All posts by J. A. Ludwig

Working hard to get my fill. Every day's a real big thrill. Writing anything to stay alive just one more time...But seriously, I work and then write when I can.
Log, Thinking Out Loud

Stans……?

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I need to write this down.

Okay, I’m 30 years old (as of the writing of this post) and I’d like to think I’m pretty up to date on most slang (obviously NOT all).

But we need to talk about this one word: Stans.

I put off actually looking up this word because I knew it was a new word for fan (like completely substituting the word), but I didn’t understand why? Why was this word chosen to be the new word for fan?

From my understanding it’s another word for obsessed fans. Okay. Fine. But what bothers me is that apparently the origination of this word is from the Eminem song “Stan”……..

I have a problem with this. That song IS about an obsessed fan. Fair. BUT! It’s not something to be celebrated. And I know people are thinking “It’s just a word, it’s not a big deal. Don’t be overdramatic.”

Well, shoot, you’re right. I’m overreacting in my old age. (This is sarcasm, BTW)

It’s perfectly normal to idolize your heroes and celebrities. I do, too. That’s not the issue. The issue is the subject matter of the song being taken lightly or celebrated as normal. Eminem wrote that song for a specific reason, to warn against being a Stan, to warn against becoming too blinded by your idols and your love for them…to becoming too OBSESSED.

Here’s two sections from the song I think are important. The first bit is from the perspective of Stan:

“And all I wanted was a lousy letter or a call
I hope you know I ripped all of your pictures off the wall
I love you Slim, we coulda been together, think about it
You ruined it now, I hope you can’t sleep and you dream about it
And when you dream I hope you can’t sleep and you scream about it
I hope your conscience eats at you and you can’t breathe without me”

This bit is from the perspective of Eminem:

“Before you hurt yourself, I think that you’ll be doin’ just fine
If you relax a little, I’m glad I inspire you but Stan
Why are you so mad? Try to understand, that I do want you as a fan
I just don’t want you to do some crazy shit”

I kept out the part where Stan talks about his pregnant girlfriend in the trunk of the car and his driving while drunk. Spoilers: Stan drives the car off a bridge killing himself and his pregnant girlfriend. Why? Because Eminem didn’t give his fan enough attention. Because Stan was obsessed with Eminem.

I was in middle school when this song came out and like everyone my age, I loved this song (against my parents’ wishes of course). I was an Eminem fan. For those of you surprised by this, shame on you. I like all genres of music.

Did I truly understand what the song was about? A little, but it was the time before social media. Obsessive fans existed, but weren’t as celebrated/public as they are now. Also, I was eleven so even if I knew every word to the song, it didn’t really click in my brain the truth of it.

It wasn’t as easy to stalk your idols back then (back then? HAH). It wasn’t as easy to know every little detail about your idols.

Anybut, HERE IS THE PROBLEM!

Social media has allowed fans to get closer than ever to their idols, their heroes, or the people who inspire them. I’M NOT KNOCKING SOCIAL MEDIA…..yet. But this new idea of ravenous fans feeling…and I HATE using this word…entitled to the subject of their love is becoming dangerous.

But there have always been ravenous fans. That’s not something new. Remember Beatlemania? Boy bands during the early 2000s? Bieber Fever?

Okay, that last one is considered part of the social media machine. Also, how dare you assume I was alive during Beatlemania.

But does that excuse the behavior of those fans? No. Beatlemania was crazy, sure, but I feel like…the more accessible celebrities (and yes, I’m including social media celebrities in this, too) become the more entitlement fans feel.

Celebrating being a “Stan” is so alien to me. Mostly because it’s coming from a generation where the song wasn’t new, wasn’t popular (not to say it isn’t popular now, but it isn’t new). I don’t think they truly understand what it means, the warnings in the song.

And maybe they do! I don’t know. I know none of my close friends know the term, but they remember that song. If nothing else, they remember the music video which if you haven’t seen it…see it. It’s rough.

Okay, that’s the end of my rant. My old person rant….ha.

Log, Thinking Out Loud

Say My Name Again

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Do you ever hear your name and just think…ugh.

I don’t mean when people you know say your name or your family call you. I’m talking about when you hear your name on TV or maybe your favorite celebrity says your name.

Does that make sense? Am I making sense? Probably not….

I mean, personally, I kind of don’t like the sound of my name. Full or nickname. I kind of like going through life with people not saying my name. When someone calls me by my name I kind of get a little slap back to reality like “oh, yeah, that is my name”. It almost kind of resets that moment in time.

It’s not that I don’t like my name….I do….I just don’t like the sound of it. I’ll be watching videos on YouTube or binging something on Netflix/Hulu when all of the sudden someone says my name. My immediate reaction is: “Huh, that’s what it would sound like if that person was talking to me.” My second reaction is: “Ugh, those sounds are weird together.”

………….

It’s kind of how I can’t relate to characters with my name. I immediately get uncomfortable watching cause I keep cringing when other characters say the name.

Course, maybe it’s also because my name is so close sounding to other names. There’s constant confusion in the real world. At my work, there’s a guy with a French name (but he’s from Canada) and when people say it fast it sounds like my name.

I also don’t like my coworkers calling me by my full first name. It sounds so………grown up…I mean, I’m grown up, but it sounds too grown up.

LET ME STAY YOUNG DAMMIT!!!

…………………

Anybut, maybe I’m just a weirdo who doesn’t like the sound of my name. But I also like my name. Oh well.

Log, THAT House

THAT House Pt. 2

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Another house story.

The first neighborhood from Indiana I lived in was a nice street with a few cul-de-sacs branching off. Down one you drove past there was:

The Library House.

We called it that for two reasons: 1) it was a large house and 2) it looked like one of our local libraries.

I always imagined the people who lived in it would sit in a private library in their drinking robes, shooting back some old-fashions or smoking cuban cigars….I didn’t have a unique imagination outside of movies and books back then.

Spoiler alert: the people who lived there were nothing like that, but every Halloween they always gave out the best candy and even juice boxes so kids wouldn’t get dehydrated running around.

And they did some of the best decorations, too.

Not much else to say only because I feel like a nice, easy story was better following the Pimp House. Missed it? Read ALL about it here.

Cat Tales Woo-oo, Log

Naked Cat Pics

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My mom hates sphinx cats.

Okay, she doesn’t HATE them, but she doesn’t like looking at them. I on the other hand find them adorable and hilarious. I’ve on occasion threatened to shave our cats to prove cats are cute naked.

Not really. But I have collected a backlog of photos from the internet to send my mom whenever I need a laugh.

Ex. 1 (The Beginning: it started innocently enough)

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Ex. 2 (started to get weird)

 

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Ex. 3-9 (got suuuuuper weird)

 

 

Finally Ex. 10-11 (I won her over)

 

 

Course, then I shared this with my friends………..and they didn’t seem to find it as funny as me…………so I showed them the error of their ways with a special Halloween treat:

 

 

Bottom line:

Sphynx cats are THE BEST!!

Log, Thinking Out Loud

Ding Dong Damn It

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The return of the self censor.

I got a little frustrated with something I was working on the other day and this gem slipped out of my mouth:

Ding Dong Damn It.

My dad happened to overhear me yell this and felt it necessary to inform me that it was a “Girl Curse”.

And I thought to myself…why?

Because it sounded cute? Because no man would be caught dead saying “ding dong”? Because I, a girl, said it?

If I’d said my usual curse would that have been a boy curse? (for those wondering my usual curse is Mother F***er God Damn It!!)

Look, I’m all for equality. Which means I’ll curse like a boy whenever I want. But I can’t control my brain when it decides, oh no this is the time to censor ourselves. I DIDN’T EVEN REALLY CENSOR MYSELF! I STILL SAID DAMN, DAMMIT!!

Anybut, just thought I’d share this.

Cause the other post I started writing (and left as a draft) was too much of a downer. Not that you’ll ever see it/I haven’t decided if I’ll ever post it.

Log, Our House

Howls of the Damned

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I’ve mentioned this before, but I don’t sleep well.

I mean I sleep, but I go through periods where I can’t get to sleep earlier than 3 am…or in the case of this post, 4 am.

4 am, the witching hour…okay, not really, but that’s when everything seems to happen around here. (If you don’t know what I’m talking about check out my Wake Up Call post for some background)

Let me set the scene:

My cat is sleeping at the foot of my bed. I’m not sleeping very well. I’m in that asleep, but conscious of the room state. I’d been stuck in this state since about 3:30 (I hadn’t been able to shut my brain down enough to try to sleep all night).

Anybut, 4 am, I hear a scream from outside. Now it reminds me of a drunk man whoo-hooing, but it’s a bit too high pitched and it’s a constant repeating “scream”. After a good two minutes, my cat lifts her head up and I know it’s not a person.

I grab my glasses and crawl out of bed. I look out my bedroom window, but can’t see anything. All the while the cries (cause surely they’re sounding more like cries now) continue. I walk into another room facing the golf course across the street from my house (not a fancy golf course I assure you) and I see a small shape standing just out of the light of the streetlamp.

A mother flipping coyote, still howling, has “woken” me up from my awful sleep. It keeps crying and of course I’m thinking no one will believe me. So I run to my room and grab my phone (like the good little millenial I am). I turn on the camera and….the fart knuckle shuts up!

I kid you not, the second I hit record that son (or daughter) of a bitch shuts the hell up!

Sorry for the crap video, but it was 4 am.

It wanders a little, lies down for a spell, cleans its teeth on the fence and then disappears out fo the circle of light further onto the golf course. Probably off to find any dog left out over night.

I hope not, but coyotes are (in my best David Attenborough impression) opportunity hunters.

My cat has left the bed to find warmer pastures and now I’m stuck awake at 4L30 in the morning with my right foot aching and my left leg spasming (explanation of that fun part of my life in a post to come)…fuck me.

Here’s a slightly okay image of the bastard:

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Log, THAT House

THAT House Pt. 1

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Is it an unwritten rule that every neighborhood has to have THAT house?

The enigma house. The house everyone has a nickname for or the house with a crazy urban legend story that really isn’t that crazy, but then there’s the house where the urban legend turns out to be true.

I live in California now, but I also lived in two different neighborhoods in Indiana. Everywhere I’ve lived there have been THAT house(s?). I can’t cover all of them in one post so this will become a series. Between other posts of course.

But which house to start with? There are so many options…

…I know what house to start with.

And it’s kind of cheating because I didn’t live in the neighborhood of this house, but EVERYONE at my school knew about this house.

It had three different names, depending on how old or innocent you were. The first name was the ugly house. Not very descriptive, but if a kid in your class asked about the ugly house you knew exactly what house they were talking about. (I personally called it the dolphin house, which I will explain later).

Its second name? The pimp house.

…………………

Have you let that name roll around in your brain? Good. What would you imagine a house middle school to high school aged children called the pimp house (or ugly house) looked like?

Well, you’re wrong….unless you’re from Indiana….then you know EXACTLY what the house I’m talking about looks like.

And it’s not a joke. The guy who owned the house was a pimp (at one time, then he got into “construction” uh-huh sure)! Don’t believe me? Here’s the Daily Mail (yes, even ENGLAND knew about the pimp house or “mansion” as they call it) talking about it! But for a more detailed (and more photographic) article about the house click here. (This will take you to an IndyStar article)

I could go into its history but I could never do it justice like the articles above.

Wait, you said there were three names. What’s the third one?

……the naked house. Yes, us innocent children called it, a PIMP house, the naked house. For those of you not connecting the dots…first off, congratulations on your innocence (I lost that long ago…not because of the pimp house). The story (because of course no one knew who actually saw this happen so it became a story) is that you could see naked women walking through the house all the time.

For reference here is a photo of the house (this was all we ever saw of the infamous building):

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And now you see why I called it the dolphin house. That fountain has a number of dolphins on it. Oh, and also how easy it would’ve been for anyone to see a naked woman walking past those huge windows. ANYBUT!

This house became legendary to my middle and high schools which were both located only a measly (and I shit you not!) 6 MINUTES AWAY!!

This house was 3 miles from middle school and high school students and it was legen…wait for it….DARY!!!

 

 

P.S. – I know this house had its social media moment back in 2017 and it thrilled me. This secret that was a tall tale among me and my peers finally got the attention it deserved. HOWEVER! There is nothing like being part of the generation (before social media) who passed on the stories of the ugly, naked, (dolphin) pimp house.

P.P.S – It’s still for sale if anyone’s interested. And it’s been lowered from $1.7 million to just under $1 million. A real steal.

P.P.P.S – there was also a period of time when everyone thought the owner of the house was a drug lord or mafia boss because nothing exciting ever happens in Indiana…at least, not back then. It was actually a little disappointing when we finally learned for a fact it was a former pimp who lived there…but only a little.

Log, Thinking Out Loud

PB & Torture Part 2

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So I still haven’t found any cartoon that resembles the one from my previous post on this topic (check it out here if you missed it).

BUT I remembered another Got Milk? commercial that always kind of rubbed me the wrong way.

It’s a scene of a family in the hospital and the father tells his daughter to share a cookie with the man in another hospital bed. The man is in a full body cast.

The daughter goes over to the man and shoves a cookie in his mouth. He munches happily, but the family starts pouring milk in glasses and they don’t offer any to the full body cast guy.

He’s trying to get their attention and bouncing around, but they ignore him.

The ANIMALS!

How rude to give someone food and not offer a drink after!

—          —          —

Alright UPDATE: I just took a minute to look up the commercial with the hospital and got sucked down a rabbit hole of old Got Milk commercials and I have to get this off my chest.

The Oreo commercial was the best. I don’t know why, but it made me laugh…and scare my sleeping cat, but because of the laughter. Look it up. I don’t want to take anything away from its beauty.

Cat Tales Woo-oo, Log

Keep Calm and Have a Kitten

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I play video games…a lot.

A shock, I know, a millennial who plays a lot of video games. The only way it could be more stereotypical would be if I had a YouTube Gaming channel (or Twitch…Twitch is a thing, right?….I’m not a very good millennial).

As a purveyor of video games I have on occasion engaged in gamer rage. Getting stuck on a level and playing it over and over without getting further into the game. A game control causing the game to be nearly unplayable.

Or for the importance of this anecdote, difficult boss fights.

“What does this have to do with kittens? I came here for the kitten. WHERE IS THE KITTEN?”

Calm down pretend reader in my head and I’ll tie the title of this post with the story of my game addiction*.

*I do not endorse the idea of gaming addiction as a joke. Because if gambling can be an addiction than gaming can as well as both release endorphins hence the continuation of participating in these activities….as one does with drugs or alcohol…but arguably a less deadly addiction. Sex addiction is pushing the line a bit. BUT THIS POST ISN’T ABOUT ADDICTIONS! BACK TO THE KITTEN!

Christmas came and went and I received a number of presents. Books I requested (a large number of essay books), a recipe box with new cards, some things for work, and video games.

One in particular I was excited for: God of War.

For those of you who have played the new God of War probably already know exactly what boss I am referring to and for those who have no idea what I’m talking about…it wasn’t the final boss of the game like you’d probably expect.

I went into a harsh rage fighting the Valkyrie Queen.

For those who’ve played the game, here is some context:

I was Level 9, I found all the apples (full health upgrade), upgraded my axe, blades, and the shattered Gauntlet of Ages (I don’t remember what combat runes at this moment), fully upgraded the Ivaldi armor set, upgraded Atreus and assigned Wrath of the Wolf runic summon, and brought the best resurrection stone with me.

But even with all this, that flying bitch was the most frustrating thing in the entire game. I mean, I LOVE this game. The mechanics and controls are superb. The story is one of the best in a long time.

But Sigrun, the Valkyrie Queen….oooooooh, I’m getting angry thinking about it.

I think I’d attempted to beat her for possibly two hours before the anger became that kind of anger where you start talking to no one in particular, but every other word out of your mouth is the F-word or some other insult. Also, the pitch and volume of my voice had reached bellowing mouse.

Anyway, my kitten, Midna ran into the room and meowed. Now this may seem inconsequential, but Midna so rarely meowed we initially thought she couldn’t. She put her two front paws on my leg, but I was so focused on the flying bitch on the screen I simply, and rather calmly, told her “Not now, Midna.”

So she jumped onto my bed which I was leaning against and put her front paws on the top of my head and meowed again.

She was upset and didn’t like hearing me so angry so she came in to calm me down. She was trying to stop me from playing the thing making me angry.

I died for the (over) fiftieth time. I paused the game and picked her up. I laid on the floor with her on top of me. She refused to move so I couldn’t play again and laid down on my chest. She purred to calm me down.

It worked. I calmed down, she left with her job done and I attempted to fight Sigrun again.

Two tries.

It took me two tries and then I beat her after my kitten calmed me down. If Midna didn’t like me yelling angrily, she didn’t really know how to react to the crying cheers of relief.

And that’s the story of how my kitten helped me beat the hardest boss in God of War.

Log, Thinking Out Loud

PB & Torture

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I have this very vivid memory of a cartoon character eating a peanut butter sandwich and another character with a glass of milk.

This other character refuses to give the first character the glass of milk unless the first character answers a question? Or does something for him? I can’t remember the details.

AND IT’S KILLING ME!!!

I REMEMBER this scene sooooo vividly, but I can’t find it!

This also reminded me of the old Got Milk? commercial with the guy enjoying his sandwich and then getting a phone call to win money with the correct answer to a question. But the caller can’t understand him because of the peanut butter sandwich in his mouth and he’s OUT OF MILK!!!*

* I did find this commercial and the guy was an Alexander Hamilton historian? Fan? Something, but the question was who shot Alexander Hamilton. The answer of course being Aaron Burr. (There’s a great remake of the commercial with Leslie Odom, Jr. who played Aaron Burr in the musical Hamilton. You should check it out)

Anybut, I bring this up A) because I’m sitting here eating peanut butter and B) those kinds of things always upset me as a kid. I always hated a character (whether good or even bad) making that pathetic sound. You know the awww sound that’s the pitch of a mewling kitten or whining puppy.

P.S. – If anyone knows what that cartoon scene is from…PLEASE RELEASE ME FROM THIS NIGHTMARE!