Thank Christ for an(other) adult board

I know, right? 😂

Wow Kay! I had no idea this happened. I know there have been a bunch of suspensions over the last few months, which, although it didn't happen to me, made me think we were all back in the classroom.

I'll try and answer this one. It'll be a lengthy reply, but hopefully it's engaging.

The place has been on a downward swing for a while now. It lost the charm I felt it had from 2016 to late 2018 (or even earlier for many I imagine), and it just never felt like it was going to improve.

Sometime last year (was it last year?) the mods banned political talk, as there's a bunch of contrasting political opinions on there - which, I've gotta say is really odd on a Bruce Springsteen forum, but never mind - and people had been arguing and saying nasty stuff for a long time. The mods tried to keep it civil while maintaining the politics forum, but ultimately it was easier for them to shut talk down.

Here's where the problems arose: Doing that censored a lot of people from expressing themselves and saying what was on their mind. Yeah, it's a Bruce Springsteen forum and that's what I was there for, but sometimes people just want to talk about the real world, and there's so much random, trivial stuff you can talk about before it gets boring. Given that there's a lot of very important socio-political matters going on, for adults to not be able to talk about any of them is, in a word, baffling.

Regardless of this, several posters continued to post the odd political comment, and for that they were reprimanded by the mods. Some, such as Kay, decided there was no point in hanging around, while others, such as Jerseyfornia, were warned and subsequently banned for posting political thoughts and then giving their thoughts about the mods' warnings. I believe one mod would remove political posts, but leave his or hers up - "so hypocritical".

When posters whose posts you really enjoy reading leave or are banned, you start to get very disillusioned at the direction of a forum, and when Jerseyfornia pulled a Snake Plissken-like move and broke in on Saturday to properly say goodbye, it rekindled the good days we used to have on the forum. There was also a lot of annoyance when the mods wiped that thread and most of his others - 100% of which contained incredibly thoughtful pieces of writing. That led to a lot of us wanting out, or at the very least just some communication from the higher ups to put our minds at ease (or something like that). What was got was a locked PSA thread that we couldn't reply to, where we were reminded that we're not allowed to discuss moderator decisions on the forum and to, "like it or leave".

We left, and the rest is hysterical- I mean history!

Hope this helps 🙂

@Mario Brega Thanks for the low down Mario. That's a damn shame. I started my Bruce blogging on GL and then gradually moved to BTX, where I still post a lot to this day. Hadn't been on GL in a while anyway, but met some good people there.

Hope he's doing well.

This place has been mint so far, but if we could get Calvo posting again, man that would skyrocket the quality of this forum even higher!

@SteveInJoburg I had a fewPM exchanges with him over the years but don't think I ever got an email for him.

Hadn't gone anywhere really, just can't physically bring myself to partake in that other forum as an adult wherein another adult tries to tell me in the middle of a thread how to freakin' post, I finished kindygarten centuries ago Ann!

@Kay Super happy you are here.

Señora is there anything I can do ?

@SteveInJoburg Cool story, another one I've never seen, would love to see her in an intimate setting - recently saw a clip of her singing Tom's Diner accapella, forgot about that gem too.

I've seen her twice: once in a really small wine bar on the campus of UCSD, and once somewhere else in San Diego, both times with the outstanding Gerry Leonard on guitar. The second time was my kid's birthday present—SV has long been one of her very favorite artists. Suzanne was taking photos afterwards and she got a picture with her...but it was before I had a smartphone, so I didn't get a copy, and although they posted some of the photos on her site later, my kid's wasn't one of them. :( Great shows anyway, of course. :)

I've not stopped listening to this beautiful mutha of a song MagicRat, this is something so truly special, now I can hear comparisons some of my friends have made to my beloved Amelia Curran, another folkie so full of depth you wouldn't think things could get that deep.

What's funny is that when I was doing my Vega spinning I was also thinking that if she were releasing songs today such as In Liverpool, Book of Dreams or even Marlene on the Wall, I don't think radio would touch her like they did back in the day, so she might fly under my radar today if I were relying on mainstream radio to deliver my quality music.

Weird in a way when you think how progressive in a sense radio used to be, when I heard Left of Center the other day it was on community radio where they can spin what they like.

Just to confuse you further, my name really is Kay! 🤣

@Mavis Grind Obviously this site will take me some time to navigate but I just saw this now, when I saw your name I immediately thought of Mavis Staples, but you ain't Mavis Staples, you Mavis Grind --diggin' the name Mavis totally.

@Kay Mavis Grind is a place

But it's such a good name for an alter ego 😁