Legend
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Post by 🤯 on Oct 30, 2021 0:33:45 GMT
I don't think foos wants to hear the details of when I got rid of my books. Least they got recycled though. Ness, you have pictures AND text In THIS VERY thread How is this NOT a comic book itself then!?!?!?
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Legend
19,310 POSTS & 19,612 LIKES
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Post by Ness on Nov 3, 2021 22:55:50 GMT
No Canadians Allowed
Haven't updated in a bit and I've no doubt lost my train of thought. What did we establish? I like stuff and I was dipping my toe into things regarding comics as more than a casual vehicle to see Spider-Man. We all have our guy and the only issue with my affiliation with Spider-Man is it never became a reference as to who I am. Plus Spidey even before the Raimi movies was mainstream af, so it wasn't as special to be the guy with other mouth breathers who shall remain nameless likely claiming to be their biggest fan. It's also something I struggled with, being open enough to embrace the markdom. Just never been able to vocalize enjoying literally anything ever. So I liked reading the books and I found a nearby comic shop. Kind of. It was like 20 minutes away, but I was also a super homebody who didn't really have much of a job at the time, so not like I had other obligations. I bagged groceries (for tips) part-time as I took online classes. Most of my money just went to food and expenses like this. One thing you can say about PW and the Nerdery is that you will learn a lot just by observing. Even though I felt closer to the anime side of things, I still absorbed the knowledge like a doofus son-in-law. Took me years to figure out what a trade was. What's a pull list? I'm not sure how long I engaged with the shop as far as getting books, but I never got into the habit of establishing a pull list. Not unlike paying a fee to have grocery workers shop for you, I'm always a tad self conscious about having my tastes judged so I never did that. (Course it's a moot point because unless it's NYC I doubt any shop is making enough bank for a self-check out so they'll see eventually) I just did it the long way and went to the shop and bought books. Like the grocery example I do get a little pleasure about the gathering of goods. I was even too shy to ask a worker for help if I didn't see it on the shelf or in the "archives". Yes your boy Ness is always perpetually "just looking". I did the whole charade with the bags and boards. I read it once, seal it up and into the looooooooooongbox it went.
Since the turn of the century I have turned away from consuming media and returning later. There are a few exceptions (usually comedy movies) but once I've been there, that was it. I was always discovering new stuff that it seemed like a "waste" to go back and watch or read something again. I was always just trying to trim down "the list" and that was my goal. Did that interfere with some enjoyment where it became more about getting through something than actual enjoyment and interest? Maybe, but as they say it is what it is. There's a lot of stuff you can do with books. I've seen people put them on their walls, which actually looks really cool in a way but outside of a background drop for a Youtube vlogger it probably doesn't serve much purpose. Most seem to store them in longboxes (banker boxes really) that act as portable file cabinets for your books. It's a novelty scene to see them stacked up in someone's closet, but that's all it was... something I stored out of sight. At one point I was proud to have a massive DVD collection the likes of which Jman would be envious of. So much so that I actually brought them with me in a hurricane evacuation. Nothing says priority like preserving "Cute Anime Girl Does Cute Things In Cute Ways Volume Eleventeen" even though I would never rewatch it. My comic trips were whenever I'd think to go sometime in the week. Only once did I ever go on comic book day (Wednesday), in fact I went early like around noon. Was a minor mistake because on the way I got into a car accident. Well, minor fender bender. Sometime hit me from behind and we pulled over. They claimed someone hit them and took off. Didn't deny their car hit them, but basically it wasn't their fault. Must've been Snitsky's Mom. Whatever, no damage. I went about my business and got my books. Then I started questioning if it was even worth coming down for. I had been reading things full-time for a while now and I was really only a one and done type of reader. How I am with most media to be honest. So I made a decision. I wasn't gonna stop reading books, but the idea of pointlessly collecting was not something I cared about anymore. Over the years I found myself embracing a more minimalist approach to life. I have stuff sure, but only the bare essentials. Once had a family member asked me if I was moving out when they saw my room. I guess I was following the Heat mindset 20 years before I ever saw the movie. I'm not sure if I did all at once or if I rationed it out, but I purged my comic collection via tossing them in a recycling dumpster.
Truthfully, especially then, comic reading was an expensive hobby. A few bucks for 20-something pages that I'll read in a matter of minutes and that's it? I dreamed of a library subscription model. Like I was already spending 100 (at least) ever other week. I don't pretend to know the ins and outs of comic shopdom, but I imagine guys like me probably prop up the shop when they spend that much. It didn't matter to me since I was living at home, but even having no bills I could tell this was throwing money away. They should have some sorta service where you can borrow. I mean that's basically all they are, a glorified pawn shop. I'd have been happy to give them the dimes and just let me return the books when I'm done. All I want is the experience of the first time. Hell, I'll pay you to read them here. And like whenever I went there I NEVER saw anyone looking at the books. Reminded of Vip's and how I'd have the whole section to myself because nobody seemed to care. You can't judge the 20 minutes I go a week, but man it sure felt like I was supporting their side hustle as the zoomers say. Seems a lot of comics act as a teen hang out spot. Always saw them playing card games and setting up gaming consoles (360s usually). I never really managed to worm my way into that social scene... as much as I want to blame the BO, I was just too shy to try and talk to the geeks. Was only just out of high school so I wasn't that much older. And in all honesty we probably had the same mindset.
My comic shop days were coming to a close, but that didn't stop me from enjoying the books. If anything my interest only got bigger as I could read whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted and if it existed I could go back and read it for the first time. All the critically acclaimed stuff that old timers read about you can access it without much fuss. We'll get into that next as Ness rediscovers reading comics on his computer.
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Legend
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Post by Ness on Nov 27, 2021 16:38:52 GMT
I Would Download A Car If I Could
So it wasn't long after I started getting into my own music that file sharing was becoming a thing. I wasn't an OG Napster guy, but I did get into everything after: Kazaa, Limewire, etc. I never looked at it as "stealing" and just accepted as the new norm. I was also only in middle to high school, so it's not like I had money. Beats trying to record it off my boombox and then having an annoying DJ talk about nonsense in the final bit. Still listen to the radio to this day and they still do that on occasion. Could be it's own separate topic, but just wanted to say that I got into the digital way of doing things pretty quickly. Still owned CDs, but eventually they went from that into just burned discs that cemented the bus ride to and from school on the CD player. I say all that to stress that I didn't need to be coached into going down the digital route for comics. I basically started it with the Spidey CD and only didn't continue because it wasn't really an option when I was diving into comics. I just wanna stress while I don't really have any skin in the game regarding "taking food from our families", I also don't have any issue giving away my dimes either. You just gotta meet me halfway. Offer me a subscription service and early on it was essentially paying MSRP for the books. Dude the whole point is it's too fucking expensive. And not only that I don't care about collecting. Meet me halfway greedy corporation. Digital is not equal to having a physical copy, so stop charging me like it's equal. Just wanna read the book, that's it. After I got rid of my collection I looked into it. I mean you can listen to music. Can watch videos. Surely you can read comic books too. I don't remember where I originally found out about reading comics online, but once I did there was really no going back. You needed a piece of software ending in cbr (comic book reader?) in order to view the files. It may have been just a sequential image viewer, but it was basically just used for illegally viewing comics online. Some had direct downloads, but mostly it was done via torrents. Lots of options as they tended to get closed down if they got too mainstream. But that also means when you checked your bookmarks it was a crapshoot if it still existed and the cycle repeats itself. I remember one even forced you to earn karma for downloads (like, comment and subscribe mark!). Almost like a game in a way. It molded the way I read books because it went full screen and you used the keys to move. Compared to those pdf files I started with... night and day. And because I was able to read literally anything... my "whatcha gettin" list looked insane. It didn't matter because if it was shit or I didn't enjoy... delete. These days I'm stuck in my 1.1 and don't venture out much, but in those days I would literally read nearly anything. And maybe that's the key... offer peeps a chance to sample everything pupu platter style and they might stick around. I'm sure by now the digital model onto tablets and ipads is a lot better, but I wasn't really into giving them a chance since I didn't have an ipad and well, it's "free". I was into the culture and even bought into the PR spin that they weren't stealing the books, but preserving them online. They even had a catchy terrorist name: DCP. Digital Comics Preservation.
