Stunderman's blog: "Latest Ramblings"

Christian Sunder·January 27Owner at Sunrise Archives (2002–present)Many wonderful answers here-DONT DO IT, is the best advice.

Often times in my experience people like this are arguing from force of personality. Even going so far as to set you up to fail by casually bringing up a trivial point they have already “proven” to someone else and “nailing you”. There is no winning when you best a fool…You can't help but feel sorry for them especially if they are so rigid they can't or wont change.
I grew up with manipulators. I see the word “Narcissist” thrown around too much here on Quora. There is no love or understanding in using the strongest label you can find in dismissing a situational noun (Person, Place or thing) where you could truly learn something to empower yourself and others. I'm not just talking about “winning an argument” with someone suffering from the need to be right all the time.
Honesty is the best policy. Knowing your own self and accepting that we are human and we are never going to be perfect is the first step towards accepting our shortcomings. With a humble approach and a tiny bit of faith in the truth? You can move mountains.
Tell ya a Lil story. ( My “Narcissism” is kicking in here tee hee) You’ll love this…
Back in the 80’s before the internet, I was a bright energetic enthusiastic kid whose number one ambition in life was to become a famous performer. Wasn't sure in what field though-Being a spray hitter in the arts and not caring if I made an ass of myself(too badly lol) I went out and did theatre. Dabbled in stand up comedy, but the biggest rush I got was making music. It was also my biggest frustration.
You must understand artists are some of the most insecure people on this planet. You worry and fret about perfectionism sometimes to the point of insanity. It causes you to do and say things that you never dreamed possible or would admit. This insecurity isn't recognized for what it is when you are young and naive so you hide it for fear of being ridiculed as “weak” This is a carryover from childhood-everyone remembers the stupid things we fought about as kids-” Mighty mouse is Stronger than Superman!” No, he’s just a CARTOON! SUPERMAN is a real GUY!” That sort of thing…
In a fledgling band of late teen-early twenties kind of guys though? The arguments are more sophisticated but just as lame. When you get four or five guys with this same kind of mindset who hang out over a long period of time? Unless you have a strong camaraderie it usually ends in disaster-especially if you are dabbling in drugs and alcohol.
I played with some amazing young talents. My singing was always going to be better than my playing so I stuck to being a frontman. I'd be critical and demanding of my mates when something was screwed up and get it back just as badly. When I play guitar (I'm terrible really) Id play with a lot of echo and crank it up loud so the distortion hides my sloppy chord changes. Sounds cool to the untrained ear but its cannon fodder in an argument with a guitarist who thinks he is the second coming of Jimmy Page (And a good guitarist has to feel this way-anyone who is good at what they do takes pride in their work)
I played with one fellow(I'll call him Ronnie) for a brief time who was every bit of an asshole as he was just awesome on the strings. His idol was Carlos Santana and he not only copied him note for note he added his own “Carlo’esque” touches to his playing-He was an amazing talent-but that same talent for music was counterbalanced with a need to be right all the time. When he was feeling particularly moody he would goad someone into an argument over the most ridiculous premise even upping it to blows if he could. The problem was he was so skinny and frail and sickly you didn't dare punch his lights out-and he used that to his advantage.
We were doing lots of cover tunes-As I said this was the days before the internet so unless you had an album sleeve or a reference book lyrics were hard to come by. So you listened to a song with mushy words you couldn't understand and did your best. There are tunes I loved and still do, but thanks to the internet I was able to go back and scratch many an itch “NOW! WTF were they SAYING?!?”(Steven Tyler’s enunciation drove me crazy and I went years never truly singing “Walk This Way” like it was written!!) So Id start out “Backdoor lover goin hidin neath da cover till talk to ya bout it ya say-Said nay! Seen Nuthin dilly Dallin on da muffin is goin lead ya to changing your ways-” WRONG!!! I knew it then but for the life of me we could never figure it out no matter how SLOW we ran the record. However, it was always a highlight of our little gig. Years later when I got ahold of the lyrics I was “AH!!! Yes!” it was very gratifying to me-but back then-it was cannon fodder for Ronnie Righness….
