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Writing

Why Popularity Should Die a Horrible Death

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I’ve spent the majority of my life not popular, and I’m very thankful for that. I never understood the concept of people wanting this as a thing. It’s one thing to be liked by people you have a mutualism with. It’s one thing to not want to make enemies either. However, the excess frequency of which people desire to have throngs of people liking them made no sense to me. I mean, relevant means something integral to the proceedings. Which means most celebrities are irrelevant on a daily basis. Why would anyone care about a random weirdo on the internet and even follow them with nothing in it for them?

I know people say, that’s easy to say, but not many have genuinely walked the path of resistance like I have. Here’s an interesting story.

Social media didn’t exist and back in my teen years, I lived up north from Biddeford and joined the high school. Upon joining the school, I was met with an accidental task, put a bully in his place. I did that and was apparently rewarded with social acceptance or popularity. Nothing like coming home and having the next door neighbor, also the landlord, talk about how I’m the buzz of social circles. Apparently because full grown adults have nothing better to do than talk about teenagers in the 2003 era.

Compared to other schools I went to, where such made you a bigger target, this was different.

So cool, right? Well, no. It was worthless. Compared to when I wasn’t liked by anyone. I made almost no money at anything I tried to make money at. I could not find a job, and this was a aera with zero opportunity , so it’s more intelligent insulting to hear “something will come up.” I was 17, my adulthood was about to start. Not something I wanted to hear at that point. Shit, I wasn’t even invited to parties I wasn’t going to go to anyways. Instead of it just being because we don’t like each other, it’s because I’m more introverted, according to them. To which I was like “No shit, I said that.”

Ironically, I got even less pussy options than I normally get for being disliked. Oh, I was considered attractive, but nothing like most just ignoring you in general. I had like 3 chicks that went to that school, that liked me enough for us to attempt something. one was a Christian that like my Elvis impression and that was probably the most interesting part of those three.

The best option I had up there was a woman who hung out with the sister of my sister’s sister. But her friend, who was also into me, pretty much banned her from being around me. Not a way to get on my good side. Apparently that girl became a low level model or something. I was told by the chick that banned her around me, years later.

So how’s that to the start to adulthood? This is what idiots I went to school with coveted? This is why they wore the same clothes as others to “fit in?” To not get laid? To not make money? What the fuck type of life is this? Needless to say, nothing went anywhere with anything. Not a horrible tradgy when you factor in there was nowhere to take a chick anyways. I spent most my time hanging with a 25 year old and his 18 year old friend playing cards.

Wasn’t popularity the thing that was supposed to be the opposite of this?

This is not how my life had normally gone, up til then. Shit at one point in my life, different area, they threatened to expel me from school for non conformity. I took them up on the offer. in essence, selling my soul for rock and roll. I digress though.

I would later meet some of the kids that went to that high school in a different aera and it turns out, they were confirming to Gen X/Gen Z style “personalities” and was weird, for them, to find out my personality aspects were genuine.

This is all relevant to a future article, I swear, however it’s important to note that this is why few things ever make sense to me and why I write. I need to make sense of a world that has never been intended for a man like myself. It makes zero sense. I may or may not be the only one that sees the insanity, but hey, that is life.

All I know is that infamy, seems to be the better gig in this world and maybe because you can’t spell infamous without “I’m Famous.” or maybe it’s because it forces these bitches to be real for once.

Either way, stay metal! 🤘

Writing

Are You Smarter Than a Carney?

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If life had taught me one thing by the time I was 16, it was that I was smarter than 99% of adults. However, that would change one Autumn day.

Fryeburg Maine, 2002. I’m 16 years old and the annual fair was taken place across from my parents place. I’ve been to other fairs, but not this one. This one wasn’t anything like Topsfeild in Massachusetts, it looked more rural and hick-ish from the outside, however, when you got in an inspected it, it had a quaint Cham.

So Maine has a rule that states if a game is modified, even if it’s “gambling” you can play provided you’re at least 16 years of age. So me being me, I borrowed a dollar from my mom and played a pick the color game. That dollar became $20, which is 2002 was like $100 for a 16 year old. So I gave my mom her initial investment back, and pocketed $19 dollars in quarters and walked into the great unknown, while my parents stuck with my younger siblings. Like a hot chick in an ovulation cycle, a booth appeared. Not just any booth, but the golden goose of booths. It had the coveted WWF, then just turned WWE, reproduction belts. You know, the $300 dollar ones.

The belt of Austin, Rock, Hogan, HHH, The Undertaker and many more.

So I bite like a guppie on a hook. What’s the game? Easy, toss the ball and have it drop into the bucket.

