welcome back to the cloak room, surly conservatives

[hayden_horn 11402]

58 minutes ago, PenelopeWitherspoon said:

This this this.  

I think a lot of folks in the US must not have a lot of friends from different countries or cultures.  They also are not well traveled (something like only 40% of Americans have a passport).  If they got out of their towns in bumfuck America, or made friends with people different than they are, they might understand how hateful the GQP actually fucking is.  

and this.

i've been fortunate to travel as much as i have. but it brings a very elucidating perspective when you see how the rest of the world lives. and i wasn't born in the lap of luxury. we were lower middle class growing up. my parents made a trip happen when i was 16 to france and spain with my spanish class and it changed my life and gave me the travel bug. in france, punks with liberty spikes threw beer bottles at me. in spain, i lived with a family for a week with abysmal spanish. only now do i understand that that squid she cooked me probably put them out a bit and i didn't appreciate it. i also experienced a protest about which i knew nothing. i just know we were trying to cross the street when the beer bottle crashed at our feet, and we looked left, saw angry people, and looked right and saw riot police and hustled our ass off across the street. odd sidenote: that was the time oj went into the white bronco. they covered it in spain the next morning.  i went with friends on a backpacking trip through europe in college, and saw a bunch of different cultures in a space the size of texas (mind you, texas has a bunch of different cultures, but i maybe didn't appreciate that until then). then my girlfriend, later my wife, and i went on another more wide ranging europe trip. seeing dachau, auschwitz, and many other things i hadn't previously seen further defined my perspective. hell, we went to new orleans, and realized that a city could be so massively different that isn't that far away. completely different culture. we went to the caribbean and got engaged. once again, massively different cultures.  then we got married and didn't travel for awhile. then we sold everything and moved to japan to teach english, an experience that was wildly different from my european travel experiences. we went from japan to thailand. once again, a massively different culture. 

with my current job, pre-covid, i've traveled the world. china, hong kong, japan again, all throughout europe. i've not been to to all the places i want. there are so many more on the list. i'll never get to them all, sadly. 

but travel brings perspective. but only to the curious, i reckon. funny story. my (now) wife and i were in cinqueterre at one of those italian train stations where most of the people are shitty and the poor ticket folks could give a fuck. i took italian in college, but wasn't fluent. anyways, we were waiting in line for a ticket back to riomaggiore where we were staying. this southern woman was berating the ticket agent. "i want a ticket to MANAROLO." that's not the name of the town. anyways, she was pissed that the ticket agent didn't speak english. the ticket agent asked if any english speakers in line spoke italian. i did. i said nothing out of shame. i should've helped that poor woman going to manarola, and the poor ticket agent, ut i did not. it's a regret.

anyways, tl;dr: it's about perspective and people. it's different everywhere. but it's also the same. people come together. people love each other in their different ways. it's understanding, experiencing the differences that is worth celebrating. 

[Mrs Whiggins 13050]

3 minutes ago, hayden_horn said:

 

People change most when the circumstances for NOT changing are more painful. Alas, some never learn. One would think it wouldn't be too hard to have an open mind, but it takes time and building relationships. Funniest thing about humans. We would not have gotten as far as we have without those qualities.

[DDD Dad 14650]

16 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

Well, it's really about power and retaining it.  Secondarily about winning elections.

Before I quit being a Republican, I thought most of the rational policies, like cutting spending, or streamlining government, weren't something on which they could get elected.  So they resorted to 'bortion and things like that that I had little stomach for.

And those weren't working well, either.

So Trump comes along and recasts or pulls back the curtain on GOP policies in a way that's attractive to those "left behind."

And, I'm afraid that the GQP has said fuck it, I don't care if he's a flaming asshole, or this is not good for the country, I can win with this and stay in office a few more terms, which is where the grift comes in. 

And now I think they're justifying their existence based on the adoration of nativist morons (if Bubba wants a retrograde authoritarian government, it must be ok!).  Whereas the GOP used to stand for doing things that might be temporarily unpleasant, but were good for the long-term health of the country.

 

[hayden_horn 11402]

1 hour ago, PenelopeWitherspoon said:

This this this.  