And honestly this may have been why the Nerdery was kinda mad at me. I once had a signature of some random comic person with big DCP letters. Easy didn't like it because at the time they were big on avoiding being shut down. We weren't even allowed to post Youtube videos for that reason. At first he thought it was comic related because ya know, DC. It was either him or spot that wanted me to remove the "ad", saying I could do what I want but they didn't approve. I get it to an extent. They have a different connection to comics and want to support creators. I just thought they were butthurt I was reading what I wanted and they were putting second mortgages on their homes to cover it. Simply put it was something we'd never agree on, so I sorta felt distant from the rest of them. Over time torrenting stopped being a thing for me in general (I really only torrent anime... I pay for tv/movies now via streaming or amazon if the big ones don't have it) as comics moved to being hosted directly on sites. Not sure how they get away with it now when more people are connected than ever, but maybe all the focus being on the MCU and Disney they don't care about the books since that's not where the money is at. Reading online via my laptop has been my primary method of reading for some time now. So much so that on the rare occasion I do read books physically... it feels different. Not bad, but I always prefer to read them online. I'll always miss the smell... something about ink and paper does it for me. An old library book should be a perfume of some sort. So yeah other than a movie ticket, a piece of merch or subscribing to a service they get a kickback from, the business doesn't really get too many dimes from me. Certainly not for the actual source material. When you grow up in an era of having the internet since middle school and can download media... you're just gonna always do that. The key was to grab me early in a manageable way. If they had a cheap library service where I could say read a single issue once and even had x number of books I could sample in a month, I'd pay for it legally. They didn't (to my knowledge) at the time and so they lost their chance. Comic industry your job isn't hard... just anticipate my needs! This post has taken me a long time to write up. I just couldn't get motivated and felt like I wanted to talk too much about the Limewire era of internet. Maybe another time. Gonna wrap up this comic chapter with talking about the MCU and how being a geek became mainstream and probably where I'm at today as a comic reader. Clearly since I read and watch a lot of related content it's not dead like wrestling.
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Legend
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Post by Ness on Jan 2, 2022 22:44:24 GMT
Don't Ever Say That So I've often considered myself a nerd, but I'm not sure if it's completely accurate. I've always enjoyed things that were considered "nerdy" but other than that I'm not sure if I fit the bill. Unless the definition is merely socially stunted hard-r who likes goofy shit. But I wasn't super smart in school and mostly did well in basic bitch courses and anything advanced beyond that I struggled with. Never got into super nerdy stuff like Star Trek, cons and learning anything obscure. I just happened to enjoy certain fictional things and struggled to engage with people socially. Seems more like weaponized autism than being a nerd. But I was usually pretty thin, not good at sports and didn't have many masculine traits so I just assumed I was. These days a lot of stuff that used to be considered nerdy is really not, or at least it only starts becoming nerdy if you are obsessive over it. In that way I can definitely be considered a nerd. Anime on netflix, Marvel changing from the name of a company to a verb about an interest and social media have really changed the game. Stuff like Game of Thrones was about as mainstream water cooler as you can get. Liking anime doesn't really make you a nerd unless you watch more of it than anything else. And at that point it's not geeky so much as it's just being a mindless consumer. And I'm gonna be honest... I hate it, the idea that I may not actually be a nerd. That's the image I give across, but am I? I'm weird when it comes to interest. Call me a hipster douchebag if you like, but I much preferred when I had the perception that these things were "mine". Back to when I considered myself a geek I liked that anime, JRPGs, etc. were things most people weren't open about liking. I'd get stares if I sported any memorabilia and I took that as a badge of honor. See I was a social outcast and lost myself in these works of fiction. I felt like I "earned" it for being a loser. I didn't have a group of friends (mostly), no woman in my life and I was just a basement dwelling loser... but I had stuff. And now that stuff is everyone's. It's not fair that it's no longer for losers. So bullies get to beat up dweebs, fuck bitches AND they get to enjoy stuff we like? Wassup with dat?!?
The most iconic version of that are "the Marvel Movies" or MCU as they are referred. I like the movies well enough, but I'll be honest I kinda hate the mainstream fanbase. Seeing "MARVEL" stylized in all caps in someone's twitter bio annoys me. So let's talk about the MCU. I always think of it like Undertaker's streak, a happy accident. No way was that planned from jump, but since he was always booked strong it was merely a coincidence the Mania streak was a thing until they ran with it. Same thing here. Yes sure they were planning big things from the jump, but if Iron Man flopped or there wasn't an audience developing for the later follow-ups... well this would be a different entry altogether. Despite living in a movie bubble for most of my life the Marvel films were not something I always saw right away. I saw Iron Man sure, but the others I got to eventually on my own schedule. Always in "order" but usually months later torrenting the videos at my convenience. I don't think they became a thing for me until after the first Avengers. Despite posting on PW perpetually since joining I didn't find myself posting much in comic threads in the Nerdery and I'm not gonna lie the spill-over into Entertainment always bugged me. I don't have a complex, normies are just villains that infiltrated my sanctuary. I'm not the type to demand someone enjoying something to answer random questions... but when I see people overlook the books, the history and just say they only watch MCU... it grinds my gears. Yeah I hate casual fans, which does make me a hypocrite in some ways I'm sure. But I paid my dues goddammit. I earned this. You just roll in and reap the rewards. And yet I never got into con culture myself. I went to one once and a former user who was a good online friend of mine tried to get me involved, but I couldn't really get into it. Part shyness, part aversion to "nerd stank BO" and also probably some bitterness surrounding how mainstream everything was slowly becoming. Even as a pseudo nerd I felt like an outsider and everything seemed like it was being taken away from me. Couldn't enjoy these things anymore because now everyone was into it. Yeah deep down I think the widespread appeal kinda took some of the specialness away.
I was one of those guys that was hoping the "superhero bubble" would eventually burst. Seeing the lukewarm reception to post Endgame movies gave me hope, but then Disney had to start making TV shows as well. Obviously more popular things become the more money they make and more stuff we have. I should be happy more people are into them, but like I said I just feel like something was taken away from me when normies started getting into things more. Then again it's their dimes that are likely financing the whole thing. So in a twist of irony dis business values them more than me. I am the forever fan that will cling forever as they chase the casual fanbase. I'll always have my comics though. That's not something that will draw as many eyes as I've learned over and over when trying to engage with the casuals. Sure the big companies are more than happy to digitize their stuff for tablets and ipads so it's available... but I haven't seen the same enthusiasm as you see for the movies and even certain TV shows. If anything there's a reluctance for some segments to even try the comics. A lot of them don't care and that is a gift to me. You mean I do have something that's still mine? Yesssssssssssssssss. Yes I know it's such a weird "complex" to have where I'm both mad people won't give the source material a shot because it doesn't have Hollywood celebs making poofy faces on screen but also somewhat happy they don't. The way I've always consumed media is the idea that it was made exclusively for me and that the dirty mouth breathers who live nearby aren't good enough to understand it. Maybe it's because the stuff I did like I never had people to talk about it with. My interests generally didn't align with PW and I didn't have many people interested IRL. So since I was always consuming alone I'd just get territorial when people would intrude. In that way I really was comic book guy.
And I still am comic book guy. My interest in anime has been waning for years, really only sticking with stuff I know. Wrestling, well we all know how that's been going. Comic-wise it may not be stronger, but it hasn't really gone away either. Sure in some ways I mostly just go through the motions... but in the past 15-20 years it has been a pretty constant connection in my life. Seeing things like the Arrowverse, DC Animated Universe and just more properties made into media has made things relatively fresh as there's always new shit to sample. And it sucks that I can't deny that wouldn't be the case without those filthy casuals. Guess they do serve a purpose. Won't make a declaration that I will read these funny books until I'm dead, but unlike wrestling they haven't much dipped in my life. I think because reading a book or two a day isn't as much of a commitment as wrestling was. Several hours a week, discussing the ins and out on a board among other things. I never did that with comics. I never even really bothered to get attached to artists and writers... I just liked certain characters and stuck with them. Is that really that different from the casuals I was always suspicious of... am I truly what I hate? So this got weird. I think this was meant to be like 2-3 different entries and procrastinating wanted me to wrap this chapter up as it's probably the least interesting one I've done. Perhaps we've hit our 15 minutes as I'm not sure if I have any other interests or life events to discuss. But much like a comic death where no body is recovered (and even if it was) they always make a return. Except for Uncle Ben... he just seems to be mostly off limits. Until next time...
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Legend
19,310 POSTS & 19,612 LIKES
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Post by Ness on Mar 6, 2022 2:37:28 GMT
Shut Up & Listen This is more of a placeholder if anything. Figure if I post this it'll force me to finish the chapter because ain't nobody wanting to see something incomplete even if it eventually takes months to finalize. And by nobody I mean me. Now I know the last thing anyone on PW needs is more Ness stuff, but that's where we're at. I thought I was out of stuff to talk about, at least anything anyone would be interested in reading. Not that there's ever been this huge roller coaster countdown demand or anything, but you know what I mean. The recent music discussion on the board gave me an idea. I debated bringing it to the masses and finding out where everyone lands and yet I couldn't help but wonder... hey that's a great topic for this thread so I went back and forth making a catch-all thread or just doing it here... perhaps both. Maybe I'll do the midcard pop culture thread after this one wraps up. Was just afraid I'd go too deep on Limp Bizkit and who wants to read that? Well if you come back for the follow-ups clearly you. So music is like the most underrated of hobbies in my opinion. As we've gone over other interests I've had (wrestling, comics, etc.) and I've noticed I've gone up and down with how much I'm into things. Wrestling right now is nearly nonexistent, comics I like still and even vidya I barely touch these days. In fact my PS4/Switch would be gathering a ton of dust if they weren't in a drawer. We may touch on vidya eventually since I did have that as my rep for so long. I got some other topics in the pipeline as this semi-autobiographical affair seems to have endless life to it even if it's just for me. Back to my point I've gone up and down on those other hobbies... but music always holds ya down. I didn't realize that until the recent mini-drafts we've been doing. No matter what we're dealing with it's always there. You have the classics, your go-to's, discovering new stuff even if it's decades old and the tried and true "I'm getting old" moment when you dismiss everything new that comes out as noise. Unless you're deaf (and even then) it is probably the one constant in your life. Friends come and go, family is always up in the air, hobbies change as we evolve and mature... but your music is always there especially in our perpetual online states where we have access to it at all times. Music is that friend you take for granted and you may overlook them but they're always there.
