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arcticdementor · 3 years ago

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I’ll be transcribing select podcasts from now on. The one I recently did with Misha Saul had a lot of great insights, so I thought it was a good place to start.

It’s been lightly edited to make it more clear and legible, and sometimes for grammar, while maintaining the general ideas.

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Richard has hit the spotlight in a big way over the last year – he’s been on Tucker Carlson and is increasingly known for his iconoclastic style. His podcast is excellent, and his essay drawing out the mechanism for how Wokeism grew out of the Civil Rights Act in the US has made waves.

This conversation picks up on a strand that I’ve been thinking a lot about. Diana Fleischman in my conversation with her said: Institutions are increasingly reflecting the values of middle-aged women. Tyler Cowen often writes about the feminization of society at Marginal Revolution. No one, as far as I’m aware, has really buttoned down what that means and what it looks like.

I don’t think that’s quite what we do here.

It’s a pretty free-flowing exploratory conversation about what we might call the feminization of society. What do we mean when we talk about it? Where can we see it? What are its benefits and derangements? We have a crack at the subject, anyway. Think of this as an experiment in chatting through some observations, live.

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Richard: Sure. This is going to be a very American-centric analysis because it goes back to American history and American law but a lot of Americans don’t actually know this story. A lot of liberals have this idea of the Civil Rights Act… there used to be racism, they still think there is racism, but there used to be official state-sanctioned racism, Jim Crow, private businesses would discriminate against blacks and women to a lesser extent, or the same extent in some people’s minds. Then you pass the law of the Civil Rights Act and things got better. And a lot of Republican politicians, those doing the most superficial kind of analysis, don’t have much of a different story than that. They just think that “whatever, now the wokeness has come and now maybe it’s something a different and that’s a problem.” And they’ll throw in “oh and by the way, those who opposed the civil rights were Democrats." They try and claim the mantle for the civil rights movement for the Republicans, which is nonsense because a lot of those people left and became Republicans specifically over that issue, and a lot of their voters left the party. So it’s really a nonsense narrative they try and throw back at them.

It says you can’t discriminate in government and you can’t discriminate in private business. And most people at the time thought that basically meant you couldn’t put up a sign that says no black people. Even the gender thing they say was added as a joke actually. Somebody was trying to kill the bill, they didn’t want the racial equality parts. They said, “it would be so absurd to have a society where you didn’t discriminate based on sex” so they put sex in there hoping to kill the bill. And it ended up passing. I’m not 100% sure, I was told this by a law professor at the University of Chicago, so it’s not like I read it on Twitter somewhere. It’s credible though I haven’t looked into it.

Misha: American politics is basically a rerun of the producers, like hilarious accidents that keep escalating forever.

Richard: Right. So what does not discriminating mean? It wasn’t long after that that the phrase affirmative action comes along. It comes along in a series of executive orders. Government contractors first under Kennedy and then LBJ in the 1960s. Under Nixon for the entire federal government. Basically it said that the government would have to keep racial and gender statistics and make sure there weren’t any disparities between groups. You also had development of these other legal doctrines developed from the Civil Rights Act which includes a hostile work environment, sexual harassment law, stuff like that.

And lots of people have raised questions about free speech: If I think men and women are different and I’m in a private business and I want to say that, that’s of questionable legality… mainstream conservative views on things. They went after a lot of companies for this. There were some major corporations, I think Mitsubishi was one, they ended up paying a lot of money to the government, that made examples out of certain places.

Another doctrine, which was invented by a combination of the courts and executive agencies, is disparate impact. So if you give standardized tests, Grigg vs. Duke Power Company, this was a case early after the Civil Rights Act. It said if you give an IQ test and it has a disparate impact between groups… you can still use it but it’s a little complicated, it has to be related to the work, but it becomes harder. Everything you do that has a racial disparate impact, and by the way everything in the world has a racial disparate impact, if you find something that doesn’t I’ll be surprised, they can come after you for it either through the government directly coming after you or through people suing you.

So what happened? What happened starting in the 1960s is you see the growth of this human resources industry. You can just look at the chart of the number of human resource workers in the US going through the roof. Now if you had just said quotas, hire this many blacks, this many women, that would have been simple. You wouldn’t need a full-time bureaucracy to do that. The fact that it was vague and there were potentially substantial penalties sort of put business on edge. You needed a full-time bureaucratic class to interpret the laws and what was going on.

So the DEI industry is derived off of the rise of human resources. So you know, the way people see woke institutions today, “well they’re just deciding to be woke, there’s just a class of people deciding to take the leftwing issue on anything related to race and gender,” and some of that is obviously right. But you’re ignoring that basically legally you’re only allowed to be on one side of the culture wars. You’re not really allowed to say… if you’re a government contractor you can’t say “I don’t want to count my employees by race or gender. I don’t want to collect that data. I don’t want to take affirmative action to help black people or women out, I believe in a colorblind policy.” Mainstream conservative views, conservatives believe this stuff, it’s not legal. Conservatism is illegal for a lot of institutions. Not everything is covered but huge portions: the federal government, government contractors, subcontractors, it covers a huge portion of the private and public sectors.

And then it filters down, you have these big corporations and other people sort of follow them. And then you have these norms that apply to everyone. Courts will look at best practices, saying “Oh, discrimination is wrong, what are the best practices in the industry? What are people doing to fight discrimination?” And if that’s Robin DiAngelo at one point in time, you start to worry if you don’t have Robin DiAngelo coming to give speeches you might get in trouble. Not specifically Robin DiAngelo, but you get the idea. You have these intellectual fads that come and go and everyone’s jumping on the same train because it’s necessary.

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But anyway, let’s get back to the feminization issue. I think this is a discussion that can easily devolve into two cranks kind of sounding conspiratorial and bitter. The one place outside this conversation that’s been steadily beating the drum of this thing has been Tyler Cowen on his blog Marginal Revolution. I think we can generally be quite normatively neutral around this trend, it’s not necessarily a good or bad thing, but if you go to Marginal Revolution and search “feminization,” you notice that it does pop up quite periodically.

For example, one thing that Tyler Cowen recently said, and I’ll quote: “one thing the contemporary world definitely has not come to terms with is how much a highly feminized culture will be rather strongly enforcing new forms of discrimination, albeit cloaked under different and rhetorically emancipatory principles.” I think last year or the year before Tyler Cowen said “the feminization of our culture is for me, trend #1,” noting that basically all the top ten selling books had female protagonists and seven were authored by women. And I think you can go through different professions, education and other institutions, over the past 50 years, and I guess it’s not surprising since the kind of increased participation of women in the workforce and democratic process, you’d kind of expect our cultural and institutions to change. But I guess this is what I wanted to spend today talking about, when you kind of took the piss out of DiAngelo and just said “this is just estrogen and mental illness.” Let’s talk about what has happened in our culture, what does feminization mean?

Richard: Well, I think it means a lot. It’s a broad topic. I think what Cowen is referring to is, you have men and women, and men and women deal with conflict and challenges in different ways. We as a society are leaning more towards doing things in the feminized way rather than a more masculine way. Robin DiAngelo is just a great example of this. I mentioned the human resources industry. I also have a chart in my Substack that shows the changing demographics over time, shows something like 60-70% female. So this idea that you have problems with people and then you talk to them about it and you talk to them not for say, an instrumental purpose, “we’re going to work something out,” but talking is a reward in and of itself. You need something, you need to re-establish the relationship, you need to feel heard, feel validated. This is a very feminine thing.

So you have these protestors at universities, and it’s funny because you look at identity politics in the past, anti-colonization or something. It’s just “we want to get the occupiers out of our country, we want to fight them, we want to have our own society” it’s a kind of masculine idea. And you now have these sort of identity politics where it’s like “hire more diversity counselors and have them talk to the people who are mean to us forever.” It’s a very strange thing compared to what identity politics was 30, 40, 50 years ago. It’s a sort of nationalism, a tribalism, an us vs. them that’s there in every society. But it’s morphed into something different.

So DiAngelo, the rise of human resources, even things like how we understand cost-benefit analysis. I think Safetysim is a more female way of looking at things. Bryan Caplan in his book The Myth of the Rational Voters has a few predictors of thinking more like an economist, and one of them is being male rather than female.

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Richard: Well, if you go to the places where it’s most purely about consumer preferences, just walk though the girls section in the toy store… now they announce there’s no girls section or boys section, but they’ll have one isle that’s all cars and one isle that's all dolls. I was at Target not long ago just looking at the dolls and the Barbies, now they’re in different colors, black, brown, and they have careers, doctor Barbie, astronaut Barbie. I didn’t see a fat Barbie, I didn’t see a trans Barbie, I didn’t see a bald-headed Barbie, I didn’t see a tattooed Barbie…

Misha: Not now, but every joke becomes a reality.

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Richard: I think things like anxiety, feelings of inadequacy, these things are higher in women. Neuroticism, I think these things are clearly… everyone sort of understands that. Especially the way we talk about things like mental health. Simone Biles… the idea that she quit right before a match, a meeting? A game? Whatever they call it?

Misha: An Olympics thing? A sports thing? We’re the wrong guys here. And she says she doesn’t want to do it anymore?

Richard: Anyway, there’s some kind of competition which she quit. And it’s not about her specifically, it’s about the media reaction which is that this is more heroic than if she would have won.

Misha: The quote in The New Yorker, I think it is, “her radical courage.” It’s deranged! To your point, even the best have blowups and absolutely no judgment, whatever. It’s the cultural reaction to it that is totally hilarious and idiotic.

Richard: Even stuff like therapy, the rise of mental health discourse. If you watch some normal TV shows, it’s amazing how everyone has a therapist. It’s seen as everyone has these problems they gotta work through, and the idea of it is that everyone is walking around damaged. I’m not going to say that’s normal for males or females. But we are tilting towards… it’s closer to the female norm than the male norm. There’s a minority of women who are very anxious and go through life feeling a lot of pain, and even for all our so-called gender equality, there’s still an idea that it’s much more socially acceptable for women to complain about things; for women to cry about things is much more socially acceptable than men.

So women tend to have these negative emotions at higher rates and it’s more acceptable for them to express negative emotions, so what happens is female concerns are overrepresented in the things we talk about. Not even all female concerns, I mean it’s very specific. Elizabeth Bruenig, this is a Washington Post writer for those who don’t pay attention, I think she just wrote some article that said “I became a mom at a young age and this made me happy,” that was the whole article. And every person on Twitter lost their mind and said it’s white supremacy or something. So it’s not the women like Elizabeth Bruenig, though she is a columnist and has a voice, she’s not representative of her class. It tends to be single, urbanized, less connected to family or marriage or a committed relationship. Those people talk the most and they tend to go into journalism and academia. They tend to have a disproportionate influence. This isn’t just women who have influence, but is true of human beings in general and who ends up mattering and having influence. The prominence we give to mental health and the way we talk about it are both signs of feminization.

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Richard: To go back to what you said about whether it’s an American thing, I don't have much experience traveling overseas. I did a semester abroad in Russia when I was an undergrad, that was about 10 years ago, around 2008-2009.

Misha: That’s awesome, where did you go in Russia?

Richard: St. Petersburg.

Misha: Cool! How’s your Russian?

Richard: Not very good. I have a minor in it but it’s been 12 years so I barely know anything.

So I was there, and I saw Tyler Cowen say this: the gender dimorphism is very high there. I didn’t see any women with short hair. I didn't see any women with sweatpants or anything like that. I traveled a bit in Europe and I think it’s the same way. ‘Letting yourself go’ as a woman is more of an American thing. I don’t know if it’s an Anglo thing, you can tell me about Australia, but it’s sort of like… some women have gotten in their heads the idea that to appeal to a man is somehow sexist or wrong. But it’s human nature, men want to appeal to women and women want to appeal to men.

Misha: Yeah, but you can have an argument that’s regressive and that’s reflective of traditionalist values, that’s basically behind rather than an alternative. I know they look at the anglosphere and see everyone as totally deranged. I can’t even say it on here but the things they say about this whole dynamic is pretty funny. How do you think about that? Maybe it’s just a function of liberation, that you don’t need to be on parade all the time.

Richard: Why is that liberation? You could say someone being obese is liberation, why do they feel like they have to watch their weight? Not caring about how you look, this is a form of liberation.

Misha: You joke, but the US is way heavier than it was 50 years ago. You are seeing all these big is beautiful schtick kind of everywhere, you know what I mean? I kind of get the everyday person rolls their eye at this, but it seems to be a meaningful…

Richard: Do an experiment. Find a woke woman, tell her “you’ve put on a few pounds recently.” Say it in the nicest way possible, and see if she takes it as an insult. The things we say, “big is beautiful,” but try it sometime. Tell someone “I’m a liberal, I don’t have any judgement on these things.” It doesn’t work. There’s what we’re supposed to say and the reality.

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Richard: Yeah, that’s some of it, and to go back to civil rights law, some of these things have been forcibly integrated. Some big golf course, something related to the PGA… they had men’s only golf and some big lawsuit. I think that’s right… Harvard within the last few years got rid of single gender fraternities and sororities, I don’t know if they went after the sororities too but they at least went after the fraternities. You think about why you’d need a male only space, or an all female space, and the justification would be “men and women are different, I can speak and talk in a way with other men that I can’t in a room with all women,” and that idea of fundamental differences is verboten, it’s something you’re not allowed to say or think.

You do get some all female spaces. It’s sort of like you could have an all black club but not all white club; because that’s the preference of the protected group, people will justify it somehow. They’ll say “blacks or women face unique challenges” not because they’re biologically different but because they’re facing unique challenges due to sexism or whatever. Sometimes they won’t deny the biological, but basically you don’t have to think too much about it, because they’re the “good people,” women and minorities.

And if you’re a man, now you’re talking about differences. And you’re implying those differences in some way favor the men. It’s funny, Daily Caller is a conservative website and they went to some member of the Congressional Black Caucus, a Democrat, and asked him “why do you think that men are arrested for crimes more than women?” Now the joke is that the Congressional Black Caucus says that it’s racism if blacks are arrested more for crimes than white people. And the Congressional Black Caucus, one of the guys was like “oh of course, because men are more violent.” It was nothing. So they sort of got him. There’s not a consistency. Sometimes you can believe in differences, sometimes you can’t. It’s not about if you believe in differences or not, it’s about if you’re flattering the group that needs to be flattered or insulting the group that needs to be insulted.

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Misha: Just leave the crusty old dudes alone! There’s like 50 female gyms down the road from that same club and no one cares. But this is literally front-page news. No one can get enough of these crusty old dudes getting together for lunch.

Richard: The thing is men don’t want to do identity politics against women. You do have these guys online, men’s rights activists…

Misha: They’re losers! Who wants to be those guys?

Richard: Right. So there’s got to be a way to pushback, while not falling into the “we’re just like women, we’re going to have a fight on equal terms.” I mean if you do do that, you end up with the Taliban. Men will win, if you fight on equal terms with women… Trust me, it’s not going to be much of a fight. You don’t want to go in that direction.

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Misha: I meant more, does being an immigrant allow you to speak truth to power? People can’t accuse you of being some rich, boat-shoe wearing fancy-boy who is speaking from a place of power in the US. Do you know what I mean?

Richard: Maybe. Let’s say there was a blond-haired blue eye guy who was just like me.

Misha: And you’re light haired and light eyed by the way!

Richard: I’m light eyed and dark haired. But yeah, I think it would be more difficult. I do think that’s certainly the case. There’s a guy named Madison Cawthorn, a young Republican, he looks like an SS officer. But he’s in a wheelchair, he had an accident, so it’s sort of strange that way. But he’s a typical dumb Republican who says dumb things. The media freaks out at him, it’s the way he looks. The wheelchair thing makes it a little strange. From what I can tell he’s not different from any Republican in Congress, just different in the way he looks.

Misha: So this is one of my favorite things about you. And whoever’s outraged at this point would have switched off or stopped listening already, but you’ll kind of point to the demographics or insane institutions in the US and you have this whole wokeness piece, you’re a pretty loud critic of that. But then you look at the Republicans and go “these idiots are totally worse. These idiots couldn’t organize a root in a brothel.” What’s going on there? To go in a different direction, what is with the state of conservatism in the US?

Richard: This is something I actually want to write about. There’s a narrow problem which is that they have never done the things I recommend they do, which is look at civil rights law and honestly face what’s happening. But then there’s a broader question as to why they think about this stuff and why they never intend to do anything about it. So that’s sort of a broader question.

The liberals are ideologically motivated. You look at which sources of news and information liberals trust more, and it’s usually the written word. The New York Times, Washington Post, it’s these other publications. The base driving the Democratic party and the left in the US is journalism and academia. For the right it’s talk radio and TV. Talk radio and TV is not ideological, it has a short attention span. It likes to fight, it likes the reality TV side of things. Sometimes it can win, it can win over the majority of the public because it’s good at showmanship and fighting.

And you have these groups that are issue focused, the gun people and anti-abortion people. These people do well, they’re organized and get the bills passed that they want. But in general, I think conservatism is more of a reaction to an ideological movement and liberalism is the ideological movement.

#richard hanania #substack #misha saul #transcript #podcast #read the whole thing

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hollenka99 · 5 years ago

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Okay but if you don't think Siobhan Maria Jackson didn't dust herself off after grieving, you've got another thing coming.

Like yes, obviously she took Jameson's death hard. Dude was her husband for 22 years and she'd known him since she was 18. Not to mention she lost her brother a month before becoming a widow. There was a period where she took the 'be there for the kids first and foremost' philosophy a little too far and the kids had to say "Uh Ma? Listen we're all hurting but maybe you should grieve without thinking about us for a while."

So she grieves. Then she comes out the other side ready to get down to business.

She sees her eldest son graduate college, something no-one in her family has ever done. She gets Thaddaeus House for the Disadvantaged built and personally helps out when and where she can once it's open. Her 2nd and 3rd sons get accepted into the high profile colleges they wanted. She couldn’t be prouder of them.

Even in the late 30s, once her father is dead from advanced age and she is living in Ireland again, she gets shit done. As loving and kind of a man as Jacob O'Hara was, those traits don't leave his daughter much in the way of monetary inheritance. Siobhan has to support her little girl somehow. Even the money Jameson left her shouldn't be something to live off of, in her opinion. So she gets any qualifications needed at the time to be hired as a music teacher. By the time Nora is settling into life as a woman with a husband and young family of her own, a point where Siobhan knows she's capable of going on without her mother down the street, it is the early-to-mid 1950s.

She returns to California to finish what she started. Thaddaeus House isn't quite as needed as it was when first built yet it's an important and necessary establishment nonetheless. She ordered a place to learn ASL to be added before she left for Ireland in '37. Now she's planning to include somewhere on site to receive basic qualifications, enough to get a job but with as little expenditure on the students' parts as possible. Actually, let's merge the ASL area into the school. No, hang on, we should have enough donations to put the school on it's own dedicated site. We'll provide cheap scheduled transportation between the two sites. That's great.

She likely campaigned to make ASL a mandatory subject in schools nationwide. Yes, obviously French and Spanish are fantastic for students who plan to travel when they're older. But what about those wanting to stay closer to home? There are plenty of Americans who rely on sign to communicate. So teach them an equally important language that they may need more than a European one.

Since the TLoJJ-verse is based on the real world, she probably wasn't able to make it a reality. But could you imagine her looking some authority in the eye and saying "I don't care for this whole nonsense with the Soviets. Never mind whether our ideologies are better than theirs. Let's focus on creating a fairer society. If we manage to improve the lives of the type of citizens who need it most right now, don't you think that will show the Reds who's the greater nation?"

The government twisted the arms of her two youngest sons when they were barely adults. They took part in a war that was far bigger than either of them. Damn right she’s going to try twisting the government’s arm to progress on issues bigger than the USSR being communist.

Either way, she'd probably work together with some of her children to build a centre for teaching and promoting the use of ASL. First in Los Angeles then, if that proved successful, New York and other potential major cities.

Speaking of fighting for better equality, I feel she would do what she could in the fight for civil and gay rights. Well, Anthony, she doesn't know if she's quite up for marching in large crowds now that she's in her 70s but she'll try to help things on a more local level. And no, Oliver, she is a bit conflicted on homosexual couples vs being told her whole life it should be a man and a woman only. However, she doesn't see why having emotions that do nothing to cause harm to others should be punishable by law. Is there anything she can do to help?

Throughout her life, Siobhan composes music. She wrote the melody that people immediately associate with the Jolly Gentleman. The music from Carving for Beginners is her own. Music is her creative outlet the same way writing had been for Jameson. She even sets something up at Thaddaeus House to encourage people to take up playing an instrument if they want.

Oliver visits her one day and discovers the pile of compositions, some complete, others that have been works in progress for varying amounts of time. He convinces her to compile them into an album. She agrees so long as the ones with more personal reasons for creation are left out. If they really want those ones out in the world for public consumption, they'll have to wait until after she's dead. She doesn't want to live with the knowledge someone could casually listen to something she created as a way of coping during the most despairing points of her life.

It's Pearl's death in 1973 that makes Siobhan consider slowing down slightly. 85 by now, she could certainly leave her children and grandchildren to carry on her efforts. She could travel to foreign lands and see what they have to offer. But nope, that's not Siobhan Jackson. She'll cut back on some things that require more physical effort, sure. But spending time at Thaddeus House gives her people to chat with when her friends and family are busy living their own lives.

In later life, I'm sure she enjoys spending time with her grandchildren and even great-grandchildren. Not to mention dogs. She has always been partial to Dalmatians. Maybe some piano playing and garden maintaining too. I love the thought of her becoming this figure in the community, this old woman who has done more than a few things with her life and tries to keep going within reason.

She reaches 90 and yeah, maybe she's not as active as she wants to be but she still goes out and does what she can. Her memory is starting to go now, it's getting more evident as the months and years roll by. When nearing 95, she gets asked if she's aiming for the big 100. She usually chuckles and say "Well we'll see, won't we."

She turns 96 in July 1984 and two months later, she's gone. When she sees Jameson again, she tells him she tried her best to fulfil his last wishes. He just laughs like it's obvious before replying along the lines of "Angel, you did more far more than try. Thank you."

And that's the contrast between them. Jameson left early, his ideas of how to give back to a world that allowed him financial security came too late for him. But Siobhan was given more than enough time. She had 52 years more than him to get it done.

She could have stopped in the ‘30s. She could have said "It's done. I fulfilled my promise to him. It's standing and functional and that's what he wanted." But she doesn't.

In the ‘50s or early ‘60s, she could have said "To try change the education system is a monumental task that one 70 year old Irish immigrant couldn't successfully lead." And maybe she was somewhat right about that. She sure as hell gave it her best shot though. Without her, people in the 21st century would have less opportunities to learn ASL. Just because you can’t complete a marathon doesn’t mean the distance you managed is redundant.

Siobhan lived a goddamn full life. Part of her life’s work might have been fulfilling her husband’s last wish. But to focus on that or just see her as simply Jameson’s widow is to erase so much of what she did with her life. She was a composer, talented pianist, supportive mother, someone willing to fight and speak up about the things she cared about, a woman who came to America aged 16 with the hope of finding better prospects there than Limerick offered then did so several ways over.

In short, I stan an Irish queen. I hated myself for making her wait 52 years to be with her other half. But she didn’t waste those five decades. She killed it. Now she can look back on it all and be proud. Like she deserves to be.

Just... Siobhan.

#the life of jameson jackson #tlojj #tlojj spoilers #siobhan jackson

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prorevenge · 6 years ago

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Bad renting situation.

Set the scene for you guys: The place we were renting is a duplex that is split down the middle here in Upstate NY. My little 2 bedroom side of the house was next to the garages and driveway. It had a small side of the yard which was 15 ft x 5 ft. We have a Chocolate Lab named Benny that uses that back yard for his bathroom etc. The shitty neighbor in my duplex who I’ll call Rick had the bigger side of the yard and a staircase that lead up to the back field where there was a nice walking path and horse farm. The back of our duplex was kind of built right into the side of the hill leading up to the horse farm/corn farm. Rick was subletting one of his rooms to a Russian chain smoker that we’ll call Olga and she was the same age as him (60 ish). Rick is an asshole 90% of the time and demands we never use his staircase to go up to the walking trail. His Russian friend and he also chain smoke in front of our living room window making our house smell like an 80’s era bowling alley. Over the course of our renting this place we got in numerous fights with these asshats over where they could smoke so that our side of the house didn’t stink. The landlord lives in FL and uses the property as his retirement cash cow. The LL we’ll call Dwayne and he’s about 70 years old. The house itself was built in 1940 or earlier and we lived on an old farm road with a pumpkin farm across the street. Just want you to have an image of the location because it’ll come into play.

The first week we’re in the house unpacking and my wife asked me to plug in the vacuum and run it around the downstairs to get up the Styrofoam from the packing materials. I notice that the plug sparks when you plug it in or unplug anything. I call Dwayne and tell him and he says “Ok…..call around and get a price from an electrician and let me know what it’ll cost.” This was a red flag for me. I’m paying $1300 a month for this duplex and now this guy wants me to do all his leg work since he is out of state. I figure whatever and find an electrician that’ll charge $200 for the house call plus the outlets he’ll end up replacing. I call Dwayne and he says “no, that’s too much, I’ll send one of my guys over to do it.” This pissed me off because I just spent 20 minutes calling around getting ballpark quotes but I figure fine as long as the work gets done. Fast forward 1 month and his electrician finally shows up one day to do the work. He replaces 12 of the 14 outlets because he didn’t think he’d find so many bad ones. I figure that’s fine since the ones he didn’t replace are up in the room we never use.

2 months goes by and its early spring and raining a ton. One night we get a HUGE downpour that lasts for about 35 minutes. My wife says she hears water in the basement. I run down in the basement and we have 2 waterfalls coming through the windows that look into the backyard and 4 inches of water on the floor and rising. I call Dwayne the next morning and tell him about the windows in the basement and the flooding and he says I need to find a cleaning service to clean up the mess. I tell him I can’t because I’m going to work. He says “ok, do it after work then.” I say “listen, I don’t own this house, you do, so find someone today that can clean this up and repair the windows or I’m going to do it myself and take it out of the rent (which is NY state law.)” He gets pissed and hangs up. Later in the evening he calls and says a cleaning service will be there in two days to clean the basement from all the mud and water. I tell him that’s fine but he might want to repair the windows since it’s still raining pretty regularly. He says no that won’t be necessary since he’s still getting quotes about a French drain for the back of the house. The cleaning crew shows up and they clean the whole basement out. It takes them 6 hrs with power washers and scrubbing machines etc. They leave at 5pm that day and we’re thinking ok great now we have the basement cleaned up, but the windows aren’t holding anything out since they are so old and have no sealant around the outside edges. 2 days goes by and it downpours again and fills the basement back up with water and mud. I call Dwayne and he sounds defeated. He tells me that he’ll send the cleaning crew back out the same day the contractors are going to show up with the backhoe for digging the French drain around the backside of the house. Fast forward 2 weeks and everybody shows up. The work is completed and we’re happy to have a normal basement again even though I’m pissed that we have had a swamp down there for so long.

2 more months goes by and my wife one night screams while in the kitchen. She swears she saw a mouse in the kitchen run from under the sink to the under the oven. I ask her what it looked like and she says big, grey, and had pink ears. I know right away this isn’t a field mouse but a full grown rat. I open the drawer below the oven and all our cupcake pans are full of little rat turds and its fucking nasty. Thankfully we never bake so they weren’t a big loss. I call Dwayne and he says he has an exterminator friend that lives nearby and he’ll call him and get back to me. Dwayne calls back the next morning and says “I spoke to my friend and he claims that your dog going to the bathroom in the backyard is probably attracting the rats.” I tell him “rats don’t eat shit, so that makes no sense. We’ll need to have an exterminator sent out to deal with this.” Dwayne goes on a tirade about how we’re the worst renters and that we constantly complain about little things. I tell him “for $1300 a month I expect a rat free, spark free, living space that doesn’t flood or smell like a bowling alley.” At this point Dwayne says he’ll look into it and hangs up. I’m super pissed at this point. We’ve had nothing but problems with this place from the first week and now we’ve got rats in our kitchen. I do a little digging online and find out that you can have health department investigate rat infestations and if they see that the landlord isn’t doing anything about it, they’ll put a lien on the house until the work is complete. So obviously I decided to go that route. I call the health inspector and he tells me that he’ll come out in a few days and do an inspection and get back to me. Dwayne calls me back and says the rat problem is my fault because I have a dog and that I need to deal with the problem myself. I told him no problem I just set up an appointment with the health inspector. Dwayne get really upset and cusses me out. I call my lawyer and tell him to call Dwayne and arrange for us to break the lease since I don’t want to deal with him anymore.

Fast forward two months. The health inspector had found a bunch of rats and holes in the foundation and evidence that the colony had been living in the house for “years and years from the looks of it.” He contacts Dwayne and tells him about the lien if he doesn’t address it. Dwayne calls me and says he’s sending an exterminator. Now at this point I had put the place up on Craigslist to find new renters since Dwayne had decided to sublet our lease instead of let us out of it. I found some college kids that were desperate for a place and they seemed like typical, rich college kids. I tell them that the place doesn’t have A/C and they’ll need window units etc. But I also tell them that the next door neighbor is pot friendly and loves smoking. I tell them that he is super chill and that they can totally use the staircase in the backyard to use the hiking trails. One of the kids brought his mom that showed up in a new Jag and so I knew that Dwayne wasn’t going to be able to shit all over these people since I knew they’d lawyer up. I never mentioned the rat infestation or that this place was a nightmare because I knew that these kids’ rich parents would go nuclear with a lawyer if they had to deal with this stuff.

Dwayne accepted the new tenants and let us out of the lease. All it took was a few threats from my lawyer before I got my security deposit back.

Fast forward 3 months. I drive by the old place to see what’s happening. It looks like the college kids and Rick are off to a rough start. There is a plastic divider down the driveway to separate who gets what. There are beer cans all over the front yard and Rick’s truck is parked on the side lawn. He never did that when we lived there, so I’m sure these kids were driving him crazy with parking. Olga is nowhere to be seen since she probably jumped ship when the parties started. I don’t know what became of the rats but 2 months later I did another drive by and there was no furniture on our side of the house which tells me everybody had left and Dwayne wasn’t making any money….which made me happy since he was a fucking prick.

EDIT: I forgot to mention that after we moved out, the cleaning service called me to see about payment for the basement cleaning. Apparently, Dwayne never paid them and they couldn't reach him. I gave them his cell number and his FL address. That felt really good to do as well.

TLDR: rented a duplex that needed tons of repairs and ended up leaving the asshole neighbors and landlord with college bro’s that loved 4/20 and parties.

(source) (story by LedZeppelinRiff)

#prorevenge #by LedZeppelinRiff #pro revenge stories #revenge stories #pro #revenge #revenge story #last10

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megaphonemonday · 7 years ago

Text

the fire went wild

dothething asked, as a response to just like a ring of fire, when Mike realized his feelings. I personally think the show did a pretty good job of tracking Mike’s feelings for Ginny, so consider this a 4+1 times he should’ve realized something.

read on ao3

catching your lollipop fast ball

Another perfect screwball landed squarely in Mike’s mitt. He couldn’t help but be impressed, not that he really wanted to show it. Couldn't let the rookie get too full of herself, now could he? So, he snapped his gum a few times before popping the ball out of the webbing and snatching it right out of the air. He didn't even bauble the catch.

Baker wasn't the only one who could impress.

“Good,” he finally called, throwing it back to the artificial mound. “Now throw me the fastball I actually asked for.”

Her nose wrinkled, eyebrows furrowing. Without the brim of a baseball cap to cover it up, it was pretty obvious. A little amused, Mike had to wonder if that was how she always looked when she wanted to shake him off. The set of her mouth looked just right, lips pursed in annoyance. He’d gotten pretty familiar over the 17 entire times she waved his calls off her last start.

“That’s not what I’m working on,” she tried, worrying the ball behind her back. There was no doubt in Mike’s mind that her fingers had settled into a screwball grip yet again. Well, if she wanted to dick around, fine. At least the foam mats here in the pitching lanes were a little easier on his knees than the hard packed clay on the field. Mike could wait her out.

“It’s gonna be,” he tried anyway. If he didn't have to spend his entire evening in the bowels of Dodger Stadium, even if it was with someone as intriguing as Ginny Baker, why should he? “There’s nothing you or I can do to tweak that screwgie. Your fastball on the other hand...”

Baker's pursed lips flattened out into a straight line, but she didn't give him an actual reply, instead looking down as she toed the rubber and settled into her windup.

It was a refreshing change not being told to fuck off. Most of the bullpen was too familiar with him for the full force of his captaincy to have much effect on them. Mike should really work with the rookies more often. They had such a pleasing way of deferring to his every call.

Well. Most of his calls.

Another screwball landed in his mitt.

He tilted his head at her in exasperation, rolling his eyes though he was sure she couldn’t see it in the dim light of Dodger Stadium’s pitching lanes or the shadows of his mask. She raised her eyebrows in challenge.

Flinging the ball back at her with more strength than the throw really required, he gave up on reining in his annoyance. Given the way the impact with her glove rang against the cold cinderblock, Mike had a feeling Baker knew it, too. Still, she didn't wince or even shake out her hand, simply climbing back up the hill to set for another pitch.

“Fastball,” he commanded gruffly, giving her the hand sign for good measure.

To be honest, if she didn’t listen again, Mike wasn’t sure what he’d do, but it’d probably involve more than a little yelling on his part. He had a feeling, though, that Ginny Baker would give just as good as she got.

(He kind of wanted to find out.)

Baker huffed but shrugged. She settled into her stance and sent a perfectly serviceable, if unenthusiastic, fastball right down the middle of the plate. If every hitter worth their salt wouldn’t have been all over that pitch like white on rice, Mike wouldn’t have minded the lack of heat.

As it was...

“I hardly even needed a mitt to catch that, Baker,” he taunted, throwing the ball back. “Weren’t you just tellin' me you top out at 87? That couldn’t’ve been more than 70.”

Even across 60 feet, 6 inches, it was hard to miss the stubborn set of Ginny Baker's jaw. It was a new expression from her, but one that Mike had a feeling he'd be seeing much more of before the season was out. She gave a sharp shake of her head, reared back into her windup, and threw again.

Fastball, top inside corner. This time, there was even a slight sting in his palm.

Something like pride fluttered to life in Mike’s gut. And when Ginny grinned, teeth on full display, that flutter kicked into high gear.

Mike cleared his throat, flinging the ball back a little harder than necessary, though it had nothing to do with annoyance this time.

“Good. Again.”

They continued on in this pattern, Mike alternating between approval and goading to get his desired results and Ginny generally rising to meet and exceed his expectations, until Baker’d exhausted her 40-odd pitches. She didn’t protest when he stood and signaled the end of their session, but Mike could still tell that she was itching for more.

Good. It was nice to see that first game really had been a fluke. She really did want this.

Mike jerked his head to the door, but didn’t wait for her to catch up. She had the knees of a 23-year-old. He did not.

Sure enough, it only took a few seconds for her to fall into step beside him on the walk back to the visitor's clubhouse. She shook out her arms and stretched them over her head, bouncing on the balls of her feet even as they walked. Mike marveled at her energy. Hadn’t she done early work—and Jesus, it was work. Parts of Mike still ached from yesterday's tandem work out session—before Kimmel, too? Wasn’t she tired? He sure as hell was, and the game hadn't even started yet.

“Blip said if we win in LA, there’s a club y’all usually go to. You gonna come out, too?”

Mike always did. And usually he left the place with some very entertaining company. But something within him rebelled at the idea of sharing that bit of information. He shrugged it off and frowned, trying to project an air befitting his status as her captain.

“Let’s worry about actually winning first, okay, Baker?”

Her grin, dimples popping and eyes dancing, made him feel a lot of things, but most of them weren’t even remotely related to his status as her captain.

Automatically, he grinned back. Privately, though, Mike resolved to put as much effort as necessary into finding some company for tonight. A little no-strings fun, some relieved tension, and hopefully he'd wake up in the morning with his head on straight again.

Yeah. That was exactly what he needed.

listening to your feminista rants

"This is such bullshit,” Baker muttered mulishly. Mike could just see her now, crossing her arms over her chest and slumping in her seat.

Except, he couldn’t see her.

They were all the way across town from one another, Baker presumably in her suite at the Omni and Mike stretched out on one of the recliners scattered around his pool, trying to convince himself to go inside. If he went inside, though, started getting ready for bed, he’d have to end this phone call. Because while it wasn’t weird to talk to his rookie most nights—about anything from tomorrow’s start to the meager offerings of late night TV in hotel cable packages—it was definitely helped by the fact that Mike stayed out of his bedroom while doing it.

Specifically, he stayed out of bed.

It just— It was better if he did.

“Huh?” Mike was pretty sure he’d missed something. Hadn’t they just been talking about the surplus of fro yo shops in the Gaslamp Quarter and what’d happened to all the real ice cream shops, didn't people know that the novelty of paying by the ounce was not offset by the objective inferiority of frozen yogurt?

Which was definitely some kind of bullshit, but not the kind that would inspire this level of annoyance from Baker.

Well. Maybe it would. The girl did take her food very seriously.

She sighed down the line. “Sorry. Amelia sent me this interview request.”

When she didn’t elaborate further, Mike prodded, “Isn’t that her job?”

He didn’t love talking about Amelia with Baker. Just like he didn’t love talking about Baker with Amelia, but he could suck it up and play it cool for a while. It helped that he hadn't actually seen Amelia today. Mike didn't like to think about the fact that it was easier to talk to his rookie when he hadn't recently hooked up with her agent, though. Too messy for his tastes. Then again, hooking up with his rookie's agent was probably too messy for his tastes, too.

“Yeah,” she agreed, a little listlessly. “She usually does a better job of weeding out the obviously sexist ones. I think she’s been distracted lately.”

Oh, was this another one of her girl power trips? He could definitely deal with that. Ignoring the rest of her complaint and whatever role he might play in it, Mike tucked an arm behind his head and asked, “What's wrong with the request?”

“What isn’t?” Baker muttered under her breath. Mike waited her out until she sighed and offered, “They led off with what they wanted the photo spread to look like.”

“I don’t see what’s so obviously sexist about that.”

“That’s because you’re a dude.”

“That’s probably true.”

It didn't even get a laugh. She was too worked up for his dry delivery to even dent her indignation. To be fair, there was a lot in her life to be indignant about.

“Like—” Baker cut herself off with a humorless laugh, but not for long. "No one sends your agent the list of outfits they want you to wear for a photoshoot and completely forgets to add the interview questions, right? No one would dream of doing that to anyone else in MLB. Just me. It’s just me who has to navigate even the shortest interaction with a reporter like I’m guarding state secrets. All because I want people to focus on how I play the game.”

Mike didn’t tell her that he couldn’t really remember the last time an article about him had included an actual photoshoot. “You’re not wrong,” he said because A) that was what he was supposed to say in this situation, having learned his lesson from listening to Rachel's complaints, and B) she wasn't.

“And no one asks you about your skincare regimen during pre-game pressers. Or cares what you wear on road trips or what you eat on your cheat days or which of the hundreds of guys you’ve been in a four-foot radius of in the past 24 hours is secretly your boyfriend and which ones just want to sleep with you.”

“Well,” he drawled, “if I had a secret boyfriend, I’m pretty sure some people would be interested.”

That earned Mike his laugh. Not quite as bright as he’d wanted and almost in spite of herself, but he grinned at the still water of his pool anyway.

“You know what I mean.”

“I do.”

And he did. There was no denying that Ginny Baker, just by virtue of being the first, was going to be subjected to bullshit her teammates weren’t and never would be. While it wasn’t often that she actually complained about it, Mike couldn’t miss the way it dragged on her. The way her smile was always a shade too harsh in press conferences, her jokes rehearsed. He definitely couldn’t miss the way she always let out a huge sigh of relief the second she got out of the press room, shoulders slumping and exhaustion settling in.

“Yeah, I know.”

That certainty was nice to hear. That was why Mike felt warmth rush through him, flooding his face. It was so nice, in fact, he was still smiling when he finally hung up the call and climbed into bed.

He might’ve even been smiling as he fell asleep.

the way you constantly interrupt me

Well, there was no beating around the bush. This speech blew.

It wasn’t often that Mike couldn’t talk his way out of a corner, but he had a sinking feeling, the longer he went on, this might be one of those times.

Something about the rhythm of it, maybe? It wasn’t up to Mike’s usual standards for all he was hitting all the usual beats and talking points. Then again, he’d gotten a little out of practice. Hadn’t had much occasion to give celebratory speeches these past few weeks.

But today, the Padres had clinched their first series sweep in what felt like forever. And clinched it with a shutout victory, at that. That was certainly cause for Mike to step up and address a few words to his team.

But it was time to start wrapping it up, now. Before they realized he was talking in circles.

He raised his beer one last time to the gaggle of Padres still jostling each other in the open space of the clubhouse.

“This was just the beginning. We keep playing like that, then you better believe the postseason’s got our name on it. Good job, guys—”

“And girl.”

Mike whirled and took in said girl’s defiantly raised chin. He hadn’t put his back to the hallway holding her changing room on purpose, except, yes. He had. Most of these mooks might not know a great orator from a stuttering wallflower, but he had zero interest in finding out if Ginny Baker fell in with the crowd on this front. He had a feeling she didn’t and wouldn’t have any problem with letting him know it.

Funny. It wasn’t often he hated being right.

Next to her, Blip’s arms crossed over his chest, but a grin was pulling at the corner of his mouth as his eyes darted between her and Mike.

For his part, now that he’d turned his attention back to her, Mike couldn’t imagine looking away.

Flush with victory, he couldn’t think of a time she’d looked better. Not even on the red carpet, wearing that ridiculous red dress that should’ve been illegal by any sane standards. Not that he really had a horse in this race, but Mike was pretty sure he preferred her as she was now, still wearing her uniform, a little disheveled from the game.

And what a game!

Tonight, for the first time since she went AWOL from her party, Ginny’d taken the mound and thrown a beautiful game. A work of art, really. Mike had seen a lot of twirlers in his time and if he’d had any doubts about Ginny Baker’s actual skills, this game would’ve taken them out back, shot ‘em, and buried ‘em six feet deep.

And that was just on the strength of five innings. Erring on the side of caution, Al took her out with the Padres up 4-0. It hadn’t seemed like she chafed at the tight leash, though, given the way she draped her arms loosely over the dugout fence to watch the rest of the game.

Then again, Mike could only go based on what he’d observed.

Ginny still wasn’t really talking to him.

Until now. Until this.

He didn’t even tell her off for interrupting him.

“And girl.” He tipped his bottle to her, nodding his head for good measure. A smile flickered across her lips for a second.

Unspeakable relief swept through Mike. It’d been so long since Ginny’d actually addressed him off the field (or the red carpet), he hadn’t quite realized that he’d been craving it, missing what’d come so easily not even two weeks ago.

Jesus, how long had it been since they last talked outside of a game situation? It couldn’t have just been two weeks. He wouldn’t feel so fucking grateful to hear her voice again, without the roar of a crowd underpinning it, if it had only been two weeks.

Since he couldn’t stare at his rookie pitcher in awe quite as long as he would’ve liked, Mike cleared his throat and shifted his attention back to the rest of his teammates. “All right, you mooks. Get your asses in the showers and go home. We’ve got another game to play tomorrow.”

There was roughly an equal amount of booing as cheering, which was about as good a reaction as Mike could ask for.

Because he wasn’t going to push his luck and ask for Ginny to actually smile at him, too.

If he watched out of the corner of his eye as she clapped Blip on the shoulder and retreated to her dressing room, that was his business. It was also his business if he took the first opportunity to follow her.

“Come in,” she called, hardly before he’d finished knocking.

Mike pushed the door open, but didn’t step into her space. It felt important that he didn’t. Not yet, at least.

“That was a good game.”

Ginny turned and blinked, like she was surprised it was him. Since there was none of the anger or confusion that’d colored their interactions the past weeks, Mike tried to take it in stride.

“Thanks,” she replied, looking wary, but not entirely closed off. “Wouldn’t have managed it without that homer in the seventh.”

Mike shrugged, though she wasn’t wrong. When she continued to stare at him probingly, he grinned, a touch too self-conscious to manage his trademark charm.

“You gonna go out with the guys?”

“I thought we were supposed to go home so we could come back refreshed for tomorrow.”

He rolled his eyes. “You think I really expect any of these dummys—”

“You calling me a dummy, Lawson?” she demanded, and that! That was a smile. A real smile from Ginny directed straight at Mike.

“If you go out to the karaoke bar the way Voorhies wants, then there’s no—”

She laughed. “You asshole.”

Since Ginny looked legitimately fond, Mike didn’t even protest. He laughed, too.

“Yeah,” he agreed, more than a little wondering. “That’s me.”

oh, that horsey laugh

Mike was fucking exhausted.

And why shouldn’t he be? They’d played a doubleheader yesterday and suffered through a rain delay at Wrigley today. Yesterday. Whatever.

They were supposed to leave Chicago at 11:00. It was now 2:30 in the morning and they’d only just pulled away from the gate. Mike had been awake for nearly 20 hours now, and tomorrow—today, whatever—he’d have to get up and do most of it again.

It wasn’t the game that’d kill him, though. It was the fucking plane.

Mike couldn’t quite explain the hatred he felt for the endless array of charter planes the Padres commandeered in the course of a season. For a guy who didn’t even go to an airport until he was 18 and heading out for Idaho and his first stop on the way to the majors, air travel doesn’t hold much romance for him. The seats were too close together and now that he’s gotten old, the dry air makes his throat itch and back tighten.

It beat day-long bus rides, though.

If he could help it, he never slept on the plane, hated waking up with a kink in his neck and stiff knees, but he’d make an exception today. He was just that tired.

What Mike really wanted was his bed. And preferably a warm body to share it with. It’d been a while since that happened, though, and he wasn’t holding his breath for tonight. So, he’d have to settle for reclining his seat as much as possible—fuck Margolis sitting behind him; he’d given up a triple and let three runners steal before getting yanked—and sleeping while he could. If he didn’t, there was a good chance his drive home would end poorly.

Nothing quite drove home how old he was getting quite like feasibly believing he might fall asleep behind the wheel.

Thank God most of the team was in agreement on that front. The cabin was dark, only the dim, blue glow of iPads and phones illuminating the space. It was quiet, too, just Al’s sonorous, familiar snoring disrupting the silence.

Until someone had to go and make Ginny Baker laugh.

In spite of how tired he was, the sound of her laugh—loud and more than a little obnoxious but entirely genuine—was enough to make Mike smile automatically in response. He kept his eyes shut, letting her guffaws fade away and send him to sleep.

It wasn’t so different from being on the phone with her late at night, game adrenaline slowly filtering out of his system and his eyes growing heavy. Okay, maybe he’d given up on staying out of bed for all of their conversations, but he was only human. Sometimes Baker talked a lot, and it always put her in a good mood when she could tease him the next day for falling asleep on the phone.

Except Ginny wasn’t on the phone with him. She wasn’t even laughing at him.

Which shouldn’t have been the problem and shouldn’t have fucking bothered him at all.

“Do that again!” she demanded, delight coating every word.

Salvamini’s laugh was more mellow, and if Mike weren’t sure the man was head over heels in love with his wife and family, he’d think he was flirting.

“You’re not gonna figure it out,” the first baseman replied, and there was the soft whirr of shuffling cards. There were a few quiet moments before it started all over again.

“How did you do that?” Ginny demanded, laughing bright and loud and not at all aware that it was nearly 3:00 AM and everyone around her wanted to be asleep.

Still, Mike couldn’t bring himself to yell at them to shut up. He did sit up and glare blearily their way, cutting Salvi off in the middle of saying, “A magician never reveals his secrets.”

Magician. Yeah fucking right. The only people who actually believed that were the guy’s kids. And none of them were over the age of six.

Salvi had the nerve to grin, making Ginny turn to look, too. “Looks like captain’s calling,” he teased, nodding to Mike three rows ahead.

Mike rolled his eyes and flopped back into his seat. He didn’t cross his arms over his chest, because then it would look like he was pouting.

Which he wasn’t.

He closed his eyes. If he tried really hard, he could probably fall asleep in the next thirty seconds. That seemed reasonable.

The soft pad of sneakers against the carpeting of the aisle wasn’t enough to make him open them, but the soft creak of leather and mechanical parts shifting right beside him was. He cracked one eye open and took in Ginny Baker curled up on the seat next to his.

She grinned when she saw she had his attention.

“Did I interrupt your beauty sleep, old man?”

“Don’t need it,” he rumbled, “when you look as good as I do.”

Her responding laugh, though it was absolutely familiar, was quiet this time, just for Mike’s ears.

“You keep telling yourself that,” she murmured, eyelashes kissing the tops of her dusky cheeks as she settled in for some sleep herself.

She was the last thing before Mike’s eyes shut and the first thing he saw when the plane touched down in San Diego, and that didn’t make him feel any kind of way.

Not at all.

i’m gonna miss the hell out of you, baker

His phone should be in his pocket. Better yet, he should’ve left it at home when he decided what he needed to do with his last night in San Diego was go out and get sad drunk all by himself.

(Maybe all by himself. He still hadn’t decided. Which was, of course, the problem.)

It was, unfortunately, neither of those places.

No. It was sitting right on the slightly sticky bar top, mere inches from his third beer of the night.

This was a disaster waiting to happen.

When had drinking and cellphones ever been a good combination? Never, in Mike’s experience.

He couldn’t resist unlocking the screen every so often, though, staring at the text he’d drafted on his way here and still hadn’t sent.

Blip’s warning kept replaying in his head.

You could have just said bye to everyone.

Well. Mike didn’t give a shit about everyone. It stung that Blip was clearly so put out with him, but they’d get it together. Probably once Blip figured out that captaining that gaggle of overgrown kids was no walk in the park and maybe he needed or just wanted a little of Mike’s advice.

And yeah, if he were in the right frame of mind, he’d want the whole team to understand why he was going, but they’d get it after his press conference from Chicago tomorrow. They’d—probably, not all Padres were made equal, after all—figure out what went down.

And if they didn’t, what did Mike care? He wasn’t their captain anymore. He wasn’t anyone’s captain.

Still, there was one teammate he wanted to say goodbye to. One teammate he needed to know understood the whole messed up situation.

Not that Mike quite understood it all himself.

All he knew was that he’d been ready to fight tooth and nail to stay a Padre, but one look at Ginny Baker, going through her stretch and hum routine before taking the mound again made him realize he couldn’t. He couldn’t stay her teammate, stay in her life even, and not fuck it all up somewhere down the line. That was what he did best: fuck good things up. He refused to do it to her, though. No matter how fucking fond he felt every time she yelled at Stubbs for calling his ex a crazy bitch, or lit up the first time her fastball cracked 89, or laughed too long and too loud at terrible jokes, or cut him off to start a story of her own.

No matter how “fond” didn’t even come close to cutting it.

He’d leave his team, the closest thing he had to a family, before he put Ginny’s career in jeopardy.

Because he loved her, okay? He’d fucking fallen in love with his rookie, the first woman in MLB. He loved her and knew she meant more to the game than he ever would. There was no point in denying it now.

Mike laughed a little to himself. All the signs had been there. But it was the fucking humming that did him in. Fucking Katy Perry pushed him from willful ignorance straight over the edge into self-awareness.

Yeah, he’d miss this town and miss this team, but mostly what he’d miss would be her.

And, terrible as this idea was, he wanted her to know.

He drained the last of his beer and unlocked his phone again.

Before he could convince himself otherwise, Mike hit send.

Like magic, a blue bubble popped up on his side of the conversation, just two words, but two words that he thought might change everything. Or enough. God, he hoped it would be enough.

Boardner’s Bar.

#bawson #bawson fic #pitch #pitch fic #i wrote something #seriously lets bring back #5+1 fics #yes i'm aware this is 4+1 #but my point stands

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hirezajax-blog · 7 years ago

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God Balance Progress Report: Hel

The first goddess we will discuss is Hel. Let's start with her large nerfs in Season 2.

In early S2 Hel was a force to be reckoned with. Apparently the designers at the time were unhappy with her healing amount and they reduced her scaling dramatically on Inspire and increased her cooldown for both Inspire and Repulse. This largely put Hel out of the meta from 2.19 until her first buffs in patch 3.6.

In Patch 3.10 Hel had the following stats

#64 out of 77 gods in win % in casual conquest

#62 out of 76 gods in win % in ranked conquest

#71 out of 77 gods in play count in casual conquest

#76 out of 76 gods in play count in ranked conquest

As we can see here, even after some buffs she was pretty much dead last in all stats. We felt that her overall appearance and design were solid, so we concluded that it must be a balance issue. With that in mind she received another set of buffs in patch 3.12.

In Patch 3.21 Hel had the following stats

#67 out of 82 gods in win % in casual conquest

#33 out of 81 gods in win % in ranked conquest

#79 out of 82 gods in play count in casual conquest

#81 out of 81 gods in play count in ranked conquest

#69 out of 82 gods in player damage dealt in casual conquest

#3 out of 82 gods in player healing in casual conquest

There was a glimmer of hope as her ranked stats increased to a reasonable level, but her play count was still so insanely low that it was hard to actually trust the stats. It was possible that only 1 or 2 players who were just so skilled they could win with any god were accounting for that win %. Her win % fluctuated heavily and was always near the bottom of all gods. Her casual stats hadn't really improved either. 3.24 paints a very similar story, so i'll skip those numbers.

This brings us to her 4.1 heavy balance changes. As the god continued to be one of the least played in the game and continued to suffer at most levels of play we felt some heavy adjustment was in now necessary.

Before making changes we spent a good bit of time discussion possible directions. Based on historical research and design goals we decided on some key goals to pursue and a few clear warning signs to avoid.

Specific design goals for the 4.1 Hel update were:

Buff her lane clear

Buff her single target healing

Add a new healing type ability - single target skill shot heal

Avoid buffing her AoE burst healing or self healing

Buff her mana costs

Buff her unique factors (cleanse)

We had a few difficult tasks here in that we wanted to buff her but we knew we couldn't buff her Inspire ability (light 3) because of the experience we had from Season 2. We had so many buffs planned for 4.1 that we were worried about her being way too strong, so we accompanied a few nerfs along with the changes. We wanted to shrink the explode radius of her dark 1, as the ability was already gaining a huge increase in its reach and ability to damage multiple targets. We wanted to focus the light 1 on healing only to more clearly define her difference between stances. We wanted keep her light 3 entirely heal over time to reduce the frustration of her opponents.

These three nerfs paired with all of her buffs did not go over well with the community. There was overwhelming feedback that she was being nerfed and not buffed, although we still firmly believe there was more buffs than nerfs in the original proposal. Allowing her dark 1 to become her primary lane clear was a huge buff. It would make her safer in lane and better at poking enemies but it seemed it wasn’t enough for the community. We took the feedback and PTS testing to heart and reverted these few nerfs, going forward with a myriad of buffs and only one nerf: light 1 would not heal her if she damages an enemy with it.

These changes went live in 4.1 with a pretty rough reception. Many players and Hel mains still bashed the character by saying she was weaker than before and that she felt clunky. However, the stats painted a very different picture.

In Patch 4.1 Hel had the following stats

#3 out of 84 gods in win % in casual conquest

#3 out of 83 gods in win % in ranked conquest

#69 out of 84 gods in play count in casual conquest

#76 out of 83 gods in play count in ranked conquest

#60 out of 84 gods in player damage dealt in casual conquest

#2 out of 84 gods in player healing in casual conquest

In Patch 4.6 Hel had the following stats

#13 out of 86 gods in win % in casual conquest

#25 out of 85 gods in win % in ranked conquest

#76 out of 86 gods in play count in casual conquest

#82 out of 85 gods in play count in ranked conquest

In Patch 4.11 Hel had the following stats

#9 out of 89 gods in win % in casual conquest

#8 out of 88 gods in win % in ranked conquest

#77 out of 89 gods in play count in casual conquest

#70 out of 88 gods in play count in ranked conquest

Hel went from a bottom 10 god, to a top 3 god after 4.1. That's an absolutely huge jump. She was clearly quite powerful. As the season progressed she continued to keep her place at the top of the win % stats. 11 Patches later with no direct changes she was still a top 10 god.

Her damage and healing didn’t change too much in the rankings, but the way that damage was being used was very different. The added safety and ability to wave clear caused a huge spike in win % but only a small spike in player damage. Her healing remained extremely relevant as well.

She became very strong in casuals yet her play count remained quite low, largely due to her perception. Her ranked win % stats can’t even be trusted because her play count was so low. Players very strongly believed that she was weak, but this was not the case. This put us in a pretty interesting situation.

We could buff her to further strengthen her and attract more players to her, but this would cause balance issues and guaranteed nerfs in the future. We also could wait and see if players could discover her strength on their own. We opted for the 2nd strategy. The only downside to that option is that a few players criticized us for “ignoring” her. We can take a little criticism, so we continued to let the god remain as is and watched from patch to patch as a small group of players continued to be extremely successful with her. We hoped every patch that the community would soon discover her strength. Eventually it happened.

Players finally started to see the light when Aror played Hel at the NRG Invitational. Even after the event many players still labeled Hel as a troll pick or a joke. However, more pros started playing Hel in high ranked games which were often seen on Twitch streams. By the time relegations rolled around she was a top ban for EU. Many players still did not believe in her ability but the stats finally started to turn. We have seen her play count increase greatly in ranked and casuals all while her win % continues to be at the top of the pack. Now the community perception is finally aligned with the actual stats. This is always one of our top goals. This report shows how difficult it can be.

In writing this article I hope people take away a few things

Just because you're not seeing a god in your games/pro play does not mean the god is bad. Just because you see a lot of players bashing a god verbally on social media does not mean the god is bad. One person’s anecdotal experience is not representative of the entire player base.

It happens quite often that a god/item/relic is powerful but hasn't been discovered yet. In many cases players rely heavily on a pro or community figure showing them the way.

We care a lot about community feedback, and reverting some of those 4.1 Hel changes was the right thing to do. If she launched as planned she would have been closer to the middle of the pack (ideal balance) but she would have never been re-discovered or seen a spike in play count.

Gods are never “ignored.” If there is someone who you think deserves a change but isn't getting it then we probably have very strong statistical evidence that changes are not needed. REAL example: Nike is one of the most winning gods in SMITE history, even after many nerfs she is currently still a top god in every measurable way. There are no buffs planned for her soon.

Thanks for reading! Stay posted for more God Progress Reports!

#Smite #god balance progress reports #smite balance #game design #hel balance

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donveinot · 5 years ago

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Interrupting Ehrman: Are There Biblical Contradictions?

(Originally printed in the Fall 2010 Issue of the MCOI Journal) Watching a court jury trial and watching a debate have a number of similarities. In both cases, you have one set of evidence, but you have two opposing sides that attempt to explain the evidence in such a way that they will persuade the audience or jury to view their story as more credible. The underlying idea is to get at the truth, but that does not necessarily happen. Sometimes, the side that wins is not the side that had a better understanding and grasp of the truth, but rather the one that manages to poison the jury against the evidence. This was essentially the case in the O.J. Simpson trial.(For a good overview, see “Famous American Trials: The O.J. Simpson Trial: 1995,”) The case was fairly straightforward. Nicole, Simpson’s ex-wife, was brutally murdered. There was a fair amount of incriminating evidence, some of which the jury was able to see and some of which the presiding judge allowed to be hidden from the jury. This sometimes happens in pre-trial negotiations. Just reviewing the evidence and the history between O.J. and Nicole Simpson, the jury would likely have come to the verdict he was guilty. After all, he had been abusive toward her. The police had been called in on a number of occasions, and he came across as very jealous and possessive even though they were divorced. All this was more than sufficient to establish a motive, which is, in turn, crucial for establishing intent. The defense did not spend a great deal of time explaining how such evidence did not demonstrate Simpson was motivated to kill his ex-wife. Instead, they put forth the idea that the lead detective, Mark Fuhrman, was a racist. This was a remarkably effective salvo—implying the evidence and all who were involved in collecting and examining it were tainted—and completely disdistracted the jury from the compellingly-established motive. Now, it may be true Fuhrman was a racist, I have no idea, but the assertion stuck well enough that there was no need for the defense to prove their claim. All they needed was to instill this idea in the mind of the jury with a few well-placed assertions and comments that could at least sound as though he was a racist. I suppose I would have to ask, even if he was a racist, does that necessarily mean evidence was fabricated and/or tampered with? Is it possible even a racist could take pride in doing their job well and professionally? However, as it was, there was no need to prove their point. All Simpson’s “Dream Team” of defense attorneys had to do was create doubt in the minds of the jury in order to get an acquittal. By conjecturing that a racist handled the case, all of the evidence became questionable; and the prosecutor, Marcia Clark, was not able to overcome that issue throughout the balance of the case.

I thought about this as I sat in the audience during the debate between Dr. Bart Ehrman*and Dr. Craig Evans at the Dead Sea Scrolls/EMNR((EMNR is Evangelical Ministries to New Religions; www.emnr.org)) Conference at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in March of 2010. I understand it is easy to take pot shots from the pew. There was no pressure on me or the rest of the audience as we observed, took notes, and agreed or disagreed with the points made. However, being in front of the audience who are, in this case, functioning as the jury, puts enormous pressure on the debaters. Dr. Evans is an accomplished scholar, but I think he suffered a similar fate as that of Marcia Clark. Bart Ehrman did not really try to explain the evidence or make a positive case for his position. Instead, he employed the same tactic used against Mark Fuhrman: One cannot trust the evidence, because it was gathered by biased people. Ehrman’s approach was fundamentally a three-step process. First, he spent some time outlining what he called a “wish list” that he contends are all the things historians would like to have when doing their historical research. He then mentioned the Gospel accounts do not contain all the criteria of that wish list. Second, he painted a picture of the stories contained in the Gospels traveling across continents, people groups and languages for 35 to 70 years before any of the Gospel accounts were written. He asserted that none of the eyewitnesses or anyone who personally knew the eyewitnesses were still living when the accounts were penned. According to his claim, the long period of time, many languages, cultures, and continents corrupted, added to, expanded up and even invented material in the story which never actually occurred in history. In this setting, the Gospels are little more than myth and fable fabricated to feed the religious proclivities of naïve, uneducated Christians and to guide public thinking about the claims of the church. Third, Ehrman then put forth examples of what he claimed were contradictions, “some major, some minor” but in his view, contradictions nonetheless. These, according to him, demonstrate the texts are unreliable. Needless to say, I was unconvinced. In the first place, just because historians may have a wish list they would like to have fulfilled, it is rare that this occurs. In truth, historians work with what they have and make the best case they can with what is available. Even though he may not have his “wish list” fulfilled in this case, that does not mean there is not good, historical evidence demonstrating the reliability of the Gospel accounts and their claims. What he has done is try to eliminate or poison the evidence. He has done that by simply asserting the Gospels are the product of writers who were far removed from the events the Gospel accounts record. My first question would be, what is the evidence his claim is true? He did not provide any. Simply making the assertion does nothing to support the assertion. In fact, it really appears this long period of time is necessary for his view to have any credibility. On the other hand, the evidence we do have shows this claim is either misinformed or worse, it is false. An Unusual Starting Point Simply making an assertion does not make a case. The onus is on Ehrman to prove his claim and make a case for late dating beyond his own desire for it to be so. Conversely, it is also insufficient for me to simply assert he is wrong. I need to demonstrate why I would hold to an earlier date for the writing of the Gospels that is plausible and has evidence to support it. The starting point for this might seem to some to be unusual, but bear with me as I work through the reasoning and what I believe is the evidence for affirming early dating. In a sense, we will be starting with evidence outside the documents in question, the Gospels, and work back into them. We can get a good idea of when things were written by starting with the end of the Book of Acts. This work ends with the Apostle Paul under house arrest in Rome awaiting trial before Caesar. He had yet to be set free, rearrested, tried and executed. If Acts had been written after Paul’s death, something about his death would have been included. Paul died in the mid-60s.(Cf. the discussion by F.F. Bruce in Paul, Apostle of the Heart Set Free, (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1977), 441ff) This would place the timing of the writing of the book of Acts in the early 60s—perhaps AD 60 or 61.((D.A. Carson and Douglas J. Moo, An Introduction to the New Testament, 2nd ed., (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2005), 296-300. For another discussion of the dating of Acts that demonstrates the role of presuppositions (as opposed to actual evidence) in the dating process, cf. Donald Guthrie, New Testament Introduction, rev. ed., (Leicester, U.K. and Downers Grove, IL: Apollos and InterVarsity Press, 1990), 355- 365) We can even tell when the writer, Luke, was present for some of the events in the book of Acts but not for others, because he switches between “we” statements and “they” statements throughout the book. Acts is the second work of the same author: Dr. Luke.((As a matter of course, arguments over the dating of New Testament books are intimately linked to arguments over authorship, but since the Gospels are technically anonymous documents, authorship becomes a secondary question. It cannot be logically argued that Luke could not have written Acts because he was dead by the time it was written. Simply positing a date for a Gospel after the death of its traditional author, and then using that date as an argument against traditional authorship, is an exercise in circular reasoning. Dating each Gospel must proceed on the basis of evidence internal and external to the document itself; and if it can be reasonably concluded that it was written within the lifetime of the traditional author, then that becomes an argument in favor of traditional authorship.)) His first work is, the Gospel According to Luke. Just to note the obvious, first works generally are written prior to second works. Luke confirms this progression in the first two verses of Acts as well: “The first account I composed, Theophilus, about all that Jesus began to do and teach until the day when He was taken up to heaven, after He had by the Holy Spirit given orders to the apostles whom He had chosen.” (NASB) Acts was written in the early 60s, Luke was written before that, so it would be dated mid-50s to early 60s.((“The only really significant reason for dating Luke after AD 70 is the argument that Mark must be dated in the mid-60s at the earliest. But we have seen reason to question the necessity of dating Mark as late as that. And if Mark is dated in the early 60s, then Luke could well have been written in the mid- or late-60s.” Carson and Moo, Ibid., 210. This reasoning is based, of course, on the premise of Markan priority, and Luke’s dependence upon Mark. However, if it is assumed Luke did not consult Mark, an even earlier date for Luke could be entertained. Cp. Guthrie, Ibid., 125-131)) This would be merely 27 years after the events recorded in the Gospels, and it is not the 35 to 70 years Ehrman needs to allow for “Jesus myths” to develop. But the problem regarding the evidence gets worse. Ehrman insists some of the material in Luke came from the Gospel According to Mark. That is very likely true and further weakens his case. In order to borrow from Mark, that Gospel would have had to have existed at least long enough for Luke to be aware of it. So, these considerations date Acts to the early 60s, Luke to the mid-50s to early 60s, Mark to at least the 50s.(The argument that Mark 13 contains evidence the author actually experienced the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70 has been ably challenged by Carson and Moo, who conclude, “A decision between a date in the 50s and one in the 60s is impossible to make. We must be content with dating Mark sometime in the late 50s or the 60s.” Ibid., 182. Cp. Guthrie, Ibid., 84-89) Now, the available time for the Jesus myths to develop is shorter yet. But his dilemma gets worse and interrupting Ehrman’s assertion grows easier. A scholarly slip is rearing its head. We have an early church creed contained in 1 Corinthians 15:1-4. The Apostle recites this early church creed which he informs his readers was passed down to him (1 Cor. 15:3). The creed is early, generally dated to the 30s. The interesting thing about creeds is: They need time to develop. First, a need for a creed arises. Creeds were and are statements of belief which are easily memorized and recited by the average person. It is a sort of theological shorthand. Paul would have received this when he was in Jerusalem—most likely in the late 30’s AD. It is a little time for the need and then the development of creeds and several critical scholars believe the creed was extant in the 30’s and that Paul received it within three to eight years of its existence. That would be the late 30’s or early 40’s. Dr. Gary Habermas points out: In examining the cause of the disciple’s faith, I pointed out earlier that the Resurrection was proclaimed by the earliest eyewitnesses. This is especially based, for instance, on 1 Cor. 15:3ff, where all scholars agree that Paul recorded an ancient creed concerning Jesus’ death and Resurrection. That means this material is traditional and pre-Pauline is evident from the technical terms delivered and received, the parallelism and somewhat stylized content, the proper names of Cephas and James, the non-Pauline words, and the possibility of an Aramaic original. Concerning the date of this creed, critical scholars almost always agree that has a very early origin, usually placing it in the AD 30s. Paul most likely received this material during his first visit in Jerusalem with Peter and James, who are included in the first appearances (1 Cor. 15:5,7). In fact, Fuller, Hunter, and Pannenberg are examples of critical scholars who date Paul’s receiving of this creed from three to eight years after the Crucifixion itself. And if Paul received it at such an early date, the creed itself would have been earlier because it would have existed before the time he was told. And the facts upon which the creed was originally based would be earlier still. We are, for all practical purposes, back to the original events. So we may now realize how this data is much earlier than the ten to twenty years after the Crucifixion as postulated by Dr. Flew. Paul also adds that the other eyewitnesses had likewise been testifying concerning their own appearances of Jesus (1 Cor. 15:11, 14, 15).((Gary Habermas and Antony Flew; Did Jesus Rise from the Dead?: The Resurrection Debate, Harper & Row, 1987, 23 )) The creed was extant in the 30s AD, and Paul received it within 3 to 8 years. Ehrman not only does not have the 35 to 70 years for the Gospel myths to develop, but also the creed about the Resurrection of Jesus was in use within a few years of the event in the city in which it actually occurred. Not only is the historical evidence for the Resurrection here, but it also meets nearly all of Ehrman’s wish list criteria. Did Mark Believe in the Resurrection? Ehrman and others who wish to “poison the evidence” often appeal to the Gospel of Mark in an attempt to claim the early church did not believe in the Resurrection and the Resurrection portion was a later addition. According to this claim, the bulk of Mark 16 (after v. 8) was not in the original and was added later. Therefore, the reasoning goes, Mark did not believe in the Resurrection. I have a two-part response. First, we do know what the early church believed about the Resurrection through the creed which was in use within 3 to 8 years of the event as previously noted. Second, even if the last portion of Mark was added, we still do know what Mark believed about the Resurrection when he wrote his account. We start with a couple of questions: Did Mark think Jesus was a true prophet or a false prophet? Maybe not God and, perhaps, not resurrected, but He certainly was a true prophet. Next question, was the Gospel written before or after the Crucifixion? Well, obviously after. Once this is established we need to take a walk through the Gospel According to Mark, keeping in mind Mark wrote his Gospel believing Jesus was, at the very least, a true prophet. Writing after the events had occurred, it would have been written in such a way so as to have any prophecies contained in it reflect his idea of Jesus as being a true prophet. In Mark 8:31, we read: “And He began to teach them that the Son of Man must suf fer many things and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.” This seems to be a clear prophecy presented by One Whom Mark considered to be a true prophet. If Mark did not believe in the Resurrection, he would not have included this information. But there is more. In Mark 9:9, he records: “And as they were coming down from the mountain, He gave them orders not to relate to anyone what they had seen, until the Son of Man should rise from the dead.” A few verses later, in Mark 9:31 we read: “For He was teaching His disciples and telling them, ‘The Son of Man is to be delivered into the hands of men, and will kill Him; and when He is killed, He will rise three days later.” In the next chapter, Mark 10:34, he reports: “And they will mock Him and spit upon Him, and scourge Him, and kill Him, and three days later He will rise again.” Additionally, in Mark 14:28, Jesus tells his followers: “But after I have been raised, I will go before you to Galilee.” Then there is the account of non-believers who were hostile witnesses in Mark 14:58: “We heard Him say, ‘I will destroy this temple made with hands, and in three days I will build another made without hands.’ ” By the way, this confirms what Jesus did say, which is documented in John 2:19-21. Lastly, we have His detractors at the Crucifixion who used His prophetic words against Him in Mark 15:29: “And those passing by were hurling abuse at Him, wagging their heads, and saying, ‘Ha! You who are going to destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days …’ ” Evidence that Mark believed in the Resurrection is actually found throughout his eyewitness account. There is a great deal of information which Bart Ehrman and others in his school of thought must address. Dr. Gary Habermas made note of a number of them in his book Did Jesus Rise from the Dead?: At least eleven events are considered to be knowable history by virtually all scholars, and a twelfth event is considered to be knowable history by many scholars. (1) Jesus died due to the rigors of crucifixion and (2) was buried. (3) Jesus’ death caused the disciples to despair and lose hope. (4) Although not as frequently recognized, many scholars hold that Jesus was buried in a tomb that was discovered to be empty just a few days later. Critical scholars even agree that (5) at this time the disciples had real experiences that they believed were literal appearances of the risen Jesus. Because of these experiences, (6) the disciples were transformed from doubters who were afraid to identify themselves with Jesus to bold proclaimers of his death and Resurrection, even being willing to die for this belief. (7) This message was central in the early church preaching and (8) was especially proclaimed in Jerusalem, where Jesus had died shortly before. As a result of this message, (9) the church was born and grew, (10) with Sunday as the primary day of worship. (11) James, the brother of Jesus and a skeptic, was converted to the faith when he also believed he saw the resurrected Jesus. (12) A few years later Paul the persecutor of the Christians was also converted by an experience that he, similarly, believed to be an appearance of the risen Jesus.((Gary Habermas and Antony Flew; Did Jesus Rise from the Dead?: The Resurrection Debate, Harper & Row, 1987, 19-20)) A fair-minded treatment of the evidence and way to explain these 12 historic events seems to lead conclusively to accept the Gospel accounts are what they claim to be: Writings by the eyewitnesses and/or individuals close to the eyewitnesses documenting the truthfulness of the claims of the early church. Simply trying to “poison the evidence” does little to prove it is myth, and it does nothing to substantiate an opposing view is true. A positive case for the alternate position must also be built. Ehrman simply did not attempt to carry this out. What of the Seeming Contradictions? Although we can credibly establish the Gospel accounts were written early by followers of Jesus or others who were close to them, this does not mean the accounts are necessarily trustworthy. His claims there are contradictions must also be addressed. Ehrman simply asserting there are contradictions does not mean there are; nor does my asserting there are not contradictions mean there are not. Ehrman set up this proposed dilemma in an interesting way. His claim was that Evangelicals tend to read the Gospels from beginning to end. They read them with a start, middle, and conclude with the Resurrection. He claimed we needed to read them across by comparing each section with the same sections of the other Gospels. It is there, he contends, the contradictions surface most clearly. He went on to claim that if we try to put the stories together to answer the charges, we are then creating yet another Gospel or somehow changing the “BIG Picture.” This is a case of “special pleading” or “stacking the deck.”((“Fallacy of special pleading. (a) Accepting an idea or criticism when applied to an opponent’s argument but rejecting it when applied to one’s own argument, or (b) rejecting an idea or criticism when applied to an opponent’s argument but accepting it when applied to one’s own.”Peter A. Angeles, Dictionary of Philosophy, (New York: Barnes & Noble/Harper & Row, 1981), 99; italics and bold part of original text. Cp. Don Lindsay,“List of Fallacious Arguments,”, where “special pleading” is also referred to as “stacking the deck.”)) Simply because all of the accounts do not contain the exact same details in exactly the same way does not mean nor prove there are actual contradictions.((Perhaps one of the most common grounds for accusing the Gospels of contradicting each other has been the differing sequences in which the writers sometimes portray the events they narrate. But, as a former pupil of Rudolph Bultmann, Eta Linneman, has pointed out, this objection has been answered at least as far back as the second century, when Papias (as attested by Eusebius) asserted that Mark did not intend to provide a chronologically-ordered account. Cf. Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 3.39.15 and Linneman, Is There a Synoptic Problem?, Robert B. Yarbrough, trans., (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1992),168)) By assembling or comparing the accounts as Ehrman started off challenging the audience to do, we are not by definition creating yet another Gospel. This was used as a way to discourage an actual response. As we approach this alleged dilemma, an example of seeming contradictions by reliable sources may be helpful. From time to time, the late Kenneth Kantzer((Kenneth S. Kantzer (1917–2002), was an influential theologian and educator in the evangelical Christian tradition. ttp://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/Kenneth_Kantzer)) told a story of a personal experience where seeming contradictions turned out not to be contradictions once all of the facts were assembled and compared. One day he received a phone call from a reliable friend. He was told a young lady they both knew had been standing on a corner waiting for the light to change, was struck by a car, but she was not seriously injured. A little while later, he received another call from another trusted friend who communicated that the same young lady had been riding in a car which was broad sided by a truck, and she was instantly killed. Both witnesses were reliable, but there clearly seemed to be contradictions in their stories. Kantzer later learned that, indeed, the young lady had been standing on a corner waiting for the light to change when a vehicle struck her. She was injured but not seriously. The driver got her in the car and was taking her to the hospital to get her checked out. On the way to the hospital, they were driving through an intersection, and a truck ran the red light and broadsided the car—killing the girl instantly. Combining all of the facts of both accounts did not create an entirely new story; they simply cleared up seeming inconsistencies and told the entire story. Most of Ehrman’s alleged contradictions fall into this category. His main examples were: 1) Who went to the tomb: Was it Mary Magdalene and another Mary; was it the two Marys and Salome? Was it Mary Magdalene, Joanna, another Mary? Was it Mary Magdalene by herself? It depends which Gospel you read. 2) Was the stone already rolled away by the time they got there, or did it roll away when they arrived? 3) Whom did they meet there to tell them that Jesus was raised? An angel? A man? Two men? Or Jesus himself? (John 20:1: She saw the stone was rolled away and so ran back to tell Simon Peter; later Jesus appears to her.) 4) Do the women assume Jesus has been raised (Synoptics) because that’s what they’re told, or do they assume He’s been buried in some other place (John) since His body is not in the tomb? 5) Who first comes to realize Jesus has been raised? The women (the Synoptics) or Simon Peter and the beloved disciple (John)? 6) Are the women told anything upon first finding the tomb empty (Synoptics: yes; John: no)? 7) What are they told? To tell the disciples to go to Galilee to meet Jesus there, or that Jesus told them while He was still in Galilee that He would rise. 8) Did they tell the disciples? Mark 16:8. The end. Contrast Matthew 28:8 and Luke 24:9.((Dr. Craig Evans and Dr. Bart Ehrman Does the Bible Misquote Jesus? http://www.ffc.org/video187.htm)) It seems if we take Ehrman at his challenge and assemble the same accounts from the different authors, either we will see the contradictions, or doing so will eliminate the seeming contradictions. I believe it will be the latter. 1) Who went to the tomb: Was it Mary Magdalene and another Mary; was it the two Marys and Salome? Was it Mary Magdalene, Joanna, another Mary? Was it Mary Magdalene by herself? It depends which Gospel you read. Matthew 28:1 tells us it was: Mary Magdalene and the other Mary. Mark 16:1 names Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Salome. Luke informs us in Luke 23:55 that just prior to the beginning of the Sabbath the “women who had come with Him out of Galilee” had gone to the tomb to see where it was and then returned to prepare the burial spices. This would be a larger group than the three so far named, but it would have included them. In Luke 24:1, he references this group when he continued this account: “But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they came to the tomb…” The “they” here is the same “they” as in the previous two verses, Luke 23:55 and 56. Lastly, John 20:1 names Mary Magdalene. The problem here is not with any of the texts, but rather it is with Ehrman taking each account as though each writer is giving an exhaustive list of who came to the tomb. We can tell by his question: “Was it Mary Magdalene by herself?” But that is simply not the case. Not only does John not say “only” Mary Magdalene came to the tomb—something that would have to be included in order for Ehrman’s assumption to hold any validity, but also none of the writers make the claim only those they named came to the tomb. The writers keyed in on individuals which were important to them for particular reasons. Three of the accounts name Mary Magdalene: Matthew, Mark and John. Two accounts name “the other Mary”: Matthew and Mark. One account, Mark, names Salome. Luke does not name any of the women. Using Ehrman’s methodology, that would mean Mary Magdalene, the other Mary, and Salome were not there according to Luke’s account; which is an absurd claim. So, the answer to the question is a simple one. It was Mary Magdalene, the other Mary, Salome and the rest of the women who followed Him out of Galilee. Ehrman provided no evidence to demonstrate this is not the case, and compiling all of the evidence from the accounts clears up and answers the supposed contradictions. 2) Was the stone already rolled away by the time they got there, or did it roll away when they arrived? The account in Matthew 28:2 reports that a “severe earthquake had occurred, for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled away the stone and sat upon it.” The word “had” indicates something which happened earlier in time—prior to the arrival of the women. Mark describes the discussion the women were having on the way to the tomb about how to get the stone moved. The stone had been rolled away prior to their arrival (Mark 16:3-4). We find the same description in Luke 24:2. The stone had been rolled away prior to their arrival. John agrees with the other narratives in John 20:1 that “the stone already taken away from the tomb.” Again, without changing any material facts but simply listing them together, we find no contradiction. In all accounts the stone had been rolled away prior to the arrival of the group of women. 3) Whom did they meet there to tell them that Jesus was raised? An angel? A man? Two men? Or Jesus himself? (John 20:1: She saw the stone was rolled away and so ran back to tell Simon Peter; later Jesus appears to her.) Matthew writes that the angel who had rolled away the stone told them Jesus had risen and invited them to look inside the tomb (Matt. 28:5-6). They then met Jesus (Matt. 28:9). Mark describes a “young man … wearing a white robe” sitting in the tomb who told them Jesus had risen (Mark 16:5-6). Luke’s account describes two men in “dazzling apparel” who told them He had risen (Luke 24:4-6). In John 20:12-13, Mary Magdalene saw two angels; and in 20:16, she saw Jesus. John supplied additional but not contradictory material. According to the account, this was her second trip to the tomb that morning. She had gone there “while it was still dark” (John 20:1), saw the stone rolled away, ran to tell Peter (John 20:2), and then returned (20:11 and following). A few things here. It is not uncommon for angels to be referred to as “men” or “young men” in both Old and New Testaments. We find this as early as Genesis 18, where angels are referred to as “men” in verses 2, 16, 22. One of the “men” was “The LORD” or YHWH (18:1), and the other two “men” are referred to as “angels” in 19:1. When angels or the LORD took on physical appearances in Scripture, it was most often as looking like men. The additional information of “wearing a white robe” (Mark) and having “dazzling apparel” (Luke) helps to clarify that the “men” were angels. When we study any document, including Scripture, it is necessary, honest, and even scholarly to use the historical grammatical understanding of the text and how the culture that wrote and read the text used language. Following that injunction, what we have as an answer to this question is, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb while it was dark—before morning light. She found the stone rolled away, the tomb empty, and ran back to tell Peter. She then returned as morning was dawning, and the other women (all of the women who had followed Jesus from Galilee) were also going to the tomb. Two angels greeted them; the one who told them Jesus had risen was sitting on the stone that had been rolled away. Another angel inside the tomb confirmed Jesus had risen and was then joined by the angel who had been outside the tomb. As they turned to leave, Mary Magdalene was weeping when she ran into Jesus Who was, indeed, resurrected. Again, a careful review of the accounts in this fashion does not support the claim of contradiction, but instead, it gives a more comprehensive “BIG Picture,” as Ehrman refers to it. 4) Do the women assume Jesus has been raised (Synoptics) because that’s what they’re told, or do they assume He’s been buried in some other place (John) since His body is not in the tomb? This one is a “time” question or “when” question rather than a demonstration of contradictions, because both of the above are true at different times. As previously shown, Mary Magdalene came while it was dark, saw the tomb was empty, and assumed His body had been moved (John 20:1-2). Later, she and the all the other women were told He was raised, and they saw Him after they were told. These two are not contradictions, but rather, both are true at different times of the morning in question. 5) Who first comes to realize Jesus has been raised? The women (the Synoptics) or Simon Peter and the beloved disciple (John)? Again, the text, in context, answers this one without any contradiction. As Ehrman agrees, Matthew, Mark, and Luke concur that the women “realized” or knew first. John not only does not contradict this, but rather, he agrees. In John 20:3-8, we read that Peter and John ran to the tomb, saw and believed the tomb was empty, but “… as yet they did not understand the Scripture, that He must rise from the dead” (John 20:9). So, although Peter and John “saw and believed” (John 20:8) the tomb was empty, they did not know what it meant at that point in time; whereas the women had been told by the angels and saw the risen Lord. 6) Are the women told anything upon first finding the tomb empty (Synoptics: yes; John: no)? The answer to both is “yes” and “no,” but this does not result in a contradiction. Why, you ask? Again, the first time Mary Magdalene went to the tomb, while it was dark, she was not told anything. When Mary Magdalene returned and the other women arrived, they all were told that Jesus was raised. 7) What are they told? To tell the disciples to go to Galilee to meet Jesus there, or that Jesus told them while He was still in Galilee that He would rise. Is there a contradiction here, or are both true? Earlier in this article, we looked at the seven times in the Gospel According to Mark where Jesus clearly stated He would be raised. His stating that He would be resurrected is not the same thing as the disciples understanding what that meant or that it even registered in their thinking at the time. As early as John 2:22, we find He clearly taught the Resurrection of His body (John 2:19-21), but it was not until after the event that the disciples understood, and then they “… remembered that He had said this; and they believed the Scripture and the word which Jesus had spoken.” So, yes, He told them while He was still in Galilee that He would be raised and sent the women to tell the disciples to go and meet Him in Galilee. No contradiction. Both are true, one is predictive or prophetic (while He was still in Galilee), and the other is confirmation of prophetic fulfillment. 8) Did they tell the disciples? Mark 16:8. The end. Contrast Matthew 28:8 and Luke 24:9. The answer is … “no” and “yes.” Mary Magdalene ran and told Peter and John the tomb was empty (John 20:1-2). She returned, and the other women arrived. Being gripped with fear, most of the women fled and said nothing after seeing and hearing the angels. (Mark 16:8) Mary Magdalene and some of the women met up with Jesus (Matthew 28: 8-10; John 20:15-17), and then she and other women went and told the disciples (Luke 24:9-10; John 20:18). Just as in the answer to point four, both are true at different times of the Resurrection morning and are, therefore, not contradictory. Ehrman stated: You will find dozens of discrepancies in the details. Let me stress: It’s not good enough to say that these are all just minor details. The BIG picture is made up of lots and lots of details; if you change all the details, you change the BIG picture.((Dr. Craig Evans and Dr. Bart Ehrman Does the Bible Misquote Jesus? http://www.ffc.org/video187.htm )) So, far he has not provided any examples of actual contradictions. None of these are minor details. He is correct; the “BIG Picture”is made up of lots and lots of details. Cross checking the details—the “when” and “where” of details in historical narrative—is important and builds the “BIG Picture.” Each of Ehrman’s above claims demonstrates slips in his research, reading, and teaching on this issue. This raises questions. Is this intentional dishonesty, poor scholarship, or something else? These are questions I cannot answer, but they are worth considering. One Other Issue This wasn’t in the debate, but Bart Ehrman claims there are more errors in the New Testament manuscript copies then there are words in the New Testament. His claim is true; they are copyist’s errors. However, in the end this is a meaningless and ineffectual claim because of the nature of these copyist’s errors. The reason is two-fold. First, the copyist’s errors do not change any major or minor doctrine. It is not as though one copy says “Jesus is God,” and another copy says “Jesus is not God.” Or, as we saw earlier, perhaps, the last 12 verses of Mark are not in the original. However, it is still clearly presented in Mark that he believed in the Resurrection, and so it makes no substantial difference in doctrine. Second, in over 99% of what are called the variants (differences or variations in reading), we do know what they are supposed to say. For example: If I wrote a note that was copied and sent to you which read, “I will bee talking a trip to you’re area in a couplle of weeks and plan to seee you,” would you know what the original said? Of course. But, let’s say someone else copied this with a view to correct the errors and wrote, “I well be taking a trip to your area in a few of weeks and plan to see ewe.” Would you understand what was meant? The original copyist’s errors have been corrected, but new typos are now there with some word substitutions. In both cases, the original meaning is discernable, and comparing the two actually gives a greater confidence as to what the original said. Although Ehrman’s claim sounds scary at first, once we understand how the text is analyzed and translated, his claim has virtually no bearing on whether the New Testament is reliable or not. *Dr. Bart D. Ehrman is the James A. Gray Distinguished Professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is the author of 24 books including, Misquoting Jesus and Jesus Interrupted. **Dr. Craig Evans, New Testament scholar, is the Payzant Distinguished Professor of New Testament at Acadia Divinity College of Acadia University in Wolfville, Nova Scotia, Canada. He is the author and editor of more than 60 books and hundreds of articles and reviews and has given lectures at Cambridge, Oxford, Durham, Yale and other universities, colleges, seminaries and museums, such as the Field Museum in Chicago, the Canadian Museum of Civilization in Ottawa and the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto. Along with countless interviews on radio networks across Canada and the US, Evans has been seen on Dateline NBC, CBC, CTV, Day of Discovery, and many documentaries aired on BBC, The Discovery Channel, History Channel, History Television and others. He also has served as a consultant for the National Geographic Society.

L.L. (Don) Veinot Jr. is co-founder and President of Midwest Christian Outreach, Inc., a national apologetics ministry and mission to new religious movements based in Wonder Lake, Illinois with offices in Florida, Iowa, Southern Illinois and Colorado. He, along with his wife of 40 years, Joy, have been involved in discernment ministry as missionaries to New Religious Movements since 1987. He is a frequent guest on various radio and television broadcasts as well as being a staff researcher and writer for the Midwest Outreach, Inc. Journal and is co-author of, A Matter of Basic Principles: Bill Gothard and the Christian Life, contributing author of Preserving Evangelical Unity: Welcoming Diversity in Non-Essentials, as well as articles in the CRI Journal, PFO Quarterly Journal, Campus Life Magazine and other periodicals. He was ordained to the ministry by West Suburban Community Church of Lombard, IL, at the Garden of Gethsemane in Jerusalem, Israel in March of 1997. Don is a charter member of ISCA (International Society of Christian Apologetics) and is also the current President of Evangelical Ministries to New Religions (EMNR), a consortium of Counter cult/apologetic and discernment ministries from around the country. I want to offer appreciation to Ron Henzel, Senior Researcher for Midwest Christian Outreach, Inc., for his research assistance and input. © 2020, Midwest Christian Outreach, Inc All rights reserved. Excerpts and links may be used if full and clear credit is given with specific direction to the original content. Read the full article

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theteenagetrickster · 5 years ago

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The 50 Best R&B Albums of The Decade (2010s) - Rated R&B

If there’s one genre that has experienced the most sweeping changes in the 2010s, it’s R&B.

From the survival of the EDM phenomenon to the decline in music sales to more artists taking the independent route, this decade seemed to prevent more challenges for established and emerging artists.

And let’s not forget about the ongoing debates about “the state of R&B” and critics declaring R&B a “dead genre” on more than occasion.

Still, with all the harsh talk about R&B, what remained consistent throughout this decade was the generous amount of extraordinary music from the artists we always adored to the ones we grew to love.

After many internal debates and sleepless nights, Rated R&B’s editorial team has compiled an unranked list of the 50 Best R&B Albums from the 2010s. The albums are listed in alphabetical order.

1. 4 — Beyoncé (2011)

Before the digital drop, before she got in formation, and before she renamed Coachella ‘Beychella,’ Beyoncé was laying the foundations of legendary status with 4. Riding high on the success of I Am… Sasha Fierce in the previous decade, Beyoncé took a much-needed hiatus from music to rediscover the world and herself. What came out of that year-long break, however, was the need to produce a timeless R&B record. “I really focused on songs being classics, songs that would last, songs that I could sing when I’m 40 and when I’m 60,” Beyoncé said in 2011.

With 4, Beyoncé grabbed pieces from all eras of music, from ‘80s and ‘90s R&B on tracks like “Party” and “I Care” to ‘70s funk and Afrobeat on songs like “End of Time” and “Run The World (Girls)”, to create a sound that was bolder than anything she had ever done. Released in 2011 with moderate initial success — reaching number one on the Billboard 200 chart and winning the Grammy award for Best Traditional R&B Performance at the 55th annual ceremony for “Love on Top”— 4 set the precedent for what was to come in the 2010s, while slowly being embraced as Beyoncé’s bravest, most soulful record to date. — ANDERS HARE (A.H.)

2. A Seat at the Table — Solange (2016)

To encapsulate a significant portion of what it means to be Black in America is a difficult task. Not many have been called to it, yet Solange willingly hit the nail with much accuracy on A Seat at the Table. Inviting the general public to her spread, she expressed the pain, anguish, resilience and pride one can feel on a daily basis. Solange covers as many necessary bases as possible including wanting a piece of something to call your own in a covetous space (“F.U.B.U.”) to establishing boundaries, while demanding respect (“Don’t Touch My Hair”). The glimmer of hope in the beautifully melancholy number arrives towards the end with “Junie,” inspired by Ohio Players member Junie Morrison. In a little under an hour, the multidisciplinary artist gives way to an intricate experience in a manner that is complex and poetic. — DANIELLE BRISSETT (D.B.)

3. Another Round — Jaheim (2010)

As the title suggests, Jaheim returned for Another Round of passion-fueled belts and beloved street poetry on his fifth album. Serving as the solid follow-up to The Makings of a Man, the 2011 Best R&B Album contender is essentially an album that conveys thoughtful lyrics and tender ballads and midtempos with familiar and fresh sounding instrumentals. For the pre-album single, “Finding Your Way Back,” Jaheim works hard to retrace his last steps to rekindle a favorable romance. He expresses excitement to be a first-time dad on “II Pink Lines.” On the piano-laced “Bed is Listening,” Jaheim asks his talkative lover to keep their relationship troubles and joys only between them. A deserving listen to Another Round is highly recommended. – ANTWANE FOLK (A.F.)

4. Anti — Rihanna (2016)

Barbadian-born singer Rihanna has long been described as “anti”— going against the grain in fashion, music and lifestyle choices, and doing everything an icon shouldn’t. While her first seven albums detail her narrative of a “good girl gone bad,” none of them really tell Rihanna’s true story. When in the early stages of her eighth studio album, Rihanna ensured she played a major role in its inception, serving as executive producer. She sought to create a timeless album with replay value she could perform years after its release. The final product was Anti, an album nearly four years in the making that truthfully recounted Rihanna as a human being better than any album she previously released. Sonically, the album is a soulful adventure of self-exploration and a footprint of the culmination of every sound in Rihanna’s catalog. Anti earned Rihanna five nominations at the 59th Annual Grammy Awards, however, did not win a single one. This defeat is symbolized as a body of work that is ahead of its time. Still, Anti remains one of the most progressive, personal, and touching albums of the 2010s. — A.H.

5. Anybody Wanna Buy a Heart? — K. Michelle (2014)

K. Michelle’s 2013 debut, Rebellious Soul, officially introduced her as one of the most unfiltered R&B storytellers, but her follow-up LP is the moment her undeniable talent couldn’t go unnoticed – even by her Love and Hip-Hop naysayers. That said, Anybody Wanna Buy a Heart has it all for a second album: a strengthen concept, sharper lyrics, and improved quality in production. Throughout AWBAH, K’s expressive vocals are equally as emotional as the love drama she belts. At the center of many of the complicated lyrics is acclaimed English actor Idris Elba, who she had an alleged fling with sometime before (or during) this album recording. K isn’t modest about the effect he’s had on her heart at the least on songs like “How Do You Know?” and “Maybe I Should Cry.” But, regardless of the heartache he caused K. Michelle, she mustered up enough strength to put out a body of work that doesn’t sound like anyone but herself. – A.F.

6. Art Official Age — Prince (2014)

Prince’s Art Official Age is a concept album that takes listeners on a futuristic journey. Prince is placed in a suspended animation and awakens 45 years in the future to a whole new world. British singer Lianne La Havas makes a few appearances on the album as she plays the role of a therapist who helps guides him back into consciousness and gives him an overview of what to expect. On Art Official Age, Prince showcases the highly influential funk-pop-rock-soul sound he innovated in the ‘80s. “Clouds” serves up the kind of bass-heavy, guitar-accented groove diehard Prince fans know and love. A celebration of affection and intimacy, this standout brilliantly decries the impersonal aspects of modern, technology-reliant communication and a lack of sincerity in human interaction in a world of “reality”-show posing.

“Breakfast Can Wait” is an ode to morning sex. Prince is in stellar form on “Breakdown,” a heartfelt lament of a relationship gone wrong. He puts his falsetto to great use over a stirring track that transitions multiple times between sparse, vocal-and-keyboard-only verses and a chorus with those elements effectively joined by drums and a gripping bass line. He closes the album with “Affirmation III,” where Havas helps spread encouragement with some words of wisdom. “Remember, there is really only one destination, and that place is you. All of it, everything, is you,” she says. — KEITHAN SAMUELS (K.S.)

7. Back to Love — Anthony Hamilton (2011)

It’s hard to resist the raspy-voice charm of Anthony Hamilton. On Back to Love, the veteran continues to showcase his strong admiration for old-school soul music found on most of his previous albums. This time, rather than wallow in “the sad cat” persona, Hamilton puts his emotional outbursts in check and delivers the shimmering danceable number “Sucka For You” and the reassuring duet “Never Let Go” featuring Keri Hilson. Despite the bright lights, big city production influences, Hamilton isn’t out of touch with his Southern roots. On “Pray For Me,” the hit single, he gets on bended knees to plead with the Most High for his ex-lover to return to him. And like a home-cooked meal, richly flavored tracks “Best of Me” and “I’m Ready” are like food to the soul. — A.F.

8. Back to Me — Fantasia (2010)

Fantasia’s third studio album, Back to Me, was released four years after her self-titled sophomore LP. Taking a more daring direction with the previous project, Fantasia returned to her core elements with an elevated sound. The American Idol winner’s growth was evident on this album, from the lyrical material to the vocal performance. She collaborates with accomplished songwriter/producer duo Claude Kelly and Chuck Harmony for the first time on the initial single “Bittersweet” and the opening track, “I’m Doin’ Me.” Coming out swinging, track one sets the tone for what’s to come throughout the rest of the album. While the striking piano is a key piece, it’s Fantasia’s ad-libs and backgrounds that truly elevate and amplify the song’s magic. A few retro-leaning numbers (“Trust Him”, “Collard Greens & Cornbread”) make an appearance on the tracklist but Fantasia’s soulful grit produces a piercing comfort, connecting a seasoned energy to a contemporary feel. — D.B.

9. BEYONCÉ — Beyoncé (2013)

The world stopped momentarily when Beyoncé released her fifth studio album without any warning. Two years after 4, her eponymous album was in a league of its own from the rollout to its musical landscape. Fans got an authentic peek into Beyoncé’s personal life through the music for the first time; bringing us into her high profile marriage, motherhood and her views on success. Beyoncé experimented with a variety of different musical elements, including electronic and pop. It leaned towards an alternative R&B feel, straying from the traditional R&B sound that was prevalent in her previous body of work. Even though eccentricity flowed throughout the album, “Rocket” was R&B at its core. Honoring “Untitled (How Does It Feel) by D’Angelo, the soulfully funky slow jam oozes seduction as Beyoncé slides across the yearning electric guitar and thumping bass. The self-titled project contained an assortment of flavors that were unexpectedly satisfying in a way only Beyoncé can serve. — D.B.

10. Black Messiah — D’Angelo and The Vanguard (2014)

D’Angelo is a legend among men. As one of the pioneers of neo-soul, his weighted contribution to the movement would be inadequate without him. He made his long-awaited return to music 14 years after his sophomore album Voodoo with the politically-charged Black Messiah. It was slated for a 2015 release but he was inspired to push the date up due to the verdicts of the Eric Garner and Ferguson cases. Capturing the Black American experience during a tense time, D’Angelo and The Vanguard responded with an eccentric, yet spiritual album. Musically, Messiah is a rebellion from structural norms, with nearly inaudible lyrics that are intended to be felt and not necessarily understood word for word. Intertwining funk, soul, gospel and blues, there’s a wide range from societal issues (“1000 Deaths,” “The Charade”), to romance (“Really Love,” “Another Life”) and all the imaginable feelings in between. The intricately beautiful body of work rightfully earned the award for Best R&B Album at the 58th Grammy Awards. — D.B.

11. blackSUMMERS’night — Maxwell (2016)

“It’s an album about trying to find love,” Maxwell told Mic on the overall theme of blackSUMMERS’night. “It’s sonically grittier than usual and I’d say that this album is much more poetic.” Complied with well-written songs that weren’t crafted from any rushed recording sessions, this second album of a romantic trilogy covers a lot of ground on discovering true romance like on the splashing groove “Lake By the Ocean” and captive solo “Hostage.” In a vulnerable fashion, Maxwell opens his heart and mind to a hopeful lover on the mood-setting “Listen Hear.” His distinctive voice extracts intense pain on “Lost,” the darkest and finest moment. Now while blackSUMMERS’night doesn’t entirely follow the bluesy formula of BLACKsummers’night, his commercial breakthrough, it’s most definitely an R&B collector’s item. – A.F.

12. Calling All Lovers — Tamar Braxton (2015)

There’s something to be said for not trying to reinvent the wheel. Despite a strong sophomore album and a hit single (“Love and War”), Tamar Braxton didn’t go after the charts for her third studio LP. Instead, the R&B star upped the ante on Calling All Lovers by delivering fervent vocals to yearn downhearted and joyous love tunes like the vintage-soul ditty “Simple Things” and summery throwback “Must Be Good to You.” Braxton is at her best when she sharply focuses on her vocal powers, as she does on the sorrowful “Broken Record” and the eminently romantic “Raise the Bar.” So while Calling All Lovers is written off by many as a disappointing follow-up because it didn’t receive a proper commercial rollout as its parent album, it is an incomparable gem that’s proved a hit after one fair spin. – A.F.

13. Caution — Mariah Carey (2018)

A music legend cannot release an album without high expectations from fans and critics. Throughout her career, Mariah Carey has always set and exceeded the bar of musical excellence with her impeccable vocal range and her mesmerizing lyrics. Caution, Carey’s 15th studio album, proved why she has been able to sell over 200 million records throughout her career. Whether she’s singing tender ballads like “With You” and “Portrait” or showing off her playful side on “A No No” and “GTFO,” Caution pleasantly reminds the world that there are levels to Carey’s talent. — K.S.

14. Ctrl — SZA (2017)

The first lady of Top Dawg Entertainment crafted a playbook on self-awareness, boldness and reflection on Ctrl. SZA, along with her mom and granny, narrates the ebbs of flows of self-discovery in numerous aspects. Along the interestingly insightful journey, the alt & B singer stops at sensuality (“Doves In The Wind”), insecurity (“Drew Barrymore”) and acceptance (“Normal Girl”) with an ever-changing destination in sight. She takes flight on “Pretty Little Birds” featuring label-mate Isaiah Rashad. The lucid lyrics about soaring high with her lover are stretched across palpitating production with fluttering jazz horns and synths. SZA quaintly captures the nuances of growth in a way that was widely and immensely felt upon her release. Her full-length debut is a comforting coming of age album for young women in their 20-somethings, stepping into their own. — D.B.

15. Doubleback: Evolution of R&B — Joe (2013)

It doesn’t get more soulful than Joe. The Grammy-nominated veteran, who debuted in 1993 with the album Everything, effortlessly proves that he’s untouchable in the romance department. By merging elements of well-rendered vocals, convincingly tender lyrics, and classic and modern R&B feels, Doubleback: Evolution of R&B is a stroke of pure genius. Never sounding too dated, Joe reaches back to give his male listeners lessons on the beauty of settling down like on “I’d Rather Have a Love,” the yearning lead single. He breaks down the pleasurable difference between “Love & Sex” with Fantasia and indulges in the sweet company of “Mary Jane.” Doubleback is another reminder to bachelors that there’s nothing wrong with turning in your player cards, once and for all. – A.F.

16. Ego Death — The Internet (2015)

The Internet’s third studio album was a wake-up call to anyone who slept on the eclectically soulful band. While their sophomore effort floated in the lo-fi realm, Ego Death took the tempo up a notch. Building on their neo-soul adjacent sound, they pulled from alternative, jazz and lounge music elements to create a body of work that is expansive, yet focused. A common thread for Ego Death is the relaxing, easygoing tone, appropriately displayed in “For The World” featuring James Fauntleroy — a track that shares a similar groove to “Butterflies” by Michael Jackson. The Internet’s melodic palate transformed from a mystic vibe to a soul knocking sound on their third album; proof they’ve grown from being the adolescent band next door to a musically inclined group who’s pushing their sound further. — D.B.

17. ELDORADO — Ro James (2016)

Ro James summons an authentic essence of soul. With a husky and smoldering timbre, his ability to bridge the musicality of his forefathers and his personal influences enhance the listening experience. James pulls from rock, soul and gospel to create a rich and fortifying sound. His trilogy EP Coke, Jack and Cadillacs was released in 2013, simmering a carefully crafted energy that steadily lured fans in.

Three years later, his debut album ELDORADO solidified a lane solely reserved for James to cruise along. His Willie Hutch-sampled track “Permission” took over urban adult contemporary radio and promptly aided his growing success. ELDORADO would be incomplete without hazy and seductive tracks like “Burn Slow” and “GA$” but “Holy Water” contributes a contrasting but necessary element. Swelled with sonorous organs, James belts about becoming better and not losing himself with choir-adjacent backgrounds for full support. For his first major-label release, James leaves an undeniably lasting impression. — D.B.

18. Feel The Real — Musiq Soulchild (2017)

When it comes to love, Musiq Soulchild has a lot to say. Released as a double album, Feel The Real is a 100-minute expedition through the different stages of a relationship. “I kinda wanted to do the whole Feel the Real thing because this love thing, this romance thing, this relationship thing, this interpersonal intimate thing we deal with it’s all about how you feel,” he told HipHollywood. “You can’t think your way through it.” The title track, which features Marsha Ambrosius, hears Soulchild shooting his shot at a woman he is interested in pursuing.

On the same token, he isn’t looking to settle too quickly. He gets very candid on “Benefits,” where he only wants to be friends with benefits. He admits his wrongdoings on the Willie Hyn-assisted “My Bad” and asks his partner to do the same on “Humble Pie.” “Let Go” is about knowing when it is time for both partners to move on from a relationship. With everything he experienced in his previous relationship, Soulchild wants to make sure he is ready to make his heart open for the next person. “Test Drive” is about testing the waters before settling down. “We could both crash and burn or we could fly high / Couldn’t hurt to take a test drive,” he sings. Soulchild expresses his gratitude on the album’s closer “Simple Things.” Although the album is a lot longer than traditional releases, Soulchild makes the experience enjoyable with his velvety vocals laced over live instrumentation. — K.S.

19. Freudian — Daniel Caesar (2017)

The early 2010s consisted of R&B artists trying to keep up with what was contemporary, with many gravitating toward pop, alternative and EDM. On the contrary, Ontario-born singer-songwriter Daniel Caesar spent much of the early 2010s being recognized as a budding voice in classic R&B stylings with the release of several scattered EPs such as 2014’s Praise Break and 2015’s Pilgrim’s Paradise. However, Caesar’s debut album Freudian became a constant revisit for casual listeners of the genre after its release in 2017. The obvious nods to gospel music on tracks such as “Hold Me Down” and “We Find Love” adds a natural anointing to Caesar’s smooth sound. However, it is songs such as “Blessed” and the H.E.R.-assisted “Best Part” that elevate Caesar to timeless status, as both became radio and wedding mainstays, respectively. While everyone else was making moody, aesthetically-pleasing sounds, Caesar created a timeless record that offered a little something for everyone.— A.H.

20. Greater Than One — Dwele (2012)

Dwele is arguably one of the most underrated neo-soul singers. The Detroit native’s fifth studio album, Greater Than One, is proof in the pudding. Drawing inspiration from ‘80s R&B, Greater Than One highlights various topics surrounding a relationship. From missing out on love (“Going Leaving”) to knowing how to keep his woman happy (“What Profit”) to avoiding temptation (“Frankly My Dear”), the subject matter is relatable for anyone who has ever experienced a relationship. A standout moment on the album is the eargasmic “Obey,” an alluring tune where Dwele takes complete control in the bedroom as he instructs his woman to submit to his orders. Looking back, Dwele stepped outside of his traditional sound for Greater Than One, all while staying true to his artistry. — K.S.

21. Gumbo — PJ Morton (2017)

There is no place like home. PJ Morton returned to his New Orleans roots for his fourth studio album, Gumbo. With just nine tracks, the introspective LP is seasoned with intense topics that are most personal to him. On “Claustrophobic” featuring Pell, Morton vents about his frustrations in the music industry, making it clear that he is not interested in chasing trends. He offers hope to the marginalized on “Everything’s Gonna Be Alright” featuring BJ the Chicago Kid and The HamilTones. “Religion” hears Morton calling out people who use religion to justify their bad behavior, singing, “But you blame your God when it’s your own fault / Where is the love that your God spoke of?” He celebrates lifelong love on “First Began,” which was nominated for Best R&B Song at the 2018 Grammy Awards. The album also received a nomination for Best R&B Album. — K.S.

22. H.E.R. — H.E.R. (2017)

Before she was the ominous, multitalented music virtuoso known as H.E.R., California native Gabi Wilson first appeared on a radio talent competition Next Big Thing in 2009, ultimately losing. However, it was not until she put on a pair of massive sunglasses to cover her face, changed her name to the acronym Having Everything Revealed, and released an eponymous debut EP that H.E.R. became a slow-burning sensation everyone wanted to know. A compilation of her first two EPs released in 2016 and 2017, respectively, H.E.R. is the diamond that emerged from the coal that came with the introduction of alternative R&B in the mid-2010s: a purely R&B album that is true to its roots, yet can easily compete with the fiercest competitors. H.E.R. received several nods from critics and contemporaries alike, including a co-sign of the album’s second single “Focus” from Rihanna.

With just one feature on the entire project, H.E.R. puts her messages of love, regret, pain, and pleasure at the forefront of the album on songs such as “Rather Be,” “2,” and “Losing.” Although not a radio-heavy project, the resonance of H.E.R. made it all the way to the Grammy stage, earning the singer-songwriter Best R&B Album, and Best R&B Performance for her duet “Best Part” with Daniel Caesar. While she still has yet to put out a proper debut LP, H.E.R. remains a staple of the 2010s as the world waits to see what she will do next. — A.H.

23. Honestly — Lalah Hathaway (2018)

Lalah Hathaway’s first studio album on her independent imprint followed her pair of Grammys won for her 2015 live album. All-around musician Tiffany Gouché is involved with each song on Honestly, pushing Hathaway into a more free-spirited and adventurous territory sonically than her previous albums. Fortunately, this bold play works to the polyphonic-voiced singer’s advantage. Everything from Honestly is a mood. “I Can’t Wait” beams with feel-good vibes to get any party started. The Lecrae-assisted anthem “Don’t Give Up” is a large dose of reassurance, while “Won’t Let Go” ducks and dodges an obsessed ex. And while her rich, warm overtones are attached to nostalgic video game noise, it doesn’t seem scattered or muddled. It’s actually a positive step in the next direction of Hathaway’s elevated artistry. – A.F.

24. In My Mind — BJ the Chicago Kid (2016)

With the many directions R&B has taken, only a few have been able to elevate the genre while staying true to its core elements. When BJ the Chicago Kid independently released his debut album Pineapple Now-Laters in 2012, he garnered attention with his soulfully robust voice, suggestive of prominent hometown soul singers like Sam Cooke and Curtis Mayfield. Six months later, he signed a deal with the famed Motown Records where he released his major-label debut, In My Mind.

By injecting the quintessence of his forefathers into his resonating sound, BJ evidently distinguished himself from his peers. He makes use of his storytelling skills on a tale of infidelity on “Wait Til the Morning” featuring Isa. On the sensual track “The Resume” featuring Big K.R.I.T., BJ channels the computerized ’90s energy by way of Jodeci. He closes the album with “Turnin’ Me Up,” a soothing and irresistible acoustic number with the impromptu spirit of a jam session. BJ presents a modern take on soul music with In My Mind, while keeping the spirit of the music form alive. — D.B.

25. Kaleidoscope Dream — Miguel (2012)

Miguel had a lot to prove with his sophomore album, Kaleidoscope Dream. His debut All I Want Is You was the spacey and rhythmic introduction to his genre-melding talents, yet it wasn’t well-received upon its release. Taking significant creative control this time, Miguel returned to the drawing board to create an imaginative fusion of psychedelic soul, rock and R&B. The album begins with “Adorn,” the feel-good throwback-adjacent single that matured into a classic over time. As the ear-bending journey continues, the title track is more than fitting of its name, navigating a chromatically rippling number that’ll take listeners to another plane. The daringly neoteric direction Miguel took resulted in him becoming a regarded voice among male R&B. — D.B.

26. Late Nights & Early Mornings — Marsha Ambrosius (2011)

As half of the neo-soul duo Floetry, Marsha Ambrosius is one of the pillars that fused rap, soul, and jazz to create the genre nearly 20 years ago. It was these elements and a sultry, operatic voice that are the driving force behind her debut solo album Late Nights & Early Mornings. However, pushing the envelope even further, Ambrosius brought her unique form of storytelling into a new era and rewrote the book of grown and sexy for a new decade. She included clever scenarios in songs like “I Hope She Cheats On You (With a Basketball Player)” and “Far Away,” a tearjerking narrative that you feel just as hard as the sensual slow jams. The album debuted at number two on the Billboard 200 chart, and “Far Away” earned two Grammy nominations at the 54th Annual Grammy Awards in 2012. Late Nights & Early Mornings became less of a single project for one moment in time, but a mood for the right time of night, anytime. Whether those listening were feeling kinky, sad or just lying awake thinking about life, Ambrosius’ pen was there to get them through it. — A.H.

27. Love Life — Tamia (2015)

It’s hard to believe Tamia recorded her very solid sixth studio album, Love Life, in just 10 days. Taking an edgier approach than her previous works, Love Life is grown and sexy at its finest. “It’s not as deep and dark as some of my past albums; it’s in a better place,” she said in a past interview. The Canadian singer worked with a diverse group of songwriters and producers including The-Dream, Tricky Stewart, Pop & Oak, Chuck Harmony, Claude Kelly, Polow Da Don and The Stereotypes. The romantic album highlights the best moments of being in love — and could even serve as a guide on how to add a little spice to a longterm relationship. Tamia describes the feeling of falling in love with the opener “Love Falls Over Me.” On the album’s lead single “Sandwich and a Soda,” she gets submissive as she sings about taking care of her man in and outside of the bedroom. Speaking of the bedroom, Tamia doesn’t hold back on songs about making love (“Chaise Lounge,” “Lipstick” and “No Lie”). The album’s standout track is definitely “Stuck With Me,” which peaked at No. 14 on Billboard’s US Adult R&B Songs chart. Love Life is another example of how an artist can be intimate while leaving something to the imagination. — K.S.

28. Love, Marriage & Divorce — Toni Braxton and Babyface (2014)

Toni Braxton and Babyface’s Grammy-winning joint album Love, Marriage & Divorce is a quite satisfying collection of gorgeous selections that profile the romantic confessions of their lives. Working closely alongside heavyweight musician Daryl Simmons and Antonio Dixon, the two R&B greats cover past, present, and future love stories and share important experiences to provide healing for one’s relationship and heart. Passionately-sung numbers like “Where Did We Go Wrong?” minister on the power of listening, while “Reunited” supports mutual reconciliation. Other standouts include the remorse hit “Hurt You,” the love-drenched makeup tune “Sweat” and “I’d Rather Be Broke,” the bittersweet solo by Braxton. Needless to say, Braxton and Edmonds are a fine duo, and it’s a serious crime when they’re apart for too long. – A.F.

Stream: Apple Music / Spotify

29. New Amerykah Part Two: Return of the Ankh — Erykah Badu (2010)

Two years after releasing New Amerykah, Pt. 1 (4th World War), Erykah Badu followed up with the album’s sequel, New Amerykah, Pt. 2 (Return of the Ankh). While part one centered around politically-charged topics, part two is more personal as Badu focused more on her love life. Sonically, the album pulls inspiration from Badu’s early works like Baduizm. “The album is more emotional and flowy and talks about feelings,” Badu explained at a listening party in 2010. The obvious standout is her liberating single “Window Seat.” The controversial video, which shows Badu walking around nude in Dealy Plaza, ultimately led to her getting charged for disorderly conduct. Other highlights on the album include the funk-infused “Turn Me Away (Get Munny),” the cautionary “Fall in Love (Your Funeral)” and the buttery “Umm Hmm.” — K.S.

30. No Boys Allowed — Keri Hilson (2011)

Some fans and critics had to learn not to judge an album by its title when Keri Hilson announced her sophomore effort, No Boys Allowed. She explained the meaning behind the album in a press release, “It’s not about excluding men. It’s more about women understanding that there comes a time in your life when you want a man. A real man. A grown up. Not a boy. And that’s not a bad thing.” While Hilson’s debut album In A Perfect World was more on the safe side, No Boys Allowed saw the singer-songwriter more confident and open. Kicking off the album with her J.Cole-assisted banger “Buyou,” Hilson made is clear that she wasn’t about the shits. “You want a ride or die chick, baby / But you ain’t got a whip, baby / It ain’t gon’ happen / You don’t got shit, you need a walk or die chick, baby,” she sings in the second verse. After setting the record straight, she showed love to the ladies with her empowering anthem “Pretty Girl Rock,” which was co-penned by Ne-Yo.

Some of the best moments on the album are Hilson’s most vulnerable tracks. “Breaking Point” is about being fed up with a lover’s shenanigans. The bittersweet “Beautiful Mistake” is about regretting a past relationship. The John Legend-penned “All the Boys” hears Hilson reminiscing about relationships from her teenage years. At the time, she thought she was in love but later realized what true love is. “After all the boys that I thought I loved before I didn’t know what love was / Til you knocked on my door,” she sings. Hilson balances the emotional feels with flirty numbers like “The Way You Love Me” featuring Rick Ross, “Gimmie What I Want,” and the reggae-tinged “Bahm Bahm.” No Boys Allowed is a nearly flawless genre-blending album that can be played from start to finish without skipping a track. The hidden interludes make the listening experience even more enjoyable — even during some of the darkest moments on the album. — K.S.

31. Now or Never — Tank (2010)

Three years after releasing his Grammy-nominated album Sex, Love & Pain, Tank returned with more bedroom vibes on Now or Never. It was his first album to release under Atlantic Records, following his departure from Blackground Records where he released his first three albums. Now or Never is a coherent body of work that is filled with tender R&B tunes. With enticing titles like “Sex Music,” “Scream” and the Chris Brown-assisted “Foreplay,” the R&B General was on a mission to please his listeners in every way. Sonically, Now or Never is a lot lighter than its predecessor, which was done intentionally. “It’s a happier album, I’m appreciating more, I’m celebrating more,” he told The Boombox. Speaking of “Celebration,” his Drake-assisted track is among the standout tunes on the LP. “Emergency” is probably the most recognized song on the album. Borrowing the same melody as Pleasure P’s “Under,” which he also co-wrote and co-produced, “Emergency” sees Tank coming to the rescue to satisfy a woman’s needs in the bedroom. “When I got there, put her on the floor / She leakin’ but she still breathin’,” he sings. While Tank ended up releasing six albums this decade, Now or Never remains a staple in his discography. — K.S.

32. Passion, Pain & Pleasure — Trey Songz (2010)

By the end of the 2000s, Virginia native Trey Songz was a full-fledged R&B sex symbol. On his fourth studio album, Passion, Pain, & Pleasure, Songz builds on the slow jam catalog he’s become notorious for. Moreover, he expands his seductive pallet to include more than just sex, but more mature emotions like lust on songs like “Can’t Be Friends,” a rarity in the genre at the time. Also, the album spawned hits such as the Nicki Minaj-assisted “Bottoms Up,” which is certified four times platinum in the United States and reached number six on the Billboard Hot 100, becoming his highest-charting song to date. Outside of being a great album, Passion, Pain, & Pleasure was one of the only albums that remain consistently R&B through and through. While his contemporaries were switching it up to keep up with the times, Songz carried the genre into the next decade by starting off strong. Not only that, he inspired several future baby-making hitmakers in the genre. Passion, Pain, & Pleasure earned Songz several nods, including Favorite Soul/R&B Male Artist at the 39th Annual American Music Awards, and will forever be remembered as the album that paved the way for R&B in the 2010s. — A.H.

33. Perfectly Imperfect — Elle Varner (2012)

As the daughter of two published songwriters, it is no surprise why Elle Varner has a knack for storytelling. Her debut album Perfectly Imperfect via RCA Records is a compilation of relatable stories centered around love and self-acceptance. Varner worked closely with production duo Pop&Oak and her father Jimmy to craft one of the most noteworthy debut R&B albums this decade. Although her Grammy-nominated single “Refill” gets all the attention, there are quite a few gems on the album. With a sample from Kool & The Gang’s “Little Children,” “I Don’t Care” finds Varner going “into the deep end” with a guy and having no regrets about it. Over a funky bass, she tells her lover what she can bring to the table on “Leaf.” The closing track, “So Fly,” is probably one of the most important songs on the album. The uplifting tune is about accepting yourself — flaws and all. “So, I decided I’m the definition of fly / And if you want to know why / I know what money can’t buy,” she sings. — K.S.

34. Pieces of Me — Ledisi (2011)

First and foremost – Ledisi is one of the best R&B/soul vocalists of the last 20 years. The New Orleans native has made a name for herself as an artist who renders lovely, traditional R&B-styled compositions with thrilling jazz crescendos. For her third major-label outing and fifth overall, Ledisi doesn’t miss a chance to continue enticing R&B fans with more sensational vocal takes. Pieces of Me satisfies those deeply in love on joyous tunes like the tender “I Gotta Get to You” and everlasting ode “Stay Together” featuring Jaheim. Like the winning titular track, this remarkable set gives Ledisi a platform to be delightfully inspirational on empowering jams like the bluesy “BGTY” and the self-advocating anthem “Raise Up.” – A.F.

35. Raymond v. Raymond — Usher (2010)

Usher was undoubtedly a bonafide superstar in the 2000s. However, all of that changed with his marriage to Tameka Foster in 2007, and the Atlanta-native began to focus on themes of love and marriage. This caused a dip in sales for 2008’s Here I Stand, an album almost entirely inspired by his marriage to Foster. When the two unexpectedly divorced in 2009, it inspired Usher to create an album based on the situation as well as where he expected to go from there. Thus, Raymond v. Raymond was born. Seen as sort of a return to the sensual, yet pain-stricken Confessions of 2004, Raymond v. Raymond features some of Usher’s finest uptempo hits of the decade, including “OMG,” “Hey Daddy (Daddy’s Home)” and “Lil Freak.”

However, Usher’s sixth album saw him utilize the emerging sound of EDM for songs such as “DJ Got Us Falling In Love” and “Somebody to Love.” This new-found sound extended into Usher’s hit love song “There Goes By Baby,” a wedding song for the ages. Raymond v. Raymond won Usher two Grammy Awards in 2011, including Best Contemporary R&B Album and Best Male R&B Vocal Performance. An album with features from Nicki Minaj, JAY-Z, will.i.am, and more, Raymond v. Raymond is Usher’s return to form for a new generation of R&B fans to discover. — A.H.

36. Reality Show — Jazmine Sullivan (2015)

When Jazmine Sullivan cleaned out her music industry cubicle in early 2011 to discover her true purpose in life, she left the world in complete shock. But, after nearly five years, the Philadelphia native had music admirers tuned into Reality Show, her third album. Ordering 12 songs, featuring studio input from the likes of SaLaAM ReMi, Key Wane, and Chuck Harmony, this phenomenal LP plays out overtly personal situations associated that are often a common narrative of many young Black women.

As a songsmith, with a knack for vivid imagery, Sullivan loads Reality Show with originals that seamlessly exalt her contemporary spirit like the trapsoul “Brand New” and down-chick anthem “#Hoodlove.” Some cuts sound like old favorites like the After 7-inspired hit “Let It Burn” and “Forever Don’t Last.” Other attention-holders stand in a league of their own like the introspective art “Masterpiece (Mona Lisa).” At the end of the day, Reality Show finds Sullivan singing with new conviction and versatility that makes her triumphant return to music more notable than other R&B comebacks. – A.F.

37. Souled Out — Jhené Aiko (2014)

Being off-brand isn’t Jhené Aiko’s motive. Resurfacing on the scene with her 2011 mixtape Sailing Soul(s), she introduced her newly-crafted sound that was more authentic to her artistry than her earlier work. Garnering recognition with her Sail Out EP in 2013, the debut album Souled Out concluded her motif. Aiko has remained steady on her music journey, refusing to let the industry steer her off course. Against an ambiently rhythmic background, her soothing voice lulls the sting of her realer-than-life lyrics. Aiko pulls from personal experiences and sets them in her songs, mirroring her reality with yours. With “Lyin King,” Aiko floats across the aquatic-like synths with a conviction that her lover will never know when a good thing is in his face. Souled Out is littered with philosophical gems, while providing a guide through the commensurating stages of heartbreak and enlightenment. — D.B.

38. Still Standing — Monica (2010)

The title says it all. Monica was Still Standing after a 15-year career of ups and downs. In the seasoned vocalist’s first album in four years, Monica capitalizes on the strength of her sincere duet with Keyshia Cole (“Trust”) and makes a triumphant return with age-appropriate uptempo and downtempo R&B tunes. The iron-solid hit “Everything to Me,” which marks her first-ever solo Grammy nod, takes its cue from Deniece Williams’ soulful single “Silly.” Monica keeps on the nostalgic path on “If You Were My Man,” while she lays her head on the chest of “Superman,” a soulful ode to her the man in the red cap. Other solid selections include the in-need banger “Here I Am” and the sappy ballad “Love All Over Me.” While Monica reflects mostly on love, she masterfully fuses songs about perseverance and self-importance on cuts like “Mirror,” “Believing in Me” and the survival title track. – A.F.

39. SweetSexySavage — Kehlani (2017)

There is a captivating nature about Kehlani. It could be her transparency, her charm or her confidence but all those aspects and more attribute to her debut LP SweetSexySavage. The Bay Area native signed a partnership with Atlantic Records, following the success of her 2015 mixtape, You Should Be Here. Her follow-up presented a refined body of work that remained honest to Kehlani’s discography. Tracks like “Too Much” and “Personal” lift melodies and song structures from the ‘90s and early 2000s without relying on obvious samples. She beams on “Piece of Mind”; her flawless harmonies perfectly compliment the consonantly layered production, reaching peak vocals by the 2:42 mark. Kehlani exhibits a vibrant synergy of her inspirations with her artistry on her debut, successfully providing songs for the sweet, sexy and savage sides in all of us. — D.B.

40. The Electric Lady — Janelle Monáe (2013)

Janelle Monae’s imagination is aptly cinematic. From her debut EP Metropolis: The Chase Suite, Monae showcased her well-rounded vision by introducing the story of her alter-ego, android Cindi Mayweather. As the prequel to The ArchAndroid, the afro-futuristic dystopian tale of The Electric Lady directs with a livelier soundtrack. Pulling inspiration from the early eras of soul music on tracks like “Dance Apocalyptic,” Monae shows she is a true student of those who came before her. She creates a sonic time chamber of sorts and lingers in the ‘70s on “It’s Code” and “Can’t Live Without You,” which takes a page out of Stevie Wonder’s book. Skillfully bridging the past, present and future of R&B, Monae brings Prince, Solange and Erykah Badu along as co-pilots for the electrifying ride to the world of Metropolis. — D.B.

41. The Lady Killer — CeeLo Green (2010)

CeeLo Green had the world shouting “Fuck You” at the start of the decade. The tell-off anthem was the lead single to his third solo album, The Lady Killer, and earned Green a Grammy for Best Urban/Alternative Performance in 2012. Sure, we can talk about how a song about a failed relationship with a gold digger was one of the biggest records at the time, but there is much more to be said about The Lady Killer. Best known as a member of the hip hop group Goodie Mob, Green steered clear from rapping this time around on his soul-infused project. “I thought The Lady Killer sounded edgy and elegant at the same time. So I wanted something like James Bond, but like Barry White would do it,” he told Billboard in an interview. Green introduces his “Lady Killer” persona on the opening track, before living his best life on the catchy “Bright Lights Bigger City,” which has a looping bassline similar to Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean.” Green keeps his listeners engaged with his dynamic vocal performance throughout the rest of the album. Some of his best vocal moments can be heard on “Love Gun” featuring Lauren Bennett, “Fool for You” featuring Earth Wind & Fire’s Philip Bailey and the classic Motown-tinged “Old Fashion.” — K.S.

42. The Light of the Sun — Jill Scott (2011)

After laying down the bricks of neo-soul with her epic The Real Thing: Words and Sounds trilogy in the 2000s, Philadelphia native Jill Scott ventured into acting, making her cinematic debut in the films Hounddog and Tyler Perry’s Why Did I Get Married? in 2007. Scott released The Light of the Sun, a dramatic sonic change from her previous work. As Scott’s first three albums dealt with self-discovery and maturation through mellow grooves and heavy jazz influence, The Light of the Sun had a brighter sound than anything Scott had ever released. Having given birth to her son Jett in 2009, the album reflected Scott’s happiness at the time as she celebrated life and love on songs such as “Blessed” and “So In Love” featuring Anthony Hamilton as well as her proudful womanhood on tracks such as “Womanmanifesto.” The Light of the Sun debuted atop the Billboard 200 and Top Hip-Hop/R&B Albums charts and earned Scott two Soul Train awards for Best Female Artist and Best R&B/Soul Album. Scott’s fourth album represents her transition from a young woman trying to find her way to a grown woman who knows exactly what she needs. — A.H.

43. The London Sessions — Mary J. Blige (2014)

As the only accomplished force in mainstream music to take home Grammys in four different genres, Mary J. Blige has earned the right to experiment with new sounds and depart from the musical style she’s responsible for pioneering. For her 12th studio effort, The London Sessions, the Queen of Hip-Hop Soul left the states and jetted across the pond to draw recording inspiration from the UK’s brightest stars, including Sam Smith, Disclosure, and Emeli Sandé. The deep house tracks “Nobody But You” and “My Loving” thrive on blissful lyrical material. Meanwhile, The London Sessions features acoustic, therapeutic ballads (“Not Loving You,” “Therapy”) that speak for themselves. Overall, this noteworthy disc sends an important wake-up call to the music industry: Mary J. Blige isn’t afraid of change if it means she doesn’t have to be boxed in. – A.F.

44. The Love and War MasterPeace — Raheem DeVaughn (2010)

There comes a time when an artist wants to create a body of music to help heal the world. For Raheem DeVaughn, the time came for his third studio album, The Love and War MasterPeace. “I named the album The Love and War MasterPeace because I feel that where I am as a person and where we are as a people, we are all trying to master that internal peace and happiness in a very strange time,” DeVaughn said in a past press statement.

Pulling inspiration from fellow Washington, D.C. native Marvin Gaye’s critically-acclaimed album What’s Going On, The Love and War MasterPeace tackles issues affecting our society. Gaye’s influence can clearly be heard on the album’s lead single “Bulletproof” featuring Ludacris, which is a call to action for everyone to open their eyes on what’s really happening in the world around them. “You betta’ pray to the most high or whoever you praise / ‘Cause politicians can’t help you, they puppets to slaves,” warns DeVaughn. He empowers women on songs like “The Greatness” featuring Wale and reminds them of their worth on “Black & Blue,” which brings awareness to domestic violence. It wouldn’t be a Raheem DeVaughn album without his babymaking music. He brings the seductive vibes on velvety tunes like “Fragile” featuring Malik Yusef, “B.O.B,” “Microphone” and “Garden of Love.” — K.S.

45. The MF Life — Melanie Fiona (2012)

Melanie Fiona cemented herself as a retro-soul singer with her debut album, The Bridge. The sound of her Grammy-nominated single “It Kills Me” would serve as the blueprint for her next album, The MF Life. Released on Universal Records, The MF Life explored the highs and lows of love. With an emphasis on low moments, the 14-track offering is filled with punch-you-in-the-gut emotion and vivid storytelling. “I wanted it to be a collection of music and songs that make people think about the things that we actually go through and feel,” Fiona told NPR. Heartbreak and sorrow are reoccurring themes on The MF Life. “Wrong Side of a Love Song” is Fiona’s desperate attempt to get her man back after he broke up with her. “This is what it feels to be the one that’s standing left behind,” she sings.

Fiona also deals with loss on the album. “Gone (La Dada Di)” featuring Snoop Dogg is probably the most depressing song on the set. The Soundz-produced cut finds Fiona trying to process the death of her lover and regretting the argument they had. “Guess I’m thinking bout the last conversation we had / And the mean things that we’ve said / Wishing I could take the whole thing back / As I’m standing at his doorway, covered in red,” she sings. Fiona’s raspy vocals shine on records like “Bones” and “Running.” There are some lighter moments on the album such as the uplifting tunes “Change the Record” featuring B.o.B and “Watch Me Work.” The MF Life is a testament that our lives are not perfect and we will all go through some painful and traumatic experiences at some point. And when we do, we can always revisit Fiona’s stellar body of work. — K.S.

46. Three Kings — TGT (2013)

At a time where male singing groups were scarce, Tyrese, Ginuwine and Tank filled a necessary void. Following in the steps of their predecessors LSG (Gerald Levert, Keith Sweat and Johnny Gill), the solo R&B singers who are actual friends formed their supergroup TGT and released their only album Three Kings in 2013. They include all of the quintessential R&B album checkpoints: a song with a rap feature (“No Fun”), a few ballads and slow jams (“I Need,” “Lessons In Love”) with a few interludes in between. Among the tracks, “Burn Out” is the standout sleeper from their debut. Each gentleman performs ostentatiously on the intricate production that consists of multiple sonic and vocal peaks. The finished product creates an aural rush that’ll drive listeners into melodic bliss. Their distinct voices combined created harmonies that offered a unique texture and technique that has been absent from current R&B music. The trio’s undeniable formula lead them to a Grammy nomination for Best R&B Album in 2014. — D.B.

47. Two Eleven — Brandy (2012)

Four years in the making, Brandy’s sixth album is her blood, sweat and tears. Drawing ultrasonic magic from familiar names like Sean “The Pen” Garrett, Bangladesh, Frank Ocean, Rico Love, and Mike WiLL Made-It, Two Eleven is an almost hour-long masterpiece that is home to singular vocal runs, adventurous, high-quality production, and broad songwriting. Though Two Eleven lacked a true conceptual vision, at least it had strong songs with potential hit value. “Put It Down” featuring Chris Brown is rhythmic radio gold. Advanced-sounding tracks “So Sick” and “Slower” had what it took to be embraced by urban as prized singles. Elsewhere, Brandy flawlessly adds in gem-worthy solos like “Wish Your Love Away” and “Without You.” In a few words, Two Eleven is just that album – period. – A.F.

48. VII — Teyana Taylor (2014)

Before Teyana Taylor became a household name from her iconic performance in Kanye West’s “Fade” video, she released an album that many people slept on. Taylor has always been open about her musical influences. On VII, her debut album, the Harlem native takes a few pages from the ‘90s R&B playbook to create a timeless masterpiece. She draws inspiration from some of her idols like Aaliyah, Brandy, Janet Jackson and Lauryn Hill. Co-writing every track on the album, Taylor enlisted help from hitmakers like James Fauntleroy, Eric Bellinger, Harmony Samuels, Boi-1da and Stacy Barthe to create songs that will be played from decades to come. “I want that album you can clean up to, the album you can make love to, the album you can just relax to,” she told Fuse TV.

Taylor opens VII with “Outta My League,” which sounds like an outtake from The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill. The calming production helps set the mood for the rest of the album. Most of the album sounds like it was made for the bedroom, especially on “Request,” “Do Not Disturb” featuring Chris Brown and the booming lead single “Maybe” featuring Pusha T and Yo Gotti. She looks for a no-strings-attached affair on the Fabolous-assisted “Broken Hearted Girl” (don’t let the title fool you.) The album isn’t completely sex-driven, though. She reflects on a failed relationship on the piano-driven ballad “Sorry,” before finally dismissing her no-good man on “In the Air.” With VII, Taylor successfully positioned herself as an R&B singer who cared more about making meaningful music than keeping up with trends. — K.S.

49. Woman to Woman — Keyshia Cole (2012)

Put some respect on Keyshia Cole’s name. For the most part, this Oakland native has a solid catalog, even though there was a disconnect with fans and critics on her fourth LP Calling All Hearts. Taking serious note, the R&B vocalist regained her early career glory on Woman to Woman. This essential comeback album perfectly mixes Cole’s trademark soul-baring touch to tuneful radio melodies and forward-minded arrangements. Album highlights include the whimsical duet “Wonderland” featuring Elijah Blake; the beans-spilling title track with Ashanti; the grand ballads “I Choose You” and “Trust and Believe;” and everything else in between. Woman to Woman is indeed a strong return for a promising R&B legend with more fire in her belly. – A.F.

50. X — Chris Brown (2014)

Like many artists in the early 2010s, Chris Brown merged his sound with that of contemporary genres such as Dubstep and EDM on 2012’s Fortune, and with innovation came criticism from critics and fans alike. However, in 2014, the Grammy-winning artist proved he was still all in for R&B with his sixth album, X. Combining old and new sounds, X is anchored by radio-ready singles Brown fans were accustomed to such as “Love More,” “New Flame,” and the massive summer hit “Loyal.” The latter went on to peak at number nine of the on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and is now certified four times platinum in the United States. With this project, Brown also became one of the few artists to reconnect with the late songstress Aaliyah on “Don’t Think They Know.” An LP for the ages, X is stacked with features from some of the biggest stars of the time such as Nicki Minaj, Lil Wayne, Kendrick Lamar, Trey Songz, Usher, Rick Ross, Brandy and more. Plus, it features production from some of the brightest talents including Diplo, DJ Mustard, and Jean Baptiste. X was nominated for Best Urban Contemporary Album at the 57th Annual Grammy Awards, and ultimately is a representation of Brown’s hit-making ability in R&B and beyond. — A.H.

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This content was originally published here.

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junker-town · 5 years ago

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The AAF’s dramatic collapse, explained

Photo by Logan Riely/Getty Images

The AAF went from the hottest thing in sports to gone in a matter of weeks. How did we get here?

The AAF arrived with excitement, fanfare, and hope. Less than two months later, operations were suspended and a shutdown of the entire league is imminent. The drama played out with anger, backbiting, and pointed fingers. Was the league poised to break out before having its knees cut out from under it, or was the league swallowed up in a billionaire’s scheme to get his hands on some gambling technology?

Many questions are left unanswered in the wake of the AAF’s rapid collapse, but it’s unquestionable that the move caused a lot of pain for a great many people. Players, coaches, officials, and league employees uprooted their lives with the promise of an ideal of an alternate football league, only to have those hopes dashed 60 days later. Now we’ll do our best to make sense of how things went so badly, and why the league is dead.

How it all began.

