So Many People Going Out of Their Heads! (#BOTB Results)

That is one of most vitriolic statements I've heard in a long time. You've just outed yourself for what you really are. You are an angry old white man. That can't stand either the liberal agenda, or anybody that can. You truly are not the man I thought you were, and I'm done with you.
--comment received on a recent post at TOSSING IT OUT.

Angry Penguin (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

     In recent months--certainly since shortly after Donald Trump announced his candidacy and I hinted my support for him as president-- a few followers have been trickling away from my blog while others have expressed a distaste for my support of Trump.  No problem there since disagreement, so long as it is respectful and healthy, is something I think we can and should all accept without getting whipped into a frenzy.

       However, after the election when Trump won and it was fairly known that I had voted for him, there has been some crazy reaction to me and to some of my blog posts, which I have tried to present with a sense of intentional calm and rationality.  It seems those on the opposition side to mine can say whatever they wish in any disrespectful way they wish while what I say or what others on my side of the fence might say is met with anger and vituperation.  It all seems a bit unhinged to me, but what's a blogger to do?

     Though I haven't unfollowed any blogs, there are a few that I no longer bother to read for one reason or another which probably works to my advantage from the standpoint of using my time wisely.  If a blogger does leave a comment on my site then I will visit their blog and usually leave a comment--that is, unless they've left a comment like the one that opened this post.  I don't want to rile anyone any more than they've already been riled.  If I do visit a blog and don't leave a comment then that would be highly unusual for me, but it would also mean that there was nothing for me to respond to--and this from a blogger who will typically even respond to a post about knitting or something that I don't do or know nothing about.

            And then there are those comments on my posts that seem genuine and intelligent to which I will leave thought out and often extensive replies which I don't know whether they have been seen or not because there is no further response from the blogger who left the original comment.   But more on that come Friday's post...



Battle of the Bands Results!

            My most recent Battle of the Bands contest featuring renditions of the classic Little Anthony and the Imperials song "Goin' Out of My Head" did not turn out quite like I expected.  I thought there was far more disco hate out there, but I guess when put up against an eccentric sounding La Lupe, disco rules. The Queen of Latin Soul in this match was no contest when put up against a queen of disco.

        It was kind of close deciding for me, but the disco string section wins me over more than percussive Latin horns, which I do have an affinity for though not enough to sway my vote in this match up.  And in agreement with most of you voting in this round, Gloria Gaynor's voice was more appealing than the--how do I put it?--the slightly kooky vocal styling of La Lupe.  I never really got on board with that "Disco Sucks" movement and I still enjoy hearing the danceable music that I don't normally dance to.  Sorry Lupe, you were kind of fun, but your version didn't have the appeal for me that Gloria did.

 Final Vote Tally

Gloria Gaynor     19

La Lupe               2

****************

Next Battle of the Bands on Wednesday March 1st

       My next Battle will be continuing on somewhat the same theme as this previous Battle with a bit of an international flair.   It's a well-known American artist's pop hit from the sixties that seemed to have caught the attention of the world with renditions coming from somewhat unexpected places.  It's another "crazy" tune that will tie in with my post that will appear on Monday February 27th.   Before that Monday post though, I'll try to push the envelope a bit more with an absurd post on Friday that might mostly bug some bloggers who might not see it.  But what the heck--I've started stirring the pot so I might as well finish the stew.

        Have any of my posts ticked you off a bit, but not enough to run you off yet?   Do you come back to a comment thread to see if a blogger has responded to a comment that you've left that has included questions?     I doubt whether you can do it, but would you like to venture a guess as to my next song choice for BOTB?

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Do You Prefer Anger?

Angry Penguin (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

          Memorial Day Monday was busier than I had expected seeing as how the response to my telemarketer post was better than I had expected.    Today starts where that post left off and if you didn't read my Monday post you can, but understanding today's post is not contingent upon reading that previous post.  That post was just a story about something that happened to me recently.  Today's post is the actual point I want to make--or at least the point I want to make until Friday's post.

          This world is filled with so much anger.   People seem to get ticked off over the most minor irrelevant things.  Most anger stems from impatience, misunderstanding, self-absorption, and unwillingness to listen carefully to what others are saying.

         Anger is a behavioral choice we make.  In most cases it is a spur of the moment, often irrational, reaction to some external stimulus.   Sometimes though, anger is an ongoing state of mind--it's the way certain people look at life and a condition of their own failings of self-acceptance.  Something may be lacking in their lives and rather than accept the responsibility of addressing the shortcomings within themselves they will direct their negativity outwardly.

