Censorship on The Songwriters Forum.

[not coaster MODERATOR]

the only thing worse than a troll is a whiney troll

 

my presidential pick came in like 5th place

[not coaster MODERATOR]

Originally posted by boosh:

I'm a Bush lover!

and i'm a boosh

 

lover

[Brittanylips]

[grinning from ear to ear]

 

You know it's funny - as I wrote that last line, I knew I was getting sloppy. Leave it to a music forum to dot the musical i's and cross the musical t's.

 

 

-Peace, Love, and Doo'n doo'n tee doo Aaa-aaa-aaa-aaa-aaa-aaaaaaaa

[Hanshananigan]

Take a lesson schoolyard evangelicalism:

 

You hang around the see-saw until someone comes around and joins you. Then while teeetering and tottering, you have can politely start witnessing to a captive audience.

 

Johnny B is wearing a "Jail Bush" t-shirt and jumping up and down, attracting attention, yelling, "why won't anyone teeter-totter with me!?!?!?"

[Philip OKeefe]

Not open for debate here, but since you asked, I'll post a few of my general beliefs:

 

I believe in God and in Christ, and respect the rights of others to believe or not to believe in whatever they want. I believe in the US Constitution, and the Bill of Rights (all of them!). That applies to EVERONE - regardless of race, beliefs or gender. I am for SMALLER government ("That government which governs best, governs least"), strong national defense, personal responsibility, charity for, and defense of those who are less fortunate and who can not defend themselves. I am for governmental fiscal responsibility, and believe that those rights not SPECIFICALLY spelled out for the Federal government in the Constitution are reserved for the States and for the People.

 

I hate racism and bigotry in all of their ugly forms. Ditto that for sexism and for age discrimination (handy, now that I'm getting older ).. you know, I could go on and on, but this isn't the place for it Geoff. I'm surprised you got that much out of me here - pretty sneaky!

[Anderton]

Phil, I know you're not open to debate, but some of the "conservative" things you mentioned were part of Clinton's agenda, and he wasn't really an old school conservative So, I suggest you simply call yourself a "rational person." It's a label that fits quite well, I think

 

As to Neo-Con, I don't really remember that part of the Matrix. Seemed to me Neo didn't really con anyone, but I did doze off during part of the third movie, so I might have missed it.

[songrytr]

Originally posted by Philip O'Keefe:

And if you think I'm just a conservative who is giving lip service to that, ask Songryter about my willingness to record HIS political songs - some of which are at odds with some of my own political viewpoints.

You don't think I hear those little subliminal messages you inserted??

 

 

Seriously folks, Phil and I are pretty darn close to filling out a good third party platform. It's about thinking instead of reacting.

 

[Geoff Grace]

Originally posted by Philip O'Keefe:

I could go on and on, but this isn't the place for it Geoff. I'm surprised you got that much out of me here - pretty sneaky!

Well, I'm glad I did, because even though I pretty well knew how you'd answer, someone who Googled this page out of the blue wouldn't have.

 

...And as I've discovered more and more of late, these forums show up fairly frequently in Google searches - which, getting back to the topic at hand, is yet another reason for us to consider the content of our posts.

 

Best,

 

Geoff

[ryst]

Originally posted by Philip O'Keefe:

Not open for debate here, but since you asked, I'll post a few of my general beliefs:

 

I believe in God and in Christ, and respect the rights of others to believe or not to believe in whatever they want. I believe in the US Constitution, and the Bill of Rights (all of them!). That applies to EVERONE - regardless of race, beliefs or gender. I am for SMALLER government ("That government which governs best, governs least"), strong national defense, personal responsibility, charity for, and defense of those who are less fortunate and who can not defend themselves. I am for governmental fiscal responsibility, and believe that those rights not SPECIFICALLY spelled out for the Federal government in the Constitution are reserved for the States and for the People.

 

I hate racism and bigotry in all of their ugly forms. Ditto that for sexism and for age discrimination (handy, now that I'm getting older ).. you know, I could go on and on, but this isn't the place for it Geoff. I'm surprised you got that much out of me here - pretty sneaky!

Phil, you and I would make a hot couple if we were gay. I am in agreement with everything you said and my beliefs are a mirror image of yours.....but then again, opposites attract too so maybe it wouldn't work out between us since we are very similar. Oh well, I still love ya in the platonic way!

