START, I always did like you. Now I know why. 
I just want to say that it sounds like you have a temper like mine, and learning to control it mostly comes from doing stuff like you just described. I’m still getting there. But your story reminded me of a younger, more hot-headed me. And made me smile.
This also explains why women hate Beavis and Butthead.
To answer your question:
Jeff sounds like a bully/crybaby/fink/idiot… whereas you were just a jerk.
This is an element too. There are times when you’re with a group of people and while you technically could insist on “your” music being played all the time, you’d feel guilty doing so. So you let them choose their favorite stuff for half the time, or whatever, as long as it doesn’t put you to sleep or blast your ears.
In my case (with my car radio dial stuck on the Classical station), I figure that Classical is harmless enough that it’s not going to really freak out anyone or make their ears bleed. However, some people (few here, I am guessing) have a motto of “Anything But Classical.” They think that to be forced to listen to Classical is something like Chinese Water Torture, and it’s beyond unreasonable for you to do that to them. They’ll raise all sorts of fuss.
I have become pretty immune to feeling guilty about any fuss such people might make. They are living in an alternative universe if they think that they can protect themselves from Classical all of the time, or that nobody in the world is going to be so unreasonable as to actually, you know, listen to Classical. They haven’t yet realized that many of us suffer through their crappy taste in music on a regular basis without putting up a fuss, and all we expect is the same in return. It works both ways.
This doesn’t just apply to Classical, but any style of music. As long as it’s not ear-splittingly loud or really vile in content, people should be able to cope with the concept of listening to a little bit of it now and then, without, you know, totally freaking out.
If that were my car, neither of you assholes would ever ride in it again. Definitely not the “I ‘m the biggest so what I say goes” jerk and maybe not the idiot who thought that more property damage was the way to go.
I’m sure Brain felt great that you did ‘something’ and that standing up the bully was something he had problems doing. But when the throw everything not nailed down out of the car started he should have just stopped the car. Actually I would have stopped for the CD.
It reminds me of the time a group of us went “camping’ (drinking heavily by a lake) and while we were actually fishing one of my poles fell off the pier and into the water. A ‘friend’ thought that was so funny he threw the rest of my poles into the water and when that was done he threw my glasses in while I was diving for the poles. I didn’t’ get any of them back.
Oh and a tip for you kids, on most cars the glovebox has a LOCK.
I still need to know what, precisely, constitutes “gay-ass metal shit” before I can decide. I will assume for purposes of this discussion that the classic rock CD was Stones or Zeppelin or similar unless you tell me it was REO Speedwagon or some Canadian shit.
I probably would have stopped as soon as he starting aggressively bitching about the music. I would have warned him that if he kept it up, he’d be looking for an alternative ride home, and if he kept it up, out he’d go.
If anyone actually had the gall to even try to throw away a CD or tape I was playing, they’d be out of the car so fast . . .
Well the “gay-ass metal shit” was not a band that is popular (might have been called “Morto”) so I’m not sure what it was called but I would compare it to “SlipKnot” I guess and then also they used alot of deep roaring voices.
The classical was a mixed CD so it had a little bit of everything on it, KISS, Guns and Roses, Jimi Hendrix, etc.
Read this thread twice, several hours apart, and the crucial question remains unanswered:
Is Amy hot?
Why fight when there’s a cutie in the car? You’ve all guaranteed yourselves a permanent place in Amy’s big book of doofuses.
sigh :smack: :smack: :smack: (one for each of you)
Priorities, gentlemen!
Something makes me think she knew it already. This level of doofusness isn’t achieved overnight.
That’s classic? Jimi, yes. But KISS? GnR?
GnR performed their first show under that name on March 26th, 1985. That’s at least 3 years before START was born, I believe.
Kiss? They were “old” when I was a kid.
Amazing how much that category of “classic” has grown, innit? 
And let’s not confuse “classic” with “classical.” Classical is, you know, Beethoven and Mozart. Classic isn’t.
OK, that’s just funny. There’s a CD with KISS and Guns ‘n’ Roses on it, and its owner is calling something else “gay-ass metal shit”?
There’s that too.
So now 1985 is classic rock. Pass the Geritol, please.
yosemite, you’ll notice I changed START’s classical to classic, as did WhyNot. Some of us know and appreciate the difference.
Was Jeff riding shotgun? See what happens to Carlo in The Godfather for instructions on how to deal with an undesirable riding shotgun.
Every time I think about what bands were “old” when I was a kid, then do the math to figure out how chronologically old they were, and then compare that to how long ago I was really music aware and what the kids today think of my music…shudder
Let’s just say my son is getting into Nirvana the way I got into The Doors - as a “really old group” mom has tapes of that he’s never heard of. And, of course, *Nevermind * came out two years before he was born.:eek:
I don’t know why many of you are shitting all over Start. He knows he acted like an ass and made things worse - and that, my friends, is the vital first step towards doing better.
To my mind, a guy who can realize he did badly (and resolves to do better, and does) is on the right road. Every one of us did some things as kids that, looking back on it, were cringe-worthy.
I’m not for shitting on START. He seems like a decent kid. He likes Family Guy, so he’d be cool with me, and hell, if he’s at the SDMB, he’ll get a lot of good advice throughout his life because with everyone here, we’ve probably done it all, and can speak from experience.
For the record, the first assholish behaviour that I noticed was Jeff degrading Brian’s music. And Jeff was an asshole probably in response to that. He escalated the first thing. What your mom says, about you and Brian making fun of him because he is fat tells me a lot about these things. I’ll give you a little story about myself and my experiences.
Firt of all, you really want to be cool when you are a teenager. You are first starting off in life, and you aren’t very self-confident. If you have some other reason to not be self-confident, then its really, really tough. I imagine that Jeff probably has a really shitty life. Fortunately, I was never the kind of guy who could threaten someone physically, so whenever I got my feelings hurt, all I could do is try to grin and bear it.
I had a tough time when I was a little bit younger. I had bad acne, and I got made fun of for it a lot. You might have an idea of what its like, but its probably the worst feeling that you have. I had to change schools and start over anew. Its a really shitty feeling not having self-confidence. It continued into college. I had friends who were my “friends” in high-school who basically dumped on me left and right, and it hurt really bad. I wanted to be one of the cool kids so bad that my desperation was really the worst thing going against me. But then I lived in Europe for a couple of years and I thought the problem was that people’s attitudes are different there. Sure there are some differences, but there are some similarities. Sure, America is about being on top, and for a lot of peopel that means dissing other dudes to make yourself seem like the cool guy. A lot of relationships between friends are really just competitive friendships where they both try to impress the other the most. Its a strained relationship so try and stay out of those. This happens when nobody respects you. If nobody respects you then you have to get out. You should also try to respect them too. Don’t let friends be the brunt of all the jokes, that shit is sick and it really hurts people and ruins their lives.
Jeff obviously has a self-esteem problem and that sucks. I doubt that you’ll try to hang out with him much more, but in the future try to be with people that respect themselves and respect you. Those will be your true friends. If you act like you have something to prove then its lost already.
So to answer your question, You were out of line, Jeff was really out of line, and I don’t remember if Brian did something bad or not. I guess he could have disarmed the situation by not implying that Jeff music sucked (probably by really emphasizing desire to listen to his music). What brian should have said is that he preferred his music. When Jeff said it was gay he should have said, “Well, you’ve made your views known, now why don’ t you let someone else do the talking” (Royal Tennenbaums) I am sure he has said some things before about how Jeff’s taste in music sucks too.
You throwing shit out the window? Well…what can I say? You shouldn’t have escalated it, man. But then, what else could you do? He was being a major asshole by throwing the cd out of the car. I, personally would have made my opinion known about what I wanted to hear at some point in the conversation to try to defuse the situation.
But if you know this guy and will have to be around him a lot, try to show him some respect. Encourage him and talk to him about the good points of his music, etc and repect his opinion. Then he’ll stop trying to so forcefully assert dominance in order to gain respect. The cool thing about getting older is getting people to act the way you want them to by giving them something really trivial. He just wants respect, and if you have respect for yourelf, then it won’t cost you anything, and Jeff will stop acting like an ass and more of a normal person, hopefully.
The sad thing is that some people never learn this, and spend their entire life trying to assert dominance over others through degrading them. People like that are usually assholes, but don’t fool yourself into thinking that they won’t get far in life. They’ll be rich, and have beautiful wives. But at least you’ll know that you won’t have to play their game. Ever know an angry old man or woman? That’s the worst, because they STILL try to do this. They keep trying to get the rest of the world to bend to their desire, when it just won’t.
I wish I knew all of this stuff when I was younger, it would have made a lot happier.
Jeff just sounds like a major league prick.