It be like that

So I figured out quickly that I’m advantaged here, cause I love science and this is an easy physics concept. Naturally I’m smarter than a carney, right? Nope! $19 dollars later and I’m broke and pissed off. Why? Because hubris blinded me in that moment and it wasn’t as easy as I thought. Years later Mythbusters would do an episode on pretty much the exact same concept, they even shared my bias, and got the exact opposite I did. Well, at least people that are smarter got to waste Discovery channels money rather than their own to find that out, as I did.

I believe this is the episode

An all over a dumb cosplay title belt. I eventually one upped the carney, thanks to Gimp and created a picture of me with said belt in question.

Revenge is mine!!!!

And a few years after that, nature was kind and through a random chance occurrence, I got to actually hold one finally.

Too sweet!

And not just any belt, it was one that John Cena had personally gifted to a make a wish youth that lived in the city and they were kind enough to let me take a picture with it.

So like the black guy in Harold and Kumar pointed out “The Universe tends to unfold as it should, plus I got a pretty big penis ,so that keeps me happy”

Moral of the story? Just because you’re advantaged, doesn’t mean you’re going to win. Sometimes the universe, as my best friend always likes to remind me, has other plans. In this case, it was reminding me that I was not smarter than a carney.

In closing

That era of my life summed up

Stay metal! And always stay in school🤘

Writing

Old Dude thinks about youth, gives unsolicited advice to people younger than himself at same time.

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This article is aimed mostly at the youth. It’s a time, long ago, in a Galaxy far, far away, known as 2008. Back then I was 22 and unemployed as a majority of you guys seem to be, according to the internet. I did my job as a student and got the As, took the SATs, would have been pretty much garuntee ivy leagues in my age range. However, much like Obama’s change, the economy was going to tank and change everything. It was bad enough as is seeing jobs hire people with felony wraps being hired, while you worked hard, did your due diligence, flew the straight and narrow and worked towards your goals. Life’s unfair, or so I heard from people in my age all the time, bitching about the position they put themselves into. Where’s my commercial as the old saying goes? Nowhere. They drank, they drugged, they had failed relationships, they got pregnant and spit out a kid with a random and kept bemoaning their life. It’s hard to find a position that you put yourself into as something I’m supposed to understand 100. The other side, sat their ass on the couch and looked for attention on YouTube.

Now, I equally had access to YouTube as everyone did, but I saw no value past hosting on it. Sitting around in my room all day was something I mostly did as a teenager, didn’t sound like a great way to spend my 20s. So for me, I went with EBay. Back in the 80s, the Reganite was recalibrating from a late 1970s recession. 1992 would have as well and I can remember vividly how often my father would talk about the price of gas then vs the price of gas in 1992. He had a job and he would flip things on the side sometimes for extra cash. Maybe it would pan out for me as well? Well around this time, 2008, he was running a non profit that was gifted to him by a clergyman around here, because he had the experience and business acumen. That happened a few years before 2008, but he still kept it up. So since couldn’t find a god damn job, I asked if I could take the mini cola fridge from him. I took it home, cleaned it. Spent a dollar on my debit card, opened a EBay account, and put up my Nintendo DS game collection along with D&D and Whitewolf RPG collection to kickstart this thing. Two positive reviews later and boom, we sold the mini fridge next and it snowballed from there.

I was working on several other things at the time, writing being one of them. However EBay played way better than the writing was. Hence why this website came 3rd after EBay. After was college then Bestinyourgirl.,com. However I was setting things up for that back then.

I worked two hours a week on EBay and enjoyed it. Some days I woke up to $100 dollars. Nice given that it stretched pretty well in a recession world. Remember, recession and inflation are two different things.

I was definitely doing better than my peers and while it wasn’t going to make me rich, at least being able to get what I needed to do was good. I was given near perfect conditions for this too. I was young, not married, no girlfriend, no college debt, no kids, no car, no Obama care payments or other bullshit in my way. This was pretty much the best it was going to get at that point in my life.

My recession was way easier than most others. Money flowed well enough. While there could still be tough times here or there, at least I wasn’t wasting away a druggie that cared about how they had to choose their kids diapers or their next fix and I know you know that trope well, since TikTok used to be filled with the people my age that had “narcolepsy” passed out with a fellow peer of yours in the backseat. horrible things. At this point I was very thankful for the lot I was given in life. I barely spent any of my money on fun things, albeit I did redo my Freddy costume from the 90s in the modern world and bought myself a nice bit of pipe tobacco and maybe the odd cigar.

And I may or may not have listened to this a bit one too many times.

Here comes the money!

For the most part, I was happy in that. Now a days I have nothing to show for it, cause it didn’t allow for a lavishly decadent lifestyle, but it afforded me the things that truly mattered, such as time with my best friend, time with my family and plenty of guitar playing.

The conditions now, for you, are kind of similar, except for the pesky bullshit of WW3. Too be fair, we both had the war on terror looming back then as well. However you have the negative aspect of inflation, which makes the dollar stretch less. This sucks, but is manageable. You face druggies now using internet sites to fund their fix, while You get yourself ahead for the more important things in life. Fact of the matter I been there, done that and got myself in a decent positioning. While there are things I would do better, life through us all a curveball. I chose not to have kids, given the horrible pool of eligibles. You guys have some good peers and can maybe make something of that with a family. In my middle age, I’m finding the Gen Z family TikTok’s to be cute. At least I’m not a pathetic old man, so I got that going for me.

The moral of the story though, life gives you trials by fire and men and woman who walk the path are forever forged in steel. So keep rocking and don’t let this bullshit get ya down.

Here’s another song I listened too one too many times. Maybe it will serve you well too!

It’s about make a little music every day til you die, it’s a beautiful ride.
Writing

How to be productive in relationships, a guide.

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Men and woman view relationships differently. A woman puts more stock into them, a man doesn’t. Men have historically been simpler than woman. However, leave it to idiotic millennials to fuck this paradigm up. So you heard of mansplain. Well now there is man keeping. Except man keeping isn’t unique to just men, it’s females that do it too.

Mankeeping is defined as a lopsided relationship trope where one partner is shouldering the emotions of another, without it being a two way street. Except men have delt with this bullshit way longer than woman.

My longest relationship, not a dating one, was about 30 years long. My girlfriend from when I was 12. We both met in preschool in the 80s and we stayed friends off and on through, due to moving around, for 30 years. It finally fell apart because she went back to doing annoying shit that I didn’t like about her in middle school. I also knew her sister for equally as long.

My next several relationships, non romantic, are two years away from turn 20. I met them in a MySpace chat, one on FB and I’ve been on good terms with most of them ever since. My bestie being the strongest relationship because we had the ability to grow it more. One friend of mine is from England so obviously we had just the internet and another of mine lived in the sticks that you couldn’t get to and now resides in the south.

After that, most of my friendships lasted about 10 years, like one male friend of mine from kindergarten that lasted up until I moved to NH.

Anything less than 5 years has been a rarity for me.

In all that time I have learned one thing and that is that why friendships are great, they’re not the end all be all. I was good in life without my friends and I would still be fine even if we never met and that is because the first rule of any relationship is a healthy sense of self. You have a whole life outside of your friends that includes family too. Without this foundation, your relationships will crumble.

The second most important thing in a relationship is setting it up as is and being as open about everything you can up front. You’re setting the tone for however long this thing lasts. Be honest and real. Too many bitches out there fronting as is.

Another way of framing this is the 1960s Batman show. If you seen it, it’s on Netflix if you haven’t or YouTube, a running gag through out the show was that Batman always had the right tool and the right time, but unlike James Bond that has Q to set up the gadgets, aka foreshadowing, it’s hokey. So if you’re a ballbust be that, if you’re in need of emotional support, be that.

The third part is that all relationships are two way streets. It requires both to be there for one another, not parasitic. Millennials have made all relationships woefully inadequate. They’re about as good at it as their idiotic boomer parents. They think they’re liked because enough people placate their ego, but the reality is that if pushed, not a single one of those people will be there for them.

The lopsided aspect has things in common with NPD. I know I’ve spoken of things like this is the past and I’m working on a bigger, overall peice in it. However, no relationship can be one way.

The reason i liken it to NPD is that, they often exhibit great deals of dejection from quasi hurtful things. Things that are so mirco no one would take your dejection seriously.

Take this example for instance. Back in the 90s I was checked for cancer in Boston. Thankfully I didn’t have it. However, this negatively impacted both of my parents, both were dejected and both worked towards supporting one another. That’s why you expect from a partnership, especially when things impact the both of you. Same when things happened to my siblings. This guy isn’t what we’re seeing with millennials. They act like things only affect them and not their entire families. There is a non medical term I like to use for these people and that’s “loser.” And we all know, as the onion points out, depression hits losers the hardest.

Communicate with your friends and partners. This is another important role in keeping relationships going. without it, everything is going to hell and millennials suck at this. It’s almost impossible to communicate with them when they’re not in your life, never mind when they are.

Which leads me to my final aspect, emotional intelligence. Read their body language and understand them. Like one time my bestie and I had a misunderstanding when I made a joke. Normally she takes it well, but not that night. Even though I knew it was more likely all the other bullshit in her life that made my joke seem worse that day, I had to man up and apologize because that was indeed my bad. I saw her body language was in dejected mode and worked towards keeping us on track. If the relationship is worth having, it’s worth sollowing your pride for.

