Tech consultant for Olympia, Lacey, And Tumwater

You ever get so tired that you loose any shred of common sense? Well, if I had any common sense I would head for bed right now. Instead I need to get a rant out of my head. Facebook has two “features” that their users seem to confuse. One of them is the great “like” button. This is for when someone you follow says, posts, or submits something you like. You have nothing intelligent to say about it, but you agree, enjoy, or somehow are reacting in a positive manner to said item. It keeps people from the ultra-retarded comments like “good post” or “cool”. Nothing intelligent to say? Just click the like button and shut the hell up. Good stuff.

Another feature is the ability to create a fan page for anything. On the surface this seems like a good idea. I can create a fan page for the Teamsters Union and find other Teamsters brothers and sisters from around the country (yes, I am a proud card carrying member). I can maybe create a fan page for the cartoon The Tick and find other fans of this cult comic. When used like this it is a great thing. Maybe if they limited people to only being able to create one or two fan pages this thing would not have gotten so out of control. Now we have fan pages that would have been better submitted as simple comments. There are fan pages of “George Bush is a Douche”. Now of course I agree that George Bush is a douche. If I see someone say that I will click the like button in a second. I will not however clutter my Facebook profile with ten million fan page memberships of everything I dislike. Do we really need a fan page for farting? Do I need to connect with other people who like to fart? What good does it do for me to connect with others who would join a fan page for “Sex”? I am married and my wife is the only one who needs to know what a fan I am of sex. I don’t see the benefit of networking with other people who join a fan page of “Hating Will Ferrel”. Now you all know that I have a passionate hatred for Will Ferrel that would give any psychologist a lifetime of research, but I would not get anything out of connecting with others who see him as the talentless hack he is.

Maybe I don’t get it. I use Facebook to network, communicate, and maybe find old friends I have lost contact with. I don’t need busy work. I want to share cool articles I find, educate myself a little, find good music , and plan a meet up or two. I don’t have time to kill. I don’t need clutter, noise, or shiny things to distract me. This misuse of the fan page has made me loose interest in joining any fan page on Facebook at all. It has ruined it for me! I’m afraid that if I join one that does have a purpose it will open a Pandora’s Box I could never close. If I accept a fan page that I think might have something to offer me, I am afraid I will be turned into a zombie that joins every fan page that I think is “cute” or “witty”.

The thing I really wonder is, doesn’t it destroy all impact if you just go click happy and join and “like” everything. Are we really communicating or have we turned into placating robots that are not really even paying attention to each other. If that is the case then the social networking experiment has already failed.

What deserves to be called Metal?

So on this late Saturday night I made a comment that Metal Mania on VH1 Classics needs to play a bigger variety of classic metal. It seems that the show has no programmer and they just play about 4 different tapes over and over again. Those 4 tapes have the same videos with nothing but the order changed. Now this could be a rant about how pathetic the programming for Metal Mania can be, but I was de-railed into a much more passionate debate.

For those who do not know about @vikingfist on Twitter, you really should follow him. This man is passionate about metal to a frightening degree. Well, @vikingfist said that “I like how THAT METAL SHOW never has metal on it. Just Cock/Hard Rock. KISS is great, but it isn’t Metal! Just hardrock.” Well, as comical as I think full on glam is, I still think it fits into Metal more than Hard Rock. Why? When I was first getting into Metal in the early 80′s (yes I am old), Glam bands were all over every Metal magazine, Metal Video show, Metal radio show, Metal tour, Metal label, and pretty much anything that was part of the Metal scene. It is part of the classic Metal era. I’m not a huge fan and prefer traditional Metal and old school Thrash (85-95), but just because I’m not a fan doesn’t make it non-Metal.

Now the roots of Metal most pretty much agree on. Or should I say the core of what makes something Metal is something most agree on? Bands like Iron Maiden, Black Sabbath, Judas Priest, & others were the first pretty much Metal bands. Everything else is an off shoot from that. Now there is some debate on if bands like Led Zeppelin, Motorhead, Deep Purple, or Steppenwolf fit the Metal tag or not. I say they can be added if it is made clear that there is a debate. Kind of like adding a star next to the stats of a baseball celebrity that was caught using steroids. Sure they played and the stats happened, but their placement in any “Hall Of Fame” is questioned. So they barely made it and their placement is the grey area that will keep Pandora’s box closed for anyone who strays even further from the perimeters.

I think some are trying to change history and unless it has 45 minute blast beats and Cookie Monster impressions for vocals, it isn’t Metal. Well, that just isn’t true. Van Halen may not be as heavy as Cannibal Corpse, but they were part of the fore-fathers of this style along with many other bands. Can we deny that Stephenwolf was the first to scream “heavy metal thunder”? Can we deny that Sammy Hagar told us to “Get your one way ticket to midnight, Call it Heavy Metal”?

Now this brings us to other questionable off shoots of the Metal Scene. In the interest of full disclosure my username on many Metal forums in the 90′s was “RapIsNotNewMetal”. It was the mantra of a site I ran once called Abrasive Rock (the pre-cursor to RockMyMonkey) even! I still stand by that, but I will get to that later. First let’s talk about Glam. When Glam was the massively popular style that packed out stadiums, it was never played on Hard Rock video shows. Those bands almost never played with Hard Rock staples like Deep Purple or Steppenwolf. They did however play with “real” metal bands on the bigger package tours and festivals. They were also in magazines with bands like Exodus, Slayer, Iron Maiden, and Overkill. The place to find out the latest about the Glam bands were the places you went to find out the latest about Thrash, Power Metal (then just called Metal), and everything else. Call it “Poser Metal” if you prefer, but that is still calling it Metal. It’s the redheaded step child of Metal, the retarded cousin, the joke everyone makes fun of, but it is still part of the family. We all have members of our family that embarrass us, but they are still family. It’s a guilty pleasure at best, but it is Metal.

Now that brings us to the Rap-core off shoot. The place to find out about the latest in Rap-core was not hardcore Metal magazines. It was the pop mainstream. I never heard Limp Bizkit on the local Metal radio shows. I never saw Limp Bizkit tour with Nevermore. The term Rap Metal never really even took off. People used Rapcore more it seemed. Now Nu-Metal used the guitar riffs strongly inspired by rap, but never had Rap vocals so it’s another story. Nu-Metal may be the only member of the Metal family I can say I hate (for the most part), but it is Metal. It is the worst example of Metal. It is so pathetic many may say it makes Glam look like a respectable member of the family. It is the member of the family many of us would like to disown, but it is still part of the massively huge umbrella that is Metal.

For the record, my tastes mostly stick with Metal from 85-95. I like old school Thrash, Traditional Metal, Doom, Stoner Rock, and Hard Rock. I’m not much into Death Metal, Black Metal, Grindcore, Glam, Nu-Metal, or Metalcore, but I do like bands from all those styles. I would say in fact I like and dislike those members of the Metal family just as much equally.

Now please feel free to comment below and continue this debate. However, let’s keep the respect level at it’s highest for all involved. Keep the debate about facts and history and not about insults. Otherwise what’s the point? And make sure and check out Viking Fists blog at www.vikingfist.wordpress.com because it was his passion that inspired this overly long passionate blog post from me.