#GUYS I LOVE REVOLUTION RADIO

[c0smic-coral]

39/Smooth is underrated.

[strawberri-syrup]

ok i tried to compile a few rock/prog rock/etc band recs i thought might kinda fit what you’re looking for: sleeping with sirens, green day, hail the sun, children of nova, vola, muse, the protomen, 9mm parabellum bullet. also insert the obligatory ‘listen to thank you scientist their instrumentals and vocals are insanely good’ thing here + ALSO if you want specific song recs or even more bands i can offer those too :-) enjoy

omg i love you

[dirtyzucchini]

Let me tell you something about Constable Benton Fraser, Royal Canadian Mounted Police, who came to Chicago on the trail of the killers of his father and, for reasons that don't need exploring at this juncture, remained, attached as liaison with the Canadian consulate.

There was never much of a chance that Benton Fraser would grow up to be what most people would casually call "a regular guy". From what little insight we get, no part of his childhood would have been standard. Looking at the anecdote Bob Fraser tells in Burning Down The House, we can assume that Benton grew up in a cabin his father built by hand, in a location remote enough and far enough North that living in an igloo during the construction of said cabin was a sensible thing for his parents to do. We see one picture of the family in Good For The Soul, and it is a puzzler:

Now, I wasn't around in the mid to late 1960's when that photo would have been taken, and I've never been to Canada's far North, but everything I could find anywhere tells me that that is not how (white!) people dressed then even up there, and no, I am not talking about trendy fashion. Everyday clothing looked pretty much like what we still wear today, but the people in that picture don't. They look like this guy - a European "explorer" whose picture was taken in 1889:

Side note: I am purposely only talking about white/western/mainstream society in this post because the Frasers are white.

I wonder what drove them to live like this, and so far away from other people? It can't have been money, Bob would have made enough to support them. I guess Fraser's parents weren't regular guys, either.

Anyway, we know that Bob wasn't around much while Fraser's mother was alive, and even less so after her death. He handed the boy off to his own parents instead, and Benton was raised by literal, real life Edwardians, people who were born before the invention of band-aids and bubblegum. Public radio broadcasts were cutting-edge technology when they were young. I'm glad they stepped up, and I'm sure they did their best, but they weren't exactly well-equipped to prepare a child for life in modern society. They were librarians who for some reason moved around a lot. When he was eight, they took Benton to a place called Alert - the northernmost continously inhabited place in the world. Unfortunately it's inhabited by soldiers and researchers who go there on six-months-tours, but it counts because the tours overlap. Fraser would have been the only child there, and, the times being what they were, his grandmother the only woman. What librarians would have done in Alert we can only speculate about, but between this and the fact that they helped build an English-speaking library in China before the revolution, we can safely assume that we are dealing with another generation of non-regular Frasers here. This idea is supported by the fact that they fed Fraser arctic tern for Christmas. Each bird weighs under 130 grams, and they would be hard to come by in northern Canada in December because they migrate to literally the other end of the world after breeding in the Arctic in the summer. I'm not entirely certain what this says about Fraser's grandparents, but it sure says something, doesn't it?

This bird may scream, but it does not scream Christmas to me.

Listen, I LOVE that Fraser's grandmother taught him how to box from a book.

Perhaps this one from 1922? In this book, the writer "not only describes the various moves of the game and traces the history of their development but deals comprehensively with all the factors of body and mind that make for success in the ring." Sounds like a good choice!

I do NOT love that she taught him that being in the hospital for three weeks after being shot in the back is "babying yourself". She also raised Bob Fraser to be the kind of man who tells his journal "The last time I saw Ben, he was barely tall enough to reach my belt. When I said good-bye he shook my hand. Never a tear or a complaint. Seven years old and he's already a stronger man than I'll ever be. Someday I'll tell him.", and friends, I DO NOT love that at all. That is NOT a healthy way to deal with emotions, and I think we can agree that growing up guided by these mindsets did Fraser no favors at all. Look at how he lives! His apartment is absolutely bare-bones, no personality, and after that he literally lives in his office - this is a man who gets REALLY uncomfortable when he's comfortable, is what I'm saying. Everything he does is quick and efficient to make sure he can devote a maximum amount of time to his work. I'd bet "Idle hands are the devil's workshop" was a very common saying in the Fraser household.

Look, our upbringing informs who we become, how we approach life, how we connect to those around us. Fraser's view of the world is completely different from how other people see it. Long before he's displaced geographically, he's displaced in time.

He grew up without TV, and while living with librarians gave him access to a large number of books, the libraries they worked at served remote communities and would not have been all too well funded. It stands to reason they would have had to make their books last as long as possible, and that new purchases would have been, shall we say, conservative? Copies of beloved classics, books with general appeal, books with educational/instructional value would have made up the bulk of purchases. Even if the librarians wanted to, there would have been little money to buy more controversial books - and it doesn't seem likely that Fraser's grandparents would have wanted to. Fraser probably grew up on adventure tales, detective stories and, as a teen and young adult, the classics from Austen to Shakespeare.

When he gets to Depot in Regina to become a Mountie he has nothing in common with the other recruits, and that continues throughout all his career. There's a reason he's still a Constable after all his years of service: he's severely lacking in social skills, and his upbringing is a big part of that problem*. He was raised by Edwardians on Victorian (and Romantic) mores and values, and bridging that gap to make connections with people from what's essentially a different world is very, very hard.

TL,DR: Fraser is both an alien and a time traveler, and we should remember that when we talk about him.

*Other parts of the problem are his queerness and neurodiversity, but those are topics for another essay. Please know that by problem I do NOT mean there's something wrong with him, I mean that there's something wrong with how society treats people like him.

Big thank you to @sammaggs and @sammeltassensammelsurium for excellent feedback!

[rallamajoop]

I have too many feelings about Deus Ex: Mankind Divided (3/3)

The story so far: we've covered gameplay and worldbuilding, we've covered story. Now I get to talk characters. And while I'm at it, go off on a tangent or two about some of my favourite touches from Human Revolution, and why I'm still in the habit of calling the hero of these games by his last name.

Characters

Much as I do love Jensen, it’s no secret that Francis Pritchard is my favourite character in this series. His snarky banter with Jensen during missions is so much of what made Human Revolution for me. When I later tried out the original 2001 Deus Ex, I even joked to a friend, “There’s this guy in my earpiece who keeps giving me straightforward, good advice. It just seems so unprofessional!”

Faridah Malik, Jensen’s pilot, is his other major human contact in HR – a friendly face to get him to and from different settings, and occasional voice in his earpiece as well. But it’s not just Malik and Pritchard you’ll be hearing from – you’ve got Jensen’s boss, Sarif, mocking him for his surprise that the SWAT penthouse villain has a panic room, plus so many other random contacts calling Jensen up and prompting ‘how did you get this number?’ complaints that I started to wonder if it was tattooed to the back of his neck.

I knew going into MD that Pritchard wasn’t returning (except in DLC). Halfway through the first mission, it began to dawn on me that Jensen’s new, aggressively-British, aug-hating coworker, Duncan MacCready, seemed to be being set up as the new Pritchard – ie, the asshole in his earpiece with whom he’ll gradually develop a grudging semi-friendship over the course of the game. This did not immediately enthuse me. Pritchard’s initial dislike of our hero may have been petty, but at least it was personal, seeing Jensen as an under-qualified nepotism hire. MacCready just hates anyone augmented, which would be pretty weaksauce even if Jensen had, y'know, ever actually chosen to being augmented to begin with.

It's not like it would be hard to come up with better reasons why someone might distrust Jensen: he's secretly working for a hacktavist network, was declared legally dead in circumstances he can't explain, and MacCready would be right to find him suspicious. But I knew MacCready was a popular character, so I resolved to give him a chance.

The reality proved much worse: love him or hate him, MacCready is hardly in the game at all. You can go talk to him in the office a bunch of times about why he hates cyborgs so much, but he’s only deployed with Jensen in the very first mission and the very last one. Jensen seems to have relationships with a number of his other new colleagues, but for most of the game, there’s no radio chatter at all. Infolink calls happen occasionally, but are vanishingly rare. Even when doing missions for the Collective – a group dominated by augmented hackers – Jensen’s left to fly relatively solo.

Jensen’s main contact at the Collective is Alex Vega, arguably the new Malik, at least in that she’s an augmented woman of colour and nominally a pilot (though she doesn’t actually do any flying for us) on friendly terms with Jensen. In fact, DXMD has given Vega a substantial redesign to make her less of the shallow Malik-clone she was in her "original" appearance, in the lesser known mobile game Deus Ex: The Fall. You can see her and Malik in the comparison below.

Yeah, there's really not a lot to set them apart. She's a pilot? Give her short brown hair like our last pilot, stick her in a flight suit, and call it a day.

