#2017 me would be hurling chunks

[car-toons]

The way they just grab each others lucky charms when they wake up, I’m gonna be sick!

[space-blue]

The Esper’s Tears

Her name is Yuri. It's a boy's name, but she loves it. It was given to her by the man–the first thing she owned that no one could take away, and the first man Yuri had met with more ability than her. He'd taken her off the streets, cared for her, taught her to rein in her powers, and lots of new skills.

He'd turned her world upside down.

Your imagination is your limit Yuri, he'd say, if you want a necklace of water, make it so, if you want the drops to fall to the sky, make their up into down! And he was right. The man had always been right–and nice, and not scared of her.

Now the man is dead, and Yuri is on a rampage.

•••

'Status report, unit one, report!'

'Quit it, Randall! They're dead.'

'If that explosion was that bastard Svarenko taking them down with him, how come the chief and Bart just went off the radar? What the fuck is going on?!'

'Use your senses, heck, use your eyes! That's another esper!'

The soldiers risk a glance over their ragged cover, to the body floating fifteen metres up, silhouetted by crackling plasma and a cloud of orbiting debris.

'Oh man, this wasn't in the mission briefing!'

•••

Before she had a name, in the nettle-infested ditch of the Past she never thought she would climb out of, Yuri had been Alone, with-a-capital-A. Too different to belong with the curb-squatting, glue-sniffing urchins she shared the streets with, too powerful to risk attracting the adults' attention, she'd spent years roaming the city, its many wonders locked behind cold glass, often leaving her feeling like it was her who was trapped in a vitrine, and the rest of the world rolling by, an endless show of things for her to see and desire but never own, lest she steal or got lucky at the bottom of some bin.

She'd used her powers sparingly: while other destitute kids chased down the likewise destitute cats and sent them hurling toward clothes lines, aiming at new jeans and hoping they'd claw them and fall back down together, she could will the clothes to her. She could part the garbage without sullying her hands, she stayed dry under the rain, and could reach any roof for the best hiding spots. But not much more, for the three kids she'd known who'd had a shred of power in them had all disappeared-the girl with the red curls, the boy who stole pastries though the windows, and Vanya's baby brother from the south church orphanage–gone.

•••

Her powers are melting reality around her, churning pockets of matter bubbling and fizzing out of existence. Gravity is a mess, with Yuri as the eye of a typhoon of psychic energy and tears. Her eyes well, their water rising, each bat of her lashes sending the salty drops to swirl above her head. Even through the blur she can see the ruins under her feet of the home the man had made for them. A hiding spot from all the world's troubles, he'd called it. Your new home. Blown away now in twenty chunks of dust by the attack of twenty cowards.

She prods for the twelve survivors, their weak esper minds struggling against hers.

There is no one to stop her, no one to save the men from her.

•••

They had come in the quiet of the night.

The man had been dozing, the book he'd been reading to her resting on his chin. She'd delicately brushed his silver-blond hair from his brow and daydreamed of a future in which she dared to call him papa. Or da. Anything to reflect the love that had grown to bursting inside her. In her fantasy he'd smile and laugh and make her fly, high on the wind. They'd sensed the approaching threat simultaneously, heads snapping up, dreams discarded, alerted by the the soldiers' foul fear, the collective mass of their doubts, and the unrepressed waves of their own ability.

'Yuri, these men are psychics, espers like you and me.'

'But not strong like us.'

'No but they can work together, it makes them dangerous. Do you remember what I told you?'

'There's only twenty...'

'Yuri!'

'Yes but can't I stay with you? I know I–'

'No buts. They're only after me, and they can't find out about you.'

It used to be that no one knew or cared. Before the man, she'd not even been 'Yuri', just another freak kid that all the others made great efforts to avoid. Now in this person's eyes she had positive value. She mattered. The gears of her powerful mind tripped and grind at the thought of losing him.

'Do you remember?'

•••

A soldier steps forward, anonymous behind his kevlar vest and balaclava, spearheading a mental attack. It ricochets on her shields with a spark. Yuri knows she cannot alter any creature with an opposing will, so she traps him in a bubble of vacuum. Fighting him over the air, heat, pressure. The man pushes back, but he lacks her intimate knowledge of coldness, hunger, the void you feel in absence of all things, the negation of life. When the soldier dies, she collapses the bubble with him in it, and terror shimmers in the eleven remaining minds.

Things are as she wills them, and she wills them dead, like the man, gone, like the man, never to be seen again, heard again, felt again, like the man!

•••

'I got blood on my hands.'

•••

She'd left running, on foot and empty-handed, all the new things the man had gotten her, an urchin's dream made true, left behind in her rush to obey his orders to stay hidden and undetectable. She'd stopped when the explosion behind her took away all awarness of him. He'd sacrificed himself to protect her.

Anger rose like magma in her throat.

•••

'I'm a wanted man.'

•••

There is nothing to stop Yuri from annihilating the soldiers. She has no greater understanding of what the man's wishes might have been, in sending her away, what hopes he'd entertained for her well-being, what morals he'd planed to instil in her. She was raised in the streets, where the most brutal of materialism applies, and death attains its most complete form: it makes no sense to think for the dead or wonder about their opinion or wishes. They are dead.

•••

'Do you understand?'

•••

'Please, oh fuck, please!'

The final soldier flails helplessly on his back, crushed by a pressure he cannot shake off. She steps through the mist of blood she turned his last teammate into. Everything went so fast, he cannot think, not with her animosity rubbing his mind raw. He sees a girl-shaped mass of hate, the edges of her being growing fuzzier, her eyes pits of light, her fluttering pink pyjamas the most human thing about her. Her aura seems to bend the moonlight in a million colours that hurt the eye, sending arcing fingers of deadly thunder groping the air for something to curl around. In despair he pitches all he has to free himself, to inch away from the weight that vows to merge him with the cracking concrete.

•••

'It's not what I want for you.'

•••

She steps forward, mindless, lost in her rage, completing the task she set herself, ready to lose that last bit of purpose to her life.

'Oi, Yuri!'

Two large hands slap the sides of her face, crashing right through her shields, ringing her ears.

'What the hell are you doing, didn't I tell you to run away?'

It's the man, come out of thin air. Everything stops, roaring silence blanketing them: the surviving soldier, the man who ought to be dead, and the girl who looks just like a ragged ten years-old about to cry her eyes out.

The man looks around, his hands never leaving Yuri's face.

'Sheesh, no wonder they didn't follow me, and I'm barely back in time... Couldn't you trust me Yuri? Do you think I'd have left you alone like that, if I couldn't fight these punks? Ah, don't cry now–'

He picks her up, cradling her spindly body in his arms and shoulder. She curls there to sob, to turn back into the child she's hardly begun to learn how to be.

'I'm sorry kid. I should have told you the whole plan,' he murmurs in her hair, patting her head, 'I should have trusted you more too. I won't leave you again.'

He turns to the soldier who has not yet dared twitch a muscle.

'What's your name, you lucky idiot?'

'Haaah–Randall!'

'You go back home, Randall. Bag whatever is left of your friends and give it to Marlow, or whoever runs the CIA these days,' the man bends forward, his eyes blazing white hot, 'you tell him that Vitomir Svarenko says hi, and to leave my daughter and I alone.'

~~ January 2017 – Theme : Urban Fantasy

[petnews2day]

7 albums to listen to this summer

New Post has been published on https://petnews2day.com/?p=50994

7 albums to listen to this summer

The daily chaos that surrounds us has reached alarmingly high levels this month as we come face to face with a bear market and a very public breakdown of the events that surrounded Jan. 6, 2021. I don’t know about you, but I’ve retreated into a sort of buzzing trance, a vibration that connects me with a more energized, if not ruffled spectrum of music. In fewer words: I’m irritated, and so is the music I’m listening to.

What better way to manifest action than to listen to music that moves you. The seven new albums that I’m sharing with you are all movers, all fueled by angst and inquiry and agenda. I can confidently say it’s the most probing guide I’ve ever sourced, and for that, it’s probably my favorite. We have plenty of local rock groups returning with thorny and contemplative new offerings, some jazz-tinged R&B and crunchy future soul, and a particularly compelling release echoing a collection of voices of the Northeastern Native Americans. This guide is meant to conjure energy and channel force; it’s my way of operating in the world these days. With that, dive right in without looking back.

Boston’s Pet Fox — made up of current and former members from Ovlov and Palehound respectively — are hurling alt rock back into the fold. “A Face In Your Life,” the group’s first full length release since 2019’s “Rare Occasion,” is crammed with hooky guitar lines and a pavlovian soft/loud dynamic that will snag anyone who fawned over their copy of “Pinkerton” as a teenager. Pet Fox’s newest release is a seamless piece of power pop meets alternative rock, the kind of heady, vigorous record Failure or Silversun Pickups would make in the wake of the post-grunge boom.

Horse Jumper of Love, ‘Natural Part‘ June 17

“Natural Part,” the third full-length album from Boston slowcore indie trio Horse Jumper of Love, is undoubtedly their best release. Dialed in, deliciously textured and indulgent, the band distilled their sticky, sprawling slow rock into a crystalline, multidimensional body of work as densely rich as a chunk of quartz. “Natural Part” is a triumph of dogged proportions, an unfaltering evolution of angular slowcore into enveloping indie pop.

You’ve never heard a powwow quite like this. Medicine Singers, fronted by Daryl Black Eagle Jamieson, clan chief of the Pokanoket Nation (Rhode Island and Southern Massachusetts), had a chance encounter with guitarist Yonatan Gat at SXSW in 2017, where they shared the stage for an impromptu set of traditional Eastern Algonquin powwow music and thorny, psychedelic guitar improvisation. Much of their collaborative new album, the self-titled “Medicine Singers,” capitalizes on the magic they caught that day, with additional contributions from members of Swans and DNA. A truly haunting and spiritually probing release.

Zenizen, ‘P.O.C (Proof of Concept)’ July 27

New York-based singer-songwriter and producer Opal Hoyt, otherwise known as Zenizen, has spearheaded the latest breakthrough in the lush, warbly world of future soul. The artist’s newest release, the kaleidoscopic “P.O.C (Proof of Concept),” offers a glimpse of her transient life with poetic vignettes and music production swathed in vibrant layers. The 8-bit groove of single “Aja” recalls the eccentric beats of Dev Hynes’ Blood Orange, melded with the soulful electronic exploration of artists like Hiatus Kaiyote and Sampha.

