#it’s me making one web weaving post and then becoming addicted???

[blanketforcas]

Hey destiel and cockles newbies/relapsed addicts! We’re glad you’re here. But we have a problem – no worries, there’s an easy solution.

You may have noticed when you post ai images, people don’t always respond well to it. Let me explain why. And let me help you find different ways to engage with fandom/find community!

Why we don’t want to see ai “art”:

AI steals from real artists

it’s discouraging for artists who actually put the work and heart into their creations

If you want to have a better understanding of why it's unethical, here's a good video to watch

Why we don’t want to see ai-altered images/art of cockles, even if most of the picture is real:

See the reasons mentioned above

It eventually creates this weird dystopian situation where you google their names and there’s fake pictures among the real ones and it becomes harder to tell which ones are real

What IS okay:

Manips you created yourself without help of ai – as long as you state it’s a manip. Preferably also a link to the og pic(s) you used. This is a great way to get creative with real pictures and still make something new out of it.

Now, let me preface this next part by saying no one is obligated to engage with fandom in any way. Lurking is okay, though we always love when people reblog our posts/creations.

How to find community if you want to contribute something yourself but you’re still too intimidated to do it in any of the “conventional” ways:

Talk in the tags! People love to read those and like/reply to them. It’s a very accessible and low pressure way to feel part of a community

Make commentary posts about a fandom/destiel/cockles event or scene that happened a long time ago. They can be as short or as long as you like. We never got over it, so might as well make another post about it!

Edit pictures in a way you like, make posters out of them, make your blorbos/actor men look silly. It can be very low effort and still make people feel something

Web weaving! if you're not familiar with this concept, here's a post that explains it well

You can of course always dabble in making art, amvs, gifs, graphics, original music,... You don’t need to be good, let alone amazing at it from the start, or ever! There’s a learning curve for everyone and creators are improving their skills all the time. Don’t be afraid to ask for help or resources! The main goal is that you have fun

Let's make this a welcoming and supportive community. There's no place for AI in that.

[iwritewhatilike]

“Janie looked down on him and felt a self-crushing love. So her soul crawled out from its hiding place.”

“Oh to be a pear tree – any tree in bloom! With kissing bees singing of the beginning of the world!”

black joy

leikeli47: girl blunt mv/tobi lou: solange/ noname: rainforest/ sunday service choir: water/ beyoncé: brown skin girl mv/ j.i.d.: off da zoinkys/ ragtime the musical: new music/ kendrick lamar: humble mv/ kendrick lamar: king kunta/ lianne la havas: bittersweet/ zora neale hurston: their eyes were watching God

[distraction-pieces-blog1]

To Whom It May Concern,

I don’t know

really…

is all I do know that I don’t… And I won’t… just let go til I can float the terms with the worms in the skull. No hope, flicker out with no fear and no reproach

Mesmerizing me it takes control Of us Squirming with each touch Nervous. I clutch til I bust

Raw I’ve been balancing terror on a see saw just want you to see what I saw that’s all

I’m a legion of extra “ordinary” souls extracting light that enfolds bipolar totem poles as it grows ancestral nodes Of struggle Where I snuggle

With all the pain inside this bubble where funny thoughts huddle Gravitates the echo with bass and treble from jazz to heavy metal. like Hansel and Gretel seeking to settle in candy houses that eventually crumble.

But chaos is what it is though.

And I’m still learning to let go. the ultimate treason betrays all meaning

My heart beating through my brain bleeding, dreaming like ripples in rain, teething on the monolith insane this game is trained not to change and that’s why it’s so hard to leave home and to cope I wrote you this poem.

