After doing some research (as part of my on-going efforts to get out of the boiler room of Cassius and into the prestigious halls), I was able to update the scorecards for some of our favorite MDB posters. The contestants are:
* Wade * Droopy * Will * Jskains * Daniel Peterson * The Nehor * Simon
I have created 5 categories of words that are quite fun to hear on this board, which include:
* toxic * cesspool * trailer park * vomit * butt
I tallied up the word counts from each of our contestants and found winners in each category. Here are the results:
2011 cool-word winners: Toxic: Wade Cesspool: Wade Trailer Park: Will (by a long shot) Vomit: Simon Butt: The Nehor
Good job guys!
Here is a plot to show a summary of results:
Note: The count of words includes years previous to 2011
Oh for shame, how the mortals put the blame on us gods, for they say evils come from us, but it is they, rather, who by their own recklessness win sorrow beyond what is given... Zeus (1178 BC)
I would not have imagined "butt" having so many hits. I'm unsure what conclusions to draw from this. Zeez, you should do a analysis of "dumb ass," "STFU" and "GTFO."
It's nice to see how comparatively civil skains has been. Kudos to Josh! Storm warnings have been downgraded.
From the Ernest L. Wilkinson Diaries: "ELW dreams he's spattered w/ grease. Hundreds steal his greasy pants."
Ok, I was really piqued by how high the word "butt" registered, so I did a search of my own use of those terms. Unlike asbestos, I did not count places a word use of mine was requoted by someone else, or any posts in which I was quoting someone else using the word. My count was based on first usages of the term. And "butt" came up with a much higher score than any other of the words in Zeez's original study---a whopping 11 times.
Here are my counts, with the original posts they occured in for context (all posts are in reverse chronological order):
toxic: (5)
1) People from my generation who grew up in our neighborhood, in surrounding ones, in Southern Utah, in all of Utah, in the desert southwest in general---are today walking around with god knows how many toxic substances circulating throughout our systems and probably deeply embedded in our DNA. I’ve got downwinders, upwinders, and I’m sure even sidewayswinders in my family. My grandpa worked for years on a site later discovered to exist entirely of radioactive tailings. Everybody’s Dad used DDT in their vegetable patches. Leukemia and thyroid cancer are the main strands of our cancer legacy.
2 & 3) Well to be fair its toxic sushi. Although I guess its toxic tuna everywhere not just here, yet there's been a lot of local press about tuna mercury levels.
4) Personally, I think Victorias Secret is made from toxic New Jersey waste (I stole that from Sandra Bernhart), but if there is one place where evil has clearly taken hold, its in Morningstar's recommendation to shop for naughty nothings at Target.
5) Thanks...though I have to say I remember watching a performance of Sandra Bernhard where she quipped that Victoria's Secret underclothes were made from New Jersery's toxic waste.
cesspool (2)
1) Good luck, Maggie/Selah. I will be interesting to see what you have say. I followed a bit of your posts on MAD, but not all, so I think I remember a few things about your situation. Anyway, welcome and join the _________ (whatever the metaphor du jour is: cesspool? minefield? walk in the park? teeming sewer?)
2) I think "verbal mine field" is not that inaccurate a description, especially compared with "sewer" and "cesspool." Either way its no "walk in the park," but I'm not sure I'd want it to be entirely: critical exchange needs a different metaphor than strolling, I think.
Trailer Park (0)
Can’t believe this, must be something wrong with the Search engine.
vomit (5)
1) Of vomit and honey (the title of a thread I started)
2) Because I didn't want my post to read like a who's in/out with Blixa list, MCB, I knew I'd miss lots of people. My original draft was written in anger---I am sick of being insulted by alleged followers of Christ---and included an example for pa pa of what a pool of vomit actually looks like: a stew of homophobic, misogynistic smears and lies mostly drawn from mopologetics. I hope, though, that what I finally did write might give people a different way to look at the possibilities of this message board beyond scoring points off "antis."
3) On a message board with very little if any moderating, you will, of course, get all kinds of comments: from the studied and fascinating commentary of a poster like George Miller to the sneers of the Gordons. You will get people using the space to work through intellectual or emotional problems as well as people venting and reacting to the day’s frustrations. While that does make for wide variety in quality, it also allows each reader to easily find their level: one can be drawn into discussions which enlarge one’s knowledge and humanity, or one can follow the muddy footprints around the board to wallow in the vomit puddles (and contribute voluminously to them).
4) If you can see a full cut of the Nike soccer commercial Ritchie made to The Eagles of Death Metal's "Don't Speak (I Came to Make a Bang)" you'll enjoy it. Its a fun first-person camera bit, but sadly it seems each time its aired here more violent bits (tooth, vomit) are cut out. Sad, sad.
5) Hopefully you won't want for vomit taste too long... (in response to PP lamenting that the MAD board was down and thus he missed the vomit taste of reading it.)
butt (11)
1) Stop it David. You've already converted me to your pork butt, next thing you'll be converting me to your religion...
2) Oh I dunno. Will David Bokovoy be grilling his pork butt? I've heard it's worth re-converting for.....
3) Oh really? I'm not sure if you know, liz, but that point was originally brought up by Joseph and then disputed ("joked about") by Simon ever since. Who's the butt of the joke now, I wonder?
4) We've also got a very nice big person keyboard, but its in the other room and I threw my ankle out running for the train today, so I'm not about to get up off my butt and remind myself what the hell it is.
5) Yep that's me and my butt. I had no idea anyone took a photo of that until I saw it up on the gallery website. I thought I was the only one in the gallery space with Marina (it was during the first few hours of the show after I'd done my stint in the Dream Bed)---I thought the staff were in the office, but apparently someone sneaked out. That photo is everywhere.
6) I have been lucky in relation to a couple of great performance pieces. I was able to be in Marina Abramovic's work "the dream bed" which was a corollary of "the house with the ocean view." Abramovic is one of the progenitors of performance art---her stuff from the 70's is amazing still, her recent work just as good. "The House With the Ocean View" was spectacular. I was there for more than half of it---the first day I spent all day there after my stint in the dream bed. I think this review has some discussion of The Dream Bed in it...but the best part is the photo of The House With the Ocean View. That photo was on the Sean Kelley website front page for months and is now THE image of the work that you see reproduced everywhere. Who is that Big Butt looking through the telescope? Moi.
7) As for the Indians killing the children, while this was a staple of various official cover stories, it is pretty much disbelieved now. How many Indians were originally rounded up for the massacre is debatable, but it is certain than most of them left after the first day of fighting. I myself think that 6 or 7 is a high estimate for Indians remaining by the day of the slaughter. And the forensic work of Shannon Novak on the remains uncovered by the back hoes of the current monument revealed children and women's skulls that had close range bullet holes in them. One skull of a boy around 11 years old bore the clear outline of a gun butt (you can see it in the photographs accompanying her first article on her study) thus confiriming at least part of John D. Lee's narrative of the day's events.
8) In the middle of a terrible icky day, this you tube video of a japanese cartoon, Oshiri kajiri mushi, (The Butt Biting Bug), really cheered me up.
9) Shannon Novak's (partial) forensics on the remains bore out Lee's version of events right down to the gun-butt shaped hole in a young boy's skull.
10) Ok, Bond. I gotta ask this first: Enough sex in this episode for ya? I hope the flash of Margene butt wasn't missed!
11) God I hate that movie. I need to head butt that director. And Matthew Lillard.
From the Ernest L. Wilkinson Diaries: "ELW dreams he's spattered w/ grease. Hundreds steal his greasy pants."
