(Snowflake warning: This is not a good time for you to be here. Just sayin'.)
It' should be called the opening of snowflake season- the day after Golden Globes. And frankly, I don't even have to rely on the GGs for my material- but I will start there.
And they say Trump shouldn't tweet
Here's the opener of the story:
“Nothing but respect for OUR future president,” the verified NBC account tweeted on Sunday night during its Golden Globes telecast, complete with an image of Winfrey, after host Seth Meyers joked about his desire for the talk show icon to run for office.
Hold it, now the self-proclaimed "kingmakers" in the media have come out to openly admit it? Of course, the next sounds you heard was a lot of outrage at a news department taking on such a role, followed by that trickling sound that signified something running down the network's collective leg...
"Yesterday a tweet about the Golden Globes and Oprah Winfrey was sent by a third party agency for NBC Entertainment in real time during the broadcast," read the tweet. "It is in reference to a joke made during the monologue and not meant to be a political statement. We have since removed the tweet."
Oh, yes, that devilish "third party strikes again. Perhaps some of these networks might like to put a breathalyzer in the password of their social media accounts- or, in CNN's case, a MJ detector...
"Has anyone seen my professionalism... or my cookie? Did you eat my cookie?"
No offense, NBC, but this is like the third person that one of these media bozos has coronated for POTUS 2020. And dear God help us, Chelsea Clinton might be the only reasonable one of the bunch (you know, in the way a hungry rat might be more reasonable than, say, a hungry crocodile or tiger...).
No, tell us how you really feel...
And those who cared have prolly heard all about the dust up on whatever CNN calls its political Sunday talk show that nobody watches between Jake Tapper and Steven Miller, which ended like this: The interview then essentially turned into Miller and Tapper talking over each other, after Tapper said about Trump, “I’m sure he’s watching, and he’s happy you said that.” Miller attempted to continue talking about matters that concerned him, while Tapper tried to talk about his issues, then ended the interview. “This is my show, and I don’t want to do that,” Tapper said. “I’ve wasted enough of my viewers’ time.” Tapper later tweeted out a video showing him cracking open a can of Colt 45 beer on a Comedy Central show — while thanking his fans.
Yeah, Jake sounds a lot like a lot of people I know anymore, that could care less about other peoples' ideas or issues except to make fun of them. Which is kinda why I am doing this post, because I have been, like Miller, wasting my time trying to talk sense to certain people who wouldn't hear of it, and am ready to politely and joyously return all favors. I do have a question from the Peanut Gallery for ol' Jake, the malt-liquor guy- did Randy Kaye burn all you guys' dope? Just curious...
And just when you thought it was safe to watch football... Amid the crimson, white, red and black during the national college football championship in Atlanta on Monday, the NAACP wants to see fans wave a white towel to simulate a blizzard of "snowflakes" to send a message to President Trump. The president plans to attend the event, and Atlanta's NAACP chapter said on its Facebook page that it wants fans inside the stadium for the College Football Playoff title game to send him a message by waving white towels "simulating a blizzard."
"We will not let the President’s visit go without a response. If you are lucky enough to attend the game, we encourage you to bring a white towel to wave simulating a blizzard while the president is in the packed stadium," the group said. "Trump supporters mockingly call the opposition snowflakes, but when we come together we create a mighty storm."
An article that I swiftly shared on FB, with the following headline: So I guess only black people are supposed to watch the national championship? #noproblem
So now the President is Resident Evil for going to a football game, really? We will not let the President’s visit go without a response- and what response exactly is required for a President going to a damn ball game? I wish that "the opposition" would eventually quit acting like a bunch of kindergartners and try to intelligently formulate what their hangups really are in a way conducive to productive talk instead of all this symbolic
but, as Mad Jack commented not long ago...
They say that one definition of insanity is performing an identical action multiple times and expecting a different result each time. Having a political discussion with a Liberal (moonbat, SJW, Progressive, etc.) fits neatly between the parameters of this definition. You ought to know better.
Well, I have learned, and I have suspended talks with the "opposition" until and unless they get a grip on themselves and stick to debatable issues.
No Chicken Little Zone
In the meantime, though, I intend to keep a sharp eye out for more examples of such inanity, and rather than address them on that spot and attempt preaching blue and green to the color blind anymore, just post them here, where we can all have a good laugh about them.
