Ace of Swords, Master of All Situations

The BBQ Pit
21

Spooje, quit humping that strawman, it’s rather unseemly. From whence but the bowels backing up into your cranium did you get any of what you quote as my attitude?

Never mind.

Certainly, it is easier to make decisions knowing the facts. And also being sober and knowing your limits, but you seem to think that 6 shots of jagermeister gives one diplomatic immunity. I wonder if you’re working on your “immune boosters” right now, since your argument is meritless and inane, and consists mainly of unsupported diatribe to the point where I wonder how often you have to clean the screen.

But yes, I’m clearly an armchair quarterback – as is every fucking body else who has been weighing in on the previous thread.

So get to work! You’ve got a full order of angry denounciations to fill.

22

From the words you typed in the thread. Incase you missed it, that is the point of this OP.

23

It doesn’t matter.

Raymond Chandler, The Big Sleep

24

Ace you may be reporting truthfully when saying that given the situation there, you’d have opted to not go in (seeing overcrowding).

however, the capacity was listed as 300 people and there were damn near 300 casualties (dead/injured), and it’s doubtful that they were double capacity or anything remotely close to that.

my point is, that even at ‘near capacity’, there can be issues. Have you never gone to a football game? a concert at a stadium? a movie theater where more than half the seats are taken?

issue is, that when an emergency arises and there are limited exits, what you want/desire to happen isn’t always going to happen.
Christ, even in a non emergency, try exiting a movie theater against the crowd. tough going - and then we add in the panic, fear and, of course, the clouds of black smoke that would choke you, sting your eyes and make it damn near impossible to see. and you only have seconds to do it (remember, the entire building was engulfed in flames w/in 3 minutes)

Most of us haven’t experienced emergencies, to stand by after the fact and assert ‘well, I wouldn’t have acted that way’ is armchair quaterbacking at it’s lowest.

You may well have opted for not going due to the crowd. however, even at half capacity, I have no doubt that it still would have been a tragedy of epic proportions.

25

Not just Great White – “Jack Russell’s Great White.” It just heightens the patheticness to remember that he seems to have needed to undergo legal wrangling in order to have the right to flog the name.

26

In a crisis, people often do the wrong thing. (Or nothing at all, which amounts to the wrong thing). It’s easy enough to decide what’s the right course of action when you’re not actually there; when you are, it’s possible you will fall into panic and confusion, and not do what, if you were thinking clearly, would be the obvious right thing.

A certain proportion of people - quite a large proportion - simply react badly in a crisis. It has nothing to do with their general intelligence, or their musical taste for that matter. I don’t know if Ace of Swords falls into this category or not. I don’t know if I fall into this category or not … just in case, I try to avoid situations where I might get killed.

27

I remember once, in 1986, my beautiful 1979 RX-7 was taken out by a dork in a big banana yellow plymouth. I was stopped to make a left hand turn at an intersection, it was raining, and dipshit decided to do that “zoom up real close and peel off” lane change. Except it was wet. And he slid. And he hit me from behind at 40+ MPH. I remember a fleeting instand of looking in the rear view mirror before everything went to shit thinking “Hey, he’s going to hit me”.

And he did.

In hindsight I guess I could have saved the car. Put the sucker in gear and raced forward to lessen the impact, but it was just too quick. Who would have thought? In that moment it’s easy to be transfixed like a rabbit in the headlights.

In fact, I have a few moments like that. Then again, I have a few where I was able to instinctively move. The one time I was working putting a face on a billboard in AZ and the wind shifted loose one of the ropes holding it and swing this 8X14 foot framed bit of plywood I certainly didn’t stare at it as it swung towards me like a pendulum wondering if it was going to be my friend, I flattened myself on the catwalk and let it drive itself into the billboard like a cleaver.

From watching the tape of the Rhode Island club fire, I can’t imagine that anyone thought this was normal, the flames licking at the back wall and engulfing the ceiling. But then, it moved very, very quickly, and in seconds there was smoke rolling along the ceiling. It’s not to hard to imagine someone, especially deafened by Great White and with a few drinks in them, staring at this weirdness until it was too late. The way the smoke moved it would have obscured exit signs even if they were well lit and they were double-fucked by a band that took stupid chances for cheesey pyrotechnics and a club that was probably even not up to code for a saloon circa 1890.

