In Memory of Our Lounge Machine

[bueno bob]

Hey folks,

It does my heart no joy to tell you all that one of our greatest contributors, the incomparable Lounge Machine, better known to his close friends as Ted Walker, passed on to the next world in January this year. Lounge was, from my personal experience with the man, a tremendous human being and I'm proud as fuck to have been able to know him off of this website and spend time with him away from the drama.

I knew Ted as not only a chef of immense talent, a wonderful bassist who was consistently active with any number of musical projects, and a snarky, funny, ass kicking sheep owner, but also a generous, outgoing, incredibly charming and intelligent man of great qualities. Loved by his family and friends, respected and awed by those of us here at the Army, we're all going to feel the loss in our own way, but I'm glad to tell you that I was able to attend his memorial in Shoreline over the weekend and grabbed a few pictures. I'm attempting to include those, but at present the option to upload images is simply spinning endlessly as I try to do so. I'll keep making an effort to do so.

Ironically enough as I sit here and type this at the local coffee house, Van Halen is playing on the PA and I like to think it's Ted's way of looking down on me here in the moment and saying hi to us all. If you have any personal memories of the man, or any Roth Army related memories to share, please feel free to do so. I'm sure he would have loved it.

God bless you, Ted. Rock in power, brother. We love you.

[bueno bob]

[bueno bob]

[bueno bob]

[bueno bob]

As a final note from myself, I want to share this much: when I was effectively homeless for a small amount of time, I kept in constant contact with Ted and when I was able to find a permanent place in late 2015, Ted invited me to meet up with him at a show he promoted for The Iron Maidens in Eugene. He got me into the green room, introduced me to the girls, got me in for free, got me a CD and an autographed photo with them, all as a bit of a "welcome to your new home" gift. About a year later when my car was breaking down and I was still struggling, I woke up to find $100.00 from him, which kept me on the road long enough to get to my next paycheck and repair my vehicle. No matter how many times I tried to give it back to him, he simply refused, saying it was a gift and it wasn't expected back. When I was struggling with my romantic life, Ted provided me with some much needed clarity and insight in ways I never would have come to on my own.

This is the kind of salt of the earth guy he was. Even as we talked in our last days, he had a very "Let's get this shit done with" attitude about the inevitable, and I told him I'd put up his memorial here. He remarked to me that more than a few people might be somewhat happy about it - I promised him I would absolutely wreck anyone's ass that did and would throw SO many people in the Sheep Pen. We absolutely roared about that, remembering all of the good times...and that's what Ted was always about - good times, good feelings, and taking care of people.

I will miss him a lot.

[Von Halen]

https://www.rotharmy.com/forums/show...Lounge-Machine

[Seshmeister]

Hi Bob nice to see you again. Von posted the link above which was a thread about this in the Main Forum which Ted's longstanding impact here more than deserved.

I hope you can take some comfort and pass on the messages in there.

And no asshole turned up that needed to be kicked to your Sheep Pen. Actually there is a lot less of that shit these days as people have mellowed in their old age, I'm sometimes shocked when I read some of the old threads here even in the mod room.

[Seshmeister]

About a year later when my car was breaking down and I was still struggling, I woke up to find $100.00 from him, which kept me on the road long enough to get to my next paycheck and repair my vehicle.

I shouldn't laugh but this did pop into my head...

[Rikk]

Well said, my old compadre. Your statement actually emotionally affected me...

...which, with what Sesh just said...damn, are we all mellowing as we get older...or what?

[Von Halen]

...which, with what Sesh just said...damn, are we all mellowing as we get older...or what?

Never!

[Rikk]

Never!

I never back down from a fight...
...but I can't imagine being so gun-happy, with a squad of Sam-hating officers & soldiers & fellow generals, if it all happened today.

But then again...it would be so much fun if a Sam/Wolf-loving idiot came to this site looking for a fight...
...and we opened the Sheep Pen for business again.

Such good times. I can name a large list of human beings I am real friends with to this day who I met at this site...including GuitarShark, Bueno Bob, Matt White, Jim (POJO) and so many others. And I still think of Jer (MAX) almost every day. He & I used to talk literally almost every night.

And we all loved a good fight...

[Terry]

Very saddening to hear this.

[Nitro Express]

I never back down from a fight...
...but I can't imagine being so gun-happy, with a squad of Sam-hating officers & soldiers & fellow generals, if it all happened today.

But then again...it would be so much fun if a Sam/Wolf-loving idiot came to this site looking for a fight...
...and we opened the Sheep Pen for business again.

Such good times. I can name a large list of human beings I am real friends with to this day who I met at this site...including GuitarShark, Bueno Bob, Matt White, Jim (POJO) and so many others. And I still think of Jer (MAX) almost every day. He & I used to talk literally almost every night.

And we all loved a good fight...

Today’s social media makes anything that went down in here look tame.

[bueno bob]

https://www.rotharmy.com/forums/show...Lounge-Machine

Ahh...I did not think to check prior to posting. Glad that it was taken care of! Thanks for the heads up. Of course, if we want to merge or close this or whatever, that's totally cool.

Thanks!

[Terry]

Today’s social media makes anything that went down in here look tame.

You know what's fucked up?

Early 1990's, I'm talkin'.

First semester in college, we're all told that all term papers have to be typed and all students have to take a basic computer course - on IBM computers, no less - so we can learn Word Perfect and print out our papers via the Computer Lab if we didn't have a computer of our own.

Simultaneously, that was also the first semester there were multi-page guidelines in place for how to negotiate intimacy with another student and the term 'politically correct' was creeping into the lexicon.

When I think back to 1992 and think about all the stuff that has changed (and not for the better) in the last 30, 32 years...my mind is fucking blown. I mean, Gen Xers were looked down on by the Baby Boomers, but when I look at these useless Gen Z fuckwits of today...shit, Gen X seemed positively robust by comparison.

Anyway. at one point I thought this whole site was just me and a thousand Lounge aliases. I was pretty sure Kristy was/is a Lounge alias.

[Rikk]

Ahh...I did not think to check prior to posting. Glad that it was taken care of! Thanks for the heads up. Of course, if we want to merge or close this or whatever, that's totally cool.

Thanks!

Actually...I hope they're not merged. This, to me, is almost a separate statement...plus, it showcases the return of an old war hero from the Army.

Glad to see you back, my friend (not that I don't talk to you outside of this site...but nice to see you here too)!

[Rikk]

When I think back to 1992 and think about all the stuff that has changed (and not for the better) in the last 30, 32 years...my mind is fucking blown. I mean, Gen Xers were looked down on by the Baby Boomers, but when I look at these useless Gen Z fuckwits of today...shit, Gen X seemed positively robust by comparison.

Anyway. at one point I thought this whole site was just me and a thousand Lounge aliases. I was pretty sure Kristy was/is a Lounge alias.

This site's traffic has obviously become a fraction of what it was...but that says nothing about the quality of the site or its posters. It's something that happened to any-such forum as more generalized social media exploded. (The Links is certainly not dead either...but their traffic is not close to what it once was...and I'm totally not insulting them for that...it's just what has happened to forums like these.)

But...I feel a lot more open expressing my opinions here than posting them on Facebook or Twitter (X) or whatever the fuck. Yes...I post to those other platforms...but I rarely say anything political or controversial...because I don't want to risk getting into a fight with a colleague, old friend or family member (and I don't want to face heat in future from an employer, etc.). My wife & I are very stable financially...but you never know when you're going to need to be in a position to NOT have offended somebody in future from whom you need a reference or something.

[Rikk]

HERE...I feel like NITRO & I can scream at each other about something political...and then five seconds later still be totally cool with each other and be in total agreement about some sort of musical topic. (We don't jump to some of the younger generation's stance of always needing to be offended by the littlest comment.)

I may consider myself a pretty liberal person (socially...I still consider myself a fiscal-conservative, whatever the fuck that means these days)...but even I want to puke when I read what the Gen Z crowd complain about. They come off to me like a massive squad of mini McCarthy-ist cunts.

[Rikk]

Gen-Z'ers have reached the point of thinking that if someone says anything with which they simply do not agree, then that person deserves to never have a job for the rest of their lives...and anyone who continues associating with that person should also have his/her life destroyed... It's sick. Traditionally, it's been the Über-Conservative assholes who used to promote censorship in all forms (and they still do). But if I hear one more whiny Gen-Z'er tell me that something I said has "triggered" them, I'm going to kick that person in the face ten times...and then kick that person some more.

[Rikk]

ALSO...on the topic of Gen-Z'ers...

I saw a ridiculous TikTok video (that received a ton of views and was re-posted to YouTube) by a Gen-Z'er...in which she stated that she is not only right to be gigantically fat, but that she is also "triggered" when she sees "non-overweight people" and those "non-overweight people" should be more courteous and not present their "non-fat bodies" around her because doing so is a statement against her. She said being thin is "offensive" to her. She stated, "I'm proud to be fat. It's my choice. By choosing to be thin, you are insulting me and triggering me...and you should be ashamed of yourself."