[Mr.WOW]

I believe in God and in Christ, and respect the rights of others to believe or not to believe in whatever they want. I believe in the US Constitution, and the Bill of Rights (all of them!). That applies to EVERONE - regardless of race, beliefs or gender. I am for SMALLER government ("That government which governs best, governs least"), strong national defense, personal responsibility, charity for, and defense of those who are less fortunate and who can not defend themselves. I am for governmental fiscal responsibility, and believe that those rights not SPECIFICALLY spelled out for the Federal government in the Constitution are reserved for the States and for the People.

[nursers]

Originally posted by ryst:

Phil, you and I would make a hot couple if we were gay. I am in agreement with everything you said and my beliefs are a mirror image of yours.....but then again, opposites attract too so maybe it wouldn't work out between us since we are very similar. [/QB]

Get in line

[Anderton]

Hey, I think we finally found our Veep candidate to go along with the Draft Lee Flier for President movement. Phil, you game? I'll endorse you if you agree to appoint Gus Secretary of State.

[nursers]

I actually see Phil as the Musicplayer pin-up girl

 

And VP of course...

[Philip OKeefe]

Someone who once held the office said that the VP job wasn't "worth a bucket of warm spit" or words to that effect... but if asked to serve, how could I decline?

 

However, IIRC, I thought I had dibs on the SecDef position.

 

I think Gus would make a wonderful SecState!

[BP3]

Nursers for President of Vice!!!!

[Anifa]

Originally posted by Brittanylips:

[grinning from ear to ear]

 

You know it's funny - as I wrote that last line, I knew I was getting sloppy. Leave it to a music forum to dot the musical i's and cross the musical t's.

 

 

-Peace, Love, and Doo'n doo'n tee doo Aaa-aaa-aaa-aaa-aaa-aaaaaaaa

Ah yes, but although you stand corrected on the i's and the t's; no one bothered to mention how YOU corrected the poor grammar by using "because" instead of "cause"

 

"Is easy CAUSE you're beautiful" BE cause would have thrown the timing off so they dropped it.

[Saint Johnny B]

Hmmm, it would have DeLayed it.

[Mr.WOW]

Saint Johnny B

MP Hall of Fame Member

Member # 34263

[Angelo Clematide]

Saint Johnny B

MP Hall of "Holy" Fame Member

Member # 34263

 

 

http://sisyphus.nada.kth.se/images/sisyphus-front.jpg

http://sisyphus.nada.kth.se/images/sisyphus-front.jpg

 

 

The Myth of Sisyphus

 

The gods had condemned Sisyphus to ceaselessly rolling a rock to the top of a mountain, whence the stone would fall back of its own weight. They had thought with some reason that there is no more dreadful punishment than fu tile and hopeless labor.

 

If one believes Homer, Sisyphus was the wisest and most prudent of mortals. According to another tradition, however, he was disposed to practice the profession of highwayman. I see no contradiction in this. Opinions differ as to the reasons why he became the futile laborer of the underworld. To begin with, he is accused of a certain levity in regard to the gods. He stole their secrets. Egina, the daughter of Esopus, was carried off by Jupiter. The father was shocked by that disappearance and complained to Sisyphus. He, who knew of the abduction, offered to tell about it on condition that Esopu s would give water to the citadel of Corinth. To the celestial thunderbolts he preferred the benediction of water. He was punished for this in the underworld. Homer tells us also that Sisyphus had put Death in chains. Pluto could not endure the sight of h is deserted, silent empire. He dispatched the god of war, who liberated Death from the hands of her conqueror.

 

It is said that Sisyphus, being near to death, rashly wanted to test his wife's love. He ordered her to cast his unburied body into the middle of the public square. Sisyphus woke up in the underworld. And there, annoyed by an obedience so contrary to human love, he obtained from Pluto permission to return to earth in order to chastise his wife. But when he had seen again the face of this world, enjoyed water and sun, warm stones and the sea, he no longer wanted to go back to the infernal darkness. Recalls, signs of anger, warnings were of no avail. Many years more he lived facing the curve of the gulf, the sparkling sea, and the smiles of earth. A decree of the gods w as necessary. Mercury came and seized the impudent man by the collar and, snatching him from his joys, lead him forcibly back to the underworld, where his rock was ready for him.

 

You have already grasped that Sisyphus is the absurd hero. He is, as much through his passions as through his torture. His scorn of the gods, his hatred of death, and his passion for life won him that unspeakable penalty in which the whole being is exerted toward accomplishing nothing. This is the price that must be paid for the passions of this earth. Nothing is told us about Sisyphus in the underworld. Myths are made for the imagination to breathe life into them. As for this myth, one sees merely the whole effort of a body straining to raise the huge stone, to roll it, and push it up a slope a hundred times over; one sees the face screw ed up, the cheek tight against the stone, the shoulder bracing the clay-covered mass, the foot wedging it, the fresh start with arms outstretched, the wholly human security of two earth-clotted hands. At the very end of his long effort measured by skyless space and time without depth, the purpose is achieved. Then Sisyphus watches the stone rush down in a few moments toward that lower world whence he will have to push it up again toward the summit. He goes back down to the plain.

 

It is during that return, that pause, that Sisyphus interests me. A face that toils so close to stones is already stone itself! I see that man going back down with a heavy yet measured step toward the torment of which he will never know the end. That hour like a breathing-space which returns as surely as his suffering, that is the hour of consciousness. At each of those moments when he leaves the heights and gradually sinks toward the lairs of the gods, he is superior to his fate. He is stronger than his rock.

 

If this myth is tragic, that is because its hero is conscious. Where would his torture be, indeed, if at every step the hope of succeeding upheld him? The workman of today works everyday in his life at the same tasks, and his fate is no less absurd. But it is tragic only at the rare moments when it becomes conscious. Sisyphus, proletarian of the gods, powerless and rebellious, knows the whole extent of his wretched condition: it is what he thinks of during his descent. The lucidity that was to constitute his torture at the same time crowns his victory. There is no fate that can not be surmou nted by scorn.

 

If the descent is thus sometimes performed in sorrow, it can also take place in joy. This word is not too much. Again I fancy Sisyphus returning toward his rock, and the sorrow was in the beginning. When the images of earth cling too tightly to memory, when the call of happiness becomes too insistent, it happens that melancholy arises in man's heart: this is the rock's victory, this is the rock itself. The boundless grief is too heavy to bear. These are our nights of Gethsemane. But crushing truths perish from being acknowledged. Thus, Edipus at the outset obeys fate without knowing it. But from the moment he knows, his tragedy begins. Yet at the same moment, blind and desperate, he realizes that the on ly bond linking him to the world is the cool hand of a girl. Then a tremendous remark rings out: "Despite so many ordeals, my advanced age and the nobility of my soul make me conclude that all is well." Sophocles' Edipus, like Dostoevsky's Kirilov, thus gives the recipe for the absurd victory. Ancient wisdom confirms modern heroism.

 

One does not discover the absurd without being tempted to write a manual of happiness. "What!---by such narrow ways--?" There is but one world, however. Happiness and the absurd are two sons of the same earth. They are inseparable. It would be a mistake to say that happiness necessarily springs from the absurd. discover y. It happens as well that the felling of the absurd springs from happiness. "I conclude that all is well," says Edipus, and that remark is sacred. It echoes in the wild and limited universe of man. It teaches that all is not, has not been, exhausted. It drives out of this world a god who had come into it with dissatisfaction and a preference for futile suffering. It makes of fate a human matter, which must be settled among men.

 

All Sisyphus' silent joy is contained therein. His fate belongs to him. His rock is a thing Likewise, the absurd man, when he contemplates his torment, silences all the idols. In the universe suddenly restored to its silence, the myriad wondering little voices of the earth rise up. Unconscious, secret calls, invitations from all the faces, they are the necessary reverse and price of victory. There is no sun without shadow, and it is essential to know the night. The absurd man says yes and his efforts will henceforth be unceasing. If there is a personal fate, there is no higher destiny, or at least there is, but one which he concludes is inevitable and despicable. For the rest, he knows himself to be the master of his days. At that subtle moment when man glances backward over his life, Sisyphus returning toward his rock, in that slight pivoting he contemplates that series of unrelated actions which become his fate, created by him, combined under his memory's eye and soon sealed by his death. Thus, convinced of the wholly human origin of all that is human, a blind man eage r to see who knows that the night has no end, he is still on the go. The rock is still rolling.

 

I leave Sisyphus at the foot of the mountain! One always finds one's burden again. But Sisyphus teaches the higher fidelity that negates the gods and raises rocks. He too concludes that all is well. This universe henceforth without a master seems to him neither sterile nor futile. Each atom of that stone, each mineral flake of that night filled mountain, in itself forms a world. The strugg le itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.