As of MD, the new!Vega is black, does her hair completely differently, has more obvious augmentations, and doesn't live in a flight suit: okay, fine, no harm in giving the character some individuality (though why you'd insist on giving her the same name as the old Vega at that point I do not know).

But looks aside, it's on the characterisation front they've really let her down. There was never a lot to Malik beyond being straightforward, friendly and professional. But you do get an optional side-mission to help her solve a friend’s murder, and the big set-piece where she’ll die if you leave her and run like she tells you to (also the reason I’ll probably never get a certain achievement, but fuck it, I like Malik, I don’t need that achievement that much). Straightforward as Malik is, what makes her work for me is that it’s so easy to buy her as someone with her own life outside Jensen’s crazy world. It’s to the point where I almost don’t want to see her get dragged any deeper into the whole conspiracy plotline, because she’s so easy-going and normal she shouldn’t have to be. Basic as that is, when you’re having a reaction that strong to a character, they’ve done something right.

Vega, by comparison, clearly should be a much more memorable character – a pilot working full-time undercover for a top-secret hacktivist collective? But Vega too seems nice, and normal, and yet has no role in this story except to be Jensen’s contact. You can ask her a bit about her backstory, but it made so little impression I can’t remember it. She’s nominally so much more important than Malik, but she never gets to do anything as interesting as making up a nickname for him, hijacking a bunch of public TVs to get back at her friend’s killer, or make the tough decision to tell Jensen to leave her and run. She’s just there to deliver plot-relevant information.

Other characters fandom had led me to expect much more of were similar non-events. Koller, Jensen’s go-to guy for aug maintenance, is certainly a character, but not one that grabbed me, and he appears all of twice, neither time for very long. There's got to be a hell of a story as to why Jensen, an Interpol agent with connections to a whole network of augmented hackers, is going to a weirdo like Koller for aug maintenance, but the game doesn't seem to think that's a story worth sharing, so there goes another wasted avenue to do something interesting. Chikane, Jensen's actual pilot, has far more meat on his bones character-wise and more interaction with our hero. But he’s probably a traitor (I say ‘probably’ because the strongest hints are a coded message in a well-hidden safe, and finding it changes nothing), so there's not much point investing in what camaraderie they develop. Similar is Delara, an obvious Illuminati-plant who spends the game acting innocent and helpful enough to make you wonder if maybe she’s alright after all, only for an after-credits scene to reveal that, yup, she’s an Illuminati plant. Is this supposed to be a twist?

The one major character I did get decent value out of is Jim Miller, Jensen’s Interpol boss. Seeing a convincingly Aussie character in a position of authority in non-Aussie-made media is novel enough that I’m always going to get a kick out of it (even if his backstory does involve that whole ‘Australian civil war’ thing, which is hilarious in so many ways that I’m not sure non-Australians appreciate). Doesn’t hurt that Miller’s subtly queer too – hacking his computer will turn up info about his (ex-)husband and kids.

And that’s about it. There’s a local Prague underworld, but no-one involved is as enjoyable as either of the Tongs in HR, and agreeing to put yourself in their debt on Koller’s account means you’ll get to do a couple of extra side-quests, none of which will give your conscience much trouble. Is this really the best they can do?

When it came out, Deus Ex: Human Revolution was rightly criticised for a weak ending and some seriously ham-fisted attempts at worldbuilding and social commentary. I knew all that going in, and was still astounded by how bad it was at introducing its own ideas. But for all its flaws, I fell in love with its characters, and there were some touches that really stuck with me. I've had a whole mini-essay rolling around my brain for months just on the subtext it packs into who's on a first or last name basis with who – Jensen especially.

Our hero is ‘Jensen’ to most of his workmates (past and present), but ‘Adam’ to Megan and Sarif – Megan because they used to date, and Sarif because he’s the kind of friendly, personable boss who calls all his employees by their first names. But that familiarity takes on a whole other sinister dimension when you realise that Megan and Sarif are the same people responsible for basing their research on Jensen's DNA without his knowledge or consent (and in Sarif’s case, cutting off three perfectly good limbs while he was in a medical coma). Eliza – an AI who’s been watching him for god knows how long – calls him ‘Adam’ too. (So does Wayne Haas, the cop you have to talk your way past to get into the station, which is just more proof he’s Jensen’s bitter ex.)

Meanwhile, Pritchard and Malik – the two allies Jensen can trust to have his back – both call him ‘Jensen’. When Malik starts to get more familiar, it’s not by switching to first-name-basis, it’s by giving him a nickname (‘Spyboy’, which he responds to by calling her ‘Flygirl’). And that’s most of why I still default to calling the guy ‘Jensen’ myself: intended or otherwise, the game is pretty consistent in that the only people who call him by his first name have a serious lack of respect for his boundaries. I can’t tell you how intentional all that subtext was, but it shines through like a beacon.

He’s not the only example either. The game never tells us that Pritchard hates being called by his full first name, ‘Francis’, but it doesn’t have to – you can tell based on the way Jensen uses it (and it’s notable that he’s ‘Frank’ to Sarif, the ‘we’re all family here’-boss of the year). It’s a great little characterisation note for the both of them.

So you can imagine my disappointment that in DX:MD, most of Jensen’s new workmates just call him ‘Adam’. Maybe you could argue that now that unearned familiarity is going the other way, since here ‘Adam’ is the double-agent sneaking around under their noses – but then, Alex calls him ‘Adam’ too, and there’s nothing to suggest she’s shady. Miller and Duncan call him ‘Jensen’, which tracks with their characters and relationships, but I’ve long since hit the point where I can’t hear people calling this guy ‘Adam’ without twitching a little. Why are you calling him that? What are you really up to, you creep?

And this is just one thing I loved from that previous game that was lacking in the sequel. Pritchard and Malik may top my list of favourite characters, but it goes on and on. Tong Senior is more charismatic than any guy that shady has any right to be (and Tong Junior is just such a fantastic little shit), and Keitner deserved so much more screentime than she got. David Sarif is a fascinating mess of completely terrible person who still deserves real credit for standing up against the 'real' villains behind the scenes. Megan's level-headed conviction that she's doing the right thing even while working for incredibly shady people fascinates me. Quinn is great in both his personalities, and I even enjoyed Kavanagh and the sleezeball that is van Brugen so much more than I had any right to. There are compellingly grey characters all over this script, and the writers deserve serious credit for all of them.

But there’s no-one in Mankind Divided I enjoyed as much as the best players from HR. Including, I hate to say it, that one DLC which brought Pritchard back at last.

So, yeah. It's time to talk that last little footnote to this game.

The System Rift DLC

DX:HR had only one DLC mission, but it set a high standard, introduced some of my favourite characters (see above!), and contributed to the greater story in a big way. By comparison, MD has three DLC missions, and all have the exact same problems as the main campaign: there’s just nothing to invest in here. Do you actually care whether Jensen is able to save an undercover agent who’s gone native in some prison facility? Not once you’ve met the guy, trust me, he’s painfully bland. And that mission may actually be the strongest of the three.

The story justification for System Rift is as perfunctory as possible. Pritchard calls Jensen up out of the blue to call in a favour. He needs Jensen to recover some data from a bank vault, and along the way, you might find some evidence of shady insider trading between characters you’ve never met. And you have to ‘save Pritchard’s avatar’ from a virtual world, because reasons, which is exactly as trite as most attempts to build cyberspaces into gameplay. Oh, and you get to ride a funicular elevator at one point, because that’s about the level of what we get here as a callback.

As for new characters, you'll meet Shadowchild, a hacker friend of Pritchard, who I found depressingly dull. Attempts to characterise her mostly mean sitting through dialogue like “there are only a few hackers in a world who could do this, but fortunately for you I am one of them,” delivered in a relative monotone. Much as much as I enjoyed the fact that Miller was queer only if the player is paying attention to the details, doing the same thing again with Shadowchild just makes me feel like the writers don’t have the guts to make a character gay enough to risk upsetting the homophobes in their audience. It’s executed that much worse here too (look, I fully assumed whoever Shadowchild needed Jensen to leave that coded warning for must be someone she’d long since lost real contact with, because why the fuck would she need or trust a virtual stranger to do that for her real, current girlfriend when the stakes are this high? Come on!)

But what really kills this DLC for me is that Pritchard and Jensen’s relationship is given so little to work with. They’re not working together to find the people who put Jensen in hospital or tracking down the secrets of Jensen’s past this time. We’re not getting any insights into Pritchard’s past or hunting major Illuminati secrets either, there aren’t even innocent people in danger – there’s nothing personal here, nothing to invest in. The data Pritchard wants is a MacGuffin in the purest and most meaningless sense, and Jensen’s only helping because he owes a favour (and you won’t even know what for if you haven’t read the novel).

