More Talk of Comics

[Almanzo]

Jesus, I thought that was satire. Inside baseball, fucking hell. When does encyclopedic knowledge of pop culture schlock from the 60s stop being the chief criterion for who gets to be an auteur genius?

Never. Ever.

[elpollodiablo]

I vote right now

[Thermofusion]

I, too, choose to take a position directly opposite Almanzo's purely out of spite.

[elpollodiablo]

From hell's heart I stab at your love of kitschy bullshit

[Thermofusion]

Have I not shown you my vinyl-padded space age spittoon with the boomerang flares?  I bought it at a Tiki-themed yard sale wearing my snakeskin bowling shoes.  I did it just to piss Almanzo off and further hinder his hilariously ill-advised efforts to legitimize himself as an actual, respectable member of LPTJ (omg I'll scan old magazines for you dudez if you'll stop remembering what a prick I am plz accept me)

[elpollodiablo]

Whoa dude

[Thermofusion]

I'm just joshing with the fucker, but you have to agree there's loads of transparent contrivance to his recent, apparent "softening."

[elpollodiablo]

I ain't notice anything, I'm just here for the CHUCK-HOLES

[Andrew_TSKS]

Have I not shown you my vinyl-padded space age spittoon with the boomerang flares?  I bought it at a Tiki-themed yard sale wearing my snakeskin bowling shoes.  I did it just to piss Almanzo off and further hinder his hilariously ill-advised efforts to legitimize himself as an actual, respectable member of LPTJ (omg I'll scan old magazines for you dudez if you'll stop remembering what a prick I am plz accept me)

If you make me think about it like that I will just get really sad.

[Thermofusion]

I can't be the only dude who thinks that's what's behind it.

I mean, Andrew -- do you think his New Wave thread was about helping you, or more about him trying to be an ass and prove a silly point? 

[YojimboMonkey]

His New Wave thread was about him not wanting to conform to the way we do things here on the board, with ongoing threads for ongoing discussions of broad topics.  He has complained about the format to me on a number of occasions.  It wasn't about him being a dick to TSKS, per se.

His thread about scanning the magazines was because he gets excited about things and he thought other people here might be interested and so he posted it.  (and I think he was right about other people being interested)  It really isn't out of character for him as much as it is a part of his character you don't generally see.

Some of the trolling he has done has just been straight-up trolling though and I'm not going to defend that.  It's really gotten to the point where a lot of people here are just going to be pissed off at him no matter what he posts.  But with some of the shitty things he's posted, he's got that coming to him I guess.

[Almanzo]

Yep! I don't know where anyone got the idea of "softening" from! I've been a sweet, wholehearted contributor to this board from day one. I've also been a cattle-prodding from day one because it's funny and I like to provoke other people when I get bored or when I think they're sill-lee and deserving! I am a man of many passions and deep thoughts, and when I intentionally misspell things, don't use grammar, or act stupid, it's because I see it as the only way to deal with the deep, crushing despair of existence.

I have NO IDEA where this whole kitsch thing came from. Did I forget starting a Les Baxter thread or something? 

[elpollodiablo]

With this post?

Jesus, I thought that was satire. Inside baseball, fucking hell. When does encyclopedic knowledge of pop culture schlock from the 60s stop being the chief criterion for who gets to be an auteur genius?

Never. Ever.

[Almanzo]

With this post?

Jesus, I thought that was satire. Inside baseball, fucking hell. When does encyclopedic knowledge of pop culture schlock from the 60s stop being the chief criterion for who gets to be an auteur genius?

Never. Ever.

I don't get it, seriously. We live in irony memeplex culture, where recontextualization of past schlock is always the modern genius. I'm just acknowledging it, dood, not endorsing.

[Almanzo]

I do think that Les Baxter was a total fucking genius.

[elpollodiablo]

With this post?

Jesus, I thought that was satire. Inside baseball, fucking hell. When does encyclopedic knowledge of pop culture schlock from the 60s stop being the chief criterion for who gets to be an auteur genius?

Never. Ever.

I don't get it, seriously. We live in irony memeplex culture, where recontextualization of past schlock is always the modern genius. I'm just acknowledging it, dood, not endorsing.