Thankfully most Gen Zers I meet understand these and at quite young ages. People my age could learn a great deal from them.

So let’s recap as to how to start having better relationships.

  1. Sense of self
  2. Laying it all on the table
  3. Reciprocity / mutualism
  4. Communication
  5. Emotional intelligence

Working towards getting these basic elements down will result in better and stronger bonds.

Stay Metal🤘

Writing

Popeye:The Revenge Movie Review

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INTRODUCTION: So when Winnie the Pooh became public domain, some Indy producers decided to get cute and turn it into a horror movie. It worked, albeit it was a poor movie. However, it started a trend that didn’t need to happen. Now we have the famous sailor hero killing people. Groan!

PLOT: Jason Vorhees returns again…wait, I mean popeye.

CHARACTERS: Sparse as fuck.

ACTING: Almost 1980s bad, which to be honest is actually the best part of this cringe fest, because Hollywood has been so sterilized with acting that finding a horrible performance is actually a nice change of pace. Look, it’s rare for me to dogg on someone for their looks, normally you got to be a real asshole for me to do that, but these actresses aren’t even ready to be on public access, never mind a movie. The point of casting pretty people is because they make good propaganda. Why? Think of a murder. Grizzly and ugly. Think of something like a hamburger, juicy and beautiful. Beauty is tied to human psychology with aesthetics and seems to always positively associate with good vs bad. So if you cast mid card actors with terrible development, it makes the movie even less effective. Well, at least one of them had nice tits, so there’s that, I guess.

STYLE: Low budget. It looks 2007 and that might as well be the 80s style wise now.

FX: Tom Savani called, he wants his retro fx back.

MUSIC: horribly mid as per the usual. You know the internet has plenty of musicians than can score well and much like Hollywood ignores the music industry in favor of horrible wanna be John Williams, we get garbage.

CONCLUSION: a movie no one needs, no one wants and managed to turn an icon into a knock off jason Vorhees. It’s no easy task to be this big of a fuck up, but boy did these assholes say “hold my beer.” Which I guess is ironically a success, because hey, here they are getting attention for it, which at the end of the day, most people are all about. Too bad this pitiful pos won’t recoup the most important part of doing this, the money.

2 out of 5 stars

Writing

“Scuse me while I kiss the sky“ a Jimi Hendrix Biography by David Henderson

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INTRODUCTION: So I’m not a fan of the biography genre. I’ve read very few of them. Probably about 10 in my 39 years on this planet. Most people don’t intrigue me enough to want to know about their background. Normally it’s trite experience anyways, regardless of skin color. It’s normally birth, shit happens, some people you meet are good, some are bad, other adversaries apply, maybe a lover or two and then the person is famous or dead, one of the two. I went wanting to know more of the psychology of Jimi Hendrix, since I’m learning his music, it only makes sense to get deeper into a man, whose music I’ve heard my whole life, but never thought to learn more about. So this is my first real biography review. Not really sure how to do one, but we will try.

WRITING STYLE: Fair. From my understanding the author isn’t a non fiction writer, he was a creative writer and did this as a favor to Jimi. However, I’m reading the kindle version and the slightly wonky style could be from a bad transfer. It’s not unreadable though. There is a small bias on the authors part, as they were friends. So keep that in mind as well.

lIFESTYLE: So this biography is different than no others, as it’s basic structure as above. To be fair, Jimmy was so unique that the basic structure works here. That’s not what I’m here for though. There’s going to moments you sympathize with him and the occasional WTF moments. If you like that, this is for you.

HISTORY:This book was written in 1978, and it shows. However, the author takes great detail in explaining to you the events of the era, so people like myself get an idea of the world around him. Not necessarily a unique trope for such, but necessary for future generations who will need this context to understand Jimmy or anyone really.

MUSIC: Now this is what I’m here for! Oh god did Jimmy and his family have amazing taste in music. Songs and people I’ve never heard of. Bad bad Wiskey, live, being my favorite of all the songs I’ve listened too.

Amazing!

CONCLUSION: if you’re coming here for something salacious, you’re going to be disappointed. Sure it has its moments of “very 60s” bullshit, however it’s a very conservative portrayal of such. If you’re interested in a man and how he developed his style, you won’t be disappointed. It also offers up and otherwise interesting perspective on Jimi’s death that should not be discounted as being accurate. That’s an article for a different time, though.

5 out of 5 for Jimi fans and 4 out of 5 for a person who may just want a biography of an otherwise, interesting person.