Today we head to January 5th, 1969... what? We're supposed to be going to 1968? Funny thing, that. You see, December of 1967 (our last regular date) looks amazingly like January of 1968 (WOW!), so we moved on to 1969 instead of giving the Beatles or Monkees another shot at winning. As such, we come in right on the day the Soviet Union (for you kids, what Russia was in between being... well, Russia) launched the Venera satellite probe towards... well Venus (you knew it had to be that or a STD detector). V5 would drop into the Venusian atmosphere just over 4 months later- right on my 7th birthday! And no, I don't recall the wild celebration that followed.
Venera 5...or 6... animation
And the Musical Tardis is back, after rolling through the M50 this week, and just in time for a special event: the Beatles give us- the Worst Songs In Beatles History? Plus, I share with you a childhood favorite, and the year 2018's first M10! Blasting off- now!
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Now I haven't quite researched this one, but this is a rare M10 week- as was last week- in that the entirety of the 10 is made up of acts that have hit the 10 previously! In fact, I believe it is true that those were the first two weeks that ever happened. And this week's bunch have a total of 23 M10s between them (last week's had 21). The reason that went up was another song from my boy Dent May comes in at #10:
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This week, I'm saving the POTMs for a special event later, so you get me doing the Panel picks on my lonesome- 21 candidates from 52 stations! So here we go:
First up, Tyrone Davis was just climbing at #72 with Can I Change My Mind.
The Ohio Express is back this week with Chewy Chewy at #27.
Tommy James and the Shondells were at #21 flying up with Crimson And Clover.
Sly Stone et al were at #28 with Everyday People. What, no one liked the top ten?
Oh, here we go- Stevie Wonder at #9 with For Once In My Life.
Canned Heat was Going Up The Country at #12. Wonder if they just purchased Geico and saved a ton of money?
Then we have a one hit wonder on the Dutch charts- a band called Zen- doing their version of the theme from Hair. A touch rougher than the Cowsills, without all the silly stuff.
Booker T and the MGs were at #64 with Hang 'Em High.
Heard It Through The Grapevine is back this week- and Marvin Gaye is at the top with it.
Our "didn't get the memo" moment goes to the Fab Four with Hey Jude- number one in Australia, but fallen to #38 here.
BJ Thomas had his version of Hooked On A Feeling at #13.
And here's a first- an M10 song with a Panel vote! From the 10's very first week, Elvis's If I Can Dream, which sat at #18 on Cashbox this week.
The Supremes and Temptations combine for I'm Gonna Make You Love Me at #5. Wow 13 songs into the list, and only 3 in the top 10.
The Bee Gees were on their way, though, with I Started A Joke at #20.
Next was a one-hit UK wonder- well actually two-hit- called the Casuals. They rode the top of the South African chart this week with Jesamine. Not a charter here, but not too bad if you like the soft 70's style.
The next tune I'm going to pull out of the list for a bit, as it is a keystone to a lot of our further story. But it only got the one vote, so don't worry.
The Magic Lanterns, an English band that made one-hit wonder status here, were at #30 with Shame Shame. Man, hadn't heard this one in ages! Great tune.
Young-Holt Unlimited's Soulful Strut was at #11.
Another top ten was the #3 Stormy by the Classics IV.
The Doors had Touch Me at #39. No thanks, Jim!
And finally, the #2 on CB this week was Glen Campbell with Wichita Lineman.
Now, all of this basically boiled down to an entertaining three-way battle. So pick from Marvin, the Supremes and Temps, and Tommy James and the boys. And now, let's get to our guests...
So our missing Panel song- which was another one on the Aussie chart- was also the UK #1- and #20! You see, a lot of acts did chart one way or the other with this tune. Paul Desmond had an AC instrumental hit in our current year of 1969; Arthur Conley, best known for Sweet Soul Music, also charted at #51 in '69; and so did Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass, albeit only to #118. Oh, and the version at #20 on the UK chart this week, a reggae version by the West Indian band the Bedrocks. Finally, the Beatles (more precisely, the record company) released it in 1976, and it hit #49 (despite MUCH greater airplay here). That song, Obla-Di, Obla- Da!
John: Oh Yes. Paul's granny s#!t. George. Not one of your best, chum.
And as you may have figured, I have the Beatles here in the Tardis today. Gentlemen, how...
John: Before we get started, I have to speak to you about putting Imagine as your most hated song.
Hey, I got you from '69- you haven't even done Imagine yet.