I think a lot of folks in the US must not have a lot of friends from different countries or cultures.  They also are not well traveled (something like only 40% of Americans have a passport).  If they got out of their towns in bumfuck America, or made friends with people different than they are, they might understand how hateful the GQP actually fucking is.  

one last story. i've told it before.

i grew up in suburban dallas. when we moved there, it was farmland. by the time i left, it was fucking plano.

anyways. i grew up conservative. very much so. my ma did her best to make sure i wasn't racist, and i reckon she did her job, but my dad was racist 101. n-bombs all the time. watching football, about politics. did not matter. had he lived to see me marry a hispanic woman...i dunno i kind of wished it happened from a humor perspective.

anyways, i used to work out in east texas in the summer during college. think highway 80, where the town is actually divided by the train tracks. well, one day, i reckoned i needed a haircut. i went to the main drag and to the main barber, and there was a wait i didn't like.  so i drove around a bit, crossed the tracks, and i saw a barber pole. it was a pretty ramshackle shack, but there was only one car in the parking lot, so i pulled in.

walked in the door, and very quickly realized, oh shit, i am on the wrong side of the tracks. black barber, black dude in the one chair. it was like the record scratched, you know? anyways, i don't know what possessed this white boy, except maybe that europe trip, to say, "hi, you cut hair here right?"

the barber laughed and said "yes, i do." he shooed the guy in the chair out for me. i said "well, he was here first" and the barber said "he's here all the time. what can i do?"

the guy in the chair just sat down next, and i got a haircut and shave while they talked and talked and talked. it was so funny. only about halfway through did i get the cadence and diction. there was something about a drive to california the two of them took in a rental cadillac. there was a bunch of something other stuff. it was amazing. they just accepted me into their barber shop because i said "hey, you cut hair here, right?" 

but that one little experience also changed my life forever.

talk to people. love people. experience people. it's worth it.

[TwiceHorn 32079]

10 minutes ago, hayden_horn said:

one last story. i've told it before.

i grew up in suburban dallas. when we moved there, it was farmland. by the time i left, it was fucking plano.

anyways. i grew up conservative. very much so. my ma did her best to make sure i wasn't racist, and i reckon she did her job, but my dad was racist 101. n-bombs all the time. watching football, about politics. did not matter. had he lived to see me marry a hispanic woman...i dunno i kind of wished it happened from a humor perspective.

anyways, i used to work out in east texas in the summer during college. think highway 80, where the town is actually divided by the train tracks. well, one day, i reckoned i needed a haircut. i went to the main drag and to the main barber, and there was a wait i didn't like.  so i drove around a bit, crossed the tracks, and i saw a barber pole. it was a pretty ramshackle shack, but there was only one car in the parking lot, so i pulled in.

walked in the door, and very quickly realized, oh shit, i am on the wrong side of the tracks. black barber, black dude in the one chair. it was like the record scratched, you know? anyways, i don't know what possessed this white boy, except maybe that europe trip, to say, "hi, you cut hair here right?"

the barber laughed and said "yes, i do." he shooed the guy in the chair out for me. i said "well, he was here first" and the barber said "he's here all the time. what can i do?"

the guy in the chair just sat down next, and i got a haircut and shave while they talked and talked and talked. it was so funny. only about halfway through did i get the cadence and diction. there was something about a drive to california the two of them took in a rental cadillac. there was a bunch of something other stuff. it was amazing. they just accepted me into their barber shop because i said "hey, you cut hair here, right?" 

but that one little experience also changed my life forever.

talk to people. love people. experience people. it's worth it.

[Walden Ponderer 12639]

1 hour ago, hayden_horn said:

but that one little experience also changed my life forever.

talk to people. love people. experience people. it's worth it.

When I was in middle school, I was the coiffure outlier -- the only kid in Kingsville who didn't feather his hair. Good God, the 70s were dorky.

Anyway, I got asked where I got my hair cut. "Mr. Lantana's shop." The other kids hadn't heard of it. I gave them the address, which was followed by a shocked "You get your hair cut in Blacktown?!"

Looking back on it, the fact of segregation was bad enough, but "Blacktown"?? I mean, how creative can you get?

Anyway, I only went there at first because it was within walking distance of my house, and I kept going back because I liked them, and they seemed to like me. And like my wife says, "Being popular is easy; you just have to think everybody is great."

[jimmyjazz 47203]

When I was in my teens, my Mom, who was an English teacher, started taking groups of middle school honors kids to Europe in the summer.  After my sophomore year in college, I had the chance to go along as a chaperone.

