I don't get it


what, he got a vacuum for Xmas?

It was just before dawn one miserable morning in black '44
When the forward commander was told to sit tight
When he asked that his men be withdrawn

And the generals gave thanks
As the other ranks
Held back the enemy tanks

For a while

And the Anzio bridgehead was held for the price
Of a few hundred ordinary lives

Yep, I hear ya.

I lived for about six months in 1991 in the Hillcrest/Mid-city area of San Diego in a cockroach-infested apartment building on Grape street. It was a small studio on the top floor, and the airplanes landing at San Diego airport passed about 100 feet overhead on their way in. Needless to say, it was way loud. I tuned it out as you did, and probably would have stayed there longer, except for the meth problem there.

Many of the tenants on my floor were buying from the dealer who lived two doors down from me. I also tried to tune this out, but it was difficult. One night I heard a knock at the door, and opened it to find the dealer standing outside my apartment. We had barely exchanged a few words over the months but we were on (apparently) good terms, because he broke into a big grin and said, "Hey bro, you got a minute? I got something you HAVE to check out!"

Not wanting to piss him off, but also apprehensive, I said OK and followed him back to his apartment. I had never gone inside but it was very dark just inside the front door, which was ajar. We went in and I followed him back to a bedroom which was also dark. He turned on a flashlight I hadn't seen him pick up before and reached down to pull the comforter off a stained mattress on the floor, upon which rested the passed-out (I think) nude body of a girl about twenty years old, maybe latino, I think it was his girlfriend actually but I was never sure. As he pulled the comforter off, I saw a few roaches scurry off her shoulders and rush to the dark corners. I looked up to the dealers face, which he illuminated from below with the flashlight and with a sallow and desperate leer, said "Twenty bucks man, come on! She's pretty hot! You want her?"

I was not sure what to do, obviously the main thing I wanted at the moment was to be as far away from that apartment as possible, but extricating myself was a delicate matter. After telling him I didn't have , his face kind of fell and he looked away back at the girl. I said sorry man but thanks, and backed cautiously out of the room, turning and exiting the apartment the way I had come.

I moved out a few days later, never saw the guy (or the girl) again.

Yeah, meth was a big problem at my place too, but for the most part it always seemed to be the junkies wandering around in the parking lot when we were all outside grilling and drinking beers, asking for an extra cigarette. Everyone super-close close to me, like my brother, my parents, etc. told me to get out of there after my wife and I decided to split up, but I had made so many friends (it was like Melrose Place but more run-down) so I decided to stay, just move two apartments down, even though my soon-to-be-ex was still living in our old place. And when she left for NOLA I felt hopeless, but felt like these people, more than my own family understood this better than even my own folks could, because they witnessed the events unfold first-hand. 99% of the complex I loved, and still love (they smoked weed and drank beer like most of us, but nothing hard..)

But then this new guy moves in next door with his girlfriend and housemate. And we hit it off right away. He had EVERY Warren Ellis and Brian K Vaughn graphic novel collection and we nerded out drinking beers and playing Grand Theft Auto. His sense of humor was great, could make everybody laugh.. perfect new best friend when I needed one the most. And I knew what he was doing: I still had a car then so he'd ask me to drive him up to the Walgreens about 3 miles away when there was one less than a mile away, so I knew it wasn't for a perscription, but it was an easy 20 bucks and gas on my day off. I figured it was weed, coke, meth, I didn't really care at that point because even if I got pulled over, I never asked what the ride was for so I couldn't be held accountable as an accomplice. After that went on for a little while, he started asking me and everyone else in the complex for money, like "I'll pay you back 40 dollars if you loan me 20 today" bullshit, and he never got any from me, and the last straw was when he came back to the car with his face split half open, bleeding all over the interiors of my Jetta as I drove away. I never knew what exactly went down, but once again I never asked.

He split about a week later, still asking for money, which I couldn't provide, and it turns out he ripped off some of my more gullible neighbors for a couple hundred, and one of my housemate's co-workers for about 3,000. Fucking asshole. He also fucked over his "friend/housemate" who was left with no place to go and was truly a nice guy. Worst part was that his "friends" would come by at all hours of the night asking if I or anyone else knew where he was. I'd invite them in, offer them a beer, that's usually the best solution, but say that I had no clue. I sincerely hope that the guy is OK and has his shit together, but I'm glad those days are behind me.

OOOKKKAYY, I thought I lived in some shitty places.
You 3 have me beat.

I think everyone has ASMR in their own way. For example, I really like the snoring of whatever partner I'm with that night, probably because I had to listen to it for a good 8 years from the same person. It used to drive me insane but now I find it comforting, just knowing that someone's there. It's weird. The other night I had one of the worst headaches I've ever had, so bad that I couldn't bike to the store for Advil. Normally I can fall asleep to TV, that didn't work. Silence? Just thought about the headache. Finally I put on Tim Hecker's Virgins and my headache melted away like that. Most people would listen to that and it'd sound like dental work, but for me it worked!

Sometimes sounds listed as ASMR are just binaural recordings, where someone makes a fake head with realistic shaped ears, and puts the microphones inside the ear canals where the eardrums would be. The folds and shape of our ears selectively muffle or delay sounds coming from different directions, which is how we pinpoint sounds, and why mere stereo is 1-dimensional, not 3-dimensional. It only works when listened to on headphones.

Binaural gives things a creepy 3-D effect, like you might feel the urge to look around because it sounds like it's coming from right behind you, not from your earphones. It's a real pain in the ass to record because you can't pan with a knob like stereo, you have to physically move the head and sound sources.

So there are a lot of SFX tracks where someone makes a binaural recording of some single noise or activity while moving around, and when you listen to them with your eyes closed you get the goosepimply feeling that you're hearing them right around your head IRL.

And sometimes its a whispering chick, which is like a comfort or intimacy thing I guess, and is uniquely ASMR.