        A specific example of this that I encountered recently came from a blogger who will remain nameless in this post.  A few of you know the story because you noticed the exchange in my comments or have seen similar exchanges in other blog comment sections.  Some of you may even have come here today expecting me to name this angry blogger and dish out some dirt.  Sorry, but I'm not interested in making enemies, but just to understand something about this type of anger in the world of blogging.  And besides, I might be totally wrong about what I have perceived.  

       To briefly recount an overview of the story, I had noticed an author blogger whose name I knew though I knew little about that blogger repeatedly attacking a blogger friend of mine ad nauseam in this latter blogger's comment section.  A rather vicious feud developed on both blogs.  Curious, I started investigating the author blogger and became intrigued.  This blogger had many published works listed and seemed to me to be a somewhat interesting person.  Since I had nothing against the author blogger I decided to engage in order to form a blogger friendship.

        This author blogger in turn left me a rather nasty unfriendly comment which suggested to me that he wanted nothing to do with me nor was he interested in having any sort of professional friendship.  That's fine because I already follow more blogs now than I can keep up with in an adequate manner.  I was just trying to be nice.  And I was genuinely interested in this person's background as a writer.

         The series of incidents involving this author blogger led me to wonder about anger in social media in the context of professional relationships and what makes us follow certain bloggers.   To take this to a broader scale my question becomes more of why we chose certain people to be our friends.

         Obviously, common interests and situational involvement have a great bearing on why we pick our friends.  When we have interests in the same or similar things then we have something to talk about and can share experiences involving those things.  In some cases we might befriend others because they live next door, work with us, or some other circumstance that brings us together even if we have little else in common.  Then there are those we just like for some undefinable reason.

        Perhaps similar to the way we develop preferences in the people we want to consider friends, we choose particular music, literature, movies, or whatever else it is that we like.  Specifically thinking of music--since this series is leading up to my Battle of the Bands post of Monday June 1st--favorite songs or music styles can have connections to certain people, places, events, or points in the space-time continuum.  Sometimes our preference is obvious and can be pinpointed while in other cases a preference just seems to happen without our specifically noticing why.

      In the case of friendships--or professional relationships of mutual benefit--the question I would want to answer is why someone would display belligerence or harbor an ongoing grudge toward anyone else without first making an attempt to resolve issues and smooth over the rocky places in the road as best as possible.   More specifically in the case of the angry blogger to whom I refer, how would a display of resentment toward me or anyone else make them look better?

        I try my best to be nice to others and not harbor grudges as best as I can.  Life's too short as is often said.   Anger and discontentment is emotionally and physically unhealthy.  When tempted to fall into an ongoing state of anger we should probably ask ourselves if this is a constructive state of mind for us to be in and does what we choose to feel, do, and say make the world a better place to be.  What exactly do we accomplish when we leave a trail of enemies and hurt feelings behind us?

       Sorry that I've rambled on so, but I try to maintain some degree of positive attitude in what is so often a very negative world.  When those doses of negativity infringe upon my attempt at keeping a peaceful state of mind, they can at times weigh so heavily upon me that I tend to fixate upon them.   Sometimes I will wake up in the wee morning hours pondering the garbage that makes our world a nastier meaner place and wonder what I can do to bring peace between feuding bloggers and any other unhappy folk within my realm of life.

        So if you want to belittle me, chide me, or unleash your attacks upon me then have at it.  I like to reason and discuss, but when you take combat stance then I probably won't be donning my sparring gloves to fight back.  And if you think you're being funny rather than vicious then maybe you need to put a smiley face behind your words.

         My apologies again as I had a rough night non-related to the issues here, but nevertheless related to blogging and complicated by other life issues weighing upon me.  Yeah, I feel like crap. This post is probably not what you were expecting and it was not exactly what I had planned.  For now I'm laying the groundwork for my next post which is supposed to be about preferences.  Or maybe it will be more related to making choices, but I suppose our choices have something to do with our preferences since our preferences are essentially choices.  Something like that.

          Do you think a blogger who is marketing product should respond negatively to the readers of his or her blog?  Should an author openly express disdain toward someone who has given their book a negative review?    Have you ever let loose on another blogger?     Do you think personally directed anger can help one's image?    Does it make you feel better to unleash anger on someone else and if so, how?