I had already been to Europe once before, so I knew what to expect, but seeing those kids blindsided by the fact that nobody gave a shit that they were from the United States (save for their money) was eye-opening.  Travel is the greatest gift one can give one's self.  Well, second greatest.

 

[Sawbonz 28222]

1 hour ago, hayden_horn said:

one last story. i've told it before.

i grew up in suburban dallas. when we moved there, it was farmland. by the time i left, it was fucking plano.

anyways. i grew up conservative. very much so. my ma did her best to make sure i wasn't racist, and i reckon she did her job, but my dad was racist 101. n-bombs all the time. watching football, about politics. did not matter. had he lived to see me marry a hispanic woman...i dunno i kind of wished it happened from a humor perspective.

anyways, i used to work out in east texas in the summer during college. think highway 80, where the town is actually divided by the train tracks. well, one day, i reckoned i needed a haircut. i went to the main drag and to the main barber, and there was a wait i didn't like.  so i drove around a bit, crossed the tracks, and i saw a barber pole. it was a pretty ramshackle shack, but there was only one car in the parking lot, so i pulled in.

walked in the door, and very quickly realized, oh shit, i am on the wrong side of the tracks. black barber, black dude in the one chair. it was like the record scratched, you know? anyways, i don't know what possessed this white boy, except maybe that europe trip, to say, "hi, you cut hair here right?"

the barber laughed and said "yes, i do." he shooed the guy in the chair out for me. i said "well, he was here first" and the barber said "he's here all the time. what can i do?"

the guy in the chair just sat down next, and i got a haircut and shave while they talked and talked and talked. it was so funny. only about halfway through did i get the cadence and diction. there was something about a drive to california the two of them took in a rental cadillac. there was a bunch of something other stuff. it was amazing. they just accepted me into their barber shop because i said "hey, you cut hair here, right?" 

but that one little experience also changed my life forever.

talk to people. love people. experience people. it's worth it.

Did you know you wanted a fade before you sat down?

[hayden_horn 11402]

4 minutes ago, Sawbonz said:

Did you know you wanted a fade before you sat down?

oh he made plenty of jokes about how to cut a white boy's hair.

[Guest Lobo]

Please tell me you didn't bring up Rocky Marciano while you were in there.

[Guest]

12 minutes ago, Sawbonz said:

Did you know you wanted a fade before you sat down?

at least they generally know what the fuck they're doing.  I have zero problem with getting a haircut in a shop like that.

and yeah, medium fade for about the past 30 years or so...

[Sawbonz 28222]

Just now, slorch said:

at least they generally know what the fuck they're doing.  I have zero problem with getting a haircut in a shop like that.

and yeah, medium fade for about the past 30 years or so...

Black guy cuts my hair

[jimmyjazz 47203]

2 minutes ago, Sawbonz said:

Black guy cuts my hair

[hayden_horn 11402]

2 hours ago, Lobo said:

Please tell me you didn't bring up Rocky Marciano while you were in there.

haha, no i didn't, but i'll tell you, i was a long haired teenager. i just wanted a trim and a shave. 

it took like 2 hours. with lots of laughing and stories. it was kind of life changing.

[Guest Lobo]

When i was a teenager, I just wanted some shaved trim. 

Also, your "Barbershop" prequel idea sounds lame as shit.  

But yes, little experiences like that go a long way in sculpting a young person's worldview.  

Also, I think I was in Spain the same time as you.  Obviously, it's a big country.  I had a bar-back job there while I went to school.  And one day, one of the regulars is asking me about why American footballer O.J. Simpson is running from the police, having gone on a murder spree?  I never watched TV there, small town newspaper there didn't cover it, and I rarely called home except maybe once a month to say I was alive.  I didn't find out it all until months later on the way back home at the Houston airport, it was on every single magazine and TV.  There were also World Cup riots there, but fun ones.  And then a not-so-fun riot in Basque country between ETA and police.  That one got dicey.  

[jimmyjazz 47203]

[jimmyjazz 47203]

6 minutes ago, Lobo said:

And one day, one of the regulars is asking me about why American footballer O.J. Simpson is running from the police, having gone on a murder spree?

My band had been trying to get a gig at Hole In The Wall for months.  Finally landed one.  We're on stage, and guess what?  OJ makes a run for it.  TV over the bar is showing it live, and everyone in the bar is paying attention . . . to OJ.  We couldn't have mattered less.