John: Doesn't mean I'm not imagining it already. You certainly pissed that one bloke off, didn't you?\
Yeah, mind the language, please, but yeah. Some people have a hard time separating their politics from other stuff.
Ringo: Oh, this isn't going to get into politics, is it?
Absolutely not! So boys, I have here a list from the Houston Press...
Paul: A well-respected music periodical...
Yeah, I get that, but they decided to do a piece on the worst songs you all ever did, and I thought I'd let you all respond to it. Obla-Di was the song that started the whole thing off- and a couple of you already addressed it- so why don't you go on with the rest of the list?
Paul: But wait, that song wasn't that bad. It was a charming little ditty... George: Paul, it was rubbish. We all know it was rubbish. John: So let's look at the rest of the list. What? Strawberry Fields was on the list? Bloody nitwits.
Yeah, I didn't like that pick either.
John: They must have been on something. Paul: Like you were when you wrote it. Next? John: She Loves You? I rather thought that aged well. Ringo: Of course, that's from a five years on perspective... Paul: Maybe we should have sung, "Yes, Yes, Yes," like me Da suggested. George: Are ya daft? What's next?
John: Now I AM upset- Revolution # 9. Paul: Well, it did drone on a bit. John: It was PROGRESSIVE!
Paul: Progressively boring. Next? John: Oh, look, Paul- one of yours- Paperback Writer.
That one really upset me- it's one of my favorites!
George: Hey, who's doing this, us or you? John: Oh, look, more Paul! Good Day Sunshine... George: I don't grasp that. What was wrong with that?
Writer just thought it was a "little tra-la-la" for Revolver.
John: Great Jesus, everything Paul wrote was a little "tra-la-la"! Paul: Better that than self-serving, egotistical...
OKAY, moving on...
John: Oh, look, more Paul- Digging A Hole. Ringo: GGGK! Paul: All right, that one I'll grant ya... John: Next Is Drive My Car... Paul: WHAT on earth is wrong with that? John: Nothing, after I fixed the lyrics... George: Who is this nit, anyway?
He was the HP's music editor.
Ringo: Betting he was more of a Philharmonic guy. John: Next- oh, look, Paul again, with Birthday. Ringo: GGGK! Paul: Well, that was a bit too "tra-la-la", wasn't it? John: And last was Back In The USSR. Ringo: Oh thank God! I was afraid Octopus' Garden or Yellow Submarine would be on here...
Well, he kinda threw Yellow Submarine in with Good Day Sunshine.
Ringo: The nerve! Cheeky sod didn't even give it it's own spot? John: Well, at least that rot's over. Are we done here?
Pretty much. I...
John: Good, cause I have something for you, in honor of your putting Imagine on that list. Paul: Oh. geez...
Wow, and I thought Yoko had the fat butt in your family. Okay, time for us to move along, and I have a surprise in lieu of a 6D. Because the song without a Panel vote was at #4 this week- Bobby Vinton's I Love How You Love Me. What I didn't remember/realize until now was that I REALLY played the grooves off the flip side of that hit...
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What's left of the stat pack:
John Wesley Ryles, a teenager at the time, was at #101 with Kay, which went on to become a top ten country song. He's a background vocalist these days, notably with Clint Black and Alan Jackson.
The Turtles sat at #69 in '69 with the very groovy You Showed Me, which would eventually get to #6
And finally, our big mover was the Foundations' Build Me Up Buttercup, which jumped 27 spots from 84 to 57.
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The remaining M10:
Plume Of Feathers hangs on for a ninth week with the former #1 Rhyl Love, dropping 2 to #9.
Sunflower Bean moves up 2 spots to #8 with I Was A Fool.
Shilpa Ray's Got not only A Heartful Of Dirt, but a hit at #7, up one spot.
POWERS slides 4 to #6 with Beat Of My Drum, another former #1.
And at #5, the ultimate former #1- in its record breaking 11th week on the chart, Mo Kenney's Unglued slips but one.
Which clears the way for Strawberry Runners to reverse their slide of last week, moving up 2 to #4 with Garden Hose.
Lats week's #1 is also a former #1- Shilpa Ray moves down to #3 with Manhattanoid Creepazoids.
Which means SOMEBODY is about to get their second #1- but not Mo, who moves up just one spot to #2 with On The Roof.
And this week's #1- up from #5-
...The Shacks with Audrey (Spending All My Time With You)!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And who will be next week's Beauty Contest edition President Of Time Machine? Well, the Supremes/Temptations alliance netted 13.5%...
