Does Xanga need a Hall of Flame?

Looking back upon some of my old posts and recalling the nascent birth pangs of Xanga  in the century, nay millennium, long gone, I get just a bit sentimental about the true Xanga frontiersfolk who fell by the way. 

Jewels (blog now vacant) was an angel—her spirit was as elevating as her lupus-like illness was consumptive. 

And I loved StandsWithAFist (blog now vacant)  —a preciously-talented beautiful young thing who quit Xanga to reclaim her   

Real

Life.

And, of course, none who knew her can ever forget Wildheart (blog extant)–her fire, her spirit, and her battle with cancer to the near end are recorded for all to read. 

But I also wistfully recall the very opposite of these beauties—the veritable Beasts, the Flamers.  Inane controversies always swirled around the then-seemingly insane harshness of the self-appointed early Flames of Xanga: urnightmare, Honjinashi, ournightmare, and eramthginru (urnightmare backwards!)  

Does anyone know who these personas really were?  What drove them to such perfection in their menacing arts??

urnightmare took Xanga by firestorm and I clashed with him intrepidly (fighting fire with fire) for I considered him an anti-hero flaming Xanga indiscriminately far and wide.  In the end, his blog was silenced for Violations of the Terms of Use, but not before he left me this :

Dear Steve, Please except my humble apologies, you are really a god to me.

My own wetdream.

Posted 2/17/2001 at 4:15 am by urnightmare -

Yes, urnightmare, I am finally prepared to accept apology…and nominate you for the Hall of Flame!

Why not?  It looks like the Xangalympics are about to unfold, so why not have a Downhill Flaming event and go for the Gold?  Ah…but I rabblerouse, when all I really mean to do is reminesce…

Honjinashi was equally as virulent as urnightmare and nearly as cryptic as ournightmare who flamed with great selectivity.  I think that eramthginru was actually urnightmare born again—literally, like one of the Backwards (certain greatly-feared Apache medicine men who defiantly rode into battle backwards on their horses and flaunted disdain for conventions of all sorts.)

They flamed, they burnt, they burned-out brilliantly.  Kind of like dangerously effusive and fizzling fireworks going POOF in the night. 

Hall of Flame!  Hall of Flame, says I.  (of course, with a sprinkler system installed meeting or exceeding current fire prevention codes)

Now who would you like to see in a Xanga Hall of Flame (ha ha--be careful: a nomination may make you eligible! )

Why Men Have It 'Easier'

(or why I'll never have it easy again after publishing this comment?)

Liz_A in a most recent blog expressed some dismay and distress about the shadows of aging growing longer.  Yet beyond her personal impressions, she suggested that culture is two-faced in treating the aging of men and women differently:

In short, I think that we have this perception that men age gracefully, and women just get old. Somehow it doesn't seem fair.

Exactamente.  But... (my reply, here slightly embellished but true to the original spirit I intended):

Both men and women remain as sexually capable (performance-wise) as each other at comparable ages, but men remain, in general , sexually potent longer than women.  No definitive menopause for men.  Hence, aging for men doesn't appear culturally as drastic a correlate to sexual potentcy as it does for women.  When you look at an "old woman", you can be practically certain that she's incapable of biologically sponsoring offspring anymore.  But when you look at an "old man", you can't make that sure bet.  This, I believe, is the biological underpinning of the (fair or unfairly) bent cultural rant.

Statistics can lie.  Appearances can deceive.  And culture sure can suck.  Yet Ronald Reagan (aged 91--his birthday is today--and he's the oldest living President ever) might still be capable of impregnating a nubile fertile teenage babe (regardless of whether he'd be mentally competent to do so). But for someone the likes of Nancy Reagan--with regards to this issue of sexual potency only -- would you hedge whether the sun has actually set on her procreative chances with some horny young gigolo?

Hormones aside, old vs. gracefully aged??  I don't personally make the distinction by gender.  It's all in the mind, right?  Just remember Mr. Jingles from the Green Mile--he was ancient!!

Coming Soon?

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Important Update: I swear, I swear, I swear that I had NO idea that the seanmeister had done precisely the same thing here  earlier.  Now I'm terribly frightened--I'm beginning to think like him!