Full disclosure:  we sucked, but damn.

[hayden_horn 11402]

10 minutes ago, Lobo said:

When i was a teenager, I just wanted some shaved trim. 

Also, your "Barbershop" prequel idea sounds lame as shit.  

But yes, little experiences like that go a long way in sculpting a young person's worldview.  

Also, I think I was in Spain the same time as you.  Obviously, it's a big country.  I had a bar-back job there while I went to school.  And one day, one of the regulars is asking me about why American footballer O.J. Simpson is running from the police, having gone on a murder spree?  I never watched TV there, small town newspaper there didn't cover it, and I rarely called home except maybe once a month to say I was alive.  I didn't find out it all until months later on the way back home at the Houston airport, it was on every single magazine and TV.  There were also World Cup riots there, but fun ones.  And then a not-so-fun riot in Basque country between ETA and police.  That one got dicey.  

haha. yeah, it was pamplona, as i recall. that was where my riot was. we were dumb 16 year old kids who had gone to a bar and gotten half drunk. had no idea what we had walked into.

and yes, i realize my "white boy stumbles into a rural black barbershop" story is pretty lame from a white privilege point of view. but i learned very clearly that black people talk differently to each other than they do to white people, something i never knew with my whitebread upbringing. once they were comfortable with me (i went there over the summer for a period of years), the vernacular came out, and it was very eye opening. 

i only told the story, because i recognized that it was a white man out of his comfort zone story, and was kind of ancillary to my idea that travel and different experiences are important for people to understand how the world really works.

[Guest Lobo]

Yeah, but for the rest of your life...you get to tell the story of the time you opened up for "Black O.J. & the White Broncos" 

I had to explain to a room full of dive bar Spaniards in my non-native tongue that they want to shoot O.J. because he's black, but they won't...because he's rich and famous.  Then they kept asking me what club he played for as a footballer.  And I had to explain what the NFL was.  It was a whole fucking to-do.  They didn't have Hertz rental car ads in this little town.  

Edited December 7, 2021 by Lobo

[cactusflinthead 27627]

On 11/26/2021 at 7:47 AM, Pancho said:

This isn’t true. After graduating, I learned UT grads are more conservative than people thought. The problem is they conflate the graduates/fans with the city of Austin politically/culturally. 
 

I’ve said before on here that our fans/slums politically and culturally aren’t too far off from other SEC schools which is why we will fit in that conference pretty easily, whether that’s good or bad.

The Shaggy CR was pretty conservative.

Damn right it was. When I first discovered this pit of sin I saw that there were few participants in my quarter of the political spectrum. Those that were had enough rep to withstand a barrage. I did not. 

DT isn't quite what CR used to be, but it's pretty close. 

[Anastasis 23720]

On 12/5/2021 at 8:36 AM, fattyflattie said:

I still maintain that dude is fucking up massively.  Blue got a Whinnie Cooper about her. 

Neither one of them are much to my style, although I wouldn't kick either to the curb. 

[workswithseed 2204]

38 minutes ago, cactusflinthead said:

Damn right it was. When I first discovered this pit of sin I saw that there were few participants in my quarter of the political spectrum. Those that were had enough rep to withstand a barrage. I did not. 

DT isn't quite what CR used to be, but it's pretty close. 

This is our hell with training wheels.

[TwiceHorn 32079]

Saw this Brooks piece in The Atlantic.  https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2022/01/brooks-true-conservatism-dead-fox-news-voter-suppression/620853/

Quote

I recently went back and reread the yellowing conservatism books that I have lugged around with me over the decades. I wondered whether I’d be embarrassed or ashamed of them, knowing what conservatism has devolved into. I have to tell you that I wasn’t embarrassed; I was enthralled all over again, and I came away thinking that conservatism is truer and more profound than ever—and that to be a conservative today, you have to oppose much of what the Republican Party has come to stand for.

I think a lot of people shit on Brooks for various reasons.  I'm kind of agnostic on him, but his conservative credentials seems pretty legit.  This piece captures a lot of my thoughts on the subject.

I do think culture is important, especially culture of community, but not in the way current conservatives wage culture war.  Example:  I believe many same sex couples/families exhibit better family values than many or most "cishet" couples or families.  The focus on the sexuality is wrong.

ETA:  Damn, it's even better on a second read.

