Chipping Sodbury, England Superthread

[bono_212]

Which album?

I listened to New Day Rising, which I enjoyed a lot until Travis and I got in a tiff over Super Smash Bros. Unfortunately this coincided with the exact moment that NDR turned into a bit of a noise rock album, and so it was kind of irritating me in that moment. For now I give it a tentative 3/5, because I definitely need to rehear it.

 

[The Sad Punk]

NDR is one of my favourites. I'm glad that you were enjoying it before shit got real with Smash Bros. Hope it can grab another point or two in the next hearings. Isn't Celebrated Summer just great?!

Ash, which Husker Du album did you listen to? Candy Apple Grey? New Day Rising? Something else I haven't heard of? LOL. Speaking of music that you enjoy, I was in the mood to listen to The Killers today and was slightly depressed to find that I only had 6 songs of theirs. Most of the ones I have are from Hot Fuzz. Should I follow iTunes' suggestion and complete the album?

If Candy Apple Grey is the first Husker Du album you think of, you may need to re-prioritise - actually, I thought you'd be into Metal Circus and Everything Falls Apart, to be honest.

 

[bono_212]

I...was not looking at the track listing while listening, because I suck. I promise to report back regarding this song soon.

I only want to hear Candy Apple Grey because the only song I kinda know by them is on it and I'm curious.

 

[LemonMelon]

I Apologize is my favorite, and I would agree that the first half is superior, Smash Bros. or no Smash Bros.

 

[Cactus Annie]

market shipborough

 

[Vlad n U 2]

market shipborough

wtf?

 

[Reggo]

It just cracks me the fuck up. Like I said, my favorite episode.

Well, the Santa Klaws musical break helps. My God, that thing was hysterical.

Haha, we didn't get our assignments back so I don't know what I got.

Awesome.

If Candy Apple Grey is the first Husker Du album you think of, you may need to re-prioritise - actually, I thought you'd be into Metal Circus and Everything Falls Apart, to be honest.

Only cause it's alphabetical in iTunes. I was having a brain fart and couldn't remember either title that I had. I'll have to check those others out.

I've taken over a month off of playing with Punk Island and sigh every time I look at my list of albums. It's still way overwhelming. Kinda glad there isn't gonna be another DI for a long time. I need to make it not a chore again.

 

[The Sad Punk]

FB fun:

WHAT A LOT OF CRAP!..... We can't say Merry Christmas now we have to say Happy Holidays. We can't call it a Christmas tree, it's now called a Holiday tree? Because it might offend someone. If you don't ike our "Customs" and it offends you so much then GO HOME. I will help you pack. They are called customs and we have our traditions If you... agree with this...please post this as your status!! I AM A PROUD AUSTRALIAN CITIZEN... MERRY CHRISTMAS Do you have what it takes to repost this..

Do you have what it takes to read this..

 

[Vlad n U 2]

Nationalism is such a ridiculously immature trait to have.

 

[The Sad Punk]

Two of my cousins, and one of their partners shared this link today: Save Marriage Petition

Fucking angry, but they're family, and so I just keep shutting up my mouth and hope for a sea change, as if that'll actually happen. Our family's tight, it's just not worth fighting over political differences, even if these particular differences violate the rights of people, including people who I consider family, if not by blood.

Late night rambling, y'know how it is.

 

[Vlad n U 2]

They always have to have a picture of a family to drive the point home.

Yeah, I don't know what you should do with them, I don't think having a go at them will do them much good.

 

[The Sad Punk]

Oh yes, of course. Because every heterosexual couple with children is a perfect beacon of love and compassion and all gay couples are like devil mutants or some shit.

Nah, wouldn't resort to that. Had enough trouble at a dinner a few months ago when I got into an argument with my uncle who was basically flat out denying that the Stolen Generations ever occurred. Nothing's happened since, nothing happened before. Just something that seemed to have been a long time coming. I don't want to look like a liberal tosser, but at the same time... there's limits, yeah?

Really annoys me because my cousins who shared the link, I honestly thought better of them. One in particular I thought wasn't like that at all. Sometimes there's stuff about people you just wish you didn't know.

 

[Vlad n U 2]

True, I recently found out that my dad opposed gay marriage, when all this time I had thought he was socially liberal. It began when I asked him what he thought about this new Russian law preventing homosexuals publishing books etc about homosexuality, which is pretty backward.

 

[bono_212]

What I find myself having a hard time tossing around in my head is, well, they probably wish I didn't feel the way I do about things either. They're beliefs, and every ones are different. You either learn to accept that, and occasionally attempt debate, so long as it's not heated, or you spend your life angry because you feel like people are just not understanding. And the thing is, people are never going to "understand", because they don't feel the way you do.

At least that's how I've come to feel, as of late. Also note I didn't read the link, so I don't know if the article was really offensive or what. I just don't think you should lose respect for people when it comes to certain topics, especially, like I was saying, if belief systems are coming in to play. I don't know...I don't know your situation, maybe I shouldn't even say anything. I just got off work, I'm tired, I'm rambling.

Re: Merry Christmas, I noticed last year, and so far this year that the PC Happy Holidays thing has toned itself down exponentially. The only people who seem to bring it up anymore are the people bitching about not being allowed to say Merry Christmas. I'm sorry, is someone going to arrest you if you do? Now, there are those occasions where employers will forbid the phrase, and that's pretty fucked up, but even that, I'm rarely hearing about now.

 

[The Sad Punk]

No yeah, I get what you're saying. Don't feel silly about it! And I agree with you, they think they're in the right, of course. But when I see these guys in person none of this stuff comes up. The dinner event was the only time it's really happened. It's just that weird element of social networking, you see sides of people you either didn't know they had, or don't see when you're just talking to them day to day. I can't really think of a precedent.

My cousins are great guys and nothing's going to change that. The link was a petition againt same-sex marriage, though, and it's the fact that they're actively sharing it, as if they feel threatened by the fact that some other people may be given the same rights as they do, that's what kinda freaks me out.

But it's the wife of my cousin who is my biggest fear, because all she posts on FB is just pro-life, creationist, anti-atheist, homophobic drivel that I've been straight out offended by, and that just spurs all these thoughts of whether or not my cousin always held such views, or if she's just been influencing him.

So I guess all this comes down to the fact that I wish my cousin married someone else. That's pretty fucking lame, but I needed to vent, so cheers.

As for Merry Christmas, you're bang on the nail, I never actually noticed any increase of PC phrases, which is why I found it pretty funny. It almost seems to be an invention for people to get shirty about.

Also, out of curiosity, did you listen to NDR again?

 

[bono_212]

The point of a petition is to get a lot of people to sign, so I'm not shocked that someone who felt strongly enough to sign a petition on the topic in the first place chose to share it, y'know?

I definitely have experienced what you're saying about Facebook shedding light on how others may feel about topics you had no idea they even had an opinion on. I know my mother and her siblings are very conservative. They choose to call me a Democrat to fuck with me, regardless of how many times I say I'm a moderate. Anyways, I've grown up in this environment, I'm used to fighting politics with them, no matter now many times I tell them I HATE talking about politics. I believe that we are put on earth to live a life, we're influenced on All sides by what is right and what is wrong, and we have to choose what to believe. I also believe at the end God will judge us, and I definitely believe he's the only one allowed to. Our souls anyways. I got off on a tangent there, the point is, I can't say with any real certainty what the right thing is on every topic, so I try to live the way I think I'm supposed to, I try to impart how I feel when given the opportunity, and I plan to try and raise my children to look at life in a similar manner. What I'm getting at is, this is the argument I have with my one aunt in particular almost every week. Meanwhile, the children of my other aunt, I always thought they were really liberal in their beliefs, but then when they got on Facebook and starting posting this, that, or the other thing, I was shocked to see that they're just about as conservative as she is. I don't respect them any less, but it certainly caught me off guard.

one of those cousins married a guy who is kind of like the relative you're talking about. He was really awful to just about everyone, family members included. He once Facebook wall attacked the daughter of the aunt who argues with me weekly because she's a fan of Twilight, and vampires are apparently Satan's minions or something. It was bad. However, I have definitely noticed in the last few months-year he's really mellowed out. I can't promise the same will happen in your situation, but you never know.

I DID notice as recently as two years ago an intense amount of Happy holidays only tenseness, but maybe it was pretty isolated to the states only. I think it must have hit a fever pitch that year or something, because I felt a remarkable amount of relief last Christmas when it first dawned on me that I was hearing little to nothing from the happy holidays side of the fight. To the point that whenever the Merry Christmas people were raising their voices, I actual grew angry with them, which, surprise surprise would be the "side" I'd normally be on, were I one to be bored enough to fight the war against Christmas.

No, I haven't relistened yet, yesterday was a Tad hectic. I will try this afternoon whenever I wake up.

