas. Maybe outsiders just don't go there.
519 to 515.
And yeah to 518 -- for gang violence, I have the impression that it's not mostly directed at people who aren't themselves involved or at least associates of the people who are involved. If you're an outsider, you might get mugged, but a purely recreational stomping would be less likely.
And anything by the Doors was really deep and profound.
Heebie's parents made the effort to teach her proper values, something all too rare these days.
514: I wasn't originally distinguishing between whether the guys just beat you up, or took your wallet, too.
The Doors are the embodiment of trite, self-important, white male middle class pseudo-radicalism.
And I wonder if, in those areas of the US where you might expect to see recreational stomping (I love that term), your victims are much more likely to be armed with a gun, which would discourage the behavior. To put it another way, I'd much more expect to see RS in the suburbs than the inner city.
I can't think of any way to make this pleasant or funny. The link in 391 fills me with loathing, disgust and remembered bitterness. So that's it, is it, you succeed by making yourself into a clown? My first, visceral reaction to the clip was to want to break the guy's every tooth, one blow at a time.
I don't know who the guys, unaware of how menacing their size and directness make them are; they must exist, because complaints about them never cease. I do know I was keenly aware of it, wanting to take responsibility for not frightening or even annoying women, wanting almost disparately not to be the jerk, the asshole I was constantly reading about. In those days magazine articles in the emerging feminist press, today no doubt in blog posts and comments. You're drawn to this writing because you want to know what women think, and you do learn a lot. And even when you have the common sense to know they're not writing about you—how could they be, you've never come on to anyone—you're even more inhibited by it, if that's possible.
However sophisticated and intelligent you may know yourself to be, your sense of awkwardness and inhibition makes any kind of stratagem, any line or device, such as this Mystery guy uses, only intensify your self-consciousness. You feel you have to at least try to be direct and sincere, out of respect and self-respect.
There is only one bar near the campus of the University of Chicago. I went there by myself at least several times a week for years. When writing, off quarter, it was probably every night. A friend of my wife's, after having met me, told her she had noticed me standing at the bar many a night, and had been very impressed physically. She complemented my wife on being able to attract my attention. Thing is, I knew I was being noticed, although not by her or anyone else specifically, and didn't lack for advice givers, male and female.
It's easy to fall into a kind of banter about how obtuse I was; I was doing it yesterday. But in a way it's false, it misses the point. I, and many others before and since, have not really lacked for awareness. The need, the longing, the frustration themselves are probably the greatest obstacle, and they actually heighten awareness, as you might expect.
The problem is to somehow put it aside, to forget yourself, to trick yourself into acting as if you didn't care so much. If you can somehow focus on something else, let the interest in other things be your primary preoccupation, then you don't need devices or schticks, you really can be yourself.
It happens, but how you got it together, why you couldn't before, how to help others or how you might have been helped, remain mysterious.
526: To put it another way, I'd much more expect to see RS in the suburbs than the inner city.
Yeah, but you really don't see it in the suburbs, do you?
No, but suburbs are still relatively affluent in the US; maybe that'll change. And then: stomping! (I have no idea.)
502: Yay Ryle. I have never understood why he disappeared from the curriculum. What I read seemed excellent, and certainly capable of further development (which it got, outside philosophy: Goffman, I think, and Gregory Bateson, I thinkk, and Alan Watts: mmmm, maybe that's the problem.)
Though there are those who say that Ryle cribbed from Heidegger.
This is the fundamental bedrock of pop music. No one listens to it any more because it's too real. Weenies.
532: That song was used in PC training to explain to us what a glottal stop sounded like. "Teen angel, teen angel, will you be mi'ine..."
I guess the bar on campus doesn't count.
514: I think you're going to get a socioeconomic cohort bias here.
The one in Ida? no, I didn't go there much. Too dark, for one thing. TV on, for another.