 

Sincerely

 

+++ The Pope, the Pappette and the whole Papeterie +++

 

-

[Tedly Nightshade]

Well, I'm all for this last with Sisyphus, but I'm totally disgusted by this whole reaction to Johnny B. It would be much better just to ignore him if you want to.

 

It does seem to me like Johnny could genuinely use some constructive help with what are, in fact, plausible germs of good-enough songs- better than most of the crap that sells millions these days. It would be appropriate to show how better (more fully developed) songs along the same lines were done- I would have done that if I had seen the thread before it got locked.

 

Here's a pool of piss for Nursers for shutting down the thread, and a small ocean of it for everyone crankily bitching about Johnny B.

 

(use your imagination, folks)

 

I'm absolutely fucking revolted with this forum since reading this thread. If you all care to have me around, you can just ignore what you want to ignore.

 

See you all some time much later.

[Bbach1]

Just popped in to the forum to say hi this morning. Gees, is this thread still going on?

[Franknputer]

I agree that Johnny needs help, but probably not in the way you think.

 

I didn't even know about the Songwriter's Forum postings until this thread, but I'd certainly had a belly-full of the CommieMart nonsense, which he insisted on posting time after time in numerous Political Forum threads as (basically O/T) intended slaps-in-the-face to whomever in the Administration he chose to demonize, and I even told him so.

 

Now, I agreed with him that I think there are a bunch of crooks running things these days; however, simply posting his inane "song" over & over as some kind of debate did nothing to further his causes, but in fact made him look like he didn't have any real input to contribute, and ultimately harmed the viewpoint he was supposedly trying to legitimize.

 

Given that, and given the facts that:

a) he repeatedly bumped the topic up for weeks with no response from anyone;

b) when he did get a shred of constructive input he didn't even acknowledge it, yet was right there to argue with those who said anything negative;

c) when the Moderators stepped in he immediately took the role of martyr & accused them of injustice, despite their demonstrated beliefs & assurances to the contrary;

 

I think they took a reasonable action. You're entitled to your opinion, but if this is all it takes to put you off the forum, then Cya.

[Dak Lander]

Originally posted by Christopher Robin:

I think they took a reasonable action. You're entitled to your opinion, but if this is all it takes to put you off the forum, then Cya.

Couldn't agree more...

 

My goodness, someone doesn't like, nor agree with my views. I think I'll quit society, curl up in a little ball and feel sorry for myself, moaning "woe is me, woe is me, the world's not perfect".

[Philter]

Well, whether it's a good thing or a bad thing, after skimming through a million of Johnnie's Commie Mart posts I admit that whenever I hear of or see the real thing, "Commie Mart" pops into my head.

 

And all the people who took the time to contribute to this thread are going to probably experience the same thing.

 

So Johnny, on one hand you took some heat over it, but on the other hand, you got more publicity than you could have hoped for. You should thank all these folks for playing into your hand.

[Saint Johnny B]

And Phil,

 

That's exactly how a jingle is supposed to work.

 

I did, however, think the CommieMart lyrics could be vastly improved. I personally like more long vowels because they are easier on the singer's voice. And I was never really happy with the CommieMart Jingle's meter either. It really does need some major help and a re-write, but alas, the so-called constructive help offered was never along these lines, it was more in the nature of "Johnny, just STFU."

 

It is heartening to know that someone actually recorded a CD called "I Hate WalMart." Perhaps, we can all convince Air America and our local radio stations to put the song "I Hate WalMart" into heavy rotation.

[Phait]

http://www.phait-accompli.com/crap/ava/censorship.gif

[nursers]

Originally posted by Tedly Nightshade:

Here's a pool of piss for Nursers for shutting down the thread, and a small ocean of it for everyone crankily bitching about Johnny B.

 

(use your imagination, folks)

Don't need to use my imagination - I've been in more pools of piss as a nurse than you could imagine

[miki]

Originally posted by nursers:

[/qb]Don't need to use my imagination - I've been in more pools of piss as a nurse than you could imagine [/QB]

You and me both, bro.

 

All moderators are greatly appreciated.

Thanks for doing your thing Mr. nursers.

 

::hugs all around::

 

~Mir

[Saint Johnny B]

Nursers,

 

I would not take it too personally, I think he's just saying he is not in favor of censorship.

 

Ok, in my best Beatles voice: "Mr. can we please have our ball back?"

[Tedly Nightshade]

My apologies to nursers. Thanks for moderating the songwriting forum. I disagree but I shouldn't be rude.