Boston noise rock sentries Kal Marks, captained by founder Carl Shane, have returned from a two-year hiatus with a new lineup and a new prickly vision. “My Name Is Hell,” the group’s tempestuous fifth album, might be their most melodic, but don’t be fooled: It’s still a monster trying to claw its way out of your speakers. It’s a broad exercise in cynicism, a jaundiced study of humanity, grief and religion, all somewhat familiar territory for a band that spent the better part of a decade sweating and screaming it out from within the walls of Great Scott. But really, this is the Kal Marks record that we need for this moment.

Sleepyhead, ‘New Alchemy’ Aug. 19

Formed in an NYU dorm room back in 1989, Boston-based trio Sleepyhead found a niche in the loose, jangly indie rock scene of the 1990s, sharing the stage with groups like Polvo and Yo La Tengo. On their peppy sixth album, “New Alchemy,” the group revel in the homespun simplicity of feel-good slacker rock and the melodic and structural sensibilities of ‘90s-era Big Star. A little twangy, a little rickety and a little rough and tumble, Sleepyhead’s venture into its fourth decade is all heart and big hooks at its core.

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[blame-canada]

Choose Me

Prompt: Road Trip

Word Count: 872

Pairing: Crenny

Rated: T for mild violence

Hello friends! This is one of the drabbles written for the July 2017 South Park Drabble Bomb, for the prompt “Road Trip!” The pairing is Crenny, and I hope you’ll enjoy it. Read it on AO3 here.

Faded yellow stripes passed like tiny lightning bolts on the driver’s side, and Kenny imagined them to sound like thunder, crackling with each break between them like a rainstorm that the earth around them definitely needed. The grass was dead and the trees were dead, and before jumping into Craig’s shitty Neon with the tires spinning hot underneath them, he was dead too. Not literally, of course, as he’d become accustomed to clarifying, but deep inside his soul, where his spirit was sleeping. He felt dormant, senile and strange, stuck in a town with no future to speak of and a deadbeat family he wanted very much to care about but came just short of doing so. ‘For Karen’ had been his mantra for years, but Karen was grown, and not even her doe eyes could stop him from thrusting himself into Craig’s passenger seat, followed by several glass bottles hurled at him from across the lawn. No, those bottles had sealed a fate, one no amount of younger sister tears could change.

“You’re no longer welcome in this house!” he’d been told, the words slurred and raspy from the morning pack of cigarettes smoked through one by one. Good, Kenny thought, and he’d winced while he rolled his window up by the hand crank as hard as possible, just barely missing shattering glass that he feared dented the door.

“Shit, sorry,” he’d said, breathless for reasons he didn’t know, but Craig had already let go of the brakes, and they were squealing away from the shit hole he called home and out of the shit hole called South Park. It wasn’t until the signs for the next town started cropping up and the road became an empty two-lane highway that Craig seemed to relax, his foot feeling like it eased off the gas, just a bit. Until then, they were silent. Kenny eyed the AUX cord, though it didn’t feel right to grasp for it quite yet; not when his heart was still pounding and the blood still rushed hot and angry in his veins.

Craig broke the silence first.

“What you got in the backpack?” His eyes never left the road, his face steely in a way only Craig could pull off. From the side, he looked like a statue, the kind they painted so it looked like it’d been done on paper. He looked like he belonged on an ancient vase or tapestry, strong, sharp features standing out like the characteristics of royalty. Craig was definitely three-dimensional, though, and Kenny proved it by poking at his dark blue hoodie, feeling the cotton under his fingertips and the way Craig flinched at first contact.

“I don’t know,” Kenny answered, and it was partly true. He’d been in a hurry he hadn’t expected. Craig had thrown a rock into his bedroom window.

It was not just a little bit of gravel either, but a rock that belonged in a river, a sizable chunk of half-polished stone that had soared right into the window panes and caused a downpour of thick glass shards. Kenny had jumped to his feet, rushing to the window and ignoring the commotion of his family yelling from downstairs, and he found that in front of his house was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. It stood in beaten up sneakers and a ratty old hoodie that he refused to throw away, leaning back against a poorly running old car that he’d bought with his own paychecks off a shady guy online.

“Is this the part where I quote Shakespeare and let down my hair?” Kenny teased, just to catch that tiny quirk of his lips that told him he’d said something legitimately amusing to him, and it materialized instantly.

“I’m choosing now,” Craig said, and though he hadn’t yelled Kenny heard it clear as day, ringing in his ears like musical chimes, like the prettiest promise he’d ever been chosen for. Kenny hadn’t given it a second thought. They’d discussed this before, one late night in Craig’s backyard. “One of these days I’m gonna pick up and high-tail it the fuck outta here, and I’m not gonna look back,” he’d promised.

“Take me with you?” Kenny asked, though it was more of a desperate request than a question. Craig nodded, his profile illuminated by the moonlight. “Just tell me when.”

“I’ll choose a day,” Craig said, “and I’ll take you with me.”

The sun outlined his face instead of the moon this time, on this day that Craig had chosen, and the tingling in Kenny’s stomach was a mixture of excitement and genuine fear. It was a thrill, he supposed, and he decided he quite liked the way thrills felt. He’d half expected Craig to forget about him, to leave town and never look back and disconnect his phone number so that Kenny would be left forever wondering if he was alive, or if he missed him.

“Do you know where we’re going?” Kenny asked, eyeing the sign that told him Denver was 92 miles away. It whizzed passed them, the way everything was lost to the wind that whipped around their car like it was invincible.

Craig never replied, so Kenny took the AUX cord.

[darkelfshadow]

Session Summary - 27

AKA “The Dragon Eggs”

Adventures in Taggeriell

Session 27 (Date: 22th July 2017)

Players Present:

- Rob (Known as “Oloma”) Human Female.

- Bob (Known as “Sir Krondor”) Dwarf Male.

- Travis (Known as “Trenchant”) Human Male.

- Paul (Known as “Labarett”) Elf Male.

Absent Players

- Phil (Known as “Nac”) Half-elf Male. <Played by Rob>

- Arthur (Known as “Gim”) Dwarf Male. <Played by Bob>

NPC

- (Known as “Naillae”) Elf Female. <Controlled by DM>

- (Known as “Valder”) Elf Male. <Controlled by DM>

Summary

- Starday, 19th of Neth in the year 814 (Second Era). Winter.

- The party begin this session, in the hour before midnight, in a large cavern in the caves of the Hatchery, having just survived a cave in caused by a fight with a group of Kobold Alchemists.

- The party, who are all badly injured decide to take a short rest, as both Sir Krondor and Gim believe that the chances of anyone hearing or feeling the cave in from the upper levels is very remote.

- Trenchant spends a little time searching around the cave in area but soon realises that most of the fallen rocks are too big to move and thus he can not find anything. The three dead Kobold Alchemist bodies are searched, the other two Kobold bodies are under the fallen rock and gone forever, but nothing of value is found. Labarett spends the time pulling bits of dried glue off his body and trying to comb down his hair to cover the missing patch of hair from his run in with the exploding alchemical bombs.

- During this short rest Nac appears to be trying to pray but does not seem to get the response he would like.

- Valder, seeing the expression on Nac’s face asks, “Something wrong?”

- Nac replies with a tired voice, “No. Yes. I don’t know. I am trying to pray to my Goddess, Tahakisis, but I am getting confusing images I can not understand.”

- Valder replies, “Don’t force it Nac. Keep trying and it will come.”

- After an hour passes, the party stop their short rest, thankful for the break and get to their feet. (Most of the party spend Hit Die to recover much needed Hit Points)

- Deciding that they need to go to the lower section of the cavern, Trenchant comes up with a plan to deal with the six Guard Drakes that are down below. Nac starts to cut one one of the dead kobolds into edible chunks of meat and bone. Naillae pours the entire contents of the poison vial she took from a previous killed Kobold Alchemist they dispatched back at the Temple of Chauntea in Anwich, to poison all the meat. The meat is then thrown down into the lower section where all six Drakes race towards and begin to devour the poisoned meat.

- It takes a few minutes for the Drakes to eat the meat, the occasional sickly crunch of bone heard along with the snapping of the Drakes powerful jaws. After all the meat is devoured the six contented Drakes lay down. A minute later the six beasts start to cough and vomit as the poison takes effect, the Drakes are visibly shaken and weaker from the poison.

- Taking advantaged of the weakened state of the Drakes all the party launches an attack at the Drakes in the lower section, except Naillae who is at the base of the entry stairs guarding against wandering patrols. Along the wooden railing on the upper section stands Oloma, Sir Krondor, Labarett, Valder, Gim, Trenchant and finally Nac who stands closest to the collapsed section of the cavern.

- The party’s attack catches the poisoned Drakes by surprise. Spell, arrow, bolt, psionics and hand axes are hurled at the Drakes. Trenchant makes a particularly good shot with his crossbow and fires off two quick bolts in succession (Critical Hit - Maximum damage and Another follow up attack).

- Some of the Drakes, already badly injured from poison, are dropped dead by the sudden attack and a few others are badly wounded. The enraged beasts leap towards the lower wooden gate and start to claw and bite at it, desperate to make their way up to the party. It would appear that there will not be enough time for the injured Drakes to break their way through the gate before they all get killed.

- Nac smiling as he sends his Chill Touch hand to claw at a couple of Drakes shouts, “This is like taking a rattle from a new born baby. This is easy!”

- The smile from Nac’s face quickly disappears when the closest rock column in the lower section suddenly starts to move. One large orange eye snaps open in centre of the column and then a mouth larger than a grown adult opens up. The mouth is filled with 6” long teeth. Suddenly four tentacles shoot out from the thing and fly towards the nearest members of the party. Gim, Valder, Labarett and Sir Krondor all start to duck and dive as the tentacles try to grab them.

- Nac shouts out, “What is that thing!”

- Oloma shouts, “It is a Roper! A dreaded creature of the underdark. Do not let the tentacles grab you, else it will drag you into its mouth to eat you!”

- Valder dives to the ground, the tentacles barely missing him, and then continues to run all the way back to the far wall to try to stay out of the range of the tentacles. Sir Krondor and Gim soon find they each have a long, hard tentacle that has wrapped around their waist with considerable strength. Quickly before the pair can be dragged away they both drop their weapons and use their hands to pry themselves free from the tentacles (Successful Strength checks).

- Labarett hurls one of his javelins at the Roper and hits it dead centre but the weapon bounces off.

- Oloma shouts, “Their skin is very hard. You’ll need to hit it harder than that!” (Roper’s AC is 20 from natural armour).