535: Not compared to ttaM, who was at the relevant time a university student living in a bad neighborhood -- I don't think his class origin should be relevant unless he'd say that someone of middle class origins would have been safe in the same neighborhood. It should be comparable to a man from the Unfogged demographic living in a bad neighborhood, and we must have some people who have -- heck, I have, but not being male I don't count.
537: I always liked the Tiki, way east by the lake, but that was just because they didn't card and I was underage through college. Also, wicker monkey!
Most of the violent crime, in DC anyway, is the proverbial black on black violence. As a professional white guy, I feel safer knowing that any violent crime against me will be a big news story, a community concern and a police priority. And tourists!? Think about all those easy targets our there that are relatively safe because of police priority, like with that series of assaults on the Mall last year. Those guys were caught in almost no time and there were police all over that place for a few weeks.
I knew a youngish guy from Revere who told me that an evening at the clubs with his friends was incomplete if it didn't include a conversation that began, "What are you looking at?" But it seemed like the fighting never got much past shoving matches.
A much younger and more red-blooded shivbunny would report that fights in high school started over practically nothing, and fights at local bars just out of high school in rural Canada would start in a pretty similar way.
514: From the time I spent living in the second tier ghetto (3xth street and San Pablo for you BA types), it's a matter of entertainment, rather than greed. Sure, they'll demand money, etc, but mostly they're drunk and bored. Hanging out with your friends on the sidewalk in front of the liquor store will do that to you.
543: Eh, that sounds pretty parallel. Maybe I am just naive.
I wonder if part of it isn't some leftover bit of... I dunno, chivalry?
I think that these horny men are pining for the sheep but only have each other.
The skinheads in a few US cities (Portland, Seattle, Minneapolis) actually tried to import the Brit stomping culture, including the relevant music (ska + punk, IIRC). It was a moderate success. They fractionated into Nazis and anti-Nazis and mostly fought each other, though they did attack Asians and Ethiopians. My son knew some of the anti-Nazis, including a quiet little guy who ended up shooting a Nazi. It was pretty transparently a white attempt to imitate black and Asian gangs, which Portland didn't have a lot of anyway.
Nazis tried to take over the best Irish bar in town (Biddy McGraw's, an IRA bar, as in Boston). In a friendly way, they liked Irish music. Biddy kicked them out, but it was pretty tense. They were very intimidating guys, body-builder / martial arts types wearing leathers.
538: I think that there might be smaller learned behaviors that explain some of that. So I might take the long way around where ttaM wouldn't, because greater exposure to the specific context of dangerous areas mean that he's more confident that he can handle what may come. I've been threatened repeatedly in not great areas, but have since learned to avoid them. (It's actually more specific than "not great areas," as, in my limited experience, there is usually a bad area within a "not great area," as well as time and company components.)
547: Any 'not great areas' where you think a woman roughly of your socio-economic status would be significantly safer than you were? That's what sounds off (that is, not unlikely in itself, but different from the US) about ttaM's description of Scotland.
So I might take the long way around where ttaM wouldn't, because greater exposure to the specific context of dangerous areas mean that he's more confident that he can handle what may come.
No, I don't really think I'm more confident in that way. Although I think I'm pretty good at spotting and anticipating trouble. As I've already said, I really don't want to get beaten up!
Surprised no one picked up on 527, which I thought was a good and thoughtful post. I think a lot of us go through something like this.
Self-consciousness is the great barrier for men approaching women. Self-consciousness is driven by desiring women too much, by feeling too much is at stake. The only way around it is to lower the stakes in your head by just not caring so much. You need to be prepared to let a lot of rejection just slide off your back.
This is unfortunately rather similar to the psychology of a jerk or an asshole. Becoming a jerk would be one straightforward road to arriving there. But ideally you manage to do it while retaining your respect for the opposite sex. Ideally, it happens because you just have so much genuine self-acceptance and self-confidence that no one person's reaction to you will dent it. But this is very rare.
Arghh, back to work. It's a high-stress day. Although I did survive last night, hooray! (Wasn't really too worried...I've always lived in sketchy cities, and am careful to stay a few blocks within the safer zone).
respect for the opposite sex
Actually, respect is probably the wrong word here, it's a little too pedestal-y. Maybe non-assholishness is all it is.
This can easily be handled experimentally. I need 20 Unfoggers and 20 Unfoggettes. They will go to a series of meetups in various American cities, and each will walk home drunk by himself or herself.
ttaM, scientifically speaking should the experiment be done in the early evening, or after midnight? I'm uncertain about that part. Different dynamics.
Unfogged need not confine itself to idel chatter. We can make a contribution to science.
There are ways to toughen yourself up in anticipation of getting your ass kicked.
re: 552
scientifically speaking should the experiment be done in the early evening, or after midnight?
Immediately after the statistical mode of pub closing times, obviously. We need to randomly allocate people to stand in taxi queues for pre-defined periods, too.
548: Yeah, I was thinking about that, and I just don't know. The few bar fights I've seen have not involved women, nor have the incipient ones which motivated me to leave a bar. (That's not quite right, as a woman was at issue in at least one.) I've never known a woman to be invited to leave a bar, as I have been, either. But these were all bars where there weren't a lot of women, which may be a function of self-protective behavior on the part of women. My best guess is that there are forms of harassment that fall below physical violence that keep women from being in certain places that I might have been. I don't know how much of the avoidance is motivated by a sense that there was an implicit threat of violence in such harassment and how much is motivated by the fact that such harassment is, at best, a serious pain in the ass and, at worst, really, really unpleasant. I don't know how all of that non-violent behavior cashes out as violence, and how much of the male-on-male related violence and threats of the same is a function of fewer ways of fucking with a guy.
I've done the experiment in Portland OR many times, and Portland is a safe town. Though I'm skilled at keeping my head down and looking neither fearful nor threatening.
This thread has made me realize how fortunate I am to almost never have worried about being assaulted on a city street. This is probably largely attributable to (1) having lived in mostly "good neighborhoods; (2) having lived in some especially safe cities (think Nordic); and (3) having that Hanns Guck-in-die-Luft obliviousness to danger that can be misinterpreted as fearlessness.
At the same time, I have lived in some sketchy areas (including, briefly, 14th and L in D.C., back when that meant something), I am frequently underway at night wearing a suit, and I like to use public transportation. I have also done stupid shit. I once rode a bicycle to a grocery store in D.C. where someone yelled at me on the street "You gonna get shot" and the cashier asked me, upon seeing my bike helmet, "You got a machine gun on that thing?"
Should my run of good luck suddenly come to an end, I can't imagine the impact that would have on my quality of life to suddenly have to feel fear on a regular basis.
I should really count my blessings, I suppose.
Billy Joel is awful. I can't believe there are people who like WDSTF, with its clunky deliberate 4/4ness emphasized on the fourth beat of every goddamn measure. The man couldn't swing if you put him on a trapeze.
My best guess is that there are forms of harassment that fall below physical violence that keep women from being in certain places that I might have been.
That's for damn sure. I have never been physically assaulted in any way, but I have certainly been hassled, and take preventative steps to diminish my hasslability.
I've been apartment-hunting for the past little while, and while sizing up neighborhoods and blocks, I see completely different things than my honey does. Some of it is clearly overblown---that stretch of vacant lots might be completely safe at night---but I am looking for danger, wondering where the 24-hour safety spots might be, etc.
Also, the best technique I've found for avoiding sexual harrassment on the street is 1) to keep moving, really fast, and 2) to anticipate gleefully beating the shit out of the next piece of shit who talks to you.
actually thinking about it, I did used to play rugby, which is a bit like being beaten up, and I did occasionally go into play in the confident expectation that it would be necessary to pick a fight which would most likely end in a short sharp beating (as I've mentioned before I think, this is often necessary at the club level, in order to establish the principle that one can't be gouged or bag-snatched with impunity) and I wasn't scared of it, so I revise my opinion on the meaningfulness of that statement. I think KB etc are right though that it needs an indexical - the idea being that you subvocalise "I am not scared of particular (possibly hypothesised) beating-token X" - rather than being a straightforward statement about one's attitude toward the general class "beatings".
