I wish during all this time I had been more informative, but I'm not an insider--I come here to get news rather give it. Therefore, the majority of my posts have been made up of my (mostly negative) opinions on things.

There have been a lot of great things to support and celebrate. This is a great time to be a fan of film music, but even so, I've spent a lot of time on the warpath against stuff: shoddy re-records, Sonic Wallpaper, James Horner, Zimmer and Media Ventures, the mistreatment of composers by the industry establishment, and so on and so forth.

When I wasn't fighting against trends I didn't like in film music, I was fighting against the opinions of other people on the board. My wrath rained down on "kids" who refused to see films or listen to scores older than they were; on people who felt they could say any old thing and not be taken to task about it; on people who insisted everyone be polite and PC; even on Peter K for removing topics, disallowing swear words, and banning people from the board.

Yes, I've chewed out just about everyone who has disagreed with me. A few people who couldn't stand the heat left the kitchen. I chewed them out a second time: Don't leave. If you can't stand the heat, wear asbestos. Come back with your dukes up fighting. But they weren't up to being challenged and wimped off to FSM and other boards or gave up posting altogether. There were others who stood their ground and flung some mud and still took off. I didn't even like those guys and I miss them.

But a lot of that character to the board is gone. There are no more bar brawls or napalm strikes, all that excitement having been replaced with a more common tone of sarcasm. Peter hasn't had to intervene in ages because nobody starts **** around here anymore. It's just dull old Home Sweet Home.

I'm still a touchy fanboy, egotistic and self-important, sword in hand ready to fight the infidels. But, all the infidels are indifferent and the sword is heavy and, well, you get the picture.... [Lou yawns, lies down on the couch.]

I don't know what the next three years will bring. But, as long as it brings stuff like the expanded Bond scores or the FSM treasures, there'll be some good to balance out the crap. Maybe then I won't have to be so touchy, instead I'll just crack a smile and get some sleep.

Your unstability and want to rock the boat is actually, to me, a sort of stability when it comes to varied points of view. And unlike the two-bit point of view, you've dedicated time to really hashing out your thoughts. Sometimes it is beating the dead horse... but even that can be fun if done slightly different with each whack. Hmm, not a pretty analogy, but it should make the sense it's supposed to. In any event, here's to you. Cheers for three years.

In the words of one of my favorite beer commercials at the moment, and a phrase I always envisioned a "Lou Phrase" after he's just shredded a Horner fan for enjoying the Hornerdisms, "OH YEAAAAH!!! THAT'S WHAT I'M TALKIN' ABOUT!!!!!"

I'm sure it surprises me more than anyone when I still find another turn of phrase about the same stuff. I suppose I'd talk about a wider range of subjects, but they never seem to come up. There's always the junkyard, but I find myself getting in over my head talking about complex subjects like culture, politics, and current events. You still have to try to say something about what's going on, but I find it hard to get a grip on the truth and I can't predict the future. Sticking with familiar territory, the few topics I started about literature and other arts besides music and cinema crashed and burned.

He secretly wants to do us in!! Didn't you read all of his post?

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...wear asbestos.

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We'll all die!!! Aughhh!!

Kev--You're right. Why would I give my opponents a handicap like the ability to stay alive? OK, perhaps I should have phrased it, "If you can't stand the heat, wear some flame retardant stuff," but that didn't sound right.

Dinko--As for the Wild West that Peter so abhorred, I liked Lux and Hard Target and Big Bear and D2. FSM and Filmus-L let Ford Thaxton post, but by banning him here, we miss all the fun of him telling people off and us calling him names in return, not to mention all the back and forth slams that would go on between Pete and Ford.

Of course my favorite Wild West exchanges went something like this:

Lou: Private board or not, I think people should say as they please here without any restraints, we're all adults screw being polite.

Wuss: People's feelings get hurt by mean words. I think we should all hold hands and sing songs by the campfire.

Lou: I think you need to do us all a favor and return to the womb.

Wuss: Oh. Nobody has ever said something like that to me in my whole life. It's people like you who aren't nice that cause all the trouble in the world. I think people like you who aren't polite and unoffensive need to taken out and strung up. If you can't respect the [asinine] opinions of others, you should have your beating heart torn from your chest and have it stomped on in front of your dying eyes. You should be flayed alive and have salt poured into your open wounds, you fu-cking impolite godddammed pissant SOB. Blow torches should melt your eyeballs but only after you've seen your house aflame and your family killed. If you can't be nice you should be repeatedly run over by a train until there is nothing left of you but pulp. I'm leaving this board to find like-minded people who know how to say nice things to each other rather than put up with scum like you who need to be horribly tortured for days and then boiled in oil.

Lou: Uh, is it me, or is there something wrong with this picture?

