Introduce yourself to the forum! | Page 224 | Fab Forum | The Beatles Bible

I’ve just found this, even tho I registered back in September. I’ve never been in any forum before so excuse me if I get confused pretty often.

My name is Julian (yeah I know), I turned eighteen three days ago. I’m Argentinian, I speak Spanish mainly. I learned English back in school and (oddly enough) watching Smosh a lot when I was a toddler. So my English is pretty sketchy. Not that I can’t formulate sentences, but I mostly speak in a British accent yet once in a while I use American expressions. I’m currently working actually as en English translator. Now with the coronavirus issue in Argentina we are to stay at home by law, otherwise we’ll be arrested, which is an approach I agree with (I don’t really know how this works in other countries, I understand in America not every state has obligatory isolation). Well, the point is lately I’ve had more work than ever, considering I already work at home, and now there’s a lot more to translate, including documents on this very issue, socially and economically.

I’m mostly a film enthusiast, I own a humble collection of DVDs that I am very proud of nontheless, even if it’s not that big. I’ve been collecting since I was I think twelve and I currently own more than 250 films, with the amount of DVD cases circulating around that number (because of old double features).

Two years ago approximately, with this interest films spark in pop culture, of course I started to investigate what music/album culture had to offer. I love that kind of stuff, as I assume most of you do too. When I was young (so much younger than today), say eight years old, I used to listen to Michael Jackson and I owned every album by him. I used to worship the guy (which now in hindsight feels kind of creepy), I used to dance like him and dress like him and stuff. Then I went to a dark phase of dubstep, I just got inducted into that ten year old atheist Minecraft culture, even if it wasn’t good at doing any of those things.

It was with films that I started to sharpen my tastes even if nowadays I’m still finding out very basic stuff. Like, just last week I discovered Gil-Scott Heron, so imagine how much I still have to learn.

I smoke pot. It is a pretty important part in my life given I love consuming artistic culture high, such as music and movies. Generally I prefer to experience things sober first tho, out of respect. But after many listens, Revolver is still one of my favourite high albums. I wanted to create a thread on marijuana and music on All Together Now but I can’t and I don’t know why (maybe is a moderator thing).

I got into the Beatles as the first musical act I was experimenting with. I knew they where huge, and after I saw A Hard Day’s Night I knew I had to listen to music more. They were the second discography I ever went through fully (apart from MJ). I’ve fallen in love ever since. Even after listening to dozens of albums, I still am in awe of them. No progressive jazz/rock/metal or conscious hip hop album has made me forget how original and groundbreaking they were. Also how much personality they hold over almost any other band or artist I’ve ever come across with. Their charisma is a grand part of their enjoyability to me. And their progression of albums is one of the most interesting in music history.

I also love Bob Dylan, and I took my profile pic a year ago with some friends when I bought that scarf and I thought it would be a good idea to imitate the cover of Blonde on Blonde, even tho that is particularly not one my favourites of his, I just really love the shaky cover of Bob Dylan’s face, is so iconic.

I’m left-handed, straight, and I always wanted to write films, I even have half-written scripts that never went anywhere. Argentina isn’t the place to try a film career, I would add as well, so I don’t know how much hope I have for that.

Since I was young I always made videos that I would upload to YouTube, then erase because I thought they weren’t good enough. I never care for having followers, I just wanted to impressing my friends with my mad editing skills I’m joking of course, I’m an average editor.

I have a Mac that I foolishly bought when I was younger, but I have to say with time Final Cut Pro and GarageBand really grew as my favourite programs ever and I love experimenting with them. I’ve tried making music since I’m a decent piano player, and I love studio albums, but I never took the initiative to actually sit and write an album. I’m a terrible singer so any music I ever made was instrumental, mostly jazz and jazz “fusion” (which I put in quotes because my songs don’t make justice to the genre, which is probably one of my favourites [also, I wanted to start a Jazz thread on All Together now but as I said before, I can’t]). I started making my first album a couple of weeks ago at last, given the isolation, and I have to say it’s going really well, but I’m very insecure about publishing it so I don’t know if I’ll ever finish it, I can only hope. Of course if I do I will share in the respective thread.

Some of my favourite artists apart from the Beatles include Miles Davis, Zappa, Pink Floyd, Weather Report, Zeppelin, Bob Dylan of course, David Bowie (probably my favourite solo artist), Herbie Hancock, and yes, Kanye (because there seems to be a kind of rivalry between Beatles fans and Kanye fans lol), also Tyler and Kendrick I love as well.

I’m one of those that discovered Fantano a year ago or so, and I follow his channel. I don’t like saying this to people because they usually accuse me of not having my own opinion but I don’t agree, I don’t follow him for that, I just like how the guy explains his thoughts, and it helps me realize what I like better and really explain my opinion not only on music, but on any type of art, even if I usually disagree with him. Pitchfork though I tend to agree with, I don’t know why, they just get me. But Fantano helped me to get out of my boomer phase and introduced me to a lot of music. So thanks to him I’ve grown more versatile.

I’m trying to get into this forum, since is the kind of conversations I’m interested in having, now more than ever, given that the only person that knows more than I do of music I can’t currently see and I can’t just start a WhatsApp conversation about “which Beatles album is the most indian-influenced” (it’s Pepper of course ). Maybe you’ll see me around, cheers.

It’s almost 4:20, gotta run.

@lovelyritametermaid you’re very kind, thank you for welcoming me. I’m only a Spanish-English translator, I am clueless as to other idioms, just to clarify. I hope seeing you around and I’ll try to find your introduction to the forum and read it, if you have one. A pleasure

@vonbontee thanks for the kind words. Just because you’re so nice I’ll give Coltrane another try. I haven’t listen to him in a while. If you want to help me tell me what favourite Coltrane albums/performances would you recommend the most and why, I’d love hearing about it, and take for granted I’ll give it a look.

Thanks guys for so much to read!

@Von Bontee That’s pretty wild what happened to @TT454 , wish I had been there to reply. Even if it was written in a time where I didn’t consumed, or knew nothing about the Beatles. But I kind of feel for the guy, he grew up in a world that condemned drugs only to find out his favourite band were also from the “bad team”. For the record, I’m not into any other drugs. I took LSD once, but it’s just too freaky for me, I’m not planning in trying it any time soon. I tried it because I read it was not addictive on its original form, so I made sure that whatever I was taking wasn’t mixed with any other s**t, and it wasn’t for me but for different reasons. Anything severely addictive is not for me (that is coke and heroin and stuff), that has to do with a personal experience I had with a friend of mine that to this day struggles with hard addictions and I’ve been trying to encourage him to get help for months now, and he realizes how bad it is, which is a good thing. It just depends on where do you personally draw your own line. It hasn’t changed my mind on weed not even a bit, because I believe it’s inherently different. I’ve always drawn my line at addiction, and I’ve followed it pretty straight. If there’s a chance I’m gonna get hooked without knowing it, I’m not comfortable. You can get addicted to pot, but it’s no different from getting addicted to sugar or pizza, you know, your body just likes the experience a lot. Hard drugs are just way more dangerous. I don’t for example condone at all John’s overuse of medication, cocaine and heroin, that to me is a serious illness.

I don’t know how it works in other countries or communities but in the world I grew up in pot is very separated from other drugs, it isn’t treated the same. Someone that does hard drugs is immediately rejected from the marijuana consumers, to us pot is like alcohol (not even as bad as alcohol, given it’s less addictive and you’re technically more functional high than drunk [not that anyone should abuse that quality, stay safe]). The only uncomfortable thing about pot is that it’s illegal, outside of that, it’s just not that harmful of a drug, compared to the drugs that ARE legal. My recommendation to anyone that hasn’t taken drugs and doesn’t approve of them or is considering taking them is to really read about the subject, that way they realize what they prefer or if it’s a good choice at all. It also help when not being so judgmental to recreational users. To me, it’s not a problem as long as you know what the consequences can be and you manage it cleanly. When it comes to pot or old-school LSD (that means no pills), it isn’t strictly addictive, then there’s hard drugs, that can ruin you fast, and then there’s cigarettes and alcohol, that can ruin you slowly. My defense for legalization is that it really proposes the question “why is alcohol and cigarettes legal?”, if they influence your body and damage it just as much as marijuana does. And if it is legalized, then it would be less strong, which I think it’s a good thing, given pot is unnecessarily strong in its effects these days. It doesn’t damage your body more, it just make the trips harder, like I can handle it, but people who are new to the drug might have bad experiences because of it. I say all of this here because I don’t want to come off as just a drug addict edgy dude posting in a Beatles forum, like I really take addiction seriously, and whatever marijuana I take I administer very thoroughly, I exercise regularly to not get any lung worries, and I try not to smoke in front of non users because I consider it disrespectful. I’d give all of this tips to any other user as well. I also post this here because that thread seems to be long gone anyways. I’ll see if I can repost this two paragraphs in a particular thread as well.

@Ahhh Girl you know, I just read what you shared about Joe’s book and I’m really interested. I’m strongly considering buying it once this coronavirus eases.

Anyways, thanks for the warm welcome everybody, I’ll be checking those other links up in the next few days for sure!