THIS is the mentality of some of the fucking ridiculous, spoiled, whiny, narcissistic goddamn cunts that pass themselves off as members of our society.

[DLR Bridge]

I’m sure many of us have Gen Z’ers for kids. It’s up to us to set them straight.

[bueno bob]

I kinda dodged the bullet...my kids are millennials, but I raised them looking over my shoulder while I posted here. As such, they've all become incredibly successful, responsible, productive adults who kick so much ass it's amazing. No cap, they're bussin.

[Warham]

Lounge and I had a back and forth for a while, periods of BS mixed with periods of getting along. We were mods here together in Front and it was the usual conservative/liberal fighting. I’m pretty sure I thought he was a shit mod and he might have thought the same about me, but that’s Ok. We had that everywhere here, people were fighting constantly as Sesh can attest by reading past threads. He was Kip Winger to me. As RIKK said, it does suck the older we all get we are losing all our heroes and each other. Bob, it’s good to see you again.

[Terry]

This site's traffic has obviously become a fraction of what it was...but that says nothing about the quality of the site or its posters. It's something that happened to any-such forum as more generalized social media exploded. (The Links is certainly not dead either...but their traffic is not close to what it once was...and I'm totally not insulting them for that...it's just what has happened to forums like these.)

But...I feel a lot more open expressing my opinions here than posting them on Facebook or Twitter (X) or whatever the fuck. Yes...I post to those other platforms...but I rarely say anything political or controversial...because I don't want to risk getting into a fight with a colleague, old friend or family member (and I don't want to face heat in future from an employer, etc.). My wife & I are very stable financially...but you never know when you're going to need to be in a position to NOT have offended somebody in future from whom you need a reference or something.

I'd agree that the site traffic lessening has not really anything to do with anything specific to the site, but just the manner of social media over the last 20 years in general and how people who have been on social media since the first online internet message boards of the mid-1990's - coming up on thirty years - are utilizing the internet.

Like, when Facebook first got going in a big way, I remember going on and reconnecting with old classmates from the Class of 1988, many of whom I hadn't had any contact with at that point for 20 years (since graduation, basically). Now, 15 years into Facebook, I barely go onto the site anymore. My classmates had a 30th reunion back in 2018, but somebody else pointed out that high school reunions going forward for, say, kids who were born in 1995 or so...that there won't be a need for reunions because people will remain in contact via social media with those they want to vs. my graduating class, which was back in the days when by the time you were a sophomore in college you probably already had lost track of your high school classmates because you couldn't just look them up online.

Plus, the longtimers here at this site, we're an older bunch...many of us 50 years or older. Like, to me it's less surprising that the traffic site has lessened than it is the site is STILL up these days...I mean, I stop by here to talk to you guys the same as I have been for twenty years...shit, even LONGER than that...back to the DDLR.COM days or the Slawterhouse days...and honestly, I continue to stop by here primarily to talk to you guys regardless of what David Lee Roth is or isn't doing.

[Terry]

Like, Warham has always been a schmuck, but I got such a warm, no-homo cozy feeling when I saw him posting in this thread...I think I need to find some real world/real time hobbies.

[Terry]

I think I'll go out, get a Chipotle burrito for lunch, come home, rub one out then take a nap.

[Warham]

Like, Warham has always been a schmuck, but I got such a warm, no-homo cozy feeling when I saw him posting in this thread...I think I need to find some real world/real time hobbies.

Yeah ya do.

[Nitro Express]

I think I'll go out, get a Chipotle burrito for lunch, come home, rub one out then take a nap.

At least you have a plan. Most people have no clue and no goals.

[Nitro Express]

I kinda dodged the bullet...my kids are millennials, but I raised them looking over my shoulder while I posted here. As such, they've all become incredibly successful, responsible, productive adults who kick so much ass it's amazing. No cap, they're bussin.

The best of the younger generations are complete razors. You either have really great people or complete losers. Since the losers make the most noise they get most the attention. Fortunately obesity, drug overdoses and suicide will weed them out. Nature has it’s ways.

[Nitro Express]

David Lee Roth will soon be the hell raiser at the assisted living home. He’s going to do a song and dance in the rec room and expose himself to the females in the hall.

[Nitro Express]

The western nations are in the process of getting an enema. The shit is really flowing right now.