Tommy James et al got 23.1%...
And that means the next POTM, ready to bring some Sexual Healing to the Beauty Contest, is...
...Marvin Gaye, who garners 26.9 % of the vote for Heard It Through The Grapevine!
And now, a little tease on the Beauty Contest: Out of 73 Candidates- here are the Final 12:
Krista Ru of POWERS
Peggy Lipton
Melody Prochet of the Echo Chamber
Justine Brown of Easy Love
Marilyn Monroe
Amber Coffman
Amber Bain AKA The Japanese House
Elizabeth Ellison of Radiation City
Ksenia Pobuzhanskay of Alkonost
Yolanda Charles of Squeeze
Julia Cumming of Sunflower Bean
and Jessica Maros of Escondido!
Now, you can perv look on the net in order to cast your votes, but keep in mind they will mean nothing- I choose the last 6, and Scrappy picks the winner! Who will join the list of winners:
2012 Brandy
2013 Patty Boyd
2014 Tina Louise
2015 Linda Ronstadt
2016 Natalie Imbruglia
and 2017's Jane Birkin? Tune in in seven days, God willing, for the answer!
Yep, we have finally made it to the end of the M50- and what a countdown it was!
I hope you don't just...
...Walk On By and miss the Four Seasons, as that's the song at #10! The oldest #1 in chart history, Walk On By is a song that stops me in my tracks no matter who does it- and it was a double blessing to find out that one of my favorite bands had covered it! It spent the last week of March at the top, racking up eight weeks on the chart.
Oh, I'm doing this last installment with a bit more "reverence"; so please don't be upset if I don't continue from the other posts my...
...Funny Ways, which Quiet Hollers took to #2 in mid-August (couldn't get past the song at #5 on the countdown), becoming the only top 10 on our list not to hit #1. I was sold when they started doing the Zombies riff ("..tell it to me slowly...") in the second verse. So with this one at #9, we'll go right to #8, because...
...You Won't Be Missing That Part Of Me, which Melody's Echo Chamber had at #1 the week of Laurie's and my birthday back in May. BTW, I don't remember if I shared this, but Melody Prochet was on her way to recording a new lp and kicking off a concert tour last July when she was involved in a terrible accident. The family was understandably curt with details, but Melody posted on her FB page around Thanksgiving saying that the recovery was going slow but well, and was looking forward to returning to work- although not so much to the additional surgeries looming in the future.
After that, I need to lighten up the room, and what better way than by opening the...
...Sunroof in my head, in my head, like courtship. did this summer, streaking to the top and holding it for most of July- until that pesky #5 song struck again. And, as with Funny Ways, this song got the Laurie Seal Of Approval! Sunroof finished at #7, which isn't far from #5, but might as well be...
...Across The Multiverse, as Dent May- with a little help from Frankie Cosmos- sits at #6! Dent took the top spot in late September, then took the entire month of October moseying on out of the countdown!
Okay, so now we are up to that rascally #5 song- like Dent's, another Laurie Seal Of Approval tune. So brace yourself, get comfortable. In fact, come over here and...
...Sit Next To Me, with which Foster The People became the first of two acts to have a 4-week #1 in 2017! And better late than never- even though it has been 18 weeks SINCE it fell off the M10 (after a run at #1 from July 26 to August 16), it has been on the Billboard alternative charts FOR the last 17 weeks, currently sitting at its high of #11! (And if you think that's funny, how about our #25, Moon Taxi's Two High, which fell off my chart 22 weeks ago and is currently #28 in its 11th week on that same chart!)
So what comes next? I guarantee it's...
...Something Good! The Derevolutions hit the top the first of November, and went on to spend the 6 weeks on the chart, four of them in the top 3. For our number three, we need to take a little walk because our destination is...
...Six Blocks Away, the three-week top dog for Lucinda Williams, who dominated the first part of September. And that leaves just two more, and the one at number 2 held the top spot for the year for almost ten months! Almost but not quite for an act whose road took a...
....Peppermint Twist at the very end! Sweet's 1974 Australia-only release hit the top on February 22nd, completing a near-record 7 week climb to the top (thus they got double-bridesmaided!).
And that leaves us with the #1 for the whole year- and M10 history! In fact, I have inside info that this week she WILL become the first act to have a song on the M10 for ELEVEN weeks! The other four-week #1, the last of the Laurie Seal Of Approvals, who else could it be but....
And there you have it- the biggest hits of the M10 2017! So tune in tomorrow for your regularly scheduled Time Machine- well, kinda- and then next week is the great big Beauty Contest!
Today, I promised Bob I'd let him know how my latest round of beer tasting, spread over NYE eve and NYE night, went, along with throwing in the latest M50 rundown- in fact, the penultimate chapter of the M50 countdown! And there is another layer to the countdown I have been meaning to get to, which we will call the Laurie Seal Of Approval. I had asked her in an early rundown if any really stood out to her, and she gave me 8 songs- two we've already done, one this post, and the other five in the ever-lovin' Top Ten coming up next time. So let's start off with a couple of brewskis and go from there.
From bad to good:
Lagunitas Little Sumpin' Sumpin' Ale. I know there are a ton of people I know on the webs that swear by this stuff. And I have to let you know right now, hoppy beers don't do it for me. Hops to me smell like armpit, and I found it funny that one of the reviews on BeerAdvocate misspelled it "hippy", because I imagine many hippies prolly did smell like this. Before you send the hate mail, even Scrappy walked away from this. Twice. But for 7.5% ABV, I gave it the old college try. Then, mercifully, the pizza arrived, I let half of it sit while eating, took one last sip, and "cleaned the kitchen drain" with the remainder.
I would have said someone was Messin' With Me, as Northern Faces said on their top dog that made #12 on the Fifty. Perhaps I should have known better, but I was a newbie, full of...
...Innocence In Paradise, like Squeeze sang on their hit at #16. And so I just did like Foxygen told me...
...and played Follow The Leader, their tune at # 19.
Before going back to the beers, Let me just say the LSOA (Laurie Seal Of Approval) songs last time were Rhyl Love at #23 and Two High at #25.
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Fieldhouse Wheat, made right down the road in Indy. This was a touch hoppy for a wheat to me. Not undrinkable, but not a favorite.
UFO White Ale. Advertised in reviews as having an "aggressive but not overbearing" spice taste and aroma, I had to say that MY bottle had no smell whatsoever, and very little taste. Pretty much Coors Light, just cloudy.
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I would have to say that those three beers didn't send me to...
...Heaven, like the song from PVRIS at #20. In fact, I might have suggested to the first two...
...Let's Get Lost, as the Pretenders ft Neil Tennant did on that song at # 13. Nor would I have done as...
...Ducktails suggested on their song Light A Candle. Nor would I have ordered one at the Cosmic Piano Bar while listening to...
...Dent May doing Picture On A Screen, which came in at #18.
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Now the next two are cheats, because I have had them before and I knew they were good! The first is Paulaner Hefe-Weizen, my go-to Belgian witbier. Cloudy, tasty, filling but light, it made peace with my stomach after the Fieldhouse Wheat.
Kentucky Bourbon-Barrel Ale. This is a lot like a boilermaker without quite as much bite. Not only really good, tasting much like the name implies, but a formidable 8.19 abv! It was the high point of night two- not surprisingly when you consider it's competition was the UFO and the Lagunitas.
Victory Golden Monkey: The easy winner, this stuff was fantastic! It opened with a spiced pear smell from the top- but if you brought the side of the glass to your nose, you got banana! Similarly, the first 1/3 or so had a lot of the spice taste, the middle was like beer mixed with banana juice, then the end of it - well, at the end you knew why it was rated 9.5 abv! I would definitely drink this again- though perhaps not more than two at a sitting, and quite slowly...
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And now, in case you thought the last song, and the LSOA song for this set, had passed you by...
... I give you Chicano Batman at #11 with Passed You By!
So as I was thinking about this post, I found a local news story on the top stories of the year. I thought, now that would be a good thing to fill in on an M50 post! So I went looking for the top news stories of 2017, figuring that every national media source would have something by the point I started looking (AKA NYE afternoon).
Not really. There were a ton of "specialized stories"- top fill-in-the-blank stories of the year. The top "undercovered stories" (it was an LA Times story, so I skipped); the top stories in Malaysia (!); in the Baptist Church, in IT, at Marvel studios, in tech, in sports, at Disney World; even the top stories of the year for the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund (no joke). But was there anything like I was looking for? Well, kinda...
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One of them was not the story of scandal told by the Orwells...
