Cars.  Cars started it all.  Before I go anty farther, let me say that this is not an original thought, I saw this on the Discovery Channel, or some other similar channel a few years ago, but it bears repeating.

If a person is walking down the street, and accidentaly bumps into another person, what happens?  An apology is offered, and for the most part, is accepted.  However, if a person is driving on the highway, and another driver cuts him off, no apology is offered, and a rude gesture is usually given by the affronted party.  How many people do you know that would walk up to the front of a line at a movie theater, cutting in front of a line of people who have been waiting for their ticket?  How many people have you seen on the highway wait 'til the last possible moment to cut into traffic on a congested off-ramp?  The insular quality of an automobile brings with it a sense of entitlement.  Everybody thinks that their time is important, and it is, but until we were cocooned into our own privatebiosphere, we gave respect to those we shared the world with.  The car started it all.

I'm sure you can all see where I am going with this, and most assuredly, we have all been a party to the offenses.  I will not pretend to have never been an offender.  Yes, I am speaking of the medium on which I am now communicating, the internet.  The outlandish vitriol that people spew from their keyboards is outlandish, and the things they(we) type from the safety of their(our) homes are things they(we) would, in most cases, never say to another person.  I know that this is not a unique thought, but it's worth talking about.

The flip-side of this coin id the short-comings of this medium.  I might be sitting around with my friends, talking about sports, and a friend might say, "Tom Brady sucks!"  to which I might reply, "You're a f*cking idiot!"  What is lost, when I type this, is the sarcasm and friendly banter.

Often times, on message boards such as these, the true intention of a post may be lost, in some cases, rightfully so, by another poster who has been subjected to the same words, but not offered in a bantering tone.  It has often been said that if one has to explain a joke. then it has lost its humor, and I believe that to be true, but there must be some way to explain an intention without giving away the joke.

When I first started posting on this board, there were posters that I thought were just a$$holes, but after a while, I learned their sense of humor, and came to appreciate them.  There were others that would say practically the same thing, but their tongue in cheek attitude was clearly evident.  Some of us are born with the gift of communication, regardless of medium, some are not.  Let's give everyone the benefit you give to the person who bumps into you on the sidewalk.

I realize that this is a late night diatribe, but can't we focus on what we came here to do, pass some time and have some fun?  Probably not, but the next time you see someone make a ridiculous post, step back for a moment, respond in good humor, and if they are still adament in their ignorance, ignore them.

  Or rip them apart as you know you are capable of doing!

My family moved from Western Massachusetts to White Plains, New York in 1983.  Back in those dark days, there was no cable in the hinterlands of western New England (at least where we lived), so moving to a metropolitan area like White Plaiins (which is about a half hour north of NYC) was quite an eye-opener for me.  I was fourteen years old.

This was my first exposure to MTV.  Back when it still had the format of an FM radio station, play songs(videos), brief interludes of djs(vjs) introducing songs, and commercials.  It was a great concept, but, in retrospect, bound for what it's become today.  But this isn't about the evolution of MTV into what it is today, this is strictly waxing nostalgic.

If my memory serves me well, the first video I saw on MTV was "White Wedding", by Billy Idol.  Man, what an experience!  A great hard rocking song with gothic imagery and interludes that had nothing to do with anything.  Again, I'm getting off-topic.  The evolution of the music video is a topic unto itself.  I'm here to talk about the music.

I was inspired to write this based on something I posted on the "What are you listening to" post the other day.  I was introduced to artists such as The Violent Femmes, Romeo Void, Siouxie and the Banshees, Talking Heads, and Laurie Anderson through MTV.  At its inception, MTV was a revolutionary thing which knew no boundaries and was not beholden to the corporate ethos.  What hasbecome of it is the inevitability of success.  Back then, you would see old videos like "These Boots Are Made for Walking" by Nancy Sinatra, "Light my Fire" by The Doors, and even more obscure songs like "Fire" by The Crazy World of Arthur Brown.

The infancy of MTV was an important factor in my musical development, Maybe I'm cynical, but I don't believe that today's youth will get the same caliber of musical influences today that I got from the early days of MTV.

Seeing as a lot of the people on my favs list are from the Song Game and Song Game 2 threads, a lot of you probably know that Bob Dylan is my favorite artist of all time.  It is my belief that when history looks back on the Twentieth Century, Bob Dylan and Pablo Picasso will be regarded as the two most influential artists of the century.  How's that for a contoversial statement?

On a side note, my motto, "Money doesn't talk, it swears" is a line from a Dylan song, anyone care to venture a guess as to which song it's from?