See I'm going through a bit of a music renaissance internally. I'm seeing the "art" of it in a new light, something I really didn't for most of my life. This may be why it was such a background/passive hobby for me. I was never one to go to concerts and such, in fact the only time I considered one was when I wanted this girl to go out with me. When that fizzled I went to not giving a fuck about live music. So yes to this day I've never been to a festival, concert or even a live band playing in some hole in the wall. It just didn't matter to me. I'm feeling different about music right now though. Part of it IS thanks to some forum discussions. Countdowns and drafts have me looking at things differently. Don't get it twisted I'm not really exploring new stuff, but I am seeing a new appreciation for it. The idea that bands and singers do more than the hits, releasing stuff all the time and embarking on weird pseudo intellectual solo careers. I'm seeing things in a new light. Like I said this is a placeholder as I haven't planned out my list of bullet point topics to cover. I got quite a few planned as I think this can be an interesting topic, especially now that I'm thinking about music in a new way. Confession though... I hardly have a vast taste in music and I certainly would say I live in a bubble like most things. In that regard I am considered uncultured swine, a term I have used before on PW. I plan to talk about my taste in music, how I got there in middle school when music is so DEEP, perhaps some stories about the teen girl squad (we bonded over music), expanded post on Napster, CDs I owned and bringing a walkman/CD player for the bus ride, how my taste and what was given to us in wrestling fed off each other, still listening to the radio in that hybrid old man/but also sorta young to still deal with terrestrial stations and how if I'm not actively watching a tv/movie I have playlists usually on at all times at the house... it's good shit, pal! Hope you'll join me and if not it does play into how I've always been somewhat embarrassed by my taste and that may have played a minor role in how I developed socially. It might be boring. It might be awesome. Worst case scenario they delete the forum to wipe the stain from the servers. Either way we're doing this.
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Legend
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Post by Ness on Apr 3, 2022 23:48:09 GMT
Saddest Origin Story Ever Might not be the best time to update this with the impending sticky overload of a dead forum's crossover event, but I suppose anyone that is willing to still be reading this thing is in it for the long haul. I can only speak for myself but a big chunk of my taste was influenced by my parents. Being in the military most people I knew whether friends or family were always distant guest stars whereas my parents were the most consistent cast members to my life story. As such their tastes and values heavily influenced my own, music being one of them. Needless to say neither of us had much in the way of variety and while my "catalog" is certainly more vast than either of their's (to my knowledge) I wouldn't exactly call it deep or expansive. To put it simply my parents had pretty generic white people taste that you would find on the radio... things like classic rock, various bands from the 70s and 80s and other old school offerings. Early years of growing up had me hearing a lot of Journey, Foreigner and Ozzy thanks to their cassettes and radio via road trips. I think the first time I ever "requested" anything was on some road trip and I told Dad to put in the tape with the "mouth", which upon a quick wiki search was one of Foreigner's Best Of Collections... titled " The Very Best... and Beyond". I just remembered liking enough songs on it, but didn't know what it was so I just described the cover art as best as I could. No idea who their favorite bands are, but based on their collection I always assumed Journey. In the past decade they began seeing all their old bands tour whenever they are in town, so whatever niche they have has clearly worked for them. I wasn't really into music yet though. I had ears I liked songs, but it wasn't a hobby or anything I sought out until a few years later once middle school hit. I think that's when the peak hits us all. It also might depend on your area location because for most of my elementary days music just wasn't a "thing" to anyone I knew. Like I said I grew up in the military so friends were always temporary and I hadn't reached that pivotal moment as a teen were music spoke to you on that deep pseudo intellectual level. Just listened to what my parents had on in the house or in the car, so mostly background sounds. When we were stationed in Alaska our neighbors were big into country and I didn't pay too much attention to it as a genre. Still would say my taste will always exclusively by "white boy" in that regard. Yes, even to this today I consider rap to be "black people" music.
In the mid 90s I started noticing kids listening to their own music. Completely foreign to me as I was pretty dependent on my parent's offerings... like I didn't even know it was a possibility. We have a say in this? Of course with limited funds and no idea where to even get music from I had to take matters into my own hands. When I had a chance to get a new bike I opted for one that had a built in radio attached to the handlebars. No clue what brand it was, but that was the whole reason for the choice. Was too low iq to just ask my parents for a music device. Also produced an awkward moment where I tried to bond with a local kid who had a boombox and I was rocking my ghetto device from my bike like a total mark. Might do some future installments on friendships over the years so unless it's music related I probably won't talk about these side characters much in the music book. Thanks to the neighbor kid I understood what my next step was... get a boombox. At this point I didn't know where to get music from. All I knew was the car and Dad's clock radio (which I think he STILL owns!)... but now I have something to call my own. Mom let me buy a CD to go along with it and while my memory is a bit fuzzy if it is chronologically my first CD... still, I went with Weird Al " In 3D". No idea why I went with it as it had to have been a decade old at this point and it wasn't exactly his most recent release either, but it was my decision motherfucker. CD peaked with Lost of Jeopardy and Eat It obviously. I was a fan of Weird Al for a while now, so much so that whenever MJ's hits are on the radio I am always visibly annoyed that it's his songs and not the superior Weird Al ones. Thankfully Alien Ant Farm throws us a bone there. Wore out that CD and started listening to rock stations periodically as clearly that's where my interest lied. It was probably here that I got into my next CD and my first real band... Hanson. My 2nd CD was their MMMbop album, " Middle of Nowhere". We were living in Alaska at the time and got military orders for Virginia and made a 10-day drive from Anchorage to Detroit to visit family. I listened to MMMbop 100s of times in that drive on low volume because no headphones lol. I thought they were the coolest thing ever. I had Tiger Beat posters of them on my wall. I didn't understand at the time that teeny bopper mags were for girls... eventually those came down after someone said it was gay. This was the 90s... trust me one comment was enough for me to fold like a sheet. They really only had one other decent song on there, but I did listen to the rest of the CD occasionally. Remember this was before we had an over-abundance of choice. Around this time I was dipping my toes into the internet thanks to AOL and learned how much people HATED Hanson. This was my first exposure to hate online. People were creating wav files of their songs (mostly just the one... they got drafted for a reason) and them getting blown away in gun fire. WTF! It was also around this time I pretended to be the younger Hanson brother and started chatting with this girl online. Had her convinced I was him with my shitty Geocities page. She even sent me a letter via snail mail. Weirdest part is I think they were from Oklahoma and yet I had her send her pic to my own address... including my own name. How could she think she was talking to a celeb, honestly? Hanson was my first musical interest really and kinda my first exposure to the seedier side of the internet. They exposed me to radio culture and that celebs are a thing. And yet I really hadn't discovered music yet. That would be coming up when I started middle school and learned what a poser I was and how easily molded I was to fads. Now we'll get into my actual taste and how it developed thanks to paper grocery bags over our textbooks? Lot more to discuss, hope you'll join me.
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Legend
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Post by 🤯 on Apr 4, 2022 0:50:55 GMT
Ness, Wife loves Hanson. Maybe you could be her musical entanglement?
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Legend
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Post by Ness on Apr 4, 2022 0:51:38 GMT
Ness , Wife loves Hanson. Maybe you could be her musical entanglement? Dude what if the girl I was talking to WAS Wife?
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Legend
23,184 POSTS & 12,594 LIKES
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Post by 🤯 on Apr 4, 2022 0:53:38 GMT
Ness , Wife loves Hanson. Maybe you could be her musical entanglement? Dude what if the girl I was talking to WAS Wife? Man, what if? Book that shit.
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Lawlermaniac
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Post by Baker on Apr 7, 2022 4:33:17 GMT
1. the first time I ever "requested" anything was on some road trip and I told Dad to put in the tape with the "mouth", which upon a quick wiki search was one of Foreigner's Best Of Collections... titled "The Very Best... and Beyond". I just remembered liking enough songs on it
2. I wasn't really into music yet though. I had ears I liked songs, but it wasn't a hobby or anything I sought out until a few years later
3. music just wasn't a "thing" to anyone I knew.
