So social media is pretty fuckin old now. Facebook is twenty, X formerly Twitter is approaching it and the various other forms are catching up.
So, I didn’t grow up a social media native like the Gen Z youth did. Back in my, social media was something like a book, roller dex or who you worked with.
Now with that in mind, these platforms have various ways of “verifying” you. The “celebrity” checkmark as I’ve called it over the years or other identifying marks aren’t necessarily as real as they seem.
For instance, when I started Bestinyourgirl I paid to promote the facebook page and got like 300 or so likes before I ended the campaign. I looked at the engagement rate for it. That page never got and engagement, so I stopped using it entirely because it wasn’t worth posting to, with nothing happening.
My X account got some engagement, but it was mostly non followers. The followers of which I got were mostly fake Japanese accounts with the egg and kanji.
The engagement rate just wasn’t there.
I’ve deleted my instagram account multiple times over the years because instagram has a child fetish that upsold me dozens of very young modeling pages. So I can’t speak to any real engagement back then.
However, I’ve paid enough attention to Hollywood, Wrestling and other accounts and noticed a pattern a couple of years in. Legit engagement is 10 or so likes per 100 followers. So if you take the cap of 2 million or so followers that most of the legit celebrities have, albeit some exceptions like Pewdie pie, by the time you reach that barometer, you have about a quarter million or so legit “fans” that actively engage with your social platforms.
The rest are just for show and can be regaled to the wannabe aera of obscurity where most people still belong, including most celebrities.
However, I would say if This formula is accurate, a better label might be a purple label, since fans and a passion color would indicate a more accurate barometer of why they’re following your account.
Bestinyourgirl for instance wouldn’t fall under this banner as it was always intended as “unbrand” and I’ve set the tone for that over the years. However, since we’re on the subject, my preferred verification mark for this would be 🖕
Which for those paying attention, was the original logo for this to begin with.
The OG logo
Regardless of whether or not any of this holds merit, stay metal 🤘
So I’ve mentioned before that I got my 1st guitar at 12 years old in 1998. It was a Christmas gift and fantastic! Interestingly enough, my parents accidentally bought me a left handed guitar, not a right handed one. Since Jimi Hendrix was the biggest reason for learning, that didn’t deter me from trying to learn.
I ended up selling that guitar when we moved to New Hampshire, which is interesting, because it was originally purchased in New Hampshire. The internet was still in its infancy and there was no good resources around to learn anyway. Not like I could have started a band, as I come across so few people in my age range that know how to play any instrument, never mind the typical metal quartet of Drummer, Bassist, Rhythm Guitarist/Lead Guitarist.
Fast forward to 2004, I bought a nice guitar off eBay for about $80 dollars shipped. It was pink and goth style, but it looked so killer. I got to play around with some things here and there, like a wash pedal for the first time. I got tired of just being able to emulate certain things I had seen Rock Stars do, but not really understanding what I was doing. I wanted to really be a musician and not a hack that could chug and play the odd one finger power chords.
So I sold that guitar and picked up a $60 dollar acoustic guitar at the pawn shop and said “I’m becoming a musician”. 2008 would be a year that would drastically change my life for the better.
From 22 to 25 I played that thing non stop. Morning, noon, night. I didn’t care, I spent at least one hour a day learning.
Then like most people I hit the learning plateau that stops progress. So I took a short break from playing, so I could access the problem and find a way back to getting better.
Back then, you didn’t have all the fancy YouTuber’s you had now. You had Justinguitar.com and Marty had only just Started his YT channel. Basically you’re alone on this journey and for me, I would not have had it any other way. I mean, did Jimi have it easy? No, so why should I? I may not become a rock god, but I would become a musician. The latter is the most important part.
So the reason I write this is because I got offered a job interview at guitar center to teach guitar in Portland. I was the only one who applied, but due to conflicts with scheduling of bus routes, could not make it. Let’s be honest, it was a welfare gig from the start as most people learn online.
Hell, when I first started at 12, finding anyone to teach you was a pain in the ass, prior to the internet. My dad managed a band, locally and I could have asked there, but I didn’t want someone to take time to teach me, when it could service them better to make music. Regardless, like I posted above, I preferred the harder route, like many successful guitarist before me had walked.
So you know I would have probably been fired from Guitar Center before Christmas even showed up, unless they needed one more sales man, which I doubt. This isn’t to knock Guitar Center, rather understand the current climate we’re in and that local teaching isn’t exactly appropriate nowadays, since, as I said everything is driven by the internet.
Let look at the whose who of online guitarist
Justin Sandercroe
Marty Swartz
Music is win
Brandon
Rick Beato
And about a million in between all of those. The smart idea would be to build a curriculum on those people and branching out into certification for people who have passed their prerequisites in order to accommodate for people who cannot have access to these people personally like when they first started there channels as the volume, no pun intended, is probably a logistical nightmare.
My style for videos is very concise, too concise I would argue, as my entire series would probably only have about 10 videos total.
However, there is a list of things I noticed over the years that I wish I had known when I started playing in the first place.
Anchor fingers is something I wish I had in the 90s. I might have become a decent player sooner. Look at Justinguitar for more one that. My favorite take away from his lessons.