Edited December 9, 2021 by TwiceHorn

[Brisketexan 106899]

one last story. i've told it before.
i grew up in suburban dallas. when we moved there, it was farmland. by the time i left, it was fucking plano.
anyways. i grew up conservative. very much so. my ma did her best to make sure i wasn't racist, and i reckon she did her job, but my dad was racist 101. n-bombs all the time. watching football, about politics. did not matter. had he lived to see me marry a hispanic woman...i dunno i kind of wished it happened from a humor perspective.
anyways, i used to work out in east texas in the summer during college. think highway 80, where the town is actually divided by the train tracks. well, one day, i reckoned i needed a haircut. i went to the main drag and to the main barber, and there was a wait i didn't like.  so i drove around a bit, crossed the tracks, and i saw a barber pole. it was a pretty ramshackle shack, but there was only one car in the parking lot, so i pulled in.
walked in the door, and very quickly realized, oh shit, i am on the wrong side of the tracks. black barber, black dude in the one chair. it was like the record scratched, you know? anyways, i don't know what possessed this white boy, except maybe that europe trip, to say, "hi, you cut hair here right?"
the barber laughed and said "yes, i do." he shooed the guy in the chair out for me. i said "well, he was here first" and the barber said "he's here all the time. what can i do?"
the guy in the chair just sat down next, and i got a haircut and shave while they talked and talked and talked. it was so funny. only about halfway through did i get the cadence and diction. there was something about a drive to california the two of them took in a rental cadillac. there was a bunch of something other stuff. it was amazing. they just accepted me into their barber shop because i said "hey, you cut hair here, right?" 
but that one little experience also changed my life forever.
talk to people. love people. experience people. it's worth it.

Solid gold.

Seriously, the encounters out of a person’s comfort zone are incredibly formative. And yeah, travel will do that to you a lot.

[JimmyJames 12271]

2 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

Saw this Brooks piece in The Atlantic.  https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2022/01/brooks-true-conservatism-dead-fox-news-voter-suppression/620853/

I think a lot of people shit on Brooks for various reasons.  I'm kind of agnostic on him, but his conservative credentials seems pretty legit.  This piece captures a lot of my thoughts on the subject.

I do think culture is important, especially culture of community, but not in the way current conservatives wage culture war.  Example:  I believe many same sex couples/families exhibit better family values than many or most "cishet" couples or families.  The focus on the sexuality is wrong.

ETA:  Damn, it's even better on a second read.

That is an excellent article, particularly the second half of it. 

[Guest Lobo]

20 hours ago, Brisketexan said:

Solid gold.

Seriously, the encounters out of a person’s comfort zone are incredibly formative. And yeah, travel will do that to you a lot.

To be fair to the 50% or whatever of Americans that don’t hold a passport:  It’s really expensive to travel outside of our borders.  Not like Europe or Latin America where an hour train ride can put you in three different countries for $10.  But having said that if you can make it Coushatta or Choctaw once a quarter to gamble, you can save up and get the kids to Europe or Latin America and get some fucking perspective.  

[Bojack 2091]

12 minutes ago, Lobo said:

To be fair to the 50% or whatever of Americans that don’t hold a passport:  It’s really expensive to travel outside of our borders.  Not like Europe or Latin America where an hour train ride can put you in three different countries for $10.  But having said that if you can make it Coushatta or Choctaw once a quarter to gamble, you can save up and get the kids to Europe or Latin America and get some fucking perspective.  

So your plan is to gamble and win big then take those winnings and send the kids on an overseas vacation?  Great idea, Lobo.

[Guest]

It's a lot cheaper just to go inside the loop in Houston and hit a couple of convenience stores.  Wayside, Ella, Airline... or southside, either way.

[Guest Lobo]

3 minutes ago, Bojack said:

So your plan is to gamble and win big then take those winnings and send the kids on an overseas vacation?  Great idea, Lobo.

Look man, if my six year old daughter can make it through the Balkans with nothing but a passport, some broken Spanish, and pocket full of $100 chips…then middle America can get off their ass and apply for a passport.  
 

Oh my lord, the stories she came back with.   Not so much ‘perspective’ like Hayden as they were light war crimes.  

[Willfully Horn 8264]

I guess Liz Cheney and Joe Walsh are crazy like Q-anon, too.

 

Shaking my fucking head.