The fact Jensen’s now working for Pritchard directly ought to add new tension to their dynamic, but all it seems to do is throw a dampener over what grudging camaraderie they ever achieved. I do like that they've reached the point where Jensen doesn't even sound like he's sneering when he calls Pritchard 'Francis' anymore, but most of their banter was underwhelming – and dull as I found the core conflict of Black Light, even it delivered on that. Jensen is a surly asshole to Pritchard for no good reason from the moment he answers the call, and the idea that he’s pushing friends away to protect them is present but (at least for my money) underplayed. Pritchard, meanwhile, is here largely to deliver mission-related exposition. There were definitely exchanges I enjoyed ‒ I'm a shipper, I can't not like Jensen's last little 'take care of yourself' at the end ‒ but it's not much to hang a DLC on.

(And to be clear, if you did love System Rift for what it was, no judgement here. But goddamn, did you deserve something you could’ve loved so much more than this.)

So with all that said, where does that leave me for a conclusion? If the plan with Deus Ex: Mankind Divided was to make the series more like the original Deus Ex, then for my money, they’ve succeeded ‒ at least in that the plot is uninvolving, the characters are bland, and their relationships don’t evolve in any interesting way. But even the original DX managed some memorable reveals and a gloriously weird multiple-choice ending, where the heros could tell themselves they’d taken down the Illuminati and cured the plague. Jensen’s grand success at the end of MD is that a key UN vote on augmented rights hasn’t made the currently shitty status quo any worse. Everything that Human Revolution did well is missing here, and everything it did badly is just as bad.

And yet, at the end of the day, my single biggest disappointment may be that this really is it. There’s probably never going to be another Deus Ex game. I don’t know how you’d save a franchise from a rut like this, and it’s naïve to imagine you can only go up from here – but apparently it’d take more than one lackluster entry to kill my investment. It’s a hell of a bummer to see it end on a game that seems so ashamed of everything its predecessor ever did well.

It's enough of a bummer that rather than leave my own impressions rest there, I'm replaying Deus Ex: Human Revolution now, and you know what? Turns out it's not all nostalgia that's making me remember the last game so much better, because I'm having a great time with it all over again. The side quests you can pick up are just as truly absurd as they ever were (sure, random hooker I just met, I'll plant drugs in this guy's apartment for you!), but the stakes feel meaningful, the character dynamics are fun, and Pritchard is back being his terrible, sassy self. My absurd quest for enough XP to unlock all the cool powers ASAP has me spending way, way too long trying to set up double-takedowns and carrying vending machines around the middle of Detroit police station to try and block the sightlines between the computer I'm hacking and all the cops standing around the same room. Look, this is apparently my idea of fun, don't judge me.

For over a year now, I've had a couple of unposted bits of Jensen/Pritchard fic sitting around, never quite completed, and replaying the game has reignited the motivation to get them into some kind of shape worth showing to people. Lord knows I don't have the power to uncancel this franchise, but at least letting my own unfinished fic see the light of day is something I can do.

[clemleur]

hobie is def the type of guy to watch a sci-fi and start explaining 30 minutes in how it’s a “reflection of the world” — he would start calling out modern societal culture, new world order, and how the government is nothing but organized crimes 😭😭😭😭

OH MY GODDDD

the funniest part about hobie is that he’s right but he’s sooo annoying about it (in a good way of course).

and while you’d like to think that you know him well, he always surprises you with his ability to turn anything and everything into a dissertation about society.

so imagine one day you turn on a star wars movie after pulling him away from his guitar or a new science project he’s working on (most likely some advancement to his suit or webshooters). you half expect him to either fall asleep or begin to rant halfway though about how they’re just predicting the uprising of society.

but miraculously… he does neither?

you look over after precisely 60 minutes of radio silence, expecting him to be slumped over, holding one of the stuffed animals on your bed, dead asleep. but no.

instead he’s wide awake, with his big, dark, brown eyes staring into the screen, completely alert and interested.

the rant comes after the movie, with the end credits rolling and hobie slowly turning towards you with a bewildered look on his face. soon, words begin to pour out of him, like he’s struggling to contain his excitement.

“this was a cinematic masterpiece, love. i mean god, how could you have been holding out on me like this?”

that’s when you discover that hobie, despite his love for anarchy and the need for a revolution, has never seen the ‘dystopian classics’. the hunger games, divergent, and so forth.

while the movies may not have been in hobies taste of revolutionary acts, he finds himself emerged into a whole new conversation about rebelling against the system.

you take delight in his anger at katniss for working alongside the system (district 13) and cheer with him when katniss kills president coin. and while he may not have agreed that victory against the capitol would’ve been that ‘easy’ and would’ve taken much longer to achieve, he still finds joy within katniss and peeta finding joy and applauds the former for not conforming to the system.

[spotify-official]

Green Day has been around since 1989 and theyre still producing BANGER hits please link one of my green day rec playlists because links dont work in asks but uhhh yeah

GREEN DAY ERAS:

pre-American Idiot (1989-2000)

focused on personal problems with a little "hey society sucks right"

that mostly comes in Warning (2000) tho

billie joe had really long hair in 1989-1991 look

1039/Smoothed Out Slappy Hours and Kerplunk both have a lot of love songs

Dookie has general themes of growing up

Insomniac is definitely interesting. only like half an hour long tho :/

Nimrod and Warning are both explorations in genres and they have a really unique sound to them!

THE 2000's

this is just American Idiot and 21st Century Breakdown

both banger albums! just because they're both political doesn't mean theyre connected tho

seriously the worst thing you can do is treat 21CB as an American Idiot sequel. because it's not

some of the best Green Day songs ever on these two albums. just listen to them both fully honestly

2012

despite this being one year, it contains 3 albums (¡Uno!, ¡Dos!, and ¡Tré!)

do not listen to Nightlife.

Fuck Time is great tho

some amazing songs! about 3 or 4 per album

Let Yourself Go >>>>>>>

also Kill the DJ

but yeah not some of their best work

REVOLUTION RADIO (2016)

one album

another political album

again.NOT American Idiot or 21CB sequel. it's its own thing

this one's more personal to Billie Joe tho

so many good songs!!! especially Still Breathing omfg

FATHER OF ALL (2020)

no

well sugar youth is really good

SAVIORS (2024)

FUCK YES

YES

YES

YES

IT'S EVERYTHING I LOVE ABOUT GREEN DAY ALL IN ONE ALBUM

LISTEN TO THE FULL THING OH MY GOD

Check it out guys!!! It's so good!

[rosewilsongf]

Album tag game - 6 albums you've been listening to, plus one track from each that you're especially fond of

Thanks a bunch for the tag @dontirrigateme :)

--

Tango In the Night (Deluxe edition) by Fleetwood Mac -> Everywhere - 2017 Remaster

This is my favorite song to listen to in the morning or whenever I need to get myself into a good mood. I just love how dreamy and upbeat it sounds.

Magic by Bruce Springsteen -> Girls In Their Summer Clothes

This song makes me feel so nostalgic. But in a good way! It really feels like the end credits of a coming of age film. The kind that leaves you with an epiphany about life.

Hold An Old Friend's Hand by Tiffany -> All This Time

Okay...it's cheesy and a little corny,,, but I'm cheesy and corny so it's to be expected.

When Did We Do That? by Letters to Cleo -> I Want You To Want Me

It's so catchy and such a 2000s song. It's perfect for dull afternoons when I need to feel energetic. I just...love it so much, it's so fun

Revolution Radio -> Bang Bang

Bang Bang is the first song I listened to. I saw the lyrics used in a video edit once and nearly spat out my drink because it was so evocative the sound was exactly my kind of thing. I love the punk sound so much! Honestly @executethyself35 @dontirrigateme this album kind of gives off your guys' vibes but not in a violent way! Just really energetic and punk rock <3

Love In The 4th Dimension by The Big Moon -> Cupid

I love this album and the way it sounds! The melodies, the instruments, the energy...it just scratches that itch in my brain and it feels so me.

no pressure tags: @caseofvatsixtynine @goneandbackagain @bast0gne @melancholictearz @1waveshortofashipwreck @love-studying58

[brookstonalmanac]

Holidays 8.28

Holidays

Bow Tie Day

Crackers Over the Keyboard Day

Criminal Appreciation Day

Crumbs Between the Keys Day

Dream Day Quest and Jubilee

828 Day

Emerati Women’s Day (UAE)

Emmett Till Day

End of the Fairy Tale Day

Giving Black Day (a.k.a. Give 828)

Goldenrod Day

Gone-ta-Pott Day [every 28th]

Grandparents’ Day (Mexico)

Green Shirt Guy Day

Higalaay Festival (Cagayan de Oro, Philippines)

I Have a Dream Day

International Read Comics in Public Day

Makaton International Awareness Day

Manifest 828 Day

Mariamoba (Republic of Georgia)

National Bow Tie Day

National Grandparents Day (Mexico)