4. At this point I didn't know where to get music from. All I knew was the car and Dad's clock radio (which I think he STILL owns!)...
5. Mom let me buy a CD to go along with it and while my memory is a bit fuzzy if it is chronologically my first CD... still, I went with Weird Al "In 3D". 6. Around this time I was dipping my toes into the internet thanks to AOL and learned how much people HATED Hanson. This was my first exposure to hate
This is all so relatable. In a lot of ways I was a slightly older Ness who stayed put in Maryland rather than move around. 1. Foreigner was one of my dad's favorite bands as well. They were also one of the few acts my brother and I would request on car trips. It may have even been the same album, though I cannot confirm that. We were big Jukebox Hero fans in particular. Fwiw Harry Chapin and the song American Pie were our other go to car ride requests. 2. I didn't really get into music until I got my license in '98 and the total control of the radio that accompanied it. Like you, I enjoyed the occasional song as a person with ears, but it wasn't a hobby. I certainly wasn't out there buying albums or digging deep into any particular bands. And I certainly wasn't following the popular trends of the day. I've told the story before of how I didn't even know who Kurt Cobain was when he died. I listened almost exclusively to country on my clock radio(!) from 91-95. Truth is I was a young prude who thought most hard rock/heavy metal and rap was trashy....degenerate even. If I had any musical taste at all in those days I would describe it as very Tommy Dreamboat. Anyway, I switched my allegiance from country to disco on the same clock radio...in 95-96 One of the oldies stations had a disco-themed "Retro Saturday Night" show my brother and would listen to, sometimes with other members of our little clique, and he'd record the best songs using an old school tape recorder. Aside from that if I wanted to hear a cool song I'd put a tape of a Rocky movie, Wayne's World, or Why Not? in the VCR and fast forward to my jams. Those VHS tapes basically served as my albums. I also didn't have cable which meant no MTV. This might be a big reason why I wasn't a big Music Guy. Closest thing I ever had to an "MTV" was Casey Kasem's Top 10 countdown which I did watch every Saturday morning for a few months in 90-91 (Timmy T! Damn Yankees! Warrant! Gerardo! Jesus Jones!) 3. Same here. The bulk of my friends were a lot like me in that they would enjoy the occasional song on the radio but didn't go any further than that. My cool older friend Vogel was the closest thing to a music mark I knew. First friend I had who drove. He had a whopping 3 albums- UB40, Snoop Doog, and the mighty Meat Loaf. Remember my best friend Rick once claiming Tom Petty was his favorite artist. Yet I do not remember him ever listening to, or even owning, a Tom Petty album. I will also add Coolio's Gangsta's Paradise was everybody's jam here in 95-96. 4. Yep. Radio and the occasional album my parents owned, the big ones being Harry Chapin, Queen's A Night At The Opera, and....Johnny Horton. 5. My first cassette tape(!) was Garth Brooks' No Fences. Guessing this was probably a birthday or Christmas present in 91. Don't think I personally owned another album until 99 or maybe even 2000. 6. It was a trio of boy bands that taught me about hate... Remember the normal kids at school all loving New Kids On The Block for a minute until our most popular local morning radio show (morning zoo type stuff) started playing a NKOTB parody song. Instantly killed their credibility with the boys (though the girls remained loyal). NKOTB immediately went from the most popular group in school to a target of mockery and hate by a majority of the boys. Of course I was off living in my own little world as usual, not caring one way or the other, but this incident always stuck with me as an example of how easy it can be to manipulate the masses. Fast forward about a decade. The hatred for the Backstreet Boys & NSYNC was real. Again, I had no dog in this fight, but people hated these acts with a passion I found disturbing. For example my wrestling fan cousin used to just launch into these impromptu, foaming at the mouth rants about his hatred for these boy bands. I didn't get it. Like where does all this hatred came from? Was it because his sister was a fan? Idk. Not necessarily my cup of tea but, like, take a chill pill, dude. And he was far from the only one. Anyway, I finally properly got into music via car freedom in the late 90s. For once in my life I followed the popular trend of the day and was briefly a Nu Metal enthusiast before moving on to other things.
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Post by Ness on May 1, 2022 19:30:22 GMT
Kinda Miss It Honestly
Middle school was a very awkward weird phase in everyone's life no doubt. It's probably the first time "cool" is a thing, discovering girls and just growing pains of dealing with puberty. It was a big transition to me because it marked the first time I was outside of a major comfort zone. See growing up in the military and living on the base meant I was in school (elementary) with other "brats" so everyone was kinda on the same level. All the bases I lived on had their own elementary schools and it isn't until middle/high that we went to school with people that weren't in that bubble. I didn't even know any kids who happened to have Officer Dads. Sure there was rumors about them giving out full sized candy bars for Halloweens and the perception they were rich, but I basically had no interaction with them as all the friends/neighbor kids had enlisted parents. We were all in the same boat. I only knew people who were in that "life" and when I finally did they all felt like they came from families that were more well off. That all changed in middle school when my Dad got orders and so I had to start completely over for middle school, which meant everything went out the window. I was still wearing what my Mom picked for me (had no concept of popularity so no style of my own yet) and didn't know anything about music. Up to this point it was Hanson and Weird Al. For starters I now had to contend with waiting for the bus, which was somewhat no man's land because groups were forming and middle schoolers were angsty and all that. I slowly had to try and adapt and find my own thing. I was lost and alone and I just missed elementary school because despite being somewhat of a loser kid I didn't feel out of place. Here I most certainly did and I coped and adapted the best way I could figure out... by being a certified poser, monkey see monkey do. Middle school I felt lost because it seemed to be the first start to being on your own in a sink or swim environment. In elementary everything was as part of a class. Basically we did everything together and middle school changed things up a bit. We had our own schedules, going to your next class where you might have 100% different classmates, lunch was the wild west. I had a few friends each year and some acquaintances, but I still felt lost. One thing that helped me was finding something in common and that thing was leeching off of popular music. I did learn later on that a lot of kids did this in the fraud sorta gimmick I was doing, but at the time I assumed it was just me.
We had to cover our textbooks to protect them and most of us did so via brown grocery store bags, back when that was standard. Comeback to combat the evil plastic bags? The richer kids had fancier covers, but most of us just the brown bags. And what a lot of people did was write the names of bands (usually done in their logos) on their books, almost like gang signs. And that's where I discovered what a lot of people listened to or at least pretended to. Nirvana and KoRn were the big ones. So like a geek I did the same and started writing band names on them, whether I actually was a fan or not. Despite owning that boombox I hadn't really started deep diving into music yet, but this was my next step. I picked Korn because it looked cool and their big hit ADIDAS mentioned Sex and I thought it was so edgy and badass. Here I learned you couldn't just do that as my 6th grade best friend was starting to get a little more popular than me and was leaving me behind and so he would constantly gate keep bands because he thought I was a poser. I started out as one sure, but I did eventually grow to like bands. I remember him grilling me on listing Nirvana songs. Betcha can't name one that isn't Teen Spirit. Ha! Come As You Are (literally the next mainstream one lol) and he backed off. I never got why he did that, but I'll admit I've probably done that myself such is the circle of life. So in 7th grade I was starting to get into music more via getting CDs. Some early ones I remember were Godsmack's self-titled, that Prodigy one with the crab and a few others I'm sure. I can ballpark them based on dates, but white boy rock seemed to be my genre with some Weird Al stuff for good measure. To make the bus ride more tolerable I started doing what other people did and started bringing a CD player with headphones to school and just listened to shit on the bus ride over. I wasn't very social so the bus ride was always awkward, but with my player in hand I could just use it to pass the time rather peacefully. This was before we had "titties in our pocket" via smart phones so things could be stressful if you weren't outgoing like that. For the most part when you had headphones on pressing your head against the seat of the bus nobody bothered you... until they did. There are few phrases I hated quite as much as... hey what are you listening to? As you can see this was the beginning of my descent to isolation and sadly didn't use these opportunities to expand my social circle and instead dreading explaining myself. And I guess it was because outside of that first year of middle I started noticing less and less people shared the same taste in music in me. Usually it was met with who... never heard of them... can I listen? And usually when I let them listen to whatever track I was on, they either undersold it or buried it. Nothing good ever came from sharing what I enjoyed and over time that just became a thing for me going forward, even to this day I don't feel comfortable sharing a lot about myself with others despite this very thread existing on pee double you dot com. It probably was these moments that drove me to go into the closet regarding music because I didn't really share the same taste as those around me. Or rarely so. Not like these bands are underground or anything, but I guess Neil Young did lie to us because rock was dead. I've always lived in a bubble in many aspects of life and so I never really branched out too far beyond that. Maybe different types of the same flavor but it's still essentially the big mac dressed up a little different.