- The combat becomes frantic now and what was a simple battle has turned into a life and death struggle. Most of the party are trying to either attack the tentacles directly or hurl attacks at the large body of the Roper itself. Naillae abandons the stairway and comes over to help throw daggers too. Each time someone in the party gets a tentacle wrapped around them and manages to free themselves, they soon find themselves attacked and grappled again. Each time the rough tentacles rip open their skin and cause bleeding wounds.

- Nac concentrates his attacks at the Drakes as they continue to try to break through the gate which is now only half hanging up.

- Trenchant is shouting encouragement at the party (he gives one Bardic Inspiration die to both Sir Krondor and Labarett who are trying to attack the tentacles directly).

- Sir Krondor decides to change tactics and rather than using his strength to force himself out of the tentacles, smashes his silver war hammer into one of the tentacles and breaks it in half. The removed section of tentacle drops to the ground motionless whilst the other remaining half, retracts into the body of the Roper. The large orange eye swivels towards Sir Krondor and the large mouth opens wide with a roar.

- Sir Krondor shouts, “I think I’ve pissed it off!”

- Labarett swings his Masterwork long sword at another tentacle but his grip is wrong and he accidentally lets the weapon fly out of his grip and it lands 10’ away and below in the lower section near the Roper. (Fumble) The Elf barbarian pulls out his second Masterwork long sword.

- Another of the Drakes falls dead, leaving only two now, but the gate is now torn off. Before the Drakes can rush up the stairs the party hurl attacks down at the pair, killing one of the Drakes off and injuring the other. Labarett races down the stairs and charges directly at the last Drake and kills it with a single swing of his weapon.

- Gim, finding himself once again wrapped in a tentacle, swings his lion battle axe and cleaves the tentacle in two (Critical Hit - Max damage and sunder) and then cuts another tentacle down. The Roper’s eye turns immediately to Gim and the beast howls.

- Gim looks worried, “Bugger. It’s looking at me now!”

- Suddenly two more new tentacles shoot out from the Roper and now Gim has three tentacles trying to attack and grab him. The Dwarf manages to duck under one tentacle but he soon finds himself with two tentacles wrapped around him. Gim and Trenchant desperately start to swing their weapons at the tentacles and manage to cut both the tentacles off before they can pull the Dwarf in.

- The rest of the party are throwing everything they have at the Roper. Arrows, bolts, daggers, javelins, hand axes, spells and psionic thrusts all take chucks off the large beast.

- With only one tentacle left near the trio of Gim, Trenchant and Labarett, the last tentacle is cut down.

- Sir Krondor fires an arrow at the Roper and the arrow manages to lodge in the mouth of the beast as it was closed. (Critical Hit - “In The Kisser”). The mouth is now stuck shut until it can break the arrow.

- Labarett seeing the mouth is now shut charges at the body of the Roper, his weapon pointed directly ahead. The Roper is trying to force its mouth open, the wooden arrow is starting to break apart but before it can release itself, under the combined effort of all the party attacking from the upper section and Labarett bravely fighting it in close melee, the Roper suddenly stops moving and begins to topple over. With a loud crash the large heavy beast hits the ground.

- The party are victorious but with many injuries again. Thanks to some luck they managed to survive the Roper and Drakes.

- As Labarett bends down to retrieve his Masterwork long sword he notices that the ground in this lower section, which is soft black sand, has small slightly raised mounds all around it. Some of the party come down to search the lower area, and to retrieve their thrown weapons, and all up they count twenty small raised mounds around the lower section.

- Oloma scrapes the cold black dirt from one mound and finds a hard round object about an inch under the surface. She continues to dig and pulls out a large egg, about 10” high, that is very hard and has a scaly surface.

- Valder looks at the egg, “Unless I’m mistaken, that is a Dragon Egg.”

- Quickly the rest of the party get to work to dig out the twenty Dragon Eggs. Once all the eggs are out Valder looks them over. He thinks they are of different Dragon types but he can’t be sure which are which.

- Trenchant checks his Bag Of Sharing but it still has the notes he placed in it before. The Bard looks up, “It appears that Valthrun has not checked the Bag on his end yet. We’re on our own.”

- The party divide the Dragon Eggs up and each member takes two eggs, except Labarett and Nac who take three eggs, and places them into their backpacks. Trenchant places four of the eggs into his Bag of Sharing.

- As the party are now injured from the battle with the Roper they decide to take another short rest. Naillae sits near the stair way to listen out for possible patrols. Everyone else takes the time to simply rest. Nac once again sits down, eyes closed, and prays to his Goddess.

- The hour passes and luckily for the party they are not disturbed (Once again some of the party spend Hit Die to recover Hit Points. The party are getting close to the point of running out of Hit Die, Healing Potions and Healing Spells).

- At the end of the short rest, Nac’s eyes snap open from his prayer, “My prayer is not strong enough! The images, they are stronger now but still eluding me. I saw the statue of Tahakisis in the Dragon Shrine with the silver chest. I believe if I were to pray in that room I will have a stronger connection to my Goddess.”

- As the Dragon Shrine room is just near by the party leave the Dragon Egg Chamber and return to the where the statue of the Dragon Goddess looms tall in the room. The silver chest, engraved with dragons, stands just before the statue.

- Nac states that he will need to perform a prayer ritual for ten minutes and the Cleric of Tahakisis goes over to kneel in the front of the statue.

- Sir Krondor and Gim move over to the long 100’ stairs to guard it. Valder and Labarett look over the  carved and engraved wall of Dragon motifs. Naillae crouches near the silver chest, looking carefully over it but not daring to touch it.

- Meanwhile Trenchant, Valder and Oloma move over to the dead end section to look at the tall vertical natural shaft that extends beyond sight. The rope hanging down from the shaft is thick and sturdy with regular knots tied into it to make climbing with it easier. Valder summons his owl familiar and sends it to fly upwards in the shaft and concentrates to see through his familiar’s eyes. Valder reports that the shaft extends about 80’ up and then stops. There is a rug or mat covering the top of the shaft, little specks of light shine through the covering, and the rope continues all the way to the top.

- After ten minutes, the rest of the party move over to see Nac has finished his prayer. Standing up, rubbing his tired eyes, he speaks, “My goddess has spoken to me. I asked her more information about the Dragon Mask that would summon her into this world. She warned me that once a mortal places the Dragon Mask on they can not take it off. Only their death would release the Mask and in doing so The Dragon Goddess would be returned to the Nine Hells, until someone else placed the mask on.”

- Valder asks, “Is that everything?”

- Nac replies, “Yes, I have told you everything you need know.”

- The party now take some time to discuss what to do. Sir Krondor is very eager to see what lays inside the silver chest. Trenchant believes they should just leave now with the Dragon Eggs and not risk setting off the trap they know is there. The party take a vote and most want to try to open the chest.

- Naillae suggests that she could make a visual examination of the chest to discover the nature of the trap. She spends a few minutes to carefully look over the chest, avoiding touching it. She then informs the party that she can see a small wire inside the key look and another small wire underneath the chest. She believes that the trap is set to go off if the lid were to be forced open, or the chest moved, or if the wrong key was turned in the lock or if the lock was picked opened. The only way to open the chest safely would be to use the right key or Naillae could attempt to disarm the trap and bypass the wire to the key lock. She states that the wire underneath the chest is not accessible and she could not disarm it.

- Most of the party decide to have Naillae attempt to disarm the key lock trap. Trenchant follows the lead of the party, and then offers advice and encouragement to Naillae in her disarm attempt (Bardic Inspiration gives plus d8). So too does Nac who casts a Guidance spell upon Naillae to help guide her hands in the attempt (Guidance spell gives plus d4). After a rope is tied around the waist of Naillae, in case she sets the trap off and they have to drag her out, the rest of the party leave the room and wait on the main stairs in.

- Naillae begins to work her Thief’s tools on the complicated key lock wire. She begins to sweat as she realises that this trap is perhaps beyond her ability and she is about to set the trap off. (As this is an important roll, the DM suggests that he should not roll for the NPCs disarm attempt. So after a bit of discussion, the roll is done by Bob (Sir Krondor), and he rolls a 4 so even with the extra d8 and d4 the attempt will fail and the trap will be set off. However, Rob (Oloma) uses his Inspiration to allow a reroll. This time Travis (Trenchant) decides to make the roll and he rolls very high, and that along with the extra d4 and d8, gives a final result of 23.)

- As just Naillae is sure she is about to fail, she cuts the wire, and nothing happens. She slowly pulls her tiny tools out of the key hole and looks up with a smile, “I’ve disabled the trap.”

- She then goes about picking the lock and with a satisfying click, the lid pops up half a centimetre, “The chest is unlocked. Who wants to open it?”

- The party, still unsure the chest is safe, ask Naillae to examine the partially open lid for further traps. She does so and states she can’t be sure but she can’t see any wires or other mechanisms and thinks it safe.

- Oloma strides over to the chest, whilst everyone else tries to come up with a way to open the lid remotely, and the Mystic boldly opens the lid.

- Inside the chest is a string of pearls, a gold and sapphire ring, and a small open leather pouch containing half a dozen well cut gems, a larger leather pouch with writing on it that is tied shut, four lightning rune stones, and a 3” wide silver heart shaped jewellery box sitting atop a folded note.

- Trenchant speaks whilst pulling out a small note, “I think those are the items referred to in that note we found in Frulam’s command tent.”

- Trenchant then reads out the note again, “Everything must be freighted north, through Singbury, and around Asalea, towards Naerytar. Avoid attention. Use the roads only and do not use river barges. Rezmir allowed us to keep some pearls, a ring, and a handful of stones.”

- The Bard points to the items in the chest, “There is the pearls, the ring and stones. They must be part of the stolen goods from Anwich.”

- The items are taken out. The lightning rune stones are three Tier 1 stones and one Tier 2 stone, which is divided out to the party. The larger leather pouch is opened and inside is ground up rose petals which gives a strong sweet smell. Written on the outside of the pouch in rough common is, “Throw some of this up into the air when entering the lower section to check on the Dragon Eggs. The Roper is trained not to attack when this scent is used.”

- Sir Krondor speaks, “Well, that would have been handy to have BEFORE we went into that dam cavern!”

- Next the party examine the small 3” wide silver heart shaped jewellery box. On the lid is a masterfully engraved scene with such detail as to be almost life like. A brave knight stands, his broken long sword lays on the ground, so too does his shattered shield. He stands in front of and protecting a cowering maiden, whom he holds in his arms, shielding her from the view of a dragon. To the side is a large pile of treasure. Looming over the pair is a massive dragon, with one broken horn, the other half of the horn lays on the ground. The beasts jaws are open with flames flickering and it is obvious the beast is about to kill the pair in its fiery breath.