Even if people got the hint and started moving towards the nearest exits (not from where they came in) all it takes is for a couple people to trip or otherwise clog the works for a pile-up to occur. The fact that some doors didn’t have panic bars or even door knobs on them and opened inward would make this worse.

Maybe there were people who were just too drunk or stupid to bust a move, or were transfixed by the surreality of the scene, but even if they weren’t, events were conspiring against them. And anyone who has been in a crowd knows, that you may be a genius, but you can’t move any faster than the clueless dumbfuck in front of you. Unfortunately, if there was stupidity involved, like always, the stupid probably managed to take others with them.

That being said, keep in mind that these people were all there in some shithole place to watch some washed up 80s band where even their groupies are bucking menopause, so how clever could they be?

Maybe not very, but then again, who would have thought? I can understand misgiving if you were boarding the Hindenberg, a big gas bag where they confiscate all your lighters and matches (hint hint), but in 2003 who expects a band would be that stupid? Who expects that a club would line the back of the stage with flammable material, that there are no sprinklers, no fire extinguishers, no fucking handles on the doors? It’s the 21st century, not the Triangle Shirt Company, where were the fire code inspectors?

Although maybe staring at the flames for a full half minute isn’t exactly brilliant, after a point, terminating three minutes later, some people were just screwed regardless.

Now, in regards to The Ace of Swords…oh wait, why bother commenting on another dumb-ass pitting instigated by someone who couldn’t handle AofS in the original thread? Suffice to say, all AofS was saying was that one shouldn’t assume safety and, basically, a packed anyplace is a bad place to be. Remember what happened in Chicago a week before the Staion fire? A bunch of people where crushed after a panic started when security maced some patrons. That’s all it took. Remember the HappyLand Social Club fire? One exit, lots of dead people. Suffice to say, maybe people don’t think “crowded death trap”, but maybe they should.

28

I think we need a **Billdo- Ace ** Steel Cage Death Match at the next Dopefest.

29

Sure – of course there’s a lot less moshing and cigarette smoking at the packed showing of The Hours. Does it show exceptional common sense to evaluate the control of the crowd and the performace beforehand? Perhaps we all agree with Billdo’s assumed risk argument – is this a situation with normal assumed risk?

Of course. We might have perfect reactions in a bad situation and we might still well be fucked by the fucksticks pushing on both sides of a revolving door, and our odds might be slim-to-none depending on the fire safety implemented. Granted.

Watch the video again, though. Some fans are still feet away from the stage, engulfed in smoke, for a good 30 seconds, after the camerman has been moving away from the scene. Their chances are worse.

Not at all. I’ve been in similar circumstances at the small clubs in NY, and I’ve left due to overcrowding. Is it not common sense to remove yourself from dangerous situations?

And I once went to a New Year’s eve party in Park Slope that was charmingly decked out with lace curtains and candles. Did I mention that the ceiling was festooned with crepe paper ribbons? I wish I had supernatural common-sense, I would’ve made them snuff the candles – for naturally one window was open and blew the curtain into a nearby candle which went up like the proverbial oily soaked rag. Since I was in the kitchen speaking to the host, I turned to her and said “where do you keep your fire extinguisher?”

Not full marks, I’m afraid – she was frozen. It happens.

Full marks to the guy who hurdled the sofa and ripped the curtain down before it could spread to the ceiling.

Of course. Common-sense wouldn’t have completely won the day, but it would have damn-well helped. That’s what we were, to the best of my knowlege, discussing in the other thread, and that same point – that it would have been a tragedy, but less of one, is what necessitated I burn my callous and naive ass in hell for all eternity. Or something.

30

Nah. Too messy. Let’s just buy them beers until they get silly wasted and start going “I Love You, Man…”

31

My point was that in any public situation where you do not have complete control over all other folks, stuff can happen. a plane can crash into the building, an idiot can set off a fire (doesnt take pyrotechnics to do that), some one can (falsely) create a stampeded by yelling fire, stadium seats can collapse, etc.

I objected to the sense of blaming the victims (they shoulda seen it was too crowded and left, shoulda known that the fire was a real emergency earlier), when it’s not at all clear, from my viewing of the videos that people away from the exits would have stood any realistic chance of survival even had they reacted immediately and the crowd was at capacity or less.

and even if you personally would have had clear thoughts about the correct thing to do, in a crowd situation, you may not have any choice about the direction you’d be propelled in.