It was that lack of confidence and fear of being judged that probably set me on the path to social isolation and arguably regression as a person. It just felt like those around me were more into other stuff so I felt like I was different and not in a good way. I wanted to be accepted. I wasn't in any groups as I'm sure there were plenty of kids in middle school who were into similar bands as every school has metal heads and others like that... but I was an island. And even if it was just me, I could've carved out my own niche with it. But I didn't. I did have a friend where we bonded over music as he was obsessed with the idea behind "alternative" and that eventually became our thing. Haven't met another person in that way since. He was obsessed with claiming the title of "alternative" as his genre. I adopted it because I didn't quite know what my taste was beyond rock, I suppose numetal post grunge? But alt sounded easier to sell. What is it even? No idea, but I can tell you the type of bands and CDs I liked. So if it was mainstream rock in 97-98, that was my stuff. Especially if it had a parental advisory sticker on it... oh man, that made it instantly cool. What's weird is my parents did not like us watching Rated R movies and only allowed us up to PG13 and yet Mom didn't flinch at buying them for me. It was somewhat awkward asking her for Candyass by Orgy though. She thought it was a wrestling thing because of the Rock. So many CDs I had her get me just for one song. And then I'd wear it out just on 1-2 tracks. This whole post feels like a mess, which I suppose is fitting for middle school. Will expand more on that as the next entry is gonna discuss my time hanging out with the Teen Girl Squad. We all bonded over music and oddly enough it wasn't the stuff I had enjoyed up to that point, but pop music cemented on good looking artists. We'll get into that eventually.
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Post by Ness on Oct 2, 2022 1:27:57 GMT
FACTION WARFARE
I really didn't move that much despite my Dad being in the Air Force for nearly 30 years. They always say the military doesn't care and yet I can't help but wonder if having a disabled sister mattered to them for why we didn't? Maybe he was a master politician? Has nothing to do with music, but just wanted to paint the picture that middle school we didn't move around. I feel really helped me sets some friends roots when I needed them the most. Despite that each year felt like a refresher. Around 50% turnover from previous faces, but pretty steady in popularity. It's sad but I probably peaked in 8th grade (or at least acted as a turning point in my social abilities) and I put a lot of that overness on the topic of this entry: The Teen Girl Squad. The stable I built up in my head after starting this project. Just a term I use to describe them without describing them. But to put them over I gotta put over another team. Every year I had a new best friend, but that also discredits how my friendships formed. It was really one good/great friend and then a few acquaintances. Just how it worked for me. New grade new person that is basically the bulk of my social interaction. Most of my friendships were 1-1, very rarely much overlap without others in a given time. In 6th grade it was Alex/Sasha (he went by both), the Russian student. Not sure if he was an exchange student or just a family immigrant. I think it was his first year and by 7th he left me in the dust. You can't out Fez a Fez. I think the biggest hurdle with him is we didn't live near each other. We may have went over once or twice, but he was mostly a school-only friend. Not local and I just wasn't having opportunities to see him outside of class. In 7th grade I became friends with Chance and more or less took Alex's place as my main friend. Since he lived in the next culdesac over on base we always hung out. Related over a lot and probably the best IRL friend I've ever had. We always used to joke he lived in the nice area (for enlisted) and I was in the ghetto (new vs. old buildings). Basically implying if I don't get inside once it's dark I'm gonna get shot. I remained friends with Chance in 8th grade but a new guy moved into my area and in a change of formula I added a new cast member to my life. Normally one replaces the other, but luck was on Chance's side come renewal (neither of us moved). New guy was Josh and since Chance and I were always together we added him to the party. I'm not sure if he gets credit as best friend because all three of us were a trio for the most part. Didn't experience too much one without the other in this time in my life. I'm sure there were times were we fought and spent time apart, but eventually we made up. Felt like a real group in a way. Like if you ever had a "my people's" they were it. Looking back as an adult you wanna cherish it, but I'm sure I didn't appreciate what it was then.
Honestly I gotta give Josh props because without his friendship in 8th grade I probably wouldn't have been as big of a wrestling fan. I was just becoming a fan in 7th grade and Chance hated it and hated when I'd ditch him to watch Raw. He refused to watch it so I had no choice. Josh was really into wrestling, so much he joined the wrestling team. May have even discovered the IWC thanks to him. He stopped following it years later and I still do to some extent, but if he wasn't there it may have just been a fad for the Attitude Era. Having a friend who enjoys things makes it a lot easier to continue to follow and made me like it more. Was just the first real interest I had as a teen. If he hated it like Chance there's no way I would've followed it for much longer. I couldn't pinpoint when, but at some point I felt I was losing my grip in the trio. Me and Josh only shared one class while him and Chance had a few together so they just bonded more. Perhaps a side group was forming? Is it narcissistic to consider myself the center of the group and feel betrayed when the JoshxChance tag team got over in spite of me being the self-proclaimed leader? Or did they simply form the Outsiders to my Hogan?
In 8th grade while Chance and Josh were doing their friends sidequest on their own I also noticed I was also branching out a little bit. The headquarters was in art class. I think Chance and I shared art in 7th grade and I decided to take it again. He didn't so we didn't share any classes together. I sat at a table with some girls I knew. Without realizing it absence of being around my other friends I started making more and even saw them outside of school if I wasn't with either Josh or Chance. All living in the neighborhood helped. I spent time with one or the other as it didn't seem like either liked the other group. To finally introduce Teen Girl Squad... it was me and three girls: AJ, Jessica and Skittles. Skittles was a fat chick who I guess once wore a rainbow/colored shirt and got the nickname. And that's really all I remember of her. Bigger girl with a nickname. I don't know what her real name actually was. Maybe Sarah. Ever have major characters that never spoke on screen to each other and only in group settings? That was us.
AJ and Jessica both lived on base... Skittles may have, but since she was further away than us it seemed like she wasn't. Maybe I'm just too self-centered where I assume all the storylines revolve around me. Since I didn't see her regularly I'm not sure if we ever did anything one-on-one. Jessica lived in the same court (what we called each culdesac) as me and Josh, and her brother (nicknamed Helmet Boy because he always wore one for his bike when everyone else was TOO COOL for that shit) was friends with mine so there was familiarity there. AJ lived close by but far enough where she had a different bus stop (same bus).
Around this time the big pop sensations were the boy bands and select Mickey Mouse girls like Britney and Christina. One thing I remember was each of the girls had their main crush in different boy bands. They all had the one. Jessica was Lance Bass from Nysnc, AJ to really put her over as a different breed was Jonathan Davis from Korn the best boy band and I believe Skittles was someone from Backstreet Boys, don't have the proper memories to lock down who it was. I'm really burying her here, aren't I? Chance (and lesser extent Josh) really didn't like them and I was in a rock and a hard place because the boys made fun of me for hanging out with girls. We connected in a way I didn't with the boys, but I was too cowardly to defend my friendship with them. We'd have a blast hanging out or laughing at the table and then teasing them at the bus stop around the boys. Perhaps to avoid them calling me gay for hanging out with girls. My "waifu" at the time was never consistent. I'd like one for a while and then bounce around. I think it was Britney and then Christina for a bit and then I started getting into Buffy via Sarah Michelle Gellar (complete with computer print outs in my locker lmao). I actually used Tiger Beat and those magazines as a source for pics of my girls. One bullying attempts I did was bring Lance Bass pics to the bus stop for Jessica and then rip them up. To this day I have no idea why I did it. Perhaps I wanted the band back together and tried to get pops from the boys even though it was mean spirited. In hindsight I regret being a dick at times to her, especially regarding some revelations.
Jessica for at least a minute liked me. I didn't find her attractive but going through my life without having many girls openly like me brings up a lot of what if butterfly effect scenarios in my mind. It and Annie (did I mention her in my "love chapter"?) are my romantic regrets especially Annie. Not for nothing if I went back in time I would've given both a chance. Annie is pure speculation though, but I gotta reread that part of the "book" to see if she's been introduced in this thing yet. Jessica I'm not sure how I figured it out, but it may have been my sole reason for being part of the Teen Girl Squad. Makes me wonder if Skittles and AJ included me because she admitted to liking me? It makes more sense than not since my own self esteem refuses to believe they liked me for me... but isn't that the same if it was enough for her to like me and pulled strings to get around me? Maybe I was never "in" the group. Maybe they had their own trio that I was a guest star in sometimes? However it went down I don't remember. Again should've reread that chapter first, but I think I turned her down via someone else asking me... but in a Ness way where there's more questions than answers. Don't think it ejected me from the group, but it could've been at year end so it dissolved naturally anyway. More or less stopped speaking to either group once we got to high school. Either moved away or just went different places socially. I later moved down the street a few blocks because of some housing issue and met the cat who got me into Pokemon and later anime. Maybe have been mentioned in my comic section sometimes it's hard to keep track of so many posts. This was 9th grade and he liked Jessica and I was acting as the middleman between them. They were both in ROTC and I guess because I "knew" her he saw me as his way in. Nope. My Mom says I was a double agent because I was shit talking him to her and not helping at all. Whether I was starting to like her or not, I think I was jealous that he was evolving and I was still the same. During the scenario I did ask her if she wanted to go to the same function he was trying to take her to, but she turned me down. Just as well, I had my shot a year earlier. Wonder if I the reason I didn't rip up anything for AJ or Skittles was because I may have liked her? Perhaps I was too cowardly to admit it to myself and used the boys as an excuse? Just something to rot my brain over for decades to come I suppose.