..who landed They Put A Body In The Bayou at #22 for 2017. And let's not forget my favorite story of the year- about a letter from Elvis and a #1 that never was...
...that gave Wayne Newton the #28 of 2017 for The Letter.
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So what I found that was even slightly of a general AND national level consisted of NBC News, the AP, Google's most trending and the NYT's most read. Between the four of them, here are their somewhat combined efforts:
#1- Hurricanes. This got inflated a bit, as while NBC and AP combined all four storms as an item, Google had all 4 storms trend (with Irma being their top trend of the year), and 2 of the NYT stories referenced Irma.
#2- The massacres in Las Vegas and Texas. NBC combined, NYT had stories on both, and LV was their #1.
#3- The #MeToo movement and sexual harassment. NYT had stories on both Weinstein and Lauer. Perhaps not surprisingly, NBC mentioned the hashtag but not Lauer. AP had this at the top of their heap.
Back to the top stories: A quartet of stories had 3 mentions each. They would be: World terrorism, dealing with refugees and other "culture war" issues (as NBC put it), North Korea, and the Solar Eclipse.
The only other stories that got more than one mention were about Trump and the Mueller "I've got NOTH-ing" probe. There was a group of one mention items, including the rising price of BitCoin (which I still don't understand), Obamacare's imminent demise, the tax overhaul, the last Mayweather fight (NYTs #2, if you can believe it), a tear jerking story about a dying woman who made up a dating profile for her soon-to-be-single hubby (also NYT), and, believe it or not, the FB event of the year, the birth of April The Giraffe's baby (Google's #2 trend behind DACA).
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Tom Jones would say, "I Know" ( his hit at #27) that that isn't much of a list, but perhaps, as Moon Taxi might have said...
...we might have had our expectations Two High (their #25 song on the list). So I tried an alternate plan...
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Since the path of my search was littered with local sites giving THEIR top ten stories, I thought it might be interesting to take a few of them and shake them down. So I picked ten local news sites around the nation- including the FTW one that started all this- combining their stories into general categories to see what kind of story was making their lists.
1- Local politics, 16 stories. Some surprise there, huh?
2- Crime and murders, 12. A good half of FTWs stories fit this profile.
3- Public works, 8. Basically we built that, we aren't building that, we tore that down.
4- A tie between accidents (AKA anything bad that had a limited impact) and disasters (same on a larger scale) with 7 each.
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The last four from this set of the M50:
...the Old 97's at #30 with Good With God...
...Alvvays at #29 with In Undertow...
...The Japanese House at #24 with Somebody You Found....
...and Plume Of Feathers with Rhyl Love at #23.
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6- A tie between child abuse/murder stories and local sports items at 5;
8- A five way tie at 4 between sex crimes, school issues (one station had a market on these, including a high school whose students went out on strike to keep their coach from being fired by the superintendent, and a principal in that same district who did a resignation-suicide doubleheader that seems to have also been laid at the superintendent's feet), local talent, national politics, and the drug epidemic. Thank God we're making it all legal, that'll help. In about ten years, that's how we'll solve the sexual assault issue, just watch.
Only about 6 "feel-good" stories out of 50, though. We had the big Addison Agen on The Voice deal, but she was surrounded on the poll by 7 shootings, 5 murders, and 2 suicides.
Another chapter got added to the long and worthless battle of "I've been invalidated" this weekend. To recap, we start with yet another attempt at trying to reason with a liberal whom I saw as a friend about his Tweeting of how our current President is a Nazi and he'll soon set up concentration camps. But this time, in disputing him, I also somehow "invalidated" him by disagreeing. I had thought, until now, that his concept of invalidation was because gee whiz, I wasn't as smart as him ("I am well-regarded in intellectual circles..."), which most people might look at and say, "Who's invalidating who?"
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At this point I'd like to say, I hoped I took the high road-
...like the song Hope The High Road by Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit, which took this year's #40 position. But alas...
...as Chicano Batman said in their #31 hit, Friendship Is A Small Boat In A Storm.
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So after e-mails trying to explain my side and calm things down were basically ignored, save for a lovely meme that re-iterated the accusations against me, I finally just cut the social media ties with him on Twitter and stopped following his blog, because eventually I was going to say something we would both find hurtful, and I didn't want to do that. Then...
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...no, we didn't have Cops Come, as the song at #37 by Northern Faces would say, but a woman "entered" the battle...
