I hope you know that this will go down on your permanent record.

I suppose you could consider this a continuation from the dear-author posts; it's a series of thoughts (shorter this time, I hope) triggered by several comments. I suspect I'm going to be doing this kind of "you made me think of this" post, for a while to come.

Several responses noted that they've read allegedly "edgy" stories, only to read and find it very non-edgy. One or two responses went farther, and observed that in some cases, other reviewers find the story absolutely shocking/appalling for its cuss-words, or its drug use, or the blatant sexuality among the characters, etc, etc. The first thing I've got to say is that I frankly hate the term "edgy" -- because that's such a personal opinion it's pretty much useless as a criterion for a story's value. I've met people who think edgy is going more than two miles over the speed limit; they're never going to be able to handle it when I'm driving, that's for sure. I've met people who think jumping out of a perfectly good airplane into a no-man's land and then hiking out with only a pen-knife, a tube of toothpaste, and a spare shoelace is just another day at the office, and if you think I'm ever going to jump out of an airplane in this life or any other, boy have you got another think coming. That's pretty freakin' edgy, to me.

( Ten unnumbered things I hate about Edginess. )

( Reasons Why Dogs Are Not Allowed in Dojos: street versus dojo training. )

continue to part II

a side-note for the amusement factor

About live shows among the subcultures, a facet that apparently exists on both coasts, per cosplayeriori’s comments in a previous thread:

Yes, for clubs it’s usually the dumb white kids getting into fights. In my years being around music scene of SF and having bouncers for clubs like the Fillmore and Warfield be my ‘baby sitters’ on going to the office with mom days, when I was young, rarely did I ever hear about fights and they didn’t hold back talking around me, because they where always talking about what shows they worked, how late it went, if they had to do anything. Really all you got were guys getting kicked out for moshing/stage jumping (which isn’t allowed at the Fillmore, they will kick you out) or some guy getting drunk and being an ass. I will say one of the most WELL-behaved and friendly audiences I’ve ever seen was at a Garry Newman concert who had Switchblade Symphony as their opener. Granted the Filmore was filled to the brim with a strange mix of ex-80’s now semi-prep office types and hardcore-goth scene. Everyone got along, and was really nice.

When I was in college and home for the weekend (a somewhat rare event, given that I was frequently in the city but not necessarily making any effort to swing by actual home), I managed to get two tickets for the Fishbone show at a city university. I already knew I’d be doing head door for them when they played my own school the following Monday, but it’s one thing to stand at the door the entire night, and another thing to actually, y’know, see the show. It was one of the few times I made a real effort to do something for my sister, seeing how she liked Guadacanal Diary (the actual headliners).

( When we arrived at the university’s gymnasium... )

It’s times like that, that I recognize the incredible power of music to bring us all together, if only for an evening.

Permanent Record, pt II: Guns, Knives, and Making it Hurt

continued from part I

( The ‘mental training’ difference between formalized martial arts and street scrapping... and a real-life example of amusing journalist hyperbole-feeding: )