So, I resented (on behalf of the dead) the implication that had they ‘simply’ made a conscious note of where the emergency exits were, they’d not have died (I would contend that the crowd propelled people to the main entrance and w/the force of 200+ people you don’t have a choice in your direction), and that the smoke came in so very quickly that they literally only had seconds to not only note the real danger, but to react to it and get to the door. pretty much past the point of the video, the smoke would have been overpowering, and vision would have been obscured.

32

I don’t mean to sounds morbid, but where does one find this video online?

33

Diane, Worldeater posted this in the progenitor thread: video.

34

You’re assuming that such a female would choose to have any association with you after her initial exposure. “Bomb-droppingly honest” might well include voicing her opinion of you, much, I’m sure, to your disappointment and chagrin.

If I’m dead, why in the fuck would I care? Actually, if I’m dead I won’t be able to care - dead is dead, no matter how you got that way.

And you know what? That’s not the classiest way to go, but I can think of worse ways. I wonder if anyone has ever died of asphyxiation due to having their head jammed firmly up their ass? If so, it must be a rare event, as plenty of alive-and-well examples seem to enjoy hanging around the SDMB.

Wow - you mean you skedaddle anytime you smell someone smoking a joint? I’d have had to leave every concert I’ve ever attended!

Wait, second thought here: “harmless tobacco products” - is there any such thing? And, come to think of it, fire is fire - many disastrous forest fires have been started by someone flipping a cigarette butt out of a car window. I think the smart thing would be to haul ass as soon as someone lights up a cigarette in any venue - and forget eating at Cracker Barrel, with that cozy, flaming fireplace!

Damn, it sure is hard to have fun these days without risking your life - safest to just stay in bed, I guess.

Of course, that’s acceptable if you have the right company . . . :smiley:

35

Wow, Ace, you really are impressively thick. Not only do you miss the point when it’s laid out in subtly ironic form, you miss it when it’s laid out directly.

No you idiot, I’m not saying that the concert-goers were thrill-seekers engaged in some extreme sport, but rather that they were going about a normal, everyday activity – they simply went to a rock show. Yes it was crowded, but concerts are sometimes crowded. Yes there was an explosive special effect, but concerts sometimes have explosive special effects. More than 999 times ouf of 1000, when there are crowds and special effects at a show, serious injuries and death do not result.

You mentioned that you have “been in similar circumstances at the small clubs in NY, and [you]'ve left due to overcrowding.” Although you may be willing to leave, how reasonable is it to ask concert-goers to forfeit their ticket price whenever they come to their own subjective conclusion that a concert is too crowded, all to avoid the miniscule risk that the particular concert they are at will be the time that the fractional percentage hits and everything goes wrong at once.

Going to a public performance is not a high-risk activity. People quite properly don’t expect their auditoriums to turn into flaming infernos, and in the rare event that such a thing happens, it is normal for people to take some time to process the significant change in circumstances.

You may be particularly attuned to the dangers of fire – I don’t know. But to live your life worrying that everyplace you go could be a fatal conflagration is a bit much for me, as well as, I would hazard a guess, the overwhelming majority of people.

Ace, you’re not acting like an asshole here because you think you would have done better – you’re entitled to your own opinon of your abilities, no matter how factually unsupported they are (and “my family said I’m right” does not count as a citation). You’re acting like an asshole when you say the dead and wounded are not entitled to sympathy because they did not meet the unrealistic standards you have developed in hindsight.

36

Thank you for cutting through my thickness with your laser-sharp riposte on… forefeiting their ticket-price? Who the hell said anything about forfeiting one’s ticket-price? You simply go up to the ticket office and tell them your reasons for feeling that the situation was unsafe, and you get your money back.

Christ, is there anything you can do about the feeble-minded thing you’ve got going on?

It’s you that argued that the thrill of pyrotechnics is the potential for danger – ameliorated somewhat by larger performance spaces and professionally trained technicians.

Would you have me believe that this nightclub fell into the category of safe-fireworks? That a reasonable person wouldn’t be worried that low ceilings and fireworks shouldn’t be in the same place?