Music Theory. I never liked the name, as I’m a science guy and was an idiot who was like “if there is evidence for it, then it’s a theory.” As it seemed like the name was used informally. Since the guitar is over a century old, it should be music pragmatism. However, some understanding would be helpful. It helps creativity and doesn’t dash it.
Finding a way to make analogies to the notes on your fretboard. This is a must in the beginning!
Knowing what notes make up a chord. It be simpler to make chords on the fly than rote remembering them all. Also Don’t get bogged down in BS like the caged system.
Tabs suck! If they work for you, all the power to ya. Learning by ear has been so much more beneficial to me than tabs ever have been. I only feel like my ear has recently become well developed and needs to be more attenuated . I have started, recently, learning Hendrix by ear and have made real progress. Something I would not have dared do in the early days of guitar playing.
That’s a small but very important list.
So, here is my structure for learning guitar since 2008.
Kirk Hammett
David Gilmore
Slash
Jimi Hendrix
The idea was to start at Metallica and learn what we could from Kirk. In this case, light solos, a decent pace to strive for and really good for developing your ear. I learned more Metallica accidentally than I ever did intentionally.
David Gilmore is the next logical step. Very long solos, use of whammy, learning when to slow down and when to speed up.
Slash is up next, as he is undoubtedly the hardest to play on this list, before Jimi. Dexterity and speed are very important here.
Once you learn from them, we would approach Jimi Hendrix, the man himself and this would be close to a Ph.D in music in my mind, for those learning on the outside of a musical theory course.
The point isn’t to be able to play all their songs perfectly, but rather develop the muscle memory to be able to play better. You can replace any guitarist on the list with your personal preference for players.
I’ll leave it here for now. Good luck with your own musical progress. Rock on!
INTRODUCTIONS: Let’s get two things out of the way before I begin this review. First, I had a micro investment in WWE in 2014, having bought stock. About 25 shares total. I sold those stocks in November the same year, due to ineptitude of the industry. Second, My entire family, going even back to my late grandfather, all loathe McMahon with a passion, so we’re highly biased. I have no doubt that all the allegations were true and hopefully him and everyone involved get what they deserve in court. That said, this documentary isn’t without flaws from the beginning.
WRITING: Fine
VISUALS: Fine. It’s a documentary, not much to deal with.
EDITING: Swamy and misleading.
CONTENT: Worthless. It’s billed as being about Vince, but is an an unstructured mess that deals more with wrestling in general than the subject matter.
CONCLUSION: This thing is plagued with Swamy Micheal Moore style editing from the beginning. This automatically brings into question its journalistic integrity. They quote-mine and edit things out of context to make certain people or peoples look worse than it is. Bill Simmons is no better than McMahon is with the way he edited this documentary to favor his anti McMahon bias. Which, while I share his bias, still think it’s a disingenuous thing to do. Mind you, this is the problems with this “series” from episode one and I’m only 20 mins in and it’s insufferable.
This doesn’t really know what it wants to be. It wants to be journalism, but fails. it wants to be about its subject matter, but fails. it wants to be about wrestling, but fails. It stacks the doc with ass kissing McMahon sell outs, whilst being a hit piece at the same time. Billy Simmons is proven incompetent as a director and we’re no better off for see this documentary. Maybe in the future, someone could do a legit piece and have it make sense. Perhaps Netflix would have been smarter to have sold this to McMahon and let him destroy it.
Having just read The Way of Men by author Jack Donovan, I have come to the conclusion that my idea of masculinity has been wrong all these years.
Strength and masculinity have been considered, for years, abstract concepts. That is to say, everyone has their own interpretation on what makes men, men and they are whitewashed hypocritical versions of masculinity to borrow a phrase from Anton LaVey.
Men will often refer to gangster movies as the ideal man movies but in reality, suggest that being a man is something completely different.
In The Way of Men, Jack posits the question of what masculinity is and if there is indeed a true way to BE a man and if indeed there is a true way to be a man, then what is the way of man?
The Way of Men is suggesting that manhood is the way of the gang. Men, traditionally being the hunters of the tribes would naturally have to get along to succeed and keep each other and their tribe alive.
This traditionally makes sense, especially on a Selfish Gene scenario. With Richard Dawkins suggesting the cost benefit scenario that all males of various species adhere to by nature.
Mans true nature is to be territorial, aggressive, dominant, strong and strategic, even to the point of being thieves and going so far as to steal wives from competing tribes. Yet men can also be compassionate and fair.
Men are born with the desire to compete for resources and as horrible and vulgar as that sounds to reduce woman to resources that is the way it has been for centuries. It was the way evolution intended it and the way our human biology still sees it.
It also seems to be suggesting and I could be wrong, but crime, in the traditional sense is really men being locked up for being, well, men.
It is not suggesting a release of prisoners or anything of the like but rather just suggesting that we lock men up more often for being themselves.
It is the fact that society no longer needs for men like that, that leads to frustrated young men turning to drugs and other avenues, often leading to criminal activity for lack of ability to express their true natures.
The Way of Man can be seen as a call to action. For young men to grab society by the balls in only the way men can and assert ourselves to not be breed out of extinction. We must reclaim masculinity and not make our young men feel demonized for their natural predictions.
Men are a completely natural thing and if we allow ourselves to, we will be destroyed.
So then I pose the question: What is the future way of man? The answer is the way of the dinosaurs.
Ultimately, we’re a social species and our main goal is almost always winning people over, no matter the area. The most major fear of not attempting to engage yourself in a favorite pastime is rejection. People don’t like to be rejected, for most people, it hurts, but for me, I thrive on rejection when it is combined with an understanding as to why I was. I love honestly and while I don’t need feedback, I am quite able to improve myself with no help, not everyone is like me.
There is nothing wrong with rejection in and of itself. Criticism should never be dismissed as “Hater’s gon hate!” when we might be able to gleam an insight into how we might improve ourselves on a daily basis, provided say criticism has merit. Its way too easy to say “You suck!” and get a plethora of up votes or views on Youtube, retweet on Twitter or like’s on Facebook. These people are considered trolls, but sadly troll is thrust upon any level of criticism that doesn’t jibe with what the receiver desires. Just like no one likes to be rejected, no one likes to be intellectually refuted either and the stubborn are excessively likely to cling to their abject delusions in the face of evidence, valid argument or anything that pops that bubble they live in.
I think the best way to live is to court failure and rejection like it’s the high school prom queen. Crave it, desire it and make it your bitch. Don’t be subjected to being its slave by being fearful of it. The best way to get over rejection? Find the rejection of that which you fear most and kick that fear in the teeth. Say you had a crush on a celebrity when you were a kid. You’re almost certainly going to be rejected by the person. How does that impact your value though? It doesn’t impact your value and it sure as hell isn’t bad for you. Maybe your ego takes a hit, but big deal. I want anyone reading this to go out and intentionally get rejected by the thing you want most. Be it a job, a person, or otherwise. Once you have had the worst level of rejection you could experience, everything else is a cake walk. You should never fear rejection again after such a loss, nor should you take anything overly personal again. Nothing could possibly be worse than rejection from that which you crave most and it never means you couldn’t attempt it again later on.
How many people get fired from WWE only to find themselves back again? Don’t you think that the foremost wrestling company rejecting you, if you grew up watching their product, would sting? In some cases yes in other cases, maybe not. Why care what someone else thinks of you? Improve, and keep improving. Don’t just try to be the best, actually be the best. Study what works and why it works. Be it dating, a job or otherwise. Nothing is holding you back. Just remind yourself about my favorite saying, “any idiot can do this.” Well, I’m any idiot and so are you! To borrow from Weird AL, “Dare to be stupid.”
When you dare to be stupid and have no fucks to give about rejection or anything else, many doorways will open up to you. Give it a try, because I’m any idiot and you are too, so dare to be stupid, we’re all waiting for you!
I’m going to stay away from what I did in my last musical review, which, as you may recall linked past to present career paths, and instead look at this from a perspective of a band as if I just found them. I think going this away removes a past bias for the performer in one aspect of their life and creates a far more objective outlook at the present. Although I guess I’m wicked late to reviewing this, though.
So this is the debut album for a band called The Luchagors. Which, according to the internets is wordplay combination, Lucha Libre and Horror flicks. Right up my alley, as I greatly enjoy both. I haven’t had the chance to see them live, so it is just for the album which you can easily find on Itunes or Amazon.
The band consist of members: Amy Dumas (Lead vocals), Shane Morton (Guitar and vocals), Jay Hedberg (Bass and vocals.), Racci Shay (Drummer). The latter apparently replaced Troy King on drums.
Right from the first song titled White Boy, the songs are catchy, fast paced, angst filled with all the good stuff punk music is known for. The theme through most of the lyrics seem consistent through several songs, which are that of a woman scorned. An indictment on an unknown person, most likely an ex, whom seems like a little bitch and a going through the motions of regaining independence of her life and eventually resulting in self-fulfillment of a brighter future.
Granted that could just be a hell of a lot of inference on absolutely nothing, but you can view the lyrics and judge for yourself.
The vocals are strong, the music crisp, and the lyrical content is interesting, even if it is somewhat banal for lyrical content. Originality can be overrated, though. You can pick up on many of the bands influences if you know about enough about punk rock. I managed to note and find The Misfits influence and I’m sure many more experienced punk rock listeners will find more.
The run time is over a half hour long, so you won’t spend too much time having to sit down and really and give much thought to it. Given the edgy sound and style, it still manages to be fun. Which is more than I can say about most edgy bands. Usually they’re dark and brooding. Like back before vampires were twinks who sparkled. I digress and… seriously, fuckin’ sparkle? Never mind.
If you want something you could speed through, say, shopping or at the gym, this is an interesting and excellent choice. Pick up a copy and you can finally stick it to your hipster friend about how you found and like a new band, but they probably never heard of them. That alone would be worth picking up this gem from 2007, never mind actually enjoying it. Enjoying it would just be a bonus. You could spend $9.99 on far worse, like say, 50 Shades of Grey, or you could listen to something that is at least 25 shades of enjoyable.