Native Hawaiian & Pacific Islander (NHPI) Equal Pay Day

National Over It Day

National Power Rangers Day

National Sport Sampling Day

National Thoughtful Day

Nativity of Nephthys (Egyptian Goddess of Love)

Race Your Mouse Around the Icons Day

Radio Commercial Day

Rainbow Bridge Remembrance Day

Russian Germans Day (Germany)

Scientific American Day

Significant Historical Events Day

Speeding Ticket Day

Tan Suit Day

Tom Thumb Locomotive Day

Watermelon Day (French Republic)

World Day of Turners Syndrome

Food & Drink Celebrations

National Cheese Sacrifice Day

National Cherry Turnover Day

National Red Wine Day

New England Apple Day

Stuffed Green Bell Peppers Day

Subway Sandwich Day

Independence & Related Days

Holy Empire of Reunion (Declared; 1997) [unrecognized]

Kingdom Proclamation Day (Montenegro)

Luana (Declared; 2019) [unrecognized]

Moldova (from USSR; 1991)

Ohio Empire (Declared; 2008) [unrecognized]

Popular Consultation Anniversary Day (East Timor)

4th & Last Wednesday in August

Hump Day [Every Wednesday]

La Tomatina (World’s Biggest Food Fight; Buñol, Spain) [4th Wednesday]

National Meals on Wheels Day (Australia) [Last Wednesday]

Tug-of-War Day [Last Wednesday]

Wacky Wednesday [Every Wednesday]

Website Wednesday [Every Wednesday]

Weird Wednesday [4th Wednesday of Each Month]

Whatever Wednesday [4th Wednesday of Each Month]

Whole Grain Wednesday [Last Wednesday of Each Month]

Willing-To-Lend-A-Hand Wednesday [Wednesday of Be Kind to Humankind Week]

Wishful Wednesday [Last Wednesday of Each Month]

Weekly Holidays beginning August 28 (4th Full Week of August)

Paralympic Summer Games (Paris, France) [thru 9.8]

Festivals Beginning August 28, 2024

Apollonia Festival of Arts (Sozopol, Bulgaria) [thru 9.7]

Best in the West Rib Cook-off (Sparks, Nevada) [thru 9.2]

Halifax Fringe Festival (Halifax, Canada) [thru 9.8]

Johnson County Fair (Clarksville, Arkansas) [thru 8.31]

La Tomatina (Buñol, Spain)

South Dakota State Fair (Huron, South Dakota) [thru 9.2]

Sweet Corn Festival (Millersport, Ohio) [thru 8.30]

Twin Falls County Fair and Magic Valley Stampede (Twin Falls County, Idaho) [thru 9.2]

Venice International Film Festival (Venice, Italy) [thru 9.7]

Walla Walla Fair & Frontier Days (Walla Walla, Washington) [thru 9.1]

Feast Days

Alexander of Constantinople (Christian; Saint)

Andraste (Celtic Book of Days)

Assumption Day [Roman Catholic] (a.k.a. ... 

Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Abkhazia)

Falling Asleep of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Canada)

Feast of the Assumption (Christian)

Feast of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Anglican)

Ferragosto (Italy)

Dormition of the Most Holy Mother of God (Eastern Orthodox)

Mary, Mother of Our Lord (Lutheran)

The Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Sacred Heart)

Augustine of Hippo (Christian; Saint) [brewers] *

Ayyankali Jayanti (Kerala, India)

Constant Troyon (Artology)

Edmund Arrowsmith (Christian; Saint)

Edward Burne-Jones (Artology)

Feast of the Mother of God (Georgia, Macedonia, Serbia)

Festival for Luna (Ancient Rome)

Festival for Sol (Ancient Rome)

Festival of the Neon Revolution

First Onam (Rice Harvest Festival; Kerala, India)

Frank Gorshin Day (Church of the SubGenius; Saint)

Hermes of Rome (Christian; Saint)

Jack Kirby (Artology)

Jack Vance (Writerism)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (Writerism)

John Betjeman (Writerism)

Julian (Christian; Saint)

Junipero Serra (Christian; Saint)

Kanō Motonobu (Artology)

L. B. Cole (Artology)

Marimba (Virgin’s Assumption; Georgia)

Mariotte (Positivist; Saint)

Media Aestas III (Pagan)

Michael Craig-Martin (Artology)

More Rum Day (Pastafarian)

Morris Graves (Artology)

Moses the Black (Christian; Saint)

Norse Harvest Festival (Everyday Wicca)

Pebble Memento Day (Starza Pagan Book of Days)

Rita Dove (Writerism)

Robertson Davies (Writerism)

Tony Husband (Artology)

Uncle Norton the Elephant (Muppetism)

Lucky & Unlucky Days

Sensho (先勝 Japan) [Good luck in the morning, bad luck in the afternoon.]

Umu Limnu (Evil Day; Babylonian Calendar; 40 of 60)

Premieres

Animal Crackers (Film; 1930)

The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are, by Alan W. Watts (Spiritual Book; 1966)

Cain's Jawbone, by E. Powys Mathers (Novel/Puzzle; 1934)

Come Clean, by Puddle of Mudd (Album; 2001)

The Count of Monte Cristo, by Alexandre Dumas (Novel; 1844)

Do the Evolution, by Pearl Jam (Animated Music Video; 1998)

54 (Film; 1998)

Flying Leathernecks (Film; 1951)

Gallipoli (Film; 1981)

Get Rich Quick Porky (WB LT Cartoon; 1937)

Honeymoon in Vegas (Film; 1992)

I Have a Dream, by Martin Luther King Jr. (Speech; 1963)

Let’s Get It On, by Marvin Gaye (Album; 1973)

Little Ol’ Bosko and the Cannibals (Happy Harmonies MGM Cartoon; 1937)

Lohengrin, by Richard Wagner (Opera; 1850)

Mary of Scotland (Film; 1936)

Mickey’s Follies (Disney Cartoon; 1929)

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers (TV Series; 1993)

Narcos (TV Series; 2015)

The New Mutants (Film; 2020)

Perri (Disney Film; 1957)

Personal, 19th Jack Reacher book, by Lee Child (Novel; 2014)

Pesty Guest (Chilly Willy Cartoon; 1965)

Phineas and Verb the Movie: Candace Against the Universe (Animated Film; 2020)

Pink Pranks (Pink Panther Cartoon; 1971)

Private Lessons (Film; 1981)

Q. Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo!, by Devo (Album; 1978)

Rope (Film; 1948)

Sink or Swim (Terrytoons Cartoon; 1952)

Smile, by Katy Perry (Album; 2020)

Song of the Thin Man (Film; 1947)

Studio 54 (Film; 1998)

Tease for Two (WB LT Cartoon; 1965)

Travelling Without Moving, by Jamiroquai (Album; 1996)

The Truth About Mother Goose (Disney Cartoon; 1957)

Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (Film; 1992)

Victoria (TV Series; 2016)

Walk This Way by Aerosmith (Song; 1975)

Yankee Doodle Bugs (WB LT Cartoon; 1954)

Today’s Name Days

Adelinde, Aline, Augustin (Austria)

Augustin, Tin (Croatia)

Augustýn (Czech Republic)

Augustinus (Denmark)

August, Gustav, Kustas, Kustav, Kusti, Kusto (Estonia)

Tauno (Finland)

Augustin, Elouan (France)

Adelinde, Aline, Augustin, Vivian (Germany)

Damon (Greece)

Ágoston (Hungary)

Agostino, Ermete (Italy)

Auguste, Guste, Ranna (Latvia)

Augustinas, Patricija, Steigvilė, Tarvilas (Lithuania)

Artur, August (Norway)

Adelina, Aleksander, Aleksy, Augustyn, Patrycja, Sobiesław, Stronisław (Poland)

Augustín (Slovakia)

Agustín (Spain)

Fatima, Leila (Sweden)

Agustin, August, Augusta, Augustina, Austen, Austin, Austina, Austyn, Gus, Gustava, Gustavo (USA)

Today is Also…

Day of Year: Day 241 of 2024; 125 days remaining in the year

ISO: Day 3 of Week 35 of 2024

Celtic Tree Calendar: Coll (Hazel) [Day 26 of 28]

Chinese: Month 7 (Ren-Shen), Day 25 (Jia-Zi)

Chinese Year of the: Dragon 4722 (until January 29, 2025) [Wu-Chen]

Hebrew: 24 Av 5784

Islamic: 22 Safar 1446

J Cal: 1 Gold; Oneday [1 of 30]

Julian: 15 August 2024

Moon: 27%: Waning Crescent

Positivist: 17 Gutenberg (9th Month) [Worcester]

Runic Half Month: Rad (Motion) [Day 6 of 15]

Season: Summer (Day 70 of 94)

Week: 4th Full Week of August

Zodiac: Virgo (Day 7 of 32)

Calendar Changes

Gold (Month 9 of 12; J Calendar)

[whovianwatchingstartrek]

A Whovian Watches Star Trek for the First Time: Part 076 - The Time War Begins

Star Trek: Enterprise - Season 4 Episodes 1 and 2 - Storm Front

Two parter, so really long post here.

Only one season of Enterprise left, and I'm excited to see where that cliff-hanger goes, it was a bombshell. Let's go!

Tip and Mayweather in the shuttlepod are beyond shot down by some WW2 era fighters, and Archer is in the hands of an Alien working with the actual WW2 Nazis. Not for long though, because the prison transport Archer is in is attacked by what I first thought was French Resistance, but later they're revealed to be American resistance.

Meanwhile, Enterprise is picking up Radio Signals of Winston Churchill. It's quickly revealed that there are Suliban on enterprise. Lovely to see the Temporal Cold War plotline is back on track.

The unknown aliens seem to have deeply infiltrated the Nazi leadership, and they have been messing with the timeline. The Nazis have reached North America. Archer wakes up in the care of woman in Brooklyn, and is also caught up on the time shenanigans going on.

The Aliens have boosted the Nazi's technology and allowed them to overwealm the allies. Currently, they are proposing giving them access to plasma rifles, and more crucially a plague. Phlox gets jumpscared by a guy in the future-people's uniform, who scans later confirm is Daniels, albeit aged and decayed severely, although it would appear to not be infectious, thankfully. As he dies, Daniels confirms that the Temporal Cold War has become a full blown Time War.

Archer gets to spend some time with his nurse, and it's some nice really worldbuilding for this alternate timeline, and I love that they're fleshing out what occupied New York would look like. We also find out from a few resistance members that the Gestapo are hunting for Archer, specifically.

Meanwhile on enterprise, Sillik appears before Trip, and a fight ensues. Silik ends up stunned, and Silik launches a shuttle down to earth. Trip and Mayweather are sent down to find him. They find the shuttle, but he's gone.

Archer and the Resistance members start moving to talk to capture one of the aliens who regularly asks for information about the resistance and the gestapo. Apparently the Nazi aliens are trying to get home, so they're just as stranded as Archer and Enterprise. Unfortunately as Archer is explaining his situation to the resistance, a firefight breaks out. Archer tries using the aliens communicator to get through, allowing him and Alicia to be transported to Enterprise in the nick of time. Trip and Travis however are captured by the Nazis.

Seeing the crew delighted to see Archer back safely was great. As the first episode ends, we get a final scene between Archer and Daniels, where we learn more about the Nazi Aliens. They're led by someone called Vosk, and are apparently the most dangerous faction in the Temporal Cold War.

Between episodes, I just want to say, I'm loving this one. It's very Doctor Who, and I love seeing aliens mess with history. I will say that Germany Winning World War II is a bit overdone in time travel fiction in general, but it's still a fun go at that cliched set up. I absolutely love the designs of the Nazi Aliens

Episode 2 opens with some Nazi Propaganda about Hitler visiting the USA, after the intro we start to see a breakdown between the Nazi leadership and the Aliens, and the alien in the Nazi war room, who I'm assuming is Vosk is really threatening. He is written with the same cold and careless manor that the Time Lords have, but twisted into a more outwardly evil place. I love it.

Alicia gets some time on Enterprise and is just really suffering culture shock from all the future stuff around her. Malcolm has managed to settle on the point of divergence, specifically Lenin was assassinated before the Russian Revolution. However as they're discussing their next moves, Vosk contacts enterprise to discuss negotiations in a neutral location. Archer agrees and heads down with two MACOs to meet Vosk. Vosk beings Trip and Mayweather to the negotiations, and hands them back to Archer. Vosk offers Archer a deal which Archer outright rejects.

Back on Enterprise, Archer immedietly realises that Trip has been replaced by Sulik. So the question is: Where is the real trip? Well, he's tied up in Vosk's base. Archer confirms that he rejects Vosk's offer and they open fire on eachother. Unfortunately, Enterprise can't breach the shielding on Vosk's base, so Archer decided to push for a temporary alliance with Sullik, to sneak into Vosk's base.

Apparently Vosk had previously tried to erase the Suliban from history. The Nazi Aliens are preparing to open their conduit, but Archer and the American resistance launch an attack on the compound, and the action here is superb! As the battle occurs the Nazis and Vosk's faction start turning on eachother. Sulik is killed, and despite him being the main villain of seasons one and two, his death is oddly touching. Not in a full redemption arc kind of way, but it still got some feelings out of me.

It was really fun seeing enterprise fly around a real world earth location shooting down real WW2 fighters. Enterprise destroys the facility and the Time Line is restored.

Supposedly, this is the end of the Temporal Cold War, and Daniels shouldn't be interfering with Enterprise's history any more. Moreover, the Crew are finally home after a long mission, and man do they deserve some down time.

As I said earlier, I really enjoyed this two parter. It's setting was really fleshed out and it's villain was spectacular. Vosk is definitely going to stick in my mind a lot longer than some of the other Villains that have popped up throughout this series. I'm glad we're back on Enterprise's normal Season 1 and 2 exploits going forwards.

[cherry-interlude]

Lana’s Unreleased Songs in ‘Chronological’ Order

This is not based on Lana’s reality or intention, just the story she tells in her music. This does not include Ave Maria, Boom Like That, Roll With Me, Money Hunny or most of the EPs/demotapes

Younger Years

This is Lana’s teenage years, due to the mentions of school and her age. The story I gleaned from this was she was a wild girl at school, hanging around with the wrong crowd (Boarding School, Children of the Bad Revolution, Driving in Cars With Boys, Making Out, Motel 6, Butterflies Part 2). She always felt like an outcast and had dreams of being famous (Elvis (inspiration), Hollywood, Pin Up Galore, Playground, You’re Gonna Love Me, Jesus is My Boyfriend).

She meets a guy who is a little bit bad for her but she connects with despite the toxic nature of their relationship (Me and My Boyfriend, Run Motorcycle, I Don’t Wanna Go, I Learned How To Make Love From the Movies (another ‘black leather moonlight), Ridin’, Joshy and I, Stoplite De-Lite, Queen of Hearts).

However, they’re passionately into each other (Baby Blue Love, BBM Baby, Jealous Girl, Puppy Love) and she dreams of them running away together (On Our Way, Prom Song Gone Wrong, Super Movie, Take Me to Paris, 1949, Every Man Gets His Wish).

They go on to break-up after multiple ‘breaks’ (Butterflies Part 1), when Lana’s boyfriend decides he wants to hit the road himself (Your Band is All the Rage). Lana recognises they were too young and bad for each other, and just wanted to leave together (Afraid, Damn You).

Waitressing/Trailer Parks/Jim

Lana becomes a waitress and goes on to meet Jim (All Smiles, Caught You Boy, Meet Me in the Pale Moonlight, You Can Be the Boss), a rich, law-breaking unkind lover (Crooked Cop, Hundred Dollar Bill). Their relationship is passionate and loving (4th of July, Behind Closed Doors, Bellevue, Bentley, Betty Boop Boop, My Song 57, Coca Colla, Daddy Issues, Dynamite, Hawaiin Tropic, Heartshaped Chevrolet, I Was in a Bad Way, Let My Hair Down, Match Made in Heaven, Oooh Baby, Push Me Down, Put Your Lips Together, Queen of Disaster, Bikini Gold) but also difficult (Maha Maha, My Best Days, Put the Radio On, Resistance, Roses, Trees, Valley of the Dolls, Cult Leader (metaphor)).

Jim also had a darker influence on Lana and she admired his criminal ways (Hot Hot Hot, Never Let Me Go (Nancy and Sid)). They lived in a trailer park together (Backfire, Fordham Road, Television Heaven, Trash Magic) and slowly they fell more into crime.

They started a lifestyle of criminal activity (Criminals Run the World, Come When You Call Me America (”gun to gun”), Daytona Meth, Hit and Run, Live or Die, Playing Dangerous (arson), Scarface) and Lana developed a darker persona (Dangerous Girl, Hangin’ Around, Serene Queen, Summer of Sam). Jim soon goes to prison (Gangsta Boy, TV in Black and White). Lana eventually realises that Jim’s love for her is too flawed, and she metaphorically kills his influence on her (Kinda Outta Luck).

Getting Famous/Stripping

Lana becomes a stripper and seeks to get noticed. She spends her days at the diner and her nights at the club (Us Against the World, Dance For Money, Ghetto Baby (stilettos, loose link), Go Go Dancer, Midnite Dancer Girlfriend, Moie Je Joue, Party Girl).

Lana eventually starts to get noticed for this (C U L8r Alligator, Disco) as well as her singing (Marilyn). Though she does still miss the life she had with Jim (Methamphetamines), she meets interesting new people (Strangelove, Big Bad Wolf, Wolf T-Shirt) and people who can give her a chance in the business (Axl Rose Husband (”record executive), Ben) - including famous men she admires (Is It Wrong?), accidentally becoming known in a scandal (Other Woman, True Love On the Side).

Famous

Lana’s fame grows quickly, and she is known as the wild-child star (Be My Daddy, Breaking My Heart, Heavy Hitter, Dreamgirl, Dum Dum, Paradise, Serial Killer, So Legit, St Tropez). She starts up a PR relationship (Fake Diamond) but meets another singer like her, who slows down her crazy behaviour (Because of You). They are a perfect pair, both rich, talented and about the famous lifestyle (Beautiful Player, Delicious, Back to tha Basics). He lives too fast, too dangerously (Live Forever, Velvet Crowbar, Lift Your Eyes) but she sticks by him. They have a whirlwind engagement to be married.

She is heartbroken when she hears rumours about him (In The Sun, Catch and Release (”page three”, gossip)). She is devastated and angered by the revelations of his unfaithfulness (Hollywood’s Dead, Noir, She’s Not Me, Tired of Singing the Blues, Your Girl) but ultimately is strong (Break My Fall). Most of all, she’s heartbroken about the marriage that would never be (Fine China*).

Lana sees the downfall of fame steadily (Last Girl on Earth) and as she becomes introspective (On & On & On) misses her past (I Talk to Jesus, Greenwich, Wayamaya, You and Me).

She spends time alone, finding herself and her freedom (Angels Forever Forever Angels, Wild One) but soon meets someone new (Hey You). She falls in love (JFK) despite remembering the past with Jim and her other lovers (French Restaurant). She is mature and safe in her relationship, and allows it to unfold (Life is Beautiful, Spin Me Round, Starry Eyed, Unidentified Flying Bill, When I’m With You, Yes to Heaven).

*This song could have fit in to various places.

This was just for fun and was all theoretical; again, I’m not claiming any of this is Lana’s intention but just a fictional narrative based on the beautiful stories she tells

[slowdancingtorock]

Ireland - Day 31

Did I overreact yesterday? Probably. Has today confirmed my worries? Kinda. We (the 3 of us) went to the National Museum with a grand total of 4 adult students. At least the museum was somewhat interesting and I had a good time there.

We got back early so as to avoid trouble with public transport and that was a good call seeing as the next 3(!) trains were either canceled or delayed. We also browsed some shops after we brought the students back to find some souvenirs. We didn't find anything we liked but I did find a book. The office walls and the mugs I have to wash and carry around all day have Seamus Heaney quotes on them and when I saw a book with his poetry I couldn't resist. I am not immune to propaganda. At all.

Anyway, I got to chat with the only other German intern who is here (I genuinely didn't know she was here nor that she was German - she literally has the opposite schedule of me). Apparently she not only has to be here for 5 months (good God) but also gets ordered around to do the most stupid shit I have heard of for most of the morning as she doesn't have any breaks to take care of. Like "Go to the shop to buy a new cable" or "Go water the plants" type of tasks. Ridiculous. She seems somewhat fine with it and I really shouldn't do anything on her behalf without her permission but I really wanna help her out :(

Maybe I can get our Dean to let her come with us on the trip tomorrow as we'll going to be Guinness Storehouse (the school will pay the entrance fee for us employees, yay). Looking forward to that, a little at least but since I don't like Guinness there is not that much hype. However, a whole bunch of students signed up for it so maybe it won't feel like a total waste of time going there.

Because we returned to the office so much earlier, I also got to chatting with some of the teachers and they are all quite some characters; one is a 50-something year old dude who talks a lot but uses questions instead of phrases like "You're quite tall, aren't you?" or "I forgot my pen in the classroom, didn't I?". Love him. Also, one is apparently sorta famous on IG but not for teaching but for modeling (slay, Queen) and she showed some really bold outfits, lol. Then there is also that other guy who is prolly in his 30s, who loves cursing in a monotone voice (" Morning, assholes") and expresses his love by insulting you, that's a rough thing to get used to, at least for me. But they're all mostly fine, I think we all just bond through our dislike of some of the people in administration. Healthy office culture here.

My song of the day is Revolution Radio by Green Day. I listened to it on repeat today, 'cause I totally forgot how much I love that song. Also, I feel a little rebellious today what with me being unhappy about my one colleague's situation and also I watched The Order Season 2 and the characters got their fears stolen and did a whole bunch of rebellious and reckless stuff so yeah, it does fit fairly well.

[thesinglesjukebox]

††† - "INVISIBLE HAND"

Claire recommends a Deftones/Far superduo with an ungoogleable name. (Literally! "Your search - "†††" - did not match any documents.")

[6.09]

Ian Mathers: Wait, is ††† just Chino from Deftones doing noisy synthpop? Did I forget about this? Was I not informed? [8]

Claire Biddles: This time last year, ††† released a cover of George Michael's "One More Try", a swoony bit of December melancholia that also served as a direct acknowledgement of inspiration. Much like Nine Inch Nails' Trent Reznor, Chino Moreno has always carried Michael's influence in his vocal performance, and no more so than in his work with †††, his Depeche Mode-ish duo with producer Shaun Lopez. In "Invisible Hand", Moreno's croons are propelled by internal drama, lifting and surging in the middle of words. His lyrics are either enigmatic or nonsense, depending on one's position, but the song itself is dense with narrative. Lopez switches modes and textures with every verse, laying a sheet of synths only to shoot through it with ten-foot-tall industrial drops; stabs of synthesised voices are weaponised; glass shatters as if in a locked room. Listening to the song, looking at the blue-lit model on the album art, I'm struck by the commonalities between the sheen of '90s/'00s alt-rock and Michael's contemporaneous "adult" period: the thread that links "Spinning the Wheel" and "Digital Bath", ending up with "Freeek!" and "Invisible Hand" -- the kind of industrial that isn't made from scrap, but from chrome coated in silk. [9]

Michelle Myers: What kind of Deftones girl are you? I'm from the Saturday Night Wrist era, but I probably would have told you my favorite album was Around the Fur if you were a metal dude I bummed a lighter from at a party in 2007. Anyway, I like this as an album cut, though I'm not sure it stands on its own as a single. Still, nobody does hot, sleazy angst better than Chino Moreno. [6]

Micha Cavaseno: I've said plenty about Chino over the course of my life, so let me go over to Shaun Lopez (or "Slopez" for those of us with far too much familiarity) first. At one point, this guy was a great post-hardcore guitarist, responsible for a number of great records with his band Far. "Love, American Style" and "Bury White" still get regular play from me, and even though that comeback album was bad and his post-Far band The Revolution Smile was some of the worst middle-of-the-road radio rock possible... the guy's had great moments! Chino -- again, I've said so much about my love for the guy! Crosses... ? Always getting worse! Part of it is that Shaun is such an unimaginative producer. So many of these riffs and little digital stabs of "hard clubby synthpop" just come off like the worst sort of adult-oriented electronica. Deftones have been mostly uninspiring to me in the last decade and a half, but if I wanted Chino doing his best faux David Gahan over Phantogram-level cliches, I know he's done better. (Team Sleep was right there! And all their gimmicky electronica was perfectly in vogue with the '00s!). So here I am, begging these men to get off TikTok, stop scrolling through legions of goth girls calling themselves "baby bats" dancing to warmed-over faux-'80s music mislabeled as "darkwave," and get their heads back in the game. [2]

Katherine St Asaph: Chino from Deftones going Dave Gahan mode (NOTE UPON REREADING: pun actually not intended, god) over a song composed entirely of bridges and final choruses. So when the actual bridge and final chorus arrive, they're identical, no more tension to be had. The half-time bit at the end could have gone somewhere. [7]

Nortey Dowuona: I was kinda excited to hear Chino's powerful yet silky voice rise over the swollen stolen valor of the 808 kick by Shaun Lopez, who also provides the newly drowned synth keys and seething guitar. But then they decided to add a Phil Collins drum track throwaway for the chorus. Big sigh. At least it's only a test. [5]

Alex Clifton: When the synths hit in the chorus this is pretty cool, but the rest of the time it feels like a knockoff Imagine Dragons song. [5]

Brad Shoup: The AWOLNATION EP was a dud, so this will have to tide me over for yowling modern rock with self-conscious electronic production choices. (Well, this and the Pumpkins' space opera.) Chino's voice remains a marvel. His sighs still don't feel like shtick, which is why I'm amazed at how much I enjoy them on the chorus paired with bog-standard synthwave. [6]

Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: An expertly executed take on some shit I really, really don't want to listen to -- every big noise and faux-gothic tone here has clearly been assembled by true appreciators of a dogshit form. The hook soars and the bass breaks the speakers and oh my god this is so tedious. But honestly, I respect it -- relative to the active rock and alternative radio baseline that these guys are pushing up against, this is a masterpiece. [4]

Frank Falisi: That sound is stuck in me. You know the one. [10]