- The lid of the jewellery box is unlocked so the party open it. The inside of box is lined in plush red velvet. A small, egg sized object, dark red and with rough sides is the only object inside.

- Valder looks at the odd object, “I think that is a shrunken, dried heart. Looks like a human heart.”

- The note that was under the jewellery box is opened and read out by Oloma, it is in common, “Langdedrosa, Keep this heart secure until we can figure out how to make it work. There must be a way that is alluding us.”

- Trenchant the Bard of Valour then speaks (Successful History Check), “I remember an old song taught to me long ago. It was the tale of Sir Gillan. He was a brave and noble Knight and performed many great deeds but the song was not about his many quests but about his end. Sir Gillan, single handedly went to a cave in a tall mountain, as a Dragon there was attacking a near by village and they had asked for the Knights help. This Dragon however proved more of a match than Sir Gillan anticipated. Sir Gillan managed to inflict a serious wound on the Dragon and cut off one of its horns but the battle went badly for the Knight and when his long sword and shield lay smashed on the floor he had no choice but to turn and retreat. The Dragon did not follow and Sir Gillan could have left to save his life but then he heard a faint, desperate cry of help from a female voice back inside with the Dragon. Sir Gillan, with no weapon, went back inside and saw that the Dragon had not only a hoard of gold and treasure but a prisoner too, a young maiden in tears sat in the shadows at the back of the cavern. Sir Gillan ran over to the maiden and stood in front of her. With no weapon and no shield the Knight knew he could not save her nor himself but he would not stand aside. Not even as the jaws of the Dragon opened with flames visible, did the Knight falter, and as the Knight held onto the maiden to speak calming and reassuring words to her that he knew where a lie, the Dragon engulfed the pair in flames. Sir Gillan lost his life that day, to save a girl he did not know, in a noble and selfless sacrifice befitting a hero. The Dragon, after eating the burnt maiden, grabbed the burnt body of the Knight and flew to the near by village where the Dragon dropped the body as a warning. The villagers took the body and gave it proper burial. The song does not tell what happened to his body.”

- Naillae looked over to Oloma whilst the tale of Sir Gillan was being recounted by Trenchant. She noticed that Oloma appeared to be talking silently to herself. Concerned Naillae quietly asks, “You ok?”

- Oloma replies softly, “Yes, I was just giving a silent prayer about the tale. Do not concern yourself.”

- The party then move over to the far vertical shaft and get Naillae to use her expertise as a thief and burglar to climb the rope. She does so easily and quickly. She climbs up about 80 feet and finds the exit to the hole is covered with a rug. Little speckles of light can be seen from the rug, so a light source must be on the other side. She can hear the sound of someone writing on paper with a quill, and also the sounds of near by snoring.

- Naillae climbs down and tells the party what she has seen and heard. The party decide it is now time to take on Frulam and her guards. The party guess that the covered hole must come out somewhere around where they know Frulam must be. They get Naillae to climb back up and cut the rope about 10’ down from the exit. They have her wait near the upper exit, hanging onto the rocky walls of the shaft, hidden, to wait for sounds of combat. When she hears the battle start she is to come out from the rear and start to sneak attack. Naillae says she’ll do this but if she doesn’t hear anything she’ll wait for 2 hours and then she’ll go back down to see what has happened.

- The rest of the party now leave Naillae behind, walk through the Dragon Shrine Room, up the 100’ long stairs, through the Kobold Sleeping Chamber and then through the Drake Hatchery cavern where they left the tied up and gagged Kobold Chieftain hanging on the wall; the Daylight spell of Nac has long since ceased to work in this cavern. As they walk past they see that the Chieftain is dead, a single small wound on his chest, as if someone slipped a dagger into his heart.

- The party look at each other and finally Trenchant speaks, “Ok, who is responsible for this?”

- Everyone looks at Nac and the Cleric responds with a smile, “Don’t look at me. I was with you guys.”

- As no one takes responsibility for the killing the party move on. They move into the large cavern with the bat filled ceiling. They once again ignore the descending stairs that smell of blood and death. They move over to the far side of the cavern where the unexplored ledge going down is. With the benefit of light and dark vision now, the party can see the ledge goes down 10’ to another smaller section of the cavern before it descends again into a very low section of the cavern that is filled with rubbish and garbage. There is a smell of rotting food here. There is the occasional glint of metal in the large pile of rubbish but as the pile and cavern is so large, they can not even see the far side of the cavern, they decide not to go down to search it and instead carry on to where Frulam is as per the plan.

- The party proceed on through the cavern filled with fungus and over the trapped stairs to return to the large entry cavern of the Hatchery. They start to search the area where the now dead Kobold Chieftain had indicated there was a secret door.

- They search for ten minutes but come up empty handed even knowing the rough spot the door should be (Advantage on Roll thanks to the information gained by the Chieftain).

- Trenchant huffs, “You know what would have been handy? If the Chieftain was still alive we could have grabbed him to show us exactly where the dam secret door is!”

- No one responds to the comment. Again the party spend about ten minutes to search the area desperately looking for the door but can not find it.

- Sir Krondor now speaks, “Dam it! Surely someone in the party is skilled at finding secret doors!”

- Nac speaks, “Yes and she is currently hanging in a vertical shaft waiting for us to get through and start a battle from this side.”

- With no other choice the party search for the secret door for a third time. Taking another ten minutes to search, this time Nac casts Guidance on himself (+ d4 bonus) and Trenchant gives him some verbal encouragement too (+ d8 bonus) and with that, along with the knowledge gained from the Chieftain (giving advantage on the roll), Nac does indeed find the very well hidden secret door (required a DC 23 check to find).

- Prying open the secret door can be seen a corridor that goes forth. About 30’ away a dark side passage goes off to the right but the main corridor continues around in a slight bend to end at an opening, about 60’ away, to a lit chamber.

- Trenchant pulls up his Elven Cloak and walks forward to investigate. He reaches the side passage and enters it. Ahead is a dark chamber, he can just make out some coins and a broken box on the floor at the entry way, but the human Bard can not see well enough in the darkness to see the rest of the room. From the dark room he can hear snoring. From the lit chamber he can also hear the sound of snoring, a lot of it, and the sound of rolling dice too.

- Trenchant goes back and tells the party what he saw and heard. The party decide to send up Oloma, Labarett and Gim to the dark side room to investigate. Labarett and Gim take the lead as their dark vision makes moving about easy where as Oloma has to use the dim light coming from the lit room to navigate the corridor. Labarett steps on a piece of broken wood on the floor that breaks with a snap.

- Oloma hangs back at the junction as she can still see well enough there and Labarett and Gim move over to the entrance of the dark room to see that it is a large chamber with broken wooden boxes and broken bits of wood are all over the floor, a handful of coins are on the floor, and a body in the corner to the far right is asleep under some blankets. The figure is snoring and has not apparently heard the approach of the party.

- Just then Oloma hears the sound of walking footsteps coming from the direction of the lit room. She leans out to take a look and is confronted by the sight of two surprised guards who look directly at the face of Oloma which is only a few feet away. Both guards are in armour and hold a shield and spear loosely at their sides.

- Oloma quickly and quietly springs into action before the guards can react. (Initiative won by Oloma). She calls forth the twin Soul Knives of light from her hands and bounds around the corner to slice one Soul Knife across the throat of one guard, who silently falls backwards clutching his open bleeding throat, and plunges her other Soul Knife into the heart of the other guard. Both guards lay dead on the floor.

- Labarett silently moves over to the sleeping figure and plunges his long sword twice into the chest of the reclining figure. With a gurgle the figure stops breathing and lays dead. Two empty wine bottles near the body and the reek of liquor would suggest the male was quite drunk.

- Labarett and Gim search the dark room with the darkvision and only find 20 silver coins, 4 gold coins and 10 small gems.

- A voice yells out from the lit room, “Eron, hurry up and come back, it’s your turn!”

- Another voice, sounding sleepy and angry, shouts, “Shut ya dirty mouth! We’re trying to sleep!”

- The party quickly come up with a plan. Nac and Valder will hang back at the open secret door to wait in ambush and to provide covering fire with spells. Gim and Sir Krondor will move to the dark side passage to wait in ambush with their melee weapons. Trenchant along with Oloma and Labarett will boldly walk into the lit room to try to convince them they are Dragon Cult reinforcements sent to ask for a small number to go back to help with a task; at which point the other party members waiting in ambush will attack the split up forces.

- Trenchant, still disguised as a cultist, walks into view into the lit chamber. It is a large chamber with a few lit torches on the walls. About twenty sleeping bodies lay in bed rolls all around the chamber. To the left is a side passage leading to somewhere else. Trenchant quickly scans the room but can not see any rug or mat, this is not the room where Naillae is waiting. To the right on the far wall, seated around a round table are six figures gambling with dice. One of the figures, dressed in impressive armour, stands up, “Who the fuck are you?”

- The other figures start to grab the nearby shields and spears.

- Trenchant speaks calmly, “We’re reinforcements. I need some of your men to come with me to help Lord Frulam with a task.” (Failed Deception check)

- The tall and solid looking man bellows, “Like fuck you are! I’ve never seen you before. UP YOU DOGS! TO ARMS!”

- The bodies on the ground start to stir but before most can do anything, Oloma pushes past Trenchant to move to the side of the entryway and concentrates her mind. A Physic Blast races towards the line of bodies on the ground and in an instant elven of the guards stop breathing as their minds are torn asunder.

- One of the bodies of the far wall, sits up and points a heavy crossbow at the party, releasing a crossbow bolt. At the same time, the standing veteran soldier races across and starts to swing his sword at Oloma. The first swing misses, thanks to Oloma’s cloak that makes her appear just off to the side of where she actually is (disadvantage on combat rolls) but the second back swing swings true directly where she is. Just before the veteran’s blade strikes her Oloma suddenly vanishes and teleports 10’ away.

- Trenchant tries to swing back at the veteran but he times his swing poorly and hits himself in the jaw (Fumble). The Bard will not be able to speak for a short time, thus can not use any of his Bardic abilities or talents!

- Sir Krondor and Gim come running up together, still in corridor. Sir Krondor yells out, “Hold them all here. Langdedrosa is killed and our other group is taking the Dragon Eggs now!”

- Gim shouts too, “Yes we should have all the Dragon Eggs soon!”

- The veteran soldier hears this exchange. (Sir Krondor failed his Deception check but Gim was successful in his Deception roll). Quickly the veteran soldier snaps, “Warn Frulam the eggs are being stolen NOW!”