Well, you’d better read your OP again, then. Remember how you rocked on out to the the theme of Ace has “super-sharp skills of perception?” Paragraph after paragraph of that folderol, and all inoperative? No doubt we were mesmerized into reading paragraphs that weren’t there…

We’ve got to get you a gig:

See the amazing, mesmerizing, chicanerous Billdo, as he knocks the supports right out of many a fact with an airy wave of his hand. Presto! See him define common sense as his and his alone! Ask of him what you will:

Oh great and all-powerful Billdo, I beseech you! Deliver me approved supports so that I may lay my weary facts! Send me a sign: the list of people whose common sense is approved!

Who might be on this list of yours? How about the posters, these pharisees poking their heads in to say they’d stay away from dangerous situations? Can we count them, oh great Billdo, or are they banished from thy land of opinion?

Wow, you get to define realistic too? It’s a wonder anyone plays with you, what with your monopoly on the dictionary and all.

If we’re going to return to atavistic statements just for the fun of it: I consider my standards realistic, my sense common, and my comments appropriate to a pit thread devoted to the intersection of common-sense and death in the Rhode Island Fire, and you’ve yet to show differently, somehow, despite your devastating blunderbuss of almost-argument.

Maybe you wanted a different thread that contained sympathetic comments to be pressed in heather and sent to the families for the hard-luck R.I.'ers who were killed in club fires while boogying to tired rock bands in tinder-box death traps, in which case, you shoud have damn-well clicked on the New Thread button over in MPSIMS, rather than play professional back-biter in the PIT.

Either that, or I’ll get you a new sash that says Common-sense Czar.

37

Ok, I’m chagrinning, ya got me.

Yep, true enough. Fact is, you can only sympathize with the living, so my sympathy goes out their families.

Good god! Is this military-grade distortion? Please, inspect my arms.

Only American Spirit – but of course, who likes Tobacco without all the fun-maximizing additives? Not I, sister.

If your options are Cracker Barrel or starting forest fires, I think we’re all better off with you sleeping in, dear Coosa. Present company included, of course.

But no, I don’t think anyone has really carried the ball of “assumed risk” that Billdo has dropped for obvious reasons: The argument would have to segment whether “overcrowded” was an assumed risk and posit that “trampling” and “fire” were not assumed risks. All pretty tenuous, considering the past history of nightclub fires and the Chicago Incident of the week before which should have been freshly in mind.

And that leads us to the contextual bottom line: I’m all for assumed risk, as everything has a risk element – driving, flying, crossing the street – but it doesn’t work a damn bit if it’s uninformed assumed risk, such as getting on that plane and not first evaluating whether the benefit outweighs the risk – and there’s nothing more dangerous than uninformed risk-takers.

Perhaps the data on nightclubs and their inherent dangers were lost on the R.I. crew – maybe it’s not common sense to pay attention to the news, or as spooje might advocate: Evaluating the worries of life interferes with one’s constitutional right to be drunk, immature, and uninformed.

38

Define “overcrowded.” Malls get crowded. Churches get so crowded at holidays that the service is standing room only. The bus I take gets crowded.

If I am killed by a fast-moving fire at a mall, a church, or on the bus, is that my fault for not being so silly as to get out?

39

Watch the footage. You’ll get this rough sequence of events:

  1. Great White is rocking their little hearts out. They decide that the show needs to be kicked up a notch, so…

  2. Big ass sparklers are lit. 3 things happen pretty quickly here:
    A) The ceiling catches on fire. ROCK AND ROLL!
    B) The mesmerizing riffs of Great White keep the fans grooving.
    C) The camera crew hauls ass.

Did the cameraman have amazing powers of survival? He sure did! It’s called common sense, as in, “My desire to rock with Great White is less then my desire to not burn”.

Why didn’t everyone haul ass at that moment? (No smoke, 3 exits, would have been the ideal time to didi) Who knows. But it wasn’t because they were particularily bright.

Throwing out examples of malls and churches is a great red-herring, but doesn’t address this particular situation.

40

I kind of wanted to jump into the topic, but since the main fight is between two people I consider friends, I’ll just be brief.

I agree with Ace (Brutus illustrated it perfectly), but I can see how his words could have come across a little harshly to somebody without my superhuman powers of sarcasm and bluntness.

:smiley: