Others will have to make recommendations, but as far as judging you, have no fear matey, I’m plundering the high seas with you.

Back in the 90s, I worked for a major record company, and met a LOT of incredibly famous musicians. Most were cool, some were dicks, and some were really really nice.

One of my favorites was Lindsey Buckingham, who has a prickly reputation. After he sang three songs in our conference room with his acoustic guitar (amazing!), he sat to sign autographs for us. I got to him, and said “Lindsey, I meet a lot of people and I never get star struck, but you’ve been one of my guitar idols forever, and I really am pleased to meet you.” He had been going through the motions, but at that he gave me a big genuine smile, and said, “Thats really kind of you, man, you want to take a picture?” He hadn’t taken a pic with anyone else.

Of course I said yes, and sat next to him. He threw his arm around me, and I have cherished that photo, with both of us with big wide grins, ever since.

I’ve always heard he was a real asshole, but he was nothing but genuinely really cool to me in the 3 minutes we interacted.

You have to be more open-minded on #4, and not be so dismissive. If a lot of people are talking about something, there’s probably something to it. You’re rejecting it, when the real point is that while it seems like something throwaway, there’s actually something about it that contradicts that first notion, and THAT’S what makes it interesting.

Give it 3 or 4 episodes, and if it hasnt grabbed you, then move on.

Another suggestion is to switch streaming services. You havent really run out of content, you’ve just run out of content on those platforms. Find new platforms and destroy them, and move on. In a year or two, come back to your original streamers, and watch the latest seasons of the things you enjoyed last year.

I think it helped shape me into a an adventurous, curious person, because that was what motivated me as a kid. Other Free Range kids might have gone out to play sports, or to look for trouble, etc., but i was just exploring.

There was another direct influence on my life: Once, i headed to a nearby “woods,” to watch animals, and bumped into some friends. One jumped over a small creek to greet me, and stepped right onto an underground bee hive. They all poured out of that hive like water, and came directly for me. The first stung my lip, then neary eye. They got in my hair, up my t-shirt, stuck in my socks etc.

I jumped on my bike and started racing toward home, hoping to outrun them, but they were the kind of bees that don’t lose their stingers, so the ones stuck in my clothes kept stinging me. By the time i got home i had at least 30 stings.

I’m okay now, but i was really afraid of bees for many years. Gardening helped me learn to lose my fear.

Overall, i think it made me a person who isn’t afraid of the world, and i know i can navigate any situation that comes up.

Because the people who own the company are buttholes.

Back in the 60s, i was a Free-Range kid. On on a nice non-school day, I would go out after breakfast on my bike, and be gone all day, without any money, a watch, ID, cell phone (didn’t exist back then), anything, and I’d be gone all day. The only rule was to be home by 5 pm.

Nobody knew where I was, who I was speaking to, or anything. If i bumped into friends, I’d hang out for a while, but if I needed to know the time, I’d ask some stranger. If I was thirsty, I’d knock on a random door and ask for a glass of water. Once, I stopped at the end of a driveway to watch some guy doing woodworking in his open garage. He saw me watching and this stranger invited me into garage, and showed me his tools, and what he was building. Turned out he was a decent guy, and I probably reminded him of his grandson, but what if he wasn’t? My primary fear was running into the Robolotto boys, but as long as I didn’t see one of them, I was happy.

This was routine for years, and it was the same for my friends. I started doing this when I was about 7 years old.

Record companies are just big corporate conflomerates, who dont want to make waves, and they control the artists’ output.

Any Resistance Music is going to come from truly independent artists, and we should do everything we can to promote them.

Generally, my tactic is to not engage directly, but address the rest of the audience, essentially pointing at the subject and mocking him (“Can you believe this MAGA Traitor?..”). When he tries to respond, again ignore him, and just point and laugh.

They get really frustrated being made fun of, without having the satisfaction of creating liberal outrage.

One way to fight the corporations is to stop worshipping at the altar of blind consumerism, and embrace the concept of “Reuse, Repair, Recycle.”

Stop buying stuff you dont need. Keep using what you have, sell/buy used items, repair things, and if it cant be fixed or repurposed, then recycle it.