AJ I actually hung out with a few times outside the group as she was basically a tomboy. We liked similar things and unlike Jessica and Skittles she was into more than just the few bands. Liking Korn vs. 98 Degrees really put her over as a cool person. Of all of them she and I probably got along the most. I didn't see her in that way and just saw her as a guy due to her nature. Of the group she will always be the coolest one to me. One of my most awkward moments was going to her house and standing outside the door as she went in. I stood there a minute before she went to "get me". See normally my friends had to ask for us to come inside so I got in the habit of not going in until we were granted permission. So her Mom thought I was the biggest mark on the planet. We did whatever (music and such) until dark and I went home. Parents were pissed because they had no clue where I was, we were a street lights type curfew at the time. And then explaining where I was... with a girl? Nothing happened like that between us, but ya know there's always gonna be the implication. She was also the most vocal of everyone in either the trio or the squad. I remember her FREAKING out at some popular kids who made fun of us for playing Pokemon at the lunch table. Usually we just no sold that stuff, but not her. That was the energy I always wanted and needed. Always feared anything I say in defense would just make things worse.
Skittles I really got nothing as I have no real memories of us having anything going on in a singles match. All our interactions were in the ensemble with the others members of the group. Everything written about her makes me look really bad, but I think I was just an awful person in general to my so-called friends. They're not allowed to do things without me and if I don't like a thing I just toss it out the window. I'm not sure if anything has changed, but I sure hope so. But yeah I really only recall spending time with Skittles during art class, which was basically our HQ. The back corner by the chalk board. It was where "radishman", my original (everywhere but PW) alias was born from. He was a stick figure I drew on classroom boards as sort of "Ness was here" but without identifying myself. He got somewhat over and the squad one day did their own versions of vegetable people. Teacher put a stop to that, but allowed the OG to stay. Putting him over like that is better than any pinfall victory. Assuming I wasn't part of the group simply because Jessica liked me, a large part of our bond (despite me being hungry for new friends) was that of music. Even if I didn't like boy bands (I do like and appreciate their hits today though) it seemed like me having a similar feeling for random female pop stars was on the same level. It's not something Josh and Chance felt strongly over and since we were on the outs anyway it really helped me think yeah these girls are okay. Dare I say, at times we acknowledged each other. I wasn't a great friend honestly. I probably am not even remembered, but for whatever it's worth all of them (even you Skittles) still live on in my memories. Without realizing it at the time that was when music finally touched me as more than a passing fad. Next I'll talk about more CDs I owned and discovering the world of mp3s thanks to Chance introducing me to that world.
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Post by 🤯 on Oct 2, 2022 1:42:41 GMT
I wanna see a sketch of this (in)famous @radishman!
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Post by Deleted on Oct 2, 2022 11:25:53 GMT
One of my most awkward moments was going to her house and standing outside the door as she went in. I stood there a minute before she went to "get me". See normally my friends had to ask for us to come inside so I got in the habit of not going in until we were granted permission. Could it be possible you're a vampire?
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Post by Baker on Oct 2, 2022 22:48:20 GMT
Ness providing the quality content. Post Radishman! Skittles was a fat chick who I guess once wore a rainbow/colored shirt and got the nickname. Chuckled at this because it's exactly how people got nicknames. Wear a rainbow/colored shirt once and you're Skittles. Do a 'squiggle' before hitting a Frog Splash off your parents dresser and you're Worm. Eat too much too quickly one day while also being a chunky first basemen in Baltimore and you're Moose. Be sad one time and get taunted by your best friend telling you to "Cheer Up Charlie" (from Willie Wonka) and suddenly you're a Charlie.
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Legend
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Post by Ness on Oct 2, 2022 22:51:54 GMT
Ness providing the quality content. Post Radishman! Skittles was a fat chick who I guess once wore a rainbow/colored shirt and got the nickname. Chuckled at this because it's exactly how people got nicknames. Wear a rainbow/colored shirt once and you're Skittles. Do a 'squiggle' before hitting a Frog Splash off your parents dresser and you're Worm. Eat too much too quickly one day while also being a chunky first basemen in Baltimore and you're Moose. Be sad one time and get taunted by your best friend telling you to "Cheer Up Charlie" (from Willie Wonka) and suddenly you're a Charlie. This reminded me of a friend I had in early elementary school... ravioli boy, simply because his lunch usually consisted of a thermos with them in it. Despite being friends I wasn't really concerned with what he was eating. Or perhaps I met him post-nickname. I guess we all can't be T-Bone.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 2, 2022 22:52:32 GMT
Do a 'squiggle' before hitting a Frog Splash off your parents dresser and you're Worm. Eat too much too quickly one day while also being a chunky first basemen in Baltimore and you're Moose. Be sad one time and get taunted by your best friend telling you to "Cheer Up Charlie" (from Willie Wonka) and suddenly you're a Charlie Are those all nicknames you had or are they references I don't get?
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Post by Baker on Oct 2, 2022 23:05:06 GMT
I guess we all can't be T-Bone. So true. Some of us will always be Coco's no matter how hard we try. Are those all nicknames you had or are they references I don't get? Nicknames of people I knew. I'll confess to coming up with two of them and aiding in the third. I was an inveterate nicknamer. After being branded a Garth (the nerd Wayne's World- it eventually grew on me) I had to dish it out a little.
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Post by 🤯 on Oct 2, 2022 23:22:20 GMT
Only nicknames I've ever been branded with (aside from "Four" or "Eye-Vee" because we only up-rev first born males' serial numbers in my family line apparently) were/are "Nuts" by first office coworkers post-coal mining days and then "Haphazard" (shortened to "Hap") by subsequent company coworkers/friends.
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Post by Baker on Oct 4, 2022 1:36:51 GMT
Only nicknames I've ever been branded with (aside from "Four" or "Eye-Vee" because we only up-rev first born males' serial numbers in my family line apparently) were/are "Nuts" by first office coworkers post-coal mining days Whoa. Hold the phone. You were a coal miner?!? I had no idea. 🤯 just got 10x more badass. ========== Still have my nicknaming career on the brain. Need to get it out of my system even if it does pale in comparison to coal mining. Sorry for derailing Ness -Tried real hard to make my brother a Honus some time before June 1990. He played shortstop one time(?) in little league so I started calling him Honus as an homage to turn of the last century Pittsburgh Pirate great Honus Wagner. Unfortunately my brother did not want to be a Honus. He hemmed and hawed and broke out the crocodile tears. "Mommy! Daddy! Make him stop calling me Honus!" So it didn't take. To this day I don't get it. Honus is a great name! You guys can call me Honus. I won't mind. Is Honus my own personal T-Bone*? Maybe it is... *But only because calling yourself Ace is too much of a heel move. Actually did this ironically at my restaurant job, only the cool older head waitress didn't know I was joking so she called me Ace for years lol. -One time I didn't see my 90s wrestling fan cousin for a while (probably only a month or so in between holidays given the way time went in those days) so I pulled a gimmick where I pretended to forget who he was. Even got my brother to play along for once. "Hmm....you look vaguely familiar. Who are you again? IT DOESN'T MATTER! You look like a Sammy to me so I'm a call you Sammy." And that's how my cousin briefly became a Sammy. Went about as well as the whole Honus thing. BUT I recycled the same gimmick about a year(?) later, only this time using Jack in place of Sammy. And after a rocky start (much like me becoming a Garth) he embraced it and it soon got over. I called my cousin Jack for over 20 years. Over time I even gave him a kayfabe last name (which he also embraced) and a kayfabe hometown (which he did not). -In late 91-early 92 a kid between my brother and I in age moved across the street from us. This is the big Genesis/NES guy who(se family) I went to the Tracy Lawrence concert with. But there was one big problem. We had the same shoot first name! Every time somebody called out our shared name we'd both answer, or both come. Very annoying! So I decided he was now a Jensen to avoid confusion. And he soon became universally (or at least neighborhoodedly) known as Jensen for the 3-4 years we were friends. Funny thing is I became a Garth only a short time later. So for 3-4 years neither one of us were referred to by our shoot names except perhaps by parents and those who knew us in the before times. OK. Think it's out of my system. Back to your regularly scheduled Nessgram.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 4, 2022 14:15:15 GMT
Baker has some interesting stories - when are we getting a Storytime With The Bakerman thread?!