- One of the guards closest to the left passageway sprints down and out of sight yelling, “The eggs! The eggs are being stolen!”

- Meanwhile the five guards, in full armour, that were at the round table, sprint towards Trenchant and surround him; their spears lunging at him.

- Trenchant realises he is alone at the entry way surrounded by guards but the Bard can’t use any of his special abilities due to his injured jaw preventing him from talking.

- Valder though sees the danger the Bard is in and sends forth the Fireball that he has been saving all this time. The small orange speck flies over the party and lands in the middle of chamber. The speck explodes into a ranging fireball of intense heat. The flames go around the Bard, thanks to Valder’s special evocation mastery of shaping, and kills all five guards around the Bard, and another three guards around the room. The flames have also badly burnt the veteran soldier near Trenchant and the other soldier across the room with the heavy cross bow.

- As the flames die down, Labarett runs in and engages the veteran soldier in armour.

- Just as the party are thinking they have the battle in hand, two robed figures appear from the side passage, Cult Fanatics. One of the Fanatics points at Labarett and the Elf barbarian feels his muscles start to stiffen; he is now Held by magic (Failed save roll). The other Fanatic points at Trenchant but has no effect on the Bard (Successful save roll).

- From the side passage a loud female scream is heard, that quickly fades away and then suddenly stops.

- “That better not be Naillae,” shouts Nac as he fires off a spell.

- “No, that wasn’t her voice,” shouts back Trenchant, as he lunges with his rapier.

- The soldier on the far wall drops his heavy crossbow, and as he lifts himself up, dressed only in a loose undershirt, he grabs a long sword and approaches the immobilised Labarett. The Elf barbarian is helpless against the attack and the large soldier carves two deep wounds into Labarett’s torso. Instantly the barbarian falls over, unconscious and bleeding to death.

- The rest of the party see Labarett drop and rush into gear to save him. Gim, Oloma, Sir Krondor, and Trenchant all move forward engaging foes. Sir Krondor and Gim smash lightning runes onto the their weapons, causing lightning to erupt along each of their weapons.

- The two Fanatics again cast spells and suddenly floating spectral weapons appear next to Gim and Sir Krondor, swinging at them. The combat is frantic now as the party know they have to get to Labarett before he bleeds to death and the remaining foes are fighting to the death too.

- Nac points at the two Fanatics and sends forth his Chill Hand at both and the spectral ghost hand grabs each of their throats bringing the pair to the ground dead (Spell Critical Hit). As the two Fanatics hit the ground dead both of the spectral weapons they had conjured disappear into mist.

- The rest of the party press the attack at remaining foes, giving enough room for Sir Krondor, who takes a swing at a foe on the way through, to rush over to the downed figure of Labarett.

- The Dwarf Knight grabs his backpack hurriedly and opens it searching for his Healing Kit to stop the bleeding on the barbarian. As the battle rages around him the Dwarf Knight starts to apply salves and bandages to Labarett, Sir Krondor has stopped the bleeding and saved Labarett.

- The final foes drop one by one, just as Naillae comes walking into the room from the side passage, casually wiping the blood of her rapier, “What took you so long?”

- Naillae informs the party that when she was waiting in the shaft, Frulam has raced over, pulled aside the rug covering the hole, and started to climb down. When Frulam got 10’ down and noticed that the rope had been cut off, Naillae left her hiding spot in the shadows, grabbed Frulam and pulled her off the rope before she even knew what was happening. Naillae watched the Cult Commander, fall screaming to her death, and hit the ground hard; her limbs and head bent back at weird angles that could only mean she had meet her death.

- Then Naillae saw a guard leaning over the hole to look down, so Naillae who was still hidden in the dark shadows of the shaft, threw a single dagger at the guard. The blade struck him straight in the left eye and the guard fall over onto the floor dead.

- After that Naillae climbed up out of the shaft, retrieved her dagger and came over to the party who had pretty much just dispatched the lost of the foes.

- Whilst Naillae is explaining what happened, Nac and Trenchant are casting healing spells onto the unconscious but stable Labarett. Soon the Elf barbarian sits up coughing, he is alive. Seeing Sir Krondor crouched next to him, putting away his Healing Kit and supplies, the Elf barbarian thanks the Dwarf Knight solemnly, “You risked your life to save mine friend. Thankyou.”

- Sir Krondor smiling, just slaps the Elf barbarian good-naturedly on the back.

- The party move straight into the side passage and into Frulam’s room. This large room is sparsely furnished and has no decorations of any sort. There is a wooden table near one wall with a single seat, a large and nicely made bed in a corner with a nearby open chest (filled with clothes), a rug has been thrown to the side of the room revealing a large hole in one corner of the room and a sturdy rope attached to a metal ring in a wall going into the pit, and a small side room to the north where two rough sleeping bedrolls are which are presumably where the two Cult Fanatics slept to guard Frulam.

- The writing desk is searched on the table is found a solid silver key with a small black dragon on the end of the key made of black onyx.

- Sir Krondor bows his head down and moans, “The key for the silver chest! I think we’ve pretty much done this cave in the wrong order.”

- Most of the letters and notes on the desk are mundane, simple accounting or inventory requirements of the camp or books with bad dragon poetry. However, one note gets the party’s attention:

“Lord Galvan The Blue Wyrmspeaker.

The camp is running well. Raiders from the Anwich attack have returned with suitable treasure. It has been counted and sent forth. Solana Venrel needs to learn her place and duties; her lack of respect for my position and orders are interfering with our plans. We had some issues with a group lead by a Dwarven Knight Of The Anvil and Solana was not up to the task of dealing with them; resulting in her Dragon, Lennithon, taking a grievous wound. To salvage the situation she caused, I sent forth my second in charge, Langdedrosa Cyanwrath, Dragonfang, and he has killed the meddling Knight.

Rezmir The Black, along with one of the fool Red Wizards, came to ensure the tribute was sent. Curse Rezmir the arrogant fool. He along with Severin The Red think they are the most important of the Wyrmspeakers! Ha! I shall bind my time, as you request, and humour him. His time will come soon enough, he and all the other Wyrmspeakers will bow down before you my great and wise Lord, the one who truly speaks for Tiamat.

Interrogations with that dam Harper have revealed little. I will kill him soon.

The Hatchery is running smoothly and the Dragon Eggs are safe.

Your humble servant, Frulam Mondath, DragonSoul

Tiamat, Our Mother and Strength"

<And as the party stand in the private room of Frulam, within “The Hatchery”, and wondering how they are going to get out alive, past the hundreds of troops outside, that is the end of the session.>

XP Allocation

Group - Combined (This is equally divided by the number of players who were involved)

Quests (Only quests that are completed or rendered undoable, during this session, are shown here)

- Locate The Dragon Eggs = 500 XP

- Open The Dragon Chest = 200 XP

- “Cut Off The Head” - Remove Frulam from Command = 300 XP

Creatures Overcome

- Guard Drakes = 2700 XP

- Roper = 1800 XP

- Guards / Cultists = 550 XP

- Veteran Guards = 1400 XP

- Cult Fanatics = 900 XP

- Frulam Mondath = 450 XP

Individual (This is only given to that person and is not divided amongst all players)

Special Bonus (Outstanding Role Playing)

Nil

XP Levels and Player Allocations

Player : Start +  Received = Total  (Notes)

Phil : 20709 + 825 = 21534

Rob : 24902 + 1375 = 26277

Arthur : 17774 + 825 = 18599

Bob : 13846 + 1375 = 15221 (Level up to Level 6)

Travis : 14749 + 1100 = 15849

Paul : 11920 + 1100 = 13020

NPC (Valder) : ??? + 550 = ???

NPC (Naillae) : ??? + 550 = ???

[truebluedc4l-blog]

The sting of it all...

If you are anything like me, you are probably still licking your wounds after Sunday’s tough Divisional Round loss at AT&T Stadium.  If I have to hear Stephen A. Smith proclaim “He’s a bad man” one more time I think I might hurl.  Sunday’s loss to Green Bay and more particularly “The Bad Man himself” Aaron Rodgers is going to sting for quite a while.  The 2014 playoff loss hurt for all of the obvious reasons and I still do not understand how it was not a catch.  However, this season’s loss hurts for a whole new set of reasons.  Not only did the Cowboys lose, but we may have also witnessed Tony Romo wearing a Cowboys jersey for the very last time.  For that, this loss cuts far deeper for me.

Two years later and the same issues plagued the Dallas Cowboys.  The team couldn’t get any pressure on Rodgers as he sat back like Dr. Sean McNamara in an Episode of Nip/Tuck and surgically took apart the Cowboys secondary.  In the earlier season matchup, Rodgers did not have Ty Montgomery running the ball with the efficiency he showed in the post season.  Montgomery in my mind was the unsung hero of the game for Green Bay because of his early ability to gash the Cowboys for large chunks.  Those large early runs helped putt Sean Lee and Anthony Hitchens on their toes and forced them to bite first on the run.  Rodgers was able to sit back and use play action to buy a solid 2-3 extra seconds of time, giving him 6 or more seconds on just about every drop back.  I hate to say it, but even Ryan Leaf could have success with that much time.  How in the world did Rodgers even make that throw rolling left?  His playmaking ability is absolutely ridiculous.

I’m probably about the biggest Tony Romo fan you will ever meet.  We can all sit back and wonder what if.  I will just go ahead and say it as a homer, but I believe Romo wins that game on Sunday.  Yes, I said it.  Just as I say that, it surely does not mean that I believe this loss was Dak’s fault.  Dak showed poise and great resolve leading the come back and giving the Cowboys a chance at overtime.  However, early on Tony would have recognized just how important every drive was against an Aaron Rodgers led team.  Tony would have seen the importance of stretching the field and making big plays when they presented themselves and that comes with ability, confidence and most importantly experience.  I firmly believe Dak will look back over game tape and see some first half drives where check downs were not totally necessary and that letting out his inner gunslinger is not always a bad thing.  It is surely not his fault this game was lost, but I do believe he will recognize some plays left on the table that could have changed the face of the game drastically.

Rod Marinelli did a great job all year with the Cowboys defense.  In fact, he has done a great job every season as the Cowboys Defensive Coordinator.  He has taken lesser talent and other team’s castaway practice squad talent and turned one of the league’s worst defenses into a defense that competes.  The defense still does not have the talent to dominate, but they still fought each and every game.  Facing the savvy Aaron Rodgers has to truly be a coordinators nightmare.  The inability once again to get edge pressure proved to be costly.  Bringing all out blitzes exposes the secondary in one-on-one matchups and if that pressure never arrives, Rodgers sits back and destroys you.  I believe Marinelli did all he could with what he had personnel wise.  I did personally call for him to switch to the 3-2-6 scheme that he used against the Lions.   I felt like that change might be enough to cause some issues for Rodgers.  Marinelli finally went to it a bit in the second half and was able to get some stops.   I look for the offseason focus of the Cowboys to be finding Edge Rushers in this draft.  With Eli Manning, Kirk Cousins and a young gunslinger in Carson Wentz, the Cowboys will need a pass rush if they want to stay on top of the NFC East.

Most off-seasons, Cowboy fans spend time looking at Free Agents and clamor at what could be.  For the first time in many years, I believe it is time we start taking care of own.  It is time to start locking down players we have developed and keep them from heading elsewhere.  Guys like Barry Church, Ronald Leary, Terrell McClain, David Irving and Terrence Williams will all hopefully be resigned.  It is imperative that the Cowboys keep some of these vital pieces to the puzzle.

The 2016 season is over.  It does suck.  Dak Prescott said it best at his closing interview – “I mean, it’s sinking in.  It sucks.  It stinks.  But I mean it was fun, it was a great year.  Great teammates, great coaches.  The reality of it though is we all won’t be back together.  That’s what team meeting was all about.  We know it’s the business of this league.  It’s part of it.  But yeah, it sucks.”.  That is the reality of it.  We are now on day 3 of the 2017 season.  Guys are Free Agents.  The 2017 Dallas Cowboys team will likely look much different than the 2016 edition.  Each new season also presents its own challenges, so you can never start back off where you left off the previous season.

Right now as a fan, I plan to sit back and reflect on a great year.  I will not call this season a failure, but it is far from the success anybody that bleeds blue and silver would ever accept.  If it was Tony’s last ride in Dallas, then I would like to thank him for the memories.  Tony made us all believe again that no matter what the odds were, his team always had a chance...

I will be writing a weekly column on everything Cowboys up until the Draft in April.  So each week look for a new column addressing this team and the steps moving forward to achieve greatness.  Also look for draft analysis and scouting reports on players the Cowboys might be looking at in the upcoming NFL Draft.  If you’d like to reach me you can do so at truebluedc4l@yahoo.com

[vincentbuckles]

Weekend reading: Can we take back control from Brexit?

[A quick update on Brexit thoughts for those who want to reasonably discuss it. For those who don’t, please feel free to skip to the links.]

Imagine having anticipated something for 30 years, finally getting the freedom to do it, and then making a car crash out of it.

But enough about my life as a mid-life singleton. I’m thinking here of the Eurosceptic wing of the Conservative party.

You know – those 40-odd guys who can’t muster up enough votes to unseat the UK’s most ineffectual leader since Hugh Laurie’s Prince Regent in Blackadder the Third, and yet who’ve somehow managed to send 63 million of us towards an apparently imminent impoverished future.

You might think the World Class farce we’ve endured over the past 30 months would see me smiling.

After all a second referendum is looking ever more likely, if still not odds-on.

But unfortunately, I continue to read and hear abundant evidence that most of the Leave voting contingent still doesn’t get it.

And that means despite the demographic challenges of that faction (i.e. its original margin of victory is literally dying) it’s quite possible Leave could win again.

Especially if the Remain side sticks to the previous policy of dull facts over bus-splattering bullshit fabrications.

No wonder Leave voters seem almost as angry as Remainers:

I’ve seen a parade of #Brexit leaders on news programmes today. Their position boils down to this: We are absolutely sure voters knew exactly what they voted for and, as soon as we manage to agree among ourselves what that was, we will inform voters what it was they voted for.

— Alex Andreou (@sturdyAlex) December 6, 2018

A second referendum is a horrible solution to a stupid problem, with plenty of downsides.

However from my perspective it has the minor virtue of being less terrible than all the other alternatives.

Whose Brexit is it, anyway

Can we not stop this death march? Absolutely no one seems happy with the direction of travel.

Not even the Leave voters, that’s the most galling – if unsurprising – thing.

Blogger Ermine came close to capturing this contradiction at the heart of the Leave vote with a graphic this week. Leavers are represented here by the two Mickey Mouse ears on top of the smug metropolitan elite mug:

What @ermine’s Venn diagram is missing though is the set of people who voted either Leave or Remain to make us poorer.

Perhaps that’s because it doesn’t exist – despite even the Government admitting that’s what we face.

True, a tiny set of Brexiteers have belatedly conceded that a No Deal Brexit will hit us in the national nads.

That, they now say, is a price worth paying for sovereignty / blue passports / the right to negotiate trade deals with Madagascar and Kazakhstan.

But all the leading Leave-supporting players continue to lie to the electorate.

Theresa May herself rounded off her Deal Debate Dodge by harking back to the supposed ability of Brexit to reduce the inequalities and insecurities she spoke of in the aftermath of the vote – despite almost every single analysis of Brexit showing a net negative impact, economically-speaking.1

If you want sovereignty or fewer immigrants from Brexit, fair enough. Own that. Don’t claim the tooth fairy too.

But sadly, the very few Leavers I come across in real-life are still saying things like “The EU needs us more than we need them.”

The same EU that has run rings around us in negotiations.

The EU that has stuck firmly together, despite all forecasts to the contrary, and strangely believes more in its vision of togetherness than in the fantasies of Brexiteers.

The EU that takes 44% of our exports, while we take 8%2 of theirs.

The roughly 450 million of them versus the 63 million of us.

The UK vs the EU is a negotiating position that only looks attractive to Tories of a certain class raised to see greatness in the self-destruction of The Charge Of The Light Brigade.

“C’est magnifique, mais ce n’est pas la guerre; c’est de la folie”.3

Barry Barricades

What I missed when I created Barry Blimp – the archetypal Home Counties Leave voter of not inconsiderable means and more than a few years – was his zealotry.

Because I now see a big chunk of the Leave cohort want Brexit no matter what.

In fact I rather think some would enjoy it if we had ferries piled up outside Dover and food rationing at Tesco.

Obviously I feel vindicated when I think back to the insults hurled at me when I ventured my opinion on my own blog that many Leave voters didn’t know what they’d started, or that this would drag on for years.

But that’s about as satisfying as telling the person in the seat next to you that yes, you were right that the 747’s engine sounded a bit funny as the Captain shouts “Brace, brace!” over the tannoy.

There seems no good solution to this mess now. Revolutions have started over less.

(That may sound melodramatic if you don’t know your history. I suggest you Google the origins of the French Revolution, the English Civil War, or the American War of Independence before you jab your finger in my chest.)

To be clear I’m not predicting revolution – let alone hoping for it, from any perspective – but there’s got to be a non-zero chance.

Currently we are just living through a nationalist coup, and that’s bad enough.

The irony is for many on the right, Jeremy Corbyn is a revolutionary Marxist.

Politics has abandoned the center ground. As a result, lots of people are going to be very unhappy, however this turns out.

Our politicians need to get a grip, fast.

From Monevator

Money is power – Monevator

From the archive-ator: The characteristics of an entrepreneur – Monevator

News

Note: Some links are Google search results – in PC/desktop view you can click to read the piece without being a paid subscriber. Try privacy/incognito mode to avoid cookies. Consider subscribing if you read them a lot!4

UK economy slows as car sales fall – BBC

Property market at weakest since 2012 as Brexit takes toll, says RICS – Guardian

ECB ends €2.5tn eurozone QE stimulus programme – BBC

Luxury goods inflation running at nearly 6%, says Coutts – Guardian

Richest parts of London generate 30x cash of poorest parts of UK – ThisIsMoney

Scotland freezes threshold for higher-rate income tax – Guardian

Crowdcube investors threaten legal action after Emoov goes bust – ThisIsMoney

      Check out the collapse in the price of solar powered energy – Vox

Products and services

Are real or fake Christmas trees better for the planet? – Guardian

Small energy providers keep going bust. Is switching too risky? – ThisIsMoney

Investors flock to venture capital funds [Search result] – FT

Britain to force broadband providers to tell customers their best deals – Reuters

Ratesetter will pay you £100 [and me a cash bonus] if you invest £1,000 for a year – Ratesetter

Examining the risks and rewards of securities lending for funds – Morningstar

Investec’s new notice savings account allows 20% withdrawals – ThisIsMoney

Questioning the $1million retirement maths special

$1 million isn’t enough – Fat Tailed and Happy

The hardest problem in finance – The Irrelevant Investor

$1 million? Meh. [US but relevant] – The Belle Curve

Comment and opinion

Stellar take on the savings-versus-investment-returns debate – Get Rich Slowly

Situational spending – Seth Godin

Index-investing critic takes aim, fires, misses – Bloomberg

Rational versus reasonable – Morgan Housel

Financial planning – Indeedably

Three investing maths mistakes to drive you nuts – The IT Investor

The current danger for stocks: Fear itself – Morningstar

Why you need a money mentor – The Cut

The reason many billionaires aren’t satisfied with their wealth – The Atlantic

The wonderful Portfolio Charts has had a makeover – Portfolio Charts

How to measure a company’s growth rate – UK Value Investor

The best investing white papers of 2018 [For nerds/pros] – Savvy Investor

Crypto corner (December 2017 nostalgic edition)

Four days trapped at sea with crypto’s nouveau riche – Breaker Mag

Yes Bitcoin was a bubble. And it popped… – Bloomberg

…but is it time for believers to buy back into Ethereum? – AVC

Prices are down more than the ‘fundamentals’ [My quotes] – Chris Burniske

Brexit

The EU rebuffs Theresa May on Brexit — six takeaways [Search result] – FT

Lord Heseltine nails it on Brexit [Video] – via Facebook

“This was the second failed attempt to unseat May in three weeks, for a bunch of guys who’d be picked last for paintball and are led by rejected Paddington villain Jacob Rees-Mogg.” – Guardian

EU leaders scrap plans to help Theresa May pass deal after disastrous meeting in Brussels – Independent

Sir Ivan Rogers on Brexit [Full speech] – University of Liverpool

How Ireland outwitted Britain on Brexit – Bloomberg

Don’t know why people see a nasty, racist fringe to the Leave vote… – via Twitter

Kindle book bargains

The Barcelona Way: How to Create a High-performance Culture by Damian Hughes – £1.09 on Kindle

The 100-Year Life: Living and Working in an Age of Longevity by Lynda Gratton and Andrew Scott – £2.99 on Kindle

James Acaster’s Classic Scrapes by James Acaster – £0.99 on Kindle

Off our beat

Habits are the compound interest of self-improvement – Farnham Street

Population mountains [Striking 3D maps of global populations] – The Pudding

KFC debuts fried chicken-scented fire logs ahead of Christmas – Fox News

We need academic conferences about robots, love, and sex – Slate

And finally…

“For half a century the competition to produce the fastest stock price-printing machine was almost as frantic as the pursuit of the stocks and the shares. Indeed for many, the two were inseparable.” – Selwyn Parker, The Great Crash: How the Stock Market Crash of 1929 Plunged the World into Depression

Like these links? Subscribe to get them every Friday!