Tim de Reuse: An unnerving, staccato vocal sample and an pleasantly grimy bass stab segue abruptly veer into a competent synthpop cruise. It'd go down smoother if the lyrics reached beyond the vaguest tendencies of early-aughts nu-metal. By their tone I understand that we're not happy, but I haven't a clue what we're supposed to be upset about. [5]

[Read, comment and vote on The Singles Jukebox ]

[brookston]

Holidays 8.28

Holidays

Bow Tie Day

Crackers Over the Keyboard Day

Criminal Appreciation Day

Crumbs Between the Keys Day

Dream Day Quest and Jubilee

828 Day

Emerati Women’s Day (UAE)

Emmett Till Day

End of the Fairy Tale Day

Giving Black Day (a.k.a. Give 828)

Gone-ta-Pott Day [every 28th]

Green Shirt Guy Day

I Have a Dream Day

International Read Comics in Public Day

Manifest 828 Day

Mariamoba (Republic of Georgia)

National Bow Tie Day

National Grandparents Day (Mexico)

National Over It Day

National Power Rangers Day

National Thoughtful Day

Nativity of Nephthys (Egyptian Goddess of Love)

Race Your Mouse Around the Icons Day

Radio Commercial Day

Rainbow Bridge Remembrance Day

Russian Germans Day (Germany)

Scientific American Day

Significant Historical Events Day

Tan Suit Day

Watermelon Day (French Republic)

World Day of Turners Syndrome

Food & Drink Celebrations

National Cheese Sacrifice Day

National Cherry Turnover Day

National Red Wine Day

Stuffed Green Bell Peppers Day

Subway Sandwich Day

4th & Last Monday in August

Araw ng mga Bayani (National Heroes’ Day; Philippines) [Last Monday]

August/Summer Bank Holiday (UK) [Last Monday]

International Day of Cyber Attack Ceasefire [Last Monday]

Liberation Day (Hong Kong) [Last Monday]

Motorist Consideration Monday [Monday of Be Kind to Humankind Week]

Notting Hill Carnival (UK) [Last Monday & day before]

Social Justice Day (Antarctica) [4th Monday]

Independence Days

Holy Empire of Reunion (Declared; 1997) [unrecognized]

Luana (Declared; 2019) [unrecognized]

Moldova (from USSR; 1991)

Ohio Empire (Declared; 2008) [unrecognized]

Feast Days

Alexander of Constantinople (Christian; Saint)

Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Abkhazia)

Augustine of Hippo (Christian; Saint) [brewers] *

Ayyankali Jayanti (Kerala, India)

Constant Troyon (Artology)

Edmund Arrowsmith (Christian; Saint)

Edward Burne-Jones (Artology)

Feast of the Mother of God (Georgia, Macedonia, Serbia)

Festival for Luna (Ancient Rome)

Festival for Sol (Ancient Rome)

Festival of the Neon Revolution

First Onam (Rice Harvest Festival; Kerala, India)

Frank Gorshin Day (Church of the SubGenius; Saint)

Hermes of Rome (Christian; Saint)

Julian (Christian; Saint)

Junipero Serra (Christian; Saint)

Marimba (Virgin’s Assumption; Georgia)

Mariotte (Positivist; Saint)

Media Aestas III (Pagan)

More Rum Day (Pastafarian)

Moses the Black (Christian; Saint)

Uncle Norton the Elephant (Muppetism)

Lucky & Unlucky Days

Sensho (先勝 Japan) [Good luck in the morning, bad luck in the afternoon.]

Umu Limnu (Evil Day; Babylonian Calendar; 40 of 60)

Premieres

Animal Crackers (Film; 1930)

Cain's Jawbone, by E. Powys Mathers (Novel/Puzzle; 1934)

Come Clean, by Puddle of Mudd (Album; 2001)

The Count of Monte Cristo, by Alexandre Dumas (Novel; 1844)

Do the Evolution, by Pearl Jam (Animated Music Video; 1998)

54 (Film; 1998)

Flying Leathernecks (Film; 1951)

Gallipoli (Film; 1981)

Get Rich Quick Porky (WB LT Cartoon; 1937)

Honeymoon in Vegas (Film; 1992)

I Have a Dream, by Martin Luther King Jr. (Speech; 1963)

Let’s Get It On, by Marvin Gaye (Album; 1973)

Lohengrin, by Richard Wagner (Opera; 1850)

Mary of Scotland (Film; 1936)

Mickey’s Follies (Disney Cartoon; 1929)

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers (TV Series; 1993)

Narcos (TV Series; 2015)

The New Mutants (Film; 2020)

Perri (Disney Film; 1957)

Personal, 19th Jack Reacher book, by Lee Child (Novel; 2014)

Phineas and Verb the Movie: Candace Against the Universe (Animated Film; 2020)

Private Lessons (Film; 1981)

Q. Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo!, by Devo (Album; 1978)

Rope (Film; 1948)

Smile, by Katy Perry (Album; 2020)

Song of the Thin Man (Film; 1947)

Studio 54 (Film; 1998)

Tease for Two (WB LT Cartoon; 1965)

Travelling Without Moving, by Jamiroquai (Album; 1996)

The Truth About Mother Goose (Disney Cartoon; 1957)

Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (Film; 1992)

Victoria (TV Series; 2016)

Walk This Way by Aerosmith (Song; 1975)

Yankee Doodle Bugs (WB LT Cartoon; 1954)

Today’s Name Days

Adelinde, Aline, Augustin (Austria)

Augustin, Tin (Croatia)

Augustýn (Czech Republic)

Augustinus (Denmark)

August, Gustav, Kustas, Kustav, Kusti, Kusto (Estonia)

Tauno (Finland)

Augustin, Elouan (France)

Adelinde, Aline, Augustin, Vivian (Germany)

Damon (Greece)

Ágoston (Hungary)

Agostino, Ermete (Italy)

Auguste, Guste, Ranna (Latvia)

Augustinas, Patricija, Steigvilė, Tarvilas (Lithuania)

Artur, August (Norway)

Adelina, Aleksander, Aleksy, Augustyn, Patrycja, Sobiesław, Stronisław (Poland)

Augustín (Slovakia)

Agustín (Spain)

Fatima, Leila (Sweden)

Agustin, August, Augusta, Augustina, Austen, Austin, Austina, Austyn, Gus, Gustava, Gustavo (USA)

Today is Also…

Day of Year: Day 240 of 2024; 125 days remaining in the year

ISO: Day 1 of week 35 of 2023

Celtic Tree Calendar: Coll (Hazel) [Day 21 of 28]

Chinese: Month 7 (Geng-Shen), Day 13 (Wu-Wu)

Chinese Year of the: Rabbit 4721 (until February 10, 2024)

Hebrew: 11 Elul 5783

Islamic: 11 Safar 1445

J Cal: 30 Hasa; Nineday [30 of 30]

Julian: 15 August 2023

Moon: 92%: Waxing Gibbous

Positivist: 16 Gutenberg (9th Month) [Mariotte]

Runic Half Month: Rad (Motion) [Day 1 of 15]

Season: Summer (Day 68 of 94)

Zodiac: Virgo (Day 7 of 32)

Calendar Changes

Rad (Motion) [Half-Month 17 of 24; Runic Half-Months] (thru 9.9)

[yanderelovlies]

Ok so thus guy Steve Powell was...absolutely terrified of ending up like his father meanwhile his daughter (cough cough Marcy wu from amphibia) was not doing the best mentally feeling like no matter what she does she'll never be happy so she tries to kill herself but she's convinced not to and realized that she doesn't need to kill herself she needs to kill the heart of Hollywood...which is a magic talking cat of acid that sounds like Tiffany haddish and is worshipped by Steve Powell who is a blood obsessed spider monster in the sewers so she destroyed it which destroys all the magic there and places everyone in a magic force field they can't escape...and it explodes killing millions

THE second time was in uncanny valley the lovely hone of John Doe and my oc Kennedy who recently broke up with his boyfriend's and he's really sad but he meets this girl name charm and they start dating but charm is an awful girlfriend and makes him feel shitty about himself and his best friend Maya who is in love with him (and also married) tries to reveal to him what a shitty person charm is and her plan works it is revealed and it turns out charm didn't even love him she wanted his blood for magic reasons and he just gave her some to have and charm is upset this was so much harder then it needs to be....so she floods the town killing 100s including my friends ocs cat

As for why sunny day jack is in Ireland we have to go back to the Hollywood explosion which left a few survivors those who did survive joined....i wanna say tribes? The inventors ruled by jinx from fucking arcane (whole much more lore im not getting into) the scavengers ran by my oc Mia the queens court owned by Lola from brawl stars and the nomads of no man's land lead by penny from dead men don't do radio plays and these two characters luz noceda from the owl house and huggy wuggy from poppy play time were apart of the nomads and best friends after an epic revolution against the queens court everyone escapes and lives slightly normal lives but huggy wuggy ends up being taken to the scp foundation because look at him and turns out sunny day jack was also kept there because look at him so luz noceda and living member's of her family decide to save huggy wuggy so they go in guns blazing accidentally letting everyone out including jack who kidnapped one of the Dr's like just pick him up "this one's mine now" and they made their great escape so everyone is like oh shit we need to hide where do we go and Jack was like "ooh let's go to Ireland" so they fled to Ireland and yeah....thats the lore

Juniper💙💛❤

:O

That's a lot you guys have been working on this for a long time.