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Legend
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Post by Ness on Oct 4, 2022 14:18:09 GMT
Baker has some interesting stories - when are we getting a Storytime With The Bakerman thread?! Your best bet is a slice episode me thinks. Book it 🤯.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 4, 2022 14:19:13 GMT
Half Baker Slice of Pie
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Post by Lony on Oct 5, 2022 0:23:45 GMT
I just read the No Canadians Allowed chapter, I'm slowly catching up on this (wow, that was almost a year ago, damn I've been slacking). Man, we really did follow similar paths on PW, I think that's why we've always gotten along so well on here.
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Lawlermaniac
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Post by Baker on Oct 6, 2022 0:36:32 GMT
Baker has some interesting stories - when are we getting a Storytime With The Bakerman thread?! lol Storytime With The Bakerman is pretty much what I do on PW. For example the Match Review thread is 54 pages worth of about 2/3 storytimes and 1/3 match reviews. Actually got a storytime coming tonight. Keep your eyes on the Random Thread. Your best bet is a slice episode me thinks. Book it 🤯 . He tried. I'm playing hard to get.
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Legend
23,184 POSTS & 12,594 LIKES
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Post by 🤯 on Oct 6, 2022 1:44:55 GMT
Baker has some interesting stories - when are we getting a Storytime With The Bakerman thread?! lol Storytime With The Bakerman is pretty much what I do on PW. For example the Match Review thread is 54 pages worth of about 2/3 storytimes and 1/3 match reviews. Actually got a storytime coming tonight. Keep your eyes on the Random Thread. Your best bet is a slice episode me thinks. Book it 🤯 . He tried. I'm playing hard to get. You're not the only one who's hard whom I want to play with... 😘
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Legend
19,310 POSTS & 19,612 LIKES
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Post by Ness on Oct 6, 2022 20:17:27 GMT
There's Gotta Be A Better Way For the next part I want to go completely off memories and not do any research. I can just imagine what typing these words would bring up on youtube, I'm sure all sorts of weird retrospectives. For a minute there I had a bit of a CD collection complete with goofy wallets and sleeves to put them in. But then the problem presented itself... I loved these songs, but hated the idea of it not being on my schedule. That was the main appeal to me of owning the music... not to take it with me, but to listen when I wanted. I couldn't get behind what my 8th grade teacher said when she said it was too much a headache and she let the radio decide. That viewpoint changed for me, but that's for another post. I thought she was insane, but that was also several years later. Still it was either owning it on CD, catching it on the radio or recording it bootleg-style from said radio. And then hope you're ready with record and they don't talk over the intro or cut it off at the end as they often do. What's a dude to do? Obviously the parents here and there, and sure I had an allowance and my own money... but it wasn't enough. See I found myself wanting a variety and it was hard to convince my parents to buy me *another* CD. But then I saw it... the ad that anyone in my age range is probably familiar with: Columbia House. They advertised you could have a bunch of CDs for pennies. Just tell me where to sign up. In fact it may have been my very first "online" purchase, though this was obviously through the mail. Maybe I ordered random junk from the famous "Things You Never Knew Existed" catalog. Regardless with the music I'm not sure what the actual "catch" was since I refuse to do any research, but from what I remember you started off picking 10 or so CDs for the advertised price. So I picked a bunch of randoms I was interested in and then I waited. The package arrived and I was giddy see this was the 90s so parcels and ecommerce isn't what it is today... it was special getting something. But then there was a problem. See around this time Jenny McCarthy had her own variety show going and as is usually the case they had musical guests. There was a CD I wanted based on said song performance so I added it to the original batch, but of my 10... it was the odd one out. Had 9 CDs that matched whatever flavor of music I had and then there was this abomination, some weird jobber CD that belongs in the Cracker Barrel souvenir shop. What is this? Why? Did I write the wrong # down or was this an error on their part? No big deal, 9 CDs for like nothing... right? Here's the problem... it still bugs me to this day. Not the misdelivery because that's human error, but because I don't actually remember what the CD even was. I thought it was a CD from the Cranberries, but over the years I've tried to find it and that song and I can't. No, it's not Zombie. It may have been the Cardigans and their song Love Fool... but I haven't been able to find any actual listings of the musical guests for the show. I don't know if it made it's way anywhere. I looked on Amazon, lowkey breaking my rule. I dunno I just feel like there was a goat-tier song that I have been searching for decades to find and I still haven't found it. All because my handwriting is bad, they were low on stock or they screwed me!
Then came the time to return the favor. The way they make their money (I guess) is you have to make a few legit purchases to fulfill your contract at inflated prices. I think like $30 a pop. Not sure how many it took, but I assume it was worthwhile for them to do it? Makes perfect sense today because you pretty gotta pay people to take physical media off your hands, but not sure about then. Perhaps it's just easier to clear out the warehouse this way? Once I did the j-o-b I dusted my hands of the experience and that was it. I don't think it was a scam, just bait and switch. And at worst you're just paying MSRP on the backend, but you get your collection started right away. Not sure when, but it would have to be after I met Chance but shortly after that last experience he introduced me to the world of music piracy. Up to this point I was pretty much the internet guy in any given room. Generally the most experienced with using it or one who'd been there done that when kids were just discovering it. We got AOL in 6th grade, so by time I met Chance I'd been using it for a minute. But I really wasn't because he showed me I hadn't even scratched the surface. You can download music? For free? Free like Columbia House? No for real. It wasn't Napster, it came after. I can't remember which one he introduced me to and I've used several over the years until mp3s and that "life" was no longer relevant... but the big names were Kazaa, Limewire, WinMX, etc. Probably experimented with a dozen over the years as for the longest time we were running Windows ME, which meant it did not react well to any spyware infected on the machine. And you can imagine how that managed alongside PW's main page. Not sure what my Dad did online, but he always liked to blame me for everything that went wrong. Fair enough because I was on it the most... and well, I kinda did some shit.
Still this was a game changer in so many ways. So I can listen to anything I want on my computer? Started making my own folders and just had it on indefinitely among the other go-to classics such as AIM and "internet" (whatever browser at the time). I always used Winamp to go along with it. It didn't really change my CD collection much as I just revamped it from having a bunch of legit CDs to having a collection of faceless CD-Rs. I was a king of making "mix tapes" of just random songs I loved. No rhyme or reason behind them... certainly no gimmick or formula. It was nice squeezing as many tracks on a single CD as I could though. Pretty much from then on I was a walkman guy at the bus stop. Awkward Ness moment occurred when someone asked me if my CD player played mp3s. I answered yes because I burnt mp3s onto a CD, so right?
From 8th grade on unless someone was engaging with me on the ride to/from I was listening to music. I had access to every song and you know what I had? All the radio hits and maybe 1-2 others I enjoyed despite not being "over". And yet my opinion at the time was not liking the radio because it's censored, has commercials and they only play the popular mainstream stuff. What was on those CDs? The same shit... okay maybe the uncensored versions but I was more or less listening to the radio on demand. Even when I had legit CDs I didn't listen to it start to finish. Cassette days probably because doing rewind bullshit would get old fast. You'd learn to love the b-sides. But with CDs you had future technology at your fingertips. Repeat. Choose track. It was glorious. And yet my habit is usually to listen to the same group of songs over and over again. When I was on the computer I'd use headphones (so no one can hear... I was not rude to others but also ashamed of anything I liked and I'd get made fun of whenever I did enjoy things... it's a Nessism) and obviously out and about (school, mowing the lawn, etc.) I had my CD player so in a way wasn't my overuse of headphones the start of me closing myself off from the rest of the world. Don's share with anyone, just drown out the world and be in this escape. I still had some real CDs, but much like comic books and anime... the appeal of physical only existed because it was the only method of consumption. Once it was readily available they were just words in a folder. Basically I was always obsessed with owning the songs in a way. I always liked having that big folder to revisit. Yes I know there's playlists and whatever, but for the most part it's all based on memory. With my folder I could see first-hand what the quality consisted of. But that also meant songs would literally sit there being unused for long stretches of time. Before everyone had a computer in their pocket I would write down lyrics I heard in the car to try and research when I got home. WHAT WAS THAT SONG?!? It dates me and makes me old, in general not really on PW, but I do like having living in an era prior to the easy access we have today. Sometimes I do think about how difficult it used to be to get things. Maybe that's why they don't get much of a pop from me after the Napster Era of Music hit us. It's like going to the fridge, there's nothing to earn there. Or is that just senseless gatekeeping? It was fun discovering new things by accident. Mislabeled and outright incorrect titled songs... it was all a gamble. But it's an experience we shared if you were doing it at the time. And if you didn't because you're a Youtube/satellite listener... well I got nothing. I never thought of this until now, but I think Chance gets all the credit for shaping my musical taste after my parents put the mold together. Maybe it tells a story about me in a way. Because I guess I never really "outgrew" what I liked and enjoyed in middle school. That became my bubble music wise and I never evolved beyond that. So pretty much all the rock/variety stations that "play the same 12 songs all day" is my taste. Perhaps it explains my peak development as a person. I never saw value (until recently) of anything beyond my bubble. And since I didn't really ever connect with someone via that since middle school... is that where the mind peaks? Not long after this I was set in my ways, used PW as a pseudo social connection and so my music intake didn't change because I was never exposed to other's musical taste for various reasons. Other than a "remember when the Bizkit was awesome?" I don't recall mentioning musical taste much on PW. Know what else happened in that general time frame? The Attitude Era. You know how everyone ragged about that music as the general focus of wrestling for so long? I think that's what kept me around for a while. Or perhaps my love of wrestling at the time of it's peak took what I enjoyed via my parents and friends... and turned it up to 11. And since I stopped connecting with anyone at this point I overindulged and looked down on anything that wasn't this, whatever this is. But I'll save that for it's own post really.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 6, 2022 20:23:41 GMT
Winamp really whipped the llama's ass.