Yes, a couple of things might be made better for a tiny subset of the population. But as we’ve discussed before, almost every serious economist believes those benefits would be grossly outweighed by the economic negatives. They’d be far better addressed directly via redistribution or government investment.

Or 18%, in a certain light.

“It’s magnificent, but it’s not war; it’s madness” – General Pierre Bosquet.

Note some articles can only be accessed through the search results if you’re using PC/desktop view (from mobile/tablet view they bring up the firewall/subscription page). To circumvent, switch your mobile browser to use the desktop view. On Chrome for Android: press the menu button followed by “Request Desktop Site”.

Weekend reading: Can we take back control from Brexit? published first on https://justinbetreviews.weebly.com/

[365footballorg-blog]

Au revoir, Arsene - BBC Radio 2 presenter & Arsenal fan O'Leary says farewell to Wenger

Arsene…

I won’t lie to you, I cried last Sunday – twice. I knew I was going to. The first came as you – our manager of 22 years – were applauded onto the pitch through a guard of honour in the bright May afternoon sunshine (my sunglasses luckily masked this, and I might have muttered something about hay fever).

By the second time though, the tears were proud, wistful and 60,000 strong. It was like we’d all watched the end of The Shawshank Redemption en masse.

For once, nobody left early to beat the notorious traffic, and the attendance announcement didn’t lie. The place was packed and nobody was going anywhere fast.

You, in turn, graciously strode out to the centre circle, arms aloft, to give and receive the thanks and respect you have deserved for so long, but has at times (at least in the case of the latter) been cruelly lacking.

After a 5-0 walloping[1] of our ‘nearest rivals’ Burnley – a relatively unimportant but emotionally crucial win – for one final time you were embraced like the departing semi-conquering hero you are.

‘All I’ve ever known’

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For someone who has been an Arsenal fan since he was five, it’s odd that in many ways the only manager I’ve ever really known is you.

I’ve been an Arsenal fan since 1978, when I watched the team I have come to love go down to an inspired Ipswich Town, 1-0 in the FA Cup final.

With both parents moving over from Ireland, and having little if no allegiance to any team or area, I pretty much had my pick.

At the time, most kids where I grew up supported Ipswich, who were enjoying an incredible period, but I chose the boys in yellow.

Why? First, I thought they were the underdogs. I wasn’t a bright child, and more importantly, Arsenal were a big London Irish team, both on and off the pitch, so they suited my upbringing and identity perfectly.

But spending every second weekend in London didn’t mean I got to see them regularly.

My family were born and bred in the sports of GAA, so growing up I was more likely to be watching my dad hurling on the fields that will be forever Ireland of Ruislip and new Eltham.

My grandad wouldn’t even let me watch ‘English’ sports, including, oddly, athletics!

By the time I could scrounge tickets to see Arsenal, it was the late George Graham/early (I don’t think there was another era) Bruce Rioch period.

I went along happily, and by that I mean I was happy to be there. Highbury was such a glorious ground to watch football, and to rub my eyes and watch Dennis Bergkamp and Ian Wright in their pomp quickly became more than a novelty, it was love.

But to all intents and purposes, I’ve only really ever known you as our manager. Which is, I guess, why the love, respect and admiration runs so deep.

So much is made of the ‘Arsene who?’ reaction that, in truth, we ALL had when you turned up at the club in 1996.

But you did so much more than just make sure Wright and Paul Merson put down the Mars bars and started eating broccoli, (the pair of them treating the vegetable like you had brought it from outer space).

You took a very gifted, but aging team, and added a belief, drive and deft hand in recruitment that saw a still big club win three titles quickly, including two doubles and our Invincibles year.

It seemed the success would be never ending, we got drunk on it – and then, the world changed.

‘The footballing world changed’

As the era of English football went from the time of the honest pro to the world of the remote, media-trained, PR-controlled global superstar, young, understandably ambitious men had their heads turned while ruthless agents plundered.

Maybe, with the stadium move your hands were tied, maybe you didn’t react quickly enough, maybe you thought you could carry on and find the gold for £500,000 here, £3m there.

The magic stopped working though, and we started watching the same movie, year after year, a few great players, but a fragility that set in and somehow didn’t go away, an early-season flourish followed by a late winter slump that saw us crash out of the FA Cup and the Champions League, and then the desperate dash to finish fourth.

Although a recent respectable run of three cups in five years is nothing to be sniffed at, we all know we haven’t been competitive enough in the league for quite some time.

The problem is that with the immediacy and ‘Fifa-isation’ (that’s a real term, by the way) of the modern football fan, there is no room for barren periods any more. We now live in a world of extremes.

Players and managers are either awful or they are brilliant, fans expect unconditional loyalty one way, but feel well within their rights to boo – and a lot worse – to high heaven when it’s not going our way.

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There’s a lot made of the game moving on and you being left behind. If that is true (and I’m not sure for the most part it is) then it’s been in one main area: money.

You always seemed like you have seen yourself as a steward to this club, part of its DNA. Now we are as much the club you have built as vice versa.

I read a great comparison once which likened you to a German in the Weimar Republic who ordered a steak in a restaurant and nipped to the toilet, only to find, on your return that the price had gone up 30,000 Reichsmarks.

You simply didn’t seem to respond to the economics of the modern game. You seemed aghast by the prices – and who wouldn’t?

The problem is that the money is there and if you don’t compete then someone else will… and they have.

Yes, some of those models have been artificially created and bolstered by Russian and Middle Eastern oil money and nobody questions that you know more about football than most fans (by most accounts, by your own admission, it’s all you do. You are probably watching a Congolese second division match as we speak which makes a lack of spending even more infuriating).

At times it was obvious what we were lacking on the pitch.

Your model of how to manage footballers is all about empowerment, the carrot and not the stick. Let the players go out there and express themselves to the best of their ability and that holistic and artisanal approach will win out.

This model is predicated, however, on those players being up to the task in the first place.

Virtually every one of those Invincibles comes across like a well-rounded, emotionally grounded and intelligent human being. Those kinds of footballers are the exception not the rule, which makes your mode of success so hard to maintain.

‘The right time to go?’

Is it the right time for you to go? Probably not. The day which would have done your incredible legacy justice would have been 27 May 2017 when we upset the odds and defeated Chelsea, both physically and tactically, as you won a record seventh FA Cup and the club’s 13th.

I have no problem with people who said we needed a change, because we did.

There’s no hypocrisy in praising you while also wanting a new direction, and as sad as I am to see a proud, stalwart of the game go, I too am excited to see what comes next.

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I feel sadness. I am a romantic, and the idea of a manager who has been with a club for 22 years appealed to the sense of tradition I love and see disappearing in the modern game.

But my overall emotion is simply of pride, of a manager who has changed a club beyond all recognition, but still retained its tradition, its values. Have you been perfect? No.

But you have done nothing but devote a large chunk your working life to make the club that is so now imbued with your DNA a success.

So thank you, Arsene. And au revoir…

‘The brilliant revolutionary who refused to change’[2]

References

^ After a 5-0 walloping (www.bbc.co.uk)

^ ‘The brilliant revolutionary who refused to change’ (www.bbc.co.uk)

BBC Sport – Football

Au revoir, Arsene – BBC Radio 2 presenter & Arsenal fan O'Leary says farewell to Wenger was originally published on 365 Football

[tinymixtapes]