I used to pray to God to show me a path. a billion roads appeared and I suck at math. but I took all the roads less traveled by Is what I decided in the aftermath, of this riff raff energetic mind craft, clicking on the least ambiguous ones that attracts keeping me coming back

Me da igual All’s predictable, It’s like I never left home but I miss it though

Know your Nostalgia

Luke I’m your father, your mother, and your blotter

light side dark side it’s all just a ride I separate yours from mine my mind’s safe in the harbor covered in armor so I choose what to lose these loose screws slack the noose this abuse is obtuse and at times I’m confused but I always find my way back home to you so get real what’s the truth sometimes, it’s like…what’s the use? I’d rather repress the abuse. make it old news where the lie becomes the truth

Floating on top of hope decibel increasing in each note trying to cope by writing this note Sink, choke, or float in muddy waters. Gotham blues got the sadness ohms in a bathtub lukewarm madness and then Cliff poked holes in the magic and it’s tragic but it happened.

Apparitions appear in superstition my parents and culture taught me the mission tradition

But my depths searched for fission preferring summer to seasons for silly reasons from fall to winter, anticipating when spring comes.

Nostalgic envy for a prenatal song goes unnoticed til I look back and it’s gone

Diabolic with the logic he circumvents her circuits with half-life in buckets, long lived fuck its.

my mind’s full of Muppets and the world’s full of puppets,

my hearts on my sleeve go ahead I want you to touch it.

I’m so sorry Eurydice! my Belle Rave …I just wanted to see I’m addicted to doubt it leaves a taste in my mouth

So now when I speak all this grit just jump out Grinding jaws in my sleep all my teeth falling out.

I mount my steed onward into foggy delta night Many things uncertain…but it’s dark and its quiet Trying to find the brakes Trying to find what it takes

I laugh and pretend I’m alright

carpe diem ……. I guess

I mean what else? I digress, my life’s a mess but I confess

I used to be depressed, but considering the outcome I must have been blessed Laughing my way back to who would have guessed? I used to be vexed but now I’m just fucking perplexed (and fucking is just a word I use to amplify what comes next)

no reason to fight because no reason to find lost my soul in the starry divine

Battery Acid leaking down a crooked spine

I follow the light…dial tone trailing behind

Uncertainty is certainly not tidy But luck be a lady She’s a maybe A might be a mighty tight likely.

Breeze through the cracks, it shivers and cracks! Organs quiver light refracts tissue glands frizzle, collapse! Shapeshifting pixels and crafts!

I AM OZMA welcome to fear and loathing in OZ.  discovered solipsism with no applause, I pause… long enough to feel this odd.

My head nods on a lightning rod someday they’ll say death sawed this tree from the sod and my ashes will become the new manuscript for war and peace that no one will read damn.  I should have planted a seed.

Post-apocalypse we live inside virtual tombs. Searching for that peace we left behind in the womb. The scholastic book thugs work in teams. Ignorantly weaving them dreams within dreams. Meme processing mental masturbating fiends. Generation X, generating X equals why?

shrug it, whatever, fuck it, ignore it so clever …it’s an endless endeavor you forever and ever. forever ever? forever ever? forever ever.

Our minds schism in this black hole. See myself everywhere but in mask though Want to rip it off and look you in the mind’s eye. But the truth is best told slant less ye go blind

lost rhythm lost rhyme

Lost my mind In the sands of time

so, when I die please be kind …and don’t rewind.

I’m trembling and that’s fine.  I’m trembling and that’s fine.

All my friends fast forward hand on the mouse Scrolling clicking like hold up…let me update my tombstone

Life’s a drag and I take a puff…to find no amount of time will ever be considered enough.

And time is an illusion, I know that right now, here is how… No tracing the dial, Dumbo, measurements irrelevant just ask the dancing elephants misunderstanding the patterns of insignificant stimulus signifying limits from limitless until we’re all clutched up strung out hung up on silly myths

There’s no parameter, only drifting drops, caught in a web of clocks. Its feeding time…Calypso gonna eat you up. And the more you fight it the more you get stuck. Don’t get star struck on the mind fuck, just grow up

I make mistakes because I make mistakes And fell in love between the shakes I maintain the eternal flame But that flame don’t maintain my name. Most people never see it Raw But all roads lead to Awe for All Not Us or Them or You and Y’all

The fear and trembling along the way. Anxious ambiguous patience. Where do I put my hands? Now my emotions need a chemical facelift.

Like standing on stage, naked public embarrassment, forgetting my lines…

Silence.

Crash into a road block

Feeling chest clog

tight squeeze

Got a grip on my light

Tour my mind through eternal night PTSD living in the fight or flight.

Sky opens so wide step through and died. Earth trembles back alive! Screaming this Is not my life! This is not mine!

Unable to live life on life’s terms. I’m a microscopic god…made of worms.

You think you reach the end but the end’s a repeating trend. Spiraling into reflexed madness sadness a laughter a passion.

Just what did you come here for? Asked the bouncer at the door.

Alice get a grip, beware the coup infected mushrooms in my animal soup. stuck in a time loop. my face come right off Howling at the moon til Kali chopped my head off

Stop… Who goes there? I heard a voice uncanny that noise!

Be this bitch wailing witch my own screaming white noise through the T.V?

By golly

By geez

By fuck it

Purge the demons fill up the bucket

Why is Vishnu sleeping in my bed? snuggled with Lakshmi or so I’ve read

Dreaming awake… how much did I take? rabbits eating rabbits karma equals habits Fates like Sisyphus and Atlas

Eternal maintenance of balance on this lifeboat mattress in a sea of magical madness

I mean…it happens,

What is a feeling?

Bet it’s worth a thousand words but what’s worth really worth? quick without using words!

You’ll know it when you know But then you’ll forget. And Jesus wept While we slept But we each got a peace That we’ve kept

Distracted I fight for attention

Think about it…just what am “I” tending?

All I’ve got is a paradox, some crazy thoughts, a flooded apartment, and building blocks

I’m a waste of paint graffitied on your memory box

There’s a bridge of trust that leads me to you,

If it can take the pressure, then it must be true

There’s a bridge of trust that leads me to you

  And I ‘d take you there if I only knew              

                            …but I don’t

-Unknown Mortal

[theloudpedal]

Meet the Gawkers

This is our official coming out.  

We've been at this thing for a few years now, and we need to clear some things up.  On more than one occasion, we've discussed The Loud Pedal with personal friends and acquaintances and figured out that (for better or worse) people don't associate our work/content with us.  Part of this is our fault.  Since TLP began we have made a concerted effort to keep our faces concealed (trust us folks, it has been for your well being).  On the rare occasion that one or both of us has been featured in a blog post or on a FB/Instagram/Twitter post, we have intentionally "helmeted" our ugly mugs.  We like to let our followers know that we're doing something awesome, but that the focus is always the cars or the events.

Well, suffice it to say that humility is about to take a back seat in favor of an elevation of our personal status and visibility.  Perhaps this is isn't the best idea we've ever had, but we're gonna give it a whirl anyway.  Though we will have to show you our hideous visages, we promise to keep the luminaries we meet and cars and events we attend on your behalf, the center of attention.  Though you will now have to look at our admittedly self-pufferizing selfies with drivers and personalities, we promise to keep our standards high and the images awesome and relevant.

In addition to forcing you to know what we look like, we decided to give you a little biographical information about each of us.  No, this information probably won't enhance your life or help with your understanding of the universe in any way, but it will give you a little background on us and help you understand our passion for all things automotive.  

The truth will end up being extremely boring.  If we had more talent, we could weave a fictional masterpiece centered around our elevation as heroes of the automotive press.  In a story you didn’t ask for, written without the clearest of hindsight, never giving ourselves more credit than we deserve, comes the story The Loud Pedal.  We are not aloof journalist that take the high ground toward objective and dispassionate reporting.  We are fans and we don't it.  When we arrive to report on an event we are just as giddy and excited as all the other fanboys and fangirls.

Andrew Langley:

I turn 41 this year, and when it comes to things automotive, I think that age really belies my reality (in car years?).  If I'm honest, when I get to a show or the track, I'm about 13 (some may argue closer to 11 or 12).  In my element, I have to look around sometimes and remind myself to act a little more my age.  I still like autographs, selfies, hero cards, drivers/celebrities and lots of other bright and shiny objects.  For these things, my heartbeat accelerates.  When I see a good autograph opportunity, I imagine that I look like George Costanza running from a cake fire at a kids birthday party.  Ridiculous, yes, but controllable, no.  And speaking of 13 year old boy, here I am:

As far as I'm aware, this was about the time I fell in love with cars and out of love with skateboards.  This was probably about the time the obligatory Porsche 911 (red, with whale tail of course) and Lamborghini Countach posters went up on my bedroom wall.  That said, it probably wasn't that serious.  I mean, sure I was crazy about Kit, Detective "Sonny" Crockett's 365 and 512TR and the A-Team van...but who wasn't???

My serious interest started in the early 90s, when I inherited my mom's 69 Mercury Cougar. This wasn't the boon is sounds like.  It was our "family car" for years.   It had been sitting on the side of our house for ever and hadn't been started or run for a long long time (today, it would be called a "survivor").  My folks said I could have it if I could get it running and pay for insurance and running costs.  My dad and I did end up getting the thing running and moving, if only up and down the driveway #rainman. Unfortunately, because of one big boo boo on my part, and because I soon came to know why FORD was a proper name as well as an acronym, it became apparent that my high school car wasn't going to be a muscle car #sadface.  The loss of my Cougar didn't diminish my growing love for muscle cars, which turned into an appreciation of custom cars and trucks.  My room became littered with the latest copies of Car Craft, Super Chevy, Hot Rod, Rod & Custom and Super Ford, and probably a few others that don't exist anymore.

The first day of the rest of my life came some time in 1994.  I lucked into a job at a local VW Porsche garage in Sacramento, working for Frank and Nick Lettini at Frank's Automotive.  It was there that I drove my first VWs, Porsches, Benzes, Beemers and the occasional Ferrari.  There was something about those Euro jobs that I really began to like and appreciate.  The sound of a mechanically injected 911 got under my skin (probably because it always sounded like all the mechanicals were going to fly apart!).  I also started my love for all things VW...yes, both air and water cooled.  My magazine collection took a tack toward Top Gear, Autosport, Road and Track, Car and Driver, Evo and 911 and Porsche World.  Over the next few years Frank and Nick introduced me to the Monterey Historics, F1 Racing, Le Mans, and historic racing.  All of these things are fixtures in my life all these years later and I elevated Nick to best friend and mentor.

I met Mark while in college,  and found a willing accomplice with a good sense of humor, a mind thirsty for all things automotive and lots of free time.  Our girlfriends at the time (now our wives) had work schedules opposite ours so we had plenty of time to hit the track and car shows whenever we wanted.  

The die was cast.

All of these things still excite me and compel me to be part of The Loud Pedal and drive me to want me to share my passion and experiences with you (yes, both of you!)  

Mark Farouk:

I was always into cars at some level, but my infatuation developed later in life.  It was in college (I know, that’s where everyone “experiments”) that I met Andrew.  By this time, he was fully engulfed in fanboy-ism for almost everything with an engine.  I was skeptical that the amount time he spent on this hobby was worth it.  This friendship introduced me to the automotive world.  It wasn’t that I didn’t care before, it was that now I was friends with someone who read every car related publican known to man.  Andrew talked about it frequently enough to the point where I finally relented and watched an F1 race. Ok, you have my attention!  Enough attention that I would wake up at 4am to watch European F1 races before the days of DVRs and internet streaming.   There was no turning back from that point, and I wanted more.  California is home to several great race tracks, with one being a little over an hour away from our homes.  My first race was an American Le Mans Series race at Sonoma Raceway (aka Sears Point).  Within moments of arriving, though not really knowing what was going on, I was hooked.  It was from that moment that I wanted to attend and smell (Yes, smell) every race possible. 