Okay, whatevs!

Also by modern I'm sure you meant 30 years ago

[coldforge]

For what it's worth, I more or less loathe the guy (wally!), but I read that line as a grim agreement or at least acknowledgement that that state of affairs was depressing, but not necessarily likely to change.

oh, cross post with some guys.

[elpollodiablo]

There's another rendering now; but still one text. All sorts of men in one kind of world, you see.

[Almanzo]

We contain multitudes.

[Thermofusion]

The pragmatist in me says to appreciate Almanzo's pretend play-nice attitude because, even if it's a facade, it means one less asshole (if only on a superficial level).

[elpollodiablo]

You can't make friends with a terrorist Thermo

Strike first

[Almanzo]

There's nothing pretend about it. I came here to talk about music, films, books, etc. because I thought that fans of John Darnielle's writing would be into those sort of things, and those things are not "hobbies" for me but insane, burning Reasons To Live and Keep Living. I am a deeply impassioned young man. Sometimes this means I need to beat up somebody for their lunch money because they think there's a reason to espouse inferior stuff, and other times I get so crushed by everything that I have to burp and make fart jokes. If I act nice on here, it's sincere, and if I act like a total fucking asshole, it's sincere.*

Trust me, the day I start posting in the Mile High Club is the day I've given up on this board and decided to go kamikaze.  



*note - I am insane, and should probably have been hospitalized years ago. I have not acted like an asshole here yet. If I actually said a tenth of the things I believe and feel, I'd be banned within the hour.

[elpollodiablo]

Almanzo you okay by me, son

[Andrew_TSKS]

I've also been a cattle-prodding from day one because it's funny and I like to provoke other people when I get bored or when I think they're sill-lee and deserving!

See, this is the big thing about you that I don't like, and it's becoming more and more of an overshadowing characteristic in my impression of you. At first, I liked you but had some reservations, but now I'm starting to lose the goodwill I had towards you, and it's because of this sort of behavior. Trolling, bullying, being an asshole, whatever you want to call it, it all comes from the same place--this weird combination of arrogance and insecurity that I've never understood but have had to deal with my whole life. I've always been the sort of person who wants to be able to discuss different viewpoints with everyone and not have any sort of hierarchical pecking order of coolness that anybody has to conform to. It seems to me that you're the sort of person who can't handle that; if someone thinks a thing that you like sucks, or thinks something is sweet that you think is dumb, you can't just agree to disagree, you have to try and make them feel bad for disagreeing with you. It's an arrogant way to act on the surface, but I would guess that it also stems from insecurity in your own beliefs--you aren't confident enough to believe that the things you like are cool even if someone else doesn't think so. So you try to enforce your own lexicon of cool on everyone.

Let me make this perfectly clear: people who do this are assholes. There is no reason in this world to walk around trying to fuck up someone else's day, and doing it because you just happen to disagree with somebody about their opinion of, I don't know, Pere Ubu or something equally insignificant is that much fucking worse! I'm sure you feel justified and self-righteous in your behavior because you really have convinced yourself that your opinions are objectively correct and that everyone who disagrees with them needs correcting, but that's just that much more evidence that you have insecurity issues.

Now, I have some sympathy for those issues. God knows I have them too, and I just express them differently than you (and sometimes in ways that are just as fucked up). But either way, if the end result on a day to day basis is that you act like an asshole, it's eventually not gonna matter to me that you're doing so because you aren't the most secure guy in the world. Eventually, all I'm gonna think is "oh hey, there goes Almanzo, spouting off half-cocked and saying rude shit to everyone like the fucking asshole he is", and I'm not going to be willing to give you the time of day on anything. Nor is anyone else here. This board operates as a virtual social gathering spot, and if your behavior causes you to get ostracized by the vast majority of the people here, you're not gonna have any fun posting here (and I guess we'll see more "boo hoo no one gives my posts the attention they deserve" comments that we've heard from you in the past). And if that's how it ends up, it'll be your own fault.

I know, I know, I'm being an asshole by posting all of this. I don't really have a defense against that allegation. It's probably true. But I just feel like it needs to be said, regardless.

[elpollodiablo]

Andrew changed my mind!

Fuck you, Almanzo!