Lancer--Of course, doing "that thing I do" can have negative consequences. When that Rick guy from Silva showed up on the boards to say hi, I blasted him point blank with both barrels. He'll probably never post here again and as a result we won't be as likely to get the scoops on what Silva and others are doing that he could have given us.

On the other hand, he seemed like he was going to be insufferable so maybe it's better to step up to that right off the bat before it gets a chance to take hold.

On the other non-existant 3rd hand, if he'd stuck around, we could have had lovely fights saying all the things to him that we can't say to Ford about Silva because Ford isn't here to get blasted himself. Oh well.

Thanks Lou for posting this. I'm not into fighting, but you have added much needed seasonings to our rather bland exchanges. I do read all of your posts!!

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Originally posted by Lou Goldberg:
...all that excitement having been replaced with a more common tone of sarcasm.

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If you see the mind as Right Brain and Left Brain, I seek a balance whereas Rand was strictly Left Brain. Her logical, rational athiesm has no room for the mystic things I value: Eastern philosophy, intuition, divination, et al.

While I respect that capitalism is responsible for the high standard of living we have in the US and is the one system that upholds individual property rights, I have many other deep criticisms of the system that she would reject as evil and irrational.

As a lover of cinema, I have to admit I love and admire the amazing things other people can do. Also, I respect professionals, especially if they are good in roles of great responsibility. Nevertheless, I don't share Rand's romantic hero worship over people who are exceptional.

I still tend to be egalitarian: Death is the great equalizer. No matter how rich, talented, beautiful, or profound, everybody has to die and in that sense I don't see anyone as being special or superior to anyone else and I don't like people to act as if they are.

I can respect accomplishment and rank the quality of people's works, but that's different from the natural abhorrance I have for leaders, managers, and other big egos. I'll leave them alone to make all the money and have all the power and achievement they want to, but I usually can't stand to meet them. I'm more like my friend who shocks people when he says he supports capitalism but hates business. The sight of a "briefcase boy" in a suit with an optimistic Dale Carnegie "go-to" attitude talking numbers on his cell phone over lunch makes him want to gag. Me too.

There are things Rand and I would agree on. I like her praise of recreational, pre- and extra- marital sex and her dislike of the Judeo-Christian stance against it. More basically we would agree that life is more for having fun than it is for running a charity. Likewise, she and I both seem to dislike people who get in the way when you want to do something.

This is just the tip of the iceberg on all that can be said about this subject, but that's for another place and time.

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I like her praise of recreational, pre- and extra- marital sex and her dislike of the Judeo-Christian stance against it.

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Of course you'd like it, if your mind's always in the gutter. Who cares about the physiological and emotional consequences?
This is just an excuse to whore around and become a walking genital wart.

JJH, Lou knows I'd NEVER let him near MY daughters. I am too much of a Puritan.

Joan--Yes, but what are you going to do when your daughters decide to get near me (or someone worse) despite what you want?

Bulldog--If Rand thought of sex as you say, then she's just as insistent on a sexual ethic as the Christians. At Spring Break on South Padre Island no one is thinking about love for one another. The glory hole in the wall of a gay bar is about having orgasm without any ethical rules or emotional attachments. [The glory hole is so amazing it almost makes me wish I were gay. There's a wall with a hole in it. One guy is on one side, another on the other. The first guy sticks his stuff in and gets fellatio from the other guy and then they switch. Both guys get off and don't even know who did it to them, it's completely anonymous. No dates, no flowers, no worrying about compatibility, and no children to raise. All the joy and none of the hassle, compromise, work, or hoops to jump through you get with hetrosexuality. You just return to going about your business until it's time to get more action. If women were as into sex as much as guys are, life would be a paradise here without there ever being a need to talk about Heaven. Women fear pregnancy so they have evolved to be selective and since that took 4 million years, it isn't going to change just because he've had the pill for 30 years. Too bad. Thank god for the loose women we do have.] I'd like to see you and JJH at closing time at my local bar spouting this stuff. And what if some hot sexy thang came up to you with a genuine offer to go to bed? Are you guys going to hold up the Bible and The Fountainhead and turn her down because it's ethically wrong? Maybe you but not me.

Basing one's ideas on reality sounds good, but even though our senses are fairly accurate (if they weren't we'd be bumping into trees we couldn't sense were there), many aspects of reality are still fluid and elusive. Rand may have praised emotions, as you say, but how did she prove that emotions are caused by thinking? Free-floating anxiety, for instance, isn't caused by anything other than brain chemistry or unconscous obsessions (which might be 'thinking' but not the active action you are referring to).

Joan, stand tall, ma'am.

There's a germ of truth in everything I say, but then I'm the first to tell you it's all nonsense.

And as soon as I've been the trickster and pulled the ultimate in Frat boy pranks, I'll surprise even myself with some conventional good deed.

If I'm ultimately the touchy fanboy, it's because I still want good things out of the world and I get disappointed instead which pisses me off and means steam blows out my ears and.....