497: I don't spend my days walking about fearing violence. I'm also generally not likely to be a victim of violence based on i) where I live and ii) who I am.
About this and all the other stuff about violent neighborhoods, I've read somewhere or other that most sexual violence comes from acquaintances, and the much-feared rape by the random nut on a dark street is much less common. Maybe the rate of rape by strangers appears lower because it gets reported less than the alternative (which would seem weird, but whatever) or maybe it is attempted often, but successful very rarely. But unless one of those factors is really big, the rarity of stranger rape seems relevant to all this talk about when and where it's safer for which gender to go out alone. The point is, I wouldn't find it hard to believe that women perceive being at greater risk in certain areas, even if the overall risk they face (of serious physical harm rather than harrassment) is equal to or less than the risk faced by men.
Of course, this is entirely ex recto. I'm a straight white male who grew up in a rural area, and I may have gone to college in an American city but the college was pretty isolated from the surrounding community and I never lived off-campus myself. And I took Tae Kwon Do classes for about six years. I realize that few people are in a position to feel more physically secure than I usually do. This might color my perceptions just a tad.
Even if your fearlessness is ignorant, as mine basically is, not being afraid makes you less likely to be a victim. One thing I've learned in my small amount of street experience is that cringing and hesitation hurt you. Being threatening is just as bad. You can't invade someone's space or challenge them.
but as I've explained many times, Portland is a wimpy town. East coast people laugh at our pitiful slum.
the idea being that you subvocalise "I am not scared of particular (possibly hypothesised) beating-token X" - rather than being a straightforward statement about one's attitude toward the general class "beatings".
Sure. I've sparred (recently) with people who compete at international level in their martial art. Sufficiently hard to leave me with nasty black and blue bruises all over that lasted for weeks and ribs that ached for days. I'm not scared of that and that probably counts as a token instance of a 'beating'.
It's the particular 'group of pissed lads booting my prone body' type of beating that I'm quite specifically afraid of.
558: totally true that BJ is all melody, no swing. That's what makes him feel so pre-rock and roll. Some of us love a good tune though.
And I wonder if, in those areas of the US where you might expect to see recreational stomping (I love that term), your victims are much more likely to be armed with a gun,
Wouldn't surprise me. There's reasons why the data is difficult to gauge on this stuff, but Gary Kleck's work puts the number of defensive gun uses in this country at a couple million a year. Even the estimates that are wildly lower like McDowall's still put the number at over 100k a year. Long story short, it's a pretty common thing, and it's not hard to imagine that it makes crowds of guys think twice about giving out random beatings.
I think KB etc are right though that it needs an indexical - the idea being that you subvocalise "I am not scared of particular (possibly hypothesised) beating-token X" - rather than being a straightforward statement about one's attitude toward the general class "beatings".
Right, it's an attitudinal, not a prudential adjustment, mostly about getting over a fear of the unknown: getting hit isn't the end of the world.
It's an interesting sample of experiences in this thread. I don't think I've ever been physically threatened in my adult life. I'm sure this has a lot to do with the fact that I've lived in the suburbs and never go to bars.
getting hit isn't the end of the world
except of course when it is; but of course people with that experience are not part of the relevant language-community.
Though getting thumped can be the end of the world. Of course, so can an auto accident.
My guess is that everyone except gang members and criminals is at greater risk of auto accidents than of street violence and the like. Sounds like apples and ornges, but I do minimize my riding and driving partly for that reason.
#567: have I got the wrong email address for you then?
A lot of the bar fight/escalation that looks like it might be a fight involves women, usually someone thinking someone is taking 'their' woman or something like that; i haven't seen much related to sports or just shit talking. But its been infrequent and i mostly and in bars around university.
It doesn't surprise me at all scotland is violent, its where lots of southern culture is from. My guess is that i don't spend enough time in the south to see actual violent behaviour. Plus, the gang/race/guns factors. The other thing is that the particularly authoritarian-seeking types in the US are likely to end up in evangelical churches, where the violence gets sublimated and they don't drink; maybe tendency to marry young & move to the suburbs also has something to do with it.
In Portland the friend of a friend was beaten to death on the street. But he was a champ. A major drunk and, according to his friends, an enormous asshole who was unreasonably feisty when drunk. (His enemy's opinion is not available at this point in time). It's like he took the un-mean Portland streets as a personal challenge.
I think 562 is right. You need the right balance of friendliness/pleasantness and the sort of strength that indicates you won't give them the pleasure of seeing you give in. Like you give them respect, but respect yourself too.
In that situation, it isn't friendliness. Just a polite distance. Pleasantness works too, but it's not reliable.
#567: have I got the wrong email address for you then?
That doesn't count. I'll revise after any London meetup.
i don't spend enough time in the south to see actual violent behaviour
I've been here my whole life and have rarely seen any. I'm not convinced there's any meaningful difference in rates of violence above and below the Mason-Dixon line, so much as above and below a certain economic line.
Apo, you are a terrifying-looking guy, and obviously are wracked with intense psychic pain. The bad guys who aren't afraid of you just want to hold you in their arms and comfort you. So your experience is not a valid sample.
I walk around alone in DC after midnight pretty regularly, but it's not a scary part of town. And there's no reason for anyone to bother with me: I've got $20 max in my pocket, and I doubt anyone really wants an iPod full of boomer crap. I also used to go months at a time never locking my house, so I'm off at the end of the distribution, I know. Nothing really worth stealing in my house.
I see, though, that maybe too much of this has transmitted to my kids. My daughter thinks nothing of walking home from college (during the day), through parts of Philadelphia that have my friends totally flipped out, and my son calls at sundown from his bike: 'where are you?' I don't know. someplace in DC.
578: I wouldn't worry too much. People learn quickly and, in the vast majority of cases, without any harm. Your kids will have a group of friends, and the group as a whole will steer the individuals right.
579 is wrong. I always have been quite amused at my peers' shocked reactions at my lack of concern at wondering without direction in whatever part of town.
It's like he took the un-mean Portland streets as a personal challenge.
I know a couple of guys who have been shot around here. It gives the place that big-city feel, and should attract tourists who would otherwise consider Portland sleepy and provincial.
who would otherwise consider Portland sleepy
That's just the junkies, no?
Jesus, the guy that got killed was a famous super-hip restauranteur somewhere downtown. He'd lost control of his restaurant by the time he was killed. Forget the name.
579 -- I guess so. I was cured of leaving my keys in the ignition by friends walking by, seeing them, and taking them out. I stopped not because I was worried about someone stealing my car, but because it was tiring trying to figure out where the damn keys were.
(This was during law school, so they'd leave them at the library, or the dean's office, or the security desk, or someplace else. No one ever left a note, though, I suppose thinking that it was completely obvious where they'd go with the keys.)
583: You mean Jo/hn Bec/kel? I knew him too. Some of his injuries were police-inflicted.
Gary Kleck's work puts the number of defensive gun uses in this country at a couple million a year. Even the estimates that are wildly lower like McDowall's still put the number at over 100k a year. Long story short, it's a pretty common thing
This would be, like, several orders of magnitude higher than any estimates I've seen. I've never seen anything that made me think that defensive gun use by an otherwise law-abiding citizen is anything other than quite rare.
Not an expert on it, though.
The stats include deterrence of crime without actual firing. A friend of mine did that.
Jesus, was there a coverup or did the story stay alive. I've been gone for awhile?
What was the name of his restaurant?
The restaurant was Mo/ntage, which is still in business. More about his case here, but it never went anywhere.
203: There's a clear generational divide between people who can write "bj" without apparent irony, and those who can't even read it without laughing.
I totally cracked up at a picnic a few months ago when my mom asked me to toss her salad.
haha, my mom talks about going to get facials on vacation.