Ronnie didn't care too awful much about tuning as long as it was loud. I key my vocals off the rhythm guitar and If I can't hear myself I'm screwed. This isn't the RONNIE show ok? In the name of a tight sound tune it up and turn it down! He would retaliate to this affront to his dignity indignity by dismissing me as “Just another singer-anyone can sing-but to play guitar-that takes REAL skill” and Id fire back about how he is still a jerk off and I'm the one who gets laid ha ha-Then it would escalate in being RIGHT in my lyrics and force of personality would take over. one song we did said “I said hey baby! Your crib or mine? no….Its “Your Criminal mind”-I have that album at home and its on the inner sleeve. (which he would never produce in person).
He came in with a tune and demanded we all learn it. This was Carlos Santana at his best and he was tired of this top 40 ACDC Van Halen Ted Neugent crap all the time. That wasn't all we played-in fact we had a keyboardist that was really stretching out and in turn stretched the band. I was happy to dabble in some good Rush and Supertramp tunes(Despite Ronnie being an overbearing prick). The instant he played it for us I recognized the song. I kept my mouth shut. I wasn't in the mood for another “my Dick Is bigger than yours contest and Ill prove it so long as you go by the metric system-Ill use standard American.”
Anyway despite that and my suspicion Ronnie was challenging our abilities with the sophistication of this tune I eagerly agreed and helped the drummer and our bass player with the rhythm. I don't think Ronnie cared so much about that then he did to hassle me about the lyrics and drawing his solos out so long it would have eaten up all our set time. The first time we played this tune for a backyard party(We nailed it beautifully) my best buddy came up to us as we were taking a break from our first set-All hell broke loose.. As it unfolded I was behind Ronnie with wild eyes shaking my head at my bro as if to say :SHHH!! NOO!! Shut UP!!”
“Damn man that was BADASS! Do you know anymore Steely Dan?” Mark says enthusiastically and Ronnie swigging a beer turns on him puzzled” Huh? “ and I'm waving my arms to get Mark's attention “NO!! SHUT UP YOU DONT KNOW WHAT YOU'RE DOING!!!”“
”Yeah you know “Ya go Back ..Jack DO IT AGAIN,” He says and I felt like slugging him.
“No my man,” says Ronnie as if speaking gently to a child with Down’s Syndrome, ”That was Carlos Santana at his finest” I groaned inside aww shit……..
Long story short they got into an argument and I ended up yelling at both of them to cut the shit it DOESNT MATTER!!. Ronnie while he dropped it was moody and robotic(and getting drunk) as we finished up that night. My Bro Mark in a shitty bid to get even, came by practice one day a few weeks later. He was(and still is) a brilliant artist/cartoonist. He did a cool (yet hilarious-and downright mean to Ronnie) portrait of us five in cartoonish fashion. It was an exaggerated parody but unmistakably US! Sammy our drummer was speedily playing the drums with a maniacal grin on his face, Darrin our bassist was playing a bass that looked like an axe out of a Frank Frazetta painting, a joint between his lips, My cartoon self was jaws wide open standing split-legged with my mic stand, an impossible bulge in my crotch, Drake our Keyboardist’s cartoonish self was sitting on a giant bag of Panama Red eyes blitzed and a lazy grin on his face-Poor Ronnie was off away from us all, a foolish toothy grin his pants around his ankles holding his dick……Despite everything, I felt sorry for him but we all howled with laughter. He stormed out pissed and never played with us again.
This was in 1986-flip forward to 2007
Except for Sammy who I found out passed away a few years back I reconnected with all these guys over the net years later.no I never made it as a rock star but I always kept up with performing as a hobby. The rest of the guys did pretty much as I did-got married had families and whatnot. Ronnie actually did break into the business as a session guitarist but that giant ego of his was apparent still years later. I started a loose dialogue with him over Facebook about 6 or seven years ago. Little by little that propensity he had for starting shit started to creep in even now 30 plus years later!!
I was having a friendly debate with a friend on my Facebook page(He is a New England Patriots Fan I'm an SF 49er FAn) Tom Brady is the greatest QB of All time-Better Than my Man Joe Montana when Ronnie Has to pipe up and prove me wrong by asserting he used to play Madden football(A video game?!?) and would always beat Montana so Joe just sucks-he Definitely isn't the Goat…. Really? My Patriots Fan buddy Private messaged me “Is this guy joking?” and I'm groaning inside” No he truly believes this shit ok don't feed it, please. But feeling Evil I posted a link from YouTube -Steely Dan, Do it again and asked him if he remembered when we nailed that tune? Funny I didn't know Carlo’s was ever associated with this guys- (He never was)
He blocked me.