     

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I Pissed Someone Else Off

Orangutan in Aalborg Zoo, Denmark  (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

        Since this is a very low readership weekend, for today's post I've decided to go with a rant of sorts.  This will maybe not be so much a rant as it is a precursor to upcoming posts leading to my Battle of the Bands coming up next Monday June 1st.  And I won't even bother to rant about the passage of time.  June already?  Somebody must be stealing time from me.  But let me tell the story.

        Last week I received a call from "Microsoft Windows Technical Support" to tell me that they were receiving error messages from my computer that indicated that my system had been hacked.  I get these calls once or twice each year and I'm sure many of you have as well.  Hopefully you don't work with these people as they are scammers trying to gain access to your computer.

        My caller ID had indicated that the call was from "Private Caller" and since some of my family members often seem to show up like that on my display, I went ahead to answer to call.  After I was made aware of who the caller was I asked for her to give me the business name, the phone number, and the address where they were located thinking that this would cause her to terminate the call.  Instead she gave me everything I asked for including an address in California.  I was certain, judging from her accent, that she was most likely calling from a call center somewhere in India.

        Advice that I had read had suggested using the asking for info tactic in order to cause the caller to hang up, but now apparently the telemarketing firm had caught on to this and had the information ready for the callers to come back with to the person they were trying to dupe.  This is a logical psychological tactic since many people who were already scared about the news concerning their computer would be more open to providing a caller information that was being sought about their computer now that they knew who the caller was and where they were calling from.

         Not to fall for any of this scammer shenanigans I told the lady on the other end that I would do some of my own research relating to my computer and would be calling them back.  Of course, I had no intention of calling back and I figured that would be the end to these phone calls for another several months.  This time however I was to be surprised by another call the following day.

          This time the caller was a man with an Indian accent who started off with the same phone pitch as the lady from the previous day.  I cut him off saying, "Do you realize how ridiculous this call is?  How would you even know to call this number in the first place?   This is a scam!".

           The caller immediately hung up on me.  This time I figured the calls would be ending for sure.  However, the next day at about the same time a different Indian accented man called with same spiel as the callers from the previous two days.   Before this caller could even finish I started laughing loudly. The absurdity was now too much.  As I was laughing I could hear the caller's voice demanding to know why I was laughing.  I was so amused by this third call that I couldn't contain myself and continued laughing.

         I could hear the frustration in the caller's voice as he continued to probe me as to why I was laughing.  Finally, I said with great amusement in my voice, "This call is so stupid!  This is all a big scam!"

         Now the caller was furious with me.  "A scam?" he shouted.  "You think this is a scam?"

         The caller continued to ramble on with an angry defense of what he was doing and why I was being foolish not to pay attention to him.  Instead of continuing the discussion I firmly let him know I was very busy (and at that moment I had been) and was not interested in his call.  He was highly displeased with me, continuing to shout at me as I clicked the off button of my phone.

         I had obviously pissed the guy off.   It seems like I should have been the angry party, but the guy who called was doing all the yelling.   This has happened to me before, not often, but on a few rare occasions.  Once an angry telemarketer even called me back to yell at me more after I had needed to disconnect his initial tirade. The second time I calmly let him know he was being highly unprofessional and that I was going to be hanging up the phone, which is what I did.   That time there was a number on my caller ID that I called back to report the telemarketer to his supervisor, but no one answered the phone.

        I've done my share of telemarketing in my life and two things that I've learned is that sometimes there are people who are not interested in what I'm calling about even to the point that they might get angry and abusive and one thing a telemarketer should never do is be impolite or argue back.  Even though I disliked much about telemarketing, I always approached the job in a professional and respectful manner.

         Actually the reason I'm telling this telemarketer story is that there was another puzzling incident that happened to me.    Also last week, a blogger got angry at me, or perhaps he's just an angry sort of person and I happened to be the one there at the time for him to unleash his anger toward.   Having a telemarketer get angry, though inappropriate, might be understandable.   But in this business of blogging, fellow bloggers should be a bit more reasonable and not lash out at others who are just trying to engage in a friendly manner.

         Maybe I'm wrong about this so I want to get your opinion about what happened between me and another blogger.   However you'll have to wait until my next post to hear about this story.  I don't want to upset anyone with an overly long post, so please return on Wednesday.

         Have you ever received a "Microsoft Windows Tech Support" call?   What was your reaction to the call?   What would you do if a telemarketer began arguing with you in an angry tone of voice?   Have you ever done any telemarketing work?

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