Live Blog: Riot Fest 2017

Riot Fest 2017 Douglas Park; Chicago, IL [September 15-17] by Joe Hemmerling on 09-27-2017 Looking back a year on from my Riot Fest 2016 coverage, I can marvel at my own naivety. Languishing in the jaws of the presidential election cycle, I (and many like me) thought this was as bad as it could get. Trump’s ascent to the top of his party — fueled by a complex cocktail of white nationalism, working-class rage, misogyny, and partisan inertia — had exposed some hard truths about this country that many of us didn’t want to face, but we were coming up on the finish line. November wasn’t too far around the corner, and when the dust settled, we were confident that we’d have a president who, while not universally beloved (even among her own constituents), would at least restore a semblance of sanity to federal politics. But we all know how that turned out. This year’s festival roster responded to the direness of our present political situation in a variety of ways. Ministry’s Al Jourgensen answered with fury and exhortations to violent resistance, Gogol Bordello’s Eugene Hutz and Pedro Erazo with calls for unity among people of good will — hell, even the happy-go-lucky Tim Kinsella of Cap’n Jazz let slip the nihilistic observation that his privileges are paid for by the murders of people all over the world. The enormity of Trump’s presidency threatens to make punk rock’s defiant posturing look hollow and inconsequential. Yet it was a challenge many of the performers were willing to meet head on, even if some of the boldest, most transgressive, and genuinely punk performances of the Fest came from outside the white male-dominated sphere of punk rock. But before we get too far into that, let’s take care of some administrative items: * Despite last year being the biggest yet for the festival, Riot Fest scaled back for 2017, cutting out its Denver fest and paring back its lineup to 91 acts. This may, in part, be due to recent death of fest founder, Sean McKeough (May he riot in peace). * While I feel for Denver missing out, the smaller lineup was a boon. Bands got longer sets, and it made it easier and more worthwhile to cut out in the middle of a set if there were overlapping acts you wanted to watch. * This being our third year attending the festival (“our” being my wife and I), we tried to take in a little more of the nonmusical aspects, getting some yummy street tacos from Tica’s and witnessing the death-defying high wire acrobatics of Circus Una. * Security was friendly, but, like, maybe too friendly. The guards felt around my wife’s bust for that switchblade and set of brass knuckles she stores in her bra (lucky for us she stowed them back in the glove compartment). But, honestly, they could have strip-searched me and put three fingers up my asshole because (most importantly)… * FREE BEER WAS BACK IN THE PRESS TENT. The courteous festival staff kept the wheels of journalism thoroughly lubricated with all the Dos Equis and Heineken we could get down our gullets. --- The Essentials Saul Williams (Photo: Amanda Athon) Genre-bending rapper and father of slam poetry, Saul Williams began his set Friday with an improvised spoken word rendition of “Coded Language,” all those lengthy clauses beginning with and punctuated by the legalistic conjunction “whereas,” culminating in a litany of radicals, artists, and martyrs. But while the framework of his jeremiad was familiar, its contents were targeted specifically at us. “A riot is not a festival,” he chided. “A riot is a violent disturbance of the peace by a crowd.” And to drive his point home further: “Your punk rock isn’t that punk rock if it doesn’t make fascists explode.” It took a moment for me to realize that the stage behind him was bare of equipment and that no band would be joining him. This drew hostility from some in the crowd, at least one member of which repeatedly shouted, “We came to hear music!” as he trudged off in the direction of the main stages. Williams was undaunted, taking aim at targets as large as the Catholic Church and Silicon Valley and as small as the Trump-supporting members of his audience. He attacked the gender binary, the digital revolution, and the sharing economy using the “Hack into…” lyrical framework of “Colton as Cotton,” before launching into an a capella rendition of “Black Stacey.” It was probably the gutsiest performance I’ve seen in my life, standing on that stage all alone and putting to lie the late capitalist notion that we can spend our way to a revolution, to call each member of the audience to account for their part in the oppressive structures that weigh us all down (albeit not equally). Unlike the Prophets Of Rage, who on Sunday asked their audience if they were ready to have a good time, Williams was there to educate, not to entertain. Next to him, even the most radical declarations of resistance seemed like kids’ stuff. Cute Riot Fest audience members (Photo: Amanda Athon) Friday’s other highlight was industrial metal pioneers Ministry. Uncle Al was eager to tell his audience how happy he was to be home, joking, “You all know I’m from here. Some of you have probably ripped me off on cab fare.” They played a relentless, career-spanning set, including a brand new song from their forthcoming album, “Antifa,” celebrating the anarchist resistance network. Watching masked dancers parade around the stage waving red and black flags filled me with a curious sense of unease. The uncritical acceptance of vigilante justice that I see coming from certain corners of the left is alarming for a variety of reasons that I don’t have the space for here, but suffice to say that I personally regard Antifa’s rise to prominence as, at best, a risky development for political discourse in America. Jourgenson’s embrace of the controversial group is hardly surprising, given his outspoken leftwing politics and heavy metal’s enshrinement of ideological, as well as sonic, extremity. In fact, a Ministry show seems like exactly the place where buttoned-up lefties can crow over fascists chowing down on a knuckle sandwich. I guess I just never thought we’d reach a point where the kinds of things that get shouted out at a heavy metal concert were being considered as a blueprint for political strategy. My political hand-wringing aside, Ministry was on fire. Jorgenson’s voice is as caustic as ever, and his band remains a finely honed engine of destruction. In lieu of footage from the stage, the band fed surreal psychedelic imagery into the screens: distorted pictures of nude women bleeding into news coverage, music video footage, and internet memes. They ripped through mid- and late-career highlights like “Senor Peligro” and “Bad Blood,” but aside from opening their set with “Psalm 69,” they saved most of their classics for a whirlwind four-song finale of “N.W.O.,” “Just One Fix,” “Thieves,” and “So What.” Peaches (Photo: Amanda Athon) If Saul and Al had to split ownership of Friday between them, Saturday belonged entirely to Peaches. The Canadian provocateur delivered a riotous and confrontational set of explicit sexuality and gender-fuckery. She opened with her ode to female ejaculation, “Rub,” wearing an absurdly bulky pink fur-suit and anatomically detailed vagina hat. During her second song “Vaginaplasty,” her backup dancers sauntered out in enormous vaginal headgear, while the artist herself stripped down to a flesh-colored leotard to which giant purple nipples and a fuzzy pink merkin had been affixed. By her third song, she was over the photo-pit rail and into the audience, and by the end of the fourth, her leotard was down around her waist. There were no fucks given. When Peaches needed to switch costumes, she turned her back and stepped out of whatever she was wearing right in front of the audience. Her dancers shed more and more clothing as the show went on, until by the end they were topless in a latticework of fetish-gear and undulating against the singer in simulated sex acts. Peaches performed a good chunk of the time in nothing but her skivvies and flesh-colored nipple-covers. It was, by turns, hilarious, titillating, and unnerving (like, should we be seeing this? Is this LEGAL?). Despite the lack of explicit political commentary, Peaches’ defiant ribaldry felt like an act of resistance, an expression of female power and self-determination. And it was some of the most fun I had the whole weekend. High-Wire acrobats (Photo: Amanda Athon) Still, despite the stiff competition, my absolute favorite set of the fest belongs to Chicago’s own Cap’n Jazz. This marks the seminal Midwestern emo group’s second reunion since their dissolution in 1995. Reunions as a whole tend to reek of cash-grabbery, and usually they don’t improve in quality upon repetition, but Sunday’s performance was as pure and unique a concert-going experience as I’ve ever been part of. Frontman Tim Kinsella may have crossed the threshold into his forties, but he remains a childlike presence, hurling his body across the stage, turning sloppy backwards somersaults, and generally jackassing around with the audience. His ebullience was infectious and his seeming disregard for his own safety and the integrity of the performance created an electric tension. Kinsella made a game between songs of requesting the return of a tambourine that he’d tossed out into the audience, and then throwing it immediately back into the crowd. During their cover of “Take on Me,” he hurled his mic over the photopit rail, but somehow managed to recover it just in time for the big final chorus, just like he miraculously recovered his sunglasses, lost early on in a crowd-surfing excursion. His bandmates played the grownups, with drummer Mike occasionally bristling over his brother’s showboating. They kept the grooves going when Tim’s shenanigans came between him and his singing duties, like during closer “Que Suerte!” when Tim stuffed the mic down his pants, threaded it through the bottom of his jeans, only to stick it back down once more and thread it down the other leg (he needed help from the security team to get it out his second pant leg). But if all of this sounds like the music took a backseat to the antics, you can put that right out of your head. The band was in peak form, hitting all the lurching starts and stops, tempo and signature shifts like clockwork, and all the while, they looked like they were having the time of their lives. Third Kinsella brother and American Football alum Nate stood in for Davey von Bohlen on guitar and brought a fan’s enthusiasm to the proceedings. Their set covered almost everything from their sole album Burritos, Inspiration Point… aside from “Bluegrassish,” “Flashpoint: Catheter,” and “Precious,” and they filled the rest of the set out with favorites like “Ooh I Do Love You” and “Forget Who Are.” --- Let-downs Bad Brains (Photo: Amanda Athon) This is uncomfortable for me to say, so I’m just going to blurt it out. X and Bad Brains were pretty boring live. I know. I KNOW. These guys are legends. They’ve been doing this for four decades now. They have nothing to prove. They’re up there in the years, and at least in H.R.’s case have health concerns. Not everyone can be Iggy Pop, who’s pushing a thousand and still writhing around on the floor like a teenager. They still sounded great, but there wasn’t a lot of energy in their sets. Saturday night’s penultimate act At the Drive-In had the opposite problem. Cedric Bixler-Zavala still tosses the mic around and launches himself off the drumkit with no apparent care about whether he’ll come down on his feet, but the volume they were playing at really muddied their sound and overwhelmed Omar Rodriguez-Lopez’s precise guitarwork. It was still enjoyable to hear my favorite cuts off Relationship of Command, from which their set drew heavily, but years of being baited by ATDI’s reputation as a live band set my expectations at a level they couldn’t quite reach. Plus, no “Transatlantic Foe”? Come on, guys… --- Honorable Mentions Liars (Photo: Amanda Athon) I’ve drifted away from Liars’ recorded output over the years, but there’s no question these guys can still bring it live. Angus Andrew stalked onto the stage in a white wedding dress, his long lace veil billowing in the wind. Standing before a small podium, he fiddled with dials that hellishly distorted his vocals during the bouncier electronic numbers like “Mess on a Mission” and “House Clouds,” as well as on more harrowing fare like “Scarecrow on a Killer Slant.” The Buzzcocks made a good showing for old-head punk rock. Their hit-laden set (anyone with a copy of Singles Going Steady could do a reasonable job keeping score at home) was brisk and tuneful, and their chemistry forty-plus years in the making shined through at every turn, particularly on spacier numbers like “Why Can’t I Touch It?” Finally Nine Inch Nails brought Friday to a close with a riveting headlining performance. The fog-machines were going into overdrive throughout the set, such that the stage was constantly cloaked in billowing smoke like the steaming maw of hell. Reznor was intense, if a little aloof as he careened throughout his discography, lightly dusting his set with hits like “The Hand that Feeds,” “Closer,” and “Head Like a Hole.” Buzzcocks (Photo: Amanda Athon) Gogol Bordello (Photo: Amanda Athon) Gogol Bordello brought their brand of feel-good bedlam to the fest on Saturday and convinced me that I need to revisit Transcontinental Hustle. I was left pretty cold by the album when it came out back in 2010, but goddamn if every cut they played off it didn’t bring the house down, particularly “We Comin’ Rougher (Immigraniada),” which has taken on a pointed significance in the era of Trump. Following Dinosaur Jr.’s sublime album playthrough of You’re Living All Over Me, I crashed the angry party that Prophets Of Rage were throwing on Sunday night long enough to hear them drop a pair of RATM covers (“Testify” and “Take the Power Back”) amid some original songs from their hot-off-the-presses eponymous debut. But it was the siren song of M.I.A. that ultimately seduced me. The British emcee was in fine form, if surprisingly mute on politics. She knocked out hit after hit for her eager crowd, while a mesmerizing light show engulfed the stage. At the risk of losing all my punk cred, after that kind of spectacle, Jawbreaker just couldn’t hold my interest. Beyond one or two songs of Dear You, I’d never quite managed to find my way into them, but the die-hards in the front row seemed to be getting everything they wanted out of them, so that’s all that matters, right? --- And that, in a nutshell, was Riot Fest 2017. There’s a ton I missed out on, including Shabazz Palaces, Wu Tang Clan performing 36 Chambers, Built to Spill’s play-through of Keep It Like a Secret, and festival mainstays Gwar and Andrew W.K., but some of the sets I was able to take in this year numbered among the most powerful and exhilarating festival experiences I’ve ever witnessed. As the situation in the outside world grows more dire, we continue to look to art for solace, and there was plenty of that to be found. But the bravest artists offered something we needed more: a kick in the ass to get back out there and try to change something, however small and however futile that might appear. http://j.mp/2fSiPUP