These were the waning days of film photography (ask your parents), and taking photos was not the cheapest hobby or proposition.  I had been into photography from an early age, but the racetrack was my new canvass.  Not just a canvass but an organic, always changing backdrop with multiple opportunities to blow through roles of film....and that’s just what I/we did.  A race weekend was likely to produce conservatively 15-20 roles of film.  Today, you review your work instantaneously, but back then you had to wait until you found the time and money to have the photos developed and printed.  Digital photography has made things much easier and cheaper, but I still sometimes miss the excitement of going to the photolab to pick-up prints and see images for the first time.

As the years went by, we both went digital.  Rolls of film turned to thousands (and thousands and thousands) of photos and the need for lots of storage.  The advent of cheap web space and social media gave us potential outlets to share our work with our fellow enthusiasts.  In the early days, even those sharing opportunities that were available had limitations.  Web space was expensive and blogging had yet to even arrive on the scene.  We were (OK, maybe we still are) an audience two, keeping ourselves entertained with photos and commentary.   Over the years though, we have arguably gotten better, made a few connections and improved our craft.  Not for any monetary purpose, but just just for the sake of doing it.

Over the years I developed, experimented and sometimes failed at the art of automotive photography.  I was lucky enough to have some opportunities to have media access to shoot for a legitimate media organization at several events through a personal contact.  All the talent in the world will not get you closer to the action unless you extend your network, meaning making new contacts which later become people, that will take a risk on your talent.  Shooting racecars next to the wall as they fly past is addictive and the best rush I’ve ever had.  Even today, I cherish every moment in the chaos, and it's really where I feel my zen.  Just me, a camera and a snarling beast spitting fire and shaking the ground.

It was during that time of shooting as a “pro”, of attending mandatory photographer briefings, and chatting with other established photographers that I picked up some knowledge of how the digital media world works in relation to being considered for official access.  I’ve always been fortunate to be skilled in watching and learning.  I didn’t just use my media access to develop the craft of photography, I used it as a learning opportunity so that one day I could shoot for myself rather than for someone else, and get credit for it.   You must start out with some talent before anything else to serve as a foundation.  I can say with 100% confidence that a social media presence and some great photos aren’t going to get past a good public relations professional, who is likely making the decision on whether you will receive media access.  This also means that one must calculate when they are ready to be considered.  As I was learning the back side of motorsports journalism, Andrew and I continued to build up a massive catalog of photographs from our years at automotive events. 

It was at dinner after a long day the at track that we sat down to eat and I pitched my idea for taking our hobby (sickness) and share it with others.  We discussed this over the next hour or so and came away with a shared goal of not just documenting our experiences but upping our game in every way.  It was the best combination to build on.  While I enjoy shooting the on-track action, Andrew likes documenting the paddock.  He also has an uncanny ability to locate obscure things, and find famous personalities and drivers (because his emotional growth is somewhat "paused" at the 12-year-old level).  Together, we handle all the angles.

From that day forward, after The Loud Pedal was born, our approach was different.  We needed more planning, we entered racing weekends with goals on the material we needed to source to draft a successful review/blog post.  To be honest, it is enjoyable in every way, but its not without self-imposed stress to ensure we capture the essence of the event we are documenting.  That means we can’t just post some good photos, we need a story to tell. 

Finally, this effort is self-funded and self-run.  We don’t have wealthy benefactors (we are however open to it) and must use our substantial charms and marginal looks and talent to make this thing work.  Most of all, we respect the craft and with our efforts do everything we can to avoid smearing it in any way.  We are honored and humbled that you, and maybe one or two more people, follow our exploits, enjoy our photos and wade through our musings.  We make no money from this venture, and we do it all for you.

Thank you for for reading. 

-Mark and Andrew

The Loud Pedal