Also, I love the whole "cause look at them" like no further explanation lmao

And wait did no one notice Jack just picking up a whole ass man??

[dankusner]

Reunited San Antonio rock band Girl in a Coma teases new album

A reunited Girl in a Coma -- from left, Phanie Diaz, Nina Diaz and Jenn Alva -- is working on a new album and will be playing live again.

Girl in a Coma shared an old video on social media Sunday as well as some news — the band will be releasing a new album.

The video was a performance of the song “Invisible” recorded for Austin radio station KUTX in 2014.

“Sunday Share! ‘Invisible’ recorded for KUTX Austin,” the post on Facebook and Instagram read. “A super rad song that will makes its way back on to our set and later, new album.”

Drummer Phanie Diaz confirmed the news by email on Monday.

“Yes we are working on (an album)!” Diaz wrote. “We also have a tour in the works. We signed with doitbooking agency. We decided to get back together due to the overwhelming response of people when we did the final shows. So many stories and love, and we as a band just talked everything out and decided to reform and make more music not just for the love of it but for the love we received.”

Diaz added that the band would the first show of its new phase soon, and that it would be in San Antonio.

It’s the latest and strongest sign of life from Girl in a Coma, the beloved San Antonio rock band that broke up in 2018.

Since then, singer Nina Diaz has been working on her solo career and the rhythm section of Diaz and Jenn Alva on bass have formed the core of the punk band Fea.

Fea has a short tour set for September and has been working on a new album. Nina Diaz recently released a cover of Fleetwood Mac’s “The Chain” with Diego and Emilio Navaira’s band Ready Revolution.

Girl in a Coma reunited in 2023 for a short Texas tour which it called its “Final Curtain” shows. They then played a one-off show earlier this year as part of the revived La Semana Alegre music festival.

“We joined the crew that has their final shows,” Nina Diaz joked in an interview with the Express-News in April. “Every couple of years, we’re going to say, 'THIS time, it’s the final show.' ”

At the time, band members said they were not writing new material for Girl in a Coma and had no plans to get back together more formally.

That seemed to change in July when the band announced they were planning more gigs.

“I know we said we were done but you guys have overwhelmed us with so much love and messages that we decided to play more shows,” they wrote in a post on July 16. A follow-up post about two weeks later indicated the band was planning shows in Texas as well as a mini tour.

Formed by childhood friends, Girl in a Coma broke out of San Antonio in the mid-2000s after catching the ear of Joan Jett on a SiTV show spotlighting unknown bands.

From 2007 to 2011, they released three albums and an EP on Jett’s Blackheart label that showcased Nina Diaz’s fierce, emotional vocals driven by a bristling rhythm section of Phanie Diaz on drums and Alva on bass. The music sounded like a punky take on '80s alt rock — the band’s name came from the Smiths song “Girlfriend in a Coma” — with nods to their San Antonio roots.

Aug 5, 2024

ACE OF BASS

When it comes to pleasing the ladies, Girl in a Coma's four-string slapper uses her softer hand

Oct. 19, 2007

San Antonio alt-pop trio Girl in a Coma teased us this summer.

They had just released their "Road to Home" video — starring lip-synching wonder Amanda Lepore — and were booked on the Vans Warped Tour.

The Diaz sisters Nina (vocals) an d Phanie (drums), and lesbian bassist Jenn Alva, were on a three-day swing through Texas: San Antonio, Houston and then Dallas on July 13.

But at the last minute, the all-Latina act crossed off their Dallas gig?

And we felt stood up.

On Friday, however, they're headed back North Texas.

Any resentment will most likely be forgiven, because Girl in a Coma's music is like a throwback to The Smiths envisioned by Joan Jett.

Actually, Morrissey's musical director produced their demo disc, and Jett released their debut album "Both Before I'm Done" on her Blackheart Records label.

Earlier this week, Alva answered some tawdry e-mail questions that only the lone queer in the band could answer.

How come Girl in a Coma bailed on the Warped stop in Dallas? We didn't bail. It was just a miscommunication. Actually, we were never supposed to be scheduled to play [the Dallas stop].

What's the best bass line to seduce a lady? Anything by Les Claypool — not! Bass lines don't really work. But when it comes to seduction, maybe play some Travis or Air.

You're a bassist, so the fingertips on your left hand are probably calloused. Has a sexual partner ever complained that your meat hooks are simply too rough for her va-jay-jay? I don't use my left hand.

If lesbian bass virtuoso Meshell Ndegeocello and you dueled over the same gal, who'd win? Meshell — I don't duel for girls.

Who came up with the excellent idea to use Amanda Lepore for the "Road to Home" video? Nina came up with the idea to use a transsexual. So why not use the world's most famous sexually reassigned wonder? By the way, Amanda is incredibly sweet and a professional lady. Nothing too crazy went on at the shoot. If Amanda made a pass at you, could you take the ball and run with it? Or is she not woman enough to handle a gal like you? I don't think I'm women enough for her. What do you promise to do at your Denton gig that you've never done before? I promise to play the all songs correctly.

[popmusicu]

GHOST IN THE RADIO

By Gabriel Salvador Contreras

“It’s ghost-like, isn’t it? That period between the ‘30s and ‘40s is between wars. And a lot of people had went to wars and never come back so there was a lot of uncertainty. It’s about ghosts, loss, and all these incredible lyrics. The weight of these tracks is incredible sometimes. Like one of the main guys I’ve sampled over the years, Al Bowlly, died in the war because a bomb landed on the house he was in. They say he would have been bigger than Bing Crosby, that he had a better voice. It’s very sad.” - Leyland Kirby (x)

The relationship within music and horror is quite as long as the history within humanity itself. When it comes to pop music though, we wouldn’t immediately assume there’s something sinister about it at first glance. The Caretaker is a solo project by Leyland Kirby, debuting in 1999 with “Selected Memories From the Haunted Ballroom”. The whole vibe from Caretaker is strongly nostalgic, moving, even anxiety inducing at times. One wouldn’t imagine such an artist would become extremely popular even with a younger generation, but this is proven wrong by the massive acclaim his LP, “Everywhere at the end of time”. From it’s terrifying yet realistic premise —a mind going through dementia, slowly forgetting everything about their lives, knowing as well the impact music makes in people’s memories and positive effects on dementia patients — to it’s atmospheric, slow progression into nothingness, nothing could predict its popularity in the internet sphere. The prevalence of this EP is so vast that it can be easily found — especially the first track, “A1 - It’s just a burning memory” — all over TikTok, YouTube memes, and with over four and a half million plays on Spotify. Considering it’s niche and artistic intent, one could easily forget about the music he’s sampling: ballroom, pop music from the 30’s and 40’s, as he says himself.

Was this music supposed to sound this eerie? Has pop music terrified listeners before like this? Could this be considered something undesired by the industry, would it stop it from be pop at all? In this text I’ll present my point of view about this matter. As I would love to make it longer, I’ll try to keep as concise as possible while I go through some examples of what I would consider some interesting cases of Pop turning a scare to the audience, songs being inspired by catastrophes that scarred the artists, or musicians that are just looking for a spook. PART 1: EVIL (IS GOING ON) - Before the 60s Fear has plagued the human mind since before history can reach itself. Therefore, we can assume that fear and the terrifying has been a common theme since folklore music. It’s deeply rooted in our brain, but when it comes to pop culture we might not notice at first how big of a theme it is. Here are some examples from various media where this phenomenon can be seen, usually songs with some religious subtext, Halloween, and “contemporary” witches, zombies and other spooks. Anatoly Liadov - Baba Yaga, Op. 56 (1904) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17szhwbiw_o   The House is Haunted by Roy Fox (1934) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AoJj7dCbEX8

Howlin' Wolf - Evil (Is Going On) (1958) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osnDVXlhxPw

Playlist with more Examples -> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SisxwnlEiq0

There's something interesting I notice at this time, in contrast to our first example, on how nostalgia is not really an horrific thought, or at least not a popular one, and, pretty common when it comes to popular music, it's mostly lighthearted. Usually, folk horror and creatures born from pop culture are the ones in the front of the stage most of the time. However, things slowly take some interesting turns, as we will see...

(Coming Next: PART II: REVOLUTION 7 - 60’s, 70’s and 80’s)