 

[Vlad n U 2]

I'm generally always interested to talk about politics, just not so much with my parents. I'm not sure if they're clear on the fact that I'm a communist, but I think they may have got the hint ... or not. My dad probably isn't the most inviting person to talk about politics to, I feel more comfortable with talking to my mum in regards to the subject, even if she doesn't subscribe to any particular ideology.

 

[bono_212]

NDR relisten:
"NDR" - Not a huge fan
Girl: Good tune
I Apologize: hell fucking yes.
Celebrated Summer was nice, but not a favorite.
Perfect Example
Term of Psychic:

Really loved the outdoor of Powerline.

I have no idea where or why I started disliking this album.

UFO is a little silly, but the closer is sweet as. I like. Where do I go next? Dare I listen to Zen Arcade?

 

[Reggo]

I've only heard good things about Zen Arcade. Flip Your Wig is also good.

 

[Cactus Annie]

Market Shipborough and Chipping Sodbury are just 2 odd name places in England. The former is where the TV series Kingdom was set and the latter is where mum has been once.

 

[Axver]

The fact that Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays thing that Bonnie posted comes from Australia is hilarious - that particular controversy seems to be mainly, even purely, an American phenomenon. Not even my very fundamentalist Christian friends here have raised that as much of an issue. I suppose part of it is that Christmas here is, I think, more secularised, part of the general theme of Western society outside of America being - at the public level - much more secular.

To change tack to the other main theme of discussion, honestly, some people are just being left behind by history. I don't think there is any other way to put it. There are always people clinging to a failed past. This is pretty much the modus operandi of a lot of conservatives.

Though this shouldn't be taken to imply that I think history is progressive, constantly improving, and that past times are darker and less civilised. I don't subscribe to that. Just look at the last fifty or so years. All the social gains that have been made have at the very least been cancelled out by economic losses. Those of us on the left have put so much effort into social issues that we have basically acquiesced to the dismantling of the welfare state, Keynesianism, social democracy, all of that, and right now we are seeing all the chooks of neoliberal economics come home to roost in disastrous fashion. The two are inextricably intertwined, you can't have social equality and social justice without corresponding economic policy, yet we let Reagan and Thatcher win. I'm not saying the global economy of the fifties was perfect or anything, it had a long way to go, but the drift to the economic right since the early seventies has been a complete tragedy for the regular poor, especially in the last couple of decades.

Crises generally spur constructive action though, so I'd like to think that in about fifteen years, after a degree of pain, we will have seen some correction in the global economy. Of course, by that time, our social and economic gains may well be negated by our dire environmental losses. I retain, if nothing else, low expectations to avoid too great a disappointment.

 

[Axver]

On an unrelated note, goddamn the new Pinback EP is good.

 

[Reggo]

I think my cat might be retarded.

In other news, John's blog has been endorsed by two bands! I wrote an article about Inhale last night and they turned around and read through. Now they and one of their friends are posting about it on Facebook.

Maybe we should start writing for it again, guys.

 

[Axver]

Huh, I thought that had died!

 

[Reggo]

I have inadvertently resurrected it, apparently.

 

[Vlad n U 2]

Crises generally spur constructive action though, so I'd like to think that in about fifteen years, after a degree of pain, we will have seen some correction in the global economy. Of course, by that time, our social and economic gains may well be negated by our dire environmental losses. I retain, if nothing else, low expectations to avoid too great a disappointment.

Toss the coin, will it either be a revolutionary or reactionary change?

 

[Axver]

Toss the coin, will it either be a revolutionary or reactionary change?

Reactionary.

Mainly because successful revolutions are scarce, and the population is more apathetic than ever.

 

[Vlad n U 2]

Reactionary.

Mainly because successful revolutions are scarce, and the population is more apathetic than ever.

It's scary. Best chance we've got today is either Egypt or Greece, the feeling there tends to lean to the revolutionary side.

 

[Axver]

Except shit's going down in Egypt and who knows where that mess will end.

Actually, a similar thing can be said about Greece, except they probably don't quite have the potential to end up a military dictatorship. Probably.

Unrelated: lulz at Bono whoring out One yet again for something today.

 

[Vlad n U 2]

Except shit's going down in Egypt and who knows where that mess will end.

Actually, a similar thing can be said about Greece, except they probably don't quite have the potential to end up a military dictatorship. Probably.

Military dictatorship? God no, I was talking about a workers' revolution.

I think I'm minsinterpreting what you're saying. Carry on.