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Legend
23,184 POSTS & 12,594 LIKES
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Post by 🤯 on Oct 6, 2022 22:44:13 GMT
Is anyone's gif game stronger than Ness's? No.
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Legend
19,310 POSTS & 19,612 LIKES
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Post by Ness on Nov 13, 2022 23:30:37 GMT
ALL THE THORNS IN MY EYE It was either fate or enough things were just lining up for me. Perhaps this is simply how it worked for every one else. Once you discovered something you liked you encountered more things to build that bias. I was getting into music right around when I was getting into wrestling. You know the Treehouse episode where Homer was being fed an assembly line of donuts? That's how I feel when it comes to music and the theme songs that wrestling was throwing at me. Is it wrong to consider it it's own genre of music? To snapshot us my journey into wrestling (which you can revisit somewhere before this) was picking up steam somewhere between late 98 and mid 99. The music was speaking to me as more than a thing to enjoy in the moment. The act of seeking out wrestling music is what both connects us and separates us from the others. It might have been my first exposure to the idea of a 1.1er. If you've never recorded a wrestling entrance with a tape recorder during the perfect moment with minimal crowd and commentary feedback then you simply don't get it. Like if you've never hunted down wrestling themes that got labeled "11th" and "14th" version that are exactly the same in an effort to find that one part that's different and the best thing ever... you were never one of us. This of course only applies to fans during the time period since it's a LOT easier to find theme at will these days. I remember doing that exclusively with "My Time". I'm willing to die on a hill that HHH's cool factor lives and dies almost exclusively on his entrance music. Like turn on his instrumental version before My Time and walk around the house and tell me you aren't THE GUY at that point? Not every theme is like this, but I fully believe that was what was so special about nu-metal and this type of music. It just spoke to me and both my interest in my own music and falling deep into wrestling fandom simply fed off of each other. How to describe the music? Angry white boy? Is there a better description of a wrestling fan than that? Dude even typing this feels lowkey aggressive...
I was coming into my own at the right place right time? So much so that I don't think I ever truly let go of that monkey branch in the same way others did. Perhaps it was simply evolving socially as I regressed, perhaps a bit of growing up and forming bonds/a family with others... I honestly didn't see a reason to "move on" and I place a big part of that on wrestling. Like many here I'm sure we went through some things wrestling wise as others moved on as it became less cool. Since it was always a thing and they embraced the one music genre that would have them... it just meant I was into it even more. Only listening to rock and numetal I wasn't getting into other things so since wrestling was only giving that... it was all I ever listened to. Like my parents set the foundation, liking the same things Chance did and then wrestling as it does turn it to 11. Always the product of my environment... but I wasn't a prisoner. I was all aboard! All those random PPV themes from the early 2000s? Attitude into Ruthless Aggression? Gobbled it up. Like clockwork those always made their way into my playlist/mp3 player. None of their other songs, but that PPV theme they played for a month just found it's way into my mind. I'm listening to a few as we speak (Ugly by The Exies for instance) and they're still hitting, like reconnecting with an old friend. There's something to be said as wrestling went from "themes" to just real songs. I fully believe as they embraced lyrics beyond "not your boy toy" that's when things got to that point where they didn't feel like wrestling songs and were just garden variety metal. Sorta like a cool wrestling shirt that you don't know is one. Which I suppose just means it wasn't black background with white text. I really got into music because of the edge factor. Parental advisory sticks and basically the Attitude Era. I was big into Eminem at the time too and I hate to admit it... but yeah I'm one of those. Don't normally like rap but..., ya know the deal. At least Slim and Marhsall. Beyond that I no sold him. I'm not sure if it's the result or a symptom but by this point I wasn't really interested in anything new or anything beyond the flavor I was enjoying. This honestly was always a lingering "problem" where despite seemingly endless options thanks to the internet that I just stuck to what worked. I've always referred to that mindset as the Meatball Sub Effect - you have your usual and sometimes you branch out because other things look better, but then you're disappointed and wish you had just stuck to what worked. Wrestling music was also no stranger to me owning a true physical release. I'm not sure if I owned it proper but the concept that you could "get" these things outside of recording off of TV happened with WWF The Music Vol. 4. I had volume 5 (mostly for The Game tbh) and also 6 which was the Pie Album. My Mom earned her sage badge that year. Instead of buying "us" (my brother and me) the CD to share she was playing 4d chess and bought one for each of us. I'm sure she mentioned something snarky about us not fighting. She knew the deal.
That all happened at the peak of wrestling. Wiki release date for that last CD says right around WM17, was part of that backyard era so I provided the boombox and CD like a mark (or production crew?) and of course I had to be cringe and come out to HHH to spit my water. To also put into perspective how much I enjoyed themes... WWF No Mercy for the N64 would replay the finish of matches along with the theme until you hit the button. Dudleys, Hardys, Benoit, etc. I'd just use it as background noise. You love to hear it. And you best believe I had custom CDs for car rides with wrestling themes. By time I started riding and driving my Dad's car I always had a CD (back then it was a feature) in there because my Dad only used the radio. I think I exclusively listened to mp3s at home or what was on a CD so I literally created my own bubble. Since all I watched was wrestling it was the only way new music touched me! Back to the CD one day I forgot to turn it from player to radio and him and my brother reported to "silence" before hearing "............ is cooooooookin'" - Rock's Hollywood Theme! They just said the Rock, so I knew they weren't fans on my level. Imagine if my brother laid out "it was Rock's 2003 heel theme" on me? Like what if he was secretly posting in the IWC too? All the bands featured on WWE in 2000 and 2001 I was either already a fan of so I became a bigger one, or their exposure to me via wrestling made me a fan. Take out wrestling and I'm not sure if I love Disturbed, Saliva and Bizkit as much as I did and do. Saliva who I feel deserve more respect in DIS BUSINESS than they get. They held it down for us for a while there. Slight comeback in 04 when I got back into wrestling again. I think music wise it was good enough for me at the time. I just liked the energy and how it was all basically work out (never) and pumped up fight songs. That's all I wanted. All I needed. All my life was. I didn't feel depressed or closed off from general society (feel more than today than 98) I just liked the music. I wasn't focused on love or relationships where a lot of the anger came from... I just thought it was the only form of music that wasn't "gay" so I always liked it for a superficial reason. I was barely paying attention to the lyrics and I still barely do in any capacity. It was just like listening to nonstop boss themes. It just fit me especially given it's reputation.
And maybe it was the long wrestling connection and being alone in that hobby that had me clinging onto it for so long and not really listening to much else. I found myself mostly tolerating other music. Like if I wasn't at a social thing (as rare as it is) or trying to (mostly failing) clap some cheeks... I stuck to my lane. And really only tolerated other genres in pursuit of things rather than any desire to "give them a chance". I do think that may have hurt me in connecting with others. Especially in the way I listen to music. I just never knew anyone new and mostly stuck to what I was exposed to and rarely anything beyond that. Here's the code phrase to get into my post-apocalypse krew: Assman or The One? The answer of course is yes. Like a wrestling shirt I'll be very in the closet about everything, but in private company where we're essentially braiding each other's hair and telling secrets... yeah wrestling themes man. At my age and life circumstance if anyone should feel comfortable and who cares about shouting from the rooftops that yeah sometimes I listen to Shamrock's WWF theme, so what? But I can't. Does that make me borderline ineligible of being a 1.1er in some unique twist of fate? Sometimes I listen to Wellllllllll It's The Big Show. And I mean to completion. Old school, Jim Johnson, whatever that weird symbol $CFO group who made all the NXT themes was all about... even some select songs from ROH and TNA I liked. Obviously all the AJ ones and no one doesn't love My World... but yeah either they just made some goats during my time or the general vibe of wrestling just hit me via the music. Entrance and the music IS a big part of it. If you're still a fan on some level but don't feel passionate about wrestling themes... were you ever a fan? That's the question!
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