...and it wasn't a Girl With A Blue Guitar, like the one Cotton Mather sang about in their #38 hit.
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What did happen was, he had his wife "follow" me on Twitter, never really posting or even entering my feed. Just watching, I guess, to see what I would do next. So I left it sit for a while, waiting to see if a further contact would come- it did not- and so I saved us all a lot of problems and blocked her as well.
Or so I thought.
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Diverging just a bit, I should mention that we had 3 songs in the fifty that carried over points from last year, two of which were last posts' Day I Left Home and PTP, which received minor points from 2016, but there was one major hit that had major points on both sides...
...The Shacks with the El Michels Affair and Strange Boy, which got the #9 slot in 2016 and gets the #39 slot for 2017! (BTW, I just realized that I'm typing this on NYE to post NYD, so I better be careful with my "this years" and "last years", because soon- for me- it will be next year!) Anyway, so what did our "Strange Boy" do next?
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Well, first, he had the Missus follow me on Google+, which is a place I am connected to because of all the Google-ly things I do but rarely go there. Then he posted a little snippet on G+ himself.
Friends do not abandon you just because of a disagreement in opinions on political perspectives. Eh, +CW Martin Chris Martin?
This despite an e-mail I sent him not long ago explaining how I missed when we actually acted like friends, and wished him the best. Because I really do, but I can't and won't put up with the constant "poor me" when I disagree with him and accuses me of abandonment, along with being stupid and "invalidating". I see as I grabbed his quote that he has issued yet another post accusing me of being the fake friend. Good on ya, hopefully one day you'll get that mirror fixed.
But the point of bringing all this up is, I think I now understand how I invalidated him- and how I daily invalidate all the trolls on either side of the aisle out there.
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Yep, I've got Your Type- the song by Alvvays, at #33 on the year's countdown. And I hope I will no longer be riding in the same old...
...Chariot, which Beach House landed at #34. But I do have a theory...
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You see, I think that there are a ton of people out there who, at various levels, use politics as an outlet for the hatred that is inside them. It doesn't even have to be directed at the people or causes they troll, it's just the bone they chew to let it out. And that is the sad thing about politics, and I suspect it is the way you always have had politics. A small group in the middle actively trying to use the system to make a better life for EVERYONE- and surrounded on one side by people using it for various levels of hate-expression therapy, and on the other by those that actually hold the power- or think they do, or are hanging on to them like remoras for scraps- and whose only need for politics is to maintain their position of power.
So I guess that explains a lot. I invalidated him when I exposed his hate for what it was, rather than the politics he perceived it to be. I'm not saying he is a hateful person- I think a lot of such people don't even realize they are doing it. I have seen it in myself and have been trying to eliminate it. Which is why I cut ties in the first place- it was just a constant egging on of the parts of myself I am trying to get rid of, the parts that would just love to get rid of frustration and pain and anger by taking it out on him or any other comer. I don't want that anymore, so I cut the ties. For that, I am a "fake friend".
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Yes, just like the one the Orwells sang about at #32, I was becoming a Black Francis- and I put a stop to it.
...and you might think that, like POWERS, that would make me want to Dance (#35) to the Beat Of My Drum (#36). But...
But no, it just makes me sad. I "invalidated" him by refusing to acknowledge the legitimacy of the hate he was directing (for this, I could point out a recent post of his- in fact, the reason why I went to the trouble of unfollowing him- where he called all republicans "racist, xenophobic" and something that equated to being Nazis with enough wiggle room to claim it isn't what he REALLY said.) He spied me out out of bewilderment, because now he no longer had me responding to his hate-therapy. and thus, that meant I "abandoned the friendship" he was no longer showing anyway.
So let me put this to rest with one last thing. I am still here. I still pray for you, I still worry about you. I never thought of you as invalid, but your opinions are poisoned with hate, or else you would have taken the opportunity to debate on policy any of the many times I opened that door. They are beneath a thinking man like yourself, and I called you on it. And if I had left the door open, the arguments would have escalated and left us both as less of a person. I tried to get us back to a personal level and you IGNORED it, except for your cute little meme and your self-martyring statement that I posted above. If you have any desire to do anything from here, you know my e-mail. I am willing to be your friend. I am not willing to be your therapeutic device.
A lone man looking for means of expression in a tsunami of information. Seeking truth justice and the American way in the perspective of a Nixon conservative. And the Commissioner of the free world's smallest and best fantasy football league.
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