Repairing things is a big one. Often repairs are remarkably easy. My wife has been ready to replace numerous appliances over the years, and I figured it was worth taking a shot at fixing it, if I can save a few hundred bucks, and successfully extended the life by years.

Very satisfying, and it forces your wife to rethink her conclusion that you are an incompetent dolt.

Just being “alive.” We become alive, some sort of “spark of life” pulses through us, and at some point, that “spark” leaves us, and we are nothing more than a rock. What is that “spark?”

Everything is either animate of inanimate, so how did things become animate? At some point, something had to get that “spark,” and become alive, then spread that life around. How did/does that happen?

Is this “spark” unique to Earth, or is is possible to exist elsewhere? Did some nearly impossible combination of factors all happen to line up and cause “life” to emerge, like a room full of monkeys randomly typing Hamlet, or do those factors exist in other places?

Of course, many people would assign a religious explanation to that “spark,” our Soul or whatever, but that’s just making up a silly story to explain something we don’t understand.

12 years, 900K+ karma, Permabanned soon after the inauguration for repeating a statement I’d made many times before.

Came to Lemmy and found lots of recently banned veterans. Many of us were high volume posters for over a decade, and never got banned, then suddenly we all turned into monsters that had to be permabanned in the same month.

I prefer Lemmy in many ways - no puns, fewer trolls, no bots, no Russian propaganda farmers, etc., but some of my favorite subjects are badly lacking. Reddit has several very large and active guitar subs, for instance, while Lemmy’s guitar forums are small and barely used.

On the other hand, the political subs are far more radical, and allow real discussion of political options more than Reddit. They are not doing themselves a service by suppressing radical speech over there, they are only driving it underground, where it will become even more radical. When it happens they’ll be surprised because they buried it instead of addressing it.

I came here after the recent post-Inauguration bloodbath, when they permabanned many of their veteran, high-volume posters like me (12 years, 900K+ karma).

Lemmy definitely feels more free, and i certainly dont miss the puns, trolls, bots, Russian Propaganda Farmers, novelty accounts, etc.

I really miss the guitar subs, though. Reddit’s are active and fun, and a great place to interact, get advice, give advice, watch players post performances of their progress, etc. I’ve seen several very young players turn into known talents, like Grace Bowers.

Lemmy still has a lot of growing to do, but so did Reddit when i started.

Booker’s speech was an audition for Schumer’s job. He laid out his vision of the Democratic agenda, and showed strength doing it, contrasting with that craven, corrupt, simpering, weak, vile, weenie Schumer.

Schumer is in the way, and needs to retire immediately, and make way for AOC to take his seat.

If Schumer leaves, Booker become Minority leader, and AOC goes to the Senate, that speech will have acvomplished a lot.

Half of America are horrified by it, and the other half think it’s something to be proud of, because they’re ignorant neanderthals.

A lot of times its too much trouble to fiddle with the highlighting to catch the right spaces, and then drop it in the right spot. Its easier to just grab it, drop it, then edit the spaces.

Excellent list.

Try living it. As an American citizen, I have never lived with such a high level of stress and anxiety in my entire life. I am a lifelong student of history (I have a degree in a branch of history), and I KNOW where the kind of government we have now leads, and there are NO positive outcomes for the majority of Americans. Frankly, I don’t think the potential outcomes will be good for the Sociopathic Oligarchs either, but they are too blinded by their sick obsession with greed and money to see it.

I don’t see us getting out of this without violence.

I watched Paradise on Hulu, and LOVED it. Really looking forward to season 2.

I started watching Deli Boys, and loved that, too. I could have easily binged the entire thing, but I had to go to bed. I have a business trip over the next couple of days, but when I get back, I’m finishing it.

Im tired of stuff piling up. We always see fun things on vacation and buy them as souvenirs, but a few weeks later, it’s just in the way. After a lot of years, you have boxes of old souvenirs.

So I take photos. However, I hardly ever look at them. Memories of fun with friends and family, and the warm feelings they bring, are still the best souvenirs.