Influential TV producer Charlie Ebersol (son of former NBC Sports head Dick Ebersol) formed the idea for the AAF in 2016 after working on ESPN’s 30-for-30 documentary on the collapse of the XFL. In researching and producing the documentary, Ebersol came to the conclusion that the concept for a secondary football league was viable in the US, but the XFL’s on-field product and presentation was its downfall. Feeling he could correct the XFL’s errors, Ebersol planned out how the AAF would operate for a launch in 2019.

During those early planning stages Vince McMahon, chairman and CEO of WWE, announced he would be re-launching the XFL, starting in 2020. Initially Ebersol approached McMahon in the hopes of parlaying his idea for the AAF with McMahon’s vision, but ultimately the sides didn’t reach an agreement — which included Ebersol wanting ownership of the XFL brand.

Ebersol continued work on his concept for a football league, and it wasn’t until 2018 that the public heard more information about the AAF. Ebersol secured the services of renowned household names and football minds, including Bill Polian, Troy Polamalu, Hines Ward, J.K. McKay, and Justin Tuck. He followed this up by announcing Steve Spurrier would be the league’s first head coach, lending more credence to the idea that the AAF was a league in its own right, not the machination of a TV producer.

Ebersol explained how he saw the AAF fitting in when he spoke to SBNation.com in February:

“If you’re a player who wants to play in the NFL, another league comes along, you look at that league as an opportunity to show your skills off and get back in the big show. The problem is, if they screw with the game, which all these people have done, you can’t get back in the NFL because if you’re playing in the CFL or another league like that, and NFL’s looking at that the game, it’s so wildly different.”

On Feb. 9, 2019 the league launched and things were wonderful ... for a week.

The AAF gets bailed out.

Signs of trouble emerged in the AAF’s second week with reports that the league was in severe financial trouble. ESPN’s Darren Rovell reported the league missed payroll in its inaugural week, which was initially claimed to be a “glitch” by AAF officials, before news dropped that the league was on the verge of collapse unless an investor stepped in and propped up the organization.

One major issue was that Reggie Fowler, slated to be a $170 million investor in the AAF pulled back, committing only $28 million to the league and leaving the AAF in a lurch.

How was a league in this much trouble, this quickly, considering its early ratings were promising and people were excited? NFL insider Benjamin Allbright said on the radio show Pushing The Odds that the AAF wasn’t making any money off its broadcasts, no matter how many people were tuning in. Part of its partnership with CBS called for the AAF to provide CBS with programming, free of charge, for the first year. This was designed to be a proof of concept, engendering goodwill with broadcasters in the hopes of cashing in for the second season. This ensured the AAF would get plenty of exposure, but did nothing to actually keep the league afloat.

It’s here where billionaire Tom Dundon enters the picture. Dundon, owner of the Carolina Hurricanes, made his fortune off subprime car loans, before parlaying that into a 55 percent purchase of “TopGolf,” which marries sport and technology. Dundon came through as the AAF’s bailout, committing a reported $250 million to ensure operations could continue, but in reality only gave $70 million to the AAF and was operating on a weekly basis. The result of this investment was that Dundon became chairman of the board — and had full control of its future.

Initially, it seemed like the league would survive as a result of the investment, but it wasn’t long before things went bad again.

A plea to the NFLPA.

It’s here where things get muddy. It appears that Polian and Dundon had differing views about how the league should position itself moving forward. Polian saw the AAF as a potential feeder league for the NFL — giving undrafted and cut players an opportunity to showcase their talents in the hopes of returning to the NFL.

Rovell explained the differing opinion:

“Ebersol and Polian’s plan was to develop the league for three years on its own before becoming a feeder system to the NFL. Dundon, however, wanted to create that minor league relationship immediately and sought to use the leverage of folding the AAF to get a deal with the NFL Players Association to better insure a flow between leagues.”

USA Today reported that Ebersol and Polian’s plan had reached a point where they were having informal discussions with the NFL, but nothing had been cemented. Executives believed it would always be a 2-3 year plan to become a minor league for the NFL.

Dundon, on the other hand, wanted to secure a talent-sharing agreement with the NFL immediately. This would allow signed NFL players to compete in the AAF during their offseason. Reports indicate Dundon was so adamant about the NFL supplying the AAF with players that he indicated he could fold the league without an agreement, but the problem was that any kind of deal like Dundon proposed went against the collective bargaining agreement signed by the NFL and NFLPA in 2011.

Players can’t simply be asked to play in another league, and that’s before talking about injury risks. Essentially Dundon wanted NFL players to play in his league, away from their teams, doctors, strength and conditioning staff — allegedly delivering a quick-turnaround ultimatum on an issue that would take months for the NFL and NFLPA to agree upon, assuming they saw value in working with the AAF in the first place. Especially considering they had a CBA negotiation looming.

The end of the AAF.

Reports emerged less than a week after Dundon floated the idea of dissolving the league that the AAF would cease operations at 5 p.m. on April 2. Players and coaches learned of the decision mid-practice, weeks removed from the playoffs and a championship game slated for a primetime slot on CBS, which would have turned more eyes to the league than ever before.

Polian issued a statement prior to Dundon’s announcement blaming the chairman for dissolving the league.

“I am extremely disappointed to learn Tom Dundon has decided to suspend all football operations of the Alliance of American Football,” Polian said. “When Mr. Dundon took over, it was the belief of my co-founder, Charlie Ebersol, and myself that we would finish the season, pay our creditors, and make the necessary adjustments to move forward in a manner that made economic sense for all.”

Then, at 5 p.m. Dundon made a statement to AAF players announcing the league would cease operations. No press release was made public, and the AAF’s own website took days to mention the league dissolving.

New information has emerged about the league’s finances in the wake of bankruptcy filings, and it shows that the AAF ceased operations while massively in the red.

BREAKING: @TheAAF has filed for Chapter 7 Bankruptcy. - In the filings, the league claims assets of $11.3 million and liabilities of $48.3 million. - According to the documents, the league has $536,160.68 in cash. pic.twitter.com/IsOlGi2yoO

— Front Office Sports (@frntofficesport) April 17, 2019

However, it’s unclear what role Dundon is playing in the proceeding, as his name did not appear on the bankruptcy filing itself.

Why did this need to happen?

Currently there’s no good answer, other than money. It’s unclear why Dundon felt the issue needed to be forced with the NFL just a year out from the league needing to negotiate a new CBA with the NFLPA. Trying to play hardball with the NFL at a time its hands were tied seemed misguided, at best.

There’s an alternate timeline here where the AAF could have continued its operations until the NFL/NFLPA negotiations and attempted to be added to the CBA as a viable play alternative to young players, securing Dundon’s long-term goal, instead of pushing for it early.

However, there’s speculation that none of this was really about football. One of the AAF’s most valuable assets was proprietary gambling software the league had built into its app. This combination of real-time fantasy football paired with sports gambling had attractive potential, especially at a time where more states are legalizing sports gambling. Some believe that Dundon’s interest in the AAF was only to secure the technology behind the gambling app.

Perception inside the AAF is that Hurricanes owner Tom Dundon bought a majority stake in the league simply for the gambling app being developed. Source: "Dundon got the technology he wanted and he's now minus one rather large headache."

— Albert Breer (@AlbertBreer) April 2, 2019

Reports indicated that Dundon did not actually own the technology, and court proceedings bore that out. He did not challenge the software’s sale to MGM in the midst of bankruptcy hearings. The app was purchased for the relatively low sum of $125,000 in August. MGM also reduced its bankruptcy claim against the shuttered league from $7 million to $5 million with the sale.

It’s important not to forget the human toll of this situation.

It’s easy to look at the AAF as a curiosity, or laugh at its failure — but the reality is that dozens of athletes, coaches, and employees relied on the AAF for their livelihood. Even if the league was mismanaged the people associated with the league didn’t deserve to have the rug pulled out from under them like this.

Players went from preparing for a game one day, to being kicked out of their hotel rooms and stranded.

Source says AAF teams making players pay for their own flights home. What a clown show this was.

— Robert Klemko (@RobertKlemko) April 2, 2019

Unorganized is an understatement...kicked out of our rooms (that weren’t paid apparently) 17 hours away from home with a car full of my belongings and nowhere to go...#JoinTheAlliance @TheAAF @CharlieEbersol @TDCanes @espn @BleacherReport @aafexpress

— Anthony Manzo-Lewis (@amanzolewis) April 2, 2019

@TheAAF I woke up to over a $2500 charge pending on my account from the Sonesta hotel our team stayed in. I called the bank and Memphis team president. My only option is to dispute the charges on Monday. The same thing happened to other players on our team @ohrnberger

— Adrien Robinson (@ItsARob8One) April 4, 2019

Things reached a point where players weren’t even fed before games. It was on them to find their own food, using a per diem to cover their costs.

Couple other cost-cutting AAF details I unearthed/found interesting ... • Only coaches/players were allowed eat on the team plane. Docs, trainers, equipment guys weren't fed. • Night-before-game team dinners were eliminated. Players got a $30 per diem instead.

— Albert Breer (@AlbertBreer) April 2, 2019

Employees were sent a cold email notifying them that their employment had been terminated.

The email #AAF employees were sent minutes ago, announcing the almost assured end of their inaugural season and the immediate suspension of their league’s operations. (Via an AAF source.) pic.twitter.com/iS2rPzXy4d

— Aditi Kinkhabwala (@AKinkhabwala) April 2, 2019

Charles James II, cornerback for the Memphis Express is used to being forced to make changes over the course of his football career — but the collapse of the AAF hit him hard.

“A lot of these guys are younger guys who had never been through this process,” James said. “I’ve never been in the process of a league ending, but I’ve been cut before. Seven times. I’m used to picking up and being in another place. But this is too fast, too soon. We’re talking about relationships, memories, all that — gone.”

Other players just wanted to know about their healthcare and paychecks.

“Questions immediately shifted to how long their health insurance would last, and whether they’d just received a final paycheck. Some coaches simply sent their teams home.”

Numerous entities are out in the cold as a result of the AAF’s problems. UCF lost $1 million it was promised for hosting Orlando Apollos games. Vendors in San Antonio are owed $4 million, and it’s unclear if they’ll ever see a cent. The ripples of the league’s collapse extend far beyond those directly employed or playing for the league. It’s impacting lives everywhere.

Now, players are in limbo. Shortly after the NFL reportedly released a memo barring teams from signing former AAF players due to the league’s legal problems, the AAF announced that its players were free to sign with NFL teams.

It didn’t take long for players to be signed, with more than 40 players getting signed within a week of the AAF’s demise. That includes:

Carolina Panthers: defensive tackle T.J. Barnes, center Parker Collins, tight end Thomas Duarte, offensive tackle Brandon Greene, guard Kitt O’Brien, receiver Rashad Ross

Chicago Bears: kicker Elliott Fry

Cleveland Browns: quarterback Garrett Gilbert

Dallas Cowboys: defensive end Shakir Soto

Denver Broncos: cornerback De’Vante Bausby

Jacksonville Jaguars: defensive back Cody Brown

Kansas City Chiefs: cornerback Keith Reaser

Los Angeles Rams: quarterback John Wolford

Miami Dolphins: guard Michael Dunn, linebacker Jayrone Elliott, running back Kenneth Farrow, linebacker Tyrone Holmes, wide receiver Reece Horn, tackle Jaryd Jones-Smith, defensive tackle Joey Mbu

Minnesota Vikings: safety Jordan Martin, linebacker Greer Martini, defensive end Karter Schult, safety Derron Smith, cornerback Duke Thomas

New York Giants: defensive back Henre’ Toliver

New York Jets: quarterback Brandon Silvers

Oakland Raiders: defensive end Alex Barrett, wide receiver Demornay Pierson-El

Philadelphia Eagles: wide receiver Charles Johnson, quarterback Luis Perez

Pittsburgh Steelers: defensive tackle Winston Craig, center J.C. Hassenauer, linebacker JT Jones, cornerback Kameron Kelly, defensive back Jack Tocho

San Francisco 49ers: offensive lineman Daniel Brunskill, defensive lineman Damontre Moore

Tampa Bay Buccaneers: safety Orion Stewart

Tennessee Titans: tight end Keith Towbridge, quarterback Logan Woodside

Washington: linebacker Andrew Ankrah, linebacker DeMarquis Gates, guard Salesi Uhatafe

It appears only the NFL is open to signing these players, however — leaving the CFL out of the loop, albeit with some dubious contract language from a league that no longer exists.

CFL league office notified all CFL teams that the AAF will not allow its players to sign with any teams despite the fact it is now in breach of playing contracts, per league source.

— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) April 12, 2019

On Wednesday, April 17 the AAF issued a statement that the league was effectively dead following bankruptcy proceedings.

AAF statement on league filing for bankruptcy. pic.twitter.com/wXTh2eZmEL

— Darren Rovell (@darrenrovell) April 17, 2019

Financial documents regarding the league showed that when the AAF ceased operations they had $48.3 million in liabilities, and just under $12 million in total cash and assets. Court filings show that Charlie Ebersol was listed as part of the bankruptcy, but not Tom Dundon — whose organization did not provide information.

A deep dive into the league’s operations by ESPN detailed how the AAF operated in chaos. Dundon, Ebersol and Polian rarely saw eye to eye on any of the league’s operations, and the entire process of it dissolving was a mess.

The players involved might not agree with every element of the story, but there seems to be a few consistent threads: Ebersol was desperate to make the league work. Polian was convinced an agreement could be reached with the NFL on player sharing. Dundon knew almost nothing about the business he was getting into.

The one element that jumps out is just how abrupt and cruel the final day of the AAF was. Ebersol and Polian only learned that the league would be suspended the same morning it was finally shuttered, and when they asked Dundon’s office for clarification they learned that everyone would be fired at 5 p.m. Not simply an announcement that the league would end operations, but everyone would be out of a job.

There were laudable things the AAF attempted to do that would have changed football for the better. It tried to provide opportunities to overlooked players. It gave them healthcare. The league brought innovation and integrated fans into the experience in a way the NFL has never done. The early returns showed that these were influential enough to have the NFL considering some innovations, with variations appearing at the NFL owner’s meeting in March.

In the end, the story of the AAF might not be one of a league full of promise that flew too close to the sun, and instead the tale of a billionaire destroying a league to get some software. Nobody is better off for the AAF dying, and it’s all a shame.

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sasspotatodoesthings · 7 years ago

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Ranking of the Assassin’s Creed main games

A personal ranking of the main story games of the Assassin’s Creed series. I will be putting ten eleven twelve spots, as there are ten eleven twelve games (one being released soon), and I will just leave the spots open and move them around as I play the games. Please note that I strive to get 100% synchronization so any optional stuff that isn’t necessary does affect my opinion.

Updated: 12/25/2020

Warning: There is spoilers, cursing and opinions below.

12 - Assassin’s Creed: Unity - This game took the longest for me to complete. Literal years to finish. I can’t even remember when I started playing this game (I’m guessing somewhere around late 2017 or early 2018, since I finished III in 2017 and finished Rogue not too long after that) but I had about 70% already done when I picked it back up these last couple weeks and powered through it as much as possible. What really ruined the game experience was the co op missions. I’m shite at the games, so I’m not going to actually try to play with other people. Soloing each of those three times to get all the armor was a nightmare. I’d much rather play the first game again because at least its shorter than this one. The controls are a bit buggy and because the free run system changed, I definitely had a hard time adjusting to it. I didn’t have many opinions about the clothes and weapons, and I never even took much of a look at the color options. Overall game time: I actually don’t know. It doesn’t record the time in game like it has in previous games, but it records it through the Ubisoft site, and mine didn’t sync up I guess. I’m assuming it has a similar game time at Black Flag, so maybe around 60-70 hours? It’s hard to tell because I’ve been playing it off and on for like 2-ish years with loooong breaks in between.

11 - Assassin’s Creed - Fuck this game and its monotonous game play. Fuck its collectibles and not being able to ride horses ANYWHERE. Couldn’t ride my horse in the open fuckin fields or I’d get chased by guards. God dammit I hate this game so much. I hated it so much, I had to take a year break halfway through the game. I hated it that much. Altair is the blandest character in this series and yet they don’t let go of him until Revelations. Even then, there’s still some stuff about him in later games. Altair was a boring character and I didn’t want to hear about him after this game. Overall game time: I don’t fucking know because I can’t find where it would be listed but this game sucks anyway so fuck it. Who cares?

10 - Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey - (This is gonna be long, sorry not sorry.) I played as Kassandra! This game is just a complete monster all on it’s own. I actually made a bullet point list about the things to mention here and I haven’t done that for any of the other games. Major talking points about this game. It’s just too big. The map is too big; there are too many weird, small locations to visit; there are too many tiny fetch quests, too many kill quests. I miss when there was a map with like, maybe 20-40 extra places to visit and some side quests. Most of this game is filler, if you’re trying to 100%. And because the world is just so large, the fast travel points don’t actually help. I could have a quest point that is a minimum of 500m from any kind of fast travel point. That’s not really any help. Along with the large map, some exploratory areas are just too big. The forts are a regularly occurring type of location in the game. These tend to be huge with something like 20-40 bad guys in them. Every time I happened to come upon these, I would groan, save, and then slug through it. Of course, when you have that many baddies, you think it should be easy. But no, it’s just another tedious task because instant assassination is no more! If you happen to do enough damage or the baddie is a low enough level, you can instant assassinate. But if they’re an elite or brute, you’re out of luck. Another major downer for people is the general rpg-like feel of this game. Origins, I think anyway, handled the rpg element much better than Odyssey. Origins gave you an established character, Bayek, and you did not get to change his character in any way. You play as Bayek. Odyssey, however, gives you dialogue and moral choices. They try to give you a half established character and then you take over from there. So you can either try to make decisions you think would align with Kassandra/Alexios, or you can make decisions on your usual play through of an rpg. This was definitely a bad way to handle this game. I think it would’ve been much better if they had given us little to no dialogue/moral choices. Like, for example, for one of the Tales from Greece DLC quests, you help find Barnabas’ daughter. You try to convince her to leave her mother’s farm to join you on your ship with Barnabas. She declines, which is reasonable as she wants to care for her family farm. Weeelllll, with out any kind of input from me, Kassandra burns down the farm and tries to play it off as helping the daughter in the end. I was horrified that the game just did that for me without at least giving me the choice. And these aren’t the only kind of choices that suck. The romance options! They are all basically one time flings that you seduce with a few flirty sentences (what is this, the Sims?) and then they most likely will join your ship. Now it was amusing at first to bang anyone who would let me, but then it got a bit frustrating. Why couldn’t I have a solid relationship? I just wanted to pick someone and date them the whole time and have cute scenes together. Why are they so many women romance options and little men options? I mean, I am a straight woman, but I will romance who I want in games because fuck it, am I right? And the one male romance option I did genuinely enjoy was a bit of a let down, cause it was between two brothers. See, I helped two brothers and I noticed a could romance them both. Now, dummy me I guess, romanced them both and then hoped maybe a little menage a trois would happen. Nooooooo, I couldn’t have both at once, and because I had slept with both of them before at separate times, I couldn’t even get to choose one later! Let me have the threesome cowards. You put statues with dicks everywhere and let me sleep with almost anyone. Give me the threesome. Also, about romancing anyone, did you know you can romance the leader of the big bad at the end of the game?? I sure didn’t until I got to that point. I did it for the shits and giggles but really what reasoning is there behind it? She’s someone who you previously trusted and was previously betrayed by. You never show ANY romantic interest in her before the very end of the game. Like it doesn’t make any sense for them to smooch. Talking about the cult, why are they sooo boring? Except for the few that are integral to the main story line, all the side cult member are boring looking and don’t have interesting reasons for being in the cult. The Order members from Origins were 100x more interesting. They had reasons for being part of The Order. They had interesting character designs. I just wish the cult members had been more like the members in Origins. Uh let’s see more points to hate on the game. I have no idea if this was a problem for other people, but fairly often, characters dialogue would overlap. It didn’t bother me much, as around 100 hrs I started skimming and skipping dialogue. I know this was definitely a problem for others: my game kept freezing and crashing. Comparing my last save time and my time on the Uplay site, I lost about 2 hrs and 20-ish minutes from freezing and crashing. The armor is this game is either subpar or down right ugly. I liked the armor upgrade system in Origins because the armor naturally fit with Bayek and his setting. Where as Kassandra could be running around in Athens wearing Spartan armor because the was made me the most powerful at the time. Now, I realized super late into the game that you could basically change the outlook of your armor to look like any piece you had looted to that point. But, like, why even have the ugly armor to begin with? Ships are a thing. Almost like Black Flag ships, but not quite as good. I’m not sure why they didn’t just recycle the ship system from Black Flag, but they didn’t. The ships feel so much slower and clunkier, and the upgrades start feeling like they do nothing when you get into the higher ones. And in certain parts of the sea, it’s crawling with pirates that aggro you almost immediately. I just wanted to get to that island that was like 1000m away, but I guess I have to battle some pirate ships now. And to finish off for the main game: Layla sucks major ass and I hate her as the modern day protagonist. So, my parents happened to have bought the seasons pass version of Odyssey when they got it for me for Christmas, so that means I got the play some AC DLC for the first time ever! Wooooooo.... yeah I wish this wasn’t the first game I played the DLC for. I’m gonna talk about the Fate of Atlantis DLC first. I didn’t really enjoy this DLC. It starts off with a disturbing scene of Alexios/Kassandra/Deimos torturing a man for information. It made me uncomfortable. I can handle most stuff that make people squeamish, but this one got me, boys. Elysium, which is basically heaven, is very pretty realm and pleases my aesthetic. But, the Isu guards there drain my adrenaline and I am a very heavy user the the adrenaline. About the prettiness of Elysium, Odyssey can be very beautiful. I never did take pictures in Origins, but I did once for funsies in Odyssey, and then I just kept taking more when I thought the scenery was pretty enough. I am pretty proud of some of the photos I took. It’s not much, but one of my pictures got 27 likes! Now back to the Isu! I absolutely adore that fact that all the Isu are taller than Kassandra. Most often, Kassndra is taller than everyone, excepting elites and brutes. But all the Isu were taller than Kassandra and that made me want to fuck them. Ubisoft, stop being cowards and let me fuck the gods, especially Hades because he gives me big MCU Loki vibes and I wanted that, so bad. To get away from fucking Isu gods, Ros, a dog later to be revealed as Cerberus, is Persephone’s dog that wanders around Elysium and I was always delighted to find him hanging out somewhere. I’m pretty sure I even took a “selfie” with him, as much as you can take a selfie in this game. Persephone gave me a real hard moral choice that I did not enjoy making. She made me choose between my grandfather, or a spy I previously helped infiltrate her own army. I did not like making any choice at all. If I could have, I would’ve just booked it and never looked back. I don’t really have much to say about the Underworld. It’s hell. I wanted to fuck Hades bad. That’s about it. I don’t have much to say about Atlantis either exCEPT HOLY SHIT THE FINAL BOSS IS A FUCKING NIGHTMARE I WAS FREAKING OUT THE WHOLE TIME HOLY SHIT. Ahem- anyway the boss was scary and I was having a mental crisis trying to beat it without actually dying in real life from fright. Fate of Atlantis DLC done, woohoo! I don’t have much thought for The Hidden Blade DLC. It was short and sweet. I didn’t mind getting locked into a straight romance and having a child. I’m a straight woman and if a game gives me the choice to marry, have a child, and still be an adventurer, I’m gonna do it. Finished basically all of it in a day and that finished off the whole game. Boy was it a relief to finally beat everything. Overall game time: 133 hours and 45 minutes to beat the main game with one part of The Hidden Blade DLC done, and 167 hours and 55 minutes to beat the DLC, excluding the one part from The Hidden Blade DLC. Now if you count all the time I lost from crashing, it’s 170 hours and 16 minutes.

9 - Assassin’s Creed: Revelations - By this point, I’ve played three of the games in a row and I was very tired of playing Ezio. It doesn’t help that this game is basically II and Brotherhood but with smaller features added. Also, the colors you could dye your clothes SUCKED. Overall game time: 22 hours and 25 minutes. It felt longer than that and I was surprised to see this was the shortest time so far. Thank god though because I did not like this game.

7 - Assassin’s Creed III - Writing this as the credits role. So, heads up, I’ve played this game before so I knew some things that were going to happen, but I forgot most of the game. I’ve read that a lot of people hate this game and I can see why, especially if it’s the first game you play of this series. The game changes quite a bit from the previous games. It has a new free run system, the running is a little more fluid, new weapons, new side missions, etc. I’m giving III a huge bonus for changing the old system in the hopes of something better... it’s not completely better, but better none the less. The downside to all these new things is that they are buggy as hell. The running can be amusing sometimes, but it is a horrible experience if you need to catch someone or stay within a certain distance. The side missions are also super buggy. Many times the icons do not appear on the map (and they tend to be in the areas that the viewpoints do not open up) and just seem not to work entirely right. Currently for one of the delivery requests, I have all the items and I can find the guy I need to turn them into, but can not talk to him for whatever reason. (If you know how to fix this, please tell me because every method I’ve tried hasn’t worked). This may be fixed after the credits, but I think I’m going to have to live with 99% synch and move on to Rogue. To bring up the viewpoint thing again, the viewpoints do not cover the whole map and you manually have to clear up parts of the map, which sucks. Thank god they didn’t do that again. Moving on from game play points, I’ve seen a lot of hate for Connor, which I personally don’t understand. I don’t love Connor, but I like his stoic character who showed moments of true kindness and sadness with friends and family. This review is getting to long now so I’ll just stop here and add more once I complete the game as much as I can. Also, fuck any of the naval stuff. Complete bullshit. Overall game time: First time (2013?) 41 hours and 55 minutes. Second time (2017) 38 hours and 33 minutes.

6 - Assassin’s Creed: Rogue - Well. It took me forever to finish this game, mostly because you can only play so much of the same game. So this game was nice. All of it’s little connections to III, IV and Unity is fun to see and connect the dots. Seeing Shay ultimately shaping what Unity will be was such a great thing to me. This game was such a breath of fresh air. I was sort of dreading having to do anything with ships since III is a disaster and IV had its mistakes, but I was pleasantly surprised. Except for a few ship related missions, you can almost completely avoid sailing. Of course I didn’t because I need to 100% this game. Still pissed I technically didn’t 100% III because of a god damn glitch. Naval related stuff overall was much easier than previous games, including the legendary battles. I took out the first three legendary ships in one try and took down the fourth one on my second try. I had actually planned to use a whole day to beat the legendary ships but I very happy I didn’t have to do that. The game itself is very short, with only six sequences that hold anywhere between two to five memories. That’s the shortest a game has ever been in this series. But they pad the game with millions of locations to explore and millions of collectibles to get. Even though over half of my time spent playing this game was getting collectibles, it was fun. One thing I really enjoyed was Shay’s outfits. This is the first game where I like almost all of the main character’s outfit options. I particularly enjoyed the arctic explorer outfit. I also really liked the Templar outfit you got after defeating the epic legendary ship. This was a good game and in the future, I could consider playing it again, along with II. Overall game time: 31 hours and 55 minutes.

5 - Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood - It wasn’t a super bad game, but it was basically II with some new things and now you’re only stuck in one place. Also guild challenges. Fuck those guild challenges. ALSO. There’s that mission where you get the apple and can lay waste to the guards in your way, but it uses your health to harm them... and the optional objective is don’t lose any health. Fuck you Ubisoft. Or the mission where you destroy Leonardo’s war machines. Those sucked. The only good thing about this game is the colors you can dye your clothes. Those. Those are good. Overall game time: 35 hours and 3 minutes.

4 - Assassin’s Creed: Origins - Took me about a month and a half to complete this game. It’s very different from the previous game titles and I can definitely see why some people wouldn’t like it. I went into it knowing it would be different and I genuinely enjoyed the game. Just as a heads up, I’ve only got 97% synchronization and I’m not totally sure what will get me to 100%. There’s no definitive list of what to do to 100% the game. I’ve read from some people that you need to do all the hippodrome races and arena fights, and I’ve read from others that you don’t. I’m not going to do the races because they’re garbage and not fun. I’ve finished one of the arena’s fights and I just don’t really want to do the other so I think I’m fine sitting at 97%. Now, this game is very different from previous games. Origins is more like an rpg, but not really. There is like, a bunch more exploration areas. Maybe somewhere between 150-300? I’m bad at estimating but it is a lot. There are side quests too. There wasn’t many side quests in previous games, but including the main quests with the side quests, I did a total of 129 quests. There is a lot of gameplay and exploration. Not much of a challenge, though. If you don’t select the auto-level enemies to your level, you reach a point where you’re about 5-10 levels above the area you’re in because all the landmarks and side quests give you xp. At that point, many enemies are 1-3 shots depending on your weapon loadout. There are a couple of locations early in the game that for some reason have higher level enemies than the area calls for. For example, in Alexandria, you should be around level 12-16. Enemies will be around that same level range. Except, there is one location in the middle of Alexandria that has about 5-6 enemies that are above level 20. Now, it’s easy enough to just come back later when you are also that level, but when I was exploring the area, I had no idea they’d be that level and immediately got killed because my weapons did nothing to them. So that wasn’t fun. The game has couple more “challenging” locations if you do them at the right level. Similar to Black Flag and Rogue, Origins has some legendary battles. This time it’s elephants. The are four different elephants, and one them is actually two, like the ship battles from Black Flag and Rogue. The first couple were a bit of a challenge for me because I wasn’t the cap level and I didn’t have a strategy figured out yet. I saved the double elephants for last because I thought they’d be super hard like the double ship battle from Black Flag. However, before I fought them, I reached the level cap, upgraded my best legendary weapons, had a strategy, and also got multiple level points in skills that would boost my bow and arrow and sword damage. The double elephants actually ended up being the easiest at that point. One thing, though, was around 40-ish hours in, my game randomly lost about 7-8 hours of progress. I lost about 3 large map areas of exploration, 6 levels and 10-20 quests. It made me pretty angry and it took me a few extra days to get back to where I was before lost the progress. Aaannyyywaaayy, enough about that. Bayek is a nice character to play as. He is a serious, dedicated, loving man who can have moments of humor. I loved his relationship with his wife Aya, and I was sad to see them mutually decide to break up at the end of the game. They clearly still cared for each other even after deciding that their paths were not going the same way. Sometimes I would have a very similar mind set as Bayek and it would be pretty funny when I would make a comment and then a couple moments later he’d say something along the same line. And, of course, it was interesting to see the origin stories of The Creed of the Assassin’s. I don’t know if I’ll ever actually play this game again but I enjoyed my experience with it. Overall game time: 82 hours and 22 minutes counting the extra time that I had to make up for lost progress and 75 hours not counting the hours I got from making up the lost progress.

3 - Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate - So it’s been about five months since I finished Unity, and I actually beat this game like maybe a week before updating this. I think it’s because the game didn’t have any credits for me? I don’t know why I didn’t have credits, but I just didn’t. Anyway, wow, what a breath of fresh air, after the nightmare that was Unity. This game takes some elements I wasn’t too fond of in the previous game and improves them greatly. The fighting style of wailing on enemies until you get upgrades to one shot is easier to handle. It also looks way more fun. Evie and Jacob just move so fast when they’re throwing punches and shooting people, it doesn’t feel like I’m taking all that long to kill the baddies. The associate quests were fun and simple, they didn’t require much thought or effort. The main game was also on the simpler side compared to previous installments of this game series. Jacob and Evie were fun characters, I never really got tired of them. The main sequence memories were mostly on the short side, so the game felt like it passed in no time. The only long part was getting all the collectibles, which is unavoidable to 100% the game. All the upgrades and weapon choices were fun to choose from, and it was always cool to get a new weapon that drastically did more damage. Having a gang that slowly got better as I upgraded them, and that would back me up in fights was also super fun. There really isn’t anything that should change from this game. If I changed something, it’d probably be the romance between Evie and Henry Green, also named Jayadeep Mir. It felt kind of forced, and really, romances are always boring in Assassin’s Creed. Anyway, fun game, might play again one day. Overall game time: 37 hours and 37 minutes.

2 - Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag - It’s been a couple years since I’ve played this game, so it’s very possible this will bounce around in my list as I play the later games, but I remember enjoying a good part of the game. It was nice to have some variety, especially in the form of PIRATES. Some of my favorite parts were sailing to no where specific and singing shanties with my crew in my suped-up ship. Which brings me to the bad parts of the game; the ship missions. Honestly hated any story/side mission that involved my ship, especially if I had to be sneaky. I’m in a giant ass ship trying to remain in this circle filled with other giant ass ships looking for me. So yeah, fuck that part of the game. But even though it’s been awhile, I remember enjoying this game. Overall game time: 66 hours and 50 minutes.

1 - Assassin’s Creed II - Thank the gods for this game. This is a good goddamn game. Ezio is a fresh breath of air after Altair and being in Italy is honestly great. Upgrading the villa he lives in is great. Leonardo is great. Venice and it’s carnival is great. Only thing that sucked was the Ezio didn’t kill the goddamn Spaniard and then has to chase after him and his offspring in the next game. All in all, my favorite game so far. Overall game time: 28 hours and 37 minutes.

So the game(s) I need to play:

Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla

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boredout305 · 8 years ago

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Steve Burhans (Selection Records and Matador Direct) Interview

Steve Burhans is the man behind Selection Records. Steve’s built an eclectic catalog of amazing vinyl and cassette titles with Selection, uncovering some of the best esoteric music from Japan, New Zealand and, of course, the United States. (For the uninitiated, Selection should appeal to fans of Xpressway and P.S.F. Records.) Along with Sloow Tapes, Selection has been a supporter of Yuka Ijichi and Hiirago Fukuda, making their titles available Stateside. Now in its sixth year, the label’s latest release is a 7” split between Tokyo’s Sadahiro Yamada and Watery Love.

Approximately two years ago, Burhans joined Matador Direct, taking over for Dave Martin, now at Captured Tracks. Steve’s had big shoes to fill, since Matador Direct has always been one of the best distros for underground music—handling such seminal labels as Crypt, Flying Nun and Siltbreeze back in the ‘90s. If there was anyone right for the task, with the requisite knowledge of the underground and the catholic tastes necessary for the job, it’s Steve.

Lastly, and on a personal note, Steve Burhans is one of the nicest guys I’ve met in this “micro-label” milieu we both stumble around in. He’s been a tireless supporter of the fledgling label Mor Fleisher-Leach and I run (Spacecase Records) and one of the reasons we keep going. I’m certain other independent labels working with Steve will report the same. There are exceptional people in the record game. Steve’s proof they exist.

Interview by Ryan Leach

Selection Records: www.selectionrecords.com

Ryan: Are we close in age? I was born in ’82.

Steve: I’m four years older. I was born in 1978.

Ryan: Have you always lived in New York?

Steve: I was born in Peoria, Illinois. My dad got a job working for Mobil Oil, which was shortly thereafter bought by Exxon. He was a programmer. Before I was ten, I had lived in five or six different states. I had lived all over Illinois and a couple of places in Ohio and Kentucky. I lived in states I can barely remember. I ended up in Rochester, New York, where I went to high school.

Ryan: What got you into music?

Steve: I was lucky. In the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, my mom owned a record store in downtown Chicago.

Ryan: How cool was she?

Steve: Really cool. My mom would tell me stories about the ‘60s; I was never sure how true they were. But then Skip Spence would come up in conversation and she’d pull out an original copy of Oar: “This was my favorite record of 1969. I sold five copies to my friends.” By the time that I was really into music, I realized that all the older records I liked were down in my parents’ basement. Every Byrds, Beefheart and Moby Grape record was down there. My dad really loved Captain Beefheart.

Ryan: You were creating fanzines in high school?

Steve: I did a few, just locally. I helped my friend with a zine he created called C.T.A. which ran for four issues. I did a lot of prank zines and absurdity stuff. We’d get in trouble for doing a bunch of flyering and putting up Xeroxed stickers within the high school. In retrospect, the school I went to was fine but it was stale. I’m not afraid to say that Rochester, New York, is a pretty stale place to grow up. Anything that was strange or out of the ordinary was frowned upon.

Ryan: Did you work at a record store?

Steve: Right after high school, I worked for one of the two great Rochester music institutions—Record Archive. They’ve been around for forty years. That’s where I got my true musical education. They literally had a warehouse of records that at eighteen I was in charge of clearing out. I still remember specific buys that came in where I bought every single record. I worked there for a while. I went to college sporadically but never got a degree. I then split to Buffalo, New York, which is one town over.

Ryan: You know Rich (Kroneiss), right?

Steve: I do.

Ryan: What were you doing in Buffalo?

Steve: Buffalo is an awesome town for rock and rock fandom. There are some legendary people up there. Rich is one of them. Bernie Kugel is another. Bernie had a zine in the ‘70s called Big Star. When I was living in Buffalo, the Box Tops came to town. I went with my friend Mark to see them and Bernie was there; he had brought old copies of his Big Star zine with him that he wanted Alex to sign. Alex came out onto the lawn—it was an outdoor show—and he recognized Bernie. He told the security guards, “Keep that fucking guy away from me.” It didn’t work because later on Bernie cornered Alex and got him to sign his zines. I realized then that Bernie went deep—way back with music.

In the ‘60s and ‘70s, Buffalo was happening. When steel kicked the bucket, the local economy started to go south.

Ryan: Pittsburgh’s steel industry was gutted too.

Steve: Right. But when the economy was still strong, Buffalo was vibrant. Rick James was from Buffalo and he lived there in the ‘70s and ‘80s. The Weinstein Brothers got their start as concert promoters in Buffalo before going into movies. There are all these old rock tales floating around the city. There were legendary punk clubs like McVan’s that are long gone. Black Flag and Alex Chilton played there.

I realized I wasn’t going to be a musician, but I wanted to get more involved with music so I started booking shows in Buffalo. I booked a lot of the freak-folk stuff that was going on at the time; a lot of noise and experimental stuff. I worked with Tony Conrad.

Ryan: That’s incredible. What was working with Tony Conrad (1940-2016) like?

Steve: It was a trip. Tony was cool and very, very sweet. If you went up to Tony and talked with him as a normal person, he was great. If you came up to Tony and mentioned the Velvet Underground, Lou Reed or John Cale, it was war. He would not talk to you. I’ve seen him chase kids he overheard saying, “That’s the guy who named the Velvet Underground.” “What’d you say?!”

Tony taught at the University of Buffalo in the early ‘70s. People like Tony Conrad coming to Buffalo had a big impact on the arts scene. Cindy Sherman and Robert Longo went to school in Buffalo; they started a space called Hallwalls that’s still there. There remains a strong art scene in Buffalo, but there’s another side to it. The Termbo side known only to a handful of residents. Buffalo is cold and dark. People drink a lot. Right before I left town in 2005, I moved to San Francisco, I scheduled a two-day festival with some very non-Termbo acts like Matt Valentine, Burning Stare Core, Tony Conrad and a bunch of other bands.

I worked at the Amoeba store in San Francisco. I met a lot of people out there. I was just working and hanging out.

Ryan: Did you start Selection in San Francisco?

Steve: I didn’t start Selection until I moved back to New York. I’m a pretty latecomer to it. But all the other stuff helped, like meeting people who put out records. I had tried my hand at putting out local bands before in Buffalo but it didn’t really go anywhere. I got a good gallery job in New York with better pay.

Ryan: That’s the thing with record labels: you can have the desire, but you’ve got to have the bankroll to get it going.

Steve: Exactly. It took a long time to get into that position. And I’m kind of happy it did. If I had started younger I would have put out some garbage.

Ryan: It seemed like P.S.F. and Xpressway were early influences.

Steve: Definitely. I first heard about P.S.F. in Buffalo. When I moved to Buffalo I was exposed to record stores that ordered from Forced Exposure. It was totally different from Rochester. It changed the way I thought about music.

Ryan: How did you start making all these inroads with Japanese artists like Hiiragi Fukuda?

Steve: Hiiragi was really the key. I had been a longtime fan of P.S.F. I got to a point where I was hearing contemporary Japanese psych stuff—not just older P.S.F. titles—that I really liked. Hiiragi did that My Turntable is Slow (2010) cassette on Sloow tapes. I thought it was incredible. I wrote to him to see what was up with it: “You only released ninety copies of this on cassette?” He said he’d love to do a record, and I thought it’d be a perfect title to rerelease. That’s how that started. Hiiragi brought a lot of stuff to my attention, including Sadahiro Yamada. He’s been received well, at least critically. So has Hiiragi. Hiiragi is a slow worker. The last record came out six or seven years ago, and he’s still working on a follow up. We did do two later 7”s though. Hiiragi had projects that he wanted to release himself, but from what I understand it’s just impossible for a normal person to get records pressed in Japan.

Ryan: Sadahiro runs a record store in Tokyo?

Steve: A CD shop. I asked him if he’d like me to send him some records other this his own. He said, “No. I just sell my own records. We don’t sell any other records here.” They still have a complete CD culture in Japan. It’s incredible. I’ve tried to bring Japanese records here with larger labels; they wanted me to do the vinyl. They’ve told me that the artist wants to have records out, but that they don’t want to release them. If you don’t go through the artist, the licensing demands are typically insane for Japanese albums. The label will want a certain amount for free; the cover has to be a Stoughton gatefold and the vinyl will need to be 180 to 200 grams. And the price has to be $20. I just go, “That sounds great, but it’s not going to work.”

Ryan: Japanese album covers can get really ornate. Even the cassettes you’ve released on Selection for Sadahiro Yamada are really intricate and striking.

Steve: That’s all Hiiragi. He has a guy that he works with exclusively. I let them do what they want. Four colors. They come back with crazy covers. Thankfully, no one has asked for a gatefold or Stoughton cover.

Ryan: How did OK to Exist Doing Nothing come to your attention? It’s a pretty incredible record, featuring Kiyohiro Takada from Les Rallizes Denudes.

Steve: That was something that Hiiragi had. He told me he had this tape of a live show where he played drums—which was strange because Hiiragi is a guitar player. Yuka Ijichi, who I also released a tape by, she plays guitar which is not her main instrument. The bass player, Kiyohiro Takada, is Yuka’s husband and, of course, one of the bass players of Les Rallizes. When you hear the record, it’s him. He’s playing all the classic basslines from those stellar Les Rallizes bootlegs. That was a real thrill—putting out a record Kiyohiro played on. But it was an insane live record.

Ryan: The record smokes. Les Rallizes Denudes was a real force. I remember talking with James Arthur about them. He had just heard them for the first time, and I told him it was a band that’d likely mean a lot to him.

Steve: I ask Hiiragi about the band—are you ever going to play together again? Of course, there’s a language barrier. It can difficult to get information or I’m not reading things correctly. It’s strange. I don’t think that lineup is going to get together again. The members of the band seem to be really into home taping. Drums machines and rhythm aces. That’s what I’m hearing from that crew right now.

Ryan: The Adam Payne record (Famous Blondes) was really good. That one took a while to come out, huh?

Steve: I’m really proud of that record. It might be the only album I had a slight hand in with picking the songs. I’ve known Adam for years. We worked at Amoeba together in San Francisco. We had talked about doing something for a while. He always sends me songs. I think he sends a lot of people songs, but I certainly listen to them all. Over the course of three or four years, I kept track of what he had sent. It’s sort of like the stories you hear about Robert Pollard from Guided by Voices. He’d send in a tape saying, “Here’s the record. It’s done.” Then three weeks later, another tape would come: “No. This is the record. It’s all new songs. They’re all done.” That’s kind of how it was with Adam. The first record we were supposed to do, none of those songs made it to the final version. There’s probably twenty songs that were supposed to show up on Famous Blondes that didn’t. That said, there were songs that I fought for that did make it to the album. I think records should reflect what the artists wants. But there were a couple of older songs that I felt passionate about; that deserved to be on the LP. A lot of the records he did previously, either solo or with Residual Echoes, were really heavy guitar psych. There wasn’t a lot of weird prop, goofy or psych stuff. That’s why I like Famous Blondes. It was a different side to Adam’s work.

Ryan: What direction are you looking to take Selection in?

Steve: I want to try do something—for lack of a better term—“archival.” A project more in depth. I want to find something that needs to get done and do it. That’s what I’m interested in doing these days.

Ryan: I sort of explored the Electric Blood (Robert Scott’s first band) stuff. It’s great. Are you still looking at doing an LP of that?

Steve: I’ve still got it. Robert painted the cover. I’ve got all the audio. It’s a really early cassette.

Ryan: From ’78?

Steve: Yeah. It’s a bunch of early stuff with Robert and his friends. One of them (Phil Tomkins) passed away.

Ryan: Yes. I released one or two tracks from that session. It’s really shambolic.

Steve: Right. Robert’s a really unique individual. That’s one that I’m looking at. I just released the Sadahiro Yamada/Watery Love split, although I think Watery Love pretty much stopped playing shows, at least for the time being, which shows impeccable timing on my part. Honestly, working at Matador it’s a challenge to do that stuff all day. I’m dealing with production delays for huge records—things like that. When I get home, I have to deal with it on a very micro level for my own label. I think that the next thing I do, I have to be very passionate about.

Ryan: I noticed you’ve slowed down the mail order with Selection just to your own titles.

Steve: I had to. It just got to be too much doing it all day for work, then coming him to do it again.

Ryan: Matador Direct was always on top of things. Every friend or acquaintance I had with a relevant small label seemed to be distro’d by them. A lot of that had to do with Dave Martin. How did you get the job and what’s it been like taking over?

Steve: I came to Matador because I had known one of the salespeople there, Helen (Johnson), from way back when I was buying albums for the record store in Buffalo. I had heard that they needed somebody as I was getting ready to exit my old job. I went in and I happened to have the right qualifications; it didn’t hurt that I knew somebody. It worked out great. At the time, I think Dave was ready to move over to Captured Tracks. When I was young, in the ‘90s, the mail order catalog for Matador was intense. I kept several old copies. In addition to Matador, they had the full Flying Nun, Siltbreeze and Crypt catalogs. Then they had the small labels, like on the level of the ones you and I do—they’d have thirty pages of that stuff. I’d go to the grocery store with my mom to get money orders to send to Matador. There was no other way to get a Thomas Jefferson Slave Apartments record in Rochester. So when I started working at Matador, that side of the label was so important to me. Not to say the other (Beggars Group) labels weren’t important, but that aspect of the Matador meant a lot to me when I was a kid. It’s like what people older than me did with issues of Forced Exposure. That’s one thing I really want to keep alive with the label.

#steve burhans #selection records #matador direct #sadahiro yamada #watery love #interviews #hiiragi fukuda #yuka ijichi #adam payne

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